Something Wicked

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “I’ve never suspected Henny.”

  He was impatient. “I know. That’s just an example. I mean, by a stretch of the imagination, Henny could just possibly have managed physically to commit the crime, although we certainly don’t have a motive for her. But the probability is small. You have to consider the odds.”

  Following Max’s reasoning would put Hugo Wolf low on the suspect list, and Annie didn’t buy that at all. “Hugo is smart. I can see him figuring this out, then committing the murder so that it would look difficult for him to be guilty.”

  “Well, he is a cool customer,” Max conceded.

  Annie began to get that old familiar mouse-in-a-barrel feeling. “Hmm. I understand what you’re saying,” which was kind of a white lie, “but it seems more important to me to figure who’s most likely in terms of motive.” She picked up the pen and made her own list.

  MOST LIKELY IN TERMS OF MOTIVE

  T.K.

  Janet

  Hugo

  Sam

  Eugene

  Arthur

  Burt

  Cindy

  Carla/Henny

  Max pointed at the last line.

  “So what motive do they have?” Annie asked. “Carla didn’t like him, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. And Henny doesn’t appear to have any motive at all. Besides, I’m sure Carla didn’t hide the gun in your condo, so that clears her, and I’d just as soon suspect myself as suspect Henny.” She grinned. “Oh, that Henny. She’s trying like a beaver to break Sheridan and Harley’s alibi, and she’s getting nowhere. Now, they both have juicy motives.”

  “But how could either one of them, assuming Henny breaks the alibi, have managed to get in and out of the school unseen?” Max demanded.

  Annie nodded disconsolately. Either Cindy or Carla should have seen a non-player, because both spent most of the evening in the wings at stage right.

  “Carla would have seen anyone who came through the stage door,” Max said. “But Cindy was so busy watching the great lover, I doubt if she would have noticed the entrance of a draft horse.”

  “So, Carla’s the only one who might really know.”

  “Carla,” Max said thoughtfully. “That’s funny. She phoned Posey yesterday evening. Apparently she was drinking and wanted to talk to him about me or the gun at my place. He hung up on her.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Annie said. “She was drunk out of her mind last night.”

  “You saw her?”

  It was a memory Annie didn’t cherish. She hated even to tell Max. “She was—I think somebody dumped her. Something like that. She was so hostile to me.”

  “Why hostile to you?” He looked affronted.

  She patted his shoulder. “Because we’re happy,” she said quietly. “Oh, Max, I felt so sorry for her. She was so bitter.”

  “Oh, well,” he said easily. “She probably won’t remember what she said. It’ll be okay.”

  “People are funny, aren’t they?” Annie knew that profundity ranked on a par with the exchanges on a late-night talk show. She shot Max a quick glance and saw his mouth curving into a grin.

  “Speaking of funny people,” he said genially, “wherever did you find the best criminal lawyer in the United States of America?”

  “He got you out, didn’t he?” she demanded defensively.

  “Actually—” he began, then he grinned. “Actually, I find him quite fascinating on a personal level, but I’m glad I don’t have to look to him for real representation. It isn’t the distinct odor of bourbon and branch water that worries me, it’s his habit of muttering about the McNaughton rule.”

  Annie didn’t feel quite so certain Max could afford to be relaxed, despite her discoveries the night before. Persisting like a dog at a bone, she asked worriedly, “Do you really think Posey will pay any attention to the stuff on Shane’s boat?”

  He stretched and she took time to admire the pull of his polo shirt across his chest. “No sweat, Annie. We’ll raise so much hell he’ll have to. I’m not the least bit worried.”

  But Annie couldn’t share his sense of well-being, despite their cheerful breakfast and idyllic surroundings. It was already in the eighties. She loved summer. The mud flats were steaming, emitting their unmistakably pungent smell. The chit, chit, chit of a frog-hungry marsh hawk and the hyenalike cackle of hidden rails eddied in the quiet morning air.

  But she was ready for action, action that would clear Max. An odd sense of urgency pressed her. She pushed back her chair determinedly.

