Death Comes Silently (29 page)

Annie would have been more impressed, but the quote was verbatim from the finale of Emma’s most recent book,
The Case of the Daring Dandelion
.

Confident that she’d mesmerized her audience, Emma proceeded to pontificate. “Of course, we must always, as Marigold—”

Annie tried hard to maintain an attitude of intense interest even though she found Marigold Rembrandt about as charming as House in the TV series that was her least favorite.

“—always emphasizes, remember that murderers lie—and so do the innocent!” Her tone was triumphant.

Her smile angelic, Laurel murmured, “
The Case of the Malingering Malamute.
”

Emma’s glance at Laurel was sharp.

Laurel’s classically beautiful face was unmarred by even a hint of sarcasm. Indeed, her gaze was one of utter admiration.

Mollified, Emma ticked off, “No alibis Tuesday night for Steve Raymond, Brad Milton, Nicole Hathaway, Leslie Griffin, Doug Walker, or Trey Hathaway.”

“Right.” Annie felt glum. Emma could put the best face possible on the conclusion, but as a matter of fact, their efforts had put them no nearer a solution to the murder of Maggie Knight and the attack on Henny.

Laurel clapped her hands together. “However, Annie’s visit to the Hathaway house resulted in a possibly critical piece of information. A chunk of damp mud indicated the green bike had been recently ridden.”

Annie appreciated Laurel’s effort to find a ray of sunshine in a bleak landscape. But a chunk of mud didn’t name the rider.

Laurel reached out to pat Annie’s hand, her blue eyes empathetic. “Never despair, my dear. Possibly tomorrow something may occur. Tonight we’ll think sunflower thoughts.”

Emma reached for the huge mink coat she’d tossed carelessly over a chair. “Laurel has the right idea. Tomorrow one of us may have a brilliant insight.”

M
ax added a log to the fire in the library. Flames danced.

Annie watched with pleasure. As he knelt, lean and muscular in navy flannel pajamas, he was Joe Hardy handsome, blond, blue-eyed, strong featured. And hers. Even though this particular night was filled with worry, his presence made everything better.

He turned, looked at her, smiled. “We’ll make something happen tomorrow.”

She smiled in return. “That’s what Laurel said. Sort of.” Annie’s tone was dry. “Although I don’t know that ‘sunflower thoughts’ will be helpful.”

“Sunflower thoughts,” Max mused. “As in, pluck petals and murmur, ‘He did it, she did it, he—”

The phone rang.

Annie reached for the mobile. As always she noted the caller ID: Nicole Hathaway. An eyebrow rose. She pointed at the desk. “Catch the extension.”

She waited until Max held the receiver. “Hello.”

“Annie?” Nicole’s voice was soft.

“Yes.” She made her tone warm and welcoming.

“This is Nicole.”

Annie strained to hear.

“I saw the story in this afternoon’s
Gazette
.” There was a quiver of shock in the whispered words.

The newspaper lay on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Most readers would come away from Marian’s story convinced there was an ongoing mystery behind the murders of Gretchen Burkholt and Maggie Knight, and grave suspicion about Everett Hathaway’s death. Annie was sure that His Honor the Mayor was not pleased.

“Trey said you weren’t really doing a survey. He said you were trying to find out where all of us were when Maggie was shot. Maggie shot… It’s so dreadful. I can’t think about Maggie without feeling sick. And she was shot last night… I thought you should know”—she took a quick breath—“Leslie wasn’t here last night. Wait. I think I hear—”

Silence.

Max cupped his hand over the receiver. “Annie, grab your cell. We might need to call nine-one—”

A relieved sigh came through the night. “It’s okay. Leslie’s gone. I hear her car when it leaves. Last night I never heard her car”—Nicole sounded puzzled—“but about a quarter to nine Leslie’s dog barked. Crystal scratches the door when she wants to go out. If nobody comes, she barks. I heard Crystal and I thought it was funny, because if she was in Leslie’s room, Leslie should let her out. Sometimes Leslie forgets and shuts her in the room and someone else has to go get her. She barked again. I went out into the hall and sure enough Leslie’s door was closed. I knocked and Crystal really barked. I opened the door. Leslie wasn’t there. I went downstairs to let Crystal out. Leslie wasn’t anywhere. It was so odd. Her car was in the drive yet I couldn’t find her in the house. It wasn’t”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“a good night for walking. And she never walks… Oh, I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m so confused. Trey says it’s that handyman. That has to be right. They’ve arrested him.”

