Death at the Door

by Carolyn Hart

  Annie spoke slowly. “I wonder about Madeleine. According to Tom Edmonds, Madeleine and Jane were having some kind of heavy talk in the garden the week before she died. When he saw them, he turned around and went back to his studio. Kate Murray said Madeleine looked awful at the birthday party. A woman at the beauty shop claimed Madeleine wasn’t home the afternoon Jane was killed. Madeleine told everyone she hadn’t left the house, but the gardener told Bridget Olson that Madeleine left the garden on a path.”

  Emma reached down for her capacious knit bag, which had been known to contain everything from a tin of smoked oysters to a pirate treasure map to a compilation of Yogi Berra quotes. Emma’s favorite and often-repeated Yogi quote: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

  Emma drew out a small pad, flipped it open, marked a numeral one. Her stubby fingers gripped a Montblanc pen with a Year of the Dragon design. “Billy will obviously interview everyone at David’s birthday party. However, that’s official and not guaranteed to get straight answers. We can make unofficial inquiries.” She drew four columns, one for each of them. Her gimlet-sharp gaze flicked to Annie. “I’ll put Madeleine on your list.”

  Annie spoke quickly. “Sherry Gillette tried to call me a couple of times. I’ll find out why. Put David Corley down for Max.”

  Henny was decisive. “I’ll talk to Irene Hubbard and Kate Murray. Irene tried out for a role recently in Pajama Game.” Henny was an accomplished actress and among her island successes were appearances in Little Women, Blithe Spirit (Elvira, of course), and The Mousetrap. “Irene’s flamboyant. But nobody’s fool. As for Kate, she’s brusque, intimidating, but we’ve worked on rummage sales together. I think she’ll talk to me.”

  “Excellent.” Emma was pleased at the responses. “That leaves Toby Wyler and Kevin Hubbard. I’ll deal with them.” Her expression was wolfish. “That takes care of the guests.” She glanced toward Laurel, who had an expectant expression, then at Annie. “I wonder who else should be contacted.”

  Annie pressed fingers against her temples. She had a dull headache from lack of sleep, but she knew Emma was depending upon her. Definitely Laurel must be included. “The gardener at the Corley house.”

  Laurel waved pink-tipped fingers. “I enjoy men who are earthy. I’ll speak to the gardener.”

  There was an instant’s pause. Henny lifted a hand and placed her fingers across her lips. Emma’s gaze was speculative. Annie gazed determinedly at the second of the watercolors above the mantel.

  Laurel’s smile was dreamy. Then, with a little head shake, she continued briskly. “And that sweet child Frankie Ford.”

  Annie hesitated. She, too, thought Frankie was appealing, but . . . “Frankie was evasive about where she was Monday afternoon.”

  Laurel’s blue eyes were knowing. “One lover is drawn to another as surely as the sea seeks the shore.”

  Emma cleared her throat. “Right. Laurel takes the gardener and the girl.” Her brusque tone returned the moment to the matter-of-fact. “Anybody else?”

  Annie nodded. “A week or so before Jane died, Marian was out at the Palmetto Players. She saw David Corley being escorted in to see the owner. Nobody looked happy.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “If David owes Jason Brown money, he’d better pay up.”

  Henny raised both eyebrows. “Emma, what are you keeping from us? How do you know the name of the guy behind the Palmetto Players?”

  Emma’s square face was thoughtful. “Had a second officer on Marigold’s Pleasure. He played a little too loose with Caribbean stud, ended up owing the house about forty K. He welched. Pretty soon he had a broken leg. Last I heard he was working on a yacht out of Miami.”

  Laurel pushed the half-glasses higher. “That explains Madeleine’s distress.”

  Annie pictured an office where a burly man kept a skull on his desk. “Max can try, but the guy probably won’t say anything.”

  Emma was brisk. “Still, he may learn something.”

