I stood. “Good talking to you, Mr. Beadford, but I need to be going.”
“It’s Graham. James was the only Mr. Beadford in this family.”
“Okay, Graham it is,” I said. “I’ll probably see you at the funeral.”
“Right,” he said distractedly, opening one cupboard after another, now apparently looking for a glass.
I slipped out the back door and felt my tight neck muscles ease the minute I started down the wooden deck stairs. Even today’s dreary weather seemed brighter than that house of gloom.
From where I’d parked at the Kroger lot on the main highway, I’d watched Travis barrel by with Sylvia in the passenger seat of his Ford Explorer ten minutes after I’d arrived. Megan pulled up alongside me shortly after. I quickly explained about my visit with Sister Nell and what a new copy of her birth certificate might tell us.
We then made the trip to downtown Houston in separate cars and after we arrived at the Bureau of Vital Statistics near Reliant Stadium, we received visitor badges from security. Megan and I waited in line to make her application, and once she’d turned in her paperwork, we sat on one of the long wooden benches in the center of the waiting area. Nothing happened in a hurry in places like this. We’d be here awhile—Megan, me, and the cultural rainbow that is Houston. Browns, blacks, white and yellows, old and young, they were all here en masse, a steady flow coming and going, coming and going.
Megan sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “This may sound uncaring, but I feel relieved to be out of the house and away from my family.”
“You don’t sound uncaring to me. Right after Daddy’s funeral, my sister and I took a long weekend in California. Helped a lot. I suggest you reschedule your honeymoon as soon as you can. Where were you going, by the way?”
“Travis and I wanted to go to the Caribbean, but Dad handed us two first-class tickets to Hawaii before we could even make plans.”
“And how did Travis feel about your father making the decision for you?” I was remembering the argument I witnessed between father and son-in-law at the reception and wondered if that had been the source of their disagreement.
Megan said, “Travis is so easygoing, he had no problem with Dad stepping in. I had my heart set on snorkeling in Grand Cayman, but Travis said a sunny day was the same anywhere as long as we were together.” She smiled, then dropped her gaze to her lap and twisted her shiny gold wedding band. “I can’t imagine celebrating our first anniversary. It will seem like I’m betraying Dad if we enjoy ourselves.”
“Time will help.” I fell into silence, troubled by her describing Travis as “easygoing.” I hoped Megan wasn’t in for the kind of surprises my former husband had served up not long after we were married. The ex had added new meaning to the phrase
“You and Travis seem very much in love,” I finally said.
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How did you meet?”
She smiled. “On a blind date I set up for Margie—you remember Margie?”
“Maid of honor?” I said.
“Right. Anyway, Holt McNabb works for my dad, and one day when I visited the office, Holt asked me out. I’d never been attracted to him, but Dad thought I should give him a chance since Holt had expressed interest in dating me. I suggested Holt set up Margie with one of his friends and we could all do a movie or something. Margie’s blind date turned out to be Travis, and the rest is history.”
“So Travis scored points with you when Holt couldn’t?”
“Yup. Travis and I couldn’t take our eyes off each other the whole night.”
“Bet that bruised Holt’s over-the-top ego.”
“He did pout some, but he and Travis go back a long way and apparently Holt was usually the one stealing girlfriends. Travis figures they’re even now.”
“Ask me, you made the right choice.”
“You don’t like Holt?” she asked.
“Don’t know him all that well,” I said.
“He can come across as self-centered, but he’s been great for the business. Dad said Holt’s a born salesman.”
“Really? From the way he tried to sell himself to my sister you’d have thought he couldn’t sell Pepcid to a commodities trader.”
She laughed. “You always cheer me up, Abby. I’m so glad Travis convinced me to get help to search for my birth mother, because otherwise I never would have met you.”
This piece of news sure grabbed my attention. “So Travis convinced you to look for your mother?” I felt a small tightness in my stomach. Travis clearly told me the other night he found out who I really was only after the rehearsal dinner.
“When we first fell in love, I spilled out all my secrets,” she said. “I told Travis I’d been dreaming about meeting my birth mother ever since I’d learned I was adopted.”
“So he knew I was working for you when I showed up for the rehearsal?”
“Sure. Why?”
“No reason.” I decided it was time for a quick change of subject. I might have to discuss this little inconsistency with Travis later. “So when you met with Chief Fielder, did you recognize the woman in the drawing?” I wanted to add, “And do you think she looks like you?”
“No, and I never caught so much as a glimpse of that woman at the reception,” Megan said. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. Who could have invited her?”
So she didn’t notice the resemblance. No surprise. I once stared at a photo of my own birth mother unaware of who she was. I never picked up on our similar features even though they were literally as plain as the nose on my face.
Megan went on, saying, “Or was she even invited? The engagement picture in the newspaper appeared right before Christmas and had all the ceremony details, so I guess she could have crashed the wedding and followed people to our house afterward.”
“That seems an odd thing to do,” I said. “But maybe people crash weddings all the time and I’ve just never heard about it.”
Megan sat up straighter. “Abby, could she have possibly come to the wedding to kill my dad? Could they have known each other?”
“Maybe, but why pick a day with a house full of witnesses to kill him?” I replied.
“Doesn’t seem logical, does it?”
“And I would think that if you were planning to kill someone, you’d bring a weapon, not count on there being a room full of leaded crystal. I’m thinking your dad’s death resulted from an argument.”
“Yeah. Guess you’re right,” she said.
“When you talked to the chief this morning, did she mention whether she’d found anyone else who had seen this woman inside the house?”
“No, but she showed me a picture taken from the balcony and the woman was clearly visible, so today I gave her the names of the two people I recognized in that same photo. The chief said she’d schedule interviews with them this afternoon to see if they have any idea who the woman is.”
“Maybe Fielder will get lucky, but I saw a whole lot of photographs in her office. Hundreds of them. It’s almost like she has too much to sift through. Plus she’s investigating possible motives. That’s a lot on one cop’s plate.” Fielder was probably delving into Sylvia and James’s relationship, too. And though Megan seemed to think Holt was a favorite of James, those two sure weren’t happy with each other at the rehearsal dinner.
“The chief certainly acts like she knows what she’s doing,” Megan said. “She assured me she’d find the killer.”
“And she will,” I answered, sounding more confident than I felt.
“You want a Coke or something?” Megan asked.
“Sounds good.”
We went in search of a machine, and when we returned and sat down with our drinks, every preschooler in the waiting area decided we were worth staring at or clinging to—probably hoping we’d share our sodas.
