by Ann Cook
Through the dispersing crowd, Brandy saw Steve emerge from the cruiser with a plastic bag, and stop to talk to Morris. Then Ace Langdon marched toward her alone. Apparently the gathering had offered him slim pickings.
He paused before Brandy. “You’ve got a lot to answer for, young lady,” he said. A frown darkened his face. “Had a call from a detective yesterday. Wanted to talk to me about the tire iron.” He moved in close. “Seems you told them I was the last one to have it. I put the damn thing in Mr. Southerland’s car. That’s all I know about it.”
Brandy took a step backward. “I wasn’t the only one who knew you had the tire iron. Or the only one who knew you had a thing for Eva Stone.”
His face flushed. “After all these years, you’ve stirred up enough trouble. What good does it do now?”
“It brought Eva home to her family,” Brandy said.
Silenced for the moment, he ran a well–manicured hand through his gray hair, and then said abruptly, “Before you go prying any further, I’ve got to talk to you.”
“We can’t very well talk here.” She glanced at Weston Stone, wheeling his grandmother toward his car. “In light of this new development, I was going to ask you for another interview, late this afternoon.”
“No problem,” he said to Brandy in a voice a little less hostile. “You know I’ve still got an office at A & S Citrus. I’ll be waiting for you. Make it the cocktail hour. About five–thirty.” Apparently she still rated a drink, if not his familiar wink. But with Ace, anyone rated a drink.
“By the way,” Brandy asked, as he turned to leave, “do you by any chance drive a blue car?”
“You saw my Porsche. I also have an old black Cadillac, a relic from when I entertained for the company.” He did not stop to ask why she wanted to know. But if he were following her, she thought, would he use his own car? Wouldn’t he or the developer hire someone?
Blackthorne himself had already escorted Sylvania to his Cadillac and was now striding back toward Weston Stone and his grandmother.
“Do you own a blue car, Mr. Blackthorne?” Brandy called out. He whirled, his face contorted.
“You’re the one who turned that detective on me!” He stalked closer. “Said I almost ran you down in my boat, made all sorts of insinuations to the Sheriff’s Office!”
“Someone’s following me again,” Brandy said sweetly. “I thought it might be you.”
He raised one heavy arm. “If you print a charge like that, I’ll sue you and your paper for libel.”
She stayed calm, but she found herself taking one step backward. “The Sheriff’s Office may ask you some more questions about Eva Stone’s last afternoon,” she said. “We can’t talk about it here. I’ll come by your office late today. Be sure to wait for me.” He might be angry, but he would also be curious. For safety, she hoped his secretary would still be there.
After threading her way among the tombstones, careful not to step on any graves, she reached Steve. “You brought the goods?”
He opened the passenger door of the cruiser. “Get in. I’ll show you how they work. Remember, this isn’t Sheriff’s Office equipment, but I want it back undamaged.” He slipped under the wheel, opened the plastic bag, and removed a tiny lapel microphone from a box. “Never say we don’t cooperate with the press.”
“I may get something that’ll help make a case.” Carefully, Steve showed her how to attach the microphone to a small recorder and how to conceal them both, clipped to her underwear. He dropped them back into the bag, handed them to her, and gave her a solemn look. “Conversation you tape can’t be used as evidence, you know. We’d have to have a court order——which we don’t have the evidence to get. You can’t quote anyone in your story, either. Legally, people have to know they’re being recorded.”
“Understood,” she said. “It may not be good in court, but we’ll know if I’m on the right track. I’ll be able to prove what’s said. It’ll help the investigation.” She slipped out of the car, and turned toward him before closing the door. “Afterward, we’ll destroy the tape. You’re a treasure. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll count on you to be there.”
His square forehead hardened in disapproval. “You’re just lucky I’m off then. It’s the best I can do for the department, short of locking you up. And I’ve got no warrant for that either.”
She tapped the window and he rolled it down. “May I ask you about something else?” He nodded, puzzled. “How serious is it between Sharon and John?”
