Death Walked In

by Carolyn Hart

  “‘Gwen cleaned rooms at Sea Side Inn after she graduated from high school, then she worked for several families as a maid. Eighteen years ago, she became the housekeeper at the Franklin house—’”

  Max nodded. “So she had a key.”

  “‘—and stayed there until old Miss Truscott died ten years ago. The house was in poor repair and heavily mortgaged. The bank took it over but had no luck selling it. It fell into ruin and sold recently.’”

  Annie smiled at Max, who’d known the old house could be restored and made beautiful again.

  Barb turned the page. “‘After Miss Truscott died, Gwen went to work as housekeeper for Geoff Grant. She’s been there ever since.’”

  Max’s gaze was cool. “Clearly she could be mixed up in the Grant theft. The coins were taken Monday night. She used her old key to the Franklin house Tuesday morning. This morning she told Barb she hid something there and it makes sense that she left the coins. The question is, how did she get them?”

  Annie took a bite of Key lime pie. “We need to know more about Gwen Jamison.” As she spoke, she knew she’d made a decision. She intended to respond to Gwen’s last pleading breath of a word. She looked at Max.

  He felt her gaze, met it directly. “Maybe she stole the coins and was going to try and sweet-talk me into letting her look for a package she’d hidden, claim it contained old family pictures that a crazy aunt threatened to destroy. Anything’s possible. Maybe she was a good woman caught up in something she hadn’t started. I don’t know the answer. I’ll try to find out.” His expression was somber.

  Annie saw wariness in his eyes, the distrust of a man whose happiness had almost been stolen by a lie, and she saw sadness, a good man’s concern that he’d walked by on the other side of the road, leaving a helpless woman in jeopardy.

  “There wasn’t time for you to save her.” Annie was insistent. “I went straight there and it was already too late.”

  “If I’d agreed to meet her at the Franklin house, maybe she would have left before her murderer arrived. I’ll never know. But whatever involved her involves our house. So we’re going to find out who she was and what she did.” He looked at Annie. “See what you can find out about her. I’m going to talk to Ben about the ferry. And I have some questions for Robert Jamison.”

  Barb glanced at the clock. “The press has rolled at the Gazette. I’ll take Marian a slice of Key lime pie and a double mocha delight.”

  Annie almost bent to nuzzle Agatha’s silky tummy. Remembering the unsheathed claws that had threatened to ensnare her earlier, she resisted the impulse. Cautiously, she curved her hand behind Agatha’s head, yanked it away as Agatha flipped over and tried to clamp her paws on Annie’s arm. “You’re in a mood, aren’t you?”

  Agatha’s green eyes glittered.

  “Not enough attention? February doldrums? Be patient, sweetie, spring will come and customers who adore you. Respectfully, of course.” Annie poured out fresh dry food for Agatha then checked the telephone for messages. There were three:

  12:40 p.m.—“You switch on your Geiger counter for bodies this morning?” Marian Kenyon rattled on, her gravelly voice impatient. “What’s your connection to the deceased? On deadline, give me a call.”

  Annie clicked delete. Barb would pick up whatever Marian knew and Marian always knew more than appeared in the Gazette.

  12:47 p.m.—“Been thinking about what you heard…griff…” Frank Saulter was circumspect. “Don’t want to suggest anything, but could she have made a sound like a in ‘at,’ not i as in ‘lift’? People who are hurt go off on tangents sometimes. Don’t push it. Let your memory play out when you’re rested.”

  Annie clicked save. What did Frank have in mind? She murmured, “Gra…” Was he asking if Gwen Jamison had tried to say “Grant”? Slowly Annie shook her head. The faint sound seemed long ago, hard to recall now with accuracy, but memory held to…gri…ff…with the faintest ff sound.

  1:05 p.m.—“Mrs. Darling, this is Jessamine Holbrook. We met at the last AAUW luncheon. Could you help me find a book I’ve been looking for forever? There’s a woman who’s in a coffee shop or it might have been a restaurant in Greece or it might have been Italy and somebody comes up to her and hands her the keys to a car and says it’s a matter of life and death and he leaves and disappears in the crowd and she wanted to go up in the mountains anyway…”

  Annie clicked save.

