THE VOLVO SQUEALED into the Dumaney drive. Annie jolted to a stop behind Max’s crimson Ferrari and realized he’d reached home and retrieved his car. She slammed out of her car and ran up the wide, shallow steps. As she pulled the chain, she tried the knob. She was in no mood to wait.
The door was unlocked. As she stepped inside, Max hurried toward her down the hall. “Did you get my message?”
She shook her head. “No, what’s happened?”
“Bad stuff.” His dark blue eyes were dark with worry. “Garrett’s in there”—he jerked his head toward a closed door—“with Rachel. I brought Judge Halladay out to represent her. Thank God the old warhorse was curious. I guess he’s bored and this is a little bit of entertainment. He’s got about as much warmth as a swarm of piranhas, but he’s a canny old devil and he’ll protect Rachel.”
Annie took a step toward the door, chin high. “Is she in there by herself with the chief and the judge?”
Max grabbed her arm. “Better not. No. Her aunt’s with her.”
Annie’s eyes blazed. “Dammit, she doesn’t like Marguerite.”
“Garrett insisted. He wouldn’t let me stay. But at least Marguerite agreed to have the judge there for Rachel.”
The long, dark hallway was cold, but Annie knew the iciness that seeped through her was deeper than the chill of the hallway. Max hadn’t rousted the judge out of his home and persuaded him to represent Rachel without good reason.
Or a bad reason.
“Max, why is Garrett questioning Rachel?” Garrett couldn’t possibly know of Rachel and Mike’s meeting.
“It doesn’t look good. You see, they found the afghan that Pudge threw into the Sound—”
Footsteps clipped in the hallway. Alice Schiller, her face drawn and tired, walked swiftly toward them. She looked at each in turn. “What’s going on? I saw the police car. Wayne said they asked to see Rachel. And I can’t find Marguerite.”
Max pointed at the closed door. “The police chief is questioning Rachel. Marguerite’s in there with them. Judge Halladay’s here for Rachel.”
“Garrett’s questioning Rachel?” Her voice was sharp.
Annie remembered that it was Alice who had thought of Rachel when no one else had, Alice who sent Annie up to be with the stricken girl.
“That’s ridiculous.” Alice turned toward the door.
Max said quickly, “He won’t let you in.”
Alice glared at him. “Why Rachel? That’s absurd. I’ll tell him so.”
He spread his hands. “Alice, you said you saw Pudge this morning carrying an afghan out of Happy’s room.”
Her dark eyes turned accusingly to Annie. “I didn’t tell anyone. I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Pudge told the police himself. That’s all right. But”—Max shook his head—“Pudge told them he found the weapon, a poker, and wrapped it up in the afghan and threw it all in the Sound. They pulled the afghan up and brought it to the station. I was there. Billy Cameron put it on the table, the afghan sopping wet.” Max looked at Annie. “Pudge slumped down in his chair because he knew what they would find. When they unwrapped the afghan, it wasn’t a poker. It was a field hockey stick. Rachel’s field hockey stick.”
“Oh my God,” Alice moaned. She buried her face in her hands.
Annie stared at the older woman, the woman who cared about Rachel. Tentatively, she reached out to touch Alice’s shoulder. Annie’s fingers tingled with shock. Alice was not sobbing. Her body was rigid, stiff and hard with anger. She dropped her hands, looked at them with bright, hot eyes. “We’ve got to do something. Anyone could have gotten that stick. Anyone.”
Max stared at the closed door. “I wish we knew what was happening.”
“Oh, we can do that. Follow me and keep very quiet.” She took a half dozen steps and yanked open a door. She snapped on a light and stepped into a long, narrow coat closet. “Close the door behind you,” she whispered. She stopped at the cedar wall at the end of the closet. Reaching up, she pushed on a portion of the top left wall. Slowly, the wall began to move. She gestured for Annie and Max to step past her. The narrow passageway, just wide enough for one person, smelled musty.
“What is this?” Annie whispered.
Alice reached up, pulled a chain. Every ten feet or so, a single light bulb glowed in a socket on the low ceiling. In the harsh light, a brief smile flickered on her worn face. “You have to remember that this place was Claude’s dream house. It’s honeycombed with secret passageways. Go straight ahead for about twenty feet. Step quietly.” Alice pulled the closet panel shut.
Annie didn’t like the low ceiling, the constricting walls. This was not her idea of fun. The passageway was probably considered a top location by neighborhood rats and brown recluse spiders. She eased gingerly forward, sweat oozing on her palms.
“Here.” The whisper was as light as a spider touch.
Annie wanted to clutch Max’s hand, but, hey, she was a big girl. He eased an arm around her shoulders. She gave him a tight smile.
Alice bent close to them. “Lights off now.” She pulled a chain and they stood in utter darkness. Annie’s skin crawled. Black pressed against her eyes.
