Mint Julep Murder (6 page)

Willie delved into the last box and, triumphantly, yanked up a stack of sheets so electrically pink that Annie blinked.

“Here we go.” He handed one to Annie.

Annie took the sheet.

Annie took a deep breath. Oh, Lordy.

“Would you like extra copies?” Willie asked helpfully.

“Five.”

Before pulling the brochures from the box, she saw him glance at her wedding ring.

Annie took the flyers. “Thanks so much.”

“Oh, we’ve got hundreds. We’ll have a stack of them here this afternoon at the cocktail party.”

“Who’s coming to the cocktail party?”

“Ken sent out invitations to booksellers. But you’re definitely invited. Five o’clock. Here in the suite. And feel free, take some extra copies of the flyer.”

Willie smiled happily, obviously unaware his offering
was as welcome as the Bud Light truck at a Baptist church social.

Annie accepted another handful. Should she give flyers to her authors as they arrived? Or should she await a propitious moment?

She turned toward the door.

Willie didn’t exactly block her way, but he was right there, an eager hand on her elbow. “How about a drink tonight?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied vaguely, “but thanks.”

“Anytime. Just give me a ring.”

He leaned against the doorjamb and watched as she walked toward the elevators.

As Annie punched the button, she gave him a final, noncommittal smile. Willie probably preferred married women. She stepped into the elevator, the pink sheets in her hand, and wished that she had nothing else to do that day but fend off Willie’s advances. That she could do. Duck soup. Instead, she had a horrid premonition that her Gang of Five might make mincemeat out of her. She opened her purse and absently dredged up a partially squashed mint.

No, stress didn’t make her hungry, fill her mind with images of food.

Of course not.

Drop-dead gorgeous.

That was Annie’s first thought as she welcomed Leah Vixen Kirby.

The famed author was much better-looking than her publicity stills. Masses of fiery red hair, brilliant green eyes, and an elegant, narrow face. Today she wore an emerald-green blazer and cream skirt with a hint of lime. It was an unusual but effective combination.

Drop-dead gorgeous and seething.

That was Annie’s second thought.

She almost wondered that the author didn’t crackle as she walked, Annie’s sense of psychic trauma was so great.

Yet Leah Kirby managed to flash a take-charge smile, even though there wasn’t a particle of warmth in those clever, searching, combative eyes.

“Hello, Annie. It’s good of you to meet us. And this is my husband, Carl.” Leah started down the airport hallway. She took two steps, then paused.

Her husband reached out for her carry-on. “I’ll take it, Leah.”

“No, no. It’s all right.”

“But if your back …”

“It’s all right, Carl.” Leah moved on, but she walked stiffly.

Annie slowed her pace. “Mrs. Kirby, I enjoy your books so much.
Love’s Lost Splendour
is one of the most exciting novels I’ve ever read, and the end just broke my heart.” Surprisingly, Annie felt a sting of tears as she recalled the weary Confederate soldier limping up a dusty red Georgia road to find the ashes of his home, and beneath a towering pine, a grave with a wilted wreath and his wife’s locket hanging from the simple wooden cross.

Carl Kirby nodded in agreement. He was tall, thin, and pale, and his weary face crooked in a sudden, warm smile. “It is wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Please call me Leah.” That was all the author said.

At the luggage carousel, the author directed Annie to get a luggage cart. As Annie loaded it, Carl kept up a running commentary. “… such an attractive new airport, but small enough to still be pleasant. It’s always a pleasure to come to Savannah …” while he darted anxious looks at his wife’s stony face.

Leah Kirby didn’t say another word until she was seated in the front passenger seat of Annie’s Volvo. Then she pressed scarlet nails briefly to her temple. “I have a dreadful headache.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat.

Carl immediately began to search in her carry-on. “Leah, all I find is aspirin.” He looked hopefully at Annie. “Do you happen to have any ibuprofen? Leah’s allergic to aspirin.”

“No, but there’s a Quick Stop right outside the airport. We can stop there.”

Carl accepted her suggestion gratefully; Leah remained mute.

At the gas station, Carl got out of the car very slowly.
Annie wondered if he, too, suffered from back trouble or arthritis.

The minute the door closed behind him, Leah Kirby faced Annie. Her eyes were clear and sharp. There was no trace of a headache in them. “I want to know the truth. Have I been set up? Is the Medallion award simply an excuse to bring—”

Annie cut in swiftly. “Absolutely not. Kenneth Hazlitt had nothing whatsoever to do with choosing the Medallion winners. I promise you. I have that from the chair of the Select Committee.” Chair and sole member, but Annie didn’t intend to tell everything she knew. “After I received the phone messages from you and the other authors, I went to Hilton Head this morning and talked to Blue Benedict, the chairman of the Festival. Whatever Kenneth Hazlitt is doing—his book—it has no connection to the awards at all.”

The skin of Leah Kirby’s face was pulled tight against the bones. Her green eyes bored into Annie’s. “I have to know what’s in Kenneth’s proposal. I
have
to know. I want you to find out for me as soon as we get to the hotel.”

Annie hesitated, then reached into her purse and pulled out one of the pink sheets. It wasn’t the kind of thing she liked to do. It was right on a level with telling your best friend her husband was running around on her. In Annie’s view, that wasn’t a friendly thing to do.

But Leah Kirby should be forewarned.

“I got this from Kenneth Hazlitt’s suite at the Buccaneer. He wasn’t there, but his brother gave it to me. I’m afraid—”

Annie stopped because Leah Kirby wasn’t listening.

The author’s eyes sped down the sheet. When she looked at Annie, her face was grim and white. “I have to know what he’s going to write. I
have—”

The car door opened.

Leah Kirby’s head jerked up. “Carl, I’ll need some water—”

“I have it, sweetheart.”

Smoothly, Leah folded the sheet of paper, as if it were
of no moment, and slipped it in her purse. Then she reached out for the bottle of water and the pills. Her hand was trembling.

It was a long, quiet drive to Hilton Head.

Annie didn’t even try to provide small talk.

After all, there was an excuse, a passenger with a headache.

Annie glanced in her rearview mirror. A worried frown creased Carl Kirby’s pale face. Several times he almost spoke, then he slumped silently back against the seat. His eyes never left his wife.

Leah Kirby relaxed against the headrest, her eyes closed.

But her hands gripped her purse so tightly her fingers blanched.

As soon as the door to the Kirbys’ suite closed, Annie stalked the few feet to Room 500. Something had to be done about Kenneth Hazlitt, and she was just the person to do it. What right did he have to cause this kind of misery? And what was it going to do to the Festival if the honored authors were distraught? Certainly, distraught put it mildly, so far as Leah Kirby was concerned. Yes, it was up to her to do something.

The door to the Hazlitt suite was propped open.

Knocking briskly, Annie called out, “Willie? Mr. Hazlitt?”

No answer.

She pushed the door wider, stepped into the foyer. The boxes still sat on the table near the wet bar. Annie hesitated, then walked to the table. She called out again. Loudly. No answer.

So she had the suite to herself.

Annie thought swiftly. Certainly Perry Mason wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

Annie darted to the wet bar and grabbed a tumbler from the glass shelf. She took the wastebasket near the
desk, upended it, placed it on the floor directly behind the partially open door, and set the glass on it.

That should give her at least a moment’s warning.

She returned to the table. It only took a moment to rifle through the open boxes, but she found nothing that mentioned Hazlitt’s proposed book except the pink flyers. She glanced at the sealed box. SONG OF THE SOUTH was scrawled in bright orange marker on its lid. Beneath that, a card was taped. On it was the notation:
Bright red chalk footprints through bookroom? Place these sheets on table by BACK
wall.

Annie’s fingers itched to open the box. But she didn’t have any sealing tape with her, and it would be very obvious if she tampered with the lid. Even Perry Mason might think twice here.

Regretfully, she moved away from the table, glancing around the living room area. No more boxes, no loose sheets of paper.

She glanced toward the partially open door, then impulsively ducked into the first bedroom. A beach towel hung over a chair back; damp swim trunks were lying on the floor. An open suitcase rested on a luggage rack.

Annie checked the suitcase and the closet. Nothing book-related at all.

In the second bedroom—the larger one—she found a pile of Festival material addressed to Kenneth Hazlitt. “Bingo,” she said softly. She went through the open luggage and the chest of drawers and closet in a flash.

But she didn’t find a manuscript entitled
Song of the South.

And she didn’t find any other promotion material mentioning the book, although she found plenty of pamphlets and flyers on the autumn titles from Mint Julep Press.

Annie returned to the living area.

That’s when she saw the Limoges platter on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

Annie skirted the sofa, stared down at the platter. A card lay propped against it. She would know that spidery
handwriting anywhere, curlicues and furbelows and many words heavily underlined:

Annie looked around the room, half-expecting Miss Dora to materialize in her black silk dress with her coal-black, frighteningly intelligent eyes, her shaggy silver hair, and her wizened, parchment-pale face.

But there was only the platter with its note.

The postscript looked like an inebriated spider had decided to dance a polka:

It was the P.P.S. that made Annie shake her head in wonder.

Annie lifted the plastic wrap from the platter. Hmm. She picked up a piece of Divinity from the middle. It wouldn’t be missed.

The candy melted in her mouth. She licked her fingers. Unable to resist temptation, she scooped up a second piece, then, shrugging, picked up a foil-decorated square. A mock-up of a page from Laurel’s book, of course.

Annie gave it a 2 out of 10. She edged out a third piece of candy. What the hey. She’d
earned
it.

Then she picked up Henny’s excerpt: