Death on Demand

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Sternly, she forced her mind back to her guest list.

  “Okay, six. Oh yes, there’s Hal Douglas. He writes caper novels like S. S. Van Dine but not as good. And Kelly Rizzoli. She goes in for psychological fiction à la Ruth Rendell. And Ingrid Jones, the woman who helps me out part-time, usually comes. That’s every … oh no, I’m forgetting Capt. Mac. I told you about him.”

  “The somber sleuth.”

  Annie considered it. “No, not somber. I mean, he’s extremely serious about everything, but he’s really a nice man. He was wonderful when Uncle Ambrose died. Oh, Max, that night was so awful—”

  “Annie, don’t dwell on it. You can’t undo the past.”

  “He must have taken ill, felt faint. Why, he spent more time in that boat than he did on land. He couldn’t just have fallen off. If only I’d gone with him—” She stared down into her mug, face strained. “We found him floating only a few feet from the boat, right here in the harbor.”

  “You and Capt. Mac?”

  “Yes, I phoned him when Uncle Ambrose didn’t come home that night. I think I knew right from the start that something awful had happened, though Capt. Mac tried to persuade me I was being silly. He couldn’t have been more wonderful when we found—Uncle Ambrose. He called the police and stayed with me the whole night.”

  “That was helpful.” Max sounded faintly strangled.

  She looked at him in surprise.

  “How old is this noble Galahad?”

  “Mmm. Fiftyish, I guess.”

  “The James Garner type?”

  Max was jealous.

  “Oh, I’d say more the James Bond type.” Her voice fell seductively. “Absolutely irresistible to women of all ages.”

  Max’s chin jutted out alarmingly.

  “Actually, Max, he’s built like a sumo wrestler, and his eyes look positively glacial, gritty and gray. But he is a very nice man, and he’s invited me out for lunch a couple …”

  The front door bell jangled. Agatha streaked past, en route to her special hiding place deep in the shadow of the largest fern.

  The Sunday Night Special was about to begin.

  The first arrival was Capt. Mac. He was, in a sumo way, attractive, his short black hair nicely frosted with white, his blunt, intelligent face softening as he looked down at his hostess. She glanced at Max and enjoyed his struggle between manners and immediate hostility.

  “Max Darling,” he said crisply as he thrust out his hand.

  “John McElroy, but call me Capt. Mac. All these kids do.”

  Max’s smile looked a little strained.

  Emma Clyde and the Farleys came in next. Emma was carrying a covered bowl and two large bags of chips.

  “I remember how these wolves devoured your food last time, Annie, and I thought I would pitch in. Shall I just put these things on the table?”

  Emma wore a Hawaiian print caftan and looked like a wildly painted tugboat. Her hair sprouted in stiff bronze curls, and Annie was positive she’d paid a long visit to Island Beauty Inc. on Saturday. Emma neither looked nor sounded like a millionaire author, but Annie noticed her intensely blue eyes sweep the room. Was she looking for Elliot? But it was Max she fastened onto.

  “A friend of Annies! That’s so nice. I’m delighted to meet you.”

  The Farleys stood at the edge of the coffee area. As usual, they gave Annie the creeps, which immediately made her inject extra warmth into her greeting.

  “Jeff. Janis. I’m so glad you could come.”

  They looked at her unsmilingly. Jeff wore light blue slacks and a white crewneck sweater. He looked like an overage cheerleader despite his sleek blond beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Janis, slim and pale, stayed a pace behind him. Her large green eyes flickered nervously from Annie to Jeff and back to Annie. Janis had a quality of seeming more her husband’s appendage than a person in her own right, a posture Annie found exceedingly irritating.

  “Some coffee?” Annie urged. “Or would you prefer wine?”

  Janis looked to her husband for guidance.

  Even as the door bell jangled again, Annie had time to notice Max gravitating to Janis, who certainly did have a soft magnolia appearance. Trust Max. Jeff watched them, too.

