by Carolyn Hart
Annie knew it caused Marian pain to remember.
“—was too drunk too much of the time to know whether he’d slept with me or not. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of Craig. That’s one reason I divorced him. I refused child support. But later, he came to see me and David was about eight months old and I saw it happen. He picked David up and I saw him fall in love and that’s when Craig got it all together. He stopped drinking and he insisted I take some money for David and I couldn’t tell him that David wasn’t his, not when I saw his face whenever David was in the room. Oh God, I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I only know I messed up everything but I don’t want to mess up Craig’s life or David’s. That’s what will happen if Billy burrows into those days in Atlanta. Somebody will have seen Alex and me together and Billy will look at dates and then he’ll push me to answer questions and he’ll know I had a hell of a reason to kill Alex. I didn’t kill him. But there’s no way I can prove that.” There was defeat in her voice.
“Why not?” Annie heard her own words with surprise. “You can ask questions. You can try to find out what’s going on.”
Marian twined thin fingers together. “Billy’s already given me the word. No tips from the cop shop until he’s figured out how I knew Alex and when and whether it mattered. The door’s barred. I can drop by, pick up news releases, attend press conferences. Otherwise, nada, zip, zero.” She took a deep breath, pushed to her feet. “I got to get back to the newsroom, pretend I’m Marian Kenyon, girl reporter, pretend my world isn’t crashing into bloody little bits.”
She was at the door when Annie called out, “Marian, wait.”
• • •
Hyla Harrison was untroubled by the tense atmosphere in the gleaming kitchen, all stainless steel and white surfaces, and by the banging of pots, sharp quick exchanges between white-aproned figures ranging in age from late teens to late sixties, and hurried footsteps. She stood next to a battered oak desk and repeated patiently, “The call to room service from Suite 130 came in at seventeen minutes past seven.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A matronly woman pointed at a computer. “All orders are put into the computer.”
“Who took the order?”
“J. T. Lewis. One of our summer workers. I talked to J. T. later. He said the man sounded—”
“The speaker was a man?”
A vigorous nod. “According to J. T. He’ll come on duty about four. But I know how he answered. He would have said, ‘Room service. How may I help you?’ I checked the order: one gin and tonic, one rum collins. Some peanuts. J. T. said the man—he called him Mr. Griffith—was in a hurry, wanted quick service, said he had to be somewhere pretty soon.”
Hyla considered the possibilities. The caller could have been Alex Griffith. The caller could have been an unknown man. “What time was the order delivered?”
The plump-faced older woman frowned. “As I said, I saw the order. We made a special effort. The delivery left the bar at seven thirty-one, went directly to the suite. The waiter knocked three times, returned to the bar, said delivery attempted at thirty-four minutes after the hour, no response. J. T. said he called the room at”—she glanced toward the screen—“seven thirty-seven. No answer.”
• • •
As the alley door closed after Marian, Annie felt surrounded by silence, silence that amplified the clamor in her mind. She’d promised Max . . . Marian was desperate . . . If she didn’t help Marian, Billy would keep looking and he’d make the connection. If Marian was arrested, everything would come out. David would struggle with two realities: His mother had lived a lie, the man he loved as his father wasn’t his father . . . Marian’s life would be torn and twisted, the fodder for sensational stories in the papers and on TV . . .
Annie pushed up from her swivel chair, began to pace. She’d promised Max that she’d stay out of other people’s troubles. Now she’d promised Marian that she would help. Brave words. What could Annie do by herself? She wouldn’t have Max at Confidential Commissions. He was superb at trolling the Internet for information, uncovering odd facts that revealed the inner truth about people. She wouldn’t have the unusual and sometimes inspired assistance of the Intrepid Trio: Max’s mother, Laurel Darling Roethke; island mystery writer Emma Clyde; and Death on Demand’s best customer, Henny Brawley. Elegant, patrician, and incredibly beautiful, Laurel was always spacey but her Nordic blue eyes could be surprisingly observant and her insights as unexpected and on point as pronouncements by Pam North in Frances and Richard Lockridge’s Pam and Jerry North series. Didactic as her fictional heroine Marigold Rembrandt, Emma nonetheless was ferociously bright and once she set out on a trail nothing would deter her. Henny Brawley flew experimental planes during World War II, knew the anguish of two lost loves, was steeped in the best of English literature, and was a connoisseur of mysteries, fictional and real. Henny delighted in recounting examples from Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple as she used parallels from everyday life to unmask evil.
