Mint Julep Murder (28 page)

“Yes, Mrs. Kirby. I did. As I invited each Medallion winner and others who have a special interest in Kenneth Hazlitt’s death.” She paused, then said firmly, “But especially the Medallion winners.”

Leah Kirby cupped her chin in one hand, her camellia
perfect face watchful. An ornate emerald ring glistened in a gold mounting. This morning her silk dress was a bright Kelly green.

Carl Kirby’s brown eyes were glazed with pain and worry. He sat stiffly as if braced against his chair. His jacket hung from too-thin shoulders.

Jimmy Jay Crabtree rubbed his head as if it hurt. His sallow face was puffy. Annie had the fleeting thought that Agatha often dragged in dead mice that looked healthier. And—her nose wrinkled at the odor of stale alcohol—smelled better.

Missy Sinclair’s enigmatic smile never wavered, but her eyes glittered with fury. She looked like an alligator wakened from sleep, dangerous and lethally unpredictable.

Alan Blake lounged in his chair. His chestnut curls were attractively tousled, his diffident smile in place, but his eyes were arrogant and amused.

Emma Clyde glanced from Annie to Detective Wheeler, her gaze cold and measuring.

Max and the Dauntless Trio watched her appreciatively, a nice change from the other hostile faces.

The five authors might have been carved from stone.

“Kenneth threatened each of you, your lives, your happiness, or your success. His novel, if published, could cause great unhappiness. The characters were so clearly delineated: the elegant redhead involved with a much younger writer, America’s sweetheart novelist with a shady past in Hollywood, the author of psychological novels whose own past is marked by lies and deception, the tell-it-like-it-is writer who dumps on everybody around him except the secretary who runs over a child, and America’s greatest detective-story writer who may have committed her own real-life perfect murder.”

“It was all a lie.” Leah Kirby’s voice shook.

Carl Kirby rested a hand on his wife’s arm. “Of course, it was all a lie, Leah. I know that.” His gaze challenged Annie. “This kind of innuendo is something a writer like Leah has to deal with. She has always been extremely generous in her support of new authors, and Brett Farraday is
an exceptionally gifted young man. I have been delighted that Leah is willing to share her great expertise with him. So you see, Leah had no reason to poison Kenneth, although, of course, a cheap book such as he proposed would have been distasteful.”

Leah’s lips parted. Her emerald-green eyes widened.

It was sharply clear to Annie that Leah had no idea her husband had heard rumors linking her to the young writer.

It was equally clear that Carl was lying. And that, in his wife’s defense, he would continue to lie.

Leah slowly, timidly reached out toward him.

Carl took her hand in a hard, tight grip.

Leah’s eyes filled with tears.

Missy Sinclair’s voice was soft, but her eyes glittered. “Annie, honey, you just have the most old-fashioned ideas. I don’t think Oprah or Geraldo would be even a teeny bit interested in Kenneth’s silly little book. Why, honey, if you can’t offer incest or black magic or stolen babies or something special, you don’t have diddlysquat.”

“Maybe not enough for Oprah or Geraldo,” Annie agreed. “But it could be enough to break a heart”—she carefully did not look toward Leah and Carl—“or ruin a career or send someone to jail. But Kenneth’s book may not be the reason for his murder.” She looked coolly at Willie Hazlitt. “There’s always Kenneth’s little brother, the little brother he bailed out so many times. Until this last time, when he ordered Willie to come home and go to work.”

“And I did,” Willie said angrily.

“Yes. You did. And Kenneth died.”

“But not at home.” Willie’s voice was rough. “He died here—where all these people hated him.” He gestured disdainfully at the authors.

“Yes. Kenneth died here. But not only Kenneth. So did another man. Last night. In the parking lot of the hotel. In my car.” She held the note card tightly.

Willie Hazlitt gaped at Annie, his face blank with surprise. “Somebody else got killed? Who? What did he have to do with Kenneth?”

“Nothing. And that’s what makes it so very, very interesting.” In her mind, Annie could hear the echo of those words: …
so very, very interesting.
Now she understood quite well what they meant when Mr. Moto uttered them in the old John Marquand thrillers. Yes, it was so very, very interesting….

“You see,” Annie said, “no one knows yet who this man was. Or why he was killed. But now we know enough to find out all about him. And the person who shot him is in this room.”

