Death on Demand (21 page)

“Wait a minute,” the blonde interrupted. “What makes you think so?”

“As soon as I made it clear I knew what Elliot was going to say, Emma asked me how much money I wanted. That must mean she was already being blackmailed.”

“Not by Elliot.” Carmen lost interest in Annie’s theory. “No way.”

“Why not? If he needed money, and you said he did, why wouldn’t he take money to keep quiet about something like that?”

“Not Elliot. He was a chiseler, yeah, but he wasn’t a crook. He told me once he thought blackmailers were slime, real slime. No way. You got to understand”—she got up and wriggled to the refrigerator—“he was a rat, but he really hated killers and bad cops and nasty, underhanded people. You know his favorite detective, Josh Hibbert, well, all that stuff was really him. The trouble is, he wanted to shove people’s noses in their little messes. He liked to push people. That’s why I dumped him. Cat and mouse, always a little push here, a shove there. I wouldn’t take it. I told him to stick it.” She squinted into the refrigerator thoughtfully. There were no more Dos XX’s. “I guess he pushed somebody too hard.”

“I think she’s kinda cute,” Max said, gunning the Porsche.

“You and every male in South Carolina.”

“That is a sexist remark.”

“You bet it is.” Annie gently massaged her temples. “Wow, beer on top of two mint juleps. But it’s a good thing we talked to her. She did know Elliot was going to speak Sunday night, and she knew why. She could easily have hidden the dart and tampered with the lights.”

“Oh, Annie. Admit it. You just don’t like the girl.”

Girl. That was a laugh.

“She’s about as girlish as a female anaconda.”

“But to the right male anaconda …”

“I wonder how Elliot left his money?”

Max slowed the Porsche to swing back onto the main road. Massive yellow pines crowded the road, and through the open sunroof came the scent of sunbaked pitch. The scaly orange trunks rose ruler-straight.

“According to Carmen, he’d commoditied out of money.”

“Sure, that would be her story. But wouldn’t you think nice about that sweet girl if it turned out she inherited?”

Reluctantly, Max nodded. “That’s an oversight, all right. We need to find out who gets his money—if there is any to get. That could make a difference.”

“You know the motives for murder. Hate, revenge, fear, and greed.”

“Or a combination thereof. Where do you suppose Kelly Rizzoli fits in?”

On the surface, their interchange was just as usual—light, flippant, and fun. Annie sensed an undertone, though, whether or not Max did.

She reached out and touched his arm. “Before we see Kelly, I want to tell you about Santa Fe.”

“I
’ve never been into true confession,” he said drily. “What counts is now. Today.” His dark blue eyes met hers directly.

Dear Max.

“I want to tell you. I know I don’t have to.” She couldn’t quite resist reaching out to touch his cheek. “Let’s go over to Indigo Beach.”

She directed him to a rutted sandy lane.

Low hanging vines scraped the top of the Porsche as Max eased it around a fallen palmetto. He cringed for the paint job. “They could use a little machete work down this way.”

Resurrection ferns laced the branches of a spreading live oak, and cinnamon ferns flourished beside a pond to the left. The undergrowth suddenly erupted with a flurry of movement, and a dusky gray white-tail deer plunged
fleetingly across the narrow track to disappear into a thicket of bayberry.

A fallen southern red cedar blocked the track twenty yards short of the beach. They left the car and walked over the hummocky, sandy ground to a narrow boardwalk, half-covered by drifting sand.

Head-high sea oats, October brown, rippled in the onshore breeze. Nutgrass and sandspur rustled knee-high. As they stood at the top of the dune and looked over the littoral at the gentle surf, a ragged line of cormorants passed overhead. They walked down the dune to the flat-packed gray sand along the water’s edge.

Annie reached down and touched an eddy of warm water.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Max insisted. “I know everything I need to know about you.”

“I want to tell you.” She frowned, picking her words. “Elliot must have talked to Richard.”

Max was silent.

“I’ve never told you about Richard. It was right after I got out of school. I was living in Dallas and working as a model.” She turned and began to walk up the beach, and Max paced with her. “Richard is a banker.” She laughed. “That’s not fair, really. I know there are all kinds of bankers, but Richard is like all of their worst qualities rolled into one. He is extremely cautious, extremely careful. He believes there are rules for every situation. We were engaged.” She shook her head in self-surprise. “Actually, I can’t believe now that I ever considered marrying him. Richard is extremely nice, extremely handsome, extremely … dull.”

“Dull,” Max repeated. “At least, you’ve never called me dull.”

“Never. Anyway, Richard and I were engaged. Then a very old friend called me. She was in real trouble. She asked me to come to Santa Fe with her and not to tell anyone. So I told Richard that I had to leave town immediately, and that I would be back in a week.

“He wanted to know why. I told him I couldn’t say.” Annie winced at the recollection of the acrimonious dispute that followed. “Richard wasn’t pleased. But I lost my temper, told him off, and went. A week later, when I got
back, I wouldn’t tell him why I’d gone, or what I’d done.

“Three days after that, he showed up at my apartment, and he was livid. He had a report from a private detective. It said that Anne McKinley Laurance entered a private nursing home on Sunday evening, gave birth to a son that night, and was discharged the following Wednesday.”

“Your friend used your name.”

“Do you know, that never occurred to Richard? He demanded to know how I’d hidden my pregnancy, since he knew damn well he hadn’t gotten me pregnant, and who the hell was I sneaking around with?”

Max raised one blond eyebrow. “Is his bank on the FDIC worry list?”

