The back of Annie’s neck prickled.
“This happened yesterday afternoon? You found out about the check and quarreled with Corinne, and then you told Bobby all about it?”
Gail nodded.
Annie approached from another angle. “How could she keep you from inheriting?”
“Oh, she could do it,” Gail explained reluctantly. “She had the power under Daddy’s will to decide if I should receive the bulk of the estate on my twenty-fifth birthday, or on my thirtieth birthday. Yesterday she said I’d never get any of it. But Bobby said she could take her precious money and—” She paused, blushing. “He didn’t care at all! He said we’d do fine without a dime from anybody.”
And Chief Wells would be as likely to believe that, Annie thought, as he would to believe in little green men serving pink champagne in the mansion gardens at midnight.
“What time did you talk to your aunt yesterday?”
Gail’s face again looked shadowed and pale. The vivacity drained away. “It must not have been long before … it happened.”
“But you were mad at Bobby when you talked to him at the pond.”
Gail drew her breath in sharply. “Were you there?”
“I was putting some clues in the gazebo. Neither of you saw me. When you started talking, well, it seemed like a bad time to speak up.”
“That was before I talked to Corinne. Bobby chased after me, and made me listen. That’s when I called the bank, then I marched in to Corinne and told her she was trying to embarrass me and make Bobby look bad, but it wasn’t going to work. Then I found Bobby out in the grounds, and we worked it all out. Afterward, I went to the Museum. It always makes me feel better to go to the Museum. I’m putting together a new exhibit of Victorian wallpapers. I love the names of some of the patterns. They’re so grand. Bachelor’s Pear Vine. Oglesby Damask. Fuschia Trellis. Hewes Parlor Paper.
But Annie scarcely listened. She was sorting out the timing.
Bobby and Gail at the pond.
Bobby follows Gail.
Gail and her aunt quarrel.
Gail and Bobby talk on the Prichard grounds. Gail tells Bobby, whee, all is fine, I’m being disinherited, but whither thou goest, etc.
Gail to the Museum.
Bobby where?
Wherever he was, he carried with him a gilt-edged motive. As did Gail.
Annie looked curiously at the girl, who had the relaxed air of someone who has told it all and found it less awful than expected. Didn’t she have the slightest idea that she had now provided both herself and Bobby with enormously satisfying reasons to murder her aunt?
“So you see,” she concluded, “once Bobby knew I was going to keep on seeing him, he didn’t have any reason to be mad at Corinne anymore.”
Annie nodded solemnly.
Then worry clouded the pale blue eyes looking at her so earnestly. “But I’m afraid Chief Wells won’t understand.”
Annie felt confident Gail’s concern was thoroughly justified.
“So that’s why I asked you to come over. Roscoe told me that you and Mr. Darling have some experience with murders. The thing is, do you think you could help figure out what happened to Corinne?”
“I’d sure like to—” Annie began.
“Oh, that’s wonderful! You’re wonderful!”
Annie felt on a level with a charlatan advertising radio waves to rid a house of termites, but when she saw the effect of her response on Gail, she couldn’t backtrack. The girl looked as if she had been suddenly reprieved from the gallows.
“There’s no way I can ever thank you enough!”
“Please don’t try,” Annie said feebly, wondering how she was going to explain this to Max.
Gail had the grace to look embarrassed. “I was just sure you would help, so I’ve already called Lucy and persuaded her to talk to you. You’ll go see her first, won’t you?”
The lady in front of Max couldn’t decide. Did she want “Chastain. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of History,” or “Interiors of Low Country Plantations?” Then she held up “Southern Gardens, Their Majesty and Magnificence.”
“That’s the one,” Max encouraged. “No one should come to Chastain and leave without that book. The gardens, you know.”
She glanced up at him and the frost in her eyes melted. “Oh, do you really think so?”
“Absolutely. Cross my heart.”
He smiled genially at her as she paid, received her change, and slowly yielded her place.
