Death Walked In

by Carolyn Hart

  A police car came around a clump of bamboo, slid to a stop behind the Corvette, blocking it. Officer Harrison got out.

  Max felt a bristle of irritation. He reached the Corvette and gestured at the cruiser. “I’m ready to leave.”

  She stopped a few feet from him, unsmiling, her light eyes speculative. “This morning you said you didn’t know Mrs. Jamison, had never had any contact with her.”

  “Right.” Max pulled his keys from his pocket.

  She glanced toward the second floor of the apartment building. “Do you know Robert Jamison?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you attempting to contact him?”

  “Who says I was?”

  “You knocked on his door.”

  Obviously Manager Burke had been primed to let the police know if anyone came around the place searching for Robert. Probably he kept a close eye on the place and had called when Max first arrived and knocked on the door to 16. Max’s stop in his office had provided plenty of time for Officer Harrison to arrive.

  Max rocked back on his heels. His mother’s variation on honey and vinegar floated in his mind: People like pats, not punches. He wasn’t sure it would work with Hyla Harrison, but it was time to try. He spoke pleasantly. “Mrs. Jamison needed help today. I wasn’t able to respond.” Wasn’t able? He’d walked away, avoiding any chance of entanglement in lies. Had she lied? Was she a liar and a thief and the victim of a quarrel over stolen goods? He needed to know. “I want to find out what happened to her.”

  “That’s our job.” Officer Harrison’s stare was cold. “Robert Jamison is a person of interest to this investigation. Should you speak with him, I suggest you recommend he get in touch with us.”

  She marched with stiff precision to the cruiser. She backed out of his way. Max turned left out of the Flamingo Arms parking lot. The police cruiser loomed in his rearview mirror. Max drove at a slower pace than usual, aware that the cruiser remained a steady twenty feet behind his Corvette. Was she going to follow him?

  The cruiser turned off on Main Street.

  Max felt a flash of triumph. He picked up speed, took a familiar road that curved to the northeast tip of the island.

  A few blocks farther on, a motorcycle turned onto the road from an intersecting side street. His thoughts on his destination, Max scarcely noticed the helmeted rider.

  Cars were lined up on both sides of the dusty unpaved street. Several were parked in the front yard at 219 Katydid Lane. Annie nosed the Volvo off the road between a palmetto and a live oak.

  As she walked in the soft gray dirt toward the house, the front door opened to admit several women carrying foil-wrapped dishes. Soft voices carried back to her. “…so terrible…talked to Gwen yesterday…I never thought something like this could—” The door closed.

  It took all of Annie’s courage to walk up the crushed-oyster-shell drive and mount the steps. She came empty-handed. She had no comfort to offer Charlie Jamison. She stood at the door.

  Shells popped behind her. Someone was coming. She lifted her hand and knocked as steps sounded on the wooden porch.

  The door opened. A middle-aged black woman looked at Annie with surprise. “Yes?”

  “Hello. I’m Annie Darling.” Annie wondered wildly what she could say to gain admittance to a house of mourning for a woman she’d never known. Then it was surprisingly easy as the truth often is. “I found Mrs. Jamison and I thought I should come and tell Charlie.”

  “Oh.” There was a soft-drawn breath. Dark eyes widened. She held the door and stepped back, making room for Annie. “Please come in.”

  From the living room came the sound of a deep voice. “…let us pray for our Sister Gwendolyn as she is surrounded by the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ. May—”

  The woman who’d answered the door held cautionary fingers to her lips.

  “—He welcome her to the company of saints and may He reach down to us and give peace to hearts stricken by sorrow, hearts hurt and bewildered by the violence that has wrested away the soul of our sister. May He make His light to shine upon us now and forevermore. Amen.”

  A soft chorus of amens followed.

  A tremulous silence was broken as a rich contralto slowly began to sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The one haunting voice carried the melody and then slowly other voices joined, and there was a glory of music rising to the Heaven now open to Gwen Jamison.

  Annie felt surrounded by sorrow.

  A knock sounded on the front door. Annie stepped out of the way. The woman who had welcomed Annie once again opened the door. A tall, dark-haired white woman in a turtleneck sweater and gray slacks stepped inside.

