Sugarplum Dead (21 page)

Annie had a penchant for tossing odd objects in her trunk. Residing therein at the moment were a carefully
boxed porcelain cake server, a catnip-scented Christmas stocking, a pair of airline tickets to Bermuda (Wouldn't Max be surprised!), a manuscript
(The Katydid Killer)
thrust on her by a hopeful writer despite Annie's protestations that she merely sold books, she didn't publish them—

A shriek erupted in the jungle.

Annie stuffed the notepad in her sweater pocket and bolted toward the rock path between the big rubber trees.

 

As Max chopped up a slice of cooked tenderloin steak and dropped the bits into Dorothy L.'s plastic bowl, he studied Annie's note. Of course, he'd seen her since she'd written it, but they'd had little chance to talk. Her directions were clear:
Check with Ingrid. She's going to round up all the gossip about Swanson. If the papers exist, there has to be a basis for them. Oh Max, I'm so worried.

Dorothy L. ate and purred appreciatively.

He reached down and stroked her lustrous fur. If Annie was worried then, she must surely be discouraged now. The discovery of Rachel's field hockey stick made it very likely that the teenager's arrest was imminent.

Max glanced at the clock. It was almost four in the afternoon and he hadn't had lunch, which accounted for the slight throbbing in his head. He swiftly fixed a thick sandwich of tenderloin with horseradish and mustard. He poured a glass of milk and ate standing at the counter, his face furrowed.

Four o'clock on Friday afternoon. Pudge was in jail. Although Max didn't think the police chief worried overly about community pressure, certainly the quick arrest would defuse fear on the island. It would also give Garrett time to put together his case and decide when to
arrest Rachel. Max felt certain it was a matter of when, not whether.

Max gobbled the last bite, took his glass to the sink to rinse. Garrett might not feel pressure. Max did. Annie was counting on him to figure out what Happy Laurance could possibly have known that led to murder.

Unfortunately, Max wasn't sure he believed Rachel. Or, if Rachel was telling the truth about the conversation with her mother, Max wasn't at all sure whether the papers had any connection to Happy's murder. Dammit, they needed to know a lot more about Happy's frame of mind the last few days. Something more than the fact that she'd quarreled with both Pudge and Rachel. There had to be something more than that! Well, as Rachel had pointed out and as Annie and Max knew from the dinner at the Dumaney house, Happy certainly was upset about Marguerite's plan to funnel a vast amount of money to Emory Swanson and his Golden Path.

Max strode swiftly toward the door. At the moment, he had no idea how Happy might have discovered information detrimental to Swanson.

As the Ferrari zoomed up the dusty road, Max thought about motives and fervently hoped that Marguerite's money truly was the reason for Happy's murder. If it wasn't, the list of suspects narrowed to Rachel, Pudge and Mike.

 

The parrot cackled, “Gotcha. Gotcha.” His dark eyes glittered. Annie wondered if it was anthropomorphic to attribute malice to a bird.

Joan lifted a shaking hand. “That odious creature. He pecked me!” She gingerly felt her scalp. “I don't think it broke the skin.”

“I'll look,” Annie offered. She skirted far enough from
the parrot's perch to escape attack and stood on tiptoe, parting Joan's wispy graying hair. “No. It's okay.”

Joan glared at the bird. “I've always loathed him. Wayne thinks he's funny. Sometimes he says the most disgusting things.”

As if on cue, the bird rattled words like pellets: “Fatoldbitch, fatoldbitch.”

Joan's face flamed.

Annie said hurriedly, “They say parrots are simply programmed, that phrases recur on a pattern.” She'd made it up on the spot, but she was pleased to see that some of the anger eased out of Joan's plump face.

“Well, I suppose they can't help what people have taught them. Anyway”—she looked critically at her hands and frowned—“I need to wash up. Everything's really in an advanced state of rot. There's entirely too much water standing in all the pots. I can't imagine who's in charge. I'll speak to Alice. But I don't think Happy would put papers in here. Let's try the terrace room.”

