White Elephant Dead (6 page)

“So she was going on a trip. I wonder where.” Max wished he could see Billy’s face. “I suppose the premises were secured?”

Billy shifted from one foot to another. “Those instructions were given.” But not another word did he say.

Max grinned.

As she passed the loading dock behind the hospital, Annie made another cross-hatch on an old envelope she’d pulled from her purse. She spotted a door at the end of the wing that held the ICU and made another check. She glanced up at the line of lit windows. What was it Emma had asked? Annie padded nearer, her rubber boots crunching oyster shells. No, this portion of the hospital, unlike the concrete latticework front, was sheer. Oh yes, there was a fire escape, but the end dangled a good twenty feet off the ground. It was the kind that descended under pressure of weight. Of course, anybody handy with a lasso might be able to snag it, but, as a general rule, lassoing was not a sea island accomplishment.

Annie was giddy by the time she completed her circle of the hospital. In Camilla Crespi’s mysteries, everyone ate delicious Italian food all the time. Jean Hager’s Iris House mysteries had pages laden with scrumptious dishes like
deep-fried turkey and cherry cream crêpes. Annie forced her mind, if not her stomach, back to the task at hand. Seven entrances, not counting the dangling fire escape. She reached the main entrance, a two-story portico, and angled to her right and the sweep of drive leading to the emergency room.

Annie’s eyes narrowed. Where the hell was Godzilla the Great who’d sent her off to reconnoiter? Okay, yes, maybe she was getting a little surly. Emma’s pink car still sat at the curb. Annie surveyed the sidewalk and drive. No Emma. Sighing, Annie pushed the door and walked into the all-too-familiar emergency waiting room. The middle-aged couple looked up dully. The white-haired lady was gone.

Emma stood at one of the pay telephones. She lifted a broad hand in a commanding gesture.

Annie started toward the phones, once again feeling for quarters in the bottom of her purse. She was almost past Emma when that strong hand fastened on her arm.

The vending machine glittered like the Las Vegas strip. She spotted a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Agatha would never know.

Emma hung up the phone and reeled Annie in.

“Seven doors,” Annie muttered, her eyes on the coin slot.

“Did you check each one?” Emma’s grip never slackened.

“Yes. Nobody can get in this place without a key or a merit badge in skyscraper scaling.” Annie leaned forward. Emma effortlessly restrained her.

“All right, Annie. We’ve secured the area. Henny is safe. I simply wished to be certain. Now it’s time to bend our energies to detection. I used a land-based telephone to set in motion an undercover survey of the Marsh Tacky Road area. I called your mother-in-law.” For an instant, Emma gave Annie a curious look.

Annie forgot about food. “Laurel? You called Laurel?”

Emma deftly positioned herself between Annie and the vending machine, then loosed her grip. She opened her
oversize purse and rummaged, pulling out an oblong card. She handed it to Annie.

Annie studied the—to her—odd-looking, intertwined plants. The legend read:
Balsam, Barberry and Bayberry. Being the best, you excel because of impatience, sharpness of temper and discipline
. A
P.S.
theorized:
Perhaps Marigold triumphs as a detective because she has suffered cruelty in love? Or dealt cruelty in love? Or is it because she has a restless nature? Whatever, Marigold is Marvelous
.

“An interesting combination of insults and flattery,” Emma observed, and once again a little smile twitched her broad mouth. “Laurel was presenting customized cards to some of us at the Women’s Club meeting last week. She’s quite enthusiastic about creating personalized floral note cards. That’s what she will do tomorrow.”

“Laurel? You mean you’re going to send her to the houses near Marsh Tacky? What if she finds out something dangerous?”

“Don’t worry, Annie. The woman is not such a fool as she appears. And she’s quite willing to do her part to help Henny.”

“But the murderer may figure it out.” Annie felt herself being propelled across the waiting room.

“So much the better. We are going to scare hell out of murderer if at all possible.” Emma was ebullient. “Oh yes. I’ve dealt with murder—”

Annie had a sudden, creepy memory of the fact that there had been some question as to whether Emma’s philandering, much-younger second husband fell from Emma’s yacht some years earlier or was pushed.

“—for a great many years.” Emma’s tone was confident. “Murderers are damn skittish. We don’t want ours to relax so we’re going to push every possible lever. We have to catch the murderer to save Henny. And we damn well are going to do it as fast as we can.”

