Something Wicked (21 page)

“That’s right,” Janet agreed eagerly. “She’s bedded every man on the damn island at least once. Everybody knows that. And she could have sneaked in here. She could have come in by the stage door—or downstairs some way, just like whoever played all the tricks. You find out where Sheridan was last night.”

“Oh, I already have.” The tip of a pink tongue caressed his lower lip. “First thing I found out.”

Even Janet, not-so-clever Janet, heard the lip-smacking undertone.

“Seems Mrs. Petree was busy last night between ten and eleven
P.M.
Very, very busy.”

All eyes were on him. He wallowed in the attention.

Burt frowned, his thin mouth pursed. He made a movement, as if to intervene, then shrugged. Even the president of the players had no control over a circuit solicitor.

“Mrs. Petree was in room one-nineteen of the Crown Shore Motel at ten
P.M.
—and she wasn’t alone. She was certainly not alone.”

Obviously, it was a bombshell to most of his listeners. Sam, of course, with no attention directed at him or his play, continued to look bored and fretful.

Eugene stared steadily at the floor. A red stain flushed his
cheeks. Arthur studied Posey as if he’d just crawled out from beneath a rock.

Janet didn’t give up easily. “It could be a fake. Some man she’s persuaded—”

“Not just any man, Mrs. Horton. Mrs. Petree was with Mr. Harley Jenkins the Third, and he corroborates her every … movement.” His watery blue eyes had a hot sheen. “The night clerk is well acquainted with Mr. Jenkins. He saw them go into the room. And stay there.”

Saulter’s face creased in a disapproving mask. Annie knew he was disgusted both by Posey’s salacious insinuations and by his lack of professionalism, though Posey could point to a written transcript and demand to know what he had said that was objectionable. It was, of course, all in the way he had said it. He might as well have passed around porno photos of Harley and Sheridan.

Janet looked deflated, her thin cheeks sagging. Carla’s patrician face was ostensibly indifferent, but the revulsion was clear in her large violet eyes, while Hugo looked on sardonically. Annie would have given some zero coupon bonds for his thoughts.

Only Cindy seemed unaffected by Posey’s performance. “Somebody sure could have come in downstairs. There are broken windows, lots of ways.”

Posey looked at her cynically. “That’s very convenient for you to say, Miss Horton. Are you suddenly trying to protect your father, too?”

“He doesn’t need protecting,” Janet protested.

“Perhaps he doesn’t, Mrs. Horton,” Posey agreed unctuously. “Because he isn’t alone among men with motives to kill Mr. Petree.” Posey whirled to point at Max. “Is he, Mr. Darling?”

Annie’s heart began to thud and she knew then that, for all their differences, she and Janet were sisters under the skin when their men were threatened.

“Yes, we all know who had the strongest motive, don’t we? Whose fiancée was throwing herself at Shane Petree? Who’s used to having his way, a rich man, who can have what he wants, when he wants it?” Posey paused long enough for every eye to be riveted on him. “Who was the Long Island Skeet Champion four years ago?” He gave three judicious
nods and pointed his stubby forefinger at Max. “Mr. Maxwell Darling.”

Annie knew it was a performance, knew that every word and gesture was calculated to arouse. She knew it, but she couldn’t stay quiet.

“You are a champion asshole,” she announced loudly. “You wouldn’t know a motive if you fell over it. Nobody in his right mind believes I would go after Shane! Why don’t you find out who hated Shane? Somebody must have—and it wasn’t Max. Max just
despised
him.”

Max rolled his eyes helplessly and made a tamping motion with his hand. But Annie charged ahead. “Why don’t you find out why the murder happened during rehearsal, and not during a performance? Where was Shane going Tuesday night? Why was he all excited? And he was! Ask anybody. And we’ve
told
you about the problems we had with the play. Somebody even shot the Hortons’ cat! Max had no reason in the world to want to ruin the season, and obviously the sabotage must be connected to Shane’s murder!”