  Annie could be brisk, too. “There are other questions that need to be answered.” As Emma glanced at her watch, Annie quickly set out what seemed pertinent to her. “Frankie was hugely relieved when she heard Lucy’s story. What did Frankie see that made her suspect Tom? Kate Murray gave no hint that she and Jane had quarreled. Why? Was David Corley in a panic to get money because of gambling? Sherry Gillette shouted at Jane a few days before she died. Why? Madeleine seemed nervous and apprehensive at the birthday party and a friend didn’t find her home the afternoon Jane died. Where was Madeleine? Kate Murray remembered Paul looking somber as he walked toward the end of the pool. True or false? Would Jane’s death give Toby Wyler control of Tom’s paintings again? Ben Parotti dumped on Kevin Hubbard, thought he was dishonest, and Ben saw Jane heading into Kevin’s office and she didn’t look pleasant. Why?”

  There might have been a gleam of approval in Emma’s gaze, in addition to a flicker of surprise. “Well put.” Then she glanced again at her diamond-encrusted watch. “It’s a quarter to ten.”

  There was a quick flurry, purses retrieved, chairs pushed back. Annie had no doubt that the four of them would be in the front row at the news conference.

  • • •

  Max gestured toward a chrome-and-web chair in front of his desk. “Coffee?” Barb set the coffeemaker to turn on automatically and there was a heady scent of Colombian.

  David Corley swiped a hand across his bristly cheek. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

  Max poured two mugs, brought one to David, then settled behind his desk. He kept his expression unaffected but he was startled by the change in David’s demeanor from unflappable cool guy to a harried, distraught man. “What can I do for you?”

  David hunched forward, holding the mug in both hands, ignoring the coffee. “I got the Gazette yesterday.” He stared at Max, his gaze troubled. “The story about Doc Martin blew my mind. Then I heard on TV this morning about his house. I didn’t even take time to eat breakfast. I went right to the police station and tried to talk to the guy in charge. I guess I didn’t handle it right. They asked if I had information and I should have said, yeah I did. Instead, I said I wanted to know what the hell was going on. My brother-in-law’s in jail and if all this stuff in the paper was right, Tom didn’t have anything to do with hurting Jane. I said I wanted the lowdown. If somebody else killed Jane, they had to get busy, find out what happened. They took me off to a little room and this woman wrote everything down and said they’d get back to me. And there I was out on the street in front of the police station and I didn’t know anything more than when I got there. Then I remembered in the Gazette it said somebody hired you to find out who killed Jane.” He reached out, put the mug on the desk and some coffee slopped over. “Who are you working for and what do you know?”

  Max leaned back in his chair, kept his tone casual. “My clients are confidential, but I can share some information. Tom Edmonds is innocent because he was not on the island the night—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. I want to know if the Gazette had it right that Doc Martin talked to somebody at my birthday party and that’s why he got killed. My God, is that true?” He cracked the knuckles of his right hand.

  “According to Lucy, that’s exactly what happened. It started at the open house—”

  David made a chopping motion with his hand. “I read all about it. I didn’t notice a damn thing.” David spoke the words like they hurt. “A couple of days after that, I talked to Jane.” His jaw quivered. He took a breath. “She asked me if I picked up on something peculiar at the open house, that she’d felt worried ever since, kept looking over her shoulder. Hell, I joked around. See, I think art’s a bunch of baloney. I said, yeah the whole thing gave me the willies, too. I stepped into the wrong gallery and it was all this disjointed stuff and a couple of canvasses with grinning skulls. At least Tom doesn’t paint that kind of crap. A
nyway”—now his eyes looked at Max but they were filled with misery—“I blew her off. She tried to tell me that something was wrong, that she didn’t feel right, and I made a joke out of it. God, she tried to tell me.”

  Max saw a man struggling to contain emotion. He kept his voice gentle. “Did she mention anybody?”

  David jammed his fingers together, stared down at them. “I don’t know. I needed to talk to her about something and I guess she saw I was uptight. That was like Jane, you know.” He lifted his face. “She could be a bitch and then she’d turn around and do anything she could for you. I guess she knew I was in a tight—”

  “The money you owe Jason Brown?”

  David looked shocked. “How’d you know?”

  Max shrugged. “Lots of people go to Palmetto Players. Somebody noticed you. What was Brown threatening to do?”

  For an instant, there was a hot flicker in David’s eyes before his gaze once again dropped to his tightly clasped fingers. “He said he’d ruin my credit.” It was a mumble.