Annie followed Joan to the bar.

As Joan washed her hands, she looked critically around. “Not too many possibilities in here. After all, anyone could look through the magazines or open the drawers. Although…” She moved along the back wall, easing framed pictures far enough out to peer behind them. “Something thin could be taped…But there's nothing here.” She worked from one side of the room to the other, checking under chairs, beneath plant stands.

Annie perched on a barstool. “Did you talk to Happy yesterday?”

Joan crouched in front of a sofa, ran her hand underneath. “No. But she's been”—she paused, frowned—“it's
so hard to believe she's dead! I got here on Tuesday night and she wasn't herself. Now, you know Happy—”

But Annie didn't, hadn't and now never would. She'd met Happy that one night, been greeted with kindness, then the next day been caught up in Happy's anger with Rachel.

“—always determined to look on the bright side. So damn chirpy. A June Cleaver clone. And she'd had enough happen in her life to know better! Divorced three times. But she wasn't loose.” Joan pulled herself stiffly to her feet and scrutinized the hangings at the French door. “Not like that sister of hers.”

“Marguerite?” Annie was surprised at the animosity in Joan's voice. “I thought Marguerite was just married once, to Claude Ladson.”

Joan's face swung toward her, her eyes hot, her mouth twisted. “She took another woman's husband! Claude was a married man with three children, but Marguerite had to have him, no matter what. Wayne told me it broke his mother's heart to lose Claude. He always felt it killed her. Of course, now no one believes that people die of broken hearts. But I think they can. I've never understood why Wayne was always nice to Marguerite. Of course, they've all been nice to Marguerite since Claude left everything to her.” Her round face reddened in anger. “That was a crime. He should have left his money to his children. Look what's happening now! All the money going to that horrible man! My children have a right to their share of their grandfather's estate. Oh, I wish we knew what Happy had found out. Where can those papers be?” Her eyes swept hungrily over the room.

Annie studied the driven, angry woman, fascinated and a little appalled to find so much passion beneath such an ordinary exterior, a mop of wispy graying hair, slightly
bulging eyes, plump cheeks, lips with only a faint dash of pink. “Did you talk to Happy about Swanson?”

Joan peered behind a bookcase. “No. Though I suppose that's what she was nattering on about, complaining that she didn't know what to do, that everything was so difficult, that she wished people would just do what they were supposed to do.” Joan pursed her lips. “I saw her slap Rachel, you know. I haven't told the police.”

Annie didn't ask Joan's intentions. Instead, she said briskly, “Did anything disturb your sleep last night? Around midnight?”

Joan Ladson's face was still, her stare measuring and thoughtful. “Midnight?” She turned away, peered inside a thin-necked vase. “No. Nothing at all. I slept very well.”

 

“Max, will you take these special orders back to the office?” Ingrid pushed her glasses high on her nose. Her usually well-coiffed hair straggled beneath the Santa hat and her eyes were distracted. “Duane's there. Tell him to get on the computer and try to get the books, though you'd think people would know better than to wait until a week before Christmas to order! But they don't. He can bring you up to date on everything we've found out. I can't leave the desk.” She turned to face a customer holding up a book. “Oh yes, ma'am, that's Parnell Hall's new series about the crossword puzzle lady. Yes, it's very clever….”

Max slipped away. This time last week Annie would have been ecstatic at the holiday bustle in Death on Demand. She would still be pleased, but at this moment the success of the store had to be far from her mind. The center aisle was crowded and chatter rose from the coffee bar. Max pushed the door to the storeroom.

An irascible voice ordered, “Keep out. Don't you see
the damn—Oh hi, Max. You'd think people who purport to read could see the goddam sign on the door. ‘Keep Out.' That's what the goddam sign says, and I've been shooing them out of here like chickens running amuck.” Duane Webb heaved his stocky body up from his chair and pumped Max's hand. Duane's moon-shaped face, topped by a skimpy wreath of graying hair, had the stolidity of a grizzled goat, but his bright, light eyes shone with a hard, inquisitive, combative intelligence. He gestured at the stool next to the computer table. “Max, I've turned over every rock on the island. Your man's too damn clever.”

