Her Husband's Murder, page 20
Allie detected something robotic in his voice that said he liked Trevor as much as she did. She’d been detecting a lot of that of late.
Allie and Emma looked toward the couch in the main room, and Fiona was there, in a heap, leaning on her mother’s shoulder. She still had her second dress on, but her hair was out of the former updo, now twice its size, and her face looked like an artist’s palette. A kindergartener’s outside-the-lines mess, really. Her mother, Susan, sat on one side of the couch, with a T-shirt thrown over her gown and her hair let out of the swirled updo it had been in earlier. A cop was on the other side, unsure of what to say.
“Hi. I’m Allie Whitton,” Allie said, hand out for a shake, taking charge and introducing herself to cop number one, the one who was standing just off the entryway.
He shook her hand, wrote something down on a notepad, and nodded. “Detective Morris. That’s Gomez,” his deep voice boomed as he gestured toward the other gentleman on the couch. Then he looked curiously at Emma.
“Emma Pierce,” she said, and shook his hand. “What can we do to help?”
Allie sized up Detective Morris. He was very tall, almost Dutch’s height, and his buzz cut gave away his career choice before anyone had to ask. He was in plain clothes, black pants and a black polo, his shield worn on his belt buckle. His eyes were a soft brown like Vee’s, but his hair was almost the same shade of platinum that she currently sported against her will. He was tan and fit, and probably hadn’t hit forty yet, but was close.
No wedding ring. Of course, that was just a reflex. So was reapplying her lip gloss, which she did in front of everyone.
“Well, first let me say how sorry I am that you lost your friend,” he said.
Allie rubbed her newly shined lips together, but other than that, she and Emma were like stone, and his eyes shifted between them.
“Right. Thanks,” Allie said, quick to diffuse the mood. Then she pushed a tear out and dramatically wiped it away. “It’s been a hard evening. Poor Fiona.”
“How well did you know the deceased?”
This guy was all business, and Allie had to convince him she had no ill will toward Trevor. She certainly didn’t need a detective looking into her past. Thankful as she was that Trevor had dropped dead, she’d hate to think her friends would find out the truth anyway.
She couldn’t let her father find out. That’s all she cared about.
“To be honest, not all that well. They didn’t date for very long before she moved to Miami with him so none of us ever really got to know him,” Allie offered.
“Huh.” More writing in the notepad. “But weren’t his groomsmen friends of yours from college?” He flipped back a few pages. “Dietrich Von Ryan? Veejay Rahna? Ethan Pierce?” He looked at Emma curiously. “Yours?”
“Yes. Ethan is my husband,” she said, and put her hand on her abdomen. “We’re pregnant with our first.”
Strange thing to say, Allie thought.
“Congratulations.” The detective raised his eyebrows. “So, the guys knew him enough?”
“Oh, we can’t answer for them. I think everyone just wanted to support Fiona,” Allie said.
Allie took a hard look at Fiona—a shell of her former self, which was already a shell of her former self. God, she didn’t know what to do. The detective seemed hell-bent on getting information, but there was nothing to give. No one had any information to give him. Trevor’s death was a fluke. Right?
“There was a bit of an altercation last night, I heard,” he said, then looked at Emma. “Some commotion at the rehearsal dinner?”
Emma turned white but recovered quickly. “I overreacted to something. It was stupid girl stuff.”
This time he raised one eyebrow. “That’s not what it sounded like.”
Emma made a gesture toward Fiona and then nodded her head to the corner of the room, and he followed her. Allie did for good measure as well. She had no idea what Emma was going to say to him.
“Look,” she whispered. “Everyone was drinking, and I found out that my husband hooked up with her when we were broken up. It was a hundred years ago, and I don’t even care. I just overreacted. She’s one of my best friends. She’s still one of my best friends. It was just the pregnancy hormones rearing their ugly head.”
“Can we sit with Fiona for a bit?” Allie interrupted. “We really came up here to be with her. She just lost her husband a few hours after her wedding. She needs us.”
