Billy Cameron dropped a tool with a thin oblong blade and rounded wooden handle on Max’s desk. “Got this out of my toolbox. Handy when you’re scraping paint. We found four putty knives just like this one at the cabin. One jammed beneath the front door, one between the sashes of the side window, one in the bathroom window, one in the sliding glass doors. There’s no way you and Max could have got out. You were locked in better than any jail cell.”
Annie folded her arms tight across her front. “I heard a metallic sound. I didn’t know what it was.”
Billy picked up the tool, balanced it on a broad palm. “Gas splashed all the way around the cabin, putty knives jammed home. Somebody trapped you easy as gigging frogs in a pond. If it hadn’t been for Duane, you would have burned to death. I don’t think the smoke would have got you first.”
Annie stared at their old friend’s grim face. She wished she could push away his measured words, but she couldn’t. Just as she couldn’t forget the horror when roaring fire and roiling smoke surrounded them and they had no way out.
Billy hitched his chair closer to Max’s desk, looked from one to the other. “Tell me everything you know, everything you guess, everything that’s happened from the time you first saw Iris Tilford to the fire.”
After all, it didn’t amount to much. Brief contacts with Iris. Cara Wilkes’s visit to Iris’s cabin. The anonymous note at Death on Demand. Fran Carlisle linking Russell Montgomery to Jocelyn Howard. Annie’s efforts for Iris’s spirit poster, kind tributes from Buck and Russell and Cara, hostility from Liz, a delayed response from Fran. And, of course, their visit to the mission Sunday afternoon.
Billy rubbed a thumb against the handle of the putty knife. “So you know that Iris fronted for someone else in dealing drugs.”
Annie remembered the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the water in the pool. “Iris came back to the island because there were things she had to figure out. Brother Doyle said Iris told Jocelyn how Sam got the cocaine. Later that same night, Jocelyn died. Iris was afraid she remembered someone walking into the woods with Jocelyn.”
Billy’s face folded into a heavy frown. “Once a killer, always a killer. Iris didn’t have to be killed. So what if Iris saw—or thought she saw—someone with Jocelyn! That didn’t prove anything. No one will ever prove Jocelyn’s death was anything other than an accident or suicide.”
Annie nodded. “Maybe not. But this is a small island. How do you think one of her classmates would like to be publicly accused of drug dealing?”
Billy looked stubborn. “No proof. Iris’s word wasn’t worth much.”
Max shrugged. “Maybe not, but an accusation like that could ruin a marriage, destroy a business, break friendships.”
Billy turned the putty knife in his hands. “Killers don’t care about anyone but themselves. The decision to murder Iris was made shortly after she came back to the island. The attack on Emma proved that. Someone came to Iris’s cabin and searched to be sure Iris didn’t keep a diary or have letters or papers that might be a link.”
Max looked hopeful. “Do you know who Iris contacted on the island?”
Billy leaned back in his chair. “Cara Wilkes said Iris called and asked her to come by Nightingale Courts. Fran Carlisle said she called and wanted to talk about the sports picnic. Fran told her she didn’t remember much about that evening except it was so sad.”
Max’s expression was cynical. “I’m sure both Cara and Fran claim all was pleasant, just a phone call between old friends. But one of Iris’s old friends killed her.” Max pulled a legal pad nearer. “Okay. Here’s what we’ve got.” He talked as he wrote. “One, Iris supplied cocaine to Sam. Two, at the sports picnic, Jocelyn accused Iris. Three, Iris told Jocelyn that she was the go-between and named the supplier. Four, afraid of cutting off her own supply, Iris told the drug dealer that Jocelyn knew. Five, Iris returned to the island, determined to lay to rest her fear that Jocelyn’s death wasn’t an accident. Six, Friday night Iris must have asked someone at our party about the night Jocelyn died.” He finished writing. “And Annie’s picked up a bunch of personal stuff. There was a lot going on among the classmates.”
Annie’s look at Billy was grave. “I talked to Henny. She knew them all. Iris hung around with Sam that spring. Henny thought he was using her for sex, but now we know she had cocaine.” Annie felt sad. Iris had longed for love. “Liz was crazy about Russell. Henny thought maybe Liz had vandalized Jocelyn’s car.” Annie could hear Henny’s quiet voice: I’m very much afraid Liz hated Jocelyn. “Russell and Jocelyn had broken up. He tried to avoid her at the picnic. After she died, he acted guilty. Buck seemed deeply upset after Sam’s death. Buck and Cara had dated but they quarreled and that’s when Fran went after him.”
