Dead By Midnight (23 page)

Max clapped loudly.

The lawyer gave Max a sour look. “You don’t have to join Sam’s cheering squad.”

“He’s a good hitter. I like baseball.” Max’s tone was mild. Without a change in tone, he asked, “Were you in the Jamison backyard Tuesday morning?”

Kirk gave a strangled hoot of laughter, but he didn’t look amused. “Greased that question in, didn’t you? Ever cross-examine a witness?”

“Not since practice court.” Max was proud of his law degree and had been admitted to the bar in New York, but he was always quick to make it clear that he didn’t practice law.

Kirk shoved a hand through his thick, tawny hair. “Let’s get this straight. I wasn’t there. I don’t know anything about Glen’s murder. I understand the cops are looking at me fish-eyed because of the insurance. I didn’t kill Glen for the money.”

“Although”—Max was still conversational—“it’s convenient for you that he died before you wouldn’t have been eligible for the payout.”

“Yeah.” Kirk sounded troubled.

“I assume you will accept the portion due you?”

Kirk’s face hardened. “You’re damn right I will, if for no other reason than to keep the bitch from walking away with five million.” He glanced toward Max. “I was pretty upset that I was being pushed out, but I didn’t blame Glen. Cleo yanked his string and he danced. It was as simple as that.”

“So there’s no reason why Laura Jamison might think she saw you in the backyard Tuesday morning?”

Kirk looked disturbed. “Is that what Laura said? But I didn’t come.”

Max tried not to look excited. “I guess she got it wrong.”

Kirk shook his head, his expression bemused. “Man, I finally had a piece of luck. Laura kept begging me to talk to her dad one more time. I knew Cleo was going into Savannah for a dep, so I promised Laura I’d drop by Tuesday morning. At the last minute I chickened out. I drove halfway there, then turned around and came back downtown. I went to the pier and walked up and down. Finally I decided to go to the office. I knew it wouldn’t do any good to talk to Glen. He wasn’t going to cross Cleo. That’s why I didn’t show up. Man, was that lucky. I’d be in the dock if I’d been on the spot when somebody shot Glen.” He frowned. “Laura’s called me a couple of times. I haven’t answered. She doesn’t know about the insurance. I didn’t want to tell her. I feel kind of bad taking it, but I’d feel worse to leave it all to Cleo. I need to talk to Laura.” Suddenly he gave a whoop as Sam darted from first, stole second.

As Max joined in the cheers, his cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket, glanced at the caller ID, answered. “Hey, Annie.” He listened, then gazed at Kirk. “Yeah. I saw him from the back the other day. Yeah. You sure could make that mistake . . . Sure, hold on.” He looked at Kirk. “What were you wearing Tuesday morning?”

Kirk looked blank. “Wearing?”

“Your shirt.”

Kirk looked puzzled, but answered readily. “A short-sleeve madras plaid.” His expression was touched with sadness. “I didn’t want to look like a bum at Glen’s house. I wish how I dressed was all that mattered on Tuesday.”

T
he Crawford house on Heron Point was a ranch style, probably built in the late fifties. Annie always shook her head at homes that rested flush on the ground. A force-three hurricane would put all but a small portion of the island’s center under four feet of water from the storm surge.

A scrawny teenager, maybe five feet six and weighing a hundred and ten, dribbled a basketball up the drive, dodged an imaginary opponent, turned, and threw. The basketball bounced on the rim, teetered, plopped to the drive. He caught it on the bounce.

Annie shut the car door and walked swiftly across the yard. “Buddy?”

The boy turned and looked at her politely. “Ma’am?” He appeared helpful and well mannered, apparently accepting without thought or question that a woman he didn’t know knew him.

“Did Tommy Jamison bring your shirt back?”

Buddy looked shocked and uncertain. The direct question implied knowledge. Buddy’s thumb rubbed hard against the seam on the basketball. “Tommy’s shirt?”

“The one he borrowed Tuesday morning after he came back.”

Buddy looked bewildered. “How’d you know?”

Annie’s gaze was pleasant. “He was seen in the backyard at his house and now we are simply getting the times straight. When did Tommy leave your house?”

Buddy shuffled his feet.

