Laughed ’Til He Died (14 page)

“Hey, Ma always gets the goods.” His pride was evident.

Annie chewed energetically. That wasn’t all Laurel got, but some things were better left unsaid.

Max was pumped. “The more we find out, the better it is for Jean. Billy can’t ignore Tim Talbot’s state of mind or a missing forty-five or an angry lover. Or the thirty-two found in the lake. Both a forty-five and a thirty-two are powerful.”

Annie reached for Henny’s folder. Annie read the contents aloud.

When she finished, Max looked somber. “So Tim Talbot’s having nightmares.” He glanced outside at the deepening shadows thrown by the pines as the sun slipped down, splashing the sky with cream, rose, vermilion, and mauve. “That has to get Billy’s attention. Tomorrow we can tell him about Booth insisting Tim ride an ATV again and Meredith taking money from Booth’s desk. Maybe by then I’ll have found Darren Dubois.”

Max cleared the table while Annie dished up fresh strawberries. She spooned a generous amount of Max’s homemade whipped cream with a dash of rum.

She settled at her place. Mmm. Her favorite summer dessert.

Max stood at the counter with his dessert. “One more time.
It may be the charm.” He flipped on the speakerphone, punched a number.

“Hello.”

“Is Darren there?”

“Just a minute. Phone, Darren.” The woman’s voice was relaxed and pleasant.

Max gave Annie a jubilant look.

“H’lo.”

“Hi, Darren, this is Max. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Freddy said Click had something special planned for the program Friday night. Did he tell you anything about that?”

“Not a bunch. Something about an announcement.”

Annie added another dollop of whipped cream to her bowl.

Max looked eager. “Did he explain why he was excited?”

“Excited?” Darren’s voice was grim. “Yeah. He was excited. He thought he was going to be called up on stage. That’s all I know for sure.” The connection ended.

Max frowned at the phone. He shook his head and carried his dessert to the table. “Maybe Billy can get more out of him.”

Annie ate a bit of strawberry and a bunch of whipped cream. To her, the proportion was perfect. “Why do you think he knows something more?”

Max poked his spoon toward the phone. “You heard him. He said, ‘That’s all I know for
sure
.’ Didn’t you hear the emphasis on ‘sure’? That means he has some ideas about Friday night. I wish I knew why he’s being so cagey.”

B
illy Cameron tugged at the collar of his white shirt even though he’d loosened his tie. His suit coat hung from a coat tree. A steamy, sea-scented breeze flowed through his open office window. The ferry blasted its whistle. Ben Parotti’s
Miss Jolene
was into its summer schedule of several crossings a day. In the distance, a white yacht glistened in the brilliant sunlight. Inside, the ceiling fan whirred, but the air was still hot. “Air-conditioning went out yesterday. Always happens in July.” The police chief sounded morose, looked sweaty.

Annie knew Billy must have come to the station directly after church. “Have you had lunch?” She and Max had gone home from church and changed into summer casual and enjoyed a grilled-chicken salad and iced tea. A quick phone call had located Billy at the station.

“Mavis packed me a sandwich. I forgot about it. I’ll get it out of the fridge in a minute.” His desk was stacked with files.
He looked at the paper wearily. “What have you got?” He made notes, abruptly looking sharp and intent as Annie described her talk with Meredith. “They were going to ride trails next weekend?”

Annie nodded. If Tim Talbot was innocent, this information couldn’t hurt him. She wanted to believe he was innocent. Even though a twenty-two had been found in the tree behind the Haven stage, Booth had been killed by a larger-caliber bullet. But a forty-five was missing from his stepfather’s desk.

Billy listened with interest as Max retold Larry Gilbert’s account of Meredith and the money, but he shrugged when Max described his talks with Darren Dubois. “Get over it, Max. There’s no proof Click Silvester was murdered. Maybe this Darren kid’s blowing you off because there’s nothing there. Guys aren’t girls. They don’t have to tell everything they know. If Click had a secret, maybe Darren didn’t want to share it.”

Max looked stubborn. “Why did Click die the afternoon before the program? Who pulled out the pockets of his shorts? What was taken? What was Click’s big secret about Friday night? Why did Darren say that’s all he knew for sure?”

Billy grinned. “Maybe that’s all he knew for sure.” Billy leaned back in his chair, the smile slipping away. “If Click was murdered, that means he knew something about Friday night and the murderer had to kill Click before Booth could be shot. Like what? You’re not suggesting Click knew Booth was going to be killed. So what could the kid know? Maybe,” there was a trace of sarcasm in his tone, “he saw Jean Hughes take the phosphorescent tape. Until somebody shows me a good reason why Click had to be killed, I don’t buy murder. I’ve always liked ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’ Speaking about me,” he was quick to make clear, “not you. So, KISS. What’s simpler than Jean Hughes
about to lose her job and get tossed from the cottage that means everything to her right now and she gets a gun and blows Booth away? She’s right there at the lights. She’s standing behind him when he’s shot. It’s important to focus on the main point. Who needed Booth dead immediately? Jean Hughes.”

