April Fool Dead (9 page)

 

MODUS OPERANDI

1. Quite probably obtained the information for the accusations concerning the deaths of Ricky Morales and Laura Neville Fleming from news reports.
   
2. Is almost certainly computer-literate. The files of
   The Island Gazette
   would only be available on the Internet or on computers at the library or at
   The Island Gazette
   offices.
   
3. Has lived on Broward's Rock at least sixteen years. [Ricky had fallen—she took pleasure in the verb—from
   Marigold's Pleasure
   sixteen years ago this coming July 15.]
   
4. Knows that the Littlefields own a red Jeep.
   
5. Knows that Paul Marlow is having an affair with a married woman.
   
6. Knows more than was reported in
   The Island Gazette
   about the conviction of Jud Hamilton. There has never been public mention of suspicion of wrongdoing regarding Hamilton's conviction.
   
7. Knows that Ricky had a girlfriend….
   

Emma stared at the pad, scratched through number 7. No, that could be a guess. She quirked an eyebrow. Actually, it was a very good guess, but that was neither here nor there. Just as what happened the night Ricky died didn't matter because no discussion of his death would ever change the Coast Guard ruling of accidental death. Not without specific evidence, and as no one knew better than she, that evidence did not exist. The same was true in suggesting Laura Fleming's widower might have remarried. That took no special knowledge.

Emma tapped the pad with her pen. All right. There were no links then between herself and Laura Fleming and the author of the flyers. Emma sipped the gin and tonic. It was like drawing a picture by following the numbers. It was impossible to know what the result would be until the picture was complete. The shadowy form was taking shape—computer-literate, islander for many years, and, most important of all, most revealing, someone who knew the Littlefields, Paul Marlow or his lover, and Jud Hamilton, his dead wife or former police chief Frank Saulter.

Emma pushed up from her chair, purple-and-pink caftan swirling. Her face was meditative as she crossed to the wet bar, lifted the decanter and poured gin into
her glass. Now, the most important question had yet to be answered: What was the point of the flyers?

 

Annie made up her mind at the last minute and yanked hard on the wheel to turn right into Main Street, the two-block-long area that served as the Broward's Rock business district. Her tires squealed and a piece of glass tinkled and collapsed into the window. She jolted to a stop behind a school bus and waited until the last disembarking passenger had safely crossed and the bus rumbled away, belching smoke. She waved at Betsy Michaelson, a tall, thin girl who liked to spend Saturdays at the Darlings' pool, plaintively telling Rachel how hard the SAT was and how they wouldn't be able to make scores good enough for college, and had Rachel ever thought about picking bananas in Ecuador? Betsy's sentences had a tendency to fade into the ether. She would wave a limp hand. “Or we could march against feeding the porpoises.” A forlorn sniff. “I don't think anybody pays for that.” A sigh. “Whatever…”

The bus turned right and Annie picked up speed. She pulled into a parking space in front of the low-slung cinder-block police station, which sat on a slight rise overlooking the Sound. Out on the green water, a motorboat bucketed past, slapping against the whitecaps. A buoy rolled, its mournful bell warning of the freighter that had gone down in a hurricane and the rusted hull a few feet below the surface that posed a hazard to passing ships.

Inside the police station, Annie looked first at the main counter, then down the hall at the door marked
CHIEF
.

Mavis Cameron, whom Annie had known a lot longer than the new young police chief, looked up from her computer. “Hi, Annie. What can I do for you?” Mavis had a young-old face with sweet eyes that still held remnants of sadness. She'd come to Broward's Rock, an abused wife, seeking safety for her little boy. It was on the island that she met Billy Cameron, the big young policeman who'd welcomed her and her son into his heart. Mavis pushed back her chair, crossed to the counter. “The chief's out right now…”

Annie almost asked if Mavis could catch him on his cell phone, but she hesitated. Frank Saulter wasn't going to be pleased by Annie's interference, but Annie couldn't forget that chilling moment when Frank kicked open his own front door and moved in a swift crouch, gun in hand. Annie knew she would never forgive herself if she remained quiet and something happened to Frank. Something? Why not put it into words? Jud Hamilton was out to get Frank. Frank needed protection.

“…but Billy's here. Could he help?”