  Fritz Hemphill nodded a brusque hello. Ingrid Jones slipped in behind him, and in her self-effacing way began to help serve the wine and coffee. Her thin face flushed with pleasure at Max’s friendliness. Ingrid was one of life’s nicer surprises, a retired librarian who knew everything about books and genuinely liked to help. Moreover, she was content with part-time work at the minimum wage, which was all Annie could eke out of a slender budget. If the store ever made enough money to pay off the money she owed for improvements, an increase in Ingrid’s salary was first on Annie’s list.

  Hal Douglas and Kelly Rizzoli came next, heads close together, which didn’t surprise Annie. Instinct told her a romance was in the offing, if not yet in full bloom. Hal and Kelly were really the most normal of all the writers. They made an attractive young couple, Hal cheerfully chubby, Kelly slight, with dark red hair and an appealing air of vulnerability. There was almost always a genial smile on Hal’s open, honest face. Annie liked Kelly but wondered a little at the force of her imagination. Her books focused on the dark and torturous impulses that drive decent people to evil. They were not good late-night solitary reading. Her most recent book uncomfortably reminded Annie of Margaret Millar’s powerful Beast in View.

  The room hummed with sound, the quick, insightful chatter of people who knew each other well. As she made sure everyone met Max, Annie felt grateful to him. His presence was helping. Maybe she had exaggerated the possibilities of disaster. Everyone seemed quite cheerful and animated, except, of course, for the Parleys, but Max’s good-humored teasing was bringing a flush of excitement to even Janis’s pallid cheeks. Jeff looked on darkly. It would be good for him, Annie decided virtuously, refusing to acknowledge any murky stirrings in her own psyche.

  She began to enjoy her own party. Maybe Elliot wouldn’t even show up.

  “I told you there would be a good turnout.”

  He had come up behind her. At the sound of his voice, she managed not to jump. She turned slowly.

  “Oh, Elliot, I’d like for you to meet Max Darling.”

  “Sure. I’d like to meet him. I know a lot about him.”

  The ever-present cigarette dangled from Elliot’s mouth.

  “Think I’d left you out of my research, darlin’?”

  He might as well have thrown a red flag into a bull’s face or dropped a match in gunpowder. Knowing her own proclivity for explosions, Annie normally kept a scrupulous rein on her temper, but too much had happened: Elliot’s threats that morning, Max’s unexpected arrival and all it might imply, the frightening, long moments when she’d thought someone was in the empty store.

  Her control shattered like glass hitting concrete.

  “That’s the last straw. I’ve had enough of you and your insulting, obnoxious behavior, Elliot, and I’m warning you, I’m not going to let you ruin my Sunday Night Specials.”

  The room fell abruptly quiet. Heads swivelled, and Max started weaving his way across the room. The expression on his face, even in the midst of her fury, made Annie step forward to stop him. Dear Max. He looked murderous—and everyone else looked shocked.

  Her face flushed. How could she have been so stupid? Elliot was an ass, a blowhard, a bully—and she was playing right into his hands by overreacting like this.

  Everyone started talking at once, and Max was trying to push past her to Elliot when the string of bells at the door jangled, and a high-pitched voice shrieked: “My God, everyone, have you heard? Isn’t it the most awful? What can we do?”

  Harriet Edelman’s wispy blond hair quivered, her light green eyes bulged. Leaning forward, she paused, savoring her moment in the spotlight. One hand was outstretched dramatically, and the large ruby on her hand winked like a cat’s eye at night.

  “She’s dead, her head all b
ashed in. It’s murder. Murder here on Broward’s Rock.”

  A vocal melee broke out. It was Capt. Mac’s stentorian bellow which finally brought quiet.

  “The facts, Harriet,” he instructed, with a former cop’s authority.

  With dreadful curiosity, everyone subsided and listened.

  In just such a fashion, Annie thought with a shiver, a Wentworth mystery began. She scanned the faces in the room.

  Harriet’s information was meager but grim.

  “It’s Jill Kearney.”

  There was a gasp from one of the circle, and Annie felt a pang of horror. She knew Jill. She liked her. Murdered?

  “… at the Island Hills Clink. Her body was found this morning in the dispensary. Bludgeoned to death. Police are seeking information from anyone who saw her last night.”

  “Are any drugs missing?” Emma was crisp.