  “Now, Annie …”

  “I’m going to call Saulter.”

  Max gathered up their breakfast dishes and followed her inside, but she knew he was curious, too, because he put the dishes in the kitchen, then draped himself comfortably across the couch as she dialed.

  “Chief. Annie. Have you …”

  “Oh.”

  That mournful monosyllable chilled her.

  “Chief, you’ve checked out the boat, haven’t you?”

  “No can do. Posey says there’s no way he’s going to authorize a request for a search warrant on the basis of an anonymous tip. ’Specially not one from you.” He hastened to add, “I didn’t tell him it was you, but he’s not stupid.”

  “Chief! This is important! It could break the case. Shane was obviously getting ready to skip town.”

  But her entreaties were to no avail.

  “Do you mean Posey’s going to ignore all of this?”

  Silence.

  “Chief, is Posey still after Max?”

  “Posey thinks he has a good case—”

  “A good case! Does he think Max is an idiot? Why would he hide the gun in his own condo?”

  “I don’t know anything for sure,” the chief said mildly. “All I know is, Posey’s got men with photos of Max checking every gun store in a radius of a hundred miles.” He paused. “And now he’s wondering what kind of info that Fontaine woman might have. He’s going to talk to her later today.”

  Annie banged down the receiver and turned to Max. “What are we going to do?” she fumed.

  It didn’t help matters for Max to be so unconcerned. He lifted down from the wall an ornamental palm frond and fanned her. “We are going to relax,” he crooned. “Annie, I worry about you. Laurel and I …”

  It was perhaps a good thing for their forthcoming marriage that Annie was, at this point, too apoplectic to talk. At least, it prevented her from revealing her complete and total lack of interest in any joint strategies devised by Max and Laurel for her relaxation.

  Wrestling the frond from him and flinging it to the floor, she announced in no uncertain terms: “All right. If those lousy—lousy …”

  Max held up his hands.

  Annie swallowed, lowered her voice. “If the duly constituted authorities refuse to do their duty, why then, we shall take over.”

  “Oh. What are we going to do?” He was mildly interested.

  Annie spread her hands. Dammit, she didn’t know. But somehow they had to learn the meaning of Shane’s scrawls, and also—Why had Carla called Posey? What did Carla know?

  “Carla!”

  Max touched his hand to her brow in concern. Pettishly, she shoved it away.

  “Why did Carla call Posey? Max, we’ll start there.”

  Max whistled cheerfully as he drove the Porsche with his usual flourish, the live oak trees blurring as they flew past. His refusal to recognize the peril he was in astounded her. Even Colonel Bantry, though he tried to put on a good face, was terrified to the core in The Body in the Library.

  He reached over and pinched her cheek. “Smile, Annie, smile.”

  She managed a grin, but her heart wasn’t in it. Max could perform the most glorious ostrich act this side of Ringling Brothers, but Posey wasn’t going away.

  Maybe it would turn out that Carla knew something. But would she help them, even if she did?

  The adobe-colored condos gleamed like rich cream in the June sunlight. Max pulled into the d
appled shade beneath a spreading live oak. “Let’s leave the windows down.” It was that time of year.

  He insisted on stopping first at his ground-floor apartment. As he unlocked the front door, he said over his shoulder, “Obviously, this lock was no challenge to our murderer.” He stooped and picked up the mail that had fallen through the front-door slot, skimming it quickly.

  Normally, Annie loved Max’s apartment. The living room was a cheerful eclectic mixture of art deco, southwestern Americana, and Danish modern. If it had no central theme, it did have a light, airy brightness and a casual elegance. But today she stood in the archway to the living room and wondered what alien step had sounded in this hall yesterday. The thought cast a cool shadow over the familiar warmth.

  “No love letters,” he mourned, dropping the lot, including magazines and bills, on a table. “So I guess we can run on up to Carla’s.”

  “You were expecting love letters?”

