The Christie Caper (4 page)

She switched off the lights, leaving the bookstore in dimness, and stepped into the storeroom. She paused to pet Agatha, ignoring the low growl, and heard the muffled jangle of the bell at the front door. Annie turned, ready to greet Ingrid.

Light footsteps sounded in the central aisle. A faint scent of lilac eddied in the air.

Annie’s eyes narrowed as she peered out of the storeroom. Damn. She should have known.

Enough light speared in from the high windows on the north to illuminate a puzzling pantomime—to anyone other than Annie.

A notably lovely woman, delicately golden hair that glistened
like moonlight, blue eyes as dark and vivid as a deep northern sea, patrician features that would be as enchanting at eighty as at eighteen, crouched—dammit, she even crouched gracefully despite her fashionably long skirt—at the center table of the Christie exhibit.

For a long moment, the golden head tilted at a listening angle, then, with a nod of satisfaction, an elegantly beringed hand (sapphires predominating) opened a canvas carryall.

Annie cleared her throat.

The intruder’s slim shoulders stiffened.

Annie flicked the switches and light flooded Death on Demand, illuminating every corner, the coffee bar with mugs bearing the names of famous mysteries in bright red script, the cheerful enclave for readers that offered inviting cane chairs, Whitmani ferns sprouting from raffia baskets, and onyx-based brass floor lamps, the softly gleaming gum bookcases lined diagonally to the central corridor.

Without turning, the intruder addressed her in an unforgettable, husky, lilting voice. “Dear Annie, how
like
you to be lurking.” Serenely, she bent back to her carryall and busily lifted out an assortment of objects. “I didn’t want to be any trouble. Just a
little
thought of mine. A soupçon of
history
adds so much to every aspect of our lives.”

Annie stalked across the floor, valiantly repressing a sense of imminent defeat. Laurel was
not
going to prevail. Not this time. She managed to keep her voice pleasant when she stood beside her mother-in-law. “Laurel, I know you mean well….” As she spoke, Annie felt she’d fulfilled her obligation for Christian charity for at least a month. “But this exhibition is in honor of Agatha Christie.” She continued forcefully,
“Agatha Christie only.”

Laurel looked up reproachfully. Her primrose-blue eyes brimmed with disbelief, dismay, and acute puzzlement.

Since they’d already fought this battle a dozen different ways on a dozen different days, Annie felt a strong urge to say, “Aw, come off it, Laurel.” That she didn’t was an indication, she felt, of restraint akin to saintliness.

“After all,” Annie continued grimly, ignoring the seductive eyes, “we are celebrating the centennial of the birth of the greatest mystery writer of all time. More than one billion of her books have been published. One
billion,
Laurel.”

Laurel smiled benignly. “Of course.” An airy wave of her hand dismissed the figure. “But Annie, we cannot,” she said gently, “have the chicken without the egg. Now, can we?” She bent back to her carryall and reverently lifted out a facsimile of a 3½-by-6½-inch manuscript page covered with tiny, cramped script. She held it out as a priestess might proffer an icon. “Where would Agatha Christie be without Edgar? Who wrote the very first detective story in the history of the world?”

Annie muttered, “How about Vidocq? For that matter, what about Voltaire’s Zadig?”

But Laurel continued to pull items from the carryall, carefully placing them in a semicircle on the center table. In addition to the reproduction of the first manuscript page of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the new items included a shiny golden beetle (“The Gold Bug”), a stack of letters (“The Purloined Letter”) and (Annie’s interest rose. Where on earth had Laurel obtained them?) the November and December 1842 and February 1843 issues of
Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion,
which had carried “The Mystery of Marie Roget” in three installments.

Finally, with a satisfied murmur, Laurel placed in front of the intrusive objects a sign lovingly executed in calligraphy (Annie didn’t even want to know when her mother-in-law had mastered this art):

“Oh, no,” Annie moaned.

Laurel gazed at her daughter-in-law fondly. “My sweet, it is only fitting. As our dear Arthur Conan Doyle said, ‘Edgar Allan Poe was the father of the detective tale.’”

