Hit and Run (33 page)

‘In the
heiress
'
closet.' The stage whisper sounded like Lucinda's voice. ‘What a coincidence.'

‘Shut your mouth, you hear?' Mama's also disembodied voice growled.

AnnaLise feared things might come to blows in the peanut gallery, but Officer Fearon just stood up calmly. ‘I've spoken with Coy and he wants me to secure this in the master bedroom until they and the county arrive tomorrow morning. The snow's bad and getting worse. Some accidents on the mountain roads need responding to.'

‘Tomorrow?' Lacey asked anxiously. ‘Did you tell them we touched it? AnnaLise
and
me?'

‘I did, little lady. Don't you worry.'

Lacey beamed and nodded before wading back through the crowd.

AnnaLise, for her part, was feeling considerably less cheery. ‘Can you tell if anything is in that thing, Gary?'

‘Not without pawing through it,' Fearon said. ‘Can I ask what you were hoping for, AnnaLise?'

‘A luggage tag with Debbie Dobyns' name on it?' asked Tyler Puckett, head just inside the doorway. He and Eddie Boccaccio laughed.

‘Steady girl,' AnnaLise's pseudo-lawyer whispered. ‘Don't let the bastards grind you down.'

She smiled grimly. ‘The way things are going, if they do find identification on that thing my name'll probably be on it.'

‘You wear flowered backpacks?'

‘Not past seventh grade, though Daisy probably still has them all squirrelled away somewhere.'

Hoag threw her a worried look. ‘Please tell me this isn't one of them.'

‘Don't worry, Patrick. It's not.'

The attorney let out the breath he must have been holding.

After Hoag re-oxygenated, AnnaLise asked, ‘How bad is this?'

‘Honestly? I don't know. Theoretically, despite your version of events, it's possible you knocked yourself on the head.'

AnnaLise started to protest, but Hoag waved her down. ‘I'm just saying it would have been a whole lot better for the bag to be found in a dumpster somewhere between Sutherton and the Atlanta airport.'

‘As in, jettisoned by Debbie?'

‘Exactly. It's tough to envision how she could have put it in your closet at any time, much less assault you just a few minutes ago.'

AnnaLise had been watching Fearon with the evidence bag, but now she turned to Hoag. ‘Which means, obviously, that our killer is still somewhere here in this house.'

‘H
art's fountain is frozen.'

AnnaLise, sitting cross-legged on her bed, rubbed her arms to reduce the goose pimples. ‘Could you close the balcony door, please? It's already freezing in here.'

Joy Tamarack turned, snowflakes flecking her hair. ‘You don't want to see this? It's really pretty cool. The water nymphs look like something out of a sci-fi movie and the circle drive could host a hockey game.'

‘I'll pass. Close, please?'

Joy complied and climbed up next to AnnaLise, filching a cookie from the plate on the comforter.

Before taking a bite, Joy asked, ‘Toll House Chocolate Chip?'

‘Mama made them fresh for me.' AnnaLise gingerly touched her goose egg and decided she needed another cookie. ‘Since I got hurt.'

‘Mmmm.' A crumb squatted on Joy's lower lip. ‘Imagine the spread she'd put out for a funeral.'

AnnaLise gaped at her supposed friend. ‘That's a horrible thing to say.'

‘I'm just talking special events. You know, baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, whatever.'

‘And your first thought in that line goes to funerals?'

‘I didn't say yours, in particular, though I do think you have to face the fact somebody wants you out of the way.'

‘Dead?' AnnaLise pointed at the crumb.

Joy salvaged it. ‘Or in prison. So long as you're sentenced for Hart's murder, it would serve the same purpose.'

Why didn't Joy's elaboration make AnnaLise feel better? ‘Listen, thanks for agreeing to this sleep-over. I really don't want to be alone tonight.'

‘Understood. Not sure why you wouldn't let me bring the snubbie, but so long as the gig includes chocolate and red wine, I'm here for you.' She lifted her glass.

‘Spoken like a staunch supporter.' They clinked glasses in an undedicated toast and AnnaLise plumped two pillows behind her before taking a sip of her own wine. ‘So, what do you think?'

‘I think you caught somebody in the process of planting the bag in your closet. You said you felt blood on it?'

AnnaLise shook her head. ‘No, just dampness. I wasn't thinking straight – obviously any blood from Wednesday night would certainly be dry by now. Especially on a nylon backpack.'

