Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01 Page 26

A leaf fluttered down onto my lap. I brushed it away from Emily’s photograph.

  My lovely daughter. They say daughters are so often the image of their fathers. The slender, elegant, fine-boned face, the glossy ebony hair, a mirror image of Chase Prescott as a young man.

  I’d decided before she was born that she would not grow up with a father who cared nothing for what was right.

  And she had not. She’d adored Richard and admired him, and, like him, grown to be an honorable person.

  It was the right decision then.

  It was the right decision now.

  Any mother would understand.

  The world might disagree, deem my choice reprehensible.

  But, for now and forever, I was determined.

  The world had its story, and I would let it be. Trevor was guilty of murder, that was certain. And though he hadn’t murdered Chase, he had been a collaborator in Chase’s death. So I would let it be. Let Roger remember his father with honor; let Miranda idealize the man she’d loved too much; let Prescott Communications take on the battles against greed and pollution and social despair; let Emily remain firm in her devotion to Richard, the father she’d known.

  And let me bury the ghost of a dead lover. Forever.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CAROLYN G. HART is the author of the Death on Demand mysteries featuring Annie Darling, including Something Wicked, for which she won an Agatha and an Anthony; Honeymoon with Murder, which won an Anthony; and A Little Class on Murder, which won a Macavity. Hart is also the author of the Henrie O mysteries. She lives in Oklahoma City with her husband, Phil.

  If you enjoyed Carolyn G. Hart’s

  DEAD MAN’S ISLAND

  you will want to read Henrie O’s second adventure,

  SCANDAL IN FAIR HAVEN,

  available now. Look for it at your local bookseller’s.

  Here is a special preview of

  SCANDAL IN FAIR HAVEN….

  1

  I DROVE THROUGH NASHVILLE at dusk It is a city I love, elegant and southern, a city of church spires and country music tour buses, glittering new glass office buildings and treasured antebellum mansions, boot factories and insurance empires, towering oaks and ghostly gray limestone. I stopped for dinner at Houston’s, an old favorite near the Vanderbilt campus. The restaurant was jammed, as always on a Saturday night. It was almost nine o’clock when I reached my turnoff from Highway 24E some eighty miles south of Nashville.

  I had no trouble finding the cabin—Margaret’s map was excellent—though it was several miles to the east and far up a rutted gravel road. Not a gleam of moonlight penetrated the canopy of trees that interlocked above the twisting lane. My headlights stabbed into the darkness, disappeared into the night.

  In the glow of my lights, the cabin had a deserted, bleak appearance, one wooden shutter hanging on a hinge, pine needles thick on the rock path. I pulled around to the side, squeezed my MG between two pines.

  I was tired from the full day’s drive and the stress of Margaret’s illness and my hospital vigil. I did take time to breathe deeply of the cool pine-scented air, to welcome the embrace of country silence, but within a few minutes I’d unpacked the car—my luggage and provisions for a week—washed my face, made up one of the twin beds, and tumbled into it and a deep, satisfying sleep.

  I wake like a cat. Shifting in an instant from deep sleep to full alert.

  Adrenaline pumped through me. The noise that jolted me awake—the metallic rattle of the front doorknob, the faint screech as the door swung in—was startling in the silence, but perhaps even more shocking was the sudden blaze of light from the combination living room-kitchen, illumination that spilled in a harsh swath into the bedroom.

  The layout of the square cabin was simple.

  The front door opened into the small living room and kitchen area. The bedroom door—which I’d left ajar when I went to bed—was to the right of the front door. I’d had no reason to close the door. I was alone in the cabin.

  But not now.

  There was no possible good reason why someone was inside the living room of Margaret’s cabin, between me and the only exit.

  Except for the single bedroom window.

  At bedtime I’d managed, with a struggle, to raise the window almost an inch for a breath of fresh cool night air. It hadn’t been easy. The window’d obviously not been budged in years.

  The intruder would certainly hear if I tried to get out that way, assuming I could wrestle the window any higher, which I doubted.

  That left the front door. And my late-night visitor.

