“Did he spend a lot of time in the Bird Preserve?”
He shot her a brief look of disgust over his shoulder. “Lady, he wasn’t no bird watcher.” He turned back to the wheel, shook it in place, then fitted on the nuts. “I’ve worked here three years and never seen him go near the place, ’cept to walk by.”
“But he went in there Saturday.” She looked down the road at the white gate that marked the entrance.
“Yep. Hurried in there like he was on his way to a fire sale, then came out a few minutes later with a package.” He finished tightening the nuts, then swiveled to face her. Curiosity burned in his eyes. “And I swear he didn’t have anything in his hands when he went in.”
“But he had a package when he came out.”
“Yeah, well, it was little. Package makes it sound big. It was maybe like four inches long, a couple inches high. Wrapped in brown paper. And he was grinnin’ at it like a hog in a wallow.”
“Did you see anyone else go in the Preserve about the same time?”
He picked up a rubber mallet and pounded the hubcap in place. “I don’t know for sure.” He stood and worked the jack to lower the car. “I was kind of curious about Jesse, so I sort of kept an eye out. That pretty blond girl who lives at the Courts, she walked by, pushin’ her kid in a stroller. And the guy who grins all the time, the one who lives in the Vincent cabin, he jogged by. And maybe there was a couple of cars. But they were all on the road. I didn’t see anybody else go in the Preserve.”
The road past Jerry’s curved in tandem with the marsh, but the semi-tropical forest hid the water from view. On both sides of the dusty ribbon rose live oaks, frond-topped palmettos, southern red cedars, and slash pines. Sword-sharp yucca, wild bamboo, and poison-ivy thrived. It was a good five hundred yards before the road angled to the right to the first cottage and Annie could again see the water.
She shaded her eyes and looked across the inlet at the piers and the pink cottages of Nightingale Courts. As the crow flew or the cottonmouth swam, it wasn’t far. On foot, it seemed a long way Jesse Penrick had sometimes walked this way, sometimes putting across the inlet in his motorboat, moving, as was his custom, under cover of night.
Annie looked at the ramshackle cottage close at hand. Overgrown shrubs pressed against the cabin. The front door screen sagged on its hinges. She circled the cabin, careful to avoid piles of leaves or debris. She had no wish to disturb the late summer retreat of a rattlesnake or cottonmouth.
There was no indication anyone had been near this place in months, perhaps years.
She returned to the road and followed it to the second cabin. It was in good repair, and the yard was well kept. A webbed hammock hung on the front porch, a bicycle was casually propped against a palmetto, an empty bait box was left open to air. The mailbox read in faded brown letters VINCENT, but Alan had inked his name on a strip of adhesive.
She knocked at the front door, but, of course, there wasn’t any answer. Alan would be at the gallery, keeping everything running and wondering, no doubt, if his job would soon end, and worrying, with more than an employee’s concern, what had happened to his boss.
Annie paused at the foot of the steps to look toward the inlet. She was tempted to borrow Alan’s motorboat and scoot across the water, but, sighing, she turned to go the long way around.
She was dripping by the time she reached the Courts, but pleased with her outing. She felt now that she had a good grasp of the geography and a better sense of Jesse’s environs.
She headed for the middle pier and had it all to herself this morning. At its end, she dropped down and pulled her notebook out of her purse. She gave one last survey to her surroundings, the pink cabins, the glittering corrugated roof of Jerry’s Gas ’N Go, the two cabins across the water. Then, shading her eyes, she flipped through the pages. The tide was coming in, the water sucking and swirling around shell-encrusted legs of the piers. Two dolphins sported out in the sound, jumping and curving, the sun glistening on steel-colored skin.
By the time she finished her careful review of all she’d seen and heard these past two days, the sun was high in the sky. Annie tapped thoughtfully with her pen on a fresh sheet, then, swiftly, she made a final list:
Ingrid and Jesse quarreled early Saturday morning.
Jesse’s corpse barefoot.
Jesse’s boat taken.
Adele saw Jesse in the Gas ’N Go phone booth Thursday night.
Shirley May Foley found the remnants of a fire behind the Gas ’N Go Sunday morning.
Jesse visited Shangrila Travel Agency Saturday morning, got brochures on the Queen Elizabeth II. Looked in the window of the Piping Plover Gallery and dropped by the Oldsmobile agency.