  A stocky young man with a broad face and stricken eyes came through the crowded living room toward the front hall.

  The black woman gestured toward Annie. “She wants to talk to you.”

  He gave Annie a puzzled glance, then looked past her with quick recognition to the newcomer. “Mrs. Grant.” His voice was husky.

  “I just found out.” Her voice was shaken. She reached out to take Charlie’s hand. “The paper came and I carried it into the study. I opened it and it said Gwen had been found shot. I thought maybe there was a mistake. The paper said she was killed this morning. I called her house several times when I couldn’t find her today. She came to work this morning but I couldn’t find her after breakfast. I knew something must have happened to take her away. But murder—” She looked past Charlie at the people crowded in the small living room. “It’s true, isn’t it?” She spread her hand at the women with dolorous faces.

  Charlie’s face squeezed in misery. A young woman in a pink maternity smock came to his side, held his hand tight as she struggled to hold back tears.

  Annie stepped forward. “I found your mother.” Annie’s voice was thin, but steady.

  Everyone looked at her.

  Charlie took a step toward her. “Who are you?”

  “Annie Darling.”

  “Hello, Annie.” A slender woman with dark hair pulled back in a bun pushed gold-rimmed glasses higher on her nose.

  Annie recognized Inez Willis, a librarian who specialized in genealogy. “Hello, Inez.”

  Inez touched Charlie’s arm. “Annie has the mystery bookstore at the marina.”

  Charlie continued to look puzzled.

  “This morning your mother called my husband’s office.” Annie described the call to Barb. As soon as she spoke of something hidden at the Franklin house, it was as if everyone stepped back even though no one moved. Dark eyes gazed at her suspiciously. Mourning faces turned impassive. Even Inez looked wary.

  Charlie’s face tightened in anger. “Wait a minute. That’s what the police are saying. They’re saying Mama hid those coins that somebody stole Monday night from the Grants. They said maybe Robert or Mama took them.”

  Indignant voices rose. “No call to talk like that.” “Gwen never touched a penny that wasn’t hers.” “That’s a lie…”

  Mrs. Grant turned on Annie, too. “Not Gwen. Never. Not in a million years. Gwen wouldn’t.”

  Annie’s fists clenched. “You aren’t hearing me. I’m telling you what Mrs. Jamison told my husband’s secretary. She said she’d hidden something in our house and when she came to get it this morning—”

  Mrs. Grant looked startled. “She went somewhere. I couldn’t find her.”

  “—the locks had been changed and she couldn’t get in. But here’s what’s important.” She looked from one hostile face to another. “Please listen. Mrs. Jamison told Barb that she didn’t want to cause trouble for anyone. She wouldn’t have said that if she’d taken the coins. I don’t think she did. In fact”—Annie banked on Marian Kenyon’s knowledge of Gwen Jamison and pulled together all she’d learned and what she guessed—“we think she saw someone hide the stolen coins on her property. She put them in the Franklin house and arranged to meet the person who’d taken them, intending for the coins to be returned. Instead the person who came to get the coins sho
t her. Now, who did she see? Not Robert. If it were Robert, she’d have said she wanted to keep someone from being in trouble, not that she didn’t want to make trouble for someone. If it were Robert”—Annie had confidence in the judgment of Doc Burford and Ben Parotti—“she’d have made him do the right thing and return the coins. Besides, everyone says he’d never have hurt his mother. But she knew who took those coins. It had to be someone she knew well, someone she felt she could persuade to return the coins. Who?”

  Charlie was angry. “You come here with this big story about Mama. I can tell you she never took anything in her life that didn’t belong to her and she would have whipped Robert hard and marched him over to the Grant house and made him give the coins back even if he had to go to jail. Besides, it’s crazy to think Robert would have had any idea how much that kind of stuff was worth, and what would he do with them if he got them? Take them to a pawnshop? Robert doesn’t have good sense, but he’s not a crook. Mama didn’t raise a crook. I don’t know anybody she would have seen do a crime and kept quiet about it.”

