White Elephant Dead

by Carolyn G. Hart

  In unison, Annie and Max shook their heads. Dorothy L.’s fur fluffed.

  “Not you, sweetie.” Annie pointed at Max. “You call Miss Dora tomorrow. Deflect her. Tell her it’s all a ploy to fool the real killer.”

  Max yawned. “Maybe it would be a good idea for Garrett to get a picture of how people perceive Ruth.”

  Annie put their glasses in the sink. “I think it will be better if we leave him alone. He’s going to get tired of everybody telling him he’s got it all wrong.”

  MESSAGE 5: Annie, I can’t believe you told that policeman the gun belonged to me. I told you Kathryn took it—

  Ruth Yates’s voice shook with anguish and fear. Annie lifted her hands as if to ward off blows as the frantic words pelted her.

  —and I can’t tell anyone about Kathryn, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—

  Ruth was sobbing now and the words became difficult to hear.

  —can’t bear…never wanted to hurt…leave me alone…oh Brian, Brian…

  When the connection ended, tears burned in Annie’s eyes. “Max, this is awful. She’s terrified.” She reached for the telephone.

  Max grabbed her hand. “Wait. Annie, it’s too late. You can call first thing in the morning.”

  Finally Annie agreed, but her last vision before falling asleep was of Ruth Yates, her face streaked with tears, her finger pointing at Annie.

  Annie paced back and forth in the kitchen, watching the clock. It wasn’t good manners to call before nine in the morning but surely contacting a frightened murder suspect altered the rules of social intercourse. The minute the hour hand swung to seven, she picked up the phone.

  The microwave pinged. Max opened it, lifted out her two slices of pizza and his carrot muffin. He hadn’t said a word about cholesterol or fat grams when she’d chosen her breakfast.

  As he put her plate on the table, Annie nodded her thanks and swept Dorothy L. onto a chair. Undaunted, Dorothy L. swarmed right back on the table, her blue eyes sparkling. Max picked her up, nuzzled her neck. “Are you still hungry?”

  “Of course she’s still hungry,” Annie snapped. “Dorothy L. thinks mealtime is anytime she’s—” Annie broke off.

  “Brian Yates.” He was a big bear of a man, but it was the first time Annie had ever heard his deep voice sound harsh and stricken.

  Suddenly her own kitchen seemed about as comfortable as the Arctic tundra. “Brian, this is Annie Darling. I—”

  “Haven’t you done enough harm?” His tone bristled with anger. “I can’t believe you’d call here.”

  Annie stiffened. “Wait a minute, Brian. I’m not the one who pointed a gun at Kathryn Girard. But Max and Emma and I are the ones who are trying to find out what really happened Thursday night. Now, if you want to help Ruth, you’ll let me talk to her.”

  Max was watching, his eyes concerned. Dorothy L.’s head poked up next to Annie’s plate. Annie grabbed the plate, put it on the counter by the phone, then turned on the speaker.

  “I can’t.” Brian spoke so softly he could barely be heard. “She’s in the hospital.”

  “The hospital?” Annie felt numb. What had happened? What had Ruth done?

  Max pushed back his chair, came to stand beside her.

  “After the police left, Ruth locked herself in her room. Chief Garrett said she had to come to the station tomorrow and she should have a lawyer. But she wouldn’t talk to me.” His voice was heavy with pain and disbelief. “Dr. Burford came when I was trying to get her to let me in. She hadn’t eaten. She was crying. He told me to wait downstairs. I heard him knock on her door. He told her he had to see her and not to be a damned fool. In a minute, she opened the door and he went inside.”

  Max scrawled on a kitchen pad: I told you what Burford said. It must be true, after all. Ruth must have killed Alden Yates!

  Annie leaned close to the speaker phone. “Was she sick? What did Dr. Burford say?”

  “Nobody talked to me.” His tone was querulous. “I went upstairs and leaned close to the door, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.”

  Annie pictured Brian Yates easing quietly up the stairs to creep down his own hall, bewildered and desperate.

  “When he came out, he said Ruth was suffering from exhaustion and had to be hospitalized and he was going to check her in himself. She came out of her room with a bag.” There was a long, aching pause. “She didn’t even look toward me.”

