April Fool Dead (21 page)

Rachel lifted her head, her stricken face determined. “But that's true, isn't it? Wouldn't there have been lots of blood when Mrs. Nevis died?”

“Yes.” Annie left it at that.

Rachel stepped away, gripped the back of a wooden chair. “Then”—she gave a decided nod—“Diane didn't do it. One day last fall, somebody ran over a dog in the parking lot. Diane screamed and screamed and somebody told me she's like that about seeing blood. She can't stand it.”

Annie almost spoke, then didn't. There would have been blood when Bob Tower died. Was it the fact the dog was hit by a car that upset Diane?

“Anyway, I promised the girls that you'd talk to Diane tonight.” Rachel's eyes fell. She didn't meet Annie's gaze.

“The girls?” But Annie knew what was coming.

“Some of the seniors.” Rachel's muttered answer was hard to hear. Head down, Rachel swung away and reached into her backpack. She pulled out her cell
phone. “I'm sorry, Annie. I shouldn't have said you'd do it. I'm supposed to call Diane and tell her what time. I'll just say you can't.”

Annie spoke fast. “Ask her to come at seven, Rachel.”

Rachel jerked to face Annie, her thin face alight with joy. “Oh, Annie, I know you can help her.”

 

A chuck-will's-widow skimmed low near the edge of the lagoon, its repetitive cry a harbinger of dusk. A flock of pine warblers swarmed near a stand of loblolly pines. In the shadows of the crape myrtle, a dimly seen raccoon observed the terrace and, of course, the wooden enclosure where the snap-lidded garbage pails were kept.

Max clapped his hands. “Go on, fella. Snack bar's closed.”

The raccoon didn't move.

Max grinned. “Have to admire a man who stands his ground.”

“Wait a minute.” Annie drawled the words as a challenge. “Aren't you being just a tad sexist?”

“Who, me?” Max's face exuded angelic innocence. “How could you even think it? So, okay, maybe this is a mama raccoon. Whichever, I'll lay odds the minute we leave the terrace he/she is alley-oop up and over the stockade fence.”

Smiling, Annie relaxed against the cushions of the swing. This was fun. This was how life should be after dinner (somewhat early because of their expected guest) on a lovely spring evening with the moon edging up behind the pines and the male frogs creating a
vigorous chorus of barks, shrieks and grunts in their romantic efforts to attract lady frogs. “A guy will do what a guy has to do,” Max had been known to remark in a sympathetic tone.

They both heard the slam of the car door, shattering the peace of the night, silencing for an instant the song of the frogs. Where the raccoon had stood there was now only the shadow of the bush.

Annie sat bolt upright.

Max reached out, took her hand. “It will be okay.”

“Oh, Max, will it?” Annie twisted to look toward the French doors. “I shouldn't have agreed to see her—” She broke off as one of the French doors opened.

“Out this way, Diane.” Rachel held the door.

As they stepped onto the illuminated patio, the girls looked summery in T-shirts and shorts and sandals. Diane's bronze hair was pulled behind a red calico bandanna. Rachel's flyaway dark curls stirred in the breeze. She moved fast, then stopped and looked back, waggled an encouraging hand. “Come on, Diane, it's okay.”

Annie wished everyone would stop saying it was okay. Nothing at this moment was okay. Kay Nevis and Meredith Muir were violently dead and the tall, slender girl walking so reluctantly across the flag-stones might soon be sitting in a jail cell charged with those murders.

When Diane was only a few feet away, she stopped and stared helplessly at Annie. “You came to the store Wednesday. About…” Her voice trailed away. She pressed the back of her hand against trembling lips.

Annie patted the cushion beside her. “Come sit with me, Diane.”

Max stood up so suddenly, his chair scraped on the stone. “I'll bet you girls would all like to have a Brown Cow. Come on, Rachel, you can help me fix them.”

Diane edged toward the swing, tentatively perched at the far end.

“Max and Rachel love to pretend we have an old-fashioned soda fountain. They…” But there was no answering spark in Diane's strained blue eyes.