A wedding ring hung from Jesse’s dog tags.
Jesse went into the Bird Preserve about four P.M. Saturday, came out a little later carrying a small package wrapped in brown paper.
Ophelia saw Jesse late Thursday afternoon, sitting and smoking his pipe at the end of the middle pier. He was still there after dark.
Adele saw Jesse in his boat late Wednesday night, and he had an ugly, satisfied smile on his face.
The blackmail file at Jesse’s cabin, with its information on Duane, Adele, Mavis, and Tom. Jesse’s cabin had been searched (as had his pants pockets).
Unidentified telephone call to Jesse at Parotti’s bar Saturday night. It made him angry and he left immediately.
Betsy Raines not on return flight from San Francisco on Monday. Last seen there Thursday. Attaché case empty of $220,000.
Despite its red hair, body of middle-aged woman in Savannah National Wildlife Refuge definitely not that of Betsy Raines. No caesarean scar.
Jesse priced new motorboats on Friday.
Ingrid smelled pine just before she was attacked.
Ingrid screamed when Duane whispered her name.
Annie leaned back against a prickly piling heavy with the scent of creosote. Although it was just mid-morning, she knew it was going to be a hot one, much like last Thursday, when the thermometer recorded a toasty ninety-three degrees in late afternoon.
And this was where Jesse Penrick had sat.
Waiting for what? Looking for what?
Jesse was a night prowler but on Thursday he’d settled on this pier for hours in the late, hot afternoon.
A night prowler, abroad with nocturnal creatures, owls, raccoons, and cotton rats, skates, dogfish, and ghost crabs, night hawks, foxes, and wild boar.
But Thursday afternoon, despite the blazing heat, the night prowler settled in the sun for a panoramic view of Nightingale Courts, the inlet, Jerry’s Gas ’N Go, and the opposite bank.
A panoramic view—
Annie jumped to her feet. She walked so quickly she was panting by the time she reached the back of Jesse’s cabin. She gave a swift look around, used Ingrid’s key and slipped inside.
The garbage was even smellier this morning, with the heat and the continuing passage of time. She found a stack of old newspapers in the broom closet and put several on the floor, then carefully tipped over the pail and let the garbage slide out.
Coffee grounds. Crusts of moldy rye bread. Banana peels. Last week’s Gazette. A discarded undershirt. An empty shaving-cream can. A buttermilk carton. Three empty frozen-food packages. An empty fifth of Jim Beam. An unappetizing mess of rotting apples.
But it was what she didn’t find that made all the difference.
Annie knew now who had killed Jesse Penrick.
Oh, yes, now she knew. But was there any way—ever—to unmask this calculating killer?
SEVENTEEN
Tuesday afternoon
“Furthermore,” Annie snarled, “if you don’t show up, I’ll invite every news reporter from here to Atlanta, and when the killer’s announced, they’ll know who found him—and it won’t be you!”
She slammed the receiver into its cradle.
“Dear little hedgehog,” Max murmured.
“What did you say?” she snapped, still br
eathing heavily.
“Nothing, love,” he said sweetly. “Just admiring your combativeness. You know, Annie, maybe we should send you to law school. You make most D.A.’s look like cream cakes.”
“Puffs,” she corrected.
“Whatever.” He poured just-brewed coffee into two mugs. He’d chosen One Foot in the Grave for himself and Killer in the Crowd for Annie.
The phone shrilled.
Annie snatched it up. “Death on Demand. Yes, just like I told you, I’ve called everybody and asked them to be here at four. And I—” Twice, she tried unsuccessfully to interrupt, then said firmly, “No, I’m not going to tell you who did it. But I promise you, Mr. Circuit Solicitor, I know—and I even know how you can prove it.”
“Oh, you’ve forgotten the cream.” Ingrid struggled to rise.
Annie pushed her down firmly. Social niceties weren’t important this afternoon. “You are here subject to good behavior—and good behavior means not stirring out of your chair.”
And there subject to Posey’s surly announcement that if Annie didn’t have the goods, Ingrid would go straight from Death on Demand to jail. Without stopping.
