Mint Julep Murder (16 page)
Authors: Carolyn G. Hart
Leah stopped midway up the aisle and faced Annie, “Why are you harassing me? Why are you doing this?” Her voice trembled with fury.
“I’m sorry.” And Annie was—sorry at this exchange, sorry to cause hurt, sorry to be involved at all in the dark passions of people she scarcely knew. But she had no choice. Brown drops of nicotine had taken her choice away. “All I want is the truth,” Annie said quietly. “Someone poisoned Kenneth Hazlitt. I want you to help me find out who did it. And you can help, Leah. You know the authors. You know what was behind Kenneth’s book proposal.”
The author stared at Annie for a moment, then her lovely lips curved in a frigid smile. “But, my dear, there was
nothing
behind Kenneth’s proposal. You sound as though this book would have been critical! Why, that would come as such a shock to me, and, I’m sure, to the other authors. I’m confident Kenneth’s book would have been a celebration of our lives. You are simply misinformed.”
Perhaps if Leah Kirby hadn’t been quite so arrogant, so disdainful, Annie wouldn’t have reacted as she did.
But as she watched the author stride toward the doors, Annie exploded.
“Then you’ll be thrilled to know,” Annie shouted, “that I’m going to write the book myself. I’m going to call a news conference tomorrow—right before the Medallions are awarded—to share with the world the fascinating background to a book that won’t be stopped even by murder! The tabloids will
love
it!”
Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember. The kid died in my arms.” Officer MacDougal’s voice was uninflected, but Max heard
the pain. “No reason for an accident. Dry weather. Clear. Unobstructed view of the bus stop. Driver said a bee buzzed in the window, she lost control. Accidents happen.” “Was it an accident?”
“Could have been. Jury would probably have believed her. The insurance company settled.”
“You didn’t believe her.” Max wished he could see Officer MacDougal. What would the policeman’s face reveal? Intelligence, spite, prejudice, amiability, illness? All Max had was the voice, dry, even, weary.
“No. I didn’t. Mister, I got nine kids. I know a liar when I hear one. But I don’t know what she was lying about. I worked it. I never found any connection between her and the kid or the kid’s family. Nothing. And she had her boss’s permission to drive his car. She was on her way to the post office. Nothing there. Of course, she didn’t stop after she hit the kid. But she went around the block and came back immediately. She claimed she was in such shock she didn’t know what to do. She acted nervous, but not panicked like you’d think for somebody who’d just killed a seven-year-old. Somehow it wasn’t right. But she wasn’t drunk or on drugs. The next day I talked to her boss. A mean-eyed wimpy guy. He didn’t give a damn about the dead girl, just wanted to be sure his secretary didn’t have to miss work and demanded we give him back the car so he could get it fixed up. Snarled something about how his secretary would have to pay for the damage. I looked her over three ways to Sunday. No record. No previous accidents. Hell, she’s never even had a ticket.” A thoughtful pause. “But I’ll tell you one thing for dead certain: She’s a liar.”
Annie glowered at the house telephone. Of course, it was perfectly reasonable that not a single one of her authors would be in their rooms. Why should they? There were readers to meet and booksellers to charm, although she rather doubted Jimmy Jay Crabtree was charming anyone at the moment. But he was no doubt swaggering among the
festival-goers, Mr. Big Deal determined to be noticed. She turned, ready to plunge down the hall and hurry to the booths, then shook her head. She could dart all over the place and miss connecting with all of them by the space of a few feet or the passage of a few minutes. No. Running about willy-nilly made no sense.
She glanced at the red-and-yellow-spotted porcelain clock in the ceiling of the lobby. Almost noon. Twenty-four hours more and the Festival would be over. The Famous Five would be free to leave, and Annie would be left as Detective Wheeler’s major suspect.
Annie felt a sudden breathlessness.
Left as Detective Wheeler’s
only
suspect.
But there was some safety in numbers. During the party, the Hazlitt suite was crammed with people. Maybe not everyone could have added the poison to the whiskey bottle, but certainly it was possible someone had done so.
Annie intended to expand the suspect list to include the Famous Five, whether Wheeler agreed or not.
But her threat to write
Song of the South
hadn’t dented Leah Kirby’s determined revisionism. However, some of the others might not be as disciplined as Leah. Or they might be more willing to dish the dirt about their fellow Medallion honorees.
It was the best idea Annie had going.
But, dammit, how to share the great news about her purported literary career with those who would appreciate it the most?
She glanced at the front desk and around the lobby. The authors had to come through here to reach the elevators.
