| |
The event continued with little interruption, and when things started to settle down I managed to pull Brittany, Kelly’s maid of honor, aside.
Brittany was quiet a character. She was twenty four and still talked like a high school valley girl. Everything she said, even if she was making a statement or some sort of declaration, sounded like a question with the way her voice fluctuated the end of her sentences.
Not to mention her left her mouth opened every time she finished speaking as if she’d someone had hit a pause button and froze her.
Thinking back to our first meeting at the spa, she certainly didn’t sound that way. Brittany may well be the only person I have ever met who actually sounded more intelligent when she was intoxicated.
I pulled her aside in a corner of the large ballroom, away from prying ears. “I don’t know if you are aware,” I began once I had her alone. “But Jane North, the spa owner, has hired me as a private investigator for Kelly’s case.”
“Really? That’s so sweet of her to do,” Brittany said with a slight hint of perk. “Kelly deserves justice. She was my best friend. Obviously, since I was supposed to be her maid of honor. She didn’t deserve this.”
“I was hoping I could ask you some questions that could help in my investigation?”
“Of course!” Brittany exclaimed. “Anything for Kelly.”
“Could you start by telling me a little more about Kelly?” I asked.
“Totally,” Brittany said and smiled sadly. “She was a such a sweetheart. We met while volunteering at a local animal shelter. Not going to lie to you, I was only there because it was a requirement for a club I was in back in high school, and this really cute boy...” She caught herself digressing and waved an hand. “Never mind about that. Kelly was there because she totally loved animals. We hit it off, and we’d been friends ever since.”
“Kelly sure did have her hands in a lot of volunteer work,” I said. “She sounds like a saint.”
“Oh, you have no idea. That was the one downside to being friends with her. I know that sounds just awful, but when we were teenagers I would have rather spent my weekends shopping or chasing boys around, you know? She always pulled me into whatever new gig she had going. Volunteering at zoos, homeless shelters, soup kitchen, toy drives, bake sales, you name it. Kelly was pulled into whatever sad story motivated her to do something.”
A tears formed in Brittany’s eyes and she finally closed her mouth looking for a tissue.
I grabbed a napkin from the nearest table and handed it Brittany.
Kelly sounded like such a sweet girl with perhaps one of the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever heard of. She knew what it meant to be a good person, and she owned every bit of it. It made me want to solve this case even faster for her.
“Okay, now for a rougher question. I know we have a tendency to over-romanticize people who have left us, but was there something -anything -about Kelly that could have caused her to have enemies?”
“If there was, I wouldn’t know,” Brittany said. “Kelly was an inspiration to me. Someone everyone looked up to.”
“What about Mrs. Lozano?” I asked. “Are you aware that there was some animosity there between her and Kelly?”
Brittany laughed slightly. “Well, yeah. Kelly was pretty aware of it. She always would make side comments to her.”
“Do you know why?”
“I think it had a lot to do with Kelly and Ryan sleeping together before they were married. Mrs. Lozano found out about that and apparently accused Kelly of tainting her precious son.” She rolled her eyes and let her mouth hang open. After a moment, she said. “But the two of them have gotten along a lot better ever since Kelly and Ryan got engaged. Mrs. Lozano started making an actual effort to get along with Kelly, and Kelly was quick to forgive,” Brittany explained.
“Was Ryan a virgin before Kelly?” I asked as that seemed to be what Brittany had suggested.
“His mother thought so,” Brittany said with a chuckle. “He would play Mr. Innocent to her, but when you leave a used condom in your trashcan when your mother comes over, well, she puts two and two together.”
“Do you think Ryan—”
She cut me off before I could even finish my thought. “Let me stop you right there. Ryan was totally in love with Kelly. I’ve never seen a man so in love.”
“What about Merida?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“She did date Ryan,” I said.
“Yeah, but that was so brief I hardly think it matters,” Brittany said. “And Kelly and Merida were super close. Like really close. Like I thought I was going to have to compete for the maid of honor position close.”
“Strange...”
“Not really,” Brittany said. “Like I said, their relationship was pretty brief. I doubt there are any feelings there.”
I bet if you saw what I did at the funeral you wouldn’t think so.
It was time to have a chat with Meirda.
