Honeymoon With Murder (19 page)

“Mommy? Mommy!” Kevin’s chubby arms reached up for her.

She knelt and put her arms around the little boy, her body wracked by sobs. He began to wail.

Annie dropped down beside them, her heart aching. “Don’t cry, Mavis. I’ll help you. I really will.”

“You can’t help. The only thing I can do is go far away and hide.”

Annie searched in her purse for Kleenex. She needed Max with his ever-ready handkerchief. But thinking of Max helped. Max would back her up. She thrust a mass of crumpled tissues at Mavis and said briskly, “Look, nothings hopeless. And I’m not going to tell you a bunch of lies. I know you’re right, the law and the courts and the police can’t keep a woman safe if a man is determined to hurt her. I know that.”

God knew that was true. She’d seen too many headlines from every corner of the nation:
MAN GUNS DOWN WIFE, CHILD DEAD IN ABUSE CASE,
and the sad, too-late stories: “Coworkers reported today that the victim had sued for divorce and obtained a restraining order …,” or “The court awarded partial custody to the husband, because his former wife couldn’t prove charges of cruelty …”

Mavis brushed ineffectually at her tears with the wad of tissues.

Annie patted her shoulder. “The reason most women can’t help themselves in this kind of situation is because they have no way to protect themselves or their children. Right?”

Mavis nodded.

“All right. Here’s what we’ll do—we’ll hire a security guard, two shifts. Somebody’ll be watching you and Kevin twenty-four hours a day. We’ll make it clear to Henry that there’s no way he can get to you. You can sue him for divorce. We’ll get Billy to testify about Kevin’s condition and yours the night he picked you up.”

Hope flamed, then died away. “But what about Billy? If that woman—”

“Somehow—I don’t know how—I’ll shut her up,” Annie promised grimly. “Now that’s just between you and me, but one way or another, I’ll manage it.”

Mavis shook her head hopelessly. “It isn’t just Billy. How can I hire guards? I don’t have any money. There’s no way I can—”

“I said I’d help. I will.”

Gradually, Mavis calmed and Kevin’s sobs subsided. But she refused to return to the Courts.

“You have to be there at ten,” Annie urged, “or Billy will have to start looking for you.”

“At ten?” Mavis repeated blankly.

“They’re going to fingerprint all the residents of the Courts. Look, you’re safe enough for now. Just avoid the press and TV people. There’s no reason for you to be mentioned in any of the stories, and, when this is all over, Max and I will help you. Truly we will.”

Reluctantly, shoulders drooping, Mavis turned the stroller and walked with Annie down the dusty, grey road. Annie saw them safely to their cabin, then turned away. She was halfway across the compound, skirting the now deserted Tent City, when her brisk steps slowed.

It suddenly occurred to her that she may have been conned, or, if not led down the garden path, certainly diverted from the truth.

Not that she didn’t believe Mavis’s fear was genuine.

Yes, Mavis was surely terrified. But Annie wondered whether she’d interrupted the flight of a murderess fearing discovery rather than a battered woman seeking safety?

Annie glanced back toward Mavis’s cabin. It could easily have been Mavis who moved stealthily through the night on Saturday, waylaying Jesse on his return from the bar, knocking him out, dragging him to Ingrid’s, stabbing him, and awaiting Ingrid’s return. But had she had time to subdue Ingrid and remove her to a hiding place and return in time to wander among the crowd?

Yes. Especially if aided by Billy.

Would that vulnerable, teary young mother kill?

She would do whatever she had to do to protect Kevin.

Annie felt a pang of chagrin. Miss Marple would not have been so easily deflected. She would have looked with a cold, clear eye at the attractive young mother, knowing that the following aren’t necessarily true: lovers can’t be guilty, children are good, mothers are loving, the narrator is the good guy, etc.

Annie should have directed some hard questions at Mavis: “Was Billy with you Saturday night?” “When did he leave?” “What did you mean when you said you ‘had it all worked out’ with Jesse?”

She was turning to march back to the cabin then and there, when she heard a stentorian bellow.

