Dead By Midnight (26 page)

Sheer terror thinned Laura’s voice. The words knocked against one another, uneven, desperate, unmistakably true. “Will you come? Please don’t let me die.”

“I’m coming.” Annie started the car. Could she drive by the ferry line, honk, try to raise an alarm? “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” One hand on the wheel, the other holding the cell . . . Could she hold the cell between her cheek and shoulder? Annie tried and the phone slid away, bounced to the floor. She swiped frantically with her right hand, brought it up again. It was too small to hold in that fashion.

“It takes four minutes . . . to get to the cabin . . . from the harbor.” Laura was obviously repeating the words of her captor. “The gun’s pressed against my temple. Please, please . . .” She choked back a sob. Faintly, Annie heard her cry, “She’s on the line. I swear she is. Oh God, here, listen.”

The phone must have been held near the captor’s ear.

Annie spoke sharply. “What’s going on?” She turned the car, drove away from the harbor, saw the ferry in her rearview mirror until the road turned. “I’m coming. Don’t hurt her.” She didn’t dare honk. That would be heard on the phone. If she drove erratically, someone might notice, but if a siren sounded, the next thing she heard might be the crack of a gun. Useless in her pocket was the small video cam in the shape of a package of gum.

A cool voice instructed. “Keep talking, Annie. You’re very clever. I found the lipstick. I have it now. But I never dropped it and that means you brought it here. Clever. But stupid of you. Keep on driving. Speak up now!” The command was sharp, dangerous.

“I’m driving.”

“Continue to talk or Laura dies. Tell me how you knew.”

Annie talked. Richard Jamison’s decision to leave the island. Kirk Brewster in his next to last week as a partner. The gun-safe key taken by a member of the household. Pat Merridew’s fatal curiosity. Knowledge about Pat and pain pills. Sexy Darwyn Jack and luxurious Jasmine Gardens. The function of the leaf blower. What Darwyn saw. “How lucky for you that everyone focused on what Darwyn saw.” The deliberate use of Elaine’s five iron. “Tommy Jamison came home and found Glen and got blood on his shirt. That was another lucky break for you.”

“I’m always lucky.” The observation was almost amused.

Then, too soon—yes, the drive took only four minutes from the harbor—she was there. Annie turned onto the road that twisted around the secluded cabins of Jasmine Gardens. What could she do?

“When you get to the cabin, pull in behind Laura’s car.”

Annie curved around bamboo, the cell phone still clutched in her hand. There was the pittosporum hedge that screened the lanai of the cabin from view. A faded red Dodge was parked in the space. The car was empty. Laura, gun to her head, must be inside the cabin.

“Don’t even think about it.” The voice was steely. “I will count to five. If you are not inside by then, I’ll pull the trigger. Keep talking.”

A lawn-service truck rattled past. Annie heard the crunch of tires on oyster shells in the drive to the next cabin. If she screamed—

“One.” A pause. “Two.”

“I’m coming.” Annie opened the car door, hurried around a trellis to the front steps. She grabbed the innocent-appearing gum package from her pocket, held the cell phone in her other hand.

“Three.”

“I’m at the steps. I’m coming inside.”

Annie never doubted that a finger was firm on the trigger. The gun would sound at five. But in the living room of the small cabin, there would be two against one. A gun could not be aimed at both of them at the same time. The scene had to be set for Annie to be shot and suicide staged for Laura. That would take maneuvering, afford her and Laura time. Surely somehow, between the two of them, they could disarm the murderer.

Annie clicked on the video cam, held the little device in her left hand, dropped her cell phone in her pocket, and used her right hand to open the cabin’s front door.

Next door a leaf blower began its high scream. For an instant, her step checked. What bitter irony. A leaf blower would once again mask the sound of shots unless Annie and Laura managed to outwit a ruthless adversary.

Annie stepped inside.

Laura Jamison sagged, her tear-streaked face blanched, on the small sofa.

Cleo Jamison stood with her back to the bedroom door.

Annie turned her left hand slightly to afford the video cam a view of Cleo.

She held a black pistol in one hand. Her eyes burned as she stared at Annie. “What tipped you off?”

Annie felt cold and empty, knew that Death waited only a few feet away. “The gun in the gazebo. The police figured Elaine had taken the Colt and hidden it in the gazebo since she didn’t live in the house. Instead, you put the gun out there for Darwyn.”

“Darwyn?” Laura turned a shocked face toward Annie.

Annie glanced around the elegantly appointed living room, the beach-style furniture new and shining, the watercolors on the walls depicting a sailboat against a blazing sunset, pelicans flying in a V above gentle waves, a little girl digging in the sand.

Her eyes moved back to Cleo, who was no longer beautiful, despite her glossy dark hair and chiseled features. Her cheekbones jutted, full lips with bright red lipstick were drawn back in a grimace. She was a figure of fury, scarcely contained.

