Posey shot Saulter a sharp look, but the chief’s corrugated face was bland. The circuit solicitor took a deep breath. “I intend to pursue every lead no matter where it takes me. I shall do my duty without fear or favor.”
There hardly seemed to be an appropriate answer. Laurance temper rising, Annie gestured for them to be seated.
Posey dropped heavily into a chair and focused a hard stare on Annie. Interrogation intimidation look number two, she decided.
It wasn’t lost on Max, of course. He shed his usual air of amiability, raked Posey with a measuring glance, dismissed him, and turned politely to Saulter. “You want to talk to us, Chief?”
Posey flushed angrily. He leaned forward, his hands flat against his beefy thighs. “As circuit solicitor for this county, I have made a name for myself by my forthright battle against crime.”
Chief Saulter sat in a wicker chair and watched, thin-lipped.
Posey’s bulging blue eyes shone with self-absorption. “I have fought the good fight, and I’m not afraid to face the voters, now or in the future.”
Annie knew she shouldn’t, but some temptations cannot be resisted. “And you’re running for office? Right now?” she asked, her voice light and innocent.
Posey’s response revealed his respect for and interest in female voters. “A public servant is always running for office, Miss Laurance.” He paused ponderously, hoping perhaps that she was capable of grasping this concept. “I have made it clear always that I will never be influenced by the wealth or social position of those who break the law.” He nodded slowly in self-approbation. “And I cannot be seduced from my duty by the wiles of the so-called gentler sex.” Those slimy blue eyes climbed over Annie.
“How admirable!” Max proclaimed. “A bully position.”
Annie hoped he wouldn’t lay it on too thick. But Max had had enough of Brice Willard Posey. Once again, he turned toward the chief. “What can we do for you?”
“To tell the truth—” Saulter began.
“The truth reveals men and women as they are. In all their sickness of the flesh.” Posey’s inflection rendered the last word exceedingly nasty. “We know the truth about you, Miss Laurance. The stricken widow has revealed all.”
Annie was trying so hard to envision Sheridan as a stricken widow that she missed some of his next speech.
“—shameless advances.”
She stared at him blankly.
Max intervened. “Posey, you’ve been had. It was a joke.”
“A joke?” Posey demanded, his voice rising. “How can you describe this woman’s actions”—(Annie was fascinated by her new characterization. It put her right on a level with a hapless Perry Mason client.)—“as humorous? To flaunt herself as an object of sexual attraction to a happily married man, is that humorous? To brazenly pursue this man, despite his continued protestations of disinterest, is that humorous?”
Sweat beaded Posey’s face. He glistened with fervor. “And we know what can happen when sex is thwarted! It can corrode the soul, destroy human balance, lead a morally bankrupt individual to that greatest of all sins, murder!”
Posey breathed heavily in the following silence. Annie and Max studied him with the curiosity Sherlock Holmes might bestow upon a heretofore unfamiliar tobacco ash.
“A joke?” Saulter asked quietly.
Annie turned to him gratefully. “Yes, Chief. Shane made a pass at me. I told him to drop dead.” She paused, realizing that her choice of words might be unfortunate. “I mean, I told him to get lost. It made him mad, of course. The great male ego. Anyway, when we got back inside that night at the party, he made this scene, pretending I’d been running after him and—”
“So you admit it!” Posey roared, jumping to his feet.
Her head swung back toward the circuit solicitor.
“You were outside with Shane, out in the garden of the man’s very own house with his wife just feet away!”
“I wasn’t with him,” she objected. “I was—”
“You are tangled up in your own lies!” he thundered. “But I shall wrench the truth from you.” Heavy face twisted in concentration, blue eyes glowing, he shook an accusing finger at Annie. “You, Miss Laurance, you must stand up and face the truth of your character. Home-breaker. Lustful predator. Wanton, whoring—”
Max lunged, fists doubled.
Chief Saulter and Annie moved at once.
And so did Posey. For a man of his bulk, he exhibited extreme agility, writhing sideways to lunge behind Saulter.
Max stopped, fists raised, eyes blazing at the large cowering figure, and began to laugh. “As the Chinese say, paper tigers cannot bite.”
