Death at the Door Read online

  She felt confident Billy was in his office directing a careful and thorough investigation into the arson of the Martin house. Billy hadn’t returned calls or texts from Max, nor one from her. Did that mean he accepted the mayor’s conclusion that the fire was set in hopes of getting Tom Edmonds released? If so, suspicion was sure to settle on Frankie Ford. She was the only person who cared about Tom’s fate. How could Billy believe Frankie set fire to a house occupied by a sleeping woman? The thought was sickening.

  But someone splashed gasoline in Paul’s study and tossed a burning rag through the garden window into the house with Lucy upstairs.

  Annie drove past Fish Haul Pier, turned left into a pine-shaded road that led to the three-story apartment complex on the other side of woods that bordered the Harbor Pavilion. In midmorning there were plenty of empty parking spaces. She slid out of the car and walked fast toward the outer steps of the apartment house. She and Max and the Intrepid Trio might be the only hope for Tom Edmonds. They would do their best.

  • • •

  Mavis Cameron pushed through the door from the corridor into the working space behind the front counter of the police station. Her angular face reflected distress. “Billy expects to be tied up all day.” She didn’t look toward Max. Instead her gaze slid away to the window with its view of the sparkling harbor.

  Max was equable. “If he has a moment, ask him to give me a ring. He has my cell number.”

  She stared at the countertop. “I’ll tell him.”

  Outside, Max went down the steps quickly. Mavis had obviously felt uncomfortable. Why? There were several possibilities. Billy agreed with the mayor and believed Tom Edmonds to be guilty and the fire a diversion. Or Billy was simply too involved in his duties to deal with Max today. Or Billy had decided to play a lone hand. If he came out in public disagreement with the mayor, the mayor was quite capable of sending Billy on short notice to a faraway conference or, in a worst-case scenario, placing Billy on unpaid leave for insubordination. Whatever, Mavis obviously felt constrained to keep her mouth shut with Max, even though she and Billy were longtime friends of theirs.

  Max reached the Maserati. Once behind the wheel, he sat unmoving. As soon as possible, he wanted to talk to Jason Brown, owner of the Palmetto Players. But one sentence in Marian’s story had burrowed into his mind, Lucy’s hope that someone had seen the car that came up their street the night Paul died. He’d wanted to ask Billy if a hunt was under way for that car, but Billy was incommunicado. So Jason Brown would have to wait. Finding out about the car was more important.

  Max reached Calhoun Street and parked behind the police cruiser in front of the Martin house. In fine weather, he usually left his car windows down, but now he pushed the button and the windows slid up. Closing the car would help seal out the rank smell of charred, still-sodden wood. In bright sunlight, the caved-in roof and scorched paint were a stark reminder of leaping flames and struggling firefighters.

  A lawn mower hummed a few houses down. Squirrels chittered in the elm trees across the street. His nose wrinkled as he walked along the front hedge and around the corner of the stalks of pampas grass. The stench overpowered the scent from honeysuckle and a pittosporum shrub near the side gate. Yellow tape marked the garden and what remained of the house as off-limits.

  He saw the damage clearly from the gate. The study was a mess of charred and twisted wood. Wide planks supported by concrete blocks provided a limited walkway above the caved-in floor. Hyla Harrison knelt on a board near a blackened mound.

  Max estimated the distance of the mound from the hulk of the burned desk and figured the shrunken heap she studied was all that remained of the black leather chair near the desk.

  Hyla sprayed powder on a portion of the hump that looked like leather, a strip that had in the capriciousness of dancing flames escaped damage. He felt jubilant. No arsonist took time to lounge in a leather chair before setting a blaze. Billy, always thorough, might or might not accept the mayor’s conclusions, but he understood that a vagrant print from one of the birthday party guests on that chair would have to be explained.

  “Hey, Hyla. You’re looking for fingerprints.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Crime scene. Don’t get any nearer.” She returned to her careful application of powder.

  “Anybody in the neighborhood see anyone over here last night?”

  She made no reply.

  “Is someone from the department going door-to-door asking about last night or the night Paul Martin was shot?”

  No reply.

  “How many gas-filled pop bottles were emptied?”