“So he did,” Annie agreed. “Doyle also went on to say, ‘I fail to see how any of his followers can find any fresh ground which they can confidently call their own.’ And that’s what Christie did. No one has
ever
devised plots as ingenious as hers. Besides, Poe was an absolutely, dreadfully boring
writer. As T. S. Eliot observed so aptly, ‘That Poe had a powerful intellect is undeniable; but it seems to me the intellect of a highly gifted young person before puberty.’”

Laurel gasped and clasped a hand to her bosom in shock. Her magnolia-soft skin paled.

Annie stepped briskly toward the table.

Dark blue eyes gleaming with unyielding determination, Laurel gracefully interposed herself between Annie and the altered exhibit.

Annie glowered. She couldn’t manhandle her mother-in-law. Perhaps she could subtly deflect Laurel.

Annie managed a stiff smile.

“Uh, Laurel, don’t you suppose Howard would take great pleasure in adding your Poe materials to his collections?”

Laurel’s latest romantic conquest, a multimillionaire shipowner on the island, Howard Cahill, had an enormously varied art gallery in his mansion.

Laurel nodded appreciatively at the change in tactics and shifted her feet so that she was directly in front of the table.

“Annie, how sweet of you to think of Howard. Actually, he and I are working together to build an important collection on Poe. Howard’s attending an auction in New York this very week, and Annie,” Laurel’s husky voice eased into a throaty whisper, “I wouldn’t tell a soul other than you, but there’s a rumor …” She finished her sentence in a whisper, close to Annie’s ear.

The scent of lilac swept Annie, and Laurel’s breath tickled her ear.

“Oh, Laurel,” Annie said gently, “there’s always a rumor that someone’s found a copy of ‘Tamer—’”

“Shhh,” Laurel warned, looking about as if competing Poe collectors might be present in the shadows of the silent bookstore.

Annie fought down an urge to bellow, “‘Tamerlane and Other Poems,’” at the top of her lungs. Instead, she took a deep breath, ignored Laurel’s encouraging smile, and tried a different tack.

“Don’t you think it would be better, Laurel, more fitting, if we planned a symposium on Poe? For
next
year? You can be in charge—”

A thunderous knocking rattled the front door of Death on Demand.

Some summonses unmistakably herald disaster.

Nobody knocks like that merely for admittance.

Annie catapulted toward the door. Oh, God, had the Palmetto House burned down? Was the banquet speaker marooned in Morocco? Were the airlines on strike, stranding travelers across the country?

Annie yanked open the door.

Emma Clyde, the creator of that septuagenarian sleuth Marigold Rembrandt and the nearest equivalent to an American version of Agatha Christie, glared at Annie as if she were a cross between a child abuser and a drug pusher, and growled icily, “What the hell are you up to, Annie Laurance Darling? What kind of little game are you playing?”

The prize author of Broward’s Rock Island was imposing even when exuding charm. Emma was emphatically not dealing in charm this afternoon. Her squarish face looked as if it had been hewn out of granite by a broad ax. Bulky and broad-shouldered, she was given to wearing sweeping, bright-colored caftans, summer and winter. Today’s orange-and-pink vertical-striped caftan was accented by improbably varicolored hair (pink, green, and orange) bristling in spikes. Anyone else would have looked like a garden party tent topped by peacock feathers, but Annie didn’t find Emma the least bit absurd. She found her scary. Annie knew that Emma had been suspected of shoving her nonswimmer, much younger, unfaithful second husband off the stern of
Marigold’s Pleasure,
her luxury yacht, several years before. The incident was carried on the police blotter as an accident. Deep in her heart, however, Annie felt certain that the mistress of fictional murder was just as adept at the real thing.

Annie eyed the bigger woman warily. “What’s wrong, Emma?”

“As I understand it, as you represented it to me,” there was no mistaking the accusation in Emma’s raspy voice, “The Christie Caper is intended to be a gathering of traditional authors, an opportunity to honor people who write and enjoy the Classic Mystery.”

