Death on Demand

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Annie stared at the books until the titles scrambled in her mind.

  They were losing sight of the most important fact.

  “Max!” she yelped. She veered to her right, tangled with a fern, and slid to a stop beside his chair.

  Agatha erupted from the base of the fern next to Max, stared reproachfully at Annie, and shot toward the dimness of the coffee bar.

  Annie flapped her hands at Max’s sheaf of paper. “What did you do with the stuff you put together on everybody when I was being bopped at Elliot’s?”

  Max riffled through his stack and pulled out several typewritten sheets. Annie grabbed them.

  “We’ve got to fine-tooth-comb this stuff and see who’s connected to a killing that Uncle Ambrose was investigating. Don’t you see? It all goes back to Uncle Ambrose. That’s important, not this penny-ante stuff like Capt. Mac and his paternity suit.”

  “First, we have to organize our material.” Max looked extremely judicious, a non-eggshaped Hercule Poirot.

  Annie didn’t dignify this with an answer. Instead, she grabbed the dossiers. Quickly, she scratched out a list of people and places.

  As she studied her chart, she felt her first qualm. On the surface, not a single one of these people had any connection with Uncle Ambrose’s famous cases. But she didn’t know enough about the three cases Uncle Ambrose had been investigating.

  Fifteen minutes later, her hand cramped from note taking, she put down the phone.

  Max came up behind her and reached down to massage her tight shoulders. “What did you plug into? Today’s devotional?”

  “The crime reporter at the Atlanta Constitution. His name’s Sam, and he asked me out for a drink the next time I get to Atlanta.” She swivelled around to look at the clock face. Oh, God, 3:22. Here they sat, Max scribbling another damn list and she trying to forge some link between Uncle Ambrose’s missing manuscript and the suspects. And, darn it, nothing was working out.

  Max bent over to look at her work.

  “Nothing,” she said bitterly. “Oh, obviously he was on the right track, but there isn’t anything to link those crimes to anybody here.” She ticked them off on her fingers: “Alden Armbruster stepped into his Lincoln Continental to drive to work. He turned on the motor and kerboom. There had been labor trouble at the plant (they made plating for artillery shells). They suspected Alden Armbruster Jr., who had made a recent trip to Miami, where he could easily have purchased the plastic explosive used to blow up the car. No fingerprints. No proof. Case never closed. Alden Armbruster Jr. lives and presumably thrives in New York City. No other suspects, and nobody here could be Alden Armbruster. The Vinson suicide: Amalie Vinson, the tire heiress, was found one June morning in her Waikiki penthouse, dead of a cocaine overdose. Could be accident. Could be suicide. There was a note. A scrap, actually. The classic—I can’t go on. As any fool knows, find a written regret to an invitation, tear it artfully, and you have a picture-perfect suicide note. Worked beautifully in The Moving Finger. Chief suspect—her third husband, Bobby Kaiser, who doesn’t live on Broward’s Rock. Finally, the Winningham case. Cale Winningham, heir to a tobacco fortune, was known as a brutal, spoiled womanizer. Somehow, he’d married a nice girl, Sheila Hammonds. In the middle of a November night, Winning-ham killed her with a shotgun. His story was that they’d had trouble recently with prowlers. A month before, they’d been robbed. He heard a noise, got up, crept out into the hall, shouted, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ There was no answer, so he blasted. When he turned on the light, there was Sheila. He was devastated. He married another woman two months later. But Winningham didn’t live long to enjoy his new wife. They were killed when his private plane crashed on takeoff a few months later. The FAA found sugar in the gas line. So Cale Winningham can’t be on Broward’s Rock. Unless he’s a ghost.”

  Annie shoved her hands frenziedly through her hair. “Dammit, there’s no link to Broward’s Rock.”

  Max held up his legal pad. “Here’s what really matters.”

  Max’s list:

  Emma Clyde gave Ricky a shove. Who saw the dirty deed? Check the Coast Guard.

  Hal Douglas’s wife ran around on him. According to Hal, she also ran out on him. Where is Lenora Harris Douglas?

  Jeff Farley beats his wife. Would he or Janis kill to keep Jeff’s brutality a secret?