Annie was firm. “We know what happened and it will be better for Tommy if you can confirm what time he left here and when he returned. He was wearing a blue shirt when he left, but when he came back to your house, he didn’t have on a shirt.” She saw indecision and, finally, resignation. She watched him grope through his thoughts. He’d promised Tommy he’d keep quiet, but somehow Tommy had been found out.

“Yeah. Well. Tommy didn’t want me to tell anyone. See, his shirt—”

Annie interrupted. “The blue polo.”

Buddy nodded. “Yeah. He got blood on his shirt.” Buddy looked at her in entreaty, big brown eyes filled with concern.

Annie knew she was taking advantage of a teenager’s credulity. She’d set out to prove Elaine Jamison innocent of murder. Everything about Elaine—her gentleness, her obvious devotion to her brother, her desperate unhappiness since his murder—had combined to convince Annie that she needed help. But perhaps Annie was beginning to understand Elaine’s plea to be left alone to do what she felt she must do. Elaine loved her brother but she loved Tommy, too. It took an effort for Annie to speak. She knew her voice was thin. “It’s better to straighten things out.” She wasn’t at all sure that clarifying the truth about his shirt was better for Tommy Jamison.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t mind loaning him a shirt. He came back and he was all upset. Poor guy. He was shaking and crying. He found his dad dead and somebody had shot him. Tommy accidentally kicked the gun and then he picked it up.”

Annie heard the echo of Elaine’s explanation.

Buddy looked earnest. “He wasn’t thinking. He was scared. He was afraid to call the police because he and his dad, well, they’d had a fight, and that morning Tommy had gone home to have it out with him about school and everything. He said if his dad didn’t come around, he was going to run away and then his family could wonder what had happened to him. He got up to the study door and it was open and he pushed inside, ready to yell at his dad. He said that’s maybe why he was moving so fast he didn’t see the gun, but when he kicked it, he stopped and picked it up. Then he got really freaked. He had blood on his hand and he wiped it on his shirt. He ran out of the house and pulled the shirt off. He ran down to the cottage and his aunt took the gun and his shirt. She told him to go back to my house. Anyway, he got on his bike and came back here. He didn’t know what to do. I told him maybe it would be better when he got home to act like he didn’t know anything. I gave him one of my shirts to wear.”

Annie looked sympathetic. “I guess he was really scared to call the police since he’d told you he was going to go home and have it out with his dad once and for all.”

Buddy turned the basketball in his hands. “Well, he wouldn’t have sounded so mad at his dad if he’d known somebody was going to shoot him.”

M
avis Cameron smiled at Annie. “Billy said to come on in.” She clicked to open the locked door to the interior of the police station.

Annie stepped into the corridor. She forced herself forward, stopped at the door with Billy’s name on frosted glass. When she revealed what she knew, Tommy Jamison might become the prime suspect. If she didn’t tell Billy, Elaine Jamison would be arrested. She took a deep breath, turned the knob.

Billy looked up from his desk. Lines of fatigue pulled at his sturdy, broad face. He managed a faint smile as he stood and gestured toward a straight chair in front of his desk.

She moved forward and sank onto the chair.

Billy eyed her sharply. “You look about as grim as I feel.”

Annie took a deep breath and began without preamble. “Tommy Jamison . . .”

Billy listened intently, making notes. When she finished, he looked thoughtful. “I get the picture. His aunt lied to protect Tommy. That doesn’t surprise me. She never seemed right for a killer. For one thing, so far as we’ve been able to find out, she’s never shot a gun in her life. To hit her brother twice in the throat was more than blind dumb luck. And why the throat? To watch blood spew? The instinct is to go for the chest or, if you’re a really good shot, the head.”

He leaned back in his chair, stared out the window toward the harbor. “I’ll talk to the kid. He’ll probably open up when he finds out his friend let it all hang out. But even if he spills his guts, if it’s the same talk about kicking the gun and getting blood on his shirt, that won’t clear Elaine.”

Annie edged forward on the hard chair. “When Laura realizes she didn’t see Kirk and that you know Tommy was there, she can tell you exactly what she saw.”

