Death Comes Silently (11 page)

“Jeremiah’s innocent.” Henny was crisp and declarative.

Annie saw Max’s eyes narrow in speculation.

“Glad to hear that. Brought the usual.” Ben knew his customers. He plunked down ice waters, plus iced teas for Annie and Henny, a Bud Light for Max. “I hear he ran away. That boy never had a whole lot of sense, but there’s not a mean bone in his body. I told the lady
cop.” That was his term for Sgt. Hyla Harrison. “And I told her you”—he looked at Henny—“knew folks, good and bad, and you’d never picked a loser yet. I said if you hired him, he was all right. I have to say she listened to me real nice, said she’d tell Billy.”

Henny’s face softened. “Thank you, Ben. You’re a good friend.”

Ben cleared his throat, always quick to maintain his gruff exterior, which, as they all knew, covered a kind and generous heart. “Miss Jolene’s made chicken potpie today.”

Henny and Max ordered the special, but Annie’s heart belonged to the fried oyster sandwich. “And sweet potato fries.”

Max looked reproachful.

Annie defended her choice. “Someday they’ll find out cholesterol is good for you. Besides, everything’s genetic. Anyway, chicken potpie isn’t exactly dietary.”

“Annie.” Henny’s voice was strained. “You said you had reason to think someone else came to Better Tomorrow.”

Annie described the calls from Gretchen. As she described the index card in the pocket of Everett Hathaway’s tweed jacket and how Gretchen linked its contents to his fatal trip in a kayak, Henny’s shoulders straightened. There was heartfelt relief evident in her expression and in her posture. She’d listened to Jeremiah, taken him on faith. Now she had concrete reason to see that he might be, could be innocent.

“Don’t you see?” Annie was emphatic. “The card should have been lying with the pocket change and the knife.”

Max held up a hand. “Not so fast. We can worry about what happened to that card in a minute. Let’s clarify what you are claiming. First, that Everett Hathaway was murdered.” He ticked off the points. “Second, the card posed a threat to his murderer. Third, the card was found in a tweed jacket Hathaway wore the day he died,
according to what Gretchen told Annie. Fourth, the message Gretchen left at the Hathaway house was read by the murderer. Fifth, the murderer came to Better Tomorrow, took the card, decided Gretchen would never be discreet, and used Jeremiah’s axe to kill her.”

“Exactly.” Annie met him stare for stare.

“Where”—his tone was mild—“was Jeremiah while all of this took place?”

“He’d gone—” Henny broke off.

Annie and Max looked at her.

Henny said smoothly, “I was thinking out loud. I imagine he’d gone to the back shed. That’s where he did furniture repairs. Of course, I can’t speak for his actions Monday, but often if he’d spent the morning chopping or lifting boxes of cans, he’d do repairs in the afternoon.”

Annie visualized the shed. The small sheet metal structure stood behind some pines to the north of the house rather than in the rear. Better Tomorrow faced east. The oyster shell parking lot was between the house and the shed. “Cars make a pretty big racket on the shells. If Jeremiah heard a car sometime between two fifteen and three that would be interesting.”

“If there wasn’t a car”—Henny spoke carefully—“it doesn’t mean no one came.”

Annie wondered if Jeremiah had told Henny in a choking voice of despair that no one had come, he hadn’t heard a car, there had been only him and no one would believe him, not with his axe used as the weapon.

Henny’s entire demeanor was transformed, charged with hope. “What you’ve told me changes everything. The Hathaways live fairly close. There’s a path through the woods and a bike trail.” She reached for her purse, retrieved a pen and a pad, quickly sketched, pushed the
pad to the middle of the table, visible to both Annie and Max. “Better Tomorrow’s on the northwest side of the island. So is the Hathaway house. I was working at Better Tomorrow when the call came for us to pick up the boxes of Everett’s clothing. I looked up the address for Jeremiah.”

Ben brought their plates and a bucket of hot biscuits.

