Murder Walks the Plank (26 page)

Mavis broke in on his thoughts. “Max? I've got another call….”

“Sure. Listen, buzz Billy I'm on my way out there. I talked to Meg Heath's son and I've got important information and a hell of a motive for the murders of Tony Sherman and Meg Heath.” He talked fast.
“Wayne Reed told Billy the truth as far as it went, but it didn't go nearly far enough. Reed said Meg Heath's conversation Friday evening had to do with the disposition of her estate, but Reed knew a lot more than he told Billy. And yeah, he can claim privilege. But the upshot is that Meg was about to screw her heirs big time. I'll explain when I see Billy. Thanks, Mavis.”

Max drove slowly up the street. Wayne Reed had held his cards close to his vest. If Jason had a stronger character, no one might ever have realized there was a motive as big as a Mack truck. And if no one ever knew, Meg's death most likely would have been officially adjudged suicide.

Max braked for the stop sign, clicked on the right turn signal. Billy was going to be irritated by Reed's lack of communication. Max frowned. Did the killer know that Reed had it in his power to reveal a sterling silver motive for murder?

Max felt suddenly cold. Of course the murderer knew. Lord, had Reed given any thought to the kind of danger he might be in? Max scrambled in his memory for Reed's address. He'd called his office to set up the tennis game. Yeah. Sure. That business complex on Sandspur Lane…

Max wrenched the wheel, turned left. Chafing at the slow progress of an old Ford in front of him, he drove with one hand, grabbed his cell phone with the other, punched Annie's code. The Ford turned off. Max picked up speed. He drove as fast as he could and talked even faster. “Annie, I got the lowdown from Jason….”

 

Rachel dumped her backpack into the basket of her bike, watched Cole Crandall out of the corner of her
eye. Funny, she could tell he was hunkering down, trying to stay out of sight, bending over to adjust one of his brake pads. Oh, hey, here came Stuart Reed, swaggering along. He was too cool to wear his backpack. He dangled it so that the straps dragged on the ground. He unlocked his bike, a superexpensive Italian racing bike, then paused to pull a ringing cell phone out of his pack. Cell phones were going off all over the place. Everybody's mom and dad knew what time their kids got out of school. Sometimes guys gave girls a call from the locker room as they got ready for football practice. Judy Perry stood right in the middle of the sidewalk, so everybody had to walk around her and nobody could miss her squeals of laughter and piercing cries of “Timmy, I can't believe you said that!” Everybody knew Tim Larson, captain of the Cougars.

“Hey, Rachel,” Gina Schwartz poked her head out of a green Beetle. “Meet us at Crescent Beach. At the old rowboat.” A wooden bateau half buried in the sand was a familiar island landmark. “The usual suspects.” Gina loved
Casablanca
.

“I'll come if I can. I've got some stuff to do at home first.” Rachel rolled her bike down the path. She passed Stuart Reed and heard him grumble, “I was going to go over to Cole's house. Yeah, he's going home…. Okay, okay, I'll take care of it.”

Stuart was frowning as he strode past her. He saw Cole despite Cole's best effort to disappear behind the trunk of a palmetto. Stuart called out, “Hey, Cole, I got to take the ferry. There's some package my dad needs for me to pick up on the dock. I'll come over to your house later.”

Cole let out a breath. He took a moment, then said uncomfortably, “Give me a call when you get back. But I got some stuff to do this afternoon.”

It seemed obvious to Rachel that Cole was in no big hurry to see Stuart anytime soon. But if there was any nuance to glean, it rolled right past Stuart. Guys. They were so dumb. Any girl would have picked up on Cole's relief. So maybe Cole was brighter than she'd thought if he was avoiding Stuart. Not that Cole looked too excited about anything right now. His face still had that achy look. Maybe he was just unhappy because he was going home to an empty house. If he wasn't mad at his mom, he could go where she worked, maybe give her a hand with something. Sometimes Rachel went to the store and unpacked books for Annie. Of course, she had plenty of friends and sometimes they came over to her house or she went to theirs. She always let Annie know where she would be. She snagged her cell out of her backpack, dropped it in the pocket of her slacks. She liked calling and talking to Annie after school. She hesitated. She'd give her a ring when she made up her mind where she was going.

Cole swung onto his bike, wove his way around the end of the parking lot to a bike path. Rachel wished she didn't feel an almost physical pain at the sight of his hunched shoulders. Darn it, he'd been rude to Pudge. Why should she care if he was miserable?