Grateful that his sense of the absurd had saved her fiancé from perpetrating an assault upon an officer of the law, Annie joined in, more from nervous relief than amusement.
Posey’s face turned an unhealthy ocher. Chest heaving, he glowered.
Saulter watched, his eyes flicking uneasily from face to face.
Posey pursed his fleshy lips and snarled, “You are a violent man, aren’t you, Mr. Darling?” The protuberant blue eyes glowed with hatred. “Violent. Impulsive. Loath to suffer encroachment upon your beloved.”
Annie stiffened.
“Let us consider you, Mr. Darling. Engaged to a woman who has lost all control over her actions because of her lust for another man.” Obviously, he had her confused with the female as depicted in hard-boileds. Posey took his favorite stance, accusatory finger waggling in beat with his attack. “You have the strongest motive of all, the wounded soul of the lover cast aside.” Posey leaned forward, though still well behind Saulter. “Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Darling, that you had reason to be very angry with Shane Petree? Isn’t it a fact that the woman you hoped to marry had lost her head over him? Isn’t it a fact that Shane Petree rebuffed her advances publicly on Sunday night?”
This was too much. Unable to contain herself any longer, Annie erupted. “Wait a minute! This is ridiculous. This—”
“Ridiculous?” Posey bellowed. “Yes, it seems ridiculous that any young woman would be so foolish as to throw herself at a happily married man. But that is the fact. Mrs. Petree has told me all about it, how her husband said you chased after him, kept pestering him, even though he told you repeatedly that he wasn’t interested.”
“My God, it was a joke! Shane made it all up. He was such a—”
The circuit solictor’s knowing look didn’t falter. “Mrs. Petree was reluctant to tell us, but you have to come out with the truth in a murder case.”
At that, Annie exploded, even though Saulter shook his head warningly. “It was a lie! My God, ask around the island. That hot-panted lowlife was in and out of half the beds on Broward’s Rock, but not mine. Now, you go talk to people and—”
Posey’s glance dripped a stomach-curdling mixture of self-righteousness and pity. “Of course, Miss Laurance, you know the truth of it, better than anyone. And in your heart, you know that you are guilty of murder. Your licentious actions have led this man”—he gestured toward Max, who raised a mildly inquiring eyebrow—“to break that most solemn commandment which separates us from lower beings. You have incited murder,” he intoned, “and you shall not escape the judgment of your fellows.”
Gathering steam, Posey swung toward Max. Even Hamilton Burger was never this obnoxious! “They tell me you stood there Sunday evening and smiled, Mr. Darling, when this woman’s public humiliation occurred, but the festering began in your heart, you can’t deny it. Outwardly, you appeared unmoved, but your devotion to this … woman, the woman you wanted to make your wife, can’t be denied. Did you not even attempt to attack the law itself when her true character was described? It is transparently clear that your apparent unconcern was the product of a clever plan, the creation of a mind diseased by injury and determined to seek its insidious revenge. Are you going to pretend that you are so little a man that you would have stood by and let the woman you love fling herself at another man?” Posey shook his hea
d in answer to his own question. “Events speak for themselves. Who is injured? Whose pride has been affronted? Who is accustomed at all times to deference because of his exalted social position? We know who,” he concluded portentously.
Max folded his arms and grinned. “I’ll bet you make a helluva stump speech.”
Saulter sucked his breath in.
Annie flapped her hands, but Max ignored her. Good grief, couldn’t he see that he was infuriating Posey? Lordy, did Max want to get arrested?
The phone rang.
Posey jerked his head imperiously at Saulter, but he never took his eyes off Max.
Annie didn’t even have time to object. After all, it was her phone. But the chief answered and, after a moment’s exchange, handed her the receiver.
“Hello,” she cried abstractedly.
“Annie, my sweet, I will take care of everything.”
Annie heard Laurel’s dulcet tone and, louder and stronger, Posey’s infuriated roar.
