Carolyn G. Hart (56 page)

“She didn’t tell you? No, I don’t suppose she would. Actually, Miss Laurance, it might interest you to know that she told me of her future plans. She has joined the Peace Corps. Peggy’s leaving Chastain when school ends next month.”

Even the cheery smell of pipe smoke and the club comfort of the richly padded brown leather armchair couldn’t offset Roscoe Merrill’s icy reception.

“Mr. Darling, I don’t appreciate your telling my secretary you wished to see me about a murder. That kind of loose description can give rise to heated imaginings.”

“I assumed your secretary was discreet.”

A dull flush rose to Merrill’s cheeks. “She is, of
course. Nonetheless … Well, you’re here. What do you want?”

“Where were you at five o’clock Monday?”

“Here.”

“With a client?”

“I’m not too sure of the time. Perhaps. But I may have been working on a will.”

“Don’t you keep time slips?”

Wariness flickered in Merrill’s hooded eyes. “Of course. I could check them.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I will—for the properly constituted authority.”

Obviously, Max didn’t qualify, and, equally obvious, Merrill had no intention of being helpful.

“Anything else, Mr. Darling?”

Max decided Annie’s rhinocerous approach sometimes had its good points. He stretched out comfortably in the enfolding softness of the leather chair. “Just one thing. Does your wife know you’re involved with another woman?”

“That isn’t true!”

There was a ring of sincerity in the pronouncement that brought Max up short.

Merrill sat like a bronze Buddha behind his desk.

“Then why was Corinne threatening to tell her that you were?”

Merrill began to roll a pen in his fingers, his eyes seemingly intent on the leisurely revolution.

Max pressed ahead. “You can’t deny you were the lawyer mentioned in that letter.”

The pen moved faster.

“The letter made it clear Corinne intended to tell the lawyer’s wife.”

Merrill’s chair creaked as he leaned back and stared up at the beamed ceiling. “For the sake of argument—
and I wish to make it clear that this constitutes no admission of any kind—but just for the sake of argument, let’s talk for a moment about the lawyer mentioned in that letter. You will remember the letter indicated Corinne felt the lawyer’s wife had a right to know of an incident?”

Max nodded.

“Corinne believed one act of unfaithfulness should be reported to his wife, no matter how happy the marriage in question. Now, this lawyer—” he paused and the muscles worked in his jaws—“has a marriage everyone envies—and rightly so.” He gave Max a considering glance. “I would imagine it is the kind of marriage you hope someday to have with Miss Laurance.”

Max felt a tightness in his chest. That dry, unemotional voice and, beneath it, a passionate caring.

Merrill threw down the pen and looked past Max at the painting of the wood ibis. “That kind of marriage is made up of many things. It’s made up of love and passion and friendship and laughter—and trust. That lawyer’s wife has always trusted him implicitly, and rightly so.” Merrill rubbed the side of his face. “Now, let’s talk for a moment about that lawyer. He’s middle-aged, and he’s always been faithful to his wife. He’s involved in a lawsuit in Atlanta. There’s a young woman lawyer, a rather lusty, hungry young woman lawyer, representing a co-defendant in the case. They work together very closely for several months, and he’s quite aware that she is available. He isn’t interested.” Now he paused and took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, he’s human. The night the case is won, they return to the hotel, he has too much to drink—and the young woman lawyer—”

Max waited.

Merrill’s mouth turned down in a humorless smile. “Of course, it is an uncanny fact of life that you always see someone you know when it is least convenient. In this case, Corinne was staying at the same hotel.” He picked up the pen again, balanced it in his palm. “The lawyer was unfaithful to his wife. On any serious level, it is meaningless, which his wife would both understand and appreciate. On another level, the knowledge of this incident would destroy that absolute trust.” His hand closed convulsively around the pen. “It would not destroy a marriage, Mr. Darling, but it would blemish what has been perfection.” Merrill cleared his throat. “As you must appreciate, keeping this incident secret is important to this lawyer. Yet, I think you would agree that preventing his wife from learning of this stupidity would scarcely warrant murder.”

Annie caught up with Max as he was turning into the yellow stucco building where Dr. John Sanford had offices on the third floor.

On the way upstairs, she told him about Peggy and Leighton. “Don’t you see? She must have given him an ultimatum. Get a divorce, or she would leave town.”