Max's heart sank. He shut the door and realized he'd been counting on Ingrid and Duane. Especially Duane. Twenty years as a city editor had robbed him of all illusions, but created a mind that could sift cesspools and come up with facts nobody could contest. Duane was a much smarter investigator than Happy Laurance, and that made Rachel's story of hidden papers suspect. How could Happy have discovered material dangerous to Swanson if Duane Webb was stumped?

“Except”—Duane's thin lips spread in a sharklike smile—“not quite clever enough.” He swung toward the computer, clicked a half dozen times on the mouse. “Take a look at this….”

T
HE HALF DOZEN
silver bracelets on each arm jangled as Donna Farrell pulled out the desk drawer and placed it on the floor. “Sometimes”—a lock of silver-blond hair fell forward as she bent to peer in the opening—“there's a secret opening behind the drawer. Hmm. Yes, oh, it's opening.” Her usually tart tone rose in excitement.

Annie listened to the sound of scrabbling nails.

“Oh damn. A splinter.” Donna yanked out her hand. Irritation emphasized the thin lines that bracketed her eyes and mouth. “Empty. Oh well, this whole thing's a fool's errand.” She whirled away from the desk. “There's nothing of interest in here.” She waved her hand at the huge reception area. “When you look closely, there aren't many places anyone could hope to hide papers. Have you had any luck?”

Annie didn't explain that she wasn't part of the search party. She said vaguely, “Not yet.”

Donna brushed dust from her silk skirt. “Well, there are no hidden memoirs, no steamy love letters, not a frigging thing of interest in this dusty room that should have been condemned before it was built.” She looked toward a wet bar. “I need a drink. How about you?”

Donna's heels clicked on the stone floor. She stepped behind the wet bar, clicked on a light. “Scotch? Gin? Rum?” She picked up a fifth of scotch and splashed a generous amount in a cut-glass tumbler. She poured in a
token amount of water and took a deep drink. “Take your pick.” Donna wandered out from behind the wet bar.

Annie found club soda, put ice in a glass and poured. No one had to go far to find a libation in this house, a wet bar here, a full bar in the terrace room.

Donna sank gracefully into a high-backed rosewood chair with spiral turnings on each side of the densely flowered upholstery. The Elizabethan chair made her look petite, and its heavy darkness emphasized her fair hair and pale skin. She gazed disconsolately around the huge garish room. “How long do you suppose we have to hang around here? I didn't count on murder for Christmas. I wish I'd stayed home.” Another deep drink. “Too bad it was Happy.”

It would have been a nice enough sentiment if the unspoken words—
not Marguerite
—hadn't hung in the air.

“Did you like Happy?” Annie edged past a suit of armor. She looked doubtfully at the nearest seat, a concave wooden stool, and perched on its edge.

Donna drank deeply. “I've been in flea markets that had better stuff. Don't think I didn't tell Dad, but he just laughed and said Marguerite liked crap. That thing you're sitting on—it's English, supposed to look Egyptian. That was all the rage after the exhibition of tomb stuff in London in 1862. There was a time you couldn't turn around in a Victorian drawing room without looking at a sphinx head or a winged orb or a lotus capital. And this chair”—she leaned her head back against the upholstery—“was hot stuff, too. They called it the Elizabethan style, but actually this kind of chair was built during the Restoration. Marguerite wouldn't know a good piece if she fell over it. If I had the money she's spent on this house…” Her words were softly slurred. Apparently this wasn't Donna's first drink of the day.

Annie decided circumspection was unnecessary. “Did you talk to Happy about Marguerite's plans to give the money to Dr. Swanson?”

