Dead By Midnight (24 page)

Brice Willard Posey, the circuit solicitor, rarely heeded advice.

Billy shook his head. “Brice never met a fact he’d pay attention to. He was hell-bent to arrest Elaine. I staved him off, at least until after tomorrow. She and her lawyer will show up here at nine. Now the solicitor will switch horses and ride Tommy. He’ll say I was right on the button and the club in the bag was a trap for her. He’ll say Tommy Jamison used the club and hid the gardening gloves and left his aunt holding the bag. The solicitor will love it: deranged teenager from old island family guns down father, knocks off a blackmailer, and frames his aunt. Do you know why that scenario stinks?”

“Not the same MO?”

He shook his head. “The MO’s the same. The key to the gun safe disappeared before the murder. That shows planning, just like Darwyn’s murder shows planning. This time it has to do with character. Tommy Jamison’s got a reputation for a bad temper. A couple of fights after football games, sometimes some rough stuff in the locker room. Apparently, he loses his cool, then pretty quick snaps out of his rage and is an all-around good guy. If he’d shot his dad, then had been stricken with remorse, that would be one thing, but Glen’s death was planned down to the last detail. For example, Darwyn only worked there on Tuesday mornings. That’s when the leaf blower would hide the sound of the shots. Lots of planning, so same MO. That doesn’t sound like Tommy Jamison. Besides, when he found his dad dead, if he was dead, who did Tommy run to? His aunt. She came through for him big-time. Unless he’s like Rhoda in
The Bad Seed
, he’d frame anybody but his aunt. Who tried to save him? Who took his shirt and hid it and lied for him when we found it? His aunt.”

Annie remembered that moment when the bloodhound loped up to Tommy and began to bay and when the shirt was identified as his, how Tommy had begun to speak but Elaine cut him off. His instinct had been to tell the truth and save his aunt.

Billy glanced toward a gray folder that sat by itself near his in-box. He reached out, tapped the cover. “And there’s Pat Merridew. We’ll never prove she was murdered, but too much has happened in the Jamison gazebo to act like that picture in her BlackBerry didn’t mean anything.” He gave Annie a wry glance. “You kept telling me, right?”

Annie felt as if she’d planted a flag atop a mountain.

Billy gave her a thumbs-up. “Counting her as another murder victim makes it clear that the crimes were carefully planned. Admittedly, we have three deaths from different means—poison, shots, and a blunt instrument—but if the deaths are linked, somebody’s thinking on all cylinders. There’s no way Tommy Jamison can figure for the Merridew death. Was Pat Merridew going to invite a teenager over for Irish coffee? I don’t think so. That puts it back on Elaine, but Laura didn’t see her cross the backyard plus Elaine was off-island when the BlackBerry pic was made.”

Billy shoved his hand through his thick short hair. “It’s an almighty mess. I don’t believe the murderer is Elaine or Tommy. Yet somebody close to Glen Jamison shot him. Only someone with access to the house could have obtained the Colt. But when we look, we eliminate suspects one by one. The wife was in Savannah. The cousin left when Glen was alive and came back after”—Billy emphasized the word—“the kid got blood on his shirt. Laura didn’t see Elaine in the backyard during the critical period. That leaves Laura herself, her sister Kit, or Tommy. Kit and Laura had no reason to go outside, so Darwyn didn’t see them. That brings us back to Tommy, but the idea rubs me wrong.” He looked weary. “The circuit solicitor wants somebody’s hide nailed to the wall. The only good thing is Posey won’t harass me tomorrow because he doesn’t work on Saturdays. Monday morning he’ll summon me. He’ll say it’s time I moved, made the arrest, slapped Tommy Jamison in jail. The hell of it is, we’ve got enough evidence. Do you think Posey cares if I know in my gut that somewhere something’s wrong?”