Annie nodded, and picked up a message pad from the shelf for the house phones. She chewed on the end of her pencil, then wrote rapidly. She stopped, shook her head, wadded up that sheet. Three tries later, she nodded in satisfaction:
… always wanted to be a writer.
(A lie in a good cause was a lie in a good cause.)
I am thrilled to
report that interest is growing in the proposal Kenneth Hazlitt made for
Song of the South.
It now looks now as though there will be an auction among four publishing houses. I have obtained a great deal of background information that fleshes out Kenneth’s view of the characters. I know you will be eager to talk with me about the future of the book.
She gnawed again on the pencil, smiled grimly, and added
Sincerely yours, Annie Laurance Darling
with a dramatic flourish. She made copies and addressed envelopes to Leah Kirby, Emma Clyde, Jimmy Jay Crabtree, Alan Blake, and Melissa Sinclair. She marched straight to the front desk, all the while refusing to listen to the little inner voice that had risen from a murmur to a clamor, warning Annie that her future held a confrontation with a very handsome, usually equable blond man, aqua her husband. Max was not going to be pleased.
She was turning away when the clerk said swiftly, “Oh, Mrs. Darling—I have a message for you.”
The cellular phone faded in and out. “Listen, buddy, it’s … Saturday morn … and I’m on the eighth hole. I’ve got a three-foot putt with a century note riding on it.”
Max said, “I’ve got ten of those babies riding on your finding out—in the next hour—everything I ever wanted to know about Regina Perkins, age thirty-three. Her address is …”
Annie accepted the envelope, noting Henny’s handwriting, and a large piece of white poster board. She slipped the folder from Max under one arm and moved away from the front desk, out of the traffic, to stare at the ink-smudged poster. It reminded her of the illustrations of atoms that decorated the walls in her high school chemistry class. However, instead of varicolored balls, these circles held
numbers. Various colors traced the erratic paths of these balls. A note at the bottom of the poster instructed:
The guests who attended the cocktail party in the Mint Julep Press suite Friday are listed by number on the back of this poster with the exception of one Bill Smith, who was not registered at the Marriott as he claimed. However, through interviews with the rest of those attending, the movements of the guests have been charted. (See above.) Please read accompanying report.
Annie lugged the poster, the note, and her folder to a comfortable easy chair with a good view of the front desk, the entrance, and the hallways that converged in the lobby. She opened the note:
Dear Annie
,
Through assiduous and insightful interviews, we three (Dora Brevard, Henrietta Brawley, and Laurel Darling Roethke, known hereinafter as the Attestors) affirm that the following information is accurate:
No one had an opportunity to poison the whiskey bottle with nicotine during the cocktail party (See appendixes 4 and 11.)
Annie scanned the rest of the information. Which was not easy. Detail piled upon detail. Witness 1 corroborated Witness 4 who corroborated Witness 9 who …
It was clear-cut and irrefutable.
The overlapping observations by one person or another standing in the vicinity of the wet bar—all apparently of unimpeachable background and integrity (a rabbi, a social worker, a nun, Miss Georgia, the local president of the Daughters of the Confederacy)—proved that no one touched the bottle from five minutes to five, when the first guest arrived, to five-thirty-seven, when Kenneth poured the fatal drink.
In conclusion therefore, we, the Attestors, conclude that the poison was introduced into the whiskey bottle during the period that the suite was unoccupied from approximately ten
A.M.
to three
P.M.
One of our members (Cookbook Author Dora Brevard, Aunt Dora’s Delectables, 87 pages) found the suite door open at shortly after eleven
A.M.
and took that opportunity to leave a welcoming tray of Delectable Divinity on the table. Mr. William Hazlitt returned to the suite at approximately three
P.M.
Clearly
,
ALL PERSONS VISITING THE FIFTH FLOOR
during that period must be considered as having had Opportunity. May we respectfully suggest an effort to determine who among these were aware that Suite 500 was registered to Mr. Hazlitt.
In the pursuit of justice
,
HENRIETTA BRAWLEY
CC
: Det. Clarence Wheeler
“Thanks,” Annie said aloud, bitterly. “Thanks, pals. Serve me up on a platter. Hand the lieutenant a noose with my name on it.”
