White Elephant Dead (8 page)

“…moved her to Room Two Eighteen.” Max held a glass under the spigot.

Annie felt a quiver of unease. “Is she going to be safe there?” A room certainly wasn’t as closely observed as the ICU.

Max drank thirstily. “Not to worry, Annie. Garrett’s stupidity comes in handy here. Emma said Pirelli’s on duty out in the hall. And there will be an auxiliary member in the room with her.”

That should be safe enough. Annie scooped up the last portion of ice cream. In the morning, they would help get the word out that Henny didn’t remember anything at all of the previous night. But Annie knew Henny wouldn’t be safe unless Kathryn’s murderer was caught. That dark figure outside Kathryn’s store had not hesitated to shoot.

Annie wiggled her toes in the foamy bubbles. Was it decadent to take a bubble bath in the middle of the night? Not after the night they’d put in.

The shower door opened and Max stepped out. Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Actually, there was something better than vanilla ice cream laced with chocolate and topped with fresh raspberries. Annie pulled the plug. Mmmm, yes. Max looked across the bath and she saw his smile and its reflection in the mirrors. In two steps he was beside the tub and reaching down to pull her up. So they were wet. Mmmmm.

The banana split dish slid over a mound of meringue and splashed into a lake of chocolate. Annie stood in the prow of the dish, night-vision binoculars at the ready. Cot
ton candy fog swirled around the dish. If she could just see through—

The piercing peal poked into her sleep-numbed brain.

Annie struggled to regain the dream, dipping her hand into the smooth, velvety chocolate—

“Annie”—a muffled plea—“the phone.”

Annie rolled onto her elbow, reached for the screaming banshee instrument. “Hello.”

“Surely you don’t intend to lie abed when our dear Henny is at risk.”

Annie blinked at the telephone. She knew that raspy voice, knew it well. But Miss Dora Brevard, the doyenne of Chastain, South Carolina, was supposed to be in Italy at the Tuscany villa of her cousin, Sybil Chastain Giacomo, who maintained a residence at the family Tarrant mansion in Chastain as well as the Giacomo villa in Siena. Sybil had long ago divorced the race-car-driving scion of the Giacomo family, yet she spent a part of every year at their villa. Flamboyant and intriguing, Sybil preferred younger men and flouted convention whenever possible. That Sybil had invited Miss Dora to visit was merely another indication of her unpredictability.

“I thought”—Annie cleared her throat; it was hard to talk when your body was still surfing a chocolate lake—“that you were visiting Sybil.” Annie glanced at the phone. Oh God, surely it didn’t read five
A.M.

“I am. I find Sybil…”—the pause was long enough to eat up several long-distance dollars considering the rates between Siena and Broward’s Rock—“continues to impress me with her vivacity.”

Annie was awake enough to suppress a snort.

“However, I did not call to discuss my holiday, interesting though it is.” The ancient voice rippled with amusement. “Sybil’s daughter sent us an E-mail about Henny’s predicament and I felt compelled to contact you. I knew if I called at a somewhat early—”

Somewhat early?

“—hour I should catch you. Now, please give me the details. Courtney’s report was sketchy.”

Annie knew the village network throbbed with energy but, nonetheless, she was impressed. Sybil’s daughter Courtney and her husband, Harris Walker, lived on the island. Was Courtney in the hospital auxiliary? Yes, that had to be it. And now the word was out all the way to Italy.

When Annie concluded her report, there was another moment of silence. “The White Elephant Sale,” Miss Dora mused. “There are possibilities there. Was the woman killed because of something she picked up? Did she observe something while making the pick-ups that placed her in danger? The first necessity is to determine where the van stopped. Then it will be essential to learn everything possible about the occupants of those houses. Here is what I would suggest, my dear….”

Annie scrabbled for a pad and pen, didn’t find them. But she could remember the two names Miss Dora gave her. One she knew well, Edith Cummings, reference librarian at the Lucy Kinkaid Memorial Library. The second she knew casually, Adelaide Prescott, an old and very rich lady.

“Tell Adelaide I send my best.” A whispery laugh. “Ask her if she remembers the night we slipped away from the cotillion.” Annie had a quick vision of two young ladies in white dresses sweeping across a terrace. Did the waiting swains have an early Model T or was that night’s adventure begun in a buggy?

A tiny cough. “Well, every dog has its day, young lady. Never forget that. As soon as you obtain this information, call me. And tell Max I’ll be bringing him some salami. Very unusual. Spiced with cloves. Tasty.”

