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“As far as I can tell, it’s stain-free. And yes, it’s gorgeous. Okay, I’ll see you in twenty minutes or less.” As I hung up and stood up, I could hear the sounds of women’s voices murmuring. Esmara was talking to Janet, and I had the feeling Janet would talk her ear off, she seemed so terribly lonely. With a sigh, I picked up my purse, pocketed my keys, and took off for the police station.
* * *
Millie ushered me into a quiet room in the station, where a small box of folders sat on the table. “Here we go.”
I stared at the meager contents. “This investigation didn’t seem to go far, did it?”
“Back then, a lot of them didn’t. We didn’t have DNA testing, or anything of that sort. I wasn’t part of the force, obviously, during that time. I’ve never even heard of that case.” She sat down next to me. “Let’s see, what do we have here?”
I flipped open the first file and shook out the pictures. There was a picture of Janet in her wedding dress, then several of her when she was found dead. Even though I had seen her ghost, looking at her lying there, neck bruised, eyes lifeless, her wedding dress spread out like a diaphanous shroud, gave me the chills. Seeing this, I wasn’t sure I could wear the dress. As much as I loved it, I’d stand at the altar, thinking about the woman who had been murdered in my dress.
“Well, there goes the dress,” I murmured. “Not going to be wearing it at my wedding after seeing these. Seeing it on her ghost is one thing. Seeing pictures of her sprawled dead in it on the floor is another.”
Millie glanced at me. “Are you sure? Did she say she didn’t want you wearing it?”
“No, but look…look at that picture. The dress deserves to be retired. It’s beautiful and tragic. If she hadn’t died in it, it would be a different matter. Vintage wear doesn’t put me off in the least. Butdyingin a wedding dress…now that I think about it, that gives me a bad feeling. I’m superstitious.” Disappointed, I pushed the thought about the dress out of my mind. I could find another. But I still intended on sticking to my promise to Janet.
“Let’s see,” Millie said, glancing through paperwork. “They interviewed the fiancé, the father, every guest there, and most of them had perfectly good alibis for the time frame. The father didn’t, but he was on the road and they didn’t have cell phones back then. Common speculation pinned the murder on a stranger.”
“What motive, though? She wasn’t raped, was she?”
“No.” Millie flipped through more of the report. “And nothing appeared to be stolen. Someone wanted Janet dead.” She handed me several of the transcribed interviews. “Here, you take these and I’ll skim the others. Look for any names or potential motives.”
For the next hour, we skimmed the reports and interviews. By the end, my head was swimming and I could barely think.
“Well, that was a headache,” I said. “Why do they make the print so damned small?”
“Because back then, that was normal. You’re right, though. Reading these old typewritten interviews are a PITA. I need to have someone go through, scan them in, maybe analyze them for clues that would stand out today but possibly not back in the day. So, did you find anything?” She turned her last report upside down on the table.
“Not that I can see,” I said. “Oh, typical squabbles with some of her friends and peers, but nothing that stood out as out of the ordinary. What about you?”
“Two here. One, her friend DeeAnn was kicked out of the bridesmaid brigade when she told Janet that she was pregnant. Back then, unwed mothers were taboo, at least outside of the hippie community. Apparently, DeeAnn had too much extracurricular fun. And the second incident surrounded Sirus’s bachelor party. One of the strippers showed up at the church an hour before the wedding demanding pay-off money or she’d gatecrash the wedding and let go with every single thing she knew about both the bride and groom.”
“Blackmail, eh? And what did she find out?”
“The stripper’s name was Candy. Original, huh? Anyway, she vanished before the police could question her. As far as how the station found out about her, one of the ushers told a detective about the incident. But he had no clue what Candy knew, since Sirus hurried her into a private room to talk to her. The usher—a Rick Rhymes—thinks that Sirus paid her off.”
“Did the detectives ask Sirus about the stripper?”
Millie shook her head. “Things were different back then. It says that George Fresco, the detective, talked to him about it but he cleared the stripper after that, without mentioning anything Sirus told him.” Millie pushed the files back from the edge of the table.
“I guess things were different back in the day?Boys will be boysand all that crap.”
“Oh, how I hate that phrase,” Millie said. “It’s the most misogynistic cliché ever used to let men off the hook for bad behavior.” She paused, then asked, “Your ghost…if I give you a list of questions, can you ask her about them? We might be able to get some idea of what was going on around that time.”
“Sure, email them to me.”
“Good. As soon as I think of some, I’ll let you know. Now, about her fiancé.”
“What about him? He sounded genuinely sad when I mentioned Janet to him.”
“January, even Ted Bundy was sad about some things—about getting caught, for one. Listen, you need to be cautious.”
I frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“Think about it. He was a suspect, of course.” She shook her head. “I have a sense that he knew more than he wanted to tell the cops.”
“But they cleared him. He was waiting at the altar during the time she was murdered.” I thought for a moment, then said, “Oh…you’re thinking a hit man?”
