Honeymoon With Murder

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Posey’s eyebrows were oblique flags of disbelief. “Indeed!”

  “Absolutely.” Annie looked at Ingrid, who was shaking her head in distress.

  “Ingrid.” Her voice was gentle, encouraging. “Trust me now. Who spoke to you? Who whispered?”

  “Annie, I don’t—Oh, Annie, please!”

  Even Posey was affected by the anguish in her tone, and he looked at her thoughtfully.

  “It’s all right, Ingrid. I promise. Who spoke to you?”

  “It was a whisper—just a whisper—but—” She looked at the man beside her. “Duane, why did you talk to me? Why?”

  There was an instant of stunned silence.

  Duane Webb’s heavy face sagged with shock.

  Posey gave an exasperated snort. “I’m running out of patience. You’ve rigged this to try and convince me that Mrs. Jones is innocent. Well, I’m nobody’s fool, and I know a concocted story when I hear one.”

  “Concocted,” Annie said sternly, “by the murderer.”

  “Absurd, absurd,” the circuit solicitor trumpeted. “Why would anyone go to so much trouble to embroil an innocent person in a crime?”

  “Why, indeed? It was that question which set me onto the right trail. Why should anyone go to so much trouble to kill an old man? Why not knock him over the head and leave his body in his own living room? Why not? Because Jesse snooped—and the murderer was desperate to focus attention away from that fact.” Her gaze swept the room. “I decided the answer had to lie in Jesse’s character. In part, I was right. I discovered that Jesse was not only vicious and vindictive, he was a blackmailer.”

  She certainly had everyone’s attention now.

  “He was blackmailing Mavis Beeson, Adele Prescott, and Tom Smith. He tried to blackmail Duane. And I discovered something more. Jesse liked to taunt his victims. He loved that extra twist of the knife. In the case of Duane Webb, he derived no money, but he caused him misery with reminders of the car accident and the loss of his family. Despite Mavis’s payment, he went ahead and painted a scarlet A on her mailbox. So Jesse wanted to have his cake and throw it in his victims’ faces, too.

  “But what I found out by myself wasn’t enough. It was Henny who insisted that anything out of the ordinary in Jesse’s final days might be important. Between us, we nosed out a number of unusual actions on Jesse’s part:

  “One. Jesse sat at the end of the middle pier in the heat late Thursday afternoon and into the evening.

  “Two. Jesse used the telephone at the Gas ’N Go Thursday night.

  “Three. On Friday, Jesse priced new motorboats.

  “Four. On Saturday, Jesse picked up travel brochures on the Queen Elizabeth Two, looked in the window of the Piping Plover Gallery, dropped by the Oldsmobile agency, and went into the Bird Preserve and came out with a package.”

  Alan shoved a hand through his curly chestnut hair. “Annie, I hate to say it, but it doesn’t add up to anything.”

  Annie straightened her papers decisively. “Oh, but it does. It adds up to money. A very great deal of money.”

  “Jesse didn’t have any money,” Adele snapped. She gripped her handbag and started to rise.

  “Sit down.”

  Adele responded to Annie’s steely tone and sank back into the chair, the beginnings of fear in her dark eyes.

  “Didn’t he?” Annie glanced at the watching faces, and one of them now was wary. “Oh, I think perhaps he had his eye on a potful of money, and the first installment was in the small package he picked up in the Bird Preserve. In fact, I’m sure of it, because I spent a messy twenty minutes going through Jesse’s trash, and the funny thing is, there was no brown paper there, nothing that could be the remains of that package. If the package were unimportant, Jesse would’ve just tossed that paper away, and I would have found it. And it’s interesting to note that there are no travel brochures in his cabin. Where are they? The murderer buried them along with the brown paper on Saturday night. Why? Because it was vital that no one think of Jesse in terms of money. Big money.”

  Posey’s cheeks puffed. “Mrs. Darling, do you mean to say you had the effrontery to—”

  “Don’t say another word, Annie,” Max warned, hurrying toward her.

  Annie flashed him a sunny smile. “Actually, Mr. Posey’s going to buy us a steak dinner, when I’m through.”

