Deadly Valentine

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Deadly Valentine Page 7

by Carolyn G. Hart


  “Bad business, Eileen.” But wasn’t there a note of satisfaction beneath the somber report? “Sydney’s been murdered. Gazebo. Authorities there, but need site for witnesses to await interrogation. Offered our library. You can see to coffee, whiskey.”

  Apparently Eileen Houghton was accustomed to taking orders from her elderly husband. She nodded obediently and turned on her heel. Silently, they followed her down a broad central hallway, typical of an antebellum house, to the library.

  The general gestured with his cane at the assortment of easy chairs and sofas. “Hope everyone can be comfortable. Damn awkward situation.” He cleared his throat. “Damn sorry, Howard.” Again the words were correct, but Houghton’s eyes waited avidly for Cahill’s response. Howard made none. A flush edged up the general’s sallow cheeks. He turned his piercing gaze toward the young man with the tousled brown hair. “Don’t believe we’ve met, sir.”

  But it was Howard who spoke. “My son, Carleton, General Houghton.”

  Annie recalled the drunken taunt. “Tell the old man. See if I care.” My God, she thought. Howard’s son. Sydney’s stepson.

  Carleton stuck out a trembling hand.

  The general pumped it briefly.

  “Carleton teaches in Minnesota. He’s visiting us—” Howard stopped. Us. Not now. Not any longer. “He’s here for a few days over spring break.”

  The general looked toward Laurel. It was one of the few times in Annie’s memory that a male, of whatever age, evinced no pleasure in that act. In fact, his eyes narrowed, though he spoke civilly. “Didn’t make your aquaintance earlier this evening, madam.” So he had at least noticed her at the party.

  “My mother, Laurel Roethke,” Max said clearly. “She’s visiting Annie and me.” He cleared his throat and added forcefully, “She arrived only today. Well, yesterday morning now.”

  Laurel gazed thoughtfully at the general. “Such a shame when love is thwarted. I’m sure you agree, General?”

  Annie doubted that it happened often, but Houghton had no response. His dark brows drew together in an irritated frown.

  “It does seem to me—and I do bring some years of experience to my judgment—that this tragic occurrence must be a result of one of the darker faces of love,” Laurel mused regretfully.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Carleton’s voice lacked the deep timbre and authoritative note of his father’s voice. He sounded querulous, where Howard would have been combative. His face was very pale.

  Laurel smiled benignly. “So difficult sometimes for the young to differentiate between love and passion, commitment and jealousy, desire and lust. And it does make a difference.”

  “Enough nonsense,” the general barked. The blue vein at his temple throbbed. “People stay in their own beds, follow the rules, world’d work damn sight better.”

  Howard Cahill, sitting in a red leather wingback chair, ignored the comment, his face grim.

  That was the extent of the conversation for an incredibly slow-moving hour. Max sat on the chintz-covered sofa beside Annie, his arm supportingly around her shoulders, but his dark blue eyes moved again and again toward his mother. If anyone started to speak, the general shook his head briskly. “No communication. Difficult, but necessary. Operational procedure, you know.”

  Eileen Houghton, dressed now in gray slacks and an orchid high-necked blouse, her blond hair up in a tight coronet braid, offered whiskey or coffee. Everyone but Laurel accepted coffee.

  “Perhaps chamomile tea?” she asked brightly.

  Eileen Houghton brought that, too.

  Laurel settled with her tea on an ottoman close to Howard. Occasionally, she reached out and patted his arm in gentle commiseration. When he looked at her, his haggard face softened. Annie wondered how in God’s name Max could have a mother with such a total lack of native cunning. Didn’t she understand how serious this was? Didn’t she grasp the fact that a particularly brutal murder—Annie tried not to remember the shattered cranial bones of a once beautiful woman—had taken place? And the victim had been the wife of the man Laurel was now so publicly supporting.

  What was Laurel going to tell the police? Annie felt a wave of panic. Surely Laurel wouldn’t guilelessly reveal her sudden infatuation with Howard? Or admit she’d gone on a midnight foray to seek out a married man?

  Would she?