Annie felt like hugging Mavis. Of course Billy could help. He'd been one of Frank Saulter's officers when Annie first came to the island. “Yes, please.” Dear Billy, six feet three, sandy hair with an unmanageable cowlick, loyal, brave and decent. He wouldn't have a clue what
pukka sahib
meant, but he would be any leader's choice to meet an enemy charge.

Mavis lifted the movable portion of the counter. “I'll get him. He's out in back checking the crime van.”

Annie knew where the force kept its two patrol cars,
one unmarked sedan and the lone crime van. “That's okay. I'll find him.”

“The gate's locked. I'll buzz you out the back door.” Mavis pointed down a long corridor. “Straight down the hall.”

The onshore breeze tugged at her skirt as Annie stepped out the back door. The black van was parked in the shade of a live oak by the back fence. The side door of the van was open.

Annie hurried down the steps. “Billy. Billy!”

Billy poked his head out. His huge shoulders dwarfed the opening. He jumped to the ground. “Hi, Annie. You need something?”

She'd known Billy for a long time. When she reached him and stood with her hands in her pockets, the onshore breeze riffling her hair, tugging at her skirt, the words spilled out in a rush. “Billy, I've been at Frank's. You saw that stuff in those flyers about Jud Hamilton and Frank, didn't you? I went to tell Frank I didn't have anything to do with those flyers. And it was scary, Billy. Frank thinks Jud Hamilton is coming after him and Frank's got a gun. I saw it. Billy, you and Pete have to do something.”

Billy lifted a big hand, slid the door panel shut. His face closed, too. “Thanks, Annie. We know all about Jud Hamilton.” He turned and walked toward the door.

Annie hurried to keep up with his long stride. “What are you going to do?”

He stopped and looked down, his nice face creased in a sad frown. “We'll keep an eye out for Jud. We'll do what we can do.”

She was impatient. “Can't you watch Frank? Put a guard at his house?”

Billy kneaded his cheek with a big fist. “Frank didn't ask for help.” He looked away from Annie, out at the shining green water, as if seeking an answer that he didn't have.

“Frank has a gun.” She didn't try to keep the worry and fear from her voice.

“He has a license.” Billy moved toward the steps, opened the back door, held it for her.

“Billy…” It was a plea.

“Annie, Jud started down this road a long time ago.” Billy's eyes were bleak.

She held her car keys so tight, her hand hurt. “Frank was the chief.”

Billy's pleasant face hardened. “He was a good chief. He did his best for everybody all the time. But he's a man, too. He knew Colleen Hamilton. He knew Jud Hamilton hurt his wife and then he killed her. Jud should have gone to jail for life. But they couldn't prove premeditation. And now Jud's out of prison and he's coming after Frank. But you know something, Annie? Frank's mad as a hornet. He's been mad for a long time.”

 

Henny stepped out of her car, moved toward the railing, where she could watch the waves. The ferry pulled away from the dock, leaving the island behind. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but she felt stymied in her search to solve the mystery of the unauthorized flyers. Maybe her evening in Savannah would give her subconscious time to mull the facts she'd gleaned. Henny
was a firm believer in giving the subconscious free rein. Perhaps in the morning she would awake and exclaim, “Voilà!” For now, she was ready for an evening of good company.

She leaned against the railing. Long slow swells rocked
The Miss Jolene
as she hove toward the mainland, now a green smudge on the horizon.
The Miss Jolene,
Ben's new wife. What a lovely tribute. Love and marriage…Memories swirled like confetti fluttering after a wedding. Henny remembered Jonathan Wentworth, who had lived and died with gallantry. She had watched his plane crash into the Sound. Dear Jonathan. And she remembered from—oh, so long ago—her husband, Bill, who had not come home from World War II. Just for an instant she was at an officers' club, she and Bill, dancing cheek to cheek to the slow sad strains of “As Time Goes By.” Henny smiled. She would talk about Bill tonight in Savannah, almost sixty years after his bomber crashed in a raid over Berlin. He always lived in her mind, slim and young and eager, eyes bright and glowing with love, but it would be a pleasure to say his name. “Bill.” She spoke softly. Tonight she would speak of Bill many times. Maggie had known Bill, too, when she and Henny won their wings at Avenger Field in 1943. Henny was glad Maggie had called. They would have a cheerful dinner, talking about old times and new. And it was such good luck that Kay had canceled their bridge game tonight. A tiny frown drew Henny's dark brows together. Kay's absence was certain to irritate the other players, since her message was simply a brusque announcement. Was something wrong? Per
haps she should give Kay a ring tomorrow. Kay, however, would likely tell Henny to count her own sheep or something to that effect. Kay was blunt, direct, strong-willed, uncompromising and a cherished friend. Henny lifted her face, welcoming the sweep of the wind and the smell of the water, looking forward to dinner with Maggie, dismissing her sense of unease about Kay.

