Dead By Midnight

by Carolyn Hart

  “Are they gone now?”

  Mrs. Croft nodded. “They left two weeks ago.” She cocked her head like an eager bird. “Are you family?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m Annie Darling. I own the bookstore on the marina and Pat had just started to work for me.”

  She nodded, the white curls quivering. “Pat told me she had a new job.” The wrinkled face drooped. “She was so excited. And now she’s gone. Are you taking up a memorial? I’ll get my purse.”

  “Oh, no. I’m hoping to find out who visited her the night she died. You know, it would be helpful to the family to know if she had begun to feel ill.”

  “Why, that’s the oddest thing. A police lady came by just a few minutes ago and asked me the same thing. I think it’s very nice of everyone to want to know what happened. But no one came to see her that night.”

  Annie felt an instant of shock. “We were sure someone came.”

  Mrs. Croft’s head shake was decided. “I sat on my front porch from supper time on in my swing. I was reading Ann Ross’s new book and I tell you I laughed until I almost cried and I didn’t move until it was almost ten, and the police lady said that a friend talked to Pat and she was sitting down to eat at six o’clock and I know that’s right because that’s when she always ate, and the police lady said that meant she died sometime between eight and nine o’clock.”

  Annie understood. Time of death had been estimated on the basis of the state of digestion of her final meal.

  Mrs. Croft looked regretful. “I should have known something was wrong when I looked out about two-thirty in the morning—I got up to rub some liniment on my hip—and her lights were still on. But I didn’t go check again because her lights had been on late ever since she lost her job at the law firm.”

  Annie almost ended the conversation there. She was ready to speak when one word registered. “You ‘didn’t go check again’?”

  Mrs. Croft nodded energetically. “Pat used to go to bed at ten every night after the evening news. You must think I am the world’s nosiest neighbor”—her smile was quick—“but I have bursitis and some nights I can’t sleep because of the pain. I get up and walk around and I was used to seeing Pat’s lights go off. Well, more than a week ago, the lights were on and it was past midnight. I was worried that maybe she was sick, so I put on my robe and shoes and went across and knocked on the door. And you know what?”

  Annie shook her head.

  “She didn’t answer the door.” Mrs. Croft’s tone was portentous.

  Annie tried not to reveal her disappointment.

  “That worried me, so I tried the door. Pat never bothered to lock up until right before she went to bed. I stepped inside and called out. No answer. I started looking around. Gertrude came up to me in a minute, though I could tell she’d been asleep. Pat wasn’t anywhere, not in the living room or the bedroom or little den or kitchen or bathroom. I was puzzled because her car was outside. Gertrude followed me all around. I went right through the house and out into the backyard thinking maybe she’d fallen and”—Mrs. Croft clapped her hands together—“here she came up the boardwalk. I told her I was so glad she was all right, that I’d come to check because her lights were on so late. She gave me a hug and said she had trouble sleeping and she’d gone for a walk.” Mrs. Croft’s animation fled. “After that I noticed her lights were on late every night. I didn’t worry about her Friday night. I thought she’d gone for another late walk.”

  Max took a half spoon of raspberry and a half spoon of chocolate. “ . . . love to have a watercolor of the pier, a summer scene with people fishing.” His expression was enthusiastic.

  Edna Graham smiled, easing the severity of an angular face with heavy dark eyebrows and strong nose and square chin. “I have several new watercolors of the pier.” Her eyes shone with eagerness. “I could bring some to your office tomorrow over my lunch hour.”

  “That would be great.” His tone was hearty. Edna was reputed to be a superb legal secretary. He’d seen several of her paintings at the local artists’ community show at the library and they were pale and subdued for his taste. But a man in search of information did what a man had to do. “It’s outstanding that you have a successful career and find time to paint as well. Do you find painting a relief from the stress of your job?”

  Max found Edna’s expression uncannily similar to one of his mother’s Cat Truth posters: a thick-furred, brown rosette-tabby Pixie-Bob, its wide rounded head held in a pose of supreme satisfaction: Tell me again how fine I am.

  “Oh”—her sigh was heartfelt—“you can’t imagine how stressful work can be. Everything has to be right when you are a legal secretary. No mistakes.” Her chin jutted. “I don’t make mistakes.”

