have seen Tommy when he came home to see your dad.”
“They trapped me.” Now Laura was crying. “They told me Kirk was wearing a plaid shirt and then they asked if the shirt I saw was blue. I was so glad it wasn’t Kirk that I said yes. I wasn’t thinking about Tommy. I didn’t know he was wearing a blue shirt Tuesday morning.”
“What did you see that morning?”
“I only caught a glimpse of a guy in blue coming onto the terrace. I thought it was Kirk. Then, in just a few minutes, I heard running feet and somebody raced from the terrace across the backyard. Again, I thought it was Kirk. I couldn’t see Elaine’s front door because of a willow. I’d have known it wasn’t Kirk if I’d seen him go to the cottage. Tommy said he left his bike down by the garage.”
Annie’s voice was sharp. “Were you on the porch the entire morning?”
“I’ve told you and told the police. Yes. I was there.”
“But once you said you’d gone inside for a few minutes.”
“That’s because you were badgering me and I didn’t want to say I’d seen Kirk. I should have known it wasn’t him, but I thought he was coming over to try and talk to Dad.”
It was like hearing a cell door click.
“What difference does it make now?” Laura was querulous.
“If you were there the entire time and you saw only Tommy”—Annie drew a deep breath—“then there’s no one else who could have shot your father.”
The silence pulsed. “You mean . . . Oh, no, no, that can’t be. Not Tommy. No, someone came through the front. That’s what happened.” There was huge relief in her voice.
Annie was brusque. “A telephone lineman was across the street. No one came in the front door until the police arrived.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The murderer came across the backyard.” Annie heard the sadness in her own voice.
“Oh. The guy could be wrong. And if he isn’t”—the words came fast—“then I know the murderer must have come”—she struggled for breath—“when I went inside for a few minutes. I mean, I wasn’t out there the whole time. Somebody could have come and I wouldn’t have seen them. So it doesn’t have to be Tommy. I’ll tell them as soon as they let us talk to them again. Anybody can make a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I thought it didn’t matter. See, I went inside and I went to the top of the stairs and I was going to go down and talk to Dad and”—a pause—“I heard a door close downstairs and I decided I’d wait and see him later. So there was time for someone else to come. Oh. I’ve got to go now.”
The call ended.
Annie replaced the phone. Laura didn’t lie particularly well. That didn’t matter. Her response told Annie all she needed to know. Laura hadn’t left the porch. She would be glad to claim that she’d left, if it would help Tommy. But Annie knew in her heart that Laura had been on the porch the entire morning. She had seen Darwyn. She had seen Tommy. She had not seen Elaine. She had seen Richard, but by that time Tommy had run to the cottage with the gun and the bloodied shirt, leaving his father dead in the study.
Annie poured the now lukewarm coffee in the sink. Her steps felt leaden as she moved across the coffee area. She and Max and Billy had tried hard to find the truth and now the truth seemed inescapable.
Laura had seen what she had seen.
She’d watched Darwyn, moving no doubt with his swagger and compelling maleness. Darwyn had tangled with the wrong person. He would never again be alive with lust in Jasmine Gardens. Somewhere on the island some woman knew him well. Now it didn’t matter that she’d been impossible to find. There had been no one else in the Jamison backyard on that deadly Tuesday morning but Darwyn at work with the leaf blower and Tommy coming later, angry with his father, and in front of the house a telephone lineman with a clear view of the Jamison front porch.
Annie shook her head in confusion. Billy had emphasized the careful planning he thought he saw in the crimes. Was Tommy able to mount that kind of effort? Pat Merridew’s death had been cunningly contrived. How would Tommy know she had pain pills? Would Pat serve Irish coffee to a teenager? Would a teenage boy think in terms of carefully washing and returning a crystal glass to a breakfront? Even if all of that were possible, would Tommy use his aunt’s golf club for a third murder and hide her gardening gloves in a tree where they were sure to be found? And why would Darwyn calmly sit on the top step of the gazebo and permit someone he suspected of murder to step behind him in the dark?
Fragments of thoughts jostled in her mind. Tuesday morning . . . Laura sitting on the upper verandah . . . the leaf blower . . .
Annie paused in front of the fireplace. To her left, a Cat Truth poster was a little askew. She stepped forward, her hand out to straighten it, but she stopped and stared at the Bombay Tom, black as pitch, looking as satisfied as a gambler with a royal flush, bright yellow eyes gleaming, and on the floor a broken fishbowl:
Everything shifted in her mind.
Billy had been right to emphasize planning. Now she understood why the gun had been hidden in the gazebo, the necessity for Glen to die on Tuesday morning, the function of the leaf blower, the deliberate use of Elaine’s five iron, passion and lust, Kirk still a partner, Richard’s decision to leave the island . . .
Annie darted into the storeroom, grabbed her purse. She reached for the door handle, then stopped. She turned and walked slowly to her desk, sank into the chair.
There was no proof.
All she had was an elegant theory.
Did her theory account for the quirks and oddities that had occurred since the key to the gun safe
