Death of the Party (3 page)

For an instant, Max wondered if he'd entered an
alternate universe. Or if this attractive woman was mentally disturbed. One look into steady green eyes and he knew he was dealing with intelligence, acuity, and scarcely controlled fear. “I'd be worried. What makes you think a prospective guest is a murderer?” He heard the reserve in his voice.

She gave a short, desperate laugh. “I'm not mad. It isn't a matter of supposition. I know one of them's a murderer. Please, will you let me tell you?”

Max gestured toward the nearer chair. “Of course.” He could imagine Barb's intense excitement as she clung to the other side of the door. However, he wasn't in the habit of believing six impossible things before breakfast. Or after. But maybe he could be of some service….

His visitor sat, face ridged with strain, back ramrod straight, and placed her handbag in her lap, fingers tight around the strap.

Max took the other chair, turned it to face her. They were so near, he could see the fine pencil line artfully used to enhance her truly remarkable eyes and the tiny hint of a mole at the corner of her carmine lips.

She took a deep breath. “Mr. Darling, I'm afraid I've been a fool. But I didn't know what else to do.”

“You have guests coming. You believe one of them is a murderer?” The words sounded absurd and unreal, but he knew this woman believed it.

“I know one of them is a murderer.” The words were measured, implacable.

Max reached over to his desk, picked up a legal pad and pen. “Who was killed?”

Those shadowed eyes met his gaze. “Jeremiah Addison.” She looked at him, waited. “On Golden Silk.”

Max felt a quiver of shock. He knew Addison's name. Addison had died more than a year ago. Wasn't it an accident of some sort? Some names are part of popular culture and that was true of Jeremiah Addison. His amazing wealth in newspapers, television stations, and magazines put him on a par with Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch. And, of course, everyone along the coast was aware of Golden Silk, the private sea island owned by Addison. The interest was prompted as much by his selection of the name as the island itself. Private islands, many of them tiny and uninhabited, were not unusual. In fact, there was no firm accounting of the number of small islands along the coast of South Carolina, and a study was under way to list them all. Addison had named his island after the Golden Silk, an orb-weaving spider with a gold body and legs, which creates such a sturdy web in the woods that small birds can be trapped. Addison's remote island with its restored plantation house and newly built cabins, each in its own cluster of pines, had been featured in a glossy architectural magazine. A diesel-powered generator provided electricity. The article's title had been “Welcome to My Web, Said…”

“Golden Silk now belongs to me. I've turned it into a resort. The house is a B&B. There are eight cabins, each one quite separate and private. I'm getting established. Lots of people want to come somewhere and be cut off from the world. We're only forty-five minutes from the mainland, but once you arrive on the island, it's a world unto itself. Cell phones don't work. No fax.
No contact with the outside. There's a boat that brings everyone over on a Friday and it doesn't come back until the following Friday. People love it.” There was a flash of pride and enthusiasm.

“You inherited Golden Silk from Jeremiah Addison?” Max was bland, keeping disappointment out of his voice. She didn't look like the kind of woman to be a rich man's mistress, but there were plenty of stories like that about Addison. And she'd given her name as Ms. Barlow. Not Mrs. Addison.

Her laughter was ragged. And unamused. “Not likely. He'd rather have seen me in hell, actually. Jeremiah and I—well, let's say we didn't care for each other. No, my sister Cissy was his wife. His second wife. Cissy…” There was an instant when her head bent and her lips were tight together. She took a breath, then looked at Max. “Cissy died last January. Six months after Jeremiah. The island and everything on it and a third of his entire estate came to her. And now, to me. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because Jeremiah fell down the main stairs that Saturday morning. I was up early. I heard a thump. I went out in the hall and listened. It was absolutely quiet. But I knew something was wrong. I went down the hall and that's when I saw him at the foot of the stairs. I could see from the way he was lying that his neck was broken. It was ugly. His head was battered from the fall…. I stood there and stared. I thought about going down to be certain he was dead. But I was sure. Then I saw why he'd fallen. There was a wire across the second step. Ankle high. It ran from a baluster to a nail in the wall.” Her head lifted. Her gaze was determined. “Jeremiah
had been murdered.” She folded her arms across her chest, spoke dispassionately as if describing the actions of a stranger. “I got a cloth from the nearest bath, used it to loosen the wire. I put the wire and the nail in my pocket.”

