Deadly Valentine

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “Oh now,” Max began.

  Marian shrugged. “Or maybe Sydney took a long walk. Wasn’t she supposed to be upset? Maybe she didn’t go straight to the gazebo. Maybe she wanted to cool down, be in a romantic mood to meet her secret admirer. Poor bitch. All it would take was a few minutes. If Howard hurried like hell, he could have got there first. Thing is, people can be mistaken about times, even though they’re sure as hell themselves. And one thing you have to remember, people lie a lot in murder cases.” Her cool green eyes studied the sketch. “Another thing. The murderer must have been inside the gazebo and facing the entrance, right?”

  They nodded.

  “So the first blow slams Sydney into the pillar to the killer’s right. What does that tell you?”

  Vince got it immediately. “Left-handed. The killer’s left-handed.”

  “Maybe,” Marian responded. “But look at the next blow. Sydney collapses backward to her right”

  “Hey, that doesn’t make any sense!” Annie objected.

  “Switched hands. Weapon in the left hand for the first blow, switched to the right hand for the second blow.”

  Vince frowned. “Come on, Marian, that’s too damn fancy in the middle of a murder.”

  “Had to be,” the reporter said stubbornly. She blew a dribble of smoke, reflectively. “Kind of interesting. Saw Cahill play in a doubles tournament last fall. He’s ambidextrous. Doesn’t have a backhand. Switches his racket from his left to his right. Hits everything forehand. Including a hell of an overhead smash.”

  If they had figured it out, the police lab would see the same scenario. Everything pointed to Howard Cahill. Annie didn’t look at Max. She didn’t want to see the beginnings of doubt in his eyes.

  But Max could be stubborn, too. “I don’t see it. For either Cahill or his son. Look, we’ve got some times figured out—”

  But he never got to finish. The door to the coffee room burst open. An excited young man with a voice that quavered cried, “Vince, Marian, they just arrested some dame in the Cahill homicide! Somebody named Roethke!”

  Max paced the prosecutor’s office madder than Travis McGee when The Busted Flush was threatened. “By God, Posey’s gone too far this time. He can’t keep her in jail. Who the hell does he think he is?” He shot a hostile glance at Posey’s university, law school, and bar certificates on the paneled wood wall behind an immaculate desktop.

  “The chief investigating officer of this county, Mr. Darling,” Posey announced unctuously, as he entered from a side door. “Discharging my duties to the citizens of the great state of South Carolina.”

  Posey did move just a bit quickly to put his desk between him and Max, and he glanced back to be sure Saulter was close behind.

  Max turned on Saulter. “What the hell’s going on here, Frank? Have you ever heard about false arrest? By God, before I’m finished, you’ll wish you’d never heard my name.”

  Annie gazed at her husband in admiration. She knew many facets of Max, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him sound like Philip Marlowe, with overtones of Perry Mason.

  Saulter’s face furrowed unhappily. “Max, one of our deputies found her trying to conceal evidence.”

  Posey sat down behind his desk. He was attempting to look judicious, but he couldn’t conceal his glee.

  “Bloodstained evidence, Mr. Darling. A jacket that clearly belongs to Mr. Cahill—has his initials monogrammed inside, on the right front lining—and guess what? The jacket’s all crumpled and splashed with blood. We’re waiting on the lab report, but I don’t think it’s going to come as any surprise when the blood type matches Mrs. Cahill’s.”

  Max looked at Saulter.

  Saulter nodded reluctantly. “Doesn’t look good.” The police chief pulled a notebook from his pocket and began to read. “Trooper Lensgraf saw subject”—he glanced apologetically at Max—“Mrs. Roethke—depart from Cahill mansion by side door at eleven oh three A.M. today behaving in suspicious manner. Looked in every direction, hesitated, then hurried toward front of house. Trooper Lensgraf followed circumspectly. Suspect, carrying a bundle wrapped in newspaper, proceeded in surreptitious manner to exit Cahill grounds, crossing to adjacent property of Mr. Maxwell Darling. When called upon to halt, suspect plunged into thick stand of pines. Trooper Lensgraf immediately blew his whistle, summoning fellow officers. A search was instituted and suspect, affecting surprise at her accostment, was discovered sitting on the branch of a live oak tree, reading a newspaper. That is, to be precise, she was holding six crumpled pages of day before yesterday’s Gazette”

  Saulter paused, cleared his throat.

  “No law against that,” Max snarled.