Joy's face grew thoughtful. ‘So, it was washed?'

‘Or thrown into the lake and retrieved. But by whom?'

‘Oooow, let me think. Oh, I know: the murderer. Duh.' Joy snatched another cookie. ‘And the reason, if you're going to ask that next, is to pin the crime on you.'

AnnaLise rubbed her forehead. ‘OK, maybe a recap will help clarify this mess for me. On Wednesday night, Dickens Hart went to his suite at eleven-fifteen only to be killed sometime after that. Whoever did it took the floral bag away with them, presumably because leaving it there would somehow implicate them.'

‘We'd hoped that person was Debbie, but she obviously doesn't have the bag, and you – as the saying goes – have been left holding it.'

‘Amen to that,' AnnaLise said. ‘Debbie also says I'm the one who called to tell her she was fired.'

‘You need to call that lawyer.'

The consensus opinion, seemingly. ‘You think it's that bad?'

‘It's been that bad for a while. Now it's knee-high to dire and nigh on catastrophic. If we weren't like best buds, even
I'd
think you did it.'

‘Thanks,' said AnnaLise, going for deadpan. ‘But there's a witness. Roy Smoaks saw a woman toss that bag into the lake. Would I do that only to fish it out and plant the thing in my own room?'

‘Smoaks saw somebody toss something into the water.' Joy took her third cookie. ‘And, pray tell, was that before or after he, undoubtedly drunk, shot out Hart's window?'

‘After.'

‘My point is that Smoaks is not exactly poised on a stack of Bibles, much less a witness stand.'

‘Well then, if he's not a credible witness, we'll make him a suspect,' AnnaLise said. ‘When Coy and Charity get here, I'll have Boozer give them the bullet. They can match it to the rifle Smoaks was using.'

‘Didn't you say it hit the fireplace?'

‘Yes.' AnnaLise had reached for another cookie herself but stopped mid-air. ‘Why?'

Joy shrugged. ‘You're a police reporter. Yet I, a fitness trainer, have to tell you that a slug suffering that kind of damage is pretty much useless for matching to anything?'

‘A fitness trainer who
packs
,' AnnaLise reminded her, but dropped her cookie hand back into her lap. ‘Besides, the gun is likely Bobby's and I wouldn't want to implicate him.'

Joy gave her a disbelieving look. ‘Girl, you are way beyond worrying about other people. “Implicate” Bobby and Smoaks. Hell, implicate me if you have to.'

‘I wouldn't do that.' AnnaLise looked at her friend. ‘I mean, unless you actually did it.'

‘If wishes were horses, Hart would have been trampled years ago. But no, I had nothing to do with this. I'm just saying you can benefit from all the reasonable doubt you can muster.'

Reasonable doubt. Like in a trial. A murder trial. ‘OK, breathe.'

‘Huh?' Joy asked.

‘Not you, me. I'm trying to control my breathing. Find serenity and maybe … um, stabilize my core.'

‘Hey, I'm all for mind-body fitness crap, but if you want flat abs, lay off the cookies. If you want inner peace let's go through your timeline to see who we should throw to the wolves.'

‘Oh, yeah, good idea,' AnnaLise said, one hand going reflexively to the bump on the back of her head. Calm down and focus. She climbed off the bed to get paper and a pen from the desk, then settled back down on the comforter. ‘So we know Dickens went to bed at eleven-fifteen.'

‘And everybody else pretty much immediately thereafter.'

‘They all trooped upstairs?'

‘That's my memory.'

‘I was already in bed,' AnnaLise said, ‘when I heard the group moving, so that matches up. And you said you were getting a nightcap and came to your room about … eleven-thirty?'

‘Uh-unh.' Joy shook her head. ‘I was right on the heels of the group. Where did you get eleven-thirty? It didn't take me fifteen minutes to pour even a jumbo glass of wine.'

AnnaLise sat up straighter. ‘Well, somebody went by my hallway door, I'm sure of it. And Shirley had come upstairs with me earlier, so she was already in her room.'

‘Maybe she went back downstairs for something?'

‘I don't think so,' AnnaLise said. ‘Nicole was in the kitchen or foyer until almost midnight when Sal picked her up. She would have seen anybody who came down.'

