Authors: Carolyn G. Hart
She hissed at that, but absently, because she was scanning the sea of faces. People were jammed elbow to elbow despite
the sixty-foot length of the Petree.’ baronial living area. All the movers and shakers of Broward’s Rock were present. For the first time, Annie noticed the ten-foot banners strung across the center of the room, blazoning the titles of the five plays scheduled for the summer:
Arsenic and Old Lace, The Mousetrap, Blithe Spirit, My Sister Eileen,
and
The Moon Is Blue.
Annie’s eyes narrowed. Wait a minute. Wait a minute!
The Mousetrap
was already in rehearsals, because, in common with most summer theater groups, the players produced one play while simultaneously rehearsing the next. While the number two play ran, rehearsals would be underway for
Blithe Spirit.
But Annie hadn’t heard of any problems with
The Mousetrap.
Was the sabotage limited to
Arsenic and Old Lace?
She stopped gazing at the milling throng with mild interest and began to hunt. She saw the mayor listening attentively to a banker, Police Chief Saulter shaking hands with the Island Hills golf pro, a damp Harley Jenkins sullenly sampling some of the buffet extravaganza, and there, near the mirrored back wall, the very person she sought.
When Annie reached the edge of the admiring circle, mystery author Emma Clyde smiled a greeting. Annie waited until she’d finished signing several autographs, then wormed her way closer.
Emma welcomed her genially. “How’s crime, Annie?”
As always, Emma’s frosty blue eyes seemed to delve into the untidiest corners of Annie’s mind and Annie had to fight the impulse to flee. Tonight Emma wore a startling print dress, magenta begonias against an emerald background, instead of her customary caftan. She still looked like a housewife playing jet set … until you looked into those piercing eyes.
“Crime pays you better than it does me,” Annie responded.
The best-selling author chuckled. “It pays when I concoct, but I’m finding that a little hard these days. I don’t know why I ever agreed to direct
The Mousetrap.”
“Oh, I know why. It’s the fascination of seeing a Christie plot come to life.”
Emma nodded appreciatively. “Perceptive of you, dear.”
“How are rehearsals coming? Have you had any difficulties?”
Not only had the crew and cast of
The Mousetrap
not suffered any hitches, the entire experience had gone exceptionally smoothly: cast members who liked one another, word-perfect rehearsals, props all gathered in two weeks ahead of time, a perfect attendance record by all the players.
“How nice that it’s all going so well,” Annie said cheerfully, as she thought how fascinating it was that
The Mousetrap
appeared exempt from the sabotage which had so crippled
Arsenic and Old Lace.
As they parted, Emma said briskly, “I’ve been meaning to get over to the store. Will you order those TR books for me?”
Annie looked at her blankly. Had Eugene somehow instilled his mania for Teddy Roosevelt in Emma? She seemed a most unlikely recruit.
With a shade of impatience, the writer said, “You know, the books with Roosevelt as the detective:
The Big Stick
and
Speak Softly
by Lawrence Alexander.”
In her relief, Annie nodded excitedly. “Oh, sure. Certainly. Yes.
Those
books. Yes, I will. As soon as possible.”
She was aware, as she backed away, smiling and waving, that Emma was studying her with renewed interest. She wondered if she would appear in Emma’s next book as a young entrepreneur suffering a nervous breakdown.
She struggled back toward the French windows. Max, if he ever returned with libations, would surely seek her in that area. She found the statue of Pan and leaned against it, lost in thought.
If the objective was to ruin the season, why was play number two apparently immune?
Were she and Max off on the wrong foot entirely? Was disruption of the summer season not the point of the sabotage? Was the animus directed simply and solely toward the cast and crew, or perhaps the director, of
Arsenic?
But the sabotage hadn’t stopped rehearsals. The major result had been a lack of cohesion, a sense of unease among the cast and crew members, like corralled horses who have heard the unmistakable
thu-rumm
of a rattler and know he’s out there
somewhere. Could that generally nervous atmosphere be the point of all the petty tricks? It scarcely seemed worth the effort. Of course, the most recent irritant, the inclusion of the
Macbeth
quote, had certainly affected Sam. But why would anyone want to devil the high-strung, emotional director? Maybe the same kind of person who liked to pull the wings off butterflies.
Then a passing figure caught her eye. She strained to see better. What the hell was Henny Brawley up to now?
