Something Wicked

by Carolyn G. Hart

  She turned when a tap sounded on the door. Saulter looked at her mournfully, like a hound dog left behind on hunt day. “Thought I’d drop by.”

  “Come on in, Chief.” She waved him to the other straight chair in the cramped storeroom. It was wedged between the receiving table and the back door.

  He pulled it out, turned it around, and straddled it. “Sure sorry about this morning, Annie.”

  “Not your fault,” she said quickly.

  Some of his gloom lifted. “Glad you see that. Nothin’ I can do about Posey. He’s running for reelection—and he sure hates rich folks. Thing about it is, Max is the kind of rich folks he hates most. Born to it. He sort of likes Harley Jenkins. He made all his own money.”

  “Chief, you don’t think—” She swallowed. “He doesn’t have enough to really go after Max, does he?”

  Saulter scratched at his sparse topping of graying brown hair. “Hell of it is, Max is as good a suspect as anybody. I mean, nobody sticks out.”

  Annie sketched a dangling noose on her notepad. “What about Sheridan? Doesn’t everybody look at the wife first?”

  His sallow face colored, and he stared down at the floor. “Don’t let on I told you, but it looks like she’s got the hell of an alibi.”

  “Alibis are made to be broken.”

  “Hers is Harley Jenkins,” he mumbled. “They both swear they checked into the Crown Shore Motel before ten and didn’t leave the room ’til after midnight. And it checks out. Windows open onto a patio. Bartender on the patio says nobody came out that way. Desk clerk swears nobody poked a nose through the door.”

  “How long’s she been sneaking around with Harley?” Annie sketched in a four-poster.

  He lifted his faded brown eyes. “You think she set it up?”

  “Fortunate for her, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you have looked at her pretty closely?” Annie added a row of hatchets for chopping cherry trees.

  “I would have.” He poked at a copy of H.R.F. Keating’s A Perfect Murder. “Tell you what, Annie. I’ll see what I can find out, let you know.”

  “You’re all right, Chief,” she said softly. He reddened again, then stood and returned the chair to its place. “Wish I could do better than that. I’d like to find the killer right under Posey’s nose.”

  “Maybe we can, Chief.”

  “Now look, Annie. You be careful, hear? Don’t go pokin’ in a rattler’s hidey-hole.”

  “I’ll call you if I find anything at all.” She reached out and gripped his gnarled hand. “I promise.”

  “You do that.” He rubbed his chin. “You might be lookin’ out for a discarded gun. We haven’t found the twenty-two yet. Course it will take days to go through all the stuff in the prop storage area.”

  She hadn’t thought about the gun and what might have happened to it. A .22. She sighed. They were easy to come up with.

  He paused in the doorway. “I’ll get back to you, if I find out anything to help Max.”

  And what was she going to do to help Max? Even if he stubbornly resisted help. And where was Max right this minute? She shook away the lingering feeling of uneasiness and glanced down at her notepad. Was the jaunty figure of The Saint looking at her reproachfully? What was her plan of action?

  The phone rang.

  “Death on Demand.” She and Ingrid answered simultaneously.

  A crisp English accent announced, “Murder does not sprout overnight. As any half-witted gardener well knows, a bloom is the culmination of months of germination. But I can dig up the truth. I intend to find out every germane fact in Shane’s life. Even if it smells like a compost heap. I have succeeded in locating his best friend. Another womanizer, apparently. And I intend to wring the facts out of this young man.”

  Annie was impatient. She didn’t have time for Henny’s foolishness. She needed to think!

  Henny didn’t wait for an answer. “The seed of this crime shall be unearthed.” The line went dead.

  John Sherwood’s Celia Grant, no doubt. Until now, Annie had enjoyed Henny’s sleuthing. But nothing was very funny with that lout Posey lusting for Max’s scalp. The fact that Max refused to admit his peril only made it worse. Even her storeroom was gloomy and somber. She’d always enjoyed working here in the mornings, with sunlight spilling in through the single high window, but now a thick bank of clouds presaged a storm and the air was heavy. She flicked on the overhead light. Several cartons needed to be opened. One was from a used book dealer in London and should include an autographed jacketed first edition of Michael Gilbert’s Smallbone Deceased. Normally, that would have been the highlight of her morning. Now, she gave it a single, disinterested glance and began to pace.

