Honeymoon With Murder by Carolyn G. Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

find her because she’s run away. She’s hiding.”
    No, Annie thought. Ingrid can’t be dead. She clung to one hope—Henny said there hadn’t been another murder, and Henny, exasperating as she was, had a wonderful instinct for crime.
    Webb lunged forward. “You goddam fool. She didn’t run away. Somebody took her. As for a body …” He paused, swallowed, and said jerkily, “It’s dark. We could have missed—” He faltered.
    But Posey was oblivious to his distress. “Nobody dragged her out here and killed her. Why should they? And there was no struggle in her cabin. If she’d escaped from a killer and run out to hide, why, she’d have called for help when searchers came by.” His heavy jaw jutted portentously. “No. This is all very clear to an
experienced
investigator. Jones is mad at this guy. She’s threatened him. She takesdown a sword—a sword that belonged to her—and shoves it into Penrick’s heart—and then she hightails it out of here.”
    “Absurd!” Henny trumpeted. “No blood. No evidence of a struggle. And why is he barefoot? I’ll tell you this, Posey, you’re an amusing beggar, but incompetent. Now do you have the gall to tell me you don’t intend to mount a full-scale search for Ingrid Jones?”
    Posey ignored her and swiveled back to Ophelia. “Now, ma’am, we’ll be taking your statement and—”
    “Posey, old chap,” Henny interrupted.
    The circuit solicitor’s bulky shoulders wriggled with irritation. “Mrs. Brawley, go peddle your papers somewhere else. This is a Murder Investigation, and I have my duties.”
    “One final query, my good man: Will you order a massive ground search for Ingrid Jones?”
    “Of course not. But don’t worry, we’ll catch her. My men will be watching the coast. She won’t escape the law.”
    Henny gave a judicious, all-for-the-Empire nod, swung about, and crossed to the latticed arch. She scanned it with a measuring eye, then began to climb, hand over hand. When she stood atop the quivering structure, she loudly announced:
    “Calling all concerned citizens. I am hereby creating the Citizens Search for Ingrid Jones. We shall search in the woods, on the beaches, along the creek banks, and in the salt marshes. We shall not flag or fail. Citizens, unite!” And she lifted a clenched fist to the thin shouts of the astonished onlookers.
    Annie was overwhelmed. Bulldog Drummond with overtones of the Former Naval Person.

SEVEN
    Early Sunday morning
    Annie moved restlessly, clinging to the remnants of sleep. Hot. She was damned hot. She crinkled her nose and sniffed. Hmm. Coffee. Bacon. Her nose twitched. Marsh mud in the sun.
    Her eyes popped open. She looked up blankly at a dingy swatch of canvas rippling in a breeze. A piece of wood was gouging her in the small of the back, she seemed to be lying in a trough, and this was too narrow to be her bed. A cot, an old-fashioned cot.
    Max. The wedding. Their wedding night—Oh, Lordy. It was Sunday morning, the first day of her honeymoon, but Ingrid was missing and their honeymoon would have to wait.
    She flung back an Army-issue blanket—no wonder she was hot—struggled to get up, and promptly got hopelessly tangled in a drape of mosquito netting.
    Memory returned in a flood. As the night waned, Henny had taken time out from her Bulldog Drummond routine to contact her chief lieutenant on the Broward’s Rock search and Rescue Squad, Madeleine Kurtz. Madeleine arrived with a cheery whoop of encouragement. She had glinty grey eyes, a foghorn voice, and stood a majestic six feet two. Henny and Madeleine set in motion the creation of a tent city. At their direction, Max and Duane unloaded a commandeered truck and laboriously erected on the dusty courtyard of Nightingale Courts what Henny proudly christened “Search Control Center.” Annie phoned untilher fingers ached, rousting out the members of the Cha Cha Bowling League, the Professional Women of Broward’s Rock Island, the United Methodist