Honeymoon With Murder (21 page)

“You certainly have an eclectic taste,” she said, straining to reconcile her initial assessment of Adele, while simultaneously making a surreptitious survey for pine needles.

“I’ve
always
liked only the best. All my life.”

Then how did you end up in Nightingale Courts?
Annie wondered.

The big woman caressed a Russian straw work box. “Once I had a lovely setting for my treasures.” She scowled. “A man will always go after a younger woman, especially a wealthy man. You’d better remember that.” She picked up a jade letter opener.

Annie’s face froze, then she contained her irritation. People see life through their own experiences. Obviously Adele’s past was full of betrayal. Had she always been strident and overbearing? And how to reconcile Adele’s appearance with her obsession for beautiful objects? Had her collector’s regard for precious things made Jesse Penrick even more odious in her eyes? Why had Jesse clipped the article on Hounds Hill? Had Hounds Hill been Adele’s “lovely setting”? Who was the Susan Prescott who stood on the steps of the antebellum mansion?

“Did you once live at Hounds Hill?”

Adele’s nostrils flared. A vein began to pulse in her throat. “Who’ve you been talking to? That hateful Duane Webb? Yes, I lived there. It was
my
home.
Mine
. And someday I’ll have a beautiful home again—then I’ll have room for my things. Is that why you’ve come? To throw Hounds Hill in my face?” Her thin voice rose shrilly.

“Oh no, not at all. I just heard someone say something once about Hounds Hill, but no, that’s not why I came.” For an instant, Annie was tempted to tell her about Jesse’s folder. But not yet. No need to put her on guard. Annie flashed her a conciliatory smile. “I’m trying to find out more about Jesse’s activities. You told me you saw him at the Gas ’N Go pay phone Thursday night. Did you see him on Friday or Saturday?”

Adele shook her head impatiently “I certainly didn’t spend my time keeping track of him!”

Time to try flattery. “Mrs. Prescott, you are obviously a
woman of intelligence and cultivation. I know you would never have invaded your neighbors privacy, but I’m just asking you to take a moment to look back. Anything at all you might have noticed about Jesse Penrick this past week might be helpful.”

“Why should you care about that disgusting creature?”

“I don’t care about him at all. But his murderer abducted Ingrid. Finding the killer is the best way to find Ingrid.”

Adele replaced the letter opener on a small Hepplewhite mahogany console table and picked up a silver music box inset with a delicate rose-quartz filigree. She lifted the lid. As a Strauss waltz tinkled, sounding like a melody distantly heard in the night, she stroked the quartz, her blunt fingers gentle. Either the music, the soothing touch of her possession, or Annie’s mention of Ingrid touched her, because she finally answered grudgingly, “I saw him Wednesday night. Couldn’t sleep, so I went out on the pier. It was late, I think, around midnight. He’d been out in his rowboat. He tied up at the pier, right under one of the lights. When he climbed up the steps, I got a glimpse of his face. He had a nasty, pleased look on his face.”

“What did you think he’d been doing?”

“Peeking. Like he always did. I told him once he was a voyeur. He had nasty eyes.”

Annie gave a final hasty glance for pine needles, knowing as she did so that they would be impossible to spot against the dark patterns in the Oriental rug. She felt she’d managed all she was going to learn through subtlety and indirection. So—

“Tell me, Mrs. Prescott, why did you pay Jesse Penrick a hundred dollars a month?”

A broadside to the head couldn’t have startled the woman more. Her face was suddenly as white and ridged as bone. “What did you say?”

“What did he have on you?” Annie pressed.

But that was the wrong question. With a sinking heart, Annie knew it when she saw relief flame in those dark eyes. Relief followed by fury, quickly controlled.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Adele Prescott announced. “You’re confused.” But the hand reaching out for the doorknob trembled.

