Carolyn G. Hart (50 page)

Although she had her own objectives for this meeting, Annie couldn’t have refused the piteous message Idell had handed her.
Please come. I need help.—Gail P
.

And Gail did look damned vulnerable, frail, and grief-stricken. For just an instant, Annie felt a flicker of
irritation. Where was the girl’s gumption? Then she thought of Corinne’s steel strong will and the years she’d had to dominate this gentle creature.

“Certainly I’ve come. What can I do?”

“I saw you out in front. With Chief Wells. Did he say anything?” She waited tensely for Annie’s answer.

Annie saw no point in advertising her own predicament. She replied judiciously, “He was interested in what Corinne did yesterday.” Which was a very delicate way of putting it.

“Did he—did he mention Bobby Frazier?”

Annie couldn’t decide how to field that one, and she waited long enough that Gail assumed the worst.

“Oh, I knew it.” The girl clung to the wooden railing. “He’s prejudiced against anyone different. I’m so afraid he’ll try to blame Bobby.”

“Being from out of town isn’t sufficient grounds for a murder charge,” Annie said firmly, mentally crossing her fingers.

Gail shook her head hopelessly. “You don’t understand. Bobby and Corinne—”

“Why did she want him out of town?”

Gail stared at Annie as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. “How did you know that? How did you ever know?”

The morning’s on-shore breeze rattled the glossy magnolia leaves and whipped the frothy lace at her throat.

“Last week at the Society meeting, the famous one where I read the letter—” Gail nodded, her eyes never leaving Annie’s face—“before we came in, Bobby and Corinne had a spat on the sidewalk and I heard him say something about her offering him money to leave town.”

Gail gripped Annie’s arm. “Did you tell Chief Wells?”

“No. But look, Gail, something like that can’t be kept quiet. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Lucy was coming up the sidewalk just then, too.”

“Oh, Lucy would
never
tell. She knows how I feel about—” Gail flushed. “I mean, he’s awfully nice. No, Lucy won’t tell.” Then her cheeks burned a deeper red, and she released Annie’s arm. “I’m sorry, I can’t ask you not to speak out. But it isn’t nearly as awful as it sounds. If you just let me explain, you’ll see it doesn’t amount to anything!

“I met Bobby last fall when he came to do an article on the Museum. I work at the Prichard Museum. I’m the curator.” Quiet pride shone in her eyes. “That’s what I studied at school, art history. And I don’t have the job just because of my family. Even Bobby sees that. He told me so.” A smile touched her drawn face. “Bobby’s not like anyone I ever met before. He’s so strong and quick, and he says what he thinks, always.” She looked at Annie with a flash of rare defiance that made her look radiantly beautiful for a fleeting moment. “I like that.”

Annie knew directness could have its advantages. She thought of Max, whose mind was positively serpentine. And she enjoyed that, for all the frustration it could engender. Weddings with 500 guests indeed!

Gail’s moment of courage faded. “My aunt didn’t like him. She said he wasn’t—” she jerked her head angrily “—wasn’t a gentleman. She told me not to see him anymore.” She darted a defensive look at Annie. “He kept on coming to the Museum. And we went out for lunch, and sometimes we met for dinner.”

“Corinne didn’t know?”

Gail lifted her chin. “I finally decided we weren’t
going to sneak around anymore. I told her I was going to see him when I wanted to.”

“Is that what prompted her performance the day I came to look at the grounds?”

Gail avoided Annie’s eyes, staring down at the lake-blue amethyst ring on her right hand. “That was just Corinne being Corinne.”

“Why were you so angry?”

“Because—because I couldn’t believe what she’d done.” An echo of that anger throbbed in her voice now. Her blue eyes enormous, the girl struggled to breathe, and Annie remembered the dreadful moments in the exquisite front hall of Prichard House. “She offered him money to leave town—and he took it.” Gail looked at her imploringly. “You won’t understand. I almost didn’t understand, when I found out. I felt like a fool, that he hadn’t cared for me at all, that he was just interested in money. Then, yesterday, he was mad, too, and he yelled at me to look at the canceled check before I made up my mind. I called a friend who works at the bank, and she checked for me. Bobby’s endorsed the check over to the National Children’s Fund.”

“So he took the money, just like he was being bought off, then turned it over to charity? She must have been furious.” Oh, what she would have given for a glimpse of Corinne’s face when she discovered Bobby’s doings!

“He doesn’t care about money. When I told her yesterday afternoon, she said he was a thief and a cheat, and I told her she was an ugly, jealous old woman.” The fire died in her eyes. “I didn’t know anything was going to happen to her. I told her there wasn’t anything she could do to keep us apart. She said if I saw him again, I wouldn’t get a penny of my parents’ estate. But when I told Bobby, he didn’t care about that at all.”

The back of Annie’s neck prickled.

“This happened yesterday afternoon? You found out about the check and quarreled with Corinne, and then you told Bobby all about it?”

Gail nodded.

Annie approached from another angle. “How could she keep you from inheriting?”

“Oh, she could do it,” Gail explained reluctantly. “She had the power under Daddy’s will to decide if I should receive the bulk of the estate on my twenty-fifth birthday, or on my thirtieth birthday. Yesterday she said I’d never get any of it. But Bobby said she could take her precious money and—” She paused, blushing. “He didn’t care at all! He said we’d do fine without a dime from anybody.”

And Chief Wells would be as likely to believe that, Annie thought, as he would to believe in little green men serving pink champagne in the mansion gardens at midnight.