  “Sure. I get rafts of them. ’Course, you might want to look at this letter.” He fished out one and offered it to her.

  Annie had received a number of missives in recent weeks with delicate looped handwriting on pale apricot envelopes. She took Laurel’s letter and firmly returned it to the pile.

  She followed him through the front patio and out a side door to the outdoor steps leading up to the second and third stories, wondering how Carla felt today. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was almost ten A.M. If Carla was up, she probably had a monumental hangover.

  Max poked the bell.

  They waited. The roar of a motorboat in the harbor drifted up to them, mingling with the buzz of a blower tidying pine needles from the walks.

  Max pressed the bell again, this time keeping his thumb on it. The sharp ring grated against the pleasant summer sounds.

  Annie moved closer, lifted her hand and knocked, and the door swung slowly in.

  “Carla?”

  As they had been last night, the French windows to the balcony overlooking the sound were open wide. The breeze swept in, stirring the curtains, and rippling the long black hair that dangled over the edge of the couch.

  15

  “Max!”

  But he had seen, too.

  “Stay here, Annie.” He stepped into the foyer, and walked toward the couch and its grisly burden. As usual, Annie disregarded his warning and followed him.

  They stopped several feet from the couch, rooted by shock.

  The breeze rustled the newspaper lying on the glass coffee table and eddied the silky strands of Carla’s long black hair, spread over the back of the couch. Carla’s head was bent back at an unnatural angle. Her face was scarcely recognizable. A leather belt was drawn tightly around her throat. Death had not come gently to Carla, and its imprint was hideous.

  Annie made a noise deep in her throat. Max swung around, pulled her close.

  “Come on.” His voice was harsh.

  “Max, we can’t leave her!”

  “You can’t help her now. We’ll call from my place.”

  At his door, he paused. “Annie, I want you to go home. You can take my bike.”

  It was the very last thing she would have expected from Max. Did he think she was some kind of weak-kneed hysteric?

  “Oh, now, wait a minute,” she began combatively.

  “Annie.” He gripped her arm tightly. “Annie, the hell of it is—that belt around Carla’s neck … it’s mine.”

  She didn’t stop to think. Her response was automatic. She tried to turn back to the stairs. “We’ve got to get it. My God, let’s hurry! We’ve got to get it.”

  He held tight. “We can’t do that, for God’s sake.”

  And he wouldn’t let her go.

  Posey swaggered around the condos like Lt. Hanson in Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s Octagon House. He ignored Annie, who had, of course, stayed, and directed all his venom at Max. “What did Fontaine know, Darling? Why did you have to shut her up? What did she have on you? Did she see you in the wrong place Tuesday night? What’s the deal?”

  Max said no. He said it loud and soft, over and over, and still Posey marched and gestured, keeping his back to that grotesque form on the couch. “So that’s your belt? Suppose you tell us how it got around her neck? Can you tell us that?”

  All the while, Chief Saulter, his weary face creased by worry, directed the investigation, the sketching, the photos, all the careful, patient, and orderly moves to record Carla Fontaine’s final moments, her violent end in what had been a serene and lovely room.

  In vain, Annie kept trying to interrupt Posey’s harangue. Finally, when he paused for breath, she attacked. “Wait a minute. You’ve got to listen to me. I talked to Carla last night. She wasn’t interested in Max until I told her the gun had been planted in his condo.”

  Posey’s bulging blue eyes fastened on her with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. His fleshy lips drew back in a sardonic smile. “Loyalty is an exemplary virtue, Miss Laurance—except when it’s misplaced. I advise you to tell the truth. This man”—and he tilted his heavy head toward Max—“isn’t worthy of your devotion. He is a cold, calculating, vicious killer.”

  Annie felt her face flush. “I am not,” she snapped bitingly, “a jury of cretins. I have every intention of telling the truth. My concern is your inability to recognize the truth. Now, why don’t you shut your mouth for five seconds and listen?”

  Max kept making down-girl gestures, but she and Posey glared at each other, hands on hips. Unfortunately, Posey was louder, bigger, and he was in charge.