Soft-soled shoes slapped behind them. “Hey, lady, aren’t you a close relative of patient Brawley?”

Annie whirled to face the emergency room clerk. Emma stood totally still, her square face bleak.

The clerk tossed her head and her wilted ponytail quivered. “We can’t look after personal effects in emergency and they won’t take it in ICU. Here’s her stuff,” and she thrust a blue plastic bag into Annie’s hands, then turned and shuffled away on her soft-soled slippers.

Emma’s eyes glinted as the steps faded away. “There goes my next victim. It will be a pleasure. I’m torn between a garrote and a toppling statue.”

Annie clutched the blue plastic bag, wished her heart would stop thudding. “Or drop her into a pool with piranhas.”

“I’ve done that.” Emma’s smile was as satisfied as an island alligator on a sunny bank. She pushed open the glass door.

Annie looked back longingly at the vending machines.

Emma was unmoved. “You can eat when you get home.” She gave Annie an encouraging shove onto the sidewalk. “I’ll give you a lift. I want to get to my office and organize for tomorrow.”

The steamy air made Annie think of lifting the lid on a pot of chicken dumplings. Visions of delectable golden dumplings parted long enough for Annie to realize they were at Emma’s pink Rolls-Royce.

Emma poked into her oversize canvas bag—

Was there any food in there?

—pulled out gold-plated keys linked to a medallion with a likeness of Marigold Rembrandt, and a couple of sheets of computer paper. “I went home and printed out Kathryn’s White Elephant pick-up list before I came to the hospital. Here’s a copy for you. I am puzzled by it, I must admit. You’ll see what’s wrong—”

Headlights swept up the hospital drive. Max’s crimson Maserati slid to a stop behind Emma’s car. He jumped out, waved. “Hi, Annie, Emma. Got some dinner. Plenty for both of you.” He held up a picnic basket. Annie would have
dashed to the food faster than Mary Daheim’s Judith McMonigle Flynn whipping up a feast, had it not been for Emma’s implacable grip.

“—the minute you look it over. I’ll see you at the club in the morning. Nine sharp.”

Annie would have promised to scale the Himalayas to win her release. “Sure. You bet. Nine.”

Emma turned to greet Max, and Annie held out her arms for the picnic basket. She managed a thank-you before the first bite melted into delight.

“Oh, no thanks, Max.” Emma declined a sandwich. “I had some vegetable juice earlier.”

Annie was inhaling the sandwich. She flicked a disbelieving glance at Emma’s girth. Veggie juice! And maybe some pork rinds and cashews on the side? Or did Emma eat bat wings and stewed entrails? No way did her ordinary dinner consist of V-8.

Emma reported on Henny’s condition and the posting of the auxiliary by the ICU while Annie devoured the first sandwich and grabbed the second. She intended to alert Max that Laurel had her first undercover assignment, but she spotted the brownies.

“…so we’ll get everything in full swing tomorrow.”

As soon as Emma’s elegant car pulled away from the curb, Max reached for the picnic basket. “Come on, Annie, you can finish eating while we drive.”

Annie grabbed the baggie with the brownies and wondered at the urgency in his tone. She settled in her seat and addressed the first raspberry brownie. As far as she was concerned, RBs combined the planet’s most exquisite flavors.

“Sam Porter’s working the gate tonight,” Max said crisply.

Annie licked a vagrant smear of raspberry from her fingers. “That’s nice,” she observed amiably. Sam was a grizzled Marine veteran who was fond of Parotti’s Bar and Grill (coldest beer, freshest bait) and surf fishing. “He’s part of the ground crew for the Confederate Air Force. He’ll be
sorry about Henny.” Henny was a longtime pilot and often flew her restored P51 Mustang at air shows.

“That’ll work.” Max was as delighted as Agatha Christie’s Miss Lemon upon vanquishing a stenographic challenge. “Okay”—the Maserati turned left—“when we get to the gate, you can tell him how she’s doing and what the doctor said and—”

Annie glanced at Max’s handsome profile. He gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead, like a Manning Coles hero coming up on a German sentry. “Well, sure. But what’s the big deal?”

He shot her a grin that was sheer Joe Hardy. “You’ll see. We’re going to act on information received—”

Annie loved the police jargon.

“—because it’s all up to us.”

Navy slacks, navy tee, navy tennies. Max’s clothes were equally dark. The only exception was the gloves. It occasionally drops into the thirties during a Low Country winter, but mittens aren’t required so Annie scrounged around in the garage and found a couple pairs of white cloth gardening gloves.

