…your husband’s mother. Margaret Shaw. She’s been wanted by Interpol for art theft for twenty years.”
My husband, Adam, had told me his mother died when he was a teenager. There was even a headstone.
The officer, Detective Ruiz, explained. Our wedding reception had been held at the Whitfield Mansion, a historic house that was also a small private museum. That night, a rare jeweled music box worth nearly two million dollars disappeared from a locked display case. The museum didn’t discover it was missing until the next morning. Investigators had never been able to work out how it was taken.
The photographer’s missing hour showed exactly how. Adam had used his access as the groom to walk into the museum wing during the reception. He’d taken the music box, wrapped it in a white table napkin and handed it to his mother in the garden.
Margaret Shaw had faked her death twenty years ago to escape an arrest warrant. Adam had been helping her ever since.
“Your wedding was the perfect cover,” Detective Ruiz said quietly. “Two hundred guests. No one checks where the groom goes.”
I sat on my couch with my hand over my mouth. Our wedding had been a crime scene.
The photographer, Lisa, had taken Adam’s $15,000 because she was frightened. Then she read about the theft and couldn’t sleep for months. She finally went to the police with the original files.
Adam was arrested at his office that afternoon. His mother was arrested a week later at an airport in Miami. The music box was recovered from a storage unit in her name.
I filed for an annulment. The museum invited me to the ceremony when the music box was returned to its case. Lisa came with me. She took my picture standing beside it. It’s the only wedding photo I’ve kept.