Slowly, a line of light appeared. Alice’s hand preceded the light, opening a thin aperture, perhaps a quarter inch wide and a foot long, that provided a view of a narrow portion of the library. Chief Garrett sat on the near side of a long mahogany table. The back of his neck was red and his shoulders were rigid. Opposite him, facing the passageway, were Rachel and the judge. Rachel looked small in her oversize red-and-green striped T-shirt. She sat with her knees to her chin, her arms tightly clasped around her legs. Sullen anger boiled in her dark eyes. Her pale face was set and hard. Only the quiver of her lips revealed her fear.
Annie held tight to Max’s arm to keep from erupting. She wanted to burst into that room, snatch Rachel away from Garrett.
The aperture cut off the judge’s head and most of his body. An arm in a dark blue suit coat stretched on the table. The fingers of his ham-size hand splayed open, a ruby glowing in a thick gold ring. The body language proclaimed total confidence.
At the far right edge of the opening, the toe of a black slipper tapped impatiently, the only evidence of Marguerite Dumaney’s presence.
The view was constricted, but they could hear every word.
The judge’s voice, deep and calm, was as overpowering and relentless as the Mississippi rolling to the delta. “My client has answered fully and with candor. There is no point in repeating questions.” Once upon a time, he would have said, “The bench won’t tolerate browbeating of the witness.” The effect was the same.
Garrett bit off his words. “Yes, sir. I do have questions on a different topic.”
“Proceed.” A deep throat-clearing. The huge arm and hand remained relaxed.
Rachel’s eyes flared. Her fingers laced together.
The black slipper stretched forward. Marguerite’s silk-sheathed ankle was trim and attractive.
Garrett tapped his pen on the table. “Miss Van Meer, tell me a little about your school activities.”
“School?” Rachel stared at him.
“Yes. What games do you play?” He opened his briefcase, pulled out a sheaf of photographs.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Rachel’s fingers relaxed a little. “Video games?”
Garrett wasn’t old, but he wasn’t a kid. “No. Outside. Athletic games.”
“Oh, sports.” Her tone was easy. “Tennis. Soccer. Field hockey.”
“Do you have your own field hockey stick?”
The judge’s arm moved as he leaned forward.
“Yes, I—”
“Just a moment, little lady. Chief, I’ll ask you to lay some groundwork for your question.” The deep voice brooked no disagreement.
“All right, Judge. I have photographs here of a field hockey stick and I would like for Miss Van Meer to tell me if it belongs to her.”
“Surely you aren’t asking this young lady to admit ownership of any item merely through study of a photograph!” The full tone was shocked, indicating a regrettable lapse in judgment on Garrett’s part.
Garrett thrust the photographs toward Rachel.
Rachel reached out, picked up the pictures. She stared at the first, her brows drawn in a tight frown. “That could be my stick, but it’s all dirty. Where did you get it?”
“Please look at the third photograph, the close-up of the handle, and the inked initials.” Now it was Garrett who sounded confident.
Rachel spread the pictures out, leaned over the third. “Why, that’s—”
“A matter to be studied.” The deep voice rolled over hers. “My client will decline to—”
Rachel exploded, “Where did you get my stick? Why is it all messed up?”
“Your stepfather didn’t find a poker in your mother’s room. This is what he threw into the Sound. Now you tell me”—and Garrett’s voice was as hard as a steel-toed boot—“where you last had this hockey stick.”
Rachel pushed back from the table, came to her feet. She looked down at the pictures and shuddered.
Judge Halladay caught her arm. “It’s all right, little lady, you don’t have to answer any more questions at this time.”
Rachel ignored him. “My hockey stick.” Tears trickled down her face. She whirled and ran to the door, opened it and plunged into the hall.
There was silence in the library. The judge heaved to his feet. His blue suit coat gaped, exposing the Phi Beta Kappa key dangling from his watch pocket. “I’ll be conferring with my client.” For a big man, he moved swiftly.
Marguerite Dumaney’s rich voice rose over his. “Judge, I am shocked at what has occurred here. I have no doubt of my niece’s innocence. All girls and mothers have moments of stress. That is simply natural.” A red-brocaded arm came into view, hand outstretched, ruby-tipped nails glistening. “Chief Garrett, we are all suffering. I will ask you not to add to our troubles. Surely you can see that your suspicion of Rachel is absurd.”
Garrett was on his feet, too. Even from the back, he looked satisfied. “I haven’t suggested that Rachel is a suspect in her mother’s murder. I simply asked where she left her field hockey stick. But perhaps you can explain to me about Rachel’s disagreement with her mother.”
Alice Schiller’s hand moved and the pencil-thin view of the library disappeared. The lights in the narrow passageway blazed. She jerked her head. “Come on.”