“Oh, those golden high school years.” Max’s voice was wry.
Annie shivered. “They had a hard time. But one of them caused Sam’s death and that is probably behind everything that’s happened. We know the drug dealer was Iris’s friend. We know who her friends were. We can be sure of one fact, the drug dealer was at the pavilion ten years ago and on Friday night.” She looked at Billy.
“I’ve checked out the people who were at the sports picnic and at your party. It’s a short list.” Billy ticked them off one by one, clicking the edge of the putty knife against Max’s desk. “The other seniors that year, Buck and Fran Carlisle, Russell and Liz Montgomery, Cara Wilkes. The only other guests Friday night who were at both parties are Henny Brawley, Coach Butterworth, and Darlene Hopper.”
“Darlene Hopper?” Annie looked puzzled.
“One of the servers in the steam line.” Billy clearly didn’t consider her to be important. “Darlene was in the same high school class, but not part of that crowd. I’ve talked to all three about the night Jocelyn drowned but didn’t get much. There’s no reason to consider Darlene or Henny or Coach as suspects. None of them are even outside probabilities to be the dope runner. Iris wouldn’t have described any of them as a ‘friend.’ There was a flare of drugs that spring. After Sam Howard died, we didn’t pick up on any more drug dealing. I figure we had an amateur at work, somebody in the class, and that’s how Iris came to be the go-between. In addition, I can knock Darlene Hopper off the list Friday night. She was working at the steam table and was never gone long enough to have connected with Iris in the woods. I didn’t get much out of Darlene. She didn’t remember a lot about the sports picnic and Friday night she was too busy dishing up food to pay any attention to the party. She wasn’t helpful. I guess she doesn’t like being part of the help.”
Annie wondered if it would do any good to talk to Darlene. Ben Parotti could tell them how to find her. Henny hadn’t mentioned Darlene. Obviously, she hadn’t considered Darlene part of Jocelyn’s crowd.
Billy massaged the back of his neck. “We’ve got a long way to go.” He looked at Annie. “You talked to Iris’s friends for your spirit poster.”
Annie knew he hoped for something from her, some kind of lead.
He watched her closely. “Tell me how you felt with each of them.”
Haltingly, she tried to distill the essence of those moments. “Buck was kind. He knew what it was to struggle, to be in the shadows. Liz wouldn’t give me anything. I think she’s scared for Russell. Fran was angry because I told you what she’d said about Russell. She didn’t want to talk about Iris. Russell must care about animals. He remembered how much Iris loved her pet owl. Cara was sweet. She and Iris must have been awfully close.”
Billy looked disappointed. “You didn’t sense danger?”
Danger. These were her friends. She’d laughed, had good times, spent sunny days with them. Annie shook her head. “If one of them intended to kill us,” she kept her voice steady with an effort, “you think I should have felt something?”
“When I was a young cop on the mainland, a sergeant told me never to ignore a sense of uneasiness, and, if I felt scared, get ready to fight.” His expression was thoughtful. “I don’t believe anyone who kills ever feels at peace. Unless there’s a strain of viciousness, that memory has to hurt. But one of them has had a good long while to get good at hiding emotion. Like ten years. Killing takes a lot of emotion. Striking down Iris was a response to fear of exposure. Maybe you talked to the murderer before the decision was made to set the cabin on fire so you wouldn’t have picked up a feeling of threat.”
Max was grim. “The trigger for the fire was the story in the Sunday Gazette. That was after Annie had talked to them.”
Billy lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “Marian’s story made it sound like Iris told Annie a lot. But it could be the killer saw Annie bring that note to the station and thought she was involved in the investigation. It could be that Annie talked too much about Iris.”
Max leaned forward. “You’ve checked out everybody at our party. Do you have a suspect? ‘A person of interest’?”
Billy shrugged. “Suspects? Sure. I got suspects, Iris’s friends. I have five on my list.”
Annie ticked off names in her mind: Fran and Buck Carlisle, Liz and Russell Montgomery, and Cara Wilkes.
