Undaunted by her ailing tent, Rose Noire was spending the interval before our departure reorganizing the camp along proper feng shui lines, and getting a surprising degree of cooperation. I’d have expected people to balk at taking camping advice from someone whose first night’s efforts had left her homeless and looking like a drowned rat, but I soon realized that the people who signed on for Blake’s Brigade were remarkably tolerant and kindhearted, and thus willing to re-stake their tents two or three times and arrange their campfires and folding chairs into the sometimes odd and inconvenient configurations Rose Noire felt they needed to be in to cure the camp’s chi.
Or maybe they were all glad to have something to do while the chain saws were at work.
A pity we weren’t getting the early start we’d planned. I couldn’t call up a weather report on my cell phone—in fact, I couldn’t get a signal at all, which probably meant that the cell towers were out because of the storm. And the air was already warm and muggy.
The boys were busy making mud pies, mud cookies, and mud pancakes with rainwater for syrup. I decided to while away the time until the convoy left with a visit to Miss Annabel. Make sure she was all right. Maybe bask in her air conditioning a while if she had any. And if she wasn’t up, I could leave her a note with the security company’s business card.
But I had barely tapped on her front door before it flew open.
“I see you all survived the storm,” she said. “Come in.”
She waved me into the living room. She was dressed for the heat, in a loose caftanlike garment and sandals. And she was wearing a little headlight on her head—turned off, but ready whenever she needed it. Clearly she didn’t in the high-ceilinged living room. The Venetian blinds were down, but slanted to let in maximum sunlight while keeping out prying eyes.
“Want some lemonade?” she asked. “Lukewarm, but we should drink it up before it spoils completely.”
“That would be nice,” I said. “I gather the power’s out?”
“You gather right.”
She made a beckoning gesture and I followed her into the kitchen.
“Cooler back here,” she said, as she took two vintage glasses from an overhead cabinet and poured out the lemonade. “Times like these, I really miss the generator. Good thing I don’t keep much in the refrigerator and freezer these days. I’m not much for cooking. Not anymore,” she added after a moment. “Hard to see the point, cooking for one.”
“Have you considered getting another generator?” I asked. “Or has losing your cousin to the generator explosion made you not want one around anymore?”
“Oh, I want one all right,” she said. “I just didn’t want to get it installed until Chief Heedles had finished with the crime scene. And here it is, six months later, and if you ask me, she hasn’t even started with the crime scene.”
“Maybe you could install the new generator in the other back corner of the yard,” I suggested. “Then you could preserve the crime scene as long as you liked. Of course, the down side is that the new generator wouldn’t be quite as close to Mr. Weaver’s yard, so it wouldn’t annoy him quite as much. But right now, you’re hardly annoying him at all, so anything would be an improvement, right?”
She looked at me in surprise for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“I like the way you think!” she exclaimed. “I’m calling the generator company as soon as I get my phone back.”
“Think about calling this guy, too.” I pulled out the business card Stanley had given me. “Friend of Stanley’s. Installs security systems.”
“You think I need a security system?” She cocked her head, birdlike.
“If I were living this far from town with only three houses for miles and one of those occupied by someone I believed to be a cold-blooded killer, with both power and cell phone service this prone to interruption, and someone leaving possibly poisoned gifts on my front step, I’d want a security system.”
“You forgot ‘at your age,’” Annabel said, with a chuckle. “Everyone always has an idea what I should do at my age.”
“And at my age, too,” I said. “I’d get one. I’d get the generator first, and then I’d make sure my security system was hooked up to it.”
She nodded.
“In fact, odds are I’ll find a working phone before you do,” I added. “Want me to call both contractors and have them come to give you an estimate? I copied down the security company’s number in case I needed one.”