Sugarplum Dead

by Carolyn Hart

  Ignoring little bumps of presentiment that were probably a product of Max’s oft-stated advice to THINK before she acted, Annie was out of the car and within reach of the intercom when a deep-throated growl erupted to her left.

  Startled, she swung toward the fence, then, flailing, stumbled back, hands automatically lifted in defense.

  Two Dobermans lunged toward the gold-tipped spikes, saliva drooling from dark lips agape in throat-deep snarls. Over the frenzied growls, a cold voice demanded from the intercom: “State your business.”

  The dogs barked and jumped, jumped and barked.

  Annie backed toward her car, tried to still her trembling hands. She ignored the repeated request and flung herself behind the wheel. As she drove away, fast, she wondered a great deal about the peace and harmony espoused by Dr. Emory Swanson.

  Five

  MAX PAUSED OUTSIDE the heavy wooden door of Parotti’s Bar and Grill. Parotti’s was an island institution, an all-day café and tavern and fish bait store just opposite the ferry landing, all owned and operated by Ben Parotti. Ben ran the ferry when he damn well pleased and his bar and grill provided the best fried catfish and hush puppies on the island, as well as bait, charter fishing trips and beer on tap. Annie loved Parotti’s, especially the fried oyster sandwiches. Thankfully, Ben still offered succulent down-home food even after his recent marriage and a wife who had added quiche and lemonade to the menu and fresh flowers in vases to the old scarred round wooden tables.

  Marriage did change some things. Scrawny, pint-size Ben no longer scuffed around in long underwear tops and stained corduroys held up by a knotted cord from an old flannel bathrobe. In fact, the last time they’d been over for lunch, Annie had murmured to Max that Ben looked like a Broadway dancer in his spiffy double-breasted blue blazer and white ducks, an opinion which would probably have sent Ben posthaste to the nearest secondhand store for an old outfit.

  But Ben was a prime example of the miracle of marriage, the willingness to take into account a partner’s hopes and desires and fears.

  Max took a deep breath and shoved open the door. Ever since the call from Pudge Laurance, he’d expected to hear from Annie. He’d called Death on Demand, home and her cell phone. She’d fled the cemetery, angry and upset. But when she finally called a few minutes ago, she’d not even mentioned seeing her father. She’d just said, “Max, I know it’s late. But I haven’t had lunch yet. Can you meet me at Parotti’s?”

  Of course he could.

  He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, then walked swiftly across the wooden floor.

  Annie waved from a booth not far from the line of coolers filled with squid, chicken necks and chunks of fish which added a pungency to air laden with the odors of old grease and beer. She stood and waited for him, eyes huge in a pale face, hands clenched.

  He pulled her close, held her tight, smelled for an instant the freshness of her hair, the delicate scent of her favorite Estée Lauder powder, and wished for wisdom.

  Annie stepped back and looked up at him, then slipped into the booth. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were wary.

  Max took his place opposite her and felt that an abyss stretched between them instead of an old plank table carved with lovers’ initials.

  “You’ve seen him.” She spoke calmly, but her voice was cool and remote.

  Max looked at a face both familiar and unfamiliar. Yes, this was his Annie, sun-streaked hair, gray eyes, eminently kissable mouth, but he didn’t recognize this carefully composed, grave mask which hid her thoughts. Was she angry? Grieving? Despairing?

  Max hesitated, uncertain what he should say. Annie would never forget his words. And what right did he have to push her toward the father who had abandoned her? All right, so he liked Pudge. Obviously, he didn’t really know the man, but Pudge had warmth and charm and, dammit, he was Annie’s father.

  Sudden anger glinted in Annie’s eyes. “So he raced from the cemetery to you. If he calls you again, tell him what I said, Max. Tell him I said it’s twenty-five damn years too late.”

  Max would have jumped from an airplane, scaled a mountain, swum a wave-crested river to erase the tears from her eyes. He spoke slowly. “He called me. I told him exactly that, Annie.”

  Those shiny eyes watched him.

  “He said you were the only reason he came to the island, the only reason he’s staying on the island.”

  She listened intently.

  Ben Parotti stood a few feet past their booth, out of Annie’s vision, and his worried eyes darted back and forth between them.

