Veil of Night: A Novel

Chapter Eighteen

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” HE ASKED, HIS TONE STIFLED.

Jaclyn covered her mouth with her fingers. Oh, God, surely she hadn’t said that out loud! Surely this was a nightmare and she’d wake up in a few minutes nice and snug in her bed, instead of standing with Eric Wilder in an almost deserted parking lot lit only by the stark, weird tones of the sodium vampire security lights, which was nightmare inducing if she’d ever seen anything that was.

“Studly Do-Right?” he repeated.

Why couldn’t the pavement just open up and swallow her whole? Why couldn’t she have been struck mute before she opened her mouth? Why couldn’t Eric Wilder have stayed at least sixty miles away from her and never bumped into her in city hall?

“You can be arrested for hostile acts toward a law enforcement officer,” he said, still in that stifled tone, as if he could barely speak.

“Then why don’t you arrest me?” she flared, goaded beyond control. She was so angry that she stuck out her hands, wrists together, daring him. “Why don’t you cuff me and drag me to jail right now, huh? Huh? Go ahead! Charge me with the heinous crime of calling you Studly Do-Right, and let’s see you get laughed out of court, Mr. High and Mighty Law Enforcement Officer!” Some moronic woman she didn’t know had taken charge of her body, and her mouth. The same moron thrust her shoulder into the detective, pushing him back. “Go ahead! Arrest me!” Then she lowered her shoulder again and gave him one more shove, just for good measure.

“Jaclyn,” he said, sounding as if he were strangling. Then he began howling. Literally. Well, not actually baying at the moon or barking like the Georgia fans, but bent over at the waist, red in the face, howling with laughter.

If she could be sure he wouldn’t charge her with assault, she’d have punted him into next week. “Go away!” she shouted. “I regret ever meeting you! I hope you get scurvy and your teeth fall out! I hope you get rickets! I hope you get beriberi!”

“You don’t even know what beriberi is,” he managed to say, before going off again.

“It’s a dread disease that turns you into a stupid jerk man!” She couldn’t remember ever being so beside herself with rage before, and it was all the worse for being so impotent. She couldn’t pick him up and hurl him through a plate-glass window, which would have been hugely satisfying. She couldn’t shoot him or stab him, because she didn’t have any shooting or stabbing weapons. She couldn’t kick him, because she was wearing open-toed pumps and she’d only hurt herself. She couldn’t even hit him with the rolled-up papers, because that wouldn’t do any more damage than swatting a fly. All she could do was yell at him with the mouth that was still under the control of the moron woman she didn’t know.

“Miss Wilde?” the minister asked hesitantly from several yards away, having left the church by the side door and witnessed her pitching a hissy fit. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right!” She stomped her foot, threw her keys on the ground, and would have jumped up and down on them with both feet but at the last second destroying her remote struck her as self-defeating, so she clenched every muscle in her body and screamed a wordless sound of fury.

Eric was laughing so hard he had to lean against her car for support, his hands braced on his knees. Still whooping, he recovered enough to bend a little farther to pick up her keys, but it took him three tries to actually grab them.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” the minister persisted. He was visibly perturbed, perhaps because he thought there was some threat to her, but more than likely because the ladylike Jaclyn Wilder had turned into a raving maniac in front of his very eyes.

“Yes!” she roared, and pointed at Eric. “Punch him in the nose! Punch him as hard as you can, and then I’ll feel better.”

“I can’t do that,” said the minister, aghast.

“Then don’t volunteer!” She snatched her keys out of Eric’s hand and hit the remote to unlock the door. Some glimmer of sanity was returning to her rage-fogged mind, and it struck her that the best thing she could do was get out of there before she really did end up arrested for something, probably disturbing the peace, because she’d certainly done that.

Choking and wheezing with laughter, Eric slapped a hand against her car door and prevented her from opening it. “Jaclyn … stop,” he managed to say, his shoulders heaving.

She pushed her face close up to his and snarled, “Make me.”

“Oh, God.” He sucked in a huge, shuddering breath, looked at the minister, and said, “Sorry, padre.”

“It’s okay,” said the minister, smiling a little. “I think I understand.”

“She’ll see you tomorrow, and she’ll be so calm you’ll think you dreamed this.”

“I doubt that, but I’ll give it a try. Now, young man, is she going to be all right if I leave her with you?”

“She will be. I’m not so sure I’ll survive.” He began snickering again.

