White Elephant Dead Read online

  If she has any. But the thought didn’t have to be voiced. Annie and Adelaide exchanged glances.

  Annie went straight to the point. “Adelaide, you’re on the Little Theater board, aren’t you?”

  Adelaide arranged a half dozen brooches in an arc. Her plump fingers patted the last one, a double row of blue rhinestones. “I heard the Campbells’ house was on Kathryn’s route.”

  Annie looked at her with respect. “Yes. So there’s something to that old story about Marie and Roderick.”

  “I never believed those rumors.” Adelaide’s tone was thoughtful. “Although Gary Campbell isn’t my idea of a dream husband, Marie always seemed to adore him. And still does. Actually, I thought Roderick Ransome made a fool of himself chasing after Marie. You know, it must have come as a shock to Roddy when she didn’t respond. He was used to women clamoring for him.”

  Annie picked up a heavy bronze necklace. Perfect if you wanted to have a green neck. She weighed it in her hand. “Jessica Greer had it the other way around.”

  Adelaide’s smile was amused. “She would. She adored Roddy and he paid no attention to her.”

  “So Gary and Marie abruptly leaving the Little Theater had nothing to do with Roderick Ransome?” Although in today’s world, would anyone care about Kate Campbell’s paternity? Well, yes, Gary Campbell might care intensely. And it would fully explain Loretta Campbell’s hostility toward Marie and Kate. But no matter how blond Kate Campbell might be, Adelaide Prescott was nobody’s fool and she didn’t believe there had been an affair between Marie and Roderick.

  “Neither Gary nor Marie ever came back to the theater after she quit No, No, Nanette.” Adelaide upended a small box of costume jewelry, began to pick through the pieces. She looked up at Annie, her round face creased with concern. “Annie, I like Marie. I think she and Gary”—Adelaide paused, searched for the right words—“have gone through difficult times.” Her eyes were dark with sadness. “Are you sure Kathryn was coming to their house?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.” Annie described the list in Kathryn Girard’s handwriting that Henny had carried in the pocket of her slacks.

  “That seems to be beyond question.” She added softly, “I am so sorry. And surprised.”

  Max looked at the printout:

  COUPLE FOUND DEAD AT HOME;

  DAUGHTER SAFE WITH SITTER

  A teenage babysitter heard shots Thursday evening and found the bodies of her employers, Richard and Amelia Lassiter, in their car on the driveway in front of the home at 43 Montgomery Circle, according to police Lt. John Harrison.

  Lt. Harrison, who did not identify the babysitter, said that it appeared that Amelia Lassiter had shot her husband, then herself. The Lassiters’ daughter Margaret, 2, was asleep, according to police. The child has been taken into protective custody pending notification of relatives.

  Richard Lassiter, 34, was an independent financial consultant and president of Lassiter Financial Services. There was no answer at the office number today. Amelia Lassiter was not employed. The Lassiters had lived in Long Beach since 1993.

  A near neighbor who declined to be identified said there were often indications of marital discord at the Lassiter home and that Mrs. Lassiter had been observed with a bruised face and once told a neighbor she was limping because she had fallen. She was twice treated at a local hospital for injuries.

  Lassiter was a graduate…

  Max sighed and put down the sheet. He flipped open his Rolodex to Vince Ellis, picked up the phone and dialed Vince’s beeper.

  Annie stared at the assortment of glass animals. She picked up a pale yellow unicorn. Not really an animal, of course, though Laurel was one of those who believed passionately in unicorns.

  “Unicorns are very popular,” a gray-haired, double-chinned volunteer chirped.

  “Do you have a pink one?” Annie’s eyes slid sideways as she tried to keep an eye on the booth where Marie and Gary Campbell sat.

  The volunteer said regretfully, “I don’t think there are any pink unicorns.”

  Annie nodded solemnly. “No, I don’t believe there are,” and gently placed the unicorn on the table as Gary Campbell strode down the aisle.

  Annie hurried to the table. “Hi, Marie. Do you have any cobalt-blue Fiesta?”

  Marie’s laughter pealed like a silver bell. “Annie, the only Fiesta was gone by five after eight this morning.”

  Annie picked up salt and pepper shakers, a rooster and a hen. How do you ask a woman if her daughter was fathered by a man other than her husband?

