Dead, White, and Blue

by Carolyn Hart

  “—I swear if I was Maggie I’d castrate him like a wild hog. That poor honey just keeps holding on. But, mind now, don’t you let on to Maggie what I said.” Another pause. “Some of the ladies was talking and you know how Loretta Bailey chatters. I swear words come tumbling out of her that would make Leon queasier than eight-foot swells. She said Leon was right puzzled how Dave had sold out a bunch of stuff and put about half his money in cash accounts. Sounds like a man up to no good. Everybody knows cash don’t earn any money these days. Oh, here’s my next appointment. Gotta go.”

  • • •

  Max used his one–eight hundred number for the call to Bucky Hurst. “… representing a producer who wants to get in touch with Shell Vitale.”

  “The lady doesn’t live here anymore.” Bucky sounded bored. “You can call her on Broward’s Rock—”

  Max interrupted. “Apparently she’s left the island. The matter is fairly urgent. Can you suggest friend or family who can help me out?”

  “Left?” There was a rumble of laughter. “I told Wesley boy she wasn’t the kind you marry. He was too dumb to listen. As usual. Yeah. She’s got a sister in Bakersfield, Edna Vitale.”

  • • •

  Annie took a deep breath and tapped numbers on her cell.

  “Peterson Construction. How may I help you?”

  A muted thump sounded at the storeroom’s closed door. Annie came to her feet, carrying the cell. She opened the door, and Agatha marched in, tail high.

  “This is Annie Darling. May I speak to Mr. Peterson, please.” Annie closed the door, returned to the worktable.

  Agatha followed and sailed to the tabletop, landing lightly.

  “He’s on a conference call at the moment. May I have him call you back?” The receptionist was pleasant and professional.

  Annie left the number, slipped back into her seat.

  Agatha stepped onto the legal pad, turned around twice, sat. She rubbed the side of her face against Annie’s arm, staking claim and effectively preventing Annie from making notes.

  “Not enough cat attention? Right. First things first.” Annie stroked soft, fine black fur.

  A faint purr indicated approval.

  “I thought I’d cornered a fat juicy mouse, Agatha. Guess again. Dave Peterson may be cherie, but he obviously isn’t off island with Shell. Unless Shell has been a very busy lady and quite discreet, there isn’t a Brazilian millionaire with a yacht. Agatha, if she didn’t leave the island with a lover, where is she?”

  • • •

  Five Vitales later, Max listened to Edna.

  “… sure miss Willie Kay. Oh, I know she likes Shell better, even went to court to get her name changed. But she’ll always be Willie Kay to me. Cutest little girl you can imagine. See, I’m twenty years older and our mom died when Willie Kay was a little girl so I raised her. And she can dance and sing like an angel. But I was so glad when she got married and decided not to stay in show business. I don’t believe in how a woman has to show off her body to get places. But I don’t hold with marrying a man who’s been married before. I’m awful afraid Willie Kay’s run into trouble there. She didn’t tell me much, just said she’d be leaving the island after she took care of some matters. She said she was coming back to California but first she was going to make sure nobody there forgot her. I told her I didn’t like the sound of that, the good Lord always says to turn the other cheek, and she laughed and said she was just going to pop holes in some fancy balloons and then she’d be on her way.”

  “When did you last talk to her?”

  “I think it was Sunday before last. In the afternoon.”

  “She may be on her way now. If she gets in touch, will you ask her to call me?”

  “Sure. I’ll be glad to. But let me give you her cell number. You can call her yourself.”

  Max wrote down Shell’s cell number, left his number.

  He made quick notes: Shell told sister of plan to leave. Departure didn’t sound imminent but that was a couple of days before the Fourth. Did she change her mind? Was she on her way to California?

  As he wrote, he felt encouraged. Here was confirmation that Shell intended to leave the island. Maybe he could find Shell and ask her please to give Hayley a ring. He tapped Shell’s number. Five rings later voice mail interceded.

  • • •

  Double, double, double dare.” A towheaded teenager bellowed through cupped hands at a skinny girl wavering uncertainly at the end of the country club’s high dive. She edged forward, squealed, jumped.