Annie rued the fact that she’d been delighted that the Trio would be gone for several weeks. Laurel’s penchant for new enthusiasms, which she hoped everyone would enjoy, had a tendency to unnerve Annie. There had been her infatuation with saints, her dandelion period, the cat photographs with trenchant captions (sure, Annie loved cats but why did the photos have to be displayed in her bookstore?), her delight in quoting Byron at his most provocative at somewhat inappropriate moments. As for Emma, the mercurial author kept entirely too sharp an eye on the displays of her books at Death on Demand. If she didn’t have the front endcap, her glare was formidable. As soon as the Trio departed on their journey, Annie redid the front endcap to hold nine Robert Crais titles. And if the endcap returned to Emma Clyde mode just before they returned to the island, well, Annie made it a point not to provoke either Emma or any of the island alligators. Henny was always positive. In addition to being a world-class mystery reader, Henny was fun, energetic, perceptive, a true friend always.
Annie pulled out her cell phone, deflecting for the moment her painful dilemma: two promises made, each mutually exclusive. Missing the Intrepid Trio reminded her of a daily treat since they’d been gone: trenchant texts sent from a Mark Twain–style steamboat on the Mississippi River.
From Laurel: Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain.
From Henny: Did you know Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote a novelette, The Disappearing Hermit, where Asey Mayo is detecting in Boston?
From Emma: The steamboat is perfect for murder but Marigold’s turned her back on me.
Annie sighed. Do the right thing? A true friend . . . a true love . . . she wanted to serve both. She shook her head impatiently, tapped Favorites. Max’s phone rested in a locker. He wouldn’t hear this message until he returned to land. But she owed him honesty. They’d always been honest with each other. The recorder came on. She didn’t know how she’d planned to start, but the words tumbled out. “Max, I love you . . .”
• • •
Hyla Harrison sat perfectly straight in the chair facing Billy Cameron’s desk, shoulders back, feet aligned, hands planted firmly on her thighs. “I smell fear.”
“Not grief?” Billy looked at her intently. Hyla was a good cop, smart, quick, careful, honest. She’d never palm a twenty to let a driver off a ticket or fix evidence to prove a case. When Hyla spoke, he listened.
She took her time in answering, green eyes narrowing, lips pursing. Finally: “Not sure. Definitely shocked. That’s at odds with fear. If she killed him, sure, she’d be scared we’d find out. But would she be shocked? If she was actually shocked, that knocks out the idea of prior knowledge. All I know is, she’s hiding something.” Hyla spoke with more assurance. “Don’t know what it is. Maybe she bashed him. Maybe somebody else bashed him and she knows but she didn’t know how rough it would be to walk in on a corpse. She’s scared spitless. I want to find out more about the
Griffiths. A lot more.”
• • •
“Something funny? I’d suggest Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness books or Hannah Dennison’s Vicky Hill series or a Pamela Branch title.” The shopper, rotund and cheerful in a muumuu, murmured her thanks.
Annie turned and stopped in surprise.
Rae Griffith hesitated in the center aisle. “I wish I was looking for something funny.” Rae’s thin face had aged. She looked drawn, tired. “I guess no one knows how lucky they are when all they are thinking about is finding a funny book or drinking a cup of coffee or going to a movie. I guess they don’t know until they stop being lucky.”
The encounter was so unexpected Annie simply stood and waited.