Annie picked her words carefully. “I suppose you started the affair with Darwyn for sheer pleasure. Your husband was old. Darwyn was young and sexy.”

Behind Cleo, the bedroom door eased open perhaps a half inch.

Annie felt her eyes flare wide. She immediately tried to contain her expression, keep her face unchanging. She spoke more loudly. “You met Darwyn here. I imagine you planned trysts for the afternoons. You could slip away from the office, ostensibly to run an errand, and no one would be the wiser. How long had you been sleeping with him? A few months? Long enough, I suppose, to pick up on the coldness inside him. But Glen might still be alive if Richard Jamison hadn’t come.”

Behind Cleo the door continued to move, slowly, slowly.

Laura sat frozen on the sofa. She, too, watched, but her gaze appeared to be focused on Cleo.

Annie kept her eyes locked with Cleo’s. “You wanted Richard, but Richard wasn’t willing to have an affair with his cousin’s wife. I’m sure you pretended to be stricken with nobility as well. But when Richard told you he was leaving the island, you made your plans. I don’t know what you promised Darwyn, but he agreed and so the process began. You placed the gun in the gazebo. Pat Merridew had no liking for any of you by that time. She’d been fired. She must have enjoyed finding out something she could hold over your head. She saw you hide the towel and then checked and discovered the contents. She invited you for coffee to have a visit, but you went to her house earlier in the day, took her leftover pain pills.”

Cleo’s eyes burned. “She was a fool. Her back door was unlocked. I found the pills in a kitchen cabinet. She’d told us over and over about the pain in her wrist.”

Annie spoke quietly. “You got the pills and ground them up and had them in a plastic bag in your purse. That evening at her house, did you ask for more honey for your Irish coffee? Something like that happened, I’m sure. When she went to the kitchen, you dropped the ground-up pills in her cup. When she began to get drowsy, you picked up the travel brochures, washed your own crystal mug, replaced it without fingerprints in the cabinet, discarded the prescription bottle in the trash, and left her to die. Now everything was on track for Glen’s murder.”

Annie was careful not to look beyond Cleo at the figure standing in the bedroom doorway.

“Glen had to die this week. You knew the information about the key man insurance would come out. That’s why you arranged to be in Savannah for a deposition. No suspicion would attach to you. You weren’t on the island. Moreover, Kirk was still a partner and he made a nice suspect for the police. And Glen had to die on Tuesday when Darwyn came to the house to work. Darwyn propped the leaf blower near the terrace. He left it running. He wore gardening gloves and he had the Colt. He opened the French door to the study and stepped inside.

“Glen must have stood up and walked toward him. Darwyn was a good shot. He had to be a good shot. Most shooters aim for the chest. There’s less chance of missing. But arrogant, confident Darwyn shot Glen twice in the throat. I imagine he liked blood. Glen fell to the floor. Darwyn dropped the gun, slipped back outside, picked up the leaf blower, went back to work. Who did Darwyn see? Only Tommy. When I talked to Darwyn, he hinted at what he might have seen. He knew Elaine was a suspect and he made that threatening visit to her cottage. I don’t know that he intended to ask for money. I think he was a bully and wanted to make her uncomfortable. Maybe he intended simply to widen the possibilities for the police, but it worked out very well for you. Everyone assumed Darwyn was killed because of what he had seen in the backyard. You asked him to meet you in the gazebo. You had already taken Elaine’s five iron and hidden the club there.”

A pulse throbbed in Cleo’s throat. She lifted the gun.

Annie flung herself to one side as the man in the bedroom doorway plunged forward, strong and determined. He grabbed Cleo’s wrist, twisted her arm.

The gun went off. The sound was huge in the small room.

Cleo sagged to her left. The gun clattered from her hand onto the floor.

Richard Jamison kicked the gun away.

Cleo moaned and rolled to one side, clutching at a welling flood of blood pumping from her upper leg. “Richard . . .” Her face worked. “Richard, I did it all for you.”

Chapter Sixteen

E
mma Clyde, the island’s famous septuagenarian mystery author, lifted a coffee mug. Its inscription read:
Desperate Measures
by Dennis Wheatley. Emma’s deep voice was admiring. “To Annie, brave and clever.”

Max’s blue eyes held remembered fear. “How about ‘To Annie, reckless and demen—’ ” He paused. His face softened. “To Annie, champion of the lost and vulnerable. But”—his voice was imploring—“please don’t ever do anything like that again. We were on the ferry and you didn’t come.”

“Not a good feeling.” Billy Cameron shook his head. Comfortable in a polo and Levi’s, his bulky frame made the rattan chair in Death on Demand’s coffee area appear small.

Henny Brawley topped a cappuccino with a maraschino cherry. “Annie, why didn’t you do something to alert everyone?”

Annie felt cold. “You didn’t hear Laura’s voice. I had to stay on the phone or Cleo would have shot her. Cleo knew how little time it took to drive to Jasmine Gardens. It took one hand to drive and one to talk on the phone. I had to keep talking. If I’d honked the horn or been late . . .”

