Honeymoon With Murder (3 page)

The breakfast, outdoors at a beach pavillion on the ocean side of the island, featured grits, sausage, bacon, ham with redeye gravy, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and fresh pineapple flown in from Hawaii along with six hula girls, who softly crooned a Hawaiian love song and draped guests with orchid leis. Annie was delighted to see that Laurel had her
hands full with Uncle Waldo, who had taken a fancy to a fat, fortyish wahine and wasn’t to be fobbed off with only a lei.

Max, of course, was smashingly handsome (a grown-up Joe Hardy) in his yachting cap as he climbed into his speedboat to compete in the race that followed. It was the first time Annie had ever watched Max race, and she was appalled at the incredible speed the beautiful boats achieved. Laurel swooped up to join her. A finger lightly touched the trough between Annie’s eyes. “It’s never too early to think about lines, my dear. Now, you must just relax. Max
always
wins.” Laurel, of course, was a vision of imperturbable Nordic beauty with her shimmering white-blond hair, ocean-blue eyes, and creamy gardenia-smooth complexion.

“Fast,” Annie croaked.

But Laurel was right. Max won. Triumphant, wet with spume, he climbed onto the dock. Laurel shoved a box in Annie’s arms. “You present the gift, my dear.”

Max rooted happily in the tissue, then pulled out two peasants’ costumes from Lithuania.
Let us rejoice
, the card read,
in brotherhood
.

“You and Annie can start a new fashion in sportswear that will bring together workers around the world,” Laurel crooned.

Set up again
, Annie realized.

Luncheon beneath the live oak trees near the harbor was another triumph—caviar from Russia, salmon from Scotland, lamb from England, rice cakes from China, and what Annie knew that Laurel would describe as a touching love dance from Burma, accompanied by a high, whining string instrument which reminded Annie sharply of cats stating differing objectives during an amatory encounter.

There was no opportunity to think—or to find out more from Ingrid about her morning argument or what she meant by Laurel’s sessions—during the afternoon craft bazaar, when wedding guests were encouraged to browse among offerings by island artists and shop owners, wood carvings, paintings of the sea and antebellum mansions, shell jewelry, bird-life photographs, and antiques ranging from counterbalance candlesticks in heavy polished brass to eighteenth-century Charles Fraser watercolors of Carolina
landmarks and more exotic creations from artisans around the world; inlaid Chinese boxes, Swedish crystal, Tibetan thanka paintings, Belgian lace, French gilt furniture, German cuckoo clocks, and primitive African art.

Annie wasn’t sure of Laurel’s intent with the bazaar (increase international commerce? cross-cultural germination? buy international; stamp out provincialism?). But an inkling came to her as they hurried into the church. Laurel beamed contentedly. “Now there, Annie, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

Annie remembered the near panic she’d fought early that morning, and how it was swept away in the color and action of the day.

Her future mother-in-law nodded understandingly, though Annie hadn’t said a word. Laurel’s dark blue eyes filled with delight and anticipation. She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against Annie’s cheek. “Oh, my dear, we’ve had a glorious day, and now for the crowning moment.” Gently, she pushed Annie toward the door leading to the dressing area.

Ingrid was there already, of course, busy helping all the bridesmaids. Ingrid looked wonderful in the pale peach dress. She was calm and unhurried, even when Deidre stamped her foot and announced furiously, “This damn bodice is designed for a size forty cup, and I can’t wear it!” The other crises were surmounted, a button popped off of one of Annie’s gloves, the veil slipped sideways and hung like a broken sailboat mast, and the bridal bouquet disappeared. Ingrid had everyone at the proper spot, and just in time, as the processional sounded.

The wedding began, and if it wasn’t traditional, it was perfect.

Annie watched with a smile as the ushers and the bridesmaids preceded her.

She walked alone down the aisle.

That decision had been hers. And Max understood.

She came to him on her own. She was not a gift from another, not even symbolically.

But her wedding dress was not red, despite Laurel’s plea
that red should be used in America as it was in China as the color of love and joy.

Laurel had been consoled at this defeat by Annie’s agreement to carry a dozen cardinal-red roses. Red roses say, “I love you.”

There was a red motif. Vivid red satin bows adorned the candle stands. The cushions where the bride and groom knelt were white with red embroidery. Roses blazed crimson behind the altar. (If onlookers detected a hint of rose in the creamy satin of the wedding gown, Annie would insist it was the spill of sunlight beaming through the vivid scarlet of the stained-glass windows at the back of the sanctuary.)

