She took down a tray and put two tea mugs and two spoons on it. Then she took down a tea ball and filled it full of loose Darjeeling. She’d never been able to handle the British habit of chucking loose tea into the bottom of a teapot and letting the grinds fall where they might. The kettle went off. She poured hot water into the teapot and then picked up the tray and headed for the living room. It was the kind of moment she hadn’t expected to have again in all of her life, and she wasn’t sure she was having it now. It had been a long time since she’d had a man her own age around who wasn’t married to somebody else or somebody she wouldn’t consider in her worst nightmares. She didn’t understand the drill anymore. She was probably misreading all the signals, or misreading the fact that there were signals at all.
She brought the tea into the living room. Stewart was half stretched out on the couch with Creamsicle on his chest. She put the tray on the coffee table and headed for the wing chair.
“Here’s the thing,” she said as Stewart sat upright and reached for the teapot. “I’ve got a problem, and I’m not sure what to do about it. I’d know if there was any sense that the police were on hand, anybody in particular to talk to, but there doesn’t seem to be. So I thought, you know, we could talk to your Mr. Demarkian, and he’d know what to do next.”
“What to do about what? Has somebody been bothering you? I know a certain amount of bother is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Nobody’s been bothering me,” Annabeth said. “It’s just that my cleaning service isn’t coming in this week. The storm caused a lot of problems, so they can’t get anybody here until Monday at the earliest, and probably not until after that. So I cleaned up some on my own.”
“You’d think there’d be somebody on the island who wouldn’t mind having the work,” Stewart said. “You’d have to pay them under the table, but it would be worth it not to be held up by the ferry service.”
“Yes,” Annabeth said, “I know. But I’ve got this service, and they aren’t coming in, so I cleaned up a little. And I found something.”
“Found what?”
Annabeth bit her lip. “You’re practically sitting on it. I didn’t want to touch it, you see. I mean, I watch as much true crime as anybody, and I know there are all kinds of things that matter, fingerprints, and fibers, and things like that. But I’ve been sitting on it for days, and now you are, so I’m not sure how much all of that matters. Oh, for goodness’ sake. You’ve got to stand up. And look between the cushions.”
Stewart still had the teapot in his hand. He put it down, stood up, and turned around. By now Annabeth was biting her lip so hard she could taste blood. She hated this feeling she had that she was being puerile and hyperfeminine, that she was behaving like those women in the Miss Marple mysteries she’d been thinking about on the night of the storm.
Stewart bent over and pulled apart the cushions he’d been sitting on. Then he stepped back and said, “Christ on a crutch.”
“Exactly,” Annabeth said.
“How did that get there?”
“Well,” Annabeth said, “I don’t know, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? I mean, I suppose it could be the murder weapon, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would it be here? But it’s a gun, and a big one, and I think it’s the right kind. I’m not sure. I don’t know about guns. But it’s not mine, and it doesn’t go with the house. And there it is. And on the night of the storm, Arrow Normand was lying right there on that couch all bundled up in one of my blankets.”
“Did she have a gun on her when she came in?”
“I don’t know, Stewart, I really don’t. I just found it a few hours ago. And then I just left it there and walked around it because I really didn’t know what to do next. But I’ve got to do something. I can’t just pretend I’ve never seen it.”
“No,” Stewart said. “You really cannot.”
“And my sons are going to blow gaskets over this,” Annabeth said. “So I thought I’d wait until I’d had a chance to talk to you. I don’t know why I thought you’d know more about this than I would, but there is your Mr. Demarkian, and he would. Wouldn’t he?”
I sound like Doris Day, Annabeth thought. Next thing, I’m going to start stamping my foot when I’m angry. She reached to the tray and poured herself a cup of tea. Stewart was standing with his back to her, holding the cushions, looking at the gun. Annabeth thought it was a very big gun, maybe the size of a small cannon. Or maybe she was just losing it altogether.