Deadly Valentine Read online

  “To be the patron saint of detectives.” A tiny gasp. “Oh, I know we aren’t to call you a detective, but in our hearts we all know your calling. Seeking out wrongdoers, setting lives right again, binding up society’s wounds just as Saint Gerasimus once bound up the paw of a most unfortunate lion he found limping beside the river Jordan.” A pause. “Thorn in the paw,” she added briskly. “In any event, dear Max, I am here.”

  Max knew then that he was the victim of his wishes. As an old adage reminds, “Remember that you might get what you pray for.” Max had hoped for excitement. And excitement, sometimes mentally unsettling excitement, always followed in Laurel’s train.

  But he was genuinely pleased, too. Laurel was lots of fun. He felt an immediate pang of uneasiness. Not that Annie didn’t adore his mother, but—

  “Dear Annie.”

  Had Laurel read his mind? He had an uncomfortable sense that his mother had done just that and that it wasn’t the first time.

  “Such a wonderful wife. A helpmeet. An inspiration. Just think of all that we have learned about mysteries from her encouragement and tutelage …”

  True. Max hadn’t perceived reality in quite the same light since he had started reading his wife’s beloved genre. There was nothing like an evening with a John le Carré novel to make a reader question establishment verities.

  “… led me to ponder even greater mysteries of the spirit. And so enlightening. I feel any one of us can rise to greatness when we ponder Saint Ubald of Florence. Did you realize he went from one extreme to the other? He was quite a debauched young man, spending his time with such dissipated companions until he was thirty. And then, voilà!, the turnabout, and for the rest of his long life, a gentle and pious man!”

  “Swell,” Max responded heartily.

  “And, of course, dear Saint Valentine, seeking to aid those in love. And we, you and I, dear Max, can count ourselves beneficiaries of his grace.”

  Max almost asked what she meant. It wasn’t cowardice that held him back. But sometimes, the less one knew—with Laurel—the better. And, after all, it was Valentine’s Day. Perhaps it was simply a generic comment.

  “So you’re here, Ma. That’s terrific. You’ll stay with us—”

  “Dear Annie has already insisted. I just called to say how much I am looking forward to being with you this evening—and I’m preparing a little love feast for us three.”

  This evening. Max’s mouth opened, then closed. What a perfect out! He’d been trying to think of a way to extricate Annie and himself from tonight’s party at the Cahills. But he certainly didn’t want Annie to think that he invested any significance in this morning’s encounter with Sydney Cahill. To duck the invitation would make too much of it. But now he had a perfect excuse! An unexpected house guest. Of course, he and Annie couldn’t leave his mother at home the first night of her arrival. Max nodded in satisfaction, eyes on Annie’s ruby-colored gift balloons. As soon as he got off the phone with Laurel, he’d call the Cahill house and make their apologies. Be more fun to spend the evening with Annie and Laurel, anyway. And he had this terrific present for Annie. Everything would work out perfectly for a cheerful end to Valentine’s Day.

  “For a day that started off so lousy, it’s ending up pretty spectacular,” Annie said over the whistle of the wind through the open windows as Max gunned his gleaming Maserati. The gate dropped in place behind them.

  “Yeah. The fog’s all gone,” her handsome spouse agreed.

  Annie’s lips twitched. Max did believe in avoiding unpleasant topics. But that was all right. His news that he’d made their apologies—house guest and all that—to the Cahills certainly added a sparkle to her afternoon. If he wanted to attribute her good humor to the subdued crimson splash of the setting February sun, that was all right, too.

  She smiled as they passed the turnoff to the Cahills. Everything was coming up roses. Or maybe Valentine balloons. Max had been pleased by her gift and had even confided that she, too, had a gift in store. A surprise. Annie adored surprises.

  And she loved their new home. She leaned forward in anticipation as they jolted onto the as yet unpaved lane that led to their house. It was such a marvelous house!

  The dusty gray lane, in dark shadow now from the over-branching limbs of the live oak trees, curved right—and there it was.

  Home. Their home.

  Annie reached out, touched Max’s arm.

  Windows, windows, windows. The multilevel, sand-toned wood house shimmered with glass expanses, the rectangular two-story entry with its inset door of stained glass, the front wall with graceful Palladian windows recalling South Carolina’s colonial heritage, the roof’s three curved skylights. And in the back, French windows opened onto a gray rocked terrace overlooking their patio and pool and a dusky lagoon lorded over in season by an enormous black alligator. He hibernated from December to March and Annie was in no hurry for him to shake off his winter slumbers.

  As the Maserati crunched to a stop on the crushed shells by the front steps, the varicolored door burst open and Laurel darted down the steps. She was gloriously lovely, her Nordic blond hair glistening like molten gold in the sunlight, her perfect patrician features glowing with love. She greeted them each with a kiss and a flurry of chatter, as she shepherded them with, Annie could not resist feeling, entirely too proprietary a manner into their own terrazo-floored front hall.

  Annie scarcely had time to glance with still-awed pleasure at their tiled fountain, decorated with jaunty gargoyles, when Laurel’s report began to register.

  “… so pleased Henny’s back in town and she can come to the party, too. So nice to have neighbors, such an old-fashioned feeling. Though, I’m afraid, perhaps Saint Pelagia the Penitent might recognize a kindred spirit before conversion. But then I’m not sure that is truly a Christian thought on my part. Still, I am only an admirer of saints.”

  “Saint Pelagia?” Annie asked sharply, though somehow, and this was painful, too, she was only too sure of the answer.

  “The notorious harlot of Antioch, of course.” A woeful headshake at Annie’s ignorance. “As celebrated for beauty as for the disorder of her life. And your neighbor has quite that same kind of beauty, the sort that causes a great deal of heartbreak. Though indeed I may misspeak, so we will say no more of it, and she is a generous creature to be sure, coming over herself to invite me to come to the party with you and Max and to urge us to bring anyone we should like. So I called Henny at once. And now,” Laurel caroled, “we can all be so happy.”

  “Happy?” Annie croaked.

  “My dear, we can go to the party. All of us. Oh, I do so love parties!”

  Five

  AS ANNIE HANDED Laurel a glass of sherry, she was rewarded with a beguiling smile, the intensity of which immediately made her suspicious.

  “I feel that I must draw upon the wisdom of Saint John de Britto,” Laurel said meditatively. “Such a brave man. And so perceptive. Centuries ahead of his time.”

  Dark blue eyes regarded Annie encouragingly.

  Annie wanted to resist, but it would have been rude not to ask. “Oh? In what way?”

  “He went native. In the very best sense.”

  Annie had no idea how to respond. So she sipped her sherry.

  “A missionary. To India. He lived a life identical to that of the natives, adopting their dress, attempting in all matters to understand their attitudes, their prejudices. I want to do the same.”

  Annie stared in befuddlement at her elegant mother-in-law, bewitchingly lovely in a blue satin gown. “You want to go to India?” She darted a desperate glance at the stairs. Why did it take Max so long to get ready to go out? All he had to do was take a shower and put on a tuxedo! Where was he when she needed him?

  Laurel laughed gaily. “Not to India. Not tonight. I merely thought we might take a walk. I know how long Max takes to get ready. Dear boy. So immaculate. We’ll have plenty of time for a lovely ramble.” She finished off the sherry, avoiding even an appe
arance of a gulp, flowed to her feet, and headed determinedly for the door that opened onto the patio.

  Annie was so relieved at this prosaic turn that she put down her glass and hurried to catch up with her mother-in-law. A walk. Surely that was innocent enough.

  Enough warmth lingered from yet another summery day—it hit 72 degrees at four o’clock—that they didn’t even need sweaters. A thin slice of moon silvered the imposing pines that loomed on either side of the back lawn, but only emphasized the darkness of the lagoon. Annie resisted the impulse to pinch herself. Living in the Scarlet King compound was still so much like a dream. The rustling pines, the ever mysterious lagoon. One night last week, she and Max had spotted a gray fox slipping into the woods and heard the call of a red-throated loon. She breathed deeply of the pine-scented evening with its overlay of pond vegetation, pickerelweed, lizard’s tail, and marsh beardtongue, and hurried to catch up with her mother-in-law, who seemed to know exactly where she was going. How far had Laurel explored this afternoon?

  Far enough, Annie realized, when she joined Laurel on their pier, to have a good sense of geography.

  “So enclosed. So self-contained,” Laurel observed, gesturing toward the homes that bordered the lagoon.

  Annie looked, too, with a vague sense of surprise. Actually, she’d never thought about it in that way because she and Max had been so enchanted by the sense of privacy and isolation engendered by pinewoods that separated each property—on both sides—from the next.

  But looking at the area from the pier did give a different perspective.

  Six homes were sited around the lagoon, each with back lawns that stretched to the water. The intervening pinewoods were so thick with undergrowth that the only access between the homes was provided by the blacktop path that circled the lagoon, cutting through the wooded swaths. Or, of course, by rowboat across the water. Each property was equipped with a pier.

  “Now, Annie dear, tell me all about our neighbors. I do so want to feel a part of this lovely little community. And as dear Saint John de Britto made clear, one must immerse oneself in the local culture.”

  Annie’s first instinct was to retort that the natives were not all that different from Laurel’s neighbors in Connecticut. She opened her mouth, closed it.

  Actually, they were damn different.

  Annie peered suspiciously at Laurel. Her mother-in-law was the most socially adroit person Annie had ever encountered. Why should she suddenly feel any need to prepare herself to meet anyone? But there was a ring of sincerity in Laurel’s voice. She seemed truly to want to know all about Annie and Max’s neighbors. Unfortunately, the light from the single yellow bulb at the end of the pier was not nearly bright enough for Annie to see Laurel clearly. She could see enough, however, to discern an oddly intent expression.

  Why?

  Annie riffled through their conversation, if that’s what it could be termed. Saint John de Britto. Brave man. Gone native.

  “That house, Annie. Who lives there?” Laurel pointed directly across the coal-dark water of the lagoon at a single light that marked a pier. Behind it, dimly visible in the moonlight, was the dark hulk of the Atwater house.

  Annie had the feeling—dammit, she was sure—that she was being manipulated. To what end? But what possible harm could it do to describe their neighbors? Was she getting a trifle paranoid in her dealings with her mother-in-law?

  Her answer was clipped. “Dorcas Atwater. A widow.”

  “A merry widow?” A silvery laugh floated in the night air.

  Annie desperately tried to sort swiftly through Laurel’s marital entanglements. But she’d never been good at logic problems, so she gave up trying to remember which of her mother-in-law’s marriages had ended in death and which in divorce. But it was such a telling phrase. Annie began to smile, until she thought of Dorcas Atwater

  “Unmerry as all hell, Laurel.”

  “Such a waste,” Laurel murmured. “Life is meant to be enjoyed. By everyone. As Saint Francis de Sales so aptly remarked, ‘A sad saint would be a sorry saint.’”

  Annie’s response was so immediate and so strong that it surprised her. She hadn’t realized what an impression Dorcas Atwater had made the last time she’d seen her. “Not sad. Mad. Mad as a scalded cat.”

  “How interesting. How unusual.”

  Once again Annie felt a quiver of surprise at her mother-in-law’s uncanny ability to go to the heart of the matter. Dorcas’s attitude was odd, and this had never before occurred to Annie.

  What was Dorcas mad about? Because her husband died? Surely that was a strange reaction.

  “Laurel, you’re right. That’s weird. And she’s weird. Dorcas used to be pretty, in an inbred sort of way. A pale face, bony like a horse, and light blue eyes. But stylish, always wearing the latest thing. Not anymore! I saw her last week when I was jogging on the path around the lagoon, and I hardly recognized her. Stringy hair, almost all gray. No makeup and a ratty housedress. She looked like something out of a Ruth Rendell novel.”

  “Surely not typical of your neighbors,” Laurel observed.

  Annie felt called upon to defend the sartorial splendor of the residents rimming Scarlet King Lagoon, and, before she knew it, she was deep into a good old-fashioned gossip about her neighbors.

