Mint Julep Murder (12 page)

“Detective Wheeler, was that bottle of whiskey unopened when it was brought to the suite?”

The detective looked steadily at Max for a moment, then slowly nodded.

“At least,” Max amended, “that’s what you’ve been told. You can’t be certain.”

“The bourbon was purchased at a package store in Atlanta, Georgia, three days ago. Mr. Hazlitt—Mr. William Hazlitt—told us the bottle was one of several bought for this trip and that he carried them unopened up to the suite Friday morning.”

“He could be lying,” Max said mildly.

“He could.”

“You’re questioning Mr. William Hazlitt?”

“We’re questioning everybody.” Those implacable eyes turned again to Annie. “But Mrs. Darling’s fingerprints are on the glass.”

“And what other prints are on that glass?” Max demanded.

Wheeler nodded. “The victim’s. Mr. William Hazlitt’s. The maid’s.”

Annie wanted to cheer. She knew this was no reprieve, but at least she wasn’t the only person to have touched the glass except for the murdered man. “So it isn’t just me.”

Wheeler stared at her.

She shoved a hand through her hair. “Are you sure that glass is the one he was drinking from when he died?”

“Positive. Traces of his saliva are on the glass.”

“And the poison was in there?” she pressed.

“Yes.”

“How did you know it was nicotine?” It had been worrying her all morning. “They haven’t done the autopsy yet.”

The detective’s eyes narrowed.

“I read all about it this morning.” She pointed at the open newspaper.

“Do you garden, Mrs. Darling?”

“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that. No, Detective Wheeler, I do not. Why?”

“Do you have roses?” the detective persisted.

Max lounged back in his chair. “Yes. We do. And yes, we probably have nicotine in the garden shed.” He smiled at Wheeler’s sharp glance. “My mother gardens. Sometimes.”

When she wasn’t busy, Annie thought, penning great books, or mountain climbing in Peru, or driving her daughter-in-law mad.

The ice floe felt a trifle more secure. “So anybody could get that kind of poison at the local garden shop,” Annie said happily. “Am I right?”

Wheeler’s answer was grudging. “That’s correct.”

Max abruptly leaned forward, a confident smile lighting his face.

Annie looked at him in surprise. She could practically hear the tumblers turning. So what was making Max so happy?

“Detective Wheeler, it will be easy to prove that my wife is telling you the truth and that her fingerprints on that glass can be accounted for just as she says.”

Detective.

Detective Wheeler didn’t appear to be hanging on Max’s every word, but Annie was.

“Let’s go down the hall and let Annie show us the
places she recalls touching when she searched the suite. If her fingerprints are there, she’s telling the truth.”

Wheeler considered it. At least Annie honestly thought he did. Finally, he shook his head. “We’ll see where her prints are. We don’t need a guided tour.”

Max’s tone sharpened. “But you have to admit that if you find her prints throughout the suite, it will certainly support her story.”

“Maybe.” Wheeler cocked his head. “But your story isn’t quite complete, is it, Mrs. Darling?”

Annie stared at him blankly.

“What did you take from the suite?”

Annie looked at him in surprise. “Nothing, Mr. Wheeler. Absolutely nothing.”

“I advise you to tell the truth, Mrs. Darling.”

Annie’s face flamed. “I don’t like your attitude, Detective Wheeler. I am telling you the truth, and I give you my word I took absolutely nothing from that suite.”

Once again Wheeler nodded toward his sergeant.

Kennedy flipped through his book. “Statement from Judy Fleet, fifth-floor maid: 7
was at the far end of the hall. I saw a woman come out of Suite 500 yesterday afternoon carrying a big box. I couldn’t see her face, but she was blond and young. She lugged it to the elevator and went downstairs.’ “

Annie had an eerie feeling, like the woman who returned to her hotel room to find no trace of it.

“No.” She cleared her throat, tried for a more robust tone. “Absolutely not. It wasn’t me.”

Max folded his arms on the table. His gaze was combative. “I was with my wife from lunchtime until the start of the cocktail party.”

“So you say, Mr. Darling.”

“I do say. Moreover, Detective Wheeler, the fact that my wife was in that suite has to be irrelevant to the poisoning of the bottle.”

Annie frowned, then, suddenly, she understood. It was enlightenment right on a
Eureka!
level. She felt a twinge of chagrin. She hated being Mrs. Latham to Max’s Colonel
Primrose.
She
was the mystery expert, and she should have spotted the flaw.