C
ricket frogs cheek-cheeked, bull frogs whorummed, barking frogs yapped, and Southern toads shrieked. Cicadas whirred and crickets clicked. Annie stood on her and Max’s back verandah, looking through the dusk toward the darkness of the pond, but she found no peace in the summer serenade. “I was smart, wasn’t I? I figured out about the shirt and now Tommy Jamison’s going to be arrested.”

Max slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Sometimes”—his voice was gentle—“what we see is what is there.”

Annie felt as if her thoughts had raced around and around ever since she talked with Billy. No matter how she figured, there didn’t seem to be any way to save Tommy.

“Kids kill.” Max was somber.

Annie knew he was right and yet Billy thought the equation was wrong. So did she. She turned to Max, lifted her chin. “We can’t give up. Tomorrow, let’s try one more time. Darwyn was one sexy guy. We know he had a girlfriend.” She pictured the cabin at Jasmine Gardens. “He would have talked to her about the morning he was working at a house and a man was killed. I mean, that was too exciting to ignore. Maybe I can find her.”

Max gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll tilt at a windmill, too. Richard Jamison claims he wasn’t having an affair with Cleo. If he was, what are the odds he’d know about the key man insurance? It’s a small island. If they were meeting on the sly, there should be some trace.”

Dimly Annie heard the ring of the telephone in the kitchen. She almost ignored the sound, then turned and hurried inside. She raised an eyebrow at the caller ID, answered in a neutral voice.

“Annie Darling?” Cleo Jamison’s voice was low and hurried, but Annie had no difficulty recognizing the rich contralto.

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home.” Cleo sounded uncertain. “I want to know what’s going on. I have a right to know what’s happening. Glen was my husband.” There was a hint of anger in the pronoun. “The police have been here. The chief wanted to talk to Tommy about his shirt. I advised him to decline to answer questions until he was represented by counsel. I understand he and Elaine will be interviewed tomorrow. Chief Cameron left and now the family’s shut me out. You’d think they would appreciate my effort to help. Maybe I shouldn’t help them. If one of them killed Glen, I want them arrested. But I have trouble believing Elaine or Tommy would shoot Glen. Since Laura was sitting there, I didn’t want to say anything, but it looks to me like Kirk is the one the police should be investigating. Cameron said the information about Tommy’s shirt came from you. What exactly did you tell him?”

Annie hesitated. Obviously, Billy had given only the bare minimum of information. Was it his intent to let the family worry and wonder until the interview tomorrow?

Cleo attacked. “I have a right to know. Glen was my husband.”

Annie pictured Cleo clutching her cell phone, perhaps secreted in the small study, keeping her voice low in a house where she was the outsider.

She did have a right to know.

Annie spoke soberly. “ . . . and so it turned out that Laura saw Tommy.”

“Oh my God.” Cleo’s voice was faint. “Poor Glen. Oh, poor Glen.” There was a long pause. Finally, shakily, she said, “I only wanted Tommy to be nice to me. I’ll never forgive myself if Glen died because I made Tommy mad. But we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I’ll be there. I hope the police chief is wrong.” A long pause. “But he may be right.” The last words were scarcely audible. “If you learn anything else, call me.”

Chapter Fourteen

B
ella Mae Jack was composed. “If I knew something to help the police, I would have told them.” A frown furrowed her pale face. “I always worried that Darwyn would get himself in trouble. The police think he wanted money to keep quiet about what he saw the morning Mr. Jamison was killed. I wish I could say that Darwyn wouldn’t do such a thing. I was always afraid Darwyn could turn bad.” Her voice was weary, tired with heartache and loss and disappointment. “Darwyn wanted more than he had any right to have and there was a hard spot in his heart. He loved me. I loved him. I wish that had been enough.”

Annie felt the hot burn of tears. Her hand trembled as she lifted the coffee mug. Darwyn’s grandmother had insisted that they sit at the old-fashioned white table in the kitchen and have a piece of sherry cake and a cup of coffee. The old woman, her shoulders stiff beneath her crisp dress, was a gallant figure, accepting that life was full of trouble and woe.