Annie wanted to protest. What was Marguerite going to say? Didn’t Alice understand how damaging this might be to Rachel? But the slender woman was already moving up the passageway and a call to stop her might be heard in the library.
When they reached the main hallway, Annie saw the judge lumbering up the main steps. He would find Rachel. But for now, something needed to be done about Marguerite. Annie said hotly, “We should have stayed. We don’t know what Marguerite’s told him.”
“I know.” Alice’s tone was impatient. “Come on, let’s go out to the garden.” She walked swiftly through the huge, untenanted reception room and out the door of the terrace room. “This way.” She led them down a path that veered away from the main ellipse and ended at the maze. “There are benches in the center.”
As they plunged between the tall walls of shrubbery, Annie wondered if Alice Schiller shared her mistress’s talent for the dramatic. But at least the pungent scent of the evergreens was an improvement over the dead air of the secret passageway.
Alice stood by a marble bench. “We can’t be seen from the house.”
Annie moved restively. “I wish we knew what Marguerite said about Rachel and Happy.”
Alice pivoted toward Annie, a hand outstretched. Her narrow, elegant face lifted, her dark eyes glowed. She was transformed from a prim-faced, negligible woman to an overpowering presence. “Poor, dear Rachel. A child struggling with the beginnings of passion. My sister was doing her best”—a freighted pause—“but youth can be so troubled. I know Rachel wishes she could call back, bury deep, those dreadful words of anger hurled at her mother. Yet you and I know”—a strand of auburn hair drooped over that compelling, still-lovely face as she bent close, her husky voice throbbing with sorrow—“that their quarrel can now never be ended.” She held the pose for an instant, then straightened up, her face once again prim. “That’s what she said.” Alice’s voice was once again thin and uninflected. “Or something on that order. Marguerite can’t help herself.”
Max frowned. “Doesn’t she know what kind of damage she’s doing to Rachel?”
Alice’s lips quirked in a bitter smile. “Marguerite neither knows nor cares. But you both seem to care.” Her level gaze was intense.
Annie didn’t know how to answer. How could she explain the connection she felt to a girl she didn’t know existed a week ago? How could she describe the emotions they’d experienced together since Rachel came storming into Death on Demand seeking the big sister she’d never had? “Rachel and I…” Annie turned her hands palms up. “I remember how hard it is,” she said simply. “I remember. And she loves Pudge.” Annie didn’t add, So do I, but the words lodged in her heart.
“Your father,” Alice said wearily, “is a damn fool. If he hadn’t tried to get rid of the hockey stick, Rachel wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Max was abrupt. “How do you think the cops would have responded if they’d found the stick in Happy’s room?”
Alice stuck her hands deep in the pockets of her pleated navy skirt. She stared at the dusty ground.
“Who,” Max persisted, “would the police see as suspects? Especially as soon as they found out about Rachel’s fight with her mother over Mike. As for Pudge, they may not know yet that he and Happy were wrangling over Rachel, but somebody will tell them—”
“Joan already has.” Alice’s tone was dry. “Joan looks innocuous, but she always manages to be on the periphery if anything unpleasant is happening. I think it’s because she leads such a dreadfully boring life. Especially since she and Wayne divorced.” She waved a hand impatiently. “None of that matters. What matters is that Rachel mustn’t be accused of killing her mother. I know it didn’t happen”—she spoke with utter assurance—“so we have to do something to protect her.” Her tone was fierce.
Annie’s heart ached for Rachel, but she didn’t have Alice’s apparently gut-level conviction of Rachel’s innocence. And not simply because of the hockey stick. Because of Pudge. Had he run with the weapon because he foresaw the police response to a bloodied field hockey stick? Or did he run because he believed Rachel killed her mother in a moment of irrational anger and he wanted to protect her? If Annie knew the answer to those questions, she could be certain. Those answers would never come. Whatever Pudge believed, he would insist Rachel was innocent.
“Someone killed Happy.” Max’s voice was combative.
Nearby a barred owl hooted eight times, beginning his winter afternoon courtship song. The hoots were uncannily precise. In the shadows of the maze, the air was almost cold. Annie shivered and pushed away a memory of Rachel, her face puffed with anger. No, not Rachel. Not Rachel. But not Pudge, either. Right now, it looked odds on that one of them—if not both—soon would be charged with Happy’s murder. There were no other suspects. Marguerite? She was the rich one, not Happy. Wayne Ladson? Donna Farrell? Terry Ladson? They had no connection to Happy. Her death couldn’t benefit them in any way. Joan Ladson? She was a vacationing librarian who hadn’t seen Happy in several years. Now, if Wayne’s head had been bashed in…But it was Happy who died and only Rachel and Pudge appeared to have motives. And, of course, Mike, who claimed he’d not even glanced toward Happy’s door last night. Annie almost spoke and didn’t. What good would it do to throw Mike into the mix? The police might well charge both him and Rachel. Both might be innocent. Or guilty.
