Carolyn G. Hart (55 page)

Sybil led the way to the library. The Pompeian red walls certainly provided a dramatic backdrop for her
raven black hair, Annie thought cynically. She dropped into a Queen Anne wing chair with embossed creamy satin upholstery and waved them negligently toward a Chinese rosewood couch with scrolled back and arms. As they sat, Sybil deftly fitted an extra-long menthol-tipped cigarette into an ivory holder, lit it, and blew a cloud of minty smoke. She gestured at a heap of brightly colored brochures and magazines spread across the mahogany Sheraton drum table.

“I’ve had the most marvelous day.” Her throaty voice was as mellifluous as the warble of feasting doves. “Trying to decide just how the exhibition folder should look.” At their blank silence, she crossed one silk-clad leg over a knee, and jounced her foot impatiently, exposing a well-endowed thigh. “Timmy’s New York exhibition, of course.” Her crimson lips curved in open amusement. “What’s wrong, sweeties? Do I seem to lack a funeral air?” She shrugged, and Annie sourly noticed that the dress also provided ample view of fulsome breasts. “Don’t worry, I’ll be at the funeral. But I don’t believe in crocodile tears. And, certainly, it does solve a problem for us.”

“Have you expressed this sentiment to Chief Wells?” Annie inquired.

She tapped the cigarette in a silver ashtray. “Oh, he won’t bother me,” she said carelessly. Her eyes, as black as licorice, swept Annie, but with as little interest as an electronic eye in an elevator. “I was talking to Leighton. He told me Wells is after you. Or that reporter.”

“Hasn’t Wells even talked to you?” Annie demanded, feeling her cheeks heat. “Doesn’t he know how you and Corinne were feuding about Tim’s paintings?”

“I don’t know.” Her indifference was monumental.
“Now, let me ask you, don’t you think two paintings per page at the most?” She reached out and picked up a brochure. “Here’s a good one from a recent sale at Sotheby’s. What do you think of this format?”

Annie would have exploded, except for the viselike grip Max wisely planted on her wrist. She swallowed angrily, and glared at him. He’d pay for this—later.

“Sybil, I know you don’t think it’s too important,” Max said smoothly. “But we’re trying to account for everyone’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. Can you tell us what you were doing?”

Those pit-black eyes moved to Max, lingered on his face, moved slowly down his body.

“What you were doing,” he repeated stoically.

“Oh sure.” She smiled, and this one was X-rated. “Sure. I was making Timmy feel better.” She put the cigarette holder in her mouth. “We were upstairs in my room. For a long time.”

Annie was still seething as they fought their way up the marble steps to the double, fourteen-foot-tall bronze doors that marked the entrance to the Prichard Museum. It was slow going because everyone else was herding down the steps. When an elbow cuffed her in the ribs, Annie snarled, “Hey, watch where you’re going!” “Honey,” a soft voice soothed, “you’re goin’ the wrong
way
. There won’t be another magic show for twenty minutes.” But, finally, a bit battered, they reached the doors, and Max pulled one open. They stepped into a magnificent rotunda, and Annie was delighted to see only a sprinkling of tourists. She was, all things considered, getting tired of tourists, no matter how many t-shirts they bought from the Death on Demand display.

Sunlight sparkled through the stained-glass dome, illuminating the glass cases that sat around the perimeter of the circular room. Annie paused by the first one, which contained a silver-plated reproduction of a silver trivet created in 1763 by a London artisan. Other cases held reproductions of authentic colonial pieces, including candlesticks, doorknobs, wall sconces, and bookends. A neatly printed card in the corner of each case announced:
Replicas created by Tim Bond, artist-in-residence, Prichard Museum, Chastain, S.C
.

A brisk young woman greeted them eagerly. “I see you are interested in our reproductions.” Perhaps they were a welcome change from the magic devotees. “Prichard Museum is famous for the quality and quantity of its reproductions, and, in the bookstore, we have a catalog which lists all of our offerings. If you would like to tour the Museum, tickets are two dollars each. The Prichard Museum was built in 1843 as a meeting place for the Chastain Thursday Night Club. As you can see, it is built on three levels, and the supporting columns are Doric on this floor, Ionic on the next, and Corinthian on the third. The ballroom is on the second floor and is still used today for the winter balls.”

“We would love to see the Museum,” Annie said, “but today we’ve come to see Tim Bond. If you can direct us to his office …”

“Oh, certainly. This way.” She led them through the bookstore in an ornate sideroom to a back hallway. “Tim’s office is in the basement. Now, these stairs are dreadful. Watch your step as you go down. The offices are to your right.” She opened the door, and the faraway bang of a hammer echoed up the stairwell.

Annie led the way and was glad of the advice. The steps pitched so steeply that she had to cling to the metal banister for balance. A light dangled from a cord
at the landing. Unshaded bulbs hung in various parts of the basement, providing brilliant circles of light that emphasized the dark reaches between them. The rhythmic thud of the hammer masked the sound of their footsteps on the cement floor. They passed a door labeled Darkroom and a second one with Curator stenciled on it. A third door, a dingy yellow, bore a placard with the warning POISON. Tables and workbenches paralleled the corridor. At the far end of the basement, Tim Bond stood beside a cluttered workbench, driving nails into the ends of a crate. The light here was very bright, a circle of yellow against the blackness of the cellar’s recesses.

“Hello, there,” Max called out.

For an instant, those narrow shoulders stiffened, then he turned and faced them, hammer in hand. The harsh light bleached the color from his gaunt face. In silence, he watched them approach. He wore a paint-spattered shirt and frayed cut-offs. His sea-green eyes had a wild look, like a horse ready to bolt. He shifted from one big foot to the other.

