Dead By Midnight (22 page)

The crusty voice rumbled, “Good hand. Got a quick head in emergencies. Kept his nose clean. Broke up a cocaine ring once. Don’t want that kind of crap on my ship. Hire him anytime.”

“Did he tip you to the smuggling?”

“Damn right. Helped me set it up with the feds. Caught ’em. Almost a half-million dollars’ worth of cocaine.”

“He sounds like a good hire. Now, I have kind of a funny question”—Max made his voice easy, amused, sharing a joke—“but we have an actress who likes good-looking men. Do you suppose he’d be willing to be nice to the lady?”

A roar of earthy laughter. “Richard’s your man. Hardly ever met a woman that didn’t have the hots for him. He likes the ladies, so long as he can love ’em and leave ’em.”

“No problem there.” Max was equally hearty.

As he replaced the receiver, he studied a smiling picture of Richard from his Facebook page, tanned and fit, muscular in a pale green guayabera shirt and khaki shorts and docksiders. He stood at the stern of a cabin cruiser, a breeze stirring sun-streaked brown hair. His lopsided smile was exuberant. He was a man who liked sun and sex, and he was always looking for the route to easy street. But he’d drawn the line at drugs. Max wrote on his legal pad, underlined
drugs
three times.

He made two more calls.

The first was to Sam Whistler, who was still bartending at the Ship Ahoy in Boca Raton. “Sam, I understand Richard Jamison worked there last year. I’m looking for a manager for the Fast Catch here on the island. What can you tell me about Richard?”

“ . . . good joe . . . easy to talk to . . . handles crowds . . . careful about money. You can trust him . . . Women? I don’t know what his secret is. They love the man. But he makes sure they understand the rules before he plays. He’s one smart dude.”

The final call was to a childhood friend now teaching Spanish at Clemson. “Richard? So he’s back on the island. I doubt that lasts long. He’s a wanderer. He never met an open road he didn’t want to take or a beautiful woman he didn’t want to make love to.” A faint sigh. “Richard’s not a nine-to-five guy.”

Max ended the call, pulled the legal pad nearer. He drew a road, a pair of sexy female legs, a condo marked by a huge
X
, and a rectangular package that would hold a kilo of cocaine.

It was time to talk to Richard Jamison.

P
almetto palms stood like Southern sentries on either side of a short oyster-shell road. The Jasmine Gardens cabins weren’t visible from the main road. A small white sign hung from a steel stanchion near an office-cum-cabin. The inscription read:

JASMINE GARDENS

MANAGER

INQUIRE WITHIN

Annie parked. She smelled the banana sweetness of pittosporum. Five steps led to a small front porch. The cabin was built about five feet above the ground, always a wise precaution on a sea island. Annie admired its blue shutters and white siding. The style reminded her a little of Bermuda. Ben Parotti had evidently been feeling romantic when he approved the design.

A skinny redhead, her hair pulled back beneath a yellow do-rag, gave Annie a bright smile. “We have a vacancy,” as if Annie were a lucky winner of a sweepstakes. “Each of our cabins is built behind a private screen of bamboo and bayberry. Each cabin has its own parking space on one side. The cabins are fully furnished, once-weekly maid service—”

“Maid service.” Annie felt a surge of panic. “Has Cabin Nine been cleaned?”

“Oh.” The manager sighed. “You must be Annie Darling. I thought you looked kind of familiar. I took my mom to your bookstore once. I’m Marva Kay. Ben called and said you’d be by to see that cabin. He said not to touch it. I told Linda Lee to skip nine this week.” She turned and reached inside the door. “Here’s the key.”

“How long had Darwyn been renting the cabin?”

She squinted at Annie. “He signed the register David Harley. He paid cash, plus a two-hundred-dollar deposit, so I didn’t ask for an ID.” She frowned. “I wonder who’ll get the deposit back.”

“I’d hold on to it. What’s most important, please don’t have the cabin cleaned until Ben gives the go-ahead.”

“Sure enough.” Marva Kay looked rueful. “I got plenty of others to rent.”

“Did you see much of Darwyn?”

She gave a little laugh. “I don’t see much of anybody. See, every cabin is completely private. It’s like they’re supposed to be love nests. Or something like that. We used to get a lot of couples from Savannah but not so many now.”

