Something Wicked (28 page)

She finally ran McClanahan to earth at the Tell-It-to-the-Navy Bar and Grill.

“You’ve got to get Max out of jail.”

“His belt?”

She tried to be patient. “Obviously the murderer stole it when he was hiding the gun in Max’s place yesterday.”

“Maybe Darling lost the belt somewhere,” McClanahan mused.

“Don’t think,” she ordered briskly. “Get a bail bondsman and leave the thinking to me.”

But when she hung up, she felt an instant of panic. What in the
hell
was she going to do?”

Then she thought of Amelia Peabody Emerson, who always felt equal to any occasion. What would Amelia do? Well, for starters, she wouldn’t sit on her fanny worrying. She would be up and about.

Annie jumped to her feet. It was time to get back to the basics, and, as Hercule Poirot always pointed out, murder begins with its victim.

Why had Shane spent less time in his usual haunts the past few months?

What was the significance of the doodles on that sheet of paper she’d found aboard
Sweet Lady?

Who was going to travel as Mrs. Bill Ford?

Who was the woman at The Red Rooster that he didn’t introduce to his friend?

She swung back to the telephone.

It was midafternoon when Annie reached 915 West Ribaut Street in Chastain. It was her first visit to that genteel town since the memorable events of the annual house-and-garden tours in early April, but she didn’t spare time remembering her unpleasant moments with Police Chief Harry Wells. Her every thought focused on the down-at-heel apartment house in front of her. As she walked up the warped wooden steps, she wondered just what she was going to say to Sue Kay Conrad.

Routine investigation had produced this address, just like the everyday procedures followed by Lt. Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her first move had been to call the telephone number scrawled on Shane’s sheet of paper. The number belonged to the Buccaneer Inn on the outskirts of Chastain, a half mile from an abandoned lighthouse. Annie nosed around the lighthouse first. The door was ajar. Someone—vandals? or another?—had broken the padlock. Inside, footsteps showed on the dusty treads. At the motel, Annie obtained the description of a woman who had registered there the night of the murder. The desk clerk had noticed her car leaving about midnight. The car had returned at two
A.M.
Annie took the description to The Red Rooster, a neighborhood bar in Chastain. On a mid-afternoon in summer, it was drowsy, smelling of years of beer on tap. The tightly muscled bartender was impassive and uncooperative. Mendoza could have flashed his badge. Annie spread three twenties and two tens like a full house.

Now she walked up a dim stairway (the bulb on the landing was burned out) to apartment five.

Annie knocked firmly.

For a moment, she thought there would be no answer, then footsteps sounded on the other side of the thin door.

When it opened, the woman framed in the doorway stared at her with red-rimmed, defeated eyes, and Annie knew she had the right place.

“I want to talk to you about Shane Petree.” Annie’s voice was gentle.

Tears welled up in Sue Kay’s eyes. Wearily she gestured for Annie to enter.

Sue Kay Conrad. Late thirties. Divorced. Dyed red hair. An ex-teacher. Lost her job after being charged with possession of marijuana. Worked as waitress, bar girl, food demonstrator in supermarkets. But she loved to sail. Sacrificed every other luxury to keep her catamaran. And that was how she met Shane.

“He was wonderful. Oh, God, we had so much fun. And he was so
nice
to me.”

Annie hid her surprise. Who was she to pigeonhole Shane as an all-time loser? Maybe with this woman there had been a flowering of true caring. Maybe with Sue Kay he found an honesty that his life had lacked. At the very least, here was someone who grieved for him.

“What was supposed to happen Tuesday night?” Annie asked.

That produced another freshet of tears. But, finally, Sue Kay began to speak in a husky, sometimes defensive voice. And when she finished, Annie knew that somehow, in some way she didn’t yet understand, she’d found the motive for Shane’s murder.

“Do you want to help me catch the person who killed Shane?”

The weary face firmed. Sue Kay leaned forward. “I’ll do anything in the world to help.”

Annie and Sue Kay waited for two hours before Posey agreed to see them. Once in the small anteroom with its dark green walls and odoriferous cuspidor, Sue Kay turned and asked nervously, “Will they send me to jail?”

