Mint Julep Murder (17 page)
Authors: Carolyn G. Hart
Annie looked again at that genial face and knew it reflected so little of the woman.
Emma Clyde. Complex, tough, unsentimental, courageous, determined—a woman to be reckoned with.
Emma didn’t discuss her personal life in the essay. Annie knew that Emma had been married twice. Neither husband was mentioned. Of course, the first marriage ended in divorce many years ago, the second in death—his—only a few years before.
Annie frowned, grappled with memory. Oh, yes, Enrique Morales, that was the name of Emma’s late second husband. Apparently he hadn’t been pertinent to Emma’s writing. Actually, Annie would be surprised if Enrique had been pertinent to anything other than Emma’s quite vigorous
appreciation of sex. Recently, there had been whispers on Broward’s Rock about the frequent visits to Emma’s home of a natty, retired librarian from Savannah.
Annie shook her head, dismissing gossip and considerations of why Emma had married—if only briefly—the much younger Enrique.
But, on second thought, perhaps Enrique and what happened to him on Emma’s luxury yacht—
did he fall? was he pushed?
—was extremely pertinent.
Emma, from all accounts, discovered that neither her wealth nor their marriage controlled the amorous activities of Enrique.
Justice—or at least Emma’s view of it—obtained only in her mysteries.
Would Kenneth Hazlitt’s tell-all novel possibly have revealed such a cold, manipulative personality to the readers who idolized Marigold Rembrandt that Emma’s dazzling reputation could have been jeopardized?
Fans are fickle.
What would Emma do to protect her writing career?
Whatever it took, Annie thought. Whatever it took.
And Emma was known throughout the southeast for her spectacular roses. She was, in fact, the creator of a sweet-scented rose of the palest pink tint, known, just like her yacht, as Marigold’s Pleasure.
But would the cleverest, canniest writer of detective fiction in America, an admitted rose fancier, use a garden poison to commit murder?
Sure.
If she could get away with it.
Annie squared the sheets on Emma, slipped them in the back of the folder, and picked up another essay.
The photo here was definitely a soft focus. Melissa Sinclair’s luminous eyes glowed with sly humor and curiosity. Her mouth curved in an enigmatic smile. She looked fey, amused, and slightly cruel.
Melissa Sinclair:
Aren’t all Southerners storytellers? Why, I recollect my grandmother sitting in
a rocker on the front porch, the rocker squeaking back and forth, back and forth, as she told about the way Sherman’s troops marched toward the sea, burning and pillaging, raping and killing, leaving blackened ruins and broken lives behind them. How her grandmother, Annalee, hid the silver in a dried patch of sweet potatoes, but the Yankees found it and stole every piece. How her grandfather came limping home, a musket ball lodged in his hip, to find three fresh graves in the family plot, his brothers, Sam and David and George. So he turned his back on the ruins and took Annalee and walked away. They went to a little community called Dixon, not far from Snellville. Fifty years later, he was the mayor of the town and owned a big white house on the hill, and to this day my momma and poppa live in Dixon and rock on the porch in the summertime and talk about their people and the glory days before Atlanta went up in flames.
I remember standing by the notions counter in the drugstore, pressing against the glass like a shadow so nobody would see me and say, “Child, you run on out and play now,” and I’d listen to the men talk while they drank their morning coffee, and sometimes they talked about Verdun and sometimes about the price of tobacco and sometimes about the widow woman who shot the
revenooer
and sometimes about the ghost that opens the door on Christmas Eve at Tarleton Hall.
I heard stories about yellow dogs and gypsies, about once when Ava Gardner came through town and Mr. Forsythe claimed he knew her when he was a young man, about a gambler named Slim and the sack of gold dust in his pocket, about the farmhand who hung himself from a crosstie in the railroad bridge, about that little baby they found on the steps of the church and who might be her momma. And poppa.
I heard stories in the summer at the church socials, stories I remember every time I taste sweet, drippy red watermelon. I heard stories in the winter in front of an open fire as bacon hissed in a big iron skillet.
At night, I’d listen to the hound dogs bay at the moon and the faraway whistle of the train and the thunks on the roof that might be a squirrel but could be a ghost tap dancing in the moonlight. Can’t you see that? A swirl of mist and the glint of the taps and the swift, sharp clatter? Oh, I can see it, right now I can see it.
I grew up with stories. I never knew there was another way to live.
Annie shrugged. It was a charming essay, notably more charming than the others. As an indicator to homicidal tendencies, it lacked pizzazz. But—Annie thumbed through her papers—yes, here was the fax of Kenneth Hazlitt’s proposal.
Her eyes skipped down the sheet to the paragraph about “Lily St. Mair”:
“… (Hanagin) reads her life story and thinks it sounds like fiction.”
Annie frowned.