  Fritz Hemphill is apparently trigger-happy, with a past he was determined to keep buried. What did his ex-wife know?

  Capt. Mac keeps his mouth shut. Did he hide anything more dangerous than a paternity suit?

  Carmen Morgan knew about the Sunday evening session. She knew that everyone there would have a motive for shutting Elliot up. Does Carmen inherit? Where was she Sunday night?

  Kelly Rizzoli. Elliot said she played some nasty tricks. What were they?

  Max reached for the telephone.

  3:33. She tugged Max’s sleeve and pointed at the clock. He covered the receiver. “Plenty of time,” he soothed, as he dialed.

  Agatha moved like a black shadow, jumping up to the top of the counter. She looked at Annie with her deep yellow eyes.

  “What do you think, Agatha?”

  The cat made a soft, throaty sound.

  “If you could talk, you could tell us who came in here Sunday morning.”

  Agatha began to clean her face, licking her right paw daintily, then scrubbing furiously at her cheek.

  Annie reached out, petted the silky fur, and tilted her head a little to listen to Max.

  “Lieutenant Ferrill, did you investigate the drowning of Enrique Morales a couple of years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Max Darling, attorney-at-law. I’m involved in a wrongful death suit, and I need to get a copy of the report on Morales’s death. Could you send it to me by Federal Express?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” A puzzled pause followed. “Wrongful death? That death was ruled an accidental drowning.”

  “There’s some question of liability on the part of the yacht manufacturer, Lieutenant. Too low a railing on the afterdeck.”

  “That’d be hard to prove,” Ferrill said drily. “The railing was four feet high.”

  Max swept ahead. “Did you interview the steward and the cook of Marigolds Pleasure?”

  “Of course. Neither was aboard that evening.”

  “So Mrs. Morales and her husband were alone?”

  The lieutenant paused. “Mrs. Clyde, that’s what she calls herself. She and her second husband were alone.”

  But someone somewhere saw something, if Annie’s blackmail theory were correct. “Wasn’t there anybody else around?”

  “We talked to the owner of another boat anchored close by. He corroborated the information we received from Mrs. Clyde. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. There wasn’t anything wrong with the railing on that boat.”

  “Possibly not,” Max agreed placidly. “But please send me the report.”

  After giving Ferrill Annie’s address, Max hung up, marking a series of fat, black question marks by Emma’s name. Annie was right. There was something there—or Emma wouldn’t have immediately suspected her of a blackmail attempt. Maybe there would be something in the report, at the least a few more names to call.

  He tracked down Jeff and Janis Farley’s editor, just returning from lunch at The Four Seasons.

  “This is Max Darling. I’m writing an article for a library journal, and I’m trying to get some information on personal factors that can affect book sales. You were recommended to me as an extremely knowledgeable observer of children’s publishing. Anything you may tell me will be confidential. I’m not using anybody’s name in this story.”

  “What do you want to know?” Her voice was clipped, level, and noncommittal.

  “What would be the effect upon sales for a children’s writer who was convicted of drunk driving?”

  “Mr. Darling, that is a very peculiar question.”

  “There’s been some concern among librarians that there i
s an inverse censorship at work affecting the children’s market that isn’t at work in adult writing. In other words, does the behavior of children’s writers make a difference in their likelihood of sale? So, I’m asking you whether a D.W.I. conviction or wife-beating charge or anything of that nature could make a difference.”

  “I won’t be quoted?”

  “Never.”

  “Then, off the record and between you and me and the wall, it makes a hell of a difference. If children’s writers have nasty personal lives, they’d damned well better keep them under wraps.”

  “Do you think it’s possible for a writer to win a national book prize if something like this became public?”

  “Forget it.”

  Annie was madly deciphering his cryptic notes as he finished the call.

  “My turn,” and she took the receiver out of his hand and dialed information for the alumni office at Washington University at St. Louis. It took patience to get the name of Lenora Harris Douglas’s sister, Mrs. Bennett Berry.

  “Mrs. Berry, I’m calling about your sister, Lenora Harris Douglas …”

  There was an excited cry. “My God, do you know where she is? Where is she? My God, who is this?”