  I was already moving, easing over the side of the bed, grabbing my key ring with its attached Mace canister and my small travel flashlight from the nightstand.

  The Mace canister? Of course. Women, old or young, pretty or ugly, sexy or plain, are always at risk. At home. At work. In hotels. On the highway. Daylight or dark. Every woman knows it.

  I uncapped the cover to the Mace, gently touched the trigger with my thumb. My hand trembled.

  The wooden floor was cool beneath my bare feet. Shoes. I’d run faster with shoes.

  I fought indecision and knew it was a form of panic. Thoughts, incomplete, inchoate, whirled in my mind. Shoes … door … Mace …

  But first I must know who was there.

  I reached the open bedroom door with only one telltale creak of the boards.

  I’ve trod a good many dangerous paths in my life. I’ve learned to look hard at faces.

  The old saw instructs that pretty is as pretty does. The converse is equally true. The discontented droop of a mouth, the venal gleam in an eye, the obsequious curve of lips, the angry lift of a chin—oh, yes, faces tell tales. And dangerous men have in common an air of reckless abandonment. They are not bound by any rules, man’s or God’s, and they will kill you without qualm.

  I had to see the face of my intruder.

  He slumped in the room’s single easy chair, his dark eyes wide and staring, focused on nothing.

  His face surprised me. It was slender, almost delicate for a man. It reminded me of tintypes of Robert Louis Stevenson, oval with deepset eyes, a small, gentle mouth, a high-bridged nose. In his mid-thirties. Despite the bristly stubble fuzzing his cheeks, my intruder had a thoughtful, civilized, almost professorial look. But he appeared desperately tired. More than that, his face retained a kind of incredulous astonishment, like the single survivor of a road smash surveying the crushed cars and mangled victims.

  His long, lean body sagged with despair. He wasn’t dressed for the part of a housebreaker. He wore a glen plaid cotton shirt, stylishly pleated khaki slacks, tasseled burgundy leather loafers. But his right trouser leg was soiled, some kind of dark stain.

  And I had the elusive, teasing sense that I’d seen him somewhere before. Somewhere …

  Faintly a motor rumbled from the road.

  He jerked upright, every muscle tensed, his pale, strained face frozen in panic.

  The roar grew louder, nearer.

  He scrambled to his feet.

  The car rattled closer, closer. And then it was by. The sound receded.

  He drew his breath in, gulped it. His hands were shaking.

  I saw him clearly now in the light. All of him—including his left shirt-sleeve.

  I stared at the sleeve, at the blackish substance that discolored it. It was quite different from the: stain on his trousers.

  Blood.

  Viscous thick blood had dried to a dark crust above the cuff.

  A wound?

  He didn’t move like an injured man. His left fist was tightly clenched. The instinctive tendency of an injured member is to go limp, thereby putting the least possible stress on pain-racked flesh.

  Abruptly his fight-or-flight stance relaxed. The young man turned, stumbled wearily to the chair, and flung himself down.

  I slipped away from the door, edged silently across the bedroom. I was wearing cotton shorts and a T-shirt, my favored garb for sleep. My suitcase and gym
bag were on the floor near the bathroom. I fished out a pair of sweats and my Reeboks. I placed the Mace canister handily on the edge of the bed, then slipped into the sweats, pulled on athletic socks and the running shoes. Maybe it took me forty seconds.

  I crept quietly back to the open door. He hadn’t moved.

  My husband Richard always warned me against snap judgments. But I don’t waste time, and I don’t waver between choices.

  I stepped out into the living room. “Excuse me. Could you possibly be in the wrong cabin?”

  I did, of course, have the Mace in my right hand, ready to spray, and I was on a direct line to the front door.

  His head jerked toward me. The remaining color drained from his face. He turned a sickly hue. I thought he was going to faint.

  He struggled to his feet, staring at me as if I were the first witch in Macbeth.

  I know that at times I can be intimidating. I have a Roman-coin profile, dark hair silvered at the temples, jet black eyes that have seen much and remembered much, and an angular body with a lean and hungry appearance of forward motion even when at rest. However, surely not witchlike. Oh, the right age perhaps, but I feel that I look especially nonthreatening in baggy gray sweats and running shoes.

