Hooray it’s murder time!
Kathy and James Voskuhl were having their first dance–and to break with tradition, it was a rocker.
The driving beat of “La Bamba” jolted through the brightly lit atrium of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Oh please, I’ve seen racier choices for first dances on YouTube.
Hip young girls with dyed hair and wearing shiny green and red prom dresses–sixties style–swung around on the dance floor, their partners in retro silk shirts, Travolta-like.
I’m surprised none of the bridesmaids killed you before now if that’s what you’re making them wear.
It almost ruined everything, Philip Campbell thought.
He had wanted her in white.
Turns out that Phil has been filming for his new wedding planner TLC show.
And here she was, sweaty red-streaked hair, cat-eye-shaped glasses, a tight green dress.
This time, Kathy, you’ve gone too far.
GREEN IS THE COLOR OF SIN, HISSSSSSS.
So the groom leaves the hall to go to the bathroom and Phil follows him.
The killer moved forward. …
His fingers made their way into his jacket pocket, touched the cold heel of the gun. He flicked the safety off. He could no longer control what was going on inside his head.
Go in, a voice dared him. Do it.
He entered a filmy, sallow light. No one at the urinals or sinks. The groom was in a closed stall. A pungent smell filled his nostrils: marijuana.
lmao dank.
Every wicklike nerve in Campbell’s body stood at attention. He mumbled something barely audible.
Turns out Phil’s a fucking narc.
Philip Campbell pushed open the door.
The groom looked up, bewildered, the tip of a joint in his lip. “Hey, man, who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one who kills useless worms like you.” With that, he fired. Just one.
…
The echo of the gun blast seemed to concuss the entire room.
Looks like the book’s going to be over soon, guys. There’s no way Phil just shot somebody in the bathroom of a crowded venue without being heard-
The sound of the outer door opening and echoes of the distant party rushing in went right through him.
“That you, Vosk?” a woman’s voice called out.
It was her. The bride.
OH. My mistake. Turns out being in the hallway next to where a gun was shot off means you can’t hear diddly. It’s like how on the Fourth of July when fireworks are going off you can’t hear them when you’re inside. Or maybe Kathy thinks that’s what going to the bathroom sounds…
Then he shoots the bride, whatevs. I’ll be anxious to see how Patterson justifies Phil somehow escaping the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without anyone or any cameras seeing him. Let’s head back to Lindsay, shall we?
Since the physical description of the murderer has been broadcasted, the police are being bombarded with callers claiming to have seen him. Lindsay’s on her way to interrogate one of these people when she spots Raleigh and gets all tingly inside.
It had been a sweet evening. Took the heat off from the case. It even got my mind off Negli’s.
We should have a drinking game where you take a shot every time Lindsay mentions Negli’s. Two if it has nothing to do with the situation.
So Lindsay goes in to interrogate a Ms. Laurie Birnbaum. Turns out she saw Phil at the Brandt’s wedding. No doubt Phil had this all in his genius masterplan all along.
“You spoke to him?” I asked, trying to communicate that even though she didn’t do this every day, I did. Even the male detectives admitted that I was the best at Q and A on the floor. They joked that it was “a girl thing.”
Obviously prejudice is not based in logic but this particular one, I’m not getting. And she can’t be that good, we already know she threatens to sit on perp’s faces. At least make fun of something that’s real, like the fact that all women have nipples that shoot poison darts.
She massaged her brow, straining to recall. “He said, in the weirdest way, that they were lucky.”
“Who was lucky?”
“Melanie and David. I may have said, ‘Aren’t they lucky?’ Meaning the two of them. They were so stunning. And he replied, ‘Oh, they’re lucky.”
She looked up with a confused expression on her face. “He called them something else…chosen.”
It’s no use Lindsay, he has the high ground
This book should be in those ‘Try not to Cringe’ challenges. Next thing you know Phil’s going to be spouting some nonsense about religious superiority and sending people’s heads in boxes.
Lindsay gets a call from McBride, a homicide detective in Cleveland. Dun dun DUUUUUN. Wasn’t this case being commandeered by the FBI? Why is Lindsay getting this call if she’s not in charge anymore? Then again, I know about as much about police procedure as Patterson so whatever.
“What kind of weapon your guy use in Napa?” McBride asked.
“Nine millimeter,” I told him.
“Same.”
I was reeling a bit. Cleveland?
A voice pounded inside me. What the hell was Red Beard doing in Ohio? We had just made the breakthrough, found out where he was casing his victims. Did he know that? If so–how?
I know the fact that he’s become a National Murderman is pretty upsetting but isn’t this also a good thing? Taking a flight to Cleveland leaves quite the paper trail. And it’s unlikely he’d use cash every step of the way for such a huge purchase. Not to mention he’s probably used his genius voodoo ‘make people remember me’ crap on so many unsuspecting losers on the way.
A minute later, McBride confirmed exactly the thing I didn’t want to hear. “There are no wedding bands.”
The bastard was on the move.
…
“You said the bodies were found in a sexually explicit position?” I asked McBride with dismay.
