Carolyn G. Hart (61 page)

Gail stood in the center of the sitting room, her feet wide apart as if braced against a storm. She wore a print dress in khaki and peony, jungle flowers bright against the tan background. The vivid colors of the dress underscored the waxen shade of her face and the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

“I can’t believe it. Why would anyone kill Idell?”

Max spread his arm behind Annie on the sofa top. “The police think she tried to blackmail the letter writer. She’d talked to Bobby Frazier about the award being offered by Leighton. She definitely had money in mind.”

Gail’s hands curled into tight balls. “She called Bobby?”

“Yes. But when he pressed her about what she knew, she backed off, claimed she was asking for a guest.”

She looked at them doubtfully. “That’s not likely, is it?”

“No.” Annie put it bluntly. “What’s likely is that she thought she could get more money somewhere else. Instead, she got cyanide in her sherry.”

“Cyanide? Is that what killed her?” Gail sounded interested, but not threatened.

Annie had it down pat by now. “Cyanide of potassium.”

Horror dawned slowly on Gail’s face. If Bobby Frazier could have seen it, Annie thought, surely he would have realized her innocence.

Then a slimy thought wriggled in the recesses of Annie’s mind. If Gail were a double murderer, once out of anger, the second time from fear, she would have given thought to the moment when cyanide of potassium would first be mentioned to her.

“Cyanide of potassium.” She whirled away, walked to the window.

“Do you know where anyone could find it?”

Gail was silent for so long that Annie thought she didn’t intend to answer. Finally, she turned and faced them, her arms folded tightly at her waist. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s used for lots of things.”

“At the Museum,” Max suggested.

Her blue eyes troubled, she turned to him. “Yes.” She almost managed to sound conversational. “I believe there is some at the Museum. Tim uses it in electroplating.” At their silence, she continued, “You know, in making historical reproductions of things like candlesticks and punch bowls and tankards. We have an extensive line of reproductions that we make and sell through the Museum to raise money.”

Annie darted a look at Max. He was so busy suffering for Gail that he didn’t say a word. Annie didn’t believe in festering sores. A lanced boil heals.

“How did Bobby know about it?”

She swallowed jerkily. “It was last fall, when he did a series of articles on the Museum and its programs. He did a special Sunday feature on Tim and all of his talents, as a painter and engraver—and in electroplating.” She rubbed her temple as if it ached. “Tim is truly an outstandingly talented person. I believe it was that article that caught the attention of the New York gallery.” A touch of color seeped back into her face. “You see, everyone read about it. I heard so many comments, and we received a spurt of letters from people eager to know all about our line of reproductions.”

“Did the article include the information about the use of cyanide of potassium in electroplating?”

“I don’t suppose in so many words,” she admitted reluctantly. “But anyone who knows anything at all about the process would know. So anyone who read that article would realize we had cyanide of potassium at the Museum. That’s obvious.”

It was a good deal more obvious that at least three of the people who were intimately associated with Corinne Webster knew about the cyanide of potassium: Gail Prichard, Bobby Frazier, and Tim Bond.

But she was cheering with every word. “So, of
course, it doesn’t mean a thing that Bobby wrote those articles. Anyone could have known.” Then her eyes darkened with pain. “Besides, Bobby didn’t have a motive. When I talked to you the other day, I gave you the wrong impression about Bobby and me. We’re just friends. Nothing more than that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Annie exploded. “Don’t be such a fool.”

She flushed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean any idiot—including Chief Wells—can see that Bobby’s besotted with you. I don’t mean he killed your aunt, but you can’t be dumb enough to believe he doesn’t care about you.”

“He told me it didn’t mean anything.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “He said—”

“Of course, he did. The boy’s trying to protect you. He’s doing his damnedest to keep Chief Wells from even looking your way. You’d have to be blind not to see it.”

Gail’s strained face reflected a series of emotions—shock, uncertainty, then burgeoning hope.

As the Porsche lunged away from the curb, Max shook his head chidingly.

“Well,” Annie said defensively, “I hate stupidity.”

“Sometimes, it’s better for things not to be quite so clear-cut.”

“Do you think he’s fooling Wells?”

“No. But he was fooling Gail.”

“So what’s good about that?”

“It kept her from worrying about him, didn’t it?”

•   •   •

They arrived at the Museum right on the heels of Chief Wells.

He disposed of his chewing tobacco in a silver spittoon, then turned his watery blue eyes on them.

“Aren’t you people out of town yet?”

“I didn’t know I was free to go. Besides, we have the ball completing the mystery event tonight.”

“I know where to find you if I want you,” he growled. “What’re you here for?”

Max jerked his head toward the basement stairs. “We heard about the cyanide, too.”

“Yeah, the cyanide.” His eyes lingered on Annie for a long moment. “Since you’re so curious, you can come on downstairs, little lady.”

Said the spider to the fly, Annie thought. But they followed him down the steeply pitched stairs to the basement. The hollow echo of hammering led them to Tim, still crating his paintings. He looked at the Chief, and beyond him at Annie and Max, with no enthusiasm. “Look, I’ve told you everything I did on Monday, and I don’t see why I have to go through it again. And I don’t know anything about the old lady at the Inn.” Sweat trickled down his face and stained his paint-spattered work shirt. His chestnut curls lay limply on his shoulders.