  Actually, she had a good idea which mystery Jessamine wanted, the breathtakingly suspenseful My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart, but Jessamine would have to wait.

  Annie found the phone book, got an address, then burrowed in her desk for an island map. When she spread it on a table near the coffee bar, Agatha jumped up and plopped in the center. Annie peered over a paw.

  The map made crystal clear the nearness of the Franklin house to Gwen Jamison’s house and the Grant house. Annie drew lines from the Jamison house to Franklin house and from the Jamison house to the Grant house. She added the vertical line from the Grant house to the Franklin house and had as pretty an isosceles triangle as anyone would wish. Ben Parotti knew his island.

  Ben Parotti stood outside the bar and grill with Max. He pointed toward the harbor. “Like I told that Officer Harrison, I knew every man, woman, and child that took the ferry Tuesday morning. Same for Tuesday night and this morning. I only run the Miss Jolene four times daily in winter during the week, six crossings on Saturday, two on Sunday. I’ll add to the schedule come April. Like I told her, no stranger took those coins off island Tuesday. I don’t think Mayor Cosgrove, Mrs. Stanley from the Baptist Mission Society, the Purdy family going in to Savannah for their little boy’s birthday, or Tony Hassam on his way to get his wife at the airport had those coins in a pocket. Same thing Tuesday afternoon. Only two passengers, Mary Peters who’d been here to visit her mom and Carson Howell who drives the UPS truck out of Chastain. This morning the passengers were all locals. Troy Hudman after a car, Emily Bishop going in to see her aunt in Savannah, Joe Bob Morris off on a business trip, and Kayla Lester with a box of homemade cookies for her son at that design school in Savannah. She gave me one. Pineapple macadamia nut. The fog came in before I started back. I had to wait for it to lift. The only passengers coming back were regulars.”

  Max watched a sailboat scud into the Sound, sails full. “Maybe the thief came and went in a motorboat.” In that event, what had Mrs. Jamison hidden in the Franklin house?

  Ben was judicious. “Could be. Lots of solitary places a boat can land. It would probably take lights at night to find your way and people have a way of noticing. I haven’t heard of anybody seeing lights in a funny place. Like I told Officer Harrison”—his successful-businessman’s face was shrewd—“somebody had to know about those coins to take them. I’d lay odds the coins and the thief are still on the island.”

  Marian Kenyon was stretched out on the saggy brown sofa in the Gazette coffee room. At the sound of brisk steps, she opened one eye a slit. “Vince, I need a Coke and a bag of peanuts.” When she recognized the visitor, both eyes popped wide and she pulled herself upright, expression intense. “Hey, Barb, give me the skinny. What was Annie doing at the Jamison house? Does the Jamison murder have any connection to the gunshots at the Franklin house?” She looked aggrieved. “Had to dig that one out of a police report.”

  Barb held up a brown bag. “Miss Jolene’s Key lime pie. A double mocha. Bet you haven’t had lunch.”

  Marian shoved a hand through wiry black hair peppered with silver. “Let’s cut a deal. Give me the grub bag and the low-down on Annie and Max and I’ll give you what I’ve got.”

  They settled at the Formica-topped table scarred with long-ago cigarette burns. Marian ate, her monkey face intent as Barb related what she knew. Slurping the last of the double mocha, Marian tilted back her chair. “I picked up the report on the shooting at the Franklin house but nobody anted about the possibility something was hidden there. Something, hell. Jamison worked for the Grants, two mil
’s worth of coins disappear, so what do you think she was hiding?” Clearly the question was rhetorical. “Got to be the Grant coins. So”—Marian’s face furrowed—“that’s why they got an APB out for Robert. Harrison must figure Robert got the coins, hid them at his mom’s place, and she found them. They figure he came home, they quarreled, and he shot her. ’Course, I don’t figure they’ve got it right. You got a couple of bucks?”

  Barb fished in her purse, handed Marian two bills.