  “Mrs. Darling—”

  Duane Webb barked, “Nobody at Nightingale Courts has any money. And Jesse’s little game was played close to home.”

  Annie nodded in agreement. “That’s exactly what everyone would think from the blackmail folders in Jesse’s cabin.”

  Max clapped his hands to his head. Posey sucked in a deep breath.

  Before he could attack, Annie moved swiftly on. “Yes, there are a lot of motives at Nightingale Courts.” She looked toward the back of the coffee area. “Mavis Beeson was paying Jesse to keep quiet about her relationship with a young man, not her husband.” Annie was careful not to look toward Billy. “But this wasn’t the usual story of a wife intent upon hiding a love affair. No. Mavis’s fear is much deeper and stronger than that. She lives in mortal fear of an abusive husband, who has threatened to harm their son.”

  Mavis looked fearfully at Posey.

  Laurel rose, scooped up her bag, and swept toward the table. She patted Mavis’s tense shoulder reassuringly. Her throaty murmur carried clearly. “My dear child, do be of good cheer. Annie is merely circuitous. Amanda Cross, you know. You have nothing to be concerned about.”

  Had Annie possessed a handy bludgeon, Laurel, too, would have been relieved—permanently—from the necessity of concern about anything whatsoever.

  Annie continued crisply. “But Mavis is not the only resident of Nightingale Courts who had good reason to kill Jesse Penrick. Adele Prescott feared him, because Jesse, with his usual clever eye for skullduggery, had noticed an interesting pattern. Whenever Adele guarded a house for absent owners, another house on that block would soon be robbed.”

  Posey’s blunt head swung toward the back of the coffee area.

  Adele pushed back her chair. “I don’t have to listen to this! You can’t prove anything. Do you hear me? You can’t prove it.”

  “Sit down.”

  Adele’s face crimsoned, but, slowly she sank back into the chair.

  “So that’s two of the residents,” Annie continued. “Mavis and Adele. Then there’s Duane.”

  Ingrid gasped softly.

  “Duane despised Jesse. Jesse struck back by reminding him of the deaths of his wife and daughter. Saturday was the anniversary of Duane’s wedding—Jesse gave him an anniversary card.”

  Duane’s deep voice carried clearly “The sorry, sorry son of a bitch.”

  Ingrid covered her eyes with a shaking hand.

  Posey stared hard at Duane.

  “And then there’s Ophelia,” Annie mused. “She would like for everyone to think she’s dithery and listens to beings from other worlds. But she has ties to this world, too. Like many lonely people, she becomes very attached to a pet. Jesse poisoned her cat, and so she hated him.”

  Ophelia pressed her arms tightly across her chest. “Evil, evil.” Her voice was low and hoarse; her eyes tightly shut. “Evil here. Among us. The concentrated beam of self burns and destroys like sun through a prism. Evil.”

  Laurel wafted back to their table. “Now, now, dear, rest easy. All is well. I am in control.”

  Annie didn’t take time to dispute it. “The other resident of Nightingale Courts isn’t here today,” she said briskly. Did she want to set the law after Tom Smith? He’d fashioned his own prison, hadn’t he? A solitary world confined to tiny objects of a distant past that held no pain for him. “Tom Smith is hiding from his past, and I’m sure he won’t return to Broward’s Rock until Jesse Penrick’s murderer is arrested.

  “But Duane made a very clever point. As he observed, there is no big money available from any resident of Nightingale Courts. So where could Jesse have expected to
obtain the kind of money that would pay for a trip on the Queen Elizabeth Two or a new car?”

  Heads shook. No one answered.

  “I have an idea,” Annie said quietly. “Let’s ask Alan.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Alan froze for just an instant, then his infectious smile lighted up his blue eyes, though his hands on the table clenched hard. “Oh, hey now, Annie, that’s reaching. Really reaching. Hell, I don’t have a dime. I’ll show you my tax return.”

  “I’d rather see the key to the safety deposit box you rented recently.”

  His smile faded.