  Annie felt a constriction in her chest. Martha Berry’s cry told her almost everything she needed to know.

  “Mrs. Berry, I’m sorry, you’ve misunderstood me. I’m calling to see if you have your sisters address.”

  “Oh. Oh, for a minute I thought …” Martha Berry took a deep breath. “No, no, I don’t know where Lenora is.”

  “When did you last hear from her?”

  “A postcard. Two years ago. From the casino at Lake Tahoe.” Her voice quickened. “Do you know Lenora? Do you know somebody who knows her?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I was calling about a reunion of our college class. That last address we have is a rural box number in California. We didn’t get any answer.”

  “No answer. That’s all I ever got. I went out, looked for her, but that cabin’s empty, and I’ve never found a trace of the guy she married.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  “His name is Harold Douglas. That’s all we know. He took Lenora out to Hollywood with him, and that’s the last we ever heard. She told me, the last time we talked, that he was crazy jealous. I asked her to come home, but she laughed and said it would be all right.” Martha Berry paused. “Listen, if you do find Lenora, please tell her to call us. Tell her we’ve been worried sick because … well, she’s a good girl but … All Lenora ever wanted to do was have a good time. We don’t know why she hasn’t called or written.”

  Annie hung up and drew a gallows with a noose. Girls just want to have fun.

  There was no answer at the home of the former Mrs. Fritz Hemphill. Her office said she was out of town on a business trip and could be contacted that evening at the Vanderbilt Plaza in Nashville, Tennessee. Annie glanced at the clock. 3:50. They couldn’t wait until evening. It was a wonder Saulter hadn’t been by again—this time with a warrant. And they still needed to talk to Kelly and get Harriet’s film to the mainland to be developed.

  She watched the clock hands move as she waited on hold, but she was finally connected to the LAPD chief of detectives. He wasn’t very forthcoming.

  “Yeah. Hemphill was with us. For about ten—maybe a dozen—years.”

  “Why did he quit?”

  “Ask him. By the way, who did you say you were?”

  “I’m writing a feature on mystery novelists,” Annie invented. “I understand he quit because he got in a little trouble.”

  “He quit because he inherited some money.” The voice was flat. “If you want to know more about it, you might call a Mrs. Cynthia Harmon.”

  Cynthia Harmon ran a beauty shop in Long Beach.

  “Who told you to call me?”

  “Horace King.”

  “Horace—So you want to know about Fritz Hemphill.” Her voice harshened. “Yeah, you called the right number. I’ll tell you about Fritz. Horace can’t say anything. He has to watch out, or they’ll hit him with a slander suit. Me, I don’t give a damn. Yeah, I can tell you about Fritz. He’s a murderer.”

  “Who did he kill?”

  “His best friend. Isn’t that something? His best friend, Mike Gonzalez. He shot him in the back and then stood there and watched him bleed to death.”

  She was crying now.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie said feebly.

  “We all ought to be sorry. A good man like Mike. I never liked Fritz, never, but I didn’t say anything to Mike because a man doesn’t like for a woman to knock his friends. But I always thought Fritz had cold eyes, like a snake. And that’s what he was, a snake in the grass. See, Mike saved Fritz’s life one time when they faced down some creeps in an alley, and one of them pulled a gun and was going to shoot Fritz. Mike got him first, saved Fritz’s life. They were good pals then. Fritz was divorced, and Mike’s first wife died of cancer and they didn’t have any kids, so Mike made up a will and left everything he had to Fritz. He should have known … Anyway, Mike had this beach house he inherited from this spinster aunt, a beach house in Carmel, and you know what kind of money that is. Mike never even liked the place, said the people were too ritzy for him, but he made up a will, left it all to Fritz. Then he met me, and it was great, it was wonderful. I finally met a nice man, a man I could really care about, and Mike liked my kids, everything. We were going to get married in two months, and he went hunting with Fritz, and he died with the back of his head blown away.”

  “An accident—” she began.

  “Accident! Lady, cops don’t have accidents with guns.”

  Annie hung up, started to report to Max, then saw the time. “I’ll tell you on the way. We’d better hurry. It’s almost four.”