“A person of interest?” Billy flexed his fingers as if his hand felt stiff. “Not yet. Maybe I’m a moon shot away from ever having a person of interest. People talked to Iris. They admit that. Nobody was spotted leaving the picnic with her. Last night, Duane got a glimpse of somebody in dark clothes on a bike, but that was the last thing on his mind. When the door didn’t open or the window, he figured they were blocked. He picked up a chunk of firewood and busted out the window for you, then used the hose to splash down the wood and give you a chance to get out.”
Annie pictured flames leaping high, black smoke, and a hunched figure on a bicycle disappearing into the woods.
Max looked eager. “Man? Woman? Are there any tracks?”
“Duane saw a dark shape, but he didn’t have time to do anything about it. He had a fire to fight. We found the bike’s trail in the woods. Nice tracks.” Billy’s voice was dour. “They match a bike we found abandoned in the parking lot at St. Mary’s. A tourist reported the bike stolen this morning from condos near the forest preserve. He hadn’t bothered to use the chain and lock. We found an empty gas tin near the deck. It’s got fingerprints.” Billy didn’t sound enthused. “Some of them were pretty smeared so the last person who hauled it probably wore gloves.” He slumped in the chair, a man numbed by exhaustion and frustration.
“A bike taken from a rental condo. Maybe a filched gas tin.” Max drew a big zero on a legal pad. “If you pick up prints, they may not lead anywhere.”
“We’ll see if there’s a match with any of the five. If we trace the tin, we’ll ask when it was last seen. A defense attorney could have fun with that one.” Billy was sardonic. “‘Chief Cameron, when did you last see the gasoline tin in your garage?’ I answer, ‘Last Saturday when I mowed the yard.’ ‘Chief, do you lock your garage?’ I say, ‘No. Who does? We live on an island.’ The defense attorney paces around for a minute, then opens up a box on the defense table. ‘Chief, is this your gasoline tin?’”
Annie would have laughed, but there was nothing funny about gasoline splashed on the cabin that could have been their pyre.
Max sketched a thumb, crosshatched it with lines. “I’ll lay a little bet the prints match those of a guest at our party.”
Billy’s gaze was sharp. “How do you figure?”
“Put yourself in the murderer’s skin.” Max drew a bicycle. “This isn’t a careless criminal. Iris was killed with a cord from the centerpieces. A bicycle was used that couldn’t be linked to anyone. I’m sure the tin was deliberately left behind. If so, it can’t be linked to the murderer. What are the odds it incriminates someone else?”
Billy slowly nodded. “Probably you’re right, though it’s possible Duane was on the scene quick enough to panic the murderer.” He looked soberly from Annie to Max. “You almost got snuffed last night. I tried to keep you two out of this. It didn’t work.” He pushed up from the chair. “If you talk to your friends, maybe they’ll be willing to say more than they would to the police. Right now, I don’t think you are in any danger. The murderer’s breathing easy. Obviously, I talked to you after the fire last night. I haven’t shown up at anybody’s door with a warrant. The killer has to figure the story in the Gazette was a crock and you don’t know anything.” He pushed up from the chair, clearly weary. “That’s a pretty good deal.” At the door he paused and looked back. “Don’t push your luck. It’s dangerous to taunt a tiger.”
BARB POKED HER HEAD IN MAX’S OFFICE AFTER BILLY LEFT.
“I’m halfway through the list.” She flapped a sheet that contained names and phone numbers of guests at their party Friday night. “Most of them either never noticed Iris or didn’t know her. Martha Farrington was a friend of Iris’s grandmother. Martha saw Iris walking up toward the pavilion around seven. Martha said Iris was walking like she had something she had to do. Martha said she looked like a ghost. But hey, maybe that’s a touch of drama since Iris was killed.”
Annie felt her heart squeeze. “Was anyone with Iris?”
Barb was regretful. “She was alone. I’ll keep calling.”
Annie fought away disappointment. They were no further ahead. Why had Iris hurried to the pavilion? Had she arranged to talk to someone? Was she following someone? Had she remembered what happened ten years ago?
“Good work, Barb.” Max was pleased. “The more we know, the more people we can exclude.”