“You’re wondering why I’m here.” The words were jerky. “Could I talk to you? For a minute?” Her voice was shaky, the plea in her eyes unmistakable.
“Of course. Let’s go back to my office. It’s pretty noisy in the coffee area.” Annie led the way down the aisle and held open the door to the back room.
As the door closed behind them, the silence was sudden.
Rae clasped her hands tightly together, blurted out, “I need help. I don’t know where to get it. I asked at the inn and a guy told me about this place called Confidential Commissions. I came but it’s all closed up. Then I realized it was next door to your store.” She stopped, swallowed. “You were nice to me when I came Monday.”
“Confidential Commissions,” Annie repeated.
“Do you know who runs it? Maybe if I paid enough, I could get some help.”
“He’s gone fishing. Why don’t you sit down.” Annie gestured toward the chair as she settled into her swivel chair. “Tell me what you’re looking for.”
Rae sank into the chair. She looked very young in a blue T-shirt and white slacks and white sandals. Her soft black hair was glossy but her eyes had the uneasiness of a startled fawn. “Do you know that policewoman? She has reddish hair and pale green eyes, cold eyes.”
Annie nodded. “Officer Harrison.”
“She thinks I killed Alex.” There was a look of panic on Rae’s face. “She didn’t say so straight out, but I could tell. She kept asking questions. When did I leave the room? What did Alex look like when I left? What did he say? Had we quarreled? What time exactly did I get to the gazebo? Did I come back to the room? Where was I between seventeen minutes after seven and thirty-four minutes after seven? Do I drink gin and tonic? Rum collins? Why does she care what I drink? I always order a margarita. Did I leave the terrace at any point during that time? How could I know it made any difference? I went to get raspberry iced tea for that reporter from Savannah. Nothing from the bar was good enough, had to be raspberry. I don’t know how long it took. Could I have stopped by the suite? I guess. But I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
“They always ask a lot of questions. I wouldn’t worry—”
“She looked at me like I was scum.” Rae’s voice shook.
Annie was struck by the difference in Marian’s demeanor and Rae’s. Marian was terrified at what would happen if her son and the man he knew as his father ever learned the truth about Marian and Alex, agonizing about the pain they would suffer. Rae was terrified that the police suspected her.
“What did you want Confidential Commissions to do?”
“The guy told me the owner would find out things for people, that he wasn’t a detective but he took on all kinds of commissions.”
“What do you want to find out?”
Rae leaned forward. “I need to find out who killed Alex.” There was a look of doom in her eyes, a conviction that if she didn’t discover the truth, the police would arrest her. “I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know who wanted him dead.”
Annie looked at her in disbelief. “You helped set up the evening. Wednesday you all but admitted he was going to tie the characters in the book to people he’d known on the island.”
“How does that help me? I’ve never been here. I never met any of his family until now. I wanted to ask them to the wedding but Alex decided we’d get married in Tahiti and he said that wouldn’t be right for any of them. I know that’s odd, but lots of people leave family behind. I thought maybe they were strange or mean or low-class. I didn’t know he’d used real people until a few weeks ago. He never said who any of them were. I guess some of them are obvious, like, I guess his sister screwed around on her husband, but I don’t know who the rest of the characters are.”
There was silence between them.
Rae’s eyes were huge, filled with fear and uncertainty. Then her gaze sharpened. “You know who they are. You’ve read the book. You live here. That’s why you didn’t want to have anything to do with his talk. You’ve got to help me. Tell me who wanted him dead.”
Images from the night before flickered in Annie’s memory. Lynn Griffith, Heyward’s widow, had the waxen appearance of a prisoner in the dock. Amid the cheery conversations, Joan Turner, Alex’s sister, sat stiff and silent, her face empty. Big, burly Eddie Olson downed a drink and looked mean. George Griffith was soft and puffy from too many years of too many drinks, but last night he didn’t hold a drink in his hand. And there was Marian, her features set and hard as she lurked in the shadows near the gazebo.
