A Wedding To Die For

18

When I arrived home, Jeff was busy in the kitchen. A batch of redfish was defrosting in the sink, ones he’d caught and frozen the last time he’d had a real weekend off. I never refuse when someone besides Kate offers to cook me a meal. Besides, Jeff handles a skillet far better than I do. My job is usually the salad, a task I attended to while he pan-grilled the fish and fixed up a mess of home fries. Gosh, didn’t they smell like heaven while they cooked?

“Wine?” I asked once our food was on the kitchen table.

“Not for me. I have a stakeout tonight. Got a lead on a gang member wanted in a drive-by. Killed a ten-year-old kid.”

“Now I definitely need wine.” I pulled a bottle of chardonnay from the fridge and poured myself a large glass before sitting across from him.

“Did you call that lawyer?” he asked, digging into his potatoes.

“Yes, but not for me.”

He put down his fork. “Abby, I wish you’d—”

“I’m not a suspect anymore.” I took a sip of wine.

“How did that happen?”

“Fielder found someone more interesting.”

“And so now you’re saving this person’s ass. Must be either the bride or the new husband.”

“How did you guess?” I said.

“I’m a detective, remember? And I happen to be familiar with your modus operandi. You’d help a shark catch his breakfast.” He resumed eating, heaping both fish and potatoes onto his fork at once.

“It’s Travis, but I want to know how you guessed.”

“I was there when Quinn first interviewed him after the murder. I figured he was hiding something.”

I set down my fork and rested my chin on my hand. This was the kind of stuff I needed to know if I wanted to be a decent PI. “How could you tell?”

“First off, liars always answer your questions, but rarely ask any of their own—mainly because they’re focused on keeping their story straight. But you would have expected this guy to ask questions, especially since he had been separated from Megan for more than an hour. He didn’t.”

“You mean he cared more about protecting himself than asking how she was?”

“No, more like he was protecting her and didn’t want the interrogation to head in Megan’s direction.”

“Okay. What else made you think he was hiding things?”

“He used phrases like To tell you the truth and To be perfectly honest about ten times. And most often, To tell you the truth was followed by I don’t know. That’s the kind of stuff you hear from people with secrets.”

“And why would Megan be a suspect, too?”

“She was found with the body and knew the victim well. She loved him.”

“Right. She loved him. How does that translate to murder?”

“Read any Shakespeare lately?” He had finished eating and pushed his plate away.

“You’re right. Dumb question. But I didn’t know you liked Shakespeare.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He reached over, took my hand, and pressed the palm to his lips.

“When do you have to leave?” I asked.

“Eleven.”

I checked my watch. “I could learn a lot in three hours.”

He rose and started to clear the table, but I stopped him and led him upstairs. The next few hours in Jeff’s arms were exactly what I needed. By the time he left for his stakeout, all the tension of the last week was gone. I was relaxed, focused, and eager to visit Georgia Jackson tomorrow. Maybe she could tell me things about Laura Montgomery and her relationship to the Beadfords. And perhaps even why Montgomery would risk returning to the States for her daughter’s wedding.

When I reached Mrs. Jackson by phone the next morning, she said she’d be happy to meet with me if I didn’t mind coming to her house in the afternoon. She had grandchildren to care for. Glad to have the chance to talk with her, I made the trip south to League City, a sprawling, busy town about twenty miles down the interstate. Her small brick house was surrounded by pecan trees—Reilly had mentioned pecans—and Mrs. Jackson answered the door immediately.

She was a tall, lean woman wearing a denim jumper and a navy cardigan. Her home smelled like a cookie factory. Before I could even sit in the living room chair, Mrs. Jackson gestured to a brown, smiling girl with a head full of bouncing braids, who ran to me carrying a paper plate loaded with chocolate chip cookies. On her heels came a younger boy carefully holding a glass of milk with both hands.

“Good job, children,” said Mrs. Jackson. “You go play now.”

“But—” started the boy.

“Cedric, Granny says go play. Understand?” She leveled a stern but loving look in the children’s direction.

“Yes, ma’am,” the kids said in unison. They turned and disappeared into a hallway off the living room.

“Excuse them, please. They’re a work in progress,” she said. “And the milk was Cedric’s idea. Feel free to pass on their hospitality.”

“Are you kidding? This is the best welcome I’ve had in a long time.” I sat and bit into one of those heavenly cookies and washed it down with cold milk.

“You said this was about Laura when you phoned. Please tell me she’s been found.” Her expressive face—a beautiful cinnamon color spotted with freckles over her cheeks—showed concern mixed with sadness.

“She is definitely alive.” I finished off the cookie, set the glass on the table next to me, and settled deeper into the overstuffed chair.

“Praise God,” said Mrs. Jackson, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to the ceiling.

“You thought she might be dead?”

“I didn’t want to think Mr. Beadford was capable of hurting her, but the notion was always there in the back of my mind. And you have lifted that burden. I do thank you, Miss Rose.”

“It’s Abby.”

“And I’m Georgia,” she said with a nod.

“So you’re saying you thought Mr. Beadford might have harmed Laura after she stole from him?”

“Seems you know Laura’s story, but what do you know about James Beadford?”

I proceeded to tell her what I knew and how I had come to know it.

“So the brothers are dead. What a crying shame,” she said when I’d finished telling her about the murders. “But are you thinking Laura killed Mr. Beadford and his brother?”

