Chapter 4 - Never a Bride
Chaos followed amidst shouts of horror and fear. Someone yelled for everyone to stay down, or Lee supposed, it might have been to get down. After the repeated car backfiring, few had reacted as if it were anything else. The exception was Rachael. She was lying prostrate on the grass in a take cover position.
Lee looked around carefully before he got up, scanning the area for a shooter. There was movement everywhere. Wedding guests, especially from the back, were tearing out of the pews. Off to the right side, behind a stand of tightly packed potted yews that screened off the reception tent, Lee saw glimpses of people running or crouching low. Only those closest to the front of the wedding seemed too involved or paralyzed to move. Two bridesmaids had fainted.
Lee, keeping his profile as low as he could, moved left out of his row and went to check on Rachael, who remained down. "Are you hurt?" Rachael didn't answer. "Rachael, it's me, Lee. Are you okay?"
She seemed to snap out suddenly. "What happened?"
"That last noise wasn't a car backfire. Melanie was shot."
"How bad?"
"Bad. Near the heart."
"I knew this wouldn't end well." Rachael looked around before taking Lee's assisting hand.
As Lee helped Rachael up, Lee observed another scar around Rachael's left wrist. Together, they moved toward Roger and the priest who flanked protectively over the bride and groom.
"I'm sure help is on the way," Lee reassured. When he saw Roger's look and then Melanie's exit wound, Lee knew it wouldn't matter. Melanie was dead.
Melanie's parents pushed forward. "Let me in there," Richard wedged Lee and Rachael aside. Rachael caught Doris swooning as she saw Melanie bleeding out. Rachael eased her to the ground and held on to her. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Mattingly."
"My baby. My poor baby. On her wedding day. My baby." Tears poured out. A chorus of bridesmaids seemed to join in the wailing. The professionally detached part of Lee couldn't help notice how similar it seemed to a Greek chorus.
Lee continued to scan the area even as he tried to comfort Roger with the typical inadequate consolations. His mind was already on another track. After he'd seen the wound up close, he'd known it had been a very accurate shot from not very far away. He worked out the angle of entry. It had to have been from the groom's side or maybe even just outside the seating area on the groom's side. Lee didn't see anyone acting suspiciously in the immediate area now and hadn't earlier. He pulled Roger over to the first pew and sat him down. "I want to scope out the situation a little. I'll be right back."
"Rachael told me this would end badly."
"I don't think she meant it this way," Lee reassured him. Lee walked out a path of where he thought the shot could come from, including checking the pews behind him. He saw nothing. He then checked the grassy area between the left side pews and a dense stand of potted yews. Lee found nothing of interest until he was ten feet left of where Rachael had stood and his foot landed on something hard. Lee looked down. He'd stepped on a snub-nosed revolver.
Lee's throat caught. That shot from a snub-nosed gun was either the work of a very lucky person or a master shot. Lee gently slid his foot off the weapon. He was concerned with both preserving evidence and fearful of what that evidence might mean. He knelt down by the gun. "Damn," he whispered. "R.A.M." was etched in the handle of the Smith & Wesson. He pulled out his handkerchief and touched the muzzle through it. Still warm and easily within tossing distance of where Rachael Ann McAdam had stood during the ceremony. He placed the handkerchief fully over it. A part of him wanted to slip the weapon into his pocket, but he couldn't do it.
The arrival of the police and an ambulance startled Lee. He stood in place. Looking wistfully at Rachael comforting the dead bride's mother, Lee regretfully advised the approaching police officer of his find. What he didn't tell the officer was who "R.A.M." was.