“Of course!” She was too excited even to be scared. “Hazlitt was drinking bourbon when we came to the party. Were his fingerprints on top of mine on that glass?”

Max beamed.

Annie charged ahead despite the unchanged coldness in Detective Wheeler’s eyes. “Yes,” she said eagerly, “they had to be. And if he was drinking bourbon out of that glass, why wasn’t he already dead? I mean, look at it, if the poison was put in the bottle of bourbon ahead of time, he would have keeled over when he drank the drink in his hand. And I know he’d been drinking bourbon, I could smell it.”

The detective’s hard gaze didn’t falter. “Right, Mrs. Darling. From a bottle that he’d just finished. The bottle was in the wastebasket. The drink he poured out of the bottle behind the wet bar—the drink everyone saw him pour—was the first from a fresh bottle.” Wheeler’s smile was wintry. “So you see, Mr. Darling, Mrs. Darling”—he gave them each a deliberate, measured glance—“it
does
matter that Mrs. Darling visited the suite beforehand. Because that bottle, the new bottle, could have been poisoned at any time after it was purchased, and that includes the period in the hotel room before the party began.” He paused, then added without expression, “It also, of course, could have been poisoned during the party. But that isn’t as likely. Is it?”

Why, Annie wondered disconsolately, did the bon mot, the perfect rejoinder, the ultimate putdown, never occur to her until it was too late?

Her eyes were on the elevated podium where Alan Blake smiled winningly at his audience, but her mind was still in their hotel suite in combat with Detective Wheeler.

Okay. Wheeler, for obvious reasons, thought it was much more likely that the second bottle was poisoned before the party.

That made all kinds of sense. It would take a murderer with incredible nerve to sidle up to the wet bar, pick up the bottle of bourbon, and pour nicotine into it.

Her mind skewed off into a fresh field. She pawed through her purse, found a program, and wrote on it:

1.
WHOSE FINGERPRINTS ARE ON THE BOTTLE?

2.
WAS THE NICOTINE LIQUID? DOES IT COME IN ANY OTHER FORM?

3.
HOW DID THE POISONER CARRY THE NICOTINE?

She chewed on the pencil, then added:

4.
HOW LONG WAS THE DOOR TO HAZLITT’S SUITE UNLOCKED?

From her own knowledge, it was open at a few minutes past noon. She tapped the pencil on her chin, then continued:

5.
CHECK WITH HENNY, LAUREL, AND MISS DORA.

6.
WHO KNEW HAZLITT’S SUITE NUMBER?

7.
WHAT BOX WAS TAKEN?

She focused on Number 6. So, okay, the world. Well, almost. She’d had no reason not to tell the authors, and she’d let all of them know, one way or another, how to find Hazlitt. And ail five were on the fifth floor.

She put a check mark by Number 6 and wrote:
The Famous 5.

After a moment’s thought, she added, more reluctantly:
The Three Musketeers.

She knew Broward’s Rock’s wannabe authors had visited the suite, although it was absurd to think they’d poison Hazlitt. Miss Dora, Henny, and Laurel wanted a publisher, alive and thriving.

But the authors—any one of the five could have slipped down the hall to the Hazlitt suite.

With nicotine in hand?

Annie nodded. Sure. Somebody came prepared. These people all knew Hazlitt. They would know he drank bourbon.

Wasn’t it a terrible gamble to lace a bottle of bourbon and assume only Kenneth Hazlitt would drink from it?

Sure. But the mind that consigned Kenneth Hazlitt to
a hideous death probably wouldn’t be concerned about danger to bystanders. This was not a warm-hearted killer. If any ever were.

But for heaven’s sake—

8.
WAS IT CERTAIN THAT KENNETH HAZLITT WAS THE INTENDED VICTIM?????

Had that even occurred to Detective Wheeler?

Probably.

Although he wasn’t impressed by literary motives, Annie didn’t doubt Wheeler was as industrious and thorough as Inspector Slack ever thought about being. More charming, though. Captain Heimrich with a Southern accent.

How could she make Wheeler understand it wasn’t simply a matter of information in a novel? Who knew what Hazlitt intended to write? If the stuff were fiery enough, it could destroy reputations.

Annie wrote quickly:

9.
TRY TO GET A COPY OF HAZLITT’S PROPOSAL.

10.
HOW DID THE FAMOUS 5 KNOW ABOUT THE BOOK?

They definitely knew, because they’d all called her
before
they arrived on the island. That meant any one of them could have dropped into a garden center and arrived prepared to kill.

Applause erupted.

Annie looked blankly around the room.

“Isn’t he just wonderful!” the woman next to her breathed, her voice soft and tremulous, her eyes shining.

Alan Blake leaned on the podium, his smile diffident and endearing. “Thanks. Thanks, folks. God, it’s my pleasure. Thanks so much.”

Annie suppressed a desire to stand and shout, “Come off it!” Blake autographed books and grinned and charmed. But finally, every book was signed, and the last adoring straggler departed.

He was gathering up his papers when Annie approached.

“Mr. Blake, could I visit with you for a moment?”

His face still held a vestige of down-home shyness. But he shed it faster than Vidocq changing disguises. “That
was great. Thank God for little old ladies. And call me Alan, okay?”

Annie hesitated, but only for a second. This morning she’d told Detective Wheeler she was simply trying to protect the authors. Protection she was willing to provide, but serving as a sacrificial lamb wasn’t in her job description. Not now. Not ever.

“Alan, I’d like to try and help you with the police.”

“Help me do what?” His face was puzzled, but his eyes were abruptly wary.

“Explain the stuff Kenneth was putting in his novel.”

Every semblance of charm seeped out of his handsome face. His features were still quite perfect—smooth cheeks, wide-spaced eyes, firm chin—but the skin was stretched tight, the eyes flint hard, the mouth tense. “Are you threatening me?” The words dropped like icy pellets between them.

Blake didn’t move.

But Annie took a step back.

“Of course not.” She glanced toward the doors. They were closed. There were just the two of them. She took another step back.

He followed. “What stuff? What stuff are you talking about?”

Blake was so close she could smell his aftershave, see a tiny nick from shaving on his neck.

“You know,” she improvised swiftly. “All that old stuff.”

Abruptly, the sense of menace lifted. Blake smiled. It was not a nice smile. “Trying me on, aren’t you?” He smoothed back a lock of chestnut hair. “You got into it hot and heavy with Kenneth yesterday. By his booth. Are the cops making you uncomfortable?” His grin expanded. “Gee, that’s a shame.” His voice was light and smooth and pleased. “Hope everything turns out okay for you.” Then he brushed past her and pushed through the doors.

“We must put aside our petty ambitions. Annie is a fair maiden in distress. Am I right?” Henny Brawley looked first to Miss Dora, then to Laurel.

“Aramis on guard. Always to the forefront.” Laurel raised her chin, gazed gallantly into the distance.

Miss Dora lifted her cane as if it were a sword. “Porthos here.”

Henny cleared her throat and flipped through a stack of index cards. She held one up. “Page nineteen. Of my manuscript.” She paused to be certain she had everyone’s attention. “Sergeant Hemingway sums it up so well in Georgette Heyer’s
A Blunt Instrument:
‘When fate’s got it in for you there’s no limit to what you may have to put up with.’” She slapped the cards together. “Max, we are here, we three, ready to dedicate our lives, our souls, and our fortunes to Annie’s defense. Give us our orders.”

Max pressed his lips together and maintained a grave and appreciative face. And tried desperately to think. Certainly he and Annie needed all the help they could get. But
he didn’t want to put this game threesome into danger, although he knew they’d shrug away any effort to relegate them to the sidelines. And they were canny and capable, no matter how unconventional their attitudes. What could he—safely—ask them to do?

But he pondered a bit too long.

“Perhaps,” Miss Dora suggested ruminatively, “Annie would feel better if I fixed her a dish of butter beans with ham bone and okra.” She looked across the room at the microwave above the wet bar, appraisal mixed with disdain. “Page twenty-two.”

“Troubles Grow Us.”

Everyone looked at Laurel and waited.

Laurel’s smile was serene, her headshake almost imperceptible.

Henny and Miss Dora shared a glance of chagrin. Was it déclassé to specify page numbers?

Max intervened. A gentle reminder apparently was in order. “One for all, all for one,” he murmured.

Laurel came through. “Page twenty-nine.”

Max didn’t glance at his watch. But he knew he must hurry. He looked at his guests, sitting so patiently—so immovably?—on the couch.

A rush of pride suffused him. Laurel was unmatchable. No one had a mother quite like his. Although sometimes … Max concentrated on the positive. This morning, as usual, her hair shone like spun gold, her face was camellia smooth, her dark blue eyes glowed with good humor—and perhaps just a touch of otherworldliness. He certainly didn’t accept Annie’s description of Laurel as “spacey.” Not at all.