Dead By Midnight (13 page)

Annie continued, her voice thin, her eyes meeting Elaine’s stricken gaze. “You walked on the path toward the marsh. You were carrying a bunched-up blue cloth. I lost sight of you. I crossed the yard and looked around the cane. You were lowering your arm. I assumed that you had thrown something. However, I did not”—she emphasized the negative—“see you throw anything.” If a gun wasn’t found, they would have no physical evidence to link to Elaine. “You still held the cloth. You turned and ran behind your cottage and in a moment you drove out in your car.”

Annie looked deep into pale blue eyes that held despair, not resentment.

Laura Jamison’s voice shook. “Did you see anyone else?”

“The yardman.” Annie continued to look at Elaine. “If Max and I can help you, call us.” She waited for an instant, but Elaine’s face registered nothing. Slowly, Annie turned away.

Voices rose. “What’s this all about, Elaine?” “What’s she talking about?” “Who is she?”

Annie walked away.

Elaine’s voice sounded dull. “Annie Darling. I don’t know why she came. What I did this morning doesn’t matter. I didn’t go up to the house. I didn’t see Glen. I don’t know what happened to him. I saw him last night. He was fine.” Her voice broke, ended in a sob.

Annie pushed out the front door and hurried across the grass to find solace in Max’s embrace.

Chapter Eight

A
nnie looked over the marina, smelled the salty scent of the water, and heard the clang of a buoy. She had stopped believing in pots of gold under four-leaf clovers by the time she was eight, but on this gorgeous, clear, brilliant morning she felt as if everything was going to come up roses. Even if Elaine Jamison had thrown away a gun yesterday in the marsh, she felt confident that Elaine was not a murderess. On the morning that someone shot her brother, maybe she’d thought a gun was nothing to have in her possession. Annie did not believe, could not believe, would not believe that Elaine lifted a gun, held the grip tight in her hands, squeezed the trigger, and ended the life of the brother she adored.

Annie plucked her cell from the pocket of her light and swirly georgette skirt with a bright pattern of tiny clamshells against a silvery background. She’d dressed with special care, her blouse a matching silver, a cool outfit for a warm day. She punched a button, held the phone up.

“Mavis, Annie again. May I please speak to Billy?” A black skimmer passed so near as it dove toward the water that she could see its brilliant black cap and red bill. “Billy? Annie.” She got right to the point. “Did the search of the marsh yield anything?”

“Some information has been released to the media.” His tone was matter-of-fact. What Annie would soon read in the
Gazette
, he was willing to share. “A search of the marsh was instituted. To date, investigators haven’t found anything connected to the murder of Glen Jamison. Missing from the Jamison house is a semiautomatic 1911 Colt .45 registered to Glen Jamison. The gun was customarily kept in a gun safe in his study. The key was in the gun safe. The gun safe contained two handguns, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum and a Ruger Mark III semiautomatic .22 pistol. Neither had been fired recently and both were fully loaded. Glen occasionally went into Savannah to a gun club to shoot. About a week before the crime, he told his wife he had mislaid the key to the gun safe. He didn’t mention the missing key again and she assumed he had found it. When and how the Colt .45 was removed from the gun safe and by whom is unknown. Ballistic tests indicate Jamison was killed by a forty-five-caliber bullet.”

The brightness of the day dimmed as she clicked off the call. Billy clearly believed Elaine had thrown Glen’s Colt into the marsh. Even if the gun were never found, Annie’s statement would be damning. Annie walked slowly to Death on Demand and unlocked the front door. Agatha waited with her ears slightly flattened and her tail switching. The black cat’s meow was distinctly annoyed.

“I only stopped at the marina for a minute.” Annie clicked on lights, walked swiftly down the center aisle to the coffee bar.

Agatha nipped at one ankle.

“Okay, maybe five minutes.” In a flash, Annie had opened a fresh can of salmon, filled the bowl, and refreshed Agatha’s water.

Elaine threw away the murder weapon
.

Annie brewed a pot of strong Colombian and wished she could will away the conclusion, but the conclusion seemed obvious and clearly Billy had made the connection. When Elaine’s distraught appearance Tuesday morning was added to the possible disposal of the murder weapon, the likelihood of guilt was overwhelming. All Annie could offer in rebuttal was her memory of a sister’s obvious devotion.

Annie poured coffee into one of her favorite mugs,
O Is for Omen
by Lawrence Treat. What she needed now, in addition to a jolt of super coffee, was a good omen for Elaine. She sat at a table and the first thing her eye saw was a Cat Truth poster. A magnificent Golden Shaded Persian with a malignant expression stared haughtily from pale golden eyes:
All we know are the facts, ma’am.

