Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alexandru
The Richardson Photography area is staged like a drawing room, complete with tufted chairs and Persian rugs of abominable quality. Along the back wall hang photographic banners of laughing brides, their eyes shining with delusion.
Ms. Renfield flips through a book of photographs, photo after photo of weddings. Couple after couple, beaming out at the camera.
“Got it!” She stabs a photo. “This is the runaway cart wedding.” She angles the book toward me. “Before it happened. See the cart up there? You can just see it at the top of that steep hill.”
I examine the photograph. People in bright clothes are assembled around the gazebo at the base of the hill in the foreground, some frozen in laughter, raising glasses to their lips, and so forth.
There’s a path that curls up the side of the hill, turning into stairs at one point, leading up to the so-called bluff, which looms above the park.
She taps a figure up top. “That’s Whitney Sternell, the wedding planner, with the dramatic white skunk streak in her hair. Interesting that she’s up there.”
I memorize this Whitney’s face.
Ms. Renfield turns a page, and then another, scanning through the photos.
“Most of these images are cropped so that you can’t see the hilltop above, but look, there’s another one with the cart.
Amanda and Isaac were right: it’s always parked parallel to the hill.
At some point, somebody had to have turned it, released the brake, and pushed. ”
“Where is the bartender? Kip Kidderson? Show him to me.”
She points out a man with artfully disheveled hair and a fashionable suit.
“A dandy,” I say.
“Yeah, I guess he is.”
“Hmmm.”
We find a few photos where Kip and Whitney are in the service area up on the bluff. “This is suspicious, is it not?”
“Yeah, but it’s also legit they’d be up there. Whitney would be overseeing everything, and it looks like Kip’s getting bottles from the truck.”
“Then who are these people down at the bar?”
“Those are his workers. Kip runs the alcohol operations—mixology, as he likes to call it.”
“So he’s more than a bartender. He’s an owner,” I observe.
“Yeah, I always think of him as a bartender because that’s how he started, but he is also the owner. The boss.”
“Why, then, would the boss be running up and down that hill, getting new bottles and so forth? Would he not send an underling?”
“I suppose that’s a good point. Why not send one of the kids? Though maybe he wanted to steal away for a smoke or something. That’s always possible. But, yeah, that is interesting.”
I study the unsuspecting humans who will soon be covered with discarded food. Which is her grandmother?
She turns to another set of pictures. “This is the wedding where the curtains got set on fire,” she whispers. “I don’t see Whitney. And no Kip.”
“These photographs look like all the rest. I see no fire.”
“Well, they’re not going to have pictures of disasters in their book.”
A woman with giant bright red glasses and a rectangular paper on her chest that says Valerie walks up and takes my measure, slow and suspicious.
“I love seeing these pictures of Mandy and Jim Gordon’s wedding,” Ms. Renfield says.
Valerie’s pulse rate goes up. Defensive. Upset. “You know them? Were you there?”
“No, but I heard it was beautiful.”
“It was a beautiful wedding. We got some wonderful pictures. There was a bit of an unfortunate accident at the reception, but it was lovely all the same. This shot’s my favorite.
” She shows us an image of the couple in the corner of a large ballroom.
The man sits on a bench with his back to the wall. The bride’s head is in his lap.
“She has fainted,” I observe. “Terrified, perhaps, of the marriage bed.”
Valerie blinks.
“Such a joker!” Ms. Renfield says. “Actually, we did hear about the fire. And that Chief Knox found traces of accelerant and concluded a photographer had spilled equipment cleaner near a candle.”
Valerie’s anger burns hot and fast. “He may have concluded it, but it’s complete bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French.”
“That is not French,” I point out.
“Chief Knox doesn’t know jack shit about how photographers operate,” Valerie says.
“For one thing, I can guarantee you that professional photographers do not clean their equipment during a wedding. That’s not something that would ever happen.
And then a guest randomly moved a candle near the curtain?
” She makes a furious wiping motion. “Never mind, though.”
Ms. Renfield nods sympathetically.
“And not only did nobody actually see us cleaning cameras by the curtain, but they have no idea what the accelerant was—it was too degraded to tell whether it was cleaner or rubbing alcohol or strong vodka. But hey! It was a long time ago, and I’m not going to worry about it,” she says cheerfully, but it’s a lie. She’s boiling about it.
“Totally get it,” Ms. Renfield says. “Do you remember who else worked that wedding? Did Whitney Sternell do the wedding planning?”
