The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(8)

“Don’t look now, but someone’s watching us,” Stanley murmured.

I had noticed it, too—the slight twitching of the curtains in the glass panel to the left of the door.

And why were we pretending not to notice that the woman whose doorbell we’d rung was peeking out at us instead of opening the door?

I smiled and waved cheerfully at the glass panel.

The curtain fell shut.

Stanley smothered a chuckle.

Then the door slowly opened, and we found ourselves face-to-face with a tallish, angular, elderly woman. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun, and her brown eyes studied us intently over a pair of gold reading glasses.

“I don’t need to ask who you are and why you’re here,” she said to me. “Not sure I like the look of him, but come on in, both of you.”

She stepped back and opened the door wider so we could enter. She wasn’t that much shorter than me. Maybe five six or seven. If, like most people, she’d lost height as she grew older, she must once have been eye to eye with my five foot ten. Or maybe taller.

And she was wearing a green T-shirt emblazoned with the words COMPOST HAPPENS.

I made a provisional decision that I liked Annabel, in spite of the tepid welcome.

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to an archway that led to the living room. “You come in, too, Dwight,” she called out the doorway.

She left the door open to follow us into the living room. Dr. Ffollett scurried up the front steps and inside, closing the door carefully behind him.

I liked the house. At least the parts I’d seen, the foyer and now the living room. Both were high-ceilinged and airy, with both walls and woodwork painted white. And although the house and some of the furniture were Victorian in style, I appreciated the most un-Victorian lack of clutter and fussy details.

“Miss Annabel Lee?” Stanley held out out his hand. “I’m—”

“Stanley Denton, private investigator,” Annabel said. “I read the card.” She ignored his outstretched hand and turned to me. “And you are?”

“Meg Langslow.” I held out my hand and, after a beat, she took it and gave me a firm handshake.

“James’s daughter,” she said, nodding. “Go on, sit.”

I tried not to show how surprised I was that she knew Dad’s name. Stanley and I sat down in two wing-back chairs while Annabel took the matching love seat and Dr. Ffollett perched on the edge of a Windsor chair just inside the archway from the hall.

“So you know about us,” I said. “That we exist, I mean.”

“Oh, Cordelia kept an eye on all of you,” she said. “She was proud of you.”

“But she never got in touch,” I said. “Why?”

Annabel shrugged.

“Maybe she thought you were doing just fine without her,” she said. “Maybe she didn’t want to shake things up after so long. Rake up the old scandal. Who knows? Well, she would have, but it’s not as if we can ask her now. She’s dead.”

Dr. Ffollett made a choking noise.

“Sorry, Dwight,” Annabel said. “He thinks I’m very indelicate. Thinks I should say she ‘passed away,’ or ‘went beyond.’ I like plain speaking. And so did Cordelia.”

“Tell me more about her,” I said.

Annabel frowned and studied me.

“You were her cousin,” I went on. “I understand you grew up together.”

“Only six months apart,” she said with a nod.

“You must know a lot about her.”

“I do,” Annabel said. “And I’ll tell you whatever I can. Show you all the photo albums. I can probably even round up a few home movies. But there’s one condition.”

She paused. I wasn’t sure if she was just pausing for effect or if I was supposed to ask what condition. Stanley beat me to it.

“What’s the condition?” he asked.

“You need to solve her murder,” Annabel said.





Chapter 4



“Her murder?” Although it wasn’t really a question. Stanley had already told me that Annabel thought Cordelia had been murdered. But sitting here comfortably in the cousins’ brightly lit old-fashioned room—the room where Cordelia had probably sat hundreds of times—the idea seemed both more horrible and a lot less plausible. “You really think she was murdered, then?”

“She was.” Annabel looked grim. “Find out who killed her and prove it, and I’ll tell you everything you could possibly want to know about Cordelia. In fact, it’s easier than that, because I can tell you who did it—Theo Weaver, that no good son-of-a—”

“Now, now,” Dr. Ffollett murmured.