Mint Julep Murder (7 page)

She didn’t even bother to glance at the identifying line. “Right on, Nero,” she said aloud.

Pfui, indeed.

On the ground floor, Annie hurried out of the elevator. She was halfway down the hall by the meeting rooms when Willie Hazlitt came in the side door, lugging a hefty box. He stopped in front of the open doors to the White Ibis Room and beamed. And blocked her way.

“I knew if I was a good boy I’d be rewarded. And I am—the prettiest author liaison in publishing history. Come on in and note my good work.” He walked into the
White Ibis Room, calling out over his shoulder, “Come look.”

He was so proud of himself, in such good humor, that Annie smiled and followed him into the room.

And yes, there were books everywhere.

“I unpacked all the boxes. God, you wouldn’t think there could be that many boxes! Everything’s set up for the open house tomorrow, all the new books from Mint Julep Press, sure to impress everybody.” He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Booksellers, that’s the ticket. Kenneth’s invited hundreds of them!”

Annie knew that was an exaggeration. There were maybe a hundred and twenty bookstore people registered for the book fair.

“Ken was torn. He wanted books upstairs, he wanted books here. I’ve still got some to scatter about in the suite for our little gathering this afternoon. Not, of course, a gathering for
hoi polloi.
Just the cream of the crop. The Medallion winners and a few select others. Including you.” He sighed. “Of course, then I have to pack all those books up and haul them to the booth.”

Annie gave it a try. “Kenneth?” she asked crisply.

Willie shook his head in mock sorrow. “I can’t imagine why you’d want Ken instead of me. I’m much better looking. Don’t you agree?” He strolled to a six-foot-tall cutout next to the first table and draped his arm over the shoulders. “Ken’s latest promo effort. I asked him what he’s trying to sell, his body or his books?”

Annie walked over to the cutout.

By this time, Kenneth Hazlitt had taken shape in her mind as a leering, hateful creature practically endowed with horns.

She said, as she so often did, the first thing that came to mind.

“You don’t look a bit alike.”

“Nope. My mama married his papa. We’re step-buds.”

The cardboard Kenneth was a big man, bigger than Willie, with thick curly blond hair and a round face. A huge grin stretched his wide mouth. Dimples creased his plump
cheeks. A big Panama hat tilted jauntily on the back of his head. A pink carnation poked from the lapel of his artistically crumpled white suit. In his hands, he held a book.

With a sense of shock, Annie read the title:
Song of the South.

“It’s not out, is it?”

Willie looked blank.

“The book.” She pointed.

Willie shrugged. “I don’t know. I get confused. I’ve only been with the company for two weeks. All I know is, brother Ken’s having a blast. But hey, I know lots more fun things to talk about. Like me. Why don’t we find the bar …”

Annie nimbly sidestepped the arm Willie tried to drape over her shoulder. “Sorry.” Her smile was blithe. “I’ve got to run.”

Annie watched the small plane roll to a stop.

The Hilton Head airport handled commuter flights. She’d just have time to get Alan Blake to the hotel and return to pick up Missy Sinclair, then head back for Jimmy Jay Crabtree. At least she didn’t have to trek to the Savannah airport again today. Leah Kirby was the only author who had refused to fly on a small plane. Not that Annie thought that an unreasonable decision.

Blake was the third passenger out. He paused for just an instant on the top step before starting down.

Full of himself, Annie immediately decided. Though perhaps he couldn’t be faulted. Blake’s kind of ail-American good looks—wavy chestnut hair, blue eyes, regular features—would have invited adulation throughout his life. And she thought she recalled from his bio sheet that he was an accomplished tennis player. Of course, football was the route to hero status in the South, but any letter jacket would be a plus.

He ran lightly down the steps. He stopped on the runway, his eyes swiftly scanning the welcomers behind the fence.

Annie waved and called, “Mr. Blake.”

He returned her wave, but his eyes kept right on looking. His smile was automatic, meaningless. Then he was through the gate, shaking her hand. There was a little more effort to charm.

“Annie, this is a real pleasure. I’ve heard about your wonderful bookstore—no, this is all the luggage I have—So you just sell mysteries. Who are your favorite writers in the genre? I really enjoy Tony Hillerman.”

This conversation Annie could do. “He’s one of my biggest sellers. If you like his books, you’d enjoy the Cherokee mysteries by Jean Hager. And Judith Van Gieson’s New Mexico books.”