  Marie drew her breath in sharply. Huge dark eyes stared at Annie. Was she fey? Or was there something in Annie’s silence that alerted her?

  The two women looked at each other, Annie’s eyes full of inquiry, Marie’s wide and searching.

  “Do you remember Roderick Ransome?” Annie’s voice was kind.

  Just for an instant, a fierce anger burned in Marie’s eyes, anger and something more, pain and resolve. Then her elfin face quickly reshaped, her eyes bright, her lips lifting in a swift smile. “I’d be glad to help.” She looked past Annie. “Oh Gary, they need me outside. Something about the bedding plants I brought. If you’ll hold the fort for a few minutes…” She bustled from behind the table. “Keep my Coke for me. I’ll be right back,” and she and Annie were moving toward the front door.

  Annie glanced back. Gary Campbell stood in the aisle, holding two paper cups. He should have been a picture of Saturday casual, red-and-white-striped polo shirt, khaki slacks, white socks, Reeboks. But his rigid posture and strained face were out of place in the cheerful bustle of the sale. As she hurried after Marie, Annie knew that he was staring after them.

  It was a relief to step out into the sunlight until she looked into Marie’s angry eyes.

  “Marie—”

  “Not here,” Marie snapped. “Damn you.” She plunged ahead of Annie, walking swiftly across the lawn toward the cemetery. She led the way to a marble bench in the shade of a weeping willow. The distant sounds of laughter and children playing and the calliope were in eerie contrast to the centuries-old silence of the graveyard.

  Marie stood beside a stone lion, one hand tight on a concrete mane. She looked small and beleaguered and dangerous. “I paid Kathryn Girard to keep quiet. Do you want money, too?”

  For an instant, Annie found it hard to breathe, then her face flushed a fiery red. “Marie, someone killed Kathryn. And I don’t think it was Ruth Yates. Kathryn planned to make four stops Thursday night. Your house was on her list.” Annie knew she’d gone too far, said more than she’d ever intended. But maybe it was time to say it all. “I want to know what hold she had over you and whether you killed her to keep her quiet.”

  “I paid her.” Marie’s voice was low and strained. “I tell you, I paid her. I didn’t kill her. I put the money in the top of a duffel bag filled with clothes. That’s what she said to do. She said it would be the last time, that she was leaving and that she would keep her bargain. No one would ever know—” The muscles in her jaw ridged. “Damn you, I paid her. If you don’t want money, what do you want?”

  “The truth of what happened to Kathryn. If you didn’t kill her, you have nothing to worry about.” But as she said it, Annie knew that wasn’t true.

  “Just the police poking and prying, and if they do, the whispers will start. They’ve already started. Everyone’s talking about us and the Pierces and Vince and Ruth. We thought when Loretta died that the past was finally done.” She stared at Annie with haunted eyes. “Gary never should have told her, but he thought if she understood, she would be kind to Kate. But Loretta was selfish and cruel. And yes, Gary and I were fools, both of us. We love each other but we’d not been married long enough to be sure. I guess I’ve always needed reassurance, about everything. I’ve always been scared and felt alone. We’d only been married a year and I picked up the phone and heard him talking to Helen. She was his first wife and she was a witch. Bewitching.” There was pain and puzzlement in her voi
ce. “Beautiful. And bad. And he went to meet her. After all she’d done to him. Cheated on him, laughed at him, started stories that he hurt her. Roddy had been chasing after me, so I went away with him that weekend.” She looked at Annie defiantly. “And then when we were home again, we knew we didn’t care for anyone except each other.”

  Annie held tight to a strand of willow. “And Kate?”

  “We wanted a baby. We’d been trying. Kate came—and Gary loves her. He’s her father.” Her voice trembled. She brushed back a tangle of dark hair. “Please don’t hurt Kate. She seems so strong. She’s such a wonderful athlete. But she struggles with depression. She missed some school last year. She mustn’t ever know. She must not know.”

  “Is that what Kathryn threatened? To tell Kate?” Annie heard the curl of horror in her voice.

  Marie’s thin face looked pummeled, desperate. “Please, Annie, I swear—” She stopped. Her eyes widened. She lifted her hands in the immemorial gesture urging restraint.