“Stop giggling,” Jaclyn snapped. The presence of a third party had given her time to catch her breath, a little, though it hadn’t done a lot to ease her temper. She never lost her temper like this, but she couldn’t think of anyone who had ever made her so angry before. Even when Carrie had slapped her, she hadn’t thrown a full-scale tantrum.

Eric scrubbed his hand over his face. “Cops don’t giggle. I’m a cop, therefore I don’t giggle.” He was teary-eyed, red-faced, and breathless from laughing so hard. The minister gave them a warm smile—what was up with him?—and walked back to his car, leaving them alone.

In the deep well of silence that followed, Jaclyn could hear herself breathing hard, too. The unreality of the past five minutes seized her as the cool voice of reason began to make itself heard again. She never acted like that, especially not in public. The way she felt went beyond mere embarrassment; a mixture of horror and sheer mortification froze her in place. She’d been out of control, acting like a child, and she hadn’t been able to stop.

A buzzing in her ears warned her that she needed to breathe, though she honestly would prefer not to; she’d rather just drop unconscious to the ground and lay there until Eric left. The problem with that was, he wouldn’t leave. He’d stay with her, maybe take off his jacket and put it under her head, call 911, things like that. As uncomfortable as remaining conscious was, it was probably her best option. She gulped in a breath of air. “I’m sorry,” she forced herself to say. She had to clear her throat before she could get the words out. Even then her voice was hoarse and kind of hollow; she didn’t sound like herself at all.

“That’s okay,” he said lazily, settling his ass against her car again.

A simple “sorry” wasn’t good enough, she thought fuzzily, not after everything she’d said and done. Her face burned, and her voice took on a ragged edge in addition to the hoarseness as she said, “No, it isn’t okay. The way I acted was appalling. I embarrassed you—”

“I wasn’t embarrassed. I was entertained. That was one of the best hissy fits I’ve ever seen. For sheer inventiveness, it even tops the time my mom dumped a canister of flour on top of my dad’s head. Mom is more into action. She never would have thought of beriberi.” He crossed his arms and smiled at her; for an instant she was caught in the same tractor beam of chemistry or hormones or pure insanity that had gripped her the first time she’d seen him. She could feel it start dragging her in, which horrified her almost as much as her loss of control. She had to tear her gaze away from his before she could resume her apology.

Doggedly she plowed on. “Well, I embarrassed myself. I’m truly, deeply sorry.”

“Jaclyn.” His deep voice flowed over her. “I understand that you’re under a lot of stress. I’m sorry to add to it, but I do need you to look at some photographs.”

He only thought he knew what her stress level was. “I have a wedding and a rehearsal tomorrow, and I personally have to handle both because Mom has a wedding and a rehearsal, too. We’ll be running from one place to another all day long. I know you can force me to look at photographs instead, I understand that—”

“Murder trumps weddings,” he pointed out.

“Making a living is pretty high on the list, too,” she snapped, feeling her self-control begin to fray again. “Besides, I couldn’t identify the man I saw if he were standing next to me.”

“You don’t know until you try,” he said, straightening from her car and reaching to open the door for her. “Go on home now, and decompress. I’ll be in touch.”

She got in the car, still clutching the roll of papers. From those parting words, she thought she could safely assume he was going to completely wreck her schedule for the next day.

Bright and early the next morning, Friday, Eric made it to work without getting involved in any robberies that ate up half his day. The solution was simple: he made coffee at home, scouted around and found an old thermos, and brought his own coffee. When even a McDonald’s drive-through wasn’t safe for his coffee hit, it was time to come up with another way of doing things. He’d make his own damn coffee from now on. God knows he wasn’t having any luck getting good coffee any other way.

The first thing he saw when he approached his desk was a manila folder that hadn’t been there the afternoon before when he and Garvey had come in, but it was there now, on top of the stack. No one was in the lab at this hour, so someone must have placed the paperwork on his desk last night.

That was what he’d been waiting for. Maybe he should’ve swung by the office after he’d left Jaclyn, but he’d been in an irritable, pissy mood after watching her drive out of the church parking lot, and he’d headed straight home so he could lie in bed and not sleep for a few hours.