  In her mind, Annie heard Barb’s imitation of Marian’s husky voice: “That’s the biggie. Why the hell would she?”

  Annie understood what Charlie and his mother’s friends were saying. Their Gwen was a good woman. To them, Gwen hiding stolen coins didn’t make sense. Yet it had happened.

  Annie looked at the circle of closed faces. Nobody here was going to give her any help at all.

  Max liked the way basketball courts smelled of sweat and hard wood. He loved the thump of the ball and the dance of feet, the coach’s shouts, the shrill of whistles. He looked along the sidelines, saw the familiar face he sought.

  Gerald Allensworth, the high school principal, rarely missed after-school practices, football in the fall, basketball in winter, baseball in the spring. He knew his students and he cared for all of them, no matter their race or background or athletic ability. He knew those who failed as well as those who succeeded and he never stopped trying to reach the ones who needed help. Always impeccably dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and red tie, the slender black man stood with his arms folded, his sometimes remote face softened by a smile. He saw Max, looked surprised, then walked toward him.

  They shook hands. Max had grown to know the educator well at the Haven. Max spoke loudly to be heard over the thud of the ball and the squeak of athletic shoes. “I’m trying to find Robert Jamison. I’m hoping you might be able to help me.”

  The principal nodded toward the exit. When the gym door closed behind them, the quiet was almost startling. The late afternoon sunlight slanted across the empty football field. Allensworth led the way to the bleachers, spread his hand to invite Max to sit with him. Allensworth studied Max’s face. “I saw in the Gazette that his mother was shot.”

  Max wasn’t surprised that the principal received the afternoon newspaper at school and had already read it. There would be few on the island now who would be unaware of Gwen Jamison’s murder.

  Max described their day, the call to his office, something hidden in the Franklin house, Annie’s discovery of the dying woman, the shots at the Franklin house. “I’ve been looking for Robert.

  The police think he stole the coins and his mother found them and put them in the Franklin house and he shot her.”

  “No.” The principal’s response was almost curt. “Not Robert.” His expression was sad. “He was in eighth grade when his dad died in a car wreck. He was on his way to watch Robert’s soccer game. Robert went from a cheerful, bouncy kid to a thin, haunted-looking boy. We tried to tell him—everyone tried to tell him—it wasn’t his fault his dad died. But he looked at us with empty eyes and you knew he kept thinking if his dad hadn’t been coming to the game, he wouldn’t have been on that road. Robert’s grades slipped, he started skipping school. He hung around a rowdy crowd, sneaking beer out to the beach, drinking, getting sick, keeping on drinking. But”—he took a deep breath—“he’s not mean. He’s not a thug. He’s locked up inside with pain he doesn’t know how to handle.”

  “He doesn’t have a job.” Max looked at the pines standing like sentinels across the field. “Hard to buy beer”—or maybe speed or crack—“if you don’t have a job. Maybe he was desperate for money.”

  Allensworth took a moment to answer, a man who reviewed the facts, marshaled his thoughts before he spoke. “I don’t believe Robert would steal, but even if I granted theft by Robert, he would never harm his mother.”

  “What if he was drunk? Or strung out?” Drugs and alcohol can roil minds, induce acts of incalculable violence.

  Allensworth turned his hands palms up. “To my knowledge he’s never been involved in any kind of violence.”

  “I want to talk to him.” Max felt an urgency to see Gwen Jamison’s son. Maybe he wouldn’t learn much, but maybe he’d find a piece of the puzzle that would explain Gwen Jamison’s actions. Was she a good woman in trouble, trying to deal with danger? Or was she involved in a big-time theft from the house where she worked? Or had she found her son culpable and tried to protect him?

  Deep inside, Max understood that he was looking for release from a sense of responsibility even though he might very well not have been able to prevent her death. If he found Robert hungover, bleary, ridden with guilt, Max would mark the incident closed and urge Annie to leave the investigation of Gwen Jamison’s murder to the police. “Do you know how I can find him?”