“Did you ever see anyone with Darwyn?”

She looked wise. “His girlfriend? Nope. But one afternoon I got a call from the lady in ten and she was panicked. Seems like a raccoon was trying to get in the back door. I told her just to leave him alone and he’d go away but she insisted I come and do something. I got Buster, my hound. I knew that raccoon would scoot faster than a floozy who sees a patrol car. We took the path, and like I said, it’s plenty private behind the bamboo, but I heard, well, you can take it from me, they weren’t playing tiddledywinks in nine. I walked a little faster. No business of mine. Then I heard the sliding door shut and I figured that was good. I like the heavy breathing to be inside. Some kids might be wandering around. So, I never saw anybody but him. For sure, he didn’t rent the cabin to work on his abs. Not that they needed any work.”

Back in the car, Annie drove cautiously on the narrow, twisting lane. As Marva Kay had said, each cabin was its own world. She pulled into the parking slot next to nine. She walked to the front steps. The old-fashioned metal key was distinctive, a shiny silver color with a heart-shaped bow.

The door swung in. Dust motes danced in the splash of sunlight. The air was still and hot. The air-conditioning was off. The living room’s island decor was cheerful, wicker chairs with red-and-yellow cushions, a ceiling fan, a rattan sofa, tiled floor. One wall featured a mural with a great blue heron standing in a marsh.

There was no evidence of recent occupation. No newspapers. No magazines. No glasses. Annie glanced into the small kitchen. It, too, appeared unused. She didn’t touch the refrigerator or cabinets.

In the single bedroom, she felt as though she were chasing phantoms. The double bed was made, the spread tightly tucked beneath the pillows. The bolsters common to hotel rooms were absent. Unless she was very much mistaken, the room had been cleaned since it last served as a rendezvous for lovers. There was no hint as to the identity of the woman who had met Darwyn here, nothing in the closet or in the drawers of a wicker chest, no scrap of papers in the wastebaskets, nothing that had rolled beneath the bed or the sofa.

She locked the cabin behind her, returned the key, and walked to her car. She’d had great hopes of finding some clue about Darwyn’s girlfriend. Of course, there was no guarantee she knew anything at all about what he had seen in the Jamison backyard Tuesday morning.

Still, it would be nice to have the opportunity to ask her.

B
arb poked her head into Max’s office. “Richard Jamison is here.” Her expressive face registered a warning.

Max rose from behind the refectory table that served as his desk and walked toward the door.

Richard Jamison stopped a few feet inside, folded his arms. His gaze was cold. “You called me out of the blue, started asking questions. I don’t know you. I don’t have to talk to you.” He was island casual in a loose orange polo and baggy shorts and huaraches, but his face was brooding and unpleasant.

Max looked at him coolly. “But you came.”

Richard’s face hardened. “Because of Cleo. I’m warning you. If you spread rumors about Cleo and me, I’ll sue you for defamation of character.”

Max was forceful, though he kept his voice even. “I don’t spread rumors. I’m asking about you and your cousin’s widow because his daughter Kit told my wife that she thought you were having an affair with her stepmother.”

“No.” Richard’s answer was violent. “There’s no truth to that. You want the truth? I’ll tell you the truth even though you don’t have any right to ask me a damn thing. I loved my cousin. I looked up to him. Glen was great to me when I was a little kid. And yeah, Cleo’s an amazing woman. Sure, I’m attracted to her. But I don’t screw a man’s wife when I’m living in his house. I’d decided to leave. I was going next week and then somebody shot Glen. It wasn’t me. I’ll talk to Kit.” He turned to go.

Max’s tone was sharp. “Are you still leaving town?”

Slowly Richard faced him. “I’m staying for a while.”

“I suppose you’ll help Cleo sort out her financial future.”

“Her finances are none of my business.”

“She’ll be able to help you swing the loans for those condos in Costa Rica.”

Some of the tension eased out of Richard’s body. “You got that wrong, just like you got it wrong about me and Cleo. All Cleo gets is prenup money and that wouldn’t make a dent in what I need.”

“What about the proceeds from the key man insurance?”

