Don't Go Home

by Carolyn Hart

  Rae clasped her hands tightly together. Her face held a look of horror.

  Annie knew Rae was creating a scene in her mind: her husband, handsome, alive, leaning back on the sofa, someone moving behind him, raising an arm to bring down a piece of wood with brute, final force.

  A bloodied piece of heavy wood.

  Annie hadn’t seen the weapon in the short space of time she was in the sitting room, but the presence of a weapon meant someone came prepared. Annie visualized a heavy stick as described by the ME. A foot and a half in length was half again as long as a ruler. More than a two-inch circumference was larger than a blackjack. A weapon that size could be slipped beneath a loose shirt, held tight against one side by the pressure of an arm. A weapon that size could be tucked in a woman’s oversized purse. That afternoon someone must have walked along a forest path, looking, searching, until the right broken-off piece of wood was spotted. Hard wood, nothing soft or rotten. A brilliant choice for a bludgeon. The rough bark would probably hold no fingerprints. To be certain, a handkerchief or soft cloth likely had been used to protect the hand.

  Doc Burford was across the patio and stepping onto the oyster shell path.

  “Doc.” Marian Kenyon moved out of a shadow on the far side of the path.

  Annie wondered how she’d slipped unnoticed from the terrace. But her presence would not surprise Billy. Marian was always on the spot with breaking news, rules be damned.

  Marian held a pen above her notebook. “Can I quote you on the preliminary finding?”

  Burford nodded, moved past her without another word.

  Annie thought Marian’s always white face was paler than usual, but she spoke in her usual rapid staccato. “Chief, can you confirm the victim’s identity?”

  Billy shot her an irritated look. “The victim has been identified as Alex Griffith. This is a crime scene and it is closed to everyone except police and witnesses. Please wait on the terrace for an update.”

  Marian looked straight at Annie. Instead of her usual bright, inquisitive, intent expression, her face was drawn, eyes bleak, cheeks sunken. There was no plea, only hopeless resignation. She turned away.

  Annie felt hollow inside. Marian believed Annie would tell Billy about the damning conversation she had overheard and the smashing of the hurricane lamp. Perhaps Marian assumed Annie had already informed Billy. But no, Marian must realize her secret was still safe or Billy would not have treated Marian as a reporter doing her job. He had yet to discover that Marian had any connection to Alex Griffith.

  Annie’s thoughts skittered like marbles flung on a table. No one except Marian knew what Annie had overheard. However, it seemed almost certain Alex would have told Rae about Marian’s visit and the smashing of the hurricane lamp. But—

  “Annie, hey, Annie.” Billy sounded impatient.

  She realized Billy must have spoken to her several times. “Sorry. I was thinking.” Was that a giveaway that she knew more than she had revealed?

  But Billy was focused on the moment. “Do you have any information you didn’t tell me on the phone?”

  “I don’t know anything else about this evening.” That was true.

  “You’re free to go.”

  Annie gained the path with a sense of escape. But Billy was thorough. He would interview hotel staff. Rita White would tell him that Annie had withdrawn from the program. Billy would want to know why. She could say she’d had further thoughts after reading the Gazette feature and decided it wouldn’t be a wise move for an island merchant to be involved in a program that might upset some islanders. Was that answer good enough? It would have to be.

  She came around the end of the wing. She wasn’t surprised to see that the pool was empty of swimmers and no one lounged in deck chairs. An announcement of murder was enough to encourage guests to leave the scene along with those in the audience who could offer nothing to the investigation. But she was a little surprised that only Joan and Leland Turner had remained behind. After all, George Griffith was now the only surviving brother in the family and Lynn Griffith had been Alex’s sister-in-law. Obviously neither had chosen to remain. She was not surprised that heavy-faced, muscular Eddie Olson had left.

  Joan Turner and her husband stood a few feet from the last empty row of chairs. Marian Kenyon, stiff and still, stood a dozen yards away. Joan stared toward the oyster shell path that led to Alex and Rae’s room. Marian, too, watched. The TV camera crew roamed restlessly back and forth on the end of the terrace. They’d missed their ferry but they had a murder to cover.

