Death Comes Silently Read online

  She placed the kit in the captain’s seat, lifted the lid, retrieved powder, and dusted the steering wheel. When the coat had been applied, she stared down in surprise. No fingerprints. None. Not a single whorl or line. Last night the driver might likely have worn gloves as well as a thick jacket to ward off the cold. Even so, there should have been traces of smudged prints. Instead, the grey plastic wheel was clean and shiny. Obviously the wheel had been carefully polished. No gloves? Or simply great care?

  The latter seemed out of character for a joy ride.

  Joy ride…

  The police officer’s thin, freckled face squeezed in a frown. Kids did nutty things for sure, but a late-night jaunt on a low-forties December night, even colder out on the water with the wind, made no sense. On a hot July night, “borrowed” boats, skinny-dipping, smoking pot behind a sand dune came as no surprise.

  Again her probing gaze moved slowly over the boat. No bottles. No trash. If kids took the boat, there should have been some trace. She felt a prickle up her back. Something was off-kilter here. She studied the railing, moved nearer the transom. A scratch on the near gunwale marked the fiberglass. She bent closer, saw a greenish streak. Possibly something metal had struck the fiberglass, left particles of paint. She again used the camera. She almost turned to leave, then stopped. That green streak bothered her. It wouldn’t do any harm to get a sample. She picked up the evidence kit. She carefully lifted green paint particles to a transparent rubber-backed gelatin layer. As she removed the layer, she saw a tuft of material adhering to the railing. She methodically finished her task, then used a magnifying glass to look more closely. Her eyes narrowed. The scrap might be black cotton or wool snagged by a cracked spot in the plastic. She visualized a dark figure, moving fast, possibly swinging out of the boat to jump to shore, a gloved hand gripping the rail. Had a jacketed arm grazed the railing and a scrap torn free? She hesitated, then once again used the kit, bagged the scrap, applied a label. Whoever took the boat had tried not to leave a single trace, but that was hard to do in a physical world. Sometimes a tiny scrap would be enough to electrocute a man. Anyway, she’d turn in a complete report. Lou Pirelli would ask when was she going to stop trying to be a super cop, then grin and toss her a jelly donut, like a treat to a retriever. Sure, this wasn’t a big-deal heist, no harm done, but she liked to be meticulous. If there was evidence, she would gather every scrap. Never taking anything for granted was her way of keeping a structured world even though she well knew life could turn dangerous in a heartbeat. She swallowed, pushed away a memory that would never leave her, the night she called in from patrol in Miami, officer down, as her partner died from gunshots to his chest.

  She closed the evidence kit and focused on the slight rock of the boat and the chill breeze, anything to fill her mind.

  Jeremiah Young handled the axe easily. He was chunky with big shoulders and sturdy legs. He liked to feel the ripple of his muscles as he chopped kindling. Poor folks in real need of firewood came by Better Tomorrow now that the temperature dipped into the forties at night. Not that a sea island was ever real cold, not like Minnesota. Bad days up there. He swallowed hard. He’d been stupid. Stolen a car and tried to get away when a siren sounded. They told him he was lucky. Two years in jail. His mind shied away like a horse smelling a snake. Lucky… He’d never told anybody how bad the nights had been. That guy named… His mind shied again. Remembering made him feel sick, made him want to cry. He’d rather die than ever go to jail again. He’d been like a whipped dog when he made it back to the island. His aunt took him in, helped him get the job here at Better Tomorrow. He paused, wiped sweat from his face. Despite the cool day, the chopping made him hot, but he savored the sweat and the freedom. It was good to feel hot, to be outside, free.

  An old Chevy rattled up to one side of the shabby frame building and parked in the shade of the lean-to where the mower was stored along with ladders and some of the canned and boxed groceries.