“No.” Then Annie realized she actually couldn’t promise
that. Sue Kay and Shane had certainly planned to break some laws. Could she go to jail for planning a crime? Quickly, Annie pressed the older woman’s arm. “I don’t know, but I promise I’ll get you a lawyer.” And perhaps not the greatest trial lawyer in the United States of America.

When they were finally ushered into Posey’s office, Annie took one look at his face and knew she was in trouble. But surely he would listen.

Annie nodded toward her companion. “Mr. Posey, this is Mrs. Sue Kay Conrad, and she wants to make a statement about the murder of Shane Petree.”

Posey tapped a pen impatiently against his shining desktop. “Ms. Laurance, I don’t have time to waste. And as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed, so—”

“Mrs. Conrad is a citizen with information which she believes will be helpful to the state of South Carolina in prosecuting the murderer of Mr. Petree. Are you going to refuse to take her statement?”

Posey snorted like an exasperated hog, but he’d spotted Annie’s hand poised with a pen over a pad of paper. And it was, after all, an election year.

“All right, Mrs. Conrad,” he said wearily. “Let’s have your story.”

Sue Kay Conrad didn’t look at anyone as she spoke. Her eyes were fastened on a point above Posey’s head, but Annie knew she was looking back at days that would never come again.

“… used to sail every day that we could. And we”—she flashed a defiant look—“we fell in love. His wife … Oh, I know how the other woman always says a man’s wife didn’t understand him. But she
didn’t.
And she didn’t care about him, not at all, and that’s why he was always running after other women. But Shane and I—well, it was wonderful.”

She paused. Her hands gripped her purse straps tightly. “I don’t know when we first talked about it. I mean, it was kind of a dream we had, that we could run away and be happy with each other. Then one day, it was in April, he was real excited, and he asked me if I really would go away with him, just disappear without a trace, and start a new life
somewhere under new names. Start all fresh.” For an instant, memory glowed in her green eyes, then dimmed. “I said sure. I mean, what the hell? I had nothing here. And nobody. Nobody gave a damn whether I walked through a door or said hello or good-bye. But he wasn’t kidding. It was all worked out. You see, they needed money, Shane and his wife, and they came up with this idea, that Shane would capsize his sailboat and drown. Of course, he wouldn’t really drown, that was the neat part. He would disappear. They worked it out. He would turn over the boat, swim to shore, and disappear, go to a different town. They decided on L.A. and next fall, after the insurance money came through, Sheridan would meet him in the L.A. airport and give him a million in bearer bonds.”

Posey planted his elbows on the desk and rested his porcine face in his hands. He didn’t say a word.

Annie glared at him. If he wasn’t going to ask any questions, she would. “Did Sheridan know about you?”

“Oh, no. No. Part of the deal was that he and Sheridan were through. No, she didn’t know about me.” For just an instant, humor flashed in Sue Kay’s eyes. “From what Shane said about her, I don’t think she’d have liked me being part of it.”

Posey rolled his eyes ceiling ward in disgust. “Ms. Laurance,” he was long-suffering, “my department has thoroughly investigated the whereabouts of Mrs. Petree. There is no
doubt
where she was at the time her husband was shot. Now, I won’t question your motives in trying to help the state of South Carolina, but this is a mighty convenient story you two have cooked up—and it isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good!”

Forever afterward, she had no memory of her return to the island. She pulsed with fury. That obtuse idiot! That bulging-eyed imbecile! That brain-dead buffoon! It was only when she screeched to a halt in her driveway, having hurtled across the island like Asey Mayo at the wheel of his Porter, that she became aware of her surroundings. The sun was setting and the sky to the west flamed a splendid red-gold, but, too busy for once to enjoy the beauty of the island, she raced up her
steps, slammed inside, and began to pace. Otherwise, she would have exploded.

“Easy does it,” she warned herself aloud. She had to cool down. But she did have to hand it to Posey, he’d certainly concentrated her attention wonderfully. She was alive with determination to outwit him. By God, she would get to the truth—and she would rub Posey’s nose in it!

She paced by her bookcase. The shining red glow spilling through her west windows brought faded bindings to life. Some titles didn’t reassure. Unjust imprisonment was a fact in life as in fiction. Wretched Edmond Dantès in
The Count of Monte Cristo.
And in
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard,
it took Lady Molly years of effort to prove her husband’s innocence and free him from Dartmoor.