  Harriet repeated blankly, “Drugs?”

  “From the dispensary,” Emma said, giving her tinted head an impatient shake. “Morphine, codeine, what have you.”

  Harriet’s self-importance collapsed. “I don’t know. I just heard about it a few minutes ago. I had on KM 103, and they broke in with a news flash.”

  Capt. Mac moved toward the counter. “Annie, may I use the phone?” But he was already dialing.

  They waited respectfully, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  Capt. Mac got through immediately to Frank Saulter, Broward’s Rock’s aloof police chief. His questions were brisk and concise. But, when he hung up, he stared down for a long moment, and Annie could see the hard ridges in his face. Finally, he turned to face them.

  “The body was discovered at 9:05 this morning by a boy who comes in on weekends to feed the animals. Everything seemed normal when he arrived, back door locked, no sign of forced entry. He unlocked the outer door, went in, and started to go directly to the kennels, when he noticed the dispensary door ajar down the hall. Shouldn’t have been open. Walked in, saw Jill lying face down on the floor. Said he knew she was dead, but he touched her anyway, and she was cold. Ran like hell to the phone, called Frank at home.”

  He paused and now not only his eyes looked glacial. His face might have been carved out of ice. Dirty ice.

  “Was the dispensary rifled?”

  Capt. Mac looked at Emma with respect. “No signs of it. They called in Dr. Foster.”

  Foster was Jill Kearney’s partner.

  “Damn funny place for a drug heist,” Fritz Hemphill objected. “How about strangers? Jimmy Moon clock anybody in?”

  The island residents understood the significance of that question. When the skillet-shaped end of the island was developed, the Halcyon Development Company set up a checkpoint past the old main street near Heron’s Point. To reach any of the new condos, the golf courses, the tennis courts, the luxurious homes, the harbor shops, and, of course, the Island Hills Veterinary Clinic, cars traveled the single blacktop road that passed a checkpoint manned by a Broward’s Rock resort employee. Jimmy Moon, an ex-Marine sergeant, had Saturday night duty. He knew everybody on the island. Strangers were admitted only with a pass from the Realty Company.

  Capt. Mac’s voice was uninflected. “Jimmy didn’t admit any strangers Saturday night or Sunday morning.” He didn’t have to underscore it. “Looks like it happened early Sunday. M.E. sets the time of death after ten P.M. Saturday and before two A.M. Sunday. Her boyfriend, Si Whitney took her home from the Island movies at shortly before ten. On their way, they stopped by the clinic for Jill’s last check, but he said she intended to come back about one A.M., something about a dog that needed to be turned after surgery.”

  “Last ferry off the island leaves at ten,” Fritz said, twisting a paper napkin.

  They considered this in silence. Of course, someone could have come or left by boat, but it was a good twenty-minute boat ride to the mainland. Broward’s Rock was a self-contained community. Casual marauders were unlikely. No, it had to be a resident or a visitor familiar with the clinic. Moreover, unless Jimmy Moon was mistaken, Jill’s murderer had to be a member of the resort community because no stranger had passed the checkpoint.

  “Why would anybody murder Jill?”

  Capt. Mac shook his head. “It doesn’t look drug-related. Foster checked the cabinets. All the morphine and codeine are accounted for.”

  “Was anything disturbed?” Emma Clyde’s almost square face creased in thought.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Was she assaulted?” Emma asked immediately, and Annie could almost see her mind tearing along, throwing up one scenario, then another.

  “No. Nothing like that. Just the one blow to the head.”

  He jerked out the next words. “Damn shame. M.E. said the girl had an unusually thin skull. Anybody else might have been knocked out and suffered nothing worse than a headache. Jill hemorrhaged. Damn shame.”

  “Some kind of maniac is loose on the island,” Harriet hissed. “Nothing else makes sense.”

  “Something will make sense,” Emma Clyde mused. “This doesn’t have the hallmark of a senseless killing. Mark my words, when we know everything, there will be a motive.”

  “Any fingerprints?” Fritz inquired.

  Kelly spoke at the same time. “What is known about Jill Kearney? What kind of person was she?”

