Honeymoon With Murder (27 page)

She hoped Max was keeping watch. Should anyone approach, he was to imitate the wavering, tremulous, descending moan of a screech owl.

What she would do at that point, they had not really discussed.

Henny, meanwhile, was poised to swoop up the hall and engage Billy, now comfortably ensconced in a chair in front of Ingrid’s door, in animated conversation. This plan had been devised in a hurried consultation by Annie, Max, and Henny, after Laurel and Ophelia departed, cheerfully certain that all would be well and that mundane, earthly efforts on Ingrid’s behalf were no longer necessary. Alan had tried to hang around, but Max obviously felt a trio of conspirators was quite enough and succeeded in sending him home.

Inching along the ledge, Annie counted windows. Reaching Ingrid’s without further travail, she peered inside.

The room was not quite totally dark. A glow from near the baseboard between the bed and bath indicated a night light. But there wasn’t enough illumination for Ingrid to be able to see her, so, the trickiest effort came next. She must
open the window, get inside, and attract Ingrid’s attention, yet avoid alerting Billy out in the hall.

On cue, and Annie admired her sense of timing, Henny’s brisk voice rose angrily in the hall. Giving Billy hell, all right.

Annie gave the window a hard shove, swung her legs over the sill, dropped to the floor, and hurried forward, whispering, “Ingrid, it’s me, Annie. Ingrid, don’t be frightened.”

The bedside light switched on. Ingrid groggily struggled to sit up.

Annie reached the bed in two steps and gathered her friend in a tight embrace. A successive wave of shudders shook Ingrid’s thin body.

“It’s okay, Ingrid. It really is. Don’t be frightened. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Ingrid’s voice was muffled against Annie’s shoulder. “So awful. It’s been so awful.”

Annie gave her another reassuring hug, then loosened her embrace to reach across the bed and snap off the light. “We’d better keep it dark. You’re not supposed to talk to anybody” Then she took Ingrid’s thin hands and gripped them in her own.

“Why can’t I talk to you?” Ingrid’s voice rose, sending Annie’s heart thudding again. “Why is Billy out in the hall? Why do I have to have a lawyer? Oh, Annie, I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Annie hesitated. Was Ingrid in any condition to be told that she faced a murder charge?

But Ingrid was chattering feverishly, “Somebody killed Jesse. In my living room. I found him when I got home. I called you. I didn’t know what else to do with Chief Saulter out of town. I called and then I heard a noise behind me. Oh God, Annie, it was so … awful. I started to turn and there was something all in white, just a big shapeless blur of white, and the smell of pines—so strong—that’s all I remember … until—I don’t know how long it was—I woke up. My head hurt and I was tied up, and it was all dark.” Her voice shook piteously.

“Do you have any idea where you were?”

“A boathouse. I was lying in the rowboat. Once I
thought I heard people calling, a long way away. I shouted and shouted. But no one came.”

“How did you get loose?”

Ingrid’s hands tensed. Annie felt them stiffen in her grasp.

“Laurel said they found you in the rowboat, out on Skull Creek. How did you get loose?”

She didn’t answer for so long, and when she did, Annie could hear the change in her voice, the care with which she picked her words.

“Last night, very late, a motorboat came. It tied up outside. I heard a padlock being opened. Someone came in and beamed a flashlight straight in my eyes and whispered for me not to struggle, that I didn’t have to be afraid. My feet and hands were tied behind me. The—the person cut me free. I was still lying in the bottom of the boat. Then the motorboat pulled it out of the boathouse. I was terrified. I thought of jumping over the side, but I was so afraid of snakes and I didn’t know where I was or how far I would have to swim and I was stiff from Having lain there so long. There wasn’t any moon. The motorboat pulled the rowboat quite a distance and then, suddenly, my boat was still in the water, and the motorboat was going away. I waited until I was sure it was gone, then I called for help. When the sun came up, I saw I was on a creek a long way from anywhere. But there was only one oar, so I couldn’t go very fast. I was trying to go downstream, then the rain started, and it was
so
cold. It was a long time before Laurel and Ophelia came.”

“Ingrid, who did this? Who was it?”

Such a careful choice of words. Such tense, sweaty hands.

“I couldn’t see the person.”

Annie knew Ingrid so well. So very well. She was hiding something.