  It took a moment, but Hyla replied gruffly, “Estimated at five.”

  Max turned away from the gate, walked slowly along the hedge, then paused and looked back, considering what he knew. Say there were five one-liter bottles. They wouldn’t be easy to heft or transport. Probably the arsonist carried them in a cardboard box and left the box to be consumed in the blaze. The first challenge was bringing the box to Calhoun Street. That almost certainly required a car.

  Lucy Ransome heard a car just past midnight after she said good night to Paul and he entered his study.

  A car brought death the night Paul was shot, likely a car brought destruction last night.

  Max walked to the end of the hedge of pampas grass. The feathery fronds rippled in a slight breeze. Lucy remembered that a car passed the house. But no one intent upon arson or murder would park near the Martin house. He shaded his eyes, looked up the street. Out of sight of the house . . . That would be important.

  In the Maserati, he followed the street beyond the curve. Only one more house on this side of the street, two on the other and then Calhoun ended at a cross street. Turn left and the street ended at the marsh. Turn right and the street led to the main island road. From there a driver could go anywhere.

  If he were setting a fire, he would avoid the dead end at the marsh. He turned right and lowered the windows. The Maserati barely idling, the car glided slowly east. Not too far. There was the cardboard box to carry. He had no way of knowing which of the houses were occupied the night of the fire, but all appeared to be inhabited with no sign of the empty look that settles upon untenanted houses. Definitely you don’t park in someone’s drive if you have arson in mind. Not too far . . . Perhaps thirty yards past the intersection he saw a familiar island sight, narrow ruts that disappeared into the woods beneath low-hanging overhead limbs, one of those lanes that meandered, perhaps leading to a remote house, perhaps dead-ending at a lagoon.

  He parked just past the lane. He walked a few feet into the lane, waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He gazed down, his eyes slowly crossing back and forth. The car would have been left out of sight from the street, but not too far. The gray, sandy soil was soft but, he felt a stab of disappointment, the ruts didn’t appear to hold any tire marks. The lane was narrow. He took a few more steps, stopped, looked down. Maybe, just maybe . . .

  He reached for his cell phone.

  • • •

  The hat was a bit summery, but what man who loved flowers would not be enchanted by a wide-brimmed pink straw with a turquoise band? Laurel adjusted the brim. She passed the rearing horse at Jane Corley’s gate. She didn’t approach the front steps, wending her way instead on a path bordered by bougainvillea. As arranged, Ross Peters awaited her at an arbor twined with Carolina jessamine vines that would flaunt sweet-scented yellow blooms in December. He never questioned her claim on the phone that she was gathering information to help in the investigation of Jane’s murder.

  He was not much taller than Laurel but powerfully built. He waited with his hands loose at his sides. His face had the ruddy color of a man who spent much time in the sun and his black hair was cut in a crew. A dark blue polo revealed muscular arms and torso.

  Laurel smiled at him, her blue eyes gazing deeply into brown eyes. “Thank you so
much for taking time to meet me.”

  Had Annie been present she would have recognized his response. Men from eight to eighty immediately stood straighter, shoulders back, libidos saluting. Laurel, with her customary modesty, simply enjoyed the wonderful maleness that greeted her. Men were such adorable creatures.

  “Ma’am.” His voice was deep.

  “I only wish”—her throaty voice exuded regret—“that I could while away the day with you, seeing the glorious flowers and shrubbery.” She looked past him, her eyes widening. “Those tea roses seem to be tipped with gold. Shall we walk in the rose garden and I can explain how you can help us?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His tone was fervent. They strolled to rock steps at the top of the garden. They stopped and he spread his arms and spoke of the varieties of roses: “. . . almost four hundred bushes . . .”

  “Simply splendid. I would love to learn more about the roses but”—she was clearly regretful—“I’m afraid I must take us back to that dreadful day when Jane was attacked.”

  His eagerness seeped away. He hunched his shoulders, stared at the ground. “Wish to God I’d been here in the afternoon.” He jerked his head toward the beautiful blooms, white, pink, yellow, and every shade of red from burgundy to crimson to vermilion. “I worked here in the morning but I spent the afternoon over at the other place.”

  “You take care of all the Corley properties?”

  He nodded. “Everything. Planting. Trimming. Thinning out the woods. That afternoon I saw Jane on the terrace about one thirty. She waved at me. I was just leaving to walk over to David’s place.”

  Laurel’s smile was bright. She looked around with interest. “Is there a path to David’s house?”

  “There are paths everywhere.” He pointed at the base of the garden and an oyster-shell path that snaked around a pittosporum hedge. “That’s the way to the studio. That’s the place where Tom paints. And that path over there by the cabana—”

  Laurel looked beyond the gleaming waters of a lotus-shaped pool.

  “—goes down to Wherry Creek.” He turned, gestured at another oyster-shell walk near the arbor that plunged into the pines. “That’s the quickest way to David’s house.”

  Laurel clasped her hands together in admiration. “That looks like such an enchanted walk. Perhaps you might show me the way.”

  Peters almost bowed. “I’d be pleased to show you the way.”

  Laurel noted that the path near the arbor was only a few feet from the terrace. She glanced back at the French windows. Anyone arriving at the entrance to the family room would be visible for perhaps a space of thirty feet between the woods and the house. She agreed that it was unfortunate Ross Peters had not been near Jane’s house after he saw her on the terrace.

  Peters slowed his long stride as they passed the arbor, led the way into the pines. The scent of the woods was pleasant. “Jane liked for things to be wild. You can’t see more than a foot or so off the path. It’s about two hundred yards to David’s house.” As they walked he pointed out chain ferns with deep purple stems, resurrection ferns with long slender fronds, and a glimpse of cinnamon ferns near a lagoon.

  The path opened out behind the antebellum home.

  Laurel gave a little cry of admiration. “How glorious to have a creek so near.”

  Ross shaded his eyes. “Water was the best means of transport in early days. That’s why we’re coming up behind the house. It faces the creek. Course, time changes everything. The road that runs past Jane’s house curves around and that’s how cars get to David’s house. The creek’s on one side, the house on the other. There used to be a dock right in front of the house, but that was torn down when the street came in and now”—he gestured—“the dock’s over there. The creek curves around.” He gestured. “David keeps a skiff and a kayak there.” The rowboat at the end of a line moved in the wind. A kayak rested on one side of the dock. “I was working over there.” He pointed at a partially trimmed oleander hedge.

  Laurel glanced up at the verandah. “Did you see anyone?”

  He folded his arms. “Somebody suggesting I wasn’t over here? I told the police and they were fine with it. I told them I was sorry I couldn’t help them. I wish I’d been at Jane’s place. Maybe nobody would have got to her if I’d been there. But I was here, like I said. David can vouch for me. He came out about two thirty and took the kayak out. He headed out toward the Sound. Madeleine came out on the terrace about three, chasing after Millie. That little terrier can scoot like her tail’s on fire. I don’t think Madeleine saw me. She looked like she had a million things on her mind.”

  “Which way did she go?”

  • • •

  Irene Hubbard’s smile was big wattage. Henny decided she was a natural to play the Perle Mesta character in Call Me Madam. Henny admired the silvery swirl of sequins on a faintly gray jacket above pearl gray trousers. Irene’s ice-blue blouse reflected the blue of her eyes. Definitely stylish. But there might be a hint of uneasiness in her wide-open, ingenuous gaze.

  Irene turned one hand and sunlight reflected the ruby red of an ornately set stone. “I’m devastated about Jane. I’m happy to help you in any way I can.” But those blue eyes were cool and wary.

  Henny settled back comfortably in a wicker chair in the sunroom overlooking a lagoon. Pale lemon walls, thin rectangular windows, and a profusion of cut flowers looked like a design right out of Southern Living. The tiled table between them held iced teas and a plate of cookies.

  “I knew I could count on you, Irene. Since you and Jane spent so much time together, I’m hoping you might know if she was worried about anything.”

  Irene gripped her glass. “Worried?”

  Henny maintained a look of hopeful inquiry, but she felt as eager as a pointer hearing a rustle in the woods. Irene was stalling for time. Irene did not want to pursue what might have been causing Jane to worry.

