Something Wicked (19 page)

“No, thank you.”

“You don’t smoke, of course.”

“No.”

“You just do everything right, don’t you, Annie?” Now, a clear tone of amusement. “Don’t smoke. Try to solve murders.” She blew out a plume of smoke. “Even going so far as to try and destroy the poor widow’s alibi.”

So Jenkins had warned her.

“I had to check.”

“The police have already done so.” Sheridan regarded her without warmth.

“The solicitor is a lot more interested in persecuting Max than he is in discovering the murderer.”

“So you came to talk to me.” Those amber eyes locked on Annie’s face. “Are you still suspicious of my alibi?”

“I’m always suspicious.”

Sheridan tapped a long ash into a marble ashtray. “Why, that surely does worry me.” Sarcasm rippled like a snake gliding into water.

Annie felt a violent impulse to slap Sheridan Petree right across the face just as hard as she could. She clenched her hands in her lap. This woman was
not
going to provoke her.

“Look, Sheridan, so far as I can see, you aren’t likely to throw yourself onto a burning bier in grief. And Shane did have his … proclivities. Maybe you got tired of him running around on you.”

The smooth face remained placid. Then Sheridan laughed. It was a clear, chiming laugh that sounded like faraway temple bells. Her perfect, red lips curved. “I don’t suppose I begrudge you that. After all, you’ve got real trouble. I mean, I hated to tell the police about you and Shane.” Those tawny eyes opened wide. “But I just had to tell the truth, now, didn’t I? Of course, Shane was so attractive to women, I hardly blame you. Poor boy. Women just
threw
themselves at him. It was such a bore.”

For a moment, a red haze obscured Annie’s vision, but she managed not to fling herself at her tormentor. She controlled her breathing and merely said, “I’m surprised you believed that silly story. I would have thought you’d know Shane better than that.”

The amber eyes suddenly, for just a vivid instant, burned with fury. Oh, yes, Sheridan knew better. She knew she was married to a womanizer, but she’d thrown Annie and Max to the wolves without a qualm. Not a very likable lady, Mrs. Petree.

They regarded each other unblinkingly for a long moment, then Sheridan stubbed out her cigarette.

Annie knew her time was almost up. She made one last, desperate attempt. “Who do
you
think killed him?”

The question, oddly, caught Sheridan by surprise. Annie could have sworn from the sudden flicker in her eyes that she hadn’t even
thought
about it. That shocked her. She knew Sheridan and Shane were totally self-centered and predatory. But, for God’s sake, didn’t Sheridan care enough even to have wondered?

The rain beat against the windows in a soft, insistent tattoo.

Sheridan fluttered her hands helplessly. “Why, I don’t know, really. It’s all so strange.” She gave Annie a puzzled look. “Shane always had women—and their husbands—mad at him. I suppose T.K.’s the logical choice.” For an instant, ugliness quivered in those light eyes. “Or Max.”

Annie gripped the metal sides of the chair to keep herself in place.

Sheridan reached out for another cigarette, lit it. “But it seems so strange to mix it all up with the play. I don’t understand, it at all. Actually, Annie,” and she leaned forward, “I don’t think it will ever be solved. It’s one of those really weird murders.” She drew deeply on her cigarette. “Maybe it was just something that got out of hand.”

That was a unique description of murder. “Out of hand?”

“All those peculiar things that happened, that dummy in the attic and the cut curtain rope and that brown cat—” Sheridan said vaguely.

Orange, Annie thought, not brown. But Sheridan was repeating what she’d been told, so that showed anew how information could be garbled upon repetition. Just like “mess beetle” in Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s
The Perennial Boarder.

But she considered Sheridan’s suggestion. Something that got out of hand. Then, sharply, almost angrily, she rejected it. Murder, unless a product of madness, was committed to achieve a particular goal. She must discover the
reason
for Shane’s demise, and that meant focusing on Shane.

“This last week, Sheridan, did Shane do anything different? Anything unusual?”

Once again, surprise flickered on Sheridan’s face. Surprise and wariness?

“Different?”

“Did anything happen to upset him?” That last night, Shane had been so impatient for the rehearsal to end. She remembered how mad they all were at him for rushing his lines. “Was he excited about anything?”