  “I don’t know where it is, but the police will find it. And there’ll be almost $220,000 in it, minus however much you put in that package for Jesse. I’ll bet you haven’t had time to get that money to the bank. It’ll be hidden in your cabin.”

  He edged his chair back from the table.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” she said quietly. “Because once the police start to look, you’re finished. There’ll be traces, of course. Maybe a strand of Betsy’s hair in your cabin—or the trunk of her car?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, you’re off base. You’re trying to railroad me, to save Ingrid. It won’t work.”

  Posey stalked to the front of the room. “Mrs. Darling, that body in the Refuge is not Mrs. Raines. Just because she was a redhead, you and Mrs. Brawley jumped to a lot of conclusions. But that’s what comes of amateurs mixing into police work.”

  “Have you identified that body?”

  “Sure have.” He was expansive. “Good solid police work.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket, cleared his throat, and read, “Deceased identified by fingerprints—left index, middle, and little fingers—as Miss Lucinda Burrows, speech teacher in Savannah.”

  “Has the time of death been estimated?”

  Posey wriggled his nose. “Autopsy report suggests death occurred approximately three days before body discovered on Monday by Refuge ranger.”

  “And when was Miss Burrows last seen?”

  “Mrs. Darling, what possible interest can you have in this poor woman? I assure you this identification is rock solid.”

  “Nonetheless,” she said mildly, “I’d like to know. When was she last seen in Savannah?”

  Posey did enjoy the sound of his own voice. “She called in sick Wednesday morning, but her landlady said she left early, about seven, all dressed up, and carrying an overnight bag. Sounds like she was going off with a man, though the people at school say she was a high-type lady and never hung around singles bars.” He thumbed through his notebook. “One of her best friends said, ‘Lucinda was a little bit silly and giddy sometimes, but I’m sure she wouldn’t go out with a stranger. She didn’t like singles bars, said they were dangerous. We’re all absolutely stunned. And how she ever got to the Wildlife Refuge, we can’t imagine!’”

  He snapped the notebook shut. “So, this poor lady left her apartment Wednesday morning and likely was with a man until she was strangled, probably around Thursday evening, and her body dumped in the Refuge.” He smiled patronizingly at Annie. “And she doesn’t have anything to do with Mrs. Raines, who’s out in California, and may be shacked up with a man herself.”

  “No,” Annie said wearily. “I wish it were so, but no. You see, Alan killed Betsy, probably very early Wednesday morning, the day she was to fly to San Francisco. He hid her body in his cabin, then took her car. Perhaps he wore a red wig and a picture hat, so that anyone looking at the car would think they’d seen her. Anyway, he took the ferry to the mainland and drove, minus the wig, to Lucinda’s apartment house and picked her up. He gave her Betsy’s tickets and her luggage, which would have been all packed, and the attaché case—empty, of course—and Lucinda flew to California and checked into the St. Francis.”

  Alan jumped up. “That’s crazy. Really crazy! I didn’t know this—what’d you say her name was?—this Burrows woman, and even if I did, why would she go through with this charade?”

  “You knew her. Maybe not for long. You picked her up somewhere. You look so ail-American, so wholesome.” The disgust in her voice was scathing. “You probably pitched her a big story, convinced her you were CIA, maybe, and she was going to be a courier. She didn’t know Betsy was dead. She thought her job was to take the luggage, check into the hotel, leave the suitcases and purse behind—and I’ll bet Alan even had the airport claim check for the car in Betsy’s purse—”

  Max was nodding.

  “—and fly back the next day. Thursday. You picked her up at the airport Thursday night, strangled her, and dumped her body in the Refuge, leaving her nude just to confuse the issue.”

  “No way. Listen, how could I get back to the island from the airport on Wednesday if I drove Betsy’s car there and left it?”

  “Limousines leave the airport three times a day for the Palmetto House. When we check, I’ll bet we find that some guy in a beach hat and shades took a limo in Wednesday morning.”

  Alan took a step backward.

  “You came back to the island and worked all day. It was probably Wednesday night that you dumped Betsy’s weighted body in the sound. I’ll bet Jesse was watching. You were halfway done and probably very pleased with yourself. Then Thursday night, you picked up Lucinda, killed her, and came back to the island.