She climbed onto her bike. Their route home took both of them on the same path for about a quarter mile. When Cole kept straight on, she made a sharp left, plunging into the forest for a two-mile ride on a bike trail through a green tunnel. Today she slowed as she neared the turnoff. Cole continued straight ahead. His bike curved out of sight around a bank of azaleas.

Rachel set her lips in a determined line and pedaled after him.

M
AX STRODE INTO
a luxurious anteroom, gray walls the color of old silver, gleaming cherrywood desk, crimson Persian rug, rose velvet drapes accented by mauve swags. No expense had been spared, but it might have been a lawyer's reception area in Atlanta or Tuscaloosa or Dallas. The very luxuriousness of the surroundings reassured him. He felt foolish. He'd rushed to warn Reed he might be in danger. The idea of danger seemed absurd here.

The secretary, facing her word processor, turned toward the door with a professionally pleasant expression that changed into a welcoming grin. “Hi, Max. How's everything?”

Max began to relax. “Hi, Nellie. I'm fine, thanks. I didn't know you worked here. I thought you were at Island Realty.”

Nellie fluttered crimson-tipped nails. “I did the paralegal training in Beaufort and started working for Mr. Reed in May. Did Barb tell you we're going to Colorado over Labor Day?”

“Oh yeah. She's excited.” Nellie Bassett and his secretary were fast friends. They often went antique hunting in Savannah and never missed Friday night
bingo. Nellie was as thin as Barb was curvaceous, as dark as Barb was blond, as soft-voiced as Barb was loud. They were good foils for each other. “She said she's pretty sure it's open season on park rangers.” His tone was dry.

Nellie clapped her hands together and bracelets jangled. “That's our Barb.”

Max had a little difficulty picturing bouffant Barb with her penchant for hot pink in the Colorado mountains, but hey, a park ranger? Of course.

Max stopped in front of Nellie's desk. His smile slid away as he looked past her at closed double doors. Cherrywood, also, with oversize ornate bronze knobs. “Nellie”—Max nodded toward the private office—“I need to talk to Wayne.” Reed had to be warned that a merciless killer might want to be certain Reed never told what he knew.

Bracelets tinkled as she reached for a pen. “I'll take a message, Max. He's in conference.”

Despite his law degree, Max had never practiced law, but he knew the lingo.
In conference
covered everything from intense work to afternoon delight to postprandial naps. “This can't wait. Tell him I'm here about Meg Heath's murder.” Max was determined to see the lawyer. “Tell him his clients are under suspicion.” That should get Reed's attention.

Her eyes widened. “Murder? Mr. Reed said it was an accident.”

Max pointed at the intercom. “Give him a buzz, Nellie, please.” Max rehearsed his message: Two people were dead, probably by the same hand, and another murder had been attempted. Reed could rest on privilege if he wished, but he would be well advised…Abruptly Max realized that Reed's secretary had made
no move to speak to the lawyer. Max jerked his gaze from the doors to the desk.

Nellie's thin face puckered with worry. “I can't buzz him. Mr. Reed's a bear about not being bothered when he says he's in conference. He most specifically told me”—her voice was anxious—“that he wasn't to be disturbed under any circumstances this afternoon.”

Max was not prone to presentiments. In fact, he wouldn't have known a presentiment if he fell over it except for explication by Annie in regard to the conventions of the gothic novel. Ill-defined apprehension, according to Annie, was an art form when practiced by Mary Roberts Rinehart, one of America's earliest crime novelists and at one time the most highly paid author in the country. Annie would have insisted that the sudden uneasiness in his intestines was exactly what a beleaguered heroine might experience when creeping down the cellar steps to explore that loud bang. Max dismissed the feeling. He was simply irritated, and he had no intention of being thwarted by Wayne Reed.

“I understand. I'll take care of it.” He strode around her desk.

Nellie's chair squeaked as she pushed it back, clattered to her feet, calling out, “Max, wait, no. He'll be furious!”

Max was already banging at the huge double doors. “Wayne, Max Darling here.” His hand dropped to the knob, tried to turn it. He jolted to a stop. The knob was unyielding, the door immovable.

Frowning, he swung toward Nellie, who stretched out a hand in appeal. One part of his mind registered that Reed certainly had his secretary cowed, but that didn't matter now. “Do you have a key?”

She blinked in surprise. “It's locked?”