The pissiness wasn’t because of her temper tantrum, but rather because he’d been hamstrung by the case and couldn’t do anything about her tantrum—and he’d really, really wanted to. Man, how he’d wanted to. He’d had to fight to keep from simply grabbing her, kissing her until they both fell down, and then he’d kiss her some more. God, who knew a temper tantrum could turn him on so much? It wasn’t the tantrum itself; it was Jaclyn—losing her ladylike cool. Even then … she really hadn’t.

She hadn’t used a single cuss word. She’d stomped her feet, thrown her keys down, yelled some inventive and amusing … hell, he couldn’t even call them insults, because saying she hoped he got beriberi wasn’t an insult, it was more of a complete lack of good wishes. She’d jammed her shoulder into him—twice—and though technically he could have charged her for that he’d have felt like a fool if he had, because he outweighed her by at least eighty pounds, maybe even a hundred. But she hadn’t poked him, hadn’t hit him, hadn’t tried to bite him. It was as if she had no idea how to physically attack someone, even though she’d admitted being an inch away from punching Carrie Edwards, but that was different because she’d been physically attacked first.

Making Jaclyn Wilde lose control was fast becoming his favorite thing in the world to do.

So he’d gone home and not slept while he was thinking about sliding into her, her pussy all wet and slick and swollen, those fuck-me legs wrapped around him, her head tilted back and all but screaming as she came—yeah, that was a good way to not sleep, the best, but he’d paid for it because now he was tired and the day had just begun. Finally he’d tried to get some shut-eye by using the oldest method known to the male persuasion, Mrs. Thumb and her Four Sisters, but while jacking off had relieved some pressure it was a far cry from being as satisfying as coming inside Jaclyn.

He dropped heavily into his chair and picked up the folder, wrenching his mind from the X-rated fantasies that kept popping into his head.

He knew what he’d find inside the folder, and still he hesitated for a split second before opening it. The tests would clear Jaclyn; if he’d had any doubt at all about that, last night would have cured him of it. His gut and his brain told him that she couldn’t have killed Carrie Edwards, so the hesitation worried him.

Maybe he was too certain. Maybe he’d broken his own rule and let his emotions cloud his mind. Maybe—oh, shit!—maybe she’d sneaked in under his guard and he was more than halfway to falling in love with her, like some stupid kid getting a crush in the matter of a few minutes. He was too old and too smart to let one night of great sex affect his thinking … well, maybe not all that smart, since like it or not, he was affected.

He couldn’t be falling for her like that. He wasn’t ready to give up the single life. He liked being single.

But … damn. Jaclyn. Long legs, classy, surprisingly funny in an off-the-wall kind of way that he never would have expected. Could he just walk away, give her up, not even try for something more?

Fuck, no. He was going after her with every ounce of determination he had, and as his mother would attest, when he set his mind to do something then, come hell or high water, he’d do it. He had a mountain to climb in convincing her to give him a chance, but he liked a challenge. And maybe the mountain wasn’t that high; he figured if she truly didn’t give a damn, she wouldn’t get so hot under the collar at him.

Deeply satisfied with his decision, he poured some coffee from the thermos into his cup, took a sip, then flipped the file open, leaned back, and began to read.

On television a person could walk into a room and start shedding telling skin cells that would conclusively tie them to the crime, but in real life it wasn’t so easy. The first page of the report recorded greater detail on the trace evidence that had been collected at the scene. The crime techs had found numerous carpet fibers that had clung to people’s shoes and been transferred to the reception hall floor. They’d also found dirt, grass, unidentified fibers, and hair … lots and lots of hair, a shitload of hair, from animals as well as humans. Evidently people had been sneaking their Fluffys and Fidos into receptions, which didn’t surprise him in the least. Cat and dog hair was to be expected. It was when the hair came from goats and other livestock that he began to go a little cross-eyed at the possible scenarios.

The gray hairs collected had come from seven different heads, according to the lab, which was really a surprisingly low number. Hundreds of people were in and out of that room on a regular basis, and while it was cleaned in between each event, a hair here and there wasn’t something a janitorial crew would notice. Not a single one of the gray hairs had a follicle attached, which meant that even if they had a sample to compare it to, a DNA match was out.

There were several pages in the report, and after scanning the first Eric started flipping through, searching for that one specific bit of evidence—or lack thereof—that he was most interested in. Four pages in, he found it.

No blood had been found on the clothes Jaclyn had worn Wednesday.