Billy’s expression remained dour. “Here’s what we’ve got. Laura was on the porch. Darwyn Jack was down in the yard. Laura saw somebody and now we know it was Tommy. She didn’t see anyone else until Richard Jamison came in from his jog. He found Glen and immediately raised the alarm. Laura said she didn’t see Elaine. If she’d seen anyone besides Tommy, she would have told us long before now. That leaves us with Kit and Laura in the house and Tommy crossing the backyard. Why would Kit or Laura come outside? No sense to it. And Tommy crossing the yard lets out the cousin, too. Darwyn told us Richard ran through the yard and out the road by the cottage around eight-thirty. Kit saw her father alive after that. By the time Richard came back from his jog, Tommy had already hurried to his aunt’s cottage and given her the gun and the shirt stained with his dad’s blood. You saw Elaine at the marsh before Richard returned.”

Annie tried to sort out the timing in her mind. Kit and Laura in the house. Tommy in the backyard. Her lips felt stiff. “The murderer has to be Tommy.” Blood on the blue polo . . .

Billy slammed a hand on his desk. “I’ve been a cop for a long time.” He looked angry and frustrated. “I never thought Elaine was the killer. Now we have Tommy in her place. But you know what, the murder of Darwyn Jack knocks everything screwy.”

Annie was puzzled. “He must have seen Tommy.”

Billy nodded shortly. “Right. The easy answer is that Tommy killed him because Darwyn tried blackmail, though I don’t know how much money he could get out of a high school kid.” He waved a hand. “I know, Tommy inherits, but I doubt he can get his hands on big money.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Even semibig money. So now, and I’m saying it like the circuit solicitor will see it, the easy answer will be that Darwyn tried to blackmail Tommy and Tommy killed him. The easy answer before that, and the circuit solicitor was hot for me to arrest Elaine, is that she killed Darwyn. But I don’t believe either one of them cracked his skull. Darwyn’s murder was planned down to the last detail and that includes Elaine’s golf club. He was lured to the gazebo—the prosecution will argue he was there for a payoff—and what happened? Darwyn came to the gazebo. He sat on the top step. The killer then moved behind him and picked up Elaine Jamison’s five iron and gave an almighty swing.” Billy leaned forward and his words came in a staccato rush. “That doesn’t play with me. Let’s take Elaine Jamison. Tuesday, when her brother was killed, it’s obvious she threw the murder weapon in the marsh. Smart move, right? We still haven’t found the gun. We can’t drain the marsh. My guess is we’ll never find that Colt. Someday we may have a force-three hurricane and nature can play some tricks and a rusted pistol might be found wedged in a live-oak tree. Stranger things have happened. For now, we don’t have the weapon. Fast-forward to Thursday night. The murderer used Elaine Jamison’s five iron, which we later find in her golf bag. The club face wasn’t even wiped off after it struck him. We had plenty of tissue to test. The lab results are back and her club was the murder weapon.” He looked disgusted. “Does that make sense? She had the smarts to throw the Colt into the marsh and she was under pressure because she knew any minute Glen’s body would be found. So I’m supposed to believe that Thursday night she takes her own five iron with her fingerprints all over the shaft, tucks the club away in the gazebo where it will be handy, meets Darwyn, cracks his skull, then marches back to her garage and puts the dirty club in her bag? Baloney. I didn’t believe it then. I don’t believe it now. Besides that, you know what we found hidden up in a crook of a tree near the gazebo? Her gardening gloves. Now, why would she wear gardening gloves and not wipe off the fingerprints from the club? She had all night to throw that club in the marsh and put the gloves away in her gardening basket. We might have checked her bag and discovered the five iron was missing and been able to prove the wound was consistent with having been made by a five iron, but that doesn’t compare to finding her club and proving it was the murder weapon.”

“None of it makes sense.” Annie thought of murder deep in the night, Darwyn lying facedown at the base of the gazebo steps. Elaine would have been a fool to keep the club. And there was no point in hiding the gloves up in a tree.

Billy was gruff. “You bet it’s screwy. She’s cool and smart and quick Tuesday morning when the pressure’s on, but she panics and shoves the stick in her bag when it’s the middle of the night and no one else is around, plus scrambles up in a tree to tuck her gloves in a crotch. There’s a lot to be said for MO. People act the way they’re going to act. You can’t have smart-as-a-whip and dumb-as-a-post in the same person. That’s what I told Brice.”