She touched the red letters on her mug:
The Fatal Kiss Mystery
. “I kept thinking there would be two of us in the cabin, that I could do something . . .”

Billy shook his head. “Cleo was smart and ruthless. Fortunately for you and Laura, Richard Jamison was smart, too. He didn’t want to believe Cleo was involved, but he saw her slip out into the garden Thursday night. He told me there was a look on her face that kept him from following her. He thought she was grieving for Glen. The next day Darwyn’s body was found. She didn’t say a word about having been in the backyard. That worried him. He tried to keep an eye on her after that. Saturday afternoon, he saw her come out of her room. He said, ‘She had that look again.’ He slipped down after her. She went into the study. She came out in a minute. Laura was sitting on the lower verandah. Cleo said something to her and in a minute they left in Laura’s car. Richard was worried. He said, ‘Cleo was dangerous. I knew it. I didn’t know what she’d said to Laura, but I thought I’d better follow. I didn’t think I should use my car. She would recognize it.’ He ran across the street, tossed his billfold to a guy working in the yard, yelled he’d bring the truck back in a few minutes, and jumped into the pickup. He followed Laura’s car and said he could see Laura and he knew something awful was happening, Laura was crying into a cell phone. He thought about crashing into the back of the car, but he decided to keep following, find out what was going on. That’s when he called us, but he didn’t know where they were going. He kept after Laura’s car into Jasmine Gardens and pulled into the drive at the next cabin. He was smart. He took a leaf blower, turned it on right behind Cabin Nine, and used the sound to mask the noise he made breaking in one of the bedroom windows.”

Billy shook his head. “He did what was right, but now he blames himself for Cleo’s death. I told him that she was the one with the gun in her hand, she was the one who fired, and it was her bad luck that she blew away a femoral artery.”

“Bad luck? People make their own luck.” Emma’s crusty voice was didactic. “She took the wrong path. She married a man she didn’t love, indulged her passion with a younger man, was drawn to yet another man, intended to profit from her husband’s death, and killed sans merci.”

There was a respectful silence. Emma nodded in self-approval at her sage pronouncement. She cleared her throat. “It’s a shame I was so engaged in writing my new book.” She stared grandly about. “The title is
Sans Merci.
Otherwise, I would likely have pinpointed the truth at once—a younger wife, the sexy gardener, and a great deal of money.”

Laurel, elegant in a sky-blue chambray blouse and white skirt, smiled kindly at Emma, though her dark blue eyes danced with amusement. She said gently, “I’m proud of Annie that she”—there was the faintest emphasis on the pronoun—“saw the truth. No one but Annie realized that it didn’t matter what the gardener saw.” Laurel smoothed back a golden curl and lifted her mug in a salute. The inscription read:
Pattern of Murder
by Mignon Eberhart.

Annie came around the counter and slipped an arm around her mother-in-law’s shoulders. “I owe the answer to you.” She gave Laurel a swift hug, then crossed the floor and picked up the Cat Truth poster with the Bombay Tom:
Don’t look at me. I was at the vet’s.
“No one looked at Cleo because she was in Savannah. The murderer came from the backyard. I knew that had to be true because of Laura on the upper verandah and the lineman across the street. If Glen wasn’t shot by Tommy, the only other person in the backyard was Darwyn. Sexy, dangerous, wild Darwyn, who was meeting a woman in an exclusive cabin, the better to keep her identity hidden. Then I knew. But it was the poster that made everything clear. So, from now on, Cat Truth posters will be sold at Death on Demand.”

Laurel was overcome with delight. “Oh my dear, how gracious of you. I have more posters in my car. I’ll see about them right now.” She popped down from a stool at the coffee bar, but paused to look up at the paintings. “Everything does seem to come out so well for me. And I am pleased”—she darted quick glances at Emma and Henny, spoke rapidly to forestall them—“to reveal the titles of this month’s mystery paintings.” She pointed at them in order:
“Murder at Madingley Grange
by Caroline Graham,
Miss Julia Renews Her Vows
by Ann Ross,
A Romantic Way to Die
by Bill Crider,
Dead Air
by Mary Kennedy,
Elvis and the Dearly Departed
by Peggy Webb.”

Annie clapped in admiration and was joined, though reluctantly, by Henny and Emma. The two mystery experts bore a startling resemblance, in Annie’s view, to yet another Cat Truth poster. A Colorpoint Persian with a short, cobby body and fluffy black legs and tail stood next to a fine-boned, long-haired Brown-Spotted Tabby-and-White Siberian. The two cats stared in reproof at a delicate, elegant Seal Tortie Tabby Point with one paw firmly planted on a mouse:
Don’t think you’re on our level. Obviously, it’s beginner’s luck.

Was it Annie’s imagination or did the Seal Point have a decidedly pleased expression?

Laurel certainly did.