Mr. & Mrs. Bright - A Poisoned Engagement

Chapter 4

When Malcolm and Dani entered Gil's office, Mary-Ann was sitting on the couch looking at a photo on her phone of her and her brother at her wedding.

"Mary-Ann," Dani said as Malcolm sat down in the chair next to the sofa and she sat next to Mary-Ann, "We are so sorry for your loss."

Mary-Ann put her phone in her pocket as she looked at Dani, "Nicole said that Matthew was murdered. Is that true?" She asked, her breath shaking.

Dani sighed as she comfortingly took Mary-Ann's hand in hers, "I'm so sorry Mary-Ann," She said sympathetically, "We're going to do everything we can to find out who did this to him. In the meantime, is it alright if we ask you some questions?"

Mary-Ann let out a shaky sigh as she attempted to calm herself, "Of course, I want to be able to help find my brother's killer any way that I can."

"Do you know if your brother had any enemies?" Malcolm asked as he leaned forward in the chair he was sitting in.

Mary-Ann thought for a moment before shaking her head, "No, my father is the only one in our family with enemies," She said as she looked over at Malcolm, "Though his enemies are just family members who dropped contact with us after my grandparents disowned us for my father's gambling issues."

"Do you know if your brother received any unexplained phone calls? Any calls to his home phone that were hang-up calls if his wife answered the phone?" Dani asked as she repositioned herself on the couch so that she was facing Mary-Ann.

"No, I don't think so," Mary-Ann said with a sigh, "I feel so useless right now."

Dani shook her head, "You're not useless Mary-Ann, trust me," She said reassuringly as Malcolm moved to join them on the couch, a tissue box in his hand for Mary-Ann, "Your brother was at your wedding, right?"

Mary-Ann nodded as she thought back to a few weeks ago when she had gotten married.

"Yes, he was the best man at my wedding," Mary-Ann said as she took a tissue from the box and wiped the tears from her eyes that had started to roll down her face.

"Did he seem off in any way at the wedding or the week leading up to the wedding?" Dani asked to see if Mary-Ann had noticed the multiple times throughout the week when her brother would step away from a conversation to answer his phone.

"Actually, now that you mention it, he was answering his phone a lot," Mary-Ann said as she sat up straight, "and when I would ask him about it he would say it was work-related but Nicole told me that his boss knew not to call him for the week."

Dani nodded as she pulled a  notebook out of her pocket and wrote this information down.

"Okay, I think that's all for right now," Dani said as she stood up and pulled a business card out of her back pocket, "If you can think of anything else, don't be afraid to call."

Mary-Ann nodded as she took the card from Dani as she stood up, "I'll be staying with Nicole for a while, so I'll let you know if she remembers anything that could help," She said as she walked toward the door to Gil's office, "Oh before I go, I wanted to apologize to the both of you for how I acted during the week leading up to my wedding. I was a bit of a bridezilla and I shouldn't have been rude to the two of you, you didn't deserve it."

Dani let out a soft chuckle, "You don't need to apologize for that right now Mary-Ann," She said as Malcolm stood beside her, "The only thing you need to worry about right now is being there for your sister-in-law and your niece in their time of need."

Mary-Ann nodded before leaving Gil's office, as she left, Dani slipped the notebook back into her jacket pocket with a sigh.

"He was communicating with someone that he didn't want anyone to know about," Dani said as she and Malcolm joined Gil in the other room again, "I'll subpoena his phone records as well as the phone records of the other victims to see if they have that mystery caller in common."

As Dani finished saying this, JT returned from meeting with Mr. Williamson's boss.

"Well our vic definitely didn't have any projects he was working on," JT said as he entered the room.

Malcolm looked at JT confused, "If he wasn't working on any projects, why would he tell his wife that he was and what was he really doing?" He asked curiously.

JT shrugged, "His boss couldn't tell me," He said as he shook his head, "he was fired about a week ago."

As JT said this, Dani picked up a copy of the event schedule to tape it to the case board.

"I think we should find out how many more of these events Mr. Williamson had gone to and how many he planned to go to while he was telling his wife he was working on a big work project," Dani said as she walked back over to the table to look through the sign-up sheets.

The room fell silent as the team started to go through the sign-up sheets, not only looking for Mr. Williamson's name but also the names of their other murder victims.

"There was an event he planned on attending later today," Malcolm said as he highlighted Mr. Williamson's name on the sign-up sheet he was looking at, "There are a few other names on this sign-up sheet that I noticed were also on the sign-up sheet for the last event that our vic had attended before his murder."

Gil nodded in response to Malcolm as he looked up from the sign-up sheet he had been looking at.

"Dani, why don't you and Malcolm go talk to the people who are attending today's event that Mr. Williamson was going to attend, who also attended the last event he attended," Gil said as he got up out of the chair he had been sitting in.

Dani nodded as she stood up, grabbing her jacket before heading to the door.

"You coming Bright?" She asked as she stopped in the doorway.

Malcolm quickly stood up and grabbed the two sign-up sheets so that they knew who they needed to be talking to.