Annie was glad Max felt encouraged. She didn’t share his satisfaction. Maybe they had excluded people, but so far they hadn’t connected Iris with anyone after supper.
Annie wondered if she had it backward. Perhaps a guest saw Iris hurrying to the pavilion and slipped away from the party, carrying a pair of shucking gloves and a length of black cord.
“You’d think somebody would have seen something.” Barb was disgusted. “I was sitting at a table not far from the path and I never looked that way. Why would I? The party wasn’t in the woods. I’ll keep trying.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll order in from Parotti’s. The usual?”
Annie opted for cole slaw as well as hush puppies with a fried clam sandwich. Max chose grilled flounder.
As Barb left, Max flipped to a fresh page. “I don’t think Barb’s going to get much information over the phone. By now the word’s out all over the island about the fire last night. Let’s say someone saw something odd Friday night. They may keep quiet because they’re scared. We’ve got to offer some protection. And,” his tone was determined, “an incentive.”
Quickly he sketched on the pad, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to Annie.
If YOU saw someone enter the woods at Harbor Pavilion
FRIDAY NIGHT with
Iris TILFORD
Call Confidential Commissions
CONFIDENTIALITY PROMISED
$10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Iris Tilford’s murderer
Annie admired his drawings in the margins, a path into pine trees, a cell phone, and a stack of greenbacks. “I’ll take it out to Barb.”
“Tell her to run off two hundred copies. After lunch she can post them around town, leave stacks at the library.”
Annie put Max’s sketch on Barb’s desk with a note. When Annie returned, Max was again writing on the legal pad.
Annie thought the flyer might be a help, but their best hope was to find out where Fran, Buck, Liz, Russell, and Cara were when Iris walked toward the pavilion.
Max finished writing with a flourish just as Barb walked in clutching two brown bags with telltale grease spots. “I saw your note. I’ll print up a flyer right now.”
“Have lunch first.” Annie spread paper towels on Max’s desk.
“I’ll eat while I work. Back in a flash.”
True to her promise, Barb returned in minutes with a bright yellow sheet.
Max spread several of the flyers on his desk. “I like the print size.” Barb had used huge flame-red letters. The flyers were definitely eye-catching. “They look great. Paste ’em up everywhere.”
Barb nodded. “Will do.” She hurried out.
Annie took another bite of her fried clam sandwich, wiped one hand on a napkin.
Max concluded writing with a flourish. “Here’s what we need to find out.” He handed her the legal pad:
MARIAN KENYON BUMPED THE POP MACHINE IN THE GAZETTE snack room. With a rattle, two cans dropped into the trough. Marian retrieved them, placed the sodas next to a stack of folders and several notebooks on the scarred Formica-topped table. “You like peanuts in your Coke?” Marian avoided looking at Annie as she offered an opened packet of salty peanuts.
Annie declined. Some Southern favorites were not to her taste, including peanuts bobbing in Coke, boiled pig’s feet, and sweet tea.
They settled on opposite sides of the table, Marian busy with notebooks and folders, her face averted.
Annie slid a bright yellow flyer across the table.
The reporter read it swiftly. Her eyes glinted. “This’ll get everybody talking. It’s too late for this afternoon’s paper, but I’ll write a story for tomorrow.” She sagged back in her chair, again avoided looking at Annie. “I didn’t mean to put you in danger.” She could scarcely be heard.
“Of course you didn’t.” Annie reached across the table, gave Marian’s arm a quick squeeze.
Marian looked up. Her face brightened. She lifted the Coke, slurped and munched, said mournfully, “I wonder if I’ll ever be savvy enough to remember about unintended consequences. It frosted me when nobody gave me anything personal after Iris was killed. All I got was vague responses. A former classmate. Someone I knew a long time ago. I said hello to her, but we only talked for a moment. Anyway”—finally she gazed directly at Annie—“I’m sorry as hell about you and Max. I’ve got a new mantra: Count the cost, stupid.” She pointed at the folders. “I’ve scoured my files for anything that might help. I’ve made copies of a bunch of stuff. Let me tell you what I know that never made it into the Gazette.”
Annie opened a notebook, pen poised to write.
Marian drank more Coke. Her face furrowed in remembrance. “It was foggy the night Jocelyn disappeared. There were maybe sixty kids and parents at the sports awards picnic. Two faculty sponsors, Coach Butterworth and Henny Brawley.