Posey’s jaws clenched. His pig-ugly eyes glared. “I’m not fooled by all the clever tricks that’ve been played. That sabotage didn’t hurt a thing. If it’s connected to the murder, Darling did it to confuse everybody. And,” he concluded triumphantly, “it may not have a thing to do with the murder. The bullet that killed that cat didn’t come from the gun that killed Petree. So, don’t think anybody’s going to play me for a fool, Miss Laurance. I’m taking Mr. Rich-and-Smart Darling into Beaufort to ask him some mighty sharp questions—and his money won’t do him one bit of good.”

As he hustled Max from the stage, Annie remembered another of Charlie Chan’s philosophical asides. “If strength were all, tiger would not fear scorpion.” And she pictured herself as a bright red darting scorpion!

Later, when it became important, Annie would calculate the time between the breakup of the meeting at the school auditorium and one forty-five when Saulter called her with the shocking news. But she wasn’t thinking about time as she dialed call after call from Death on Demand. She was trying to make up her mind. Did she want to hire an establishment lawyer, an advocate in a Hermès tie from a ninety-man firm in Atlanta? Or did she want a blunt-spoken F. Lee Bailey, ready to scrap in the courtroom or out of it? Her personal taste ran to colorful fictional counselors like John J. Malone, who consumed far too much rye whiskey, and Donald Lam, who had lost his license. Perry Mason, of course, was busy in southern California. The smart money would opt for Antony Maitland or Horace Rumpole, but what she would give for the likes of a Dade Cooley!

She made a half dozen calls, culled through as many suggestions, and finally ran a whispery-voiced Jed McClanahan to earth in Columbia.

“You’re the best criminal lawyer in South Carolina?” she demanded without preliminaries.

McClanahan’s response was gratifyingly prompt. “Ma’am, I’m the best criminal lawyer in the United States of America.”

On this encouraging note, she hired him to represent Max. “The circuit solicitor—the idiot—has taken him to Beaufort for questioning!” she fumed.

“Ma’am, would that be Brice Posey you’re talkin’ about?”

“It certainly would. Do you know him?”

“I can say I’ve made his acquaintance, and I’m pinin’ to meet him again.” If Annie had felt uncertain, the curl of derision in McClanahan’s husky voice sealed her choice. “Now, you just relax there on the island and don’t fret. I’ll
have Mr. Darlin’ back across the water before you can shake a stick.”

Annie felt an instant’s unease. Did she really want a cliché-stuffed mind representing Max? But the deal was made. And at least he wasn’t sanctimoniously quoting Scripture like H.C. Bailey’s shyster, Joshua Clunk.

“How long do you think it will take, Mr. McClanahan?” She doodled on the phone pad, drawing a cell window with a white hankie flapping from it.

“Quicker than a Texas tornado, Miss Laurance.”

After she hung up, she stared at the receiver in dismay. Had she bought a pig in a poke? Lordy, was it catching? “Damn,” she said aloud.

The phone rang.

It would not be quite fair to say that, in common with white rats subjected simultaneously to a ring and a sting, she now exhibited an automatic response to the peal of a telephone bell.

She did quiver, and her eyes flared, but she was proud to see she picked it up with a steady hand.

“Death on Demand.”

The macaw-sharp screech didn’t bother with salutations. “It’s clear as can be. And I’m working on it.” So, Dame Beatrice Bradley was hewing to the scent. “I’m at the Crown Shore Motel, and they aren’t going to put
anything
over on me.”

“The Crown Shore Motel,” Annie repeated blankly.

“Where Sheridan and Harley
claim
they spent the period during which Shane was murdered. Annie, you know your Freeman Wills Crofts. The real tip-off is an impregnable alibi. Well, just wait until I look it over. We’ll see.”

Annie hung up, and she couldn’t help grinning. The Crown Shore Motel wouldn’t know what hit it. Well, if there was anything fishy about that alibi, Henny would soon know. She drew a snaggletoothed fish on her pad, a crouching lioness, and a fat toad, then settled in for a serious bout of thinking.

Finally, she wrote down three conclusions:

All of which led inescapably to the conclusion, at least so far as Annie was concerned, that a great deal more attention must be paid the victim.

Why was Shane killed?

Why was he killed on Tuesday night?

Why had he changed the pattern of his life in recent months, according to Henny’s informant?

Who was the redheaded woman with Shane at The Red Rooster?