Donna sipped her drink, held the whiskey in her mouth for a long moment, gently swallowed. “I talked to Wayne. God, he's mad. If they'd found Marguerite with a stake through her heart, I could point to the man. That's what's so damned odd. Happy! Nobody would kill Happy.”

It was like trying to make molasses take shape. Annie said urgently, “What did Happy say?”

Donna tossed down the rest of her drink. “Say? She didn't say anything. She went around bleating.” Donna squeezed her face in concentration, then said, her voice high and breathless, “‘Donna, I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do!'” The sharp-featured blonde's nose wrinkled in disdain, and she spoke in her own acid tone. “That's what she said Wednesday night after Marguerite made her marvelous announcement about her thrilling commitment to the world beyond, which translated to, screw the Ladsons. A grown woman with about as much backbone as a stuffed doll. I told Happy that if she could do anything, for God's sake, do it or we were all going to be broke on our ass. Including her, I might add. Happy was a sweetie, but she wasn't above cadging from big sis. She was quiet for a minute, then she said she'd do what she had to do. I wasn't holding my breath. You have to remember that Happy was the world's biggest ostrich. But”—there was an odd look in her eyes—“she's dead, isn't she?”

“Did you see Happy Thursday night?”

Donna flowed up from the chair and back to the bar. She mixed another drink, shook her head. “Not after dinner. But”—she sniffed her drink—“she and Wayne had a big confab in the garden Thursday. I was taking a walk
around the grounds before lunch”—her voice was grand, then slid back to its derisive tone—“since there's not a bloody thing else to do around here. God, what a boring place. When Dad was alive, trust me, it was never boring. Have you ever seen any of his movies? We've got them all up in the shrine on the fourth floor. Movies, posters, newsreels—if it had to do with Dad, it's there.” She lifted the glass, downed a third of her drink. “I have to hand it to the old bitch, she was nuts about him. And she still puts on quite a show. I didn't like the message, but the birthday bash was star quality. And that was a pretty nifty performance this morning. But back to Happy. She and Wayne never even noticed me walk past.” She sounded faintly aggrieved. “I guess the last time I actually said anything to her was at dinner last night. She was awfully quiet. I asked her if she felt okay. She patted my arm and said that everything was going to be all right, that I shouldn't worry. She had a kind of Joan of Arc look. You know, brave and noble. I told her I never worry.” Donna stared down into the amber liquid, the bleakness of her face belying her words. “She disappeared right after dinner. I don't know where she went. I got a book out of the library. God, some bestseller circa 1954. I took it up to my room and stayed there. I'd had enough of the family to last me until next Christmas. In fact, if I didn't have to kiss ass for some money, I'd get out of here right now.” She blinked. “If the cops would let me.”

Annie looked at her petulant, unhappy face. “Did you hear anything around midnight?”

“Midnight?” Nothing flickered in her eyes. “Last night? No, it was as quiet as a tomb. I was slumbering in my bed. Alone. Another drawback to this boring house.” She finished off her drink. “God, another whole week until Christmas.”

 

Max studied the computer sheets with a long list of real estate transactions.

Duane looked as satisfied as Agatha with a mouthful of shrimp. “You'll note the dates?”

Max did. The first sheet listed houses sold the second week of January three years ago. The second sheet listed houses sold six months later.

Duane leaned back in his swivel chair. “In January three years ago, one Kate Rutledge—”

Max felt a quickening of interest. Kate Rutledge, the woman at Laurel's, the smiling, slim woman to whom he had taken such an immediate dislike.

“—came to the island, bought a house. The real estate agent was Heather Crane. Six months later, Emory Swanson came to the island, bought a house. The real estate agent was Heather Crane.”

“I see that.” Max's tone was unimpressed.

Duane's eyes glittered. “Do you know Heather?”

Max did. Heather Crane sold houses the way some people climb the Himalaya: carefully, with enormous effort, perseverance, and total dedication. She was on the far side of fifty, but slim as a thirty-year-old. She lunched on diet drinks, played championship tennis and knew everybody in town.

