Max knew that academic disputes have a life and force that non-academics rarely appreciate. “Everett was a stubborn man. I’m keeping the tribute cheerful. I won’t mention the troubles he’d had lately. He also managed to get crossways with some in his family. But that’s another story.”
“Ah, families. I’m grateful for the life of a confirmed bachelor. I told him at the time he was making a huge mistake. An affair, yes. Marriage, no. But he was always a stubborn fool. I could have told him she’d lead him a merry chase. I spoke to her after the service. I’d say she was bearing up well.” The acid tone was full of meaning.
Max was thoughtful as he ended the call.
Larrimore cleared his throat upon hearing Max’s request. “I can’t tell you too much. Different disciplines. He was popular with students. Sometimes that just means easy As. I knew him when we lectured on a student trip to Europe. I can’t say he was focusing on his topic then.” A rumbling laugh. “That’s when he met the buxom Nicole. The male students couldn’t believe she preferred Everett to them. Testosterone-laden lads, of course. Kind of sad, really.”
“Sad?”
“Just between us, she was a vulnerable girl. Seeking Galahad, you know. Everett must have seemed like a sophisticated fellow in a Noel Coward play. Not that she’d have known a Noel Coward play.” The deep voice wasn’t malicious. “Truth of the matter, he liked tweeds and soulful talks. She was a knockout, but I never thought a marriage would last. She was dazzled by his intellectualism. That’s cold comfort on a winter night. I thought she’d wake up one morning and see him with his rounded shoulders and little vanities and have this feeling that she’d missed out and she’d fall for a fellow with some swagger.”
Max wrote on his yellow pad: Swagger?
7
As Henny turned her heavy old car toward the road, Leslie Griffin ran lightly down the steps, high heels clattering. She was vivid in a red jacket and tartan skirt. She slid into a low-slung red Mini Cooper S. The sport car’s motor roared. Leslie shot down the drive, leaving Henny in a cloud of dust. As the car passed, Leslie gave Henny a wary glance.
Henny drove slowly. In the rearview mirror, she saw three cars parked in front of a an old-fashioned double garage, a navy Lincoln Navigator, a small tan Corolla, and a black Lexus sedan. Likely either the Lincoln or the Lexus belonged to Nicole and the Corolla to the housekeeper.
The Hathaway drive was the last at this end of the bay road. If she stayed on the road, it would dead end on the other side of the bay. At the midway point, another road intersected and led to Sand Dollar Road.
Henny drove around a grove of pines to the next home. Nicole had no reason to look for Henny’s car. Henny backed into the drive. She pulled down the driver’s visor though she very much doubted Nicole would be scanning the driveways she passed. Five minutes later the dark blue Lincoln hurtled past, going fast.
Henny followed, keeping behind a cloud of dust. She too lived on the marsh side of the island and she had a good instinct for how long it took to reach Sand Dollar Road. In a moment she picked up speed. She was in time to see the Lincoln turn left. She floated the stop sign and was about twenty yards behind Nicole. There wasn’t much traffic this time of year so she was able to keep the Lincoln in view as the road curved and twisted. A yellow school bus pulled onto the road. The Lincoln’s taillights flared. The bus lumbered forward, then slowed. The driver flapped down the warning sign, signaling drivers to stop.
Instead of braking, the Lincoln pulled into the oncoming lane and roared past.
The school bus horn blared.
Henny coasted to a stop, waited as a half dozen kids climbed down. One darted across the road. Two teenagers followed, slouching slowly, deep in conversation.
With a rumble, the school bus moved forward.
She could go into town, cruise Main and the two smaller streets, looking for the Lincoln. But Nicole could as easily have made a left turn onto another dirt road to a destination on the marsh or in the opposite direction to the ocean or straight north to the more disreputable end of the island. The usual place could be anywhere, a house, an apartment, a tavern, a business. Wherever she had gone, she had carried with her anger and fear and determination. There would not be easy conversation upon her arrival. She would surely be engaged for at least twenty minutes, possibly longer.
Henny glanced at her watch. A quarter past three. Leslie had gone to the advertising agency. Possibly she worked until five, although Henny suspected the girl would chisel on the time if possible. However, both she and Nicole should be absent from the house long enough for Henny to find out what she could from Maggie.
Sheila Porter’s black hair molded to her head, stiff and shiny from hair spray. Pale brown eyes looked at Annie curiously. “Who did you say you are?”
Annie introduced herself again and explained that she was trying to be helpful to the Hathaway family. “You can understand that they want to know as much as they can about the night he died.”
