Wedding Belles

“Here I go. Oh, Blake, I can’t stand it, I’m so excited, I’m gonna burst.”

“Honey, let’s hope not.” If this was how she felt picking up the license, we’d likely need to give her medication on her wedding day. We went inside and followed the signs down to the marriage license office.

As we walked through the door, Lewis stopped and held Vivi in front of him. “I love you, Red. Today’s our day,” he said with a grin. “We’re gonna be official. I am so happy, baby.” He leaned down and planted quite a kiss on her.

She blushed right up to her red-haired roots, then smoothed her dress over her five-month baby bump and laughed. “I’m so nervous. I changed clothes six times.”

“Well, you look gorgeous. Let’s do this.” Lewis was just as excited as she was.

We approached the lady at the counter. She looked to be around fifty-five, with straight brown hair cut in a severe bob. She scanned Vivi’s burgeoning belly. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry, you must have the wrong room. This is the office to apply for a wedding license.”

“And what the hell makes you think I’m in the wrong room?” Vivi snapped, but her eyes were smiling. She loved toying with people.

The lady looked down at Vivi’s tummy. “Well, I just, um...”

“Yes, I am pregnant and I am wearin’ white at the wedding, too.” Vivi was loving this. “Now can I apply for my marriage license, please?”

“To each his own. You can work out those details with your minister,” the woman said with disinterest. “Y’all got your information ready to go?”

“It’s all right here.” Vivi handed over her paperwork.

“And how about you, sir?”

Lewis was grinning like I had never seen him before. His face was flushed with joy as he lay down his documents. “Never been more ready than I am today.”

The lady studied the information and typed all the appropriate answers into the computer on the counter. After a few moments of awkward silence, she frowned at the screen and then cleared her throat.

“Well, sir, I’m not so sure about that. I think you may have been a little more ready about thirteen years ago,” the woman said, clicking a few more keys. She looked up at him. “The great state of Alabama frowns on bigamy, and you, sir, are already married. By the way, aren’t you our play-by-play announcer? Roll Tide.” She smiled.

“Wait. Already what? Did you just say my fiancé is already married?” Vivi repeated in shock.

“There is no damn way!” Lewis was livid, his face turning a blotchy red.

“This is a mistake,” Vivi said, her voice rising. “I have known him for every one of those thirteen years and he has never been married!” She was about to pitch a full-out conniption fit right here in the courthouse.

“Ma’am, I have never been engaged, much less married,” Lewis insisted. “A person would know that, I think.”

“Well, sir. This is your birth certificate. This is your social security number. It matches all the information you just gave me, right down to the signature. This wedding certificate belongs to you, alrighty.” She printed out a copy and handed it over to let Vivi and Lewis read it for themselves. “As you can see, Mr. Lewis Heart married Miss Tressa Mae Hartman in April of 1999. I have no record of a dissolution of marriage.”

Vivi turned white as a ghost and leaned into me. I held her up and walked her over to the bench just outside the room. I was fanning her with some pamphlet I had picked up, and she looked about ready to faint.

Lewis followed us, holding the evidence in his hand, his mouth still dropped open. “There is just no way in this world, no way,” he said again. “This can’t be real. I know it can’t.”

“Get me some water, quick,” I said. “Vivi’s gonna pass out.”

“Where’s the water? Where?” Lewis went into panic mode.

Great, I thought. Now they’re both flippin’ out.

“Oh, I see it.” He ran down the little hallway in his slick dress shoes, heading for the watercooler, when he wiped out completely and landed on his back. I could hear the breath leaving his body from twenty feet away.

Vivi was crying and muttering, “No, no, no.” She didn’t even see him fall.

“Lewis, oh, my God, are you okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” he groaned, stumbling to his feet. “I’ll get that water now.” He made his way hurriedly toward the watercooler down the hall, his dress shoes still slipping on the newly waxed vinyl floor of the Tuscaloosa courthouse.

He grabbed some pointy paper cups, filled two of them and ran back to us, sloshing water all over his chest and slip-sliding as he came. He was a mess.

“Here you go, baby.” He gave Vivi one cup. She was still hyperventilating.

“Lewis Heart, please tell me this is a mistake,” she begged.

“I swear, I can explain.”