  The car door slammed. He knew the driver. Mrs. Burkholt. He called her Mrs. Big-Eyes to himself. She sidled past him with a wide skittery stare like he was going to grab her. He’d opened the back door last week when she was on the phone… She spent a lot of time on the phone… chatter, chatter, chatter… Her high voice had risen and he couldn’t help hearing. “…supposed to help people who’ve been in jail, but he’s so big and he has such long straggly dirty hair and he always looks sullen. I swear, he scares me to pieces…” He’d walked inside, his steps purposefully heavy, and thumped the case of Cokes on a counter by the shelves. He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes as he passed. The old cow. He didn’t care about her. She’d be damn lucky if she never really knew what it was like to be scared.

  The axe head swung up and crashed down. The log splintered.

  On the back steps, Gretchen Burkholt gasped at the sharp crack. “Oooh. I hate that noise.”

  Billy Cameron’s big broad face, usually genial, was studiously inexpressive. The Broward’s Rock police chief sat with his hands planted solidly on his thighs in an office that gleamed with fine woods, a mahogany desk, oak paneling, heart pine floor, and expensive furnishings, an oriental rug, shining gold brocade drapes, a suit of armor on a pedestal. Billy’s observant blue eyes never wavered as he gazed across the room. Blond and husky, he was solidly built with massive shoulders and hands. In his crisp khaki uniform, he looked like what he was: a cop’s cop, a tough cop, a good cop. He stared impassively at a plump-cheeked, rotund man in a baby blue cashmere sweater who appeared small behind his massive desk.

  Only someone who knew Billy well would realize he was coldly angry, unblinking gaze, lines tight at the corners of his full mouth, shoulders braced.

  Mayor Cosgrove’s green eyes shifted from that steady stare. However, he continued full stride, his high voice penetrating. “…expect some accommodation of distinguished visitors. I told that policewoman of yours that I could drive, but she wouldn’t listen. She made Buck Troutt get out of the car and treated him like a common criminal. Rude. Uncalled for.”

  “Sergeant Harrison’s actions were appropriate.” Billy’s tone was even. “The car was driven erratically. Mr. Troutt failed the field sobriety test.”

  “He’s a CEO.” The mayor’s voice was reverential. “He’s thinking of buying the Mansfield property on the beach, developing it. Do you realize what that could mean to the island? The jobs, the people, the growth!” The mayor’s voice rose to a squeak. “This matter must be dealt with immediately. None of this should have happened. Why, we just had a few drinks at the club. Nobody was on the road. He had a little trouble seeing in the dark. And there’s no reason why that unattractive woman should have had her car parked outside the country club gates.” The mayor’s eyes slitted. “Let’s be clear. If the officer filing the report doesn’t appear in court, the charge will be dropped. I expect Sergeant Harrison to be off the island that day.”

  Billy slowly stood. “Sergeant Harrison will continue to perform her duties.”

  The mayor bounced to his feet, his penguin-plump face malevolent. “Your contract comes up before the council in three weeks. As police chief, you are expected to make the island attractive to investors.”

  Billy nodded gravely. “Anyone interested in living on Broward’s Rock can be assured that the laws are properly enforced.” He turned and walked toward the ornate hand-carved door, a fancy office for a small—but powerful—man.

  Annie Darling stopped on the boardwalk and leaned against the railing, drawing a deep breath of chilly sea-scented air. The marina hosted a respectable number of boats even though it was January. A crewman in a heavy wool jacket hosed down one side of an ocean-going yacht. Chugging out into the Sound was a boat with the unpretentious name Just Plain Vanilla. Annie liked unpretentious people and houses and belongings.

  As if on cue, she heard a distant throaty rumble and recognized the roar of Max’s Maserati. They usually drove separately to the marina shops, she to her mystery bookstore and he to Confidential C
ommissions, his rather unusual office where he offered counsel to people in trouble. Max was quick to insist he wasn’t a private detective, which required particular qualifications in the sovereign state of South Carolina. He was comfortable in his job description. He provided advice. If discovering information was essential to serving his clients, that certainly didn’t make him a private eye.

  The Maserati’s engine cut off.