  Joan saw Annie and took a step forward.

  Lou Pirelli, managing to look official despite his baggy Braves T-shirt and shabby jeans, immediately held up a broad hand. “Ma’am, I’m sorry. Please remain here. The chief will come and speak with you as soon as the preliminary investigation is complete.” Preliminary investigation—a sanitized description of the careful survey, measurements, markings of a death scene, and all the while the body remained, growing colder, very dead. Alex Griffith wouldn’t be lifted onto a gurney, transported to the morgue, until every scrap of information was gleaned from his position, making it possible to estimate just how he had been sitting when the unexpected blow came.

  The gentle night breeze stirred Joan’s dark hair. Her aristocratic face twisted in a spasm of emotion.

  Alex Griffith had been her younger brother. They’d grown up on the island, knew island joys. Did she have a sudden memory of a laughing boy running across the sand, perhaps holding a starfish?

  “I know.” Her voice broke. “But it seems wrong that I’m standing here, doing nothing. No one is helping his wife. I don’t know what happened but if she’s there and Alex is dead . . . This is dreadful. Someone needs to be with her.” She looked past Lou. “Annie, can you help? Can you go and tell her that we’ll wait for her, take her home with us?”

  Lou’s usually genial face struggled between official displeasure and human kindness. “Ma’am, witnesses are requested not to speak to each other.” He shot a hopeful glance at Annie. “Are you supposed to wait here, too?”

  Annie spoke to Lou, but she looked for a long instant directly into Marian’s dark eyes. “I’m free to go. As I told Billy, I don’t know anything about Alex Griffith or what he did this evening. My only contact with him this morning was to discuss the event tonight. I don’t know anything else.”

  Marian took an unsteady breath. She pressed a tight fist against one cheek.

  “I’m sorry I don’t know anything helpful. This was just a business connection for me.” Again Annie looked directly at Marian.

  Marian gave an almost infinitesimal nod.

  Annie contrived to look earnest. “Lou, I know you need to stay with Joan and Leland since you are by yourself.” Hyla hadn’t come back to the Griffiths’ room so she must be inside the inn. “I’ll be glad to go and tell Billy that Joan wants to help Rae.” A pause. “If that’s all right.”

  Lou looked appreciative. Order had been maintained as he had been directed but compassion could be facilitated. “Yeah. Thanks, Annie.”

  Annie didn’t look toward Marian as she turned to retrace her steps, but she felt she could sense relief. Eventually Billy would discover whether Alex had told Rae about Marian’s angry visit, but that would be hearsay, not the direct testimony of someone who’d heard the bitter exchange.

  Annie realized as she reached the oyster shell path that she had made a decision to protect Marian. She knew why. She wouldn’t believe—couldn’t believe—didn’t believe—Marian could kill anyone, not even a man she obviously hated.

  Annie tried to hide her inner turmoil as she neared the patio. She’d promised Max she would never, ever again be involved in any crime investigation. But that was all right. She wasn’t involved in an investigation. She was removing herself from an investigation. As Max pointed out, Billy Cameron was a good, effective, careful policeman. L
eave the work to him. Gladly. She was on the far side of the patio wall when she heard Billy’s voice.

  “What happened to the patio door?”

  Annie stopped. Marian was now feeling relief, but perhaps she felt safe too soon. She wanted to hear Rae’s response.

  “. . . actually he laughed. He didn’t say what happened, just that he intended to send the bill for the patio door to someone he knew rather well a long time ago. He said”—Rae paused—“the animals were getting restless, which suited him just fine. I think he’d been on the phone with people today. He went off early this morning and didn’t get back until four. I sat in a cabana at the pool and read and tried not to think about tonight. He didn’t tell me where he went or who he talked to. I know he saw some people. When he came back late this afternoon, he was keyed up, like something unexpected had happened. But he knew I didn’t want him to dump on people so maybe that’s why he didn’t have a lot to say. I asked him one last time not to talk about people tonight. He told me I was trying to keep him from writing a book that would outsell Don’t Go Home.”

