Spring Break

But I’d promised Adler, and I wouldn’t leave without determining where Branigan had been last night. With a sigh of resignation, I decided to play a card I usually kept well hidden in the deck.

“Excuse me,” I called to the butler as his hand reached for the doorknob.

He turned. “Yes?”

I imitated the tight, condescending smile I’d seen my mother use too many times. “Tell Mrs. Branigan that I’m Priscilla Skerritt’s daughter.”

CHAPTER 3

Wealth has its privileges, and apparently invoking Mother’s name had provided access to Stella Branigan. The butler returned quickly, and I followed him through the rear hall onto a wide flagstone terrace that ran the width of the back of the house. Broad stairs swept down to formal gardens and a swimming pool. Past the pool, a long arbor, covered in confederate jasmine thick with blossoms, led to a tennis court. Clearwater Harbor glistened beyond the seawall in the late-afternoon sun.

The elegant ambience made me uncomfortable until I remembered a saying I’d read somewhere that the upper crust is a bunch of crumbs held together by dough. In my former life as a librarian, I’d done a great deal of reading. But that was before my fiancé, a doctor in residence, had been murdered by a crack addict in the emergency room, and, as a result, I’d entered the police academy, determined to spend my life fighting crime. Working in law enforcement hadn’t left much time for reading. And between Deirdre Fisk and Jolene Jernigan, I was too busy now as a private investigator to indulge in my favorite pastime.

On the south end of the terrace, an older woman sitting at a glass-topped wrought-iron table looked up at our approach.

“Bring us tea, Madison,” she said in a low, cultured voice that rang with authority.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Madison returned to the house, and Stella Branigan waved me into a chair opposite her. “You’re Margaret Skerritt?”

“Yes.”

“I know your mother. We served together on the Art Guild board.”

She crossed her legs, leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette with a gold lighter. In her early sixties, tall and athletic with big bones and a long, horsey face, Stella Branigan would have been homely under other circumstances, but excellent makeup, a salon haircut and well-fitted casual clothes provided the illusion of attractiveness.

“How is Priscilla?” she asked.

“Mother’s fine. Still active.”

“But you’re not here to talk about your mother.” Her smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth.

“No. I’m helping the Clearwater Police Department with one of their investigations.”

She was still for a moment, and her carefully composed expression gave nothing away. She exhaled cigarette smoke. “We don’t have much crime in Harbor Oaks. Good security systems, Neighborhood Watch, and excellent policing deter most criminals.”

Footsteps on the terrace stairs below interrupted her. A thirty-something man, dressed in tennis whites and with a face like Stella’s but Carlton’s fair hair and ruddy coloring bounded up the steps. He stopped abruptly when he spotted me.

“Sorry, Mother, I didn’t know you had company. I came to invite you to have dinner with us.”

“It’s not a problem, darling. Ms. Skerritt will be leaving soon. Margaret, this is my son, Sidney. He lives next door.”

Sidney stepped forward and shook my hand. “I’ll wait inside until you’re finished here.”

“No need,” his mother said. “Our conversation isn’t private.”

He pulled out a chair and joined us at the table.

“It’s really your husband I need to speak with,” I said to Stella.

Stella shook her head. “Carlton’s in Tallahassee. He won’t be home until late tonight.”

“Was he here for the weekend?”

“No, he stayed at the Capitol for a fund-raiser last night. Now he’s taking care of loose ends at his office before coming home for the spring recess. Is there something I can help you with?”

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the photo of Deirdre Fisk. “Have you ever seen this young woman?”

I gave Stella the picture. She glanced at it, and a brief flicker that could have been no more than interest rippled across her angular features. But her facial expression was bland again when she handed the photo back.

“I’ve never seen her,” she said in a disinterested tone.

“May I see?” Sidney asked.

His mother seemed annoyed when I passed him the photo. He looked, but returned it without comment.

“Ms. Fisk didn’t come here looking for the senator last night?”

Stella stiffened. “What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything. Just trying to help the Clearwater Police establish a time line on this woman’s whereabouts.”

“What makes you think she’d come here?” Sidney asked.

“She had a newspaper clipping in her purse with a picture that included the senator. We think she might have been trying to contact the men in the photograph.”