A
NNIE LOVED
coming home. The dusky lane meandered among live oaks festooned with Spanish moss. She always took pleasure in her first sight of their multilevel sand-toned wooden house, which shimmered with expanses of glass. She punched the automatic opener and drove into the garage and felt complete, for Max's car was there. When she stepped into the utility room, she smelled brown sugar and butter and pineapple. “Max? Rachel?” She hurried into the kitchen and dropped her purse and three posters on a countertop.

Max eased the last pineapple ring into the pan. He wiped his hands on a dishcloth, then stepped toward her, his arms open. “You get caught in the rain?”

“Just a little. Frank walked me to my car.” Annie came into his embrace, kissed his cheek that smelled oh-so-nice, and dusted a smudge of flour from his chin. There was so much she wanted to tell him. Most of all, she wanted to share the relief that buoyed her like a giant inner tube on a turbulent river. She'd done what she'd promised to do, made certain that everyone mentioned in those ghastly imitation flyers knew the attacks had not come from her, had no connection to her bookstore. Concern over Frank still nagged like a tooth with an intermittent pain, even though she'd done what she could there, too. But for right now, her
personal landscape was sunny again. Except…She glanced around the kitchen. “Where's Rachel?”

Max's brows drew into a worried line. “She's upstairs. When I got home, I called for her and there wasn't any answer. I went upstairs and knocked. She wouldn't open her door. And her voice was kind of funny.”

Annie took the mixing spoon, dipped into the batter. “Funny?”

Max caught her hand. “Raw eggs.”

“Oh, Max.” She sighed. “When I was a kid that was the best part of making cookies and cakes.”

“Chickens were healthier then. Or something,” he added vaguely.

She reluctantly poked the spoon back into the batter. “What did Rachel say?”

“Not much. I asked her to help me make the cake and she said she wasn't hungry.” His eyebrows arched. Rachel was little and thin and had the appetite of a longshoreman. “She said she had a headache.”

“I'll go see.” She hurried across the kitchen, paused in the doorway. “Everything's okay about the flyers. Except—well, I'll tell you later.”

Max picked up the mixing bowl, began to pour the rich yellow batter into the pan.

Annie reached the stairs. Sun poured through a floor-to-ceiling window on the stair landing. That was the loveliest aspect of their house—windows that let the sunshine in. Even on a gray, rainy day, the house reached out to the sky.

Annie hurried up the steps and down the hall to Rachel's room. How nice to think of it as Rachel's
room. It had simply been the pink guest room until Rachel came to live with them this past Christmas. Rachel moved in after her mother's death, and so had Pudge, Rachel's stepfather and Annie's late-come-but-now-cherished father. Annie smiled contentedly. Rachel and Pudge had enriched this house and her life and Max's. She and Max had urged Pudge to stay with them, but Pudge had grinned his insouciant lilting smile, and said, “You know me. Here a while, then gone. I'd better have my own place. But I'll always come back.” His look at Annie was sweet and serious. “I promise.” Pudge had moved into Annie's old tree house when the tenant moved out last month. It had been fun for Annie and Rachel to help Pudge redecorate and to hear his pleased exclamations: “Honest to God, it's a tree house! All I have to do is step out the door onto the deck and I'm up in a tree.” An island developer had built perhaps a dozen of the sylvan aeries before the town council amended the building code to prohibit construction that encroached on trees. The existing houses, however, were exempt from the new regulation. Rachel adored Pudge's new home and begged for a thick hawser to be attached to a jutting limb so that she could sweep to the ground, à la Jane of the Jungle. Pudge had grinned and said, “We'll see.” Rachel suggested twining ivy for new kitchen wallpaper, but Annie pointed out that the sun glancing through leaves already made a lovely shadowy pattern on the cream-colored walls.

Annie was smiling when she knocked on Rachel's door. “Rachel, it's me.” She turned the knob. The door was locked. Annie's smile slipped away. “Rachel?”