If that oaf Posey … She turned, marched in the opposite direction. Okay, she had to stop wasting her energies fuming about Posey and put her mind on the problem. That always worked for Sir John Appleby.

And she knew her afternoon’s work was significant. From the first, she’d questioned the timing of Shane’s murder. Why that particular Tuesday night? Now, it seemed clear that—

The phone rang.

News about Max?

She sprang across the room and snatched up the receiver.

“Annie, dear, I’ve been calling all day.” Laurel was much too good-humored to complain, but there was a faint note of distress in the golden voice.

“It’s so regrettable,” the liquid tone continued, “to have the wedding timetable interrupted like this.” A thoughtful pause. “Annie, do you suppose it would help if I called that Posey man and explained that we have
responsibilities?
That it is our glorious privilege and duty—yes, our duty—to focus our energies upon this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a part of the outpouring of human emotion that will crest in 2012? Annie?” A wealth of inquiry in the gentle enunciation of her name.

“Uh, Laurel, Max … Max … Max …”

“I do hope it isn’t drafty in that jail. He catches cold so
easily,
and really it’s absolutely necessary for Max to be in the pink. I’ve made the appointment for him to be measured for his black tailcoat. Now, it must be tailored properly. And
I was thinking that it would add such a gay,
international
note, in keeping with our glorious theme, if I ordered tiny flags of as many countries as possible to be sewn into the satin trim of the trousers. Annie, what do you
think?”

“You
know
that Max is in jail?”

A surprised pause. “Annie, don’t you listen to the news? Dan Rather featured it.”

“Laurel.” Annie tried to keep her voice even and untroubled; it was important not to disturb the obviously precarious balance of Laurel’s mind. “I can’t talk about the wedding now. I don’t even know if we can have a wedding—”

“Why ever not?” That Laurel was prompted to interrupt showed how much that statement shocked her.

“Max is in jail. He’s going to stay in jail if I don’t figure out who the murderer is.”

“Annie, Annie, I can see I’ve caught you at a busy time. I shouldn’t have bothered you with my concerns. I truly will take care of everything. Do rest now, my dear. Night, night.”

Annie carefully replaced the receiver. If Posey ever met Laurel, he’d never believe Max was innocent.

Annie hurried into the kitchen and brewed strong, strong coffee. When it was made, she carried a steaming mug into the living room and settled on the wicker couch with the computer printouts on the cast and crew of
Arsenic and Old Lace,
Max’s list of probabilities, her list of motives, and a fresh notebook.

First, she reread the printout. Then she turned to her notebook and carefully re-created the conversations she’d had with Harley, Sheridan, Arthur, Sam, Hugo, Eugene, Janet, Burt, and Carla. Finally, she added the probable timetable for the secretion of the gun in Max’s condo and Carla’s murder.

Why did Carla have to die?

Carla must have known something that placed the murderer in extreme jeopardy. What could—

The phone rang.

She stared at for it a moment, but answered on the third ring.

“Annie.” The chief’s voice was a mournful as a bloodhound’s bay. “You did some good work today. Too bad Posey’s such a damned fool.

Annie’s blood pumped rapidly. Fool was scarcely descriptive enough.

Saulter continued, “I know it’s all true, ’cause I went out to talk to Sheridan.” A ruminative pause. “Posey’s mad enough to skin me alive. Anyway, old Shane’s lucky he’s dead. When I told Sheridan about Sue Kay Conrad, I thought she was going to bust. I never
seen
a woman that mad. The look in her eyes would scorch hell. But she denies it all, of course.”

“And Posey still refuses to listen?”

“Listening isn’t Posey’s strong point. But he’s going to have to pay some attention to the autopsy report ’cause it raises some funny questions.”

Her hand tightened on the phone. Autopsy. That conjured up unpleasant images. But surely the method of Carla’s murder was obvious. Horribly obvious.

“Carla was already dying when she was strangled,” the chief said quietly.

Annie practically stopped breathing. “What do you mean?”

“Carla was drunker than a hoot owl, all right, but she’d taken a couple of dozen Valium to boot. She was probably in a stupor when the murderer came in. It must have been as easy as pie to slip up behind her and drop the belt around her neck. That’s why she didn’t struggle. Usually, in a strangling, the victim’s hands are all bunged up, but Carla just lay there.”