Richard looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Max spoke softly. “Somehow I thought you might know. The firm took out insurance payable on Glen’s death. Cleo might be able to find what you need out of the two and a half million she’ll receive.”

Richard appeared stunned. “Two and a half million?”

Max saw Annie’s theory—Richard deciding to kill Glen both for his wife and the money she would receive—dissolve like a sand castle with the tide running in.

Richard swung around and left without another word.

Max wondered: Was Richard a shocked and bewildered man, or was he a very fine actor?

Chapter Thirteen

A
nnie pulled in to the curb in front of the Broward’s Rock police station. She scanned the street for Kit’s VW. As she climbed the front steps, she checked the parking lot to the north. No little black car. She opened the front door and stepped into the narrow space in front of the counter.

Mavis Cameron’s angular face looked tired, but she managed a smile. “Billy’s not here, Annie. He went to the mainland.”

Annie didn’t take that calm statement as a good sign for Elaine Jamison. Very likely, Billy had gone to Chastain for a conference with Circuit Solicitor Brice Posey, who was not and never had been a favorite of Max and Annie’s. However, Annie felt certain Mavis would not volunteer any information in regard to the status of Elaine Jamison, either as a suspect or as a prisoner. “Actually, I’m looking for Laura Jamison. She and her sister and brother came here to see about their aunt.”

Mavis pushed back a strand of auburn hair. “They left a little while ago.”

Annie nodded her thanks. As she turned to go, Mavis added, “I’ll tell Billy you dropped by.”

Outside, Annie pulled her cell from her purse and called Elaine’s cottage. No answer. She called the Jamison house. “Is Laura there?” It might be better not to identify herself unless asked to do so. She listened. “No thanks, I won’t leave a message.”

In the car, she made a U-turn. In a way, she wasn’t surprised to learn that Laura had gone to the beach. Was she taking solace from the sweep of the water to the horizon or was she simply trying to escape the worry and fear at home?

Annie found a parking space without a vestige of shade at Blackbeard Beach. She hurried to the boardwalk. She wished she could be there for pleasure, enjoying the scent of coconut oil and sea salt. Waves crested in lines of silver foam atop the green water. Just like yesterday, dolphins arched above the waves, graceful as ballerinas. Annie picked her way around umbrellas and among sun worshippers stretched on towels. At the third lifeguard stand, she again looked up at a thin face masked by sunglasses.

“Laura.”

Laura looked down. “Kit was going to call you. Thanks for helping us. We contacted that lawyer. He’s coming over tomorrow. They let Elaine come home. They’re going to talk to her when Handler Jones is here.”

So Billy had permitted Elaine to leave the station. Annie knew her name popped up on Elaine’s caller ID when Elaine used her cell. If she was in the cottage when Annie called, she’d chosen not to answer. However, Laura had no way of knowing that Elaine didn’t want to talk to Annie, and Laura clearly felt indebted to Annie for the connection to Handler Jones.

Annie strove to appear relaxed, as if in no way she and Laura were at odds. “That’s wonderful news. He will certainly be helpful. As I said when I talked to Elaine”—if Laura assumed this conversation was recent, that was her privilege—“it’s important to come up with the most complete information possible. Now that Elaine has cleared up the confusion about the gun, we’re counting on you for absolutely critical information.”

“Me?” Laura sat rigid.

Annie nodded energetically. “You were on the upper verandah. You saw Darwyn.”

“Oh.” Laura relaxed. “Yeah. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. He was blowing pine straw. Then I lost sight of him. He must have come up close to the terrace.”

With the toe of one shoe, Annie drew a line in the sand. “Okay. That’s the edge of the terrace.” She walked a few feet and dragged her heel to make a line perpendicular to the first. “Here are the pine trees.” Annie turned and walked several feet toward the water. She stamped her feet twice. “Let’s say this is the cottage.” She returned to the first line. “If you looked down, you could see the pine trees and flower beds and Darwyn. If you looked straight, you saw the cottage.”

“Not exactly. There’s a willow in front of the cottage.”

Annie was impatient. “But you would see anyone coming from the cottage to the house once you were past the willow.”

“Yes.” Laura sounded reluctant. This line of questioning was clearly making her nervous and wary.

