Something Wicked (16 page)

Annie finished the last bite of her strawberry muffin and tapped her fork on her plate. “Motive. That’s what we have to determine. We’re talking in a vacuum until we consider motive.”

He waited, expecting clarification.

“Look at it this way,” she continued urgently. “Did the murder occur last night because it
had
to occur on Tuesday night? Or was the time incidental and the motive an outpouring of hate that merely reached its crest yesterday?”

He looked blank.

“Max, was he killed because of the play? Or was he killed because he was Shane and somebody hated him?”

“When we know that, we’ll know who killed him,” he said reasonably.

Annie was pouring fresh coffee when the phone rang. She hurried inside to answer it, and Max followed, bringing their plates to the sink.

“Hello.”

“Annie, Burt here.” He sounded very tired. “Saulter’s put the auditorium off-limits for now. I decided to cancel all rehearsals until this weekend at least.”

She couldn’t mask her surprise. “Are you thinking of continuing with the production?”

“My God, we have to have something on the boards next Tuesday night,” he snapped defensively. “I mean, the world can’t come to a stop because Shane got himself murdered. Of course, I’m damn sorry and everything, but what the hell do you think I should do?”

She almost suggested delaying the opening of the season for at least a week, but she understood Burt’s dilemma. A delay in opening would throw off the entire summer schedule.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen.” He was aggrieved. “I’ve alerted the
Mousetrap
cast to be ready, just in case.”

In case one of the
Arsenic
principals was arrested?

“If it all shakes out, we’ll have a dress rehearsal next Sunday or Monday. We’re almost ready to go as is. And Eugene will be Teddy, of course.”

Oh, of course. So Eugene would have his role after all. Her spine prickled.

Burt sighed. “So I guess everything’s going as well as could be expected. I told Saulter to go easy on everybody when he talks to them. I don’t want the cast all nervy.”

That would be a shame, all right.

“You’ve talked to the chief?” Annie let it dangle.

“Yeah. He sounded sour as hell. Apparently Sheridan frosted him some way. Guess she was pretty bitchy. I don’t know what she’d said.”

Annie pictured that smooth, arrogant face with the unreadable amber eyes. “No telling.”

He sighed again. “Well, it could be worse. I’ll let you know on rehearsal.”

She hung up and turned as Max settled on the couch. He held out her coffee mug.

She sat down beside him and took the mug. “Burt’s really put out. Very inconsiderate of Shane to get murdered and put a crimp in rehearsals, but, fear not, the players shall survive. Although rehearsals are canceled until Sunday.” She hefted her mug. “The show must go on.”

“Burt is a trifle single-minded,” Max murmured.

Her mind skittered off in several different directions. She didn’t need to hurry to the shop. Ingrid would arrive at ten and open. Why
had
the murder occurred at rehearsal? She’d bet Sheridan had given Chief Saulter an earful. Sheridan. Annie sat very still. Where was Sheridan when the murder occurred? By God, that was a good question. Maybe she’d finally tired of having a roving Romeo for a husband. Could she have slipped unseen into the theater and pulled it off? Appealing as Annie found that scenario, it wasn’t too likely. If she had, she was a successor to Houdini. So far as Annie knew, Sheridan had never set foot in the theater. But, where was Sheridan when Shane was shot?

She turned to Max and demanded, “What about Sheridan? You know the old saw.
Cherchez la femme.”
Max was shaking his head. So, okay, that wasn’t quite the original meaning, but, after all, she could take a fresh tack. “Okay, okay. I mean, who does a husband in? His wife. And vice versa. What the hell about Sheridan? She’s a tough cookie.”

“But not invisible,” he replied mildly.

Annie glared.

“Same objection as to the unknown murderer. How could Sheridan have entered and left the basement without being seen?”

“A disguise?” Annie suggested. “Dressed like a man? If you just caught a glimpse, maybe you might think she was Vince or Sam or Eugene.”

“Oh, let’s see,” Max mused. “She’s about five foot two, built decidedly like a woman should be, moves like a woman—”

Annie reviewed them in her mind: Vince, redheaded and a burly six feet tall; Sam, pear-shaped and balding on top
with that distinctive fringe of floppy yellow hair; and Eugene, portly with a bearlike chest.

The phone rang.

“I still like Sheridan,” she said stubbornly as she reached for it.

“Hello.”

“Annie, I
know
the police are off on the wrong foot. It’s going to be up to us—”

A thunderous knock rattled her front door. Annie cupped a hand over her ear and gestured for Max to answer.

