Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  Billy stepped forward to help. Laurel knelt and scooped up the matchbook in her cambric handkerchief. She dropped it into the purse, then held it open for Billy to add assorted belongings. As she rose, in no way discomfited, she beamed at Billy, “Thank you so much. That’s everything.” She carelessly tossed the purse into the car. “You must attend to your quest. Oh, do look thoroughly, Billy.”

  As her yellow convertible swept up the drive, she didn’t spare a look in the rear view mirror. After all, there was nothing of interest behind her.

  Raffles was the last structure on Bay Street, separated from Sea Side Inn by a stand of pines. The two-story house, built in the eighteen-forties, boasted upper and lower verandahs with slender Doric columns. Since the house’s transformation to a restaurant, there were tables on the upper verandah. Most of the tables were filled. The parking lot was almost full as the lunch hour began.

  Laurel found a space at the far end of the lot near the woods. She noted a path that meandered into the pines and took time to explore. The path led to the parking area for the inn. Laurel glanced up at the big metal garbage Dumpster almost screened from view by weeping willows and nodded in satisfaction.

  She retraced her steps and hurried to Raffles. Just inside the door, a brisk hostess inquired, “How many for lunch?”

  “One. I’ll have a salad at the bar. Thanks.” Laurel moved down the hallway. Most of the tables were occupied, but there were only a few customers at the bar. Laurel chose the high stool nearest the sun porch. She glanced to her right. Her memory had served her well. Sunlight slatted through tilted blinds. The parrot’s cage on its stand was shaded from the sun. As she studied the porch, the parrot gave a loud admiring whistle.

  Laurel looked toward bright eyes that watched her with interest.

  “Hey, boss, get her number.” Another whistle.

  Hmm. A male parrot, no doubt. How fetching. Laurel smiled. It was too bad she couldn’t ask him who had been on the porch last night. No one besides the parrot was out there this morning. But last night the occupants would have been clearly visible from the bar.

  Amenu was placed in front of her. “What’ll it be?” The deep voice layered the question with meaning. He might have been asking if this was the beginning of a moment to remember.

  Laurel lifted her eyes and took a good look, a tangle of dark hair hung over a bony forehead, deep-set dark eyes, high cheekbones, full lips. In his thirties, he was tall, lean, fit, his polo shirt smooth over big shoulders. He gave her a slow, provocative smile. “What can I do for you?” He exuded sex appeal and a sense of excitement bubbling very close to the surface. She accepted the homage as a matter of course. Men, from eighteen to eighty, noticed her. They always had. Men were such dear creatures. Most of them.

  For an instant Laurel was regretful. She did enjoy young men and he reminded her pleasantly of Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. But there were moments for dalliance and moments for sailing into battle. She envisioned an admiral’s cap on her golden curls and spoke in a most restrained manner. “A Michelob Light, please. And the shrimp and crabmeat salad.” She reached out, lightly touched the thick glass ashtray. A silver matchbook glistened in the ashtray. A silver matchbook had fallen from Jay Hammond’s pocket. She picked up the matchbook, tucked it in the pocket of her slacks.

  He reached down to a refrigerator, drew out a bottle, uncapped it. He poured the beer into a frosted glass, called out an order through a serving window.

  “Hey boss, get her number. My-oh-my.” The parrot’s ringing tone turned the heads of the other two customers at the bar.

  Three seats down, a balding man with a red face and bright eyes lifted a glass. “Bird’s got taste. If you pass out phone numbers, sweetheart, I’m in line.”

  Laurel’s throaty laugh struck just the right note, amused, flattered, good-humored but dismissive.

  The bird gave a throaty chuckle, an almost perfect replica of Laurel’s laugh.

  She looked at him in surprise.

  The bird laughed again.

  The bartender flapped his towel. “Knock it off, Long John.”

  The bird rustled his feathers, then in a Lower East Side voice eerily similar to James Cagney’s, whispered, “You dirty double-crossing rat.”

  She looked at the bartender. “Are you the boss?”

  “I’m the man. Sean Ripley at your service.” His drawl offered more than ownership.

  Laurel was tempted. But this was not the moment. She focused—such a strong verb—on the matter at hand. “I thought I saw you last night and I knew you would help me. If you could.”

