Murder Walks the Plank Read online

  Emma clicked off the cell, pushed up from the sofa. She took one step toward the main desk, frowned. The waiting room had that late-night feel of abandonment. Computer screens glowed a ghostly green beyond the counter. A paperback book lay spread open near a telephone. Annie recognized Eileen Dreyer’s latest hospital thriller. Emma’s gaze raked the area. “The attendant’s gone.”

  Annie took a deep breath, tried to stay calm. “What’s wrong?” Surely nothing bad had happened. The hospital was quiet as a grave. Oh, why had that simile come to mind? Quiet as a millpond…quiet as high noon in the desert…quiet as a cat sleeping in the sun…

  “Trouble. I’ll make sure help’s on the way.” Emma punched nine-one-one, barked into the phone. “Hospital ER, Emma Clyde speaking. An unauthorized intruder is attempting to gain access to the back entrance of the ER. Come immediately.” She clicked off the phone, started for the desk. “Yo!” Her shout bellowed.

  Annie had no intention of waiting for help from an attendant who might be snagging a nap in a quiet corner or washing his hands in the john or outside for a smoke. She pelted across the waiting room. What was it Emma had said? Through the swinging doors and down the main hall, turn right.

  “Annie, hold up—” The swinging door cut off Emma’s call. Annie took a deep breath. With the doors closed behind her, there was not a vestige of light. Her chest tightened. That was wrong, all wrong. The lights stayed on all night in hospital hallways. She could see nothing. She moved until her hand touched the wall to her right, swept it up and down, found a bank of switches. She flicked them and abruptly the long hallway was illuminated. She moved fast. At the cross hallway, she started to make the turn and stopped. Once again she faced darkness. She was suddenly frightened. She stared into gloom that exuded menace. Was this a true perception or was her uneasiness triggered by her awareness that the back door to the ER was somewhere ahead?

  She listened. There might have been a scuffing sound. There might not have been. She felt a presence. “Who’s there?” Her voice was sharp. There was no answer. She knew she shouldn’t walk into that darkness. She knew it with certainty. Okay, okay. Where were these light switches? She moved to her right, once again searched a wall. Nothing. She tiptoed, hands outstretched, to the opposite wall, ran her fingers over the plaster, found switches. She flicked them. The lights behind her in the main hall went out. Annie’s heart thudded. Quickly she turned those lights back on, found a second wall plate. This time she was in luck. Fluorescent lights slowly flared overhead. The tightness eased in Annie’s chest. The hallway lay empty and still. She saw no one. Closed doors. Silence. At the far end of the hall, a chair sat next to a shut door.

  Henny had been on guard at the back entrance to the ER. She would have found a chair, carried it there. Where was Henny? Why was it so deathly quiet?

  Running lightly, Annie reached the door, turned the knob, pushed. It didn’t budge. “Henny!”

  Henny spoke from the other side of the door. “Is the coast clear?”

  Annie looked up and down the hall, the blessedly empty hall. There was no danger now. If someone had crept through darkness, heading for the ER and a helpless Pamela, that person was long gone. “No one’s here. Just me.”

  There was a fumbling at the bottom of the door. In an instant, the panel opened. Henny, her dark eyes bright and alert, held up car keys. “I jammed them under the door.” She stepped out into the hall, looked toward the exit. “Whoever it was must have gotten away.” She took a deep breath, pushed back a lock of silvered dark hair.

  “Pamela.” Annie was breathless. She started to step past Henny into the ER.

  Henny caught her arm. “Wait. We better stay here. Emma’s at the front, so we know no one can get in that way. I called nine-one-one, and Emma said she’d get help.”

  “She called nine-one-one, too.” Help should arrive very soon. Annie looked at Henny. “What happened?”

  “I was sitting here”—Henny gestured at the metal straight chair. “I’d brought a book with me.” A quick smile. “Of course. Anyway, I was pretty absorbed, but I heard something, a”—she frowned in remembrance—“rattling sound.” She gestured toward the exit. “I looked that way. Then the lights went off. I didn’t wait a minute. I jumped for the door, got inside. But it didn’t have a lock! I shoved my car keys under the door—”

  The exit door opened. “Police. Hands up.” The shout was brusque and commanding. Lou Pirelli, one of Billy Cameron’s men, burst into the hall, gun in hand, moving fast. Lou’s dark hair was tousled. He wasn’t in uniform. He’d pulled on a Braves top, faded jeans, and sneakers. When he saw them, he came out of his crouch. He moved swiftly toward them. His eyes scanned the hallway, and the gun in his hand never wavered. He gave them a swift nod of recognition but didn’t speak as he moved past Henny to enter the ER area.