  “Oh, my God, who are you? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Henrietta O’Dwyer Collins,” I replied crisply. “I’m a guest of Margaret Frazier’s. So I might ask the same of you.”

  He swallowed jerkily. “A guest … oh, Christ. If that isn’t my frigging—Sorry. God.” He looked past me toward the bedroom. “Where’s Aunt Margaret?”

  Aunt Margaret. Of course. That’s why he looked familiar. That aquiline nose and small, full mouth.

  I slipped the keys and mace canister into the pocket of my sweats.

  Craig. Margaret’s nephew. “I’m sorry to say she’s in the hospital. A heart attack and bypass surgery. But she’s …”

  He wasn’t listening.

  I felt a quick flare of anger. No wonder Margaret had resisted notifying him.

  “I believe she is going to recover quite nicely, in case you’re interested.”

  His eyes blinked. He heard my anger. It took a moment for him to make the connection. “Aunt Margaret … Oh, I’m sorry.” Blank dark eyes finally focused on me. “She’s real sick? I’m sorry.” He gave me a shamefaced look. “And I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t mean to. Truly, I didn’t know you were here. I’m Craig. Craig Matthews.”

  He lifted a slender, well-manicured hand to massage his temple. The emerald in a thick yellow gold ring glittered like putting-green grass on a sunny day.

  The bloodstain ran from just above the cuff to his elbow.

  He followed my glance.

  There are many kinds of silence. Companionable. Hostile. Angry. Shamed. Defeated.

  And frightened.

  His handsome face crumpled, a mixture of horror and pain and disbelief. He shook his head. “I didn’t kill Patty Kay. I didn’t do it.” It was a husky, broken whisper. Gingerly, he touched the crusted blood with his right hand. His fingers quivered.

  His denial echoed in my mind. What had I stumbled into? “I didn’t kill Patty Kay.” Did he say it again or did the shocking, frightening phrase simply pulse in my mind?

  No wonder Craig Matthews wasn’t worried about his aunt. No wonder his demeanor was terrified.

  I tensed like a runner awaiting the starter’s pistol. My hand closed again around the slender Mace canister. Margaret’s nephew or no, if he took a step toward me …

  Instead, he backed to the chair and sank into it again. Dully, he looked up at me. “You know Aunt Margaret?”

  I said nothing.

  He blinked, his mouth twisted in a small embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I can’t hold anything in my head. You said you were her guest. Sure.”

  He was a man in shock. Talking about the price of chicken feed while the sky fell.

  He shook his head, as if struggling to clear it, then once again got to his feet, as if belatedly remembering his manners. “I’m sorry. Awfully sorry. I woke you up, frightened you. I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t see your car. But I didn’t look. And it was dark … I’ll leave.”

  But once on his feet, he simply stood.

  “Where will you go?” I took my hand out of my pocket. I was in no danger from this scared, disoriented young man.

  “… Chattanooga, I guess. I’ve got an old friend there.”

  “Do you need a friend?”

  “I’ve got to talk to somebody. I’m in trouble. Big trouble.”

  He’d whispered, I didn’t kill Patty Kay. I didn’t do it.

  Yes, I thought, he probably was in a shitload of trouble.

  Killers come in all shapes and sizes. And it is domestic violence that can surprise you every time.

  He didn’t look like a man who’d killed a woman.

  I wasn’t afraid of him.

  I know when to be scared.

  He glanced toward the door, then back at me. His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  There was the tiniest suggestion of a plea in his voice, perhaps a flicker of hope in his eyes.

  I knew what I was hearing, the tones of a man accustomed to letting someone else run the show.

  I wondered when I’d been transformed from a Shakespearean witch to a succoring figure. If he were older, he would know better than to assume age renders its possessor harmless. But he was seeing me now as not only harmless but someone to help. The friend of his aunt.