“What time did you talk to your aunt yesterday?”

Gail’s face again looked shadowed and pale. The vivacity drained away. “It must not have been long before … it happened.”

“But you were mad at Bobby when you talked to him at the pond.”

Gail drew her breath in sharply. “Were you there?”

“I was putting some clues in the gazebo. Neither of you saw me. When you started talking, well, it seemed like a bad time to speak up.”

“That was
before
I talked to Corinne. Bobby chased after me, and made me listen. That’s when I called the bank, then I marched in to Corinne and told her she was trying to embarrass me and make Bobby look bad, but it wasn’t going to work. Then I found Bobby out in the grounds, and we worked it all out. Afterward, I
went to the Museum. It always makes me feel better to go to the Museum. I’m putting together a new exhibit of Victorian wallpapers. I love the names of some of the patterns. They’re so grand. Bachelor’s Pear Vine. Oglesby Damask. Fuschia Trellis. Hewes Parlor Paper.”

But Annie scarcely listened. She was sorting out the timing.

1. Bobby and Gail at the pond.

2. Bobby follows Gail.

3. Gail and her aunt quarrel.

4. Gail and Bobby talk on the Prichard grounds. Gail tells Bobby, whee, all is fine, I’m being disinherited, but whither thou goest, etc.

5. Gail to the Museum.

6. Bobby where?

Wherever he was, he carried with him a gilt-edged motive. As did Gail.

Annie looked curiously at the girl, who had the relaxed air of someone who has told it all and found it less awful than expected. Didn’t she have the slightest idea that she had now provided both herself and Bobby with enormously satisfying reasons to murder her aunt?

“So you see,” she concluded, “once Bobby knew I was going to keep on seeing him, he didn’t have any reason to be mad at Corinne anymore.”

Annie nodded solemnly.

Then worry clouded the pale blue eyes looking at her so earnestly. “But I’m afraid Chief Wells won’t understand.”

Annie felt confident Gail’s concern was thoroughly justified.

“So that’s why I asked you to come over. Roscoe told
me that you and Mr. Darling have some experience with murders. The thing is, do you think you could help figure out what happened to Corinne?”

“I’d sure like to—” Annie began.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! You’re wonderful!”

Annie felt on a level with a charlatan advertising radio waves to rid a house of termites, but when she saw the effect of her response on Gail, she couldn’t backtrack. The girl looked as if she had been suddenly reprieved from the gallows.

“There’s no way I can ever thank you enough!”

“Please don’t try,” Annie said feebly, wondering how she was going to explain this to Max.

Gail had the grace to look embarrassed. “I was just sure you would help, so I’ve already called Lucy and persuaded her to talk to you. You’ll go see her first, won’t you?”

The lady in front of Max couldn’t decide. Did she want
“Chastain. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of History,”
or
“Interiors of Low Country Plantations?”
Then she held up
“Southern Gardens, Their Majesty and Magnificence.”

“That’s the one,” Max encouraged. “No one should come to Chastain and leave without that book. The gardens, you know.”

She glanced up at him and the frost in her eyes melted. “Oh, do you really think so?”

“Absolutely. Cross my heart.”

He smiled genially at her as she paid, received her change, and slowly yielded her place.

The Society secretary, eyes bleary with fatigue, looked up gamely.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Can I buy you a beer?”

Louisa Binning brushed back a tangle of peroxided curls. “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all day.” Then she looked past him and sighed. “But I can’t leave. You have to make hay, etc.”

“You think they’ll all buy books?” He tilted his head at the two-deep line that stretched behind him out the propped open door and all the way to the sidewalk.

“My dear, they buy
everything
!”

“I’ll buy a stack of ten, any ten, you pick ’em, if you’ll give me a few minutes time.”

She laughed goodhumoredly. “Talking to you—and to everybody—is my job. You don’t have to buy any books.”

Max took out his wallet, picked out a bill, and dropped it into a wooden box shaped like the fort, varnished a golden brown, and carrying the painted legend,
Gifts for Chastain
. Then he reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulled out a thick envelope, and handed it to her.

“How did the writer of this letter get the paper and the envelope?”

She emptied the envelope, glanced at the cover letter, then stiffened. “Why, this is the letter …”

He nodded.

She was still studying the sheets, and her mouth formed a silent O.

Max had the silky feeling of delight akin to rolling up three oranges on a slot machine.

When she looked up, worry lines bunched around her eyes. She stared past him at the restless line of tourists, then pushed back her chair.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a slight delay in filling your orders. Please feel free to look over our brochures, and you will enjoy walking through the
fort. You will find musket slits in the east wall. I will reopen the desk as soon as I have restocked the books. Thank you for your patience.”

Then, in a low voice, she turned to Max. “Come back to the stockroom with me, where we can talk.”

15

A
s she climbed the shallow front steps of the gracious Palladian portico of McIlwain House, Annie couldn’t resist a glance to her right, but banana shrubs masked the wrought iron fence, affording not even a glimpse of the Prichard grounds. The sweet scent of the shrubs mingled with the smell of freshly turned dirt in the flower beds by the steps. It couldn’t be far to the pond, though, for Lucy to have heard her screams for help.

The front door was open. Annie rang the bell and looked through the screen door into the hall. Lucy came slowly, her footsteps heavy with fatigue. She seemed to have shrunk since that day they first met. Annie remembered a vigorous woman with a country road stride. The woman holding open the door seemed frail. Her voice was flat. “Gail said you might come. I don’t know what you can do, but I’ll help if I can.”