Murder Walks the Plank (13 page)

Indeed he did. Marriages, funerals, baptisms, cocktail parties, political rallies, theater openings, art receptions, charitable dinners, tailgate feasts, dances, balls, and barbecues—Laurel attended them all with delight.

“So you will understand that it is the social milieu, not the search for El Dorado, that prompts my attendance at the Ladies Investment Club.” A contented sigh. “I do not, of course, purchase stocks.”

Max shot a rueful look at the speakerphone. He and thousands of other bear-bitten investors surely would have been better off had they followed the example of his eccentric parent. But hindsight…

“I rather think no one else in the club followed that course. In particular”—and now her voice was sober—

“it might be of interest to note that Claudette Taylor was in the unfortunate position of being heavily into Enron. I believe, in fact, that her portfolio was seriously diminished. As Alexandre Dumas the Younger once explained: ‘Business? It's quite simple. It's other people's money.'” Laurel gave him a moment to appreciate Alexandre Dumas the Younger. “I remember her distress at the club luncheon last month. I remember how Meg scandalized everyone when she told Claudette never to cry over lost money, it was as silly as crying over a man, and neither men nor money were worth a single tear. Meg tossed that mane of dark hair and gave a whoop of laughter. She said, ‘Besides, you and the children will be rich when I keel over, and that's going to be sooner rather than later. Enron won't matter at all.'”

The connection ended.

Max finished the sentence:

Max looked at the last line. Six months. Surely Claudette—and Meg's daughter and son as well—could wait that long to get rich. Unless one of them had a desperate need for money right now, this moment, this Monday, surely Meg was not killed by an heir.

Max flipped to the second page of his pad, found the third question listed under Facts to Discover. After the query Who inherits? he scrawled: NA.

The phone rang. He checked Caller ID, raised an eyebrow, punched on the speaker, lifted the receiver.

 

“I'm here from the church. To see if I can help.” Annie hoped her smile was ingratiating and that her guardian angel was not hovering in a cloud of disapproval. After all, her intentions were honorable if not her methods. “I'm Annie Darling.”

“Imogene Riley.” She spoke with the innate confidence of a woman who was good at her job and knew it. “I don't know what will be needed yet. I'm waiting to talk to Claudette.” She glanced toward the hall. “But now the police have come….” She looked soberly at Annie. “Do you know why they're here?”

Annie doubted that Billy Cameron would approve of the public announcement of a murder investigation. In fact, Billy had not yet agreed that a murder had occurred. He was here because Meg had died from an overdose of Valium. Such an overdose could, in theory, have occurred by accident or on purpose. If on purpose, the determination would have to be made between suicide and murder. Annie had no doubt which had occurred. But now was not
the time to explain this to the cook. Housekeeper? Whichever, she might hold knowledge Annie wanted. And she might be much more willing to divulge information if she were uninformed as to the cause of her employer's death.

Annie purposefully avoided a direct answer. “There are lots of formalities when someone dies without a doctor in attendance.”

“Oh.” Once again there was a sidelong glance toward the hallway.

Was there also an easing of tension in Imogene's broad shoulders? Annie maintained a pleasant, vacuous expression. “I wondered what I can do to be helpful. The police asked Claudette to go with them to Mrs. Heath's room.”

“Please come in.” Imogene held the door open.

Annie stepped into the immaculate kitchen. Gladiolas in a tall vase added a cheerful note. “I know this is a shock, though I suppose Mrs. Heath wasn't feeling well this weekend.”

The reply was quick and definite. “Oh no, ma'am. She was chipper as could be Friday.” The calm voice held an echo of remembered liveliness. “Oh, I know she was worn out from her heart, but you'd never have thought it to see her, her eyes shiny as a new penny. And she was so excited about tonight. I was getting things ready for the table when I heard the siren. The first siren.” She pointed at a stack of china on the counter.

“Tonight?” Annie looked at the counter, saw silver in orderly rows, crystal, and damask napkins.

