by Carolyn Hart
Annie recalled the crushed bamboo.
“—which would have left the car vulnerable to observation. Frank believes this is a gamble the assailant would be unlikely to take. Therefore, another mode of transportation must have been used. And although rental bicycles are often stolen during holiday weekends, last night was an unlikely time for a bicycle to be stolen for a joy ride, as Frank put it—”
Annie agreed. For an instant, she envisioned a dark figure riding through the night, cold rain pelting down, the sky split by jagged lightning. Not, definitely, a joyous ride, pedaling fast and hard with murder in mind.
“—however, Island Rentals reported a bicycle missing this morning. The chain looped through a stand of twenty bicycles was cut through and a road bike taken. It has not yet been recovered. A search is underway.”
If it were Annie, she’d have worn gloves and now the bike would be resting at the bottom of a lagoon.
Lots of calls with plenty of food for thought. Speaking of food—Annie’s stomach rumbled. But no call from Henny, and certainly if anyone was ever in the center of information dissemination and reception on the island, it was Henny. She definitely must know about last night’s shooting. But no call.
Annie looked glumly at breakfast, courtesy of Max. Papaya. That was nice. A bowl of oatmeal. Healthy, to be sure. But providing energy? Annie shot a quick glance through the archway at Max as he paced back and forth in the study. Moving with the grace and stealth of Evelyn E. Smith’s Miss Melville on a job, she eased across the kitchen to the refrigerator, fished out the pizza left over from last night and popped it in the microwave. It came out bubbly and delicious.
Dorothy L. appeared from nowhere. “You pizza hog.” Annie broke off a cheesy piece. Dorothy L. purred, ate, looked expectant.
“You don’t like barbecued chicken.” She found another morsel of soft cheese.
Dorothy L. finished first.
“Serve you right if I gave you oatmeal.”
The cat hopped down from the table, strolled toward her cat door.
Annie ate the oatmeal, too, and felt exceedingly virtuous as she rinsed her dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Thus fortified, she carried a cup of coffee into the study, exuding, undoubtedly, a positively overwhelming aura of hearty vigor.
Max leaned over the desk, felt-tipped pen in hand. He made a series of jabs with the black tip, then tilted his head to study the result. Annie studied him, loving the tousled blond hair and stubbled chin and rumpled pajamas. She put her coffee on a side table, then came up behind Max and slipped her arms around him, peering around his right shoulder.
Max made a nicely appreciative, interested noise, then shook his head. Annie knew him well enough to be sure the head shake was directed at his drawing and not at her. It would be an icicle day in Fiji when Max lost interest in personal—very personal—contact.
Annie gave him a later-dear squeeze and stepped closer to the desk. She took it in at a glance, a map of the island and neat notations pinpointing the homes of Gail and David Oldham, Sharon Gibson, Ned Fisher and Toby Maguire, Edith Cummings, Luther and May Kinnon, Henny Brawley, and Jonathan and Emily Wentworth.
Everyone lived on the town side of the island except Henny and the Wentworths. Did that matter? Annie pointed at the Wentworth house. “He”—they both knew she meant Jonathan Wentworth—“would have to drive through the checkpoint.” A manned gate separated the private development of homes from the little town. The cars of residents had an identification decal on the windshield.
“July. Tourists,” Max said briefly.
“But it was a stormy night.” Annie pulled up a straight chair.
“Hmm.” Max picked up the phone. It took three calls before he found Ray Kienzle, who’d been on duty at the development gate.
“Between ten and midnight, probably.” Max listened. “Sure, I understand. Thanks, Ray.”
“No soap?” Annie asked.
“Ray says there was a bunch of cars in and out until midnight, but it was raining hard and he just flashed his light on the cars to be sure they had a decal. He didn’t pay any attention to the make of cars or who was driving.” Max scooted the blunt end of the pen along the island road, through the checkpoint and to the bike shop. “And where would Wentworth leave his car?”