Annie wanted to believe in Elaine’s innocence, but deadly facts were deadly.

T
he tide was running out, exposing shallow pools with hard-ridged bottoms. The sun hung low in the west, splashing a burst of orange on low-lying dark clouds banked to the south.

Annie leaned back in the short-legged beach chair, sipped a limeade, and shaded her eyes from the still-vivid sunlight. “Not a cloud in the sky.” She felt drained. All day at Death on Demand her thoughts had tumbled as she sought some means of helping Elaine. She’d been tempted to call Billy Cameron, but she had nothing to offer except her personal feeling of Elaine’s innocence. After dinner, she’d agreed to go to the beach even though she felt as if she were letting Elaine down. But what could Annie do?

Max lay on a towel stretched out on the sand. His skin gleamed from coconut-oil sunscreen. Sand had dried to his yellow swim trunks. A soft, pale blue cotton bucket hat shaded his face. “We’ll have some rainy days soon.” This June had been uncommonly dry. “Then you’ll sell a lot of books.” His murmur was drowsy. “Hot today. Like the natives say, why do all these people come here when the sand burns your feet?” He didn’t look, but the wave of his arm encompassed clots of tourists, many of them with peeling noses and sun-angry shoulders. They splashed in gentle surf, jogged, rode bikes, lunged for small black balls as they played Kadima, or lounged in beach chairs. “But it’s a beautiful time to be on the beach.”

“And everything is as it should be on a Wednesday evening in June.” Her voice wobbled. On their beautiful sea island, life went on. Families played, lovers came together, old people lifted their faces to the warmth of the sun to remember when they were young and turned cartwheels on the sand.

Max tipped up the hat. His eyes sought hers. “You had to report what you saw.”

“What if Billy arrests Elaine?” It was hard to force out the words. Speaking the threat aloud made Elaine’s situation seem worse.

Max said quietly, “Billy makes decisions based on evidence. Right now he doesn’t have enough evidence to charge Elaine.”

Annie’s reply was hot. “He needs to look at all the evidence. He brushed me off about Pat Merridew’s murder and the photograph taken in the Jamison gazebo.”

Max’s dark blue eyes were thoughtful. He didn’t answer directly. “When Elaine came out of the cottage, she was carrying a cloth wrapped around something, right?”

Annie saw Elaine’s image clearly, haunted, despairing, driven, one arm pressed tight over the small bundle. “That’s right.”

His tone was neutral. “In Pat’s photograph, the towel in the gazebo was wrapped around something.”

“Oh, wait a minute . . .” But the words trailed away.

Max picked up some sand, let it trickle through his fingers. “You saw Elaine shortly after she had apparently thrown an object into the marsh. Glen’s gun is missing and it was the same-caliber gun that killed him. One plus one, Annie. Elaine carried something wrapped in cloth and tossed something into the water. How hard is it to wonder if her cloth held the gun and if the towel in the photograph was wrapped around Glen’s Colt?”

Annie wished she could blot out the words, but they buzzed in her mind, persistent as no-see-’ums. She understood Max’s point. The Colt belonged to Glen. Someone took it from his study. What then? The gun had to be hidden until it was needed. Elaine no longer lived in the house. It seemed reasonable to assume that if she stole the gun, she would have hidden it in a convenient spot but not in her cottage. The gazebo was only steps away.

“I guess that’s how Billy figures it,” Annie admitted. “If Pat Merridew was murdered because she took that photograph, she must have seen someone place that towel in the gazebo. More than that, Pat must have explored the contents of the towel. She knew who hid the gun. She invited that person for coffee to talk about what she had seen. Pat said enough over the phone that her guest came armed with the painkiller. I think the killer knew enough about Pat to slip into her house when she was away and take a handful of the pills.”

“That would mean”—Max’s voice was grim—“that Glen’s murder was already planned. Pat died so that Glen could be shot.”

“It didn’t have to be Elaine.” Annie’s voice held a plea. But she looked away from Max’s somber gaze. Only Elaine lived outside the house. “If it was someone in the house”—she didn’t give up—“he or she probably wouldn’t try to hide it in a bedroom.”

Max was equable. “It’s an argument.”

But not one Annie felt she was likely to win with Billy.

Every path seemed to lead to Elaine.

A
n early-morning thunderstorm added another layer of humidity, though the rain was easing by the time she reached Death on Demand. Tourists wandered aimlessly around the store, avoiding the rain and enjoying the air-conditioning. Welcome to the Lowcountry in June. Happily, several carried hefty stacks to the counter. A big seller was Kathy Reichs’s latest Temperance Brennan title.