Sheila looked mournful. “It’s hard for families. You always wonder and worry if there’s something you could have done that would have made a difference. Like the night my Sam died. He was here by himself. I’d gone to a meeting of the Daughters of the King. He’d said he wasn’t feeling well. Oh, I shouldn’t have gone. Maybe I could have called nine-one-one in time to save him. He had a stroke.” Sorrow and guilt pulled at her face.
Annie spoke quickly. “It must have been very quick or he would have called for help.”
Sheila managed a trembling smile. “I try to think so. And”—her voice grew stronger—“Sam always said to me that God would take him when it was time and for me not to grieve. It’s hard not to grieve. Anyway, let me think. I was out the night Mr. Hathaway drowned.” Her eyes grew wide. “I tell you that was such a shock the next morning when all the police cars came with their sirens on. But Friday night I got home a little before ten. There was one funny thing, but I don’t suppose it matters.”
“Yes?” Annie’s voice was encouraging.
“As I came up my steps, I heard a motorboat. That was odd.”
Annie felt a rush of triumph. Billy Cameron would have to pay attention to this.
“Odd?”
Sheila gestured toward the bay. “No one on the bay has a boat now. I sold Sam’s boat. Next door, Captain Thornwall has a racing shell and a sailboat. He’s retired navy. The cabin”—she inclined her head to the left—“used to have one of those pontoon boats, but that was the previous family. It’s rented now and they don’t have a boat. Across the bay, they have a big cabin cruiser, and they’ve gone to Costa Rica.”
Craig Kennedy’s round face expressed shock. “Everett murdered? That’s incredible.” Craig was plump, bouncy, and usually smiling. His shop was crammed with an eclectic mixture. A portrait of Commodore Perry stared unseeing at a Korean brass-bound chest. Scattered about were Hepplewhite furniture, Japanese silk brocades, a ship’s eagle from Nantucket, a griffon head harp, tables crammed with ivory statuettes, porcelain French clocks, and old pewter. A half dozen bookshelves held dusty relics of estate sales.
Max felt assailed by the familiar doubts. Annie’s insistence that Everett had been murdered was based on such tenuous, circumstantial evidence. Pursuing Everett’s family and friends was going to cause a great deal of trouble and might well be an exercise in absurdity. Max chose his words carefully. He had no wish to be sued for slander. “I’m speaking to you on a confidential basis. There are some puzzling aspects to his death, which need to be explained. I know you and he were good friends. Just between the two of us, had Everett quarreled with anyone recently?”
Craig’s bulbous blue eyes stared. “What are you suggesting?”
“Perhaps his death was not an accident. I have it on good authority that Everett was decoyed to the bay that night. It seems important, especially to the family, to find out exactly what happened.” If Craig assumed Max was there on behalf of the family, it was his assumption, not Max’s claim.
As Henny expected, neither the blue Lincoln nor red Mini Cooper were in the Hathaway driveway. The Lexus, which likely had been Everett’s car, and the Corolla were still parked to one side of the double garage.
Beyond the Corolla was a small open-air lean-to with a roof. She counted four bikes parked in a metal stand. Gretchen’s killer definitely had access to a silent arrival at Better Tomorrow. Had a bicyclist thought ahead, decided an unheralded silent approach might be wise? Was there already a thought of murder? Why not? If Everett had been murdered, the need to avoid an investigation into his death was imperative.
Crimson streaks added a touch of flame to the lowering gray skies. Already the dusk of January shrouded the pines in dark shadows. Henny looked at her watch. A quarter to five. She’d timed her arrival to catch the housekeeper at the end of her work day. Henny moved swiftly to the steps and pressed the bell.
When the door opened, the housekeeper looked at Henny and said firmly, “Mrs. Hathaway isn’t at home.” The door started to close.
Once again Henny pulled open the screen door. “I came to see you. Mrs. Hathaway said you were the person who spoke with Gretchen Burkholt at Better Tomorrow. So you are the proper person to talk to.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Hathaway said you should talk to me?”
Henny was bland. “She emphasized that you are the only person who has admitted direct knowledge of Gretchen’s call.”
Thin shoulders lifted and fell. “I suppose you’d better come in.” She held the door for Henny. Obviously, she was still at work and didn’t feel she could rebuff Henny.
They stood in the entryway. The heavy tick of a grandfather clock in a nook beneath the stairs was ponderous.
Maggie folded her arms, her elbows sharp. Her face was sharp as well, deep-set eyes narrowed, thin lips pursed.