Sheridan smoked and considered the question. Finally, slowly, she nodded. “You know, he was in an exceptionally good mood. I mean, he was really up. Of course, I thought he was excited about the play. It had been a long time since he’d acted in anything.” She ground the cigarette out and sighed. “I wish I could be more helpful. But I can’t think of anything else. Poor Shane.” The tawny eyes glistened with amusement. “He was in
such
a good humor.”

Annie shivered. What a funny epitaph.

“Look, I know this sounds odd, but would you let me look at his room? Maybe at his desk?”

Sheridan hesitated, then gave a tiny, bored shrug. Annie followed her down the black-and-white-tiled hall to a room at the far end of the house. The door was closed. Sheridan opened it and let Annie precede her.

It was a massive master bedroom, but Annie knew the instant she set foot in it that this had been Shane’s room alone. There was no scent—and Deneuve perfume wafted dreamily from Sheridan—and no life. Tweed-covered armchairs. A gray silk bedspread. Lacquered walls of dark orange. A glass-and-aluminum coffee table. It might have been an especially expensive guest suite in a southern California condo.

No books. No papers scattered about. No photographs. Nothing to indicate the last resident hadn’t checked out weeks ago.

Sheridan leaned against the door as Annie crossed to the melon-colored desk. Tucking her rain slicker under her arm, she pulled open the drawer.

Several decks of cards. Some golf scorecards. A sheaf of papers. Annie poked at them. Maps of the intracoastal waterway. A Sony Walkman. The side drawers held neat stacks of
Sailing Magazine
and
Southern Boating Magazine.

It didn’t take long to look through the chest. It contained the usual: silk bikini shorts, waist size thirty-six, crew-neck T-shirts, sport and dress socks, polo shirts in an array of
pastel colors, swim wear, tennis clothes. The contents of the closet revealed a taste for expensive and excellent sportswear.

Annie wanted, suddenly, to be out of this room and out of this house. If Shane had had any kind of life, he must not have lived it in these rooms.

Sheridan walked down to the front door with her.

“Are the services scheduled?” Annie asked.

“Services?” Sheridan opened the door. “Oh, Shane didn’t believe in all that sort of thing. He’ll be cremated.”

“Oh.”

“I’m having his ashes scattered at sea.” She nodded. “Shane would like that. I’ll ask one of his friends to take them out on his boat.”

“Won’t you go?” The question spurted out before Annie had time to realize how tactless it was.

Sheridan shivered. “No. No. I hate water.”

Anne thought of all the boating magazines in that sterile room.

“Shane must have loved to sail?”

Sheridan’s mouth twitched. “He certainly did. My God, he spent every minute he could on the water. But I just hate it.”

The afternoon sparkled brightly, as though no rain cloud had neared the island. And it crawled by. Annie called Chief Saulter twice (he wasn’t in), dropped over to Confidential Commissions three times (Max’s secretary offered serenely that she
thought
he’d gone into Savannah, something to do with the wedding, she thought, then looked curiously at Annie as she stiffened as though poked by a cattle prod), paused once to look out over the marina at Shane’s boat and wondered what tales it could tell, and even spent a fruitless half hour on the phone, trying to track down Henny.

When the phone rang at about four o’clock, she leapt for it.

“Annie?”

The amount of inquiry, interest, apprehension, determination, and excitement projected in Laurel’s husky pronouncement of her name triggered Annie’s worst fears. She was, literally, struck speechlesss.

“Annie, dear?”

She gripped the receiver and breathed deeply.

“My sweet, do you have asthma?” Genuine concern spilled over the wire.

“No.” Annie struggled for calm. “No, absolutely not. Laurel, what have you been up to?”

“I?” Innocence rang as sweetly as struck crystal. “Everything and nothing,” she trilled. “Working, always working, though, as you know, it is a labor of love, freely offered. Love for you and Maxwell. Love for the world. Love for the beginnings of this marvelous new age.”

Annie waited, her hand cramping on the receiver.

“Oh, well, I was just thinking about you. I’ll give a ring back later—”

“Laurel, I want to know—”

“I thought perhaps you were so overcome with joy, you’d been unable to call, but, obviously, Maxwell isn’t back yet. Be filled with the spirit of joy, love, and charity, my dear.”

