Max’s dark blue eyes were thoughtful. He didn’t answer directly. “When Elaine came out of the cottage, she was carrying a cloth wrapped around something, right?”
Annie saw Elaine’s image clearly, haunted, despairing, driven, one arm pressed tight over the small bundle. “That’s right.”
His tone was neutral. “In Pat’s photograph, the towel in the gazebo was wrapped around something.”
“Oh, wait a minute . . .” But the words trailed away.
Max picked up some sand, let it trickle through his fingers. “You saw Elaine shortly after she had apparently thrown an object into the marsh. Glen’s gun is missing and it was the same-caliber gun that killed him. One plus one, Annie. Elaine carried something wrapped in cloth and tossed something into the water. How hard is it to wonder if her cloth held the gun and if the towel in the photograph was wrapped around Glen’s Colt?”
Annie wished she could blot out the words, but they buzzed in her mind, persistent as no-see-’ums. She understood Max’s point. The Colt belonged to Glen. Someone took it from his study. What then? The gun had to be hidden until it was needed. Elaine no longer lived in the house. It seemed reasonable to assume that if she stole the gun, she would have hidden it in a convenient spot but not in her cottage. The gazebo was only steps away.
“I guess that’s how Billy figures it,” Annie admitted. “If Pat Merridew was murdered because she took that photograph, she must have seen someone place that towel in the gazebo. More than that, Pat must have explored the contents of the towel. She knew who hid the gun. She invited that person for coffee to talk about what she had seen. Pat said enough over the phone that her guest came armed with the painkiller. I think the killer knew enough about Pat to slip into her house when she was away and take a handful of the pills.”
“That would mean”—Max’s voice was grim—“that Glen’s murder was already planned. Pat died so that Glen could be shot.”
“It didn’t have to be Elaine.” Annie’s voice held a plea. But she looked away from Max’s somber gaze. Only Elaine lived outside the house. “If it was someone in the house”—she didn’t give up—“he or she probably wouldn’t try to hide it in a bedroom.”
Max was equable. “It’s an argument.”
But not one Annie felt she was likely to win with Billy.
Every path seemed to lead to Elaine.
An early-morning thunderstorm added another layer of humidity, though the rain was easing by the time she reached Death on Demand. Tourists wandered aimlessly around the store, avoiding the rain and enjoying the air-conditioning. Welcome to the Lowcountry in June. Happily, several carried hefty stacks to the counter. A big seller was Kathy Reichs’s latest Temperance Brennan title.
Annie was glad for the influx of customers, but she was almost out of Danishes. Every table was taken.
A teenager, her nose coated with sticky white zinc oxide apparently in preparation for reading on the beach, approached her. The girl held a Cat Truth poster. “How much does this picture cost? I don’t see a price tag. I’d love to have it, but I only have ten dollars with me.”
Annie glanced at the photograph. An Egyptian Mau, round green eyes bright in a wedge-shaped face, fine silver-tan silky coat marked with random black spots, lay on his back, tummy exposed, feet in the air:
Inspiration struck. “All of the posters are available for exactly ten dollars and the money is contributed to the Animal Rescue Refuge.” In a jiffy, she had placed the bill in a pottery bowl, added a printed card suggesting donations, and a happy teenager, her poster carefully sheathed in plastic wrap, hurried toward the front door.
“Tell everyone,” Annie called after her. She was thrilled. Maybe she could get rid of some of the posters and help the animal refuge as well. “More than one way to skin a cat,” she muttered. She felt out of sorts, but she knew her malaise wasn’t caused by a rainy Thursday morning or the posters. Her malaise came from the growing conviction that Elaine Jamison was Billy Cameron’s primary suspect and there was nothing Annie could do to change his mind.
If she could push away thoughts of Elaine, she would have a happy morning in her bookstore. Her gaze slid toward the Cat Truth posters. To tell the truth, she was becoming fond of the photographs and their captions. However, she didn’t intend to confess her capitulation to Laurel. She might have to ante up ten bucks and hang one particular poster in her office. An American Shorthair Snowshoe with intent blue eyes and the telltale four white feet was perched on a brick wall, oblivious to pelting rain, fur plastered down, drenched to the skin. He peered at a svelte Siberian Forest Cat, elegant and unattainable behind a windowpane:
She smiled and picked up the poster. Guys were guys, whether two-legged or four, and wasn’t that wonderful. She shut the storeroom door, determined to push away all thoughts of Elaine Jamison. She settled at the computer, clicked a HarperCollins order form, entered a list of fall titles . . .
The phone rang.
“Death on—”
Marian Kenyon, her voice gruff, cut her off. “Cop shop just had a press conference on the Jamison kill.”
Bubblegum wrappers littered the floor by Marian’s sandal-shod feet. Her words were slurred by the wad in her left cheek. She looked like a bright, intelligent, industrious squirrel readying for winter. “I’m not a shrink. Maybe Billy’s trying to pressure her. Whatever, Elaine’s got to be the lead”—her fingers flew over the keyboard—“and true to form I got a call to show up for Q and A about twenty minutes ago and my deadline”— she scrunched her face in irritation—“is in nine minutes. Can’t talk now. Read over my shoulder.” She yelled across the room to Ferroll Crump, the city editor. “Gimme sixteen inches.”
Ferret-faced Ferroll, a wizened refugee from the layoff surge that had swept through metropolitan dailies, grunted, “Yo.” Divorced, in debt, fond of the ponies, he’d landed at the
Five desks jammed the small newsroom. In addition to Ferroll and Marian, Big Bud Hoover manned the sports