Sidney frowned. “Why?”

“She may have known one of them when she was a child,” I hedged. No need to bother Stella further. I’d double-check Carlton’s alibi, but, if he was in Tallahassee last night as his wife claimed, he couldn’t have killed Deirdre Fisk.

Madison appeared with a silver tea service, but I’d learned all I needed to know. I pushed to my feet. “I won’t take any more of your time. Thanks, Mrs. Branigan. Nice to meet you, Sidney.”

Sidney smiled somewhat distractedly. Judging from the impatience in his body language, I figured he was in a hurry to discuss something with his mother.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more,” Stella said. “Madison, please show Ms. Skerritt out.”

I followed the butler to the front door, then stopped and took out the photo of Deirdre. “Has this woman been here lately?”

Madison gazed at the picture and shook his head. “Mrs. Branigan only recently returned from Tallahassee.”

“When exactly was that?”

“I am not allowed to talk about my employers, a condition in my contract.”

“Thanks.” For nothing.

He shut the massive wooden door behind me, and I walked to my car.

The Clearwater Police Department was only minutes away. I arrived to find Adler working late. He was at his desk in CID and eating a foot-long steak-and-onion hoagey. Rarely had I seen Adler when he wasn’t eating, but where he packed the calories on his lean, muscular body was a secret many would kill for.

“Branigan’s wife claims he was at a fund-raiser in Tallahassee last night,” I said.

Adler wiped grease from his fingers and turned to his keyboard. With a few strokes, he accessed the Internet and pulled up a Tallahassee newspaper Web site. A few more keystrokes, and a news photo of Branigan and the governor, taken at Monday night’s party, appeared on his monitor.

“The wife’s story checks out,” he said. “You talked to Edward Raleigh yet?”

“Next stop,” I said. “What have you got?”

“According to this photo with Branigan, the governor was in Tallahassee Monday night, too. But I did some digging before you got here, and your Tampa murders occurred during his first run for office.”

“The one he didn’t win?”

“Right. But his publicity people released an itinerary for his appearances during that time. It’s in the archives on his campaign Web site. I cross-checked it with the dates of the original murders, and the governor was either in South Florida or the Panhandle when all three murders—and the attempt on young Deirdre Fisk—occurred.”

I nodded. “He was never high on the suspect list and eliminating him narrows our field.”

“The field’s getting smaller fast. Ralph Porter, my partner, tracked down the father of the teen who won the scholarship. He was in Gainesville with his son last night, scoping out the campus for the fall semester. The Hampton Inn confirms that the family checked in Sunday afternoon and are still registered.”

“And Representative Warner in Bradenton?”

“He wasn’t answering his home phone, so I called his Manatee office. His aide says the entire Warner family flew from Tallahassee to Big Sky, Montana, Friday for spring break. Gave me the name of their resort. I reached the manager by phone and he corroborates that they’re booked through next weekend.”

“So neither of us had any luck.”

“How about with your dognapper?” Adler took another huge bite of his sandwich. He must have seen the longing in my eyes. “Want some? I can give you half.”

“No, thanks.” I was still doing penance for tiramisu and would be counting calories the next few days. “I found the dog, but my client’s former employee is holding it hostage.”

“That’s easy enough. Have a uniform pick up the little beast.”

I shook my head. “My client insists on strict secrecy and no publicity. I’ll have to come up with another angle. Any ideas?”

“You could always send in Malcolm, disguised as Animal Control.” He grinned.

“Maybe, as a last resort.”

“By the way, I got a call this afternoon from Elaine Fisk to give me her temporary address and phone number. She said you suggested she move in with her friend for the time being, and she followed your advice.”

“Good. If whoever killed Deirdre did so to cover up three other murders, he’ll have nothing to lose by taking Elaine out, too, especially if he’s afraid she might ID him. But with all but one of our suspects from the photo with alibis, it’s looking more likely that her murder was random.” I nodded toward the case file on his desk. “Do you have any suspects from the park where Deirdre was found?”

Adler shrugged. “It’s a known hangout for drug users and dealers, hookers and homeless. A lot of those vagrants are mentally unstable. Deirdre’s wallet was empty. She could have been killed for a few bucks.”