Annie stared at the receiver, buzzing with the broken connection.

She shook her head. If Laurel was now giving benedictions—Then a phrase neoned in her mind.
Maxwell isn’t back yet.

Henny was unemotional, matter-of-fact, when she rang up at six o’clock. “Subject exhibited change of manner in recent months. Less time in regular haunts. Friend glimpsed him with unknown redhead at The Red Rooster in Chastain. Not introduced, couple left upon sighting friend. Will pursue investigation.” A California accent? Perhaps this was the methodical work of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.

At seven, Annie jumped up from a solitary dinner of nachos and a reheated chicken enchilada to grab her phone.

Saulter said morosely, “Posey spent the afternoon taking statements from people who heard Shane accuse you of chasing him at the Petrees’ party Sunday night. He’s laying the groundwork to show Max had a hell of a motive.”

She could almost hear the clang of cell doors behind Max. “Chief, isn’t Posey looking anywhere else? Isn’t he finding out anything about Shane?”

“Posey’s obsessed with Max. Dammit, Max shouldn’t have made him mad.”

“Chief, Posey couldn’t have arrested Max already, could he? Have him stashed in jail somewhere?” She explained in a rush. “Max dropped me off at the harbor this morning, and I haven’t heard a word from him since. Nothing!”

Saulter’s silence had a peculiar quality.

“Chief!” she demanded, with visions of Max held incommunicado in a windowless, hot room, hungry, ill-treated, and—

She realized Saulter was laughing. “You don’t know where he is?”

“No.” Simple, crisp, declarative.

“He’s okay, Annie. Posey put a tail on him while he’s on the mainland. But Max has spent the damndest afternoon!
Well, better let him tell you about it. Anyway, I just called to let you know Posey wants everyone who was at the auditorium when Shane was killed to be there at nine tomorrow morning. Going to do a run-through of the play from the time Shane was last on stage ’til he was found. Give us a better time frame. See you then.”

It was almost ten when Max called.

“Oh.” She was casual. “How’re tricks?”

“Now, Annie.”

“Of course, I
know
too much communication in a relationship can be destructive. I understand that each partner must retain independence. Certainly I support openness, freedom, autonomy.” She drew her breath in sharply, then expelled it. “Max, where in the hell have you been?”

She was persuaded finally—after all, she was always willing to be reasonable; it was a hallmark of her character; everyone knew that—to meet him at the side entrance to the main reception room at the Island Hills Golf and Country Club.

Moonlight splashed across the shell-paved lot. Max hurried out to greet her.

She was friendly, of course, but reserved.

Max slipped his arm around her stiff shoulders, peered at her in the moonlight, then gave her a hug.

“This way,” he boomed, like a tour guide en route to the crown jewels. At the side door, he paused and said reverentially, “Annie, you’re going to be amazed.” Implicit in this pronouncement was the suggestion that she might also be apologetic for her lack of enthusiasm.

He flung open the door.

She stepped into the darkened room.

“Lights,” he cried, sweeping his hand against the wall.

The crystal chandelier glittered to life, and a hundred pinpoints of light shafted down on a table positioned beneath it.

Annie gasped.

Max was right in one respect. She was truly amazed.

The table was swathed in yards of shimmering, ice-white damask. In the center, in regal splendor, sat—Annie narrowed her eyes and warily approached.

“It had to be just the right color. That’s what took all afternoon,” he explained chattily, at her heels.

“It looks like—” She covered her eyes with her hands, pulled them away. “It looks like a wedding cake, with red icing, in the shape of a truncated pyramid. Topped by a live tree sapling.”

“Carmine red.” He glowed. Stepping back, he studied the cake critically. “Doesn’t that red look smashing in contrast to the green of the fir tree?”

Roots in the cake. She recalled that fragment of his conversation with Laurel. She pointed wordlessly at the tree.

“Lovely custom,” he declared avuncularly. “Bermuda. We can plant it and watch it grow, right along with our marriage.” He sighed in satisfaction. “But it’s the red that sets it off. I kept bringing swatches from the dressmaker to the bakery until they got it right.” He beamed at her. “Mrs. Crabtree is a wonderful woman.”

“A red wedding cake,” she wailed.