The Silent Bride

survival rifle or the .38 revolver that went with the ammunition boxes. Second, the next flight to New York was canceled. They finally got out at nine P.M. on a Cape Air flight to Boston in what looked like the smallest plane ever made. They caught the last shuttle back to New York and got into the city at midnight. Third, Lori Wilson was with them all the way so they had no time alone.

Forty-nine

D

own at One PP in the Hate Unit when Lori Wilson finally understood she wasn't going home anytime soon, she broke down and admitted that she'd known about the guns.

'But I never shot one. They scare me shitless; I'm not kidding,' Lori insisted.

Lori was bleary-eyed weary, but so was April, and she wasn't letting the girl loose until she gave up everything she had. April and Mike had split up. April was doing the questioning with the tape recorder on, for the record this time. Mike and Inspector Bellaqua were having a preliminary conversation with the Manhattan DA about the recovery of the guns and options vis-a-vis Wendy Lotte. Everything was heating up.

'When were the guns transported to New York?' April asked for the thirtieth time.

'I don't know. I told you. I didn't like them. I stayed away from the whole thing.' Lori glanced at the tape recorder. Since the morning, she'd cleaned up. She was wearing jeans and a jacket now. April could see that she was a pretty girl with that WASP look so many Americans aspired to. Straight blond hair, blue eyes, pug nose, high cheekbones. She didn't know which end was up, though. The girl had no street smarts.

'How could you stay away from the guns if they were around all the time?' April tried not to tap her foot.

'I told you. They weren't around all the time. I never saw one in New York. Only on the Vineyard that one time.' Lori yawned, then belatedly remembered to put her hand over her mouth.

'When was that?'

'Back in April.'

'What were you doing on the Vineyard in April?'

'I told you that, too. We did a wedding there. At the Charlotte Inn.'

'Who was

we,

Lori?'

'Wendy, of course. Louis, Tito, that creepy guy, Ubu. They decorated the whole first floor with lilies and roses and hydrangeas. White, red, and purple were the colors. They did the garden, too, and it was freezing even with the heaters on.'

'So how many vehicles were involved?'

'I don't know. They had to bring everything in from the city. The Vineyard has nothing.'

'How many vehicles traveled up?'

Lori threw her hands up. 'I don't know. Ask Louis. I only saw his van. That's it. Maybe they shipped the rest.'

'Okay, who else was with you?'

Lori rubbed her nose. 'Only Kim.'

'Kim?' April said.

'Kim Simone. He makes the dresses.'

The new piece punched April in the gut. This late at night it was dead in the squad room, pretty dead in the whole building, in fact. She and Lori were sitting all the way in the back at a detective's desk by a window that overlooked some of the Wall Street area, and, beyond it, the Statue of Liberty.

'The wedding dress?' she said, taking it real slow.

'Uh-huh. It was a Tang Ling dress, but Kim copied it for her. Sometimes he did special orders for us as a favor. He wasn't supposed to knock off the dresses. I told you this already.'

April didn't tell Lori that no, she hadn't mentioned this at all. Sometimes they had no idea what was important. Tang Ling. She shook her head. So Wendy stole some of the wedding gifts just to keep her hand in, Louis had the flower concession, and Kim knocked off the dresses for those clients who didn't go directly to Tang. A racket all the way around.

'Okay, but why did Kim go to Martha's Vineyard with you?' she asked.

'Umm.' Lori stuck her finger in her mouth and sighed. 'Am I supposed to tell you all this? I don't want to get anybody in trouble.'

'We're way past that, Lori. What about the dress?'

'Ahh, well, Kim was supposed to make the dress and send it, like, on the Tuesday. The wedding was Friday. He sent it to Boston FedEx, but when the dress got there, it was too small. Kristen couldn't zip it up. By Thursday, of course, it was too late to send it back.'

'The bride lives in Boston?'

'No, Kristen lives in New York, but she was in Boston at the time. And two of the bridesmaids' dresses needed work, too; so Kim just called in sick and came with us on Thursday.'

'Did Kim make the bridesmaids' dresses, too?'

'No, but he said he'd do the alterations for Wendy.'

'Sounds like Kim does a lot of things for Wendy,' April remarked.

'Pretty much anything she asks.'

'Why?'

Lori shrugged. 'He likes her.'

'Okay so how did you travel up there?'

'We drove with Wendy. We had to, because Kim needed his sewing machine and all his, like, sewing stuff. It took up the whole trunk.'

No one mentioned this before. Kim and his sewing stuff.

'Why did everybody stay at Wendy's?' April asked.

'The bride's father wouldn't pay for a hotel for everybody, and Louis complained it was too expensive for him. So she gave in. Believe me, Wendy wasn't happy about it.'

'When did you start shooting the guns?' April moved on.

'I told you I didn't,' Lori insisted.

April gave her a cold look. 'Come on, Lori, you want to stay here all night?'

'I'm telling you. It was terrifying. That first night Wendy got so mad at Kim she shot a pistol into a pile of pillows right next to where he was sitting. I was never so scared in my life.'

'And what did Kim do?'

'You better believe he stopped complaining and got to work. Who wouldn't?' Lori said this as if April were some kind of dummy.

'What had Kim been complaining about, Lori?'

'Oh, a thousand things. Marriage is terrible. His wife is mean to him. His sister is dead. Whatever. He's a real pain in the ass.'

'Who else was there when Wendy fired the gun?' The recorder was taping, but April took quick notes. She always thought best with a pen in her hand.

'Ubu. Oh, my God, Tito! Louis. Everybody freaked. I thought Louis would have a stroke. The living room was just filled with these cans of water and all his flowers. And they were, like, leaping around insane, yelling at her to put the gun down.'

'What kind of gun was it?'

'I don't know, a pistol gun.'

'Did the gun have a silencer on it?'

'Hell no, it made a huge bang.' Lori paused for a few moments, remembering that big bang. 'And then the next day after the wedding everybody was out shooting in the woods. It started to rain and they put on these gray ponchos and kept shoodng. It was just

weird.'

'Everybody except you.'

'Yeah. Everybody but me. Wendy told me I better not say anything about it because shooting was illegal, or something.'