  Annie had a vivid picture of that confrontation. There was a particular expression of Laurel’s—a combination of amazement, incredulous delight, and otherworldliness—with which Annie was quite familiar. Her mother-in-law often employed it when she had no intention of saying what was really on her mind.

  “However,” Saulter continued with a studious lack of emphasis, “Trooper Lensgraf distinctly recalled the newspaper being in the shape of a bundle, so after taking the subject into custody—”

  “On what possible grounds?” Max demanded furiously.

  “Trespass on a crime scene, failing to heed an officer’s command to stop,” Posey trumpeted.

  “—Trooper Lensgraf deployed six searchers in the area of the detention. Trooper Edward Benz found a man’s suede jacket partially stuffed into a hole halfway up a nearby live oak. Trooper Benz called for crime technicians to photograph the evidence and remove it to the police laboratory.”

  “No proof whatsoever that she ever possessed that jacket,” Max said triumphantly.

  Saulter reached toward his shirt pocket, then plunged his. hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a hard candy. Annie remembered that he had recently quit smoking. Again. Saulter deftly unwrapped the cellophane and popped the candy in his mouth and spoke around it. “Traces of newsprint on the jacket, Max.”

  Annie knew Max’s legal training was getting the better of him. He could wrangle back and forth for hours on minute points, but what mattered was the jacket itself.

  “Frank,” she asked, “you’re sure it’s Cahill’s jacket?”

  “Yep.”

  “It has blood on it?”

  “Splatters across the front and on both sleeves.”

  Both sleeves. Another indicator that their switched-hands analysis was correct.

  “Well, where did she find it?” Annie demanded.

  “Find it?” Posey interposed. “We have no evidence that Mrs. Roethke ‘found’ the jacket. She was caught trying to dispose of it. The simplest interpretation is that she received the jacket from Mr. Cahill.”

  “Oh, hell, Posey,” Max objected immediately, “that doesn’t make any sense. You’ve had him in custody since right after the murder last night.”

  Posey’s snoutish face suddenly looked like the Pig Woman in the Hall-Mills case, bellicose, threatening, and intensely hostile. “That’s correct, Mr. Darling. Which would indicate that Mrs. Roethke must have received the jacket shortly after it was worn during a murder of unparalleled ferocity, that she willingly, actively, and knowingly abetted, aided, and conspired in the commission of a brutal crime against a defenseless young woman—a woman who stood between Mrs. Roethke and the man with whom she had become hopelessly enamored.”

  “Nonsense,” Max barked. “If she had it right after the murder, why would she be leaving the Cahill house with it the next morning? You can’t have it both ways, Posey.”

  “What does Laurel say?” Annie demanded.

  “Gibberish,” Posey retorted, his watery blue eyes glinting with anger. “But it is calculated!” he stormed, waggling a pudgy finger at them. “The woman is trying to set up an insanity defense, you mark my words. But I and the sovereign state of South Carolina are not deceived.”

  Max ignored Posey and demanded crisply of Saulter, “Has she been afforded counsel?�
��

  “She has a call in to Jed McClanahan,” the island police chief said quickly.

  Posey glowered.

  Max sighed.

  Annie understood his response, but didn’t quite share it. McClanahan claimed to be the best trial lawyer in the state of South Carolina. That might be a little exaggerated, but the feisty lawyer would hone in on Posey just like John J. Malone, though McClanahan was partial to bourbon, not rye, unlike Craig Rice’s hard-drinking lawyer hero.

  Still, Laurel was in a dreadful mess. She probably needed counsel more on the order of Fredrick D. Huebner’s Matthew Riordan or Ed McBain’s Matthew Hope. Or possibly they could convince Haughton Murphy’s Reuben Frost to end his retirement.

  “But certainly in my endeavor to represent all the citizens of our fair state, I am justly acclaimed as a temperate man. Therefore, Mr. Darling, I will be happy to grant Mrs. Roethke another opportunity to explain her suspicious actions this morning at a crime scene.” Posey punched the intercom on his desk. “Hortense, have an officer bring Mrs. Roethke to my office.”

  A strained silence ensued until Laurel’s arrival.

  Annie had to hand it to her mother-in-law. No other woman could wear a bright orange cotton jail shift sans jewelry and sans makeup with such élan. Laurel beamed impartially at them all.