“They had a big bonfire in the pavilion, but the lights aren’t too bright. You could walk a few feet away from the pavilion and the fog swallowed you up. From what I found out, the picnic was subdued. Foggy, chilly, and the Grim Reaper lurking in their minds. Sam Howard had been found dead of a drug overdose a week earlier. Everybody was surprised when Jocelyn showed up.” Marian flipped open a notebook. “She came late. Kids got glimpses of her, talking to different people. She was wearing her brother’s letter jacket. The program started at eight, student athletes receiving their letters. When Sam’s name was called, nobody came up for the patches. Sam had been varsity in three sports. It got real quiet. Coach gave a tribute to him. Nobody mentioned Jocelyn. They thought she was too upset to come forward. Sam was one of the golden boys. Here’s a picture.”
Annie looked at the smiling face of a handsome boy with curly chestnut hair. His expression held a hint of swagger, his green eyes were confident with an almost arrogant gleam.
“He was found next to his car in the forest preserve. An early morning jogger spotted him and raised the alarm. Nobody’d reported Sam missing yet. He’d told his mom he was going to the movies. His mom thought he was in bed when she got the call. He went to the movie. There was a triple bill that night and nobody noticed when he left. Nobody knows where he went or what he did after he left the movie. He wasn’t seen again until his body was found. I don’t know if they ever found out anything more. When the autopsy report showed cocaine, Frank dropped it. I guess he figured Sam had gone to the preserve for a snort and ended up dead. Maybe too much coke, maybe a weak heart. Since the death was deemed accidental, I was able to get a copy of the file. I drew a sketch of the death scene.”
The drawing was meticulous. A road curled among trees. A squarish car—labeled Jeep—was angled off the side of the road, the hood nudged against a tree trunk. A stick figure lay in the road behind the car. A notation read: Car registered to Samuel James Howard, found one-quarter mile from preserve entrance, keys in ignition, letter jacket with his billfold in the backseat. Two credit cards and thirty-two dollars in cash in billfold.
Annie studied the drawing. “Why was his body in the road?”
Marian licked salt from her fingertips, shrugged. “Why not? Maybe he liked to sniff coke outside. Maybe he got woozy and got out of the car. Bottom line: no other trauma, healthy Caucasian male aged eighteen, verdict accidental death from cocaine.” She upended the Coke, drank greedily. “I talked to some kids, promised them I wouldn’t squeal, and I got the lowdown that Sam was a big alcohol and drug man so where’s the surprise. There are always a few in every class and sometimes they’re the golden boys who have it all, looks, money, personality, and a streak of I’m-invincible, gonna-do-what-I-want-a-do. I don’t figure there was any mystery about what happened to Sam. As for Jocelyn, everybody interviewed said she was really upset at the sports awards picnic. They figured she came because the kids were getting their emblems for the various sports and Sam had lettered in football, basketball, and tennis.”
At Annie’s high school, guys received jackets, girls cardigan sweaters. Each sport had an emblem.
Marian took a last gurgle of Coke. “Everybody noticed she had on her brother’s letter jacket. That was spooky because his personal effects, including the jacket, had been returned to the family that afternoon.” Marian shuffled through papers, handed Annie another photograph.
Annie felt haunted by unfinished lives. Jocelyn had been lovely, a blue-eyed blonde with a confident gaze and smile. She was as golden in her way as her brother had been.
Marian crushed the soda can. “One of the girls said Jocelyn looked awful that night, pale and shaky, her eyes red from crying.”
Annie studied the photograph, made when the future looked bright with expectations of happiness, excitement, fulfillment. That last night, Jocelyn struggled with grief. Was she upset because her brother was gone, distraught at the finality of death? Or was she upset with the living?
FRANK SAULTER FINISHED THE LAST CRUMB OF ANGEL FOOD cake, placed the fork and plate on Max’s desk. “I don’t know what’s better, the cake or the lemon icing. Barb’s wasted as a girl Friday.”
No one appreciated his secretary’s culinary skills more than Max. When time hung heavy, she created amazing treats in Confidential Commissions’ small kitchen. She also cooked when stressed. Today, she’d talked on the phone, posted the reward flyers, tallied results of her survey, and whipped a dozen eggs for the cake, while regularly checking on Max’s well-being and muttering imprecations about nasty, lowlife people who set things on fire.