A rush of relief filled him. Eric didn’t think he could have felt any more relieved if the evidence had cleared him of suspicion of murder. When Sergeant Garvey and Lieutenant Neille got in they’d talk this over, but this pretty much took Jaclyn off the list of suspects, the way they’d thought it would. He’d give her the good news—

Whoa. Wait a minute.

She’d be glad to hear it, but she sure as hell wouldn’t be doing any celebrating with him. Instead, she’d probably let him have it with both barrels for doubting her in the first place. He hadn’t doubted her, but she wasn’t going to see it that way. She’d treat him to an I-told-you-so rebuke combined with a royal ass-chewing.

Besides, if Jaclyn was no longer a suspect he’d have a tougher time seeing her. She wouldn’t play nice—not that she’d played very nice last night, but that had been so much fun he didn’t mind. She could, and likely would, make his life hell. There were only so many photographs he could produce for her to look at.

And then she’d order him to leave her alone, and he’d have no choice but to do it. She could even demand that if she was required for any further investigation someone other than he do the questioning, which meant Garvey would be the one handling her from here on out, or maybe Franklin, when he got back from vacation.

Nope. Not going to happen.

A slow grin curved his mouth. There wasn’t any need to share this particular news with her right now. This was something that could wait for a couple of days, until she was past being furious with him. In the meantime, he’d be working to get back in her good graces.

He finished reading through the report, which was very thorough but not particularly helpful. Too many people had tromped and danced through that room. Besides, if it came down to it, any suspect could probably explain away his or her presence in the reception hall; after all, it was a public venue. There was no skin under the victim’s fingernails, no damning evidence on the body, so essentially he was back to square one. Ruling Jaclyn out as a suspect was the only significant result of the report.

But then there was the gray-haired man, driving a silver car, who might or might not be Senator Dennison. Even if Jaclyn picked his picture out of a stack, any good attorney could say she recognized him because his face was all over television these days, in his political ads.

It was blood that would give him the killer, one way or another. The murderer had made a mess of Carrie, and hadn’t walked away in pristine clothes. Whether her killer had been an enraged vendor, a secret lover, the senator, a pissed-off bloodthirsty bridesmaid, or someone as yet unidentified, blood evidence would tell the tale. Even if the killer had disposed of the clothes he’d been wearing at the time of the murder, odds were that no matter how well he cleaned his car some blood evidence would remain—maybe just a single smudge on the carpet where he’d stepped on a drop of blood—something would show up.

Say the senator was their guy; Eric’s gut was sending out alarm signals on the senator, maybe because he was a cheating shit, but Eric was going to be looking hard at anything out of the way. If Senator Dennison decided to trade cars, well, that would be damn suspicious, so he bet the senator might start driving one of the other cars sitting in that five-car garage but he wouldn’t be getting rid of the silver car. In that case, the blood evidence was still out there, just waiting to be discovered.

He didn’t have anywhere near enough to convince a judge to give him a search warrant for a state senator’s car, though. As for clothing … almost two days had gone by. The killer had had plenty of time to dispose of that evidence, maybe by burning it, maybe taking it out in the country and burying it, or by simply sponging away the visible blood and giving the garments to some homeless shelter. Finding the clothes now would take a huge stroke of luck. The car was his best bet. All he had to do was build a case.

Garvey sauntered in and headed for the coffeepot. “No adventures in buying coffee this morning?” he asked.

“I brought my own.”

“Smart move, the way your luck has been going. I can’t believe you beat me in today,” the sergeant said as he poured coffee into his favorite mug.

“Lots to do,” Eric said. “Lab reports are in.” He waved the manila folder.

“Break it down for me.” Garvey half-sat on the edge of Eric’s desk and took a long sip of the coffee.

“No blood on Jaclyn Wilde’s clothes.”

Garvey grimaced, and frowned down into his cup. “This shit’s left over from the nightshift, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Want some of mine?”

“Yeah.” He went into the break room and poured the offending swill down the drain, then returned and filled up from Eric’s thermos. “Okay, so we call in the senator’s girlfriend and see what we can get from her.”

“I’m on it.”

In spite of herself Jaclyn had gotten a few hours of deep sleep last night. Pitching full-blown temper tantrums was exhausting. Well, not completely full-blown; at least she hadn’t thrown herself on the ground and started drumming her heels, or spitting. But whereas a real tantrum-thrower would have considered hers only a halfhearted tantrum, for her it had been an all-out effort. She’d gone to sleep as soon as she tumbled into bed. She didn’t feel exactly well-rested, but at least she wasn’t dead on her feet.

