Dead By Midnight

by Carolyn Hart

  Annie tried to sort out the timing in her mind. Kit and Laura in the house. Tommy in the backyard. Her lips felt stiff. “The murderer has to be Tommy.” Blood on the blue polo . . .

  Billy slammed a hand on his desk. “I’ve been a cop for a long time.” He looked angry and frustrated. “I never thought Elaine was the killer. Now we have Tommy in her place. But you know what, the murder of Darwyn Jack knocks everything screwy.”

  Annie was puzzled. “He must have seen Tommy.”

  Billy nodded shortly. “Right. The easy answer is that Tommy killed him because Darwyn tried blackmail, though I don’t know how much money he could get out of a high school kid.” He waved a hand. “I know, Tommy inherits, but I doubt he can get his hands on big money.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Even semibig money. So now, and I’m saying it like the circuit solicitor will see it, the easy answer will be that Darwyn tried to blackmail Tommy and Tommy killed him. The easy answer before that, and the circuit solicitor was hot for me to arrest Elaine, is that she killed Darwyn. But I don’t believe either one of them cracked his skull. Darwyn’s murder was planned down to the last detail and that includes Elaine’s golf club. He was lured to the gazebo—the prosecution will argue he was there for a payoff—and what happened? Darwyn came to the gazebo. He sat on the top step. The killer then moved behind him and picked up Elaine Jamison’s five iron and gave an almighty swing.” Billy leaned forward and his words came in a staccato rush. “That doesn’t play with me. Let’s take Elaine Jamison. Tuesday, when her brother was killed, it’s obvious she threw the murder weapon in the marsh. Smart move, right? We still haven’t found the gun. We can’t drain the marsh. My guess is we’ll never find that Colt. Someday we may have a force-three hurricane and nature can play some tricks and a rusted pistol might be found wedged in a live-oak tree. Stranger things have happened. For now, we don’t have the weapon. Fast-forward to Thursday night. The murderer used Elaine Jamison’s five iron, which we later find in her golf bag. The club face wasn’t even wiped off after it struck him. We had plenty of tissue to test. The lab results are back and her club was the murder weapon.” He looked disgusted. “Does that make sense? She had the smarts to throw the Colt into the marsh and she was under pressure because she knew any minute Glen’s body would be found. So I’m supposed to believe that Thursday night she takes her own five iron with her fingerprints all over the shaft, tucks the club away in the gazebo where it will be handy, meets Darwyn, cracks his skull, then marches back to her garage and puts the dirty club in her bag? Baloney. I didn’t believe it then. I don’t believe it now. Besides that, you know what we found hidden up in a crook of a tree near the gazebo? Her gardening gloves. Now, why would she wear gardening gloves and not wipe off the fingerprints from the club? She had all night to throw that club in the marsh and put the gloves away in her gardening basket. We might have checked her bag and discovered the five iron was missing and been able to prove the wound was consistent with having been made by a five iron, but that doesn’t compare to finding her club and proving it was the murder weapon.”

  “None of it makes sense.” Annie thought of murder deep in the night, Darwyn lying facedown at the base of the gazebo steps. Elaine would have been a fool to keep the club. And there was no point in hiding the gloves up in a tree.

  Billy was gruff. “You bet it’s screwy. She’s cool and smart and quick Tuesday morning when the pressure’s on, but she panics and shoves the stick in her bag when it’s the middle of the night and no one else is around, plus scrambles up in a tree to tuck her gloves in a crotch. There’s a lot to be said for MO. People act the way they’re going to act. You can’t have smart-as-a-whip and dumb-as-a-post in the same person. That’s what I told Brice.”

  Brice Willard Posey, the circuit solicitor, rarely heeded advice.

  Billy shook his head. “Brice never met a fact he’d pay attention to. He was hell-bent to arrest Elaine. I staved him off, at least until after tomorrow. She and her lawyer will show up here at nine. Now the solicitor will switch horses and ride Tommy. He’ll say I was right on the button and the club in the bag was a trap for her. He’ll say Tommy Jamison used the club and hid the gardening gloves and left his aunt holding the bag. The solicitor will love it: deranged teenager from old island family guns down father, knocks off a blackmailer, and frames his aunt. Do you know why that scenario stinks?”

  “Not the same MO?”