“What do you want?”

“We just wanted to visit with you a little,” Max said soothingly. “What are you working on?”

Tim sniffed around the question as if expecting a trap, then answered sullenly. “I’m crating my paintings, getting them ready to go to New York.”

Annie twisted to look at the canvases lined up in a neat row. “That’s pretty important to you, isn’t it?”

“Any reason why it shouldn’t be?”

“Was it important enough for you to kill Corinne?” Annie asked abruptly.

His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “Hell, no.” But his voice was shrill.

“You were mad at her. She wasn’t going to let you go
to New York. She was sending your paintings on a tour.”

Tim licked his lips. “It would’ve been all right. Sybil was going to make her give me my stuff.”

“How could she do that?” Max asked.

His eyes slid away, focused on the white pine board. “I dunno.” He lifted the hammer, slammed the nail in solidly.

Annie raised her voice. “Where were you when Corinne was killed?”

He stood very still, hunched over the crate, then, with a look of great cunning, said, “How should I know? I don’t even know when she was killed.”

“Don’t you read the paper?” Max asked.

The big head swung toward him. “Why should I? I don’t care.”

So much, Annie thought, for rapport between patroness and artist.

“Where were you between 5 and 5:30?” she asked briskly.

“Oh. Here and there,” he said vaguely. “I don’t pay much attention to time. I don’t even own a watch.”

A telephone jangled behind him. He reached out a big hand to pick up the receiver. “Yeah.” His pale eyes flickered from Max to Annie, then his face reddened, until his skin was scarlet to the roots of his soft, curly hair. “Oh, yeah. They’re here. Okay.”

He hung up, then glared at them defiantly. “I was with Sybil. I was with Sybil the whole time.”

Annie pulled the booth door shut, which immediately made it airless and hot, but there was too much noise from the parade proceeding up Federal to the accompaniment of a rousing “Stars and Stripes Forever” to
leave it cracked. While she waited for Gail to come to the phone, she entertained herself by admiring Max’s sun-touched profile through the smudged window.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Gail. This is Annie. I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s something we really need to know.”

The tiny sigh on the other end said more clearly than words that Gail was disappointed in the caller. Hadn’t she talked to Bobby yet?

“What can I do for you?”

“Who is Leighton involved with?”

Now the silence tingled with dismay.

“I know,” Annie continued quickly. “You don’t want to say. I understand that. But we have to talk to everyone concerned—and believe me, it’s up to me and Max. Chief Wells isn’t talking to
anybody
but me and Bobby.”

“Oh, God.” Silence again, then a hoarse, unhappy whisper, “Peggy Taylor. She teaches at Chastain High.”

18

T
he swimmer kicked a steady four beats per stroke, and her elbows came high as her hands knifed cleanly into the water. At each end of the pool, she made swift, nicely executed flip turns.

Annie waited patiently beside the diving board. The water glinted satiny green beneath the overhead lights, and the heavy smell of chlorine hung in the still, moist air. The high school secretary had directed her to the pool. “Miss Taylor works out at noon every day, but she won’t be finished yet.”

The swimmer neared the deep end, but instead of flipping, she surfaced and clung to the rim. Shaking her hair back, she glanced around the deserted pool, then up at Annie. “Are you waiting for me?”

“Yes. I’d like to talk to you for a minute, Ms. Taylor.” She pulled herself up and out of the pool, without
apparent effort. She had a swimmer’s body, lean, firm, and shapely.

A woman more different from Corinne Webster would be hard to imagine.

Peggy Taylor moved with the unselfconscious grace of a superbly conditioned athlete. Her Lycra racing suit revealed high breasts, a narrow waist, slim hips. She pulled off her goggles, looked curiously at Annie, then held out a firm hand. “Peggy Taylor.”

Annie shook her hand. “Annie Laurance.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You know Leighton Webster.”

Peggy’s face closed, became carefully blank. “Yes.”

“You know, of course, that his wife was murdered.”

“Why have you come to see me? I didn’t know Mrs. Webster.” Her voice was even and colorless.

“But people say you knew him very well indeed.”

“People be damned.” She stared at Annie, her tanned face set and stiff.

“Do you think he could kill his wife?”

“No.” Her voice was harsh; the denial was explosive. But her gray-blue eyes were full of fear. She slapped a hand against the webbing on the board. “That’s absurd. Leighton isn’t that kind of man. He’s gentle and kind and honorable.”

“Have you spoken to him since Monday?”

“No.” She looked away from Annie, stared down at the water lapping against the lane ropes.

“When did you last talk to him?”

She didn’t want to answer that question. Her reluctance quivered between them. Finally, grudgingly, she said, “A week or so ago. I don’t know exactly.”

“Had you quarreled?”

“Oh, go to hell,” Peggy cried. She grabbed up her towel and stalked away.

“Where were you Monday afternoon?” Annie called after her.

The slim figure paused. For a moment, Annie was certain she would not answer, but then Peggy Taylor looked back. “In a bloody faculty meeting that ran late.” Then she headed swiftly toward the girls’ locker room.

Annie stopped at a pay phone in the main hall of Chastain High and dialed the Prichard House again.

It took a minute, but Leighton Webster came on the line.

“Mr. Webster, I just talked to Peggy.”

There was a sharply indrawn breath. “Miss Laurance, I find that an unwarranted intrusion in my life.”

“I have just one question. What happened the last time you saw her?”