Posey would say her story was all a lie, that she was picking and choosing her words because none of it had happened, that she had fled in Jesse’s rowboat and lost her way in the interconnecting and confusing backwaters of the island.

“Did you ever get a look at this person?”

“No. Never.”

“But you were told you needn’t be frightened? Was it a man or a woman, Ingrid?”

Ingrid’s hands trembled.

“I don’t know. It was just a whisper, that’s all—”

“Ingrid?” The hoarse call came from across the room from the opening connecting door. A deep, husky whisper, but somehow familiar to Annie—

“Ingrid? Are you there?”

Ingrid gave a frantic moan and then she began to scream, her voice keening higher and higher through the stillness of the hospital.

Monday night

All hell broke loose.

The door from the hall burst open.

Light flooded in.

Billy shouted and leveled his pistol.

Henny dove for the bed, brandishing her furled umbrella.

Ingrid subsided into sobs.

And Annie and Duane Webb ended up with their palms pressed against the south wall of Ingrid’s room in the classic posture of apprehended felons.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Billy warned.

The head nurse and the floor supervisor arrived simultaneously, demanding to know what was going on, for God’s sake!

Billy glared at his prisoners. “Incommunicado, that’s what she’s supposed to be. I’m half a mind to put all three of you in jail.”

The head nurse advanced on him aggressively. “This patient isn’t to be disturbed. Doctors orders. Out of here. All of you. This minute.”

She didn’t give a damn how many guns, umbrellas, or intruders were involved.

Annie envied her simplicity of approach.

As they were shooed out of the room, Annie looked over her shoulder into Ingrid’s pitifully imploring eyes, then the door shut with a bang. It opened immediately, and the supervisor poked her head briefly out. “And put that thing
up before you shoot yourself in the foot,” she snapped at Billy, before slamming the door with utter finality.

Billy flushed, but he shoved the pistol into his holster. Breathing heavily, he vented his frustration on Annie and Duane.

“What were you two doing in there? And why did Mrs. Jones scream?”

Duane Webb wasn’t intimidated. “She screamed because she’s got sense enough to be scared when people creep into her room. She knows there’s a murderer out there somewhere, even if you fools are too stubborn to admit it.”

Annie watched him with fascination. Talk about taking an aggressive position!

Duane shoved his thick-lensed glasses higher on his nose, and his moon-shaped face settled into a bulldog glare. “I figured she wasn’t safe. And I’ve proved it!”

“But why did she scream?” Billy demanded.

“She’s scared,” Duane reiterated.

Billy looked at Annie.

She very carefully didn’t glance at Duane. She had a damn good idea why Ingrid screamed, but she couldn’t ignore the plea in those dazed and exhausted eyes. Not yet, at least. Not until she thought about it more. But she didn’t want to take chances with Ingrid’s safety.

“Mr. Webb’s right.” It was Annie’s turn to pick her words carefully. “Ingrid may be in danger. The murderer may think she has some idea as to his identity—and, obviously, the security here is nil.”

“We can take care of that!” Henny exclaimed.

Moonlight bathed the back side of the hospital in a mellow glow. Annie wriggled, trying to convince her hip that those rocks beneath her sleeping bag weren’t relevant. It
was
peaceful, but she couldn’t sleep. Snores sounded near her, from some of Henny and Madeleine’s cohorts. Forty-three had answered the call for sentry duty, and Madeleine had enthusiastically ringed the hospital with volunteers. Henny came up with extra sleeping bags for
Annie and Max. Because, of course, they would want to be a part of the team.

“Of course,” Max said stalwartly. “Absolutely.”

He was, as might be expected, deployed in the Men’s Line, which guarded the front of the hospital.

Annie missed him, but, actually, she needed time to think.

Ingrid’s story was a disaster. Posey would never in a million years believe in a white formless attacker. It would be just like poor Sam Sheppard with his claims of a bushy-haired intruder. Years passed before a jury listened to his claims and freed him. Annie could picture the bright red, headline-covered jacket of Jack Harrison Pollack’s
Dr. Sam an American tragedy
. And, even worse than the athletic osteopath, Ingrid had not one unlikely story to tell, she had two. Posey would certainly scoff at the likelihood of any murderer taking the trouble and effort to hide, then free her. And Ingrid’s stilted description of her abductors return would elicit nothing but suspicion.

Annie turned restlessly, and the rocks poked into her abdomen.

