Southern Ghost

He popped up and began to pace the small confines of the motel room, the old wooden floor creaking beneath him. 'I started looking for Courtney. It didn't take long to be sure she wasn't in that apartment. I was heading for the phone to call the cops when this voice yelled, 'Hands up,' and I turned around to look into the barrel of the biggest damn gun I've ever seen. It was my old friend, Sergeant Matthews.' Scowl­ing, Max flung himself down again in the chair. 'So I guess I've got to give the Chastain cops some credit. Matthews brushed me off at the station, but he did come to check Court­ney's apartment. Of course, he won't listen when I say that's what I was doing, too. Hell, no. He decides I'm 'acting suspi­ciously' and there's evidence of a crime scene—did he think I trashed the damn place? So I wind up in jail. And I'm the one who got the cops stirred up! Can you believe it?' His voice rose in outrage. 'Anyway, it was about an hour later that Wells lumbered in.'

'Chief Caligula,' Annie said resentfully.

That brought another brief smile, quickly gone. Max's eyes narrowed. 'Here's where it gets interesting.' A speculative note quickened his voice. 'Wells asked why I was meeting 'the missing woman' in the cemetery.'

Annie rolled to a sitting position and slipped her arms around her knees.

Max leaned forward. 'Now, listen closely, Annie. I'm go­ing to tell you exactly what I told Wells. Okay?'

'Sure.' She didn't understand her role yet, but Max obvi­ously had something in mind.

Max's tone was formal. 'On Monday, I received a call from a woman who subsequently identified herself as Courtney Kimball. She inquired about the kinds of projects undertaken by Confidential Commissions.'

Max had chosen his words carefully in dealing with Wells. The sovereign state of South Carolina has very particular re?

quirements for the licensing of private detectives, several of which Max could not meet (two years of work in an existing licensed agency or two years as a law enforcement officer), and Max was not licensed to practice law in South Carolina, which eschews reciprocity with other states (South Carolina has no intention of making it easy for retired lawyers from other climes to pick up some pocket change). Wells would dearly love to nail Max for acting illegally in either capacity. The chief still harbored resentment against both Annie and Max from their encounter several years ago during the Chastain house-and-garden tour mystery event that turned to murder.

'I told Wells how I explained to Ms. Kimball that the objective of Confidential Commissions was to provide infor­mation and solace to those in the midst of trying times.' A bland enough statement that nowise, Max would protest, could be equated to the investigative efforts mounted by pri­vate detectives or the counsel proffered by practicing attor­neys. 'I made it clear that Ms. Kimball asked me to do a historical survey, and I was happy to be able to advise her that I would do my very best to be helpful.'

Annie grinned. She wished she could have seen Wells's face.

'I met her Monday at La Maison Rouge in Chastain. She asked me to do two things—'

Annie held up her hand and reached for her purse. When she had a pad and pencil in hand, she nodded for Max to continue.

'One. To find out every possible detail in regard to the deaths of Ross Tarrant and Judge Augustus Tarrant, both of which occurred on May ninth, 1970, in Chastain.

'Two. To determine all the persons living in or present in any capacity at Tarrant House on Ephraim Street in Chastain on May ninth, 1970.'

Max's eyes gleamed. 'Up to this point, Wells just listened. No expression, of course. I've seen faces at Madame Tussaud's that looked more alive. Until'—Max struck the chair arm sharply—'I mentioned the Tarrants and Tarrant House. All of a sudden, it was different. Damn different. Wells picked up acigar and lit it, taking his time. He looked at me through a haze of smoke and asked—and here's exactly what he said, Annie—'Who the hell is Courtney Kimball?' He didn't ask me a damn thing about the Tarrants or whether I'd found out anything about their deaths or the people at Tarrant House that day. Oh, no. All of a sudden, he wanted to know about Courtney. That's when he turned hostile and started making cracks about me and my 'relationship' with her, saying I'd be a lot better off if I told the police what had happened to her and stopped trying to create some kind of mystery. Not having slept entirely through Criminal Law, I decided to stop being so damn helpful to the constituted authorities and refused to say another word. So Wells dumped me in jail—'

'And came to the island to see how much I knew.'

Max looked at her with startled eyes. 'I hadn't stopped to figure out how you turned up with the magistrate. I called you and there wasn't any answer so I called Howard Cahill and asked him to get his lawyer for me.' Then the import of her words struck. 'Did the sorry bastard imply I was having an affair with her?'

Max's outrage made Annie feel warm and cossetted. 'Don't worry,' she said blithely. 'I told him you had a business engagement with her.'

Max's grin made him look like Joe Hardy (all grown up and sexy as hell) after a winning touchdown. 'That's telling him.' But the grin didn't touch the dark core of worry in his eyes. He smacked his fist in his palm. 'The hell of it is, Wells is concentrating on me. Nobody's doing anything about Courtney.'

Annie heard the anguish in his voice. A business engage­ment, she repeated to herself. That's all that it was. Max was here now with her, loving her. That didn't mean he couldn't be concerned about others.

Courtney Kimball.

Wells wanted to know who the hell she was. Annie made a wreath of question marks around Courtney's name on the pad. Frankly, Annie shared Chief Wells's interest. But she had an?

other question that mattered even more to her. 'Max, why didn't you tell me about this assignment?'

Her charming, unflappable husband looked, in turn, sheep­ish, uncomfortable, and embarrassed.

Very un-Max responses.

Annie tried to keep on breathing evenly.

As if it were just a casual question.

'Well'—it was the closest to hangdog she'd ever seen him —'you kept encouraging me to get involved in an interesting case, and, the thing about it is, I didn't want to get your hopes up that I was into something big. When I finished checking on the Tarrants, everything looked on the up-and-up so I decided not to mention it at all—since it didn't amount to anything.'