Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01 (14 page)

I waited patiently, listening to the scratching of
the pens and the occasional sigh. One of the writers, I knew, was penning a lie.

Lyle was folding his sheet when the door opened and Trevor slipped in. Good.

I stood by the door to receive the sheets.

Lyle gave me a jaundiced look. “Lady, what if it’s a nut? What if Chase was today’s target and tomorrow one of the rest of us gets blown away? It’s going to be hard to explain to the cops, isn’t it?”

“Who else would eat a chocolate turtle from a box on Chase’s desk?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He glanced back at Chase, almost spoke, then shrugged and walked out.

Miranda, her face sullen, pushed her sheet toward me. “I should be the one to stay with Chase. Why don’t I get to stay with him?”

Before I could answer, her girlish face crumpled again in tears. She hurried blindly past me.

Chase didn’t notice. He stood stiffly by the Adam mantel, his hand clasped tightly to the gun-bulked pocket of his blazer.

Roger thrust his sheet at me. “Miranda, wait, wait a minute.” Over his shoulder he muttered, “Poor little thing’s upset. I’ll see to her.”

Hmm. So Roger was eager to comfort his stepmother. His so-much-younger stepmother. That was worth thinking about.

Haskell ambled over. “I should have had my head examined when I got out of the pool to go see what the noise was all about. Why the hell should I care who tries to blow Chase’s head off?”

“Or I?” Valerie demanded, sweeping past me in a cloud of gardenia perfume.

The secretary edged toward me. Burton gave me the sheet, then looked back toward Chase. “Uh, will you want me in the study now?”

Chase waved him away impatiently, and Burton hurried out.

Rosalia was waiting for Betty to complete her sheet. The two women came to the door together. “We will be in the kitchen.” She glanced uneasily back at her husband, then stepped through the open door.

Enrique poked his sheet toward me, his dark face sullen, and strode past, coming just a bit too close to be courteous.

As they left, I closed the door. I faced Trevor and Chase.

Chase started to speak, but I held up my hand. “Trevor?”

The lawyer had a half-amused, half-embarrassed look on his handsome face. “Damn strange experience. I’ve never searched anybody’s belongings before.”

“So?” I prodded.

“I looked for a box of bullets, another gun, any kind of poison, that sort of thing. No luck.” He ran his hand through his thick blond hair and didn’t look toward Chase.

“But you did find …”

He shot me an agonized glance. “Jesus, prowling in people’s private—”

Again Chase started to speak, then subsided. It was no time to be concerned about host-guest niceties.

“What
did
you find?” I hadn’t actually expected
the search to be productive. We weren’t dealing with a fool. Still, our opponent couldn’t have predicted an immediate search. If Chase had been killed, it would have taken hours for the authorities to arrive and begin a formal, thorough investigation.

Chase watched, his face expressionless.

Trevor shook his head, as if to clear it. “A few things that matter. Could matter. Nothing to prove they do. Some cocaine in Haskell’s room. A letter in Lyle’s briefcase, a job offer from Triton TV …”

“And?” I prompted.

“Miranda’s taking a lot of pills.” He kept his eyes away from Chase.

But I didn’t.

And I didn’t miss the spasm of pain.

T
he wind was freshening. Trevor shaded his eyes to look out at the sound. “Choppy.”

A gusty wind kicked up frothy whitecaps. High, thin clouds raced across the glazed sky. Not the most pleasant afternoon for an outing on a yacht, but Chase had been adamant. Said he’d be damned if he was going to sit around cooped up with Trevor with nothing to do.

The
Miranda
B.’s motors roared to life.

I lifted my voice. “Trevor, check the weather reports. There was a hurricane heading for Cuba. That’s probably why we’re getting some higher waves.”

“Sure. Listen, Henrie O …”

From the deckhouse Chase gestured impatiently for Trevor to come aboard.

Trevor held up a hand. “Coming! Just a second.” Then he turned to me and said swiftly, “I’ve got to talk to you. There’s a Lloyd’s of London policy that…”

His words were drowned by the deep boom of the
Miranda B.’s
horn. It was throaty enough for an ocean liner.

“… Stedman.” The horn boomed again. The lawyer shrugged in a gesture of frustration and scrambled aboard.

As the yacht plowed through the whitecaps heading for the Atlantic side of the island, Chase poked his head out a side window and gave me a vigorous wave, as if this were a holiday outing on an ordinary day, not a temporary respite from suspicion and fear. I looked after him with an up welling of admiration. I didn’t love him. I never could again. But he had been an integral part of my life, and now he was facing a terrifying situation with admirable composure.

I wondered what the lawyer had wanted to tell me. Something about an insurance policy. Something that concerned Lyle Stedman? Stedman was an employee. What would he have to do with insurance for Chase?

I would have to await the yacht’s return to find out.

But I had plenty to do, and I was glad I didn’t have to worry about Chase while I did it. He was safe from harm, at least for the duration of his outing with Trevor, and I had the island’s nervous inhabitants to myself. I hurried back toward the house.

Despite the wind rattling the palmetto fronds, I settled at a table on the breakfast patio. I had to force
myself to do it. I itched to set out—immediately—to talk to each and every person on the island. There was so much to do, so much to be discovered, but I learned a long time ago that it’s better to think before you approach an adversary.

I studied the sheaf of handwritten reports that pinpointed where each person had been when the shots rang out. No one, unfortunately, had seen anyone else gripping a “smoking gun.” Or any gun at all.