But Annie had an advantage. She knew Ingrid was telling the truth—if not all of it. So Annie had to figure out why a murderer would go to so much effort. What made it necessary? Why …

Sleep overtook her, and with it came skewed images, a rowboat bobbing in a lagoon, a bloated woman’s body, a chubby finger pointing at a pile of ashes, Ingrid’s eyes, a scarlet A blazoned on plate glass….

Early Tuesday morning

The spartina grass glistened like gold in the early morning sun and rippled like prairie wheat in the soft warmth of the on-shore breeze. A white ibis moved majestically in the shallow water, breakfasting on crayfish and fiddler crabs. A yellow-billed egret nosed into the smelly muck, searching for a tasty snack, anything from a minnow to a young cottonmouth.

Nightingale Courts.

After breakfast, when Max departed for Confidential Commissions and the continuing search for Betsy Raines, Annie had intended to settle quietly in the coffee shop at the hospital and study her notebook. But she didn’t even stay long enough for her second cup of coffee. Instead, she drove across the somnolent island, irresistibly drawn here.

She stood in the sunlight by the honeysuckle-laden entrance arch.

Any resident of Nightingale Courts could have murdered Jesse:

Ophelia Baxter—All her ESP hadn’t saved her cat from a hideous death.

Duane Webb—Jesse’s cruelty enraged him. And Jesse, true to form, hadn’t missed an opportunity to remind Duane of his wedding anniversary.

Adele Prescott—She loved her beautiful possessions and would hate a prison cell.

Mavis Beeson—She was willing to go to any length to save her son. (And non-resident Billy Cameron bristled with fury when Mavis was threatened.)

Tom Smith—He disappeared when the law came too near.

Annie surveyed the seven cottages. Funny how much it looked as it had on Saturday morning when she’d rushed here to find Ingrid. The tent that had housed the searchers was gone, and only an occasional scrap of paper plate or cigarette stub indicated any recent occupancy of the courtyard. The wooden piers glistened in the sunlight. They were empty of fishermen this morning. Across the inlet, flowering yucca flaunted drooping blossoms and squashlike fruit in a last burst of summer glory.

Jesse’s cabin still had its closed, empty look. Ophelia’s curtains were open. Her magnificent Persian sat on the porch steps. Unblinking emerald eyes followed Annie until she was well past. The yellow tape around Ingrid’s cabin sagged a little, pulled down by the breezes. Newspapers collected on her front porch. This morning’s paper rested on Duane’s stoop. Annie wondered whether he was home and resting, or if he had stayed at the hospital. Was he pleased at the deployment of Henny’s troops, or furious? Did he even suspect just how distinctively he whispered?

Adele Prescott’s front door opened. For once, Adele wore a dress, a Kelly-green jersey, and green alligator mid-height heels. Her dark hair was coiled in a coronet braid today, emphasizing her blunt cheekbones, high-bridged nose, and square chin. She saw Annie and paused on her porch, an overnight case swinging in her hand. The color drained from her heavy face. Her dark eyes turned as cold and lifeless as pools of dirty ice. Then, jerking her gaze away, she hurried, head down, to her car and slammed into it. The car jolted to life and sped away, leaving a curl of dust in its wake.

Annie looked after it thoughtfully. Adele was the mastermind behind a series of robberies, and she’d paid Jesse for his silence.

But had she killed him?

As for Mavis and her little boy, apparently they still slept this morning. Annie moved past their cabin. She knew everything she could hope to learn from Mavis. The only unanswered question was whether she’d opted for murder to stop extortion.

The front door to Cabin 7 was still ajar. Annie knocked as she had yesterday, and, once again, there was no answer.

She’d expected none.

Tom Smith was still lying low. But was he avoiding exposure as an anti-war fugitive or as a murderer?

Restlessly, Annie swung about and paced back toward her car. But she paused with her hand on the door. Nightingale Courts and its environs held her. This was Jesse’s habitat. Here he had lived. Here he had prowled. She shaded her eyes against the brilliant sunlight and looked across the inlet. Jesse rode his bicycle, rowed in his boat, and walked.

Annie turned decisively and strode down the dusty grey road.

She welcomed the shade of the sentinel-tall pond pines. They towered seventy-five to a hundred feet in height with long, straight trunks and distinctive silvery umbrella crowns. The scent of sunbaked pitch drifted everywhere.