No one else appeared to be paying the slightest attention to Henny, and that demonstrated just how much everybody, except Annie, had had to drink, because Henny was strikingly noticeable. She now appeared to have a quantity of mousey brown hair tinged with gray that was drawn back in a bun, the whole, including an Alexandra fringe of bangs, quite firmly controlled by a net. She wore a substantial hat with a mass of ribbons at the back and a clump of forget-me-nots and pansies on the left side. A pale complexion. Only the fox-sharp nose couldn’t be tamed. But there was no mistaking, Annie felt sure, the smooth, controlled passage of Miss Maud Silver.
And she might as well have stalked across the floor with a magnifying glass held high, she was so obviously in pursuit of someone.
Annie stood on tiptoe. Across the room, Max stood in a four-deep line at the bar. She whirled just in time to see Henny slip through the French windows and out onto the terrace.
Of course, she wouldn’t be drawn. It was just Henny playing sleuth.
But why had she gone out on the terrace?
Annie took a few steps toward the French windows. After all, it wouldn’t hurt a thing just to take a peek. And the blare of the trumpets and the thick haze of tobacco smoke
were
wearing. Really, it was awfully hot. She slipped out onto the terrace, welcoming the cool, fresh air tinged with unmistakable dampness from the nearby lagoon. Lights in the southern red cedars danced on the dark water. Where had Henny gone? Annie started down wooden steps. The cattails along the lagoon wavered in the night breeze, and the willows rustled.
She had almost reached the base of the steps when she realized there was an embracing couple in the gazebo at the foot of the slope. Tactfully, she turned and began to climb. Midway, a dark shape brushed past her. Was that Henny? She stopped. No, there was a darker shade near a tall planter’s vase at the edge of the terrace, and she saw a flicker of moonlight on straw. Henny’s hat. So who was she watching? Then the figure that had passed Annie reached the wash of light from the windows. Janet Horton stopped on the terrace and pressed her hands against her eyes. Even in the diffused light, Annie could see the trembling of her mouth, the tears glistening on her cheeks. She took several deep shuddering breaths. As she blundered back into the house, her mouth was twisted into a smile that was painful to see.
Annie paused and glanced back down the steps. She didn’t have to go and see who embraced in the gazebo. Janet’s face told her that. Abruptly, footsteps grated on the stone terrace above her. T.K. Horton’s burly shoulders were slumped, and his face a study in misery. He hesitated, staring after his wife, then, face hardening, swung around and rushed down the wooden steps, moving so heavily that the boards shook beneath him.
“T.K.—”
He brushed past Annie as if she weren’t there, and she knew nothing existed for him but the reality of his daughter in Shane’s arms, and the haunting figure of his wife, running away from the discovery.
Oh, God. Annie took two steps up toward the house, changed her mind, turned and started back down, stopped again and flapped her hands indecisively. What should she do? Well, it wasn’t her business to do anything. But somebody could get killed. At least, somebody would, if this were a Leslie Ford novel of love and lovers gone wrong.
Over the bleat of the Dixieland five and the chorus of amorous frogs, she listened, waiting for screams, shouts, blows—
It was almost anticlimactic when T.K. emerged from the gazebo, his hand clamped to his daughter’s arm, hauling her up the steps, a hostile, protesting bundle of teenage animosity. “Daddy, let go of me! I can kiss whoever I want to—and
I don’t care what you and Mama say. You’re jealous. Both of you.”
T.K. didn’t say a word. His face looked like leather that had been out in the sun too long.
Annie squeezed back against the railing to let them pass. Neither seemed to notice her. The Hortons were too involved in their own emotions to spare a thought for onlookers. It was a funny feeling to be invisible. But T.K. and Cindy were surely visible on the light-flooded terrace as he yanked the shrilly protesting teenager toward the side of the house. And who was standing, framed in the window and looking down the steps, but Sheridan. The light etched her glamorous silhouette for a long moment, then she turned back into the room.
Annie would have given a good deal to have seen Sheridan’s face.
The wooden steps quivered beneath her.
“Hey, Annie baby, how’s about a little kiss?”
Shane reached out for her, and Annie adroitly dodged his seeking hands and ran lightly up the steps, carrying with her the cloying smell of bourbon and the picture of a flushed face streaked with lipstick.
She paused at the top of the stairs. “Better wipe your face off, honey lover—or your wife may be curious about your taste in cosmetics.”
“Oooh. Sounds like the lady’s jealous.” Shane swayed and grabbed the railing to steady himself.
“God, you do flatter yourself.”
As she stepped through the window, she saw Henny’s hat-laden head poke out from behind the urn. So she was still tracking Shane. Even Miss Silver might find some of his activities daunting.