“I'm resting.” The words wavered.

Annie lifted her hand, touched the ceramic tile they'd put in place at Christmas:
RACHEL
'
S ROOM
. Annie's fingertip traced the raised letters. What to do? Should she try to persuade Rachel to let her in? Or should she leave Rachel in peace? Everyone needed an inviolate place. Sometimes it is too painful to share unhappiness with someone who cares, but sometimes a word of love could banish sadness as easily as sun spilling into a dark room transforms gloom to brightness.

Across a span of years Annie suddenly remembered a day when she'd huddled in her room after coming home from school to find the letter turning down her application to the college she'd wanted above all others and her mother's light steps in the hall and the twisting of the locked knob, a pause and her mother calling out in her direct way, “Annie, I need your advice.” Annie had opened the door, and after they'd dealt with her mother's problem, Annie handed her the rejection letter. Her mother had read it without expression, then said briskly, “Obviously, it is their loss.” It was said with such conviction, such passion, such utter devotion that Annie had laughed in the midst of her tears. Her mother hugged her tightly. “Always remember, honey, when God closes one door, He opens another.”

Annie bent closer to Rachel's door. “Rachel, I need your help. Do you know Diane Littlefield?” She'd not planned to say this, heard herself with surprise.

Slow footsteps crossed the room. A click and Rachel opened the door. Her dark curly hair was glossy and
pretty, but her face was pale, her eyes huge and forlorn. And curious. An extra large blue T-shirt sagged almost to her knees, exposing only a few inches of white capris. She was barefoot. Her toenails glistened a vivid scarlet. The scent of fingernail polish and the pungency of polish remover mingled with a heavy overlay of a musky perfume.

Annie managed not to wrinkle her nose. Okay, even though Rachel was in the midst of the crisis du jour, she had enough spirit to experiment with beauty aids. All was not lost.

“Diane Littlefield's so freaking boring.” Rachel whirled, the big T-shirt flapping. She marched across the room, flung herself onto a wicker couch, looked up at Annie and began to cry.

“Rachel, honey.” Annie was into the room and holding the slender girl in her arms.

Rachel's muffled voice ached with pain. “They're all mad at me. Diane's never liked me. I'm not pretty enough and I haven't been here long enough. And she's one of the senior girls. I can't ever go back to school.” Rachel pulled away from Annie, sat up straight and still. “Nobody'll have anything to do with me.”

“They?” Annie smoothed back a tangle of dark hair.

Rachel lifted her head, peered at Annie out of eyes brimming with tears. “The senior girls. They're mad because of Ben.” She sniffed. “You know. I told you Ben asked me to the prom…”

Oh yes. Rachel had burst into the house Monday afternoon, her dark eyes glowing. And amazed and proud. She'd grabbed Annie's hand, pulled her into a
dance around the kitchen, caroling, “I have a date to the prom and oh, Annie, it's with Ben Bradford!” Now she massaged her temple. “…but last night, Christy called…”

Annie dredged for a face. Was Christy the tall, sinuous brunette who wore too much lipstick or the tiny bouncy blonde with hair as wiry as a terrier's?

“…and Christy said the senior girls were passing the word that I was totally nowhere and nobody was going to even speak to me because who did I think I was, getting a date to the big dance with Ben Bradford. I mean, I guess they all think if he isn't going with Meredith, he should take one of them. I mean”—and Rachel's thin face was earnest—“I know the date doesn't mean anything. Ben's the best-looking guy in school. He's president of the senior class and editor of the newspaper.” There was awe in her tone. “I got to know him working on the
Blade
…”

It was only last month that Rachel had proudly shown Annie and Max her byline on a feature story on the third page of the weekly high school newspaper.

“…and I guess he asked me because”—she sat up straight, snuggled her knees beneath her chin, looked directly at Annie—“I know about being sad. Because of Mom.”

Annie took Rachel's hand, gripped it tightly. Rachel's mom had been brutally killed, and for a while the police had suspected both Rachel and Pudge. That frightful time was past and done, but the loss would never be done. Annie wished she could erase the droop to Rachel's mouth, but no one could restore her mother's life. Annie understood. Her own mother had
died when Annie was not much older than Rachel. She knew sadness would always be with Rachel. But along with sadness came kinship with others in trouble.