*   *   *

Barbie’s voice on the intercom was cheerful, as usual, and informal, as always. Max suppressed a sigh. How could he expect clients to be awed, as Annie assured him they were when approaching Nero Wolfe, if Barbie always called her boss by his first name and played country music on her radio? As Waylon Jennings bemoaned the loss of another love, Barbie said, “You awake and everything? Some guy named Alan Nichols is here to see you, and he’s in a swivet.”

Max could care less about impressing Alan Nichols. Or about Alan’s state of mind. But his not to reason, his merely to serve mankind. “Sure. Send him in.”

Max rose, held out his hand, and forced a welcoming smile. He didn’t know what irritated him the most, Alan’s haberdashery-perfect appearance (white silk blazer—
white
, mind you!—pink shirt, blue silk tie with white polka dots, and navy gabardine slacks), or his billboard-perfect looks. What could Annie see in the curly-haired creep?

But, Max realized abruptly, Alan wasn’t his usual ebullient self. In fact, the scared, sick look in his eyes was unmistakable. “Max, listen, I’m really worried! I met Betsy’s plane—she was due back from Frisco at nine-fifteen—and she wasn’t on it!”

Ominous clouds pressed closer from the west. An occasional flash of lightning indicated the storm was near. In its second day, the Tent City had acquired a down-at-heels, ragged appearance. The plastic trash cans overflowed, the mosquito netting billowed in the wind, and an occasional yellow plastic cup rattled across the dusty ground.

Across the courtyard, most of the residents of Nightingale Courts stood sullenly near the command table. Annie glanced at her watch. Almost ten. Time for the fingerprinting. Madeleine Kurtz appeared to be checking the residents off a list. She swung about and looked impatiently toward Adele’s cabin. Spotting Annie, she made energetic hailing motions.

Quickly, Annie nodded affirmatively, then made elaborate
just-a-minute motions and turned away to trot toward the last cabin. She hadn’t spotted Tom Smith among Madeleine’s group, and she wanted to ask him a few questions in private. When she knocked on his front door, it swung open.

“Mr. Smith?” She pushed the door wider. Her nose wrinkled at the room’s heavy odor, that not very pleasant mixture of paints, smoke, leather, and wood. “Mr. Smith?”

Light spilled from the kitchen. The living room was dusky. The door to the bedroom was closed.

Annie raised her hand and rapped firmly against the door panel. The sound was loud enough to wake the dead.

No answer. She stepped inside, leaving the door open behind her. But, abruptly, she felt certain he wasn’t there. The cabin had an empty air. There was no sense of another human’s presence. Still, she opened the bedroom door cautiously, again calling out his name. She preferred not to come face to face unexpectedly with the cabin’s odd occupant.

The bedroom was as bare as a monk’s cell. A single narrow bed, with a woolen army blanket pulled up neatly over the pillow. One maple chest. One straight chair. Not a mirror, not a book, not a picture. It was in odd contrast to the living room, with its innumerable shelves and boxes containing his workstuff. The door to the bathroom was ajar. She crossed the room cautiously until she could see within. It, too, was empty.

So was the kitchen. Empty and clean, with no dishes out to indicate when he’d last eaten there. The back door stood open.

Annie shivered. Where was Tom Smith? Why did this cabin have the feel of a place long emptied of life?

Laurel smiled benignly, apparently quite willing to assume a hostess’s duties even in the most unlikely of circumstances.

“Annie, my sweet, so nice of you to join us. I’ve been reassuring Ophelia. It isn’t at
all
difficult to have one’s fingerprints taken. A bit messy, but not
difficult
. I was last fingerprinted in Budapest, and the
dearest
little inspector
told me I had the most divine hand. Quite sweet, and very
helpful
to international relations.”

Duane Webb ignored Annie’s arrival and stared broodingly out at the whitecapped waves in the sound. Adele Prescott shot her an icy glare, then resumed her angry pacing by the tent entrance. Mavis jounced Kevin on her hip. She smiled shyly.

Madeleine bounded up to her. “Got everybody corralled but that miniature man. Searchers report
no
trace. Storm coming. May call everybody in.”

Annie nodded and opened the note Madeleine thrust at her. She raised an eyebrow at the lengthy missive. Goodbye Green Hornet, hello—?

