Dead, White, and Blue

by Carolyn Hart

  Dead, White, and Blue

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Carolyn Hart

  WHAT THE CAT SAW

  Death on Demand Mysteries

  DEATH COMES SILENTLY

  DEAD, WHITE, AND BLUE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2013 by Carolyn Hart.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hart, Carolyn G.

  Dead, white, and blue / Carolyn Hart.—First edition.

  pages cm.—(Death on demand mysteries)

  ISBN: 978-1-101-62242-1

  1. Darling, Annie Laurance (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Darling, Max (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Booksellers and bookselling—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Fiction. 5. Women detectives—South Carolina—Fiction. 6. South Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.A676D435 2013

  813’.54—dc23 2013000482

  FIRST EDITION: May 2013

  Cover design by Jason Gill.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To Lee Evans Prier,

  remembering long-ago happy days

  in Southern California.

  Table of Contents

  1

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  14

  15

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  17

  1

  Anger sharpened Vera Hurst’s features, emphasized the determined line of her jaw. She had never quite been beautiful, her jaw was too strong, her deep-set eyes too commanding. There was something primal in Vera that Wesley found irresistible. Flaming with rage, she had never been more desirable. Once she had been his wife, but he had squandered her trust. He’d lost what mattered to him and now he was trapped in an empty marriage.

  “Shell said she’ll bring suit for adultery.” Wesley Hurst stood with his back to the hotel room door. He felt caught in a nightmare, his life spinning out of control.

  Vera folded her arms. “I see. The slutty home wrecker is the little woman betrayed. That’s almost funny. But not quite.” Vera’s cool voice was controlled, acerbic.

  “She won’t agree to a divorce.” Wesley still grappled with disbelief at Shell’s response. He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Damn, women were a lot of trouble. He felt bewildered and obscurely resentful as he faced the woman who had been his wife, who was not now his wife. He’d never intended to have more than a fling with Shell. In a moment of unrelenting honesty, he faced up to shabby motives that made him feel small and inadequate. He’d wanted to score off Bucky and maybe he’d wanted to shake Vera out of her complacency. And, he felt even smaller, maybe he was attracted to Shell because she was openly, flamboyantly powerful where Vera’s force was concealed beneath a veneer of Southern charm. Shell, voluptuous, sexy, and inviting, pulled him further than he’d intended to go. Vera gave him hell and he got his back up and now everything was all screwed up.

  When he dug down deep enough, he knew he couldn’t live without Vera. She’d never been more passionate than in their clandestine meetings. Again, uncertainty pricked his pride. Was her passion created by the lure of the surreptitious, by a vindictive pleasure in besting Shell, or because she needed him as well? He poked the question layers deep, but on sleepless nights, he knew he’d wonder.

  Vera’s gaze was cold, demanding. “What did you tell her?”

  “I’ll countersue. I know damn well she’d been screwing around with Dave.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “Yes.”

  Vera’s cold green eyes studied him. “You never could lie worth a damn. What else did she say?”

  He walked closer to Vera, put a hand on her shoulder, found it rigid. His hand dropped away. “She’ll tell everyone you and I are having an affair.” He wouldn’t repeat Shell’s exact words, which had been short, pungent, and explicit. What curdled him inside was Shell’s amusement. She wasn’t angry or regretful or, God knew, jealous. She laughed. Damn her. If she carried out her threat…

  “Look at me, Wesley.”

  Each word was like the flick of a whip. Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his gaze.

  “What else did she say?”

  He didn’t want to answer. But he did. “She said she might borrow the mic from the bandleader, tell everyone at the dance. She said maybe you should wear a special dress tonight, embroidered with a scarlet A.”

  • • •

  Jed Hurst stalked up the stairs. He heard Hayley’s music, a hot salsa, “Mi Cascabel” with trumpets and drums and the urgent, enticing lyrics. Was he the only person in the whole family who saw what was happening? Ever since Dad moved out and married Shell, Mom didn’t want to hear a word about Shell, but he couldn’t explain what was going on with Hayley without talking about Shell. Besides, Mom and Hayley were always crossways, especially after Hayley got buddy-buddy with Shell.

  He had a flash of adult understanding. Maybe Hayley tried to act like Shell because she thought that’s what Dad admired. Maybe Hayley was trying to get back at Mom because she divorced Dad. As for Dad, he’d gone from a guy with the hots for Shell to disappearing. Not for real. Dad was actually next door in an even bigger, splashier house, but it was like he pulled on an invisible suit when Shell was in the room. Yesterday Jed followed him out to his car, tried to tell him, but the minute Jed started talking about Shell, Dad’s face got that closed look and he peeled out of the driveway. Dad seemed to spend more time than ever on the Vagabond, nosing out into the Sound by himself.

  Somebody had to do something before it was too late. Jed reached Hayley’s door. He knocked hard three times, turned the knob. The door was locked. “Hayley, let me in.” He pounded, didn’t stop.

  He didn’t hear a click, but finally the panel opened maybe an inch. “Get lost, Jed.”