As they reached the third floor landing, Max observed reasonably, “This is the 1980s. Why not just get the divorce?”

“Maybe he’s too honorable.”

“Is it more honorable to bash in your wife’s head?” He opened the office door.

Even empty, the rectangular waiting room had a cramped appearance. Cheap plastic straight chairs were wedged around three walls, and tattered copies of
Sports Illustrated, Guideposts, Reader’s Digest
, and
McCall’s
were stacked on a chrome-edged coffee table. A
rustle of papers beyond the untenanted counter indicated someone was present.

Max punched the bell on the formica-topped counter.

A sweet-faced nurse with thick glasses poked her carefully-coiffed head out of an adjoining room. “Sorry. Doctor doesn’t hold office hours on Wednesday afternoons.”

Max leaned on the counter. “He’s here, isn’t he? They told me at the hospital I could catch him here.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t hold—”

“Tell him Max Darling and Annie Laurance want to talk to him about Corinne Webster’s murder.”

She raised an eyebrow, then withdrew into the adjoining room. In a moment, she returned and gestured for them to come through the swinging door.

Sanford was in his office, which overlooked the cobblestoned alley.

“No Wednesday afternoon golf, Doctor?” Max asked.

Sanford ignored the pleasantry, and looked at them with cold, brooding eyes. He looked capable, confident, and controlled. If he had a bedside manner, he kept it under wraps.

“I’m busy,” he said brusquely. “What do you want?”

Annie pointed at the window behind him, which framed a portion of the McIlwain House and the Prichard grounds. “Did you happen to look out that way Monday afternoon?”

He shrugged his thin shoulders impatiently. “I’ve got better things to do than stand at my window.”

Max took it up. “What were you doing at five on Monday?”

Sanford beat a silent tattoo on his desktop with his
right hand. “Finishing up patient folders for the afternoon.”

“In here? By yourself?”

“Right.”

“Can anybody vouch for that?”

His chilly eyes moved toward Annie. “I was here when Leighton called.”

“That was at five-thirty.” Max didn’t amplify, but the implication was clear enough.

For the first time, a smile touched that swarthy, intense face. “Plenty of time to meet Corinne, bang her over the head, and get back here. Is that what you mean?” His laughter was a cynical bark. “Actually, I’d liked to have strangled her a hundred times, but they don’t include justified homicide in the Hippocratic oath.”

“Why did you want to strangle her?” Max asked, with the politeness a dozen governesses had instilled in him.

“Did you ever deal with Corinne?” Disgust weighted Sanford’s voice. “God, that woman. The brains of a flea, and the tenacity of a leech. And selfish! All she thought about was the Prichard name, the Prichard House, the Prichard Museum, and, God forbid, the Prichard Hospital. She figured it was some kind of personal fiefdom just because her precious great-grandfather founded it. Do you know what she wanted to spend money for?” He slammed his hand on his desk, and papers slewed. “A restoration of the lobby to its original state in 1872. Jesus. And when I wanted to increase the hours for outpatient consultations …” His eyes glittered. “Stupid, bloody bitch.”

“If you felt that way about restorations, why are you on the Board of the Historical Preservation Society?”

He looked at Annie as though he ranked her intellect
on a level with Corinne’s. “This is a small town. A damn small town in the South.” His voice capitalized it. “It’s a pain in the ass, but you have to play the game to get along with people. And the game in Chastain is historical preservation.”

“Why come here? You could have set up a practice somewhere else, couldn’t you?”

For a moment, the anger and irritation left his face, replaced by eagerness. “Oh no, I couldn’t go anywhere else. This is one of the best places in the world to study parasitic diseases. I came here to work with Byron Fisher.” He looked at them expectantly, but when the famous name didn’t impress them, his face wrinkled in disgust. “Why, we’ve got research underway here that isn’t duplicated anywhere.” His eyes alight with excitement, he drew sketches, cited tables, described his laboratory.

“Was this part of your work at the hospital?”

Once again, his face reformed into an angry glower.

“Certainly. It was understood when I came.”

“Was Corinne in favor of this use of the facilities?”

“What do you think?” His snort was contemptuous. “But I would’ve gotten my way.”

“Was she trying to block your plans?”

Sanford leaned back, placed his supple hands flat on the chair arms. “Oh, yeah. But I have a way of winning.” Then his mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “Without resorting to murder.”