Annie tapped Saint Mary’s. “Behind the church. That lot’s hidden from the road.”
Max squinted at the map. “That works. He could take the bike, put it in his trunk, then drive to the church. Same for Henny. If it was one of the others, they all live close enough to the shop to walk over there, steal the bike, ride out to the Kinnons, ride back.”
“The bike’s still missing.” Annie picked up her coffee, welcomed a deep dark jolt of pure pleasure. Annie poked at the problem of the missing bike like Agatha would pounce on a mouse unfortunate enough to wander into Death on Demand. If the bike was spotted not far from one of the suspect’s houses…But who would be stupid enough to leave it near home? Okay, why not drop it off in an alley in the little town? That couldn’t be tied to anyone. But if you parked behind Saint Mary’s, then where would be a good place to dump the bike? Only Jonathan or Emily Wentworth or Henny would need to park at Saint Mary’s. Annie knew if she were setting out to shoot someone, she’d be exceptionally careful not to be seen. Wouldn’t everyone claim to have stayed snug at home? And why steal a bike anyway? To avoid leaving a car near the Kinnons’s, a car that might be noted. The bike could be abandoned and the assailant could flee on foot into the woods, if necessary. And the bike was faster than walking or running. What if Luther had grabbed a gun and set out to find the assailant? But Luther, understandably, was much more concerned with getting Samuel to the hospital.
Max grabbed the phone, punched the numbers. “Luther, have the police finished their search out there?” He listened. “No trace of a bike?” He frowned at the drawing. “Okay, thanks.” He rubbed his bristly chin. “Annie, I feel like I’m being stupid. Where did that bike go?”
Annie made a commiserating sound, but she had her own vagrant thought that she couldn’t pin down. Something about Samuel and the shooting. Something odd. Something wrong.
“Okay.” Max’s tone was one of intense concentration. “We’ve got to find that bike. Come on, Annie, let’s get dressed and go hunt. We’ve got time before the eleven-o’clock.”
Annie preferred the eight o’clock service, but their schedule was all askew this Sunday morning. They could skip the nine o’clock service and go to the eleven o’clock service.
Max was halfway across the room, when Annie looked vaguely after him. She waved her hands. “You go on, Max. I want to study the dossiers. I’ll meet you at church.” She found the reports on his desk, now heavily underlined, the pages rumpled.
The dossiers. And her notes. And her recollections of everything she’d learned. Somewhere in that mass of material some fact troubled her, edged into her dreams. And she had to figure out what puzzled her about the attack on Samuel.
Annie moved in slow motion, her eyes abstracted. She showered, brushed her hair, already trying to frizz from the humidity, slipped into a rose linen dress and matching rose sandals. She thought regretfully of her once equally pretty apricot sandals.
She gathered up the dossiers and her notes and settled at the kitchen table. She loved her kitchen, white, white everywhere—walls, cabinets and appliances—a vivid contrast to the impressionist view of their terrace and the sloping lawn to the lagoon. Through the French windows, the shrubs and trees were smudges of green, the bougainvillea muted scarlet.
Annie found her list of Key Points, wrote quickly:
8. Henny claims she saw Jonathan just before Hatch was shot. Was this a lie?
9. The attack on Samuel cleared David Oldham.
Annie felt a tingle of excitement. Wasn’t that the only thing accomplished by that attack? Because Samuel was still alive. If the objective was to silence him, then the attack was a failure. But what if the attack was to protect David Oldh
am?
Annie picked up the phone, punched a familiar number.
“Dear Annie.” Laurel’s husky voice rose in delight. “It’s always such a pleasure to hear your charming voice. ‘O, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping.’”
Annie resisted responding with, “‘Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.’” In fact her tone was rather dry. “Thank you, Laurel. I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”
In a short silence, each considered where the honors lay.
They both began at once.
“Annie, have you heard—”
“Laurel, last night were—”
A shorter silence. Annie struck first. “Laurel, you are always so attuned to your surroundings.”
