Death on Demand

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Their hostess waved them to an American Chippendale sofa, then sat in a small but very fine Queen Anne wing chair, upholstered in rose and white.

  Annie felt a curl of uneasiness. This was Knight’s Gambit territory. Antebellum perfection below and a madwoman above.

  Kelly turned politely toward Max. “I do owe you a very great thanks.”

  “No problem.” Max took up two-thirds of the sofa, overwhelmingly masculine in a feminine room. “I became quite skilled in ascending and descending lattices in my younger days.”

  Annie filed that one away for further reference and possible inquiry.

  Kelly didn’t smile. She nodded soberly and continued to gaze at Max with haunted green eyes. “It’s great luck you happened by. We are rather isolated here. What can I do for you?”

  It was a courteous way of asking what the hell they wanted, and a clear indication the verandah episode was closed.

  Kelly wasn’t Carmen or any of the others they’d talked to. If anyone were capable of out-thinking the world, it was Kelly Rizzoli.

  “It’s Elliot,” Annie began, beating Max to the punch.

  “Elliot?” Kelly echoed coolly.

  “He sent me a copy of what he was going to say Sunday night.”

  “Oh, he did? Would you suppose he had a presentiment?”

  Annie shrugged. “I doubt it. Maybe more on the order of insurance.”

  “It lapsed, didn’t it?”

  Annie could swear there was a sick glimmer of amusement in Kelly’s gorgeous eyes, but she plunged resolutely on. “I don’t really want to tell Saulter what he was going to say about you.”

  “So you came to see me instead?” Kelly wore a shamrock-green turtleneck and boxy white slacks. She looked very slight in the delicate wingback chair. Slight but somehow imposing.

  Annie nodded.

  “If I can persuade you that what he had on me wasn’t sufficient motive for murder, you will protect my good name. Is that right?”

  “Right.” Certainly Kelly didn’t seem discomfited by her threat to go to Saulter.

  Kelly looked away, her gaze seeming to fasten somewhere near the delicate Adam mantel. She spoke dreamily. “It’s funny what can serve as motivation. That was part of Elliot’s thesis, you know, that a writer’s reality serves as the basis for invention. I find motivation quite fascinating.” She shifted a little in her chair, looked at Annie. “In my latest collection of short stories, there’s one I like particularly, ‘Gideon’s Morning.’” Her voice had a singsong, musical quality like the faraway fall of water. “It is his last morning, you see. His mother splits his skull with an axe as he sits at the breakfast table.”

  Max and Annie sat quietly, scarcely breathing.

  She tilted her head like a bird observing a worm. “It’s really quite understandable. She’d told him and told him and told him not to track mud across her clean kitchen floor when she’d just mopped it.”

  The vision of a blood-drenched country kitchen hung in the shadows of the room.

  “Motivation. Yes, Elliot was right. We use everything we’ve ever known or seen or felt when we write. Sometimes, we pick up pieces of people’s lives, like a crow attracted to the shine of a broken brooch. We take it all and put together something new and different, but it does spring from our past, our collective past.”

  “And your past,” Annie said softly.

  Kelly nodded. She looked childlike, sitting in that straight-backed old chair, her hands folded primly in her lap, her shoulders narrow beneath the green turtleneck.

  “My past—and Elliot. That’s what you came to talk about. My past and my present. You know, Elliot was right and wrong about me.”

  “Can you tell us?” Max urged, his voice low and careful.

  Pensively, Kelly nodded. “It’s interesting. Motivation again. Elliot didn’t understand that it didn’t matter to me if he told everyone—right or wrong. He got the story from one of my classmates, I suppose. It happened at the College of the Ozarks.” She turned to Max. “Have you ever been to southern Arkansas? You might understand better if you’ve been there. Did you know you can go back in the Arkansas swamp country and go to a lake that’s hooded by trees—and there will be snakes hanging from the branches?”

  Again that slow, dreamy smile.

  “Think about that, picture it. The darkness among the cypress and the still, emerald water and the thick-bodied water moccasins dangling from the branches.

