“Yes, sir,” Darryl answered. “I felt his neck. Da skin is cold and stiff. Like it’s frozen or sumptin’.”
Apparently, that description told Lance everything he needed to know, because Darryl silently passed the phone back to me.
“Well?” I asked Lance. “Are you coming out here or not? By the way, we’re in one of the water towers by the main house. The one on the right if you’re facing the front door.”
“I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” Lance said. “Stay put, okay?”
Although the idea didn’t thrill me, I knew it was for the best. Better to stay near a body than tramp around the scene and mess up the evidence. There’d be time enough to tell Lorelei and her mother about our discovery once Lance arrived at the house.
“Please hurry up. There’s supposed to be this big wedding here today and everyone’s already worried because they can’t find the groom.”
“I’m on my way.” With that, Lance clicked off the line, leaving me to answer Darryl’s questioning looks as best I could.
“Looks like we need to stay here until Lance arrives. But, for goodness’ sake, at least let’s move outside the tower. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
With that, Darryl and I carefully picked our way back through the doorway and stepped into daylight. It looked like it was going to be a very long day, and neither of us looked forward to it.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, Lance’s Buick Oldsmobile pulled up to the mansion, the removable lightbar on its roof twirling silently in the morning light. As always, the car wore a coat of red mud on the undercarriage that extended from one wheel well to the other. One of these days I’d convince Lance to visit the Sparkle N’ Shine car wash in town, but not today.
By the time he arrived, I’d already called Ambrose at his design studio and filled him in on the morning’s events. My fiancé offered to drop everything and race out to Honeycutt Hall to be with me, but I talked him out of it. There was nothing he could do. Plus, he needed time at his studio to catch up on all his wedding orders, since we were smack-dab in the middle of the wedding season and Saturday was the busiest day of the week.
Once I calmed Ambrose, I hung up the phone and rehearsed what I could possibly say to Lance. By now, the detective knew me as the girl with the uncanny ability to find dead bodies. It was a reputation I didn’t ask for, and I surely didn’t want.
He appeared on the scene in his casual clothes, which included a pair of khakis and a navy polo. He strode across the browned grass, to where Darryl and I stood.
“Lance.” I nodded stiffly, since I knew my role by now.
While Lance and I normally joked about everything and anything, that changed the minute a police investigation commenced. Now, I was a witness and he was my interrogator, and I learned a long time ago not to take his strict tone personally.
“Missy.” He returned the nod. “And Darryl. I haven’t seen you in a long time. How’ve you been?”
“Good,” Darryl said. “Until today, dat is.”
“I understand. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll ask you a few questions.”
Lance led Darryl over to a patch of grass just out of earshot. I knew he’d separate us when he arrived, since that was the first thing a detective did when he or she came across multiple witnesses. That way, my recollection wouldn’t interfere with Darryl’s memories, and his memories wouldn’t color my statement.
The two men returned a few minutes later.
“Your turn.” Lance led me to the same spot where he had questioned Darryl.
“This is something, isn’t it?” I said. “I never dreamed I’d find another dead body when I came out here today.”
He nodded. “You have quite the talent for it. Why did you come out here today?”
“Lorelei Honeycutt is one of my clients. I made her veil for the ceremony today. She invited me to come out early, and I took her up on it. I wanted to tweak the bridesmaids’ hats and steam Lorelei’s veil before the ceremony. Guess that’s not going to happen now.”
Lance watched my face as he scribbled something onto a small notepad. He told me something a long time ago I’d never forgotten: a detective will study the face of a witness to determine whether she’s lying or not. If the person glances right, it means she’s pulling something from her memory. But if she glances left, it means she’s lying. Although I didn’t think Lance would question my truthfulness, he must’ve gotten so used to watching a witness that he did it as a matter of course now.
“I feel just awful about this,” I said. “Lorelei Honeycutt is such a sweet girl, and her mother is precious.”
“Hmmm. I’ve never dealt with them before.”
That didn’t surprise me. Like me, Lance originally hailed from Texas, and he’d only been working as a police detective for three years or so.
“What do you think happened to the groom?” I asked.
“I’ll know more once I examine the body. To the best of your knowledge, did anyone come or go from the water tower this morning?”
“Not that I know of. The door was shut tight, and nothing looked out of place. At first, I thought Wesley’s body was only a puddle of clothes. One of Darryl’s coveralls, to be exact. I have no idea how he ended up there, Lance.”
Lance flipped the notepad closed. Once he shoved it back in his pocket, he started to return to Darryl.
The houseman was still waiting for us by the tower, and he seemed relieved when Lance told him he could leave the scene.
“But please don’t mention this to anyone yet,” Lance said. “I want to be the one to break the news to the family.”
That was another tidbit I’d learned from Lance about police investigations. A detective assigned to a case normally told the family about someone’s death, so he or she could study the reactions of the next of kin. Some people were incredible actors, and they faked grief at the drop of a hat, while other people were unable to hide their emotions. Lance once apprehended a woman who murdered her husband, and she implicated herself when she couldn’t stop giggling during the interview. While that was an extreme case, it encouraged Lance to take the lead and announce a death himself.
Once Darryl walked away, I turned to him. “You know, this is going to devastate the bride. Even though…”
Lance watched me carefully. “Even though what?”
“Well, it’s probably nothing.” I was unable to shake the memory of Lorelei and Wesley arguing behind the hedge. “But I overhead the bride and groom fighting yesterday.” Far be it from me to keep any information I had from Lance. He trusted me to be as forthright as possible, and it was one of the reasons he’d include me in these investigations.
“What were they fighting about?”
“Apparently,