“—to ferret out the truth. I have no
doubt
that we can succeed. However dark it may look—”

Max opened the door. Somehow, Annie wasn’t terribly surprised to see Chief Saulter, his thin face as creased as a bassett hound’s. He looked discomfited, irritated, and upset. And he wasn’t alone. A heavyset man stood behind him.

“—you can count on me and Talleyrand—”

“Henny, I’m sorry, but the chief’s here. I guess he wants to talk to us.”

Max stood back to let them enter, and the bigger man surged past Saulter.

“Although,” and Henny’s tone was clearly irritated, “that circuit solicitor from Beaufort is being extremely uncooperative. Even more difficult than Inspector Piper is at times. I shall prevail, of course,” and the line buzzed.

Hildegarde Withers, no doubt about it.

Annie hung up, turned to face the new arrivals, and took an immediate, visceral dislike to the chief’s companion. A good six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Saulter, he radiated a take-charge arrogance. He had bulging blue eyes, he was too heavy for his buttoned vest, and cinnamon after-shave emanated from him in a heady wave. His watery blue eyes fastened on her avidly. He reminded her unpleasantly of an osprey spotting an especially succulent catfish. He bounded toward her.

“Good morning,” the stranger boomed. It was a courtroom voice, mellifluous, sonorous, and as contrived as a rock star’s entrance. “Miss Laurance, I presume.”

Annie nodded, but before she could speak, he swept on.

“I am Brice Willard Posey, circuit solicitor, and I’ve
decided to assist the chief in his investigations.” His eyes oozed speculation. “So
you
are the girl in the case.”

Annie bristled.

Saulter, his voice carefully devoid of expression, inserted, “Mr. Posey came over this morning, as soon as he got some calls from the media.”

Posey shot Saulter a sharp look, but the chief’s corrugated face was bland. The circuit solicitor took a deep breath. “I intend to pursue every lead no matter where it takes me. I shall do my duty without fear or favor.”

There hardly seemed to be an appropriate answer. Laurance temper rising, Annie gestured for them to be seated.

Posey dropped heavily into a chair and focused a hard stare on Annie. Interrogation intimidation look number two, she decided.

It wasn’t lost on Max, of course. He shed his usual air of amiability, raked Posey with a measuring glance, dismissed him, and turned politely to Saulter. “You want to talk to us, Chief?”

Posey flushed angrily. He leaned forward, his hands flat against his beefy thighs. “As circuit solicitor for this county, I have made a name for myself by my forthright battle against crime.”

Chief Saulter sat in a wicker chair and watched, thin-lipped.

Posey’s bulging blue eyes shone with self-absorption. “I have fought the good fight, and I’m not afraid to face the voters, now or in the future.”

Annie knew she shouldn’t, but some temptations cannot be resisted. “And you’re running for office? Right now?” she asked, her voice light and innocent.

Posey’s response revealed his respect for and interest in female voters. “A public servant is
always
running for office, Miss Laurance.” He paused ponderously, hoping perhaps that she was capable of grasping this concept. “I have made it clear always that I will never be influenced by the wealth or social position of those who break the law.” He nodded slowly in self-approbation. “And I cannot be seduced from my duty by the wiles of the so-called gentler sex.” Those slimy blue eyes climbed over Annie.

“How admirable!” Max proclaimed. “A bully position.”

Annie hoped he wouldn’t lay it on too thick. But Max had
had enough of Brice Willard Posey. Once again, he turned toward the chief. “What can we do for you?”

“To tell the truth—” Saulter began.

“The truth reveals men and women as they are. In all their sickness of the flesh.” Posey’s inflection rendered the last word exceedingly nasty. “We know the truth about you, Miss Laurance. The stricken widow has revealed all.”

Annie was trying so hard to envision Sheridan as a stricken widow that she missed some of his next speech.

“—shameless advances.”

She stared at him blankly.

Max intervened. “Posey, you’ve been had. It was a joke.”

“A joke?” Posey demanded, his voice rising. “How can you describe this woman’s actions”—(Annie was fascinated by her new characterization. It put her right on a level with a hapless Perry Mason client.)—“as humorous? To flaunt herself as an object of sexual attraction to a happily married man, is that humorous? To brazenly pursue this man, despite his continued protestations of disinterest, is that humorous?”

Sweat beaded Posey’s face. He glistened with fervor. “And we know what can happen when
sex
is thwarted! It can corrode the soul, destroy human balance, lead a morally bankrupt individual to that greatest of all sins, murder!”

Posey breathed heavily in the following silence. Annie and Max studied him with the curiosity Sherlock Holmes might bestow upon a heretofore unfamiliar tobacco ash.