Hmm.
She carried the folder to the telephone alcove, but she left the poster propped in her chair.
It took four phone calls before she was referred to Miss Lavinia Boudreau of Snellville, retired librarian and full-time genealogist. Annie was barely launched on her quest when Miss Boudreau interrupted brusquely:
“Nonsense. There’s no such place.”
“Uh.” Annie started over, tried to improve her diction. “Dixon,” she repeated, raising her voice. “Just outside Snellville.”
“Young lady, I heard you the first time. There’s no such place.”
Annie swiftly checked. “… little community of Dixon, not far from Snellville.”
No such place.
Annie had an odd feeling, like a spiderweb brushing against her skin. “I see. Then, perhaps I could go at it another way, Miss Boudreau. I understand you are familiar with the family histories—”
Annie learned more than she’d ever wanted to know about genealogy, as a fine art and intellectual pursuit. At last, she gathered up her courage and interrupted Miss Boudreau’s recitation of her accomplishments—they were apparently extensive and widely recognized and admired—in this arena as they pertained to Snellville and its environs.
“Then perhaps you know the Sinclair family, the descendants of Morgan Sinclair, who settled in the area shortly after the War?” Annie knew better than to designate which war. In Miss Boudreau’s lexicon, there would only be one.
“Morgan Sinclair?”
Once again Annie increased her volume. “Yes, ma’am. Morgan Sinclair.”
Miss Boudreau was a lady, so she didn’t sniff. She remained polite. “Young lady, you have been given misinformation. There are only two Sinclair families in a six-county area, the descendants of Herrick Sinclair, who arrived in 1742, and the descendants of William Roger Sinclair, who arrived in 1811.”
“Morgan Sinclair,” an amused voice drawled next to Annie. “Oh, I
love
it.”
Annie turned and looked directly into the sloe eyes of Missy Sinclair.
The telephone crackled in her ear. “Mrs. Darling, are you there?”
Annie managed to keep her voice even. “Thank you, Miss Boudreau. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Thank you very much.” She hung up the receiver.
Missy Sinclair stepped closer, peering down at the papers in Annie’s folder.
Annie’s nose wrinkled at the waft of musky perfume.
Missy’s full lips curved into a sly, satisfied smile. “Why, Annie, honey, how sweet of you to want to know all about me.” Crimson-tipped fingers snatched up the flimsy fax. The author scanned it, then dropped it onto Annie’s papers. “You and Kenneth, too, spending so much time over little old me.” Mocking eyes taunted Annie.
“Dixon,” Annie said determinedly. “It doesn’t exist.”
“Oh, yes, it does. In my mind, it does.”
Now Annie felt like she was caught in a gossamer web. “Who are you? Where did you grow up? What are you hiding?”
“Honey, I’m Melissa Sinclair. And who is that? A storyteller, honey, pure and simple. And I adore my little story about Morgan Sinclair. It makes me feel good. Don’t you think it’s nice?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she held up Annie’s note. “But you know what I don’t think is nice?” Her voice was the same, the buttery, soft accent, the musical tone. “I don’t think this is nice at all.” Her smile widened. “Or wise. Sometimes bad things happen to people who go where they aren’t invited.”
Annie didn’t sense fear or even anger. Instead, there was a flicker of exhilaration in those dark, taunting eyes.
A final sleek smile and Melissa turned away.
Annie had once walked into a thirty-foot banana spiderweb and twisted and turned and flailed trying to shrug away the silky, sticky strands. Her skin had crawled then just as it did now.
Dammit, she wasn’t going to be intimidated.
She glared at that plump retreating back, then punched the number to her suite.
“Max Darling.”
“Max!” She burst into speech. “… so see if you can find out what’s true about Missy’s past. If anything. Max, what do you suppose her secret is?”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter as much as our knowing there has to be a secret. Anyway, I’ll get on it.”
When Annie hung up the phone—Max promising to meet her for lunch in the restaurant in half an hour—she walked back to her chair in the lobby, ready to read about
Jimmy Jay Crabtree. But she glanced toward the desk. And squared her shoulders.
Emma Clyde stood there, Annie’s note in her hand. She finished reading it and turned toward the elevators. And saw Annie.
Annie had asked for it. She’d better be ready.
Today, Emma’s caftan was russet and turquoise-striped. The celebrity was as imposing as always, her square-jawed face composed, her gaze sharp. She strode across the lobby.
They faced each other.
Annie looked defiantly into the writer’s hostile blue eyes. “Hello, Emma.”
Emma merely stared at her with the interest an entomologist might accord a rarely seen, environmentally threatened insect. Slowly she lifted the note and waggled it. “I wouldn’t.”
“It’s too fascinating a project to be dropped.” Annie was proud that she managed to speak without even a slight quaver, despite Emma’s icy scrutiny.