As the stately liturgy unfolded, Annie looked toward her groom. Her heart surged. He was almost too handsome—straight nose, firm jaw, serious mien. Then he gave her a sidelong glance from his rollicking blue eyes and winked.

The reception blazed with color and sound. Laurel had transformed the somewhat uninspired grand ballroom of the Island Hills Golf and Country Club into a paradise of blooms, including a frieze of bright red tulips flown from Holland. If there was not present a horticultural representative from every nation, it was no fault of Laurel’s. She could point with pride—and did—to obscure botanical offerings from the heights of the Alps to the deepest recesses of the Amazon. The hours sped by with handshakes and kisses, laughter and toasts, a magnificent seated dinner (Annie wondered if T-bone steaks from Texas were yet another effort by Laurel to be international), the first dance with Max, the cutting of the cake.

The cake.

Well, Annie had to admit the gloriously, ebulliently, unmistakably carmine icing set it off.

Why not start new traditions?

Be open.

Be flexible.

Go with the flow.

Finally, amid happy shouts, a rain of confetti, and a blare of trumpets, they made their escape.

But not yet to the mainland and the forty-five-minute drive to the Savannah airport. Tomorrow, after attending
the early service at St. Mary’s, they’d arranged for ferry service. (Grumpy ferry owner Ben Parotti had tilted a beer, looked at Max blearily, and growled, “Well, this one time I’ll do it.”) Now, Max wheeled the crimson Maserati (a gift from Laurel) up the familiar coast road toward Annie’s tree house. Laurel, of course, had wanted them to stay in the bridal suite at the islands finest hotel, The Palmetto House, but Annie wanted to spend one last night in her old home. By the time they returned from their honeymoon (and Max so far had refused to give even a hint of their destination), their new home on the golf course should be completed.

As the headlights dipped into the thick gloom of the lampless road, Max chuckled. “Remember the first night I ever brought you home?”

She smiled. “You said it was darker than the Black Hole of Calcutta. I never thought a city boy like you would go native.”

The car coasted to a stop by the steps leading up to her house, and he took her hand. “A lot of things I didn’t know then. The difference between hard-boiled and soft.” (He didn’t mean eggs.) “What B’con stands for. That Martha Grimes’s titles are all names of pubs. Damn, I was an unlettered boor.” He hurried around the side of the car to open her door. (Yes, it was sexist, but, after all, this was a special night.) “But,” and he reached to help her out and then pulled her into his arms, “I always knew I loved you.”

In a moment, she murmured, “Let’s go inside.” She had visions of the filmy silk nightgown hanging in her closet, waiting. Her bags were packed and sat in the living room next to Max’s, ready for the morning’s departure. Once inside the door, however, she turned to him and promptly forgot all about the waiting nightgown. (Maisie didn’t know everything.)

And for an instant, perhaps longer, the shrill peal of the telephone didn’t register.

“To hell with it,” Max finally said urgently.

But Annie pulled away. She would not later claim that she had a premonition. That was the province of Victoria Holt heroines. But the persistent ring faintly stirred a chord of fear. Hardly anyone knew they were there—and wrong numbers rarely ring after midnight.

With an apologetic squeeze of his arm, Annie bolted across the room and scooped up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Annie.” The voice was high, frantic, frightened. “Oh, my God, please. Come quick. I need—” A scream, a moan, then the receiver was slammed into the cradle.

“Ingrid! Ingrid, what’s happened?”

But Annie’s voice echoed emptily on the dead line.

Just past midnight,
Sunday, September 20

The night guard at the entry-exit gate, a college student from the mainland supplementing his income, stared at them in sleepy astonishment. There was little traffic into or out of the resort property after midnight. The ferry made its final run at ten, so residents and tourists alike found their pleasures on the island within the confines of the resort, enjoying the waterfront restaurants, the two nightclubs, the Island Hills Country Club (which, however, this Saturday night had been almost totally devoted to the continuing celebration of the Darling-Laurance nuptials), or pursued other indoor delights within the preserves of Halcyon Development, Inc. Little beckoned after dark in the islands original community near the ferry landing. The small-town main street offered one-and two-story buildings, most of frame, a few brick: a furniture store, a five-and-dime, a doctors office, a dentists, the bank, the drugstore (old-fashioned, with marble-topped tables and wire-backed chairs), an insurance agency, a post office. The high school was two blocks from Main Street, as was the small Community Hospital. Most establishments closed at five on Saturday afternoons. Shades were pulled, lights switched off Only Ben Parotti’s Bar and Bait Shop offered a loud but noisome Saturday night, although chili dogs, soft cones, and gossip were available until eleven at the Dairy Queen.