They were halfway through. This was Friday; if they could make it through today and tomorrow without any major blowups, they’d be on the downhill side of this marriage marathon. They did have the one big wedding on Sunday, an all-out affair, but she and Madelyn were both working it, and Peach and Diedra were available, so they had plenty of womanpower on hand.

Once again she’d rushed out without eating breakfast. Maybe there’d be some brownies left from yesterday, she thought as she drove to work. She needed more of that chocolate. A brownie and a cup of coffee would be perfect.

She wheeled into Premier’s parking lot, and blinked in surprise. Even though she was early, everyone else was already in, which was unusual.

Diedra met Jaclyn in the hallway. Her eyes positively sparkled. “Did you hear?” she asked, excitement in her voice.

“Hear what?”

Diedra lowered her voice, as though it mattered if anyone in the office overheard them. After all, it was just the four of them. “How Carrie was murdered.”

Jaclyn’s stomach did a sick flip. Did she want to know the details? Dead was dead, and how Carrie got that way didn’t seem all that pertinent. Still, since she was smack dab in the middle of this investigation, she was curious. “I haven’t heard anything. What have you heard?”

“She was skewered.”

Oh, ick! Jaclyn’s first thought was that a knife was way messier than a gun. A knife was up close and personal. No wonder Eric had been looking for blood on her clothing!

“Literally skewered,” Diedra continued. “Like, with the kabob skewers that were lying on the table. Not just once, either, but lots of times. Melissa DeWitt found the body. She told her friend Sharon and swore her to secrecy, because she really isn’t supposed to talk about it, but Sharon told Gretchen, Gretchen told Bishop Delaney, and you know once Bishop knows everyone knows.”

Kabob skewers? Double ick! There had been a lot of skewers there, and now she had the image of Carrie with kabob skewers sticking every which way out of her body, and that was just gross.

Peach joined them, a china cup of steaming coffee in her hand. “Makes you wonder why they didn’t immediately question the caterer. Surely the police consider the weapon when making their list of suspects.”

“So, if she’d had a glob of fondant icing shoved down her throat, they’d go directly to the cake decorator,” Diedra said, looking thoughtful.

“Exactly,” Peach responded. “And if there were a hundred floral picks driven into appropriately vulnerable areas, a florist.”

“Choked with a length of white satin, the seamstress.”

“Meatballs in each nostril and shoved into her mouth, caterer again. I’m thinking the caterer is looking better and better for this,” Peach said.

“How about a little bride and groom shoved—”

“Y’all stop it!” Jaclyn said, but she couldn’t help laughing. “That’s terrible. Carrie might have been—well, Carrie—but she’s dead.”

“I like her better that way, too,” said Diedra. “Just saying.”

“It’s not like there weren’t plenty of vendors who wanted her that way,” Peach said with a smile. “Maybe most of them just wished the deed done, but one of them might’ve actually done it.”

“Not with fondant or floral picks, thank goodness.” Jaclyn headed toward her mother’s office, trying to dismiss the idea that someone she knew well, someone she worked with, might’ve skewered a difficult bride. “Y’all do know there’s an old saying about not speaking ill of the dead,” she called back.

Diedra responded quickly. “There’s also an old saying that says honesty is the best policy. In this instance, the two old sayings don’t work well together.”

And wasn’t that the truth.

Taite Boyne was annoyed as hell that the Hopewell Police Department wanted to interview her, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been expecting the call. Doug had called her in a panic, but she’d calmed him down, told him she’d handle things. She had better things to do with her time, but for now, she’d play nice. After all, it was in her best interests not to piss off the investigators.

Detective Eric Wilder had called both her cell and her home phone the night before, but she hadn’t answered because she’d needed time to think things through, to get herself into the proper frame of mind. When he’d called early that morning, she had finally been ready to answer, and they’d arranged a time to meet. She’d suggested her home instead of work, because she didn’t want cops in and out of the boutique where she worked as a buyer. It was the perfect job, because she made her own hours and was often out of town. That left plenty of time for the senator, and he took a lot of time.

When the doorbell rang, she was ready. This was a bit like being in a play, she thought. Get into the role, practice your expressions and tone of voice, immerse yourself in the character. A lot was riding on how well she balanced several different things.

