Mint Julep Murder (24 page)

Max put down a bill and swung off his stool, blocking Jimmy Jay. “I’m not sure exactly where you got out of the car. It was someplace around the block, of course. Was it in front of that cleaners?” The Atlanta private eye had faxed the list of local businesses near the scene of the hit-and-run. “Or maybe in front of the grocery store. Once the cops start to look, they’ll find somebody who saw you that day. Or it may get easier than that. If they offer Regina a plea bargain—”

Jimmy Jay shoved ineffectually against Max, cursed, and lurched toward the exit.

“Annie, how about a dance?”

Alan Blake reached out and grabbed her hand.

Before she knew it, they were on the dimly lit dance floor, doing a rowdy two-step. The band was so loud there was no point in trying to talk, and when they careened off the floor into a banana shrub, Annie was breathless and laughing.

“Hey, great.” Alan Blake grinned at her as if they were the oldest of friends. There was no trace of his earlier anger. “Having a good time?”

And, belatedly, she remembered that he was one of her suspects and that she wasn’t at the party to have fun.

But he was certainly attractive when he made the effort. “Sure. You?”

“I
always
have fun.” Even in the dim light, she could see the flash of white teeth in a broad smile. “This is one of the best book meetings around. There must have been a hundred people lined up at my signing this afternoon. God, what a great weekend.”

His rich tenor voice surged with vitality and satisfaction.

Annie stared at him. “A great weekend? How about Kenneth Hazlitt?”

Alan’s face froze. “Oh, yeah. A hell of a bad deal. Poor old Kenneth.” His tone was appropriately somber. “Hard to believe. I wonder if something got in his drink by accident. Some cleaning stuff or bug poison. I mean, why would anybody deliberately kill poor old Kenneth? Nobody ever kills the clown.”

“You’d known him for a long time?”

“Mint Julep Press published my first book. And it just took off.”

“You didn’t stay with Mint Julep Press?”

His mobile face changed again. He tilted his head. “Honey, friends are friends, but you don’t stay with a small
press when your book gets listed as a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year.”

“How did Kenneth feel about that?”

Alan turned up his hands. “Unhappy. Sure, he hated to lose me. But he understood. We parted friends.” He shook his head. “Poor old Kenneth.”

Annie hoped Kenneth Hazlitt had some mourners who really cared. Because, in her estimation, Alan Blake was amiably sorry but far from grieved.

But if she didn’t sense any real sorrow in him, she certainly didn’t sense any emotional response deeper than casual notice.

Surely a murderer would emanate more emotion than that.

“Alan, tell me about Hollywood.”

Those white teeth flashed again. “Honey, it would take longer than you’ve got. Come on, let’s dance.” And his vibrant grin was back in place. He was having a hell of a time.

Kenneth Hazlitt, R.I.P., Annie thought, as they swung around the floor.

Max ordered another crème de cacao.

Emma Clyde accepted it with pleasure.

Max sipped at his drink—definitely not crème de cacao—and wondered how to begin.

Emma saved him the effort. “I’ve been thinking about it, Max.” Her brusque voice was coldly thoughtful and, despite the hubbub in the bar, very easy to hear. “These questions need to be answered: One. Why was Kenneth killed
now?
Why this particular weekend? Two. Why poison? In particular, why nicotine? Why not an overdose of a barbiturate, which would clearly be less brutal? Almost anyone can get that kind of drug, one way or another. Three. Why at the cocktail party?”

Emma sipped at the liqueur.

Max used a cocktail napkin to write the questions
down. Whatever Emma considered important, he was quite willing to pursue.

“And there’s the matter of character.” Her face was in shadow. “I’d give a good deal of thought to that. Who among the suspects either hated Kenneth or is so completely self-absorbed that the kind of suffering Kenneth endured didn’t matter? Yes, the importance of character cannot be overemphasized.”

Max tapped his pen on the napkin. “Perhaps nicotine was used because it is so quick. A barbiturate or tranquilizer could take hours, and if he had been discovered unconscious, he could possibly have been saved. And perhaps the murderer wanted it to occur at the party because Hazlitt was likely to gulp down a drink there.” Max folded the napkin, tucked it in his jacket pocket. “Maybe the poisoner didn’t realize how awful the actual poisoning would be.”