Annie definitely had the undivided attention of her audience. “Since we don’t yet know the identity of the man who was shot, let’s call him X.”

She was pleased to see that her quarry’s face remained untroubled, but the eyes betrayed the beginnings of uneasiness.

Good. Good, good, good.

Annie looked toward Henny. “Please make sure everyone has a copy of the flyer with X’s photograph.”

Henny slipped from her seat, moved around the table.

“Dreadful,” Leah Kirby murmured.

Missy Sinclair clasped her plump hands together and looked up from the photo. “I suspect this man had a brutal nature.”

Jimmy Jay Crabtree barely glanced at the flyer.

Alan Blake shook his head. “Don’t know him.”

Emma Clyde’s eyes narrowed. “No exit wound.”

“At the morgue, the technician found one of my business cards in the dead man’s shirt pocket.”

“And how do you explain that?” Missy’s voice was silky.

“Quite easily. I see that each Medallion winner has brought his author packet as I requested. Will each of you please open your packet and turn it toward the middle of the table?”

Alan Blake flashed a bemused smile. “Isn’t it a little early in the day for parlor games?” “This is no game, Mr. Blake.”

He shrugged, flipped open his packet, pushed it toward the center of the table, then once again lounged comfortably in his chair.

Leah Kirby opened her packet, studied it for a moment. The huge emerald on her right hand glittered as she turned the folder toward Annie.

Jimmy Jay Crabtree heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Jesus, I need a drink. Let’s get this over with. Okay?” He yanked the folder open, shoved it forward without looking at it.

Missy Sinclair pursed her plump lips. She straightened her author photo, then placed the folder on the table.

Emma Clyde’s cornflower-blue eyes were puzzled. She lifted out the contents of her folder, glanced at each item as she replaced it. Then one stubby finger pushed the open folder forward.

“As you will see,” Annie continued, “every packet—but one—contains my business card in the slot on the right-hand—”

Jimmy Jay jolted forward like his thin rump had been poked by a pitchfork.

“Just a goddamn minute,” he bellowed. “You setting me up?” He looked wildly around the room. His stringy hair straggled down in his face.

“I’m not setting you up.” Annie’s voice was equable. “But somebody did, Jimmy Jay. Because my card—the card found in the dead man’s pocket—contained three sets of fingerprints.” She looked toward the back of the room, at the stony-faced detective. “Can you tell us, please, Mr. Wheeler, whose fingerprints were on that card?”

Wheeler might not be happy with Annie’s efforts, but he kept his promises and he was a truthful man. “Yours. The victim’s. Mr. Crabtree’s.”

“Somebody got in my room!” Crabtree glared at Wheeler, then at Annie. “Somebody came in my room. They—” His thin lips snapped shut.

Annie honed in. “They did what, Jimmy Jay? What did they take?”

He stared at her sullenly, his mouth closed tight. “Saturday you accused me of getting in your room.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“You were scared? What scared you?” Annie spoke swiftly. “Obviously, you didn’t know my business card had been taken from your folder. So what else was taken? And why did the theft frighten you?”

Emma Clyde thrummed her blunt fingers on the table. “The gun that killed the man in your car—was it a .22 caliber?”

“Yes,” Annie answered.

Emma’s square face creased in a grim smile. “You know, Jimmy Jay, you made quite a spectacle of yourself in the bar at the last Wynnewood conference. And we were all there, Leah, Missy, Alan, and I. All of us know you carry that little Saturday night special. You made quite a point of how easy it was to take a gun when you flew. You put it in your checked luggage. No metal detectors.”

Annie’s quarry was sitting tensely now.

Crabtree nodded vigorously. “Yeah, somebody took it. One of you bastards took it.” He glared around the room.

“The Medallion winners,” Annie said quietly. “It started with the five of you, and that’s how this ugly affair’s going to end. Our story—the story of two murders—opens on Friday, when you authors arrived. There had been quite a bit of publicity about the Medallion winners. Kenneth decided to take advantage of your celebrity to attract people to his book exhibit, starting with a cocktail party on Friday afternoon to hype his Saturday open house. How to get lots of people interested? Kenneth had a great idea. He
announced his intention of writing a tell-all novel about the writers who had won this year’s Medallions.

“Kenneth certainly succeeded in attracting attention, especially that of you authors. You were all worried about what Kenneth might write. But one of you had a further worry—the unexpected arrival of someone from the past, our Mr. X. Mr. X came to this Festival precisely to see one particular Medallion winner and, I’m sure, to ask for money in exchange for silence about something in the author’s past.