Annie took a bite of her fried oyster sandwich, the onion bun heavy with Thousand Island dressing. Mmmm, succulent. She studied Henny’s rough map of the lee side of the island. The main harbor with the ferry dock and downtown was toward the northwest end of the island. A big X marked a spot several inlets north of the harbor. Not far inland she’d drawn a square box that was labeled BT.

Annie touched the X.

“That’s the Hathaway house.” Henny sounded satisfied. She held a steaming spoonful of chicken potpie. “You can see how close it is to Better Tomorrow. It’s not more than a mile at the most, and a bike would only take minutes. Oh, Annie, this should be enough to show Billy that Jeremiah could be innocent.”

Annie turned her hands palms up. “I told him, but he thinks the evidence against Jeremiah is overwhelming.”

Max looked bemused, his dark blue eyes skeptical. “Ladies, I hesitate to offer a discouraging word, but this entire wobbly structure is based on the assumption that Everett Hathaway was murdered. Give me one good reason why that should be true.” He made an appreciative sound as he took a bite of chicken pie.

Annie spoke slowly. “I think he was murdered because there are too many peculiar aspects to his death. Why was he out in a kayak on a cold windy December night? That was always odd. He wasn’t a seasoned kayaker. He hadn’t taken the boat out in months. Why that night? And why at night? Where was he going? What did he plan to
do? Did he take the kayak because it made no noise, could slip up unseen and unheard? Until somebody can explain what he was doing and where he was going, the fact that he died—presumably in an accident—stinks! Especially since Gretchen found a card linked to that night.” For emphasis, she jabbed a sweet potato fry into a side of Thousand Island. Ben knew what she liked.

Henny frowned. “Where was he found?”

Annie reached for her purse, pulled out several folded sheets of paper. She opened one, scanned the sheet, then handed it to Henny. As Henny read the news story about the discovery of Hathaway’s body, Annie checked the island directory on her iPhone. “He was found by Don Thornwall, who lives at one forty-six Herring Gull Road. And that’s”—Annie placed her finger on Henny’s rough map—“in a cove that’s around a headland from the Hathaway place.”

Max gazed at the map, his expression unimpressed. “Okay, he took the kayak and went around the headland. So?”

“Why?” Annie’s tone was sweet.

Max turned up his hands. “Who’s to say? Maybe he has a girlfriend and he snuck out of the house. Maybe he had a headache and thought the cold night air would help. Maybe he’d eaten too much over the holidays and decided to start an exercise program. Maybe he got a call on his cell and his bookie wanted to meet him on the sly.”

“And,” Annie asked sweetly, “how likely are any of those possibilities?”

“How likely is murder?” Max countered.

“He’s dead. And so is Gretchen.” Annie’s tone indicated she felt she’d trumped Max.

“Don’t squabble.” Henny’s tone was impatient. “The point is that Gretchen’s messages to Annie prove that there is a connection
between Gretchen and the Hathaway house shortly before she was murdered. She indicated the card gave a reason for Everett taking the kayak. Annie, you have to be right. Everett Hathaway was murdered. Otherwise the card wouldn’t have mattered. Now all we have to do is find out who killed him and Jeremiah will be safe.”

Henny and Annie exchanged confident glances.

Max scraped crust from the side of the small baking dish. “I don’t mean to quibble, but the card is gone—”

Annie broke in. “That’s the point. That proves everything I’ve been saying.”

Max ignored the interruption. “—which may mean nothing. Billy Cameron thinks Gretchen put the note in her purse and Jeremiah took her purse.”

Henny spoke hotly. “The purse was gone when—” She broke off abruptly.

Max was swift. “When Jeremiah found her?”

Annie agonized for Henny. Only fatigue would make Henny gaffe-prone. Swiftly, Annie plunged in. “I suppose Jeremiah called you last night, told you he was innocent and how he found Gretchen with his axe right there. When he saw that her purse was gone—I suppose she must have had it in the sorting room while she was working back there and he saw it there earlier—and he was afraid he’d be accused.” She was aware that Max was watching with one thick blond brow raised. “I’m sure he didn’t tell you where he was, so even if you’d called the police, there wasn’t anything to give a hint to his location.”

Henny said carefully. “I couldn’t report his location.”