  Annie stood on a flagstone terrace between the pool and the French doors of the dining room. The wing that included the two rooms combined for the Lady Luck dance extended to the left. The wing also afforded access to the terrace through French doors. Shell had entered the dance from the terrace. Annie and Max had walked out onto the terrace through a French door for their close encounter of a personal kind before leaving Wednesday night.

  That night she and Max had parked in the overflow lot. Parking in the main lot and the swimming pool lot had been full because of the Fourth. The overflow lot was accessible from a blacktop that bounded a portion of the golf course. Underbrush had been cleared but cars had to squeeze between pines to park. The golf course lot was on the other side of a stand of pines at the end of the terrace. That lot would also have been the choice of latecomers.

  Shell made her entrance when the band stopped playing at a quarter to nine. Very likely she’d either found space in the overflow lot or the golf course lot since she entered from a terrace door.

  Annie crossed the terrace and opened a door into the hallway that ran between the dining room and the wing. She stepped into coolness and quiet. She closed the door and raucous shouts from the swimming pool weren’t audible. The slap of her sandals against the cypress flooring was the only sound. The dining room was to her right. A closed double door to her left offered access to the site of the dance. She reached the end of the hallway. Straight ahead was the central two-story atrium. To her left, another hall led to private meeting rooms on one side, and, on the other, larger party rooms. For the dance, a partition was opened to combine two rooms.

  Annie looked down the shadowy hall. That night the only means of access to the dance were the door in the cross hallway and the French doors to the terrace. The door opposite the dining room had been used by waitstaff and the band members.

  She hurried across the atrium, passed the cloakroom. She stopped at the third frosted-glass door, the office of the service manager, Gerald O’Reilly. His door was open. He sat at his desk, his usually pleasant face creased in apologetic defensiveness. Jerry, as he urged club members to call him, was redheaded, ebullient, smooth, efficient, and always respectful. He wasn’t obsequious, but he deferred to the members, a subtle reinforcement of their affluent status. “Nothing like this has ever happened at the club. Absolutely I understand your outrage. I intend to find the responsible party.” Another defensive pause. “Certainly the club will pay for all damage—” He winced and held the phone away from his ear.

  The bellow over the phone reached Annie in the doorway, the deep male voice apoplectic. “… don’t you understand? She was in perfect condition, never even been repainted, not a scratch on her. Worth a fortune. Now she’ll have to go to a body shop. She won’t be the original.”

  Jerry tried again. “Colonel, I understand your distress. Sir, we want to—” Jerry’s shoulders sagged. He clicked off the phone.

  Annie hesitated in the doorway. Not a cheerful conversation and obviously the other speaker had hung up on Jerry. It was a reminder that everyone had challenges and maybe this wasn’t a good time to talk to Jerry.

  He looked up and his face reformed into a semblance of welcome though his cheeks were still flushed. “Mrs. Darling.” He came to his feet, moved around the desk. There was the air of a maître d’ ready to offer the best table. “What can I do for you this morning?”

  Annie smiled. “Jerry, I want to have a word with some
of the waitstaff who served the dance club Wednesday night, especially those on duty between eight fifteen and nine thirty.”

  His genial expression eroded. “Believe me,” he spoke emphatically, “I’ve already asked everyone who was in the dance rooms and no one saw that shawl.” He shoved a stubby hand through his thinning red hair and looked both exasperated and beleaguered.

  “Shawl?”

  He took a deep, steadying breath. “Aren’t you here for Mrs. Irwin? She’s called five times already.”

  Annie didn’t know whether to offer smelling salts or suggest a mantra. Instead, she gave him a reassuring smile. “I am not seeking a shawl and I haven’t talked to Eileen Irwin.”