“Explain? Oh, my good God in heaven!”

Vivi jumped up, turning beet-red, looking like she was ready to wring his neck. She faced him down with her hands on her hips. “You mean to tell me this is true? You’re married for real? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lewis, why haven’t you ever told me?”

She dropped back down on the bench, then leaned over onto me and began sobbing. “Why, Lewis? Oh, my God, why? We don’t have time for you to get a divorce before our wedding. It’s all over. I won’t have my wedding day, and I’m gonna have to birth this baby as an unwed mother.”

“Oh, honey,” he said, getting down on one knee in front of her. “Let me tell you all about it.”

“Yes,” I said, “I, for one, am interested in the whole sordid story.” I scowled down at him. My mind was racing. All this time I’d truly believed he was devoted to Vivi, but this news had thrown us for a loop. And this was my best friend we were talking about. There was no way I was gonna let this ass get off easy for hurting my Vivi.

Lewis clutched Vivi’s hands. “Okay, here goes. I sorta remember this.”

He had to be kidding. Sorta?

“Lewis, you gotta do better than that,” I said. Vivi’s head still lay on my chest, and my arms were wrapped around her protectively.

“I was, like, twenty-one, and we had this thing at my fraternity,” he began.

“This thing?” Vivi asked, finally sitting up.

“Well, we were all a bit drunk and someone teased somebody else that he was too chickenshit to get married. Things kind of went on from there, until the brothers at the frat decided to perform a fake wedding ceremony with our chaplain. So this dancer chick, Tressa was her name—”

“Yes, we heard,” I interrupted.

“Well, Tressa offered to be the bride and give a lap dance to the lucky groom.”

“Seriously?” Vivi snapped. “You took her up on that?”

“I was a kid! And I was drunk. I’m not saying it’s the best decision I ever made, but you know how I was back then. The wild one, the daredevil. We all had a bet that no one would go through with it, and I finally volunteered.”

“Always some sort of horny man bet. I hate that. We never behaved that way in college.” Vivi folded her arms and huffed. The truth was, we’d gotten in our own sort of trouble back then, but I wasn’t about to remind her now.

“Well,” Lewis went on, “I figured this guy was pretending to be a chaplain and fake-married us, or so I thought. He had us sign some joke certificate they’d drawn up and everyone toasted us. Then, she gave me my...uh...dance, and I left. I never saw her again.” Lewis was up pacing and shaking his head. “I thought it was all a big joke, but I guess the chaplain turned the papers in. He must have been a real preacher—and what he was doing at that party I will never understand. My God, I just can’t believe...” He sank down on the bench next to Vivi and covered his face with his hands.

“But that means... Well, this Tressa probably has no idea y’all are married, either,” I said, putting my lawyer hat on. “I do know one thing, though,” I added, looking at Vivi. “She’s not staying married.”

The two of them sat there in shock, trying to process the mud slide that had just knocked us off our feet.

“We have to find this woman,” I insisted.

“And what are we gonna do when we find her?” Vivi asked. “Show up and tell her, ‘Hey, you’ve been secretly married to the love of my life for thirteen years and, sorry, but we sorta need an annulment today. Just sign on the dotted line. Okay?’ Something tells me that won’t go over very well.”

I cringed, since that was basically my plan. “Look, I’ll see what I can find out about her, and then I’ll get back in touch with y’all. Go on to your meeting, Lewis, and we will call you later.”

“Vivi, you gotta believe me,” begged Lewis. “I love you! I don’t even remember what this girl looks like. It was so long ago, and it was a frat party, and I was twenty-one and stupid. Believe me, Red, I love only you.”

“I know you do, Lewis.” Vivi sighed. “I know it. Blake will help us. Right, Blake?”

Uh, yeah, I thought, nodding and smiling. Just tack it on to the list after “Plan the perfect double shower” and “Tackle the wedding of Vivi’s dreams.” No big deal.

But I knew that Vivi needed me and I wasn’t about to let her down. And I think it’s safe to say that Miss Myra Jean has a gift, for we most certainly had found the other woman.

4

Vivi and I flew back to her house, not even caring about the speed limit. We had a serious appointment with Google on my laptop.