Max fastidiously averted his eyes from Annie’s chili dog and root beer. They’d made two stops for lunch. One at the hot dog stand for her order, the second at a seafood restaurant for his shrimp and crab salad and Bud Light. There wasn’t a spare foot of space along the
bluff, so they finally ate standing up at the corner of Lookout Point, then dashed across Ephraim to the Inn. There was just time to change for the funeral.

Every seat was taken at St. Michael’s. Annie realized anew how important a figure Corinne had been in Chastain. The family sat in the first pew on the lesson side of the aisle, looking rigidly ahead. Gail sat between Lucy and Miss Dora. The priest made no mention of murder as he intoned the stately funeral service from the Book of Common Prayer, but Annie sensed a peculiar undercurrent in the sanctuary. Instead of the usual quiet reverence that underscores an Episcopal service, she felt an unmistakable air of tension, a mixture of grief, fear, and pernicious curiosity. As they rose for the recessional, and the pallbearers walked up the aisle beside the casket covered by the silk funeral pall, sidelong glances followed its progress, then turned toward the family. Was it her imagination or was there almost a tiny pool of space around each person who had been associated with Corinne?

After the final prayer, Leighton took Gail’s elbow as they left the pew. Lucy and Miss Dora came after them. Lucy pressed a gloved hand to her mouth. Miss Dora stumped up the aisle, her wrinkled face as dark and unreadable as mahogany.

Annie spotted Roscoe, his eyes downcast, his balding head bent. Jessica held his arm tightly. Edith Ferrier stared straight ahead, her face solemn. Tim Bond yanked at his collar, making his tie hang in disarray. Sybil strode forward as if she couldn’t leave the church soon enough.

Out in the bright afternoon sunlight, the mourners—or those who had attended the funeral—began to drift
toward the bright striped tent that marked the open grave. Corinne, of course, would be laid to rest in the graveyard, which held dead kinsmen back to Morris and Elizabeth Prichard, who died of yellow fever in 1766. A gap opened in the crowd for the family to pass through. Once again, Annie pondered the kind and quality of the sidelong glances directed at Leighton Webster.

Edith stopped beside Annie and Max. “My God, doesn’t Lucy look awful.”

Lucy’s thin face was gray with faint splotches of make-up high on her jutting cheekbones and a thin red line of lipstick on her mouth. Her cheeks were sunken; her navy blue silk dress hung on her. She carried a prayer book in gloved hands that trembled. Her eyes followed the casket, but every step seemed an effort.

“I can’t believe she’s taking it so hard.”

“They were friends for a long time, weren’t they” Max asked.

Edith fell into step with them. “Oh, sure. They grew up together. But if that old story’s true, she ought to clap her hands at Corinne’s demise. I’ll tell you, if somebody’d ruined the love of my life, I wouldn’t count her as a friend.”

That old story. Annie glanced across the crowded churchyard and caught another glimpse of Lucy, who did indeed look dreadful. Then she glanced at Edith, whose dark brows were drawn in a tight frown. No, Lucy and Edith weren’t cut from the same cloth. Unlike Lucy, Edith would be a good hater.

“Oh, Lord.” Now Edith’s tone was sympathetic.

Peggy Taylor would be a standout in any crowd because of the aura of health and vigor that she carried with her. She was especially noticeable today, waiting in the shade of a weeping willow near a mossy gravestone,
just beyond the path. When Leighton Webster, walking heavily, came even with her, he paused for an instant. He lifted his hand. There was an open hunger in his eyes.

She stared at him, her eyes aching with questions.

Then it was over, the moment gone, as he moved on, walking toward the gravesite, ignoring the crowd’s murmurs.

Peggy Taylor looked after him. Her face crumpled. She held a handkerchief to her mouth and turned and walked swiftly away.

“She’s afraid he’s guilty. Poor devil.”

Annie wondered who Edith was calling a poor devil. Leighton—or Peggy?

“And look there.”

Annie looked past Max. Bobby Frazier stood at the edge of the crowd, his eyes on Gail’s slender figure. And what did his gaze hold? It was hard to know, but she felt certain she saw a jumble of emotions and an agony of indecision. He took a step forward, as if to walk to Gail. Gail looked up, saw him, and her face brightened.