The connection ended.

T
here was no trace of the pale winter sun this morning. Instead, fog hung thick in the live oaks, made a dense cloud at the foot of their garden, hiding the pond. Max held her car door open. He spoke as if they hadn’t wrangled at breakfast over what to do. “Catching Leslie in a lie about Tuesday night may be as important as you think. But let’s sit on it for now. The arraignment’s tomorrow afternoon. Let me see if I can round up a quorum of the town council and set up a Skype call. If I can get the votes, Billy will be back on the job. We need him to follow up on Leslie.”

Annie almost retorted that the chances of seeing Billy reinstated
seemed slimmer than Laurel taking vows of—She broke off. Some comparisons were better left not only unvoiced but unthought. Max was remarkably intuitive.

“That would be great.” She wondered if she sounded as hollow as she felt.

“Then you’ll be at the store.” He sounded relieved.

Annie offered a cheery smile. “That’s where I work.”

“Annie—”

She spoke quietly. “I am going to the store.” She tapped the folder in her left hand. “I am going to look over everything again. Maybe something will come to me. Maybe I’ll tear petals off of sunflowers.”

He looked alarmed.

“I wouldn’t,” she reassured him. The majestic flowers were living creatures to Laurel.

A
nnie spooned fresh-minced chicken into Agatha’s bowl and looked at the magnificent bouquet of sunflowers in the blue vase near the fireplace. Laurel had suggested sunflower thoughts. There was nothing sunny about envisioning a brash teenager as a killer. But Leslie was almost-eighteen-going-on-thirty-five. She wasn’t too young to make dreadful decisions. Annie’s thoughts swung back to the green bicycle and the fresh clump of mud on the pedal.

With Agatha eating and purring, Annie poured a cappuccino. She reached for the folder she’d brought from home.

The shocking creak of rusted hinges marked the opening of the front door. Annie had loved the
Inner Sanctum
sound when first installed, but on a foggy January morning, the hollow rasping was a little too scary for pleasure.

However, it would be lovely if an actual customer had arrived,
rare as that was in January. Annie put down her mug and started up the central aisle.

Hyla Harrison strode toward Annie. Instead of her khaki uniform, she wore a plaid flannel shirt, brown corduroy slacks, and brown leather loafers. Her dark red hair was drawn back in a tight bun. Her pale face was intense. Hyla always appeared intense. Hyla dropped into the store once or twice a week, always interested in police procedurals. Annie had a sheaf of critiques written in Hyla’s small, tight handwriting. Often the comments were scathing. Hyla had no tolerance for inaccuracies.

She stopped in front of Annie. “I’m off duty.” It was a grim, purposeful announcement.

Annie knew this wasn’t the moment to mention the new Liam Campbell mystery though Dana Stabenow was one of Hyla’s favorite authors. Instead, she waited with a sense that something big was happening.

There was a pulse of uncertainty and anguish in Hyla’s face, then she said gruffly, “I’ve always done everything by the book.” She gazed at the bookshelves. “Not those kind of books.”

Annie understood that no slight was intended. “I know.”

“That plumber’s shut us down. The case is finished, he said.” Her words were clipped, her eyes hot with anger. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t study the files. The chief—”

She meant Billy Cameron.

“—had decided Hathaway was a homicide, that somebody intercepted him in a boat, dumped him out of the kayak. The chief was going to wring out the family.” She gave a decided nod. “That’s always the place to start. There’s more money and more murder inside a family than out. The family has a boat, but apparently it didn’t go out that night. But”—she leaned forward—“we got a call Saturday
morning, an abandoned boat on Treasure Creek. A bird-watcher found it. Could’ve been there for weeks otherwise.”

Annie waited, scarcely daring to breathe.