  Annie wanted to tell him not to worry. But how could she? If ever a man had reason to worry, it was Brian. Instead, she said, “I’ll go see her, Brian.”

  “They won’t let you in. Burford called a little while ago. He said Ruth wasn’t to be disturbed. Not by anybody. Not me. Not her friends. Not the police.” He took a deep breath. “They’ve got a guard at her door. A guard!” and the phone slammed down.

  Annie clicked off the speaker phone, put up the receiver. “Max, it looks worse and worse for Ruth.”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt about Alden Yates. But don’t you see?” He cut his muffin in half, added a smear of marmalade. “Even if she’s innocent of the Girard and Chapman murders, she has to keep her mouth shut.”

  “And if she won’t talk”—Annie slipped into her chair, picked up a piece of still-warm pizza—“Garrett’s going to be convinced she’s guilty.”

  “Maybe she is,” Max said soberly.

  Maybe she was. They ate in silence.

  Annie finished her pizza, resisted the temptation to heat another slice.

  Max looked up, saw her studying the refrigerator. “Agatha is inspired by your example.”

  Annie grinned and he grinned in return, looking, Annie decided, absolutely yummy, his blond hair still in tufts from a night’s sleep, his dark blue eyes bright, his face attractively stubbled with blondish beard. If it were a usual Saturday morning (Death on Demand didn’t open until ten and Agatha’s breakfast dropped automatically from a measured container), they could pursue other pleasures.

  Max’s entire face brightened. He pushed back his chair, apparently losing interest in his muffin.

  “We have duties, Max.” But he was bending near and suddenly his lips touched hers and she lost interest in duties.

  As Max’s red Maserati curved around a bend on its way to the harbor, Annie turned into the winding dusty road to the Women’s Club. Thanks to the White Elephant Sale, traffic was as thick as on the William Hilton Parkway on Hilton Head before the cross-island expressway opened. The main parking lot to the Women’s Club was full and cars were tucked off the road between pines.

  Annie waved hello to friends and acquaintances. As she walked along the road, she realized that for all their good efforts on Friday, there was still so much they didn’t know. She’d answered several questions on her list: Yes, Dave Pierce was on the island the day his wife’s boat disappeared and the weather was fine, and no, everyone said Dave and his secretary weren’t having an affair. But she didn’t know why Loretta Campbell was hostile to her son’s second wife, who certainly seemed an improvement over his first, or why Gary and Marie Campbell quit the Little Theater, or where Vince Ellis was when Arlene took her last sail. As for Max, he’d learned that Dr. Burford was at Loretta Campbell’s bed when she died, but what mattered was what the nurse’s aide said after Alden Yates died. If the rumors were true, Max knew why Ruth Yates went into a tailspin after her father-in-law’s death. Annie had figured out how the murderer left Marsh Tacky Road, but not in time to save the life of Jake Chapman. Max had yet to learn why Arlene Ellis sailed on a stormy day or what happened between Gary Campbell and his first wife, though how could that lead to murder so many years later?

  Food booths rimmed the perimeter of the front lawn. A coffee booth was in full swing and the soft drink concession already had two lines five deep. Most of the booths would open at eleven, offering everything from steamed oysters and she-crab soup to seafood shish kebab and corn dogs. As she joined in a throng of eager shoppers hurrying toward the front door of th
e Women’s Club, Annie hoped that before the day was over, she and Max and Emma would learn enough to unmask a murderer.

  A banner fluttered over the main door:

  WHITE ELEPHANT SALE

  Trinkets, Collectibles, Cast Offs,

  Treasures, Surprises, Trifles

  Join in the Fun—$5

  Drawing—3 tickets for $10, 7 for $15, 12 for $20

  Annie had a fuzzy idea this might be a form of gambling and wondered vaguely if the drawing was illegal. Was it legal to charge different prices for the tickets? But Chief Garrett had more serious matters on his mind. The noise level inside the club rivaled a combined rock concert, cement mixer and Boy Scout jamboree. Annie stood in line, forked over five dollars and received a green palmetto stamp on the back of her right hand.

  Balanced atop a footstool next to a huge wooden Indian, Pamela Potts, her blond pageboy gleaming, her blue apron crisp, yelped, “Annie, Annie,” and waved her hands above her head like Gilligan sighting a cruise ship.