  “I thought you organized tonight’s event.”

  A slight whistle of sound, a sigh. “I set up everything for Alex. I do—I did—publicity and talked to booksellers, everything he needed. He was stubborn. He went his own way. I knew he was going to go ahead no matter what I said, so I thought I’d get it done, we’d get past the evening, and maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I imagined.”

  That accounted for Rae’s odd manner when she came to Death on Demand Monday. She was doing what her husband asked. She opposed the plan, but she did as he asked.

  Her voice was thin, strained, hollow. “I didn’t want to come to the island. I told him from the first that I didn’t think that kind of book worked and he was going to upset a lot of people. He didn’t care.” A pause. “That makes him sound mean. He wasn’t mean. But he didn’t feel things. I guess I should have known that from the first, the way he never got in touch with his family, didn’t talk about them. But we were having fun and were busy and I didn’t think about it. He always liked to watch people. He watched and listened and was able to take what he saw and write this raw, hot story. He wrote with incredible power. I think he was able to write that way because everything was true. That’s why he couldn’t just write another book. All he could write was what he knew. So he came back to see—” She broke off.

  “If the animals would provide enough misery for a best seller.” Billy spoke with no emphasis. “Can you tell me who he threatened?”

  Annie moved forward. She had learned what mattered to her. Marian wasn’t a suspect yet. Perhaps Rae knew the source of the characters. Perhaps she didn’t. In any event, Annie didn’t want to know more than she had guessed from her reading of Don’t Go Home. She wanted to deliver Joan’s message and walk swiftly across the terrace and hurry to her car, sever her connection to Alex Griffith, keep her promise to Max.

  4

  Officer Hyla Harrison nodded her thanks. “This will do for a start.” She pocketed her pencil, held a small notebook in her hand.

  The night clerk was college age, likely thrilled to land a summer job enhanced by sun, surf, and sand. At the moment, rounded, fearful brown eyes stared from a plump face. The girl swallowed. “I’m scared.”

  Hyla appraised her with clear green eyes. “I won’t say there is never danger to bystanders when a murder has been committed. But the suite did not appear to be ransacked. There was no evidence of disarray. The position of the body indicates the victim wasn’t expecting an attack, which suggests he knew his attacker.” Aware the clerk hung on every word, she added in a reassuring tone, “Barring drug deals and gang violence, most murders are committed by someone known to a victim. This appears to be the case here, which means it’s unlikely a deranged killer threatens danger to ordinary people. Did you know the victim?”

  The girl shook her head violently, short brown hair rippling.

  “I wouldn’t worry, then.” Hyla turned and walked swiftly across the lobby. As always, she looked about her as she moved, noting who was near, attitude, appearance, posture, expression. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, though obviously most of the guests had heard there was a problem and eyed her with sharp interest.

  She walked past the central stairway and into the hallway of shops. When she reached the east wing, she paused in thought for an instant. The nearer the scene of the crime, the likelier something interesting might have been observed by a fellow guest. She walked to the end of the corridor, knocked on the door of 128, next to the Griffith corner suite. She glanced at her pad. The clerk had given her the names and arrival and expected departure dates. Room 128, Robert Haws, checked in Tuesday, scheduled to check out Thursday.

  She waited to a count of five, knocked again. No answer.

  She moved to the next even-numbered room, looked at the pad, knocked.

  The door opened. “Bring—Oh.” The thirtyish sandy-haired woman with a peeling nose looked surprised. Behind her a television blared and a boy shouted, “I don’t care. It’s mine. Give it—” The woman swung around. “Roger, hush,” she said and turned apologetically back to Hyla. “Can I help you?”

  Hyla saw a room with two double beds, clothing strewn on chairs, and wet towels wadded in a corner along with a stack of sand buckets. The drapes were open though the night was now dark beyond the glass of the patio door. “Mrs. Carey?” At her nod, Hyla continued, “Officer Hyla Harrison, Broward’s Rock Police. Have you been on your patio this evening . . .”