Henny tried charm. “I don’t want to hold you. I know it’s almost time for you to leave. That’s why I hurried back. We can be quick. Just tell me about the call.”
Maggie remained cool, but, finally, she nodded toward the side table. “There’s a landline there. It’s been there for years. And in the kitchen. And one in the upstairs hall. Mr. Hathaway”—her tone tinged on derisive—“had all the portable phones removed, said they destroyed the ambience. That meant I have to race to answer, because God forbid I shouldn’t get to a call. Of course, they”—sullen emphasis—“all have cell phones.” Her sense of grievance was clear. “I was doing the windows in a bay where they keep poinsettias and the phone rang. When nobody picked it up, I had to run to get it. You’d think one of them would have bothered.”
“Who was here?”
“Mrs. Hathaway was in her room.” She spoke without inflection. “Trey was in the study, going through his uncle’s papers. There was a phone on that desk, too. But he didn’t pick it up. Brad Milton was with him. Trey wanted new terrace paving installed. But”—she rolled her eyes—“Mr. Hathaway hadn’t agreed. Looks now like it will happen. Anyway, this woman said she was calling from Better Tomorrow and she’d found a card in the pocket of the tweed jacket Mr. Hathaway wore the day he died. She said the card seemed to explain why he took the kayak out that night. She said she thought Mr. Hathaway had added a name at the bottom of the card.” The housekeeper paused for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “She said the handwriting at the bottom was different from the rest of the card and the handwriting was the same as on the flyleaf of some of Mr. Hathaway’s books that were sent over.” The housekeeper shrugged. “It sure seemed to me she was making a big deal about the thing, matching handwriting and stuff. I could have told her nobody here gave a flip about what he wrote or didn’t write, but I’m just the help, so I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said the card and some change and a pocketknife were on the desk in the sorting room. I wrote that down on the pad next to the hall phone. That was all I had to do. Everybody knew to check the table for messages.”
Everybody knew…
“What exactly did you write down?”
The woman spoke carefully. “I wrote: Gretchen Burkholt called from Better Tomorrow at two twelve P.M. She found a card in Mr. Hathaway’s clothes that explained why he went out in the kayak. She said the message on the card was hand printed in writing different from a notation at the bottom. She said Mr. Hathaway wrote somebody’s name below the message. She said the card would be on the desk in the sorting room along with a pocketknife and some change.” Maggie gave a short nod. “That’s what I wrote.”
“Who could have seen the message?”
“Miss Leslie comes home around two thirty.” There was no warmth in the housekeeper’s voice.
Henny tried to sound as if this were just another question. “Did you see anyone near the table?”
Maggie looked disgusted. “I had better things to do than hang around in the front hall. It isn’t up to me to tell people there are messages. They can look on the hall pad. That’s what it’s for. But when I carried my sponge and bucket back to the kitchen, I noticed the note was gone.” Her gaze was speculative. “You think someone here took the message and went to that place and killed that woman?”
Henny did not answer directly. “Gretchen was murdered because of the card in the jacket. There’s a pattern. The card Gretchen found disappeared from Better Tomorrow and the information you wrote down about the card disappeared from here.”
Maggie’s gaze fastened on the side table. “So the police would be interested to know who ripped off the sheet from the pad.” There was a considering tone to her voice.
Henny looked at her sharply. “If you have any idea who took the message, you could be in great danger.”
The grandfather clock began to boom the hour.
Maggie looked sardonic. “I’m not fool enough to go out on the bay in a kayak.” Her tone was derisive. “Anyway, I’ve told you what I know and I’m off work now.” She turned and hurried down the hall.
As Annie walked toward her Thunderbird, she heard a distant slam of a car door. She turned and looked past the
modest frame house and across the bay’s gunmetal dark water at the Mediterranean mansion. A dark blue Lincoln was parked to one side of the house. A woman in a peach jacket moved toward a paved walk leading to the back terrace, then stopped. She pulled back a sleeve to glance at her wrist.
Even at this distance, it was easy to see that she was upset. She hunched her shoulders, began to pace. She kept looking back toward the road. The figure seemed familiar though it was too shadowy for Annie to make out her features. According to Sheila Porter, the owners of the house were in Costa Rica. Besides, Annie knew the Carstairs, and Renee was tall and willowy.
As she watched, a green Porsche roared into the drive.
The woman hurried toward the car as it screeched to a stop.
A stocky, well-built man slammed out of the car. His white sweater was a bright spot in the gloom.
They faced each other. He stood with his hands jammed in his trouser pockets. Every angle of his body radiated anger.
The woman was talking fast and her right hand pointed at the bay.
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