  Max was in trouble.

  Well, if not actually in acute jeopardy at the moment, it was approaching, as certainly as the coming storm. Thunder crackled in the distance, and the overhead light wavered. Okay, Max was at risk, and she had to figure out how to save him. Clearly, it was up to her to find the murderer of Shane Petree.

  So, the important question, the question that had to be answered, was why?

  Why was Shane Petree murdered?

  And there were other questions that could determine the parameters of the problem:

  Was the murder a culmination of the sabotage?

  Was the murder intended to prevent the staging of Arsenic and Old Lace? Was it part of a conspiracy directed by Harley Jenkins III to ruin the theater company’s season?

  Did Eugene murder Shane to take his place as Teddy? Did Sam murder Shane so that Eugene could be Teddy, thereby enhancing the play’s chances of success?

  Was the murder independent of the sabotage?

  Why did the murder occur at the rehearsal, when the number of suspects was so limited?

  Could someone have slipped into the theater, killed Shane, and escaped again unseen?

  Where was the gun?

  And—fascinating to pursue—what was the point of shooting Shane during the play at all? Why not gun him down in his driveway or the parking lot of the Island Hills Country Club? Did this suggest an urgency to the crime, some reason that the murder had to occur at that particular time?

  Annie paced away from the table. Every question only suggested another. And she still had no inkling of the answer to the most important question of all: Why did Shane die?

  She whirled around, returned to the worktable, and looked down at her notepad.

  The jaunty figure of The Saint rollicked near the top of the page.

  She took it as an omen. What could she do that would be audacious?

  It was the Trump Tower of Broward’s Rock. A two-story waterfall cascaded down shiny blocks of quartz in a cypress-walled atrium. Black-stemmed ebony spleenwort sprouted from an oyster-shell mound, and six-foot royal ferns and saw grass re-created a low-country salt marsh. Tasteful gold-block letters along a foot-high marble wall proclaimed HALCYON DEVELOPMENT INC. On a sunny day, the water and stone glittered like diamonds, but this morning it looked more like a stream of pewter in the sullen, storm-bleached light. The clouds were building, darkening. It was going to rain soon, which, of course, always spelled increased sales for all the shops, including Death on Demand, as beach-banished vacationers milled idly among the tables and shelves, with gloomy glances at the rain-smeared windows. Normally, Annie would be scooting back to the shop to help Ingrid with the overload, but today Ingrid would have to manage by herself.

  The peroxide blonde at the reception desk flicked her a bored glance.

  Annie took out one of her cards. It was crimson with Death on Demand in black letters, an Italian Renaissance silver dagger as a logo, and the inscription, Crimes For Every Taste. In the lower right-hand corner, it read, Annie Laurance, Prop. On the back, she quickly wrote: Could we visit about a matter of great interest to both of us? Annie Laurance.

  The receptionist took the card and moved languidly up the steps of the red-carpeted stairs. When she returned, a sparkle of curiosity lighted her vacant eyes. “This way, Mis
s Laurance.”

  Harley Edward Jenkins III’s office was on the second floor, with a commanding view of the harbor through a window that filled an entire wall. He sat with his back to the panorama of anchored yachts and battened-down sailboats. The coming storm sent choppy waves rolling across the harbor to slap against the docks, creating a lace filigree of spume.

  Holding her card between a beefy thumb and forefinger, Harley rose as the girl showed Annie in, then waited until the door closed behind the receptionist. Clearly, Jenkins was king of his domain. Everything was on a grand scale to match his overpowering physical presence: outsize leather club chairs, an enormous painting of duck hunters on a crisp fall dawn that filled the wall opposite the harbor window, a cypress coffee table with a five-foot diameter.

  “Miss Laurance.” His red-veined face was bland, but his cold blue eyes were wary. He waggled, the card. “You intrigue me. What possible interest could we have in common?” A jovial smile curved his thick lips, though it didn’t touch those watchful eyes. “But forgive me, won’t you have some coffee? Or perhaps a glass of wine?”