The Society secretary, eyes bleary with fatigue, looked up gamely.
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“Can I buy you a beer?”
Louisa Binning brushed back a tangle of peroxided curls. “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all day.” Then she looked past him and sighed. “But I can’t leave. You have to make hay, etc.”
“You think they’ll all buy books?” He tilted his head at the two-deep line that stretched behind him out the propped open door and all the way to the sidewalk.
“My dear, they buy everything!”
“I’ll buy a stack of ten, any ten, you pick ’em, if you’ll give me a few minutes time.”
She laughed goodhumoredly. “Talking to you—and to everybody—is my job. You don’t have to buy any books.”
Max took out his wallet, picked out a bill, and dropped it into a wooden box shaped like the fort, varnished a golden brown, and carrying the painted legend, Gifts for Chastain. Then he reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulled out a thick envelope, and handed it to her.
“How did the writer of this letter get the paper and the envelope?”
She emptied the envelope, glanced at the cover letter, then stiffened. “Why, this is the letter …”
He nodded.
She was still studying the sheets, and her mouth formed a silent O.
Max had the silky feeling of delight akin to rolling up three oranges on a slot machine.
When she looked up, worry lines bunched around her eyes. She stared past him at the restless line of tourists, then pushed back her chair.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a slight delay in filling your orders. Please feel free to look over our brochures, and you will enjoy walking through the fort. You will find musket slits in the east wall. I will reopen the desk as soon as I have restocked the books. Thank you for your patience.”
Then, in a low voice, she turned to Max. “Come back to the stockroom with me, where we can talk.”
AS SHE CLIMBED THE shallow front steps of the gracious Palladian portico of McIlwain House, Annie couldn’t resist a glance to her right, but banana shrubs masked the wrought iron fence, affording not even a glimpse of the Prichard grounds. The sweet scent of the shrubs mingled with the smell of freshly turned dirt in the flower beds by the steps. It couldn’t be far to the pond, though, for Lucy to have heard her screams for help.
The front door was open. Annie rang the bell and looked through the screen door into the hall. Lucy came slowly, her footsteps heavy with fatigue. She seemed to have shrunk since that day they first met. Annie remembered a vigorous woman with a country road stride. The woman holding open the door seemed frail. Her voice was flat. “Gail said you might come. I don’t know what you can do, but I’ll help if I can.”
The heart pine flooring of the entry hall glistened in the early morning sunlight that splashed through the open door of the dining room to the east. Lucy slowly led the way to the drawing room. Annie looked around appreciatively. No expense had been spared in restoring this room to grandeur. Bois-de-rose silk hangings framed the tall windows and emphasized the rose background of the Aubusson rug. The wallpaper was a rich floral print of peonies against a cream background. Rose and cream, too, dominated the upholstery of the Chippendale-style furniture. The most remarkable piece was a mahogany china breakfront, holding a Blue Canton dinner service.
Lucy gestured for her to be seated. “Won’t you have some coffee?”
Annie accepted
immediately. The morning offering at the Swamp Fox Inn had a taste like lukewarm dishwater with a dash of instant coffee. Lucy’s coffee had the dark, winey taste of chicory, and the warm, homemade doughnuts she brought were superb.
Lucy smiled as she ate with relish, but didn’t touch her own pastry. “This was a recipe of Corinne’s. We made them often when we were girls.” Her voice was controlled, but a sense of anguish hung in the room, not so much grief, perhaps, as sorrow at the passing of long ago days.
“You had known her for a long time,” Annie said softly.
“A very long time.” Lucy turned the small garnet ring on her little finger and shivered, then looked up apologetically. “I’m sorry. You want me to help. What can I do?”
Annie put down her coffee cup. “Tell me about her. What she was like?”
Lucy had large, expressive eyes. It was as if an opaque curtain fell. “You met her. Corinne was what she seemed to be, a beautiful, willful, determined woman.” Her voice was studiedly neutral. “She wasn’t all good or all bad—like most of us. She had very decided views on everything, on life and love and what was suitable and what wasn’t. Usually, she meant well—or thought she did. The only difference between Corinne and most of us was that she would have her way, at all costs.”
