Wedding Bell Blues Read online

  CHAPTER 3

  “You don’t need security,” I said with conviction. “You need Delta Force. Maybe CentCom at MacDill will rent them out.”

  Antonio’s expression fell.

  “If you knew about their feud,” I asked, “why did you agree to host their reception?”

  “I did not know. Mrs. Burns exhibited tension and made some hints of disagreement when she came in to book the banquet room and select the menu, but strain is often present between prospective in-laws. I thought nothing more about it until my sous-chef recognized the names on the calendar and alerted me. He lives down the block from them and has witnessed their neighborhood turf wars.” Antonio spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “By then, the contract was signed.”

  “I hope it includes a healthy damage deposit.”

  “So you cannot help me?”

  I suppressed a sigh. What was the point of being in business if we couldn’t meet the client’s needs? “When’s the reception?”

  “The last Saturday of the month.”

  I thought for a moment. With Bill and me and Abe Mackley, who’d indicated an interest in working with us after his retirement, I’d have a force of three. And Adler, with one toddler and a new baby on the way, might want to earn some extra cash.

  “How many guests did you say?” I asked.

  “Two hundred.”

  “Are you serving liquor?”

  Antonio’s face paled. “Champagne and an open bar.”

  Fifty people apiece, in varying stages of hostility and inebriation, for us to keep tabs on. “And exactly what would you expect security to do?”

  “Mingle with the guests. Watch for signs of problems. Escort troublemakers from the room to cool off. If they do not, bar them from reentering. And, but only as a last resort, call the police. Sophia’s has a reputation to maintain.”

  Recalling the long history of bad blood between the two families, I recognized the very real potential for someone being seriously hurt, not to mention damage to the restaurant.

  “Give me a day or two. I’ll see if I can put together a team. If not, I’ll find a good security firm to recommend.”

  Antonio’s relief was palpable. “Thank you, Detective Skerritt.”

  “Just Maggie now,” I said and headed for the door. “I’ll be in touch.”

  After leaving Sophia’s, I returned to the Dock of the Bay for my ancient Volvo and drove north on Alternate Nineteen. Just south of the country club, I turned into an older and less elegant neighborhood, filled with Spanish-style homes from the thirties and forties with stucco exteriors and clay tile roofs. With almost every square inch of property already built out in the county, these houses, which would once have been affordable to the working class, now sold for over three hundred thousand. Garth Swinburn, Alicia’s fiancé, had either inherited his or earned a generous income.

  I parked in the driveway beneath the shade of a spreading live oak bearded with Spanish moss and followed a mosaic-tile walk to the front door. With its walls a cheerful Tuscan gold and roof of terra-cotta, the house had a lush lawn and attractive, tropical landscaping. Although decades old, it had been well maintained and had a welcoming appearance, a home most brides would appreciate, so I doubted that disapproval of the real estate had played a part in Alicia’s flight.

  I rang the doorbell and waited. Jeanette had told me Garth would be here, since he ran his computer consulting business from home. I was beginning to think he’d left to make a house call, when the heavy wooden door with its tiny wrought iron-covered window swung open.

  Standing on the threshold was a tall, gangly man in his mid-twenties. His sandy hair stood in unruly peaks, as if he’d recently run his fingers through it, his feet were bare, and he was dressed in khakis and the most obnoxious plaid shirt I’d ever seen. His eyes were glazed with the look of someone who’d just awakened or been pulled from the depths of concentration. With his thick glasses, he reminded me of guys who, in my youth, would have worn plastic pocket protectors and carried slide rules on their belts. Nerds, we’d called them. I didn’t know if the term was apt in today’s lingo, but Garth definitely had a geeky air about him.

  Until he smiled. His welcoming look brightened his face and exuded warmth. The kid was a charmer.

  “Ms. Skerritt?”

  I nodded. “Garth Swinburn?”

  “Come in,” he said. “Mrs. Langston said I should expect you. Have you found Alicia?”