  Max dropped one hand where Annie couldn’t see and wiggled his fingers and Ben slipped away.

  “But he said he had to call me. Because of Laurel. Pudge said—”

  “Pudge?” Annie’s voice was strange. “Is that what he’s called? His name is Patrick.”

  Once again Max knew this was dangerous territory and how galling it must be for Annie to realize that Max knew her father’s nickname while she did not. “Annie, listen. You trust me, don’t you?” He reached across the table, gripped her hands. “I know you’re upset. I know you can’t be expected to simply dismiss the past, but I hope you will give him a chance. Just give him a chance.”

  She squeezed his hands, pulled hers free and brushed back a tangle of blond hair. “Max, don’t push me.” She pressed her fingers against her cheeks. When they dropped, her gaze was determined and somehow fiercely impersonal. “He doesn’t matter right now.” Speaking fast, she described Laurel in the cemetery, concluding, “…she’s frightened and she truly believes everything will be all right if she can talk to Buddy. Maybe that wouldn’t hurt anything, but she’s vulnerable, Max, and she’s going to go to this foundation—”

  “I know. Evermore Foundation, run by a Dr. Swanson. Pudge told me a great deal about Swanson.” His voice was grave.

  Annie’s eyes flashed. “Oh yes. Pudge’s ex-wife. The reason he’s here.”

  Max decided the less said about Pudge’s ex-wife, the better.

  Ben Parotti was lurking near a potted palm, another of the new improvements. Max waved at him. “Here’s Ben, Annie. Let’s order.”

  Annie managed a smile. “Hi, Ben.”

  Today Parotti wore a Jack Nicklaus green sport coat and pale yellow trousers. “We have two specials, fish chowder with corn fritters and oyster pie with a spinach salad and a raspberry vinaigrette. And apricot tea.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Annie said blankly. She waved her hand. “Anything.”

  Parotti shot her a shocked look. He put his hand to his mouth, muttered to Max, “Missus under the weather? I’ll do her a double special fried oyster sandwich.”

  Max nodded. “Fried oyster sandwich for Annie. I’ll take the chowder. Two apricot teas.”

  Parotti looked at her anxiously. “I’ll bring a double order of fritters,” and he hurried away.

  Annie stared at the table. “It was decent of him to come and tell you about Swanson.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. He said he had to tell you about Dr. Swanson. Look what I’ve got here.” She opened her purse, pulled out a sheaf of papers. She pushed them across the table. “There’s something wrong about Swanson. The longest he’s ever stayed in one place was five years. That was in Nashville. He moves to a town and sets up a foundation and puts out fancy brochures with all this guff about the Golden Road and Emanations of Light and Seeing Our Way and then the first thing you know, wham, the foundation shuts down, he moves to a new town, starts over again.”

  Max scanned the thick sheaf of papers. “You’re right. And a different name every time. In Nashville, the New Vision. In New Orleans, Points of Light. In Laguna, Shimmering Spirit. In Seattle, the Golden Road. But there’s nothing here to indicate any trouble with the law or with his credit. No bankruptcies. In fact, it looks like his credit’s pretty choice.” He raised an eyebrow. “How did you get all this financial stuff?”

  Just for an instant, the old Annie looked at him, laughter in her ey
es. “My lips are sealed.” Then the laughter fled. “Laurel shouldn’t be involved with this.”

  “I agree.” That was true enough, Max thought. But his real concern wasn’t Laurel. His real concern was Annie. And whether it was wise or foolish, he wanted her to see Pudge, to be around him long enough to sense what kind of man he was. Once again, Max chose his words with care. “Pudge’s ex-sister-in-law is Marguerite Dumaney—”

  Annie’s eyes widened at the mention of the legendary actress.

  “—and apparently she’s deeply involved with this crystal stuff. Dumaney’s convinced she’s connected with her dead husband. This has upset everybody in the family. So Pudge has hired me to find out what I can about Swanson.” Max stared into cool gray eyes.

  “I see.” She spoke evenly, but she no longer looked at him.

  “Annie—” He reached across the table.

  Parotti clomped across the wooden floor. “Here you go, Annie, the double deluxe fried oyster sandwich. I made the tartar sauce fresh this morning myself.”

  Annie smiled. “Thank you, Ben. Nobody in the world makes a better sandwich.”

