The Christie Caper (10 page)

“Well, uh, Mrs. Roethke, sure sorry you were upset. Pretty unpleasant, I know.”

Laurel sipped at her Scotch. “Dear Edgar captured a like feeling so well in that treasured classic of the ages, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’”

“Edgar Allan Poe,” Annie supplied irritably.

“So you take this shooting seriously?” Saulter asked Laurel.

No voice ever seemed more prophetic of doom than Laurel’s husky whisper. Her words fell softly like stones slipping quietly into deep water. “‘And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of velvet.’”

Annie recognized it, of course. From Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” But even so, the words sent a chill through her, and the back of her neck prickled with horror. Which perhaps explained her overreaction.

“Oh, come
on,
Laurel. Somebody potting wildly with a twenty-two isn’t quite of the same realm as the bubonic plague. There’s such a thing as reading too much Poe, you know.” Annie swung toward the chief, managing a tight smile. “Laurel’s really
into
Poe, as the saying goes. I think we’re all taking this too seriously.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, it’s almost one o’clock and I’ve got a big day tomorrow …” The biggest day of her career. Why, oh, why did Laurel have to maunder on about Poe and why did that machismo jerk Bledsoe sign up for
her
conference and
how
was Annie going to close this investigation down? “… and everything will look better in the morning,” she ended hopefully.

Saulter merely settled deeper in his chair. “Annie, what were you and Bledsoe crossways about at the reception tonight?”

Annie jammed a hand through her sandy hair. “The guy charges in like Rambo and blames me for his room assignment.” Crisply, she described Bledsoe’s phobia and the resulting panic attack. “I thought he was having a heart attack, but Henny figured it out. Anyway, he shows up at the reception and starts in on me about the room assignments. As if I knew or cared who he was, or what kind of phobias he might have. Actually, if he doesn’t stop acting like such an asshole, I may slip a friendly alligator into his suite. Serve him right.”

Saulter tapped his pen on his notebook. “The hotel made the room assignments? Not any of your staff?”

Annie glared at him. “Absolutely. We had nothing to do with it.” She flapped her hands indignantly. “Frank, surely you don’t think the room assignment was a deliberate attempt by one of us to freak the guy!”

“I have to consider it, Annie.” There was no hint of apology in his Low Country drawl. “Because somebody sure as hell shot at him tonight We found four shells in the pittosporum.” (He pronounced it like a true South Carolinian: piss-poe-rum.) “No footprints to speak of. Too many leaves and drifted palm fronds. No trace of the gun.”

Max leaned forward. “I thought the kids heard a splash.”

“And they saw the guy, too, didn’t they?” Annie demanded. She still smarted from the slight to the staff of her bookstore. “And we were all inside Death on Demand,” she concluded triumphantly.

Saulter cocked his head Did he think he was Colonel John Primrose? “Was everyone?” he drawled. As Annie spluttered, the chief pointed at her. “Okay, Annie. You’re out of it. I saw you. I was watching you because of your set-to with Bledsoe. And you’re going to tell me more about that before we finish—and how that woman in the used-book section figures in, too. Anyway, I can account for you. And Max. But it was crowded in there. Somebody could have slipped out
the back door, run down the alley, done the shooting, and easily slipped back inside during the panic and confusion right after the shots.” He tapped his notebook. “And that includes, among many, Ingrid, Henny, and you, Mrs. Roethke.”

Annie’s mouth opened in a soundless O. So the names and addresses of those at the reception were taken not to establish alibis, but to add to the number of suspects. Oh, wow.

“Right-o,” Henny bayed, still in her Colonel Race persona. “Not accustomed to suspect’s role. New experience. Good-oh.”

Laurel smoothed back a tendril of blond hair. “One writer even went so far as to suggest,” her tone was one of quiet condescension, “that our own dear Edgar was himself the murderer of Mary Rogers!”

Annie muttered wearily, “‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.’ The first fictional use of a true crime. Young woman clerk in a New York cigar store disappeared, body found in river. Never solved for certain.”

Max scowled. “That’s absurd.”

Laurel beamed at her son. “Dear Max, you agree! Certainly it was absurd to accuse Edgar!”

Saulter’s face creased in puzzlement.

Max was more accustomed to Laurel’s thought processes. “That’s not the matter at issue,” he said to his mother. “Look, Frank, it’s obvious Mother couldn’t have had anything to do with it. She doesn’t know a thing about Bledsoe.”

“Not true, darling,” Laurel trilled.

Now she truly had everyone’s attention. Especially the chief’s.

Laurel gazed at them all with childlike candor. “So necessary, isn’t it, in a criminal investigation to reveal every last tidbit of information, whether or not germane?” Laurel’s countenance drooped. “A truly discomfiting experience. Very bad karma. Do you know, I feel confident Edgar would have truly understood the concept of karma!”

Saulter refused to be distracted. “You know Bledsoe?”

“I am acquainted with him.
Not
a memory I cherish.” She fingered her gold charm bracelet and a tiny ship clicked against a palm tree. “That mystery cruise to Rio.” She turned
wide blue eyes on Annie. “My dear, I was
so glad
you weren’t along. Though I
always
treasure your company. Your
serious
approach to life, your no-nonsense attitude, your—”

“Bledsoe was on the ship?” Saulter prompted.