  “But you weren’t home free, Alan. Jesse called you Thursday night—and he had Betsy’s wedding ring. He must have found her body in your cabin early Wednesday, maybe after you’d left in her car to go to Savannah. Anyway, he called, and he could prove he’d seen her dead body as long as he had that ring.”

  “Mrs. Raines’s wedding ring?” Posey demanded, and he turned to look at Alan.

  “Yes. Betsy’s wedding ring. To keep it safe, Jesse slipped it onto the chain that held his dog tags. That’s what Alan searched for so furiously, even taking off Jesse’s shoes and socks. Alan searched Jesse’s cabin as well as he could in the time he had. He’d hurried over to Nightingale Courts from our wedding reception. But it never occurred to him that Jesse would wear anything around his neck. And that high-neck sweater Jesse wore effectively hid the dog tags. You can imagine how Alan started to sweat when the news came out about Jesse having a wedding ring on his chain, and how relieved he must have been when the press reported the initials inside the ring as E.P. But a jeweler can look at that more closely, and I’ll bet the store that the initials are E.R.—Elizabeth Raines. Betsy Raines.”

  “Crazy,” Alan shouted, but sweat filmed his face.

  “You’re all through, Alan, because now that the police know where to look, they’ll find proof: Lucinda’s fingerprints in Betsy’s car and in the hotel room in San Francisco, traces of Lucinda in your car. Surely she struggled hard enough that a single hair—just one—is in your car or some fiber under her fingernails. You’re all through—and you deserve to be. Making love to Betsy, then killing her. Fooling that poor Burrows woman, then killing her. Imitating Duane’s voice when you freed Ingrid. That was a little fancy, Alan. Do you want to do any voices for us? Maybe Betsy? I’ll bet you can do her great.”

  His chair fell with a clatter as he turned and tried to run.

  A lariat whistled cleanly through the air, settled over his arms, jerked him backward. He slammed to the floor.

  Every eye in the room followed the taut line which bound him to Laurel’s slender hands.

  Smiling serenely, Annie’s mother-in-law said just a trifle quickly, “Henny, dear, do stamp on his hand and kick that knife away.”

  Posey dispatched Billy to the island police station with a handcuffed Alan, with instructions to call the sheriff’s office for transportation to the county jail.

  That done, he approached Annie, his face like a thundercloud. “Breaking and entering, that’s just for starters. Keeping information from the properly constituted authorities. I’ve a good mind—”

  “I know the press will be so excited that you’ve solved this very complex and unusual crime,” Annie said smoothly.

/>   His mouth a large round O, he looked at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “I did do an outstanding job of investigation.”

  Ingrid sniffed and pointedly directed her question at Annie. “How did you know? How did you ever know?”

  Annie had no desire to be in the next cell to Alan. She took a deep breath. “As Circuit Solicitor Posey undoubtedly has recorded in his own investigation, Jesse Penrick did several things in the days before his murder that observers said were out of character for him. First, he sat on the middle pier in the heat late Thursday afternoon. If he’d wanted to watch for anyone in Nightingale Courts, he would have had a better—and cooler—view from his living room. So his attention was focused on the inlet, and across it on Alan’s cabin. Second, he made a phone call Thursday night. How much easier just to talk in person to someone living in the Courts? Third, he went into the Bird Preserve Saturday afternoon. Again, why such a convoluted approach if he was to receive something from someone in Nightingale Courts?

  “I decided then that Jesse was focused on something other than the Courts, that a great deal of money was involved, and I started thinking about Alan, who lived on the other side of the inlet and who liked to make love to older women, and who liked expensive clothes and, I’d bet, good wines and fine hotels and lots of other things he couldn’t afford. Alan knew Betsy Raines was carrying a substantial amount of money in her attaché case. Henny kept insisting all the crime on the island had to be linked, so I started to wonder if maybe Betsy never left the island. From there, it was easy.”

  “Just the way I’d figured it out,” Posey intoned.

  “Evil,” Ophelia intoned. “Betsy is dead, her hair wavering in the water.”

  The pause was uncomfortable.