“I’m in touch with Mrs. Crabtree, and everything will be all right …”
“You think you’re very, very smart, don’t you, Mr. Darling. We’ll see how—”
“… crowning the veil with myrtle …”
“—know a motive when I see one and—”
“… sweetest custom! Ten yards of sheeting wrapped round and round the bride!”
“You didn’t like it one little bit, did you, Mr. Darling?”
“Really, the Irish have some wonderful ideas. Drench the fruitcake with brandy! Of course, we can’t let Uncle Waldo have any because …”
“Laurel,” Annie shouted, “we’ve had a murder!”
There was an instant’s pause. Posey’s heavy head swung toward her in irritation.
“Oh, of course,” Laurel cried. “I know all about it. That’s why I rang up. I know how you and Max are, always delving. So put your mind at ease, Annie. I will take care of everything.”
The connection broke.
“How’s Laurel?” Max asked cheerfully.
Take care of everything. A thrill of horror shot through Annie. Where was Laurel? What in heaven’s name was she planning? What would she do next?
“Darling, I’m not through with you.” Posey barked.
“I rather think you are,” Max observed with a distinct lack of interest. “You bore me.”
Posey’s face twitched with anger and vindictiveness. “You’d better listen, Mr. Darling. You think you can get away with murder because you’re a rich man. You’re used to having your way, everybody kowtowing to you. Well, I can tell you that Brice Posey doesn’t kowtow.” His eyes glittered. “Oh, yes, you have the strongest motive of all. You didn’t want to lose Miss Laurance, did you? You made sure she couldn’t belong to Shane Petree. You murdered him—and I’m going to see that you pay with your life.”
“Are you arresting me?” Max inquired, without a quiver of concern.
The prosecutor’s jaw bunched. “Not quite yet, Mr. Darling.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Annie turned furiously toward Chief Saulter. “Can’t you tell this—this idiot—anything? My God, Shane Petree’s the last man in the world I would ever have been interested in. Max thought the whole thing was funny! He knows I’m not interested in anybody else—and certainly not Shane. Chief, can’t you tell him?”
Posey shot a look of clear dislike at Saulter. “A good investigating officer never lets personal friendship interfere with duty.”
Annie felt a chill. She could almost smell Posey’s blood lust. Dizzily, she pressed her fingers against her throbbing temples. Max didn’t shoot anyone—couldn’t shoot anyone….
“Can’t you test for gunpowder residue?” she demanded. Scientific detection, à la Dr. Thorndyke, that was the ticket. “That will clear Max. A paraffin test. That will do it.”
Posey’s mouth curved disdainfully. “That’s no longer done. Miss Laurance. It was not a reliable test. The modern police department—and certainly we pride ourselves upon our knowledge of and use of the most innovative techniques—relies upon neutron activation analysis, atomic absorption spectrophotometry, or scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray analysis.” He didn’t stumble once. She wondered how he’d do with a pint of pickled peppers. “Unfortunately, in the instant case, we are too late. Many, many hours too late. As any skilled ballistics expert can attest, gunshot residue remains on the hands for up to six hours unless, of course, a suspect has the opportunity to remove any detritus with the application of soap and water. In our present situation, there was more than enough time for the murderer to remove all traces of his insidious act. If careful procedure had been followed in the extant case, we might have flushed our murderer immediately.” His protuberant eyes focused on Max again. “But I am now on the case, and I will discover the truth—wherever it leads!”
He swung around, chest out, and strode to the door. Saulter followed reluctantly. The chief flashed a look of sheer disgust over his shoulder.
Annie whirled toward Max, her eyes bright with alarm, her chin jutting out with determination. “Max, that odious circuit-whatever is lusting for your scalp. And you just egged him on!”
“I did, didn’t I?” he agreed cheerfully. “Let him lust. The fat man doesn’t scare me. Did you see him duck behind Saulter?” He chuckled.
“He who laughs last,” she warned. A few more Chinese aphorisms, and they could share a Charlie Chan button. But, actually, it wasn’t funny. Posey meant every word.
“Max, we’ve got to be serious. We’re going to have to find the murderer ourselves. Like Nick and Nora Charles.”
“Like Nick and Nora? Hey, do I get a martini?”
