by Carolyn Hart
“Would have been?” Max finished his tea.
“I can do a new program if someone else provides the money and the manpower. Without that—” She turned her hands palms-up.
“What was Edith’s objection to the program?” Max quickly figured the librarian’s age. Late thirties, maybe. Why was she antimilitary? A big brother who went to Vietnam?
“Her son’s really come into his own the last couple of years. He’s super at Ping-Pong. That’s been a pretty cool game since it got into the Olympics. And he’s pretty good at baseball. He manages that even though he’s diabetic. Insulin-dependent.” Anthea unrolled the brim of the hat, plopped it on her head. “But I don’t think”—her tone was considering—“that he could hang in for a real tough, boot-camp-type program. And you know how kids are. If the new program really caught on, all the cool guys would be in it. Everybody except Ken. That’s what Edith was afraid of.”
A coach glanced toward the building thunderclouds. Lightning rippled down through the dark layers, flashing like strobe lights at a celestial rock concert. A bat connected with a ball and the clear, tinny sound mingled with cheers and moans.
“There you are,” Annie said brightly.
Edith Cummings leaned against the jagged bark of a palmetto. She looked at Annie without enthusiasm. “Yeah, here I am. On my own time, so to speak. Watching my kid play ball. Not doing reference questions at the present moment.”
That made Annie mad. “Really? I’ve got a pretty good one. What kind of person stands by and watches an innocent person go to jail?”
“They caught him red-handed, didn’t they? Oh, no blood dripping, but the closest thing to a smoking gun you’ll ever see. Almost trite, wasn’t it?” She leaned forward to watch an out at first, yelled, “Way to go, Rafael.”
“Samuel found the gun. And the only reason he was even near the willows is because you asked him to hunt for Toby. He was coming along the path and he stumbled into the gun. Then he heard somebody in the willows.”
“Voilà!” Edith spread her hands. “Our stalwart youth can save the day, announce to the police the identity of the culprit and all will be well.”
“Dammit, Edith, he didn’t see anybody, he heard them.”
“Them?” Her glance was sharp.
“He heard somebody whisper. Then a laugh.”
Edith slapped a hand to her brow. “I’ve got it. Eureka! Assemble the suspects and ask everybody to whisper, then laugh. The murderer will be undone.”
“You’re being a bitch.”
“I didn’t show up twenty feet from a dead man with a gun in my hand.”
How would Miriam Ann Moore’s Marti Hirsch approach Edith? With panache. Annie settled for a blunt “How many résumés did you have out, Edith?”
Edith pushed away from the palm, placed her hands on her hips. “So what the hell are you talking about?”
Annie didn’t mince words. “Hatch was going to get you fired.”
Edith glared. “Listen, sweetheart, I could get another job in a flash. Who’s been spreading these glad tidings about me?”
Annie didn’t answer.
“My esteemed boss, Director Fisher? Well, let me tell you a little secret, my dear. Hatch was going to get Ned canned. And you can put that in the bank.”
Cheers rose from the stands. Edith’s head jerked toward the field. She pumped her hand in the air. “Did you see that? Ken caught the ball.”
The scoreboard flashed: “Visitors 2 outs.” The pitcher went into his windup.
The palmetto fronds rattled in the freshening wind. Annie raised her voice. “Ned says he could get another job in a flash, too.”
“Sure he could.” Edith’s eyes glittered. “Only one little, tiny drawback. He’d have to sling his rucksack over his shoulder and march off into the distance alone. No way will anybody ever get Toby off this island.”
Max leaned on the horn. His crimson Ferrari roared toward the ferry landing like a stealth bomber through a mountain pass. Often Ben Parotti ignored the frantic beep of a horn and the ferry moved away into the sound, leaving a motorist trapped until the ferry returned. Today Parotti waited. Max didn’t know whether to thank his lucky stars or the good tip he’d left at lunch. The red car rumbled over the planks, the last one aboard.
Parotti waggled his cap. The ferry moved heavily away from the dock and immediately began to rock.
Max waved back and relaxed in his seat. Be interesting to know what Johnny Joe Jenkins had—Max peered up at the wheelhouse.
Parotti was waving his cap vigorously.