  “I suppose it’s been even harder since Pat Merridew left the firm.”

  Edna looked offended. “Pat wasn’t a legal secretary. Believe me, no one would have trusted her with substantive work. She was a receptionist. She didn’t have anything to do with legal matters.” Her tone indicated disdain. Then her angular face softened. “Poor Pat. Such a shock about her death. Everyone’s awfully sorry. I can’t imagine anyone dying at her age.” There was a flicker in her eyes, the recognition of mortality sparked by unexpected death.

  Max gave it one last try. “So Pat wasn’t privy to confidential information that would burden her.”

  “No.” Edna’s reply was unconcerned. She glanced at her watch. “I must get back. I have a contract to finish. I’ll come to your office at noon tomorrow.”

  Annie stopped at her car, tossed her purse in the trunk, then hurried around the side of Pat’s cottage. The backyard was shallow. Spanish moss and resurrection ferns dotted the live oaks. A slight breeze stirred dangling willow fronds. Patches of grass spread in irregular clumps on the dusty gray ground. A boardwalk led from the back steps of the cottage to an opening in the pine woods. Annie recalled the geography. She thought much of the wooded area behind Pat’s house was part of a nature preserve.

  Lights gleaming late at night had drawn Mrs. Croft across the street. She had found Pat’s house empty and found Pat in the backyard coming up the boardwalk.

  Annie looked at the woods. She had a healthy respect for island woods after dark when a fox might nose cautiously through undergrowth or a bobcat wait in ambush for an unwary deer. Yet Pat Merridew had been returning from the woods when Mrs. Croft came to check. Moreover, Mrs. Croft became accustomed to lights on late at night in Pat’s house, which suggested her foray into the woods might have been repeated. Maybe the deep darkness with the rustle of night creatures had soothed Pat.

  Annie almost turned away, then stopped, staring at the dim entrance into the woods. Something had occurred recently in Pat’s life that had led to murder. Certainly late-night walks in the forest qualified as unusual. Annie walked swiftly across the yard.

  In the woods, she studied a narrow path. With a shrug, she turned right. She followed a twisting, vine-shrouded path that grew ever fainter. The path finally ended at a murky lagoon with water as black as pitch. She’d not glimpsed a single house or offshoot trail. Hot and bug-nipped, she retraced her steps and paused at the opening into Pat’s backyard. She spoke aloud. “She was some kind of nut if she went that way.” With a sigh, Annie continued in the other direction. The path curved generally north and west. She waved away swarms of flies and no-see-’ums. Yaupon holly and ferns choked the ground beneath the canopy of live oaks, slash pine, and magnolias. A recent heavy summer rain had left puddles. She squished along the muddy trail, probably staining her cream leather loafers for all time. She was leaving a distinct set of tracks. A bicycle could have come this way, but she saw no tire prints.

  Children’s voices rose in chatter and shouts.

  Finally, a sign of life.

  Annie carefully eased apart saw-palmetto fronds to reveal an asphalt parking lot behind a playground. She stepped warily, after a careful survey of the ground. She was well aware that rattlesnakes and alligators inhabited the woods. She
let out a small breath of relief as she reached the parking lot unscathed. A chain-link fence bounded the playground. Toddlers scooped sand into buckets. Four- and five-year-olds swung, clambered up and down ladders to a wooden fort, slid down slides, or maneuvered on a small plastic climbing wall.

  Annie walked past the small gray structure. In the street, she saw the entrance and a sign hanging from an iron post: HAPPY DAYS CHILD CARE. She noted the hours. The day care closed at seven P.M. Owner or staff might have been there on Friday evening, but the path would only be visible to someone standing in the parking lot and pulling aside greenery.

  Annie reentered the woods, snagging her blouse on a saw-palmetto frond. A hundred yards farther on, she heard the yipping of dogs. Again she pulled aside fronds and recognized the back parking area of the island’s veterinary clinic. This time she didn’t bother to struggle through the undergrowth. Obviously, the path wasn’t usually accessed from either business site.