  “Last night?” For an instant, his brown eyes narrowed. He lifted a dark brow. “I didn’t see you here last night.”

  Laurel turned the glass on its square coaster. “There were distractions. Even Long John had nothing to say.” Oh dear, had the bird squawked during the mélée last night? Certainly he might have. “Or if he did,” Laurel added quickly, “I didn’t hear him with all the shouting. That red-haired woman was certainly upset. No wonder you didn’t notice me. But that’s why I am hoping—” she pointed toward the porch “—that you can help me. It was such a memorable moment and you had a clear view of the porch. You see, I’d been to the ladies’ room and I was walking past—we had a table in the front room—and there was all that noise and I just darted onto the porch for a moment because I thought I saw a friend. When I realized my mistake, well, it must have made me nervous, because I dropped my purse—” Laurel had a pleased memory of the success of that ploy this morning. “And then I simply wanted to get away from that dreadful scene and I scrambled to pick everything up—”

  He reached a long arm for the plate in the serving window, brought it to her, the shrimp and crabmeat nestled among cooked macaroni, chopped red and green peppers and Vidalia onions adding color.

  “—and I didn’t realize until a little while ago that my lottery tickets fell out. I don’t suppose anyone found a batch of lottery tickets last night?” Her voice was eager.

  “If anybody found ’em, they didn’t say anything. So you like to play the odds.” He drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook one free, lit it. He took a draw, then placed the cigarette on the counter behind him.

  Laurel continued to look at him hopefully. “I won’t give up. I never do, you know.” A winning smile. “Could you tell me who was on the porch? I feel sure that if I contact them, someone will have found my tickets.”

  He reached for the cigarette, blew a smoke ring, returned it to the ashtray.

  Laurel kept the eager smile on her lips, but her nose itched from the smoke. However, she was at the bar, still the haven for smokers in South Carolina, and he was the owner. If he chose to smoke, it was his business.

  He studied her, smoke rising in a haze behind him. “On the porch last night.” His tone was thoughtful. “I don’t know what happened. I heard loud voices—” he gestured toward the other end of the bar “—but I don’t know what the yelling was about. I was busy, a rugby team. Big drinkers. But when Gi—when this redhead came running out, I decided to go take a look. I didn’t want things getting out of hand. But I don’t talk about customers.”

  Laurel turned up her hands in appeal. “Oh, please, Sean.” Her husky voice lingered on his name. “I promise to be discreet. No one shall know that I found them through you. And I will simply ask them.” She didn’t specify what she might ask. “And when I find my tickets, if I win,” Laurel gave him an enchanting smile, “I’ll pay for drinks on the house to celebrate.” She speared a chunk of crabmeat. Mmm, an Italian dressing. Tasty.

  “So you think you’re a winner?” His tone was amused.

  “Always.” Laurel balanced macaroni on her fork. A winner? He didn’t know the half of it.

  He laughed. “I don’t suppose it matters. Like I said, I don’t know what the fight was about, but I can’t see that it hurts to say who was out there.” He leaned on the bar. “The redhead’s Ginger McIntosh. The guy she hassled is
Jay Hammond, owns Hammond’s Antiques.” He pointed at an old tintype next to the archway. “I bought some stuff from him to decorate the place. “They’ve been pretty steady customers, but he’s been coming in by himself this past week. Somebody said they’d broken up. Clarisse and Mark Whitman were at the table closest to Long John. Mark’s a golf pro. She models.”

  Laurel welcomed the refreshing coldness of the beer. She knew Clarisse, a metallic blond thin to the point of emaciation, and Mark, whose face was always sunburned.

  Ripley leaned a little closer. “I hear—” his look was suggestive “—Clarisse is pretty hot in negligees. Somebody told me Jay’s been a good friend. She thought the dust-up between Ginger and Jay was a hoot. Mark looked like he wanted to punch Jay out. But he always looks at Jay like that. I doubt Jay’s worried about Mark. Jay’s got forty pounds and ten years on Mark. But Jay better keep an eye out for Hugh Carlyle.”

  Laurel nodded. Hugh Carlyle was an island artist, well known for his Low Country paintings.

  “Yeah.” Ripley emptied the remainder of the Michelob Light bottle into Laurel’s glass. “Hugh was here last night and anybody can tell he’s nuts about Ginger.”