He scratched his head. “They’ve been a hot item for about two years. She’s finishing college and he’s trying to find a regular job. What’s the matter? Is he making your boyfriend jealous?” He threw his head back with a quick laugh and switched on the engine. The only help she’d get from Steve would be mechanical, she thought, starting down the road for her car, the leaden lump again in her chest.
From the back she recognized a stout figure in a black dress and a small white hat, Lily Mae Hall, walking slowly along the cemetery lane after the Stones, alone. As Brandy fell in along the sandy tracks beside her, the former maid looked up and her face brightened.
“I reckon I just wanted to say goodbye to Miss Eva, like old Mrs. Stone did,” Mrs. Hall said simply. “Seems like I’m the last person to see her alive. I feel like I ought’ve been more help.”
“You did all you could, Mrs. Hall,” Brandy said. “Since the officers found the tire iron, I’ve been wanting to talk to you again. They’re pretty sure it was the murder weapon. After Eva Stone disappeared into the lake, do you remember if Henry Washington ever said anything else about that tire iron?”
“He told me several days later that Mr. Southerland asked him about it. Said it wasn’t in his car. Henry told him he didn’t know what happened to it. He gave it to Mr. Langdon.”
“We know Brookfield said he had an appointment at the house before the others got back. Do you remember if he was home before you saw Eva go into the lake?”
“Lands, let me think.” They walked along in companionable silence for a few minutes. Finally Lily Mae spoke up. “I recollect me and Miss Sylvania had already toted the dirty sheets downstairs. I was getting the clean sheets out of the linen closet in the upstairs hallway when I heard Mr. Brookfield come in. His mother called out to him, and he said he was going to change clothes.” She stopped suddenly and clapped one ample hand over her mouth. “I declare! He said he was looking for Miss Eva. I remember because I was surprised that he said ‘Miss Eva.’ I thought he’d be looking for Miss Grace.”
“How long was that before you saw Eva walk out into the water?”
“Hard to say after all these years. But it must’ve been a little while because I went back into the rooms and made up the beds, and then I was picking up when I heard that bell. Next time I saw Mr. Brookfield, he was swimming out there with everyone else, looking for Miss Eva.”
Brandy patted her on the arm. “Thanks,” she said. “I have a theory about something and that fits just fine.”
Blue–black clouds were piling up in the west and a slight wind stirred the dead air. Brandy was hurrying past Blackthorne’s Cadillac toward her own hatchback, where she could see Grace waiting, when she heard a soft but unmistakable noise. She paused and glanced into the car. Sylvania was sitting alone in the passenger seat, her head bowed. The sound Brandy heard was sobbing.
***
“I’m sure this has been hard for you,” Brandy said later, as she walked Grace into the lobby of her lake side condominium. They had ridden back in silence. Now Grace responded with a tense nod, as if she held Brandy responsible for the ordeal. Beside the reception desk, the solid figure of Mabel Boxley was waiting.
“I have the airline tickets,” she said to Grace, waving envelopes above her head. At Brandy she frowned.
In a small alcove off the lobby, two silver–haired residents, one working at a desk with a computer and the other operating a Xerox machine, stopped and motioned to Grace.
Grace gave a tiny sig
h. “They’re editing and running off the weekly newsletter. Probably want to cut my article on bromeliads. I’ll just be a minute. It’s one aggravation after another.” She hurried toward the two women.
The efficient Mrs. Boxley rounded on Brandy, her plump face flushed. “I can’t wait to get her away from here. I can see the strain’s beginning to tell.” She stuffed the tickets into her purse. “I got us a flight day after tomorrow.” Her voice rose. “Her faith in her husband was her strength. And now she hears that her husband fathered another woman’s child, and then you tell her she’s got to go to that woman’s funeral!” As Mabel watched Grace leave the alcove, her indignation changed to guilt. “I should have been here for her.”
When Grace re–joined them, her unlined, oval face looked paler than ever. “I don’t know why I bother with that column. It isn’t appreciated.”
Mabel’s tone had softened. “We need to get you to your apartment where you can lie down.” She started across the lobby.