  Annie started to follow, but Henny grabbed her arm. “We’d better stay here, let him check on Pamela.”

  As they waited, Annie paced. Surely Pamela was all right…. It seemed a long time, but it was only a few minutes later that heavy steps sounded in the main hallway and Billy Cameron came around the corner. He was in uniform, but his khaki shirt was crookedly tucked. He shoved his gun into its holster, stopped, and looked questioningly at Annie and Henny. “What’s going on?”

  “Pamela?” Annie’s voice was thin, frightened.

  “No problem.” He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Nobody’s been near her except ER personnel.”

  Lou Pirelli strode through the unmarked door, joined them in the hall.

  Billy turned toward him. “Find anything, Lou?”

  Lou clicked on the safety, lifted his floppy Braves jersey to slide the gun into a holster. “Nothing out of the ordinary. No one found loitering. After I checked on the patient, I took a look-see in the parking lot. Nobody was around.” His tone was matter-of-fact, but he shot Henny and Annie a wondering glance.

  “So Pamela’s all right.” Annie felt giddy with relief.

  “I guess the murderer—”

  Billy shoved his hat to the back of his head. “Annie, I know you mean well. But I keep telling you, there’s no reason to suspect Pamela’s fall was anything other than an accident.”

  Henny lifted her hand, jangled the keys she’d wedged beneath the door. “There was a definite attempt to gain access to the ER.” She lifted her head and looked regal despite the hour, the dark pouches under her eyes, and her purple warm-ups. “I was on guard to protect Pamela Potts.” Her glance at Billy was determined. “Look at what’s happened, Billy. We all know Pamela went overboard. Eyewitnesses report she was apparently unconscious as she fell. She was on board only because she received a ticket that she understood to be from Annie Darling. Annie provided no such ticket. Moreover, no one who knows Pamela believes she attempted suicide. So we’re afraid she’s in danger. That’s why Emma Clyde was watching the ER entrance and I was here.” Henny gestured toward the metal chair next to the door. “Somebody—”

  Billy interrupted. “Plenty of people decide to kill themselves—walk out into the water and don’t come back or put their heads in an oven or swig a dozen Valium with a shot of whisky—and you know what? Half the time, everybody says they were happy as larks, not a care in the world. Those kind of suicides don’t talk about it. They don’t leave notes. They do it. As for that ticket, somebody did her a good turn—”

  “—and left no trace.” Henny’s tone was silky. “I talked to Ingrid Webb tonight after Pamela was hurt. Ingrid told me all about the ticket Pamela found in her mailbox. Ingrid said Annie didn’t send a ticket. That sounded strange to me. Pamela is always precise. Pamela, in fact, doesn’t have the imagination of a rabbit. If Pamela said the ticket came from Annie, she had reason to believe that was true. Why would anyone leave a ticket with a message indicating Annie had sent it? The only possible reason would be to hide the source of the ticket. I thought about Pamela and the ticket all the way home. When Emma called and asked me to come help out at the
hospital, I put on my warm-ups and went by Pamela’s house on my way here. We know Pamela found an envelope with a free ticket in her mailbox. There must have been some kind of message inside indicating that it came from Annie—”

  “Not so fast.” Billy held up both hands like a traffic cop at noon on Saturday facing a bunch of tourist cars.

  “There could have been an envelope with nothing in it but the ticket and Pamela just guessed it came from Annie. What’s got you so riled up? Are you saying you went in her house and didn’t find a message?”

  Henny spoke with deliberation. “I not only found no message, I found no envelope.”

  Lou cocked his head. “How’d you get in?”

  Henny’s face was suddenly sad. “The key was under the welcome mat on her front porch. That’s how I got in, and that”—her voice was confident—“is how her attacker got in to retrieve the envelope.”

  Billy clasped his hands behind his back, rocked back on his heels. “She threw the envelope away.”