  Annie swung around. For an instant, she felt a hot stab of fear.

  Gary Campbell moved like a boxer, clenched fists hanging by his side, head lowered, a raging gaze pinned on Annie.

  Marie darted past Annie, caught his arm. “Gary, no.”

  He kept on coming, one heavy footfall after another, his bald head gleaming in a swath of sun, his heavy brows bunched, his deep-set eyes dark with fury, his bony face twisted in a scowl.

  Annie backed away, one step after another until she was pressed against the stone lion, the ancient mane painful against her back.

  “Gary, I told her I’d paid.” Marie’s voice rose. “Don’t you see, we’re all right.”

  “You told her nothing.” His voice was deep and menacing. He bent down until his head was only inches from Annie’s. “We had nothing to do with that woman’s death. We never saw her, never touched her. I’m warning you. Leave us alone.” Abruptly, he reared back, turned. Grabbing his wife’s arm, he pulled her with him.

  As the Campbells plunged through the cemetery gate, Annie understood about Gary Campbell’s temper. And she had a swift memory of the disarray in Kathryn Girard’s apartment.

  Max leaned against a piling, looked out past the marina at the whitecapped Sound. Lots of sailboats with wonderful names, the J. P. Vanilla, Out of Sight, Kiss Me, Kate, The Happy Wanderer, Rock ‘n’ Roll. Both Arlene Ellis and Janet Pierce set sail from the marina.

  Firm footsteps sounded on the wooden walkway. Vince Ellis stopped beside Max. He didn’t say hello. He didn’t offer his hand.

  Max watched him carefully. “I found the story about Arlene’s sister.”

  Vince shrugged, his face stony. “That’s old news, Max.”

  The answer made perfect sense and Max knew it. So the truth about Arlene’s sister surely had nothing to do with Arlene’s death. But there was something here that Max didn’t understood. “Then why did you answer my page, meet me here?”

  Vince’s answer was quick and smooth. “Curious, I guess. The weakness of most newspapermen.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Max shook his head. “You aren’t curious, Vince. You’re afraid. Vince, where were you when Arlene sailed out that last day?”

  For a moment, Vince’s face was utterly blank. “Oh Jesus.” He stared at Max. “Do you think I would hurt Arlene? Oh Jesus,” and he swung around and walked away.

  “It’s kind of an obsession.” Marian Kenyon held up a three-foot-long, two-foot-wide swath of macramé. “My sister and I exchange macramé every Christmas and we’re in a heads-up competition to find the ugliest macramé in the world. I think I just won.” She pointed at an orange sunset against purple water with a tilted pink silo apparently kept upright by a chartreuse cow peering through black Harry Caray frames at a pot of gold that had a faintly green tinge. Marian’s lips curved in a beatific grin. “Doesn’t it give you the willies?”

  Annie cocked her head. “Do you suppose that’s fungus growing on the gold, an economic judgment of some kind?”

  Marian handed a five-dollar bill to the volunteer and tucked the macramé under her arm. She jerked her head toward a massive driftwood log near the stage. “I’ve heard you and Max and Emma and Laurel won’t let go on the Girard kill.”

  Annie should have known Marian was tapping into island rumors. After all, that was her business, even if her boss wasn’t interested in this story.

  Annie settled beside Marian on the log. “You know that the police suspect Ruth?”

  Marian scrunched her face in total disgust. “Yes. Sweetie, that’s baloney. Next thing you know they’ll try to pin it on Ben Parotti on the theory that somebody sighted a munchkin near the crime scene so it had to be Ben.”

  “Ben’s house wasn’t on Kathryn’s list.” Annie’s tone was quiet, but it removed their talk from good-natured fun. Because, as Annie well knew, Marian had to have heard that the list of houses and the owners included Vince Ellis.

  Marian’s head jerked up. She gave Annie a level stare. “I don’t care if they find Vince’s address tattooed on her underwear, he didn’t kill her.” But uneasiness flashed deep in her dark eyes.

  “Marian, who was Arlene’s best friend?”