Brandy placed a hand on Grace’s arm before she could follow. “I hate to bother you with anything else,” she said. “I know you’re tired, but I need your help. I can explain how Eva Stone died, but I’ll need to see you again today, privately.”
Grace hesitated, then looked down at her gloves, then thoughtfully at Brandy. “Mabel plans to grocery shop about three–thirty or four. If it isn’t raining, I’ll wait for you on the same bench by the lake. I’ll use the time to finish my shawl.” She gave Brandy a wan smile. “I hope this will be the end of all the unpleasantness.”
As Grace trailed after the indispensable Mrs. Boxley, Brandy counted three more verified facts: Brookfield came back to see Eva before she vanished, any one of the suspects could have typed that phony note, and Brandy had pictured Eva’s dress correctly.
She glanced out the lobby’s broad front windows at the lake. The water had begun to churn in the wind. I called “a spirit from the vasty deep,” like I told John I would, she thought, and it will come.
At the desk she paused to borrow the telephone again and called Mrs. Brewster. “Don’t worry. It’s like I supposed,” she said. “The buttons go down the front.”
TWENTY–FOUR
Fortunately Mrs. O’Bannon was still at school when Brandy let herself into the house. She would not be there to ask questions before Brandy left again. She let Meg into the kitchen and gave her red–gold head a pat and feathery body a rub. The retriever bounced through the hall to Brandy’s bedroom, picked up her chew rag, and wagged her flag of a tail, hoping for a game. Brandy held her palm up to signal “no,” murmured, “I’ll make it up to you later,” and stepped into the bathroom for a shower. After thoroughly working a dark rinse through her hair at the sink, she flicked on the drier and checked her watch. Two–thirty.
In the bedroom again, Brandy looked over the notes she had made after the clinical psychologist’s call, added a few lines about the morning’s experience, and nodded. Everything fit. After pulling on a pair of jeans and a big shirt, she paused for a second before the mirror, fluffed out her mahogany colored bob, and gave the ends a flip with the curling iron. To her dad’s picture she whispered, “Wish me luck.”
Outside the sky continued to darken. She had not considered that the weather might be bad. Still, as she let Meg into the yard and drove a few minutes later back down the quiet streets, there was no sign of the blue sedan. Perhaps somebody had called off the dogs. She shuddered at the memory of the Dobermans. Maybe whoever set her up in the garage knew it was too late now, maybe had only wanted to keep her from seeing Mrs. Stone. Or maybe the person had learned the Sheriff’s Office was quite thorough, in spite of the almost fifty year time gap, and stopping Brandy would not help.
By three–thirty she stood on Mrs. Brewster’s front porch. The seamstress trudged to the door again in her slippers. “You don’t give a body much time,” she said, letting Brandy into the living room. “Still, I guess the dress is about as ready as it’ll ever be.” She looked pointedly at Brandy’s once auburn hair. “I hardly knew you. Liked it better natural.” She peered out the bay window and pursed her lips. “From now on, I guess I’ll have to read the Beacon more carefully. Must’ve been missing something. Will you need a police escort this time?”
Brandy smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
In the bedroom she took her place on the stool while the older woman pulled the red dress over her head, removed a pin here and there, fastened the long row of buttons, and smoothed down the wide, white collar. Then she stepped back with a pleased nod. Impressed, Brandy gaped at her image in the full–length mirror. Just maybe her plan was going to work, she thought, rolling her jeans and shirt into a plastic bag to carry to the car.
Before she left the dressmaker’s house, Brandy reached Steve again on the kitchen telephone. He was grumpy, but prepared. In the driver’s seat, with trembling fingers, she clamped the tiny microphone to her bra strap, ran the wires down the neckline, under the wide belt, and clipped the recorder to her half slip, concealed by the folds of the A–line skirt.
She would drive first to Leesburg. Thunder rumbled in clouds to the west. Please, no rain. Not yet, she thought. Beside the highway trees swayed in the wind. Still no blue car. She rattled over the Dora Canal, passed Mack’s dealership, and recognized his tall form standing with a customer in the lot. She did not dare wave. If Mack knew her plan, he would go ballistic. Not exactly the life he envisioned for her in that squat house in the suburb. When this case was over, she had promised him an answer. According to her plan, that would be tonight. She pushed the thought from her mind, gripped the wheel, and steeled herself for the task before her.