“It’s so important,” Laurel trilled, “to be at one with the world.”
“Very important,” Annie agreed heartily, not having any idea what her esteemed mother-in-law meant. It was often helpful when dealing with Laurel to be totally focused on an objective. “Gail came to you for help yesterday—”
“ ‘A wretched soul, bruised with adversity.’ ” Laurel’s voice was gentle.
For an instant, Annie saw Gail’s face, pale, drawn, laden with misery, her eyes aching with tears. “I know,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. And it was very good of you to help her, Laurel.”
“She is so alone, Annie. No one to help. Yesterday afternoon, she insisted on going home. I went with her, of course. I fixed us a light dinner. But she couldn’t relax. She called everyone she knew. But no one had seen David. Then, without warning, like a thunderbolt, Frank came. I was so glad I was with her. Frank was kind but it was clear he was sure David killed the general. After he left, she was hysterical. David accused. And worse than that, David out in the ocean in that storm in a motorboat. I finally calmed her down and put her to bed about nine.”
“Did you stay all night?” On her pad, Annie wrote: Laurel at Gail’s house.
“No. I thought she was all right for the night.” A soft sigh. “I should have been more perceptive.”
Annie waited.
“She was so upset. It’s understandable, certainly. As she told me this morning, she simply couldn’t sleep. And so she got up and drove to all his favorite places. Isn’t that absurd? In that storm? But she didn’t find him and she came home, oh, she said it must have been two or three o’clock and then she waited by the phone. I found her huddled there when I went over early this morning. I do feel that I was remiss. I should have realized how distraught the dear child was.”
Distraught. Yes, that was quite likely. But she had a convincing answer for an excursion into the storm and rain. Perhaps she’d shot at Samuel to save David. But perhaps she shot at him to save herself.
“But,” Laurel concluded, “she’s quite safe now. And perhaps they will soon find David.”
Annie put down the receiver. She frowned and added:
10. Gail out in the storm.
11. Samuel still alive. Is he in danger?
That depended, didn’t it, on why he was shot? To silence him? Or to divert suspicion?
Annie sighed and put the list aside. She thumbed through her notes, picked up her summation of character.
Bud Hatch. Everyone agreed that if Bud liked you, he was your friend for life. But equally important was the obverse. Bud Hatch was a bad enemy. And he didn’t mind making enemies.
What of the character of his murderer? What, actually, did they know about Bud Hatch’s murderer? Okay, it all began with the levering of the vase from the roof of the library. That was on Wednesday. The general was shot Friday evening.
Annie wrote:
1. The murderer was a good shot. What was it the chief said? “Hatch was drilled.”
2. The murderer planned ahead coldly and carefully, the gun wiped clean of all prints, shiny as if new.
Cool calculation, a well-thought-out plan.
But the vase? That couldn’t have been planned. The general wasn’t expected at the library. Someone took advantage of his presence to push the vase from its parapet. The vase missed him, shattering into huge pieces, chunks of earth and pottery. It was quite a mess. The shooting was obviously a different matter entirely, with plenty of forethought and premeditation. A murderer who acted on impulse one day, followed out a careful plan two days later?
“No.” Annie spoke aloud.
Dorothy L. looked at her with piercing blue eyes.
“Not you,” Annie said absently. “The murderer. The vase was stupid if he—or she—had murder in mind. The vase was malicious. Who among the suspects was quick to anger and impulsive?”
Annie found the phone book, picked up the cordless phone and called.
“Hello.” Edith Cummings sounded not so much sardonic as surly.
“Edith, there’s an eyewitness who saw you shove the vase from the roof.” Wasn’t Annie seeing it so clearly in her mind’s eye the equivalent?
Was there a snicker of amusement quickly controlled? “Annie, dear”—the drawl wasn’t friendly—“why don’t you get back to your bookstore. Fiction sells well there.”
Click.