  “Don’t you think I have time to do some phoning on Capt. Mac?”

  The front door rattled. Chief Saulter stood on the verandah, peering into Death On Demand.

  Without a word, Annie and Max dropped to the floor.

  She’d never realized how hard heart pine floors were when crossed on hands and knees. Had Saulter caught a glimpse of them? But the door was mullioned and that would make it difficult for him to see.

  She didn’t draw an easy breath until they’d tiptoed out the storeroom door, darted up the back alley, and skulked on the far side of the hibiscus to Max’s Porsche. As they roared off, she looked over her shoulder. No one followed. Of course, Saulter could find her, if he looked hard enough. But every second gave them another chance to find out more. And they had to catch the six o’clock ferry and develop that film.

  Magpie Plantation was hidden deep from the main road; enormous, thick-leaved live oak trees and their dangling swaths of Spanish moss shrouded the tangled undergrowth, enclosed the narrow, dusty gray road. It was like driving in a terrarium, moist, green, dim, and somber.

  “All we need is a crow on a fence post,” Max muttered.

  The Porsche curved around the crumbling remains of old Fort Hendrix, an earthwork fortification built in 1862 by the occupying Union forces to overlook Abelard Creek. They rattled over a narrow wooden bridge, and Annie said in a hushed voice, “There’s the house.”

  Magpie Plantation was old, a lovingly restored antebellum survivor of sea cotton days. The railings of the broad double verandahs and the slender. Doric columns glistened with fresh white paint.

  With the motor off, a funereal silence enfolded them.

  Max raised an eyebrow. “I’ll bet they laugh a lot here. My God, the place looks like a cross between a southern Wuthering Heights and the summer home of the Addams family.”

  The silvery Spanish moss hung motionless. The onshore breeze didn’t penetrate the thick stand of live oaks. The sound of their footsteps on the oyster-shell path was distinct in the brooding stillness.

  Annie remembered Magpie Plantation from summer hikes with Uncle Ambrose. It had been a derelict then, untenanted, dank weeds choking the drive, the second-
story verandah sagging. She’d known, of course, that Kelly had bought and restored the old house. But why wasn’t it included in the spring tour of plantation homes? Most owners of the antebellum mansions gloried in showing off their prizes.

  They were starting up the rose-bordered front walk when a scream, high and rising higher, pealed through the heavy air.

  “My God, what’s that?”

  Max was squinting at the house’s beautiful facade. “There,” he shouted, and pointed to the second-floor verandah, where two figures struggled near the railing, one trying desperately to squirm free, the other, smaller one holding on tenaciously.

  Max leapt up the steps and yanked on the heavy front door. It didn’t budge. He sprinted down the verandah to the end and an ivy-laden lattice. He started up, Annie close behind.

  “It won’t hold both of us,” he shouted in warning as the framework quivered.

  Annie dropped back down and craned to see.

  The larger woman broke free to clamber awkwardly up onto the railing. The smaller figure, Kelly, grabbed and clung. The two teetered precariously. Then Max was up and over the railing, and the three figures disappeared in a melee of arms and legs.

  The scream sounded again, piercing and shrill, then abruptly broke off, followed by brokenhearted sobs.

  “Max,” Annie yelled, then she climbed up on the railing to start up the lattice.

  He peered down from the second story. “Hold on, Annie. We’ll be down in a minute.”

  By the time the front door swung open, Annie was standing beside it and breathing almost normally.

  Kelly stepped back and motioned her inside. Her dark red hair was disheveled, her face pale. Max had an angry scratch on his right arm, and his shirt pocket was torn.

  “We’ll go in the living room.” Kelly’s voice was as soft and unhurried as usual. They might have been joining her for afternoon tea.

  The living room was lovely. Delicate, white molded cornices decorated fourteen-foot-tall ceilings. A magnificent three-tiered crystal chandelier hung from a center medallion. Pale gray walls set off the draped turquoise hangings over the huge arched windows. The room was shadowy, but Kelly didn’t turn on a light. Annie thought of the approach to the house. It was all of a piece, quiet, spooky, sinister.