She answered the door of the twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot lake house Doug had bought for her. The lake was a private one, with only eight building sites around it, and three of the sites were still unsold. The acreage was sufficient that her neighbors weren’t close enough to see who came and went, plus Doug always simply pulled into the three-car garage and got out of his car there. It wasn’t as if he was ever outside doing yard work. The house was in her name, the utility bills were in her name, and she paid for everything from her checking account. A nosy reporter would have to dig very deep, or get very lucky, to connect Doug to any of this.

All of this was in jeopardy now, because Carrie had been a greedy bitch.

Her expression was calm but sad as she led the two cops—Wilder and Garvey—into the den. From the den you could see the sparkling pool through the double French doors, and fifty yards beyond the pool, there was the lake, the blueness of the cloudless sky reflected on the surface. She saw them looking around, noting every detail—one of which was a photograph she’d dug out of the back of the closet, one of her and Carrie with their heads together, laughing. In any play, the props on the set mattered because they set the mood. The mood she was going for was bereaved but not hysterical.

“Would you like some coffee, or iced tea?” she asked as they sat.

“No, thank you,” said Wilder, answering for the both of them. Thank God they didn’t want anything; the sooner they got this over with, the sooner they’d be out of here. In the back of her mind she coolly noted that he looked like someone she wouldn’t mind getting to know better, back in the days before Doug. He would have been a fun time, but she wouldn’t risk what she had now just to have a hot roll in the hay.

She took the chair facing the sofa where they’d both sat down. She’d chosen her costume for effect: a snug, but not too snug, knee-length black skirt, and a crisply tailored white blouse. She’d also gone easy on the makeup; she didn’t exactly look wan, but neither did she look festive. She had even used just a touch of eyeshadow to put faint bruises under her eyes. Because she was a buyer she had to always look sharp, so she hadn’t gone for dowdy, just restrained. Her four-inch heels were sharp and stylish, the type a sophisticated buyer would wear for work, and she really was going to work as soon as they left. A little touch of reality was always handy.

“Thank you for speaking to us, Ms. Boyne,” Detective Wilder said. “We’re investigating Carrie Edwards’s murder. What can you tell us about her?”

Well, that was an open-ended question. Taite supposed it was designed to get her talking, maybe saying more than she intended.

“We were best friends,” she said simply, and let her voice wobble a little on the last word. It was a nice touch.

For a few minutes he asked her meaningless questions: How long had she known Carrie, where had they met, when was the last time she’d seen her, blah, blah blah. She answered with complete honesty, because she knew he’d check out every detail. Why lie about something when you didn’t need to? If you kept to the truth whenever possible, that made people more inclined to believe you when you had to lie.

“Where were you on Wednesday afternoon, between three and six?”

“Here.”

“Alone?”

She took a deep breath, let it out. “No.” She looked down at her hands, clasped her fingers together. “Doug—Senator Dennison—was here. I got back in town the day before from a two-week trip to London, and he left work early so we could have some time together.”

“He didn’t come over the day you got home?”

“No. I was too jet-lagged.”

That, too, was true, at least as far as the jet lag went. And she had been in London.

“What time did he get here?”

Taite rubbed her forehead, trying to remember the automatic tells for lying, so she didn’t give any of them. Was it looking to the left, or the right? She couldn’t remember, so she closed her eyes as if she could see the answer on the inside of her eyelids. “He got here … just after three.”

“What time did he leave?”

“He was here for almost three hours so … about six.”

“Are you sure about the time?”

She met his hard gaze, keeping hers direct. “We’re clock-watchers, Detective. We have to be.” Let him make of that what he wanted; she wasn’t about to apologize or act embarrassed, because she wasn’t.

Finally, Wilder got to the meat of the interview, the question she’d known was coming. “I understand you and Carrie had a falling-out not too long ago.”

She sighed. “Not really.”

“You didn’t? You were supposed to be her maid of honor, but you dropped out of the wedding party.”

“I … we—” She stopped, took a deep breath. “Carrie was the one who introduced me to Doug, at a fund-raiser for his new campaign. We didn’t intend for—Well, I wasn’t looking to get involved and neither was he, but things happened.”

“And Carrie found out.”

Taite looked up, a faintly surprised expression in place. “She knew about it from the beginning.”

The two cops exchanged quick glances. “What was the argument about?”