Annie clasped her hands tightly together. “The trouble is that there are no other suspects. None.”
Max’s eyes were bright and sharp. “What about Swanson? Rachel thinks he did it. What about him?”
“Dr. Swanson?” There was an odd tone in Alice’s voice. “Rachel thinks he killed Happy?”
Annie quickly explained. “…and Happy told Rachel she had papers that could keep Swanson from getting Marguerite’s money for his foundation.”
“What kind of papers would endanger Dr. Swanson’s cause?” Alice looked puzzled.
“I have no idea,” Annie admitted. “It seems impossible. I didn’t get the impression Happy had any contact with the man other than here at the house. Maybe Happy learned something from someone in town.”
“Gossip doesn’t translate to papers,” Max pointed out.
Alice paced in front of the marble bench. “Swanson. I don’t like him. He’s a bad man.” The simple words evoked a dark and dangerous image. “I’ve warned and warned Marguerite against him, but she won’t listen. She thinks he’s wonderful. In fact”—and her finely boned face was tight with disgust—“she wants to have a séance tonight to see what we can find out about Happy’s murder. I’ve been trying to talk her out of it. But maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
“What good would that do?” Annie didn’t try to keep the dismay from her voice. A séance! That would be terrible for Rachel.
“It would bring Swanson here.” Alice was excited, determined. “If he killed Happy, it’s the last place he’ll want to come.” She clapped her hands together. “I’ll talk to Marguerite and let her think she’s persuaded me.”
“Swanson.” Max didn’t sound convinced. “How would Happy know anything that could block his plans with Marguerite?”
Annie understood his skepticism. Swanson was a slick customer, that was certain. There seemed little likelihood that Happy could have found concrete evidence of misdoing serious enough to thwart his plans to milk funds from Marguerite. But if she had…money is always a lovely motive for murder.
“Money.” Annie’s tone was thoughtful. “Maybe Rachel’s instinct is right. Maybe that’s what we’re dealing with.” She looked at Alice. “How rich is Marguerite?”
Alice smoothed back the fiery auburn hair. “Very. At least ten million. And since the Dow has gone so high, oh, she’s very rich. Claude left everything to her, which certainly wasn’t fair to his children. But it’s always been understood that the greater portion of the estate would go to Claude’s children. I don’t blame them for being upset. Swanson has no right to that money. And they all need it. It will be dreadful if Swanson isn’t stopped.”
A murder charge would stop him. But Annie saw all kinds of difficulties. How did Swanson get into the house? Mike thought there had been light near the maze. Could it have been Swanson with a flashlight? But how did Swanson have access to Rachel’s raincoat and hockey stick? That might depend upon how well Swanson knew the house and when the crime was planned.
“If Swanson killed Happy, we should be able to prove it.” Annie wished she felt as confident as she sounded. “We have to catch Happy’s killer. Whoever it is.” Annie was clear about that. She wasn’t going to see Pudge sacrifice himself.
Almost as if he’d read her thoughts, Max grabbed her hand. “Listen, Annie, Pudge wants you to stay here tonight with Rachel. He’s worried about her. I promised him you would.”
Annie gave him a startled glance. “How can I manage that?”
Alice waved her hand. “I’ll tell Marguerite the girl asked for you. It will be fine. There’s a guest room on the third floor right across from Rachel. You’ll be next to Joan.”
Would it be fine to stay in a house where death had walked? But Max had promised for her and it was pitiful to imagine Rachel alone. Only Alice seemed to care about her. “All right, I’ll stay. That will give me a chance to look around for Happy’s papers. Maybe she hid them somewhere other than her room.”
“Papers about Swanson…” Alice’s lips spread in a pleased smile. “Everyone in the house—except for Marguerite—would be delighted to see Swanson in trouble. Let’s organize a general search.”
The police would carefully check Happy’s room. If Swanson had murdered Happy, the odds were very good that he had found the papers. But it wouldn’t hurt to search the house. It was clear from Alice’s firm expression that a search was going to happen. Annie looked at her curiously. How had she ever considered this woman to be nothing more than a pale reflection of Marguerite? “How will Marguerite respond to that?”
“I’ll see to Marguerite. Her practice before a séance is to withdraw and meditate. She’ll never know. It won’t be hard. She’s hurting, you know.” Alice’s voice was somber. “Everyone sees her as selfish and cold, but she’s always counted on Happy. There will be a huge void in her life. I don’t know if the reality has set in yet. When it does…” Alice’s face was suddenly bleak. And angry. “It shouldn’t have happened. God knows it shouldn’t have happened. It’s all Swanson’s fault.” Her eyes were hard. “He’s going to pay. One way or another.”