by Carolyn Hart
The front door opened. The ping sounded like a text message. Her thoughts careened again. Death on Demand needed something more dramatic to announce customers. A bugle call? The Inner Sanctum creaking door? No, something about the island. Hey, maybe the sound of an alligator. That would be cool, a low, throaty growl, almost like the rumble of distant thunder.
The thump of a cane brought her to her feet. Ves Roundtree came down the center aisle. She looked uncertain of her welcome. “I hate to bother you, but I have to talk to someone.” She pulled out a chair, sank into it, leaned the cane against the table. “Billy called and told me Fred’s death looks like suicide, that he apparently went from my house to the pier, and jumped. Billy says that makes it likely that Fred was the person who waxed the step, so I can feel safe now. I thanked him, but ever since we talked I’ve been thinking about it. So here I am, hoping you can help me make sense of everything.”
Annie replied quickly, “I’ll help if I can.”
“I guess I’m looking for someone else’s perspective. You may decide I’m nuts. Maybe I am.”
Annie shook her head slightly.
“Thanks.” A wry smile. “Billy obviously thinks Fred committed suicide because he tried to kill me and he was afraid I was figuring out what happened. That could be true. But I don’t believe it. Can’t believe it. Maybe I have that thing—what is it?—second sight. Or maybe I’m a melodramatic fool. But I remember the dinner and that awful sensation, someone looking at me and wanting me dead. Fred was his usual self that night, mild, unassuming. I can’t believe the death wish came from Fred. If it wasn’t Fred, if it was one of the others, and that means Fred committed suicide for some other reason.”
“He died Wednesday night.” Annie was making the point that Fred drowned after Ves threatened to shoot if attacked.
Ves’s face tightened. “I get it. I scared Fred; Fred killed himself.” She brushed back a reddish curl. “They think he went from my house to the pier because he was wearing the clothes he wore Wednesday night. Plus something about how many hours he’d been in the water.” She talked fast. “You heard everything that happened over the walkie-talkie. I warned them. I was telling the murderer that I was prepared. Obviously I had no idea which one was guilty. Why would Fred kill himself?”
Annie remembered the voices over the walkie-talkie and Ves announcing, “But be aware, whoever comes after me will be shot.” If Fred was guilty, he saw doom closing in on him.
Ves ran her fingers through her hair. “I was tough. Like a bounty hunter. But I didn’t wave the gun at anybody. I handle guns right. I handled the gun like I could shoot someone. That’s scary for someone who doesn’t do guns. I put on a big show. But you want to know about me and hunting? I’ve never killed anything. Ever. Dad and Rufus shot deer, squirrels, whatever moved. I wouldn’t go out with them. I shot at pop bottles on a fence railing.” She gave Annie an embarrassed look. “I can’t even kill spiders. You know what I do when a spider gets in the house? I get a cup and a napkin and I catch the spider in the cup and cover the opening with the napkin and go to the garage and put the spider out in a corner to build a web there. That night when I warned them, I was trying to stay alive. I wanted to scare the murderer. If somebody came in my house and crept into my room and I knew it was Death, maybe I could shoot.”
Annie, too, found it hard to imagine shooting a living creature. She’d never understood hunting. To lift a rifle and see a live creature drop to the ground and die appalled her. To shoot a human being would either be incredibly hard or horribly easy.
Ves placed her hands on the table. They looked small, defenseless. “I wanted to scare them. Fred looked scared. Now I should feel home free, right? The big bad murderer is dead. But I don’t feel home free. I don’t believe Fred tried to kill me. I don’t know why he jumped off the pier. I don’t think he was a murderer running scared. I want you to know that if my body turns up, you can bet it’s not suicide.” She pushed up from the chair. “Now I’m going to try and act like everything’s okay. Maybe the powers that be have it right. Maybe I don’t have to be afraid. If I’m alive next month, I’ll start to believe Fred was guilty. Until then, I’m looking over my shoulder.”
• • •
Max lounged in his very comfortable red leather desk chair with his cell phone and listened as his mother recounted a visit to Ves Roundtree’s store.
Laurel concluded, “I am concerned about Ves.”
“I’ll tell Annie.”
“Dear Annie.” Laurel’s tone was affectionate. “How is she?”
