Black Moonlight by Amy Patricia Meade Read Free Book Online Page B

pull, once again, at her nightgown. This time, he caught the material on his claws.
    Marjorie sighed heavily and reached down to free the feline from the garment. As she did so, she noticed that his paw had stained her nightgown a reddish brown. “Are you hurt, puss?” she asked, recalling the kick that Cassandra had given him the night before. “Are you … ?”
    Marjorie felt the blood rush from her head and she wondered if she might be sick. Swallowing hard, she reached behind her, grabbed Creighton by the shoulder and shook him.
    “What is it?” he answered testily.
    Marjorie said nothing, but pointed at the floor beneath her feet.
    Creighton looked down. “The cat? Yes, what about the … ?” his voice trailed off as his eyes traced the cat’s paw prints to a pool of blood that had collected beneath the Italian cassone.
    Creighton stood up and motioned to George, who had returned from the cottage with a thick down quilt. George promptly wrapped the coverlet around his mother, helped her out of the chair and, with Mr. Miller’s assistance, escorted her from the room.
    Taking a deep breath, Creighton stepped toward the trunk, bent down, and with one hand, slowly lifted the lid.
    “Oh, God.” He stepped back quickly, letting the bronze statue slip from his fingertips and fall to the floor with a deafening clang.
    Marjorie rushed to his side. There, in the open trunk, lay the tuxedo-clad body of Creighton Ashcroft II. His eyes and mouth were open and his body bent and knotted to fit into the tight confines of the chest. A wide, deep wound on the back of his head and a trail of dried blood emanating from one ear proved to be the most likely sources of the blood on the floor.
    Prudence gasped in shock, while Griselda let out a piercing scream.
    “I-I’ll go to Hamilton and get the police,” Edward announced.
    “No!” Creighton shouted. “No one’s leaving the island. And certainly not alone. Not until we know who did this.”
    “Are you suggesting that … that one of us … ?” Prudence drew a hand to her chest in complete horror.
    “There’s only one way on and off this island, Pru,” Creighton answered. “You know that.”
    “The killer could have hired a boat,” she argued.
    Creighton shook his head. “Someone would have heard them. Marjorie and I hitched a ride on one of those ‘hired boats’ yesterday morning.”
    “My hearing still hasn’t fully returned,” Marjorie noted.
    Creighton nodded in agreement. “Nope, unless somebody paid Johnny Weissmuller to swim out here, kill Dad, and swim back, I think we’re looking at an ‘inside job.’”
    “How can you be so glib?” Edward said accusingly. “Father’s dead—murdered—and we need to contact the authorities.”
    “Yes, we do. And, yes, we will,” Creighton stated. “There’s a flare gun on the speedster, isn’t there?”
    “Yes.”
    “We’ll fire it off the pier—together, so that if one of us is the murderer, he’s not tempted to hop in the speedster and take off. Then we wait for the authorities to arrive,” Creighton explained. “Are the extra flares still behind the stables?”
    “They are unless you set them off with the Ziegfeld girls,” Edward quipped.
    Creighton rolled his eyes. “Now who’s being glib?”

Emily Patterson stepped out onto the front porch of her Victorian home, a cup and saucer in one hand and the early edition of The Hartford Courant in the other. Her plans to enjoy a leisurely summer morning sipping tea and perusing the paper were cut short when she spotted a man lying on her porch swing.
    Stuffed into an ill-fitting crumpled brown suit, the man’s bulky torso occupied the whole of the swing’s bench seat, leaving his limbs to dangle awkwardly over the back and arm rests. A brown fedora covered his face.
    The man snored loudly and attempted to roll over, thus sending his hat, and himself, tumbling onto the gray porch floor with a thud.
    “Officer Noonan!” Mrs. Patterson exclaimed