“Of course,” he said, his face softening, remembering why they were there. “Do you know where I can find the groomsmen?”
“Yeah, they’re either in the bar downstairs, or in the groom’s suite on the other side of the hotel.”
“Gotcha.”
His notebook snapped closed with a popping sound, and then he whistled softly over to Gomez, who stood. Detective Gomez had that quintessential detective look to himself as well. He wore the same outfit as Detective Morris, but his pants were navy, and his polo was white. His shield hung on a chain around his neck, and his hair was cropped to a buzz. Dark-framed, rectangular glasses bookended his brown eyes. When he caught Detective Morris’s stare, he gave Fiona a soft pat on her shoulder and then slipped past her and her mother. He nodded to Allie and Emma before he and Detective Morris closed the door behind them.
Allie and Emma awkwardly stood a few feet from the couch, no one speaking a word. Fiona’s mother looked up at them through tears, her heart obviously broken for her daughter, already knowing what it was like to lose a husband.
“Come on, Sue. Let’s grab a coffee,” Uncle John said. “Give the girls some time alone.”
“Are you all right, pumpkin?” Susan asked Fiona.
Her head lifted from Susan’s shoulder, with the left side’s eyelash strip clinging for dear life from her undone upper lid. Her face was tear streaked, her nose red and puffy. There were at least twenty used tissues piled on the table in front of her, with a few more scattered on the ground around the couch.
“Yeah. At least my friends are here,” she said, grabbing another tissue.
Her mother stood and then bent to kiss her on the head and held her face under her chin. “I’ll be right back. I guess John and I should talk to some people downstairs.”
“Don’t let anyone else come up,” she said with a sniffle. “Please. Just tell everyone to go home.”
Susan and John exchanged a pitiful glance, and Susan put her hand on Allie’s forearm as she strode past.
“Thanks for coming up,” she whispered. “She’s a mess. I can’t believe it myself. It’s too much,” she said, distressed, looking back at Fiona one more time. “I mean, after losing my husband—her father—it’s just so…”
“I know. It’s okay,” Allie whispered back, not wanting to hear any more about death. After all, her father was on his deathbed, and she’d be in the same position soon. Mourning. It was too much to think about. Too much tragedy. “Go take a break with your brother-in-law. We’ll take care of her.”
“Thank you.”
Susan looked at herself in the mirror next to the door and rubbed at the black liner that had collected under her eyes like a raccoon. She licked her index finger on its side and then rubbed again until her circles became peach. She smoothed her wispy, light hair back before they exited the suite, clearly not caring that she had a cat T-shirt on over her gown. There were more important things to attend to.
Allie plunked on one side of Fiona and Emma on the other. The three of them cried together, and even though Allie hated Trevor, she’d never wanted her friend to be in this kind of pain. Even though she helped cause it. Why didn’t she just come clean to Fiona in the first place?
Right. Her father.
“I’m so sorry,” Emma said. “I feel like an asshole saying that, but I really don’t know what else to say. This is so tragic.”
“I know,” Allie said, wrapping her arms around Fiona, a move that Emma followed. “It’s crazy. I can’t believe he’s—”
“Don’t say it,” Fiona warned. “I just don’t understand,” she said, separating from the two of them and grabbing another tissue. “He was dancing. What could it have been? His reaction is usually pretty immediate. I don’t understand.” She blew her nose in a squeaky, stuffy, old-man-with-a-handkerchief way.
Emma looked at Allie and widened her eyes, then she got up and went into the bathroom, eventually returning with two more boxes of tissues.
“Can you guys stay here tonight, with me?” Fiona asked. “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep alone on my wedding night. We didn’t even get to—consummate. Am I even really married?” She began to cry again, heavily, before she realized her bluff. “Actually, I’m not married. I’m a widow. Already.”
Allie tugged a tissue out of the dispenser that was on Fiona’s lap and handed it to her. Yes, she had to stay with Fiona—it meant she couldn’t stay with Dutch. Whatever happened between them would have to be taken back to New York.
Fiona stunned her with her next statement. “This whole thing makes me wonder. He had some bad information on my Uncle John. Something from a long time ago, when he was in college. I saw some papers once when I was cleaning Trevor’s office. You don’t think my uncle had anything to do with this, do you?”
“Your uncle?” Emma said, rather unsurprised. “What was it?”
“Shit,” Fiona said, and tears fell again. “Don’t tell anyone, guys. You have to swear to keep this a secret.”
Allie raised her hand to God, one over her heart, while Emma nodded.
“He and a couple of friends were caught in a cheating ring. Running it, really. And he was still able to graduate with honors. My grandfather—he had power at that school.” Her head shook slowly. “I don’t know how Trevor got the information since everything was sealed. You know all about his political aspirations, and Uncle John seemed to do whatever he said. It always made me wonder who was the powerful one in the room.”
Allie gulped. “That’s all you saw? Papers about your uncle?”
“Yeah. Trevor came into the office, and I pretended I was dusting around it. I never asked him about it, and I never saw them again. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.” She wiped her nose on her arm and sniffled. “What if he was blackmailing him?”
“No,” Emma went on. “Trevor and your uncle got along so well. And your uncle never would’ve let you marry him if he did that. You’re his brother’s daughter.” Then she chuckled. “Blackmail. This isn’t a movie.”
A light bulb went off in Allie’s brain. Emma seemed to be talking Fiona out of telling the cops anything about blackmail. Like she didn’t want the authorities to look into anything that had to do with Trevor. Truth was, it did sound fishy. Uncle John certainly had enough power. But Emma persisted. It was just a freak accident! Nothing to see here!
Allie was thankful, but couldn’t help but wonder—did that mean that Trevor had something on Emma as well? Something she didn’t want found out?
44
ETHAN
The Wedding Day, 8:00 p.m.
Ethan swiped his keycard at the door to the groom suite and Dutch and Vee followed him in. They all tossed their jackets onto a chair near the door and let out a sigh. Ethan grabbed a beer for himself from the mini fridge and then tossed one to Vee and one to Dutch. He put a cigarette in his mouth and motioned outside. They nodded.
The open door let in a wonderful breeze—it was amazing how the storm brought the change in the weather. Before the reception everything was too hot and muggy and awful, and now that it was over, everything was perfect again.
Trevor was oppressive heat, thunder, lightning, gale-force winds, and torrential rain.
And now he was gone.
Ethan sucked the smoke into his lungs and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the light-headedness, and then blew it out. He was going to miss smoking.
“I’m quitting, you know,” Ethan said. “As soon as this trip is over. I have to do it for Emma and the baby.”
“It’s disgusting. You should do it anyway,” Vee said. “No matter what happens.”
Ethan scraped a chair back and sat down and motioned for the guys to do the same. “We should relax while we can. The night isn’t over.”
Ethan guessed that in minutes, the suite would be stormed by cops. Which is why he made sure Dutch and Vee were comfortable. He knew Fiona’s diary, or proof of what was in it, was somewhere inside the suite, and he had to find it and destroy it. If Trevor died and the rest of it came out anyway, he would be beside himself with grief. He’d never want Emma to know that there were feelings involved, no matter how fleeting—or long gone—they were. Looking back, they didn’t even matter. Emma mattered. They weren’t even his feelings.
Ethan sucked his beer down quickly, giving him a slight buzz after the shots he’d inhaled downstairs. He smashed his cigarette in the ashtray.
“I have to take a leak, and I’ll bring back more beers. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Ethan slid the door closed behind him, grateful that Dutch and Vee didn’t move—they were enjoying the peace that came with Trevor’s death. They’d barely reacted either, which made Ethan curious—but not curious enough to bring it up. He had a mission.
In the bedroom, he went right for the closet and found the safe locked. Shit. What could the code be? He didn’t want to get caught putting in one wrong combination after another, so he tried to think. His wedding date? Ethan punched in 1-2-1-4. Nothing. Of course not—Trevor had no heart. He had to think like Trevor.
“Nineteen ninety-five! Best year ever.”
The Devils’ first Stanley Cup year. Please, please, please work. With a shaking hand, he hit the buttons.
1—
9—
9—
5—
The wheels turned, and the safe popped open. Inside were a bunch of thumb drives, all labeled.
“John Hawthorne”—Uncle John? Holy shit. “Cameron Trivett”—who? “Gregory Hanson”—who? “Brandon Weatherly.” “Beth Brooks.” “Caleb Jackson.” Who, who, and who?
And then one that made his heart stop.
“The Bridal party.”
Fuck.
There was no physical diary, but maybe he was right earlier, and Trevor had the digital copy on the thumb drive. Ethan tucked it in his pocket and locked the safe back up—1—9—9—5. Then he found an undershirt on the floor of the closet and wiped down the buttons. No fingerprints.
He headed to the bathroom, sweat beading at his forehead, and he splashed water on his face. What else was on that thumb drive? Was he threatening everyone?
Did Ethan want to know what was on there? Emma.
His phone dinged near the door—he’d had it in his jacket. There was a text from Emma.
Where are you? The cops are looking for you guys.
Ah, crap. It was starting. He tapped back.
We’re in the suite. Have them come up here.
She wrote back: I told them to check the bar and then the suite. Hey, if they ask about last night, I told them I found out you hooked up with Fiona a hundred years ago and I overreacted. So don’t lie to them. Don’t cause an issue where there isn’t one.
Shit. He took the thumb drive out of his pocket and stuck it in his sock, at the bottom of his foot, and put his shoe back on. He tried to walk normally back out to the terrace.
“Hey, guys,” he said to them through the open door. “Emma texted me. She said the cops were going to the bar to look for us, and then they were going to come up here.”
“I don’t know what information they think we have,” Dutch said.
“Exactly. But let’s show them there’s nothing to see here. When are they coming?” Vee asked.
And then there was a knock on the door.
45
VEEJAY
The Wedding Day, 8:15 p.m.
Vee stood up. “Well, how’s that for timing?”
Ethan lit another cigarette and slid into a chair, rooting himself outside. “I’m not answering it.”
Vee looked at Dutch, who looked at the ocean.
“I’ll get it,” Vee said, rolling his eyes.
He knew the cops were on the other side, but he also knew he didn’t do anything wrong. Right? Just act natural, he told himself as he looked through the peephole and indeed, there were two detectives standing there—one had his shield around his neck. Vee opened the door.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door wide and gesturing for them to come in. “I’m Veejay Rahna.”
“I’m Detective Morris, this is Gomez,” he said, pointing over to the shorter one with a pen that he’d already produced in one hand while a notebook was in the other.
Vee shook Gomez’s hand, since Morris’s were both occupied as he flipped back a couple of pages.
“Is there an Ethan Pierce and a Dietrich Von Ryan here?”
“Yeah, they’re out on the terrace. Do you want to come out?”
“I’d rather have them come in. It’s dark out.”
He wanted to read their faces.
“Sure, I’ll get them.” Walking at a regular pace, he made his way to the terrace door and opened it, then stuck his head outside. “Hey, guys, there are a couple of detectives here. Come on inside.”
He turned back, and Morris and Gomez were each already sitting on a couch. Vee grabbed all three of their tux jackets from the chair by the door and placed them on the sideboard near the bar; he skidded the chair to the sitting area and sat down. Dutch and Ethan entered the room.
“Ethan Pierce,” he said, and shook their hands.
“Dutch. Dietrich. Von Ryan,” Dutch said, getting confused by his own name as he shook their hands.
Dutch sat next to Morris, and Ethan sat next to Gomez.
“A real tragedy tonight, huh?” Morris said, looking between all three of them.
“It was unbelievable,” Vee said, shaking his head. He had an awful itch on his neck, but he didn’t dare attempt to scratch it. “Horrible.”
“Right. Poor Fiona,” Ethan said.