The girl hunched her shoulders, wrapped her arms tightly together. She shivered. “I'm so scared.” Her voice was a whisper of sound. “Oh, God, I'm so scared.” She turned toward Annie. Terror burned in her eyes as wild as a fire roaring through mountain timber. Tears slipped out of those hot eyes, ran unchecked down ashen cheeks. “I didn't do it. I didn't do any of it. The police asked me about Mrs. Nevis and Meredith and they looked at me like…I hated the way they looked at me. They called my dad and told him they wanted to talk to me and I'm supposed to have a lawyer. Dad's flying home but he doesn't get into Savannah until real late and he's mad. He called and told me he didn't know what I'd been up to but I damn sure better be able to get it all taken care of because he had a big deal and he had to get back to Honolulu. And Mother's in London.” Her arms fell away from her body and her hands lay open and helpless on her slim tanned legs. “I have to talk to the police tomorrow and they'll ask me those questions. I told them the answers and all they did was look at me, that terrible look.
Rachel said you'd help me, but what can you do?” Her tone was hopeless.

Annie gently touched her arm. “I don't know, Diane. Maybe together we can figure something out. You were over at Meredith's Wednesday night, the night Mrs. Nevis was shot.”

Diane nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

The oh-so-Southern courtesy touched Annie, made her want desperately to help this frightened child. “Did you know that Mrs. Nevis lived across the inlet?”

“Oh, sure.” Diane tucked a strand of hair beneath the bandanna. “Mrs. Nevis was nice. She's one of the teachers I liked. She was…fair, you know? And she made the dullest things kind of fun. There was this general named Stilwell and she told us all about him and how he was treated…” Her voice faded away. “I used to always wave at her when I went to Meredith's.” There was a tone of remembrance.

“Used to wave at her?” Annie repeated. “Did you stop waving at her?”

Diane sighed, slumped back against the cushion. “I hadn't been over for a while, but I had to talk to Meredith Wednesday night. I had to. I didn't know what else to do. Those flyers talked about my…about a red Jeep.” She stared at Annie, her eyes hot with fear. “But nobody else knew. Only Meredith.” She lifted a shaking hand, pressed it against her temple.

“Only Meredith knew”—it was as if the truth hovered in the air around them—“that you accidentally hit Bob Tower?”

The girl reached out, clutched Annie's arm. “Oh, God, I didn't mean to hit him. It was so awful”—hor
ror bubbled in her voice—“and my folks were gone. I drove to Meredith's. She was just leaving for school. And she went and…looked. She came back and said it was too late, we couldn't do anything for him. We left my car at her house and went to school. The next week we took my car and drove to Savannah and found a place that would fix the bumper. I told them I hit a deer. We got the car back when it was done and nobody ever knew—so how did it get in those flyers?”

The flyers. Everything came back to the flyers. “What did Meredith say?”

Diane sat up straight, clenched her hands. “She said I must have told somebody. But I never did. Never, never, never. Why would I? I've tried to forget but I can't. I dream about the way he went through the air like it was slow motion. I wake up and I want to run, but there's no place to go.” She buried her face in her hands. Her words were muffled. “Oh, God, I can never get away.”

Annie gently touched a trembling arm. “Diane, you can make it better.”

Slowly that ravaged face lifted. “I have to tell them, don't I?” Her voice was dull. “They'll put me in jail”—she shuddered—“and jails are so awful. We went to see one on a civics trip….”

“I wouldn't think about that now.” Annie wished she could insist that wouldn't happen. But no one could make that promise. “Tell your parents. Will you do that?”

Diane pulled off her bandanna, used it to wipe her face. “The police will think I killed Mrs. Nevis and
Meredith to keep it quiet about Mr. Tower. That's not true! I swear I didn't do it. I swear!”

Annie had a cold sense the girl was absolutely right. That was exactly what the police would believe. To keep it quiet…Annie lifted a hand. “Wait a minute, Diane. You say that no one besides Meredith knew about the accident. Is that right?”

Diane twisted the bandanna in her hands, turning it tighter and tighter. “That's right. Nobody knew. Just Meredith.”

But the deeply incriminating suggestion of the red Jeep was included in the flyers. Meredith knew, but Meredith's murder proved she was not behind the flyers.

Annie studied the nervous, distraught girl, her hands tight on the bandanna. “Do you think Mrs. Nevis knew about your Jeep?”