  Poor Ginger. Obviously she was afraid Hugh Carlyle might be a suspect. That explained her determined amnesia.

  Ripley lit another cigarette. “After Ginger ran out, I came down to this end of the bar to check things out. Hugh shoved back his chair so hard it bounced on the floor. He was heading for Jay but I got there first, hustled him outside, told him to cool off, I wasn’t having any brawls in my place. I told him if he wanted to tattoo Jay, to do it on his own turf. I almost told him redheads are trouble coming and going, but I knew he wouldn’t listen. I hear everybody’s troubles, and you know what? Nobody wants to hear the truth, so I say yeah, yeah, and let it go. While I was outside settling things down, the skinny guy sitting by himself at the back table—” he pointed to the other side of the banana tree “—blew past. He didn’t even wait for his sandwich, just tossed down a twenty and beat it. I guess he didn’t like the shouting.”

  Laurel put down her fork. She couldn’t manage another bite. “Oh dear, was he a stranger? If he found my tickets…but I’d hate to think anyone would deliberately scoop them up and leave.”

  Ripley shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he had a stomach ache. Or was late for a meeting. He looked like a traveling salesman. In a suit.” His voice indicated disdain. Suits were not customary island wear at island eateries. “Medium tall. Fortyish. Skinny face with a big nose and a little brush mustache. A cheap brown suit. If he got your tickets, you can whistle for them.”

  Long John let out a piercing whistle. When his audience looked toward him, he preened, then said in a scathing dismissal, “Cheap brown suit. Cheap brown suit.”

  Laurel noted Ripley’s polo shirt. Fine Egyptian cotton. Not cheap.

  Ripley looked thoughtful. “He walked away. Since he was on foot, he was probably going over to the inn.”

  “Hey, Sean, get me a refill.” The balding man held up an empty glass.

  Ripley still looked at her. “If somebody brings your tickets in, who do I call?”

  She only hesitated for an instant. If he asked about, someone might know her, give him her name. In fact, Vince Ellis, publisher of the Island Gazette, had just settled three seats down and was lifting a hand in greeting. Laurel smiled. “Laurel Roethke. I’m in the phone book.”

  Ripley nodded, moved down the bar.

  Laurel took a final sip of the Michelob, added a substantial tip to her check. As she walked away, Long John called out, “Come back, pretty lady, come back.”

  In the terrace room of her house, Laurel enjoyed the company of her family from early to late. Photographs ranged in bookcases, atop the Steinway piano, on one wall, beneath a glass cover on a glass coffee table. She put the portrait of Annie’s mother on the piano bench. Perhaps she would have time to play “Clair de Lune” this afternoon, always one of her favorites, calming and serene as a lily pond. This was not a moment for serenity. This was a moment to focus.

  Dear Max, ever in her thoughts. She smiled at a recent snapshot of Max and Annie, Max stretched out lazily in a hammock, arms behind his head, a paperback book—Laurel squinted, oh yes, the latest Parnell Hall puzzle mystery, how intellectual of Max—atop his chest, and Annie, her flyaway blond hair glistening in the sunlight, gesturing vigorously. Laurel smiled in remembrance. Dear Annie. So typical. Exhorting Max, as Laurel recalled, to rise and help reorganize the shelves in their garage. Max had waggled the book. “Duty first,” he had responded, pointing out that the author was due the next week for a signing at Death on Demand and of course Max should be au courant with the titles. Annie had grinned and accepted defeat and, as Laurel left, they’d both seemed quite comfortable in the hammock. Laurel rather doubted the book received the attention it deserved.

  Focus.

  Laurel settled at her desk, tapped a pen against a legal pad. A good detective always made lists. She wrote:

  Jay Hammond shot by unknown assailant at—Laurel glanced at her watch, figured when she’d arrived, the events that transpired, her stop at Raffles, her return home—approximately 11 A.M. on the front porch of Cypress Cottage.

  Last night at Raffles during a quarrel with Ginger McIntosh, Jay Hammond had announced his intention of coming to Cypress Cottage this morning.

  Hammond’s murderer was quite likely among the people who overheard that quarrel: Clarisse Whitman, Mark Whitman, Hugh Carlyle, the stranger who’d left before eating his meal.