Annie, of course, hadn’t told Ingrid that. Even so, Ingrid was so pale! “Ingrid, honey, maybe you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
Ingrid lifted her chin determinedly. “I want to be here.” She looked miserably at Annie. “I have to know.”
Annie hated that pinched look of unhappiness. She bent and gave Ingrid a swift kiss on her cheek, and the bell tinkled at the front door as the first of Annie’s special guests arrived.
Annie stood beside the coffee bar, her hand resting lightly on a sheaf of papers—the computer printouts, her sketches, her copies of the information in Jesse’s folder, her notes, and her final list.
But she didn’t need them.
She surveyed the silent assemblage. It was, perhaps, one of the oddest gatherings in the history of Death on Demand.
Circuit Solicitor Posey stood with his back to the Private Investigator-Police Procedural bookcase, his arms crossed, his snoutish face locked in a scowl. Billy Cameron stood stiffly at his right. Billy determinedly did not look toward the back table where Mavis sat. Mavis’s slender fingers nervously pleated a paper napkin. Despite the cheapness of her blue rayon suit, she was as robustly pretty as a beleaguered heroine floridly pictured in an illustration to one of A. M. Barnard’s steamy tales in the 1870s (and therein lies a tale for admirers of Louisa May Alcott).
Ingrid sat stiffly between Henny and Duane at a middle table. She’d given Duane one anguished look when he joined them, then huddled in her chair, her eyes downcast. He leaned close and murmured, but she shook her head determinedly. Every so often, he looked at her in concern, then glowered at Posey. Duane looked unaccustomedly dapper, freshly shaved and in a crisp white shirt and brown slacks. Henny tapped a pen impatiently and stared down at a legal pad. She was a vision of executive elegance this afternoon in a subtly patterned suit with a long cutaway jacket over a short, slim skirt. A sterling band, accented by black onyx insets, circled her throat. Her earrings matched. Henny looked up and their glances locked for an instant in mutual understanding.
Alan Nichols smiled at Annie from the table nearest the coffee bar. His blue blazer was a perfect fit. The scent of shaving lotion tickled her nose.
Laurel and Ophelia, both still attired in oatmeal-colored robes, occupied the other middle table. A third chair contained the largest woven carryall Annie had ever seen. Occasionally, Laurel repositioned it, ever nearer to her. Laurel’s golden hair was drawn back in a bun this afternoon, and she was the image of Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, which was odious at her age. She flashed a brilliant smile at Annie, exuding good cheer almost as visibly as a painted medieval saint with appended golden rays radiates holiness. Ophelia, as usual, suffered by comparison. Today’s orange turban, however, matched the splotches of rouge on her cheeks.
At a rear table, Adele sat ramrod straight, her face somber, her dark eyes intent on Annie.
Posey cleared his throat and opened his mouth.
Annie hastily rustled her papers. “I appreciate everyone coming this afternoon. As I told each of you on the telephone, I felt that if we had a conference, if we pooled our knowledge, we could solve Jesse Penrick’s murder.” A slight smile touched her lips. “I’ve been thinking of a book by Agatha Christie. Not the story itself, but the title, A Murder Is Announced. What I didn’t tell you on the telephone was that this afternoon a murderer will be announced.”
Ophelia gave a tiny gasp. Laurel gazed with bright interest at her nails, turning them back and forth to catch the light, obviously not terribly interested in her surroundings, then she flashed an encouraging smile at Annie. (Annie decided that she must, later, delve into her own immediate emotional response: a fierce desire to strangle her mother-in-law.) Mavis darted a frightened glance at Billy. Adele’s expression didn’t change. Henny nodded approvingly and somehow managed to make her narrow bony face look plump, bland, and Oriental. (Charlie Chan?) Ingrid pressed trembling fingers to her lips. Duane reached out to touch her and she jerked away. Alan murmured, “Give em hell,” and lounged back in his chair.
“Ms. Laurance—”
“Mrs. Darling,” Max said firmly.
Annie ignored them both. “Why did Jesse Penrick die on Saturday night, the nineteenth of September?”
She surveyed her audience.
