Missing Mark Read Online Free PDF Page A

in his voice. I could taste it on his lips.”
    That was some lyrical sound bite she laid on us. And the way she said it was almost vampirish.
    As she leaned forward, I leaned back to give her space. Her fists were clenched. Her delivery flawless. “That was supposed to be our beginning, not our ending. Something’s wrong.”
    I tried to lighten the mood by asking her how Mark proposed. She struggled to answer before emotionally describing a magical night of romance on bended knee in the moonlight.
    But to my surprise, Madeline Post was too tough to cry on camera.
    W HEN IT COMES to a missing person, it’s often an inside job.
    Sometimes the culprit is even the missing person themselves. Like the runaway bride from Georgia. Or the missing coed in Wisconsin. Both women staged their own disappearances for reasons that were never very well explained.
    When a child vanishes, it’s frequently a parent. Sometimes a custody dispute. Sometimes a cover-up when an abusive relationship goes too far. Occasionally an accidental death the parent can’t face.
    When a woman goes missing, her man moves to the head of the class of suspects. But the reverse is seldom true; girlfriends rarely become suspects. And Madeline didn’t fit that category for several reasons.
    First, she was allowing media scrutiny. And guilty girls don’t usually do that. If she had anything to do with her fiancé’s disappearance, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and she’d be home free.
    Second, as the bride, she was under almost constant observation following the rehearsal dinner. She stayed up late at her mother’s house, giggling with the maid of honor. And while the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride before the wedding, that tradition doesn’t include the wedding party, the hair and makeup guy, the manicurist, and the photographer. Plenty of witnesses could vouch for Madeline’s whereabouts. No one could vouch for Mark’s.
    Third, Madeline had no clear motive. Public humiliation is not on any bridal registry. She lost face when she lost her fiancé. And her mother was shelling out enormous sums of money to marry her only daughter to Mark Lefevre. So if he wasn’t dead, Madeline probably would kill him.

ithout Madeline’s tears on tape, my NEVER WORN story was probably dead for May. At least in Noreen’s mind. But until my boss came right out and asked me how the bride’s interview went, I intended to explore the case from a couple of other directions.
    I left Madeline’s house armed with a guest list from the wedding. As we’d gone over the names, I’d made who’s who notes in the margin. Most were friends and relatives from the Post side of the family. Madeline didn’t know the specifics behind all the guests on the groom’s side. But she circled the names of the two people who presumably knew the bride and groom best.
    T HE BEST MAN was traveling on business for the Minnesota Department of Transportation so I listened to him on the speakerphone in my house while Shep explored his new surroundings. The telephone interview was a trade-off. Face-to-face I’d get a better sense of Gabriel Murray and his story. But this way, my taking notes wouldn’t make him nervous and I’d get answers faster.
    Normally, I’d wait to meet in person, but Gabe wouldn’t be back from St. Louis for a few days. He was attending a conference on concrete bridges. His state agency had been through a rough stretch ever since one of Minnesota’s main bridges had collapsed during rush hour.
    I knew what Gabe looked like because Mark had introduced him as his best man on the home video of the rehearsal dinner. Corporate suit and haircut. A contrast to the groom’s cartoonish but affable appearance.
    Gabe knew what I looked like because he watched television news. He claimed Channel 3 was his favorite, but probably just said that to all the TV stations. He agreed to discuss Mark Lefevre as long as I agreed not to bring up the bridge fiasco or press