  She smiled, too. “No, thank you, Mr. Jenkins. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

  He waved a meaty hand toward one of the red leather chairs near his desk. “My time is completely at your disposal, Ms. Laurance.”

  This kind of repartee was right up Judge Dee’s alley. But Annie found it tiresome, so she didn’t mince words.

  “We do have an interest in common. I assume, sir, that you don’t like to be hoodwinked?”

  He lowered himself into the embrace of his leather chair. “Nobody fools me.”

  “So you pride yourself on your ability to judge men. But can you be sure of judging women as well?”

  He waited, regarding her with the unblinking, inimical stare of a mass-produced Buddha.

  “When did Sheridan Petree start pursuing you?”

  Slowly, his huge fist closed around her card, crushing it. His eyes peered out with reptilian coldness from their thick folds of flesh. “I don’t care for your implication, little lady.”

  And I don’t like you, buster, she longed to say. Little lady, indeed! But she wasn’t here to slug it out over male chauvinism, she reminded herself. Max, the stubborn oaf, needed her.

  “But she did pursue you, didn’t she?”

  Jenkins hunched at his massive ebony desk, unmoving as a granite mountain.

  Finally, the words as crisp as fresh dollar bills, he threw it out on the table. “You want to prove she set up her alibi the night her husband was murdered.”

  “Right.” Annie leaned forward in her chair. This could make or break Sheridan’s alibi.

  Jenkins rolled the cardboard ball that had been her card in his fingers, then dropped it in his ashtray and reached for his humidor. Ignoring Annie, he selected a round, fat cigar, snipped off its end, and lit it. The acrid fumes rolled toward her.

  Finally, the calculating eyes lifted to her face. “Of course, Sheridan had to tell the cops about you and Shane.” He took a deep draw on the cigar. Apparently nobody’d ever told him not to inhale. “So you have an ax to grind.”

  “I’d say it’s important to both of us.”

  He leaned back and looked reflectively past her at the hunting scene. “I got to talking to Sheridan in the bar at the club one night. About a month ago.” The heavy face was thoughtful. “Kind of on the spur of the minute.”

  “Is that a regular haunt of yours? Do you go to the club bar often?”

  Once again he emanated alertness, like a tiger poised to leap. “Almost every night.”

  She was silent. Let him think about it. She smiled brightly. “So, if you’re doing Sheridan a favor by saying she was with you last night—”

  He made a chest-deep noise which she belatedly recognized as a laugh. “Young lady, I wouldn’t do my mother that kind of favor.”

  With a sinking feeling, Annie realized that she believed him. Her disappointment was so acute her chest ached. Sheridan’s alibi was real. She and Jenkins were pursuing pleasure at the very moment someone blew Shane away. Then inspiration struck. It wasn’t much to salvage, but it was all she could see at the moment. An alibi for Sheridan was also an alibi for Jenkins. After all, wasn’t that how it worked in Death on the Nile?

  “How important was it to you that the players’ summer season fail?”

  Harley had no problem following the bouncing ball. “You thinking about the troubles you people had?”

  “You know about them?”

  “Sure. Sheridan told me. I thought they were pretty funny, ’til somebody killed that cat. That was shitty.”

  In Annie’s opinion, gunning free-flying birds out of a November sky was equally shitty, but she said mildly, “You like cats?”

  “Crazy about ’em. Got six. Abyssinians. And they’re smart as the deuce.” His tone was admiring.

  Of course, Hitler loved dogs and Aryan children, too.

  “Besides,” Jenkins said easily, “Sheridan’s convinced me I’m being wrong-headed about this theater stuff. I’m going to compromise.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure thing. I’ve got a phone call in to Burt, and he’s going to be pleased. Sheridan’s going to donate the money to build a memorial theater to Shane. The Petree Theater, over on Marsh Road.” He gestured in the direction opposite the harbor. “And to sweeten the pot for Burt, I’m going to find a restaurant to go into the spot here on the harbor. That will bring his little gift shop even more customers. So, you see, everything’s going to work out fine.”