  He sounded so hopeful, I hated to disappoint him. “I don’t work quite as fast as those computers of yours. This may take a while.”

  “Of course.” He blushed until the tips of his ears turned red. “Silly of me. I was just hoping—”

  “Can you answer a few questions?”

  “Sure. Anything to help. Come in.”

  I stepped through the open door into a completely bare living room. Not even draperies on the windows, just a high sheen on the hardwood floors. He must have seen the surprise in my expression.

  “The only room that’s furnished is my office,” he said. “I even sleep there. I’m waiting for Alicia to decide how she wants to decorate.”

  From the way he spoke her name, I could tell Garth was crazy about his fiancée.

  We crossed the living room, passed through a newly remodeled kitchen and stepped into a sunny family room at the back of the house. Every flat surface was covered with monitors, computers, piles of software, boxes of parts and rolls of cables. The only uncluttered spots were a rolling stenographer’s chair and a sofa topped with a pillow and blanket.

  Garth tossed the sofa bedding to one side and offered me a seat, then settled into the chair. “I’m worried sick,” he said.

  “You still haven’t heard from Alicia?”

  His shoulders drooped, and he shook his head. “I can’t believe she’d just walk out without saying something. She’s not a callous person.”

  “According to her mother, her note said she was trying to ‘find herself.’ Maybe she has to figure out what she wants to do.”

  Garth looked doubtful. “I don’t get it.”

  “You had no clue she was unhappy?”

  “She wasn’t unhappy,” he insisted. “Just the opposite. She seemed to be walking on air. I figured she was glad to be finishing her dissertation and looking forward to our wedding. That’s why I’m so worried. I don’t believe Alicia left of her own free will.”

  “How do you explain the voice-mail message and the written note?”

  He scratched the tip of his nose. “Someone could have forced her to leave them.”

  “Did Mrs. Langston share them with you?”

  He nodded. “I insisted we call the police.”

  “You think Alicia left the messages under duress? Could you hear it in her voice, tell it from her writing?”

  Garth thought for a moment, then shook his head. “She sounded normal, and her handwriting looked typical.”

  “Then why your conviction that someone’s taken her against her will?”

  He confronted me with guileless brown eyes. “Because Alicia wouldn’t do this to me or her parents. She knows how much pain it would cause. Like I said, she’s not a thoughtless or selfish person.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “The night before she disappeared. We had dinner at Angellino’s.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  His face reddened again. “I did most of the talking. I was excited about new software I’m developing for user-friendly multi-computer interfacing with business applications and told Alicia all about it.”

  That conversation might have put the girl into a deep sleep but not necessarily on the run. “And what did Alicia talk about?”

  “Alicia’s not like most girls.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He scrunched his face as if searching for the right words. “She isn’t into fashion and trends.”

  “Then why the big wedding with all the bells and whistles?”
<
br />   He grimaced. “Her mother’s idea. You know how it is.”

  Boy, howdy, did I ever. I nodded and tried to ignore the sympathetic clenching in my gut. “So she wasn’t looking forward to it?”

  Garth shook his head. “But she didn’t really mind it too badly. She wants to make her mother happy. Alicia’s like that, always thinking of others. And always looking inward, as if material things don’t matter.” He flushed again. “Since I’m usually neck-deep in my work, we make a good pair. Not exactly social butterflies.”

  So good a pair that she left? “You were about to tell me her topic of conversation that night.”

  “Right.” He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his ankle resting on his knee, giving me an eye-level view of his bare size-thirteen foot. I contemplated popular mythology and wondered about their sex life but was smart enough to know what not to ask.

  Garth leaned forward. “Alicia was expounding on one of her favorite themes that night—who am I and why am I here? You ever ask yourself those questions?”

  “Only when I’ve had too much to drink.”

  He flashed his boyish grin again, reminding me of Adler, another point in Garth’s favor. “Until our dinner at Angellino’s, Alicia had worried that she’d never find the answers. But that night she said she thought she’d discovered the key.”

