Annie didn’t even think before she spoke. “The gate!” she demanded. “Was the gate open?” She hadn’t even thought about the gate!
Posey turned a meaty red face toward her, but Saulter said hastily, “Good question, Annie. The gate was closed. Moreover—”
Howard interrupted. “The gate was open all evening for the party.” Sudden hope flickered in his eyes.
“Who had a party?” Posey demanded suspiciously.
“We did,” Howard responded. “My wife and I. We had almost a hundred guests. I hired several young men from the country club to help park cars. One of them was at the gate all evening, to be sure no one but residents or guests entered.”
“Pretty exclusive, huh?” Posey sneered.
Howard looked at him in disgust.
The general cleared his throat. “Easily misunderstood. Private property, of course, from the turnoff through the Scarlet King compound. Gate matter of security. Compound developed by Buck Burger. Used to be criminal lawyer. Lots of enemies. Security,” he concluded.
“Do you suppose,” Eileen interrupted, “that someone from the party was an old enemy of Mr. Burger’s—or even of Mr. Cahill’s? You made a lot of enemies, didn’t you, when you broke that strike in Long Beach?” She had a soft, unctuous voice that sounded as though she’d spent years saying reassuring things she didn’t mean. “I read about it in Hoity Toity. Anyway, do you suppose someone killed Sydney to get back at Howard? Or maybe they thought Sydney was Billye Burger. Maybe it was an attempted kidnapping and Sydney—”
Saulter broke in briskly. “The gate was in place at ten minutes to one when the last Paradise Caterers truck departed. It was driven by Hutch Kennedy. He and his partner, Ben Dunstan, drove toward the main road and just before they reached it, they had a flat tire. They were just finishing changing it when I came in. They said not a single car or a single person had passed them from the time they left the Cahills.”
“I see,” Howard said wearily.
“The road is narrow, with bar ditches on either side,” Max observed. So there was no place for a car to park where it wouldn’t have been seen by the caterers. No place at all.
“If no car came in,” Eileen began, her eyes narrowing in thought, “that means—” She drew her breath in sharply. “That means it’s someone inside the compound, someone who lives here! Oh, my God!”
“Grim,” the general said gruffly. “But,” he patted his sagging robe pocket, “don’t be alarmed, my dear. No danger for you while I’m here.”
It might, given his age, have sounded rather pathetic. But it didn’t. Annie thought she detected a gleam of eagerness in those dark eyes. He’d damn well enjoy blowing somebody away.
Posey turned gallantly toward Eileen. “Don’t be frightened, Mrs. Houghton. We will protect you. Besides, the ferocity of the attack upon Mrs. Cahill is characteristic of a crime of passion. Generally, crimes of passion are committed by those with a close personal relationship with the victim.” His heavy head swiveled back to Howard. “Mr. Cahill, did you give your wife a valentine?”
Howard’s iron composure cracked. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
Posey’s thick lips curled in a pleased smile. “A very important question, Mr. Cahill.”
Howard jammed his hands in his pockets. “All right, Mr. Posey, if it’s so goddamned important. No, I did not give Sydney a valentine.”
“Oh.” Satisfaction oozed from Posey. “You did not give Mrs. Cahill a valentine.” He leaned forward, relishing the moment. “What were your relations with your wife?”
Carleton scrambled to his feet. “Dad, you don’t have to answer questions like that.” Carleton glared at Posey. “Why are you wasting time? Why don’t you get a search started? It’s probably too late already. Why don’t you start looking for Sydney’s murderer?”
Posey didn’t bother to answer. He ignored Carleton, who flushed a deep red.
Howard took a deep breath. “For the most part,” he said carefully, “my wife and I maintained a very cordial relationship.”
“You didn’t mind if she was screwing around with another man?”
Howard stood very still, his face a frozen mask. When he answered, there was a steeliness in his voice that hadn’t appeared before. “Carleton is right. I don’t have to answer these kinds of questions. Chief, isn’t anything going to be done to find out what happened?”