Annie gave Rachel's hand a squeeze, let loose her grip. “Why is Ben sad?”

“It was last week. I opened the door to the editor's office. I didn't know he was there and I was going to put my story in the in-basket. We still do that,” she explained earnestly, “though I e-mailed the file to him, but he likes to see the copy printed out, too. Anyway, I opened the door and I just stood there for a minute. I could tell he was sad. He was looking out the window, but he wasn't really looking. He was resting his head against the glass. I went up and took his hand and held it. He turned around in a minute and his eyes were bright and he said, ‘Thanks.' That's all he said and I put my story in the basket and went out. And this week he asked me to the dance.” Rachel clasped a throw pillow, rested her chin on the end. “You see, Meredith's dumped him. Meredith Muir. And he's crazy about her. Maybe he's really in love.” There was wistfulness and uncertainty in her voice. “And they always seemed so perfect for each other.” Rachel popped to her feet, darted to a bookcase. “Look, I'll show you.” She flung herself down beside Annie, riffled through the pages of last year's red yearbook. “See.” Her finger pointed at one of the informal photos on an activity page, a shot in the gym at an assembly. A boy in a letter jacket stood next to a laughing girl in a cheerleader's uniform. Each held a big trophy. “That was the awards assembly and they got the Outstanding Junior Girl and Outstanding Junior Boy Awards.” Ben was tall and
husky with a broad open face. The girl was strikingly lovely, long hair and an oval face with wide-spaced eyes. “Why, everybody knew they were in love. See how he's looking at her, not at the trophy?”

Annie almost told her that they all were so far from love, from understanding love, from sharing love. “Rachel…” Annie stopped, remembering for an instant what it was like to be that age, when emotions ran fast and hard and deep and how much everything mattered—the hope for love, the pain of slights, the hope for attention, the pain of not belonging. Most of all the pain of not belonging.

“Anyway”—Rachel brushed her dark curls back from her face—“Meredith's not even going to the dance. She told Ben she didn't care about kid stuff. And I was so happy when he asked me because I can't take Mike. You can only go with somebody who's in school now. I mean, they won't let me bring Mike, even though he just graduated a year ago. I hadn't told Mike yet. I think it will be okay with him. But now everything's ruined. If nobody'll speak to me…” Her lips trembled.

Annie wished she could wave a magic wand, tell Rachel not to worry. But she knew better than that. This was the kind of episode that could grow like a pus-filled blister, and even if lanced, leave an ugly scar. But Rachel was looking at her with such hope, such confidence.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a means of diversion. “Rachel, the best thing to do is get busy telling everybody—get on the phone tonight, ask Christy to help—that Ben's like a big brother to you and he asked you
because he knew you couldn't bring Mike.” That might deflect some of the older girls' spleen. “Also you and Christy need to call a meeting for after school tomorrow.”

Rachel looked shocked.

Annie grinned. “No, this isn't about you. But let's see if you can get everybody at school interested in finding out—” She stopped, shocked by the realization that Rachel knew nothing of Annie's day. “Oh, Rachel. You don't know! Listen, I'm sure if you'd gone to school, there would have been some of these.” Annie pulled the ever-more-crumpled flyers from her pocket and handed them to Rachel.

“These look like our flyers.” As Rachel scanned the sheets, her narrow face drew into a tight frown. “Oh hey, Lily Caldwell's mom drives a Range Rover, a big blue one. But that doesn't mean she's the one. Gee, this is terrible.”

“Isn't it, though! Of course, it's lots worse for the people who end up being suspected of one thing or another, but it's bad for me, too. It's obvious the flyers were deliberately made to look like mine. Somebody wanted everyone to think these were part of our contest.” Annie jammed her fingers through her hair. “Or maybe not. Maybe my contest just gave the person who did the flyers the idea and the fact that people would get mad at me didn't matter. Anyway”—Annie paced up and down—“this morning”—Annie started with the skywriting—“there were huge letters spelling out WHODUNIT”—and recounted Emma's angry arrival at Death on Demand and Pamela Potts's frantic call from the cemetery and Annie and Max and Emma's foray there—“I grabbed the bullhorn from
Chief Garrett and told everybody they were being scammed, that it was all an ugly April-fool joke”—and ended with her determination to visit every person accused in the fake flyers. “So that's where we are.”