I thanked Brittany for her cooperation, and scanned the room for the other women.
When I approached her, Meirda’s face turned bright pink.
She doesn’t want to talk to me after what I saw at the funeral.
For a moment, I thought she try to evade me, but she didn’t.
“Merida, we need to talk,” I began.
“Okay,” she said plainly, and we dipped out into the hallway.
I did the same sort of run down I did with Brittany, explaining how I was a PI assigned to Kelly’s case. “You going to harass me now too?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The police have been bothering me ever since that cop saw me and Ryan together at Kelly’s funeral,” she said. “I told him that it was just a kiss, but he didn’t believe me. Ryan never cheated on Kelly. We were both just upset at the funeral, and he kissed me because he was distraught. I don’t even like Ryan like that anymore, but the police won’t stop bothering me.”
“I’m not here to judge you or harass you,” I promised. “I just want to find out what happened to Kelly.”
“So do I,” she said. “Kelly was my best friend. I know Ryan and I dated, but it was never that serious.”
“I understand. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” I began, and she nodded.
We literally replayed the conversation I’d just had with Brittany a few moments before. Merida told me all the wonderful things Kelly accomplished.
“She had a heart of gold, you know?” Merida said, her eyes watering. “I don’t understand how someone could kill Kelly. She never hurt anyone. Everyone she met totally loved her.”
“What about Mrs. Lozano?” I asked because I had zero additional suspects.
“Mrs. Lozano hated everyone who dated her son at first who didn’t meet her ridiculous standards,” Merida said. “She hated me for a while too. And that woman chased off other girlfriends of Ryan’s too because they weren’t good enough. But she always came around at one point or another with most girls he dated. Even with me and Kelly.”
I exchanged information with Merida, and she promised to answer any questions that I had. It was clear that she’d become a prime suspect of the police, but that just didn’t sit right with me.
Did the police know something I didn’t?
I spoke with the other bridesmaids as well the groomsman, and got nowhere. I even spoke with some of guests who’d come from the homeless shelter, and they all knew Kelly by name and even cried during sharing some stories with me.
Towards the end of the event, I managed to get a hold of the homeless shelters director of operations. She was an older woman with gray hair set in a tidy bun. And, like everyone else, she had nothing but wonderful things to say about Kelly.
I listening to her talk about all the money Kelly had raised for the shelter, how Kelly had even let a family live with her in her apartment at one point until they got back on their feet.
“You just don’t come across a girl like that too often,” the woman said as she ushered people out of the ballroom toward the shuttles to return to the shelter.
“No, you really don’t,” I agreed.
I sighed and took a moment to gather my thoughts.
I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. I had zero leads, and I was certain that McNearny was probably already onto something while I was being left in the dust.
I headed back inside the room to assist with cleanup duty. I bumped into the gentleman who would have been Ryan’s best man, and decided to give one last interview a shot before throwing in the towel for the day. He was pretty much the only one I hadn’t spoken with yet.
“Would you say you and Kelly were close?” I asked.
“Not in particular,” he said. “I mean, she was Ryan’s girl, so I knew her through him. We would hang out sometimes but only because Ryan and I were hanging out. I really liked her; she was good for Ryan, you know?”
“Yes, that seems to be the verdict,” I said. “So you only knew her through Ryan?”
“Well, she did use to run this blood drive before she and Ryan met. I’d met her there a couple of times,” he said and then chuckled. “I went to donate blood twice in one day because I thought she was cute and wanted an excuse to talk to her again, but I wound up passing out.”
“So you did know Kelly before she started dating Ryan?” I asked.
“Not really. I knew her face because she was the one who called an ambulance for me after I hit my head on a table when I passed out. It was really embarrassing.”
“So you were interested in dating Kelly and then she wound up with your best friend?” I asked, and I realize now my tone sounded incredibly accusing.
The young man frowned and shot me a terrible glare. “It’s not like that,” he said. “That was years before I really knew her. When Ryan first brought her around I didn’t recognize her the first couple of times we hung out. Later she put two and two together and she told us that story. We all laughed about it. I wasn’t jealous of Ryan and Kelly. I’m married myself.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long day. I’m trying to piece all of this together, and nothing really seems to be lining up.”
The young man huffed at me. “Well, you know what? It’s been a rough day for everyone. Not just you.”