  “Did she say what it was?”

  “Nope. Said she didn’t want to talk about it further until she was sure.”

  “Did she say where she’d been, what she’d been doing, who she’d been talking to?”

  “Like I said, we talked mostly about me.” His expression spasmed with distress. “God, it just hit me. You think that’s why she ran away? Because I talk too much about myself?”

  I felt sorry for the kid. “I don’t know enough about Alicia to form an opinion yet.”

  “I should have paid more attention to her.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up.” He was male, after all. His self-absorption was in his genes. And his jeans. “And don’t jump to conclusions. Wait until you’ve talked to Alicia.”

  “You have to find her.”

  “I’m planning on it.”

  “Have you talked to her friends?”

  “Mrs. Langston gave me a list. Anyone in particular I should start with?”

  “Julianne Pritchard.” He lifted his hand and crossed two fingers. “She and Alicia are like this.”

  “Have you talked to Julianne?”

  Garth nodded. “She says she doesn’t know where Alicia is.”

  “She might know other facts that will help. I have her address.”

  Garth checked his watch. “Julianne’s probably still at work. She waits tables at Hooters in Clearwater.”

  His worry was palpable, so I tried to reassure him. “Julianne may know something that will lead me to Alicia.”

  “I hope so.” His expression turned grim. “If not, my gut tells me Alicia’s in real trouble.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I left Garth’s house, headed east to U.S. 19, then turned south. What had, in my childhood, been a bucolic drive along a country road through pastures and citrus groves was now six lanes under construction of wall-to-wall traffic hell. Our local politicians referred to it as progress. I figured for every minute I spent on that route, another hair on my head turned gray.

  I exited at the cloverleaf at Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and turned left onto another six-lane nightmare. Between tourists who hadn’t a clue where they were going and the over-ninety retirees whose licenses should have been revoked years earlier, my commute reminded me of the bumper-car rides at the county fair, minus the element of fun. I said a silent prayer of thanks that my old Volvo was built like a tank and considered the odds. I’d been rear-ended two months ago, so statistically I wasn’t due for another crash soon, unless I turned out to be one of those unfortunate anomalies.

  With a sense of relief, I parked in Hooters’ lot and turned off the engine. Every time I survived a drive through the county, I felt the urge to carve a notch in my steering wheel.

  The Hooters parking lot and restaurant were almost empty at mid-afternoon. The lunch crowd had left and happy hour hadn’t started. I stepped into the dim interior and inhaled the odor of stale beer, fried onions and cooking grease while my eyes adjusted. A large-screen television over the bar was tuned to a golf tournament with the commentary muted. Raucous music blared through the sound system. The place lived up to its slogan of “Delightfully Tacky Yet Unrefined.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  “Can I help you?”

  Perky was the only word to describe the waitress who greeted me. About five foot five with long legs, tiny waist and generous breasts, all accentuated by the Hooters uniform of hip-hugger shorts and cropped, tight T-shirt, she could have been a cheerleader for the NFL. With long, straight hair, however, this was no dumb blonde. Intelligence shone in her clear gray eyes.

  “I’m looking for Julianne Pritchard.”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Maggie Skerritt, a private investigator. Jeanette Langston hired me to find Alicia.”

  “Oh.” Uncertainty replaced her welcoming look.

  “Is there a booth where we can talk?”

  “Why do you want to talk to me?” Reluctance edged her voice, not exactly the response I’d been expecting.

  “Garth Swinburn said you and Alicia are close. I thought you might have some clue to where she’s gone.”

  She looked over her shoulder, then back at me, obviously uncomfortable. “I could lose my job, talking to you here.”

  I glanced around the room, empty of patrons except for a middle-aged man, drinking beer and eating pretzels at the bar. “I’d hate to be a stumbling block in your illustrious career.”

  “This job is only temporary, but I need it until I get a permanent one. I have an accounting degree,” she added, getting huffy, “and have interviewed with several firms.”