She nodded agreeably. “A speaker. On the mystery. Though, I must certainly say, not the mystery as I understand it. All about books with characters named Big Al and Rutabaga Ralph”—a slight frown—“or was it Banana Bob? And the detectives he talked about.
Not
gentlemen. And no first names. Quill or Brill or Spode or Tarker. And drink? My dears,” she leaned forward confidingly, “this
enormous
capacity for alcohol, as if that were admirable! And sex at the most unexpected”—her glance paused on her son and she changed course—“a most peculiar, and I might add, unattractive, view of women. No more than chattel. To be used and abused. And the plots seemed—”

“Mrs. Roethke! That’s fine. That’s enough. You knew Bledsoe from a mystery cruise. Any other contact?”

“No. Not an acquaintanceship to be pursued.” A cheerful smile.

Saulter asked abruptly, “What’s your opinion of him?”

Laurel placed her fingertips together and looked off, as if into a great distance, her face grave, her demeanor one of unparalleled sobriety. “‘The worst heart of the world is a grosser book than the
Hortulus Animae,
and perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that “er lasst sich nicht lessen.”’”

“The closing sentence of ‘The Man of the Crowd,’” Annie murmured. “Poe opens the story by saying that it is well said of a certain German book that ‘it does not permit itself to be read.’”

“Uh, yeah.” Undaunted, the chief scrawled something in his notes. Laurel smiled on them serenely. Max ate the last peanut and stared thoughtfully at the empty bowl.

Annie was still hoping for a quick resolution. “Chief, did the boys get a good look at the gunman?”

Saulter laughed grimly. “Did they? To hear those kids tell it, he was ten feet tall, had a skull instead of a head, was dressed all in black. Unfortunately, they didn’t see all that much. They were on their bikes and had just come out of the alley when they heard the shots”—as Saulter related
their report, Max idly sketched a map on a cocktail napkin—“which they thought were firecrackers. Then they heard the glass break and saw Bledsoe fall down on top of Honeycutt. The bushes rustled over by the ruin of the old theater, and a minute later they heard a splash. Not much to be seen at night. I’ll have Billy go down tomorrow and take a look. Maybe the gunman got rid of his weapon before he ran. Course, there’s so much muck in that harbor, it’ll be a miracle if we find anything. The harbor hasn’t been dredged for almost eight years. Anyways, the boys heard running footsteps. The boys took off for the bushes.” Saulter blew out a spurt of air.

Max handed his map to Annie, and she saw at a glance why no one had caught the gunman. A grove of pines stood behind the shrubbery. Easy enough to duck behind a pine and wait until the excitement cooled down.

“Damn fool kids. And Scouts, too. Should’ve known better. I asked Willy Washburn what the hell he thought he was going to do if they’d caught up with a man with a gun.”

“But the man didn’t have the gun at that point,” Laurel interposed.

Saulter glowered at her. “So they heard a splash! Could have been a fish. Anyway, they got to the pine grove and didn’t see anybody. That’s when they turned around and hightailed it to the shops.”

Max popped up to freshen the glasses. Annie glared at him, but he was oblivious. Did he have to be such a good host? They’d never go home.

Henny ate the rest of a fat pretzel and took a sip. “At least we know the gunman was a man.”

“Nope.” Saulter sounded grim. “The most those boys saw was a figure. They heard a splash; they heard running footsteps. Could be a man. Could be a woman. And the guy from your conference”—he looked toward Annie—“hell, he was worse than useless. Saw
someone.
Could’ve been tall. Thought maybe short. Yes, it
might
have been a woman. The kind of witness who sees everything but a giraffe in red tights. But, believe me, I’m going to find out. And Annie, you’re going to help me. Somebody shot at Neil Bledsoe right after he left your store. You told him to get the hell out. Why?”

“He was rude to another customer,” she said briefly.

“The lady who dropped the book?”

“Yes. She’s the widow of a mystery writer. The book was one by her husband.”

“Is that the book he tossed at the desk?”

“Right.”

“What’s this widow’s name?”

“Victoria Shaw.”

Saulter wrote in his notebook, then gave Annie a hard stare. “Was Bledsoe rude to anyone else at the store?”

Annie sighed. “Of course. The man couldn’t cross a street without being rude. God, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Frank?” Curiously, Henny had dropped her role-playing. She was once again herself, bright, sharp, and noticing. “Why on earth are you asking Annie?”

For a moment Annie didn’t understand.

It was Laurel who saw it at once. “Surely it is only too simple. Why, who would better know his enemies?”

Max was nodding in agreement.

The chief’s corrugated face slowly and painfully turned a dull red.

Annie finally tumbled. “Bledsoe!” she bleated. “Why don’t you ask Bledsoe who would be likely to shoot at him?”

A muscle rippled in Saulter’s jaw and he spoke through clenched teeth, making him difficult to understand. “… arrogant … pigheaded, obstinate fool …
he’ll
take care of it …”

Annie relaxed against the love seat and grinned at Max. If Bledsoe wouldn’t tell the chief the likely suspects, certainly it was no duty of hers. Besides, Emma was the ticket….

Annie stretched luxuriously between the silk sheets. She didn’t really like silk sheets. But Max did, of course. They
were
comfortable. Silky. And so was her negligee. Max had packed it. Cute of him. He always looked forward to hotel stays and had been especially insistent that they book this suite—actually, the honeymoon suite—for the duration of the conference. They could just as easily have driven over to the hotel from home. Really, extraordinarily thoughtful of Max to be so concerned with the success of her pet project! Insisting it was much better to be on the spot. So much to do tomorrow. Make sure everything was in readiness for the arrival of Lady Gwendolyn.

The bed sagged a little as Max slipped between the sheets. There was a tiny click. Annie opened her eyes, startled. A dim radiance spilled down onto the bed. She looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw her reflection and his in the discreetly illuminated, heart-shaped mirror on the ceiling.

She looked at Max.

He grinned.

And so did she.