Diane looked at Annie with dull, hopeless eyes. “She saw me at Meredith's lots of times in my Jeep. But she couldn't have known about Mr. Tower. Not unless Meredith told her. And that would be crazy. Anyway, Wednesday night Meredith kept saying the red Jeep in the flyers had to be just a fluke or maybe somebody'd known about my car all along and maybe this was some kind of queer game somebody was playing and I should just keep my mouth shut. But the next day, she was real upset…”

Annie leaned toward Diane, listened to her faltering, puzzled voice.

“…at the assembly and she told me that Mrs. Nevis being killed had changed everything and she didn't know what to do but she was going to see what she could find out and she asked me not to tell anybody. I asked her what she meant, but she just shook her head. She looked kind of sick. Then she ran away from me and I never saw her again.” Diane began to cry, great gulping sobs. “We used to have so much fun together. She was my best friend. Then everything changed.”

Max opened the kitchen door. He held a tray with four tall ice cream soda glasses.

Annie shook her head.

He turned away and the door closed.

Diane shook out the bandanna, scrubbed her tear-streaked face. “We used to spend the night in the cabana down by the pool. It was so neat. We'd play music and we could play as loud as we wanted to. There's a little kitchen and we'd make fudge. I used to spend the night there a lot because her folks are mostly gone, like mine. Starting a couple of months ago, she didn't invite me over anymore, and when I'd call, she didn't answer. I knew she was there and I thought maybe she and Ben…But Ben was real sad because she stopped going out with him, and pretty soon, nobody saw her much except on the weekends. She'd still hang out with everybody at Spooky's…”

Annie recognized the pizza parlor that, according to Rachel, was the place to be from Friday afternoon to Sunday night.

“…on the weekends but she didn't have anybody over on school nights. She treated Ben like he was
some kind of little kid. And Ben”—Diane's pale face softened—“he's the neatest guy. Everybody would like to go out with Ben, but he never saw anyone but Meredith. She just blew him off.”

“Do you think she was depressed?” Annie knew that avoiding contact with friends was a classic symptom of depression.

Diane's lips twisted. “Oh, no. She seemed happy as anything. She just didn't have anything to do with us anymore. Now”—Diane rubbed her temple—“she's dead. It doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody kill Meredith?”

There seemed to be one easy answer. “Maybe she was up late and looked across the inlet and saw the person who shot Mrs. Nevis. What time did you leave Wednesday night?”

“About eleven.” Diane took a quick breath. “I went straight home and I stayed there until I went to school Thursday morning.”

“Where was Meredith when you left?” A shadow moved not far away. Annie glanced toward the crape myrtle. She and Diane had sat so still, spoken so quietly, the raccoon had returned to reconnoiter.

“Oh, in the cabana. Meredith always had her friends there. She was out on the deck and she watched me drive away.” She pressed the back of her hand against trembling lips. “Just like always.”

Annie recalled the cabana. It took only a quick glance to look across the inlet at Kay Nevis's house.

“And last night?” Annie kept her tone casual, but she watched Diane's pale, drawn face with careful attention.

“I called her and called her.” Diane hunched forward, knotting her fingers together. “I was so mad I could have—” She broke off with a startled gasp. “But that was all. I was just mad. I didn't go over there. I just kept calling. I had to do something about those flyers. If my folks ever saw one…But I didn't know what to do. That's what was so awful. I didn't know what to do.” Her hands sagged loose in her lap. She stared at Annie with despair in her eyes. “Now I don't know what to do about”—she shuddered—“Mrs. Nevis and Meredith. It's like when you know something awful's going to happen and you can't do anything to make it stop.”

A
NNIE WRINKLED HER NOSE
. “Hmm, that coffee smells wonderful.”

Max tilted the pot, poured.

Annie raised her mug, savoring the aroma and treasuring the rich, fresh taste. But when she put the mug down, her face drooped. “I feel terrible.”

“I know.” Max sighed and leaned back in his chair. He glanced toward the clock. “What time do you suppose Diane will be interviewed by the police?”