They talked mysteries—Caroline Graham and Betty Rowlands, Max Allan Collins and Ed Gorman, Barbara D’Amato and Maxine O’Callaghan, Marilyn Wallace and Jeffery Deaver—all the way to the parking lot.

Blake continued to scan his surroundings.

It wasn’t the eager gaze of a tourist.

It was wary, defensive—and very alert.

Even when they were in the car, he continued to look around the parking area.

Annie reached into her carryall. “Mr. Blake—”

“Alan,” he interrupted immediately, “by all means.”

Annie smiled. “All right, Alan. Here’s your packet. It has your schedule, including your panel and book-signing times.” She gave him a few minutes to look it over, then, with a deep breath, she retrieved a pink sheet from her purse. “This brochure is being distributed by Mr. Kenneth Hazlitt.”

And she handed it to Blake.

As he read it, Annie quickly repeated her defense of the Medallion selection process, concluding, “The Festival is outraged on behalf of its honorees, and we’re doing everything we can to prevent Mr. Hazlitt from continuing his harassment.”

The Volvo segued into the proper lanes as she curved around the Sea Pines Circle. Smoothly. She was so busy congratulating herself on this success that she was startled
and almost swerved into the lagoon when Blake demanded sharply: “What
are
you doing?”

In mysteries, Annie especially admired the nimble-witted protagonist never at a loss for an answer. Tommy Hambledon never sputtered in a reply.

Unprepared, she blurted, “I’m going to tell Hazlitt he has to stop harassing our honorees or I’ll bar him from the Festival.”

“That won’t do anything about the book.” Blake’s voice was bleak.

“No one can do anything about that.” She concentrated on negotiating Coligny Circle. As she turned into the hotel parking lot, she asked briskly, “Is there anything you need for this evening?”

Alan Blake rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked suddenly older, not quite so pretty. “Where’s Kenneth Hazlitt staying?”

There was an undercurrent to his question.

But that, as far as Annie was concerned, was solely the problem of Mr. Kenneth Hazlitt.

“This hotel. Room 500.”

As they rode up in the elevator, he glanced at his folder with the electronic cardboard key. “Same floor as Kenneth?” He gave her a swift, suspicious look. Now his tone was hostile.

Annie told the truth. “Hazlitt engineered that. He convinced the director of the Festival that he was very excited about the honorees and wanted to have a party in their honor, so she put him on the same floor.”

Blake didn’t say anything until they stood in the living room of his suite. “So Kenneth conned the Festival, huh?”

“Mr. Blake, I’ve never met Kenneth Hazlitt. I don’t have any idea what he’s doing. I’ve told you all I know about it.”

But Blake wasn’t listening. Abruptly, he plunged past her, his face hard and tight. He reached the coffee table and grabbed up three videocassettes, knocking over the fruit basket in his haste.

He held the cassettes in his hands like they were
snakes, then, his face convulsed with rage, he turned on Annie.

“What the hell’s this stuff doing here?”

Annie carefully ignored the sexually explicit vinyl covers and said stiffly, “Those are the videos you ordered—”

“I ordered nothing. Get this crap out of here. And you get the hell out!”

Annie, her face flushed, returned the videos to Jeff Garrett at the desk. “There’s been a mistake. Mr. Blake said he didn’t order these.”

Garrett shrugged. “Somebody did. And so who’s going to pay for them? I’d put them on Blake’s bill.”

Annie shrugged in turn. “Jeff, I’ve got a lot of problems today, and that one’s not on my list. Oh, and please leave a message from me for Kenneth Hazlitt. ‘Mr. Hazlitt, I must speak to you, ASAP. Annie Darling, Room 508.’ Thanks, Jeff.”

“Annie, honey.” The drawl was sugar-sweet, but it coated a core of steel. “What does the Festival intend to do?” Spiky black hair framed a smooth, round face.

At first glance, Missy Sinclair looked like a little dumpling of a woman with an unlined, placid face.

In a second glance, a perceptive viewer might note that her bright dark eyes had a hypnotic quality and her rosebud mouth curved in a blend of guile and willfulness.

Annie eyed her carefully. She might not have given Missy Sinclair that second, careful glance except that she had read Missy’s books.

