Murder at Moot Point by Marlys Millhiser Page A

yawning areas of nothing where next you step. Besides, she’d have to come down them again. A dangerous thing if you’re afraid to watch your feet.
    Charlie stopped at the top of the stairs to catch her breath and tried not to stare. Michael was what was stunning. Michael brought to mind a combination of Heathcliff and Nureyev, and his bored glance carried the wallop of Mitch Hilsten, the superstar. He sat on a folding canvas stool, a sketch pad crimped between his knees, a camera hanging by a strap down his chest, a palette and brush in hand. His easel was hammered into the soil, the canvas lashed to it with an intricate arrangement of wires that kept it from being blown off the point.
    Dark, jagged-cut, shoulder-length hair whipped out behind him as did a white scarf tied about his neck above a Navy pea jacket. He was beautiful and looked completely mad.
    Charlie stepped quickly out of his line of vision.
    â€œGlance at my work, madam, and you are dead,” he said between his teeth. He sounded like Peter O’Toole but more arty than British.
    â€œI was just looking for a pathway down the north side of the headland to get to the Hide-a-bye. Is there one?”
    â€œBehind the lighthouse and assorted buildings and then behind the latrines, you will find a macadam pathway leading down off this precipice, across a small meadow, and to your destination. Please do make haste so that you will not be late.”
    Charlie copped a glance at the canvas and took off for the lighthouse. This was obviously not the time to ask him why he hated Georgette Glick, but she could certainly see how she might have come to hate him.
    The lighthouse was solid and uninformative, but a one-story building nestled up against it was half window on three sides. A woman in a uniform and a ponytail dangling from under a baseball cap, worn backwards, talked into a microphone hanging from the ceiling and chewed gum at the same time. There were several sheds behind the lighthouse with the same whitewash and red roofs and then two Porta Potties. Next to them a blacktopped trail had been cut between bushes.
    The path was certainly preferable to a flight of stairs. But as Charlie followed it, it grew darker, more claustrophobic. The bushes wanted to grow together across the path. They’d been sliced off smooth on either side but rebellious twig fingers poked through a restraining fence of wire mesh and caught at her hair, prodded her shoulders as if to get her attention. Charlie was highly aware of unknown bird calls and rustlings in the impenetrable underbrush to either side.

Chapter 7
    Charlie’s breath came in labored gasps as she climbed the path up from the beach to the Hide-a-bye. She’d been alone for what seemed hours with the sounds of Mother Nature menacing her every step. She’d seen not one other soul since the lighthouse and had ended up walking so fast she was soon running in a body highly unaccustomed to such things.
    She was half ashamed for letting herself get so spooked, but her kidneys were in full agony because of the tea and coffee she’d consumed while being nosy. So when she saw the lights in the windows of her cabin and the official county Bronco parked at the door behind, she stormed inside. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    Which was a stupid question. The sheriff obviously was sitting at her table stuffing his face again and watching the tube at the same time. Before he could answer her, she raced back to the john.
    â€œAnd where the hell have you been?” he countered when she returned. “You knew you were supposed to stay put.”
    â€œHow did you get in here?”
    â€œThrough the door. You left it unlocked.”
    â€œI did not.”
    He lifted her room key, unmistakable on the end of its plastic sea urchin, and waved it at her. “There’s been murder done around here and you don’t even lock your door. Unless you’re the