‘I went out like a light,' Joy said, ‘so I'm not going to be much help with your timeline from this point onward.'

‘Well, the footsteps came down the hallway past my room and a door opened and closed. I guess I just assumed it was you.'

‘Nobody would be wandering to find a bathroom, obviously, since each room has its own en suite.'

‘True.' AnnaLise realized she was worrying her lip again and forced herself to give the poor body part a break. ‘Maybe a booty call, as our dear Rose would say?'

‘Hell-on-wheels, I like that woman,' Joy said with a grin. ‘But again, there are only two suites past this room of yours. It wasn't me, and Shirley's too mature for casual sex.'

‘Tell it to my mother,' AnnaLise muttered under her breath. ‘Maybe somebody went to the corridor closet to get an extra blanket or something?'

‘No linens in there, at least in my time. Besides, did you hear them come back with their “blanket or something”?'

‘No. That's why I assumed it was you.'

‘Again, Einstein, it wasn't.' Joy had been examining the cookies – probably deciding which merited her next selection – but now she turned toward AnnaLise. ‘Despite my giving you permission to implicate me.'

‘I know, and continuing thanks for that. But then who was it, and where did they go?'

Joy was already pushing herself off the bed. ‘I can't answer the “who,” but if he or she didn't join me in my room or Shirley in hers, maybe they hid in yet another closet.'

‘But Dickens' bedroom is downstairs. Why come up here at all?'

‘Like you said, Nicole had a clear view of the halls on the main floor. Maybe whoever it was came out of Hart's bedroom and, catching sight of Nicole, panicked and huddled on the steps. Once there, there was nowhere to go but—'

‘Up. I follow you. Not sure I believe it, but I got it.'

‘Let's go take a look-see.' Joy, bounding like a cat, was already at the bedroom door.

‘For what? The killer can't possibly still be there.' Unless, AnnaLise thought, he or she was playing musical closets.

Joy shook her head. ‘But maybe they left signs. You know, what a trial judge calls “evidence”?'

That caught AnnaLise's attention as she moved the depleted plate of cookies to her nightstand. ‘Well, maybe—'

‘Great. I'll get my snubbie.'

‘You just want an excuse to carry your gun.' The journalist had started to follow, but stopped in her tracks. ‘I'd feel safer without it.'

‘In that case,' Joy said, opening the door. ‘After you.'

‘It's past midnight,' AnnaLise whispered as she stepped out into the hallway. ‘Keep your voice down.'

Ignoring her, Joy led the way along the corridor – bypassing her own suite and, blessedly, the snubbie – before unceremoniously throwing open the hall closet door. ‘Well, I see nothing has changed since my time here, except the boxes of crap are packed in even tighter. God knows what could be—'

But AnnaLise's eyes had narrowed. ‘Boxes?' She lifted the flap of the closest one. ‘Joy, this is a carton of books.'

‘Yeah?' She yawned, seeming already tired of the game if she couldn't play it armed. ‘So what? Hart always had a million of 'em.'

‘But—' AnnaLise exhaled as thoroughly as she could, to slip sideways into the walk-in clost between its wall and the stack. Contorting her way through the maze of boxes to the adjoining perpendicular wall, she saw her goal: a doorframe, mostly hidden behind yet another highrise of cartons and, again, just far enough from the wall for her to slip through and crack open the frame's door carefully to peer into the room. ‘This leads to Dickens' library.'

‘Really?' Joy herself shimmied and slalomed along the maze behind her friend.

AnnaLise swung the door wider to reveal Hart's library in all its cushy glory, the reading chair illuminated by snow-softened exterior lights. ‘Makes sense. It would be so much easier for movers to use the elevator and then get books and furniture in this way, rather than up those narrow stairs in the bedroom from Dickens master suite. And the huge—'

But Joy Tamarack, apparently not thinking about the convenience of workmen, stepped out into the room and, fists on hips, looked around. ‘Why, that little
bitch
.'

‘S
o, you think Sugar Capri knew about that upstairs entrance we found to Dickens' library?'

They were back on AnnaLise's bed, both sitting cross-legged but whispering like two seventh-graders in study hall.

‘She must have known,' said Joy. ‘How else could Sugar have snuck into our marital bedroom without anybody ever seeing her? And believe me, I asked. The only way that I even tipped to it was finding a scrunchy under one of Hart's pillows.'