Bella Mae Jack reached across the table and patted Annie’s hand. “You are a good girl. And nice to come for Darwyn.”

Annie put down the coffee mug. “Mrs. Jack, did Darwyn have some close friends I could speak to, maybe a girlfriend? Perhaps he might have told someone what he saw that morning.”

Bella Mae’s long face was somber. “Darwyn kept to himself. He never had anyone over. As for girls”—she averted her gaze—“I’m afraid he didn’t treat girls the way he should. He’d be with one for a while and then another, but he never cared about them. The last one kept calling but he wouldn’t talk to her. I heard she moved to the mainland last May.” She looked faintly surprised. “I don’t know that he was seeing anyone the last month or so. He was home most nights.”

Annie scrambled for some hint, some reflection of Darwyn’s last days. “I don’t suppose”—she hated asking, forced herself—“that there was anything in his pockets”—the police would have cataloged and returned his personal effects to her—“that might lead to someone he saw recently?”

Bella Mae took a breath. “I don’t think so. But you’re welcome to see.” She pushed up from the table, led the way down a short hall, opened the first door to her left, stood aside for Annie to enter.

“I put the things on his desk.” She gestured toward a light pinewood desk against the opposite wall.

Annie noted the single bed against one wall with a dark green spread. Two rock posters hung above the bed. A boom box sat against one wall, next to a rotating gun rack that held two rifles and a shotgun. Mounted antlers on one wall made the room look small.

Bella Mae stayed in the doorway. “I laid everything out.”

Annie stepped past her. At the back of the desktop sat a wine bottle with a candle stub in the neck, a canteen, a duck whistle, a pair of field binoculars, several boxes of ammunition, a soft canvas camouflage hat, a hat-clip light, a pinewood rack with three pistols, a Braves baseball cap, a deck of well-thumbed playing cards, a set of red-feathered darts.

She had no difficulty discerning the contents of Darwyn’s pockets on the night he died. The items were ranged in an orderly row: car keys, brown leather wallet, assorted coins, pocketknife, crumpled receipt from a Gas ’N Go, pack of condoms, small plastic container of mints, one metal key to Cabin Nine of Jasmine Gardens, laminated card with the Braves baseball schedule, a half-dozen lottery tickets, cell phone.

M
ax pulled up in front of the Gypsy Caravan, a seedy motel next door to an equally unprepossessing beer joint with a tin roof and red barn siding. He glanced at his list. Nine names were now scratched through and they were the better motels on the island. Broward’s Rock had fishing cabins, apartment houses, and rental condos, but fewer than a dozen old-fashioned motels. He’d spoken to managers and yard workers and a few occupants. No one had recognized a photo of Richard Jamison or Cleo Jamison. He squinted against the bright sun. This was not a milieu for Cleo Jamison. On the other hand, she could be confident that no one she knew would likely be found here. Max sighed and opened the car door. Annie admired thoroughness, tenacity, and unswerving commitment. He would finish what he had set out to do, but unless he was mightily surprised, Richard Jamison had not arranged any on-island liaisons with his cousin’s wife. Now, as for off-island . . .

Max strolled toward a ratty office with smeared windows and a sagging screen door. As Annie had pointed out, Richard appeared to have taken up squatter’s rights at the Jamison house, but Cleo practiced law and, until last Tuesday, had a husband who would be aware of her whereabouts, especially at night. That made off-island meetings unlikely. In the afternoons, there were too many people in and out of the house for a rendezvous there.

Max opened the door, wrinkled his nose at the musty smell. He stepped inside to dim light. A beefy-faced clerk looked up from a computer.