Posey was not to be ignored. “You can answer questions here, or you can answer them at the jail. Take your pick, Mr. Cahill. And I’ll tell you one thing”—he shook a bulbous finger in Howard’s face—“money can’t buy your way out of a murder charge, not as long as I’m circuit solicitor and I—”
“Such a mistake to lose sight of the ultimate goal,” Laurel said kindly, insinuating herself between the two men. “Dear Saint Michael—I know you are familiar with him,” she trilled to Posey, “the patron saint of policemen—he would remind us, I’m sure, that we should attend to first things first. Who could have killed poor dear Sydney? Howard can’t be included among those with such an opportunity because he was seeing me to the front door of my son’s house at almost the very moment the murder must have occurred. Therefore, it is a clear waste of your time and energy to bombard him with questions. In fact, I might suggest that a study of the time element is essential because—”
Posey erupted. “What do you know about any of it?” he demanded angrily. “You talk as though you were there and—”
“But I was.”
The circuit solicitor’s watery blue eyes fastened on Laurel like a diamondback rattler sighting a particularly tasty rabbit.
Max moved swiftly to Laurel’s side. “Mother. Laurel. Wait a minute. Don’t—”
“Max, dear, it is clearly my duty to share what I saw. Such a lovely evening—at least the weather was quite clement. A delightful change from Connecticut, so I decided to view the gardens in the moonlight. Howard had told me I was quite welcome to wander through them. At any time.” She smiled at him.
“I’m sorry you’re involved in this at all,” he said somberly.
“Perhaps we should be grateful. If I had not come, you might face a difficult period. One is so often truly led, I do believe.” She flashed a disarming smile at Posey, who regarded her with deep suspicion.
But Howard didn’t look relieved. If anything, his face was more somber than before.
“You came over to his house in the middle of the night?” Posey demanded. “What time? When?”
“I left my room at Max and Annie’s house at precisely twelve forty-five,” she said crisply. Her tone was assured and businesslike, very different from her usual airy patter. “I had a pocket flashlight with me. I walked quickly and I reached the property next door at twelve fifty-three. Precisely.”
Everyone looked at her curiously.
She raised a golden eyebrow. “I looked at my watch.”
“Why?” Saulter inquired, his gaze intent.
“Because I heard voices.”
She certainly had everyone’s attention.
Especially that of Howard and Carleton. The widower raised a hand, as if to stop her. Carleton’s eyes widened and he looked as if the shades of hell had materialized before him.
“My dears,” she said sweetly, “I know it is difficult to relive those last moments, especially since Sydney was so upset. And you were both so angry.”
Posey licked his porcine lips in anticipation. “Why was she upset?”
“Sydney was childlike in so many ways—”
Annie recalled that voluptuous body and Sydney’s behavior and thought, Oh, sure.
“—and so her confrontation with Howard in the library upset her very much. She was close to tears.”
Saulter unobtrusively began to write swiftly in a dogeared notebook.
“Of course, I well understand Howard’s feelings. He was very forbearing, but Sydney simply went too far when she trifled with another man at their very own party.” She beamed at Posey. �
��A dentist, I understand. George Graham. A very active man. In any event, Howard’s patience was at an end and he told her that he intended to file for a divorce.”
“You bitch! Shut your mouth before—”
“Carleton!” Howard said sternly.
“Howard, it’s quite all right.” Laurel directed a benevolent look at Carleton, whose face was livid with anger. “Carleton doesn’t understand that the truth always outs. And it does, you know. Lots of people will be happy to tell the police about Sydney’s interlude in the curtained alcove with Graham. Sydney was distraught with Howard’s pronouncement. She sobbed that it was all Carleton’s fault, that he had been so ugly to her. Then she ran toward the open library windows and said she would find someone who loved her. And she burst out into the garden and headed for the gazebo.” A wisp of a sigh. “Poor dear child. She ran to love. And found death.”
Saulter wrote furiously, and Posey looked like he’d won the Florida lottery.
“But, the important point,” and once again she was crisp and direct, “I arrived outside the library window at twelve fifty-four, in time to see Sydney storm from the room, out into the garden and onto the path leading to the gazebo. At the same time, Carleton burst out of the library and began to walk rapidly to the right.”