  The principal stared unseeing at the pines, the sun now slipping behind the crowns. “If Robert doesn’t know about his mother, he needs to be found. If he knows…” Allensworth took a deep breath, faced Max. “He could be anywhere. His best friend used to be Terry Phillips. Terry’s going to Armstrong State, but he’s home on spring break. Terry might be able to help.”

  Max thanked Allensworth for the address and strode quickly to his car. He knew Terry Phillips, a great kid who’d always made everyone laugh at the Haven. He loved to joke and tease but always in a generous fashion. Max revved up the Corvette.

  The road into the school complex was a dead end. Max drove to the through street, turned right. As he curved around a bend, a motorcycle pulled out from behind the dangling brown fronds of a weeping willow.

  Annie fixed a cappuccino, adding an extra dollop from the whipped cream can. She needed a pick-me-up. She felt restless and dissatisfied. She paced uneasily near the coffee bar, oblivious to the watercolors hanging over the fireplace. Usually she took such pleasure in being at Death on Demand.

  She hadn’t accomplished anything by going to Charlie Jamison’s house. Those who knew and loved Gwen Jamison had closed ranks. Maybe Max had found Robert and learned something that would point them in the right direction.

  She glanced at the clock. She’d head home after she caught up on e-mails. Max had fixed meat loaf yesterday. They’d have thick slices between crusty French bread and a bowl of Manhattan clam chowder for dinner. Which reminded her…She fixed Agatha a fresh bowl of water and another of dry food, her favorite seafood combo.

  Annie carried her cappuccino to the storeroom. She settled at her computer and was soon absorbed, responding to orders, deleting spam, and saving for last a series of e-mails beamed from Marigold’s Pleasure in the sunny Caribbean.

  Chapter 6

  Max parked in front of Matilda Phillips’s house. Likely she was still at work at the Wash ’N Fold Laundromat near the harbor. A tiny woman with gold-rimmed glasses, hair tucked back in a granny bun, and regal posture, she had a bright smile. Terry’s smile was a mirror image of his grandmother’s. She had reared Terry after his mother’s death. Matilda could always be counted on when the Haven had a potluck supper. Her cashew pie was famous on the island. The modest yellow frame house glistened with fresh paint. Terry and his friends had repainted it before he left for school in the fall. Two cars were parked in the drive, a red Chevy pickup faded by time but polished to a glitter and a mud-spattered green Gremlin with a battered back fender and no bumper. A rope tied the Gremlin’s trunk
lid to the tilted license plate holder.

  Max walked toward the porch, then veered right when he heard male voices rising in staccato bursts and the muffled thud of a basketball pounding on hard-packed dirt. He came around the side of the house. Two young men, faces sweaty, totally absorbed, wove back and forth, the much bigger Terry with the ball, now dribbling, now sidestepping, his skinny opponent rushing close, arms waving. Terry jumped. His shot thumped into the basket.

  Panting, the thin young man shook his head. He wore his hair in a bushy Afro. His sweatshirt was oversized, reaching almost to the knees of baggy dungarees. “You got me again. Twenty-one to six. That sucks.”

  Terry cuffed him on the arm. “You got to stay in shape, Robert. I’ve been doing intramurals twice a week.” Terry looked trim and muscular in basketball jersey and jeans.

  Max felt as jolted as when he’d tripped charging up the interior stairs of the Franklin house. He’d pictured Robert Jamison in his mind, a sullen dropout on his way to big-time trouble, drinking too much, caught with marijuana, out on bail. He’d pictured a big, tough guy, who might shoot his mother if she caught him with stolen goods.

  Instead he looked at a weedy, unprepossessing teenager, skinny as an eel, who was embarrassed he hadn’t played better with an old friend. Would that matter to a kid if he’d shot his mother that morning, watched her crash to the floor mortally wounded?

  Max called out. “Hey, Terry.”

  Terry turned his way, began to smile, then looked beyond Max. Terry’s smile slid into blankness.

  Officers Harrison and Thorpe moved swiftly past Max. Officer Harrison gave him a sidelong sharp glance as she passed. “Police.” Her voice was crisp. She held up her right hand, badge showing. Officer Thorpe stayed with her, eyes wary, face hard, hands loose at his sides.