  “Arkansas—it can be very still and dark and ingrown. Very ingrown. Many families have kept to themselves for a long time. My family, too. But my sister, Pamela, and I went together to college. I knew Pamela wasn’t quite right, but we thought she could go if I were there.” Kelly’s dreamy eyes looked beyond them, to a past and place they couldn’t see. “We rented a tiny room in a boardinghouse two blocks from the campus. Pamela took art classes.” Her voice was suddenly animated. “She can really draw quite well. When she’s happy, she paints smiting children. When she’s unhappy … They found the dog first, the dog next door. His throat was cut. Then a parakeet was strangled. Our landlady had a pet cat, a beautiful cat who had her own silk cushion and special foods.” Kelly moved her hand, as if stroking a cat.

  Annie didn’t ask what had happened to the cat. She didn’t want to know.

  “Pamela?”

  Kelly’s eyes slowly focused on Max. “I told them I did it. I said it was an experiment in the psychology of stress, and I promised to make restitution. Do you understand why?”

  “To protect your sister?”

  “They would have put her away, and she wouldn’t be able to bear it. I never make her stay locked up. I let her go out when she wants, but I watch her very carefully. Upsets like today don’t happen often, but I think she sensed I was disturbed about something. That affects her. She’ll be all right, now that she’s had a sedative. She’ll sleep until tomorrow, then get up and be cheerful, and we’ll walk along the beach and search for a perfect sand dollar.”

  “Why not get her to a doctor? She’s sick, Kelly. You should know that. You majored in psychology.”

  Kelly’s green eyes didn’t look the least dreamy when she turned them toward Annie. “You do know a lot about me, don’t you?”

  “Why don’t you get her into a hospital?”

  Kelly’s skin was almost translucent, the veins blue-Mack near the surface. “Never. You don’t know what it would be like. Have you ever been in a mental hospital? Tan walls and cement floors, people with empty, staring eyes, figures in green coveralls, and doctors who ineptly try to treat illnesses that no one understands.” She paused, then spoke so low Annie found herself leaning forward to hear. “She would be so frightened, so terribly alone.”

  “It must all be in your college records,” Max said briskly. “About the animals. And that’s what Elliot had. You said you didn’t care if he told it?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because someone might discover the truth about Pamela and insist she be put away.”

  “I won’t let that happen.” Kelly lifted her head regally.

  She was cold and obdurate and a dangerous adversary. And very, very clever. She was also supremely confident of her cleverness.

  Those shrewd, beautiful eyes watched Annie warily.

  “Look, Kelly, I’ll tell you the truth. Chief Saulter is going to arrest me tomorrow. He believes I murdered Elliot because he was threatening to raise my rent and drive me out of business. He even thinks I pushed my uncle into the harbor last summer, just to inherit the bookstore.”

  For the first time, Kelly looked surprised. Annie wondered immediately if it were consummate acting or if it had never occurred to her that Ambrose Bailey’s death had not been accidental.

  “That’s absurd. You wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Well, thanks. I’m glad you don’t agree.”

  Kelly wasn’t listening. Instead, she studied the diamond pattern in the turquoise rug.

  “Ambrose murdered.” Her
gaze swung back to Annie. “Why?”

  Annie briefly described the true-crime book and the missing manuscript.

  “Oh hey, Annie.” Max was impatient, irritated at this diversion. “You and Saulter both are way off base. Your uncle fell. I’d bet on that.”

  “So what happened to the manuscript?”

  “You probably lost a box when you moved the stuff from his house.”

  “Lost a box? Do you think I’m a nitwit?”

  “Do you lose things sometimes?”

  What a low blow. “Just because I mislaid that script.”

  At least he had the grace not to bring up the fact that it had almost cost him a producer.

  “Where did we find it?”

  “Okay, okay. I left it on a park bench. But a silly damn script is not the size of a box with a manuscript.” Annie was tired of this battle. She turned to Kelly. “Anyway, my neck’s on the block, and Saulter won’t even listen, so Max and I have decided to find out everything we can to solve the crime. Will you help us?”