“When did Elaine come up to the house?” Annie had seen Elaine leave her cottage and hurry toward the marsh around ten. It would help narrow the time frame for Glen’s murder if Laura knew when Elaine had walked to the house.

Laura looked relieved. “I didn’t see Elaine.”

Annie was puzzled. “Yesterday you said you were on the verandah the whole time. You should have seen her.”

Laura shifted uneasily in the high seat. “Oh. I guess I wasn’t there the whole time. I went inside for a few minutes. That must have been when Elaine came.”

Annie had the clear sense that Laura was scrambling for an explanation. She glanced at the imprints in the sand. Darwyn had been in the pines or in the flower beds near the terrace. Definitely Laura should have seen Elaine either coming or going unless she had been absent from the porch for longer than just a few minutes. Was Laura protecting herself? It was possible that she had slipped downstairs to the study and that was why she hadn’t seen Elaine. There was no reason for her not to admit having seen Elaine. Yet Annie sensed a lie somewhere in Laura’s choppy responses.

She tried to work out the times. “How about Richard?”

Laura looked relieved. “I saw him. He was sweating. He’d been jogging. He came up to the terrace and went inside and then in only a few minutes the police came.”

Annie imagined herself on the upper verandah. If Laura glimpsed someone leaving the house after having shot Glen, she would have seen that person walking—or running—toward the cottage and the lane that ran behind it. “Between the time you went out to the porch and before Richard arrived, did you see anyone heading toward the cottage?”

“I didn’t see anyone.” Her voice was strident.

Yesterday Annie had suspected that Laura was lying. Today she had no doubt that the girl was hiding something. Was she hiding the reason for her absence from the verandah or the identity of someone walking away from the house?

“Did you see Kirk Brewster?”

Laura’s fingers curled on the strap of the binoculars in her lap. She drew a swift breath. “No.”

Annie looked up and knew her face was grim. “You saw someone. I think it was Kirk. If you don’t speak out, your aunt is going to be arrested.”

E
dna Graham hesitated. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful but firm. “Mr. Darling, I’m positive Mr. Brewster didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Jamison’s death. But I’ve heard,” and now she sounded worried, “that the police have arrested Elaine.”

“That isn’t correct.” Max tried to sound reassuring. “The police simply wish to question her. Along that line, that’s why I want to visit with Mr. Brewster.” He kept his voice pleasant and hoped she concluded that he posed no threat to the young lawyer. “We’re trying to collect as much information as possible to assist the police. I know Kirk has already been questioned and I’m sure he was helpful. I’m hoping he might offer some insights into the family dynamics.”

“Oh. Well, of course. He’s off-island this afternoon. He took his sister into Savannah to go to the doctor but”—as a good secretary, she had every partner’s location at her fingertips—“you might find him at the youth center in a little while. He didn’t intend to come back into the office. His nephew Sam has a baseball game at four o’clock.”

A
nnie sat at the coffee bar. She sipped a cappuccino with a double dash of caramel. “Thanks, Henny. You’re a sweetheart to pitch in while I’m running around the island not accomplishing very much.” She felt discouraged and knew she sounded discouraged.

Henny’s voice was firm. “You’re doing your best. If it weren’t for you, the police wouldn’t know that Pat Merridew was murdered.”

Annie felt even more discouraged. “We may know that someone poisoned Pat because she saw Glen’s gun hidden in the gazebo, but Billy doesn’t think there will ever be any way to prove that her death was deliberate.”

“She won’t be labeled a suicide.” Henny’s eyes flashed. “That matters to me and that matters to her sister. I finished packing up everything in Pat’s house. Those travel brochures for the Alaska cruise never did show up.” Henny Brawley poured herself a fragrant tropical tea. She came around to look over Annie’s shoulder at a sketch pad of the Jamison front and back yards with arrows and
X
s. “Your drawing looks like one of those old John Dickson Carr books. Maybe we should read
The Three Coffins
and see if we get some inspiration.”