“So, on Friday afternoon, Kenneth dies after drinking poisoned bourbon. On Saturday morning, the fifth-floor maid is knocked unconscious and her passkeys are taken. The passkey was used to enter Jimmy Jay’s suite. Jimmy Jay’s gun was stolen, along with my business card from Jimmy Jay’s packet. Then the passkey was used again last night to enter our suite and my car keys were taken. An appointment was made to meet Mr. X in the parking lot. I suspect it was casual. ‘Let’s take my car and go get a drink. I know a neat bar.’ Maybe there was to be talk of how future payments would be made. Mr. X and his companion walked to my Volvo, the author unlocked the car doors, they got in, and Mr. X was shot. The author returned to my room, called down to the front desk, and left a message for me to come to my car to meet Max. The author then returned to the parking lot. When I arrived, there were shots to frighten me. I hid beneath the car, and the gun was thrown under it and hit me.”

“A nice plan.” Emma’s tone was quite approving.

“But why? It was so elaborate. The effort to link me to the crime was so intense. That made me wonder. And that’s when the murderer of Mr. X made a huge mistake. Yes, the police considered me a suspect in Kenneth’s death, but I knew I was innocent. I decided to investigate on my own, so I informed all the writers that I intended to write Kenneth’s tell-all novel myself.

“If one of the authors murdered Kenneth to stop the writing of the novel, then I should be next.

“But when I was in the parking lot, the killer made no
attempt to shoot me. The shots were to frighten me, to make me run. But the murderer didn’t try to kill me.

“So, Kenneth’s book wasn’t the reason for his death. Therefore, Kenneth’s book could have nothing to do with Mr. X’s murder.

“So the linkage between Kenneth’s murder and Mr. X’s murder was artificial.

“And for the first time, everything made sense. One death by poison. One by gunshot. One at a party. One in a secluded parking lot. Suddenly, I knew what mattered. Who was Mr. X? Where was he from? And, most important, who was it that he came to the Festival to see? Once the investigation focused on that, once these flyers were shown to enough people, the end was in sight.” She glanced down at the note card, courtesy of the Dauntless Trio. “We have four witnesses who connect Mr. X quite definitely with his killer.”

Annie looked at her quarry. “Would you like to tell us more about Mr. X?”

Alan Blake pushed back his chair.

Annie’s voice was hard. “Kenneth’s book may not have been a problem for you, but his fictionalized versions of the authors’ lives reflected a lot of truth. So, exactly what did you do in Hollywood, Mr. Blake? Would it have something to do with pornographic films? Like the ones your friend Mr. X had delivered to your room, the videos that made you so furious? That kind of revelation could kill your nice-guy career. True nastiness could turn your reputation to slime, and then who would want to read your sweetly touching novels?”

Blake no longer looked pleasant. Or diffident. His face was tense and angry. “You can’t prove anything. I may have talked to that fellow at a cocktail party. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, you talked to him. I saw it happen. But I never saw his face. I saw your face. You were very angry, not exuding your usual charm, were you? But linking you to the dead man is just the beginning. When Detective Wheeler arrests you and obtains a search warrant for your
room, what are the odds he’s going to find the maid’s keys? And perhaps he’ll find more, perhaps the keys to a rental car that will turn out to hold Mr. X’s luggage. And what will happen when Detective Wheeler submits the dead man’s fingerprints to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System in Southern California? You see, Mr. Blake, once the police know where to look, it’s terribly easy to find answers.”

Detective Wheeler got to his feet. He took time to give Annie a brief nod, as if to say,
Okay, lady.
Then he moved toward Alan Blake. “Mr. Blake, I’m taking you into custody as a material witness in the murders of—”

Annie broke in. “Not murders, Detective Wheeler. Murder. The murder of the unidentified man. Kenneth Hazlitt’s poisoner is in this room, but it isn’t Alan Blake.

“We have two crimes. And two murderers.”

Blake’s departure under guard didn’t cut the tension in the room.

Every eye was fixed on Annie.

“Kenneth Hazlitt’s murder provided camouflage for Alan Blake. Blake knew he had a chance to kill a dangerous blackmailer and make it look as though that death was an outgrowth of Kenneth’s murder.