The Cleveland cop hesitated. He finally said, “The groom was shot sitting on the john. We found him there. Sitting up, legs open. The bride was shot in the stall, too, as she was coming in. There was enough of her brains on the inside of the door to confirm it. But when we found her, she was facedown. Uh, her face was stuffed between his legs.”
I was silent, forming the image in my mind, hating this cruel, inhuman bastard more every day.
“You know…fellatio style,” McBride finally managed.
Why is this guy talking like he was given a Catholic school sex education?
“There’s a few things my investigators want to ask you.”
“Uh…how are babies made?”
Lindsay flies off to Cleveland to check out Phil’s latest stop on his Magical Murder Mystery Tour and meets up with McBride.
He wasn’t how I had imagined him. He wasn’t flabby, middle-aged, Irish Catholic. He was intense, sharp boned, maybe thirty-eight, and black.
“Leprechauns can’t be black!” Bad Lindsay! Racist Lindsay!
They head over to the crime scene to do a vague imitation of what could be considered doing their jobs.
“What was security like that night?” I asked.
McBride shrugged. “All exits except the main one were closed down. There was a guard at the front desk. Everyone from the wedding arrived at the same time. A couple of half-assed guards floating, but generally at these affairs they like to keep a low profile.
“I saw cameras all around,” Raleigh pressed. “They must have some film.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” said McBride.
…
[Head of security] “Three hundred guests, madam detective. Everyone congregated in the entrance atrium. My staff doesn’t usually get involved in a whole lot except to make sure no one with too much to drink gets too close to the exhibits.”
“What about how he got out, then?”
Sharp wheeled around in his chair, pointing to a blowup of the museum layout. “Either the main entrance, here, where you came in, or one we left open off the back veranda. It leads down to the Lake Walk. There’s a café there during the summer. Mostly it’s blocked off, but the families wanted it open.”
“Two shots fired,” I said. “No one heard anything?”
“It was supposed to be a high-class crowd. You think they want my guards milling around? We keep two, three guys to make sure overzealous guests don’t wander into restricted areas. I should have guards patrolling the corridors down by the rest rooms? What ya gonna take, toilet paper?”
“Security cameras?” Raleigh asked.
Sharp sighed. “We’ve got the exhibition halls covered, of course. The main exits… a remote sweep of the Main Hall. But nothing on the corridor where the shooting took place.”
Wouldn’t you want to have cameras leading to the bathroom in this famous place in case someone wanted to, oh I don’t know, do some drugs in there?
I don’t really understand this excuse that the guests wouldn’t want security. The whole shtick is that these are high profile weddings, wouldn’t they want security to keep the common filth out? Eh, I don’t know.
It’s also kind of great that Phil actually attends the receptions rather than just wait around. Like, yeah I’m gonna murder them but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna take advantage of that open bar.
The next step was to talk to the parents of the bride
…
I was met at the door by the older sister of the bride, who introduced herself as Hillary Bloom. She sat me down in a comfy, picture-filled den…. “Kathy was always the rebellious one,” Hillary explained. “A free spirit. It took her a while to find herself, but she was just settling down. She had a good job….”
“Coming around from what?” I asked“Like I said–she was a free spirit. That was Kathy.”
You mean a junkie slut. You’re calling your dead sister a no-good junkie slut.
SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT
Anyway, turns out Kathy didn’t go to the same bridal salon as Melanie and Becky, so that connections out the window. However, she went to school at UCLA, which seems to be her only link to California. So Lindsay goes to talk to Merrill, Kathy’s only friend from San Francisco that attended the wedding.
“I need to know about Kathy Kogut in San Francisco,” I explained. “Lovers. Breakups. Someone who might have a cause to do this.”
“You think she knew this madman?” Her face was clenched.
Are you insinuating that a MAN would just murder his lover over feeling scorned? Why, I never. Next you’ll be telling me that half of women killed in the US are murdered by their romantic partners according to a 2017 study in domestic violence by the CDC!
Merrill must be a champion of TRUE equality
“Anyone come to mind who might’ve wanted to hurt her? Someone who was overly fascinated? Maybe jealous when she moved on?”
Merrill thought a bit, shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
…
“What are the chances Kathy was running away from something?”
“You live the way we lived, you’re always running from something.” Merrill Shortley shrugged and looked bored.
“Once you become a rewards member at Bed Bath & Beyond, you’re never the same. Doesn’t matter if you move, they WILL find you and they WILL send you 20% off coupons.”
There was an attitude, a coldness about Merrill I didn’t like. She still surrounded herself with the cynical aura of a dissolute past. And I had the suspicion she was withholding something.
…
[Merrill] “Maybe there was this one guy Kathy was into. Big shot. Older. She said I’d know who he was–but she wouldn’t give me a name. I think she met him through the job. As I remember, he was married. I don’t know how it ended. Or who ended it. Or if it ever did.”
My adrenaline began to flow. “Who is he, Merrill? He might have killed your friend.”
She shook her head.
“You ever see this man again?”
She shook her head again.
I pushed on.
“You’re the one friend from back then she invites to her wedding and you never met him once? You don’t even know a name?”