Annie was emphatic. “There’s always an answer to a locked-room puzzle if you know where to look. But this time, I don’t see any way out of a box.” She pointed at the sketch. “There’s the telephone lineman. He had a clear view of the front door to the Jamison house. According to Billy Cameron, the lineman said nobody came in or out until the police cars arrived, sirens blaring. So we can’t have an unknown who popped in the front door, went down the hall, and shot Glen. Then . . .” Her index finger tapped the squiggle that represented the terrace and the backyard. “There’s Laura on the upper verandah. She claims the only person she saw was Darwyn. She said she didn’t see Elaine. Now she says she wasn’t on the verandah the entire time. That wasn’t what she said yesterday when she claimed she sat there the entire time from breakfast until Richard knocked on her bedroom door. If she was on the verandah and if she’s telling the truth, then the only people who could have shot Glen are Kit or Laura from inside the house or Richard and Elaine from the backyard. I think Laura saw someone. Just like Darwyn did. Who would she protect? Kirk Brewster. Who has a gold-plated motive? Kirk Brewster. Did she see Kirk?”

Henny studied the drawing. “The possibilities come down to Kit and Laura, who were in the house; Richard, who claimed he found Glen dead; Elaine; or maybe Kirk. It looks bad for Elaine. She’s the one who threw away the murder weapon and hid a bloodstained shirt.”

Annie slipped down from the seat, wandered restlessly toward the fireplace. More Cat Truth posters were now mounted on the wall on either side of the fireplace and at the ends of bookshelves. No doubt Laurel had dropped by simply to lend a hand and, of course, improve the bookstore’s decor in passing.

Whatever.

Annie’s gaze slid across the photographs. Which was the most gorgeous? She admired new posters with the wide-open gold, almond-shaped eyes of a fawn-coated Somali (
Always say yes to adventure
),
and an elegantly marked European Brown Tabby pressing a paw on the remnants of a mouse (
Don’t knock it till you try it
)
.
Among the original posters, she admired again the cinnamon-apricot Siamese with no pointing, green eyes huge in a big-eared, triangular face, back arched in a crouch, poised to spring, mouth agape in a hiss:
I’m warning you, back off.

Just like Laura.

Annie shook her head in puzzlement. Why hadn’t Laura admitted seeing Elaine? Elaine claimed she’d grabbed up the gun in a panic, gotten blood on her hand, dashed through the house, and grabbed Tommy’s shirt from the laundry basket.

Tommy’s shirt. The bloodhound smelled the shirt and came straight to Tommy.

Annie remembered Tommy in the living room after arriving home from his friend’s house the morning of his father’s murder. A too-tight, green-and-orange-striped polo had emphasized Tommy’s stocky build. Was it possible . . . Slowly she reached for the phone, punched a familiar number.

“Yo, Annie.”

“Marian”—Annie clung to a hope that the indefatigable reporter could help her—“can you give me a good physical description of Kirk Brewster?”

“Sure. What’s in it for me?”

“If I find out anything big, you’ll be the first to know.” Annie’s fingers were crossed. She would share with Marian at some point, but right now what mattered was discovering the truth.

“Blood oath?” Before Annie could erupt, Marian relented. “Okay, okay. I’ll trust you. Okay. He’s about five nine . . .”

Annie clicked off the phone and stared at another poster. A Highland Fold with an aura of age appeared comfortably settled on a red cushion. Perhaps it was clever photography, but there was a hint of a satisfied smile on the aging cat’s large, rounded face:
All cats are gray in the dark.

Ben Franklin’s famous comment on the pleasures of older women after the candles were snuffed was far afield from crime, but Annie repeated the legend aloud. “All cats are gray in the dark.” A picture formed in her mind. She yanked her cell phone from her pocket, punched a familiar number.

“S
trike two . . .” The tall, skinny home-plate umpire balled his right hand into a fist and punched.

The wooden bleachers held about fifteen admiring onlookers. Kids played in the shade beneath the seat. An American flag fluttered from a staff at the top of the modest grandstand.

A wiry pitcher wound up and threw a high fastball.

The towheaded batter connected, and the ball dribbled into the outfield.

“Run, Sam. Way to go.” Kirk Brewster yelled and whistled.

Dust flew as the little boy slid into first. The first baseman swiped with the ball, lost his grip, and the ball bounced into the outfield to be retrieved by the shortstop.