  Henny’s dark eyes glinted. “I checked the wastebasket. And the garbage.” A brief smile. “Pamela has very tidy garbage. She’d discarded an empty box of shredded wheat. The other trash was neatly layered above the cereal box. No envelopes. That tells us that someone removed the envelope and any accompanying message. The only possible reason to do so was to hide the fact that Pamela was decoyed aboard the Island Packet.”

  Billy frowned. “You figure all that because you don’t find one measly envelope? Look, the ticket came in the envelope and she put the whole thing in her purse. Her purse is at the bottom of the Sound. Hey, that’s easy. Anyway, I’m not worried about tickets or envelopes. How come—”

  The door leading to the ER examining rooms swung open. Brisk steps clipped toward them. Emma’s caftan swirled. Her imperious blue eyes raked the group. “How come everybody’s standing here? Haven’t you found anybody?”

  Billy wasn’t cowed. His tired face was stubborn. “We’ve looked. There’s no evidence anybody’s been around here that doesn’t have a right to be here. The hospital, after all”—his irony was heavy—“is open to the public.”

  Annie chimed in. “But the innocent public doesn’t turn off the lights.”

  “Seems to me”—Billy looked at Henny—“you should have seen who turned them off.” He pointed toward the main hall. “I can see the light switches from here.”

  Henny pulled a paperback book out of the jacket of her warm-ups, held it out. “I was reading….”

  As Henny described the sounds she’d heard, Annie moved toward the exit, scanning the floor. She was a few feet from the doors when she crouched. “Hey,” she called back to the knot near the ER door, “there are broken oyster shells here. I’ll bet that’s what Henny heard. Somebody”—she stood, pointed toward the other end of the hall—“threw the shells. Henny looked this way. That gave them time to dart into the hall and turn off the lights.”

  Lou sauntered down to join her. He nudged a piece of shell with the toe of his Reebok. “Could have stuck to somebody’s shoe. Maybe some kid had a bunch in his pocket, dropped them.”

  Billy was dismissive. “Oyster shells don’t tell us anything.”

  Annie hesitated. She almost picked up the pieces, but retrieving bits of shell wouldn’t prove a thing. Probably the intruder had thrown half shells, which were heavy enough to fly through the air a good distance. When they landed, they broke apart. She picked up one remnant and hurried back to the doorway where they’d gathered. She held it out to Henny.

  “Clever. I expect that’s exactly what I heard. I looked that way and the lights went off.” She looked soberly at Billy. “I felt that I was in danger.”

  Billy glanced at the paperback, which had a lurid cover showing a man waving a gun, and gave a tired grin. He pointed at the book. “Like you said. You were reading. Somebody came along and brushed against the lights. That’s all that happened. Whoever it was heard you scrambling around and got scared and hightailed it out of here.”

  Henny stared at him and her gaze didn’t falter. “When that ex-con was gunning for Frank,” Henny said, recalling a threat faced by former Police Chief Frank Saulter, “and you were on guard that night, how did you feel?”

  Billy’s eyes were suddenly thoughtful. He cleared his throat. “I hear you. Okay, the lights went out. What happened?”

  “I opened the door and stepped inside. There wasn’t a lock.” Her voice was tense. “So I jammed my car keys under the door.”

  “You didn’t see anyone.” He rubbed his cheek. “Did you hear anything out in the hall?”

  “No. I’d guess the intruder had on sneakers. But the doorknob definitely moved. That’s when I called nine-one-one and Emma on my cell phone.” Henny gave a small, grim smile. “I spotted the fire extinguisher. If the door had opened…”

  Billy gave her an admiring nod. “Good thinking, Henny. So”—his eyes narrowed as he looked toward the exit door—“somebody could have come. Yeah. It could be. But I got to say it doesn’t seem likely. Anyway, we can take some precautions.” He gestured toward Lou. “Stay the rest of the night, and tomorrow we’ll decide if Pamela needs continued protection.”

  Annie could have hugged him. Billy was convinced tonight’s alarm didn’t amount to anything and he thought their cry of murder most foul was ridiculous, but he took his duties seriously.

  Emma took charge. “Billy, I appreciate your offer, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ve already spoken to Dr. Burford and he’s made arrangements for Pamela’s protection.”

  Lou looked relieved at not having to spend the night in a hospital reclining chair.