“I went out.” Hyla drew a sheet of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Annie. “That creek threads off a marsh around a headland from the bay where Everett drowned. Isolated spot. No houses. Boat belonged to Gordon Sanders. It turned out they always left the keys in it. Somebody took the boat Friday night. They don’t know when. In fact they didn’t know it was gone until I got the registration number and called them. So the boat was stolen. I looked it over pretty carefully. Nothing trashed, no whisky bottles, no food wrappers. That didn’t look like kids out on a joy ride. And who steals a boat on a cold winter night? I had my evidence kit with me. I decided to check the wheel for prints.” Hyla’s pale green eyes glittered. “Clean as a polished mirror. That gave me a funny feeling. How come? It was cold that night. You’d think anybody would have worn gloves. But what if a glove got wet?”

Annie was puzzled. “Wet?”

Hyla’s pale eyes gleamed. “Boat lights pick up the kayaker. Maybe there’s a call. Maybe not. Maybe the boat just slides up to the kayak and the driver leans out with a gaff, pokes. Hathaway flips out. Water splashes up. Hathaway’s churning in the water. More splashes. The gaff’s pulled back, but the glove’s drenched. It’s too cold to keep on a wet glove. Everett tries to reach the kayak. The gaff again. This time the hook pulls the kayak out of his reach. Pretty soon Hathaway’s weakening. Time to get rid of the boat. But the thief takes off that wet glove and that’s how prints got on the wheel and the wheel had to be polished. That’s my take.” Her eyes narrowed. “One other funny thing. After I didn’t find prints on the wheel, I went over that boat real carefully. On the back starboard rail, I found a scrape that looked fresh.
Speckles of green paint. I lifted them.” She looked thoughtful. “I figured the thief had something stowed in the back and gashed the rail when hauling it out. There are no lights on Treasure Creek. It would’ve been dark as a cavern. But”—she sounded regretful—“the mark wasn’t real noticeable. I took some pics, just in case. I also found some threads snagged on the railing. I figured somebody left in a hurry and a sweater or jacket got caught on the railing. I took the material into evidence, too. Anyway”—she took a deep breath—“I figure if it comes to it”—she was deliberately obscure—“that lawyer—”

Annie wasn’t surprised that Hyla knew Handler Jones had been hired by Max to defend Jeremiah.

“—might want some testimony about a boat one of these days. I did some follow-up work this morning. The names are all in the file, the people the chief intended to check out, the widow and her lover, the nephew, the niece, her boyfriend, and Brad Milton. I called Mrs. Sanders, told her I needed to run some names by her, that we had some fingerprints from the boat theft and we needed to eliminate people who had been out with them. Turns out that Doug Walker had never been on the boat or, of course, Leslie Hathaway’s boyfriend, Steve Raymond. However, Nicole Hathaway, Trey Hathaway, Leslie Griffin, and Brad Milton were familiar with the boat and could know that the Sanders never took out the keys. Of course, Nicole could have told Doug Walker and Leslie could have told Steve Raymond. So”—the thin taut woman turned her hands palms up—“I didn’t prove anything except”—her jaw jutted—“any one of them might have taken the boat. That’s all I know for now. Since the station’s dead as a belly-up mackerel, I’m taking a few days off. Maybe things will get better.” She swung about and marched toward the door, her shoulders stiff beneath the plaid wool shirt.

As the creak of rusty hinges signaled Hyla’s departure, Annie
walked slowly back to the coffee bar. She stepped behind the counter, poured out the cold cappuccino. She felt a flicker of excitement. Everything Hyla had discovered made it likely that the stolen boat had been used the night Everett drowned.

Annie retrieved the island directory from the back office. The Sanders house was within the island’s gated community. There would be so little traffic on a late December night that nonresident cars would be noticeable. Moreover, she pictured the address. She knew that area. Residents put up their cars in three- and four-car garages. There wouldn’t be any place to park that might not be noticed. How did the murderer get to the boat?

Green paint…

Annie’s eyes widened. Maybe, just maybe… She hesitated, should she call Max, tell him? No, it wouldn’t hurt to look first. Then there would be more to go on. Abruptly, Annie whirled, grabbed her jacket and purse, and, at the last minute, the folder with their point-by-point summary of what they knew, and hurried through the store. In the parking lot, she opened the driver’s door. Four sunflowers with fuzzy-appearing leaves fluffed around a pale green center were propped in the passenger seat. As Annie slid behind the wheel, she smiled and reached out to touch the head of the nearest bloom.