“That’s okay.” Max stood at a kitchen counter, scrawling a quick map. “We won’t need the gloves until we get inside. Look, here’s how we’ll go….” Max made a box for their house on Scarlet King Lagoon. “See, we can take the golf cart paths all the way to the bike trail that goes through the forest preserve—”

The island Chamber of Commerce claimed that Broward’s Rock boasted more miles of bike trails than Hilton Head. Annie suspected the Chamber was counting some trails twice but certainly you could get quickly from one end of the island to the other on a bike.

“—and skirt the gate. If anybody ever asks Sam, he’ll swear we drove past the gate about ten o’clock and didn’t come out again. Nobody will connect us with a break-in at Kathryn Girard’s store.”

As they wheeled their bikes out of the garage, Annie dropped a flashlight in her basket. Max waggled a slender pencil flash. “This will show us enough to find our way and it will look more like fireflies.” As they rode, he occasionally pointed the narrow beam on the trail. It was like riding inside a black velvet bag. The storm had done nothing to ease the humidity and Annie felt sweat beading her face and sliding on her skin. The golf paths were fairly easy to follow but once they plunged into the forest preserve, the darkness was so impenetrable that Max said softly, “Let’s walk this portion, Annie.”

She pushed her bike and followed the dip and slide of the sliver of light. She concentrated on keeping to the asphalt trail and tried not to picture their surroundings and the myriad of curious eyes belonging to bats and raccoons and snakes. A splat of something wet spangled her cheek. She doggedly marched on. It was nothing more than droplets of water from the forest canopy. Where were all the alligators? But surely an alligator would have something better to do with his time than loll around on a bike trail waiting to be bumped. “It’s asphalt,” she announced. Any self-respecting alligator would prefer a mud wallow.

“What did you say?” Max paused and she swerved to avoid running her bike wheel into his heel. The wheel came up hard against a solid barrier. Annie’s heart lurched until she realized there was no movement. She must have struck a log. An alligator would have already made an hors d’oeuvre of her leg.

“How are we going to get inside?” Had Max brought any tools? What if Kathryn Girard’s store had a burglar alarm?

Max repeated Billy Cameron’s ambiguous answer. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Besides, I think there’s a balcony over the front porch. We’ll find a way.” Max was moving on up the trail. “I dropped in last Christmas to try and find something for Mother. You remember her musical pig phase?”

Annie remembered Laurel’s musical pig phase. Annie had scoured Web sites around the world in search of a miniature pig playing a saxophone and wearing a porkpie hat, only to receive it in time for Laurel’s birthday and be greeted with a sweet smile. “Dear Annie, so kind of you.” A vague wave of a beautifully formed hand with the palest of pink nail polish. “Those little dears are somewhere about. Yesterday I awoke and looked out my window and do you know what I saw?” Annie had doubted if the scene included pigs playing instruments. Laurel’s smile was beguiling. “I saw flowers. It was simply an epiphany. What speaks to us? Life, my dear. And what tells us more about ourselves and our world than glorious flowers?”

“Talking flowers,” Annie blurted now at her husband’s back.

“No, no. It was pigs—Wait a minute, Annie.” Max jolted to a stop.

Annie’s wheel swerved and she skidded into a fern that showered her with moisture.

Something moved in the brush to their right. Branches thrashed. Max swung the pencil beam. A raccoon paused a few feet from them, his intelligent eyes surveying them calmly. Then he turned and loped away.

“Wonder if he’d loan us a mask.” Annie loved the quick, confident creatures. She was smiling as they wound through the rest of the forest preserve. But a mask wouldn’t be a big help if they got caught. She doubted Chief Garrett would cut them any slack. Would Frank Saulter provide character references from deep in a rain forest?

It was easier going once they were out of the preserve. The trail wound past St. Mary’s Church, its parking lot empty, the asphalt shiny from the recent rain. Tendrils of fog wreathed the steeple. They followed another trail past soccer and baseball fields and reached the edge of Main Street. All the businesses were shuttered except for Parotti’s. Bright red neon along the roof line bathed the nearly full, foggy parking lot in a pinkish glow. Keeping to the far side
of the road, they pedaled fast and within a half block were again in darkness. The rutted dirt road curved inland, out of sight of the bar and grill. Tall pines pressed to the edge of the road.