  “Max, my sweet, you shouldn’t have interrupted your day. So many fine goals to pursue. And Annie, I know this is the off season, but I heard you say how badly you needed to unpackage and shelve all those wonderful new reference works: A Reader’s Guide to Classic British Mysteries by Susan Oleksiw, Myself and Michael Innes by J. I. M. Stewart, Silk Stalkings by Victoria Nichols and Susan Thompson, Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Boob by H. R. F. Keating, The Spirit of Australia by Ray B. Browne, In—”

  “Mrs. Roethke, I would like for you to focus your mind upon this morning,” Posey interrupted. His tone was appropriate for dealing with someone like the easily unhinged killer in Joan Banks’s Death Claim.

  “Oh, come off it, Posey,” Max said impatiently. He looked at his mother, who appeared especially diminutive and charming next to the bulky policewoman at her side.

  Laurel smiled kindly.

  “And you come off it, too.” Max gazed at her sternly.

  “My dear, you are too, too exercised. This is all a minor problem of misunderstanding.”

  Posey leaned forward. “You can easily clear it up, Mrs. Roethke. Just tell us how you obtained that jacket and why you were trying to hide it.”

  Laurel gazed at the prosecutor with limpid blue eyes. “I do so wish I could be helpful. You see, there are so many difficulties. But”—she paused until every eye was focused on her, building on the silence with a fine sense of drama and an implicit promise of great tidings to come—“I am confused on so many points. I have known Mr. Cahill for such a short time. I do not know that the jacket is his. I have no idea how the jacket became stained with blood. In fact, I do not have in my possession any proof that Mr. Cahill wore the jacket or even touched it last night. Nor do I know of my own cognizance how the jacket was transported from the gazebo. If it was. You see, I am adrift upon a sea of speculation. But if I could speak to Mr. Cahill alone for a few moments, I—”

  “Maybe you’d like to talk to the Queen of England, too?” Posey asked with heavy irony.

  “Oh, certainly,” Laurel said agreeably. “That would be delightful. You know the royal family has always been so fond of mysteries. And indirectly responsible for the longest-running play in the world. You see, the BBC asked Mrs. Christie if she would do a short radio sketch for a program arranged for Queen Mary. Mrs. Christie agreed, of course. The result—my dear Mr. Posey—the result was “Three Blind Mice” and that radio sketch was the basis for The Mousetrap, which has been on stage in London since November 25, 1952. Now, isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Oh Jesus Christ, what a lot of crap!” Posey exploded.

  Laurel fixed him with a piercing gaze. “That good saint, Louis of France, quite detested profane and blasphemous language. He never used it himself and would not tolerate it in others.”

  There was a small silence, then a red-faced Posey turned on Max. “You see? Well, you may all think she’s pretty damned funny, but she’s going to be funny behind bars until she comes clean.” He jerked his head at the officer who had accompanied Laurel.

  “Mother …” Max began.

  She blew a kiss to him and another to Annie as she walked toward the door. “Be of good cheer, my dears. But you must understand that when one has given one’s word, well, one must keep it. But Saint Vincent de Paul was so correct when he reminded us that bitterness has never served any other purpose than to embitter. However, as Saint Teresa of Avila once remarked, oh so wisely, “‘All things pass.’”

  “‘One’s word,’” Posey mimicked, jumping to his feet. “That sounds mighty like conspiracy to me, madam. You may be an old hag by the time you get out of jail.”

  Laurel paused in the doorway, arching one perfect blond brow. “I do quite understand Saint Jerome’s point.” A tiny smile crossed her face. “It was he who said, ‘A fat paunch never breeds fine thoughts.’”

  Ten

  “DID YOU SEE his face?” Max erupted in laughter again.

  Annie tensed, ready to grab the wheel, until he veered back into his lane. Max usually was an excellent driver, but he was in such high spirits over Laurel’s quashing of Posey—as Max saw it—that he was totally absorbed in reconstructing the scene they’d just witnessed in the prosecutor’s office. As a sympathetic (and intelligent) wife, she forbore to remind him that she too had been present. Max was having too good a time. She made appropriate comments—“That’s right,” “She sure did,” “Certainly made a fool out of him!”—but with only a portion of her attention.

  Should she tell Max? That was the question. She was tempted. But she also felt sure that she could better handle the delicate task that lay ahead by herself. Although she was a little surprised Max hadn’t picked up on it, because it seemed to Annie that Laurel’s clue, craftily inserted in her farewell chatter, was almost as obvious as The Footprints Under the Window, which had hooked generations of Frank and Joe Hardy readers.

  But perhaps not.