Someone, of course, was lying about his or her location.

Only Trevor and I had an alibi.

I was still a little surprised that no one had glimpsed someone else when hurrying toward the point. It did reflect the variety of locations on the island: the pier, the boathouse, the gardens, the pool, the house, the tennis courts, the track, the servants’ quarters, the storage building, and the thickets that afforded privacy almost everywhere. Once those running toward the point plunged into the maritime forest, they would be well hidden from view.

I now had a much clearer picture of the location of each suspect, and no reason to doubt anyone’s word. Yet. But the reports were important from another aspect. All handwritten missives tell you something of their authors. Enrique’s printing was large, the letters somewhat irregularly formed, but they marched across the page forcefully, arguing a strong personality. Rosalia had trouble with Bs and Ps and might be dyslexic. Would that indicate she mightn’t be all that accurate a marksman? Betty’s spelling was atrocious, but she was the only one to emphasize that the shots came in such quick succession they could scarcely be counted. Burton wrote in tiny but legible script. I doubt if he’d ever raised his hand in a classroom. Valerie’s flamboyant script reflected, not surprisingly, a penchant for the dramatic. Her little discourse had style. Haskell couldn’t keep to the line: his writing was poorly formed and erratic. Even within a single word, an odd letter would be capitalized or missing or written twice. In his case I didn’t fault the school system but the mood-altering substances so common on school grounds. Miranda’s
round, schoolgirlish script had as much personality as a mound of mashed potatoes. Chase wrote so hard and fast the pen almost punctured the sheet. Lyle scrawled oversize, thick-inked words that swaggered across the page.

I came back to Betty’s ill-spelled, much-crossed-out-and-over effort: “…
so hot I wuz mizrabul, hot as a furnuss. I hurd the shots, fast, fast, fast, fastur than korn pops
…”

I closed my eyes for an instant, trying to place myself in the mind of the gunman.

Bang, bang, hang
.

Why such a rush? Why not take another second or two, adjust the aim, react to the jolt of the gun? Why this pell-mell haste when a little more time might have spelled success?

I opened my eyes.

I didn’t like the feeling seeping through me, the sense that the personality we sought was unstable, impulsive, undisciplined.

No. I must not confuse haste with disorder.

There was nothing disorderly in this attack except for the rapid firing.

Perhaps Chase had started to turn toward the woods, toward his attacker. That might have accounted for the hurry. A determination not to be seen.

That rang true with both episodes. Care and effort were expended to leave not a single trace and to avoid a direct confrontation. The marksman was too cautious or too cowardly to face the victim, yet clever enough to entirely change the method of murder in the second attempt.

I had a tantalizing sense that this was critical, that I was close to understanding something of the mind behind the poisoning and the shooting.

But it was elusive, nothing I could grasp and define.

I gave up on it. I had enough concrete work to do. And I was determined to conduct the interview I’d had in mind when I headed toward the tennis courts that morning.

I wanted to talk to Miranda.

Because, sad to say but true beyond doubt, in the event of murder look first and look hard at the spouse.

Even one as young and lovely as Miranda.

Perhaps especially one as young and lovely and nervy as Miranda.

I didn’t find her on any of the porches. She was not in the gardens or near the pool. I paused beside the hot tub. There was something faintly sickening about the smell of chlorine and the shush and gurgle of the foaming, steamy waters. I looked toward the luxurious wing where she and Chase stayed.

“Mrs. Collins, may I help?”

Roger Prescott still had his aura of ineffable good humor. But there was a worried look in his pale blue eyes and a grave cast to his face.

“I’m looking for your stepmother.” I raised my voice a little to be heard over the water bubbling in the tub.

He blinked, then gave an odd laugh. “Actually, I never think of Miranda as a stepmother. Absurd, really. I’m almost twice her age.”

“But she is your stepmother.” I walked toward him. “I need to talk to her.”

His face crinkled. “She’s pretty upset. Maybe I can help you. I took her to her room.”

But it was
their
room, Miranda’s and Chase’s.

“She’s got a pretty rotten headache.” His voice was soft.

How interesting that Roger was being much more protective of his pretty young stepmother than Chase appeared to be of his wife.

“Are your father and Miranda having trouble?” I moved toward the wet bar in the arbor and fished a club soda out of the refrigerator.

“I’d certainly be furious with him if I were her.” His face flamed as he realized how that sounded. “Oh, God, don’t take that wrong. And I guess I understand now. But ever since last month Dad’s been a beast to her.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, patted his moist face. “Goddamn weather’s like a sauna. He’s acted so funny—I mean, he can’t possibly think that Miranda—that’s nuts, really nuts. No, that can’t be it. I know he didn’t tell her about the poisoning because he didn’t want to scare her. She’s just a kid really. She doesn’t know about ugly things.”

I kept my face blank. It’s always a mistake, I could have told him, to confuse innocence with age. There are children who are preternaturally wise and old folks who see with angel eyes.

I dropped into a webbed chair. “Tell me about Miranda.”

“There isn’t much to tell. Like I said, she’s just a kid.” His chair creaked under his weight. “Lyle hired
her. He figured it would fit in with Dad’s back-to-the-basics editorial stuff. Youth. Innocence. An anchor without that sleek New York fashion-model look. Dad agreed.” He grinned but without malice. “Obviously. I understand from Lyle that Dad asked to meet Miranda because he was impressed with her work. Two months later they got married in St. Thomas.”