  Annie pictured the man in her life swinging out of his red sports car. Max loved his Maserati, but he didn’t drive the powerful and swift car because it was expensive. He savored the power and elegance of the ultimate driving machine. Annie was willing to spot everyone an indulgence. The Maserati was Max’s. Hers? She possessed an original perfect first-edition—complete with color plate illustrations—of The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Certainly the Maserati was hugely more expensive than the book, but for both of them, the joy was in the object and never in the price.

  Annie’s smile was wry. Her husband often suggested she was a captive of Calvinistic attitudes, not, he airily continued, a difficulty he’d ever faced. Yes, they were different. Max grew up rich. She and her single mom worried about paying the bills. Annie’s home had been in wind-swept Amarillo; Max’s in an affluent Connecticut suburb. Annie couldn’t imagine life without work; Max firmly believed life was made for pleasure. But one unforgettable night, their eyes had met at a crowded after-theater party in Greenwich Village. She’d thought them too different ever to be together and she’d run away to the little South Carolina sea island of Broward’s Rock. Max had followed. Perhaps they weren’t suited in some ways, but there was never any doubt that they could not live without each other. What was love? Passion, yes, always, but love meant trust and faith and laughter. To know that Max was in a room with her made that place a haven. They’d known happy days and tough days, but it was always the two of them together.

  She crossed her fingers. On both hands. Not, of course, that she was superstitious. But she and Max had come near the unraveling of their lives, and she never ceased to be thankful for their escape. Underneath their cheerful banter, they possessed a sober realization of life’s uncertainties.

  She turned to look across the boardwalk at the shops that curved in a semicircle facing the marina. Death on Demand, her wonderful mystery bookstore, beckoned her, though she was braced for a frazzling day. She shivered, drew her cheerful peacock blue wool jacket close.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Annie slipped the cell from the pocket of her wool slacks, glanced at the caller ID, raised an eyebrow. “Hello.”

  “Don’t think she hasn’t spotted you.” Ingrid spoke in a whisper.

  The connection ended. Her clerk was giving her a heads-up. Another day, another encounter with Annie’s always unpredictable mother-in-law, Laurel Darling Roethke. Where Max was handsome, Laurel was gorgeous. Silver blond hair framed a fine bone structure. Yet there was more than beauty; there was a hint of rollicking adventure and enthusiasm and eagerness for life. When Laurel walked into a room, everyone suddenly felt touched by magic. Laurel’s Nordic blue eyes might sometimes be slightly spacey, but they could also be incredibly perceptive.

  Annie moved toward the steps to the shops. Annie had survived Laurel’s flirtation with cosmic karma, her delight in saints, most especially the remarkable Teresa of Ávila, and most recently her determination to decorate the bookstore with photographs of exotic cats. Cat photos now hung on the walls among book posters—Harlan Coben’s new thriller, Mary Saums’s clever new Thistle and Twigg—and were adored by customers. Annie enjoyed looking at them as well. As she well knew, cats ruled, especially Agatha, Death on Demand’s sleek black resident feline.

  Annie reached the front door, thoughts whirling. Laurel was no stranger to the store, but today was challenging, a Beaufort book club arriving for a talk by Emma Clyde and a light lunch. Had the chicken salad been delivered? Emma, the island’s famous crime writer, would sign copies of her new Marigold Rembrandt mystery, The Case of the Convivial Cat. Woe betide Annie if they ran out of books. Woe betide Annie if she’d ordered too many, making the author feel the signing was a flop.

  Annie drew a deep breath. Chicken salad… the new books… Leave a couple of boxes in the storeroom? She didn’t have time for Laurel this morning. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the charm of Laurel’s most recent preoccupation, but she insisted—nicely—upon audience participation. Annie wasn’t sure why she objected so strenuously, but she’d always refused to wear silly hats, watch Charlie Chaplin, or draw undue attention to herself.

  She stopped with her hand on the knob. Good grief, was she a pompous ass?

  What harm would it do to play along? Get in the spirit?