The lobby had the atmosphere of the veranda at a tennis club. There was a great deal of coming and going, a parade of gorgeous sports attire, a comfortable, well-bred holiday air. Annie was impressed by the unobtrusiveness of the Buccaneer staff. They were there—if you looked—but you had to look. She must remember to compliment Jeff Garrett on the employees’ guest awareness and attention to detail. A doorman promptly opened the glass doors. No sooner was a cigarette plunged into a receptacle than a young man in a crisp maroon uniform scooped it up, raked the sand, and impressed the hotel crest. One swift ring of the melodious bell at the front desk and bellmen came hurrying. The concierge, matronly and middle-aged, spoke four languages, including German-accented English. Annie wondered how life had led her to a sea island. The concierge was prepared to book a limousine or a tee time or a restaurant reservation. Brochures touted a backcountry exploration of Daufauskie, now both an enclave of enormous wealth and a remnant of the Gullah culture, a kayak odyssey
in the wetlands, or a trip to Charleston, perhaps the most fascinating and without doubt the most charming historical site in America.
But Annie was not on a holiday.
She scanned the lobby once again, settled more comfortably in her chair, and opened the folder.
And looked into Emma’s cornflower-blue eyes. So Emma did have clothes other than caftans. The famed mystery writer stood poised beside a palmetto in a navy linen jacket, an ivory silk blouse, and a slenderizing navy skirt. This was a recent photo because her hair was blue-gray and in crisp waves. Her square face was genial. Annie was impressed. This was photography by a wizard. Yes, Emma looked smart, but in this clever picture, there was no hint of her overpowering personality.
Emma Clyde:
A stolen book started me on my career. Though its owner had no further use for it. He was only nineteen or twenty. I remember they’d been out in the field for several days, yet he had only the downiest fuzz of a beard beneath the dirt. He stepped on a mine. Both of his legs were blown off. He lost too much blood, though we tried. Perhaps I should say I salvaged his book. In those days, we salvaged anything and everything that could make a day a little better. I found the book on the floor of the operating room. Actually, the operating room was a tent, the floor swept sand, portable lights mounted at both ends of the table. I was an Army nurse.
After a battle, we’d operate for eighteen hours, twenty at a stretch. Buckets held the amputated limbs. Blood was everywhere. When I think back, it’s always the blood that I remember.
I was young, too. Sometimes I find it hard to believe I was ever that young. But, if you lived, if you survived the sand and the bombs and the machine-gun fire and the fear, you didn’t stay young for long. Not in North Africa. Day after day
after day, the pain and suffering and the heat and the men—so many of them my age—looking up at you and knowing they were horribly maimed—or dying.
When I was off duty, I read that book and reread it and reread it. I must have read
Death on the Nile
a hundred times. I can still quote it by heart. When Hercule Poirot first speaks to Jacqueline de Bellefort, he pleads with her, “… Do not open your heart to evil.”
To me, that sentence says everything there is to say about mysteries. People who don’t read mysteries are puzzled by them. They want to know why any writer would focus on crime. They don’t understand that crime isn’t the point of a mystery. When Marigold Rembrandt sets out to solve a murder, she must find out what went wrong in the lives she is exploring. What fractured the relationships between these people? In everyday life, if John steals from his partner, is cruel to his wife, demeans his son, destroys a competitor’s reputation, the result is anger, quarrels, confrontations—fractured relationships. Rarely, of course, in real life, does murder occur. The murder in a mystery is simply a magnification of the miseries that are so common when people open their hearts to evil. So mysteries are not about murder, they are about relationships.
Christie once said that the modern mystery was the equivalent of the medieval morality play. I agree absolutely. Mysteries serve as parables to readers. The reader can see what happens, the un-happiness and turmoil and despair that are created in lives dominated by evil.
My next Marigold Rembrandt,
Holiday for Harlots
, will be my eighty-third published novel. Recently, a fan wrote and asked if I intended to retire. My answer is swift and certain: Never.
Oh, of course, I understand—have understood
since I was a battlefield nurse—that absolutes are absurd. Certainly, if I am incapacitated, I would have to retire. If my sales should plummet, if readers should tire of Marigold, I would be retired. You will note the distinction there. But to make that choice? Never.
You see, in the mystery, I found a structure I can hold to. Not predictability. That’s the snide assessment of narrow-minded critics like Edmund Wilson. A good mystery—aside from its structure—is never predictable except for one absolute: Justice will be served.
What does that mean? In North Africa, I found no justice. The captain admired for his courage died on the operating table; the colonel despised for his stupidity survived. Greed, cruelty, vicious-ness, exploitation, and every vile motive can—and often do—triumph in the world.
But not in my mysteries.
I create that world, I control it, I am its master.
From the insanity of war to the clear, coolly reasoned creation of a world that responds to order, it has been a long and fascinating journey, a journey not yet concluded.