  Annie wormed her way up the central aisle. She was temporarily delayed when two little boys upended a tackle box filled with marbles. On her hands and knees, she helped their mother and the boys grab marbles and sling them into the box. “George, Howard, if anyone falls and we get sued, your father’s going to kill you. George, take that marble out of your mouth. Howard, put that peashooter away.”

  Once past the marbles, Annie had to wait while a distinguished old gentleman with white hair and handlebar mustaches struggled up the aisle clutching a mammoth stuffed moose head. His face was dangerously red.

  A prong of antlers swung perilously near. Annie ducked. “Handsome—uh—handsome head,” she said.

  He glared at her. “Thinks she’ll get rid of it. Well, we’ll see about that!”

  Ah, the happiness to be found at an old-fashioned White Elephant Sale.

  Annie slid next to the wall and looked up at Pamela. “You called?”

  Pamela’s stare was dubious. “I didn’t call. I waved.”

  Annie forced a bright smile. She must remember with whom she spoke.

  “Annie”—Pamela’s voice trembled—“what are you doing here?”

  Annie stared in return. It was hard to know where to start. Should she explain that she was responding to Emma’s command? That she was pursuing anyone and everyone with information about the people on Kathryn Girard’s route the night she died? That she wanted—

  “Henny’s missing. I thought you of all people would be out searching for her.” Pamela’s blue gaze was bewildered. “I called the police this morning and they told me not to worry, that Henny was free to leave the hospital when she wished. Dr. Cary won’t return my call. I went by Henny’s house. I knocked and there was no answer. I got her key from the front porch and went inside. No one was there. But someone had fed her cat. I tried to talk to Emma and she said everything was fine. But Annie, it isn’t fine! Where’s Henny?”

  Annie reached out and pulled Pamela next to the wooden Indian. “Pamela, it’s important for everyone to think Henny is missing.” Annie bent near, whispered. “The police have Henny in a safe place until everything comes out about Kathryn Girard’s murder, but that’s a secret. Get the word out that Henny’s missing. It could be a big help.”

  Pamela might be earnest, Pamela might be dense, but Pamela could be counted on. “Oh Annie, I’ll tell everyone. I’ll act as worried as can be.” Her face immediately assumed the woebegone expression of a beagle at a cat clinic.

  “Good work,” Annie said stoutly. Annie moved on up the aisle, peering around a massive woman clutching a box of Fiesta pottery. She had to admit that Emma’s original hope of putting pressure on the murderer might be their last, best hope. Surely the murderer had to be a little worried even though word of Ruth Yates’s plight was no doubt seeping across the island. But Henny’s disappearance should cause uneasiness. As for Emma, she was formidable. If Annie had committed two murders, carefully setting up Ruth Yates to be the prime suspect, she’d be damned worried if Emma marched about emphasizing that Kathryn’s first stop had been at Ruth’s but who was to say it had been her final stop? And, if Annie had any success today, maybe she’d pull some other strings that would make a double murderer very uneasy indeed.

  Chapter 12

  A rush of wind from the rotating blades of the Coast Guard helicopter rippled the waist-high grasses near the landing pad. The craft shut down and in a few minutes the crew walked briskly toward the fence. The pilot, tall, thin, with a brush of dark hair and an easy slouch, came through the gate.

  Max stepped forward. “Lieutenant Farriday?” He held out his hand. “I’m Max Darling. I called you about the searches for two boaters lost off Broward’s Rock, Arlene Ellis and Lynn Pierce.”

  Farriday’s handshake was swift and firm. Green eyes studied Max with interest. “I told you what we knew.” His tone was pleasant but dismissive.

  “I know, Lieutenant. But I’d appreciate if it you’d give me a minute. I have a couple of questions.” Max’s tone was easy and confident.

  Farriday pulled off his flight helmet. “All right.” He strode toward the single-story building. He opened a frosted door, held it for Max. Leading the way into a small office that overlooked the airstrip, he gestured toward a straight chair. He tossed his helmet on his desk and settled into a swivel chair.