“It wasn’t a real argument. When Carrie asked me to be her maid of honor, I had no idea who Doug was or anything about him. But when we got involved, well, I thought it would be … awkward, if I was there when she married his son, and he was there with his wife. I just didn’t want to do it. But if I quit without a good reason it would look funny, so Carrie and I staged the argument.”

“She approved of your arrangement with the senator?”

“Not really. She worried about me. She said the other woman never ended up in a good place, and she might be right.” She took a quick breath. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.” Whether or not Doug ever left his wife, Taite figured she’d come out of things just fine. If news of the affair got out, and the rich bitch Mrs. Dennison tossed her cheating husband out on his ass, Doug’s career would probably survive. You couldn’t throw a stone in D.C. without hitting a politician who’d been unfaithful to his wife; when they were caught they’d lie low for a while, then pick up where they’d left off.

If Doug ended up divorced … Taite knew she’d make a great senator’s wife. If he didn’t, well, the life she had now wasn’t bad. No matter what, she was hanging on to Douglas with everything in her. He was her ticket to a better life and she meant to keep him.

“Carrie and I were best friends,” she said, and managed to blink up a teary-eyed look. Really crying was beyond her, but that would have been a bit much, anyway. “We stayed friends. She was here visiting just last week. She’d been getting some grief about the details of the wedding, and she needed to decompress. Oh, I know she could sometimes be a pain in the ass, but she was a good friend to me. I’m going to miss her.” There. A little bit of truth mixed in with a few very big lies. Couldn’t get any better than that.

When they got back to the department Eric sat back in his chair, his hands looped behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. Every detail of the case was spinning in his brain. His desk was littered with reports and notes, but everything there was also in his head, and that was where things would finally come together.

Every witness should be as good as wedding vendors. Each and every one of them who had been at the reception hall on Wednesday afternoon had told the same story. Eyewitnesses were remarkably unreliable, but these were people who were trained to pay attention to detail, to what was going on around them. Their stories had all matched—not exactly, but in all the major areas. If every detail had been the same, he’d have known they’d gotten together and agreed on what they were going to say.

They each told the story of the confrontation between Jaclyn and Carrie Edwards in their own way, with subtle differences in wording and the progression of events. But their recall of the events was close enough, and consistent enough, for him to believe them.

On the surface, Jaclyn had the best motive, but none of the evidence supported it. She simply wasn’t a viable suspect, thank God.

The senator, now … he looked good for it, but his girlfriend had solidly alibied him. Unless they could get some physical evidence from his car, which wasn’t likely considering he was alibied, they had zilch.

Taite Boyne was the one he couldn’t quite figure out. According to several witnesses, she and Carrie had had a falling out. Falling out, hell, they’d had a spectacular, very believable blowup, and unless they were both very good actresses, that would have been hard to pull off and make it look credible. If Taite was that good of an actress, that threw her little performance today into question.

She’d cried a little, and expressed what seemed to be genuine dismay. She hadn’t gone overboard with it, and she hadn’t even pretended to be embarrassed by her affair with the senator. He had her pegged as a pretty tough cookie.

It was the fight she’d had with Carrie that didn’t pan out. It just didn’t feel right. So, it was okay to screw the senator’s brains out a couple times a week, but not to stand by while he and his wife watched their son get married? It didn’t wash.

Garvey walked over, ever-present coffee cup in his hand, and propped himself against the side of Eric’s desk. “Interesting. Only one person has good things to say about Carrie, and she just happens to be banging the soon-to-be father-in-law at the time of the murder. Sounds like we have the making of our own daytime drama. All we need is an evil twin and an illegitimate baby. Stay tuned.”

Eric smiled. “What we have here is one colossal clusterfuck.”

“So, what else is new?” Garvey said, then he added, with more than a touch of genuine emotion, “Man, I love my job. Maybe Franklin will stay gone another week. I’m enjoying the hell out of this.”

Normally, Eric was right there with Garvey: he loved being a cop. They had all the pieces of a puzzle jumbled before them, and it was their job to make a picture from the mess. They’d do it this time, too. Somewhere, someone had made a mistake. All he had to do was find out who, and what.

He yawned, glanced out the window at the afternoon sun. He pushed back and stood. He and Garvey had already had a long day, because they’d both come in so early. It was late in the afternoon, and no one would blame them if they knocked off now. The last few hours had been filled with interviews, paperwork, lab requests, and reports. He was beat, but he had one more stop before he could call the day done.

And this time, he was going alone.