Murder Walks the Plank (3 page)

“Annie, you owe me big time.”

Annie reached for another mug, held out
Why Me?
by Donald Westlake. “A voice mail system from hell? Punch one for Perdition, two for Outer Hades, three for Beelzebub, four for Charon, five for the River Styx—”

 

“Okay, it wasn't that bad.” Ingrid managed a small smile. “But for all three of them to call in a row.” She flipped up her fingers one by one, “Henny, Laurel, Pamela. I wrote down Henny's message.” She delved
into a pocket of her peasant skirt, pulled out a white pad, read without expression, “She met him on a street called straight.” Ingrid turned up her hands. “That's all. Not another word. Hung up.” Ingrid smoothed back a frizzled curl. “Do you know that one?” Her glance at Annie was anxious.

Annie was glad she wouldn't be letting down the side. Ingrid resented Henny's efforts to confront Annie with a mystery reference she couldn't identify. Occasionally Henny triumphed (another source of free books), but usually Annie was up to the task.

“She's supposed to be concentrating on tonight.” Annie's tone was stern. She retrieved her cell phone, called Henny. Once again she spoke to the answering machine. “She met him on a street called Straight.” Annie automatically supplied the capitalization.

“That's the opening line in Mary Stewart's
The Gabriel Hounds
.” A pause. “Okay, Henny, here's one for you. Thirty-one novels with Inspector McKee. But what is this author's other claim to mystery fame?” Annie added cheerily, “I'm sure you will tell me tonight.” She clicked off the cell phone, glanced at Ingrid. “Helen Reilly, who was also the mother of Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen.” Not until the present-day successes of Mary Higgins Clark's daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, and former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, had there been such a successful family mystery triumvirate.

“And Laurel called?” Annie made a distinct effort to remove any trace of concern from her voice, although her mother-in-law's proclivity for the unexpected—in fact, the outrageous—kept Annie and Max always on the alert. Laurel, of course, would be on the cruise tonight. But surely…Unease quivered within.

Ingrid added two heaping teaspoons of brown sugar to her coffee, stirred vigorously. “I suppose she's all right.” Her voice was conversational.

“I suppose,” Annie agreed, waiting.

“She gave that whoop of laughter, you know, the one that sounds like Hepburn besting Tracy, and told me to tell you she was quite relieved there would be no alcohol served on the mystery cruise.” Ingrid gulped the coffee. “She pointed out that tigers so loathe the odor of alcohol they are quite likely to make mincemeat out of anyone with whisky on their breath.”

If there was an appropriate response, it escaped Annie. She stared at Ingrid.

Ingrid stared back. “You don't suppose…”

Annie's eyes widened. “No.” Not even Laurel would bring a tiger on a mystery cruise. “Of course not. I'm sure she had a reason.” Reason…Oh, of course. Annie felt the tight muscles of her throat ease. It's not that she really thought Laurel might show up with a tiger. Still, relief buoyed her voice. “It's her creativity thing.”

Ingrid waited.

“You know, she's encouraging all of us to”—Annie concentrated, tried to recall Laurel's precise words—“‘unleash the child within, break the shackles that bind our minds, burst forth like a Yellowstone geyser, astonishing, unforgettable, magnificent.'”

“So what's a tiger's antipathy to whisky got to do with…” Ingrid frowned. “Oh. She murmured something about the understanding required to deal with the young, and violent aversions—”

Annie nodded. Laurel was using creativity to equate Rachel's hostility to Sylvia Crandall with a tiger's revulsion at the scent of whisky. But all the creativity in
the world wouldn't enable Annie to banish Sylvia Crandall from Pudge's life as easily as she'd decreed no booze on the boat.

“—and the patience to be forbearing. Anyway, she said to tell you she'd be there with bells on.” Ingrid's eyes were puzzled. “Then she exclaimed—and it definitely was an exclamation—that bells, even as a figure of speech, lacked flair. That we should think ribbons.”

Annie thought ribbons. The picture it evoked of her elegant, soignée mother-in-law in swirling silk trailing a rainbow hue of ribbons made her smile. And maybe, give Laurel her due, that was the point.

“Anyway”—Ingrid was dismissive—“I'd just got rid of Laurel when Pamela called.”

Annie always reminded herself firmly that Pamela Potts meant well. Pamela could be counted on. Pamela was serious, literal, and a fount of good works. Annie sighed. “What did Pamela want?”

“Pamela wanted to talk to you.” Ingrid was long-suffering. “I told her you were up to here”—she lifted her hands to her throat—“with last-minute stuff for the cruise tonight. Pamela bleated that she would certainly be glad to do everything she could to help and she was sorry she hadn't been able to take part in any of the planning sessions but she'd been very involved—and she told me in excruciating detail just who she'd seen and what she'd done this week beginning with Altar Guild last Sunday and bringing me up to a few minutes ago when she'd delivered a casserole out to the Haney place for—”

Annie flung up her hands, palms forward. “Cease. Desist.”

Ingrid gulped the coffee. “Okay, but you realize I listened to the bitter end. I can tell you about the mid
wife who delivered the Haney twins and what Mr. Haney said—before he fainted—and what Mrs. Haney said. And the utter amazement Pamela felt upon the warmth with which Meg Heath always welcomed her. Anyway, the upshot is that Pamela is deliriously grateful for your thoughtfulness in providing her with a free ticket for the cruise. She said she could not express her excitement when she found the envelope you'd left in the mailbox. Of course, since it was Sunday she would not have thought to check the mailbox, since mail—”

Annie snapped, “Ingrid, I know mail isn't delivered on Sundays.”

Ingrid's tone was obdurate. “What Pamela told me, I am telling you. Anyway, she would not have had the forethought to check her mail box, since—”

Annie joined in the chorus. “—there are no mail deliveries on Sundays, but—”

Ingrid nodded approvingly. “—you—meaning you, Annie—were so clever to poke the envelope out of the mailbox and so she found it. However, she understood it was a federal offense for anyone other than a post-person to place material in a designated mail receptacle. However, she knew you were most likely in a rush, and after all it was Sunday, and mail—”

In unison. “—is not delivered on Sundays—”

“—so it was probably not a serious offense. And though she felt that she was totally undeserving as her many duties had prevented her from being of any assistance to you in preparing for this grand fund-raising event for the literacy council”—Ingrid stopped for breath—“she accepted thankfully as she'd wanted to go so badly but she couldn't afford a ticket though she understood why the prices were so high, after all a ben
efit couldn't raise money any other way, but this was one of her favorite organizations and if there was any way she could repay you, she would certainly do so.”

“Free ticket?” Annie's tone was blank. “But, Ingrid, I didn't.”

“Didn't what?” Ingrid finished her coffee, leaned over the counter to rinse out the mug.

“I didn't send her a free ticket. That's so odd.” Annie shook her head. “Oh well”—she made a mental note to be sure and tell Pamela to look elsewhere for her benefactor—“it doesn't really matter.”

The front door opened. Max called out, “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Excuse me, Pepsi.” He held up a brownish sheet of paper, styled to look like old parchment. “Treasure Maps at the ready.”

Annie swung up the central aisle, hand outstretched, the puzzle of Pamela's free ticket receding in her mind. Probably on one of Pamela's many rounds of good works, she'd mentioned the cruise—which was admittedly expensive—and revealed her yearning to go. Somebody had done a nice thing, sending Pamela a free ticket.

 

Water slapped against pilings, the cheerful cadence punctuated by dull thumps as the
Island Packet
bumped against the tires that buffered the pier. The evening sun streaked the darkening water with bronze. Laughing gulls swooped near, their distinctive cackle almost a match for the frenzied blare of conversation aboard the boat. Passengers crowded the rails, many in costume.

Annie cradled a heavy megaphone. From her vantage point behind the pilothouse, she looked down at the lower deck. Big bunches of helium balloons, red
and gold and orange, bobbed from their tethers at the aft railing. She breathed in the scent of seawater and diesel fumes and gloried in the carnival atmosphere.

She spotted two Hercule Poirots (precise mustaches with carefully waxed points and shiny patent leather shoes were a dead giveaway), one Father Brown with the distinctive round black hat, several white-haired Miss Marples clutching knitting reticules, and—Annie was amazed—a bewigged and begowned barrister with an uncanny resemblance to portly Charles Laughton, who played Sir Wilfred Robarts, K.C., in the film version of Agatha Christie's immortal
Witness for the Prosecution
.

Pamela Potts was outfitted in a prim nurse's uniform and carrying a small black bag. Perched on one shoulder was a figurine of a small yellow canary. Annie nodded approval. Mary Roberts Rinehart's nurse sleuth, Hilda Adams, of course. Annie was impressed. Pamela must have visited with Laurel about creativity. The canary bobbing on her shoulder—sewn there? taped?—was certainly an imaginative stretch for Pamela. Her cheeks pink with excitement, Pamela waved.

Annie waved in return.

Pamela shouted, “Thank you so much, Annie. I'm having a wonderful time.”

Annie's mouth opened and closed. This was not the moment to get into a discussion about Pamela's free ticket. As soon as the boat got under way, Annie would find Pamela and explain.

Annie lifted the megaphone, then lowered it. More than a dozen people were still on the dock, waiting to board. She leaned over the rail for a better look and her eyes widened in surprise. Meg Heath, of all people. She
was in a wheelchair and thin as a stick figure but waving and smiling. Her son pushed the wheelchair up the slope of the gangway. A sullen frown marred his good looks. His glum expression was mirrored on his sister's discontented face. Claudette Taylor, Meg's secretary, carried Meg's purse. Claudette, too, looked grumpy. Annie felt like shouting down a reminder that this was a party, but that would sound surly and she was too excited and happy to waste even a minute worrying about ill-tempered voyagers. They'd bought tickets, all to the benefit of the literacy council, and if they didn't want to have fun, that was their problem. In any event, Annie would make a special point of finding Meg and saying hello. Meg knew how to have a good time. Right this minute she was calling out an animated hello to Henny. Meg hadn't been to the store for a long time, but her secretary often dropped in to pick up the latest Books on Tape. Meg liked her mysteries sassy and bold: Hiaasen, Evanovich, Friedman, and Strohmeyer.

Annie lost sight of Meg and her group. Everyone else she saw looked happy. She permitted herself to relax and enjoy the festive scene. Standing near the stern, the center of an admiring crowd of men (so what else was new), was her oh-so-creative mother-in-law. Only Laurel could look fetching in a long steel-gray gown. She carried a Ouija board and a flatiron-shaped board piece. Laurel was undeniably Dorothy L. Sayers's inimitable Miss Climpson in
Strong Poison.
However, the judges would surely deduct from Laurel's score for her white blond hair, which, though drawn back, bore little resemblance to Miss Climpson's steel-gray spinster's bun.

In any event, the roaming judges committee, made up of Edith Cummings, a sharp-tongued research li
brarian; Emma Clyde, creator of the Marigold Rembrandt mysteries; and Vince Ellis, editor and publisher of the
Island Gazette,
would be challenged to narrow the best costumes to a final five.

She and Max, of course, were disqualified to compete—after all, she would be handing out the prizes—but Annie was pleased at their costumes, he in a plaid shirt and brown knickers, a smiling Joe Hardy. She felt as stylish as Nancy Drew in a long-sleeved blue dress and patterned silk scarf straight from the original cover of
The Secret of the Old Clock.
Annie couldn't, of course, turn her gray eyes to blue, but her curly blond hair, while not titian, might qualify as bobbed and peeked becomingly from beneath a blue cloche. Annie had never been too clear on precisely what constituted bobbed hair. She confused it with marcelled. However, she felt as one with fabled Nancy, independent, curious, and ready for adventure. Now if she had a sporty blue roadster and chums like Bess and George…Of course, she had Henny and Laurel….

Annie's smile slipped away as she spotted her father. She'd expected him to show up in costume, perhaps wearing a tweed jacket and cap, pipe in hand, a stalwart Richard Hannay, John Buchan's quintessential British man of derring-do. Ever since Pudge had arrived on the island, finding her after many years of separation, he'd enthusiastically participated in all the store events. His rounded face, gray eyes, and sandy hair flecked with gray were so familiar to her now. She knew her own face was a feminine version of his and took pleasure in that knowledge. Yesterday she'd almost rung him up, suggested he come as Fenton Hardy, but she'd smiled and decided to wait and see which sleuth he chose to represent. She tried not to
admit how disappointed she was that he'd not bothered with a costume. His navy blazer, crisp chinos, and polished cordovan loafers were perfect for an evening out, but he might have been anywhere.