“Hmm. I would think that if one were to plan to kill with a particular poison that one would thoroughly read up on it. I know I would.” A dry, cold laugh. “But, of course, I already know a great deal about many kinds of poisons.” Emma finished her second glass of liqueur. “As a mystery writer.”

“As a mystery writer,” Max said carefully, “what kind of character would you create who would poison with nicotine?”

Emma licked the last drop from the edge of her glass. “Narcissistic. Cruel. Craven. Manipulative.” She put down the glass. “Unless, of course, my murderer were a writer. Then all bets would be off.”

“Why, Emma?”

“Don’t you see? It’s like a box within a box within a box. That’s how writers think.” Max frowned.

Emma wiped her fingers with a cocktail napkin. “Look at it this way, Max. Suppose the murderer is strong, forceful, direct, a person most unlikely to use poison.” Her eyes glittered with amusement. “A person who might—oh, just for an example—a person who might push a victim from a
high place. How clever then to utilize poison. Don’t you agree?”

Even in the gloom, Max could see Emma’s dry, cold smile.

“Just the most gorgeous night, isn’t it, honey?” Missy Sinclair’s soft drawl made Annie feel like a fly stuck on a sticky sheet dangling on a country porch in August. “Let’s stroll over and look at the water.”

They were at the edge of the boardwalk that crossed over the dunes. Into the darkness.

Annie stood quite still.

Missy’s languorous eyes studied Annie. “My, my, my. First time anybody’s ever been scared to walk with little old me. But you know something, honey, that’s plain good sense on your part. You’re a smart little lady. I’ll tell you what, we’ll just sashay into the lobby instead. Why, you’ll feel safe as houses.” Missy slipped a plump arm firmly through Annie’s.

In the lobby, they settled into cane chairs near the terra-cotta vase with its magnificent profusion of bougainvillea. Occasional whoops of laughter sounded from the bar. Each time the doors to the terrace swung open, the music thrummed louder than surf.

Annie sat stiffly, facing Missy. Annie knew her face was flaming.

Missy Sinclair reached over and patted Annie’s knee. “Honey, it’s all right. At least it tells me you didn’t poison the whiskey. Not that I ever thought you did. Poor old Kenneth. He always had such a good time.” Her limpid gaze brightened as she spotted an ashtray. “Thank God. A Smoking Section.” Her voice was derisive. “It makes you feel like a pariah. I declare, it’s just marvelous to have the government keeping me healthy.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

The fly tried to shake free from the treacle. “What did Kenneth know about Tupelo?”

“Tupelo.” Missy’s soft voice was enigmatic, as unrevealing
as rain-muddied water, as indefinable as April sunlight shining through Spanish moss. “Tupelo’s a mighty old town, honey. I suppose Kenneth might have thought that’s where I grew up. Tupelo might be a nice place to grow up in.” Those languorous, hypnotic eyes lazily moved toward Annie. “Or it might not be.”

“Missy,” Annie’s query was sharp, “what are you hiding?”

“Hiding?” That soft voice quivered with amusement. “Everything. Nothing.” The words hung in the air like spun sugar. “I told Kenneth that he could write what he pleased. And so can you. I don’t have anything to say about it.” Her face was placid, untroubled. “But I might give you a little piece of advice.” Smoke drifted lazily upward.

Annie bent closer despite the tobacco-laden air.

“You know, in the South, when you go out in the woods on a spring day—”

Annie nodded, her eyes held by Missy’s dark, brooding gaze.

“—and everything looks so pretty, the mosses and the wildflowers and the ferns, oh, ferns everywhere, bracken and cinnamon and ebony spleenwort—”

Annie waited.

“—it’s best to stay right on the path, honey, and not be going off in the brush or reaching into dark places. Those dark places, that’s where the snakes dwell.” The pupils of Missy’s eyes were huge; the irises glistened a yellow-gold. “Poor old Kenneth, I do believe, maybe he stuck his hand in the wrong place. Don’t you, honey?”

“Annie! Hey, Annie!” Jeff Garrett came around the desk.

Annie was struck by how tired he looked. Still, he managed a friendly smile.

“Hi, Jeff. How’s everything going?”