“You were good friends.”
“We grew up together.”
“Is it true—that she kept you from marrying her brother?”
For a moment, Lucy’s pallid face was absolutely blank, then a lopsided smile faintly touched her lips. “That old story. Lord, don’t people ever forget anything? And Cameron’s been dead now for a decade or more.” She gave an impatient head shake. “People always think that if you never marry, it’s because no one asked you. And that’s not true. No, Corinne had nothing to do with my turning Cameron down.” Her lips closed into a thin line. “And that’s all I intend to say about that.”
Again her eyes dropped to the garnet ring, and she moved it around and around.
Annie knew she was skating on thin ice. “That morning at the Society when I made my presentation, everybody—but me—knew the fictional victim was Corinne. The story listed a bunch of people who had motives for murdering her.”
Lucy stiffened. It was so quiet Annie could hear the tick of the Dresden clock on the mantel.
“It said her husband was playing—”
“You can’t pay any attention to that letter!” She leaned forward, gripping the chair arms. “Please, it was—oh, it’s just a scurrilous piece of nonsense. I told Chief Wells this morning that it didn’t amount to anything—and he agreed with me. Can’t you just let it drop?”
“Let it drop? Why, it’s the best lead we have! And obviously, the writer was right on target about Tim Bond and Sybil and Edith Ferrier. And certainly about Gail and Bobby. So why not—”
Lucy’s eyes flashed. “Have you come here expecting me to tell you every nasty bit of gossip I know? I’m sorry, Ms. Laurance, but I’m not playing that game. That letter was just a meanspirited attempt to embarrass Corinne. To take it seriously would be absurd.”
Annie tried to suppress her anger, but she knew her response was crisp. “Is it absurd? I don’t think so. And I intend to find out the truth behind it.”
“You must do what you feel is right.” But Lucy’s face was drawn into a tight frown.
“All right, I will. And I wonder if the Chief might be more interested in that letter when he finds out that on Monday afternoon Corinne threatened to keep Gail from receiving her inheritance, and Gail told Bobby? What kind of motive do you think that is?”
“Gail would never injure anyone, and certainly not Corinne.” But the sick anxiety in her eyes showed how deep the barb had gone.
“Perhaps not. But she’s crazy about Bobby Frazier— and Chief Wells is sniffing after him. And, as a matter of fact, after me. I’ll lay you odds of ten-to-one he puts either Bobby or me in jail by week’s end.”
“That’s dreadful.” Lucy’s eyes were wide and shocked.
“I think so, too. That’s why I’m here. I’ve got to find out who hated Corinne and why.” She leaned forward. “Won’t you help me?”
Lucy picked up the silver server and poured a stream of fresh, hot coffee into Annie’s cup. Her gaze roamed restlessly from the iris-filled Delft vase on a Chippendale table to the gleaming bronze andirons at the fireplace. “There isn’t evidence enough to arrest Bobby—or you.” Her eyes flicked to Annie’s face. “It’s all just circumstantial evidence—isn’t that what they call it?”
“Juries have been known to convict on circumstantial evidence.”
“Oh, it won’t happen. It won’t.”
Annie was torn between compassion and frustration. Lucy was so evidently upset—and so determined to protect her friends and neighbors. But it was disconcerting to see her willingness to jettison Annie or Bobby.
“So you won’t help me?”
“My dear,” her voice was bone-tired and defeated, “I would help you if I could. But I can’t.”
Max refused to reveal his discoveries until they had eaten, even though it took a forty-five minute wait in a line that snaked from the marina parking lot to the restaurant, The Pink Carrousel, atop the bluff.
Annie brought him up to date on her talks with Gail and Lucy, then suggested, “We could go to a fast food stand.”
“I do not eat fast food.” There was a monumental dignity in his pronouncement.
“That’s un-American.”