  “Hayley, you got to let me in. Kevin’s mom and dad saw you.”

  Abruptly, the door was flung wide.

  Jed stared at his sister as the drums boomed and trumpets blared. He didn’t know what bothered him most, the makeup that made her look thirty instead of fifteen, the too-tight red sateen blouse, or the silver lamé leggings. “You look like a slut.”

  She tossed her head, rolled her eyes, heaved a dramatic sigh. It was an echo of Shell the da
y Mom ordered her out of their guesthouse. Uncle Bucky had brought her with him on a visit. Uncle Bucky claimed to be a Hollywood producer, but he’d heard his dad say that Uncle Bucky was just a guy on the fringe who’d managed to meet some people because he had money. Dad and Uncle Bucky always clashed. Jed didn’t see where either of them had ever amounted to much. They both lived off their trust funds, and what was the difference between hanging around Hollywood and spending all your time on your boat? He wasn’t going to be like that. Maybe he’d go to Clemson, and if everything broke right, he’d be a golf pro. He was going to be somebody, do something with his life. He wasn’t going to be a fake like Uncle Bucky. Dad wasn’t a fake, but he didn’t have to work so he’d never tried to do anything. He was a good sailor, but so were a lot of rich guys. As for Uncle Bucky, every time he visited, there was trouble. He thought the island was backward and stupid. Jed wanted to ask him why he bothered to come. But he knew the answer. Uncle Bucky wasn’t a big deal in Hollywood, but on the island he bragged about his Hollywood connections and how he had lunch with some big star or other. The last time he’d brought Shell Vitale, his new discovery, and nothing had been worth a damn ever since. Of course, he hadn’t come back, not since Mom and Dad divorced and Dad married Shell. Only a year ago, but everything had been lousy ever since.

  Especially Hayley.

  “Take that stuff off. Where’d you get clothes like that?”

  Hayley gave another long-suffering, world-weary sigh. “So plebeian. Utterly bourgeois. Mired in mediocrity. Juvenile.” Her dark eyes gleamed with malice. “Pimply.”

  Jed hated the splotches on his face. He’d popped a yellow zit near his right eye this morning, and the blemish was all he saw when he looked in the mirror. Usually, Hayley’s taunt would have been enough to send him off in a rage, but he kept on, dogged, determined, scared. “The Buccaneer Bar’s a dive. You’re underage. You danced with guys you’d never met. Kevin’s mom and dad were on a scavenger hunt for a beer coaster last night and they couldn’t believe it when they saw you.”

  Hayley struck a pose, overdrawn lips pouty, shoulders lifted, arms akimbo, one hip higher. “They should mind their own business. What right did they have to say something to the manager? Now I can’t go back. The manager told me to take a hike.”

  “How’d you even know about a place like that?”

  Hayley stretched her fingers, admired bloodred nail polish. “Shell and I had lunch and she told me about it. She said it was hot and the music was swell and nobody’d ever guess I was underage because I know how to flaunt it.”

  “I’ll call the cops. That’s contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” Jed knew he was blustering. The cops would probably ignore him. How could he prove anything? Hayley would lie.

  Hayley’s eyes flared. “Don’t you dare. Shell’s wonderful. Shell says I can handle myself. Shell says rules are for the boring masses. Shell says you have to dance to the beat you hear in your heart. Shell says—”

  Jed felt hollow inside as he turned away. Shell says… He had to do something.

  • • •

  Maggie Peterson smiled brightly as she crinkled the red crepe paper streamer. Inside she fought wave after wave of panic and desolation. She tossed one end to Claire Crawford. Claire’s nonstop chatter flowed around Maggie like the sounds of city traffic or the surf, always there, negligible, requiring no comment or attention. How could this be happening to her?

  She bent to the task of thumbtacking the streamer to the edge of the bandstand. She felt numb, empty. Like her life. The shock when she’d found out was like the moment when they’d told her the tumor was malignant. Dave had been a rock then, seeing her through the surgery, taking her to chemo, helping her pick out a wig, deep black just like her hair. Her hair grew back a dull brown and she felt diminished. Her black hair had emphasized the rich brown of her eyes. The color rinse she now used didn’t match the glory of the original. When she’d been declared cured, he’d bought a magnum of Cristal to celebrate. They’d danced, the two of them, on the terrace of the house, Dave big and blond, loud and powerful, she too thin and conscious that she wouldn’t seem whole again until she had the implants. Champagne always went to her head and she’d giggled through the evening and Dave had raised toast after toast, “To us. Now. Always.”

  She could hear his voice, deep, robust.

  That was last fall. It was the New Year’s Eve dance when Wesley first brought Shell. She remembered that night, Wesley ruddy from a jaunt he and Shell had taken to Australia, Shell spectacularly lovely in a gold lamé gown that every woman there knew cost thousands. There was perfection in the styling of the lacy bodice and high ruched waistband above a swirling layered skirt. Shell’s reddish brown hair and classic features were Hollywood perfect, but her magic wasn’t that she was beautiful. Several women in the room were beautiful. None of them possessed Shell’s breathtaking aura of untamed wildness and careless confidence. No one who looked at her, woman or man, ever doubted that Shell would do what she wanted when she wanted and never count the cost. To herself or to others.