  Billy slowly nodded. “All right. Well”—he smothered a sudden yawn—“we’ll check out everything tomorrow.”

  Annie almost spoke up. There were so many entrances and exits to the hospital. If Lou stayed, it would be one more protection for Pamela. Billy and Lou were heading toward the exit, their broad backs receding down the hallway. Annie’s mouth was open, she was leaning forward, when Emma’s hand clamped on her wrist. She shot a startled look at the author and saw a quick, firm head shake.

  When the door closed on Billy and Lou, Annie demanded, “Why not have Lou spend the night?”

  Emma was brisk and confident. “I’ve got Pamela covered. What really matters is convincing Billy she was a victim. I think I’ve got a way. I explained everything to Dr. Burford. He knows Pamela.” Her eyes glinted. “It’s odd how the way of the ungodly, as Simon Templar termed predators, can be foiled through chance, though some of us might call it fate. Dr. Burford says it is extremely unlikely that Pamela jumped. He once referred her to a specialist”—she paused for emphasis—“who treated her for a terror of heights, one so severe that she can’t drive in the mountains. Dr. Burford has arranged for an orderly to spend the night in her room. She’s been moved out of the ER, but the room number will not be given out, not to anyone under any circumstances. Only Dr. Burford and I know where she is. Tomorrow he’ll talk to Billy.”

  Annie began to feel reassured. Here was Emma at her most redoubtable with the situation comfortably in hand. And if Pamela was out of the ER…“Emma, how is she?”

  Emma was slow in answering. “Her breathing is good. There’s an egg-shaped contusion behind her right ear.” She moved her shoulders uncomfortably. “Nasty-looking. Purplish. The CAT scan didn’t reveal intracranial bleeding, although there is always that possibility. Moreover”—her gaze was somber—“there’s no way to tell if she suffered any permanent damage from near drowning or from the blow. She may wake up in a few minutes or hours or days. Or”—she took a breath—“she may never wake up. The prognosis is guardedly good.” Emma smoothed back a straggling silver curl. “Henny, if you’ll give Annie a ride home, I’ll make a final check on Pamela. And”—Emma’s blue eyes glittered—“map a campaign.”

  Four

  HENNY’S OLD DODGE jolted to a stop in the driveway. The front porch light glowed deep yellow. More light spilled from the gro
und floor windows. “Looks like Max waited up.”

  As she slid out of the Dodge, Annie smiled at the welcoming lights, beacons of caring. Eager as she was to hurry inside, she took time to thank her old friend. She held the door open. “You were wonderful, Henny. As always.”

  Henny made a shoo-away gesture. “I’m not doing anything more than you and Emma. See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.” Annie lifted a hand in farewell, clicked the door shut. Her spirits lifted as she hurried up the front walk, but she took a quick glance at the second floor. The upper windows were dark. She felt instant relief, thankful that Rachel was probably asleep. Annie didn’t want to talk about Pudge and Sylvia and Cole. She had no answers for the hard and difficult tangle of love and loss and wanting and wishing. Max was her rock. She wished their kind of love for all the world. But to try to explain to Rachel that no matter how much we love someone, we can never decide the future for them was beyond Annie’s capability tonight. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

  Annie opened the front door to a blaze of lights in the entryway, the breakfast nook, and the kitchen, the cheerful rattle of crockery, and the scrumptious aroma of fresh cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.

  Max appeared in the kitchen doorway, one mitted hand holding a muffin tin. His quick glance swept her. The tension eased from his face. “Pamela’s okay.”

  “So far, so good.” Annie beamed at him. Lights, food, and a barefoot Max in a T-shirt and glen plaid boxer shorts changed her mood. Her fatigue evaporated.

  Max put down the muffin tin. She dropped her purse on the kitchen counter. They moved together and she held tight to him, savored warmth and comfort. He gave her a hard squeeze, then held her at arm’s length, his eyes admiring. “You do better justice to Nancy than Nancy did.”

  For an instant Annie was blank, and then she reached up, swept off the navy cloche, glanced down at her old-fashioned blue dress. “I’d forgotten all about Nancy Drew. Oh, Max, what a long night.” Her lighthearted happiness when they’d boarded the mystery cruise seemed a lifetime ago. It had almost been a lifetime for Pamela.