“Annie! Annie! Ho!” Her fatigue cap at a rakish angle, Madeleine Kurtz bore down on her, waving a folded square of paper. “Thought I spotted you on the pier, then when I loolced up, you were dashing toward the road.” Her tone implied that some people could afford the time for both relaxation and exercise, but others kept their noses to the grindstone. “Search teams reporting in regularly. No trace yet. Seems almost like black magic. Here’s message for you. Got to get back to the phones.” She thrust the folded-up square of yellow legal paper in Annie’s hand, then wheeled around and strode back toward the command table.

Annie gave an exasperated sigh. Honestly, everything was contriving to keep her from her primary objective, a surreptitious survey of Jesse Penrick’s cabin (were there vagrant pine needles there?), but she’d better see what Henny was up to.

The block-letter note was in a staccato style:

Annie peered closely at the bottom of the sheet. There was no signature, rather a small drawing of some kind. Then, a smile tugged at her lips. Dear Henny. Always irrepressible. Where had she come across a representation of the Green Hornet’s Seal? Annie could almost hear the roar of his remarkable automobile, the Black Beauty, as the famed radio detective pursued wrongdoers.

But Henny was focusing on the wrong end. What mattered was what had happened to Jesse before Saturday. Who cared what kind of contraband stash he kept in the Bird Preserve?

Annie stuffed the note in her pocket. Now for Jesse’s cabin. She started across the courtyard, then saw the bicycle parked at Ophelia’s, a jaunty U.N. flag fluttering from its staff. Laurel’s bicycle. Annie hesitated, then veered in that direction. After all, it would only take a minute.

As she banged the pyramid-shaped knocker, she prepared herself mentally She wasn’t going to be fobbed off. She was going to find out exactly what these two were up to and whether Ophelia was just a nut or perhaps a murderous nut.

The door opened—a few inches. Laurel squeezed through the aperture to join Annie on the front steps, then firmly shut the door behind her. She still wore the oatmeal-colored robe, no jewelry, and sandals. But she looked so fresh and soignée that Annie wondered if she had a half dozen of the robes, couturier designed. Surely no one could look as lovely as Laurel in just any old piece of dun-colored material.

A soft breath of lilac swept Annie as Laurel leaned close to whisper, “Silence is a jewel beyond price when a revealed spirit engages in astral projection.”

Annie wished desperately for a cup of coffee or a personal astral projection to any other plane.

Laurel took Annie’s elbow and gently tried to pivot her down the steps.

Annie remembered with crystal clarity how Laurel had resisted Annie’s attempts to maneuver her out of Death on Demand last June, endangering Annie’s trap for a clever murderer.

Two could play this game.

She planted herself firmly on the top step. “I have to talk to Ophelia.”

“My dear,” Laurel trilled, “Ophelia is just
too
popular this morning. A Scottish sea captain implored her to serve as his channel. Also the proprietor of a saloon in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1872, and an Aztec priest.
Fifteenth
century.”

“How ecumenical,” Annie observed.

“Ophelia,” Laurel pronounced proudly, “is open to all influences.”

“That must be rather tiring.”

“My sweet, how perceptive of you!” Laurel patted Annie on the shoulder, not quite firmly enough to push her down the steps.

Annie reached out, grabbed the doorknob and turned it. “Laurel, channeling or no channeling, I do not intend to
move one step away from here until I’ve talked to Ophelia.”

Max hummed happily and poured another cup of coffee. Today was proving a sharp contrast to his luckless efforts yesterday With the helpful information from the rental applications filled out by Ophelia, Jesse, Duane, Adele, and Mavis, he was pulling together quite detailed pictures of everyone’s lives.

Everyone, that is, except Tom Smith.

He tapped his legal pad thoughtfully with his pen. Tom Smith. The man might never have existed. But surely something would turn up, if he kept looking.

His eye skipped down to his notes on Billy Cameron and Alan Nichols. Neither, of course, was a resident of Nightingale Courts. But Billy had a hell of a motive, because Mavis obviously had told him about Penrick’s threat. As for Alan, Max included him on the general principle that he had a shifty look. Besides, he’d enjoy shoving a dossier under Alan’s nose. It would certainly demonstrate to him that Max and Confidential Commissions could come up with the goods, despite Alan’s crack on the pier last night. Not that Max harbored any resentment, of course.