Annie lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Sometime this morning.” She looked through the terrace windows at the sparkling morning—the sky Wedgwood-blue, the azaleas such a vivid pink they dazzled her eyes, the lagoon emerald-green. “Max, they'll arrest her. I know they will. It all fits together—the flyers in Kay Nevis's house, the red Jeep, Diane at Meredith's house, Diane and Meredith having that terribly intense talk during the assembly.”

Max drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Diane has a motorboat. I saw it. If Pete ever finds out that Kay's murderer came in a motorboat…”

Running steps clattered down the stairway. Rachel burst into the breakfast room. “Hey, I'm going over to Christy's. Everybody's coming. We're going to see if we can figure out a way to help Diane.” She trotted
toward the garage door. “I'm taking my bike—” The door slammed behind her.

Annie half rose. “She hasn't had any breakfast.”

Max grinned. “I imagine Christy's house runs to sweet rolls and Pepsi.”

Annie dropped into her chair. “Well, it will keep her out of harm's way.”

“Yes.” Max's tone was grim. “That's important.”

Annie shivered, though the coffee was good and strong and hot. “I'm scared, Max. I don't think Diane killed either Kay Nevis or Meredith. Can you see Diane breaking into Laurel's house and trashing her bedroom? Max, if it comes to it, we'll have to talk to Laurel, explain how important it is to tell Pete about sighting that motorboat the night Kay was shot.”

“Telling Pete about the motorboat might just be enough to clinch Diane's arrest. And he won't be impressed at our linking Laurel's late-night excursions with the vandalism at her house.” Max frowned. “Damn, what do you suppose will happen when Laurel comes back to the island?”

Annie sipped the robust coffee, wondered if it would be piggy to eat a second poppy-seed muffin. “If Diane's arrested, nothing will happen. The murderer won't worry about Laurel at that point.”

Max moved restively. “I don't see how we can be sure of that.”

Annie didn't answer. They couldn't be certain of anything. “What a mess.” Annie shoved her hand through her hair. “I thought Diane would be able to help us. But obviously she hadn't seen much of Meredith recently. If we knew why Meredith stopped hang
ing out with her, maybe that would help.” Annie paused, her face crinkling with thought. “Mrs. Thompson”—Annie pictured the teacher's dark, intelligent, thoughtful face—“said Kay Nevis was angry that some student's parents weren't paying enough attention. What if that student was Meredith?”

Max quirked an eyebrow. “Could be. But wouldn't that apply equally to Diane? Her dad in Honolulu, her mother in London, Diane left pretty much to do what she wanted to do.”

Annie ran her finger around the rim of the mug. A circle. Everything seemed to come to a circle when what she wanted was a nice straight line leading to the stealthy figure that nosed a motorboat into a lagoon Wednesday night and shot a defenseless woman. Had Kay Nevis been worried about Meredith or Diane? “Right. It could be either one of them, so that doesn't get us anywhere. Maybe we should concentrate on Mrs. Riley's idea about the lunch table.” Abruptly, Annie sat very still. “One of the teachers at the lunch table was Jack Quinn. I told you about him. He's the track coach, a tall, lanky guy with a bony face. Damn sure of himself. Anyway, he and Meredith had an argument in the parking lot Thursday afternoon. Yesterday morning I tracked him down, but he clammed up, told me to ask Meredith. What do you suppose that was all about?”

“An argument?” Max's face brightened. “Hey, that could be important.”

“Meredith can't tell us now.” Her tone was quiet. “So he damn well better.” She popped up and hurried to the counter. She flipped open the phone book, ran
her finger down the column. When she found the listing, she punched in the numbers. As the line rang, she switched on the speakerphone.

The phone was answered on the third ring.

“H'lo.” The voice was young and could have been either a little girl or boy.

“Is your daddy there?” Annie's hand tightened on the receiver.

“S'minute. Daddy? Hey, Daddy…”

In a moment, the track coach answered. “Hello.” His voice was good-humored, held the reflection of laughter.

“Mr. Quinn. This is Annie Darling. I spoke to you yesterday morning at school.” A flock of pelicans swept past the terrace windows, heading for the harbor to feast upon menhaden and mullet. Annie loved the ungainly birds with their huge bills and snowy heads and silvery-brown bodies. One of her favorite pleasures was walking out on the pier to watch the birds glide toward the wavetops.