Max craned his head. Damn, was Parotti paying any attention to the crossing? Certainly the ferry ride from the island to the mainland wasn’t on a par with crossing the Bosporus, but it did take some attention.
Now Parotti’s bony arm pumped like a windmill in a gale.
Max waved.
Parotti took his other hand off the wheel, lifted both hands to the heavens, then, as the ferry lurched, grabbed the wheel with one, thrust the other, still holding the cap, straight at Max.
“Oh.” Max pointed at himself.
Parotti nodded vigorously.
The deck was slippery. Max skidded to the ladder leading up to the wheelhouse and climbed up.
Parotti looked at him skeptically. “Some detective you are!”
Max wished he had a fedora. Without props, he leaned close, said from the corner of his mouth. “Sorry. I was pondering a clue.”
Parotti might not have been absolutely clear on the meaning of pondering, but he got the clue part. “Oh, sure. Yeah. Way to go.” His bristly eyebrows practically stood at attention. “I heard you and your missus at lunch. You’re working on the Hatch kill.”
Max refrained from asking whether Parotti’s favorite cop show was “NYPD Blue” or “Law and Order.”
Parotti’s eyes glistened. “And you were talking about that washed-out-lookin’ redhead, Mrs. Oldham?”
“That’s right.” The deck whooshed up. Max clutched the metal railing.
Parotti adjusted the wheel, but he was looking at Max. “I rented her husband a motorboat this morning. Early. Around seven. And he ain’t brought it back yet.” The ferry captain frowned as he peered out at the white-capped sound. “Damn fool should have come back by now.”
“Where did he go?” Max had to raise his voice above the whine of the wind.
“How the hell should I know?” Parotti demanded. A big wave slapped the side of the ferry and it heeled to port. Parotti grinned like a climber planting a flag on Everest. “Man, did you feel that one?”
Max was holding on to the railing with both hands. “Yeah. Kind of rough. Listen, Ben, let me know when Oldham gets back.”
Max slid like a six-year-old in the fun house as he made his way back to his car. He tried three times to call Saulter on his cell phone, but all he heard was static and squeals.
Purple-black clouds hung so low Annie felt that she could reach up and grab a handful like black cotton candy. The air was as full of moisture as a soaked sponge. She almost drove past the entrance to the library, but at the last moment yanked the wheel and turned in. the library closed at noon on summer Saturdays, so she had the road to herself. In the darkening air, the pink tabby had a purple tinge. Annie glanced up. There was still an empty pedestal where the blue vase had sat.
No cars were parked in front. She drove to the back of the library and her car was the only one in the lot. Annie hurried toward the festival field. Thunder rumbled nearby. She almost turned back to fish out an umbrella. She checked the sky again. Black, black, black. But the lightning was still to the south. She wouldn’t take long.
The temporary arbor, made with red-white-and-blue crepe paper strung through the latticework, was a soggy mess, the colors dripping onto the ground. But the coming storm would wash away the puddles of dye left from the morning shower.
Annie walked around the arbor and surveyed the field. It was an even bigger mess. No one had picked up the debris. Annie headed fo
r the bandstand, taking care not to step on the paper cups and plates, candy wrappers and popcorn boxes, along with the occasional odd flotsam—one navy sneaker, a Frisbee, a lidless Styrofoam cooler, plastic bottles of sunburn lotion, several broken fans (Laurel would have to do a quality check before she bought her next batch), red firecracker wrappers, a calico bandanna.
When she reached the bandstand, she climbed the stage-right steps, walked a few paces. No crime-scene tape barred the way. Chief Saulter must have returned early this morning before the first rain and made his final photographs and sketches. There was nothing to indicate a man had died inches from where she stood. The bloodstain was now a darkish, irregular splotch, the wet wood still glistening from the rain.
Annie turned, looked toward the willows and at the paths, clearly visible in daylight, and the sweep of the field.
She tried to place everyone at the moment Hatch was shot.
Edith Cummings and Samuel Kinnon were in the forest preserve, hunting for Toby Maguire.
Ned Fisher claimed he was taking Toby to his car. But Annie had heard the piccolo only a moment before Hatch fell.
Gail Oldham was sitting by herself near the redbuds. David Oldham? No one knew.
Ruth Hatch and Pamela Potts were walking back from the soft-drink stand.
