Seven.
Eight.
Max checked the clock. 'We'd better get ready to go.' Annie put the notepad on the coffee table. 'I wonder what Miss Dora has up her bombazine sleeve?'
As they walked swiftly through the dark streets, the shadows scarcely plumbed by the soft gold radiance of the old-fashioned street lamps, Annie clung tightly to Max's hand. For comfort. Because she kept seeing young Harris Walker's stricken face. Where was he now? Did he still carry hope in his heart? Or was despair numbing his mind?
Max strode forward like a gladiator eager for combat. When he spoke, it sounded like a vow. 'I don't know how or when, Annie, and it may not happen tonight, but I'm going to rip this thing open, no matter what it takes.'
She looked up at him, Joe Hardy mad as hell, his handsome face grim and intent.
'Lies, lies all over the place.' He bit the words off. 'Was there anything in the police report about Ross quarreling with his father that afternoon? No. Not a word. Not a single word. Just a bland statement. 'Subject found dead of a gunshot wound at the family hunting lodge at shortly before five in the afternoon.' Have you ever heard of anybody going hunting alone at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon?'
What Annie knew about hunting could be summed up in one word: nothing. So she just murmured a noncommittal 'Hmmm?' and hurried to keep up.
'As for the autopsy report—body of young, white, healthy male, a bullet wound to the right temple, evidence of contact from powder burns, powder residue on the right hand. That doesn't spell accident to me.' They turned the corner onto Ephraim Street. The river, dark and quiet, ran to their right. 'But if it was suicide, why not say so?'
'The Family,' Annie said with certainty, taking a little hop. There was a pebble in her right shoe, but now was not the time to deal with it. She tried to avoid limping. 'Can't you imagine how upset everyone would be? And in a small town like this, people would keep it quiet. But suicide doesn't jibe with the letter Amanda Brevard sent to Courtney's mother. Amanda wrote that 'Ross was not guilty.' Not guilty of what? Not guilty of suicide? Does that mean that he was murdered? Or was it an accident, after all?'
Max shook his head impatiently. 'I don't know, but I'm going to find out.'
They passed three of Chastain's oldest and loveliest homes, which Annie had come to know well when she provided the mystery program for the annual house-and-garden tours. Next came the Swamp Fox Inn, now under new management. It had been freshly painted. Annie glanced from the former tabby
fort that served as the headquarters of the Chastain Historical Preservation Society across the street to Lookout Point, where Courtney Kimball's abandoned car had been found. No lights bobbed on the river tonight.
A single dark figure stood at the cliff's edge, staring out at the swift river.
'Max.' She heard the tightness in her voice.
At his glance, she pointed across the street.
Max's stride checked. 'Walker,' he said quietly. Abruptly, he reached out and wrapped a hard arm around her shoulders and held her tight for a long moment.
Annie understood.
Max gave one more look toward the river, then said brusquely, 'Come on.'
This was where Ephraim Street dead-ended. They curved left onto Lafayette Street. The river curved, too, but here it was hidden behind the houses on Lafayette Street. Now the beautiful homes were to their right. The river— and the path where Amanda Brevard had fallen to her death—ran behind the elegant old houses. They passed Chastain House, with its remarkable Ionic columns and gleaming white pediment. It blazed with lights. Annie frowned at the luxurious classic Bentley in the drive. So Sybil Chastain Giacomo was in residence. Annie's hand tightened on Max's arm.
He mistook the pressure and slowed, looking down. Annie pointed at the next home. 'There's where Miss Cop ley lives.'
Then they reached Tarrant House, huge and dark behind its enormous bronze gates.
'You could practically fit Sherwood Forest in there,' Annie murmured. She slipped off her right shoe, shook out the pebble, and put it back on.
Max stared somberly at the old mansion. 'If those walls could talk . . .'
A car passed them in a hiss of tires, turned in next door. Miss Dora's guests were beginning to gather.
Max took her elbow. They walked swiftly up Miss Dora's drive. Despite the light showing through chinks in the shuttered windows, the old tabby mansion, deep in the shadows of a phalanx of live oaks, had the aura of a ruin, as gloomy as the burned-out shell of Thornfield. An owl hooted mournfully.
Annie was swept with dark foreboding.
