Part 6 (1/2)
By G.o.d, that's clever.”
The two men stared at each other, then slowly rose to face the watching suspects.
”Fingernail polish remover,” Saulter repeated. He looked at the women in the room one by one, then his gaze locked on Annie.
Perhaps she should have kept quiet, but she was getting tired of his not so subtle suspicion.
”We all paint our fingernails, Chief.”
”But n.o.body knows this room as well as you do,” he retorted.
”We've all spent a lot of time here,” Capt. Mac said quickly. He cleared his throat. ”Chief, I'd be glad to lend a hand with your investigation.”
”Thanks. We can take care of our job. For now, you're all free to leave.
We'll be in touch with everyone tomorrow.”
Everyone started up the central aisle toward the front, but McElroy hung back. ”I'd hate to see anybody get off on the wrong foot,” the retired policeman said. ”Why, Annie couldn't possibly have killed anybody.”
Harriet Edelman stopped and slapped her hands on her hips, and her bracelets clanged gratingly. ”So you think little Miss Pretty Face shouldn't be considered a suspect? I happen to know she and Morgan had a h.e.l.l of a spat this morning.”
Saulter wanted to hear all about that, of course.
”I was going by on my bicycle when she slammed the door on him. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Annie hadn't seen Harriet, which wasn't too surprising. At that point, she had been so furious with Elliot she wouldn't have noticed an audience of dancing tarantulas.
Saulter gestured impatiently for them to keep moving toward the door.
”Don't worry. I don't give a d.a.m.n about pretty faces, and I'll be interviewing everybody tomorrow, including Miss Laurance, about their relations.h.i.+ps with the deceased.”
”That's rea.s.suring.” Emma looked sardonic.
”Or pots of money, either.”
Agatha chose that moment to leap up on the Christie section and hiss.
Janis clutched at her husband.
Fritz Hemphill laughed.
”She wants out.” Annie opened the front door, and Agatha shot out into the night. Annie was right behind her. When she looked back, she met Saulter's eyes. Now she knew how a fox felt when sighted by the hounds.
For once Max drove at a reasonable speed.
”I don't understand why he sent us all home,” Annie mused.
”What else is he going to do?” Max peered through the night. ”The Black Hole of Calcutta can't hold a candle to a country lane on Broward's Rock. No pun intended.”
”No street lights,” she replied absently. The tourists always complained, too.
”No lights of any kind. Not even moonlight.” The beams from the headlights scarcely pierced the gloom beneath the spreading live oak trees whose branches met over the roadway. The pleasantly cool night air, drifting through the open windows, smelled of marsh water. ”Are you sure Hansel and Gretel don't live down this way?”
”I guess it's a little daunting at night.”
”I'd take Central Park after dark anytime.” He abruptly slammed on the brake, and she jolted forward, restrained by the seat belt.
”Good G.o.d, what's that?”
The thick, low-slung creature darted swiftly across the dusty dirt road, clearly illuminated by the headlights. ”That, city slicker, is a racc.o.o.n.”
Max eased the car forward.
”He didn't even ask any questions.”
”Like, 'Miss Laurance, did you do it?'”
”All right, smarta.s.s. Turn to the right, down that lane.”
Max slowed and swung the Porsche to the right, scowling. ”This isn't a lane. This is a b.l.o.o.d.y footpath.”
”Actually, it's pretty rustic. Now, slow down. I live in that second tree.”
”The second tree. You did say tree?”
”It's a bargain. Some developer got the notion everybody would want to live like Robinson Crusoe, and he built a half dozen houses that are really platforms up in oak trees. Unfortunately for him, they didn't go over very well.”
The Porsche's lights illuminated the tree house now. Wooden steps curved gracefully up from the ground to a circular house built around the main trunk.
”That is really homey,” Max commented drily. ”Just you and the earwigs.”
”The realty company sprays every month,” she said severely. ”I am bug-free.”
Max braked and clicked off the lights, but Annie was already opening her door. ”That's okay. You don't have to get out.”
”I know I don't, but behavior patterns are ingrained. I do not drop a girl off at her front door, especially when it is up in a tree in the middle of a swamp.”
”The South Carolina Tourist a.s.sociation would frown on the term swamp.”
But he came around to take her arm and gallantly insisted on coming inside and checking every room.
Annie stood quietly in the center of her circular living room, waiting for Max, who was on his knees at the base of her bed, peering beneath it, to return. ”Now, why did you do that, Max?”
”Because I've got the wild suspicion the island air isn't too healthy right now.” He glanced around at the hexagonal living room. The walls were eleven-foot-tall sheets of gla.s.s, which, in daylight, bathed the room in light and warmth. Now, with the blinds up, the night pressed against the gla.s.s, threatening, disturbingly inimical.
Annie quickly lowered the slatted, tropical blinds, and leaned down to turn on a Tiffany lamp. With the night closed out, she felt a good deal more secure. The room was familiar again, the comfortable rattan furniture, fortunately so appropriate for a seaside dwelling, and so affordable. Here, too, as at Death On Demand, bright cus.h.i.+ons provided splotches of orange, burnt sienna, and Texas red clay. Her latest photographs were pinned haphazardly to a square bulletin board in the center of the bookcases that filled the wall between the living room and bedroom. She was especially proud of the shot she'd taken at dawn near Moccasin Creek of a Little Blue Heron, his feathers slate blue on his body and purplish red on his neck. Her Nikon lay on an end table, next to her trophy for being the winning pitcher for the Island Dolphins. The colorful paperbacks stuffed into every inch of the bookcases added another note of cheer.
Her favorite books: all the Agathas, the wonderfully funny Leonidas Witherall books written by Phoebe Atwood Taylor as Alice Tilton, the Constance and Gwenyth Little books. Her room, safe and friendly.
”n.o.body would want to hurt me.”