Death on Demand (28 page)

It was exactly as Hercule Poirot always insisted: the character of the victim revealed the identity of the murderer. Staring up at that painting of a jumbled closet, remembering her uncle, knowing the Sunday Night Regulars, she knew who had committed the four murders on Broward’s Rock.

Swinging around, she ran up the central aisle, and grabbed up the telephone receiver. Agatha flashed into the
darkness, seeking sanctuary beneath her favorite fern. Annie held the receiver to her ear, then stiffened. The line was dead.

The lights went out in Death On Demand. Annie moved away from the switches and ran swiftly down the central corridor, a golf ball clutched in her right hand. She slid like a wraith into the storeroom and felt her way across the floor to the back door.

This was the tricky part.

The murderer must be waiting for her outside. That dead phone line was no accident. It was intended to prevent her from calling the chief, which meant, in turn, that the films did contain the murderer’s picture. She had no intention of remaining in Death On Demand like one of the Ten Little Indians.

She edged open the back door and peered out into the alley. It was darker than the dirt heaped beside an open grave. As quietly as a water moccasin slipping through a marsh pond, she eased out of the screen door and crept up the alley, every nerve end alert for a betraying rustle. Reaching the end of the alley, she surveyed the broad expanse of lawn, dotted with sea pines, that lay between the shops and the parking area. Her blue Volvo sat in solitary splendor near a clump of wisteria. God, what she would have given at that moment for a little urban clutter and excitement. The shops and their parking lot, closed at night, were separated from the houses by the golf course. The nearest habitations were the marina condos, several
hundred yards to her left. Lights shone cheerfully from several of the condos.

Could she scream loudly enough to get help?

Not in time. The Broward’s Rock murderer liked to bash his victims. It behooved her to avoid all contact. If she could just reach her car—

Darting from palmetto palm to azalea thicket to palmetto palm, Annie plunged into the shadows nearest her Volvo and fell headlong over a body.

She didn’t have to see to know it was a body. She could
feel
it. Her first, panicked, instinctive fear was for Max. But he couldn’t be back yet. Frantically, she felt the still form, found the slowly beating pulse in the throat. A man’s throat. A familiar smell. Cologne. My God, it must be
Bud.
Maybe Saulter had listened and sent Bud to keep an eye on her, but obviously the murderer had spotted him. She patted his pockets. Keys. A lighter. Shielding it with her hand, she flicked it on. Yes, it was Bud, with a smear of blood at the side of his head.

And no gun in his holster.

Annie crouched by the unconscious policeman, then hurtled toward her car, yanked open the door, jumped in, slammed and locked the door. She poked the key in the ignition, turned it, and nothing happened.

The phone dead. Bud knocked out. Her car disabled.

She was one sitting duck.

The murderer could get her now. The slam of the car door was unmistakable. He had to know where she was.

Minutes ticked by. Nothing happened.

She gripped the steering wheel. Okay, the murderer was after the film—

“Oh, God!”

Annie unlocked the car door, jumped out, started for the shop, stopped, flapped her hands frantically.

How could she have been so dumb?

She wasn’t the target. The killer was after Max! Max’s trip to the mainland had received full play at her abortive denouement—and this murderer thought fast and moved fester. The ferry would be back any minute, and the murderer would be there, waiting, ready to attack.

Car dead. Bud out. Phone off.

She had to get word to Saulter.

By the time she could knock at a condo, persuade someone to let her in, call the station, get Saulter, and convince him, it would be too late for Max.

Forever too late.

Her watch gleamed in the dark.

Five minutes to nine. The ferry was due back at nine.

Annie set off in a jog toward the condos. She’d find a bike. Steal one. Nobody locked up their bikes on Broward’s Rock. Then she saw a gleam of metal in the bushes near where Bud lay. She tore at the branches of wisteria. It took only a moment to get the keys out of Bud’s pocket. As she kicked the motorcycle to life, she remembered those long-ago summer outings on dirt bikes with Uncle Ambrose and gunned the motor.

Had anyone seen her race across the island, it would have been the stuff of legends: “Listen, my child, you shall hear of the night Annie Laurance flew by here.” But instead she took the bike trail across the Forest Preserve, which, understandably, was not heavily populated at nine o’clock on an October night, and erupted into public notice at the checkpoint.

Throttling down, she squealed the cycle to a pause and shouted at a startled Jimmy Moon, “Call Chief Saulter. Tell him the murderer’s after Max at the ferry landing and to come quick!”

The motorcycle jolted forward. Annie careened through the village streets and curved around the last corner to see the ferry bumping into the dock. She killed the motor and let the machine roll to a stop, then jumped down and began to run. She dared not call out. The killer had Bud’s gun. The murderer much preferred a quiet knockout, but the gun would be used if necessary. She had no doubt of that.

She ran up the blacktop, her flats slapping against the pavement. The Porsche bumped slowly off the ferry.

A dark figure stepped out into the road and hailed Max.

The Porsche stopped.

Annie was close enough to see a figure bend near the window.

She gripped a golf ball, raised her arm and let fly.

H
er golf ball struck Capt. Mac square on the temple just as Max slammed open the car door and creamed him across the chest.