“She’s fine.” He sketched a rainbow. Nice of his mother to always inquire about Annie. “We’re going to Parotti’s for dinner.”
“I’m sure she’s very busy with the chapbooks.” A rather lengthy pause.
Max refrained from a reply.
“And you are quite busy, too?”
“Busy?” He looked at his desk, bare except for his favorite framed photograph of Annie, dusty blond hair, steady gray eyes, a face that always tugged at his heart. “Working away.” He glanced at the yellow pad in his lap, a rather good sketch of Dorothy L on a windowsill, tail vibrating as she stared at a blue jay. Artistic endeavor surely qualified as work.
“Don’t overdo. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” He tapped off, smiled, and picked up his 3B regular pencil. He could always count on his mother for encouragement. He looked at Annie’s photo, said conversationally, “Laurel cautioned me not to overdo.” Annie would think that suggestion riotously funny. He tilted farther back. Annie loved to quote Laurel’s comment the day his mother looked at him admiringly as he relaxed in his big red leather chair and proclaimed, “Truly a chair for a titan of industry. Perfect for you.” Annie later asked demurely, “What does the titan desire at the moment?” He’d replied, “Desire? Only you.” Her response had been eminently satisfactory.
• • •
Annie waved hello at Ben Parotti, hurried across the old wooden floor to the booth where Max stood waiting. She loved the gleam in Max’s eyes and looked back signaling Yes, I love you, later. She slid into the booth and he settled opposite her.
“Ma sends her regards.”
Annie was immediately on full alert. It wasn’t that she didn’t welcome good wishes from her mother-in-law, but Laurel’s contacts with Max often included plans for Annie that she was determined to avoid. “Laurel?”
There was a flurry when Ben arrived with tea for her and beer for Max and took their orders, the usual, grilled flounder for Max, fried oysters for Annie, coleslaw for both, jalapeño corn bread.
Max poured his beer into a frosted mug. He thought it more tactful not to mention Laurel’s delicate reference to the chapbooks. “She said she was certainly surprised about Fred Butler. She always thought he was the nicest man. Ma said she believed that an accident occurred. And that’s what she’d told Ves. She wanted to know if you’d talked to Ves.”
“Ves came by the store.” Annie wouldn’t forget Ves’s tight face as she announced if anyone found her dead, it wasn’t suicide.
“Ma went to Ves’s shop.” His face crinkled in a frown. “She said Ves was a nervous wreck and her hand went down below the counter when the door opened. Ma had a feeling there was a gun down there.”
8
Not even the high gleam of his varnished desk looked bright on a cloudy Monday morning. Billy Cameron arranged several folders. He opened Doc Burford’s autopsy report.
White male. Age 46. Height 5'7''. Weight 182 pounds. General health excellent. Cause of death: drowning. Body recovered 8:06 A.M. Friday, February 19. Immersion in water estimated at 30 to 35 hours. Puts approximate time of death between 9 P.M. February 17 and 8 A.M. February 18. Slight trauma to right frontal lobe.
At the top of the page, Doc Burford had scrawled in a thick black ink: Trauma could have been sustained if he balanced on railing, slipped, struck his head on the
way down.
Billy knew Fred Butler as he knew most of the island residents. He had always found Fred genial and courteous at the bank, friendly at Parotti’s on Saturdays. Billy thought of him as steady, dependable, precise, careful. He was not a man who would miscount your money. Billy balanced that picture against Ves Roundtree’s claim that Fred was frightened Wednesday night. Why? Was he the kind of person who always thought a barb was directed at him? Did Fred immediately assume the worst—she doesn’t like me, she’s angry with me—when he encountered any kind of snub? Did Fred think Ves was accusing him of waxing the step? That was possible. If Fred took Ves’s accusation personally and if he was guilty, had he fled to Fish Haul Pier and, in a distressed state, lost his balance and fallen? Or had he hurried to the pier, frantic that he would be accused of plotting a death, and jumped into dark cold water?