  “How can I help you?” Kelly was still cautious, but interested. And perhaps tempted?

  “Sure you can help. You know these people; you are extraordinarily perceptive. Maybe you’ll see something we’ve missed.” Max was busy exercising his charm. Max was world class when it came to wheedling. He could wheedle a seat five minutes before takeoff on a sold-out People’s Express. He could wheedle a box-seat at game-time at the Super Bowl. He was magic, and Annie watched with reluctant admiration as Kelly received a concentrated dose.

  “I might at that. Tell me what you have.” A faint flush stained those marble-pale cheeks. Max was a marvel, and Annie was controlling a sharp impulse to give him an elbow in the ribs.

  They started with number one, Emma Clyde.

  When Max finished summing up, Kelly moved her hands, and Annie was reminded of seaweed swaying in water.

  “Oh, yes. I can see it happening. Emma is quite capable of a carefully conceived, excellently executed plan. If she decided her second husband was a mistake—and she couldn’t see any way of divorcing him without losing a great deal of money—I don’t believe she’d hesitate for a moment to murder him. I find it quite revealing that she told you she had wanted to see him early the next morning about some investments. She was dearly thinking about him in terms of money. And it’s very suggestive that she immediately assumed Annie’s intention in bringing up the matter was blackmail. I consider that significant, too. I would almost feel certain she was already the victim of blackmail.”

  “If she can plan so well and won’t stop at murder, why wouldn’t she get rid of the blackmailer?” Max asked.

  “But she did,” Annie jumped in. “That’s why she killed Elliot. He was blackmailing her, so she set it all up, stole the poison, killed Jill because she interrupted that, then hid the dart in my store and fixed the lights. It sounds reasonable to me.”

  “No, no,” Kelly objected calmly. “You are misreading Elliot’s persona entirely. My dear, he sought power, that was his overriding desire—to manipulate and coerce, to inflict punishment.” A tiny smile rippled over her pond-smooth face. “He was not a very attractive person, dear Elliot.”

  “What’s blackmail but a clear exercise of power?” Annie demanded.

  “In a limited sense. Do you think, in Elliot’s mind, that the receipt of money could compare in any way with the power and pleasure he would take from standing up in front of the Regulars and publicly stripping each person there emotionally naked?”

  “By God, you’re right,” Max declared.

  Where had Max acquired his perverted weakness for blond anacondas and redheaded vipers?

  “So you think he meant every word of his threat to reveal all Sunday night?”

  “Of course. I have no doubt that, had he lived, we would all have learned some fascinating particulars about each person there.” Was there a touch of regret in her voice? Viper, indeed.

  “So you agree that the motive for his murder must lie in his actions that night?”

  “I have no doubt about it.”

  “How about his ex-wife? How about Ambrose Bailey?”

  Neither of them even glanced Annie’s way. Max was crinkling his eyes at Kelly, and she was responding on cue. Annie knew she would do well to remember his expertise in the future.

  “You’ve certainly thought this through very thoroughly. Who are the other candidates?”

  Max was spilling all to their new confederate. “The next person we talked to was Hal Douglas.” Then his face abruptly went blank, and Annie knew he’d remembered her own comment that she suspected a romance between Hal and Kelly.

  Kelly waited.

  With Max struck dumb, Annie explained about Hal’s emotional outburst.

  Kelly was unruffled. “His wife could have run off with someone.”

  “Did you know he had a wife?”

  “I knew there was an emotional block.”

  Annie stopped short of announcing her belief that Lenora was in an unmarked grave near that Lake Tahoe cabin. Instead, she skirted. “What do you think about Hal? Could he kill someone?”

  “Hal is passionate. I can see problems if he loved someone deeply and discovered infidelity, but I have trouble imagining him cold-bloodedly killing Jill—or Harriet.”