  Max knew he had to get Farriday’s attention and hold it. “In the last couple of days, there have been two murders on Broward’s Rock. I’m looking for a link to the deaths of either Arlene Ellis or Lynn Pierce.”

  “Accidental deaths.” Farriday frowned.

  “I know that’s what they appeared to be,” Max agreed. “But I’m asking you now, could either have been murder?”

  Farriday rubbed his bony nose. “When someone drowns, Mr. Darling, and no one is there to see it happen, then, sure, the death could be murder. Or suicide. Nothing in either of the searches gave any indication that the deaths were other than accidental. I don’t see how you could have obtained any physical evidence to prove anything else.” His gaze challenged Max.

  Max leaned forward. “Vince Ellis and someone in the Pierce family were being blackmailed. That blackmailer was killed Thursday night. I know there’s no proof that either Arlene Ellis or Lynn Pierce was murdered. If there had been, you would have contacted the police. But can you now look back and tell me if there’s anything, anything at all, about either of those drownings that worried you?”

  Farriday leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Ellis.” His voice was thoughtful. “According to her husband, she was a first-rate sailor.” Farriday looked across the room at maps of the Sound and the ocean. “Warning flags were up the day she went out. Force 7.”

  Max understood. Force 7 indicated winds of twenty-eight to thirty-three knots. Any experienced boater would stay in the harbor or, if at sea, heave to. The Sound must have been broken with whitecaps, the water foaming and the sky a dirty gray with dark anvil clouds towering high.

  “Why did she go out?” Farriday mused. “The storms delayed our search. I didn’t expect to find her. Her husband was going nuts when we were grounded. Paced like a madman, kept begging us to take off. I felt sorry for him. But when I asked him why she’d gone out on a stormy day, he just looked at me and shook his head and walked away.”

  An experienced sailor taking a boat out on a day heavy with storm clouds—what did it mean? Was Arlene Ellis arrogant or foolish, or did Arlene deliberately set sail to die? Or did Vince Ellis kill his wife and stage a fake disappearance?

  Farriday pushed back his chair, stood. “I don’t guess, Mr. Darling. I deal in facts. Experienced sailors. Mrs. Ellis went out on a stormy day. Mrs. Pierce sailed on a fine day, fleecy clouds and winds seven to ten knots. Neither one came back. You figure it out. But”—and he walked to the door, held it—“I can tell you that I remember those two searches well and part of the reason I remember them is the husbands. It hurt to look at them. I don’t know why their wives were lost, but I can
tell you I never saw men who cared more.”

  Annie reached the steps to the low stage. Yesterday Emma had reigned in solitary splendor at a card table. Today, the stage was piled high with boxes, some with red stickers, others with green, yellow, pink and purple. Emma stood at one end, gesturing decisively to a covey of blue-aproned volunteers. Emma’s hair was in tight orange coils and her caftan was a remarkable mélange of red, yellow and green spots. “…imperative that the tables be kept well stocked. Replenish the tables from these boxes. The boxes are color-coded according to price. Each item in a red box sells at a table stocked with twenty-dollar items, green fifteen, yellow ten…”

  A marketplace in Marrakesh couldn’t have resounded with greater hubbub. As Annie waited for Emma to finish, she looked out over the teeming club room. A piercing whistle came from an electric train set near the front door. A usually sedate vice president of the Broward’s Rock Music Club had found a tambourine and was holding it above her head and clapping it as she did a fair rendition of Carmen in the aisle between a pile of vintage hubcaps and stacks of National Geographic. Two women clutched opposite ends of a quilt, their faces obdurate, their knuckles white. An enthusiastic volunteer stood on an overturned bucket and held home-preserved jellies above her head, chanting, “Two for five…”

  Familiar faces were everywhere. This didn’t surprise Annie. But she was surprised—and she had to hand it to Emma, who had a disgusting habit of always being right—to spot most of the people who had been on Kathryn Girard’s pick-up list. But maybe it made all kinds of sense. Whatever happened, the murderer had to keep up a convincing pretense that everything was fine and today was the White Elephant Sale, the most important event of the year for members of the Women’s Club. No one who belonged would dream of missing it and their spouses were always in tow to provide muscle. Marie Campbell, Janet Pierce and Ruth Yates all were members. Of course, Ruth and Brian were not present.