Annie could fill in the rest of the sentence…
because I know he’s innocent.

Henny’s face held sadness and fear. “He was terribly upset. He swore to me on his mother’s grave that he was innocent, that he’d been working in the back shed. He finished gluing a broken leg on a coffee table about twenty to three. He went into the house and the first thing he saw was blood in the hall outside the sorting room. He thought Gretchen must be hurt and he hurried to the doorway and saw her lying there, but most of all, he saw the axe next to her. He recognized the axe. He’d put a notch on the handle about an inch from the top. He looked around the room and that’s when he realized her purse was gone. He said he knew they’d suspect him. And he said the awful thing was, he hadn’t heard a car or truck or anything. He said he turned and ran and got on his bike and rode away as fast as he could.” She brushed back a length of silvered dark hair. “He told me they’d hurt him when he was in prison and he’d kill himself before he’d go back, that he’d rather die than be in jail.” She looked at them gravely. “He meant what he said. If I told the police, he would kill himself. I promised him I’d do my best to find out what happened. He promised me he would hide and stay quiet. He said he would die if he saw the police coming for him. He had— He told me he had a knife.” She reached out, gripped Annie’s arm. “I didn’t see any way forward until you called. Now I do.”

Max studied Henny. “You believe Jeremiah.”

“I believe him.” She spoke quietly but with conviction.

“If he’s innocent, someone else came to Better Tomorrow between two fifteen and Annie’s arrival, killed Gretchen, and took the index card.” Max picked up Henny’s map. “Damned if there isn’t a crazy kind of logic about it.”

Annie was triumphant. “Of course there is.”

Max looked from one to the other. “Finding this elusive, invisible
murderer isn’t going to be easy.” He picked up his beer, drank it with an air of abstraction.

Annie hoped he was considering ways to investigate, not analyzing Henny’s carefully chosen words. She spoke quickly. “I have a suspect list. The murderer had to have seen the message Gretchen left with the housekeeper, so we know the murderer came from the Hathaway house.”

Max raised a cautionary hand. “Or someone saw the message and told someone else.”

Annie nodded. “One way or another, there’s a connection to the people in the house that day.”

Henny’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Let’s think about what Gretchen found in Everett’s pocket. Gretchen’s comments suggest the card explained why Everett went out in the kayak. It’s reasonable to assume that the card held instructions telling him to take a kayak at a specific time after dark to the bay where he was found. Why a kayak?” She looked inquiringly at Annie and Max.

Max frowned. “No one would hear him coming.”

Henny nodded approval. “He was on his way somewhere that he didn’t want to be seen.”

Annie concentrated. “The card was bait. Maybe the message was true or maybe not, but the whole point was to get him out in that bay after dark in a kayak. The person who wrote the card planned to intercept him, capsize the kayak, keep it out of his reach.”

“So”—Henny was decisive—“we have to find out who wrote on the card.”

“The place to start is at the Hathaway house.” Annie picked up a printout of the obituary. “Of the home are Everett’s widow, Nicole, his nephew, Edward M. Hathaway III, and his niece, Leslie Griffin.”

Henny looked thoughtful. “We need to find out who Everett saw the day he died. He could have been given the card at his office as well as at home.”

Annie had a nebulous sense of uneasiness. They were missing something. Yes, the card lured Everett out in a kayak. Yet why was there a card at all? Abruptly, she understood. “He didn’t know!”

Max frowned. “Who didn’t know what?”

Henny, too, appeared bewildered.

“Everett.” Annie was impatient. Didn’t they see what was obvious? “Everett received information that prompted him to take out the kayak. But why was the information written on an index card?”

Again she looked at two uncomprehending faces.

“The murderer wanted Everett out on the water at a particular time of night in a kayak. How could that be achieved?” Annie was impatient as they continued to look blank. “The murderer knew some fact, had some information that was guaranteed to lure Everett out into the night. Gretchen said it was a ‘scandal.’ Somebody put the slip in his bedroom or left it on his desk or placed it in the front seat of his car. But the message was
anonymous
. Otherwise Everett would have immediately collared the writer, asked for an explanation. He didn’t know!”