Annie sorted it out in her mind: Sydney on the path to the gazebo, Carleton heading for the tennis court and pool.
“I turned away, feeling that I had arrived at an inopportune moment. I started up a path leading in the general direction of my son’s house. I didn’t want to return by the lagoon path as that was the way Sydney had gone. I walked on for no longer than a minute or two; then I heard Howard’s voice behind me. He joined me and said he hoped my pleasure in the gardens hadn’t been affected by the episode I’d witnessed. He was quite in command of himself. Grave and weary, but not angry. I knew that he would not wish to discuss those moments, so we spoke about the loveliness of the night. We walked on together and in a moment or so we were at Max and Annie’s front door and he said good night. It was just five minutes after one when I entered the foyer. General Houghton heard a cry for help at eight minutes after one. So you see, Howard could not possibly have killed Sydney. There simply was no time.”
“But that was me,” Annie cried. “I mean, I yelled for help when I found Sydney; then the bushes rustled and it scared me, so I ran home.”
“Then it’s even clearer,” Laurel concluded happily. “Sydney was already dead at eight minutes after one. Howard is completely in the clear.”
Posey looked like Nero Wolfe when an orchid died.
Saulter was nodding slowly.
But Howard Cahill had no aura of a man saved from the gallows. Instead, his eyes dark with pain, he slowly shook his head. “Laurel, my dear, you are such a lovely person. Please don’t misunderstand me when I say I appreciate your efforts. I wish we could have met another day, another way.”
Posey’s head swiveled from one to the other.
“What the hell? Is this phony? What’s going on?” He glared at Howard. “What happened when you came out of that library? Where did you go?”
Howard looked like a man en route to the gallows. “I decline to answer any questions until I can talk to my lawyer.”
Laurel’s eyes widened in surprise. She bit her lip, sighed, and said, “Oh, my dear!”
Eight
THE UNSEASONABLE FEBRUARY weather—highs in the 70s rather than the 60s—had persuaded a huge pileated woodpecker that it was March and mating time. He drummed on a hollow limb of a towering pine that stood right next to Max and Annie’s patio and their outdoor breakfast table. Little pieces of bark crackled free and fell, pelting them. He sounded more like a jackhammer than a bird. Annie brushed tree debris from her hair, already ruffled by a gentle early morning breeze, and glared up at the boisterous suitor. His red crest flamed in the early morning sun, and his black wing feathers glistened like polished ebony.
“He’s driving me crazy. How can he stand to make so much noise? Why doesn’t that incessant banging addle his thimbleful of bird brains?” she groused as she reached for another peanut butter cookie. (If Max and Laurel wanted to eat oat bran for breakfast, so be it. What was wrong with peanut butter cookies?)
“Another of nature’s miracles,” Laurel said sweetly but loudly enough to be heard over the rat-a-tat-tats. “Thick muscles around his brain provide cushioning. Just like a crash helmet. Isn’t that dear?”
Max lowered his newspaper and grinned. “Face it, Annie, he’d rather die than stop. He knows there’s a lady woodpecker out there somewhere who will think those are the niftiest sounds she ever heard.”
“Such a strong urge,” Laurel murmured.
Annie felt a moment of panic as two handsome faces beamed at her. Mother and son. How in God’s name could they both look so calm, so happy, so certain that goodwill surrounded them? Laurel, who apparently never suffered from fatigue, was as fresh as ever this morning, her dark blue eyes shining with eagerness, her patrician face unlined. She looked about sixteen in a soft cream cotton blouse and green poplin pants with a batik design. Her golden hair shimmered like an August beach. Max might have his mother’s blond hair and dark blue eyes, but, thankfully, he wasn’t the least bit ethereal. To the contrary, he was solidly there, every well-built muscle of him in a blue-and-white-striped polo that emphasized the breadth of his chest and khaki shorts that revealed stalwart legs any woman would notice. He was damned attractive. If Laurel weren’t here—But she was. And so was the reality of murder next door. How could Max look as unruffled as Lord Peter Wimsey (aka Death Bredon) in Murder Must Advertise?