“Kenneth died in a particularly unpleasant manner, Annie. Has that escaped your notice?”
“Emma, are you threatening me?”
“No.” It was crisp, direct, untroubled. “I’m simply concerned for you.”
Oh, sure. Their relationship had always been pleasant, but never close. Never. Who was close to Emma? Her editor? Her agent? Her stockbroker?
Annie put it on the table. “Concerned enough to help me find out who poisoned Kenneth?”
“I am not Marigold Rembrandt.”
Annie stood a little straighter “Emma, will you tell me something?”
“Perhaps.”
“Marigold Rembrandt is so charming, so appealing.” Annie stared into wary, cornflower-blue eyes. “Readers love her. She’s the grandmother they recall with joy—or the grandmother they wished they’d had. Marigold’s lovable and sweet and gently wise. Who is she?”
Emma got it, of course. Her square, tough face might have been chipped out of granite. She knew that Annie knew that Emma’s success depended in large part—perhaps altogether—upon the public’s adoration of her as the creator of Marigold Rembrandt, and surely, those readers reasoned, as the epitome of all they most admired in Marigold.
What would happen if they learned that Emma Clyde was tough, hard, dangerous, and calculating?
Was Marigold Rembrandt what Emma might have been if she hadn’t lost her youth in a dusty, hot theater of war?
Annie decided to gamble because she knew all too well that she was not dealing with Marigold Rembrandt.
“Emma, New York’s hot for Kenneth’s book. But I can modify it.
Song of the South
can be the story of four authors.” Annie held up four fingers. “Not five.”
Those cold eyes were thoughtful.
Marigold Rembrandt wouldn’t dream of betraying her friends.
Emma Clyde’s firm mouth spread in a slight smile. “Very wise of you, Annie. Too many major characters clutter a book. Perhaps I can be of some service to you in creating those four characters … and their pasts.” She glanced at her diamond-encrusted watch. “I’ll meet you here in the lobby. At three, after my panel.” Her smile widened. “If you have time, you might want to come to my panel. It’s a fascinating topic: ‘Do People Get Away with Murder in Real Life?’ Always a popular question. Of course”—and those blue eyes glittered—“I can’t speak from personal experience.” A brisk nod. “See you later.”
Annie watched her walk away.
Was Emma chuckling?
Pretty damn funny.
Annie doubted if the late Enrique Morales would consider it hilarious.
Annie propped the poster up and threw herself back into the chair. She glanced at her watch, then flipped open her folder.
The squinty little eyes looked stupid, but Annie knew they lied. Jimmy Jay Crabtree might not be a charmer, but he had brains. His photograph showed him leaning against a bar, a glass raised high. He didn’t smile for the camera, of course. Instead, his head jutted forward, his mouth was thin and straight. Probably trying to look tough. To Annie, he looked bilious.
Jimmy Jay Crabtree:
The wimps want to pasteurize the world, suck all the guts out of it. I don’t buy their program. I’ll never buy their program. I’ll smoke as much as I want to, drink as much as I want to, screw as much as I want to, and they can stuff it up their collective blue noses. That’s what they are, bluenoses. They don’t know how to scrap. All they can do is whine.
You add the wimp factor to the prig factor and what’ve you got? You’ve got a liberal. You know what a liberal reminds me of? The scum that sticks to the soap dish, soft and sticky and forever there. I hate them.
Hate’s a nasty word with the PC scum. But there ought to be a lot of hate in this old world and I don’t mind saying so. A lot of people agree with me. They’re just too scared to say so. But I’m not scared, and I’ll say it loud and clear and keep on saying it.
I learned all about hate when I was a kid. Who did the teachers handhold and pet? The prigs, always the prigs. So I complained, and they nicked my grades, so when it came scholarship time, who got the help? Anybody but a white American male.
Like me.
I had to work my way through college, doing night shifts at a convenience store. There were special good classes for the geeks with the high test scores. Ordinary people like me, they shoved us into classes of two, three hundred.
But I fought every step of the way. Got kicked
off the school newspaper because I told it the way it was.
If it wasn’t a geek with special treatment, it was a WOMAN.
Women discriminated against?
Give me a break, buddy.
They’ve got you with a double barrel, and they unload it if you look at them crossways. A guy says a broad looks good, and he’s pilloried for sexual harassment. If women kept to their places, this world would work a hell of a lot better.
You know what women are good for?
Sure you do.
Anything else is crap. After three wives, I know it for a fact. Trust me.
So yeah, I’ve been trying to fight the good fight for me and the rest of the guys, for the guys who make this country work, the everyday guys who want to have a beer after work and go home and find the goddamn dinner ready.
I’m a scrapper. On the page and off. And that’s what writing is all about.