  Chowder sloshed over the brim of Max’s bowl as Parotti kept his eyes on Annie.

  Waiting until Parotti turned away, Max unobtrusively sopped up the spillage.

  Annie munched on her sandwich, closed her eyes. “Hmm. The best!”

  Max waited until he was halfway through the chowder. Annie’s color was better and she no longer looked like a soldier staring up a gun barrel.

  “So”—and he kept his voice casual—“Pudge thinks it would help if we met Swanson on a social basis.”

  Annie was suddenly still. She put the remnant of sandwich on the plate.

  “Marguerite Dumaney’s celebrating her birthday tomorrow night. Pudge will wangle us an invitation. He said Swanson will be there and we can meet him. Swanson won’t have any idea Laurel’s my mother.”

  Annie sipped the tea, then said precisely, “That sounds like an excellent plan. You can talk to Swanson and that should help you decide how to approach Laurel. Here, you’d better keep the stuff I got on him.” She swept together the printout sheets and held them out to him, a woman obviously pleased to discharge any and all responsibility. And further effort.

  Max was afraid he understood only too well. He stared into suddenly dark and remote gray eyes. “You and I—”

  “No, Max. I’m not going.”

  Annie unpacked books like mad. Only ten days until Christmas. This was her best holiday season yet. As always, there were customers with odd but fun requests, including the homesick Left Coaster who wanted books set in northern California. Annie obliged with titles by Elizabeth Atwood Taylor, Susan Dunlap, Janet LaPierre, Janet Dawson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Shelley Singer, Marcia Muller and Linda Grant.

  If Annie had odd and uncomfortable moments—and she did—she assured herself that married couples didn’t always go in tandem. Tonight Max could manage on his own. After all, it was his mother.

  And her father.

  The unexpected thought shocked her. She folded her lips in a tight line and bent to shelve a raft of Lillian Jackson Braun paperbacks.

  Agatha materialized from beneath the Whitmani fern. The elegant black cat slithered between Annie and the shelf.

  Annie looked at Agatha. “No. Huh-uh. You’re smart, sure. But no way.”

  Agatha stared at her with opaque golden eyes, rubbed her whiskers against The Cat Who Saw Stars, flicked her tail and moved down the aisle toward the coffee bar.

  The bell at the front door of Death on Demand gave its familiar, cheerful peal, followed by Ingrid’s soft murmur of inquiry. Annie picked up six more books, trying to remember the order of publication, then paused as an angry young voice rasped, “No, you can’t help me. I want to see her.” The emphasis on the pronoun was startlingly hostile. “Annie.”

  Annie was on her feet and starting up the aisle when a teenage girl came flying toward her, skidding to a stop only steps away.

  They stared at each other.

  The girl—she couldn’t be more than fifteen—planted her feet apart, slapped thin hands on hips hidden beneath a floppy oversize shirt and a huge unzipped canvas duck jacket that sagged down her shoulders and dangled near her knees. Ragged bell-bottom jeans splayed over black sports sneakers that added at least two inches to her height. Despite the voluminous clothes, she looked like a Dickens waif, her wrists smaller than the span of a thumb, her eyes huge in a bony face still seeking its adult shape. She poked her narrow head forward, a tangle of dark curls framing blazing brown eyes, angular cheekbones and trembling lips.

  Annie had a sudden memory of Agatha as a kitten, a frightened stray, eyes glittering, stiff-legged, tiny mouth agape in a furious hiss. Annie lifted her hand.

  “So here you are.” The girl’s high voice quavered. “All stuck up and happy. Wearing a Christmas sweater. Just like you hadn’t ruined Christmas for me and Pudge.” Those big dark eyes glared. “You don’t care, do you? Did you know I used to dream about you and write letters to you? My big sister, that’s what I thought you would be. Pudge told me all about you when I was little. He said he’d looked for you everywhere, and he knew we would be crazy about each other, that you’d be a great big sister to me. And now—”

  “Wait a minute.” Annie’s face felt hot. “Who are you?”

  The girl jammed her hands in the big slanted pockets of the grimy red coat. “Nobody to you, I guess. I’m just Rachel. But I hate you. You’ve made Pudge cry,” and she whirled and ran toward the front door.

