Sugarplum Dead by Carolyn Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

never minced words.
    â€œAnyway, I could probably get to Nome before I could get home. The airports are closed, but I have a huge stack—Oh well, Annie, have a great Christmas—but see about Laurel.”
    Annie didn’t even try to retrieve the felled light strand from Agatha, who was pulling it toward the front of the store. Instead, she walked slowly up the central aisle. By the time she reached the cash desk, she had the beginnings of a plan. It took six calls to find Pamela Potts.
    â€œOh hi, Annie.” Pamela took opportunities as they came. “You are so good to call. I’m sure we can count on you for two casseroles, can’t we? I’m at the church now and we need to restock the freezer.”
    Annie would have promised anything short of Max on a platter. “Listen Pamela, what time of day did you see Laurel at the cemetery?” Annie glanced toward the clock. A quarter to eleven.
    â€œThe church bell was striking, Annie. It was straight-up noon.”
    â€œThanks, Pamela.”
    Â 
    Max kept his expression pleasant but noncommittal as he shook hands with his visitor. But he felt stunned. Annie’s dad. Max glanced at the picture on his desk, dear Annie with her steady gray eyes and sandy hair and grave smile, then looked at an older, masculine version of that treasured face.
    Pudge Laurance stared at Annie’s picture for a measurable moment, too, before he spoke. “You’re Annie’s husband?”
    Max stood a little straighter, felt the intensity of another pair of gray eyes. He was absurdly pleased when Pudge Laurance smiled, a smile uncannily like Annie’s, and said softly, “You love her?”
    â€œI do.” Max said it as firmly as he had spoken on the memorable day of his and Annie’s wedding.
    Pudge grabbed Max’s hand, pumped it again. “I’m Pudge Laurance and I need your help.”
    Max found his visitor was instantly likable, his face genial, his tone affable. There was charm here and an appealing plaintiveness. But Max stepped back, folded his arms. “Annie doesn’t want to see you. She said”—Max cleared his throat—“that you were twenty-five years too late.”
    Pudge’s eyes were deep pools of sadness. Lines etched a suddenly anguished face. His mouth drooped beneath his mustache. “Please.” He pointed at the chair in front of Max’s desk. “Will you hear me out?”
    Sandy hair, gray eyes, a face with lines that told of laughter and good humor. Max looked again at Annie’s picture. She was so determined. And so hurt. Maybe thereweren’t any words that could undo the silence of twenty-five years.
    What harm could it do to listen?
    Max waved toward the chair.
    Pudge’s grin was both insouciant and sad, ingratiating and abashed. It caught at Max’s heart.
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    Dust curled from beneath the Volvo’s wheels. In the thin light of the December sun, the long avenue beneath the live oaks had the murky quality of a grainy black and white photograph. Swaths of Spanish moss hung straight and still. The springlike warmth of the day didn’t pierce the glossy green leaves. Annie shivered and rolled up her windows. It didn’t take much imagination to hear the clip-clop of black hearses pulling a funeral hearse. A local legend held that on nights of the full moon, a tall woman in a long black cloak walked restlessly up and down the lane, seeking her husband who had been lost at sea in 1793.
    Annie abruptly braked as a raccoon darted across the road. There were always explanations for sightings of that sort—a raccoon, for example, partially glimpsed, or an odd play of shadow in the lights of a car (but not in the 1800s), or simply a projection from the viewer’s mind.
    Whatever, Annie picked up speed. The sooner she got out of this dim tunnel, the happier she would be. Probably Laurel wouldn’t come to the cemetery today. But the only way for