Imogene's face was sad. “Mrs. Heath said it was going to be the start of the rest of her life. Course, she talked like that. Everything was always the most or the
best. But this dinner”—her voice was assured—“meant a lot to her. She said to use the Cartier china. Her very favorite.” She moved heavily across the tile floor, held up a dinner plate with a stylized big cat, black with yellow spots. The inside of the plate was circled with red and the outer rim had a gold band. Imogene ran a finger around the outer rim, slowly put down the plate. “Nobody had prettier tables than Mrs. Heath. But now…” She sighed. “People will start coming with food pretty soon. I'd better get out the big coffeepot.” She walked to a closet, opened it, and stepped inside. She came out with a huge coffeemaker, holding it with both hands.

Annie hurried to help. Together they set the coffeemaker on the counter. “Did you talk to Mrs. Heath about the dinner?”

Imogene poured water into the pot. “Claudette told me the plans Friday afternoon, but I talked to Mrs. Heath Friday evening when I took supper up to her. Claudette had already given me the menu—”

Annie kept a pleasant, inquiring look on her face, but a dozen questions whirled in her mind. Claudette hadn't said a word about a special dinner party. Was that the reason she and Jenna had exchanged a long, wary look when Annie asked if anything special had happened this weekend?

“—and the wine list and told me which china. We always use a damask cloth with that china and crystal. But Mrs. Heath changed her mind about the dessert. She wanted me to fix Black Bottom Parfait instead of Bananas Foster.”

Annie watched as Imogene measured precisely for twenty-four cups. “Is that when she said it was to be a special dinner?”

Imogene fastened the strainer into the pot, put the lid in place. Plugging in the coffeemaker, she switched it on. “She was as thrilled as a kid at Christmas.”

Annie wished for the old-fashioned days of place cards. It would be very helpful to know whom Meg had invited to this very special dinner. “Was it going to be a large dinner party?”

“Claudette said to set the table for six.” The cook frowned, glanced toward a cabinet. “I wonder if I should get out pottery cups or Styrofoam?”

Annie was decisive. “Styrofoam.” Six guests had been expected tonight. Now the dinner party would never occur, the dinner party that Claudette hadn't mentioned, the party that had Meg as excited as a child.

“I guess I'll put the china up.” Imogene moved toward the stack of plates.

Annie looked toward the huge refrigerator. Was it full of delicacies? “What were you planning to serve tonight?”

“Oh, it would have been a fine meal.” It was a lament. “Even with grits on the table.”

Annie loved grits. Grits plain, grits with butter, grits with sugar, grits with syrup, grits with cheese and garlic. But grits at a dinner party? “Grits?”

“Grits.” Imogene planted her hands on her hips. “It wouldn't have come up except she was having grits for her supper Friday. I'd fixed her grit cakes with shrimp sauce and a spinach salad. That woman loved grits any way they could be fixed. She told me a long time ago how she'd hungered for grits when she was in England and she couldn't have them because nobody'd ever heard of grits. She clapped her hands together and said grits was honest food. She kept talking about grits being
real and honest and then she laughed and said she wanted a big bowl of grits for the dinner Monday night. With lots of fresh butter. I told her grits had no place on that fancy table—” She saw Annie's look of surprise. “I always told Mrs. Heath what I thought. She liked for me to speak up. But when I said grits would stick out like a sore thumb—we were to have Shrimp Chinois and apple-apricot-rice soufflé and asparagus with mustard-butter sauce—she shook her head and said grits would be perfect. Well, she had her mind made up, and that woman never took no for an answer. Then she said the oddest thing.” Imogene's brow furrowed. “She wasn't looking at me. She was on her chaise longue and her face was kind of white and tired but her eyes were bright as stars. You know”—Imogene's tone was confiding—“she always reminded me of someone grand like a duchess or a movie star. Her face was long and thin and the bones kind of sharp but she looked real special, the way I always thought Anastasia must have looked—”

Annie felt a flicker of surprise, then scolded herself. Why should she assume Imogene would never have heard of Anastasia?

