Carolyn G. Hart (36 page)

The black eyes darted up at Annie, who hastened to explain, “I mean, really a descendant of the original Chastain?” She doubted if she could count high enough to figure out how many generations that spanned.

“Evil. That’s what Sybil is. A Jezebel. It was a grave mistake when the Board made her a member, despite her lineage.” Then, again disconcertingly, the rat’s nest of wrinkles smoothed into a high, mirthless cackle. “But she makes them sit up and take notice. Especially Corinne.” Her voice dropped to a subterranean hiss as she spoke the name, and hatred eddied in the perfumed air.

Miss Dora’s house was two past the Chastain mansion. She snatched her carry-all from Annie at the gate. “Now, this mystery you’re planning. Tell me about it.”

Quickly, Annie sketched the saga of the banker.

Miss Dora bent her head forward, her reptilian eyes squinted in thought. When Annie finished, she jiggled her head and the straight silvery hair undulated under her hat like wisps of cirrus clouds. “Businesslike,” she muttered. “But boring. Not like Peter Dickinson.” Then she opened the gate and thumped up the walk, without a backward glance.

Annie stared after her. She couldn’t decide whether to laugh or be angry. But, as she slowly retraced her path to Lookout Point and her parked car, she decided
the old devil would certainly add some spice to her assignment.

And maybe she had something there. Boring. Maybe she should give the mystery program a whole new look, come up with some juicier characters, more original motives. But first things first. It was time to see about the body. Back in her Volvo, she consulted a street map of Chastain, which looked somewhat as though a child had taken pick-up sticks and flung them across the page. She had a little trouble finding the Red Cross office, which was tucked back on a side street between a French bakery and a U-Haul lot. She parked outside the bakery and virtuously resisted the temptation to succumb to an éclair stop. Business first. The door to the Red Cross office opened into a boxey room that smelled of yeast from next door and of ink and slick paper from the pamphlets stacked on a cardtable.

Three women were at work in the room. Annie had no trouble singling out the honcho. She smiled impartially at all three, but dismissed the overweight receptionist and frizzy haired typist from her thoughts and focused on the gaunt-faced woman with golden hoop earrings, deep-set green eyes, and red-gold hair piled atop her head in copious curls, moving to greet her.

“I’m Annie Laurance. I’m hoping you can help with some plans for the house-and-garden week.”

“Certainly, certainly. I’m Edith Ferrier.” She spoke in a hurried staccato. “Louisa called and explained about your needs. She thought our CPR doll might suit,” and she pointed across the room at the five-foot-tall rubber doll lounging in a wicker chair next to an old-fashioned bottled water cooler.

“Oh, she’ll be perfect. Though I might have to come up with a new mystery. I’d planned on a male
murderee, but I can always think up a murder with a female victim.”

The pleasantry slid right by Mrs. Ferrier, who peered at Annie intently. “Now, it’s important that Rhoda—that’s what we call her—Resuscitation Rhoda—not be treated roughly. It would be very expensive to replace her.”

“We’ll take excellent care of her,” Annie promised quickly. “She’ll be behind police tape marking the scene of the crime, so no one will touch her.”

“That’s all right then.” Her head jerked back, and Annie recognized the sharp, unconscious reflex of a nervous habit. This taut redhead was strung tighter than a violin string.

“I’ll run by and pick her up the morning of the seventh.”

At the door, she thanked Edith Ferrier again. “It’s really a great piece of luck that you are both the Red Cross coordinator and a member of the Historical Preservation Board.”

“I’m busy. Very busy.” There wasn’t a glint of humor in her face.

“Mrs. Webster is going to be pleased that it’s all worked out.”

A short, taut pause, then, again, that quick, involuntary movement. “Yes, I suppose Corinne will be pleased. Things always do seem to work out when she is in charge.”

They parted in a friendly fashion, Annie turning for a last wave as she climbed into the Volvo, but the smile slipped from her face as she turned the corner. She prided herself on sporting a fine set of antenna, guaranteed to sniff out subtle nuances in behavior and attitude. That instant’s pause after her mention of Corinne—Annie’s antenna quivered to attention. So here was
someone else who didn’t care at all for Corinne Webster. But what else was new? Miss Dora didn’t like her. Mrs. Ferrier didn’t like her. And she had yet to meet the evil Sybil, who apparently didn’t like her either.

She pulled into the parking lot of the chili dog stand. As she ordered, a cool breeze rustled the fronds of a nearby palmetto palm. A black cloud slid over the face of the sun, and it was suddenly cool. Although she wasn’t susceptible to omens, if she were a gothic heroine, she would be looking over her shoulder. Instead, she munched on the dog and studied her list, checking off the notation:
Arrange for body
.

7

I
t was a night the angels made, just enough offshore breeze to caress and refresh, a hint of coming summer in the warmth captured by the wooden slats of the deck chair, the languorous wash of water against the pilings, the faint strains of “Some Enchanted Evening,” and the nearness of Max.

Undoubtedly, a moment of human perfection, fleeting, impermanent, and precious.

And Annie almost succumbed. It was delightful to share a deck chair with Max and feel the warm weight of his arm around her shoulders, and know that in an instant or two, she could half-turn, raise her face, and his lips would meet hers.

She almost succumbed, but her mind still worked. For weeks now, she and Max had been butting heads about September, but ever since he had picked her up at seven, all the way through the magnificent Beef Wellingtons
at the Island Hills Clubhouse cypress-paneled dining room, up to and including their hand-in-hand stroll along the harbor front, he had made no mention at all of the wedding.

