Death On Demand Part 12

MONDAY:.

6:10 P.M.-Annie knocked unconscious. 6:15 P.M.-Harriet murdered.

Annie took the sheet. It didn't help a h.e.l.l of a lot, though Archie Goodwin would probably have deemed it a creditable effort. But Archie was awfully good-humored.

"How did the murderer get in?"

"How?"

"How? I had the place locked."

His face crinkled in thought. "Okay. Keys. Presumably the Island Hills Clinic doesn't leave its doors open for the world to enter, so the killer had keys there. It isn't hard to come up with keys, and there's nothing special about the locks at either place."

The idea that a killer could come and go in her shop at will wasn't exactly a cheering one.

"The killer came into my place about nine forty-five. The phone rang about ten minutes earlier, but I ignored it. Whoever called figured the place was empty."

"You wouldn't normally be there Sunday morning?"

"No. I was trying to decide what to do about the Sunday evening session."

"It would only take a couple of minutes," Max reconstructed. "Nip into the store, hide the dart on the floor by the wall, then tie thread to the breaker switches, and run that along the floor into the cafe area. Presto, the stage is set for a murder."

Annie couldn't help admiring the plan. "Whoever did it was d.a.m.n smart. It was beautifully plotted. You know, I told Elliot those cigarettes would make him sick someday. And they really did, because the murderer counted on the red tip of his cigarette to serve as the target for the dart. h.e.l.l of a throw."

"Avoid talking about good throws," Max cautioned. "Let's hope Saulter doesn't dwell on your Softball prowess."

"I skunked his pitiful team, eleven-zip."

"Poor planning." Max absently rubbed his bristly jaw. "Unlike our murderer. It all went like clockwork. During the confusion of the blackout, all he had to do was yank on the thread until it broke and reel it in. When the lights came on, he could drop it un.o.btrusively into the wastebas-ket, along with the cotton soaked in polish remover. Voila: one corpse and nothing to link the murderer to the crime."

Annie pulled the quilt up to her shoulders. "I'll bet Dr. Thornd.y.k.e could have found some traces if he'd been there with his small green box."

"He didn't have to trifle with search warrants, et al."

"Lacking the good doctor's expertise, let's try to ratiocinate, like Sherlock Holmes. Okay, Dr. Watson, why was the back door open when I came to check the circuits?"

"Just a little bit of insurance. It would have been easy for the murderer to slip into the storeroom and open that door while everyone was squabbling over the cofiee and snacks. That open door was to make sure Saulter considered the possibility of an outsider."

"But Saulter didn't look past me," Annie said bitterly, "much less outside."

"Well, you have to admit it was brilliantly thought out." He sighed and got up to pour himself a drink. "And we don't have an iota of proof to show Saulter."

Annie gingerly ma.s.saged her temples. If only her head didn't ache quite so much. Words jiggled in her mind: sc.r.a.ps, proof, papers...

"My G.o.d, Uncle Ambrose's book. Max, his bookl"

"You told me about it," he said soothingly. "He was working on a book about accidents that just might have been murder."

Annie threw back the quilt, pulled herself to her feet, and wobbled, but her words came fast as shotgun pellets. "Don't you see? We said Elliot might have picked up on what Uncle Ambrose suspected. Well, somebody beat us to the disk at Elliot's, but we can go through Uncle Ambrose's papers!"

When Annie unlocked the front door and turned on the lights at Death On Demand, Agatha rose, stretched leisurely, and focused two luminous, quizzical eyes on them. Annie scooped up the cat from atop the bookcase and rubbed her cheek against the ebony fur. "Who came in Sunday morning, Agatha?"

But Agatha wriggled free and stalked down the center aisle. It wasn't the proper time for Annie to be in the shop, and her tail indicated her disdain for Annie's unprofessional hours.

Her nagging headache was forgotten. They were nearing the end of their hunt. She felt almost lightheaded as she led the way to the storeroom.

The chalked outline was no longer in front of the coffee bar. Dear Ingrid.

She was holding down the fort in every way.

"I gathered up most of his stuff and put it in the two back cupboards,"

she chattered to Max. "There were folders and photographs and news clippings, along with his ma.n.u.script pages. I never had a chance to go through any of it, I've been so busy with the store."

Max hauled out two huge cardboard boxes.

It took almost an hour to wade through it all.

When they were done, Annie stared soberly at the heaps of materials.

"Oh, Max, he was murdered. There isn't a single page of his ma.n.u.script here. Not a page."

"Are you sure he had actually written any of it?"

"Of course I am. He never talked much about it, but he worked on it at home in his den. He typed on an old Smith Corona and used yellow second sheets for copy paper."

"Are you sure the ma.n.u.script was in this stuff when you packed it all away?" He waved his hand at the materials spilled across the worktable.

"I'm sure." She looked grim-faced at the empty cartons. "Some b.l.o.o.d.y thief took it out."

It could have happened at any time in the three months since Uncle Ambrose died.

Without a great deal of hope, Annie went to the front desk and dialed Capt. Mac.

"The cases Ambrose was interested in?" Capt. Mac paused. "Let's see.

There was the explosion in the Armbruster plant in Montana, killed Old Man Armbruster. Supposed to have been a labor dispute, but he had a worthless son who inherited six million. And Ambrose was suspicious of the Vinson suicide in Hawaii. You remember that one? And, of course, the Winningham case. That happened when I was at Silver City, but I was only a.s.sistant chief, and the chief played investigations pretty close to his chest, so I didn't know much that was helpful to Ambrose. That's all I remember. You know how close-mouthed your uncle was. A great one for letting the other fellow talk."

"Did he ever mention a case that involved anyone here on Broward's Rock?"

"Oh. I see where you're going. No, he didn't, and frankly I don't see any connection with the three cases I mentioned. That Armbruster heir lives in New York, and Mrs. Vinson's husband stayed in Hawaii. As for the Winningham case, everybody involved is dead. Gale Winningham went down in a plane crash not long after he 'accidentally' shot his wife. If Ambrose was onto something close to home, he never let on to me.

Sorry, Annie. I wish to h.e.l.l he had."

She walked down the central aisle back to the coffee bar, scuffing her feet in mounting disappointment. Max was making a diligent foot-by-foot survey of the entire store.

She called after him, "Capt. Mac doesn't know whether Uncle Ambrose was onto a lead here, but, dammit, I know it in my bones-it all goes back to him. I'll bet the store he found out something, and somebody pushed him off his boat to keep him from making his research trip."

Max was moving from table to table, then turning to sight where Elliot had stood. Annie looked at each table in turn, mentally placing the Sunday Night Regulars on the fateful evening. Elliot had been standing just there. Surely, it should be possible to figure where the dart had come from its angle of entry. Dr. Thornd.y.k.e would have been able to do it. But not, apparently, Chief Saulter. Annie wasn't geometrically talented, but she gave it a try. She and Max and Ingrid were at the table nearest the storeroom, and the Parleys at the table opposite theirs. Capt. Mac and Fritz Hemphill had the table nearest to the watercolors on the west wall. Emma Clyde and Harriet sat next to the central corridor, and Kelly Rizzoli and Hal Douglas nearest to Elliot and the coffee bar. Of course, Elliot could have turned just the moment the dart was thrown. She gave up, and turned back to Uncle Ambrose. Had any of these people ever been involved in a case of accident or suicide that could have been murder? Annie recalled Max's typewritten notes, and Emma Clyde's name flashed in her mind like a six-foot neon sign.

She whooped and told Max.

"Yeah, that's a real possibility. Of course, there's the question of Hal Douglas's wife. Where is she? It's really too bad you didn't have a chance to read Elliot's disk."

"The killer's too smart for us. He must have destroyed my uncle's ma.n.u.script months ago, slick as a whistle. Now he's wiped out Elliot's disk. How the heck did he know I was at Elliot's house?"

"I don't know. If we knew that... Think back, Annie. Did you hear anything? Was there a noise or a smell, anything that might give some hint to the murderer's ident.i.ty?"

"Nothing. I was sitting there, reading..."

Max looked at her sharply. "You actually started reading the disk? Did you find out anything?"

"I certainly did. Max, why didn't you ever tell me you had a law degree?"

For an instant, he looked absolutely blank, then he began to shake with laughter.

"Annie Laurance, for shame. There you are, inches from discovering a murderer's ident.i.ty, and do you call up one of the suspect's files? No, you call up Annie Laurance's file."

She tried to brazen it out. "I thought it would take only a minute."

"It merely proves you are human, my love, succ.u.mbing to that feminine weakness for gossip before duty."

"I may be weak, but you are deceitful. And chauvinistic."

"Did I ever tell you I didn't have a law degree?"

"Max, be serious. Why didn't you say you did?"

"Oh, that was filed under miscellaneous information. You already know all the important things about me: I'm wondrously handsome and charming, sinfully rich, exquisitely perceptive, staunchly devoted to the intellect. I have three sisters and an enormous summer house on Long Island. I'm-"

"You are evading the issue. You are perfectly well qualified to practice law. You can have a serious career."

"I'll tell you what, Annie. After we find the maniacal killer who is rampaging across wee Broward's Rock, I will give every consideration to pursuing what you term a serious career."

"Do you mean it?"

"Of course. Now look, you called up the index, and decided to check out your own file. You didn't perchance look at anyone else's?"

"No. And when I came to, the disk had been erased."

"Rats." He scowled darkly. "You are looking at the screen, somebody comes up from behind and biffs you." Max paused. "Why did he-or she-just biff you?"

"That was the only Epson on the island, and anybody looking at the index would know I had only looked at my own file."

"How?"

"Every time a file is stored, the machine records the date."

A green expression flitted across his face. "Thank G.o.d for your curiosity."

Annie pondered it for a moment, then felt a little sick, too. "If I'd looked at the wrong file, read the killer's, then... It would have been like Harriet."

"Harriet must have walked in on the killer."

Thank G.o.d, indeed, for her curiosity. Then, as her head twinged, she felt a flash of her old temper. "By G.o.d, I don't like being slammed. Okay, so I didn't get to read the files. We'll still figure it out."

"You bet we will." Max pulled the typewritten bios out of his pocket.

"Come on, let's get to work."

"What are we going to do?"

"Prep you."

"Prep me to do what?"

Max bent forward to tell her.

Eleven.

Annie felt the arm on her shoulder, shaking, shaking. She blinked and struggled to turn her face away from the piercing light.

"Come on, Annie. Open your eyes. I have to check your pupils. My G.o.d, I think you do have a concussion. This is like trying to wake a South American tree sloth."

"Go away," she mumbled, thras.h.i.+ng out blindly. "You've checked every b.l.o.o.d.y hour on the hour all night long. Go away."

"One eye open. Just one."

Finally, miserably, she opened one eye, glared, closed it, and sank back on her pillow.

Annie breathed in deeply of the hot, swirling air in her shower.

"Need any help?" Max caroled just outside the shower door.

"I'll call if I do," she sang back sweetly.

"Always ready to help out my fellow man."

When she'd dried off with the thick, fluffy blue towel Max had thoughtfully draped over the wicker clothes hamper, Annie slipped into a yellow-and-blue patterned skirt and a soft yellow cotton pullover. She brushed her hair very carefully to avoid the swelling behind her right ear, wiped the steamed mirror and peered at her head. Well, she looked normal. No visible b.u.mps or bruises. She probed the skin behind her ear and winced. It still smarted, but she couldn't help smiling as she listened to Max bustling cheerfully around the kitchen. When she came in, he waved her to a seat. .

"Chef Darling at work. Observe and enjoy, Madame."