luncheon. Pat wasn’t at the store. She wasn’t home. Where was she? Maybe she had a call from a friend who needed to go to a doctor’s appointment in Savannah. Maybe she forgot to call the bookshop. Maybe a lot of things.
Henny tried to maintain a positive outlook, but she felt both irritated and disappointed. She had helped Pat find a job and now Pat had let Annie down. Henny pressed her lips together. Her words might be sharp when she found Pat. With a decided nod, she turned on the motor and headed for Pat’s house instead of home.
Henny drove with her windows down, enjoying the pleasant June heat. In July the island would swelter and cooling the car with air-conditioning would be automatic. She turned on a dusty narrow road north of downtown. Palmettos, live oaks, red cedars, and yellow pines crowded the road. The burgeoning woods were interrupted by occasional houses. She enjoyed the variety: shacks perched on pilings; late-nineteenth-century, two-story frame or tabby homes; and new multistoried mansions of stucco or stone.
The road swung around a lagoon. On the wooded side of the road, Henny turned into a driveway. Pat’s modest home was an early Colonial clapboard cottage. It was well maintained, the white paint fresh. Henny pulled up behind Pat’s blue Chevy. Had she returned home shortly before Henny’s arrival? Henny’s eyes glinted. Had she chosen not to answer the phone?
On the porch, Henny admired some crimson begonias in a glazed blue vase. A light cotton sweater lay on the green swing. Letters and magazines protruded from the mailbox. Before she could ring, frenzied barking erupted beyond the front door. Gertrude sounded frantic. That was unusual. She was a good-natured dog.
A frown touched Henny’s narrow face. There had been enough time for Pat to answer the door. The dachshund’s yelps continued, faster and faster.
Henny glanced out at the drive. That was Pat’s car. Of course, someone might have picked her up . . .
Dog claws scrabbled on the other side of the door.
Henny pulled open the screen. She turned the front knob and pushed. She wasn’t surprised to find the door open. Many islanders only locked up at bedtime. “Pat?” The door swung slowly inward. Henny stepped into the small foyer. A grandfather clock ticked to her left.
Gertrude twisted in a circle, her claws clicking on the wooden floor, then bolted to the living room. She skidded to a stop, lifted her sleek head, and howled, the pitiable cry high and mournful.
Henny felt a tightness in her chest. She crossed the hall, stopped in the doorway.
Sun spilled across the room, illuminating the rose sofa and the cream chintz easy chair and the pinewood coffee table. A crystal mug with dark sludge in its bottom sat on the table. Pat slumped to one side of the easy chair, her auburn-gray head resting against the upholstered side, her face slack. One arm dangled over the side of the chair.
Annie loved the long sweep of the garden behind their house, azaleas bright in spring afternoons, dusky roses damp with dew in summer, billowy white blossoms of sea myrtle in late fall. Tall pines and Spanish-moss-draped live oaks framed the view down to the pond with its resident alligator. Tonight the beauty was dimmed.
“I feel awful. I was so mad at Pat. And she was dead.” Annie’s voice was shaky.
Max lounged against the railing, his back to the garden. “Hey, you didn’t know.” He looked at Henny in the red wooden rocking chair next to Annie. “Do they have any idea what caused her death?”
Henny shook her head. “So far as I know she didn’t have heart trouble, but that’s always possible. They’re doing an autopsy.” She stroked the fluffy white fur of Dorothy L, who snuggled in her lap.
Annie nodded. That was the law when cause of death could not be certified by an attending physician.
“She had finished supper. The dishes were done and draining in a rack. She was fully dressed.” The purring cat rose and placed her paws on Henny’s shoulder, butted Henny’s cheek gently with her head. Henny smiled. “Dorothy L is offering comfort. Now, if she could only steer us in the right direction, like her namesake.”
Annie squeezed her eyes in remembrance, seeing clearly Pat’s uneven features and pale blue eyes and straggling auburn curls. “That last day Pat wore a bandanna-print navy-blue dress with a white seashell necklace.”
Henny nodded. “Apparently, she came home from work, fixed her dinner, then sat in the living room to drink coffee. I suppose the illness was sudden and she wasn’t able to call for help.”
Annie felt a wash of sadness. Not sorrow, for she hadn’t known Pat well or long, but sadness. She admired those who landed on their feet and kept on slugging even when life landed a hard blow. Annie had sensed residual anger beneath Pat’s cheery appearance at the bookstore, but her efforts to master her new job had been evident and sincere. She’d carried yet another Christie home that last night. A cynic might suggest that Pat had merely played to her audience when she talked about the books to Annie, but Pat had plucked meaningful bits and pieces from each book. They had last talked about
At that moment, Annie had a strong sense that Pat had in mind doing something she considered daring. She repeated the quote to Henny.
“Virginia Revel.” Henny looked intrigued. “I wish we knew what Pat wanted to do. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”
Chapter Three
Annie admired the watercolors above the mantel, then stepped behind the coffee bar at Death on Demand. “Amaretto in your mocha?”
Laurel beamed at her daughter-in-law. “Such a lovely idea, my dear.”
Annie added chocolate sprinkles to mounded whipping cream, then placed the mug to one side of the artist’s portfolio Laurel had casually placed atop the counter. Laurel’s mug read:
