Annie Laurance Darling willed the telephone to ring.
But the undistinguished garden-variety black desk telephone remained mute.
Dammit, Max could at least call!
The more she thought about it, the more she wished that she had gone. Of course, it was undeniably true that Ingrid wasn’t available to mind the bookstore, but it wouldn’t have been a disaster to close for a few days in November. She didn’t let herself dwell on the fact that Saturday had been her best fall day ever. She’d sold cartons of the latest by Lia Matera, Nancy Pickard, and Sara Paretsky.
But there was Max, off to Patagonia and adventure. And here she was, stuck in her closed bookstore on a rainy Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but unpack books and wonder if Max had managed to spring Laurel. Even Laurel should have known better than to take up a collection for Amnesty International in the main hall of the justice ministry in Buenos Aires! A tiny worm of worry wriggled in Annie’s mind. She knew, of course, that her husband was absolutely capable, totally in command, unflappable, imperturbable. Annie snapped the book shut and bounced to her feet. But oh, sweet Jesus, who knew what kind of mess Laurel had-
The phone rang.
Annie leaped across the coffee area and grabbed up the extension behind the coffee bar. She didn’t bother saying “Death on Demand.” The finest mystery bookstore on the loveliest resort island off the coast of South Carolina wasn’t open.
“Hello.” She tried not to sound concerned. But maybe if she caught a jet tonight-
“Maxwell Darling.” The tone was peremptory, cut-through-to-the-bone direct.
Annie’s shoulders tensed. She immediately recognized the dry, crackly voice that rustled like old paper. What did Chastain, South Carolina’s most aristocratic, imperious, absolutely impossible old hag, want with Annie’s husband?
“Miss Dora, how are you?” Annie could remember her manners even if some others could not. Annie could imagine the flicker of irritation in Miss Dora’s reptilian black eyes.
“No time to waste. Get him to the phone.”
“I wish I could,” Annie snapped.
“Where is he?”
“Patagonia.”
A thoughtful pause on the other end, then a sniff. “Laurel, no doubt.” The old lady’s voice rasped like a rattlesnake slithering across sand as she disgustedly pronounced the name of Max’s mother.
“Of course,” Annie groused. “And I darn well should have gone. He might need me. You know how dangerous it is in Argentina!”
A lengthening pause, freighted with emanations of chagrin, malevolence, and rapid thought.
“Well, I’ve no choice. You’ll have to do. Meet me at one-oh-three Bay Street at four o’clock.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed with fury. Miss Dora was obviously the same old hag she’d always been. And just who the hell did she think she was, ordering Annie to-
“A matter of honor.” The phone banged into the receiver.
Annie stalked down the storm-dark street, the November rain spattering against her yellow slicker. Clumps of sodden leaves squished underfoot. The semitropical Carolina Low Country was not completely immune to winter, and days such as this presaged January and February. Annie felt another quiver of outrage. Why had she succumbed to the old bat? Why was she even now pushing open the gate and starting down the oystershell path to 103 Bay Street?
The aged, sandpapery voice sounded again in her mind: A matter of honor.
The sign to the right of the front door hung unevenly, one screw yielding to time and weather. An amateur had painted the outstretched, cupped hands, the thumbs overlarge, the palms lumpy. The legend was faded but decipherable: HELPING HANDS.
Annie was almost to the steps of the white frame cottage when she saw Miss Dora standing regally beneath the low spreading limbs of an ancient live oak. Annie was accustomed to the gnomelike old lady’s eccentric dress-last-century bombazine dresses and hats Scarlett would have adored-but even Annie was impressed by the full gray cloak, the wide-brimmed crimson hat protecting shaggy silver hair, mid the ivory walking stick planted firmly in front of high-topped, black leather shoes.
A welcoming smile tugged at Annie’s lips, then slid to oblivion as Miss Dora scowled and thumped the stick, “You’re late. The carillons play at four o’clock.”
“Carillons?”
A vexed hiss. “Gome, come. We’ll go inside. Wanted you to hear the carillons. It’s too neat, you know. The shot at precisely four o’clock. Know it must have been then. Otherwise somebody would have heard.” Thumping stiffly to the door. Miss Dora scrabbled in her oversize crocheted receptacle. “No one’s taking Constance’s character into account. Not even her own brother! Blackening her name. A damnable lie.” She jammed a black iron key into the lock.
As the door swung in, Miss Dora led the way, a tiny, limping figure. She clicked on the hall light, then regarded Annie with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. “Would do it myself.” she muttered obscurely. “But sciatica. With the rain in November,”
The parchment face, wrinkled with age, also held lines of pain, Annie almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
The stick swished through the air. “A dependency, of course. Small. Cramped, Cold floors in the winter, Constance had no use for her own creature comforts. Never gave them a thought. Sixty years she took care of the poor and the helpless here in Chastain, Everybody welcome here.” The rasp muted to a whisper. “And may her murderer burn in hell,”
The hair prickled on the back of Annie’s neck. She looked around the dimly lit, linoleum-floored hallway. Worn straight chairs lined both sides of the hall. Near the door, turned sideways to allow passageway, sat a yellow pine desk.
The stick pointed at the desk. “Manned by volunteers, ten A.M. to four P.M., every day but Sunday, Emma Louise Rammert yesterday. You’ll talk to her.”
The calm assumption irritated Annie, “Look, Miss Dora, you’re taking a lot for granted. I only came over here because you hung up before I could say no. Now, I’ve got things on my mind-”
“Murder?”
Annie fervently hoped not. Surely Max and Laurel were safe! Max had promised to be careful He was going to hire a mercenary, fly in to the secret airstrip, hijack Laurel from her captors (a potful of money always worked wonders, whatever the political persuasion), and fly right back out. Oh, hell, she should have gone! What if he needed her?
“Oh, who knows?” Annie moaned.
“Don’t be a weak sister,” the old lady scolded. “Asinine to fret. He’ll cope, despite his upbringing.” A thoughtful pause. “Perhaps because of it. Any event, you’ve work to do here.” The cane pointed at a closed door. “There’s where it happened.” The rasp was back, implacable, ice hard, vindictive.
The old lady, moving painfully, stumped to the door, threw it open, turned on the light.
“Her blood’s still there. I’m on the board. Gave instructions nothing to be disturbed.”
Annie edged reluctantly into the room. She couldn’t avoid seeing the desktop and the darkish-brown splotches on the scattered sheets of paper. The low-beamed ceiling and rough-hewn unpainted board walls indicated an old, lean-to room. No rugs graced the warped floorboards. An unadorned wooden chair sat behind the scarred and nicked desk. In one corner, a small metal typewriter table held a Remington-circa 1930.
Gloved fingers gripped Annie’s elbow like talons. The walking stick pointed across the room.
“Her chair. That’s the way the police found it.”