  • • •

  The air-conditioning was cranked. Dorothy L rested in the curve of Annie’s arm beneath a light cover. The plump cat’s cheerful purr, the warmth of her furry body, made the bed a little less lonely. Annie was comfortable, her shorty nightgown light as froth, but sleep seemed impossible. She could not push away images of the day. Or the night. If Max were here, she could share with him and everything would be better. Finally, to Dorothy L’s dismay, she turned to the edge of the bed and got up. She slipped into house shoes, turned on lights as she went. Downstairs, she poured a glass of milk and zapped one of Max’s incredible peanut butter cookies in the microwave. She carried her snack out on the porch, welcoming the heat and the familiar night sounds, the incessant chatter of the frogs, the distant whoo of an owl, the rasp of the cicadas. She sank onto the soft cushions of the swing, gave a push with her foot. The familiar creak was reassuring. All was well . . .

  Well for her. Not for others this sultry summer night. What was Marian doing tonight? Annie recalled the searing passage in Don’t Go Home when Louanne called Buck. But Annie knew the truth. It was Marian who gripped a phone, called her lover; Marian who was unfaithful to her husband, Craig; Marian who cried out in her husky voice, “I waited for you. I waited until dawn.” It was Alex who answered in a light, untroubled tenor, “I didn’t come. I won’t be coming.” “You said we could run away together.” “Thought about it. Not a good idea.” “You said you loved me.” “That’s what I always tell married women. Married women make the best—” “Alex, I left a message for you. I’m pregnant.” “Yeah, you did. I’m sure everything will work out for the best. Won’t Craig be surprised?” The phone went dead.

  Annie knew abruptly that Marian was awake this moment, too. Marian and her son, David, lived in a modest one-story stucco home on a crooked lane not far from downtown. Marian always joked that she could hop on a bike and be at the Gazette in four minutes, sooner than she could drive.

  Annie knew she was pushing away from the reality of Marian’s heartbreak, thinking instead of Marian as she knew her: brusque, funny, acerbic, smart, a mom who went to baseball games and sold popcorn to raise money for uniforms, a mom who was proud of her sandy-haired, freckle-faced, fun kid who struggled with algebra but worked on the school newspaper and wanted to go to Clemson and major in journalism, and an ex-wife who often spoke admiringly of what a great dad Craig was and ho
w he’d started going to AA after David was born and how proud he was of his son.

  Yes, Marian was awake.

  Annie took a last bite of cookie, finished the milk, heard the distant sad cry of a mourning dove, oh-wah-oh-who-who. Perhaps no one else connected Marian to Louanne. In the novel, Louanne was a round-faced blonde. Louanne wasn’t a reporter, she was a copywriter in an advertising agency in Atlanta, a long, long way from the island. Annie wouldn’t have made the connection if she hadn’t overheard the exchange between Marian and Alex.

  It was almost as if Max were there beside her. Be her friend. Be there for her. That’s how you help Marian. Leave murder to Billy.

  Slowly she began to relax. Whatever happened, she was out of it. She had promised. She sent a little message across the forest and out onto the ocean to Max. Was he on deck watching the stars? Drinking a beer? Laughing? He would be pleased at how she’d handled everything tonight. She’d kept free of all entanglements—

  A siren shrilled.

  Her hand tightened on the cool glass.

  The siren came nearer and nearer. She gauged its progress, knew when it—patrol car? ambulance? fire truck?—turned into the broad avenue that led to the Seaside Inn. The shrill wail cut off. In the distance sounded another siren, again coming nearer and nearer. Two sirens. Not more, not the cacophony of cars converging as they had in the early evening. Still, something had happened and she was sure the sirens led to the Seaside Inn.

  Annie came to her feet, moved across the porch, stared across the darkness of the garden. A golden glow from the lamppost near the gazebo illuminated the path that curved into the woods, the path to the inn.