  And he had no earthly motive to sabotage the players’ season. None, ladies and gentlemen. He was purer than Ivory Soap flakes.

  Savagely, Annie wished she could read those marble-blue eyes better. Right now they glistened with false good cheer.

  He rose, and she stood, too. He walked her to the door, his hand companionably on her elbow.

  She gave it one last shot. “Was it your idea or Sheridan’s to build a memorial theater?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Sheridan’s. Any reason why she shouldn’t?”

  No. No reason, Annie thought. It was a graceful gesture on the part of the bereaved widow, and an equally graceful response by the real estate magnate. Just peachy for everybody.

  “So, little lady, I guess if anybody was sabotaging your play, maybe they had it in for Burt or Sam.”

  She looked up at him sharply.

  Harley smiled good-humoredly, a man with a rock-solid alibi.

  As Annie turned up the boardwalk, the first large raindrops pelted down. The tourist bureau never stressed it, but June, July, and August were the wet months. How could one have all this lovely subtropical growth without the liquid gold of summer? At the steps to Death on Demand, she started to duck inside, changed her mind (Ingrid could handle everything), picked up speed, and ran, her steps reverberating on the wood. Dodging tourists seeking shelter, she crunched across the oyster-shell parking lanes, unlocked her Volvo, and flung herself inside.

  Rain sluiced down. She stared at the opaque windshield and brooded. She’d started with the premise that Sheridan had used Jenkins to forge a fake alibi, and now toyed with the idea that Jenkins had used Sheridan for the same purpose. Jenkins’s words had the ring of truth (and corroboration by a bartender and desk clerk), but the rock-solid alibi simply aroused her suspicions. Would either Sheridan or Jenkins support an alibi for the other for reasons of their own? It was possible. Not likely, but possible. And she knew Henny was even now scouring that room at the Crown Shore Motel for a hidden exit.

  So, she wasn’t quite ready to cross Sheridan and Jenkins off her suspect list. She kept them there along with, of course, the three Hortons, Burt, Carla, Sam, Eugene, Arthur, and Hugo. A purist would include Henny. But some things were possible, and some weren’t. She’d just as soon believe she or Max had done it, as consider Henny.

  She trotted out the motives, one by one, like obedient sheep.

  T.K.—the wronged h
usband and infuriated father.

  Janet—would she rather see Shane dead than share him?

  Cindy—a determination to destroy what she might be losing.

  Burt—the success-obsessed president of the players. How far would he go to remove the weak link from the play?

  Carla—she was a loner, who took great strength from her community involvement. Had she decided Shane was an obstacle that had to be removed?

  Sam—how badly did Sam want the play to succeed?

  Eugene—had his obsession with TR passed the bounds of sanity?

  Arthur—the charming, raffish Dr. Einstein. How important was the play to him? Or could he have some other reason for wishing Shane dead?

  Hugo—an arrogant, determined man, who wanted a chance to succeed in yet another arena. Did he see himself and his goals as paramount?

  The flood of rain eased into a softer pattern, and she began to discern the outline of two ragged palmettos and a hibiscus.

  Annie beat an impatient tattoo on the steering wheel. She felt as if her mind were fuzzy and indistinct, that she wasn’t seeing the true pattern of the crime. It was obscured by too many motives, too many emotions, too many suspects.

  Maybe it was time to get back to the basics and take a good hard look at the man who had been Shane Petree.

  She followed the maid up a freestanding spiral staircase. Despite the rain-sheathed windows, the bronze balustrade gleamed like gold. At the top, the maid stepped back and gestured toward the end of the hall.

  Annie’s shoes clicked against the polished hall tiles. She paused at the open door.

  Sheridan Petree looked up from a desk of glass and chrome. She sat in a butterfly chair with a black-and-silver cotton fabric. The floor was of pale pink Paros marble, and the walls were of brushed aluminum. Rain pattered against uncurtained windows. The only color in the study came from her dusty blond hair and the apricot sweats she wore. Designer sweats, of course. Annie suddenly felt hot and unattractive in her yellow slicker.