THE HALF DOZEN silver bracelets on each arm jangled as Donna Farrell pulled out the desk drawer and placed it on the floor. “Sometimes”—a lock of silver-blond hair fell forward as she bent to peer in the opening—“there’s a secret opening behind the drawer. Hmm. Yes, oh, it’s opening.” Her usually tart tone rose in excitement.
Annie listened to the sound of scrabbling nails.
“Oh damn. A splinter.” Donna yanked out her hand. Irritation emphasized the thin lines that bracketed her eyes and mouth. “Empty. Oh well, this whole thing’s a fool’s errand.” She whirled away from the desk. “There’s nothing of interest in here.” She waved her hand at the huge reception area. “When you look closely, there aren’t many places anyone could hope to hide papers. Have you had any luck?”
Annie didn’t explain that she wasn’t part of the search party. She said vaguely, “Not yet.”
Donna brushed dust from her silk skirt. “Well, there are no hidden memoirs, no steamy love letters, not a frigging thing of interest in this dusty room that should have been condemned before it was built.” She looked toward a wet bar. “I need a drink. How about you?”
Donna’s heels clicked on the stone floor. She stepped behind the wet bar, clicked on a light. “Scotch? Gin? Rum?” She picked up a fifth of scotch and splashed a generous amount in a cut-glass tumbler. She poured in a token amount of water and took a deep drink. “Take your pick.” Donna wandered out from behind the wet bar.
Annie found club soda, put ice in a glass and poured. No one had to go far to find a libation in this house, a wet bar here, a full bar in the terrace room.
Donna sank gracefully into a high-backed rosewood chair with spiral turnings on each side of the densely flowered upholstery. The Elizabethan chair made her look petite, and its heavy darkness emphasized her fair hair and pale skin. She gazed disconsolately around the huge garish room. “How long do you suppose we have to hang around here? I didn’t count on murder for Christmas. I wish I’d stayed home.” Another deep drink. “Too bad it was Happy.”
It would have been a nice enough sentiment if the unspoken words—not Marguerite—hadn’t hung in the air.
“Did you like Happy?” Annie edged past a suit of armor. She looked doubtfully at the nearest seat, a concave wooden stool, and perched on its edge.
Donna drank deeply. “I’ve been in flea markets that had better stuff. Don’t think I didn’t tell Dad, but he just laughed and said Marguerite liked crap. That thing you’re sitting on—it’s English, supposed to look Egyptian. That was all the rage after the exhibition of tomb stuff in London in 1862. There was a time you couldn’t turn around in a Victorian drawing room without looking at a sphinx head or a winged orb or a lotus capital. And this chair”—she leaned her head back against the upholstery—“was hot stuff, too. They called it the Elizabethan style, but actually this kind of chair was built during the Restoration. Marguerite wouldn’t know a good piece if she fell over it. If I had the money she’s spent on this house…” Her words were softly slurred. Apparently this wasn’t Donna’s first drink of the day.
Annie decided circumspection was unnecessary. “Did you talk to Happy about Marguerite’s plans to give the money to Dr. Swanson?”
Donna sipped her drink, held the whiskey in her mouth for a long moment, gently swallowed. “I talked to Wayne. God, he’s mad. If they’d found Marguerite with a stake through her heart, I could point to the man. That’s what’s so damned odd. Happy! Nobody would kill Happy.”
It was like trying to make molasses take shape. Annie said urgently, “What did Happy say?”
Donna tossed down the rest of her drink. “Say? She didn’t say anything. She went around bleating.” Donna squeezed her face in concentration, then said, her voice high and breathless, “‘Donna, I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do!’” The sharp-featured blonde’s nose wrinkled in disdain, and she spoke in her own acid tone. “That’s what she said Wednesday night after Marguerite made her marvelous announcement about her thrilling commitment to the world beyond, which translated to, screw the Ladsons. A grown woman with about as much backbone as a stuffed doll. I told Happy that if she could do anything, for God’s sake, do it or we were all going to be broke on our ass. Including her, I might add. Happy was a sweetie, but she wasn’t above cadging from big sis. She was quiet for a minute, then she said she’d do what she had to do. I wasn’t holding my breath. You have to remember that Happy was the world’s biggest ostrich. But”—there was an odd look in her eyes—“she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Did you see Happy Thursday night?”
Donna flowed up from the chair and back to the bar. She mixed another drink, shook her head. “Not after dinner. But”—she sniffed her drink—“she and Wayne had a big confab in the garden Thursday. I was taking a walk around the grounds before lunch”—her voice was grand, then slid back to its derisive tone—“since there’s not a bloody thing else to do around here. God, what a boring place. When Dad was alive, trust me, it was never boring. Have you ever seen any of his movies? We’ve got them all up in the shrine on the fourth floor. Movies, posters, newsreels—if it had to do with Dad, it’s there.” She lifted the glass, downed a third of her drink. “I have to hand it to the old bitch, she was nuts about him. And she still puts on quite a show. I didn’t like the message, but the birthday bash was star quality. And that was a pretty nifty performance this morning. But back to Happy. She and Wayne never even noticed me walk past.” She sounded faintly aggrieved. “I guess the last time I actually said anything to her was at dinner last night. She was awfully quiet. I asked her if she felt okay. She patted my arm and said that everything was going to be all right, that I shouldn’t worry. She had a kind of Joan of Arc look. You know, brave and noble. I told her I never worry.” Donna stared down into the amber liquid, the bleakness of her face belying her words. “She disappeared right after dinner. I don’t know where she went. I got a book out of the library. God, some bestseller circa 1954. I took it up to my room and stayed there. I’d had enough of the family to last me until next Christmas. In fact, if I didn’t have to kiss ass for some money, I’d get out of here right now.” She blinked. “If the cops would let me.”