Annie hung up the phone and poked Max. She didn’t intend to be the only person awake at this forlorn hour. Besides, she couldn’t wait to tell him about his salami. It was illegal to bring it through customs. But no sniffing beagle would be a match for Miss Dora.

Annie sprinkled raisins on her papaya, contemplated the sugar bowl.

Max averted his eyes and reached for the coffeepot. “More?” he asked.

Annie nodded. Her hand swerved away from the sugar bowl. Not that she was intimidated. It was simply a judgment call. “Why is it clever when a
chef
combines unusual foods and disgusting when hoi polloi do it?”

“If you have to ask…” Max murmured, filling both their cups.

They grinned at each other companionably, Annie took an ostentatiously large bite, and Max munched his buttered English muffin toasted with grated cheddar, crumbled smoked bacon and a dash of honey.

Annie popped up, retrieved the leather photo album she had liberated from Kathryn Girard’s carry-on, and placed it beside her plate. She slipped into her place, added a few more raisins and opened the album, to be confronted once again by the unexciting view of the Broward’s Rock harbor.

Max glanced at the album, but didn’t bother to comment. Instead, he flipped open his small notebook. “Miss Dora’s ideas aren’t half bad,” and he began to write, then paused. “Didn’t Emma give you the sheet with the pick-up addresses on it last night?”

Mostly Annie remembered suffering voracious pangs of hunger. But yes, at some point, Emma had said something about going home and printing out the list but the list didn’t make sense.

Annie pressed her fingers against her temples. “I’ve got it!” She’d left her purse on the hall table last night before their bike foray, since even well-dressed cat burglars rarely carry purses. Annie dashed into the hall. She returned with the list, scanning the addresses. “I see what Emma meant.”

Max took the sheet, read the list, then frowned. “Annie, this can’t be right.”

“Max,” she replied with the authority of Monica Quill’s
Sister Emptee Dempsey, “if Emma Clyde says this was the route assigned to Kathryn Girard, this was the route.”

“But only one address is inside the resort gate and to go there, Henny would have turned left, not right.”

“I know.” The guard at the gate told Max that Henny turned right. So where did that leave them?

Max rumpled his thick blond curls. “I don’t get it. And if Garrett ever sees this list, he’ll claim that Henny wasn’t following Kathryn, that they must have arranged a meeting.”

“On Marsh Tacky Road!” Annie threw up her hands. “That’s crazy.”

Max tossed the list onto the kitchen table.

Annie plopped back into her seat and picked up her spoon. She looked again at the album, slowly turning the pages. The album’s bland nature scenes were
the
most boring damn pictures. But Kathryn Girard didn’t have a single other photograph in her possession. So why these, why, why, why?

The phone rang.

Annie grabbed the cordless. “Hello.”

“Annie, my sweet.” Laurel’s husky voice brimmed with energy and good humor. “I’ve just popped by the hospital. Dear Henny is sleeping. I left the dearest flower card.” There was an expectant pause.

“A flower card!” Annie wondered for a moment if she’d overdone the note of rapturous interest.

Max’s dark blue eyes, so reminiscent of his mother’s, looked suddenly wounded.

Annie flashed him a sweet smile.

“I propped the card up by Henny’s water carafe. They aren’t permitting the flowers—and there are so many of them—in the room just yet. The nurse said absolutely not without the doctor’s approval. And the
nurse
! Annie, she is Nurse Adams, actually Hilda Adams. I find that a wonderful, meaningful coincidence—”

Even Annie had to admit the long arm of coincidence
sometimes occurred. Nurse Hilda Adams was a sweet-faced, spunky heroine in several mysteries by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

“—and I impressed upon her how important it is to protect our dear Henny. I gave her a card, too. Henny’s card is elegant and simple, periwinkle for friendship, morning glory for affection, and dogwood for durability.” Another expectant pause.

Annie saw dark blue eyes regarding her intently. So, all right, Max felt his mother needed encouragement. Actually, Annie felt precisely the opposite, but in every happy marriage there are many compromises. “And Nurse Adams’s card?”

“Goldenrod for precaution, lavender for distrust, oleander for wariness.” A deprecating laugh. “Each of us must contribute as we can.”

“Laurel, that’s wonderful. I honestly don’t know how you do it.” Annie had no intention of defining the wonderfully vague pronoun.