11
Max proved to be about as tractable as Nick Charles. They argued all the way out to his car. Annie fumed, “Why are you so impossibly stubborn! So incredibly obtuse! So infuriatingly pigheaded!”
He wasn’t even fazed. She didn’t know which exasperated her the most, his refusal to cooperate or his winsome confidence that his attitude was the essence of reason.
“Annie, love,” he said kindly. “You really do take life much too seriously indeed. In fact, Laurel and I were talking about that just the other day.”
“You were?” He didn’t even notice the dangerous edge to her voice.
“Yes. She worries about you. She’s concerned that you are so wound up, so intense.” His limpid blue eyes regarded her pensively. “She said, ‘Max, my sweet, we must lift the burden from dear Annie’s shoulders. You and I.’”
This dreadful prospect was almost enough to deflect her attention from the matter at hand, but not quite, though she lodged the worrisome phrase in her mind for later consideration.
As he dropped into the bucket seat, Annie made a last-ditch effort. “Max, this isn’t a game. Posey wants your scalp—and Saulter can’t do a thing about it. So we’ve got to get busy and see what we can find out.” She bent down to peer at him. “What do you have to do today that’s more important than saving your neck?”
“Oh, another engagement elsewhere.” He put the Porsche in gear.
Annie clamped her hand onto the doorjamb. “You are avoiding my question.”
He smiled winningly and blew her a kiss. “Have a good morning, honey, and—”
“Max, where are you going?”
“Here and there,” he replied airily, waving his hand.
“Where?”
“Oh, roundabout.” The car began to ease backwards.
Annie intensified her grip. “Max! Aren’t you going to help me find out what’s happening?”
“Nope. I am a private citizen. I am not responsible for the investigation of crime in Beaufort County. The duly elected officials of said county can pursue any and all investigations they like, but count me out.”
“Posey’s going to investigate you right into the county jail,” she snapped.
“Annie, Annie, I’m afraid Laurel’s right. We need to help you relax. The idea of my being considered seriously as
a murder suspect is patently absurd.”
She shook her head, then brushed hair from her face, as the Porsche, unleashed, jumped backwards. Max waved a cheery farewell.
She stared after the bright red car for a moment, then stamped her foot, and stalked toward her Volvo.
In the storeroom of Death on Demand, Annie hunched over a notepad. It had a few scrawls on it, notations which would be unintelligible to other eyes. But she knew that long, stick-of-bologna shape was Max’s neck, which apparently she was going to have to save all by herself. The anvil-shaped appendage attached to one end was his bloated head, swollen out of proportion by an unsquashable self-confidence. A bulgy, gorillalike body represented Posey. She, of course, was the robed figure with a happy smile, topped by a halo. The pen moved, and she added another haloed figure. The Saint, of course. What would Leslie Charteris’s suave sleuth do, if transported across the Atlantic and faced with her problem? Probably bust a few heads and manage something spectacularly audacious.
But this wasn’t the proper milieu for The Saint. He belonged behind the wheel of a racing car or scaling the side of a French chateau. No, she needed inspiration nearer home. Nero Wolfe was too cerebral, and besides, she didn’t have an Archie since Max had disappeared upon some obscure errand. (For his mother? The thought terrified her.) Miss Silver’s gimlet eye would soon pierce the veil of obscurity, but Annie’s group of suspects wouldn’t sit tamely in a drawing room to be gently questioned.
The storeroom door swung silently open, and Ingrid poked her head in. “Chief Saulter’s coming up the boardwalk. Shall I tell him you’ve left?” Hilda Adams couldn’t have been more ready to stand watchdog.
Annie had much to do. Most of all, she needed to think. But the chief might know something helpful. “No, thanks, Ingrid. Send him on back.”
Nodding, Ingrid bustled to the front of the shop.
Inspiration. Well, she couldn’t do better than Miss Marple. What was it the sleuth of St. Mary Mead always warned? Things are often not what they seem. Could that be the situation here? But how could she know what was real and what was show? What did the long series of malicious pranks have to do with Shane’s murder? Nothing? Everything?
Something Wicked Page 13