The signature came as no surprise. George Bagby’s Inspector Schmidt, he of the aching feet and patient pursuit of evildoers.

Annie dismissed Henny’s charades from her mind and
focused on her information. She knew much of it, of course, and a good deal of it seemed extraneous. But the wedding anniversary card—

She came up beside Webb. “I stopped by your cabin earlier, but you weren’t there.”

“Nobody asked you to drop by,” he said sourly.

“I just had a question, something you didn’t mention yesterday. Surprised me. Maybe it’ll surprise the police.”

He pulled his gaze away from the sound, focused on her. She wished the thick bifocals didn’t magnify his eyes so, giving them an almost daunting power.

“Yeah?”

“The anniversary card—how angry did it make you?”

She had her answer. Not in words, but in the burning fury of those blue eyes, fury quickly controlled. Duane Webb, for all his bristly speech and manner, had himself well in hand. The flame subsided, and he turned back to his survey of the sullen waters. “Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Adele Prescott stopped pacing and strode to the command table to glower down at Madeleine. “Is this your doing?” she demanded. “Arranging for all of us to be fingerprinted?”

“Why should you object?” Madeleine retorted, equally aggressively.

“I’m not a criminal, and I don’t appreciate being treated like one.”

“Honest as the day is long. Right, Adele?” Webb said in mock admiration. “And you can’t help telling everybody so, can you?”

“I’ve established a reputation for trustworthiness. It’s essential in my business.”

Webb gave her a contemptuous glance. “Hell, I’d rather have a house robbed blind than have you stay in it for even a day. Ophelia’s a fool, but she’s right about one thing. Ugly spirits contaminate their surroundings.”

Adele’s face purpled. She jammed her hands deep into her windbreaker pockets. “You don’t even have a house anymore. If you’re so smart, why do you have to live in a rented cabin? You drank yourself out of house and home and murdered your wife and daughter, to boot.”

An ugly grin made him look like a malevolent moon. “Touché, you old bitch. But you don’t have a fine home anymore, either, do you? How much do you enjoy being a caretaker of other peoples houses? Adele Prescott, house sitter. That’s a far cry from the days you used to lord it over everybody as the mistress of Hounds Hill.”

A muscle twitched in Adele Prescott’s jaw.

“Ugliness begets ugliness,” Ophelia murmured sadly. “Hatred sows hatred.” She pressed her fingers lightly against her temples. “Somewhere out there, Ingrid’s spirit seeks us, but we cannot hear her if our ears are filled with a discordant jangle.”

“Screws up the messages, huh?” Duane asked sarcastically.

Sudden tears brimmed in Ophelia’s eyes. “None are so blind as those who
think
they can see.”

Laurel fluttered near her. “My dear, you must
conserve
your emotion. You know that we are near a
critical
juncture.”

Ophelia sniffed raggedly. “Oh, I know. I must not become upset. I must not. I must not.”

“You’re all crazy. That’s what you are, nutty as a Christmas fruitcake.” Mavis Beeson’s eyes swung from face to face. “I don’t know why I ever came to live in this horrible place.” At her tone, Kevin’s small arms tightened around his mother’s neck. Her lips trembled, but she lifted a reassuring hand to smooth back a curl from his face. “I wish I didn’t have to see any of you ever again.”

Webb looked at her pityingly “If wishes were horses, the sun would still shine on many a golden kingdom.” His voice was weary.

Mavis stared at him uncomprehendingly, then her face changed. Eagerness warred with uncertainty in her eyes as Broward Rock’s sole police car pulled up to the honeysuckle-covered arch.

Annie darted up to meet Billy Cameron. She didn’t want to be overheard. “Billy, can I visit with you for a minute?”

He loomed over her. Although he had to be around her own age, he’d always seemed younger, younger and unsophisticated, like an awkward St. Bernard puppy. But today his normally open, friendly face had a new hardness.
He didn’t look young, friendly, or bumptious. He looked like a very large and very wary man.