Instead, he had smiled cherubically and acted as though they were in harmony on all planes.

Annie turned her head.

Max turned his.

Eyeball to eyeball, she demanded, “Why are you being so agreeable?” It was the same tone an American negotiator might use upon receiving the latest Soviet arms proposal in Geneva.

“Annie, that is unworthy of you.”

His injured tone confirmed her suspicions. He was up to something.

She sat up, removing her face from such dangerous proximity to his. “All right, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” He was as bland as cottage cheese. “I’m spending a very pleasant evening with my girl. Dinner. After-dinner drinks. A stroll along the harbor. And looking forward to what was once called a romantic interlude. You. Me. One deck chair and—” His hand tugged her closer, his face bent nearer.

She placed her hands on his chest. “Wait a minute. You’ve been hounding me for weeks to agree to a spectacular for a wedding, including everything but a brass band and fireworks, and now you’re acting as if everything’s agreed upon. I don’t get it.” She peered at him. “Are we disengaged?”

“Hell, no.” He kissed her decisively. Then he grinned. “I hadn’t thought of that ploy, but I’ll tuck it back in case it’s needed.” He silenced her hoot of outrage with another kiss. “No, rest easy.” His arms tightened around her. “I merely experienced a moment of enlightenment today.”

Her mind skipped back over the day. What had he been up to? All right, she would get to the bottom of this, but he was continuing, unperturbed and still cherubic.

“I realized that everything would come out right.”

She waited.

He reached out and traced the line of her cheek.

She shook her head, unwilling to be distracted.

“Why?”

“Because.”

Annie gritted her teeth. What a day, dealing with a woman who turned out to be a blood sister to Attila the Hun, surveying the beauties of Chastain in the tow of a formidable eccentric, now faced with this disconcerting behavior from Max. But he was looking at her with an unmistakable gleam in his eyes, and his next actions were predictable. As for his sudden enlightenment, it must mean that he was seeing things her way, but, being Max, he would never, of course, admit to that. Well, that was all right. She could be gracious, too. When they next discussed September, she wouldn’t revel in his defeat. As she moved closer to him, she spared one final thought for Mrs. Webster. The woman obviously was a snake, but that would come out all right, too. Besides, she didn’t have to deal with Mrs. Webster until Thursday.

As for now, the night was young.

Her first instinct was to shred the letter.

Her second to hire a howitzer and blast Prichard House and its occupants into oblivion. What the Yankees had not accomplished, one mad Texan would achieve.

“Annie. Annie, honey, whatever is the matter?”

She heard Ingrid’s worried chirp through a blood-red haze, but she was too angry to manage even an outraged squall. Wordlessly, she flapped the thick stationery until it sounded like an avalanche on a 1930s radio drama. Ingrid snatched up one of the newly arrived posters of the back wall paintings and began to fan her. “What’s happened?”

“I’ve worked my guts out!” Annie pounded on the cash desk and the skull-and-crossbones No-Smoking sign skidded sideways. “And now, the day before I’m supposed to make my presentation to the Board, Mrs. President, Mrs. Corinne Prichard Prissy-Ass Webster, sends me
her
outline for a mystery. How about my clues? How about the instruction sheets for the suspects? How about the autopsy report and suspects’ statements? I’ll have to redo everything! I could murder that woman!”

Annie parked at Lookout Point on Thursday morning and stared grimly across the street at the square fort, home of her present employer, the Chastain Historical Preservation Society. She was still close, blazingly close, to telling the Board members, individually and collectively, to go to hell. Ingrid had soothed; Max had counseled. And, they did have a point. A weak point, Annie felt, but a point. She would still have the fun of creating the clues and running the Mystery Nights, even if she did have to use Corinne’s plot. But the thrill was gone. She’d wanted to have her very own mystery, and now she was saddled with that odious woman’s creation.

From her vantage point, she could see the front of the old fort and the entry to the parking lot behind it. A cream-colored Mercedes turned into the drive, followed
by a faded gray Volvo older than her own, driven by the gaunt redhead she’d met at the Red Cross. Ferrier, that was her name.

Annie took a deep breath. The Board members were gathering. Time for her to arrive, too. And she might still present Madame President with her crumpled letter, now smoothed and stuck into a green folder, and tell her to run her own Mystery Nights. She locked the car, then checked both ways and paused to watch the approach of the magnificent and unforgettable Bentley she’d seen the day Miss Dora took her on a tour. Miss Dora, when not breathing fire and brimstone, had indicated that the Bentley’s owner was also a Board member. A sinful one, apparently. Annie glimpsed luxuriant dark hair, enormous tortoise-shell sunglasses, and a slash of bright red lipstick. The car turned onto Lafayette, then slowed to make a left into the lot.

That’s the one who gave Corinne a hard time. Annie was all in favor of that. Maybe she could start an insurrection, persuade the board that her original plan was better, get them to okay her mystery and dump Corinne’s. Because, actually, it was pretty snappy. Hmm. It would all depend upon how she presented it.

With a decisive nod, she started across the street.

A brown Ford Tempo squealed around the corner and jolted to a stop in front of the Society. A stocky, well-built young man with thick, curly brown hair slammed out of the driver’s seat. He had a crooked nose which looked as though it might have been drubbed into football turf more than once. He carried a notebook and a pencil. A couple of extra yellow pencils poked out of the pocket of his short-sleeved white shirt.