The flock was out of sight before Quinn said gruffly, “Oh.” And nothing more. His voice now held no warmth, was wary and distant.

Maybe that was why she went straight to the point. “Why did you quarrel with Meredith Muir in the parking lot Thursday afternoon?”

Max pushed back his chair, joined Annie beside the speakerphone.

“Why do you ask?” Quinn's question was sharp.

Annie glanced at Max.

He understood. His nod was swift.

Annie traced a
D
on the counter next to the phone.
“Because Diane Littlefield may be arrested for Meredith's murder and for Kay Nevis's murder and I don't think she's guilty.”

“Oh, shit.” Squeals rose in the background, were suddenly muffled. “Just a minute.” Steps sounded, a door slammed. There was the distant burr of a leaf machine. “What's the deal about Diane?”

Annie told him all of it, starting with the red Jeep in the flyers.

Quinn spoke slowly. “I saw Meredith run away from Diane at the assembly. Anybody could see Meredith was upset.” He stopped.

“You followed Meredith out to the parking lot.” The more Annie thought about Quinn's pursuit of Meredith, the odder it seemed. “Why?”

“Because Kay Nevis was murdered.” He blew out a spurt of air that rasped over the speakerphone. “Oh hell, I didn't think Meredith could be involved, but I thought I had to talk to her. Now…” A chair scraped on concrete. “…well, now it's pretty clear poor little Meredith didn't have anything to do with Kay's murder. Meredith must have seen something the night Kay was killed and she didn't have sense enough to tell anyone. Anyway, nothing I say can hurt Meredith now. It was Monday afternoon. I'd gone down to the parking lot to get some stuff out of my car before sports. I had on running shoes and I cut across the field. I was walking behind a line of willow trees along the near boundary of the lot. The point is, I wasn't making any noise. Nobody could hear me coming. When I ducked around one of the willows, I saw Meredith on the driver's side of Kay Nevis's car. She was bent over and her
hand made a quick, slashing movement. She looked around, but she didn't see me. Then she took off running, back toward the area where the seniors park. By the time I got to Kay's car, Meredith was gone. I looked at the door. There was a jagged X scraped on the side.”

 

Cars were parked on both sides of the road leading up to the Nevis house. Some of the overflow had encroached on the lane leading to the Muir house.

As Max cautiously eased his red Ferrari into a depression near a stand of firs, Annie shaded her eyes and looked toward the Muir house. “There are some cars there.” Cars meant people and heartbreak, parents in pain. “Oh, Max.”

He reached out, squeezed her hand.

Annie didn't want to look at the rambling house or at the cabana where Meredith and Diane had played music as loud as they wanted or at the pier where Meredith had walked out to meet death. “Max, if only Meredith had talked to me Thursday.”

Annie felt that Meredith walked with them up the dusty, rutted road. When she and Max stood beside Kay Nevis's tan Camry, Annie had a sudden vision of a beautiful blond girl, head ducked, keys gripped in her hand, lifting her arm, scouring a rough X on the unblemished paint.

Annie pointed at the six-inch-long gashes in the pale paint. “Ugly. If Meredith did that, she must have been very angry with Kay Nevis. You know, when I saw this the morning Henny found Kay, I thought
maybe the murderer had done it. But now we know Meredith scraped the car. Why on earth…”

Max rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. “Nobody has mentioned a quarrel between Kay Nevis and Meredith.”

Annie scarcely heard him. She was shaken by the anger implicit in the vandalism. If Chief Garrett had known about the jagged scratch on the Nevis car, wouldn't he immediately have wondered if Meredith had reason to murder the teacher?

“A quarrel between Kay and Meredith…” Annie glanced at the Nevis house, filled now with friends and mourning family. She looked across the inlet at the Muir house. Soon there would be cars overflowing there, too, as friends came to call, bringing food and flowers, offering love when love was needed most. “I don't get it. We all thought Meredith was killed because she saw something—”

Annie broke off as she stared across the inlet at the cabana and the pool and the long rambling yellow house. Her gaze returned to the cabana with its inviting deck, a brightly striped folded umbrella over a table, a half-dozen webbed chairs. The cabana was Meredith's little kingdom, far from the house. There was a dusty path that led from the pier to the deck of the cabana. This view could clearly be seen from the deck of the Nevis house or through the windows that faced the inlet. Suddenly everything clicked into place for Annie—Kay Nevis's distress in the days leading up to her death, the information in the flyers that was clearly linked to the school, Meredith's anguish after Kay's murder.