Henny Brawley was near the stage. She claimed to have seen Jonathan Wentworth in the audience when Hatch fell.
Sharon Gibson? Apparently she wasn’t with her parents. Neither had mentioned her. Emily Wentworth said she and her husband were sitting on their blanket and they’d left it behind.
Annie looked straight down and to her right at a sodden blue comforter. She trotted down the steps, walked across the squishy ground. The comforter was good quality. Perched at the back was a cardboard holder with two tall red-striped Coke cups covered with plastic tops. Dark liquid showed through the plastic. The cups were full to the brim. A couple of Laurel’s fans lay in the center on top of some festival programs, now soggy and limp.
The wind rattled the palmettos, fluttered the live-oak leaves, swayed the tall pines. Annie glanced again at the sky. The storm could not be far away. She moved swiftly toward the willows and the forest preserve. She followed the curving path, glancing back often. Ten feet. Fifteen. Any farther and the willows were lost from view around the curve. Samuel must have found the gun near here.
Annie found nothing to mark where the gun might have landed in the path. That was no surprise. Too many people had walked here since that moment. But she wasn’t looking for that kind of evidence. Instead, she picked up a stick, pulled aside ferns and dangling vines on either side of the path, all the way to the willows. She ducked beneath the dangling fronds of the nearest willow. It was gloomy and quiet in this secluded lair.
She didn’t look for shell casings or footprints. After all, Frank Saulter had already been here. Instead, she once again poked with her stick, hoping she wasn’t going to disturb a rattlesnake or cottonmouth. Then she stopped, shook her head, dissatisfied.
The murder happened quickly. Quickly!
Hatch was shot. Someone whispered. Someone laughed. Samuel was coming along the path. The gun was thrown. A rustle.
Thunder boomed, close now.
Samuel bent down, picked up the gun. The person in the willows slipped away, moved through the darkness back into the crowd.
Annie peered up into the willow branches, then she darted out on the path. Now she scanned the ground on both sides all the way to the field.
No gloves.
That’s what they needed to prove Samuel’s innocence. Gloves. Work gloves, gardening gloves, summer white gloves from another era, some kind of gloves.
Annie stood in the middle of the field. All right. Perhaps the murderer had simply stuffed the gloves in a pocket, taken them home, destroyed them later. Or perhaps dropped them into a washing machine, erasing all traces of gunpowder residue.
Lightning blazed above her. Thunder followed almost immediately. Annie turned and ran toward the parking lot. Raindrops big as jelly beans pelted her.
Chapter 10
Rain turned the windows of the lawyer’s office as milky and impenetrable as a conch shell, made the glittering prisms of the modest chandelier even brighter in contrast. The walnut desk and furniture had a rich sheen in the light and the shelves of law books were stolidly reassuring.
Despite his informal garb, a white polo shirt and faded jeans, Johnny Joe Jenkins was an impressive man, a little under six feet, stocky and athletic with a lean hawk face and curiously metallic-blue eyes. He pushed a flimsy fax sheet toward Max. “I’ve got a good friend in the state investigator’s office. They’re already cracking on this case. The Broward’s Rock town fathers don’t want big-deal retirees gunned down. They think it’s bad publicity for the island. They don’t want anything to discourage golden oldsters from settling in. Plus Frank Saulter’s got friends and he put out a call for information PDQ.”
Max scanned the fax. The gun was a Colt .45-caliber semiautomatic revolver. The serial numbers placed it as having been manufactured in 1942 and included in arms distributed to officers en route to England. The gun was free of fingerprints except for those of Samuel Charles Kinnon. A detailed list of the portions of Kinnon’s prints followed, pin-pointing where each was found. Deciphering the cumber-some language, Max realized the prints were exactly where they should be if Samuel reached down and picked the gun up from the ground, grasping it from the top.
Max quickly wrote on his legal pad: Jonathan Wentworth in England WWII?
His bright blue eyes glistening with eagerness, Johnny Joe peered intently at Max. “Hell of a thing about those prints.” He had the full, rich voice of a courtroom lawyer.
Max matched Johnny Joe’s volume to be heard over the crackle of palmetto fronds and the rattle of rain against the windows. “But we all knew Samuel’s prints would be on the gun. He picked it up on the path.”