  Marian carefully straightened out the crumpled bills, fed them slowly into the vending machine, hit two buttons. She returned to the table with a Coke and a bag of Planters peanuts. She dribbled peanuts into the Coke, took a big mouthful, crunched. “I raise iris. So did Gwen. She was one tough mama. If Robert stole those coins, she would have kicked his butt all the way to the cop shop. Nobody’s asking me, but I can tell you what happened.”

  Barb scarcely breathed she listened so hard.

  Marian munched and took another swallow. “Gwen found those coins on her property, but Robert didn’t steal them. She hid them because she knew the police would immediately jump on her kid and this time he wasn’t the bad dude. So”—her eyes slitted—“that means Gwen knew who took the coins. That means she saw something—hell, someone—Monday night.” Marian pressed fingers to her temples, eyes closed in the best fortune-teller fashion. “Yeah, that’s how it had to be. Gwen saw somebody she recognized putting something—a small package maybe—on her property and it was funny enough and strange enough she checked it out. She waited until the coast was clear and got the package. When she opened it, she knew what she had. She probably dusted that display case every day.” Marian’s eyes popped wide. “Okay, she’s got the coins. No way does she want that kind of stolen goods anywhere near her house, so she hikes over to the Franklin place, puts the package somewhere. She must have been scared Robert would be blamed even though she knows who took the stuff. She didn’t call the cops because she thought nobody’d believe her. Instead, she tries to put everything back to square one, give the coins to the perp with the understanding they’ll be returned. She thought wrong. Here’s what we’ve got to find out.” She flipped up one finger. “Who did she see that she knew well enough to contact and say I’ve got the swag, let’s talk? The cops’ll claim it had to be Robert. That, I don’t believe. But”—Marian’s dark eyes glowed with intensity—“she was covering for somebody. So here’s the biggie. Why the hell would she?”

  Chapter 5

  Gwen Jamison’s drive was empty. No police cars. No ambulance. Yellow crime-scene tape crisscrossed on the front door. The house had a deserted air. Or was that Annie’s perception because she knew the slender woman would never again sweep her front porch, polish the shiny brass knocker, sit in her swing in the spring and take joy in the purple glory of iris?

  Thoughts darted like minnows…private property…the drive wasn’t blocked…for sure Officer Harrison wouldn’t want her nosing around…what harm could it do…maybe now or never…

  With a final check to be sure she was unobserved, Annie turned the Volvo into the drive, eased past the side of the house.

  She parked behind the garage, knew her car was hidden from the road. Chickens cackled in a pen as she followed a well-defined dusty gray path. About twenty yards beyond the chicken coop, she reached a small, very old cemetery. It was well kept. Azaleas grew next to the wire fence. The gate was ajar.

  Annie passed the cemetery. The path wound around a clump of willows and into a grove of pines. Annie stepped into dimness. Birds chittered. Pine boughs rustled softly in a gentle breeze. The path from the Jamison house ended as it met a north-south path. She turned right and moved warily into thick woods. Abruptly the way was rough. Weeds clumped underfoot and tendrils of vines snared her ankles. Palmetto fronds and ferns poked against her. The inland forest thinned and she entered another pine grove. Here the path was barely discernible. She reached the end of the pines and saw a cypress-rimmed pond at the foot of the Franklin house garden. Their house lay beyond the garden beds on a slight rise.

  It had taken her no more than five minutes to walk from Gwen Jamison’s house. How easily the murderer could have moved silently through fog-wreathed trees to the Franklin house.

  Annie turned and retraced her steps. She ignored the path to Mrs. Jamison’s house and continued north. This path was well tended, the underbrush trimmed back. A thick bed of oyster shells crunched underfoot. She wished the shells didn’t make so much noise. She was a trespasser, but she kept going, straining to hear over the crackle of breaking shells and the occasional tick-tick-tick of an unseen clapper rail in the nearby salt marsh. She’d gone perhaps fifty yards when she reached the Grant garden with banks of azaleas, beds of rosebushes, a white wooden gazebo, and almost a dozen marble statues, replicas of famous classic sculptures.