We went inside, and Vivi got the going-to-war food of cookies and iced tea, while I ran up and grabbed my computer. After a couple of hours of snooping, I located one Tressa Mae Hartman in Birmingham, Alabama. Her age matched the woman we were looking for, and when we clicked on images after entering her name, we both nearly fell out of our chairs.

The picture that popped up on my screen was of a woman in her early thirties, brassy reddish-blond hair, frosted lips and a pound of eye shadow in shiny blue. Her pink cheeks made her look like the Little Drummer Boy, and she was wearing a bedazzled string bikini in camouflage...with a beeper from about 1990 attached to her hip. She was pointing at the camera like her finger was a pistol.

Vivi and I were physically unable to close our mouths. For several seconds.

I broke through my shocked stupor first. “Wow, I sure as hell thought Lewis had better taste than that, bless her heart.”

Vivi shook her head. “I’d say she’s had a nip and tuck and then some.”

“I didn’t even know implants came in those sizes,” I mused. “Surely they’re not real. How does she even stay upright?”

“Somehow, I don’t think upright is her favorite position,” Vivi groused.

“Now, Vivi, come on...” I chided, but I couldn’t hold back the fit of giggles that burst out of me. Once we’d managed to get our breaths back, Vivi turned back to the screen.

“It says here she’s a bar singer. And who names her kid after a shampoo, anyway?”

“I do believe there’s a bar singer in Birmingham who’s fixin’ to get the surprise of her life,” I said. “We’re gonna have us a road trip.”

My cell phone rang. It was Sonny Bartholomew, Tuscaloosa’s chief homicide investigator, my old high-school sweetheart and now full-time man of my dreams. As with the news of my separation, I’d been trying my best to keep my deepening relationship with Sonny under wraps while Harry was running for Senate, because, well, news of the candidate’s wife embroiled in a smokin’-hot love affair with the chief of Homicide doesn’t really help the campaign.

But the minute that election was over, my life would begin again.

“Hey, handsome,” I said. “I hope you’re having a better day than we are.”

“Well, it’s a hard day for a cop, too. We’re at the boat, and we’ve turned up some pretty substantial evidence on the Walter Aaron case.”

“Oh, my God, Sonny, I forgot to tell you. I have a meeting with them in just a few minutes!”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a bit much to go into over the phone. If you’re going to be at the river for a while, I could meet you after the Aarons leave.”

“Okay, beautiful, I’ll be here.” He hung up.

I loved how Sonny treated me. I know he couldn’t go into a lot of detail on an ongoing case, but, as much as it was allowed, he was willing to mix business with pleasure. He was able to work with me on some things, but he never demanded all the credit for something that I discovered. He always let me shine, too. So completely different from Harry.

“Vivi, sweetie, I gotta run out to the river for this case I’m working on. You and Lewis are still okay as far as time to file for the wedding license goes. We will get this girl to sign the annulment papers, and everything will be all right. I promise. We’ll go up to Birmingham as soon as we can. Just hang on tight. I’ll call you later.” It was already late in the day and I still had my real job to get to.

* * *

I arrived at my office and parked in the back, as usual. Heat rose up in shimmering waves from the pavement. I hated to leave the cold air-conditioning of my car even for the few seconds it would take to walk inside.

“Hey, Wanda Jo. I’m here,” I said to our secretary as I entered.

Harry and I own our little practice together. I had always dreamed of having a husband who could be my partner on every level. Harry was that, and more, when we first opened our office. Now, years later, we barely qualified as reluctant roommates who occasionally inhabited the same space.

“Y’all talk to the mystic this mornin’?” Wanda Jo asked as she brought in my Diet Coke.

“The psychic? Yes, and Vivi is beside herself.” I took a swig of my ice-cold drink.

“Oh, no, what did Myra Jean say? Is it bad news?” Wanda Jo stopped in front of my desk and looked at me.

“She said when it comes to Vivi’s marriage, there is another woman involved.”

“Oh, my Lord have mercy.” Wanda Jo sighed and sat herself down in one of my consultation chairs. “You know, I hate to say it, but Lewis was wild in his younger days. He’s changed, though, I thought, and he loves that Vivi so much.”

“I know. I told Vivi maybe she was having a girl and that was what Myra Jean meant.”

“Did she buy it?”

“Of course not. And guess what? We just went to the courthouse to get their wedding license and it turns out that Lewis is still married!”

Wanda Jo jumped from the chair. “Oh, my God, what do you mean still? That boy ain’t never been married far as I know.”

“Well, yeah, as far as he knew, too—until he remembered a college prank where he married a stripper as part of a joke.”

“Oh, Blake, that poor Vivi. What are y’all gonna do now?”

“Well, I’m gonna pay her a little visit as soon as I can.”

“Vivi is so lucky to have you.” Wanda Jo smiled at me.

“We’ll get this fixed and then we’re gonna have us a wedding to beat all weddings,” I said, smiling back at her, hoping I was right.

“Okay, then. I’ll let you know when the Aarons get here, and then I’m gonna put on the police scanner and listen for news of any new dead bodies.”

I looked at her in confusion. “Dead bodies?”

“Well,” Wanda Jo said with a smirk, “if Lewis can’t get this marriage annulled, it really might be him this time.”

5

Wayne and Wynona Aaron arrived right on time. Wanda Jo got everyone drinks and we headed into the conference room. The Aarons’ third sibling, Walter, had been killed in a barge accident two months ago and his body parts had washed up on the banks of the Black Warrior River. My cop, Sonny, always believed Walter was helped off that barge, but the barge company was trying to say he jumped. Sonny and his assistant homicide investigator, Bonita, were on the case like CSI, looking for clues about Walter’s death on the sequestered boat.

“Hey, y’all, so glad you could make it in today,” I said to them as I took my seat at the table across from them.

The older brother, Wayne Aaron, was a skinny man of average height with dark hair. His face was sad and earnest. “Thanks so much for taking our case, Ms. Heart. We tried to fight this on our own, but we got nowhere fast.”

The sister, Wynona, was the middle of the three children. She was quiet and rounder than her brothers. “We’re simple people. Not used to all this fuss, and we only want this settled as quickly as possible.”

I was trying to make sure I did just that, but I had a feeling this case was about to get really messy. “It’s not going to be easy. The barge company will not admit to any negligence, and since Walter had a perfect safety record, it’s become a battle to prove what happened. The insurance company will not pay out in cases of suicide.”

“Ms. Heart,” Wynona said, “there is no way my brother would ever take his own life. Even though we were somewhat estranged, we knew he was the happiest he has ever been. He was in love and talking about getting married.”

And there it was. The detail that could be the end of the Aarons’ case. “Do you know if he ever did get married?”

“Not that we know of. Why?”

“Because, if Walter did marry, and he changed his will, then the bride might be his new beneficiary. If he died before they officially tied the knot, then you two would inherit.”

“Oh, I don’t like the sound of this,” Wynona said. “People might get the wrong idea.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “The fact that your parents are dead and your uncle recently left Walter a huge inheritance already has the insurance company questioning suicide for his cause of death, though that’s still their preference. The possibility that Walter was pushed is being investigated by the police now. This new information about Walter maybe having a wife will give the insurance company even more reason to stall.”

“They can’t think we were involved,” Wayne protested. “We’ve already been cleared for the night of Walter’s death. Sure, things got a bit complicated between us since our uncle left the money to Walter, but, as we told the police, we haven’t been in touch with him, except by phone, for several months before he died.”

The open-and-shut inheritance case I had envisioned with the Aarons was quickly disappearing into the horizon. “We need to find out about this woman Walter might have married. See if there are pictures. A name. Something we can check into to clarify the situation.”

Wayne sighed. “I don’t remember him saying much about her other than he had only known her a couple of months. If he did marry that girl, it would have been the spur-of-the-moment. A real whirlwind thing.”

“Well, even so, there’s got to be a record somewhere.”

“We haven’t really gone through Walter’s effects,” Wynona chimed in. “Just kind of packed ’em up and shoved ’em in a storeroom. The thought of looking through all that stuff was too upsetting. There might be something in there, though.”

I perked up. “Well, that’s a great place to start. Go and see what you can find.”

“He sounded so in love,” Wynona added wistfully. “Why would his wife want to kill him if they just got married?”

“Money can motivate people to do desperate things,” I said. “Then again, we have absolutely no proof that she’s had anything to do with Walter’s death at all. Do either of you know if Walter had any enemies on the boat?”

“No,” Wayne said, getting upset. “Everyone loved him at work. He had been working that barge for over ten years. Walter did not jump, but I refuse to believe anyone killed him. I swear that barge company overlooked a safety measure and now they just don’t wanna pay. They are looking for every excuse under the sun to get outta settlin’ his insurance policy.”

“I hope you’re right, Wayne, but regardless, we still have a possible new beneficiary floating around out there. That issue has to be resolved,” I said. “For our next meeting, I will need any insurance papers you can find. Information on his death benefits and all the policies he had with the barge company or anyone else. Whatever you can’t find among his personal effects, I will subpoena. We will get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

I stood up and reached out to shake their hands.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Heart,” Wynona said as she shook my hand. “We couldn’t fight those folks on our own anymore, and things look like they’re getting a lot more complicated.”

I agreed. “Let’s meet in a few days. Call me when you have gathered your brother’s paperwork and we will set up a time. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find out anything from the police. I have some pretty good connections down there at the station, and they will assuredly want to talk to you about this mysterious woman.”

I walked the Aarons out to the front lobby and said goodbye. I told Wanda Jo I had to get down to the river.

I was sure hoping Sonny didn’t have another body part to show me. I was still recovering from the last one.

6

I made my way down to the dock, perspiration rolling down my chest. Women in the Deep South don’t sweat. We perspire. But let me tell you, we perspire a lot. One hundred and two degrees, with one hundred percent humidity—that’s the Deep South in August.

The cement walkway stopped just short of the barge, leading me onto a rocky path bathed in red dirt. Sonny and Bonita were hunkered down on the deck of the tugboat that was pushing the barge.

“Hey, Blake, glad you could get here. I heard you have some information regarding the Aaron case,” said Bonita, the gorgeous, plus-sized, African-American spitfire Sonny hired last spring. She had a degree in Criminal Justice from Tuskegee Institute where her parents were both professors. She was smart and highly opinionated and I knew from the start I liked her style.

She looked amazing in a cream-colored suit trimmed in black and big, dangly earrings. No one else would dress like this searching for evidence except Bonita. But she’s a former pageant winner herself, and it was just her style. Her makeup was done to perfection, and not melting like mine was, even in this unbearable heat. Note to self: find out how she does it.

“Yes, I just saw the Aarons. They are the sweetest people. They just want to get to the bottom of this.”

I glanced up at Sonny. He was looking at me with a silent grin in his eyes. Hiding our feelings was always more difficult in person.

“Well, the Aarons may have to wait a little longer to settle this case,” Bonita said. “We still have a lot of investigating to do.”

“Can I come aboard? I’ll tell you about the new little wrinkle in this case.”

I joined them on the tugboat, but had to stay well back from the cordoned-off area. Once there, I related the Aarons’ refusal to believe Walter was suicidal. That in fact, he had sounded happy when they spoke to him and was contemplating marrying a girl he’d recently met.

Sonny’s gaze narrowed. “Did they say when they talked to him?”

“Shortly before his death.”

“Well, this certainly complicates things,” Bonita said, hands on her ample hips. “We’re going to have to interview the Aarons again. Do they know anything about the woman?”

“No,” I said, “but we have another meeting coming up and they’re gonna bring whatever they find after going through Walter’s effects.”

“Bonita and I are going to be in on that little search,” Sonny added.

“Why? Did you find something?”

“Can’t go into specifics.”

As we walked toward the front end of the boat, I saw the crime scene tape.

I looked around nervously. A tugboat pushed a barge up the river. That much I knew. Was that where they thought Walter fell off, in between the boat and the barge?

I stopped, staring at the area where the two boats hitched together.

I took in the gouges in the wood and the scrapes and scratches in the paint, which didn’t look to me as though they’d come from the normal tug and push of the equipment. Dark spots dribbled down the side. My heart sank.

“Do you see something?” Sonny asked, already knowing I did, although he hadn’t shown me anything.

“It looks like there was a struggle of some sort in this area,” I said haltingly, noting exactly how far along the front and side of the boat the crime scene tape extended. “A big struggle, like somebody didn’t want to go overboard, but maybe someone else had a different idea.”