The police car, red light whirling and siren snarling, slid to a stop on the dock. The lights from the police car showed Capt. Mac struggling to get to his feet and reaching beneath his black turtleneck sweater.

“He’s got Bud’s gun!” Annie shouted as Max turned to dive toward McElroy and Chief Saulter reached for his own gun.

Her second golf ball bulleted into Capt. Mac’s hand just as he drew out the pistol. Then Max’s flying tackle dumped the older man on his back.

Chief Saulter trained his gun on the two of them, retrieved Bud’s gun, then gestured for Max and his quarry to stand with their backs against the patrol car.

Parotti stumped off the ferry, his head jutting forward pugnaciously. “What the hell’s going on here? Can’t a man drink a beer in peace and quiet after a hard day?” Then he squinted at Max. “You still here? Got car trouble?”

Max jerked his head toward Capt. Mac, then rubbed his neck. “Ouch. Capt. Mac’s the murderer. He tried to jump me. Didn’t you see it?”

Parotti grumbled, “I was down below, but you people are making enough noise to raise the dead.”

Capt. Mac kept trying. “Saulter, I was going to make a citizen’s arrest. Darling’s the man you want. He’s—”

“Give it up,” Max advised. “I’ve got the pictures, McElroy, showing you on Elliot’s steps. Harriet had a talent for photography.”

Capt. Mac slumped back against the police car, his face stolid.

Max yanked on his pullover sweater which had twisted around his chest in the struggle. The whirling red light on the police car revealed an ugly scratch on the side of his face.

Annie was preparing to move forward, offer a handkerchief, and make sympathetic coos when Saulter, snapping handcuffs on Capt. Mac’s wrists, said, “So you solved it, Darling.”

She stopped in midstride. “Oh, no,” she objected energetically. “I solved it. I figured it out and came to save Max’s life.”

“Save my life! Hell, I knew it was Capt. Mac. Why do you think I rammed the door against him? I probably dented the hell out of it—”

“You just stopped in the middle of the road, and he was getting ready to cosh you. If it hadn’t been for me—”

“For God’s sake, I
had
to stop. He called out that he had you at his place, and if I ever wanted to see you again, I’d better cooperate.”

“You just looked at Harriet’s pictures,” she said derisively. “I
deduced
it.”

“Oh yeah! How?”

She described the third watercolor at Death On Demand. “And, of course, once I
thought
about it, it was easy. It had to be Capt. Mac.” She leaned forward to explain. “You see, it was just as Hercule Poirot always says. The character of the victim is all-important.”

“Look, Annie, admit it,” Max urged, “you made a lucky guess.”

“Guess, my monocle. It was an exercise in
reason.
One: Uncle Ambrose was smart. He was writing a book about murderers. He knew how dangerous killers are. He spent his life putting them behind bars. Would he turn his back on somebody he thought was a murderer? Hell, no. So that meant he wasn’t afraid of the person who killed him. Two: What was Uncle Ambrose going to do the very next week? He was going to make a trip to do some research on his book. His first stop was to have been in Florida. Silver City.” Annie turned to look toward the heavyset man in handcuffs. “You told us you didn’t have anything to do with
the Winningham investigation. You know something, Capt. Mac, I’ll bet that’s not true.”

McElroy’s face looked like a slab of rough-cut stone in the whirling red flash from the police car. He stared back at Annie with an ugly glint in his eyes.

“He trusted you. And you killed him.”

“You don’t have any evidence,” Saulter objected.

“When you investigate, you’ll find out,” Annie insisted. “Once you know where to look, it will all come apart.”

“A lucky guess,” Max repeated disdainfully. “I’m the one who figured it from information we received. Emma Clyde was the key. Obviously, she was being blackmailed. That’s the first thing she expected when Annie pretended to know what Morgan was going to spill Sunday night. And Carmen insisted Elliot wasn’t a blackmailer. So where did that leave us? There was a blackmailer on Broward’s Bock. And who was the only person in that bookstore Sunday night who lived in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house and didn’t have fat royalties to pay for it?” He pointed at the sullen figure of the ex-cop. “There he is. Living in a rich man’s house—but retired from a police force. Where did he get the money to buy a place here and live like a man of leisure? I wonder how much Winningham paid him? Somehow he knew something that would convict Emma of murder. He lived like a king by keeping things quiet for money. That’s what Morgan figured out. If an investigation into McElroy’s finances ever began, he would be finished.”

“Yeah.” Saulter nodded. “I finished up going through Morgan’s papers tonight. He’d gotten a copy of the Coast Guard report on the investigation into the drowning of Emma’s husband.

“It didn’t mean anything by itself. But it fits into your theories real nice. Guess who was in the boat anchored next to
Marigolds Pleasure?
Guess who told the Coast Guard there were no cries for help that night?”

“So,” Max declared grandly, “I figured it out.”

“Oh no.” Annie shook her blond head. “I did it.”

Heads lowered, hands on hips, Max and Annie glared furiously at each other.

C
hief Saulter stood just inside the bookshop door. He peered at Edgar.

“Pretty nice place here.”

Annie forbore to remind him that the last time he came in, he thought she was a murderess.

“Nice cat.” Saulter reached out to pet Agatha. Instead of streaking away as any perceptive feline would, Agatha rolled over on her back and kneaded her paws.