Tuesday.”
The Crawford house on Heron Point was a ranch style, probably built in the late fifties. Annie always shook her head at homes that rested flush on the ground. A force-three hurricane would put all but a small portion of the island’s center under four feet of water from the storm surge.
A scrawny teenager, maybe five feet six and weighing a hundred and ten, dribbled a basketball up the drive, dodged an imaginary opponent, turned, and threw. The basketball bounced on the rim, teetered, plopped to the drive. He caught it on the bounce.
Annie shut the car door and walked swiftly across the yard. “Buddy?”
The boy turned and looked at her politely. “Ma’am?” He appeared helpful and well mannered, apparently accepting without thought or question that a woman he didn’t know knew him.
“Did Tommy Jamison bring your shirt back?”
Buddy looked shocked and uncertain. The direct question implied knowledge. Buddy’s thumb rubbed hard against the seam on the basketball. “Tommy’s shirt?”
“The one he borrowed Tuesday morning after he came back.”
Buddy looked bewildered. “How’d you know?”
Annie’s gaze was pleasant. “He was seen in the backyard at his house and now we are simply getting the times straight. When did Tommy leave your house?”
Buddy shuffled his feet.
Annie was firm. “We know what happened and it will be better for Tommy if you can confirm what time he left here and when he returned. He was wearing a blue shirt when he left, but when he came back to your house, he didn’t have on a shirt.” She saw indecision and, finally, resignation. She watched him grope through his thoughts. He’d promised Tommy he’d keep quiet, but somehow Tommy had been found out.
“Yeah. Well. Tommy didn’t want me to tell anyone. See, his shirt—”
Annie interrupted. “The blue polo.”
Buddy nodded. “Yeah. He got blood on his shirt.” Buddy looked at her in entreaty, big brown eyes filled with concern.
Annie knew she was taking advantage of a teenager’s credulity. She’d set out to prove Elaine Jamison innocent of murder. Everything about Elaine—her gentleness, her obvious devotion to her brother, her desperate unhappiness since his murder—had combined to convince Annie that she needed help. But perhaps Annie was beginning to understand Elaine’s plea to be left alone to do what she felt she must do. Elaine loved her brother but she loved Tommy, too. It took an effort for Annie to speak. She knew her voice was thin. “It’s better to straighten things out.” She wasn’t at all sure that clarifying the truth about his shirt was better for Tommy Jamison.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t mind loaning him a shirt. He came back and he was all upset. Poor guy. He was shaking and crying. He found his dad dead and somebody had shot him. Tommy accidentally kicked the gun and then he picked it up.”
Annie heard the echo of Elaine’s explanation.
Buddy looked earnest. “He wasn’t thinking. He was scared. He was afraid to call the police because he and his dad, well, they’d had a fight, and that morning Tommy had gone home to have it out with him about school and everything. He said if his dad didn’t come around, he was going to run away and then his family could wonder what had happened to him. He got up to the study door and it was open and he pushed inside, ready to yell at his dad. He said that’s maybe why he was moving so fast he didn’t see the gun, but when he kicked it, he stopped and picked it up. Then he got really freaked. He had blood on his hand and he wiped it on his shirt. He ran out of the house and pulled the shirt off. He ran down to the cottage and his aunt took the gun and his shirt. She told him to go back to my house. Anyway, he got on his bike and came back here. He didn’t know what to do. I told him maybe it would be better when he got home to act like he didn’t know anything. I gave him one of my shirts to wear.”
Annie looked sympathetic. “I guess he was really scared to call the police since he’d told you he was going to go home and have it out with his dad once and for all.”
Buddy turned the basketball in his hands. “Well, he wouldn’t have sounded so mad at his dad if he’d known somebody was going to shoot him.”
Mavis Cameron smiled at Annie. “Billy said to come on in.” She clicked to open the locked door to the interior of the police station.
Annie stepped into the corridor. She forced herself forward, stopped at the door with Billy’s name on frosted glass. When she revealed what she knew, Tommy Jamison might become the prime suspect. If she didn’t tell Billy, Elaine Jamison would be arrested. She took a deep breath, turned the knob.
Billy looked up from his desk. Lines of fatigue pulled at his sturdy, broad face. He managed a faint smile as he stood and gestured toward a straight chair in front of his desk.
She moved forward and sank onto the chair.
Billy eyed her sharply. “You look about as grim as I feel.”
Annie took a deep breath and began without preamble. “Tommy Jamison . . .”
Billy listened intently, making notes. When she finished, he looked thoughtful. “I get the picture. His aunt lied to protect Tommy. That doesn’t surprise me. She never seemed right for a killer. For one thing, so far as we’ve been able to find out, she’s never shot a gun in her life. To hit her brother twice in the throat was more than blind dumb luck. And why the throat? To watch blood spew? The instinct is to go for the chest or, if you’re a really good shot, the head.”
He leaned back in his chair, stared out the window toward the harbor. “I’ll talk to the kid. He’ll probably open up when he finds out his friend let it all hang out. But even if he spills his guts, if it’s the same talk about kicking the gun and getting blood on his shirt, that won’t clear Elaine.”
Annie edged forward on the hard chair. “When Laura realizes she didn’t see Kirk and that you know Tommy was there, she can tell you exactly what she saw.”