Annie looked at her petulant, unhappy face. “Did you hear anything around midnight?”
“Midnight?” Nothing flickered in her eyes. “Last night? No, it was as quiet as a tomb. I was slumbering in my bed. Alone. Another drawback to this boring house.” She finished off her drink. “God, another whole week until Christmas.”
Max studied the computer sheets with a long list of real estate transactions.
Duane looked as satisfied as Agatha with a mouthful of shrimp. “You’ll note the dates?”
Max did. The first sheet listed houses sold the second week of January three years ago. The second sheet listed houses sold six months later.
Duane leaned back in his swivel chair. “In January three years ago, one Kate Rutledge—”
Max felt a quickening of interest. Kate Rutledge, the woman at Laurel’s, the smiling, slim woman to whom he had taken such an immediate dislike.
“—came to the island, bought a house. The real estate agent was Heather Crane. Six months later, Emory Swanson came to the island, bought a house. The real estate agent was Heather Crane.”
“I see that.” Max’s tone was unimpressed.
Duane’s eyes glittered. “Do you know Heather?”
Max did. Heather Crane sold houses the way some people climb the Himalaya: carefully, with enormous effort, perseverance, and total dedication. She was on the far side of fifty, but slim as a thirty-year-old. She lunched on diet drinks, played championship tennis and knew everybody in town.
“Heather takes one holiday a year. She goes to Bermuda and stays at a different luxury hotel each time. She was at the Southampton Princess this past September. She saw Emory Swanson and Kate Rutledge dining together, obviously a couple. The next day Heather ran into Swanson on Front Street and asked about Kate. Swanson looked blank, said he didn’t know a Kate Rutledge. Heather looked equally blank and said she saw them at dinner the night before. Swanson said that he had dined with a woman who lived on the island, that he was in Bermuda by himself on business. Crane said that it was certainly a remarkable resemblance. Swanson smiled and said he would look forward to meeting Miss—uh—Rutledge when he returned to the island.” Duane gave a satisfied chortle. “Heather got home and pulled up her records. Kate Rutledge paid for the house with a check drawn on a bank in Seattle. Swanson also moved to the island from Seattle. He bought a house. His check was from the same bank. Heather mentioned it to her secretary, who told her hairdresser, who…but you get the picture. Ingrid picked it up from a friend at church.”
Max hadn’t expected to be presented with a smoking gun. This tenuous connection between Swanson and another recent arrival on the island seemed innocuous in the extreme. So perhaps Swanson and Rutledge knew each other. So they kept it a secret. So maybe they had a tryst in Bermuda. So?
Annie poked her head in the library.
Terry sprawled on a sofa, arms folded. He gave Annie a sly look and struggled upright. “Come on in. You joining the paper chase?”
“I’m looking for Wayne.” The library was a long and lovely room with pale orange and deep rust silk draperies at the twelve-foot windows. Mission oak walls gleamed with the richness of sunlit honey. Father Christmas, a pack over his shoulder, stood in the center of the long table.
“I can suggest a better alternative.” He grinned and patted the cushion beside him, then gestured at the life-size painting of a tiger above the limestone mantel. “Come enjoy looking at Rajah. That’s what Dad called him. I think he believed the big cat was his soul mate.”
Annie knew that Terry’s objective wasn’t to share an intimate moment admiring the oil painting. His objective was to share an intimate moment. She grinned and stayed in the archway. “Your dad must have been quite a guy.” It was interesting how all of his children found Claude Ladson’s imprint wherever they looked.
Terry flipped a salute at the tiger. “That he was. Now”—he patted the cushion again—“if you want to know more about Claude, I’m the man to tell you. Wayne’s a boring dude, you know.”
Annie laughed aloud. Terry definitely was of the always-give-it-a-try school of male hopefulness. “Another time. I understand Happy and Wayne had a talk before lunch yesterday.”
Terry yawned. “Yeah, I saw Happy hurry after him. I went the hell in the other direction. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to her moan about whatever it was that was bugging her.” He glanced around the library. “Hidden papers.” He heaved a disgusted sigh. “If you believe that, I’ve got a nifty beachfront house in Utah that I’ll sell cheap…oh, only a million or so.”
Annie said softly, “But Happy’s dead.”
The derisive look faded. He blinked. “Yeah. There’s that. But I have to tell you”—his voice was suddenly serious—“nobody was crossways with Happy except Rachel.”
Annie’s retort was sharp. “Happy was very upset over Marguerite’s plans to give money to Swanson.”
“Sure she was.” Terry’s glance was shrewd. “But all of us were mad and none of us could do a damn thing about it. I don’t believe in some magic bundle of papers that was going to save the day.” His red face softened. “I’m sorry.”
There was kindness in his voice and in his eyes. He didn’t believe in the papers. He believed Rachel was guilty. He rubbed his nose, glanced away. “Anyway, for what it’s worth, Wayne’s nosing around upstairs.”
As Annie hurried up the stairs, she tried to dismiss the look in Terry’s eyes. She wouldn’t give up on Rachel. Not yet. Not as long as there was any hope of her innocence. So far, they had only Rachel’s word for the papers, and those papers were the only link to Emory Swanson. They had no proof, no proof at all. But Happy had talked to Wayne. What did she tell him?