  She almost retraced her steps, then, lips folded stubbornly, continued forward. The pines thinned to her left. Through the trees, she saw a gazebo, a garden with banks of azaleas, several plots filled with rosebushes, and the back of a three-story tabby home. The path at that point turned due east but a red-and-white barrier prohibited entry.

  POSTED

  RICE FIELD RECLAMATION

  KEEP OUT

  Very likely, the path beyond the barrier might be all but impassable. In the dark, Pat surely hadn’t continued.

  Annie felt discouraged. Mrs. Croft saw Pat emerge from the woods, so clearly she’d taken the path. She hadn’t turned to the right unless she wanted to commune with a black lagoon. Clearly she’d traveled this way. But why? Moreover, she may have likely trekked into the woods not once, but several times. Mrs. Croft reported she’d continued to see lights late at night. Whatever Pat had done, wherever she had gone on the night Mrs. Croft came to check on her, she likely had gone again and again.

  Where and why?

  Annie stepped cautiously on slick pine straw. When she reached the base of the garden, a charming one-story gray wood cottage was in full view. Annie stared. She hadn’t recognized the house from the backyard, but she immediately knew the cottage. Annie had been there last week for a committee meeting for the League of Women Voters. Elaine Jamison was the committee chair. Annie liked working with Elaine, who was crisp, kind, clever, and insightful. But much more important to Annie was the fact that the softly green tabby house was the home of Glen and Cleo Jamison.

  Annie turned toward the cottage. Elaine’s car was not in the drive. Annie walked back into the woods, thinking hard. She returned on the path to Pat Merridew’s backyard. As soon as she reached her car, she retrieved her purse from the trunk and lifted out her cell phone. She called the police station, recognized the voice of the dispatcher—Billy’s wife, Mavis. “Mavis, this is Annie Darling. May I speak to Billy?”

  In a moment, Billy answered.

  Annie plunged into her recital, stopping only when Billy interrupted. Finally, she concluded, “ . . . and I think Pat went late at night to the Jamison house.”

  Billy was sharp. “Wait a minute. You don’t have any basis for that conclusion.”

  Annie was fervent. “Why else would she go on that path?”

  “There’s no proof she turned left. Maybe she went toward the lagoon.”

  “Pat told Mrs. Croft she couldn’t sleep after she lost her job. She was furious with Glen Jamison. I think she went on that path to the Jamison house.”

  “Why?” Billy sounded bewildered. “What possible reason would she have to go there late at night after everyone was asleep?”

  “Because she was upset.” It seemed eminently reasonable to Annie.

  Billy drew a deep breath. “There’s no point to it.”

  She had a quick memory of a Cat Truth poster: a small Brown Tabby, clearly a female, stalked a mesmerized rabbit while a Golden Shaded Persian male lolled back against a cushion, one leg raised for grooming. She takes care of business. Maybe if the rabbit kicked him . . .

  Annie wasn’t sure she could breach the divide between Venus and Mars. “Women take things personally.”

  “You got that right.” Billy’s agreement was fervent and obviously the product of experience.

  Encouraged, she continued. “Pat was upset. I think she wanted to go and look at the house and think how much she hated them. Like sticking pins in a voodoo doll. Anyway, she went somewhere on that path late at night and not just once but several times. She wouldn’t go to the child care or the vet’s. They’re closed in the middle of the night. The lagoon was a dead end. The only other place is the Jamison house. I don’t believe in coincidence, and since it was the Jamison house, that had to be why she went.” Annie realized her reasoning sounded a trifle inchoate, but she was sure of her conclusion. “I mean, think about it.” Was she starting to sound like an eighties Valley Girl?

  Billy was patient. “I see what you’re getting at. Let’s say you’re right.” He sounded dubious. “Let’s say Pat Merridew went sneaking up that path to go think evil thoughts about the Jamisons. Annie, she’s the one who’s dead, not Glen or Cleo Jamison.”

  “That’s the point. Pat’s dead. She went up that path and she saw or heard something at the Jamison house that led her to try blackmail.”

  “Come on, Annie.” He was clearly incredulous. “That’s a leap too far.”

  Annie strove to be calm and reasonable. “Mrs. Croft didn’t see anyone visit Pat’s house Friday night. But someone came and washed up that crystal mug and didn’t leave any fingerprints. Where did the murderer come from? Why not the path from the Jamison house? If the murderer came from the Jamison house, that proves Pat’s death is linked to the Jamisons.”