“—even though people say she wasn't really one of the Russian princesses. If a woman has that air, people pay attention. They always paid attention to Mrs. Heath. She had that look on Friday, like she ought to be wearing pearls and coming down a golden staircase in a red dress even though she was just lying there in her dressing gown. She was pleased. She looked out toward the ocean and said, real low and soft, ‘I've always been a romantic fool. But I'd like for it to end that way, the two of us together.' She threw back her head and gave that laugh of hers.” Imogene looked at Annie. “Did you ever hear her laugh?”

Annie, too, heard laughter in her memory, rich and throaty, effervescent as bubbles in champagne. She smiled at the cook. “Yes.”

“She was real happy.” Imogene snapped the lid on the coffee cannister. “That's the way I'll always remember her.”

 

“Hi, Emma.” Max's tone was genial but wary. He would never admit to being intimidated by the island mystery author, but any man would approach a wild boar with caution and with deep respect for the damage that can be inflicted by razor-sharp tusks. He sketched a grizzle-faced boar in a caftan, black hooves poised above a computer keyboard.

“Caller ID is hell for detective fiction.” The author's raspy voice was dour. “To make an anonymous phone call you have to find a damn pay phone. And cell phones are an absolute bitch. Everybody's got one. Used to be, the heroine could go to the cemetery at midnight—you know, she gets a note from her lover but of course it is really from the wicked uncle—and the reader's palms are sweaty as the villain creeps toward her, and when she sees him and hides beneath an overturned wheel-barrow, the reader knows her doom is sealed, but now all she has to do is switch on her cell phone and punch nine-one-one.” A huff of outrage. “Makes it almost impossible to put a character in jeopardy.”

Max curled the lips of the feral hog in disgust, rapidly added a cell phone smashed by a flying hoof. “Damn shame,” he agreed.

“And when they can be useful, the damn things are always turned off or you hit a dead pocket and it won't work. I've been calling Annie but all I get is voice mail.” Emma was clearly irritated. “I've left messages
on her home phone, at the store, and on her cell. Now, here's what I want her to do—”

Max wrote swiftly. When the call ended, he looked at his notes, grinned. Shades of E. Phillips Oppenheim.

 

Annie circled the block. Where had all these cars come from? But she could look at the license plates and tell. Most of them were from Georgia and South Carolina, but every third or fourth came from Ohio. Her eyes widened at one all the way from British Columbia. There was a hardy traveler. A downside to living on a resort island in summer was the search for a parking spot in the little downtown. Annie glowered. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Why didn't they go to the beach? However, as a merchant she never faulted tourists for shopping. Maybe a bunch of them would end up at Death on Demand today, as she herself should as soon as possible. Ingrid was probably wondering where she was. But Ingrid always managed. She'd ask her husband, Duane, to help out if the crowds got too thick. Annie thought with pleasure of customers flocking into Death on Demand, sunburned tourists shoulder to shoulder all buying beach books, hopefully the beautiful and expensive hardcovers.

Her third swing around the block she found a spot a street away from the offices of the
Island Gazette
. She parked, fumbled for a couple of quarters for the meter. By the time she reached the newspaper office she was dripping with sweat. Just short of the front door, she stopped and stared intently into the window of the shoe store. Hmm, pretty yellow slingbacks…She cut her eyes toward the
Gazette
front window. All she wanted to do was bop in and buy last Friday's paper as well as the Sunday issue, find out if there was something in the
newspaper that the murderer wanted to make certain both Pamela Potts and Meg Heath never saw. But once inside the
Gazette
offices, she'd be sure to see either Vince Ellis, the owner and publisher, or Marian Kenyon, star reporter and, more to the point, human antenna. Marian would demand the skinny on everything that had happened on the mystery cruise. Marian had very likely already picked up the drumbeat that Annie was certain Pamela was a murder victim. Annie was in no position to describe her morning. It wasn't her place to announce the death of Meg Heath, much less the fact that the police were investigating an overdose of Valium. Billy Cameron would understandably oppose such a revelation.

Annie turned, walked away from the
Gazette
door. She was hotter than beach sand by the time she reached Parotti's, the down-home restaurant and bait shop. She scanned the newspaper racks near the entrance, scrounged four quarters from the bottom of her purse, and bought a Sunday paper. There were no Friday issues left.