  The two-story Beaufort-style frame house sat high on a brick foundation. Black shutters accented white wood. A small tabby cottage stood about twenty yards from the main house. It would be easy to slip between the cottage and house, reach the road beyond. A half-dozen black rocking chairs sat on the wide back porch, but none would likely have been occupied on a cool, foggy morning. In spring, the porch would afford a breathtaking view of azaleas blooming in shades of rose and salmon, scarlet and pink. The path looped around a fountain then ran straight to the back porch. A partially constructed wooden bench was placed equidistant between the fountain and a fresh bed of concrete that held a metal pole.

  Annie wondered if Gwen Jamison had come to work this morning. If so, she must have slipped away and hurried to the Franklin house to retrieve whatever she’d hidden.

  Annie shook her head impatiently. It was clear enough that somehow Gwen had come into possession of the stolen coins, hidden them, promised to give them to someone. This morning when she found the Franklin house locked, she went home, called Max’s office, talked to Barb. All the while, the sands of her life were dwindling to a trickle and then to nothing.

  A tinny rendition of the opening bars of “Wake Up Call” startled Annie. She yanked open her purse, pulled out her cell. “Hello.” She knew she sounded as though she were in a cellar. That’s what trespassing did to her.

  “Annie, that you? You sound funny.” Barb barreled on. “I talked to Marian. Here’s what she thinks…”

  Annie listened. Marian’s ideas made lots of sense. “We have to find out who Gwen would have been willing to protect.”

  “I’ll get on it.” Barb clicked off.

  Annie took a final look at the house where Gwen Jamison had worked, then turned and strode swiftly back toward the dead woman’s home. She’d written down Charlie Jamison’s address. Maybe Charlie would know who his mother would try to protect.

  Flamingo Arms sat at the end of a dusty road that angled to the northeast shore. It had a view of eroded beach which could no longer be reached because the wooden walkway had tumbled into the dunes. At one time, Flamingo Arms had been a cheaply built motel next to a miniature golf course built around a lagoon. The lagoon became infested with a horde of cottonmouths that sometimes slithered unexpectedly from water hazards, discouraging play. The course was ultimately abandoned. The motel went bankrupt and was bought and refashioned into one-room efficiency apartments.

  Max avoided a broken step as he climbed the exterior stairs to the second-floor units. He stepped over sticky goo that had oozed from a rusted car battery tipped to one side. Bait coolers, bicycles locked to the iron railing, a six-wheeler tire, a folded beach umbrella, and piled boogie boards narrowed the walkway.

  He stopped at No. 16, knocked. He waited a moment, knocked again, rapping his knuckles hard against the smudged once-white door.

  The door to 18 opened. A young woman with a tired face and uncombed bleached hair poked her head out. “He’s not there. Like I told the cop, he slammed out of here early this morning. He woke the baby up. As usual. If he isn’t slamming doors, he’s playing rap music that keeps us all up. Please don’t knock again.
I just got her down for—”

  A shrill cry erupted behind her.

  The weary blonde gave an exasperated sigh and slammed the door.

  Max looked at the broad window to 16. Chocolate-brown drapes were tightly shut. Max turned away, hurried down the steps. He found the manager’s office in unit 1.

  The room was thick with cigarette smoke. A wiry man in his fifties looked up with a frown. “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking for Robert—”

  “No bill collectors, vendors, or peddlers.” The manager yanked a fist with his stubby thumb pointing outside. “Beat it.”

  Max took out his billfold, retrieved a card, wrote a message on the back. He took two steps, dropped it on the littered desktop. “If he returns, tell him to get in touch with me. I’ll make it worth his time.”

  Max refrained from slamming the door on his way out. Manager—he glanced at a nameplate—Manager C. T. Burke didn’t owe him the time of day and likely he had no information as to Robert Jamison’s whereabouts, so the surly encounter didn’t matter. Who on the island might know something of Robert’s friends? Max turned over names in his mind, abruptly nodded. He walked briskly toward the Corvette.