“I don’t know. I’m simply trying to find the truth.”

“She would not do such a thing. Never in a million years.” Georgia sat back in the ladder-back chair she had pulled from the connecting dining room and folded her arms.

“So tell me about her.”

“She had a temper, yes. But what I was trying to say is that maybe you need to know more about him to understand why he was killed. A stubborn man with a huge ego is capable of making many enemies,” she said.

“I understand you relocated to work for him again. Why do that if you didn’t like him?”

“Who said I didn’t like him? God, I loved the man like a son. But he was a sinner, and sinners always pay. Laura, too. A beautiful, willful girl. But no one ever taught her about the evil power of vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” I said.

But before she could answer, a screech sounded from the hallway and Cedric came running to his grandmother, a pair of scissors in hand.

“I didn’t do it, Granny. I didn’t do it,” he wailed.

The girl followed him, her hand to her forehead, blood seeping between her fingers. Fat tears slid down her cheeks.

Mrs. Jackson grabbed the scissors, stood, and took Cedric by the arm, whipping him into her chair in one swift motion. “Stay put, son.” She turned to me and said evenly, “Please excuse us for a moment, Abby.”

She led the girl to the back of the house. Cedric looked at me and said, “I’m telling the truth. I didn’t do it.”

If Jeff’s theory held any water, Cedric did indeed do it. “What happened?” I asked.

“She was going to cut her hair and I stopped her. That’s the God’s truth.”

“Is it?” I tried to mimic that laser stare his granny had offered earlier.

His lower lip quivered and he didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

When Georgia and the girl returned a few moments later—a Band-Aid covered the wound on the child’s forehead—Cedric said, “I’m sorry, Granny. I didn’t mean to cut her.”

“I still owe you a licking for lying. And Aisha is owed one for letting you near those scissors. Separate rooms.” She pointed toward the hall and both children scurried off.

She eased down in her chair, pulling her sweater tighter around her bony shoulders. “Tell me how they’d handle that little episode in some day care? Probably wouldn’t even notice. And we wonder why our children have strayed so far from what’s right. No discipline, I say. Now, what were we discussing?”

“Vengeance,” I said.

“Ah yes. Did you ever read Jane Eyre?”

“Yes, but—”

“Guilty pleasure of mine, reading about little white girls with silly problems. Anyway, that author made a few decent points, and since I was reading that book when Laura went astray, I remember what Brontë said about vengeance because it seemed to fit at the time.”

“Sorry, but my memory isn’t as good as yours.” I needed to trust that Georgia would get to the point sooner or later. I was fast learning to allow people to tell me what they knew at their own pace.

“Brontë said vengeance is as tempting as wine, smells wonderful, but when you drink of it, it makes you feel like you’ve been poisoned. Pretty smart woman, huh?”

“Very smart.”

“I think Laura was poisoned by her own need for vengeance.”

“Vengeance and not greed?” I asked. “She did steal a lot of money.”

“She didn’t have a greedy bone in her body. But Laura knew money was Mr. Beadford’s soft underbelly. And the love of that money was his downfall. Laura took advantage of his weakness.”

“Are you saying she embezzled his money to get even with him for something?”

“That’s what I’m guessing.”

“For what?” But I was beginning to understand.

“I think I’ve guessed enough. I have no direct knowledge of anything except Laura’s character. Of her weakness. Of his weakness.”

I wanted to scream So guess anyway! But I knew this woman had such a strong sense of fair play it wouldn’t help. I said, “His weakness was his love of money. What about Laura’s?”

“Poor judgment. Impulsiveness. I suppose youth is a built-in weakness, isn’t it?” She smiled, and in that smile I saw what she’d been implying, what I had to say rather than have the words come from her lips.

“They were having an affair, right?”

Georgia said nothing. Didn’t even blink.

“Yes. That’s it. He dumped her, and she got even by stealing his money.”

Georgia shut her eyes and came close to a nod. “As I said, I had no direct knowledge. No proof.”

“But you are an insightful woman. I think that’s enough proof for me. Is there anything else about Laura you could tell me?”

“Nothing except she was smart. Misguided, yes. Foolish, yes, but intelligent and caring. Of course not as smart as Miss Charlotte Brontë or she would have known better than to do what she did.”

A few minutes later I left Georgia Jackson’s home with a Ziploc full of cookies and walked to my car in a chilly drizzle. That drizzle turned to a steady rain by the time I reached home, the afternoon now as dark as night.

Diva was sitting on the kitchen counter by the answering machine when I came in, which meant I probably had messages. She’s conditioned for plenty of petting while I listen, and I stroked her as I pushed the play button.

Jug’s cheerful voice filled the kitchen. “Miss, this be Jug here. Got plenty of news, so call me quick as you get in.” He hadn’t left his number and it hadn’t shown up on the caller ID so I’d have to hunt up his card. The other message was from Megan and I called her back first.

“Hi, Abby,” she said once I had her on the line.

“Travis and I wondered if we could drop by this evening.”

“Sure, but why?” I asked.

She lowered her voice. “My mother is right around the corner. We’re just finishing up with the funeral director after setting up Uncle Graham’s services. Is seven okay?”

“Fine, but—”

“Great.” She hung up.

That was strange. Did she want an update on the mother hunt? If she did, was I ready to tell her all I knew, even the latest? That apparently her birth mother had had an affair with her father and—

“Holy shit!” I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Now I get it.”