Spade’s mantra: nothing and nobody kept him from finding out the truth.
Annie whirled and marched to the coffee bar, plucked the receiver from the phone, punched a number. Max claimed no one had found anything out of the ordinary during Pat’s final days. That wasn’t true. At least one night Pat’s lights were on late and she was seen returning from the forest. Okay, what was in the forest? A path that led to the Jamison house. Billy could claim Annie was reaching too far to insist that Pat saw something at the Jamison house that caused her death. Maybe so. But there was no denying Pat’s lights had continued to shine late at night. That was odd fact one. Odd fact two was Pat’s trip to the travel agency on Friday, the very day she died. She’d taken travel brochures with her. Annie could imagine those brochures lying on the table and a guest picking them up. Or perhaps Pat handed a brochure to her guest, saying something lightly about a trip of a lifetime—if only she had the money.
When Billy Cameron came on the line, Annie plunged right to her point. “Have you found the travel brochures?”
“I’m sending Officer Harrison to the Merridew house to look for them.” He sounded patient. “Since you are convinced the brochures are important, why don’t you meet her there? Maybe you will have some good ideas. Be there in fifteen minutes.”
The phone clicked off.
Annie would have been pleased, but she knew her presence was just another way of saying sayonara.
Officer Hyla Harrison had relocated to Broward’s Rock after her patrol partner was gunned down in a Miami alley. She always moved fast, her narrow face often drawn in a frown of concentration. She was serious, responsible, and humorless. She took murder very seriously indeed and initially had found the idea of a mystery bookstore offensive. “There’s nothing funny about murder,” she’d told Annie not long after they first met. When Annie agreed and explained that murder is never funny, people are funny, Hyla reconsidered. Now she was a devoted reader of Tana French and Ed McBain.
Annie watched as the patrol car turned precisely into Pat Merridew’s driveway. Perhaps only Officer Harrison could make the turn of a car appear as skillfully executed as a scalpel marking an incision.
Hyla, as always, looked crisp and fresh in her khaki uniform, her auburn hair drawn back into a sleek bun. She walked swiftly to the front steps, carrying a black case. Unsmiling, she looked up at Annie. “The chief said you were here to observe me.” She jerked her head and marched past Annie to pull open the screen and unlock the door.
Annie hurried to catch up. “Hyla—”
The trim patrol woman turned. “Officer Harrison.”
Annie reached out a hand in appeal. She wasn’t going to lose the trust she’d slowly, very slowly, earned with Hyla if she could help it. “The chief knows I have great respect for you. You are careful and thorough and this is a situation that needs that kind of attention to detail. That’s why he sent you. He knows you won’t miss anything. He gave me permission to be here because I think Pat Merridew was murdered.” Because she believed what she was saying, her tone was genuine.
Hyla’s stiff shoulders relaxed. A slight frown tugged at her brows. “He told me you suggested the check for fingerprints in the china cabinet.” She tilted her head to study Annie. “Why did you think of that?”
Quickly Annie described Pat’s attitude toward the suicide in
Hyla swung the door open, held it for Annie.
“—only the one mug was found”—Annie pointed at the coffee table—“so we looked for the other.” She pointed toward the breakfront.
Hyla nodded. “Crystal.”
Annie knew Hyla understood. Sitting alone in the evening for a cup of coffee, Pat would drink from her everyday pottery, not use crystal. Annie’s eyes met Hyla’s and saw a gleam of agreement.
“Okay.” Hyla was crisp. “The victim picked up travel brochures the day she died.”
Annie felt as if she’d climbed a steep cliff and emerged on top. To Hyla, Pat Merridew was now a victim.
Hyla’s eyes narrowed. “So she was excited about the trip she wanted to take. She gets the brochures. She probably put them in her purse. She comes home after work.” Hyla surveyed the small living room. “Let’s check the purse first.”
The slender patrol officer put down the case on the coffee table, flipped up the lid, pulled out two pairs of latex gloves, and handed one set to Annie. She picked up the purse, a nylon summer tote bag with a design of blue sailboats against a cream background. She opened the bag and, using pincers from the case, carefully lifted out the contents: lip gloss, compact, hand sanitizer, aspirin bottle, box of mints, hairbrush, comb, case with sunglasses, BlackBerry, small notebook, three ballpoint pens, crumpled bingo card, small packet of Kleenex, billfold, checkbook, change purse, car keys, package of red licorice. She shook her head and returned the items as carefully as she had removed them.
Annie moved slowly around the perimeter of the living room. Pat had been a tidy housekeeper. There were no papers or magazines tucked in the bookcase. She edged open the TV console. The remote lay atop the previous Sunday’s TV guide.
Hyla jerked a thumb. “Let’s try the kitchen. Maybe she wanted to study them while she ate dinner.”
Once in the kitchen, Annie was struck by the supper dishes now bone-dry, the dog’s empty water bowl. She looked at the kitchen table, empty except for one place mat and a pottery sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers.
Hyla stepped to the white plastic wastebasket, used the foot press to lift the lid.
Annie moved near. “Billy said they found an empty pill bottle right on top of the trash.”
Hyla spread a black plastic bag on the kitchen floor and painstakingly removed the contents of the wastebasket: an empty egg carton, used tea bags, rinsed-out cans, cellophane wrappers, assorted boxes and bags.