Max tried the knobs, rattling them hard, then banged again with both fists. “Hey, Wayne, open up.” Finally he stepped back, glared at the door. If Reed was there, surely he would have responded, quite likely in a tearing rage if Nellie's reaction was any barometer. If he wasn't there…Once again uneasiness swept Max. Okay, okay. If he wasn't there, he was out and about. No big deal. There had to be another exit. He'd simply not bothered to tell his secretary he was leaving.

But Max moved fast, propelled by that insidious, indefinable sense of wrongness. He hurried to the office door, flung it open, stepped into the hall. Yes, there was another door halfway down the hall. Max strode down the hall, tried the knob. Locked. How about…He reached the end of the hall and the back exit. He pushed outside into the afternoon heat. Stairs led down to a dusty alleyway. Max thudded down the steps, moved to a back window of the lawyer's office. He hesitated for only a moment, then pushed at the window. To his surprise, it moved up easily. He stood very still, listening to the matter-of-fact sound of Wayne's voice: “…and in the first instance, the court has made it clear that…”

 

The bike path crossed Painted Lady Lane. Rachel stopped in the shade of a huge magnolia, looked to her right. There was no sign of Cole. Painted Lady Lane curved in a lazy S to meander to a dusty dead end, a desolate, down-at-heel street with a modest past and little future. Rachel remembered her disdain the day she'd ridden her bike to see the place where That Woman lived. She couldn't believe Pudge would con
sider living on an ugly street like Painted Lady instead of staying in Annie's nifty tree house where owls and cardinals and ruby-throated hummingbirds hung out, so close you could see the shine of their feathers. Her judgment had been swift and merciless. That's why Sylvia was chasing Pudge. She wanted to live in a nicer house.

Rachel bit her lip. Her hands tightened on her handlebar grips. She could go home, change into her swimsuit, bike to the beach. Bobby Higgins was always funny. His freckled face would be splotched with zinc oxide, he'd have his baseball cap on backward with only an occasional wiry red curl escaping, his trunks would sag so far down they'd half cover his knobby knees, and somehow, without saying a word, eyes wild, arms akimbo, knees turned inward, he'd have them all rolling in the sand they'd be laughing so hard. Sun, sand, sea. Fun.

She wanted to turn her bike and fly away up the path, leave this shabby street, never see these trashy houses or Cole Crandall again. He would sneer at her. She knew he would….

Abruptly she remembered the look on his face, the way he'd hunched his shoulders. Slowly she turned her front wheel a little to the right.

He'd laugh at her.

The idea of ridicule froze her in place. Then, not allowing herself to think, she grabbed her cell phone from her backpack. She punched the code for Annie's cell. She was disappointed when voice mail picked up. But it didn't matter. She'd leave a message. Once she committed herself, once she told Annie what she was going to do, well, she'd have to do it. She took a deep
breath. “Annie…” The words spilled out fast before she could change her mind.

 

In the Heath drive, Annie cast a look back at the fairy-tale house shining in the sun, the expanse of glass bright as sunlit diamonds and just about as pricey. Emma had said she liked money as a motive. It looked as if Emma was going to be right, as usual. Or if not precisely on point, too close to quibble. Jenna Carmody and Jason Brown must have been shocked and appalled and furiously resentful when Meg informed them that there would be no great wealth for them, that, in fact, Meg intended to oversee the return of all Heath's estate to his estranged son, Peter. Jenna saw her mother's decision once again as an abandonment of her and Jason. Had Jason been as hurt as Jenna by Meg's turning away from them to a man who'd discarded her so many years ago? Or for Jason was the prospect of losing his comfortable status the primary offense? Claudette's anger might be twice as strong. She not only foresaw losing money that she had expected to receive and to which she surely felt entitled, but perhaps even worse, she saw Meg's willingness to jettison Duff's estate as the ultimate rejection of the man Claudette had loved for so long.

The late afternoon heat pushed against Annie as she hurried toward the parking lot. Earlier she'd walked to the house, uncertain whether her quarry was Jenna, Jason, or Claudette. She felt no nearer the solution. But of them all, perhaps Claudette was the strongest, most determined personality.

Annie reached the car, quailed at the thought of sitting on the equator-hot leather seat. She started the motor, turned on the air-conditioning, and escaped to
the shade of the live oak to let the interior cool. Her thoughts tumbled: Jenna, Jason, or Claudette, Claudette, Jason, or Jenna. One of them, it had to be one of them.

She pulled out her cell phone, turned it on, began her jig to avoid the no-see-ums. Three beeps signaled messages. She ignored the beeps. Should she call Billy first or Max or Emma? Emma's grid of the excursion boat was looming large in Annie's mind. If anyone had spotted Jason, Jenna, or Claudette near the deck where Pamela went overboard, that would be important now, very important. Before she could make up her mind, the phone rang. A punch. “Hello?”

“Annie.” Max's cell crackled, usually a signal he was in his car, something about radio waves on the island as she imperfectly understood it. “I talked to Jason and found out—”

She broke in. “I know. Meg was going to give the money away.” Annie had a quick vision of Meg Heath, gay, imperious, hewing to her own vision of what was right, quite willing to let the devil take the hindmost. Annie could almost hear Meg's throaty laughter. But this time when Meg followed her own desires, this time had the price been steeper than she had ever imagined? Meg had lived her life blithely impervious to the anger or disagreement she engendered. But this time everybody was furious. And someone was mad enough to kill.

“Right. All of them kept their mouths shut about Meg's plans, as per instructions from Wayne Reed. Jason said Reed warned them that Billy would look more closely at Meg's death with that kind of motive on the table. Reed had every right to keep quiet about it, but I wondered if it had occurred to him that somebody might
make sure he didn't tell the police. I went to his office. He'd told his secretary not to put any calls through. I banged on his door. No answer. I yelled.”

Annie recognized the determination in his voice. When easygoing Max made up his mind, there was no stopping him.

“So I went around to the back.”

Annie frowned, trying to visualize where Max was.

“Reed's suite is in the Black Skimmer office park. An alley runs behind the complex. I went outside and pushed up a back window in Reed's office. I heard him dictating a brief. I yelled again. He kept right on talking. No pause. I pushed aside the drapes and swung over the sill. I still heard him. But he wasn't in the office. Nobody was. His Dictaphone was on the desk and it was running.”

Annie moved toward the car, slipped into the cooling front seat. “I don't get it.”

“I don't either. Maybe he was listening to a tape, wanted to be sure of some citations, got a call on his cell, and left in a hurry. Or maybe”—now his voice was worried—“he heard me bang on his door and decided he better check with Jenna or Jason before he talked to me. I hope not.” Max once again felt that nudge of uneasiness. But most likely Reed was fine.

“Anyway, Billy needs to know about all this. Maybe he can have Pirelli look for Reed. Billy's out on the fourth hole…”

The connection faded.

Annie frowned. “Fourth hole?” Outrage lifted her voice. “How can he be playing golf?”

“…found Sherman's car sunk in the lagoon. If his luggage is in the trunk, Billy will see that the murder doesn't figure to be the result of a holdup or carjack
ing. That will turn the investigation back to Meg Heath. Why don't you meet me at the fourth hole?” The connection ended.

Annie clicked End, saw the notice of three messages. She backed out of her parking spot and clicked the first message.

 

Rachel rode fast. She wanted to get to the Crandall house, talk to Cole, and leave. She was already regretting her message to Annie. If she hadn't promised that she would try to persuade Cole to come over with his mom Friday night, she would turn around right this minute and go faster than Lance Armstrong. Why had she been so stupid?

The memory of Cole's face again popped into her mind. She couldn't banish it. Okay, that's why she was going. She didn't want to ask him over with his mom. She didn't want to be around old witch-faced Sylvia. She wanted to hold on to Pudge and have everything be the way it used to be, Pudge and Annie and Max all together with her, the four of them laughing and having fun. But Annie's invitation to Cole gave her a reason to go up to his front door and ring the bell, and when he came to the door, she would see his face and know if he needed help. That's why she had to go. She had this bad feeling that Cole was in trouble and she was the only one who knew. Annie had helped her when things were so scary in her life that she'd not known what to do or who to trust.

If she was wrong, and Cole just had a headache or was in a bad mood, if he came to the door and treated her like dirt, well, she'd tell him what she thought about him and his mother. She could be snotty, too. Rachel hunched over the handlebars, legs pumping. Sweat streaked her
back, puddled into her socks. Dust puffed under her wheels. What a crummy street to live on. She came around a curve. There was that creepy abandoned old farmhouse, the roof sagging, the windows broken out. Probably bats nested in the attic. On this far loop of Painted Lady Lane, the only structures were the wrecked farmhouse and, a hundred yards farther on, all by itself at the edge of overgrown woods, the blue rental house where Cole lived. Paint hung in tattered shreds from the faded walls. A front shutter dangled on one hinge. The second tread was missing from the front steps. Part of the latticework that screened the space beneath the house had fallen in, leaving a dark gaping hole. Lots of lizards and spiders under there. Cole's bike lay on its side not far from the steps.