“Oh my dear, how sweet of you.” Was the emphasis on ‘sweet’ overlong? “I worked quite late. I’ve a dozen or so cards with the same striking message.”

Annie didn’t wait for the pause. “Yes?” she asked encouragingly.

Laurel’s husky voice dropped, soft and eerie as a waterfall in a cavern. “Basil for hatred, columbine for folly, and rhododendron for danger.”

Danger. Annie said quickly, “Laurel, be careful. Be very careful.”

But the connection had already been broken. Laurel was not one to forgo a dramatic finale.

Annie punched off the phone. “I forgot to tell you last night. Emma recruited your mom to survey the area near Marsh Tacky Road.”

Max shot her a quizzical look. “On the theory that if Laurel’s knocking on doors, she won’t be disrupting Emma’s fine-tuned investigation under way at the club?”

Annie grinned. “Actually, I think you do Emma a disservice. She said your mother…” How to put this tactfully? Perhaps there was no way to completely report Emma’s comments. “Was eager to help clear Henny.”

“Well, of course Mother’s always willing to help out. And she may find out something helpful.” He pushed away the computer printout of Kathryn Girard’s donation route. “Certainly more helpful than this.” He picked up his notebook. “Okay. We know that list doesn’t work. So where did Kathryn go last night? Why? What did she pick up? What did she see?”

Annie slapped the album shut and dragged widespread fingers through her curly hair. The album might as well have pulsed out invisible gamma rays, she felt so certain it held a secret. But no matter how many times she looked through it, the blah contents didn’t change.

Max glanced up. “You resemble a snowy egret looking for a mate.”

Annie smoothed her hair. She wasn’t going to talk about the album, since Max so obviously dismissed it as unimportant. As for Miss Dora’s suggestions—

She said abruptly, “You’re starting at the wrong end.”

Max looked surprised. “Annie”—his tone was gentle—“that’s where it all began, with Kathryn heading out in the van, and somewhere between the Women’s Club and Marsh Tacky Road, she got killed. Something had to have happened—”

Annie held up both hands like Jaqueline Girdner’s Kate Jasper quelling a group of fractious Marin County dwellers. Max stopped short, looking a trifle affronted. Okay, maybe traffic cop hand gestures were overkill. But she said firmly, “No. Stop. Wait.”

Max put down his pencil and looked attentive, as courteous as Charlie Chan listening to a witness.

“It’s not where she went. It’s why she went.” Maybe she did owe something to yesterday’s memory of Detective Duff.
Or maybe it was the result of a mélange of impressions, the heavily impressed sentence on the pad at Kathryn’s shop, the stolen folder, a gunshot in the night, too many names for one face, an album that defied explanation. Whatever, Annie pushed back her chair, and fluffed her hair, truly resembling a snowy egret as she paced. “It begins with Kathryn. Yes, I know we have to find out where she went, who she saw, but Kathryn’s the key, Max. Who was she? Why did she live in such a weird way? Why is that apartment so bare? Who is Miriam Gardner? Why were her bags packed? Where was she going?”

Max waved his hand in dismissal. “Sure, we’ll go into all that. She was flying to Mexico City. As for her apartment, she was probably just an odd loner. I know you thought she might be into something crooked, stolen antiques or paintings or jewelry. But apparently the only thing taken from her place was a folder out of the briefcase. And the most important fact is that her bank account was that of a small and not very successful merchant.” He whipped open his notebook, read off modest balances for the past six months. “Don’t you see? Even a small-time crook should have more money than that. And Billy said there was about three hundred and sixty dollars in her purse. And there wasn’t any money in the briefcase—”

Annie interrupted, “Maybe it was money that was taken. Maybe that’s what the intruder came for.”

Max shook his head, not quite with the patronizing air of Leslie Ford’s Col. Primrose. “In a folder? Nobody carries money in a folder, especially in a folder in a briefcase that had to be carried through airport security.”

“Another bank account,” Annie said feebly.

Max folded his arms, looked as complacent as a Lillian Jackson Braun cat. “And where’s the checkbook?”

Annie’s fingers twitched. Max was lucky she didn’t have the homicidal impulses so prevalent in Pamela Branch books. She was beginning to feel like Tuppence Beresford
when Tommy was trying to leave her out of the action in
N or M
? And she was so sure she was right. So, okay, maybe she was going on intuition, but unlike Ariadne Oliver, she had the inexplicable album.