  “Lord, no. Now look. To the left of the Atwater house.” Annie pointed across the lagoon at a blaze of lights. Enormous baseball-park lights topped poles at six points in the backyard, throwing the entire lawn into clear, sharp relief. “That’s where the Burgers live. Billye Burger goes to the kind of shops where you have to have an appointment! She wears Bill Blass originals. Billye always looks like she just got out of the beauty shop and dropped by Cartier on the way home. And her husband is the kind of Texas Rich you read about in D. R. Meredith’s Murder by Impulse and The Sheriff and the Branding Iron. He’s the reason it’s so hard to get into the compound. I mean, I don’t like to call it a compound, but that’s what it is. You know how wild everything is, the undergrowth pruned just enough to keep it from killing the trees. Vines and ferns and shrubs everywhere. You’d have to have a machete to hack your way to any of these houses, except by road or along the lagoon path. The gate’s to keep out strangers. Buck Burger was a criminal lawyer who made enough enemies to make Al Capone nervous. And enough money to have a home here and another in Dallas and I think one in Aspen.”

  Laurel gazed with interest at the starkly illuminated landscape. “That’s the yard with the watchman.”

  “Watchman?”

  “Yes. Rather a large man. And not charming. I encountered him when I took a walk this afternoon.”

  A watchman. Why did the Burgers have a watchman? Annie had lived in the Scarlet King compound for a whole week and been unaware of this interesting fact about her neighbors.

  “I didn’t see Mr. Burger,” Laurel added.

  “You didn’t miss much.” Annie brushed away an invisible cloud of no-see-ums and thought irritably that enough was enough with the screwy weather. They shouldn’t have to put up with gnats in February! “He’s loud, vulgar, overbearing, and thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”

  “Vulgar,” Laurel repeated. “No, no.”

  “Oh yes he is,” Annie insisted.

  “I’m sure,” Laurel said brightly, leaving Annie confused. “Such variety. That next house?” she asked. Her tone indicated disbelief.

  Annie grinned. “The architect must have grown up in a modern tract house and been reacting against it ever since. Have you ever seen more gingerbread?”

  “Only dear Hansel and Gretel,” Laurel said cheerfully.

  “The oddest part is that the owner isn’t a Mother Earth nut or an old lady. It belongs to a dentist, George Graham, a GQ yuppie.”

  “Not a dentist, thank heaven.”

  Annie ignored this comment. Laurel really wasn’t making sense tonight.

  “A yuppie,” she said firmly. “Fortyish, blandly handsome. The toothpaste ad type.”

  “So aprop
os,” Laurel observed. “You are so descriptive, Annie.”

  Annie ignored that comment, too, and continued doggedly. “Drives a Mercedes, of course. Plays tennis. Jogs. And has a young, second wife, Lisa. And a teenage son, Joel. He drives a jeep.” Annie didn’t add that Joel paid a little too much attention when she jogged by their house. She enjoyed admiring glances; she didn’t enjoy lascivious looks. “Lisa drives a Mercedes, too. And plays tennis and jogs.” Annie tried not to sound tart, but she had a natural sympathy for first wives. Though certainly Agatha Christie was a prime example of how betrayal in a first marriage, though heartbreaking at the time, could lead, ultimately, to a second, much happier union. Perhaps the first Mrs. Graham was grateful for her release.

  Laurel was already swinging about to look on the other side of the lagoon. Obviously, the Grahams didn’t fascinate. Second marriages (and third and fourth and fifth) were nothing new to Laurel. She peered into the darkness.

  “Can’t see the other two houses from here. Too many pines. The farthest one,” Annie pointed toward dense pinewoods across the pond, “was the original home on the property, antebellum. It belongs to a retired general and his wife. Second wife.” Might as well be accurate.

  “A general.” There was a note of fondness in her voice. One of Laurel’s husbands had been in the military.

  “Nasty old coot. Glowered at me the other day when I jogged by. Guess General Houghton thinks the whole path belongs to him.” It had been no ordinary glower. Annie wouldn’t quickly forget those dark, burning eyes or the pulse that throbbed at the temple of that ancient bald head. “Don’t see how his wife stands him.” Annie paused. “Second wife.” Not that Eileen Houghton was all that young. Early fifties, probably. Attractive enough in a matronly way. Annie realized that she and Billye Burger were in the minority as first wives. For all that it mattered. “Eileen used to be a nurse or something like that, so I guess she knows how to put up with impossible people.”

  “Annieee! Laurel!” Max’s tenor boomed from the patio.