Part 18 (1/2)
”Look, Max, it's right next door. And Capt. Mac's pretty perceptive. He was a cop for a long time, and his instincts are good.”
”He probably tried to put the make on her, and she turned him down.”
”Max!”
”No kidding. We've got a platterful of solid suspects, and now he comes up with somebody who wasn't even there.”
”He's smart enough to pay attention about the back door. I kept telling Saulter.”
Max's voice rose in disgust. ”How could this ex-wife know enough about your Sunday evening sessions to plant the dart and fix the lights?”
Annie didn't like being patronized. Who did Max think he was? Colonel Primrose?
”If she was mad enough to murder him, she'd find out. It would be a stroke of genius, wouldn't it, to kill somebody in front of a bunch of people with hot motives?”
Turning on her heel, she stalked toward the house next door.
The lawn was well kept, the house recently painted and guttered. That would be the work of the Halcyon maintenance company. The house had no touches of individuality, no hanging plants or flower beds.
Annie had just touched the bell when the door opened.
Capt. Mac was right. Carmen Morgan did look like a pistol. Silver-white, shoulder-length hair, a cerise tank top cut to the navel that emphasized a Dolly Parton cleavage and a Southern belle waist, and fingernails that must make thumb and finger precision difficult. Mike Hammer would have loved her-before he blew her away. A smell of camphorwood incense eddied from the dim living room.
She fastened shrewd, baby-blue eyes on Annie.
”I know who you are. Elliot got knocked off in your place.” She smiled thinly. ”Wish I'd been there.”
”Were you?” Annie shot back, pleased at her own audacity.
”No such luck. Somebody say I was?” The baby-blue eyes narrowed.
”You've been talking to that fat ex-cop next door. That jerk can't keep his nose out of other people's business.”
”We thought you might have some idea who did kill Elliot,” Max interjected smoothly, coming up silently behind Annie.
Carmen's face reformed as she looked at Max. Her pale eyes with their dramatic underscoring of lavender mascara widened in appreciation.
This is the kind of reaction Magnum gets.
Annie felt her own face stiffen like plaster of paris.
The appraising eyes swept up and down Max's tall frame. ”Why should you care, big boy?”
Big boy.
Gag.
”The cops have some dumb ideas. We're trying to set the record straight.”
”You mean they want to pitch it on gumdrop here.”
It took a minute to realize that she was said gumdrop. Annie opened her mouth to explode, but clever Max got there first.
”I'll bet they haven't even asked you for your help.” He leaned revoltingly close to Carmen, oozing camaraderie.
”They didn't even bother to come tell me he was dead.” Her porcelain pretty face turned brittle, and abruptly she looked a decade older. ”I mean, I was married to the jerk for four years, three months and eighteen days, and n.o.body even tells me he's dead.”
”That's awful,” Max commiserated. ”How'd you find out?”
”I got a friend at the police station.”
Annie suddenly remembered the brawny motorcycle cop. A friend, indeed.
Carmen Morgan swivelled her platinum head to look again at Annie, a searching and not especially comradely look. ”That's how I knew she was in a pickle. Bud, my friend, says they're going to arrest her tomorrow.” She snorted. ”h.e.l.l, you didn't kill Elliot. I can tell that by looking at you. You don't have the stuff.”
While Annie was trying to decide whether to be complimented or offended, Carmen focused on Max.
”You come on in. I'll tell you what I can about my ex. The louse.”
Annie moved in tandem with Max. She intended to stick to him like Nora to Nick, whether Carmen liked it or not.
The small hall was dingy with scuffed black-and-white checkerboard tile. A heavy smell of camphorwood combined with the two mint juleps to make her head feel dangerously unsteady.
”A beer, you guys?”
Annie started to decline, but Max grinned and said, ”Sure. Let me help you,” and he trailed Carmen into the kitchen.
Right on his heels, Annie followed. Max was not only a jealous pig and a sore-sport toad, he was now revealing himself to be a lecher of the first order.
Carmen opened three bottles of Dos XX's, and waved them to seats at the tan Formica-topped kitchen table. No light beer here. And apparently equally little cooking. The kitchen looked like a display in the home section at Sears, and just about as used.
Her body arched seductively toward Max, Carmen said, ”What do you want to know?”
”Tell us about yourself.” Max drew his chair closer to Carmen's. He would soon be on the same side of the table with her.
Annie gripped her bottle forcefully. Otherwise, she might have tossed it in his ingenuous face.
Carmen used both hands to fluff her long, silver hair. ”True confessions?” she asked huskily.
Annie was delighted to note that Max looked a tad uncomfortable. He lifted his beer and drank.
”How about where you're from and how you met Elliot,” Annie suggested tartly, smirking at Max's discomfort.
”I'm a dancer. I was working at a club down in the Keys, and Elliot came in. He was one big spender. Anyway, he was writing a book.” She squinted reminiscently. ”He told me I was like Sadie somebody, and I was wonderful material.” She sipped at her beer and peered coyly and fuzzily at Max. The old bat was too vain to wear gla.s.ses.
Annie translated this: Carmen was a stripper in a joint, and Elliot was playing another role, macho novelist a la Hemingway.
”And you got married?” She cringed at the naked astonishment in her voice.
”Yeah. We went on a big party, and it seemed like a good idea.”