  Their gazes crossed. Laurel’s exuded confidence, good cheer, and reassurance with an overlay of distress for the dreadful circumstances.

  Annie stared hard at Laurel, who responded immediately, of course, with an inquiring glance. There were no flies on Laurel when it came to picking up vibes. Just like Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax.

  Effective communication without words was tricky. Annie inclined her head in a quick, tiny nod toward Laurel—meaning you—pointed with a circumspect index finger at her own midriff—meaning me—placed one hand conspicuously in the other and clasped them—meaning together—and began to hum that old familiar hymn, a standby to generations of campers, “In the Garden.”

  Laurel beamed delightedly. “How sweet you are, my dear. And so clever. But I came to the garden alone. We must all tell the truth, mustn’t we?”

  Max stifled a groan. Carleton’s head jerked toward Laurel and his eyes had the look of a startled wild animal. Howard frowned.

  “Here now,” the general said sharply. “Quiet.”

  Annie would have enjoyed delivering Laurel into the evil hands of some rogue on the order of Casper Gutman, Auric Goldfinger, or Dr. Fu Manchu. So let Laurel paddle her canoe right over the dam. See if Annie cared.

  Annie’s face felt hot, and she knew it probably matched the rich rosy-reddish hue of the library’s cypress paneling and bookshelves. She tried to concentrate on surveying the general’s remarkable collection of books, primarily histories of warfare from the Gallic Wars to the present, but Max kept looking at Laurel, his concern undisguised. So, despite Annie’s irritation and the grainy reel of fatigue, she forced herself to consider the possibilities.

  Laurel, who was going to say God only knew what, was likely to be in a hell of a spot. The police, both real and literary, from criminal-turned-Sûreté-chief Arsène Lupin to cigar-chewing, Nero Wolfe-pawn Inspector Cramer to Wilkie Collins’s dull-witted Superintendent Seegrave, have a definite bias for the obvious. Of course, Frank Saulter knew them and knew Laurel. Still, he couldn’t help but look very closely at everyone who had been in the vicinity of the crime.

  Okay, Annie thought, Max was out of it. She could swear he had been asleep when she left the house and still asleep when she returned, after finding Sydney’s body.

  That left Annie, Laurel, Howard, Carleton, and the general, all of whom had been on or near the scene very early on.

  Annie knew she hadn’t done it. And she knew that Laurel was innocent. Laurel might be spacey, Laurel might be unpredictable, but Laurel could never hurt a living creature. Annie knew that without any doubt.

  Would Chief Saulter know it?

  Of course.

  It was so obvious.

  But people would talk and Chief Saulter would hear about Laurel and Howard at the party and their unmistakable infatuation.

  Surely that would direct suspicion at Howard, not Laurel.

  Still, Annie didn’t feel good about any of it.

  Where was Laurel when the murder occurred? What, if anything, did she know? When it became apparent that Laurel—and Annie, too, of course—had been wandering about at the time Sydney was struck down, would that make the killer nervous?

  Annie swallowed.

  She knew she was tired and she’d been scared to the core, then horrified by her gruesome discovery. So maybe she wasn’t thinking too straight.

  But she had a god-awful feeling that maybe she and Max had better think about this one and think hard. And fast.

  Who could have killed Sydney?

  Three men had been near the gazebo when death stalked.

  The widower, Howard Cahill.

&
nbsp; His son, Carleton, whose nasty comment had made Sydney cry.

  The general.

  And, of course, the dark grounds could easily have harbored someone unseen, someone as yet unknown. The skin on the back of her neck prickled. What about Dorcas Atwater? Of course, it was much earlier in the evening when Dorcas rowed near the Cahill pier. She could have returned. But without doubt three men had clear opportunity and must be considered as possibilities.

  Helen Reilly’s Inspector Christopher McKee believed that observation of suspects could provide the key to a crime. Well, here she was with at least three suspects to observe. Annie looked at Howard Cahill. Even tonight, obviously under stress, he appeared competent and in control of himself. He sat deep in thought, distinct lines furrowing his broad forehead and making deep indentations to either side of his firm mouth. He looked tough, determined, wary—and worried.