Thunder crackled in the distance. The rain couldn’t be far distant. Max thought wistfully of other indoor pleasures he would have preferred on a stormy afternoon. Surely someday his honeymoon would begin!

Ophelia sprawled limply in an overstuffed easy chair, her turban, cerise today, pressed against a yellowing lace doily. One chubby hand was daintily draped over her eyes, the other gently massaged the neck of the enormous Persian Annie had glimpsed in the window yesterday. As Annie plunged inside with Laurel at her heels, a deep voice (Ophelia must have a well-exercised diaphragm) intoned, “Water, water everywhere.”

Resisting the temptation to make the obvious reply, Annie glanced around the cluttered room, then wished she hadn’t. Ophelia’s living quarters were apparently open to all
influences, too, just like their mistress. An enormous poster of a many-headed Indian god hung on one wall, surrounded by Haitian voodoo masks. Bright red plastic tarot cards were scattered across the tabletop in front of her. A Ouija board leaned against a whatnot crammed with colored glass pyramids of every size and inscribed stones of various shapes. Almost every foot of space in the room was filled with tables—little ones, big ones, all topped by crystals of many kinds, including amethyst, rose and blue quartz, black onyx, and obsidian. A narrow path extended from the front door to the kitchen and another to the bedroom. Incense (reminiscent of mildewed socks) hung in such a thick cloud that Annie’s eyes stung.

Ophelia’s blue eyes were regarding her with alarm from beneath the spread fingers. Then they blinked tightly shut.

Annie began to wonder just how much of Ophelia was a deliberate sham and whether that mattered.

Laurel slipped gracefully across the room to hover over her psychic friend. “I’ll get you some water, my dear. I know you must be terribly thirsty. Just rest
quietly
while I dash into the kitchen.”

It didn’t qualify as a dash, but, considering the impedimenta in Laurel’s way, it was damned fast. And although her warning to Ophelia to keep her mouth shut was not the last word in subtlety, it proved that Laurel was as quick of tongue as of toe.

Ophelia dropped her hand to the chair arm, opened her eyes and stared at Annie with her lips pressed tightly together like Charles Darnay awaiting the executioner.

Annie itched to take a machete to the room and a bludgeon to Ophelia, but she reminded herself that she, too, could be subtle. If she tried
very
hard. She would be as smooth as Y. C. Clinton-Baddeley’s Dr. Davie and as patient as Georges Simenons Inspector Jules Maigret.

“Ophelia,” she said warmly, “I have so looked forward to having a really good visit with you.”

Ophelia’s shiny, black, self-applied eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Of all the residents of Nightingale Courts, I feel that you are the most sensitive to nuances, so I’m appealing to you for help.” Annie smiled, with, she hoped, winning charm.

Laurel flew out of the kitchen, a glass in hand. “Here, Ophelia. Drink your
water
, and that’s all we’ll say about that.”

“But I don’t—” The sentence ended in a gurgle as Laurel thrust the glass at Ophelia’s mouth and purposefully tilted it.

Over Ophelia’s head, Laurel met Annie’s eyes with a look of sublime innocence.

“Now, Ophelia,” Annie purred, holding her steely smile, “if you’ve had quite enough water—”

“Enough,” the channeler croaked. “Enough.”

“Was there anything different about Jesse Penrick this last week? Anything at all out of the ordinary that you observed?”

“This last week?” Ophelia’s interest was aroused. Her eyes narrowed and she tapped the fingers of one hand against the chair arm. The bluish-furred cat swiped viciously at them. “This last week …” she murmured thoughtfully.

Her demeanor was so straightforward that Annie looked at her with renewed attention. Perhaps there was a real woman behind the New Age facade.

“Let me see …” Ophelia’s voice rose and fell as she sketched out her week, recalling places and events. Only twice had she seen Jesse. “… until Thursday afternoon late—and that was funny. He wasn’t usually out of his house in the afternoons. He liked to come out late at night and roam. Sometimes he’d stay out till dawn. I’d see him coming in when I got up to let Princess out.” And she petted the cat who gave a warning snarl. “But Jesse was out in the heat—remember how hot it was Thursday?—all afternoon. He spent the whole afternoon at the end of the middle pier—and actually, he was still out there after dark, because I saw his pipe.”