Rae came to her feet. “Tell me who they are.”
Annie knew there were some things she could not do. She was not going to give a possibly unbalanced woman the names of those she could use to divert the police from herself. “I’m in no position to talk about anyone on the island. You’re scared of the police. Am I supposed to accuse other people of having motives? How do you think they’d feel?”
Rae’s breaths came in jerky gasps. “I’m the outsider. That makes it easy, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what they say about small-town police? They look for somebody from out of town?”
Annie stood, too. “Not here.” Her tone was sharp. “Billy Cameron will look at everybody.”
“Who is everybody? Who will they look at besides me?” Rae sounded frantic. “You know and you won’t tell me.”
Marian was desperate to know what had happened to Alex.
Marian, who loved her son . . .
Rae was the outsider, scared, desperate, vulnerable. She thought she didn’t know anything, but surely she did. Surely she had some idea of what Alex had done the day he died.
Annie was blunt. “I won’t talk about people on the island but I’ll find out what I can for you. I don’t know that anything I can do will make a difference, but I promise”—when would she learn not to make promises?—“that if I find out anything the police should know, I will tell them. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
Rae sank onto the chair, waited. Her gaze clung to Annie, hopeful but uncertain.
Annie picked up a notebook and pen, perched on the edge of the worktable. “What did Alex do yesterday?”
An odd look came on Rae’s face, as if she’d been asked about a moment so distant in time that it held no reality. “Yesterday. He had room service. He liked steak for breakfast. We always traveled with some caviar. He added the caviar to scrambled eggs. A big pot of coffee. I don’t like breakfast. I just have a yogurt. He was in a good humor, said he was going to add some spice to his family’s day, high-five some old friends. When I left to go jump rope, he was leaning back on the couch. I saw him reach for the phone. I guess he called his sister and brother and sister-in-law. I don’t know who else he called. When I came back, there was broken glass all over the patio and he said someone he’d known a long time ago heaved the hurricane lamp at him but he seemed to think it was funny so I guess nobody tried to hit him. He sure wasn’t scared or upset. Then he told me to relax, spend the afternoon at the pool, go shopping, walk on the beach. I asked him what he was going to do. He laughed and said he planned to roll around town, that he’d set up quite a few meetings. For auld lang syne. He was gone until late afternoon. I wasn’t paying m
uch attention, I was still checking on everything for the event. I had to make sure the catering was set up, the mic ready, everything. Alex was different when he got back that afternoon. I think he was excited about something that had happened, but we mostly talked about the schedule for that night. We had an early dinner by the pool. I had a salad. Alex ordered a shrimp cocktail and a gin and tonic. I told him he’d better not drink too much before he spoke but he said he was fine.” She averted her eyes from Annie.
Annie had a cold sense that Rae was upset not by her husband’s death but by her fear that the police would suspect her of his murder.
“Do you remember anything he said about the people he saw Wednesday?”
She gave a hopeless shrug. “Not a lot. He said nobody’d changed much and they didn’t seem to have the welcome mat out. He laughed about that. He said something about now he really knew what happened . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know. He said he wished he’d talked to someone he saw before he’d written Don’t Go Home.” She pressed fingertips against each temple. “It was someone he hadn’t seen in years, somebody with a funny name. I got the idea he found out something that changed his mind about something in the book.”
6
Hyla Harrison used the landline, knew the recipient’s caller ID would display Broward’s Rock Police, a whiff of official to pave the way. Phone numbers were easy to obtain from a cross directory. She’d been to Atlanta several times, knew the area. The addresses signaled one of the more exclusive streets in Buckhead. She made two calls, learned a disgruntled next-door neighbor disliked the flock of geese kept on the Griffiths’ property. “You think they pick up the geese potty? Can’t be bothered and the nasty things are all over my front lawn. I don’t have any use for the Griffiths, either one of them. Nouveau.”
The third call was to the house across the street.
“Townsend residence.”