  He shook his head. “The MO’s the same. The key to the gun safe disappeared before the murder. That shows planning, just like Darwyn’s murder shows planning. This time it has to do with character. Tommy Jamison’s got a reputation for a bad temper. A couple of fights after football games, sometimes some rough stuff in the locker room. Apparently, he loses his cool, then pretty quick snaps out of his rage and is an all-around good guy. If he’d shot his dad, then had been stricken with remorse, that would be one thing, but Glen’s death was planned down to the last detail. For example, Darwyn only worked there on Tuesday mornings. That’s when the leaf blower would hide the sound of the shots. Lots of planning, so same MO. That doesn’t sound like Tommy Jamison. Besides, when he found his dad dead, if he was dead, who did Tommy run to? His aunt. She came through for him big-time. Unless he’s like Rhoda in The Bad Seed, he’d frame anybody but his aunt. Who tried to save him? Who took his shirt and hid it and lied for him when we found it? His aunt.”

  Annie remembered that moment when the bloodhound loped up to Tommy and began to bay and when the shirt was identified as his, how Tommy had begun to speak but Elaine cut him off. His instinct had been to tell the truth and save his aunt.

  Billy glanced toward a gray folder that sat by itself near his in-box. He reached out, tapped the cover. “And there’s Pat Merridew. We’ll never prove she was murdered, but too much has happened in the Jamison gazebo to act like that picture in her BlackBerry didn’t mean anything.” He gave Annie a wry glance. “You kept telling me, right?”

  Annie felt as if she’d planted a flag atop a mountain.

  Billy gave her a thumbs-up. “Counting her as another murder victim makes it clear that the crimes were carefully planned. Admittedly, we have three deaths from different means—poison, shots, and a blunt instrument—but if the deaths are linked, somebody’s thinking on all cylinders. There’s no way Tommy Jamison can figure for the Merridew death. Was Pat Merridew going to invite a teenager over for Irish coffee? I don’t think so. That puts it back on Elaine, but Laura didn’t see her cross the backyard plus Elaine was off-island when the BlackBerry pic was made.”

  Billy shoved his hand through his thick short hair. “It’s an almighty mess. I don’t believe the murderer is Elaine or Tommy. Yet somebody close to Glen Jamison shot him. Only someone with access to the house could have obtained the Colt. But when we look, we eliminate suspects one by one. The wife was in Savannah. The cousin left when Glen was alive and came back after”—Billy emphasized the word—“the kid got blood on his shirt. Laura didn’t see Elaine in the backyard during the critical period. That leaves Laura herself, her sister Kit, or Tommy. Kit and Laura had no reason to go outside, so Darwyn didn’t see them. That brings us back to Tommy, but the idea rubs me wrong.” He looked weary. “The circuit solicitor wants somebody’s hide nailed to the wall. The only good thing is Posey won’t harass me tomorrow because he doesn’t work on Saturdays. Monday morning he’ll summon me. He’ll say it’s time I moved, made the arrest, slapped Tommy Jamison in jail. The hell of it is, we’ve got enough evidence. Do you think Posey cares if I know in my gut that somewhere something’s wrong?”

  Cricket frogs cheek-cheeked, bull frogs whorummed, barking frogs yapped, and Southern toads shrieked. Cicadas whirred and crickets clicked. Annie stood on her and Max’s back verandah, looking through the dusk toward the darkness of the pond, but she found no peace in the summer serenade. “I was smart, wasn’t I? I figured out about the shirt and now Tommy Jamison’s going to be arrested.”

  Max slipped an arm around her shoulde
rs. “Sometimes”—his voice was gentle—“what we see is what is there.”

  Annie felt as if her thoughts had raced around and around ever since she talked with Billy. No matter how she figured, there didn’t seem to be any way to save Tommy.

  “Kids kill.” Max was somber.

  Annie knew he was right and yet Billy thought the equation was wrong. So did she. She turned to Max, lifted her chin. “We can’t give up. Tomorrow, let’s try one more time. Darwyn was one sexy guy. We know he had a girlfriend.” She pictured the cabin at Jasmine Gardens. “He would have talked to her about the morning he was working at a house and a man was killed. I mean, that was too exciting to ignore. Maybe I can find her.”

  Max gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll tilt at a windmill, too. Richard Jamison claims he wasn’t having an affair with Cleo. If he was, what are the odds he’d know about the key man insurance? It’s a small island. If they were meeting on the sly, there should be some trace.”

  Dimly Annie heard the ring of the telephone in the kitchen. She almost ignored the sound, then turned and hurried inside. She raised an eyebrow at the caller ID, answered in a neutral voice.

  “Annie Darling?” Cleo Jamison’s voice was low and hurried, but Annie had no difficulty recognizing the rich contralto.

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home.” Cleo sounded uncertain. “I want to know what’s going on. I have a right to know what’s happening. Glen was my husband.” There was a hint of anger in the pronoun. “The police have been here. The chief wanted to talk to Tommy about his shirt. I advised him to decline to answer questions until he was represented by counsel. I understand he and Elaine will be interviewed tomorrow. Chief Cameron left and now the family’s shut me out. You’d think they would appreciate my effort to help. Maybe I shouldn’t help them. If one of them killed Glen, I want them arrested. But I have trouble believing Elaine or Tommy would shoot Glen. Since Laura was sitting there, I didn’t want to say anything, but it looks to me like Kirk is the one the police should be investigating. Cameron said the information about Tommy’s shirt came from you. What exactly did you tell him?”

  Annie hesitated. Obviously, Billy had given only the bare minimum of information. Was it his intent to let the family worry and wonder until the interview tomorrow?

  Cleo attacked. “I have a right to know. Glen was my husband.”

  Annie pictured Cleo clutching her cell phone, perhaps secreted in the small study, keeping her voice low in a house where she was the outsider.

  She did have a right to know.

  Annie spoke soberly. “ . . . and so it turned out that Laura saw Tommy.”

  “Oh my God.” Cleo’s voice was faint. “Poor Glen. Oh, poor Glen.” There was a long pause. Finally, shakily, she said, “I only wanted Tommy to be nice to me. I’ll never forgive myself if Glen died because I made Tommy mad. But we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I’ll be there. I hope the police chief is wrong.” A long pause. “But he may be right.” The last words were scarcely audible. “If you learn anything else, call me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bella Mae Jack was composed. “If I knew something to help the police, I would have told them.” A frown furrowed her pale face. “I always worried that Darwyn would get himself in trouble. The police think he wanted money to keep quiet about what he saw the morning Mr. Jamison was killed. I wish I could say that Darwyn wouldn’t do such a thing. I was always afraid Darwyn could turn bad.” Her voice was weary, tired with heartache and loss and disappointment. “Darwyn wanted more than he had any right to have and there was a hard spot in his heart. He loved me. I loved him. I wish that had been enough.”

  Annie felt the hot burn of tears. Her hand trembled as she lifted the coffee mug. Darwyn’s grandmother had insisted that they sit at the old-fashioned white table in the kitchen and have a piece of sherry cake and a cup of coffee. The old woman, her shoulders stiff beneath her crisp dress, was a gallant figure, accepting that life was full of trouble and woe.

  Bella Mae Jack reached across the table and patted Annie’s hand. “You are a good girl. And nice to come for Darwyn.”

  Annie put down the coffee mug. “Mrs. Jack, did Darwyn have some close friends I could speak to, maybe a girlfriend? Perhaps he might have told someone what he saw that morning.”

  Bella Mae’s long face was somber. “Darwyn kept to himself. He never had anyone over. As for girls”—she averted her gaze—“I’m afraid he didn’t treat girls the way he should. He’d be with one for a while and then another, but he never cared about them. The last one kept calling but he wouldn’t talk to her. I heard she moved to the mainland last May.” She looked faintly surprised. “I don’t know that he was seeing anyone the last month or so. He was home most nights.”

  Annie scrambled for some hint, some reflection of Darwyn’s last days. “I don’t suppose”—she hated asking, forced herself—“that there was anything in his pockets”—the police would have cataloged and returned his personal effects to her—“that might lead to someone he saw recently?”

  Bella Mae took a breath. “I don’t think so. But you’re welcome to see.” She pushed up from the table, led the way down a short hall, opened the first door to her left, stood aside for Annie to enter.

  “I put the things on his desk.” She gestured toward a light pinewood desk against the opposite wall.

  Annie noted the single bed against one wall with a dark green spread. Two rock posters hung above the bed. A boom box sat against one wall, next to a rotating gun rack that held two rifles and a shotgun. Mounted antlers on one wall made the room look small.

  Bella Mae stayed in the doorway. “I laid everything out.”