“Heather takes one holiday a year. She goes to Bermuda and stays at a different luxury hotel each time. She was at the Southampton Princess this past September. She saw Emory Swanson and Kate Rutledge dining together, obviously a couple. The next day Heather ran into Swanson on Front Street and asked about Kate. Swanson looked blank, said he didn't know a Kate Rutledge. Heather looked equally blank and said she saw them at dinner the night before. Swanson said that he had
dined with a woman who lived on the island, that he was in Bermuda by himself on business. Crane said that it was certainly a remarkable resemblance. Swanson smiled and said he would look forward to meeting Miss—uh—Rutledge when he returned to the island.” Duane gave a satisfied chortle. “Heather got home and pulled up her records. Kate Rutledge paid for the house with a check drawn on a bank in Seattle. Swanson also moved to the island from Seattle. He bought a house. His check was from the same bank. Heather mentioned it to her secretary, who told her hairdresser, who…but you get the picture. Ingrid picked it up from a friend at church.”

Max hadn't expected to be presented with a smoking gun. This tenuous connection between Swanson and another recent arrival on the island seemed innocuous in the extreme. So perhaps Swanson and Rutledge knew each other. So they kept it a secret. So maybe they had a tryst in Bermuda. So?

 

Annie poked her head in the library.

Terry sprawled on a sofa, arms folded. He gave Annie a sly look and struggled upright. “Come on in. You joining the paper chase?”

“I'm looking for Wayne.” The library was a long and lovely room with pale orange and deep rust silk draperies at the twelve-foot windows. Mission oak walls gleamed with the richness of sunlit honey. Father Christmas, a pack over his shoulder, stood in the center of the long table.

“I can suggest a better alternative.” He grinned and patted the cushion beside him, then gestured at the life-size painting of a tiger above the limestone mantel. “Come enjoy looking at Rajah. That's what Dad called him. I think he believed the big cat was his soul mate.”

Annie knew that Terry's objective wasn't to share an intimate moment admiring the oil painting. His objective was to share an intimate moment. She grinned and stayed in the archway. “Your dad must have been quite a guy.” It was interesting how all of his children found Claude Ladson's imprint wherever they looked.

Terry flipped a salute at the tiger. “That he was. Now”—he patted the cushion again—“if you want to know more about Claude, I'm the man to tell you. Wayne's a boring dude, you know.”

Annie laughed aloud. Terry definitely was of the always-give-it-a-try school of male hopefulness. “Another time. I understand Happy and Wayne had a talk before lunch yesterday.”

Terry yawned. “Yeah, I saw Happy hurry after him. I went the hell in the other direction. I wasn't in the mood to listen to her moan about whatever it was that was bugging her.” He glanced around the library. “Hidden papers.” He heaved a disgusted sigh. “If you believe that, I've got a nifty beachfront house in Utah that I'll sell cheap…oh, only a million or so.”

Annie said softly, “But Happy's dead.”

The derisive look faded. He blinked. “Yeah. There's that. But I have to tell you”—his voice was suddenly serious—“nobody was crossways with Happy except Rachel.”

Annie's retort was sharp. “Happy was very upset over Marguerite's plans to give money to Swanson.”

“Sure she was.” Terry's glance was shrewd. “But all of us were mad and none of us could do a damn thing about it. I don't believe in some magic bundle of papers that was going to save the day.” His red face softened. “I'm sorry.”

There was kindness in his voice and in his eyes. He
didn't believe in the papers. He believed Rachel was guilty. He rubbed his nose, glanced away. “Anyway, for what it's worth, Wayne's nosing around upstairs.”

As Annie hurried up the stairs, she tried to dismiss the look in Terry's eyes. She wouldn't give up on Rachel. Not yet. Not as long as there was any hope of her innocence. So far, they had only Rachel's word for the papers, and those papers were the only link to Emory Swanson. They had no proof, no proof at all. But Happy had talked to Wayne. What did she tell him?