“Look, we’ve got to get busy,” Annie said briskly, pouring another round of French-roast coffee into their cups.
Two sets of dark blue eyes looked at her inquiringly.
“You do recall,” she said with heavy irony, “that we’ve had a homicide next door.”
“That ass Posey,” her husband replied; then he rattled the newspaper. “It says here that this is the warmest and earliest spring we’ve—”
“Max, who cares? What’s wrong with you two? Last night Laurel couldn’t wait to jump into it and defend Howard. And, Max,” she said irritably, looking at her handsome husband, “what’s with you? Last night you were worried sick about Laurel and don’t pretend you weren’t because I know better.”
Max folded the paper and put it on the wicker tabletop. “Of course I was worried. I didn’t know where she’d been or what she might have seen, but once Laurel told us, that made everything all right.”
Laurel was nodding in agreement.
“I hate to be dense—”
Laurel murmured, “Like dear Captain Hastings.”
Max popped the last morsel of his oat bran muffin into his mouth. “Or Sergeant Heath. Or Tony Abbott.”
Annie restrained herself from assault. Ever since Laurel took a class on the mystery, she’d prided herself as an expert. “—But would you please explain why it makes everything all right.”
“Laurel’s out of it,” Max said cheerfully. “She wasn’t anywhere near the gazebo after Sydney headed for it, so the murderer won’t get nervous. And Howard saw Laurel leave for our house, then caught up with her, so I don’t see how Posey can get any crazy ideas about Laurel being involved. No problem.”
“But Posey hauled Howard off to the mainland last night for further questioning after Howard all but admitted Laurel made it all up,” Annie objected.
“I beg your pardon,” Laurel said politely.
“The alibi. Your alibi and Howard’s. You made it up.”
“No.” Laurel was firm.
Max stared at Annie in total surprise. “Of course she didn’t make it up. Laurel doesn’t lie.”
“Of course not.” Laurel took a dainty sip of coffee.
Annie studied her mother-in-law. Did Laurel always tell the truth? God knew that was difficult to determine. It all depended upon how one defined truth. Laurel’s mind moved like quicksilver a
nd was as impossible to grasp and hold. And could anyone ever have confidence in her recollection of times? Despite how often she claimed to have checked her watch.
Laurel reached across the table and patted Annie’s hand. “You must have faith, my dear. Look at the wonderful examples given to us by the dear saints.” A tiny frown marred her beautiful brow. “Although, to be sure, so many of them met with great obstacles despite their noble intentions. I know Saint Augustine must have felt sorely tried when it appeared that the Church to which he had given his all would come to naught.” She looked at them inquiringly, sighed at their evident lack of comprehension, and amplifled, “You will recall that Rome had already fallen to the barbarians and there seemed to be no hope for what remained of the Christian world. The invading Vandals were at the gates of Hippo when Augustine died.”
Max’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Actually, all I remember of Saint Augustine was his rather understandable plea, something on the order of ‘Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.’”
For once Laurel was speechless. Annie decided not to speculate on the reasons. She avoided looking at Max. Sometimes he was eerily like Laurel in his ability to divine her thoughts.
Besides, it was time to get back to the point. “So neither one of you is worried.” Annie still didn’t understand it. Oh, she understood Max’s relief. He had been concerned on Laurel’s account. Now that he felt sure she had been nowhere near the scene of the crime, he was quite relaxed. But how could Laurel be so untroubled?
Annie tried to put it tactfully. “Uh, Laurel, I’m afraid that when Howard refused to corroborate your statement, Posey assumed you were—uh—mistaken.”
Laurel was undisturbed. “Right shall prevail.”
“Doesn’t matter what Posey thinks,” Max added, wistfully eyeing a peanut butter cookie.
“Push the edge of the envelope,” Annie murmured, placing one on his plate.
He munched happily. “An alibi’s an alibi. Let’s see Posey prove it isn’t true.”
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