“Why not last Christmas, when he played a vicious trick on Mr. Webb? Why not a year ago, or two? Why not next week? Why last Saturday night? That timing is important. Just as important are the circumstances of his murder.” As Posey moved restively, she said firmly, “Let me remind you of what we know: Jesse received a telephone call at Parotti’s Bar and Bait Shop about eleven o’clock the night of his death. The call made him angry, and he immediately left. Shortly after midnight, in response to a plea for help from Ingrid Jones, my husband and I found Jesse’s body in her cabin. What happened between eleven o’clock and midnight?”
Posey broke in pompously, “The critical time period, Ms. Laurance—”
“Mrs. Darling.” Max was firm.
Posey ignored him. “—is from the moment Mrs. Jones arrived home until she made her calculated telephone call to you.” He stabbed a pudgy finger at Ingrid. “She quarreled with Jesse Penrick Saturday morning. No doubt he accosted her as she returned from the wedding festivities and the quarrel resumed. Mrs. Jones, goaded by his actions, reached up for the sword above her mantel and thrust it into a defenseless man’s chest.” His assertion ended as a bellow.
Duane Webb jumped to his feet.
Before he could launch into a defense, Annie interceded. “That, of course, is what you were supposed to think. But it leaves a few loose ends, doesn’t it? Why were Jesse’s shoes and socks removed? Why were pine needles stuck to his clothes? How did he receive the contusion on the back of his head? These questions have answers.” She waved Duane back to his seat. “Instead of a murder resulting from a quarrel, I suggest a murder that was well-planned and cunningly crafted. We are not dealing here with a killer striking out in the heat of emotion. We are dealing with a careful, calculating, and cruel murderer.
“Here is what happened Saturday night:
“The killer, using a disguised voice, called Jesse at Parotti’s. I feel sure the murderer imitated a voice Jesse would recognize and not fear. Perhaps that of Adele Prescott.”
Adele’s head jerked up and her eyes blazed, but she said nothing.
Annie nodded at her listeners. “Yes, I’m sure that Jesse thought he recognized his caller, and it was someone he didn’t fear. The speaker, sounding like Adele or perhaps Ophelia, told Jesse that he’d better hurry home, it looked like someone had been in his cabin.
“That brought him immediately. Why? Because Jesse had something of value in his cabin, and he didn’t want to lose it. So Jesse jumped on his bike and raced home. He found his cabin dark, but he ran up the steps and inside. The intruder, w
aiting there, hit him from behind and knocked him out, then, quickly, searched the cabin.
“And here’s where the plans went awry, because the search didn’t yield its expected result. But time was racing on and the intruder had to hurry. Jesse had to be put in Ingrid’s cabin before she returned from our wedding reception. The intruder carried Jesse from his cabin to Ingrid’s, but had to put Jesse down on the ground until the back door could be opened. That’s when the pine needles adhered to Jesse’s clothing. Once inside Ingrid’s, the intruder put Jesse on the living room floor, and, knowing Ingrid would be home shortly, stabbed Jesse with her sword. It was then that the murderer pulled out Jesse’s pockets in a final search and even removed his sneakers and socks. But the object wasn’t found.
“Turning off the lights, the murderer waited in the kitchen for Ingrid’s arrival. She came in, saw Jesse and ran to the phone. Before she could complete her call, the murderer came up behind her, struck her, and carried her away, unconscious.
“The murderer had a motorboat waiting and had already hooked up Jesse’s rowboat to it. The murderer went in the motorboat to the pier behind Jerry’s Gas ’N Go, tied up, ran to the cement area behind Jerry’s and set afire some papers taken from Jesse’s. The murderer then returned to the boat and left the inlet, going far up Skull Creek to a boathouse whose owners were out of town. Tying Ingrid up, the murderer left her in Jesse’s rowboat and returned to the inlet.”
“Balderdash!” Posey trumpeted. “My dear young woman”—and the irony dripped from his voice—“how could you possibly believe such complicated nonsense?”
“It gets even more complicated,” she said agreeably. “The murderer deliberately chose Ingrid’s cabin because of her quarrel on Saturday morning with Jesse. But the murderer was far from through with Ingrid. She was not only to be a suspect, she was to be a suspect with an absurd story. So, on Sunday night, the murderer returned to the boathouse where she was held prisoner, untied her, and set her free in a rowboat.” Now Annie’s face was stern. “More than that, the murderer spoke to her—although in a whisper—and told her she needn’t be frightened.”
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