A
NNIE NEVER TIRED
of the beach. The sturdy blue canvas umbrella offered plenty of shade. The breeze off the water made the beach ten degrees cooler than inland. They usually spent Annie’s free Sunday afternoons on the beach. Annie and Ingrid alternated Sundays at Death on Demand. Annie insisted that she and Max keep to their schedule. They had done what they could do to help Jean Hughes. They—and the Intrepid Trio—had unearthed information that Billy was sure to consider. Yes, Jean was high on his suspect list, but Billy had made careful notes about Tim Talbot and Meredith Wagner. In the morning, Max would meet Handler Jones at the early ferry and Jean would have a lawyer present during her interview with Billy.

Annie contentedly smoothed on sunscreen, her nose wrinkling in appreciation of the coconut smell. She felt pleasantly soporific in the hazy heat, lulled by the recurring rumble of waves, the chirp of sea birds, and the occasional drone of a Coast Guard helicopter. She gazed through droopy eyelids at Max, wished he would relax. “TGIS,” she encouraged, offering her own riff on TGIF. Actually, she loved each and every day, finding joy in godly Sunday, first-great-day-of-the-week Monday, infinite-possibilities Tuesday, organize-and-catch-up Wednesday, beginning-to-slow Thursday, think-about-it-next-week Friday, and have-a-party Saturday.

Max looked wry. “KISS.”

Annie tried to sound alert, though she wanted to slip into a light nap. “Billy’s got a point.”

Max looked out at the green water. “I don’t think so. I think everything’s more complicated than Billy realizes.” Abruptly, he sat up and pulled their beach carryall closer. “KISS is his mantra. I’ve got one, too. ‘Never give up.’” He wiped his hand on a beach towel, pulled out his cell, punched a number. He waited, ended the call, punched another number, looked relieved. “May I speak to Darren, please?” He frowned. “No. I haven’t seen him.” Max listened, frowning. “If you’ll give me directions, we’ll be right there.”

D
UST ROSE IN
a cloud behind the car. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong. His mother sounded upset, but guys get busy and forget to call home. It won’t hurt to talk to her. If he shows up, maybe she’ll push him to tell us what he knows.”

Annie felt sticky in the T and shorts she’d pulled on. Max looked beach-scruffy as well.

The sandy road curved around a stand of pines. Max slowed as a dusky red white-tailed deer and her fawn crossed in front of the car. Occasional small frame houses, many well-kept, some dilapidated, sat at the end of rutted drives. They passed hunting cabins and a derelict apartment house with boarded-over windows.

Annie glanced at a sketchy map Max had drawn. They passed Whooping Crane Pond. On the map, a stick-figure bird was in the center of a wavy oblong. Oleanders bloomed near a mailbox with
DUBOIS
lettered in red paint.

A tall, slim blonde stood on the front porch of the neat gray shingle house. She hurried down the steps as they got out of the
car. “Darren was going to be home in time for us to catch the two o’clock ferry. He didn’t come. His cell didn’t answer. Everybody I called said you kept trying to get in touch with him about Click Silvester. I thought he might be with you. You kept calling for him and now he’s disappeared.” Her tone was accusing.

The front door was open. Through the screen door came the faint sound of a telephone.

She whirled and ran, the screen door slamming behind her.

Annie and Max stopped on the porch, looked into the small living room at wicker furniture with cushions, a braided oval rug, a maple coffee table, a laptop computer on a card table.

She held the phone with a hand that shook. “This is Darren’s mother. Have you seen him anywhere? Do you know where he is?…Please ask everyone to look for him. Call me if you hear anything at all.” She put down the phone, darted to the screen door, held it open. She brushed back a strand of long, straight blond hair. She had wide-set blue eyes, aquiline features, and, for now, a somber gaze. “My name’s Mickey. Why did you want to talk to Darren about Click? Click’s dead.”

Lines grooved Max’s face. “He was Click Silvester’s friend. Yesterday morning I asked Darren if he knew why Click went to the nature preserve.”

She stared at him, her gaze never wavering.

“Darren said he didn’t know. It was later that another friend told me that Click had been excited about the Friday night program at the Haven, that he was part of a big secret. Click didn’t live long enough to come to the program. I wanted to know about that secret. I wanted to know if Click told Darren what was going to happen Friday night. When I talked to Darren late yesterday, I thought he was evasive.”

She stared at him incredulously. “Are you crazy? Do you
think Click knew somebody was going to shoot that man?”

Max shook his head. “No. Click was excited, cheerful. Whatever he knew, he didn’t expect anything bad. Click said there was going to be a big joke played that night. The man who died was known for his jokes. My guess is that Click knew about a plan that Click thought was fine, but it wasn’t, and that’s why he had to die.”

“Click had to die?” She lifted a hand to her throat.

“I think Click was murdered.”

Mickey Dubois walked to a wicker chair, slumped into it. Her face was pale and drawn. “I encouraged Darren to hang out with Click. Click was so steady. Darren can be,” she twisted her hands in her lap, “a wild man. He butts up against authority. I can’t tell you how many times he’s done crazy things just to see if he could or because somebody dared him. His dad,” she swallowed hard, “was a Green Beret. He was killed in Iraq. If he’d come home, he would have known how to handle Darren.”