“A joke?” Saulter asked quietly.

Annie turned to him gratefully. “Yes, Chief. Shane made a pass at me. I told him to drop dead.” She paused, realizing that her choice of words might be unfortunate. “I mean, I told him to get lost. It made him mad, of course. The great male ego. Anyway, when we got back inside that night at the party, he made this scene, pretending I’d been running after him and—”

“So you admit it!” Posey roared, jumping to his feet.

Her head swung back toward the circuit solicitor.

“You were outside with Shane, out in the garden of the man’s very own house with his wife just feet away!”

“I wasn’t with him,” she objected. “I was—”

“You are tangled up in your own lies!” he thundered.
“But I shall wrench the truth from you.” Heavy face twisted in concentration, blue eyes glowing, he shook an accusing finger at Annie. “You, Miss Laurance, you must stand up and face the truth of your character. Home-breaker. Lustful predator. Wanton, whoring—”

Max lunged, fists doubled.

Chief Saulter and Annie moved at once.

And so did Posey. For a man of his bulk, he exhibited extreme agility, writhing sideways to lunge behind Saulter.

Max stopped, fists raised, eyes blazing at the large cowering figure, and began to laugh. “As the Chinese say, paper tigers cannot bite.”

Grateful that his sense of the absurd had saved her fiancé from perpetrating an assault upon an officer of the law, Annie joined in, more from nervous relief than amusement.

Posey’s face turned an unhealthy ocher. Chest heaving, he glowered.

Saulter watched, his eyes flicking uneasily from face to face.

Posey pursed his fleshy lips and snarled, “You are a violent man, aren’t you, Mr. Darling?” The protuberant blue eyes glowed with hatred. “Violent. Impulsive. Loath to suffer encroachment upon your beloved.”

Annie stiffened.

“Let us consider
you,
Mr. Darling. Engaged to a woman who has lost all control over her actions because of her lust for another man.” Obviously, he had her confused with the female as depicted in hard-boileds. Posey took his favorite stance, accusatory finger waggling in beat with his attack. “You have the strongest motive of all, the wounded soul of the lover cast aside.” Posey leaned forward, though still well behind Saulter. “Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Darling, that you had reason to be very angry with Shane Petree? Isn’t it a fact that the woman you hoped to marry had lost her head over him? Isn’t it a fact that Shane Petree rebuffed her advances publicly on Sunday night?”

This was too much. Unable to contain herself any longer, Annie erupted. “Wait a minute! This is ridiculous. This—”

“Ridiculous?” Posey bellowed. “Yes, it seems ridiculous that any young woman would be so foolish as to throw herself at a happily married man. But that is the fact. Mrs.
Petree has told me all about it, how her husband said you chased after him, kept pestering him, even though he told you repeatedly that he wasn’t interested.”

“My God, it was a joke! Shane made it all up. He was such a—”

The circuit solictor’s knowing look didn’t falter. “Mrs. Petree was reluctant to tell us, but you have to come out with the truth in a murder case.”

At that, Annie exploded, even though Saulter shook his head warningly. “It was a lie! My God, ask around the island. That hot-panted lowlife was in and out of half the beds on Broward’s Rock, but not mine. Now, you go talk to people and—”

Posey’s glance dripped a stomach-curdling mixture of self-righteousness and pity. “Of course, Miss Laurance, you know the truth of it, better than anyone. And in your heart, you know that
you
are guilty of murder.
Your
licentious actions have led this man”—he gestured toward Max, who raised a mildly inquiring eyebrow—“to break that most solemn commandment which separates us from lower beings. You have incited murder,” he intoned, “and you shall not escape the judgment of your fellows.”

Gathering steam, Posey swung toward Max. Even Hamilton Burger was never this obnoxious! “They tell me you stood there Sunday evening and
smiled,
Mr. Darling, when this woman’s public humiliation occurred, but the festering began in your heart, you can’t deny it. Outwardly, you appeared unmoved, but your devotion to this … woman, the woman you wanted to make your wife, can’t be denied. Did you not even attempt to attack the
law
itself when her true character was described? It is transparently clear that your apparent unconcern was the product of a clever plan, the creation of a mind diseased by injury and determined to seek its insidious revenge. Are you going to pretend that you are so little a man that you would have stood by and let the woman you love fling herself at another man?” Posey shook his head in answer to his own question. “Events speak for themselves. Who is injured? Whose pride has been affronted? Who is accustomed at all times to deference because of his exalted social position?
We
know who,” he concluded portentously.