So Annie and Max were out of the ordinary. Max leaned
on the Maserati’s horn; Annie gestured frantically out the open window for the raising of the barrier.

The freckle-faced guard punched the button to lift the white wooden bar. “What’s wrong? Somebody sick?”

As the sports car leapt forward, Annie called back: “Police. Call the police! To Nightingale Courts.”

The guard’s reply, if any, was lost in the high whine of the motor and the rush of wind through the open windows. Annie clung to a passenger strap above the door and remembered why it wouldn’t do much good to call the police. Chief Saulter was in Germany, where his only daughter was scheduled to have her baby within a week. That left only Billy Cameron, a stalwart but youthful patrolman, who had the largest collection of Dick Tracy comics on the island. (And he never missed a mystery novel by the present author of the Tracy strips, Max Allan Collins.)

But something dreadful had happened to Ingrid, and Billy Cameron would be better than no one.

Annie struggled not to imagine what might have caused Ingrid’s voice to rise in such fear and horror. “Faster,” she urged.

But Max already had the sports coupe at eighty, and it took all his driving skill and a lot of luck to brake hard and avoid a collision with a bristly black boar that bared knife-sharp tusks before bolting back into the thick scrub. After dark, the island came alive with prowling, dangerous predators. But that was in the forests and swamps, Annie tried to reassure herself. It was still safe enough on Broward’s Rock never to lock a door.

But Ingrid had screamed.

As they careened around the last curve and the headlights threw the arch with its dark blanket of honeysuckle into bold relief, Annie felt an uncomfortable wash of déjà vu. Just as it had that morning, utter peace reigned at Nightingale Courts, although this was the somnolent and deceptive tranquillity of the darkest watch of the night. It is at night most often that three-foot cottonmouths rear their sleek heads above the water to glide in deadly pursuit of frogs and turtles, and sharp-teethed red foxes stalk marsh rabbits and nesting birds.

The headlights briefly illuminated a central expanse of gritty grey dirt with a sparse crop of grass and the cabins curving in a semicircle along the marsh. As the car jolted to a stop, Max switched off the lights.

All the cabins were dark. A lone lamppost to one side of the entrance arch cast a feeble golden glow that only emphasized the heavy pall of darkness. Out into the salt marsh and beyond into the sound, the presence of the water could be sensed rather than seen.

“I don’t like this. Stay here, Annie.”

As Max slid from his seat, Annie followed suit, not even bothering to reply.

A heavy fluttering noise caused her to grab his hand, then drop it immediately as she recognized the passage of a great horned owl.

She was right on Max’s heels when they reached Ingrid’s cabin.

“Ingrid?”

His call was soft, and Annie understood. It was so quiet. So
still
. Annie tried to batter down the horrid images that kept rising in her minds eye. Ingrid would have rushed to them, if she were there. If she were able.
There’s nothing wrong
, she reassured herself.
Some scare that Ingrid will explain. You’ve just read too many mysteries. That’s why your heart is thudding
.

The screen door was closed, but beyond it, Ingrid’s front door stood ajar.

This time Max didn’t speak. He took Annie by the elbow and pushed her firmly to one side, then eased open the screen, kicked the door wide, and groped for the light switch.

Annie would never forget the scene that flashed into view: Max leaning forward in a crouch, his fists balled, ready to attack; the familiar shabby gentility of Ingrid’s living room, petit point cushions on the cheerful chintz sofa, linen drapes in cobalt blue with a design of white shasta daisies, an eighteenth-century whatnot with her treasured collection of redware, and bookcases everywhere, reflecting Ingrid’s many and varied interests—classic mysteries, Greek archeology, American history, Chaucerian England, Victorian antiques—and, in the center
of the room, staring sightlessly up at the stippled plaster ceiling, the body spread-eagled on the blue-and-grey hooked rug. Even in that first shocked glance, Ingrid her prime concern, Annie recognized Jesse Penrick and wondered what in the hell he was doing there, clad as usual all in navy blue, except for his bare, white feet. A pair of sneakers and two socks lay beside him.