  There was not even a trace of grief in his demeanor.

  If he had murdered his wife, surely he would parade grief as publicly as possible, like a Freeman Wills Crofts villain with an unbreakable alibi.

  But he was making no show of emotion, of any kind.

  He wasn’t a stupid man. Far from it. Annie knew little about him, but that little—he was a self-made multimillionaire who had fearlessly and shrewdly faced down governments, unions, competitors, and terrorists in building his great shipping fleet—argued superior intelligence.

  An intelligent man who decided to murder his wife would know that the police always look at the husband first, and plan accordingly.

  Of course, superior intelligence often is accompanied by overweening arrogance.

  Perhaps reeling her gaze, Cahill suddenly looked directly at Annie, and she knew abruptly that despite his unaffected appearance, he was riven with emotion. For just an instant, their glances locked and in his dark eyes she saw despair and fear, a soul harrowed by unspeakable visions.

  “Dear Howard,” Laurel soothed, “don’t lose heart. We must ever carry with us the memory of Saint Colette. Such hostility when she began her great work of returning the Poor Clare nuns to their original strict rule of life. So hard to persuade them to forgo the pleasures of the world, but she refused to be discouraged, no matter how daunting her trials.”

  “The saints,” Howard said bitterly, “were never hostage to love.”

  “Oh, but they were, they were,” Laurel contradicted gently. “Love made them saints. They take the Gospels quite literally. That is what mankind finds so fascinating, yet so frightening about them. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ So simple. So very, very difficult to do—and it requires such sacrifice. But that is their credo, and love made life so difficult for them. As it does for everyone, but then what would life be without—”

  “Madam.” The prominent blue vein pulsed in the general’s temple. “Quiet, if you please.”

  Annie didn’t think she liked the general very much. But men who become generals, for the most part, probably care little whether they are liked. They prefer to be feared. The general’s truculent eyes, prominent beak of a nose, and downturned mouth exuded no charm. He looked ill. There was a grayish blue cast to his skin and he was too thin, his hands bony, the skin of his cheeks flaccid. But his every act underscored his will to dominate, to control, to survive.

  Why would he kill Sydney? Did he see her as a Jezebel, as a shameless woman? Was he a zealot who felt the world was well rid of women like Sydney? Or had his exposure of her at the party, locked in George Graham’s embrace, been the act of a frustrated lover? Had he been attracted to her, then rebuffed? That wouldn’t jibe with his graceless comment about people staying in their own beds … In context, surely it referred to Sydney and that was an ugly slur to make with her husband listening. But the general had said it. A hateful man. The general, she decided, was well worth considering.

  She looked next at Carleton Cahill, who had to be high on any list. Obviously, his relationship with Sydney didn’t fit the accepted pattern between stepmother and stepchild. Carleton, after a little too much to drink, hadn’t bothered to hide his contempt for Sydney. Had, indeed, made a point of it. It is not unusual for children to resent a remarriage, a second wife. But he was no child. Just how much had he disliked Sydney? Was it dislike verging on hatred? At the party he had seemed equally hostile to his father. Carleton was no longer glaring at Howard, but he was clearly uncomfortable, darting nervous, uneasy glances around the room. There was no vestige of grief.

  Annie sighed wearily. What a mess. Max gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. “Tired?” he asked softly.

  “I’m okay.”

  The general glared at them.

  Max glared back. “Look, it’s almost two in the morning. I think—”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. The general nodded toward his wife, who scurried to open the door. Two men entered. Annie gripped Max’s hand. Oh no. No. But it was.

  Circuit Solicitor Bryce Willard Posey strode forward, his bulging blue eyes glistening with eagerness. Posey was without doubt and without question the most odious man she’d ever known. Despite the late hour, he was freshly shaven and exuded the sweet smell of cinnamon after-shave. Did he think a photographer might show up? But, of course, the murder of the wife of one of the island’s wealthiest residents would bring the news services, and Posey was already prepared. He’d crammed his six feet three inches, two hundred and fifty pounds into a blue suit that would have looked better on a leaner man. With a light blue shirt for television. Annie looked past him at lanky, khaki-clad Chief Saulter, whose corrugated face was a mass of unhappy wrinkles. He looked as lugubrious as Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s Syl Mayo when his cousin Asey, the famous Codfish Sherlock, was pestered by State Trooper Hanson.

