Annie waved at him with moderate enthusiasm.
“My God,” he exclaimed in tones of awe, which were clearly not appreciated, “you’re awake.”
She sipped coffee, then replied in a carefully modulated voice. “Mrs. Brawley telephoned at six-fifteen. She wanted to know whether Reginald Hoxton’s shoes were freshly shined.”
“Fascinating the way her mind works.” He dropped into the chair opposite her. “What did you tell her?”
She poured a fresh cup of coffee from the server. “This damn stuff’s lukewarm. And the croissants are dreadful.”
He waited.
“I told her I had no friggin’ idea.”
“You didn’t!”
“Six-fifteen in the morning.”
“Lovely hour. You should have been up with me.”
“I hope you were having more fun than I was.”
“I took a walk.”
“Your voice is freighted with portent.”
He looked over the table, picked up a dog-eared menu, dropped it hastily. “Do you have some paper? A pen?”
She found a crumpled renewal notice for Time with a tiny wooden pencil attached.
He looked at it in disdain. “I think this is a collector’s item.” Then, hunching over the table he drew a map.
When he was finished, he proudly handed it to her.
She studied it, handed it back, picked up a croissant, and bent it. “Spongy.”
“Don’t you see?”
“I see that Ephraim Street and Federal Street are parallel.”
He poked at the map with a determined finger. “Don’t you remember yesterday afternoon, how all those people showed up at the pond? Like a Greek chorus.”
“So?”
“They were all within minutes of the pond. Minutes. Anyone of them could have clobbered Corinne.”
She glanced back down at the map. “I guess so,” she said slowly. “Anyone of them could have.” Then she grimaced. “But so what? Why do we care? I’ll tell you something, Max. I am not going to get involved in another murder hunt. I’m involved in the Mystery Nights, and that’s enough to satisfy my blood lust for months.” She warmed to her theme. “Correction: for years.” She started to shove back her chair, then froze, looking over his shoulder toward the arch.
Chief Wells filled the brick entryway, his shoulders almost touching the curved walls. His slab-like face, pocked as old cement, looked ominously grim. Then his questing eyes stopped and focused on her.
IN THE SUDDEN SILENCE, his boot heels rasped loudly against the bricks as he crossed to their table. He didn’t remove his cowboy hat, and Annie took an unreasoning dislike to the smooth, high, undented crown. Who did he think he was? A Canadian Mountie? He wore gray slacks this morning with his black coat. A black string tie drooped against a faded white shirt. His frosty eyes watched her like a hunter with a 22-inch mallard in his sights.
Whispers, soft as a summer wind in wheat stubble, rippled among the garden clubbers. Annie heard “chief” and “murder” and a sibilant hiss of meaningful “she’s.” She shared an impartial glare between the brightly curious women and the lawman.
“Ms. Laurance.” He moved his pouchy jaws, shifting a wad of chewing tobacco from one side to the other, then gave Max a brief glance. “Mr. Darling.” The words sounded like they’d been scraped out of a rusting barrel. “Like to talk to you. At the scene of the crime.”
Max smiled pleasantly, but his dark blue eyes were watchful. “Ms. Laurance gave you all the information she had yesterday, Chief.”
“Did she? I didn’t hear tell about her quarrel with Mrs. Webster.” The tobacco bulged against one cheek. “Course, she can talk to me over there,” the big head nodded to the west, “or at the station. Her choice.”
Annie had always wondered what it would be like to be taken into custody. Her present feelings were as close as she ever hoped to come. She didn’t like it, but, mostly, it made her mad. Max was sending an avalanche of silent messages, which she had no difficulty deciphering. They boiled down to: keep cool.
It was still too early for tourists, but an occasional car passed as they headed down Ephraim Street. A street cleaner paused in his sweeping to eye them curiously. No lights shown from the front windows of the Prichard House, and the morning paper lay midway up the gray marble steps. Annie had devoured the headlines in her copy of the Chastain Courier over her breakfast coffee. The lead story was topped with a 3 column 48 point bold head:
SOCIETY PRESIDENT MURDERED AT POND
The drop head read:
CORINNE PRICHARD BLUDGEONED;
WEAPON IS MYSTERY NIGHT PROP
How dreadful it would be for Leighton to read those blaring headlines. She felt hideously intrusive as the police chief gestured for her and Max to walk up the drive toward the tents, which had a forlorn, after-the-circus appearance this morning.
“Was it right about here?” Wells grated. He spat into the grass, but his eyes never left her face.
“Right about here what?” she demanded.
“That you threatened Mrs. Webster.”
“That’s unwarranted, Chief.” Max’s voice was as hard-edged as a meat mallet. “At no time has Ms. Laurance in any way ever threatened Mrs. Webster.”
Wells transferred his glower to Max. “Were you here?”
“No. However—”
“Then butt out. I’m asking the girl here.”
“That’s fine. But I’m a friend of Ms. Laurance’s, and I’m telling her that she doesn’t have to answer any questions unless she has an attorney of her choice present.”
“You a lawyer?”
“Member of the Bar of the State of New York.”
Wells lifted a massive hand to scratch at his jaw. “That doesn’t give you any right to mouthpiece here.”
“Certainly not, and I don’t hold myself out as practicing in South Carolina. But there’s no law to prevent me from providing Ms. Laurance with counsel free of charge.” Max had lost his aura of relaxed complaisance. As he faced Wells, he looked as tough and determined—and handsome—as The Saint at a denouement. Annie loved it.
Wells masticated his tobacco for a long moment, then without a word, turned back to Annie. She savored it as a victory, but realized with a sinking heart, that the skirmish was far from over.
“I got a witness, heard you tell Mrs. Webster she’d be a dead body if she didn’t get off your case.”
Annie seined through yesterday’s encounters. Oh God, the watercolors … The entire infuriating scene sprang into her mind, and once again she throbbed with anger.
“She was really a bitch,” Annie exploded.
Max sighed wearily and rolled his eyes heavenward.
Wells looked like a hammerhead positioning himself for the kill.
“I mean really! She insulted Edith Ferrier, who’s worked her tail off for the Society, then she twisted the knife in that poor kid painter, and, finally, she went after my posters. I wasn’t having any.”
“So when you met up with her at the pond and she started in again, you picked up that croquet mallet and let her have it.” His words bounced like boulders down a hillside, gathering force as they came.
Too late, Annie remembered Max’s signals. So what the hell. She couldn’t go head-to-head with Wells. He was too damned big, but she glared up at him and spit back, “Absolutely not. I didn’t see her again until she was dead—and that wasn’t my pleasure.” Actually, her stomach gave a decided lurch, remembering that dented skull. “Look, you’re off on the wrong foot. Frankly, I don’t care who crunched that awful woman, but there’s a big field out there.”
“Nobody else threatened her. And you and she had a knock-down-and-drag-out fight at the rehearsal Sunday night, and she ticked you off first thing Monday morning ‘cause you were late. It all got to be too much, didn’t it?”
“Chief, that woman was ripe for murder. She’d infuriated everybody who knew her. She poisoned everything she touched. Have you bothered to look
around? You haven’t even asked me about the letter that listed all the reasons everybody wanted to kill her. What kind of investigator are you? If you’ve got so many big-mouthed witnesses, surely somebody’s told you about the letter.”
Wells looked exquisitely bored. “Yeah, I heard about it. That letter you say you didn’t write.”
“Obviously, she didn’t write it,” Max interjected. “How would she get stationery from the Chastain Historical Preservation Society? How would she know the dirt on everybody in Chastain?”
Wells shrugged. “That letter don’t mean a thing. Just some woman with her nose in the air.” So he’d talked to Roscoe Morgan. “I don’t need any fancy-dan fiction to find a murderer when I got two people hot and heavy with Mrs. Webster.”
“Two people?” At least she wasn’t the only candidate for the county jail.
Wells paused to expectorate a long stream of tobacco juice, then rubbed a heavy hand over his mouth. “Yeah. You and that smart-ass reporter.”
Two outsiders. Annie could almost hear the click of the cell door.
“How about Edith Ferrier? And Tim Bond? And Sybil Giacomo? And everybody else mentioned in the letter?” Hands on her hips, she glared at him.
“Little lady, I don’t give a damn about that letter. Now you tell me this—who picked the pond for a murder spot? Who carried the weapon there? And who knows all about killin’?”
An ear-splitting roar echoed up from the river. Annie pressed her fingers briefly to her temples.
“The speedboat races,” Max observed. “They get underway about eleven.”
Sightseers eddied up and down Ephraim Street, drawn to the booths which were beginning to open.
“All this place lacks is a Coliseum with lions.”
Max grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe next year.”
“This year the sport’s going to be feeding me and Frazier to the local gendarmes.”
The high keen of a revving speedboat almost drowned out her words.
“Oh, good grief. Let’s see if we can find a spot quiet enough to despair in.”
But the lobby of the Inn teemed with culture-hungry tourists.
A fat lady stuffed into an orange polyester slack suit pouted in a corner. “I don’t see why Mildred always has to have her way.”
Mildred, prim and purposeful in a restrained gray shirtwaist, brandished her guidebook. “The McNeil gardens are second only to Middleton Place. And that’s where we’re going.”
Idell Gordon spotted them, and gestured energetically at the message slot for Room 312.
Max made it to the ferry wharf with ten minutes to spare. He wriggled impatiently in his seat. He wished he were with Annie, but they needed that letter containing the Mrs. Moneypot’s mystery plot. If the chief wouldn’t investigate its origins, by God, they would.
The cellular telephone rang.
He snatched it up, then relaxed at the sound of his secretary’s voice. God, he wouldn’t put it past Wells to clap Annie in chains at any minute.
“London called.”
“The Queen, or the Prime Minister?”
“Neither,” Barbie replied seriously. Max admired her efficiency but regretted that her sense of humor was on a level with Agatha’s. “Mr. Ronald Harrowgate called from Sotheby’s. He said the matter could be concluded for 200 pounds.”
“Great. Call right back. And tell them to send it Federal Express.”
“Across the Atlantic?”
“Sure.”
As he hung up, Max grinned. At least something good was happening this morning. It wasn’t an expensive gift, but it was a momento she would cherish. And, when she was ecstatic with delight, well, that would be the time to spring his new plan for the wedding.
Three cheery toots of the whistle signaled the ferry’s approach. Max looked across the sparkling water. As soon as he had the Moneypot’s plot in hand …
Gail was waiting on the kitchen steps for Annie. She wore an ankle-length gray cotton skirt, a high-necked white blouse with a lacey front panel, and a pale yellow cummerbund. Her thick, shining auburn hair was twisted into a severe bun, emphasizing the circles beneath her eyes and her pallor.
“I’m sorry to ask you to come to the back. Leighton’s in the drawing room with some cousins from Savannah.” Her hands twisted nervously. “You’re awfully nice to come at all.”
Although she had her own objectives for this meeting, Annie couldn’t have refused the piteous message Idell had handed her. Please come. I need help.—Gail P.
And Gail did look damned vulnerable, frail, and grief-stricken. For just an instant, Annie felt a flicker of irritation. Where was the girl’s gumption? Then she thought of Corinne’s steel strong will and the years she’d had to dominate this gentle creature.
“Certainly I’ve come. What can I do?”
“I saw you out in front. With Chief Wells. Did he say anything?” She waited tensely for Annie’s answer.
Annie saw no point in advertising her own predicament. She replied judiciously, “He was interested in what Corinne did yesterday.” Which was a very delicate way of putting it.
“Did he—did he mention Bobby Frazier?”
Annie couldn’t decide how to field that one, and she waited long enough that Gail assumed the worst.