It was then that she glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the long, black car whip around the truck behind her and swerve in close to her bumper, a solitary figure at the wheel. A chill shot through her. Both Langdon and Blackthorne drove black Cadillacs.
She pressed harder on the gas pedal, changed lanes, tried to put other cars between them. The black car swung around them, and surged close again, its driver hunched forward, a dark shape behind the windshield. She bit her lip. She had not anticipated this, not now. Where was Steve’s patrol car when she needed him? And then she remembered the security booth at Grace’s complex. Surely the guard would not admit the black car. She could give Grace’s name. She was expected.
As Brandy swept up to the concrete block gate house, she flipped on the recorder and called out Grace Able’s name and address. A stocky, moon–faced man in uniform thumbed through a list of residents on a clipboard. In the mirror she could see the Cadillac charging up, the figure in it now clearer. Ace Langdon was almost slender. This was the bulky outline of Axel Blackthorne. He threw open the driver’s door and jumped out with surprising quickness.
“Grace Able. I’m in a hurry!” Brandy cried to the guard. He looked up.
Blackthorne had reached her hatchback. He thrust his pallid face up to her window. She could hear his breath coming in gasps, see the shaggy brows and the wide–spaced front teeth.
“Get out!” he rasped. “I want to talk to you now.”
When he seized the outside handle, her heart gave a sudden thud. She had not locked the doors. She saw the heavy fingers, the sapphire ring.
“Hey, just a minute!” the guard shouted, stepping out of the booth. “I don’t think the lady wants to talk to you.” Scowling, he strode up to Blackthorne. “I’m letting the lady through. You can get out of here.” The wrought iron gate rolled to one side.
The developer dropped his hand and flailed a large arm at the guard, while Brandy shifted into drive and gunned the engine. “I got friends here!” The voice was Blackthorne’s.
Brandy sped through the gate, hands shaking, and it clanged shut. In the rear view mirror she saw Blackthorne bull his way into the control booth, his voice still loud. She hadn’t expected him. He wasn’t part of her plans yet. She meant to see him later. “The best laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft agley,” she thought. But sh
e could not bear to turn back. This stage of her performance would not take long. Surely Steve would be here soon.
Along the deserted walkway the wind bent the crepe myrtles and lashed whitecaps on the surface of the lake. Grace sat on the same stone bench working stoically on her knitted shawl, a large rain coat folded beside her. She was dressed as she had been for the funeral, her hair held in place by a tidy scarf, her knitting bag in her lap. Brandy parked in an isolated spot near the red–tipped hedge, climbed out of the car, and glided on sandals toward her.
“I’m here again, Grace,” she called. For a few minutes she stood before the bench, the dress whipping around her knees, the dark hair blowing about her face, and looked down into the drawn, unhappy eyes of Grace Able. “I have bad news for you. It’s about Brookfield.”
Grace’s hands quivered slightly, but she did not appear surprised as she gathered up her needlepoint, laid it in the knitting bag, and threw the raincoat like a cape over her shoulders.
“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. She looked toward the thick clouds in the west. The sky was the color of charcoal and heavy with the smell of rain. “Perhaps we should sit in my car. I parked near the bench. Mabel will be back soon. She might interrupt us in the apartment.” She turned her pale, perfect face toward Brandy. “I’ll be leaving town day after tomorrow.”
They lowered their heads against the wind and Brandy followed Grace to her white Mercedes, nervously glancing about for Steve——or Blackthorne. A drop of rain spattered on the cement. While Grace stepped in and settled herself, Brandy hurried around to the passenger’s side. The older woman waited, stiffly erect, her hands fumbling with the catch on her knitting bag. Deep in the clouds to the west lightning flared. Across the hedge Brandy heard a car door slam. She paused and peered through the fluttering leaves. Under a parking lot lamp shone the sleek body of the Cadillac. Blackthorne had talked his way in.