  Pink again tinged his cheeks. “I’m sorry. Every time anybody brings up that night, it’s trouble. Colonel Hudson’s livid. You might know”—his tone was aggrieved—“some kid on a joyride would use the colonel’s car to trench two holes.” He shook his head. “What a mess. The greenskeeper’s in shock. Ruts six inches deep on eight and nine. Even worse, the damn car apparently skidded on that humpbacked bridge over the lagoon by nine and knocked down a post. I mean, it’s only a scratch on one fender. Well, I guess a headlight was cracked. But the colonel’s lucky the whole car didn’t go into the lagoon. Now the colonel wants all the valet parking kids fired. That’s not fair. Anybody could have taken the keys from the board. Anybody could spot his Air Force Thunderbird key fob if they hankered to drive an MG.”

  “Someone took the car from valet parking?” Annie felt sorry for Jerry. Crusty, seventyish Harry Hudson had three passions in life: his military career, his classic yellow MG with running boards, and golf.

  Jerry swiped again at his mussed hair, looking even more like a bird with a red crest. “There were cars everywhere Wednesday night. The MG wasn’t really gone that long.” Again he was defensive. “But it was an hour of hell when the colonel asked for his car and we couldn’t come up with it. I thought he was going to have a stroke on the spot. We were just lucky somebody walked home across the course and found it. And the next day Mrs. Irwin was here and you’d think she’d lost the crown jewels. She swears she wore a silk shawl to the dance and she left it on her chair when they went out for the fireworks, and when they got ready to go home after the fireworks, she couldn’t find it. I thought she’d complained to you.” He wrinkled his snub nose. “You want to talk to the waitstaff. Was there something else wrong that night?”

  “Everything was lovely. The dance was a great success. The staff couldn’t have done a better job.” He looked visibly happier with each reassurance. Annie scrambled to think of a tactful reason to speak with club staff. “This is another matter entirely. I’m trying to find out when Shell Hurst left that night and I hoped some of the staff might have noticed. She was wearing a distinctive dress. A friend is trying to get in touch with her.”

  Jerry stared at her and she could see the questions running through his mind… What difference does it make when Mrs. Hurst left the club Wednesday night? Why not call and ask her? Something screwy here. Mrs. Darling’s always nice to deal with… And his quick decision… Nothing to do with the club. What harm can it do? The Darlings are active members. I can get rid of her and talk to the club president, ask him to deal with the colonel… “Sure.” Jerry’s tone was hearty and now his face didn’t reflect anything but eagerness to be of service to a member. “Let me get our personnel list and I can suggest staff members to contact.”

  4

  Max raised an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to charm the ladies while you vamp the men?” He lounged comfortably in his red office chair.

  Annie’s laugh over the speakerphone was lighthearted. “I find you irresistible so I figure other women will be happy to talk to you. You check out the girls. I’ll talk to the guys. I’ll be a sweet lil’ ol’ Southern girl counting on a big, fine man to solve my problem for me.”

  Max pulled a notepad close, sketched a knight flinging down a cloak. “Two small details.”

  “Yes?”

  “In South Carolina, I don’t think a girl from Texas counts as Southern.”

  Annie drawled, “Honey, a girl from Texas is Southern with a dash of picante.”

  Max grinned, but continued. “Bigger detail. I don’t think we have a problem.” Quickly he recounted his conversation with Shell’s sister. “… so Shell intended to leave the island.”

  Annie’s silence was not so much resistant as thoughtful. “Why leave secretly? And you can’t say this wasn’t pretty secretive. We haven’t found a soul who’s seen her after the dance.”

  Max sketched a pair of big staring eyes. “Hold on, Annie. We haven’t exactly canvassed everyone she knew.”

  “That’s my point.”

  Max shook his head in puzzlement and scrawled on his pad: Channeling Pam North again. He decided to move on. “Your solution?”

  “We need to check the waitstaff, find out who Shell talked to and whether anyone saw her leave and, if so, whether she was alone.”

  • • •

  Annie took a deep gulp of air-conditioned air smelling strongly of fried onions as she stepped into the Meet ’n’ Greet Diner, a few blocks from Parotti’s Bar and Grill. Its specialty was onion burgers, which Ben Parotti dismissed as grease on a bun. She slid onto the red leatherette seat at the counter, facing a hooded grill and shelving with glasses and dishes. The club staff phone directory was a gold mine of information, indicating which employees were part-time and held other jobs during the day. Steve Castle had bartended at the dance. Daytimes he cooked at the diner. His dark face was thin, intense, and reserved. He was pleasant but quiet. He handed Annie a menu.

