Cho said, “You’re probably right and I don’t want to be annoying, but that could be postmortem seepage. The things I’ve seen on the job, anything’s possible.”
Milo thanked her and we headed for the stairs.
The driver with the aerial eyebrows said, “We good now?”
Back on the ground floor, Milo said, “Fentanyl or something like it. The shit’s all over the place, the Chinese are churning it out sending it to Mexico and the cartels are competing with Big Pharma. But there are still legit uses. Rick’s aunt was on patches for chronic pain when she was dying. Wonder if Doctors Stu and Marilee find it useful in family practice.” He blinked. “Wonder if there are veterinary applications.”
I palmed my phone, ran a search. “There are, same as for people. Chronic, intractable pain, surgical paralysis when appropriate.”
“So I keep the Burdettes on the table. Okay, let’s do the little sister and Ms. Leanza. After we see how Sean’s doing with the staff.”
Binchy was holding the attention of a table of people. Doing a little dance-step, gesticulating with both hands, adopting an air-guitar stance, keeping up a smiling patter.
When he saw us, he stopped abruptly. But I’d caught the tail end of his lecture.
“For my money, Rancid still rates as classic.”
Mining the riches of his ska-punk former life.
Milo drew him aside. “Anything iffy from any of them?”
“No tells that I picked up, Loot. Just the opposite, they’re coming across salt-of-the-earth.”
“Music fans.”
Binchy colored around his freckles. “That, too, but that’s not why I’m saying—”
Milo slapped his back. “Rock on, kid, just giving you a hard time. Got all their DMV data?”
“You bet.” He showed Milo a piece of paper, neatly hand-printed. “Surprisingly, every license is current but I haven’t had time to run any of them through—”
“We’ll do that later, Sean. Now I’m gonna meet your campers and go over what you did. No one blurts out a spontaneous, heartfelt confession, they’re free to go. Meanwhile, you go out back and collect all the auto data from the uniforms. Nothing iffy, you can head back to the office, leave all the info on my desk, and go home.”
“You’re sure, Loot?”
“Couldn’t be surer, you deserve some free time,” said Milo.
“I’m really okay, Loot.”
“Go, Detective. Hearth, home, wife, adorable offspring — oh, yeah, pull out the Fender bass, do a Rancid ditty, show it on YouTube — just kidding, Sean.”
The servers, bartenders, and janitors were Hispanic, except for the cocktail waitresses who were blond women around the same age as the bride. The deejay, a gaunt man in his twenties named Des Silver, wore a black velvet suit and a green porkpie hat. The photographer, a pudgy, patchily bearded young man in his twenties named Bradley Tomashev, wore an ill-fitting gray suit over a white T-shirt and cradled a Nikon.
No one unnecessarily avoiding eye contact or playing ocular pinball, no shaking legs, clenching and unclenching of fists, profuse sweating, tics, or other displays of undue anxiety.
That was just a spot evaluation and far from foolproof because psychopaths are better than most at staying calm under pressure and the more psychopathic, the colder their nervous systems. But you can’t hold on to people without evidence and with the crime feeling personal, the chance of a woman dolling up to attend a party where her significant other was on the job seemed remote.
Milo let everyone go, except the photographer.
Bradley Tomashev said, “If Brears is okay with it, yeah I can send you the file once I put it together. It’s going to take time, though. There’s tons of images.”
Milo said, “What we’re most interested in are crowd shots. Coming, going, and during.”
“Oh,” said Tomashev. “There are some but not a lot, Brears didn’t want that.”
“What did she want?”
Tomashev shifted in his chair. “Brears is my friend and she’s the bride.”
“Same question, Bradley.”
Tomashev sighed. “Don’t tell her I told you, okay? I don’t want to step in anything.”
Milo crossed his heart.
“What she wanted was basically herself. Along with a little of the normal stuff. Like the procession, the vows back at the church.”
“But otherwise, her.”
“She’s the bride, so whatever,” said Tomashev.
I said, “Speaking of vows, was the clergyperson at the reception?”
“Uh-uh, the church was like a rented thing, some old guy showed up and read the vows Brears wrote.” Tomashev scratched his chin. Curly, rusty hairs rustled. “She wanted what she wanted, I tried to give it to her. I’m not really a wedding photographer, sirs, this is basically my first.”
“Did you get paid?”
“No, sir. I was happy to do it.”
Milo said, “Well, even a few crowd shots would help.”
“I’ll look for them, sir, but I didn’t go out for those. Even with the dancing, she was always the focal point.”
“All about Brears.”
“She’s the bride,” said Bradley Tomashev. “My job was trying to make sure I honored that.”
He trundled off, still holding his camera like an infant.
Milo said, “Unhealthy attachment to Ms. Rapfogel?”
I said, “He does seem enamored but I don’t see that leading to murder. On the contrary, he’d want everything perfect for her.”
He thought about that for a while. Hooked a thumb to the final table.
Leanza Cardell remained seated, still engrossed with her hair and the remains of a four-ounce Martini.
Amanda Burdette was up on her feet well before we arrived, hustling toward us swinging her book and her yellow marker. Rapid but stiff walk. The shapeless dress bagged on her.
I got close enough to read the book’s title. Meta-Communication in the Post-Modern Society: A Comprehensive Ethologic Approach.
Milo muttered, “Beach read.”
She flipped the book. A diagonal sticker on the back said Thirsty. Waving the marker, she said, “I’ve got a test tomorrow, I go first.”
Milo glanced at Leanza. She drank and twirled, impervious.
“Sure.”
We brought Amanda to the far right corner of the room and sat. Milo motioned her to an empty chair.
She said, “I’ll stand. Been on my ass all day.”
Small plain girl with dark eyes as animate as coffee beans and a husky, strangely flat voice that verged on electronically processed. She’d piled her ponytail into a careless top thatch. Errant brown hair frizzed like tungsten filament. No makeup, jewelry, nail polish.
No eye contact.
Milo pointed to the book. “The test is on that?”
“No-oh. It’s on chemistry,” said Amanda Burdette. “Chem for dummies but still.”
“A challenge.”
“Staying awake is a challenge because it’s boring as fuck. Is any of this relevant? I don’t see it fitting the narrative.”
“What narrative is that?”
“Death at a wedding. I’m assuming unnatural death. Everyone is because of all the time you’re taking doing your police thing.”
Milo smiled.
Amanda Burdette said, “I didn’t realize I was being humorous.”
He showed her the picture of the dead girl.
She said, “That’s her.”
“You know her?”
“Nope, just acknowledging it’s her. Being phenomenological. As in you already showed me the same picture and I assume she hasn’t morphed or otherwise altered her molecular status.”
Milo looked at me.
I said, “You assume right. Any suggestions?”
“About?”
“The murder.”