  Marian blinked, obviously surprised. “Arlene? Besides Vince?” Her raspy voice had an unaccustomed softness. “Arlene had lots of friends. I guess I was one of her best friends. We worked together a lot and she liked to go to secondhand stores. Vince hates old stuff, so every few weeks Arlene and I rooted around in the backcountry. Once I found a tintype of Annie Oakley, I swear to God. I had it authenticated by Sotheby’s. Arlene was nuts for old copies of the Saturday Evening Post, especially with Norman Rockwell covers. Vince said we had all the finer instincts of a bag lady.”

  “It sounds like lots of fun.” Arlene and Marian obviously were friends. They laughed together. But Marian worked for Vince. Would Arlene share problems about her marriage with Marian? Not likely. “Could you tell me someone else Arlene spent a lot of time with?”

  Marian squinted at Annie. “I don’t get this. Why the big interest in Arlene?”

  Annie took the politician’s out. She answered a different question. “I’m looking for someone who talked with her the last week of her life.”

  “I talked to her.” Marian sighed. “She was only coming into the office half days at that point.” She looked at Annie, waved her hand. “You know, since Meg had come. She was staying home in the afternoons to be with her. I don’t know”—her face drooped—“maybe that was a mistake. Maybe if she’d kept on working full-time, she would have pepped up. Vince and I both thought being with Meg would help. But Arlene just got thinner and thinner. She’d pretend to be typing and I’d look over there and tears were streaming down her face. I know about grief. You can’t wrap it up in a box like a dried flower when the funeral’s over. She and Amelia were so close. Arlene worried about her, and then to have her die in a car wreck. One day she’s on the phone to Arlene, the next day she’s dead. Arlene was just wiped out.”

  “But Arlene and Vince hadn’t quarreled?”

  Marian looked at Annie as though she’d suddenly sprouted polka-dot wings and started speaking in Gaelic. “Are you nuts? Vince did everything a man could do. Had me talk to her. Had her mother come. The parish priest. Every damn thing. And I’ve told him that, over and over. But he keeps on feeling like he should have been able—” Her lips snapped shut.

  “She sailed out on a stormy day,” Annie said slowly. “A very stormy day.” Deliberately sailed to her death.

  Marian’s eyes were anguished. “She was depressed. In the bottom of a dark pit and everything was gray. She wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been depressed.” She wiped away a rush of tears. “Poor Arlene. And poor Vince. Dear God, poor Vince.”

  Max stared at the computer screen. It had the information he wanted. But he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to take advantage of it. The class roster in the Kindergarten Year Book was short indeed. In the group picture, a solemn Meg Ellis clu
ng tightly to the teacher’s hand. The teacher’s name was Barbara McKay. Max knew Barbara, tall and chunky with a mop of curly brown hair, merry eyes and nonstop chatter. She and Annie played in the same tennis league. And Barbara loved mysteries.

  Children rarely engage in subterfuge. Teachers know more than parents would ever imagine. Max clicked off the computer. He was still thinking hard when he pushed in the front door of Death on Demand.

  Ingrid gave him an abstracted wave as she dealt with two customers quarreling over who first sighted the first edition of Nevada Barr’s III Wind. The statuesque woman with blue hair said icily, “If you don’t mind, I was reaching for the book.” Her opponent, his fox-sharp face livid, exclaimed, “It has long been my contention that women without exception exhibit the intellectual attainments of earthworms and the unprincipled lusts of rabbits.”

  A piercing mew tingled his ears. Max looked into gleaming green eyes. “You’re not supposed to be up there.”

  Agatha peered haughtily down from the wooden perch which had until recently held the stuffed raven.

  Max pointed at the open display case. The glass had been carefully removed. “I heard about that, Agatha.”

  He would have sworn she was smiling. Smugly.

  Max strolled down the broad center aisle and knew he had a furred companion. He paused at the coffee bar, bent down and whispered, “Your secret and mine, sweetheart,” as he shook out a small portion of regular dry food.

  As he headed for Annie’s office, he glanced up at the paintings, paused…yes, he knew the first one. And the third one. In Annie’s office, he rummaged in a file cabinet and found the folder marked Customer Preferences, found McKay, Barbara. Women’s mysteries, enjoys humor. Max reached for the phone, punched in the number.

  “Hello.” Barbara’s cheerful voice was a song of greeting.

  “Hi, Barbara, Max Darling calling from Death on Demand. Annie put her best customers’ names in a bowl and pulled out yours. We have a special prize for you. May I bring it over?”