“Better.” Without the smile, he looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed, the freckles standing out on his pale face. “Everything’s almost back to normal. At least the cops
aren’t swarming all over the place. It was hell trying to keep things going for a while there.”

“How’s the maid who fell down the stairs?”

“Better. She’s conscious. Her only bad injury’s a broken shoulder.”

“Has she said how she happened to fall?”

The assistant manager frowned. “She doesn’t know. She doesn’t even remember being on the stairs. The last thing she remembers is cleaning a room. But the doctor said head trauma can cause people to forget things.”

“I’m glad she’s going to be okay.”

“Thanks, Annie.” He started to turn away, then swung back with an embarrassed laugh. “I don’t even have head trauma as an excuse. Here. I almost forgot to give it to you. Your husband just called down. Here’s the message.”

Annie moved away from the desk. Jeff’s printing was easy to read:

She stared at it, frowning. Why on earth? She started for the long hall leading to the parking lot, then swerved into the telephone alcove. She dialed their room number.

The phone rang once, twice, a third time.

Annie plopped the receiver in its cradle.

She hurried out of the alcove and into the hall, picking up speed as she passed the White Ibis Room. Mint Julep Press was still drawing customers. She glimpsed Willie Hazlitt behind a table just inside the door, busily accepting checks. He didn’t look up.

Annie was just as glad.

She’d exchanged enough hostile glances with handsome Willie.

Meet Max at her car. Why? She pushed through the side door, not exactly worried. But very puzzled.

The banana-sweet scent of the pittisporum bush mingled with the less savory stench of car fumes. Shrubs masked the parking lot from the hotel lawn. Annie plunged
down the shadowy path, lighted every ten feet or so by globed lamps. Oyster shells crackled underfoot.

Faintly, she could hear the throb of the band from the raucous party on the terrace. But here it was very quiet. The crunch of her footsteps seemed quite loud. More distantly, car motors signaled traffic in the street. But another line of huge shrubs blocked the street from view.

Several women, their voices high and cheerful, turned up the path, passed her.

It made the parking lot seem even emptier when she reached it.

Her Volvo was parked about twenty yards to the left. She stepped out past the row of cars, turned left.

The Volvo was parked midway between lampposts in a shadowy pocket.

Annie reached the back of the car.

Oh, Max was already in the car, waiting for her, sitting in the passenger—

Pop.

Such a small sound.

Annie heard it and heard, too, the breaking of glass.

The nearest lamp shattered.

Now it was very dark.

Pop.

Annie heard the skitter of oyster shells close to her.

Her heart raced as she dropped to the ground, scrabbling desperately to get to the side of the Volvo. The sharp-edged shells scraped against her hands and legs.

Running footsteps thudded nearer.

Annie scrunched next to the car, rolling beneath the chassis. She scrabbled to open her purse. She had Mace—Then she realized she’d left her car keys in the room.

She clutched the purse, listened to the running steps.

And knew she’d made a mistake.

Now she was trapped.

Somehow she had to get away from the car, hide, get away—

The running steps slewed nearer, nearer.

Annie struggled to crawl out from beneath the Volvo
on the other side. And Max! She had to warn Max! He mustn’t open the door—

The footsteps crunched to a stop. A cloud of oyster shell dust roiled over her. A sharp, hard pain flamed as something hard struck her shoulder.

Oyster shells crackled. Running footsteps thudded away.

Darkness and pain.

The running steps faded.

Annie’s shoulder throbbed. Something hard, something unyielding—She reached out, touched metal. Her fingers closed around the barrel of a gun.

A gun.

She fumbled, gripped it, wondered if it was loaded, if this was a way of tricking her, drawing her out from beneath the car.

Her finger squeezed the trigger.

Pop.

So she was armed.

She inched forward.

That was when she realized how silent it was, just the sound of her breathing and the crackle of the shells and the rattle of breeze-stirred palm fronds.

Oh, God, it was so quiet.

The wind rustled the magnolia leaves.

Terribly, frightfully, achingly quiet.

Fear turned her body to ice, numbed her mind.

She felt that she was falling into a void of darkness, a hideous emptiness.

Fear roared in her mind, like winds rushing through a cavern, tearing, destructive, violent winds.

She was on her hands and knees beside the car, struggling to her feet.

That slumped figure in the passenger seat was just as she’d glimpsed it earlier.