Annie punched the “off” button. Okay, she couldn’t take it to court, but she felt confident she’d figured out the truth. And that truth cleared the ground. She needed to focus on Friday night and the careful, thoughtful, cold acts of a murderer. This was a person who planned ahead, so—
3. Why was Hatch killed on a public stage in front of hundreds of spectators?
Annie considered the third point. Why, indeed, did Bud Hatch die at the Fourth of July festival? Wasn’t it an odd and very public place for murder? It argued urgency or fury unable to be tamped. Or perhaps there was a practical reason.
Annie listed the possibilities:
a. Because fireworks would mask the sound of the shots.
b. To prevent Hatch from causing the dismissals of Ned Fisher and Edith Cummings at next week’s library board meeting.
c. To keep Hatch from revealing his affair with Gail to her husband.
d. Because he had enraged Toby Maguire.
e. To keep him from informing Emily Wentworth about her husband’s liaison with Henny Brawley.
None of them satisfied her. She was left with an uneasy feeling that the time and place of the murder mattered and that if she knew the answer to that, she would know the killer.
All right, back to character. She’d tagged Edith as the vase pusher. Maybe she could tag the murderer, too. She scrabbled through the stack of papers, found her notations on the suspects:
Ned Fisher, a man happy in his work and his home life. Capable at work but perhaps too unwilling to face dissension. Patient. Sensitive.
Toby Maguire, a vet who would never forget. He’d once been an unsquashable kid. Now he was a loner, except for Ned.
Edith Cummings, smart and clever, but her quick tongue and caustic laugh hid a wide streak of anger.
Jonathan Wentworth, an outstanding military man, which meant great organizational ability. Calm, cool, confident.
Emily Wentworth, always busy, quick to talk, but uninterested in listening.
Sharon Gibson, a hardworking shopkeeper, meticulous and humorless.
Gail Oldham, an unfaithful wife, an unwilling mistress. She was concerned first about herself, then David.
Henny Brawley, a closer friend to Jonathan Wentworth than the world knew. Henny was a great detective. But not this time.
Annie poured a fresh cup of coffee, taking the last in the thermos. She riffled through the papers, noted Miss Dora’s careful list of those familiar with firearms. She read the dossiers, placed the sheets for the general and the captain side by side.
A sharp age difference. No correlation between their duty assignments. Different services.
She read the dossiers one more time, drew her breath in sharply. There was one possible point of contact. And if that was so—
Max stood at the far end of the parki
ng lot behind Saint Mary’s. He ignored the half dozen or so cars still in the lot after the eight o’clock service. Cars were streaming in for the nine-o’clock. Steamy air pressed against him. No-see-ums swarmed around him. He stood still, ignoring the heat and the humidity and the insects, and pretended it was dark with rain pelting down and his heart thudding from a careening ride away from the Kinnon house, a revolver heavy in his jacket pocket, running on adrenaline, glancing warily toward the road, the bicycle propped against the car. What the hell to do with the bicycle? Leave it in the church lot? No, that would link the stolen bike far too directly to the Kinnon house. As long as the bike wasn’t found, investigators could guess it was used but never prove it.
Max climbed in his car, drove slowly out of the lot, turned toward town. Last night, in the dark, the murderer had been in a hurry, desperate to be rid of the bicycle, hearing the cry of sirens en route to the Kinnon house.
Max drove the most direct route to the sound. There were no convenient lagoons. Then he branched out, making short forays. There was a good-sized lagoon near the softball fields, but you had to know it was there. Edith Cummings would know, but Edith wouldn’t discard the bicycle anywhere with a link to her. The lagoon near the hospital was ringed by pines. Again, you had to know it was there. Henny Brawley would know and again probably Edith Cummings. The others? Quite possibly not. The fleeing attacker was in no position to hunt for lagoons.
Max turned the car and headed back to the cluster of houses. Then he swerved to the side of the road, stopped, and looked back.