“Or the killer could have taken her money to make it look that way.”

“We’ve canvassed most of the known regulars at the park,” Adler said. “Either nobody saw anything or nobody’s talking.”

“Any prints on the wallet?”

“Some smudged partials,” he said. “No matches in AFIS.”

I considered Adler’s description of the park’s seedy inhabitants. “There’s another possibility. Whoever killed Deirdre could have left her purse untouched, and someone else took her money before the cops came.”

The nerve endings in my skin went into spasms, and I reached into my purse for Benadryl caplets.

“The water fountain’s over there,” Adler said.

I crossed the room, washed down the pills and returned to his desk.

“So—” he dumped the papers from his takeout into the trash “—looks like we’ve narrowed our news photo suspects to Representative Raleigh.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to scratch, “if you don’t count the druggies, vagrants and prostitutes.”

“Let’s be optimistic. Maybe when you talk to Raleigh tonight, he’ll confess and save us a lot of trouble.”

I shook my head. “You know what they say.”

“What?”

“An optimist claims we live in the best possible world, and the pessimist fears it’s true.”

He grinned. “You’ve been at the books again.”

“Not often enough. I’ll see you at the autopsy in the morning.”

Afraid that once I reached home, I wouldn’t drag myself out again, I decided to ignore my grumbling stomach and visit Edward Raleigh before I called it a night.

When he wasn’t in Tallahassee, Raleigh lived on the edge of the golf course at the Osprey Country Club just north of town. I turned off Alternate U.S. 19 into the entrance of the classy subdivision, drove past the clubhouse that bordered Osprey Lake, and wound my way through the curving streets that followed the configuration of the golf course.

With my car windows down, I caught a faint whiff of orange blossoms from trees in the spacious yards. The hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial groves that used to overwhelm the county each spring with their heavy perfume were a thing of the past, victims of population growth and development, and the elusive scent made me nostalgic.

The sun was setting when I arrived at Raleigh’s sprawling Key West style home, and lights blazed through the angled Bermuda shutters on the front windows. A Cadillac with its trunk open was parked in the driveway, and a middle-aged man and woman stood at the rear of the car, holding pieces of luggage. I couldn’t tell if they were leaving or arriving.

I parked in front of the house, and they set down their bags when I left my car and approached them. “Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh?”

“Yes?” the man said.

I showed my ID, clearly legible in the light above the garage door. “I’m Maggie Skerritt.”

“I know you,” Mrs. Raleigh said. “You’re the detective who solved the Lovelace murder back before Christmas.”

“I was a detective. Now I’m a private investigator, and I’m helping the Clearwater Police Department with a case.”

“We can talk inside,” Raleigh said with warm hospitality and a politician’s smile. He probably figured me for a registered voter. “We’ve just returned from a trip to Mobile to visit our grandkids. Our grandson’s first birthday was yesterday. It was quite a celebration.”

“When did you leave Mobile?” I asked.

“Early this morning,” Mrs. Raleigh said. “We drove straight through.”

“If you can verify that, I won’t take any more of your time.”

Raleigh reached into the pocket of his shirt and handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s a credit card receipt for gas when I filled up this morning before we left.”

The service station’s address, time, and date stamp supported his claim. I handed him back his receipt. “Thanks for your help.”

“What’s this about?” his wife asked.

“Just trying to establish a time line on a woman who was searching for a man in a newspaper photo. Your husband was among them, but, if she came here, you obviously weren’t at home.”

I thanked the Raleighs for their time, got into my car and headed home. Apparently, Deirdre hadn’t been killed by any of the men in the photograph. But that didn’t mean that none of them was a suspect in my cold case from Tampa. Tomorrow I’d start digging into old records to see if I could connect one of the men in the photo with the murders I literally itched to solve.

When I arrived home, the message light on my answering machine was blinking. Hoping it was Bill announcing he’d finished his Sarasota assignment and was back on board the Ten-Ninety-Eight, I pushed Play.

Instead of Bill’s deep voice, I heard Caroline’s frantic plea. “Meet me at the hospital. Mother’s had a stroke.”

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