Belatedly, I remembered my phone. Yes!
I had to wriggle over the console to the passenger seat and then fumble around on the floor before I found it.
As soon as I flipped it open and pressed the menu button, the dial lit up. Lit up, but no little service symbol appeared on the screen.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d heard it ring before the car rolled again, and surely I hadn’t rolled very far. All that effort, only to find I was in a dead zone?
I slid back over to the driver’s seat and pushed on the door handle. The car had landed at an angle that would require me to push the door’s entire weight up and away. Even bracing my back against the console and pushing with my feet, I couldn’t get enough leverage to open the door more than a crack. I knew this model had heavy doors, but this was ridiculous.
At this rate, I could flat die here.
And then, miraculously, the phone chirped and I looked down to see the service icon. Just moving from one side of the car to another had been enough.
Carefully, gingerly, keeping all the stars in alignment, I dialed 911 and held my breath.
CHAPTER 30
THURSDAY EVENING
“Captain Underwood?” The blond who got up from the piano and came forward when the housekeeper showed him into the music room was a younger, plumper version of Sunny Osborne.
“I’m Laura Osborne. My mother will be down in a minute.”
She was not as attractive as her mother. Her sweater was too tight to flatter her overly generous curves, her hair was cut too short and tufts of it stuck out as if she’d slept on it wrong, but her voice was bewitching when she asked if she could get him something to drink.
He shook his head, waiting for her to speak again, and when she merely stood there with a quizzical look on her broad face, he blurted, “I’ll bet you sing like an angel.”
She laughed, a rich chord of descending notes.
“Thank you. Some people have said so.” Her voice softened. “My father thought so.”
He looked at the sheets of music on the piano and remembered what the housekeeper had said when he called this afternoon.
“You’re choosing music for him?”
She nodded. “And it’s harder than I thought it would be. He was bluegrass and gospel, I’m Purcell and Bach. He’s definitely not Bach, but bluegrass sounds really dumb when it’s sung by a trained contralto.”
“Please don’t let me interrupt you, then,” he said, half hoping that she would sing a few lines as she sorted through the music.
“That’s all right. I— Ah! Here’s Mother.”
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Captain,” Sunny Osborne said. She crossed the room briskly to take his hand. “What can you tell me?”
“Is there some place we could speak privately?” he asked, with an apologetic look at Laura Osborne.
“No problem,” said the younger woman. “I’ll be upstairs if you want me, Mother.”
She pulled the door to when she left.
“What is it that Laura shouldn’t hear?” Mrs. Osborne sat down on the sofa and waved him to an adjacent chair.
“The day that Dr. Ledwig died,” he began.
“The day that Dr. Ledwig died,” he repeated firmly, “were you there on the deck?”
“I beg your pardon?” She sat very still and her blue eyes regarded him steadily.
“Were you on the deck the afternoon that Dr. Ledwig died?”
“Does someone say I was?”
“Mrs. Osborne?”
“Oh, very well. I suppose it was that UPS man?”
“Yes, ma’am. Why didn’t you mention it to us before?”
She shrugged. “No one specifically asked me.”
“You knew we were asking anyone who’d spoken to Dr. Ledwig that day to come forward.”
“And if I’d had anything to contribute, I would have. But I didn’t. I felt like a game of tennis and I stopped by to see if Tina wanted to play. When no one answered the front bell, I heard hammering and went around to the rear.”
“Dr. Ledwig was still alive?”