  “Jill’s death may not have been intentional,” Annie suggested. “The autopsy revealed she had a very thin skull—and she was only hit once. Perhaps the killer simply intended to knock her unconscious.” Annie reached up and touched the sore spot, still a little swollen, behind her ear. “As for Harriet, nobody really knows what happened. Maybe she saw someone go into Elliot’s house and followed them. She may have accused that person of being the murderer and something happened to convince her she was right. The killer had no choice.”

  “That seems possible.” Max nodded.

  Kelly was skeptical. She stood and walked slowly to the mantel and lightly touched a piece of painted tinware. “Hal would do things in a rush. He might knock Elliot down or shoot him, but I can’t imagine he would plan and carry out this complicated murder.”

  An attack on Hal made her uneasy. What might she do to protect Hal? Were she and Max naive? Did Kelly know all about Lenora, and was she determined to protect Hal at all costs? She’d already revealed that she would go to great lengths if she cared for someone. Witness her determination to shield her sister.

  “Hal writes pretty complicated books.”

  Kelly merely smiled patronizingly and shook her head.

  “How about the Farleys? Solo or together.”

  Kelly leaned back against the mantel, very much at ease now that Hal wasn’t the subject. “They’re possible, quite possible.” Her dark red hair swung as she nodded. “There is repression there, and violence.”

  She wasn’t at all surprised to learn of Jeff’s attacks or Janis’s protective response. But again, she thought outright aggression would be more likely for Jeff than the carefully premeditated death by dart.

  “I wouldn’t rule them out, though, psychologically speaking.”

  “What about Fritz Hemphill?” Did Max have to look as if he awaited a guru’s pronouncement?

  Kelly reached out and traced her fingers over the raised pattern in the upholstery of the small Queen Anne wingback. “Fritz is a dangerous man. What did Elliot have on him?”

  “Apparently he blew away his best friend so he could inherit a valuable beachfront cottage at Carmel.”

  “Fritz is a planner, the kind of person who takes what he wants.”

  “Then there’s Capt. Mac.” Max’s voice was as curdled as sour milk. “A paternity suit.”

  “At least he didn’t kill somebody,” Annie exclaimed protectively.

  Kelly’s green eyes darted from Annie to Max, brightly, perceptively.

  Annie was getting pretty damn sick of perception.

  “So Capt. Mac’s libido caused him some difficulty. Not surprising. But he’s capable and intelligent. A cool customer.
Of course, that’s what you would expect from someone who’s headed a police force. Tough. Ruthless. Very savvy.”

  “Capt. Wonderful,” Max said sarcastically.

  Kelly slipped gracefully into the wingback chair and looked at him, amused. “You asked for my opinion. I didn’t say I liked the man—either.”

  Max scooted away from that one. “Well, off the top of your head, who’s the most likely suspect?”

  Kelly gave them an enigmatic smile. “I’d rather know what each of you thinks. Your choice will be so revealing.”

  The breeze through the open sunroof ruffled Annie’s hair, which hadn’t been combed in some time. As the Porsche rattled over the wooden bridge, and they left the ruins of Fort Hendrix behind, she blew out a whoosh of relief. “My God, that woman’s enough to give you the creepy crawlies for life. I don’t think Hal can be the good old boy everybody takes him for.”

  “I’m not taking him for a good old boy,” Max said drily.

  Her lips quivered in a smile. “I guess I have a perverse streak. I was pretty well set on Emma, until Kelly said she could be the villain. Now I keep thinking of Emma’s good points.”

  “Such as?”

  Annie laughed. “She’s a nice guest. She brought extra chips and clam dip Sunday night.”

  “And a poisoned dart?” He gunned the motor, then turned right onto the blacktop.

  “Hey, wait. Where are you going? Let’s go back to the shop. I’ve got some ideas, and we have to hurry before the ferry leaves.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “Who do you think you are? Phil Marlowe? We can’t spend the afternoon slaking your insatiable thirst. We’ve got work to do.”

  But he was already past the checkpoint and turning into Parotti’s tavern parking lot when a siren sounded behind them. The Porsche smoothed to a stop, and Max turned an indignant face toward the big motorcycle cop. “I was going twenty-eight miles per hour. A motorized wheelchair could have passed me.”