  As one of the policemen, at Posey’s direction, grabbed her arm, she challenged, “And how about Shane? Why did he have two tickets for L.A.?” As the policeman edged her toward the door, she raised her voice: “And I keep telling you—Carla was dreadfully upset. She was drunk out of her mind, and she was furious with a lover, absolutely in despair. That’s what was wrong with her yesterday. She didn’t even believe me when I said the gun had been found at Max’s. She wasn’t interested in Max—”

  The door closed in her face.

  In the last instant, before the panel swung to, Chief Saulter mouthed, “Later.”

  Annie stood in the outdoor corridor, sucking in deep gulps of air, trying to control her fury.

  Then she turned and raced down the steps to Max’s condo. But she was still telephoning, hunting for Jed McClanahan, when Posey passed by the open door, his fat hand gripping Max’s elbow. As Posey hustled him toward the police car, Max called, “Annie, for God’s sake, don’t do anything crazy!”

  So Max was worried about her. Well, he needn’t be. She’d be careful, but she certainly had no intention of sitting around and twiddling her thumbs until he got out of jail again—if he got out of jail again. Oh, she knew it was all a mistake. Or, no, that wasn’t right. It was no mistake. Patently, it was a trap, ingeniously constructed by the real murderer. Well, what had been designed surely could be divined—but would anyone listen?

  She finally ran McClanahan to earth at the Tell-It-to-the-Navy Bar and Grill.

  “You’ve got to get Max out of jail.”

  “His belt?”

  She tried to be patient. “Obviously the murderer stole it when he was hiding the gun in Max’s place yesterday.”

  “Maybe Darling lost the belt somewhere,” McClanahan mused.

  “Don’t think,” she ordered briskly. “Get a bail bondsman and leave the thinking to me.”

  But when she hung up, she felt an instant of panic. What in the hell was she going to do?”

  Then she thought of Amelia Peabody Emerson, who always felt equal to any occasion. What would Amelia do? Well, for starters, she wouldn’t sit on her fanny worrying. She would be up and about.

  Annie jumped to her feet. It was time to get back to the basics, and, as Hercule Poirot always pointed out, murder begins with its victim.

  Why had Shane spent less time in his usual haunts the past few months?

  What was the significance of the doodles on that sheet of paper she’d
found aboard Sweet Lady?

  Who was going to travel as Mrs. Bill Ford?

  Who was the woman at The Red Rooster that he didn’t introduce to his friend?

  She swung back to the telephone.

  It was midafternoon when Annie reached 915 West Ribaut Street in Chastain. It was her first visit to that genteel town since the memorable events of the annual house-and-garden tours in early April, but she didn’t spare time remembering her unpleasant moments with Police Chief Harry Wells. Her every thought focused on the down-at-heel apartment house in front of her. As she walked up the warped wooden steps, she wondered just what she was going to say to Sue Kay Conrad.

  Routine investigation had produced this address, just like the everyday procedures followed by Lt. Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her first move had been to call the telephone number scrawled on Shane’s sheet of paper. The number belonged to the Buccaneer Inn on the outskirts of Chastain, a half mile from an abandoned lighthouse. Annie nosed around the lighthouse first. The door was ajar. Someone—vandals? or another?—had broken the padlock. Inside, footsteps showed on the dusty treads. At the motel, Annie obtained the description of a woman who had registered there the night of the murder. The desk clerk had noticed her car leaving about midnight. The car had returned at two A.M. Annie took the description to The Red Rooster, a neighborhood bar in Chastain. On a mid-afternoon in summer, it was drowsy, smelling of years of beer on tap. The tightly muscled bartender was impassive and uncooperative. Mendoza could have flashed his badge. Annie spread three twenties and two tens like a full house.

  Now she walked up a dim stairway (the bulb on the landing was burned out) to apartment five.

  Annie knocked firmly.

  For a moment, she thought there would be no answer, then footsteps sounded on the other side of the thin door.