Annie was glad for the influx of customers, but she was almost out of Danishes. Every table was taken.

A teenager, her nose coated with sticky white zinc oxide apparently in preparation for reading on the beach, approached her. The girl held a Cat Truth poster. “How much does this picture cost? I don’t see a price tag. I’d love to have it, but I only have ten dollars with me.”

Annie glanced at the photograph. An Egyptian Mau, round green eyes bright in a wedge-shaped face, fine silver-tan silky coat marked with random black spots, lay on his back, tummy exposed, feet in the air:
Lighten up. Serious is so yesterday.

Inspiration struck. “All of the posters are available for exactly ten dollars and the money is contributed to the Animal Rescue Refuge.” In a jiffy, she had placed the bill in a pottery bowl, added a printed card suggesting donations, and a happy teenager, her poster carefully sheathed in plastic wrap, hurried toward the front door.

“Tell everyone,” Annie called after her. She was thrilled. Maybe she could get rid of some of the posters and help the animal refuge as well. “More than one way to skin a cat,” she muttered. She felt out of sorts, but she knew her malaise wasn’t caused by a rainy Thursday morning or the posters. Her malaise came from the growing conviction that Elaine Jamison was Billy Cameron’s primary suspect and there was nothing Annie could do to change his mind.

If she could push away thoughts of Elaine, she would have a happy morning in her bookstore. Her gaze slid toward the Cat Truth posters. To tell the truth, she was becoming fond of the photographs and their captions. However, she didn’t intend to confess her capitulation to Laurel. She might have to ante up ten bucks and hang one particular poster in her office. An American Shorthair Snowshoe with intent blue eyes and the telltale four white feet was perched on a brick wall, oblivious to pelting rain, fur plastered down, drenched to the skin. He peered at a svelte Siberian Forest Cat, elegant and unattainable behind a windowpane:
Hey, babe, come on out, the weather’s fine and I’m a heckuva guy.

She smiled and picked up the poster. Guys were guys, whether two-legged or four, and wasn’t that wonderful. She shut the storeroom door, determined to push away all thoughts of Elaine Jamison. She settled at the computer, clicked a HarperCollins order form, entered a list of fall titles . . .

The phone rang.

“Death on—”

Marian Kenyon, her voice gruff, cut her off. “Cop shop just had a press conference on the Jamison kill.”

B
ubblegum wrappers littered the floor by Marian’s sandal-shod feet. Her words were slurred by the wad in her left cheek. She looked like a bright, intelligent, industrious squirrel readying for winter. “I’m not a shrink. Maybe Billy’s trying to pressure her. Whatever, Elaine’s got to be the lead”—her fingers flew over the keyboard—“and true to form I got a call to show up for Q and A about twenty minutes ago and my deadline”—she scrunched her face in irritation—“is in nine minutes. Can’t talk now. Read over my shoulder.” She yelled across the room to Ferroll Crump, the city editor. “Gimme sixteen inches.”

Ferret-faced Ferroll, a wizened refugee from the layoff surge that had swept through metropolitan dailies, grunted, “Yo.” Divorced, in debt, fond of the ponies, he’d landed at the
Gazette
about a year ago. He wrote a weekly column, “A Damn Yankee in Bubbaland,” which islanders vociferously applauded or condemned. Vince Flynn, the
Gazette
’s editor and publisher, told Annie that Letters to the Editor had upticked by 40 percent since the debut of Ferroll’s column. Last week’s diatribe began,
Thought somebody had dumped paste into my oatmeal but it turned out to be something called grits, which rhymes with spits . . .

Five desks jammed the small newsroom. In addition to Ferroll and Marian, Big Bud Hoover manned the sports desk, Sally Sue Simpson handled society, and Tessa White was a summer J-school intern. Hoover glowered at a sports magazine. “No way McGwire goes in the Hall of Fame.” Sally Sue cooed into a phone, “We’d love to feature your garden next week, especially the sedum in the terra-cotta jar . . .” The intern, eyes gleaming with excitement, eased up from her desk, edged near enough to join Annie and Max to watch Marian.

Energy and tension radiated from Marian. Her lead hit Annie like a karate chop:

Broward’s Rock police chief, Billy Cameron, today announced that Elaine Jamison, sister of murder victim Glen Jamison, has been named a person of interest in the investigation into the shooting death that occurred at the Jamison residence Tuesday morning. Jamison, a member of a leading island family and well-known attorney, was fifty-two.