Max wrote quickly, all the while thinking that every word had a ring of truth. This was what she'd seen. This was what she'd done. His skepticism melted like snow in a hot sun. There was no disbelieving this grim recital of actions, culpable actions.

He looked at her hard face. “Why?” She was still an attractive woman, but he saw the coldness in her eyes, the set of her jaw.

“Cissy was sick. Terribly sick. Cancer. Treatments. She could barely cope. And now Jeremiah was dead. She adored him. His death was going to be a horrible shock. She couldn't handle anything more. Murder?” She shook her head with finality. “You know what?” Her tone was fierce. “I'm glad I did it. Cissy grieved but she didn't have to look at the people who were there—and she was fond of some of them—and wonder which face hid murder.”

Max sketched a face with staring eyes. “You broke the law.”

“Yes.” She was decisive. “That's why I've come here.”

Max's eyebrows rose. “I can't help you there, Ms. Barlow—”

“Please. Call me Britt. Everyone does.” Her grave look was an appeal.

“Britt.” He liked the sound of her name: crisp, fresh, different. “I suggest you contact an attorney.”

“I'm not worried about that. Oh, I know.” She shrugged. “I suppose I'll be in trouble. Maybe a lot of trouble. I guess”—her tone was thoughtful—“they could put me in jail. That doesn't matter. What matters is finding out who killed Jeremiah. I've thought and thought. I could go to the police, tell them what I've told you. Maybe they'd listen. Maybe they wouldn't. But what could they do?”

Max drew a massive question mark, decorated it with handcuffs. “If your report was taken seriously, a detective would interview everyone who was on the island at the time.” But there was no physical evidence available now. Unless someone had seen something that would be meaningful once murder was suspected, the trail was cold. Still…“I recommend contacting the sheriff's department.”

“No.” It was a simple declaration. And final. “If someone—a detective—came to see them, they'd be warned. Oh, I've thought it all over. And here's what I want to do…” She leaned forward, her green eyes intent.

 

Annie Laurance Darling had the bookstore to herself. Well, she and Agatha and hundreds of her friends. That's how she thought of mystery authors. Her friends. After all, friends give to each other, and the wonderful writers had given her a lifetime of pleasure. Thanks to them, she'd detected from Atlanta to Zanzibar, all from the comfort of her easy chair.

Annie bent down, picked up the sleek black cat, draped her over one shoulder, sauntered down the central corridor toward the coffee bar. A fire crack
led in the fireplace. The South Carolina sea island of Broward's Rock, home to the best mystery bookstore east of Atlanta, was never truly cold enough to need a wood fire. But there were nippy days in January when a fire was welcome and always cheerful.

Annie hesitated near the coffee bar. She should march straight back to the storeroom and open that latest box of Sister Carol Anne O'Marie titles. She had some returns to pack, orders to place…. She veered behind the coffee bar.

Agatha wriggled free, landing lightly atop the counter. The elegant black cat lifted a paw, licked, swiped at her cheek.

Annie smiled in contentment. Yes, Agatha should be removed at once from the countertop. But hey, she and her cat were alone in the store. So far as she knew, all health department officials were busy elsewhere. “Why not?” she demanded of Agatha.

Inscrutable golden eyes seemed to blink assent.

“Besides,” Annie valued truth, “you'd bite me if I tried to move you.”

Annie studied the mirrored wall behind the coffee bar, which held almost a hundred white pottery mugs, each inscribed in red script with the name of a famous mystery and the author. Annie started the cappuccino machine, took her time selecting a mug. She wanted the perfect one—the bon mot of titles. After all, this was a special day. There were no To Do lists in regard to the wedding because, of course, the wedding was over and a grand and happy success. Her father and his new bride were en route to Tahiti for several weeks. Pudge and Sylvia were now Mr. and Mrs. Laurance.