  Although it was possible that a chance passerby spotted Hammond on the front porch and shot him, it was unlikely because Cypress Cottage sat alone on Herring Gull Lane, a narrow loop from the main road.

  Could Hammond have been followed to the cottage? That would entail another car. There was not room for a car to maneuver past the parked van. Therefore if the murderer followed Hammond in a car, that car should have been in the drive behind the van when Laurel arrived. The thick tangles of vegetation off the road would have made secreting a car difficult, if not impossible, and who would leave a car visible in a roadway while committing murder?

  Ergo, the murderer arrived on foot or by bicycle—a popular mode of transportation on the island—and hid in the woods to await Hammond’s arrival.

  This conclusion made it exceedingly likely that the location of the crime resulted directly from the murderer’s presence the previous evening at Raffles.

  Laurel nodded as she reached for her handbag. She carefully lifted out the cambric handkerchief, spread it on the desk. She pulled from her pocket the matchbook she’d picked up at Raffles and placed it next to the handkerchief. “Oh my,” she murmured, her eyes bright. Her certainty that the murder was linked to Raffles was reinforced. The matchbooks were identical except for a slight denting of the cover of the matchbook found at the murder site. The dent likely occurred when she scrambled to retrieve it from the drive this morning. The silver covers bore the imprint “Raffles—No Place Like Home.”

  Interesting. Cocky. Impudent. The bar owner was exploiting the unsatisfied hunger for the exotic that plagued many settled citizens. Sean Ripley might be an exciting man to know. Perhaps…

  Ah yes, focus. Why was a matchbook in Hammond’s pocket? For an instant, she felt a qualm. Was she assigning importance to a trivial memento?

  Laurel reached for her Rolodex and phone. In a moment, Ginger McIntosh answered. “Pinxit Portraits.”

  “My dear, let’s be lively.” A cheering laugh. “A caller might think you are quite beside yourself with worry. Not an impression to be encouraged. Now, you know I am very pleased with my purchase. I have a minor question—” Laurel doubted very much that anyone could overhear their conversation, but in an age fraught with electronic eavesdropping, it never hurt to be cautious “—about our bête noire. Although we all have various personages for whom we lack affection, sometimes it is personal habits which tip the balance and I wondered if B. N. was a smoker?”<
br />
  The line was silent. Laurel began to wonder whether Ginger might be a trifle slow-witted. Surely she understood that the bête noire was the unfortunately deceased Jay Hammond.

  Finally, Ginger responded, “No. He didn’t smoke.”

  Ah, the dear girl was on track. Laurel studied the matchbooks. “Or in the habit of picking up trifles, sugar packets, matchbooks, toothpicks—” she refrained from a shudder. “Whatever was at hand, as mementos, perhaps tucking them in a pocket?”

  “No.” A pause, then a bitter judgment. “He only noticed things that might profit him. He was awfully good at finding bargains. You know, a dusty old daguerreotype in a yard sale and it turns out to be one of the lost Samuel Morse portraits, that kind of thing. He was always on the lookout. But he didn’t pay any attention to souvenirs.”

  Laurel felt a prickle of excitement. “So you’d be surprised if he put a matchbook in his pocket?”

  “I can’t imagine why. But people do,” she said vaguely. Then, her tone sharp, “Mrs. Roethke, I’m so—”

  “Now, now.” Laurel was firm. “You are not to worry. And please, call me Laurel. Everything is going to work out. I’m in charge. Well, if not in charge, I am certainly involved and I intend to see this quest through. I have, in fact, assumed responsibility.”

  Indeed she had. One could not move a body and simply leave the matter there. Murder was reprehensible and murderers—no matter the villainy of the victim—must be apprehended. David Frome’s detective Major Gregory Lewis put it so very well in The Strange Death of Martin Green: murder is an awfully bad thing for anyone to get away with, even once. Laurel enjoyed ferreting out sage observations from her favorite mysteries. As Amanda Cross’s indomitable Professor Kate Fansler commented in The Theban Mysteries: shifting problems is the first rule for a long and pleasant life. Laurel’s smile was sudden and beatific. That, in fact, was her goal. The body at Cypress Cottage posed a problem undeserved by its owners. Laurel was devoting this day to shifting that particular problem.