“Oh, I knew it.” The girl clung to the wooden railing. “He’s prejudiced against anyone different. I’m so afraid he’ll try to blame Bobby.”
“Being from out of town isn’t sufficient grounds for a murder charge,” Annie said firmly, mentally crossing her fingers.
Gail shook her head hopelessly. “You don’t understand. Bobby and Corinne—”
“Why did she want him out of town?”
Gail stared at Annie as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. “How did you know that? How did you ever know?”
The morning’s on-shore breeze rattled the glossy magnolia leaves and whipped the frothy lace at her throat.
“Last week at the Society meeting, the famous one where I read the letter—” Gail nodded, her eyes never leaving Annie’s face—“before we came in, Bobby and Corinne had a spat on the sidewalk and I heard him say something about her offering him money to leave town.”
Gail gripped Annie’s arm. “Did you tell Chief Wells?”
“No. But look, Gail, something like that can’t be kept quiet. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Lucy was coming up the sidewalk just then, too.”
“Oh, Lucy would never tell. She knows how I feel about—” Gail flushed. “I mean, he’s awfully nice. No, Lucy won’t tell.” Then her cheeks burned a deeper red, and she released Annie’s arm. “I’m sorry, I can’t ask you not to speak out. But it isn’t nearly as awful as it sounds. If you just let me explain, you’ll see it doesn’t amount to anything!
“I met Bobby last fall when he came to do an article on the Museum. I work at the Prichard Museum. I’m the curator.” Quiet pride shone in her eyes. “That’s what I studied at school, art history. And I don’t have the job just because of my family. Even Bobby sees that. He told me so.” A smile touched her drawn face. “Bobby’s not like anyone I ever met before. He’s so strong and quick, and he says what he thinks, always.” She looked at Annie with a flash of rare defiance that made her look radiantly beautiful for a fleeting moment. “I like that.”
Annie knew directness could have its advantages. She thought of Max, whose mind was positively serpentine. And she enjoyed that, for all the frustration it could engender. Weddings with 500 guests indeed!
Gail’s moment of courage faded. “My aunt didn’t like him. She said he wasn’t—” she jerked her head angrily “—wasn’t a gentleman. She told me not to see him anymore.” She darted a defensive look at Annie. “He kept on coming to the Museum. And we went out for lunch, and sometimes we met for dinner.”
“Corinne didn’t know?”
Gail lifted her chin. “I finally decided we weren’t going to sneak around anymore. I told her I was going to see
him when I wanted to.”
“Is that what prompted her performance the day I came to look at the grounds?”
Gail avoided Annie’s eyes, staring down at the lake-blue amethyst ring on her right hand. “That was just Corinne being Corinne.”
“Why were you so angry?”
“Because—because I couldn’t believe what she’d done.” An echo of that anger throbbed in her voice now. Her blue eyes enormous, the girl struggled to breathe, and Annie remembered the dreadful moments in the exquisite front hall of Prichard House. “She offered him money to leave town—and he took it.” Gail looked at her imploringly. “You won’t understand. I almost didn’t understand, when I found out. I felt like a fool, that he hadn’t cared for me at all, that he was just interested in money. Then, yesterday, he was mad, too, and he yelled at me to look at the canceled check before I made up my mind. I called a friend who works at the bank, and she checked for me. Bobby’s endorsed the check over to the National Children’s Fund.”
“So he took the money, just like he was being bought off, then turned it over to charity? She must have been furious.” Oh, what she would have given for a glimpse of Corinne’s face when she discovered Bobby’s doings!
“He doesn’t care about money. When I told her yesterday afternoon, she said he was a thief and a cheat, and I told her she was an ugly, jealous old woman.” The fire died in her eyes. “I didn’t know anything was going to happen to her. I told her there wasn’t anything she could do to keep us apart. She said if I saw him again, I wouldn’t get a penny of my parents’ estate. But when I told Bobby, he didn’t care about that at all.”
Design for Murder Page 15