  I’d spent a lifetime among take-charge men. I’d butted heads with most of them. But even while insisting upon my rights and prerogatives, I’d admired their verve and spirit and, yes, the automatic masculine presumption of each and every one that by God, I’m in charge here. It is a factor that makes news pools a living hell for real reporters. The testosterone level among newspapermen beggars description. As a class, it’s also true of lawyers.

  So winsome I’ll-leave-it-up-to-you types don’t impress me.

  But I hadn’t spent a lifetime asking questions to be able to ignore what was obviously a life-and-death drama. And this was Margaret’s only living family, the son of her beloved sister.

  He was gazing at me with pleading spaniel eyes.

  It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him. Talk didn’t commit me to anything. Not a single damn thing. After all, my night’s sleep was already ruined. Moreover, I had to find out if I could help Margaret’s kin.

  And, yes, I admit it, I wanted to find out what had happened to Patty Kay. Who, what, when, where, why, how—they pulse in my blood and in my brain. Maybe I should have them scored on my tombstone. Or, She Came, She Asked, She Wrote.

  So that’s how it began for me.

  I said, “Who’s Patty Kay?”

  “My wife.”

  “What happened to her?”

  The dazed, uncomprehending look returned to his eyes. “I came home and—and I went in the house and called out. But she didn’t answer. I went upstairs. She wasn’t anywhere. But she’d told me to come home. I mean, I thought she had. There was this message from her. But maybe it wasn’t from her because—”

  I held up a hand. “Wait a minute. You came home.” I didn’t yet know where “home” was. There was so much I didn’t know. But it was critical to keep him focused. “You looked for Patty Kay. What happened then?”

  “I went in the dining room. Everything was ready for the party.” Again disbelief flared in his frightened eyes. “We were going to have a party tonight. The table was set. The china. The silver. Crystal. Perfect, the way Patty Kay always has everything. So I thought she was probably in the kitchen and just hadn’t heard me. She cooks—Patty Kay always cooks everything herself. She doesn’t believe in having it done by a caterer. She always laughs and says she’s a better cook than any caterer. And she is. So I thought she was in the kitchen and I went in there and that’s when I knew something was wrong, really wrong. Cheesecake was a
ll over everything.”

  “Cheesecake?”

  “Patty Kay’s cheesecakes are famous—chocolate wafer crumbs and butter and creme de menthe and … Somebody’d taken the cake pan and thrown it up and there was stuff on the ceiling and the cabinets and the floor, and the pan with the chocolate—the one on the stove—had burned black. The smell was awful. And there was creme de menthe splashed on the floor and a whole bottle of creme de cacao emptied out too. I mean, it scared me. What the hell was going on? And Patty Kay wasn’t anywhere. Then I saw the back door was open. I wasn’t really thinking. I started for the door, too fast I guess, and I skidded and slipped.” He looked down at his trouser leg. “Got the stuff on my hands too. The liqueur. I picked up a towel and wiped my hands off, then I went out the back door. Everything looked okay, like it always did.” His voice lifted with remembered astonishment. “The deck and the pool. And nobody was out there. That meant Patty Kay had to be in the playhouse—if she was anywhere. So I ran down there.”

  He came to a stop. His fingers gripped the worn sides of the armchair.

  “What did you find?”

  Just for an instant his eyes met mine. They were worried, uncertain, frightened—and sickened. “I—” He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “I’ve got to have something to drink.”

  I went into the kitchenette, grabbed a glass, and filled it with tap water. He was close behind me. But I wasn’t frightened. He scarcely knew I was there.

  I held out the glass to him.

  He took it and drank in long, greedy gulps. He slumped down at the rickety pine table. Sweat beaded his face. An unhealthy reddish flush overlay the paleness.

  I took the seat opposite him.

  I didn’t repeat my question.

  But we both knew it wasn’t going to go away.

  He didn’t look at me. He spoke as if each word were a burden. Was he picking his way or was the recollection too painful?

  “I ran down the path. The playhouse door was partially open. But when I pushed, it didn’t move. I kept shoving and shoving. Finally I squeezed inside.” He shuddered. “You don’t ever think that something like this can happen to you. Not—not murder.”