  Max studied him. In a slant of light from a high window, there was a hint of weakness in his bristly jaw. Ruined credit? Rich kids like David didn’t worry about ruined credit. Max expected the threat was much more direct and forceful.

  David’s head jerked up. Now his face reformed. He almost managed a tremulous smile. “Anyway, that’s the point. Jane came through. She was going to take care of everything.” He blew out a whoosh of air. “I’ll have to admit she surprised me. I had to promise no more blackjack, no more roulette. Hell, that wasn’t a problem. I sure didn’t want to go back there.”

  Max figured David now had a pretty clear idea that the gentility of the old plantation house didn’t include the man with the skull on his desk.

  “Sure, I agreed, no more gambling.” His face drooped. “If I hadn’t been thinking about my own sorry ass, maybe she would have told me more. If she had, maybe we’d have some idea who . . . hurt her. I want to help anybody who’ll find out what happened. You. The cops. Anybody. Damn, if only I’d paid attention to what she said.”

  Max understood his anguish, but maybe he knew more than he realized. “What did she tell you?”

  David looked uncomfortable. “I can’t promise any of this really means anything. She was talking and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. But this morning when I thought back”—he hesitated—“well, I don’t want to toss anybody overboard but I remember she said something about Kevin.” He rubbed knuckles against his cheeks. “Something about Kevin and sticky fingers.”

  • • •

  Sun splashed the front steps of the police station. TV cameras from Savannah stations were set up and smooth-faced, blond reporters in stylish suits waited with mics in hand. A crowd of perhaps twenty-five or thirty clustered beyond the cameras, jostling for a good view. The breeze off the harbor stirred Marian Kenyon’s short dark curls. The blond TV reporters apparently used enough spray to prevent even a ripple in their coiffures. The blondes teetered on high heels, gripped their mics. Marian kept one hand on the strap of her Leica. She waved her other hand at Annie and the trio.

  Annie felt a touch at her elbow. She half turned, smiled up at Max. She felt a quick flicker of happiness as she always did when he was present, followed by an immediate recognition of a dark shadow in his eyes. He knew something that would upset her.

  He saw her understanding, started to speak, then the front door of the station opened. He nodded toward the steps. “I’m afraid we won’t hear what we’d hoped for.” Mayor Cosgrove stepped outside, followed by Billy Cameron. Annie marveled at the penguin-shaped mayor’s ability to win reelection, but he was a good retail politician, never missing a beauty pageant, chili supper, or civic club luncheon. This morning he was attired in a natty silver gray Palm Beach suit, pink oxford-cloth shirt, and gray tie with pink stripes. Annie wished she could toss him a cane and top hat and suggest a riff from “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

  In contrast, Billy looked stolid and weary. He was clean-shaven and dressed in crisply starched khaki shirt and trousers. Dark smudges beneath his eyes told of little sleep. He stood a pace behind the mayor, gazed out with an unreadable expression.

  Mayor Cosgrove puffed up his chest, carefully keeping his head erect for the best camera view.

  The nearest TV blonde shouted, “Did a newspaper story”—she was careful not to mention the competition by name—“unmask a second murder on the island in less than a week and lead to arson that put a victim’s sister in the hospital?”

  The portly mayor showered her with a condescending smile, white molars gleaming. “Island residents can rest assured that I”—dignified emphasis—“am making sure that proper investigative procedures are followed and sensationalism in the press is ignored.”

  The blonde wasn’t fazed. “The hospitalized woman spoke out about her brother’s murder and—”

  The mayor held up a pudgy hand. “Only facts matter. Fact one: Paul Martin’s death, sadly”—his face momentarily reflected sadness—“was self-inflicted. The police investigation left no stone unturned. Forensic evidence found gunsmoke residue on the doctor’s right hand. His fingerprints—”

  Annie looked past the mayor at Billy, but his face was still unreadable. Did he believe the twaddle the mayor was spouting?

  “—on the barrel of the gun, a contact wound on his right temple. Fact two: The murder of Jane Corley is a separate investigation. There is no linkage between Dr. Martin’s death and Jane Corley’s murder.” His tone was long-suffering. “Notwithstanding unfortunate reportage, there is no confirmation of the information provided to the Gazette by Mrs. Lucy Ransome.”