Frank glanced at the wheelchair. “Glad you can get around. I bunged up my feet once. Coral. I expect you hurt like hell.”
Max’s feet throbbed. But the haze of pain was better than the haze of pain pills. Maybe the pain helped him concentrate. “They make it easy to remember somebody out there doesn’t like Annie and me.” Max appreciated Frank’s question because, in addition to indicating concern for his comfort, it was also an oblique recognition that Frank understood Max had a very personal interest in seeing Iris Tilford’s murder solved.
Max chose his words carefully. Frank Saulter had been a superior police chief, honest, careful, thorough. Like Billy Cameron, he was an island native. Frank knew his island and its people. That was a plus in leading to answers that weren’t always obvious unless you were aware of families and their histories. That knowledge also meant an emotional tie to many of those involved in investigations. “I asked Doc Burford about the autopsy on Jocelyn Howard. Doc cut me off. What did the autopsy show that he didn’t want to reveal?”
Frank’s hawklike features folded into a frown. He could be genial. Since his retirement, he had seemed to relax and smile more often, but in repose his face reflected a somber nature, perhaps formed by years of dealing with unhappy lives and grim realities. “The Howards ran to trouble. Not being an island boy—”
Max knew he’d never be a real island boy. When he and Annie had kids, that would be their birthright.
“—you wouldn’t know much about the family. Five generations on Jocelyn’s mom’s side, the Hilliards. Now they’re all gone. Mary Grace Hilliard was an heiress, married a golfer she met at some country club up north. He was a drunk, ran his MG into a live oak one night, leaving her with two kids, Sam and Jocelyn. Mary Grace was a sweet lady, but she drank too much, too. She may not have been a sober mother, but she loved those kids. After they died, it was like watching a leaf crumble into little pieces. She got thinner and thinner and one morning she didn’t wake up.”
Frank stared into the distance, seeing a picture Max couldn’t see. “When I went to the house to tell her about the report on Jocelyn, Mary Grace’s first words were, ‘It was an accident, Frank. My girl never jumped into that water. She hated water. She wouldn’t even go in a swimming pool.’ She got up and walked away from me. She stared out at the ocean, then buried her face in her hands and sobbed.” Frank looked old and tired. “She hurt so bad I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d died right there in the room. Her boy dead of a drug overdose, her girl gone a week later. Do you think I was going to tell her that Jocelyn drowned and that it looked to be an accident but”—Frank’s dark eyes were bleak—“maybe it could have been suicide because of the circumstances.”
Max was puzzled. “Her brother’s death?”
“Sam’s death knocked Jocelyn down. She was upset and crying at the awards picnic. Everybody thought she was grieving for Sam. Maybe so, maybe not.” His face folded into lines of sadness, a man who had seen heartbreak, knew it too well. “She was pregnant.”
Max was quick to object. “Come on, Frank. An unmarried girl getting pregnant hasn’t been a scandal for a long time.” Maybe a hundred years ago, a distraught young woman might choose to die or resort to possibly deadly backroom butchery, but now? Unwed mothers were no rarity. Girls opted to have babies and raise them alone every day.
The former police chief gave a brief, sour smile. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. Jocelyn was from a good Catholic family. She’d been accepted at Loyola. She had to be between a rock and a hard place. If the baby’s father wouldn’t marry her, maybe she didn’t see any way out. Add that stress to depression over Sam and it spelled suicide to me. Should I have told her mother? Then Mary Grace would have fought the anguish that Jocelyn hadn’t come to her, hadn’t asked for help. Worst of all, Mary Grace would have lost not only her son and her daughter but her grandchild.”
Max was silent. Frank had made the best decision he knew to make at the time.
Frank pushed up from the chair. “Doc and me kept it quiet. Mary Grace died two years ago. Thank God. They’re all gone, the Hilliards and the Howards. Nothing can hurt Mary Grace now.” He paused in the doorway, looked back. “I would have kept my mouth shut now except Iris Tilford’s murder proves I was wrong. Jocelyn didn’t fall or jump. Somebody pushed her, and Iris knew too much.”