  Just for an instant the horrid idea occurred to Annie that she was developing thought patterns similar to those of her mother-in-law.

  “Hey, Annie, don’t you agree?” Max was looking at her in surprise. Obviously, she had missed his latest pronouncement.

  “Absolutely,” she replied, with a warm, admiring smile.

  Satisfied, he looked back at the road in time to avoid a possum that had rolled over and played dead at the car’s approach.

  Max chortled as he swerved the car and pointed at the furry body. “The only mammal known to mankind to be dumber than Posey.”

  Dumb Posey might be, Annie thought, but right now he had the upper hand. She and Max were going to have to be as perceptive as Kate Fansler and Homer Kelly combined to free Laurel and, perhaps, Howard. Distracted for a moment, she envisioned the pairing of those detectives, the brilliant creations of Amanda Cross and Jane Langton. Now that would be a creative collaboration.

  “… going to check out the neighbors. Right?”

  Annie nodded, glad she’d picked up on his comment. “And you’ll get busy digging up background on everybody?”

  “You bet.”

  Annie gave him a thumbs-up signal as the Maserati rolled onto the ferry to cross to the island.

  Yes, indeed, she intended to canvass their neighbors.

  Especially one.

  Funny how lonely and quiet the house seemed. And it wasn’t just because Max was at Confidential Commissions. Annie hated to admit it, even to herself, but, dammit, she missed Laurel, missed that engaging smile, missed that endless stream of observation, query, comment, hope, and kindliness which constituted Laurel’s conversation, missed the flash of those spacey but appealing dark blue eyes.

  Annie felt lonely even
though she was in her favorite spot in their new house, their garden room which opened onto the patio. Banyan trees glistened as greenly as in a Central American jungle. (Mary Jo Adamson, who vividly evokes the lushness of Puerto Rico in her Balthazar Marten mysteries, would feel right at home.) Chintz-covered sofas and chairs, lime with twining roses, were scattered across the brick flooring. Annie sat in a cane chair beside a jade green bamboo table, jotting down or re-creating everything she felt to be pertinent, the timetable, Max’s map of the Scarlet King compound, Marian Kenyon’s sketch of the crime scene, observations about the suspects Annie had seen:

  Howard—tough and capable. Upset, though he tried to mask it. But was his distress caused by the murder?

  Carleton—obviously distraught, easily angered. He’d glared at his father at the party, then eyed him uneasily at the gazebo. What was he thinking?

  General Houghton—mean-looking old bastard. A man who saw everyone but himself as immoral. A religious zealot? Or a spurned suitor? His wife, Eileen, wasn’t at the crime scene, but she’d eagerly awaited Posey’s attack on Howard. A bit of spice in an otherwise dull life?

  And brief summaries about the remaining residents of Scarlet King (and Valentine party attendees) whom she intended to talk to as soon as possible:

  George Graham—the bland-faced dentist. Would she ever forget the stark silence after the general unveiled moral depravity in progress and everyone near that alcove in the Cahill ballroom saw Graham smudged with Sydney’s lipstick? Obviously, Graham knew Sydney well. Was he grieving for Sydney? Or had he worn the lover’s false face and greeted her in the gazebo with blows instead of caresses? Annie inked thick black question marks after his name.

  Lisa Graham—a rich man’s second wife. What had been her thoughts when her stepson apparently said something vulgar to Sydney? Where was she when the general’s cane revealed her husband embracing Sydney? And just how angry might she have been? Lisa was a superb tennis player. She, too, had an excellent overhead smash.

  Joel Graham—George’s son by his first wife. From Annie’s occasional glimpses of him during their first week as residents of the Scarlet King compound, Joel had seemed on the surface to be a typical high school senior, with stylishly baggy khaki trousers, a leather belt left dangling, blond hair spiky in front, long in back. But there had been nothing boyish about the way he spoke to Sydney at the Valentine party or, for that matter, about the look he’d given Annie one day when she’d jogged past him. That odd little encounter with Sydney—it seemed all wrong. Oh, not his sexual awareness of her. What man, young or old, was not sexually aware of Sydney? It was Sydney who had surprised her, Annie realized. Sydney had seemed jolted by that moment. But surely Sydney had been around the block too many times to be shocked by youthful lewdness. Unlikely as it seemed, had Sydney backed away because Joel was young? Could Joel have misinterpreted some earlier exchange? Could he have killed Sydney in a fury because she rejected his advances? Annie marked another series of question marks.