In
Corinne’s Passion
, when the heroine discovered that her husband was unfaithful, she bided her time until he and his lover planned a weekend tryst at a secluded cabin. Then she quite skillfully arranged for the woman’s husband to find them. The scorned husband was hard-drinking, high-tempered—and he always carried a rifle in his car. At her husband’s funeral, the grieving Corinne
touched a black lace handkerchief to her lips—to hide her smile.

In
Midnight Answer
, Mary Ann walked to the end of the pier. An unshaven, haggard young man swung to meet her. She held up both hands. “Don’t touch me.” He stared at her in disbelief. “I can’t imagine why you want to see me, Derek. But I’ve brought you some cash and a recommendation—”

“Mary Ann, I don’t want money. I didn’t do it for money.”

“Do what?” she asked.

“Mary Ann, you know. You know.” Her elderly husband had been found floating, drowned, in their pool.

“Why, Derek, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Now Annie looked into those hypnotic eyes. “We shall bar Mr. Hazlitt from participating in the Festival.” Annie said it firmly.

Those bright dark eyes blinked slowly. “I don’t reckon that will faze Kenneth. I wonder …”

Annie wondered, too. She had an inkling that the thoughts behind that pudding-soft face might put Edgar Allan Poe to shame.

“I will certainly insist that he refrain from any further linkage of his novel to the Medallion honorees.”

“Oh, honey, bless your heart.” Missy splashed two fingers of scotch in a tumbler. “Do you know, I doubt if that will just scare old Kenneth out of his pants. I think maybe it will take a little more than that. Why don’t you tell him—”

“Miss Sinclair—”

“Call me Missy, honey. Everybody does.”

Annie thought to do so was rather on a par with naming an anaconda Buffy. But Missy Sinclair’s plump face was so genial.

“Uh, thank you. Missy, perhaps it would be more effective if you spoke to Mr. Hazlitt yourself. He’s in Room 500.”

Missy downed half the glass of liquor. She did it smoothly, easily. Her mouth curved into an enigmatic
smile. “Honey, I just might do that.” It was the same sugar-sweet drawl.

But there was nothing sweet about those dark, hypnotic eyes.

“Who’s gonna carry my stuff?” Jimmy Jay Crabtree demanded. He pointed at a huge plaid duffel bag.

Annie eyed him with distaste. She hadn’t liked his picture on the back of his dust jacket, squinty little eyes, weak chin, sour mouth. On the telephone, his whiny voice had grated, and he wasn’t any better in person. Moreover, he was scrawny. She loathed scrawny men. She had an instant image of Max—solid, muscular, and sexy—and that made Crabtree look even weedier. And somebody should have told him that his blue polka-dot shirt clashed with his striped seersucker trousers. And his pants sagged over his bony butt.

Without a word, she reached down, hefted the bag, and started for the parking lot.

The lout followed, complaining. “Where are the reporters? Didn’t you get the word out when I was arriving?”

Annie snapped, “I’m not your publicist, Mr. Crabtree.”

“You’re supposed to set things up, aren’t you?” He scrambled to keep up.

Annie opened the trunk, dumped in the bag, slammed it shut, stalked around the automobile, not bothering to reply.

She unlocked the Volvo, slid behind the wheel.

Crabtree opened the passenger door.

And Annie saw the cigarette in his hand.

And smelled it, noisome, nasty, and rank.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Crabtree, I don’t permit smoking in my car.”

He slumped in the seat, took a deep drag, and blew the smoke toward her. “Look, broad, I smoke where and when I want to.”

“Out.”

He looked at her angrily. “Out.”

And she was out herself and whirling to the trunk. Seconds later, the plaid duffel bag hit the asphalt.

He charged around the car. “Wait a minute. You can’t do this.”

“The hell I can’t.”

And Annie was in the driver’s seat and punching the door lock.

Crabtree pounded on the side of the car.

Annie gunned the motor; the Volvo leapt forward.

Let him walk. Let him
crawl.
Hopefully, he’d stumble into a lagoon and be eaten by a ’gator.

She was halfway to the hotel when she realized she hadn’t given Crabtree his Festival packet or his key.

No problem.

She stopped at the desk. “Jeff, when Mr. Crabtree arrives, please give him this packet. It includes the key to his room.”

It also included, right on top, the first item in the packet, one of the bright pink flyers. Annie printed at the top:
Kenneth Hazlitt is in Room 500.

It was the most satisfactory moment in a profoundly unsatisfactory day.

Annie delicately edged out yet another Oyster Rockefeller. Okay, so they were a little rich for lunch. So?