A
nnie worked hard, slicing open boxes, carefully easing out new titles, frowning at an occasional wrinkled edge to a book jacket. She soon had a stack of twenty Linda Fairsteins and thirty-five Randy Wayne Whites. Occasionally she checked the time. Was Billy talking to Elaine or to Tommy? Was Handler Jones representing Elaine or her nephew? If the spotlight was now on Tommy, Elaine had probably asked Jones to represent him. With every minute that passed, the time came nearer when Tommy Jamison would be taken into custody and charged with murder. Obviously, Max hadn’t hit pay dirt or he would have called.

As if on cue, her cell phone rang.

She answered, hoping. “Max?”

“Nada, honey.” He was philosophical. “I can affirm, attest, and swear that if Richard was screwing Cleo they were either invisible or off-island.”

Annie felt as wilted as a day-old corsage. “I didn’t have any luck either.”

There was a silence. Then he said gently, “I’m sorry.”

“You tried. We tried.” She looked at the clock. Eleven. Had Tommy been arrested yet?

“Hey, Annie. Let’s take
Lady
out.”

Annie was tempted.
Island Lady
was Max’s new 375 HP twenty-nine-foot speedboat. Max loved fast and faster and could reach a terrifying (to Annie) 70 mph, but when Annie was aboard he promised to keep her under forty. Yet she didn’t feel comfortable seeking pleasure when she knew the grim prospect facing the Jamison family. Besides, it was Saturday and Ingrid deserved to have the owner at work. “Tomorrow. I promise.” She looked toward the worktable. “I’m unpacking boxes. You go ahead.” She dropped the cell phone into her pocket, returned to her task. She carried twelve Randy Wayne White books out of the stockroom. She placed six copies face out in the New Mystery section.

As she walked back toward the storeroom, she noted a Cat Truth poster at the end of the Romantic Suspense section. An elegant Havana Brown, its mahogany-colored coat thick and short, lifted its irregular muzzle to stare with large oval green eyes:
Are you paying homage yet?

“Gorgeous,” she murmured. She swerved toward the coffee bar. Only a few customers sat at the tables. A sunny Saturday morning was time to play golf or tennis, ride bikes, stroll on the beach, plunge into the ocean with a cautionary eye for jellyfish, feel the rush of the wind as a speedboat spanked across the bay.

Annie stepped behind the coffee bar. She poured Colombian Supremo into a mug emblazoned with
Dead End
by John Stephen Strange. That’s where she was. Or caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock was Laura’s view of the backyard. The hard place was Annie’s disbelief in the guilt of the only person who could be guilty, according to what Laura claimed she had seen.

Annie drank deeply, but the wonderfully black and strong coffee didn’t provide its usual boost. Her eyes narrowed in thought. Laura had waffled about her presence on the porch. Annie reached for the portable phone. She called Max’s secretary and in a moment she had Laura’s cell-phone number.

“Laura, Annie Dar—”

“You have a lot of nerve to call me.” Laura’s voice vibrated with anger. “Tommy’s in big trouble and it’s your fault. That policeman’s talking to him. Elaine and that lawyer are with him.”

Annie pictured the hard wooden bench in the anteroom of the police station. “Are you at the police station?”

“Where else would we be, thanks to you. Why didn’t you let us alone?”

Annie was stung. “I was trying to help Elaine. I knew you saw someone. I thought you were protecting Kirk. When we found out he was wearing a madras shirt, I talked to Buddy Crawford. That’s when I realized you must have seen Tommy when he came home to see your dad.”

“They trapped me.” Now Laura was crying. “They told me Kirk was wearing a plaid shirt and then they asked if the shirt I saw was blue. I was so glad it wasn’t Kirk that I said yes. I wasn’t thinking about Tommy. I didn’t know he was wearing a blue shirt Tuesday morning.”

“What did you see that morning?”

“I only caught a glimpse of a guy in blue coming onto the terrace. I thought it was Kirk. Then, in just a few minutes, I heard running feet and somebody raced from the terrace across the backyard. Again, I thought it was Kirk. I couldn’t see Elaine’s front door because of a willow. I’d have known it wasn’t Kirk if I’d seen him go to the cottage. Tommy said he left his bike down by the garage.”

Annie’s voice was sharp. “Were you on the porch the entire morning?”

“I’ve told you and told the police. Yes. I was there.”

“But once you said you’d gone inside for a few minutes.”

“That’s because you were badgering me and I didn’t want to say I’d seen Kirk. I should have known it wasn’t him, but I thought he was coming over to try and talk to Dad.”

It was like hearing a cell door click.

“What difference does it make now?” Laura was querulous.

“If you were there the entire time and you saw only Tommy”—Annie drew a deep breath—“then there’s no one else who could have shot your father.”

The silence pulsed. “You mean . . . Oh, no, no, that can’t be. Not Tommy. No, someone came through the front. That’s what happened.” There was huge relief in her voice.

Annie was brusque. “A telephone lineman was across the street. No one came in the front door until the police arrived.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The murderer came across the backyard.” Annie heard the sadness in her own voice.

“Oh. The guy could be wrong. And if he isn’t”—the words came fast—“then I know the murderer must have come”—she struggled for breath—“when I went inside for a few minutes. I mean, I wasn’t out there the whole time. Somebody could have come and I wouldn’t have seen them. So it doesn’t have to be Tommy. I’ll tell them as soon as they let us talk to them again. Anybody can make a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I thought it didn’t matter. See, I went inside and I went to the top of the stairs and I was going to go down and talk to Dad and”—a pause—“I heard a door close downstairs and I decided I’d wait and see him later. So there was time for someone else to come. Oh. I’ve got to go now.”

The call ended.

Annie replaced the phone. Laura didn’t lie particularly well. That didn’t matter. Her response told Annie all she needed to know. Laura hadn’t left the porch. She would be glad to claim that she’d left, if it would help Tommy. But Annie knew in her heart that Laura had been on the porch the entire morning. She had seen Darwyn. She had seen Tommy. She had not seen Elaine. She had seen Richard, but by that time Tommy had run to the cottage with the gun and the bloodied shirt, leaving his father dead in the study.

Annie poured the now lukewarm coffee in the sink. Her steps felt leaden as she moved across the coffee area. She and Max and Billy had tried hard to find the truth and now the truth seemed inescapable.

Laura had seen what she had seen.

She’d watched Darwyn, moving no doubt with his swagger and compelling maleness. Darwyn had tangled with the wrong person. He would never again be alive with lust in Jasmine Gardens. Somewhere on the island some woman knew him well. Now it didn’t matter that she’d been impossible to find. There had been no one else in the Jamison backyard on that deadly Tuesday morning but Darwyn at work with the leaf blower and Tommy coming later, angry with his father, and in front of the house a telephone lineman with a clear view of the Jamison front porch.

Annie shook her head in confusion. Billy had emphasized the careful planning he thought he saw in the crimes. Was Tommy able to mount that kind of effort? Pat Merridew’s death had been cunningly contrived. How would Tommy know she had pain pills? Would Pat serve Irish coffee to a teenager? Would a teenage boy think in terms of carefully washing and returning a crystal glass to a breakfront? Even if all of that were possible, would Tommy use his aunt’s golf club for a third murder and hide her gardening gloves in a tree where they were sure to be found? And why would Darwyn calmly sit on the top step of the gazebo and permit someone he suspected of murder to step behind him in the dark?

Fragments of thoughts jostled in her mind. Tuesday morning . . . Laura sitting on the upper verandah . . . the leaf blower . . .

Annie paused in front of the fireplace. To her left, a Cat Truth poster was a little askew. She stepped forward, her hand out to straighten it, but she stopped and stared at the Bombay Tom, black as pitch, looking as satisfied as a gambler with a royal flush, bright yellow eyes gleaming, and on the floor a broken fishbowl:
Don’t look at me. I was at the vet’s.