Why did Shane tell Cindy he was busy on the night he was killed?

Why did Shane rush through his lines?

Why had he loaded his boat that afternoon?

Annie leaned against the railing that overlooked the Broward’s Rock harbor. It was chock-full of pleasure craft this lovely summer day, almost every slip taken. A magnificent yacht (Fitzgerald was right; the rich
are
different) had tied up the night before and tourists gawked admiringly through sparkling windows at the slim, tanned young men and women lounging in the saloon. But Annie’s eyes were focused on a sailboat at the far end of the harbor.

So Shane spent every possible moment aboard his sailboat. And he’d carried gear aboard Tuesday. Cindy saw him.

Cindy and Shane had often gone for midnight sails, and that’s what she’d hoped for that night, but Shane said he was busy.

Why, then, had he carried something aboard?

What had he carried aboard?

Why was Shane excited and hyper at the rehearsal, champing to be done and gone?

Annie glanced toward the well-kept marina office. As usual, the owner, Skipper Worrell, was in residence. He ran a tight marina. Only ship owners were allowed on the docks. Tourists had to stay harborside.

He knew her, of course.

But he wouldn’t let the Angel Gabriel board a boat that didn’t belong to him. And Skipper knew what was going on around the island. He would know, as probably every newspaper-reading cretin in the county knew, that Shane had been shot dead Tuesday night.

So he wouldn’t let Annie board
Sweet Lady.

Annie cupped her chin in her hand and stared across the pea-green water. The harbor was shaped like a shallow horseshoe. On the spit of land to the south was the burned-out playhouse. After dark, it would be easy to slip into the water there unseen.

Hurried footsteps clipped across the wooden verandah behind her. Ingrid called urgently, “Annie, Annie, come quick!”

Holding hard to the telephone receiver, Annie made him repeat it.

But she’d heard the chief right the first time. “We found a gun, Annie. A twenty-two. Right on top of some wet towels in the clothes hamper in Max’s bathroom.” Silence. “You could’ve knocked me over with a whisk broom.”

“Somebody planted it there. The
murderer
put it there!”

Chief Saulter sighed wearily. “Course, it’ll have to go through ballistics to see if it’s the gun that killed Shane.”

“Oh, it did,” she said bitterly. “You can bet that it did. Dammit, this makes me
crazy!
What time did you find it—and what were you doing searching Max’s condo?”

“Look, Annie, I can’t talk any longer. I’m calling you from my car phone at the ferry dock. I’ve got to take the gun into Beaufort—and tell Posey.”

“Chief, I’m coming, too!”

She flung down the phone and raced for the front of the store, calling over her shoulder to Ingrid, “Take care of everything. I’ve got to go to Beaufort.”

She was at the front door when the familiar peal sounded again. Annie didn’t slacken speed. She was at the end of the verandah, when she hear Ingrid shouting, “Annie, it’s Laurel. What shall I tell her?”

“Tell her … tell her the cake is … is lovely, and I’ll talk to her later.”

Much, much later.

Was it possible that a red wedding cake shaped like a truncated pyramid and topped by a fir sapling would satisfy Laurel?

Oh, dammit. Annie couldn’t believe she was even thinking about the wedding with Max tied to the rails and a locomotive streaking toward him.

She drove like Modesty Blaise, but it didn’t do any good. The ferry was pulling away from the dock as she slewed to a stop and jumped out.

Chief Saulter raised a hand in a lugubrious farewell. He looked as jolly as Mme. Defarge.

“Dammit, it was a plant!” Then, cupping her hands, she yelled, “What time did you go to Max’s condo?”

The words drifted back to her across the water. “One-thirty. Why?”

But she was walking swiftly toward the outdoor phone booth, calculating the time and reaching for a quarter. She had to make an important call.

The booth smelled of cigarette smoke, beer, and seaweed. It took five quarters to track the world’s greatest trial lawyer to the Tell-It-to-the-Navy Bar and Grill in Beaufort.

“You can’t keep him out of jail from there.”

“What? What’d you say, hon?” The nail-scraping whine of a synthesizer pulsed behind the whispery voice.

Annie shouted, “You can’t keep him out of jail from there!”