And with that I learned my lesson about what sort of tone I used when interviewing people. He was nice enough to let it go, but I could tell he was furious with what I had obviously been suggesting. I’d made a ridiculous leap based on that funny antidote he’d told me all because I was getting desperate to pin down a handful of suspects.
I’d had enough for the day. It was time to take a step back from the detective work. I headed back into the ball room to help finish with clean up duty. The hotel staff was doing most of the work, and I saw that the volunteers were gathered around a table as Ryan gave a teary eyed toast to his deceased bride-to-be and thanked everyone for their hard work at making this event honoring her a success.
The group of friends clapped for Kelly, and soon they were all standing around drinking some champagne and talking about the wonderful person Kelly had been.
A sense of frustration was building within me. Could these people be hiding something from me?
Was Kelly involved in something too embarrassing for them to talk about? Or was she really the innocent victim all of these people wanted me to believe she was?
Someone abruptly jabbed me in the side, and I jumped. It was my mother, smiling sweetly and holding up a glass of champagne.
“Ryan gave me a glass, isn’t that just sweet?” my mom said. “He gave all the volunteers one, but you were outside.”
“I was interviewing the director of the homeless shelter and the best man too,” I said. “Just trying to make sense of this case, but there doesn’t seem to be much to go on now. Honestly, it’s starting to frustrate me.”
“Don’t worry, honey, you will get it,” my mom assured me. “You always do! Don’t try to rush it. It’s like a complicated puzzle. You can’t force the pieces to fit where they just won’t go.”
“I know,” I said, “But I can’t even get a list of suspects down. I’ve done my research, and it seems like everyone just loved this girl. Even people you’d think might have a bone to pick with her have nothing but good things to say about her. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. And it makes me angry too. Who would want to hurt her?”
“Who would want to hurt anyone,” my mother said with a wave of her hand. “You’re working in a very sticky sort of business now, dear. You’re going to see things you don’t like, but you get to be the person who finds justice. That should make you feel good. A person’s motives for a murder don’t have to make sense to you -it just has to make sense for the killer.”
“Wow,” I said. “Mom, that’s actually pretty decent advice.”
“I have something good to say every once in a while,” she said with a wink.
Galigani came swaggering up to us, and I suspected that he’d had more than just the one glass of champagne he was currently holding. He looked far too relaxed, and that wasn’t exactly a state I was used to seeing him in. He put an arm around my mother and smiled in my direction. “How’s the investigating going, Kate?” he asked me.
I sighed heavily. “Honestly? Not well. I am starting to wonder if I am barking up the wrong tree. I can’t imagine anyone here having a reason for killing Kelly.”
“Do you have any suspects?” Galigani asked.
“Not really,” I said. “The most obvious would be the grooms ex girlfriend or maybe his mother, but even both of them seem to have had a decent relationship with Kelly even if they had had squabbles in the past. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m stumped.”
“I know,” he said. “Try looking for a new angle. Sometimes that is all you can do.”
“I will,” I said. “I just wish I knew what sort of angle to look for.”
“You’ll figure it out, dear,” my mother said. “You’re smart. Smarter than you give yourself credit for.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. I sighed and looked at the time. “Looks like we need to get going if we’re going to make our spa appointment.”
“Ooh!” mom squealed. “I almost forgot! I’m so excited about our spa day!” She handed her glass of champagne over to Galigani, who happily drained it.
Mom gave Galigani a quick kiss on the cheek, and headed out to the parking lot. While we waited for the valet to bring my car, we gaze out at the Golden Gate Bridge.
“What a view,” mom said.
“I know. I love it,” I said, and I took a moment to breathe.
Mom looked at me quizzically. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I got a little winded for some reason. I probably should start exercising some. I didn’t realize how out of shape I have gotten since Laurie.”
“Kids will do that to you,” my mom said. “They drain your energy like little parasites, and then you have no time to actually take care of yourself. You used to run all the time. When was the last time you did that?”
“It’s been a while,” I said. “Okay, so I need to add that to my to-do list. Create a work out plan.”
“You and your to-do lists,” my mother teased.
The attendant returned with my car and we hopped in, excitingly heading toward the Pampered to Death Day Spa.