  Take that, you lowly private investigator.

  Unintimidated by the budding number cruncher, I plowed on. “This won’t take long.”

  With a sigh of resignation and the apparent realization that I would stick to her like a tick on a dog until I got answers, Julianne led me toward the rear of the dining room and called to the bartender, “I’m taking my break.”

  I slid into a booth in the back corner and Julianne sat opposite me as if on springs, ready to bounce off at the first excuse. Her gaze flitted to the wall behind me, out the window, down to the floor. Anywhere except looking me in the eye. I didn’t have to be a trained investigator to know a guilty conscience when I saw it.

  “So,” I said in a casual tone that I hoped would put her at ease, “tell me about Alicia.”

  “What about her?” Julianne’s gray eyes narrowed with belligerence.

  “Her mother and Garth claim you’re her best friend.”

  “So?” She packed a truckload of hostility into one little word.

  “So any idea where she may have gone?”

  “Not a clue.” Her glance to the right, again avoiding my eyes, assured me she was lying through her lovely pearly whites.

  For a moment I said nothing, allowing the falsehood to hang in the air and watching Julianne fidget.

  “Okay,” I said after letting her stew in her fib until she looked ready to jump out of her skin, “let’s cut the crap. I don’t have time for this and you have to get back to work. You know where she is, don’t you?”

  Julianne jutted her chin upward. “You’re not the police. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged with a no-skin-off-my-back attitude. “As long as you’re certain she’s safe.”

  Julianne’s bravado evaporated. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not a cop now, but I was one for twenty-three years. I’ve seen the terrible things that can happen to a young woman when she’s cut off from her family and friends.” I shrugged and started to push to my feet. “But as long as you’r
e convinced she’s okay.”

  “Wait!”

  I eased back onto the bench.

  Julianne looked ready to cry. “I promised Alicia I’d keep her secret.”

  “From everything I’ve been told, Alicia is a caring young woman. Why would she want to keep her whereabouts secret from those who love her most?”

  “They made her sign a covenant that she wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “They?” I watched Julianne’s inner debate between ratting on her friend and worry over Alicia’s safety play out across her face.

  Finally, she exhaled a deep breath, the battle won. “Grove Spirit House.”

  I knew where it was, in the middle of one of the last remaining orange groves in Pelican Bay, but other than the fact that it was some type of religious retreat, I knew nothing about the recently built facility. Most folks in town had been relieved when the new owner hadn’t cleared the grove for development. After learning that the greenbelt would be spared, interest in the property and its owner had faded.

  “Maybe,” I suggested, “you’d better start at the beginning.”

  The front door opened and a crowd of young men entered and staked out two tables in the middle of the room.

  Julianne stood. “I have to get back to work.”

  “Can I talk to you later?”

  Her attitude seemed torn, but whether between the desire to get rid of me or to share her concerns about her friend, I couldn’t tell.

  “My shift ends at eight,” she said. “I’ll be home by eight-thirty.”

  “I have your address. I’ll see you then.”

  To avoid further thrills on U.S. 19, I took Old Coachman Road after leaving Hooters, then threaded my way along backstreets into the eastern fringes of Pelican Bay and the entrance to Grove Spirit House. The twenty-acre enclave of orange trees was surrounded on three sides by subdivisions and the fourth by a large lake. The only access was a driveway of crushed shells that had once led through the groves to a rustic fruit stand, roofed in palm fronds, where the previous owners had sold fresh citrus, jellies and orange-blossom honey.

  Today an eight-foot chain-link fence ringed the entire property, and I doubted its purpose was to discourage fruit theft. Although unripe oranges adorned many of the trees, the branches weren’t pruned, and the rows between the trees, filled with high weeds, clearly hadn’t been cultivated in years. Whoever owned Grove Spirit House had a serious chunk of change, because the undeveloped land alone, a scarcity in the county, was worth millions, whether the grove was productive or not.