  Annie gave a decided head shake. Responding quickly to a question before she had time to think was too much like a public Rorschach test. She took a deep breath, opened the door, activating the new Inner Sanctum door recording that Ingrid’s husband, Duane, had installed before Halloween. The satisfying creak of hinges foretold chills and thrills, exactly what readers would find in the finest mystery bookstore north of Florida’s Murder on the Beach.

  Annie stepped inside, drew another happy breath, this time of books and bindings and coffee.

  Slender and intense, her graying hair in a new short cut, Ingrid worked at the front counter, smiling, chatting, and ringing up sales with practiced efficiency. A long line of customers snaked toward the coffee bar. Annie didn’t spot her mother-in-law. She smiled in relief. No doubt Laurel was sharing her new vision with one of the ladies from Beaufort. Wonderful. Annie had plenty on her plate. She needed to make sure there was enough chicken salad and help Henny Brawley take orders at the coffee bar. Emma’s crusty tone—oh, dear, was she being combative with a reader?—was commandingly audible over the twitter of the club ladies who had arrived way too early and—

  “Annie dear!” Her mother-in-law popped from behind the beaded curtain that screened the alcove to the children’s mystery section. “Think of the sun!” Laurel beamed. Was it accidental that she was positioned precisely in the glow of a ceiling spotlight? Whatever, her silver gold hair gleamed and her patrician face with deep-set blue eyes, fine bridged nose, and dimpled chin was strikingly lovely.

  Annie stared. On anyone else, Laurel’s costume would have looked absurd, a pink straw farmer’s hat, a red-and-white plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, navy denim overalls accented by gold buttons at the straps and pockets, and a pink leather version of farm boots. On Laurel, the result was fetching. The farmer’s hat boasted, of course, a sunflower tucked beneath the cerise hat band.

  Laurel plucked a two-foot sunflower from a capacious pocket, held the blossom out to Annie with a winning smile. “Sunflower time,” she caroled, the pink boots giving a quick Cossack tattoo. “Quick now—five seconds to answer—picture a Sunflower and sweet potatoes. First thought?”

  Involuntarily, an obedient mouse in Laurel’s mental laboratory, home popped into Annie’s mind, a memory of a sunflower spoon handle as her mother lifted steaming sugar-streaked candied sweet potatoes to her plate. Annie’s lips parted, clamped shut.

  “Time’s up.” Laurel’s tone was kind, not chiding. Her manners were exquisite. The five-second limit served two purposes. A quick response was certain to reflect innermost thoughts, but the deadline also afforded an unobtrusive escape hatch for those unwilling to participate. Laurel’s smile was approving, whether she received an answer or not. She continued with no hint of irritation, “I’m sure the magic of Sunflowers will be with you now, adding warmth and happiness to your day. Here is a Sunflower just for you.” When she spoke, the flower’s name was clearly capitalized.

  As the days had shortened and the onshore breeze freshened, Laurel had received a bouquet of sunflowers from a new beau. Always seeking the inner meaning of events large and small, she discovered that sunflowers were considered happy flowers, their faces reminiscent of the life-giving warmth of the sun. Ergo, she devised he
r Sunflower Game, the better, she assured Annie, to encourage happy thoughts that everyone needed, especially in winter.

  Annie took the bristly stalk, looked at the flower, noted two opposite spirals, which indicated this was a disk sunflower… With an effort, she yanked her mind back toward the work harness. She had learned more about sunflowers in the last few weeks than she’d ever wanted to know, and today she didn’t have time for extraneous sunflower thoughts.

  “It’s gorgeous, Laurel.” And, of course, it was, the petals as softly gold as summer sunshine. “Thank you.” Clutching the stalk, she edged down the congested center aisle, heading for the coffee bar area where the ladies would lunch and, at one side, Emma Clyde would regally hold forth as the Queen of Crime.

  Despite her sunflower-be-damned mood, she couldn’t help overhearing Laurel confide to a cherubic elderly lady listening with a slightly bemused expression, “Sunflower disk flowers are both male and female and are fertile. Isn’t that a happy thought on a cold winter day?”