She gave me a cool smile. “She was protective. She didn’t tell me everything. Scout’s honor, Inspector. I assume he was a public figure.”
“You see her much in the past couple of years?”
Merrill shook her head again. She was being a real bitch.
Lindsay once again showing that perfect temperament for this delicate work. Maybe you should try shoving your ass in her face, that always seems to work.
And anyway, it’s not like Merrill’s about to leave forever, she lives in San Francisco… WHERE. YOU. WORK.
“I don’t know who it was. Just that he was older, married, some big-time SOB. Kinky, and not nice about it. Kathy said he would play sex games on her. but whoever he was, she was always quiet about it, protective. The rest you’ll have to do on your own.”
“She still continued to see this guy, didn’t she?” I was starting to put it together. “Even after she moved to Seattle. Even after she met her husband.”
She gave me the slightest smile. “Good guess, Inspector. Right up to the end.”
“How close to the end?”
…
She stood up, slung a Prada bag over her shoulder, an expensive-looking raincoat over her arm. Then she looked at me and said dryly, “To the very end.”
“They’re having phone-sex via a ouija board right now.”
As if we haven’t been punished enough already, we get another scene with Raleigh.
“No wonder the bride didn’t wear white,” Raleigh frowned and said as I told him about my interview with Merrill Shortley.
You both realize that every single murder scene has been set up to sexually-shame the female victims, right? God I’m so invested in these two bumping uglies.
“The killer knew Kathy,” I said. “How else would he find her here? They had a relationship.”
…
“Let’s toast them when we catch this pathetic bastard,” I said.
It was the first time we’d been alone in Cleveland, and suddenly I was nervous.
Me too. I don’t think I can take another hamfisted what-passes-for-romance scene.
“We’re partners now, aren’t we, Lindsay?”
“Sure,” I said, a little surprised by the question. “Can’t you tell I trust you?”
“I mean, we’ve been through three double murders, we’re committed to seeing it through, I backed you up with Mercer. I even helped clean up after dinner at your place.”
“I did my job and then I did TWO courteous things Lindsay! Have I not earned a sex coin yet?”
“Yeah, so?” I smiled.
…
“What do you say, maybe it’s about time you started calling me Chris.”
Naaaah, I’m gonna start calling you Sheriff Faffy Waffle so I can remember you. Because you honestly have no personality traits to speak of.
After dinner, Chris and I walked down by the tree-lined lakefront toward our hotel. A cool, misty breeze lapped at my face.
…
Every word seemed charged with a hidden electric message.
Lindsay’s subconsciously sending out an SOS message in Morse code.
“What I’m starting to feel like” — I turned to him — “is that I’m having a hard time remembering to call you Chris.”
“And what I’m starting to feel like,” he answered, facing me, “is I’m having a hard time trying to pretend that nothing’s going on.”
Noooooo, really? You don’t show up with a bottle of wine spontaneously to one of your bro’s apartments, and then dance with him to Tori Amos?
“I know,” I murmured breathlessly. “But I just can’t.”
…
“You mean it’s complicated because we’re working together?”
“That,” I lied. …
“That… and what else?” Raleigh said.
…
“I do want to,” I said, my fingers reaching for his hand, staring into his deep blue eyes.
It took everything I had to hold off confessing. I don’t know why I didn’t. A deep part of me wanted him to want me, and to keep thinking I was strong.
This is some Attack of the Clones level contrivance. For no reason at all Negli’s is the huge obstacle in the way of these two lovebirds getting it on. I get that your health is a sensitive topic, but it’s not like you need to go into detail to just say your future is uncertain and it wouldn’t be fair to start a relationship under those pretenses. I’m usually a suck for “will they won’t they” shlock but these two are so boring and the conflict could be easily solved by Lindsay acting like an adult.
For fuck’s sake, if she’s so certain that Negli’s is going to kill her, why isn’t she spending time with her family? Or completing any unfinished lifelong goals? But no, she’s spending her possibly last months pussyfooting around with some guy she’s known for like two weeks.
Do these two even have anything in common? Anything they like to do together besides… Tori Amos? And… soft hands or whatever?
“I just can’t right now,” I said softly.
“You know I won’t always be your partner, Lindsay.”
“I know that. And maybe I won’t always be able to say no.”
I don’t know if I was disappointed or relieved to see our hotel up ahead. Part of me wanted to run to my room, throw open the windows, and just breathe in the night air.
I was sort of happy I wouldn’t have to make that decision, when Raleigh took me by surprise.
He leaned over without warning and pressed his lips on mine.
I guess sexual assault can be a character trait…?
The kiss was so soft, as if he were gently asking, Is this okay?
Soft hands… soft lips.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t imagined this happening. It was just as I had imagined. I wanted to be in control, but here it was, out of the blue, and I was giving in.
Sure, let’s just throw in a fucking Gone with the Wind style scene where the forceful man overpowers the woman. She clearly wants it! She’s just having a case of the vapors! There’s more to this chapter but I’m going to end it here because if I don’t I’m going to vomit and then write an essay that you probably won’t want to read.
Canon Fodder 