  “A leap way, way, way too far.” His tone was cautionary. “If we’re going to create scenarios out of nothing, including the idea of murder, how about some enemy knew Mrs. Croft watched the neighborhood, so this person parked at either the vet’s or the child care and took the path. Or maybe Mrs. Croft went in her house Friday night for a few minutes and that’s when the visitor came. Or maybe Mrs. Croft and Pat were crossways and that’s who came to visit. But, we have no proof”—he emphasized the noun—“that a visitor came or that the mug without fingerprints has anything to do with the night Merridew died. Or that she was murdered.”

  Annie thought that battle had been won. She spoke sharply, “Nothing else makes any sense.”

  “I’m talking about proof. As for linking the people in the Jamison house to the Merridew death, that’s what I call imaginative reconstruction, like they do in political books these days. Of course, those writers claim to have deep background, they just don’t ever cite a source. You don’t have a source, deep or not.” He took a deep breath. “But thanks, Annie, I’ll add this information to the file.”

  Henny Brawley traced the red letters on her coffee mug: Murderer’s Mistake by E.C.R. Lorac. Her fine dark eyes were troubled. “After we caught the mug without fingerprints, thanks to you”—she gave a nod to Annie—“I thought we’d easily discover a motive. I haven’t had any luck. I’ve checked with everyone who knew Pat well. All of them tell the same story. She was upset about losing her job, mad as a hornet at Glen and Cleo, happy she’d found a job here”—Henny spread her hand to include the coffee area of Death on Demand—“but no one could suggest any reason anyone would want Pat dead. Not money”—she ticked off possibilities one by one—“not love, not hate, not revenge, not jealousy, not despair.”

  “Fear.” Annie was emphatic. “Pat knew something or threatened to do something that endangered the murderer. The murderer came to Pat’s house prepared to kill. That means a threat was made in advance.”

  “So”—Henny’s smile was wry—“maybe the motive is money, after all. I had lunch with Pat after she was fired and she was worried about having enough income to keep going. She didn’t want to touch her savings. She said that would be the last resort. That’s why I helped her get in t
ouch with you. So I know she was concerned about money. Yet I discovered she was planning a cruise to Alaska. Kathy Kilgore—”

  Annie knew the travel agent. Travel More with Kilgore had planned several trips for Annie and Max.

  “—said Pat came in on Friday—”

  Annie’s eyes widened. Pat went to the travel agency the day she died.

  “—and picked up a bunch of brochures. If Billy’s still thinking Pat committed suicide, Kathy can certainly say that Pat was excited about planning her trip.”

  “Let’s call Billy and tell him,” Annie suggested. She swiveled to retrieve the portable phone. She clicked speaker and handed the receiver to Henny. “You do the honors. You talked to Kathy, plus he may be a little tired of hearing from me.”

  Henny called and Mavis Cameron answered. Henny asked for the chief.

  “Just a moment.”

  “Chief Cameron.” His deep voice was pleasant.

  “Henny Brawley. Billy, I have more evidence that Pat Merridew wasn’t suicidal.”

  He listened as Henny reported Pat’s interest in an Alaska cruise. “Yeah. It could indicate she was upbeat, looking forward to travel. It could also suggest she was trying to find something to dispel depression. We’ll never know.”

  Henny was emphatic. “Pat didn’t have the money to make that kind of trip. The fact that she planned the trip means money was available from some source. She told Kathy she’d be in this week to make the reservations. Where did she plan to get the money? If she was murdered, as I firmly believe, there had to be a compelling motive. We haven’t found anyone here who profited from her death. We haven’t found any apparent enemies. What does that leave? Maybe Pat made a big mistake. Maybe she knew something that threatened someone and she attempted blackmail.”

  Billy said calmly, “Maybe she was dreaming. People can plan trips and know they’ll never take them. Maybe picking up those brochures and knowing she couldn’t afford to go tipped her over to suicide. That seems more likely than the idea she blackmailed somebody. We have to have proof. We haven’t found anything to support the idea that Pat Merridew was murdered.” He was matter-of-fact, not defensive.