  “I don’t like to gossip.” Irene pressed her lips together. “But Jane’s dead. We all have to be honest, don’t we? I know she was concerned about some family matters. Tom was fooling around on her. I think everyone in town knew about Tom and Frankie. Including Jane. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when he was arrested. I always liked Tom.” It was as if she consigned him forever to the past tense.

  Henny’s smile was brilliant. “You’ll be happy to know Tom’s not a suspect now. I don’t know when he will be released”—if ever—“but the arson of Paul Martin’s house proves Tom is innocent.”

  “That’s good news.” Irene’s tone was metallic, her eyes wary.

  “Now we have to pool what we know, see if there is anything helpful we can give to the police.” Henny continued as if the question weren’t loaded with danger. “Did you see Jane that day?”

  “That day?”

  “The day she died.”

  Irene’s face tightened. “Of course not.” Her voice was sharp.

  Henny gestured. “You were here, I suppose?”

  A pause. “I played a round of golf on my own that afternoon.”

  Alone. Henny looked into steel blue eyes. “Were there many others out on the course that day?”

  Irene added a teaspoon of sugar to her tea. The clink of the spoon was sharp against the glass. She shrugged. “I never pay any attention. I concentrate on my game.”

  Henny looked around the expensively decorated sunroom. What she had seen of the lower floors indicated the expenditure of a great deal of money. “Your home is quite lovely and decorated in such good taste. I know Kevin must be quite proud of your choices.” Now Henny looked bland. “Very different from the home he had with his first wife.” That home had been a modest ranch style, which likely reflected a modest income. Upon his remarriage, there had apparently been enough money to buy a home in one of the island’s expensive subdivisions. “Kevin might be the best placed to know if anything was troubling Jane.”
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  Irene gave a dry laugh. “Kevin’s a man. You know how they are. You have to whack them over the head with a two-by-four to get their attention. He just dealt with Jane over business. He’d be hopeless when it comes to what women are thinking.”

  “Someone saw Jane going into Kevin’s office a few days before she was killed and she didn’t look happy. Was Jane giving Kevin a hard time?”

  Irene’s face was stony. “That’s nonsense. Kevin and Jane got along great.”

  “So if Jane was upset recently, it had nothing to do with Kevin.”

  “That’s right.” Irene took a sip from her tea, carefully placed the glass on the tiled tabletop. She opened her eyes wide. “Of course, David was a trial to her, but other than family, I don’t think she was worried about a thing.”

  And, Henny thought, you have a gorgeous seaside lot just outside Vegas that I should buy. Irene wasn’t willing to offer anything helpful. But there was one more possibility. “You were at David’s birthday party. Paul Martin spoke to someone that night and the conversation must have been brief but intense.”

  “I wasn’t paying any particular attention to Paul.”

  Henny gazed at her thoughtfully. “Did you talk to him?”

  There was a tight silence. “Not that I remember.”

  Henny persisted. “Did you see him talking to anyone?”

  Irene shrugged. “Paul visited with that girl who’s involved with Tom. But he had his back to me. Frankie kept looking past him. She was watching Jane. It looked to me like she was trying to stay as far away from Jane as possible.” A bark of laughter. “Probably a smart move. At one point Paul and David were having some kind of heavy conversation. Kevin says Paul always tried to help the family handle David, and David was sure drinking too much that night. It looked to me like David was trying to reassure him. He kept turning his hands up, like, hey, everything’s cool. Later, Madeleine was hanging on to Paul Martin’s arm. I felt sorry for him. I think she’s neurotic. She looked like a woman ready to fall apart.” Her tone was disdainful. “I’ll bet doctors get tired of high-strung women who act like they’re about to flip out.” She smoothed one carefully mascaraed eyebrow. “I read that stuff in the Gazette. Nobody looked threatening. I think the stuff about Paul’s death is a bunch of hooey. He shot himself. People do. Jane probably tackled Tom about Frankie and Tom lost his temper and took his little hammer to Jane. It’s kind of like golf. No point in getting too fancy. Keep it simple. Hit the damn ball. Jane got killed because her husband had the hots for another woman.”