  Annie stepped past her. At the back of the desktop sat a wine bottle with a candle stub in the neck, a canteen, a duck whistle, a pair of field binoculars, several boxes of ammunition, a soft canvas camouflage hat, a hat-clip light, a pinewood rack with three pistols, a Braves baseball cap, a deck of well-thumbed playing cards, a set of red-feathered darts.

  She had no difficulty discerning the contents of Darwyn’s pockets on the night he died. The items were ranged in an orderly row: car keys, brown leather wallet, assorted coins, pocketknife, crumpled receipt from a Gas ’N Go, pack of condoms, small plastic container of mints, one metal key to Cabin Nine of Jasmine Gardens, laminated card with the Braves baseball schedule, a half-dozen lottery tickets, cell phone.

  Max pulled up in front of the Gypsy Caravan, a seedy motel next door to an equally unprepossessing beer joint with a tin roof and red barn siding. He glanced at his list. Nine names were now scratched through and they were the better motels on the island. Broward’s Rock had fishing cabins, apartment houses, and rental condos, but fewer than a dozen old-fashioned motels. He’d spoken to managers and yard workers and a few occupants. No one had recognized a photo of Richard Jamison or Cleo Jamison. He squinted against the bright sun. This was not a milieu for Cleo Jamison. On the other hand, she could be confident that no one she knew would likely be found here. Max sighed and opened the car door. Annie admired thoroughness, tenacity, and unswerving commitment. He would finish what he had set out to do, but unless he was mightily surprised, Richard Jamison had not arranged any on-island liaisons with his cousin’s wife. Now, as for off-island . . .

  Max strolled toward a ratty office with smeared windows and a sagging screen door. As Annie had pointed out, Richard appeared to have taken up squatter’s rights at the Jamison house, but Cleo practiced law and, until last Tuesday, had a husband who would be aware of her whereabouts, especially at night. That made off-island meetings unlikely. In the afternoons, there were too many people in and out of the house for a rendezvous there.

  Max opened the door, wrinkled his nose at the musty smell. He stepped inside to dim light. A beefy-faced clerk looked up from a computer.

  Annie worked hard, slicing open boxes, carefully easing out new titles, frowning at an occasional wrinkled edge to a book jacket. She soo
n had a stack of twenty Linda Fairsteins and thirty-five Randy Wayne Whites. Occasionally she checked the time. Was Billy talking to Elaine or to Tommy? Was Handler Jones representing Elaine or her nephew? If the spotlight was now on Tommy, Elaine had probably asked Jones to represent him. With every minute that passed, the time came nearer when Tommy Jamison would be taken into custody and charged with murder. Obviously, Max hadn’t hit pay dirt or he would have called.

  As if on cue, her cell phone rang.

  She answered, hoping. “Max?”

  “Nada, honey.” He was philosophical. “I can affirm, attest, and swear that if Richard was screwing Cleo they were either invisible or off-island.”

  Annie felt as wilted as a day-old corsage. “I didn’t have any luck either.”

  There was a silence. Then he said gently, “I’m sorry.”

  “You tried. We tried.” She looked at the clock. Eleven. Had Tommy been arrested yet?

  “Hey, Annie. Let’s take Lady out.”

  Annie was tempted. Island Lady was Max’s new 375 HP twenty-nine-foot speedboat. Max loved fast and faster and could reach a terrifying (to Annie) 70 mph, but when Annie was aboard he promised to keep her under forty. Yet she didn’t feel comfortable seeking pleasure when she knew the grim prospect facing the Jamison family. Besides, it was Saturday and Ingrid deserved to have the owner at work. “Tomorrow. I promise.” She looked toward the worktable. “I’m unpacking boxes. You go ahead.” She dropped the cell phone into her pocket, returned to her task. She carried twelve Randy Wayne White books out of the stockroom. She placed six copies face out in the New Mystery section.

  As she walked back toward the storeroom, she noted a Cat Truth poster at the end of the Romantic Suspense section. An elegant Havana Brown, its mahogany-colored coat thick and short, lifted its irregular muzzle to stare with large oval green eyes: Are you paying homage yet?

  “Gorgeous,” she murmured. She swerved toward the coffee bar. Only a few customers sat at the tables. A sunny Saturday morning was time to play golf or tennis, ride bikes, stroll on the beach, plunge into the ocean with a cautionary eye for jellyfish, feel the rush of the wind as a speedboat spanked across the bay.