  “Hello.” She smiled. “I’m Annie Darling. You worked at the Lady Luck dance on the Fourth.”

  He gave her a quick, curious gaze. Annie thought she saw recognition, but he only said, “Yes, ma’am. What would you like to drink?”

  She ordered iced tea. It was still early enough that only a few of the booths were taken and she was one of three customers at the counter. He brought the tea and held the order pad. “Onion burger with everything, coleslaw.” Before he turned away, she said quickly, “Steve—”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Jerry O’Reilly suggested I check with you. I need some information about that night.”

  He regarded her steadily. “Like?”

  “Did you see the woman who came in just as the band took a break? Young, beautiful, she called out to her husband who was standing at the bar. He’d been there most of the evening. Looks a little like Brad Pitt. Sunburned. He spends a lot of time on his boat.”

  There was a flash of something in Steve’s dark eyes. Maybe disdain. Maybe envy. “Right.”

  “Did you see her with other people between that time and the end of the dance?”

  His brows drew down in a frown. “You were there. Why ask me?”

  “My husband and I left early.”

  A bell pinged. He jerked his head at the grill. “Got to go.”

  She watched him as he flipped burgers, moved them to buns, added lettuce, tomato, relish, placed them in paper-lined plastic baskets with mounds of French fries. When he’d delivered that order, he came back behind the counter.

  “I was too busy at the bar to watch the dance floor. She came up once, talked to the guy you said was her husband. I happened to hear a little bit. She kind of flounced that dress, said, ‘Maybe tonight.’ I think she was gigging him about something. Then she said, ‘Maybe not.’ He looked like he’d like to belt her a quick one. She laughed, then turned and walked away. He stayed at the bar. Next time I looked around, he was gone.”

  “Did you see either of them again?”

  Steve shook his head. “Ma’am, it was pretty dark in there. And”—his tone was sardonic—“I didn’t care where they went.”

  • • •

  Max walked down the boardwalk. Beyond the sea oats on the dune, green water stretched to the horizon. Pelicans in a V skimmed above the water, seeking a school
of menhaden. The air was heavy with heat and the scent of the sea. Sleek gray porpoises glistened as they rose in graceful arcs only to disappear again. He felt conspicuous in a polo and slacks and loafers. He wished he had on trunks and could race to the water and splash out to the first wave.

  Maybe Annie would be satisfied that they’d done all they could do when they finished talking to club staff about that night and he’d entice her to the shore. He loved thinking of Annie and the beach and how he’d surprised her when he first came to the island. He’d found her sunning on a towel, eyes closed. He’d given a frankly erotic whistle. Anybody who doubted he could make a whistle erotic didn’t understand the allure of Annie in an oh-so-brief swimsuit. He jerked his thoughts back to the present, passed the fried shrimp booth, a saltwater taffy booth, and stopped at the cotton candy booth. A dark-haired girl in her late teens used a cone to collect the fluffy candy, this batch in a truly appalling shade of chartreuse.

  “Be right with you.” She had a soft, sweet voice. When the confection was in a plastic cover, she said rapidly, “Dollar seventy-five each, on sale today, dollar and a half, four bags for three dollars. Pick your favorite shade: blue, purple, pink, green, or black.”

  Max was diverted. “Black?”

  Her smile was infectious. “The manager has a thing for The Addams Family.” She hummed a bar from the musical.

  Max almost asked the manager’s age, but focused on his objective. “I’m looking for Lindsay Hamilton.”

  Her brown eyes widened. She seemed to take in his non-beach attire. “Are you here about that shawl? Mr. O’Reilly said that woman might go to the police. I think she’s horrible. A dumb old shawl. I don’t care if it’s worth a hundred and fifty dollars. It isn’t fair to look at me and Rhonda like we’re thieves just because we’re new. Well, Rhonda’s not exactly new but she only works there occasionally. We didn’t even work in the room until after the dinner was served and cleared. We weren’t even in there very long. All we had to do was pick up dirty glasses.”