Wells ignored his objections. “Where’s the poison?”

Tim led the way to the end of the corridor and a warped yellow door. The poster on it warned POISON. Tim unlocked the door and a heavy, sour smell of chemicals wafted out. He turned on the light. The trays and vats needed for electroplating were neatly arranged on a table against the back wall. A shelf to the right of the table held a number of bottles.

Wells found what he sought on the third shelf from
the bottom, a large green stoppered bottled labeled CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM.

“Jesus Christ, there’s enough poison in that to kill every living soul in Chastain!” His heavy head swiveled toward the door. “That goddamn lock’s a joke.”

Bond looked at him in disgust. “We don’t feed it to anybody, Chief.”

“It killed Idell Gordon,” the Chief rasped.

If Tim Bond were acting, he exhibited considerable talent. His eyes went blank with shock, his bony jaw dropped. He took a step back, then said, “Hey, what the hell. Somebody’s trying to frame me.” His paint-stained hands clenched convulsively. “Listen, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but nobody’s going to lay this on me.”

But Annie abruptly realized the Chief wasn’t watching Tim. Instead, those probing, hostile eyes were pinned on her.

“Tell me something, little lady.”

She tensed.

“Sybil told me you and your feller came down here and badgered Tim the other day. That’s right enough, isn’t it?”

“Is it badgering to ask a man who has a damn good motive where he was when the murder was committed?”

But Wells was intent upon his own train of thought. “Now, when you came down here, you couldn’t help but see this here yellow door with a POISON sign. Now, could you?”

22

A
nnie dumped the envelopes out on her bed, then stared at them in dismay. How could there be so many? She looked at her watch. Almost four o’clock. Where had the day gone? But she knew. It had fled as they fought their way through the clogged streets (Friday featured a Fried Chicken Cook-Off, a China Painting Exhibition, and the finals in the Chastain Speedboat Classic), seeking more information about Idell Gordon, cyanide of potassium, and the whereabouts of all the suspects between 9 and 10
P.M
. Wednesday evening. She’d had two more acerbic run-ins with Chief Wells and made another abortive visit to Miss Dora’s shuttered home. Now she had only a few hours before the Denouement Ball began—and she’d damned well better have a denouement in hand, or she would be attacked by a band of enraged mystery buffs. And the prizes for the five best costumes—she rummaged
frantically in the bottom of the clue box, then heaved a sigh of relief. There they were, five certificates, ranging in value from $5 to $25, good toward any purchase at Death on Demand. So, all she had to do was figure out which team, if any, had named the murderer of the Sticky Wicket Mystery. If more than one had come up with the right answer, then it would come down to which team turned its answer in first. The mystery winners and costume winners were to be announced at the stroke of midnight.

She stacked the envelopes by day and felt the beginnings of panic. Could she possibly read and digest all these answers in time? It had all seemed so reasonable when she and Max planned it. But they hadn’t counted on two real murders.

Max tapped on the door and poked his head in. “Let’s go down to the
Courier
and see what we can pick up.”

She flapped her hands distractedly. “Tonight. I haven’t checked the entries. No time. Go ahead.”

He leaned against the doorjamb and chuckled.

She turned on him with slitted eyes. “Can’t you see?” She pointed at the four untidy stacks of envelopes. “I’ve got to read all of those.”

“Oh hell, just throw them up in the air and pick a winner.”

She glared at him, horrified. “Do you honestly think Mrs. Brawley wouldn’t catch me?”

“I guess you’re right. But relax, love, you’re a speed reader.” Kissing her lightly on the cheek, he departed.

It didn’t take as long as she expected. For one thing, only two or three teams each evening came up with the right name. Of those, a Monday night team, No. 2, had the right answer for the right reasons, and the time on the envelope was 8–04–36. When she read the name of
the team captain, she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. There was a winner from last night, ringing in at 8–04–37. The Team Captain was—she stared at the list of team members for a long time, then took her pen and carefully altered the time to 8–04–36.

How about that. A tie.

At six-fifteen, she changed into her costume for the Denouement Ball. Max, too, was dressed for his part when he knocked on her door. They grinned at each other.

“That the twain never met was a grave error on the part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate,” she said.

He was a marvelously handsome and clean-cut Joe Hardy as he nodded in agreement. “Right on, Nancy. But it might have hacked Ned Nickerson.”

They slipped away to Confederate House for an early dinner. As they climbed gray wooden steps to the refurbished barn that overlooked the river, Annie clutched his argyle sweatered arm and pointed to the placard.

“Before the occupation of the area by Federal troops in 1863, work began here on earthwork fortifications. The last remnants of Ft. McReady were washed away in the hurricane of 1893.”

Annie peered into a thicket of southern red cedars. “That woman is haunting me.”

“I’d say she’s the least of your worries.”

They settled at a wooden planked table on a gray porch, and Max unloaded the latest.

“Bobby said Wells had his men print practically every square inch of Idell’s office, and he’s having the lab check any latent prints against yours, his, Gail’s, and Tim’s. If he finds a match—”

“There I never was. So maybe he’ll finally give up on me.” She studied the fake parchment menu. Should
she go for Daufuskie crabs or duck, oyster and sausage gumbo? “How about the others?”

“They all claim they’ve never set foot in Idell’s office.”

Then Max dampened even her appetite.