  Marian stalked close to the steps, confrontation in every line of her skinny frame. “Did Mrs. Ransome show police the sketch drawn by Dr. Martin the night before his death?”

  The mayor drew himself up. “Dr. Martin’s sketch is irrelevant—”

  Marian interrupted. “Did Mrs. Ransome state for the record that Dr. Martin seemed relieved from anxiety after the birthday party at the home of David Corley?”

  “We cannot know the inner workings of Dr. Martin’s—”

  Marian cut him off. “The sketch exists. On that sketch Dr. Martin wrote: An open house, a hard heart. Evil in a look. I saw it. I’ll deal with it at the party. Moreover, he wrote and underlined twice: Protect Jane. Dr. Martin attended an open house arranged by Jane Corley at an island gallery on Sunday. Dr. Martin drew the sketch Tuesday night. Dr. Martin attended a party Wednesday night at the home of David Corley. Jane Corley was in attendance. Dr. Martin was shot later that night. Jane Corley was murdered the following Monday. Now, Mayor Cosgrove, please explain how the sketch has no relevance to the deaths of Paul Martin and Jane Corley and”—her voice rose—“how arson at Dr. Martin’s house is unrelated to this sequence of events.”

  The mayor’s plump cheeks flamed.

  Annie knew he would never admit he’d made a wrong decision. Possibly, too, he resented Annie and Max from their previous encounters and Marian because she never gave up on a story once she began.

  The mayor’s deep-set, small eyes glinted. “Police Chief Cameron’s thorough work has resulted in the arrest of the guilty party in the death of Jane Corley. Tom Edmonds, her husband, was involved in an extramarital affair. A hammer that belonged to him and has only his fingerprints was used to kill his wife. There is further material evidence that is linked to him. The Gazette’s sensational article apparently gave some person interested in freeing Mr. Edmonds the idea of setting Dr. Martin’s house on fire to suggest that the murderer was someone other than Mr. Edmonds. Fortunately, I and the Broward’s Rock Police Department understand the arson was nothing more than a diversionary tactic.”

  • • •

  They stood at the end of Fish Haul Pier, the nearest spot from the police station for a somewhat private conversation. Max admired the way the breeze molded Annie’s soft
peasant blouse against her. His mother brushed back a sliver of blond hair and smiled at him. Henny tapped the fingers of one hand on the railing. Her dark brown eyes narrowed in concentration. Emma stood with arms akimbo, her blunt face corrugated in a ferocious frown.

  Max had a sudden empathy for the man in white tie and tails in a ring with Bengal tigers. He thought Jane’s murderer might prefer the tigers to the unleashed efforts of Annie and the Intrepid Trio. Each talked fast, Emma’s deep voice brusque, Laurel’s husky pronouncement emphatic, Henny’s brisk comments decisive, Annie’s clear tenor outraged, all of them furious with the mayor’s intransigence.

  “We’re all agreed.” He hoped to stem the rush of words, all trumpeting fury at the mayor and a determination to find out what they could and prove him wrong.

  Four sets of eyes turned on him.

  “Definitely we can talk to people. I got Annie’s text just before the press conference saying I should check out David Corley and Jason Brown. I’ve already talked to David. He came by to see me this morning. He’ll help us. He said Jane kind of told him she was spooked about something but he was wrought up about his gambling debts and didn’t listen. She came through and promised to cover him. He did say that Jane talked about Kevin Hubbard having sticky fingers.”

  Emma’s smile was cool. “Thanks, Max. I’ll remember that when I talk to Kevin.” She looked at each in turn, a general deploying her troops. “Very well. Our mission is understood. Proceed as planned.”

  9

  Overhead, long-necked, black-wing-tipped southward-bound ibis shared the sky with vees of geese. The morning was perfect for a stroll along the boardwalk overlooking the harbor, a pleasure Annie intended to enjoy before perfect October weather gave way to northerly winds and chilly rains. But rain might as well be slanting down for all the pleasure she could take in the day. As she drove, she glanced at the Broward’s Rock Police Station at the crest of the slope leading down to the harbor. The view from Billy Cameron’s office included the harbor with the Miss Jolene now at her berth and, on the horizon, the spread arms of a shrimp boat and a distant plume of smoke above a cruise ship on its way to Florida.