Johnny Joe grinned like a kid first in line for the roller-coaster ride. He quoted in clarion tones, the kind lawyers reserve for opening statements or closing arguments: “ ‘The gun was free of fingerprints except for those of Samuel Charles Kinnon.’ ” He cocked his head, eyed Max like a killdeer spotting a luscious grasshopper. “Tell me what that report says,” he said cheerfully.
Max wasn’t in the mood to play games, but some of the lawyer’s evident excitement touched him. Slowly, Max repeated, “ ‘The gun was free of fingerprints—’ ” He broke off, stared at Johnny Joe. “Literally?” His voice rose eagerly.
“Literally. Look, I’ve worked with the state office lots of times. The lab is careful. No high jinks like the FBI. And this report was made by J. T. Buckingham. I know Buck and he’s so damn literal you’d never want to tell him to go jump in the lake because he would. I called him at home, caught him watching the Braves. He talks like molasses in January, but when he finished I had the picture.” The lawyer spoke slowly, clearly. “Not a single other print on that gun. Not anywhere. Not outside. Not inside. Not on the butt or the magazine or the casings, not a smudge. That .45 was polished like the entrance hall at the Supreme Court. And the trigger was clean as a whistle.”
It might be a little hard for a jury to understand and Max hoped like hell Jenkins never had to face a jury on Samuel’s behalf, but Max knew this was an ace in the hole. Somebody had cleaned up the .45, polished it so painstakingly and so carefully that it was like a mint-new gun without a trace of any fingerprints other than Samuel’s. Zip. Zero. Even a slow jury might wonder why a killer would take all that trouble, then not bother to wear gloves. Even Circuit Solicitor Brice Posey might see a hole the size of a bomb crater in his easy little case.
“Wow!” Max exclaimed.
Johnny Joe turned two thumbs up.
Max and Johnny Joe grinned at each other like fraternity brothers whose blind dates turn out to be babes.
Water sloshed ankle-high over Annie’s feet, submerging her once brightly colored woven leather flats. They’d been
such a cheerful shade of apricot, perfect with her blouse. Right now they looked like basted eggplant. A swirl of wind turned her umbrella inside out. An upended bucket of cold water couldn’t have made her any wetter. Annie plunged through the sheeting rain. For the first time in days she wasn’t hot, but she was equally miserable. She thudded up the wooden steps to the boardwalk. Perforce, she slowed. The wet wood was as slick as a water slide. She didn’t need to hurry. Miss Dora had set the meeting for six and it was only half past five, though it could easily have passed for seven, the sky was so dark from the storm.
The covered walkway protected her from the downpour. Annie squelched down the boardwalk. Hadn’t she’d left her gym bag at the store earlier in the week? There should at least be shorts and a top. And there was a stack of clean dish towels at the coffee bar. She’d prefer a bath towel, but she’d settle for paper towels if necessary. Oh, to be warm and dry. Annie stopped in front of Sharon Gibson’s gift shop. Towels. And a chance to talk to Sharon.
Annie grabbed the door handle and stepped inside. She squished toward the cash desk. She scanned the store. Only two other customers, one studying the card section, the second balancing a dried decorated coconut in one hand and a necklace of bleached sand dollars in the other.
Sharon Gibson swung around, the shopkeeper pirouette Annie recognized immediately. She also recognized the practiced smile intended for customers. It left Sharon’s face faster than Amanda Cross’s Kate Fansler tossing off a bon mot. The fluorescent light slanting down from almost directly above was unflattering, marking deep lines in Sharon’s thin face. Her faded brown eyes looked anxious and wary.
Annie wished she had the chutzpah of Selma Eichler’s full-figured PI, Desiree Shapiro. Drawing on that inspiration, she smiled cheerily at Sharon. “You’re a lifesaver. I want to buy a beach towel. We’re having a meeting at Death on Demand and I’m wetter than an otter.” Annie picked up a huge shocking-pink towel with a fearsome black shark snout. “This one’s perfect.” She placed it on the counter. “It’s a pretty important meeting. We’re gathering a lot of information for the police about Bud Hatch and the people who were mad at him.” Was this chutzpah or what? Annie steeled herself to ignore the quick flash of panic in Sharon’s eyes. “If we don’t come up with some good leads by Monday, the police are going to arrest Samuel Kinnon.”