“Oh, Max! Maybe it wasn't what Meredith saw.” Annie pointed across the bright green water, barely stirred by a sluggish breeze. “Maybe it was what Kay Nevis saw!”

 

Annie walked behind the pines that screened the tennis courts at the country club. She heard the
thwock
of balls, smelled the sweet scent of water splashing onto an empty clay court. The clerk behind the desk in the tennis center said Ben Bradford was raking Court 16.

Annie reached the entrance to the court. A young man in tennis whites pulled a rake across the far court. His back was to Annie. His head was bowed, his shoulders slumped. There were pain and sorrow in every step.

Annie steeled herself, walked quickly across the court, the soft clay deadening her footsteps. She stopped a few feet away. “Ben.”

He jerked around. His eyes were red-rimmed, his features hard, his skin splotchy. He stared at her and there was a flicker of recognition. “You're Rachel's sister.”

“Yes. I wanted to talk to you….” She didn't want to do this. She wished she were far from the beautiful tennis court with its pinkish clay and the huge green pines that rustled ever so slightly in the breeze and this terrible grief. “Ben, I'm so sorry about Meredith.”

His face twisted in a spasm of pain. He gripped the rake, leaned his head against his hands.

She had nothing to offer except “Ben, you can help catch the person who killed Meredith.”

Slowly he looked up. His eyes glittered. “How?” His voice was deep and harsh. “What can I do?”

Annie hated to ask this question, but everything hinged on Ben's answer. “Ben, please tell me why Meredith stopped seeing you.”

His mouth trembled.

Annie wondered if he could bear to answer.

“Why”—he cleared his throat, stared at her with anguished eyes—“does it matter?”

Annie took a deep breath, forced out the words. “Was she seeing someone else?”

His eyes fell. His words were ragged, uneven, could scarcely be heard. “She told me I was just a kid and she didn't have time for kids anymore. I know there was some guy. I thought maybe a friend of her parents. Some goddamn old man.”

…
didn't have time for kids anymore
.

Ben was probably eighteen. Anybody over twenty-five would seem old to him. And Thursday afternoon, Meredith slammed her car door and her Mustang jolted out of the parking lot, leaving a grim-faced Jack Quinn staring after her.

 

Annie pushed the Volvo horn, held it.

Max poked his head out of the back entrance of Confidential Commissions and waved. He held up an index finger, ducked back inside. In a moment, he returned, slamming the door and hurrying down the steps. He carried a folder in his hand.

As soon as Max had settled in the passenger seat, the Volvo zoomed up the alley. “Did you get anything on Quinn and Wilson?”

Max tapped the folder. “Some stuff. I got to work as
soon as you called. Didn't Ben have any idea who the man might be?”

“Not really. He thought it might be some friend of the family. I didn't suggest anything about Quinn or Wilson—”

“I hope not.” Max gave her a worried look. “We don't have anything definite to link anybody to Meredith, Annie. We can't go around accusing either Quinn or Wilson of having an affair with Meredith.”

Annie paused fleetingly at the stop sign—her driving habits seemed to be deteriorating, but dammit, she was in a hurry and there wasn't anybody coming—and accelerated onto Sand Dollar Road. “Well, I can sure tell Pete exactly what Ben told me. Pete will have to check it out.” Annie slowed to let a heavily pregnant doe lumber across the road. “Max, I don't know what's going on at the police station. I've called and called. Finally I got Mavis and she said if I didn't have an emergency I should call back Monday. I told her I had important information about the murders and she said she'd take my name and somebody would get back to me.” The Volvo picked up speed. Wind rushed through the open sunroof. “Get back to me!” Annie's voice rose. “I mean, what the heck is going on? There was so much noise and hubbub behind Mavis, I could barely hear her. It sounded like a cross between an Elks convention and the midway at a carnival.”