Annie felt the beginning of fear.

Max took a deep breath. “Darren and Click were buddies. Darren’s a smart kid. Click died Thursday. Booth Wagner was murdered Friday night. Maybe Click told Darren something about Friday night and Darren was keeping an eye on somebody. Maybe he put things together after Wagner’s murder.”

She stared at him in growing fear. “You think Darren knows something about that shooting?”

“I’m afraid so. If Darren thought somebody killed Click, what would he do?”

She scarcely managed to speak, her voice a whisper. “He’d do whatever he thought needed to be done.”

“Do you think he’d try to go after the killer by himself?”

“He might. Oh dear God, he might.”

Max was brusque. “If Darren got in touch with the murderer, he put himself in great danger.”

She lifted a trembling hand, pressed it against her lips. Her words were indistinct. “Something’s happened to Darren. He’d call me if he could. He was excited we were going into Savannah for a baseball game.” Mickey swallowed hard. “He’s been counting on the game for weeks. He rode his bike downtown to take a book back to the library. There’s a deposit bin there. But he hasn’t come home. Darren and Click. They were always together. And now…”

A knock rattled the screen door. “Police.”

Annie knew that voice. Officer Hyla Harrison was serious, purposeful, calm. She always spoke with deliberation. This afternoon her voice was essentially toneless, carefully without inflection. Annie drew in a wavering breath.

Mickey Dubois rushed to the door, her dangly earrings jangling.

Officer Harrison, freckles prominent on her pale face, stared forward. “Is this the home of Darren Dubois?”

“Yes.” Darren’s mother barely managed the word.

Officer Harrison’s eyelids flickered. She spoke in a rush. “Ma’am, if you’ll come with me. Your son needs you.”

T
HE
M
EDUCARE
A
IR
transport lifted up from the center of the harbor pavilion park. The
whop-whop
of its engines reverberated across the boardwalk and the harbor. The helicopter rose straight up, its yellow top and white undercarriage bright in the hot sunshine. Annie thought it looked too small to hold the gravely wounded boy and his mother and medical personnel. The helicopter banked and turned, its destination acute care in Savannah.

Men in polo shirts and shorts were crowded on the deck of a docked cabin cruiser in the marina at the harbor. Officer Lou Pirelli, notebook in hand, spoke to a hulking man in a white polo and white slacks. Several fishermen waited solemnly by their bait buckets and rods on the boardwalk. Billy Cameron spoke with a man in his sixties, who gestured at Fish Haul Pier.

Marian Kenyon wrote furiously. “They ID’ed the kid as Darren Dubois.”

Max watched the helicopter as it turned into a small speck in the western sky. “Yes.”

“He’s the one you were trying to find.” Marian quivered with excitement. “Now he’s been shot. Just like Wagner. I picked up the call on the scanner. 911s in a flurry from the pier around one o’clock.”

Annie felt cold. They’d arrived on the beach about a quarter after one, seeking solace in the sun. By that time, Darren already lay wounded.

“I got here pronto. I’ve already talked to some of the guys who were fishing on the pier. Everything was cool. They had their lines out and the catch had been good, lots of yellowfin croakers and spottail bass. One guy had his boom box, said it was playing ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,’ another day in paradise and everybody having fun. Nobody paid any attention when the kid walked out on the pier about one o’clock. He didn’t have any fishing gear but hey, people walk out on the pier just to look. Paul Tucker—you know him, Max, the high school math teacher—barely noticed him, not to recognize at that point. He was just a teenage guy slouching along on the pier, but Tucker said he knew something was odd when the kid stopped and pulled some scruffy old gardening gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. I mean, he didn’t have any equipment with him, so why the
gloves? Paul kept watching. The kid knelt on the south side of the pier and bent over the side like he was looking for something. In a minute he stood. He had an envelope in his hand. He was holding it real carefully on the edges. He looked real serious. That’s when the shot came. One shot from the woods.” She pointed at the trees opposite the pier. “Paul said everything was in slow motion. Guys yelled. Somebody shouted for everybody to get down. Paul hit the boards and his rod flipped into the water. The kid’s shirt turned bloody. He fell forward into the middle rail. He banged his head hard, then flopped into the water. People started calling 911. When no more shots came, Paul rolled to his feet and ran and dived in. He found him pretty quick and pulled him up and swam to shore. Everybody helped them out of the water. He was still breathing, but he kept bleeding and the side of his head was swelling. When Doc Burford got here, he immediately had them call Meducare. Doc said the only hope was to get him quick to the acute trauma center. Paul identified him. He’d had Darren in class. Meantime, the cops arrived and searched the woods. They didn’t find anybody.”

Annie pictured the teenager walking to the edge of the pier, leaning down…“Darren must have told the murderer to put the envelope there. An envelope…that sounds like blackmail.” What price friendship?

Max shook his head. “Click was his buddy. I don’t believe Darren would protect his murderer.”