Annie welcomed the tobacco-thick haze of the house. It and the battering pound of the music were preferable to the emotional dangers lurking outdoors. Searching for Max, she jumped when a heavy arm slid around her shoulder. “Aw, come on, Annie, you can give the host a little kiss, can’t you?”
She saw Max approaching, with drinks in both hands. “Go find another playmate,” she snapped, sidestepping Shane and starting toward Max.
Shane lumbered at her heels.
They came even with Hugo. Glowering down at Burt Conroy, the big actor looked even more dangerous than when he was portraying Jonathan. Edging past, she heard Hugo snarl, as he gestured violently with his cigar, “Get rid of him, Burt!”
Burt’s narrow face set in stubborn lines. “Look, Hugo, I know he’s a pain, but you’ve got to look at the money—”
But Hugo wasn’t listening. He’d spotted Shane, and his malevolent glare was now directed at the drunken host.
Tra-la, tra-la. What happiness and joy Shane was bringing into the lives of his fellow players.
Annie put on a burst of speed. Reaching Max, she held out her hand for her drink. She’d never looked forward with quite the same eagerness to a gin and tonic, but this was one of the driest evenings she’d ever—
Shane bumped against her shoulder, and her drink sloshed, spattering her new evening slippers.
She looked at him in exasperation. “Shane, will you please—”
“Annie, I’ve just had all I can take.” His words were slurred, but he spoke loudly enough that people standing near turned to look.
He was drunk, but not so drunk he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. His eyes glittered with malice.
“Yeah. I mean, why don’t you leave a man alone? Callin’ me, comin’ after me all the time. I keep tellin’ you, honey, I’m a married man, so, cool it, will you?” The words might be slightly slurred, but he delivered them with more force than he had ever exhibited on stage.
Annie’s mouth hung open. The louse. The creep. The almighty jerk!
Shane looked past her. “Jesus, honey, I just took it as long as I could.”
Sheridan’s smooth face turned toward Annie without a flicker of emotion.
Annie took a deep breath. “You may be drunk, Shane, but that’s the sorriest excuse for a joke I ever heard.”
Some onlookers tactfully turned away, but there was no escaping the curious sidelong glances. Someone snickered. Annie’s face flamed.
Sheridan ignored her, nodding at her husband. “Shane, come over here. I want you to meet the Fishers’ guests from Key Biscayne,” and they were gone, leaving Annie and Max in a little circle of cautious avoidance.
“I could kill him!” Her voice was a frustrated screech, and she was the object of renewed appraisal, which made her even angrier. She stamped her foot furiously and longed for something to throw. “Have you ever in your life seen anything sleazier? The sorry bastard. He made a pass at me outside, and I told
him
to get lost.” She glared at Max. “What are you laughing at?”
“Annie, love,” he said sweetly, “if you could just control your appetites.”
“Max!” She took a deep breath, preparatory to launching a vitriolic attack on his misplaced sense of humor, when most unpartylike sounds and movements erupted near the punch bowl.
“Oh, my God—”
Spinning around, Annie saw a woman in emerald green silk clutch at her mouth, then begin to vomit.
She was the first of many. Soon, the spectacularly appointed dining area with its twin ice sculptures of the tragedy and comedy masks, its sumptuously loaded buffet table, its tall silver vases filled with sweet-scented iris, was as gruesome as a scene from a teenage horror flick.
The bell sang as the front door of Death on Demand closed after Ingrid. Annie had urged her assistant to take her time over her late lunch. June, of course, was the beginning of high season for tourists, but the rush always slacked off between one-thirty and two-thirty. Annie often wondered why. Late lunches? Afternoon siestas? Erotic frolics? Speaking of—She glanced down at her watch. Max should be here soon. But that reminded her of last night and Shane’s little joke. All right, she’d given Max an earful on the way home. He’d been properly penitent, but there was still a glint of laughter in his blue eyes. Moreover, he had soothed, nobody with a working mind would believe a word of it. Sheridan might—wives had been known to swallow incredible tales
from husbands—but everybody else on the island knew Shane’s habits. Still, it was
insulting!
But she was able this morning to dredge up a tiny smile. Grudgingly. After all, she didn’t want Max to think she lacked an appreciation for the absurd. And, of course, the finale to the Petree party had certainly proved a distraction. Probably nobody would even remember that short exchange between Shane and Annie. Thank God she’d
never
liked passion-fruit champagne punch. At least, Chief Saulter believed the onslaught of illness could be traced to the punch.