Annie’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s what it
is!
For heaven’s
sake, Emma, what’s upset you? You’ve seen the program. It’s going to be wonderful.”

“Wrong.” The author’s lips twisted angrily. Her bright orange lipstick almost matched the vivid spots of anger on her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me—tell any of us—that Neil Bledsoe was coming? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw his name on one of the folders at the registration desk.”

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute! Emma, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Neil Bledsoe?”

Emma’s pale blue eyes examined Annie like a scalpel searching for nerves. Slowly, the ugly flush began to recede from her square face. “You didn’t invite Neil Bledsoe?”

“Emma, it doesn’t work like that. You know that. This conference is being run just like all the rest. I snagged a big name to serve as official hostess.” Lady Gwendolyn was, for sure, a Big Name. “I sent out flyers to all the writers’ groups and mystery clubs and mystery bookstores. The registration fee was fifty dollars, and on the application blank people marked whether they were fans, authors, editors, agents, whatever. Henny took the forms and wrote letters asking writers who had registered if they would like to appear on panels. Oh, and she also asked Bryan Shaw’s widow, Victoria, to be on a panel. The only person who received a special invitation is our guest of honor, Fleur Calloway.” Annie couldn’t keep the reverence from her voice, though she knew it wasn’t cool to engage—at her advanced age (twenty-six in June)—in hero worship. But Fleur Calloway—oh, how Annie had loved her books, ever since she’d first discovered them when she was just fifteen. But this wasn’t the time to think how thrilled she’d been several weeks ago when Fleur Calloway—
Fleur Calloway
—called Death on Demand to say, in a soft and gentle voice, that she was so delighted to be remembered, even though she hadn’t published in some years. Annie had interrupted breathlessly and said, “Oh, Mrs. Calloway, everyone loves your books. They are all in print. You are one of my best sellers.”

“Fleur Calloway.” Emma’s tone was odd. “God, I’d forgotten she was coming. Oh, sweet Jesus.”

E
mma’s stubby, capable-looking hand rested on the steering wheel of her Jaguar, but she made no move to turn the key in the ignition.

Annie wriggled on the hot leather. September on Broward’s Rock had its charm, a lessening of summer’s hectic pace, but until the winds shifted westward, usually during the third week, the island was as soggy with humidity as Houston or Calcutta. Emma had left her windows rolled down, but it was still muggier than a steam bath in the front seat. Annie could feel trickles of sweat on her face and back.

Emma watched a flight of monarchs. The butterflies drifted lazily over the gleaming emerald-green hood, their black-veined russet wings magnificent in the sunlight. “Beautiful. And so vulnerable. I don’t understand people who catch them, pin them to paper.” Her voice hardened. “I hated it when they tracked the monarchs to their jungle in Mexico. It’s as if our world is intent upon stripping away all refuge, throwing open to destruction every last bit of hidden loveliness.” The monarchs fluttered away. “Fleur always made me think of monarchs in flight.”

Her hand moved with precision. The motor roared to life, and the Jaguar hummed out of the crushed-shell parking lot behind the harbor-front shops.

“Damn Neil to hell.” Emma’s voice was as dry and unemotional as always, but still Annie felt chilled. The words were a curse in every sense. Annie had never, in the several years she’d known Emma, seen the author this furious.

“Emma, who is Neil Bledsoe? What did he do?” And what
kind of scene was going to occur at her conference, the wonderful conference she’d planned and worked on for almost a year?

The cool blue eyes swung toward Annie questioningly, then back to the road. Emma’s voice was neutral when she answered. “It’s hard to believe you’ve never heard of Neil Bledsoe, Annie. But he is a little before your time. The man self-promotes like crazy. He’s worn almost every hat in publishing—editor, agent, critic. Everything but write fiction. Oh, he turns out reams of nonfiction, blathering glorification of the iron balls kind of mystery. He worships at the feet of the tough-guy writers.” The Jaguar leapt as if stung.