Dead By Midnight

Chapter Sixteen

Emma Clyde, the island’s famous septuagenarian mystery author, lifted a coffee mug. Its inscription read: Desperate Measures by Dennis Wheatley. Emma’s deep voice was admiring. “To Annie, brave and clever.”

Max’s blue eyes held remembered fear. “How about ‘To Annie, reckless and demen—’ ” He paused. His face softened. “To Annie, champion of the lost and vulnerable. But”—his voice was imploring—“please don’t ever do anything like that again. We were on the ferry and you didn’t come.”

“Not a good feeling.” Billy Cameron shook his head. Comfortable in a polo and Levi’s, his bulky frame made the rattan chair in Death on Demand’s coffee area appear small.

Henny Brawley topped a cappuccino with a maraschino cherry. “Annie, why didn’t you do something to alert everyone?”

Annie felt cold. “You didn’t hear Laura’s voice. I had to stay on the phone or Cleo would have shot her. Cleo knew how little time it took to drive to Jasmine Gardens. It took one hand to drive and one to talk on the phone. I had to keep talking. If I’d honked the horn or been late . . .”

She touched the red letters on her mug: The Fatal Kiss Mystery. “I kept thinking there would be two of us in the cabin, that I could do something . . .”

Billy shook his head. “Cleo was smart and ruthless. Fortunately for you and Laura, Richard Jamison was smart, too. He didn’t want to believe Cleo was involved, but he saw her slip out into the garden Thursday night. He told me there was a look on her face that kept him from following her. He thought she was grieving for Glen. The next day Darwyn’s body was found. She didn’t say a word about having been in the backyard. That worried him. He tried to keep an eye on her after that. Saturday afternoon, he saw her come out of her room. He said, ‘She had that look again.’ He slipped down after her. She went into the study. She came out in a minute. Laura was sitting on the lower verandah. Cleo said something to her and in a minute they left in Laura’s car. Richard was worried. He said, ‘Cleo was dangerous. I knew it. I didn’t know what she’d said to Laura, but I thought I’d better follow. I didn’t think I should use my car. She would recognize it.’ He ran across the street, tossed his billfold to a guy working in the yard, yelled he’d bring the truck back in a few minutes, and jumped into the pickup. He followed Laura’s car and said he could see Laura and he knew something awful was happening, Laura was crying into a cell phone. He thought about crashing into the back of the car, but he decided to keep following, find out what was going on. That’s when he called us, but he didn’t know where they were going. He kept after Laura’s car into Jasmine Gardens and pulled into the drive at the next cabin. He was smart. He took a leaf blower, turned it on right behind Cabin Nine, and used the sound to mask the noise he made breaking in one of the bedroom windows.”

Billy shook his head. “He did what was right, but now he blames himself for Cleo’s death. I told him that she was the one with the gun in her hand, she was the one who fired, and it was her bad luck that she blew away a femoral artery.”

“Bad luck? People make their own luck.” Emma’s crusty voice was didactic. “She took the wrong path. She married a man she didn’t love, indulged her passion with a younger man, was drawn to yet another man, intended to profit from her husband’s death, and killed sans merci.”

There was a respectful silence. Emma nodded in self-approval at her sage pronouncement. She cleared her throat. “It’s a shame I was so engaged in writing my new book.” She stared grandly about. “The title is Sans Merci. Otherwise, I would likely have pinpointed the truth at once—a younger wife, the sexy gardener, and a great deal of money.”

Laurel, elegant in a sky-blue chambray blouse and white skirt, smiled kindly at Emma, though her dark blue eyes danced with amusement. She said gently, “I’m proud of Annie that she”—there was the faintest emphasis on the pronoun—“saw the truth. No one but Annie realized that it didn’t matter what the gardener saw.” Laurel smoothed back a golden curl and lifted her mug in a salute. The inscription read: Pattern of Murder by Mignon Eberhart.

Annie came around the counter and slipped an arm around her mother-in-law’s shoulders. “I owe the answer to you.” She gave Laurel a swift hug, then crossed the floor and picked up the Cat Truth poster with the Bombay Tom: Don’t look at me. I was at the vet’s. “No one looked at Cleo because she was in Savannah. The murderer came from the backyard. I knew that had to be true because of Laura on the upper verandah and the lineman across the street. If Glen wasn’t shot by Tommy, the only other person in the backyard was Darwyn. Sexy, dangerous, wild Darwyn, who was meeting a woman in an exclusive cabin, the better to keep her identity hidden. Then I knew. But it was the poster that made everything clear. So, from now on, Cat Truth posters will be sold at Death on Demand.”

Laurel was overcome with delight. “Oh my dear, how gracious of you. I have more posters in my car. I’ll see about them right now.” She popped down from a stool at the coffee bar, but paused to look up at the paintings. “Everything does seem to come out so well for me. And I am pleased”—she darted quick glances at Emma and Henny, spoke rapidly to forestall them—“to reveal the titles of this month’s mystery paintings.” She pointed at them in order: “Murder at Madingley Grange by Caroline Graham, Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann Ross, A Romantic Way to Die by Bill Crider, Dead Air by Mary Kennedy, Elvis and the Dearly Departed by Peggy Webb.”

Annie clapped in admiration and was joined, though reluctantly, by Henny and Emma. The two mystery experts bore a startling resemblance, in Annie’s view, to yet another Cat Truth poster. A Colorpoint Persian with a short, cobby body and fluffy black legs and tail stood next to a fine-boned, long-haired Brown-Spotted Tabby-and-White Siberian. The two cats stared in reproof at a delicate, elegant Seal Tortie Tabby Point with one paw firmly planted on a mouse: Don’t think you’re on our level. Obviously, it’s beginner’s luck.

Was it Annie’s imagination or did the Seal Point have a decidedly pleased expression?

Laurel certainly did.