“No, Richard is very bright about numbers.”

“But, thank God, not very bright about people.”

“That’s what Elliot found out. The baby was immediately given up for adoption.”

“Why did it have to be so secret?” he asked.

“You are perceptive, aren’t you?” She bit her lip.

“You don’t have to tell me any more.”

“No, I want to tell you because I know what I did was illegal. You see, Emily was married. That wasn’t the problem at all. She had hidden the fact she was pregnant from her husband. You have to understand, her husband was the oldest son of one of Texas’s most powerful families—and a kind of crazy mean family, too. She didn’t know it until she married Quentin, but his father controlled all of them, and I mean that literally. Everyone in the family kowtowed to that horrible, domineering old monster. It was just like Mrs. Boynton in
Appointment With Death.
Quentin and his sister both used cocaine. Their mother was an alcoholic. It was just an awful way to live—and all Emily could think about was getting her baby—the only grandchild—into a safe,
normal
family. So we went to Santa Fe, and she went into a clinic using my name, and three days later I signed the adoption papers to a wonderful couple who had wanted and prayed for a baby for years.”

She half-turned and looked out over the surging green water. “I’ve always been so glad I did it. Emily and Quentin were killed in a plane crash a year later, and that
little baby would have been swallowed alive by Quentin’s father.”

“Good for you,” Max said warmly. At her look of surprise, he said almost roughly, “Richard may have been a damn fool, but I’m not, Annie.”

“You don’t care that I was a party to—I don’t know what to call it. Fraud? Conspiracy?”

“I think you’re wonderful. I’ve always thought so. I’ll always think so.” He couldn’t quite resist adding, “Even if I don’t have a serious job—like a banker.”

They stopped at Death On Demand en route to Kelly Rizzoli’s. Max insisted there was plenty of time before the ferry left to organize what they’d learned and then interview Kelly. He reached out to pat the glossy black head of the stuffed raven in the entryway.

“What’s his name?”

“Edgar, of course.”

Ingrid greeted them wearily. “Everything’s okay. I think the rush is over. But I sold $689 worth. And you’re out of Christianna Brands.” She patted the stack of receipts proudly. Her eyes darted solicitously from Max to Annie before she added reluctantly, “Chief Saulter’s been by twice, looking for you, and Mrs. Brawley phoned three times.”

Bad news and good news. Annie stepped close to give Ingrid a hug. “Let’s close up for now. And don’t worry, Ingrid, Max and I are working on it.”

Ingrid’s face brightened. “Like Pam and Jerry North.”

Not quite, but Annie wouldn’t have minded a martini. Although that might be the final blow, after the mint juleps and beer.

Ingrid put up the Closed sign and locked the front door as she left. “I’ll open up in the morning.”

Did she think Annie would be in jail?

Max made himself comfortable in the largest wicker chair with the softest pillows.

“It’s time to organize what we have.” He propped a yellow legal pad on his knee.

Annie wandered restlessly around the store: the coffee area, the exhibit of watercolors, the central corridor with
the soft gum bookcases angling away, the cash desk, Edgar with his glossy feathers and sightless eyes.

Sanctuary. That’s what Death On Demand had been for her in the days following Uncle Ambrose’s death. Shed always been so happy here, felt so safe. Had Saulter come by to arrest her? Carmen Morgan had thought the arrest would come tomorrow. How much time did she have left? The clock in the tall Queen Anne walnut case next to Edgar read 3:07. Time, time, she was running out of time.

She whirled around and started down the central corridor, then paused abruptly, her eyes on a level with the top shelf of the True Crime section, which held all the works of Uncle Ambrose’s favorite author, Clark Howard. Howard, a 1980 Edgar winner for his short story “Horn Man,” wrote everything well—short stories, novels, television and movie scripts, and nonfiction crime books.

Annie stared at the books until the titles scrambled in her mind.

They were losing sight of the most important fact.

“Max!” she yelped. She veered to her right, tangled with a fern, and slid to a stop beside his chair.

Agatha erupted from the base of the fern next to Max, stared reproachfully at Annie, and shot toward the dimness of the coffee bar.

Annie flapped her hands at Max’s sheaf of paper. “What did you do with the stuff you put together on everybody when I was being bopped at Elliot’s?”

Max riffled through his stack and pulled out several typewritten sheets. Annie grabbed them.

“We’ve got to fine-tooth-comb this stuff and see who’s connected to a killing that Uncle Ambrose was investigating. Don’t you see? It all goes back to Uncle Ambrose. That’s important, not this penny-ante stuff like Capt. Mac and his paternity suit.”

“First, we have to organize our material.” Max looked extremely judicious, a non-eggshaped Hercule Poirot.

Annie didn’t dignify this with an answer. Instead, she grabbed the dossiers. Quickly, she scratched out a list of people and places.

As she studied her chart, she felt her first qualm. On the surface, not a single one of these people had any connection with Uncle Ambrose’s famous cases. But she didn’t know enough about the three cases Uncle Ambrose had been investigating.

Fifteen minutes later, her hand cramped from note taking, she put down the phone.

Max came up behind her and reached down to massage her tight shoulders. “What did you plug into? Today’s devotional?”

“The crime reporter at the Atlanta
Constitution.
His name’s Sam, and he asked me out for a drink the next time I get to Atlanta.” She swivelled around to look at the clock face. Oh, God, 3:22. Here they sat, Max scribbling another damn list and she trying to forge some link between Uncle Ambrose’s missing manuscript and the suspects. And, darn it, nothing was working out.