Billy turned his chair toward the window. The sun was bright this morning. A stiff breeze laced the harbor with whitecaps. He considered what he knew. He’d sent officers out across the island seeking information. Fred Butler had no boat. He did not fish. He could not swim. He was not seen, so far as they could discover, after he drove away from Ves Roundtree’s house around nine o’clock. Officers had no luck finding anyone who had been in the vicinity of the pier that night. The temperature was in the forties and there was a slight mist, so it wasn’t surprising no one was strolling on the boardwalk. Why would anyone go out on the pier on such a night? That question definitely held true for Fred Butler. Why did he go to Fish Haul Pier? He wasn’t the outdoor type. But he definitely went to the pier, went into the water from the pier.
Three choices: accident, suicide, murder. Billy shook his head. Accident and homicide seemed unlikely. That left suicide, which strongly suggested he feared exposure as a would-be murderer.
• • •
Death on Demand bustled with vacationers in June, often painfully sunburned and seeking books to read in the shade of beach umbrellas. Annie wondered if they realized sunlight reflected off sand and an umbrella alone wouldn’t suffice. A wide-brimmed hat, filmy long-sleeved white top, and towel-draped legs were also advisable, plus plenty of sunscreen. But it wasn’t June. It was a foggy Monday in February and only she and Agatha were in the store. She frowned, pulled her cell from her pocket, swiped, knew caller ID identified her to Marian, dispensed with a greeting. “Anything new about Fred Butler?”
“I just got off the phone with Billy.” Marian’s raspy voice was matter-of-fact. “Presser at ten A.M. to announce official cause of death: drowning. No judgment as to whether he died accidentally or on purpose. If there’s a recent life insurance policy, it might be voided if his death is ruled a suicide. Anyway, the case is closed as far as the police are concerned. Billy will announce that Butler was wearing a dressy casual shirt and slacks and loafers, that his billfold and car keys were recovered, that his body showed no evidence of trauma other than a bruise on one temple that could have resulted from striking the pier railing. The presser wraps it up. I’ll write the story and readers can draw their own conclusions. Now I’ve got to run—an alligator on the back porch of the library. Says he won’t leave unless he gets the latest Joyce Carol Oates. I want to get there before the critter guy does. It will make a great photo. Wonder if they’ll let me shove a stack of books up by his snout. The alligator’s snout, not the critter guy’s. I can see it now—Shakespeare’s comedies, Edith Wharton, maybe Plato, and, of course, Oates’s latest. An erudite alligator. I like it.” The connection ended.
Another day, another focus. A man drowned one day, a perambulating alligator the next. This afternoon’s Gazette would have a fun story by Marian and, if she knew Marian, a photograph of an alligator facing a stack of books. Annie picked up the copy for Henny’s Classic Crimes. She needed to finish editing the Incredible Trio’s manuscripts. Max had found a program that would make printing the chapbooks a snap. Emma’s birthday was next week. If she hustled, Max was sure he could get the chapbooks done in time for a party. She looked at Henny’s comment about Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. One of the great opening lines in fiction: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The tone captures the foreboding and unease that permeate the story of a second wife who lives in the dead Rebecca’s shadow. Brilliant.
Annie agreed. First sentences could be the topic of a great essay, starting with Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “One day last fall I ordered the swimming pool destroyed” in The Swimming Pool to Rhys Bowen’s “Weather outside: utterly bloody!” in Malice at the Palace. Maybe she should put together her own chapbook, Fabulous Firsts. The weather had been cool and misty Wednesday night—
She gripped the soft lead pencil. Where had that come from? But she knew. She couldn’t push away the fact of Fred Butler’s death and Ves’s insistence that Fred wasn’t the would-be murderer. She glanced up at the wall clock. In a few minutes, Billy Cameron would announce death by drowning. And implicit in the bare facts was the likelihood of suicide. Apparently there was no family to mourn him, to face the misery of what-ifs. Everyone on the island would read this afternoon’s Gazette, including Ves Roundtree. Ves grappled with a different kind of what-if.