  From the instant Dave saw Shell, nothing was ever the same.

  The crepe paper streamer was yanked.

  Claire’s high voice was insistent. “Maggie, I swear I’ve asked you three times. Do you want white or blue for the next row?”

  Maggie stared blankly at Claire’s long face with its untidy mop of brown curls and a nose that quivered.

  “White or blue?” The nose twitched.

  Maggie stifled a hysterical laugh. Claire’s world had shrunk to the all-important decision, a white streamer or a blue one. What would she do if Maggie told her red was for blood, white was for hearses, and blue for the gun in Dave’s desk?

  • • •

  Dave Peterson was good at figuring angles and stresses. He’d built bridges all over South Carolina and Georgia and nobody had to worry about a fracture. He’d planned everything, secretly cashing out stock, selling property. Half and half. He’d take half, leave half for Maggie. Fair was fair.

  He pushed away a quick memory of Maggie, her black tresses gleaming in the sun, her dark eyes gazing at him with open passion. Another picture slid in its place, Maggie thin and wan, weak and sick from chemo, wig askew. But pulsing in his veins was the memory of Shell in his arms, tangled chestnut hair, sloe eyes, an enigmatic smile.

  He frowned. He didn’t know what to take from her farewell at their last meeting. He’d told Shell the plan, instructed her to bring her passport, he’d take care of everything else. She’d given her light rippling laugh, paused in the doorway only long enough to murmur, “Spoken like an engineer. Black or white. Up or down. In or out. Life’s never that simple, cherie,” and then she was gone, the door closing behind her.

  He remembered the championship game his senior year. Hot, sweaty, aching, the shouts of the crowd as the final seconds ticked, coming off the field, a wild melee, the icy shock when his teammates upended the ice-filled cooler over him. For an instant, it was like his heart stopped. He’d felt that same instant of shock at Shell’s parting words.

  He sat stone still, eyes narrowed, face hard. Nobody screwed him over.

  • • •

  The early-morning sun slanted through the live oak tree, turning tangles of Spanish moss from dull grayness to silky gray green. Eileen Marsh Irwin avoided direct sunlight in July, but she enjoyed starting the day on the terrace in a cushioned teak chair with her own Cornish tea. On a small table beside her sat a china teapot, a plate of scones, clotted cream, and raspberry jam. Eileen lowered her newspaper enough to watch her husband. Middling height, middling appearance, his hair now graying and thinning, glasses, a rounded face that might have inspired confidence as a family doctor or genial salesmen if you didn’t look too closely, see the gleam of avarice in faded brown eyes, the hint of weakness in his mouth.

  Edward stood on the putting green. Their rambling home overlooked the country club golf course. He held a putter in his hand, but he was i
mmobile, slump shouldered, as if braced against a gale wind. Poor Edward. So transparent. He’d forgotten that he was on the green. Instead, his mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. She knew the signs. Edward was in big trouble.

  They never had much to say to each other. Pleasantries. A careful skirting of any topic likely to cause distress. A former Latin teacher, she enjoyed reading Catullus, Horace, and Lucan. She often thought in Latin. In omnia paratus. With Edward she had learned to be ready for all things.

  Eileen’s gaze was cool and thoughtful. She had no illusions about her husband. Edward thought he was clever. He wasn’t. The last time Edward was in trouble—a matter of buying on the margin and an unexpected call—she’d warned him. She would not invade her trust fund again. She wondered what he’d done this time. He always thought the next risky investment would make him rich. There had been the car dealership that cratered, the string of second-class movie theaters, the smelter in China.

  Her fine brows drew down. He’d been worried since last winter. Spring came and he had appeared more relaxed, actually looked smug, almost cocky. But this morning he’d come out to the terrace pale and distraught, poured a mug of coffee, muttered something unintelligible, left the coffee to grow cold on the table, and bolted to the green where he now stood, obviously a man with demons nipping at his heels.

  Eileen finished her tea, folded the newspaper, rose. She crossed the terrace, strode to the library, her face furrowed. She and Edward didn’t share a room. When she glimpsed him coming down the stairs this morning, his rounded face appeared untroubled. As she had stepped onto the terrace, the phone rang. She permitted nothing to interfere with her morning tea. The ring ended in midpeal and she knew Edward had answered.

  Eileen stepped into the library. She cherished the warmth of the cypress walls, the slight ripple in the old heart pine floor, the gilt oval frame over the fireplace that held a faded painting of her grandfather. The mahogany desk had been in the family for generations. Her great-grandfather had sat there to keep the books of his lumber company. She’d resisted a modern telephone with caller ID and an answering system until she realized the small window afforded her the pleasure of choosing whether to answer the telephone. Caller ID provided a record. She stood at the desk, looked down.