“Did you know that the rate of heart disease in China is less than—”
She reached up and put a finger to his lips. “Love, I don’t give a damn.”
When they were finally seated in the outdoor garden, the table listed unsteadily to her right and gnats hovered in a friendly gray cloud.
The menu featured a jaunty merry-go-round, pink, naturally, on a beige cover and 12 pages of offerings.
Max sighed. “A menu this extensive presupposes a microwave.”
“Everybody uses a microwave.”
“Not in a first-class restaurant.”
It only took twenty minutes for the harassed waitress to reappear for their order.
“Taco salad and a pink limeade.”
Max avoided gagging and ordered, “Baked scrod, steamed broccoli, and a Bud Light, please.”
She grinned at him.
“Taco salad is a gringo invention,” he admonished.
“Don’t try to sound authoritative about Mexican food. That’s my province. And taco salads have an honorable history—”
“If you include junk food in culinary history, perhaps.”
“Ah, retried beans, fajitas, sopapillas dripping with honey and powdered sugar. Heaven in Texas on a Saturday night.”
“If we’re going to talk about the components of a heavenly Saturday night, in Texas or—”
“Down, boy. We’re talking food.”
Their drinks arrived, and he averted his eyes from her gloriously red cherry limeade. She sucked noisily on her straw.
“I do have news,” he said portentously.
“Better than mine, I hope. I didn’t get any change at all out of Lucy.”
Max pulled two envelopes out of his pocket, tossed them to her.
Annie felt the thicker one, poked inside, and recognized the famous mystery plot letter.
“I’ve seen—”
“Put it on the table. Then put the sheet from the other envelope beside it.”
He crossed his arms and smirked in satisfaction.
She glanced at the new sheet, read: “The quick brown fox—” then exclaimed, “It matches. It matches! Where did you find it? How did you find it?”
“The old Remington at the Chastain Historical Preservation Society.”
“Oh.” Her voice sagged. “Hell, I thought maybe we’d learned something.”
Max held his tongue until the waitress unloaded his scrod, which looked like it might rival the Sahara for dryness, and Annie’s salad, which appeared disgust
ingly delectable, the guacamole a luscious green and the taco shell crisp and light.
“I found out a terrific amount.” His fork stuck in the scrod. He yanked it free and used it as a baton, tapping the beer bottle for emphasis. “One: The letter must have been written between March 12, when your name was first mentioned as the prospective mystery expert—”
Annie poked at the bobbing lime in her glass and frowned at him skeptically. “And who told you that? A flea in the woodwork?”
“Louisa Binning, the Board secretary. She types up Miss Dora’s meeting notes. It’s all there, in black and white.”
For the first time, Annie looked interested. “Okay, the letter must have been written between March 12 and—” she paused, figuring “—and say around March 24, because I got the letter on the 26th, and we have to allow time for delivery.”
“It’s postmarked the 24th.”
A grin tugged at her lips. “Very good, Sherlock.” She balanced a piece of shell heaped with taco meat. “But that gives us a ten-day period—so how does it help?”
“The Remington was at Crosswhite’s Typewriter Repair Shop March 10 through the 19th. But here’s the meat: Louisa insists the letter couldn’t have been typed during hours when the Society is open and that includes the weekend of the 22–23rd when the Society hosted a local China painting display.”
Annie chewed reflectively on a morsel of taco shell. “So somebody got in and used the typewriter at night on either the 19th, 20th, or 21st of March.” She scowled. “How could anybody get into that place at night? The walls must be two feet thick.”
“That’s the point.” His voice oozed satisfaction. “It would take a broadaxe to make a dent on those doors, and the windows are too small for anybody but a midget. Besides, there were no traces of a break-in.”
“So how did anybody get in?” Her face brightened, and she answered her own question. “A key. Max, the typist had to have a key!”
Max interred the remains of the scrod beneath some watercress and prodded doubtfully on the mushy broccoli. “And who has keys?” he prompted.
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