“Maybe. I don’t know, why?”
“Research,” Ms. Renfield says innocently. “If we were interested in seeing other photos from a specific past wedding, do you guys have some kind of archive? Like all the outtakes and discarded photos?”
“Nothing that we’d be able to show anyone.” Valerie tries to act calm, but her alarm is spiking.
I find myself intrigued. Is she hiding something?
Ms. Renfield frowns exaggeratedly. “I’m sorry you were wrongly blamed.”
“Thank you,” Valerie says. “The idea that Manny or I would clean our cameras during an event and slosh cleaning fluid all over is ridiculous. That’s like if you went to a gala and decided to wash your hair right in the middle of the dance floor.”
“Did you explain that to Chief Knox or ask him for some sort of rationale?” Ms. Renfield asks.
Valerie huffs out a harsh breath. “I’ve forgotten all about it. Let me know if you have any other questions.” She wanders off to talk to a pair of women sitting in the living room arrangement.
“Welp! Don’t need predatory emotion-sensing abilities to figure out that she has not forgotten about it.”
“She’d shout it from the hilltops if she could—but she can’t. Her anger is as intense as it is throttled.”
Ms. Renfield sharpens her gaze on me. “Throttled?”
“She wants badly to lash out, but something stops her.”
“Harlan?”
“It could be that. Or it could be self-preservation. People who protest too loudly are often the first to burn.”
Her dark brows knit. “Okay.”
She goes back to paging through photographs. “I don’t see Whitney or Kip in any of these pictures, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.” She closes the book, eyes gleaming with the thrill of a new lead. “We have to find out if they were there.”
“Agreed.”
“And I’d love to get you in a room with Chief Knox. Sounds like he rushed to judgment. And why wouldn’t the fire marshal pursue the arson angle? Isn’t that a central job duty? Did someone put the kibosh on the investigation?”
“There was something else interesting about our conversation with Valerie.”
Ms. Renfield perks up at this. “What would that be?”
“There’s something about the archives that makes Valerie very nervous.”
“Really?”
“A sense of something hiding in there,” I say. “And she wants to keep it hidden. It was very interesting. Could she be our culprit?”
“I don’t see how. She wasn’t present at a good half of the weddings.
And not only was she not present, but she was likely working at other weddings at the time, some of them out of town.
Richardson Photography has three employees and a bunch of assistants, and they work weddings in different combinations.
Sometimes it’s Valerie and Roy. Sometimes it’s the owner, Bo, and Roy. Sometimes it’s Roy and Manny, etc.”
“Nevertheless, I think we should consider Valerie to be a suspect.”
“But don’t you see? The spreadsheet specifically rules her out.”
“My gut rules her back in. There’s something secret in the archives.”
“Couldn’t it be something as simple as her being embarrassed by her earlier efforts at photography?”
“It’s more,” I say.
Ms. Renfield relents and makes a note of it.
The bridal exposition grinds on, a relentless parade of pastels, florals, and sugary treats, all in service of love and the illusion of forever, for a species whose lifespan barely exceeds that of a gnat.
Villagers flit from booth to booth, weighing fabrics and florals. Some hold clipboards and notebooks. Others tap at electronic ledgers like Ms. Renfield’s.
Ms. Renfield scans the room like a tactician—eyes sharp, posture efficient, so intent on this mystery of hers. I’ve never known a Renfield to be interested in anything other than securing their own comfort or doing things to gain my favor or avoid my wrath.
A woman selling paper garlands regards us approvingly.
“I suppose it is convenient that these people think we’re betrothed,” I observe. “Ridiculous as it may be. The human brain grows complacent at the sight of a mated pair.”
“I was wondering…” She pauses here.
I look down at her, drawn by the spike of heat and curiosity, and what is this? Embarrassment?
“I was just wondering,” she says. “Do vampires mate? Or you know...”
I smile. Aha. “Ask what you really want to ask, Ms. Renfield.”
Her pulse quickens. “I think you know what I’m getting at.”
“I think I do. Do I enjoy bedding a woman? Do I make a practice of it?”
She rolls her eyes. “Forget it, don’t tell me.” She sets off walking again. “If you want to alley cat around, that’s your business. Also? No more telling people we’re hunting a serial killer.”
“So you don’t want to know?”
“I’m good!”
“Little liar,” I say.
She spins around. “Don’t read me.”
“How can I resist? You are so desperately curious.”
She rolls her eyes.