The wedding—last Saturday—had been blessed with a sparkling day, white clouds scudding in a robin's-egg-blue sky, the temperature a mild sixty. That was a bonus in the South. Even in January there were blessed days of warmth. After the reception, the assembled guests cheered and clapped as the bride threw her bouquet of pink and white carnations to the very surprised but pleased bachelor minister. The smiling faces included both Rachel Van Meer and Cole Crandall, who were now stepsister and stepbrother. At one time, the two teenagers had been anything but friendly…. But that was another story and well in the past. In fact, the two of them were now in Hawaii visiting Rachel's aunt. Pudge had insisted they too have a grand trip even if it meant missing a week of school. Last night Rachel and Cole had sent Annie and Max an e-mail detailing the excitement of their visit. Mmmm, Kauai.

The cappuccino machine bubbled. She yanked down a mug inscribed
Too Good to Be True,
shoved it beneath the spigot, admired the frothy milk. She carried the mug around the counter, perched on a tall stool. Oh, to be in Tahiti…That sounded especially glorious now because, of course, the capricious coastal weather had decided to remind everyone that, after all, it was January. Three days of rain had left the island sodden and the air colder than a wet sock. Golly, it would be nice to be on a fun trip.

“Where would you like to go?” she asked Agatha.

Agatha's green eyes slitted.

“We don't have anything planned,” Annie said hastily. Agatha never approved of their travels.

Agatha rolled over onto her back, stretched.

“My goodness, even you are charming today. Not,” Annie added hastily, “that I ever find you deficient in charm.” It was Max who called Agatha the Lethal Lady, insisting the coal black feline must surely have been Lucretia Borgia in another incarnation. “You know what, Agatha,” Annie confided, sipping the delicious coffee and milk, “things simply couldn't be better. Except for the weather.” She smoothed a finger over the ridged red letters of the title. “Although it's kind of lonely with everybody gone.” Everybody on the island wasn't gone, of course, though it almost seemed like it with Pudge and Sylvia in Tahiti, Rachel and Cole on Kauai, and Max's mother, Laurel, visiting Max's sister Jen in Monterey. Henny Brawley, who was by far the bookstore's best customer, was traveling with an old friend in England; Emma Clyde, redoubtable island author, was on a book tour in the Far West; and Ingrid Webb, Death on Demand's fine clerk, was in Chicago with her husband, Duane. “It's you and me, kid,” Annie told Agatha. It was the slow time of the year. Damp January days weren't a tourist draw, so the occasional customers, almost sure to be locals, would receive a royal welcome.

Annie lifted the mug, turned a little to view the paintings above the fireplace. Every month she hung five watercolors. Each represented a scene from a superb mystery. The first person to identify all five books and authors received free coffee for a month.

In the first watercolor, two young men wearing dark wedding suits slashed with the long pig-butchering knives. Their strong wrists poked and thrust the knives into their victim, who was young and slim with curly
dark hair. Blood spattered his white linen shirt and trousers. The dying man struggled to open the ornate front door. In the square behind him the almond trees were snowy in the light of dawn, colored wedding decorations hanging in their branches.

In the second watercolor, the body lay face up on the icy cold floor of a freezer, eyes wide in final surprise, his thin mustache frozen stiff, a dishcloth tucked into the string of his apron, a scrap of paper in one hand. Only the fingernails, which were crooked in a desperate scratching at the door, betrayed the panic of his final moments.

In the third watercolor, the light of the flashlight revealed a large crocodile edging through the night toward the cowering yellow dog tied to a stake near the river's edge. A plump black woman was calmly bracing a rifle against her shoulder and firing.

In the fourth watercolor, the blue of the sea looked far distant across the squelchy brown sand of the exposed tidal flat. Seaweed was strewn across the muck and dangled from spiky rocks. The man and woman near a particularly big rock were barefoot and muddy to their knees. The woman was in the midst of gesturing as she spoke. Her interesting, squashed-in face looked worried. The young man, dark haired and with a distinct pallor, was frowning as he listened.

In the fifth watercolor, a slender young woman with improbably red hair balanced on a window ledge. Light streaming from the window revealed the sharp-edged rocks in the gully below. She held desperately to the wooden window frame while stretching to search a gutter hidden beneath a mass of bougainvillea.