  Posey knew every eye was upon him. He puffed his cheeks, as full of himself as Erle Stanley Gardner’s Hamilton Burger when addressing a jury, and surveyed his audience. It was, Annie thought sourly, like watching a pouter pigeon preen.

  Howard Cahill wasn’t intimidated. He sat calmly in the wingback chair, his face inscrutable.

  Carleton Cahill hunched forward in his chair, his hands balled in tight fists. One blue eye jerked in a nervous tic.

  The general nodded in satisfaction, his duty discharged, and fastened his cold, venomous glance on Carleton.

  Annie wondered how Eileen could stand being married to such a hateful old man, a man at least twenty years her senior. Annie looked toward Eileen, and her sympathy shriveled. Eileen’s eyes glistened with a kind of eager slyness as she watched Howard. Her plump face radiated an avid interest. She leaned forward in anticipation and her blouse pulled taut, outlining the fullness of her breasts. It was obvious that she was looking forward to the coming unpleasantness, to this slice of raw drama that had erupted in her no doubt incredibly boring and repressive life.

  What a charming couple, Annie decided.

  Laurel was smiling kindly at Posey. No doubt, Annie concluded, Laurel’s study of the saints had infused her with a determination to be kind to life’s unfortunates. There should, Annie thought dourly, be a legal limit to charity.

  Max, of course, was his handsome, endearing, wonderful self, though she hoped he would refrain from his tendency to bait Posey. Her husband’s dark blue eyes shone with a familiar sardonic gleam, which made her heart sink.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am Circuit Solicitor Bryce Willard Posey, and I have come from the mainland to take charge of this investigation.” His voice boomed sonorously in the library. “I shall not rest until I have incarcerated the perpetrator of this hideous crime of passion.”

  Slowly, Howard stood. “Who killed my wife?”

  The somber question hung between the two men. The contrast in their demeanor, Posey’s arrogant posturing and Cahill’s restrained intensity, made Posey look foolish. He realized it immediately. His heavy jowls reddened. “We shall find her killer, Mr. Cahill, you can count on that. We have already determined one important fact.” He waited until every eye was on him. “We are,” he s
aid ponderously, “looking for a man.”

  Carleton Cahill began to laugh raggedly.

  His father called out sharply, “Carleton!”

  Carleton lifted trembling hands to his face, pressed them there for a long moment, then let them drop.

  Moving his bulk quickly for so large a man, Posey crossed to stand directly in front of the younger Cahill. “What’s so funny?”

  Carleton didn’t answer. He shook his head miserably back and forth.

  Howard was there in an instant. “Back off.”

  Posey swung to face him.

  Chief Saulter stepped close enough to intervene, if necessary. Max came swiftly to his feet.

  Posey and Cahill were both big men, but the prosecutor ran to fat and the shipowner had the stocky, well-muscled build of a man who had worked hard and kept fit.

  “My son is upset,” Howard said quietly.

  “Interesting,” Posey replied. “He’s upset—and you aren’t? It was your wife.”

  For just an instant, Howard’s shoulders slumped and a look of pain touched his eyes. In that moment, he looked much older. Then it was past. Once again he stared at Posey with self-possession and control. “Yes, Sydney was my wife.”

  “My stepmother,” Carleton said contemptuously.

  “Carleton.” His father’s chiding voice wasn’t angry, was, in fact, gentle.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Carleton said. “How did something like this ever happen to us?” He struggled to his feet, reached out to his father. “Dad, how did this ever happen?”

  Howard gripped his son’s arm for a long moment, then shook his head wearily. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, we’re going to find out just what did happen,” Posey trumpeted. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “Now, let’s see. The call came in at twenty-two minutes past one o’clock.”

  Saulter broke in. “I arrived at the entrance to the Scarlet King properties at approximately one thirty-three and was met by Mr. Howard Cahill at the gate. He—”

 

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