Honeymoon With Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

the door wide, and groped for the light switch.
    Annie would never forget the scene that flashed into view: Max leaning forward in a crouch, his fists balled, ready to attack; the familiar shabby gentility of Ingrid’s living room, petit point cushions on the cheerful chintz sofa, linen drapes in cobalt blue with a design of white shasta daisies, an eighteenth-century whatnot with her treasured collection of redware, and bookcases everywhere, reflecting Ingrid’s many and varied interests—classic mysteries, Greek archeology, American history, Chaucerian England, Victorian antiques—and, in the centerof the room, staring sightlessly up at the stippled plaster ceiling, the body spread-eagled on the blue-and-grey hooked rug. Even in that first shocked glance, Ingrid her prime concern, Annie recognized Jesse Penrick and wondered what in the hell he was doing there, clad as usual all in navy blue, except for his bare, white feet. A pair of sneakers and two socks lay beside him.
    “Ingrid!” Annie pushed past Max, keeping to the left to avoid Jesse’s body. It was too late to help Jesse now. Circling to the kitchen, she flicked on the light. No one. Nothing. But the back door stood open.
    Max called from the living room. “No one in the bedroom or bath. Annie, she isn’t here.”
    They searched again, avoiding looking at the body and most carefully avoiding sight of the sword protruding from his chest. They looked behind the couch, opened the front closet, checked the bedroom closet, peered beneath the canopied rice bed.
    “I’ll get a flashlight from the car.” Max ran out into the darkness.
    Annie followed and stood on the low steps of the cabin. Now she didn’t give a damn about nighttime quiet. “Ingrid?” she shouted. “Ingrid?”
    Up the road a siren sounded. Lights began to flicker on. A door opened and a man’s slurred, deep voice demanded: “What the hell. What the hell?”
    Shouts. Calls. Billy Cameron’s dust-churning arrival. The slurred, deep voice rising again angrily, “Where’s Ingrid? What the hell d’you mean, a body? Goddammit, where’s Ingrid?”
    Lights spilled from all the cabins now, except Cabin One. Car headlights crisscrossed the dusty central area.
    Max took charge. “Everybody who has a flashlight, go get it and bring it back here,” he ordered. “We’ll start the search along the shore—”
    “Wait a minute, Mr. Darling. Wait a minute!” Billy Cameron backed out of Ingrid’s cabin and turned to face the milling crowd. His youthful face was pale. “Who’s missing? Who’re you hunting for?”
    A bulky man in his sixties tried to shove past Max. “What the hell’s going on here? Where’s Ingrid?” He glared up theSteps at Billy. “What’re you doing in her cabin?” Despite crumpled khaki trousers, a faded cotton sports shirt that looked slept in, and the whisky-slurred voice, the man had an air of authority. He lifted his hand, quieting the chattering cabin residents pulled from their beds by the siren and the shouts. “What’s all this about a body?” he demanded.
    Annie answered. “Ingrid called. At my house. Just after midnight. She was frantic—she asked for help, then the connection was broken, so my husband and I raced over here.” Annie gestured toward Max.
Husband
. “But when we arrived, Ingrid’s house was dark. The door was partially open. We went inside and found the body—”
    “Whose body, for Christ’s sake?” Her inquisitors nostrils flared. He was balding and bifocaled, with a large, moon-shaped fece, powerful shoulders, and stocky legs. Not a man to trifle with.
    “Jesse Penrick.”
    Max completed it. “He’s lying in the center of the living room on his back. There’s a sword stuck in his chest.”
    A low, shocked murmur rose from the watchers.
    “Where’s Ingrid?” The older man chopped off the words.
    “We don’t know,” Annie cried. “Not in the house. Not anywhere we can find.”
    “Then we’ve got to search,” he