  Max slammed the front door. “Hi, gorgeous.”

  Annie, stretched out on a white wicker couch with flowered cushions, listened from the terrace room and knew he was scooping up Dorothy L., their rollicking white cat who adored him.

  “Max?” Annie sat up, looked toward the front hall.

  His face surprised and pleased, Max appeared in the doorway, Dorothy L. riding on his shoulder. “I didn’t expect you to be here. I thought you were working tonight.”

  “Ingrid and Duane are handling the store.” Annie looked at the mantel, at the clock now chiming the hour. “What time’s your dinner?”

  “Seven.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Max’s gaze was hopeful, then slowly the light in his dark blue eyes faded. “Well, I need to shave. See you later.”

  Annie listened as his steps crossed the entrance hall and the swift thud as he hurried upstairs.

  Pushing up from the couch, she stood uncertainly for a moment, then whirled toward the terrace. Grabbing a jacket from the row of hooks, she yanked open the door. Once outside, she shivered and pulled on the nylon jacket. Head down, hands in her pockets, she plunged down the path toward the lagoon. But not even the cool misty air could sweep away the turmoil in her mind, dampen the memory of those big, dark, angry eyes, such forlorn, young, aching eyes.

  Annie clattered onto the pier, stopped at the end, hands tight on the railing. It was too dark to see and no moon tonight. Fog wreathed the trees, rose in miasmic swaths from the cold dark water of the lagoon.

  “I don’t owe her anything.” Annie wanted to sound tough. But she heard the sadness beneath the veneer. “Oh damn, damn, damn.” Why did Rachel remind her so much of herself at that age? Why did it hurt so much? Okay, all right. So it was no fun to see a kid in pain. Didn’t everybody have to grow up, learn that dreams are just dreams? Annie wasn’t anybody’s big sister. Just like she hadn’t been her father’s daughter. That kid—Rachel—she’d had Pudge for a father. That was more than Annie had ever had.

  There was a hot flick of jealousy at the thought. But it wasn’t Rachel’s fault. Rachel was just a kid, a kid wearing clothes too big for her because she hated being skinny, a kid who still had dreams.

  Annie remembered another kid, who dreamed of sugarplums and waited for the father who never came.

  The breeze rustled the winter-browned cattails, but Annie heard a light young voice: “…I hate y
ou…. You’ve made Pudge cry.”

  Annie felt the tears on her cheeks. She yanked free a hand, swiped at her face, then turned and ran up the pier.

  As the Ferarri zoomed down the drive, Max said gently, “Relax, Annie, relax.”

  “Who’s going to be there? Besides my erstwhile father.” She half turned to watch Max. In the light from the dash, his profile was endearingly familiar yet strange, as everything had seemed strange since a man she didn’t remember had walked into Death on Demand and disrupted the world as she knew it. She had always ascribed Max’s insouciance and refusal to be serious to a streak of laziness. How wrong she had been. What else didn’t she know about her husband?

  He flipped up one finger at a time. “Our hostess, Marguerite Dumaney, onetime leading lady, now reclusive grande dame. Reputed still to be hauntingly beautiful. A well-to-do woman, courtesy of her late husband, movie mogul Claude Ladson. She also inherited money from her father and made buckets in Hollywood, but she has a great talent for extravagance. She’s still flying high on the Ladson bucks. Marguerite’s stepsons, Wayne and Terry, stepdaughter Donna, and Wayne’s ex-wife, Joan. Wayne teaches history over at Chastain College. Terry has his own charter boat. Donna runs an antique store in West Hollywood. Joan’s a librarian at a little college outside of Chicago.”

  “Lots of ex-wives around,” Annie muttered. “How come all these people are here?”

  “It’s a holiday gathering, plus they’re here specifically for Marguerite’s birthday party tonight. Pudge said the household consists of Marguerite, her companion Alice Schiller, her sister Happy, Happy’s daughter Rachel Van Meer, and Wayne Ladson. Visiting are Pudge, Donna Ladson Farrell, Terry Ladson, and Joan Ladson. That, according to Pudge, wraps up the Ladson family except for Wayne and Joan’s daughters. One is in Europe, the other is very pregnant on the West Coast. Donna and Terry have both been married and divorced but no kids.”