  Like sharks at feeding time, their intellects fed on Jill’s death. Annie held up her hand.

  “Hey, everybody, this is awful. I didn’t know Jill well, but she was kind and—” Annie thought about Boots and what Jill had done. Oh, God. “Let’s not talk about her like she’s a lab report.” With a pang, she realized that Jill was now just that. “Anyway, let’s call it off for tonight. We can get together next week.”

  Harriet squealed. “Oh, I can’t possibly go home now. I’ll dream about it all night. Besides, maybe we can pool all of our brains.” Her bony face was alight with greedy curiosity. “Don’t you think we can solve it, if we try? Why, there can’t be a better set of criminal minds—”

  “For once Harriet’s put her finger on it,” Elliot interrupted.

  He stood and moved toward the coffee bar. “Criminal Minds, that will be a wonderful title for my new book. Perfect.” He bowed mockingly toward Harriet, who flushed an ugly crimson. “I have to thank you, Harriet. I wasn’t pleased with any of the titles I’d come up with. Criminal Minds. Perfect.”

  He was leaning against the coffee bar, at ease, cigarette in his mouth, the noxious odor hanging heavily in the air.

  “Come on, everyone, let’s respect our little Annie’s sensibilities. She doesn’t want to talk about Jill’s murder. Besides, I imagine we’ve exhausted all the information our police friend has, so why not take your seats? I promise to entertain you. In fact, I think each and every one of you will find my talk absolutely riveting, as they say in cover copy.”

  “Shall I boot him out on his ass?” Max hissed in Annie’s ear.

  She hesitated, but, with the harsh reality of Jill’s murder, Elliot’s swaggering suddenly seemed terribly unimportant—and so was her scheme to call for a vote on whether to hear him. Anything had to be better than sitting around talking about Jill.

  “Oh, let him go on. It will fill up the time, then we can send them all home—and I don’t ever want to see them again. This is my last Sunday Night Special.”

  Comfortably propped against the coffee bar, a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, Elliot filled his Puzzle of the Silver Persian mug with steaming coffee.

  Reluctantly, with muted murmurs, the Regulars took their places.

  Thoroughly enjoying himself, Elliot smiled maliciously.

  “I can’t provide a real-life crime—except, you know, maybe I can. No body, of course. That would be too difficult. But I can rattle a skeleton or two. My agent thinks I’m onto something hot, really hot. We writers spend a lot of time talking about motivation. Wouldn’t it be fun to know what kind of crimes a few well-known mystery writers have been personally involved in?” He lit a f
resh cigarette from the stub of the first, dumping the discarded butt in the tepid coffee in the Unexpected Night mug someone had left on the coffee bar. “We’re talking big sales, maybe a fifty thousand first printing and six figures for paperback rights. This book has it all, blood and guts and some particularly nasty—”

  The lights went out.

  Dusk comes early in October. It was already dark when the first arrivals came. Now it was solidly black outside, and heavy clouds masked the moon. No light penetrated the stygian darkness in the back of the shop.

  There was a squeal. Harriet. Then a flurry of movement. Someone bumped against Annie in the dark.

  Capt. Mac called out reassuringly. “Annie, must be the power station. Where do you keep a flashlight?”

  She was already resolutely groping her way toward the storeroom. A flashlight hung from a nail in the east corner. It was absolutely black, the only pinpoint of light the red dot of Elliot’s Turkish cigarette.

  Suddenly, there came a succession of sounds, a fluttering, a solid thump, a grunt, the noise of something heavy crashing to the floor.

  A woman screamed.

  Capt. Mac yelled for quiet.

  “Sit down! Shut up! Stay where you are.”

  “What’s wrong?” Harriet shrilled. “What was that noise? Somebody turn on—”

  “Shut up, Harriet.”

  Hurrying, Annie smacked into a chair and yelped in pain.

  “Who’s that?” Emma asked sharply.

  “Just me. I’m trying to get a flashlight.”

  “Annie’s going to find a light.” Capt. Mac’s voice was reassuring, though Annie thought she could detect a faint undercurrent of stress. “Check the circuit breakers first,” he instructed.

  “Yes. Hold on, everybody. It will just take a second.”