ofcabins, and the huge, beige canvas tent. The tent dominated the courtyard. A milling throng eddied from the command post, a long table covered with maps and telephones, to the mess line.
Max poked unhappily at an extremely limp slice of bacon.
“Pretty good eggs,” she observed.
“Hmmph.” He gnawed disconsolately on toast coated with government-surplus peanut butter.
“The lady dishing up the grits said there would be a general meeting in about fifteen minutes.”
Max stopped gnawing long enough to glance toward the swarm of activity then he glanced toward the sun. Abruptly, he put the crust on his plate and placed the plate on the pier. “Annie—”
“No.” She shook her head decisively. “No, she isn’t dead. Max, she
isn’t.”
She felt a surge of confidence, a certainty. And she wasn’t just whistling Dixie. She was betting her chips on Henny and Henny’s long immersion in every facet of the mystery, from Dupin to Maigret. “No blood,” Annie said firmly. “No disarray. No
body
. Max, it wouldn’t make a bit of sense to kill Ingrid and take her body away. Why leave one body and take another?”
He played devil’s advocate. “The fact that she’s missing has convinced Posey she killed Jesse. Maybe that’s what was intended.”
“That won’t wash,” she said firmly. “If she’s never found, who’s going to believe she was guilty? This isn’t the day of Judge Crater. Why, the likelihood that she could escape to the mainland and not be spotted by anybody is just zilch. So, if she’s never found, it will prove she’s innocent, that she was murdered, too. They think the reason Judge Crater wasn’t found was because somebody murdered him. No, Ingrid has been kidnapped for a purpose, and it’s up to us—”
A tiny throat clearing, as delicate as the liquid call of a tree swallow, indicated an end to the honeymooners’ privacy. Laurel smiled winningly down on them.
Max pushed aside his plate and stood. “Mother?”
Annie scrambled to her feet, too, tugging at her wrinkled skirt with one hand and holding her plate with theother. She wondered if his astonishment was at Laurel’s presence (which would never astonish Annie, not here, not in Timbuctoo) or at her costume.
As always, Laurel was radiantly lovely. Her chiseled patrician features were aglow with good health and good cheer; her vividly blue eyes glistened with love for her fellow human beings. (And if those same blue eyes had a slightly spacey air to Annie, she put it down to uncharitableness on her part and quickly thrust the thought away.)
But Laurel’s apparel
was
unusual, even for a woman who always matched her dress to her mood, with the infinite variety that implied.
A piece of dark brown cord cinched an absolutely plain, oatmeal-colored robe to Laurel’s nineteen-inch waist. Simple leather sandals completed her attire.
No adornments. No jewelry. No scarfs. No hose. Not even a single button.
Annie knew that in a similar get-up, she would be about as alluring as Bertha Cool.
Laurel was stunning.
However, a tiny frown marred that smooth, aristocratic brow. “Maxwell, dear boy,” his mother said hesitantly, “I wouldn’t, of course, interfere in your honeymoon plans in
any
way. May I say, however—and I’ve enjoyed five honeymoons, my sweet—that I do believe this”—and her spread hand (no rings today) indicated the rackety wooden pier and the exposed mudflats of the salt marsh, steaming beneath the sun—“is carrying rustic simplicity to an
extreme.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” her son said fervently.
“Oh, of course, of course. You and dear Annie have interrupted your plans to help search for Ingrid. I understand—and I applaud you both…. However, perhaps you dear children might take time this morning to—uh—freshen up.”
If Annie had felt like Edmund’s bedraggled trophy earlier, she now felt like a skunk-struck inhabitant of Joan Hess’s
Malice in Maggody
.
“Sometime
Max poked unhappily at an extremely limp slice of bacon.
“Pretty good eggs,” she observed.
“Hmmph.” He gnawed disconsolately on toast coated with government-surplus peanut butter.
“The lady dishing up the grits said there would be a general meeting in about fifteen minutes.”
Max stopped gnawing long enough to glance toward the swarm of activity then he glanced toward the sun. Abruptly, he put the crust on his plate and placed the plate on the pier. “Annie—”
“No.” She shook her head decisively. “No, she isn’t dead. Max, she
isn’t.”
She felt a surge of confidence, a certainty. And she wasn’t just whistling Dixie. She was betting her chips on Henny and Henny’s long immersion in every facet of the mystery, from Dupin to Maigret. “No blood,” Annie said firmly. “No disarray. No
body
. Max, it wouldn’t make a bit of sense to kill Ingrid and take her body away. Why leave one body and take another?”
He played devil’s advocate. “The fact that she’s missing has convinced Posey she killed Jesse. Maybe that’s what was intended.”
“That won’t wash,” she said firmly. “If she’s never found, who’s going to believe she was guilty? This isn’t the day of Judge Crater. Why, the likelihood that she could escape to the mainland and not be spotted by anybody is just zilch. So, if she’s never found, it will prove she’s innocent, that she was murdered, too. They think the reason Judge Crater wasn’t found was because somebody murdered him. No, Ingrid has been kidnapped for a purpose, and it’s up to us—”
A tiny throat clearing, as delicate as the liquid call of a tree swallow, indicated an end to the honeymooners’ privacy. Laurel smiled winningly down on them.
Max pushed aside his plate and stood. “Mother?”
Annie scrambled to her feet, too, tugging at her wrinkled skirt with one hand and holding her plate with theother. She wondered if his astonishment was at Laurel’s presence (which would never astonish Annie, not here, not in Timbuctoo) or at her costume.
As always, Laurel was radiantly lovely. Her chiseled patrician features were aglow with good health and good cheer; her vividly blue eyes glistened with love for her fellow human beings. (And if those same blue eyes had a slightly spacey air to Annie, she put it down to uncharitableness on her part and quickly thrust the thought away.)
But Laurel’s apparel
was
unusual, even for a woman who always matched her dress to her mood, with the infinite variety that implied.
A piece of dark brown cord cinched an absolutely plain, oatmeal-colored robe to Laurel’s nineteen-inch waist. Simple leather sandals completed her attire.
No adornments. No jewelry. No scarfs. No hose. Not even a single button.
Annie knew that in a similar get-up, she would be about as alluring as Bertha Cool.
Laurel was stunning.
However, a tiny frown marred that smooth, aristocratic brow. “Maxwell, dear boy,” his mother said hesitantly, “I wouldn’t, of course, interfere in your honeymoon plans in
any
way. May I say, however—and I’ve enjoyed five honeymoons, my sweet—that I do believe this”—and her spread hand (no rings today) indicated the rackety wooden pier and the exposed mudflats of the salt marsh, steaming beneath the sun—“is carrying rustic simplicity to an
extreme.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” her son said fervently.
“Oh, of course, of course. You and dear Annie have interrupted your plans to help search for Ingrid. I understand—and I applaud you both…. However, perhaps you dear children might take time this morning to—uh—freshen up.”
If Annie had felt like Edmund’s bedraggled trophy earlier, she now felt like a skunk-struck inhabitant of Joan Hess’s
Malice in Maggody
.
“Sometime
Similar Books