Annie had a sudden clear memory of Fred’s round face when she spoke to him at the bank, the widened eyes behind the bifocals, the quick panicked glance at the bank manager. He’d been scared that he would be caught out in a lie about his dental appointment. She wished she had been at Ves’s house Wednesday night. Had Fred looked scared in the same way? Maybe he was simply scared of unpleasantness, and what could be more unpleasant than realizing you are a murder suspect? Maybe he was afraid word would get back to the bank. People who worked at banks could never afford a whiff of scandal. She wished she had a better sense of who Fred was. If he committed suicide— She frowned. There was no if about it. He committed suicide. The question was why. Unless there was something else going on in his life that led him to the end of the pier, the inescapable conclusion was that he was guilty of the attack on Ves and afraid he’d be caught out.
But Ves was sure she was still in danger.
Annie slapped her hand on the table. Papers slithered. Agatha stared at her reproachfully. “I’m sorry, sweetie. But it’s awful to be afraid. If we were positive that Fred jumped because he set the trap, Ves could feel safe again.”
Agatha’s green eyes were unblinking.
“If we knew what Fred was thinking . . .” Her words trailed off.
Fred’s state of mind. Unless something had been troubling him, unless he had been in a depressed mood, then clearly he left Ves’s house and jumped because he had tried to kill her. It shouldn’t be hard to find out about his demeanor in recent days. Was he happy or grim? If there was no hint of depression, Ves could put her gun back in the closet, not be fearful at every footstep.
Annie picked up her cell to call Billy, slowly put it down. The case was closed. But she wasn’t bound by any rules.
• • •
Annie felt sadness when she stepped into the bank lobby. Estelle Parker’s kind face had a look of shock. She wore a navy silk dress, and Annie was sure the choice was a tribute to Fred, a way of saying, I’m sorry, I won’t wear something cheerful today, the first day here without you.
Estelle saw Annie, tried to smile, blinked.
Annie hurried across the lobby to the counter. “I wanted to tell you how much we’ll miss Fred.”
Tears brimmed in Estelle’s blue eyes. She snatched a tissue from a box. “I’m just sick. Fred and I have been here for such a long time, almost thirty years. He came two years after I started. My Jim was still alive and Fred was just out of high school and he and Evie were newlyweds. We used to go bowling together.” Tears slid down her fair cheeks.
Annie reached out, touched a plump hand. “I suppose he was depressed. Maybe he was sick.”
Estelle wadded the tissue into a ball. Pink flooded her cheeks. “There’s some awful mistake. Fred was fine.
I know he was fine. We told each other things. He’d just got a good report in his checkup. He told me he had low cholesterol and his blood pressure was excellent. He was kind of proud. He was fine except for his teeth, and I don’t know how much longer he had to go with that. He’d gone to the dentist every Thursday afternoon for a few weeks. But that’s all that was wrong with him.” Her face puckered. “He was happy as could be on Wednesday. He said his research—he loved to check through old histories and things like that—finally put him on the right track and he’d have some exciting news for me one of these days and when he did we’d go into Savannah and have a fancy dinner some Saturday. The police have it all wrong. He never jumped into the water. Never. It makes me so mad they are acting like he jumped just because it was odd to go out on the pier. Maybe he felt like a walk. Maybe he got dizzy. But he never jumped in the water. He wouldn’t. He never missed Wednesday-night prayer meeting. He kept on going after Evie died—she died having a little girl who didn’t live either—so why would he jump into water over anything else? He told me he didn’t want to live without her, but he had to do what God said and she and their little girl were in Heaven and someday he’d see them. Oh, it makes me so mad, everybody acting like he committed suicide.”
Annie said slowly, “He’d gone to the dentist every Thursday afternoon for a while?”
“Maybe three or four weeks, every Thursday afternoon. He never said exactly what it was. Maybe one of those awful new implant things. I don’t know. But other than the dentist, he was fine.” Her eyes flashed. “He was happy as could be on Wednesday.”
• • •
Annie walked slowly across Main Street. The day had turned pleasant and sunny, the temperature nudging into the sixties. Did she need to call the dental office, see if Fred had been there on other Thursdays? The receptionist had been firm. Dr. Garcia had no patient named Fred Butler. Why did Fred leave work early on several Thursday afternoons? Where did he go? What did he do? He wasn’t waxing a step on Ves’s stairs the other Thursdays. Perhaps this was just an anomaly, a piece of information that led nowhere. The important takeaway from Estelle was Fred’s state of mind. He wasn’t a man struggling with depression. He was looking forward to the future when something good happened because of his research.
