The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [47]
“I wish that were true, but when people throw mud, some of it always sticks.” Annie looked at her soberly. “Will you help me, Mrs. Honeycutt?”
“Call me Kathryn,” the older woman responded immediately. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take a walk with me.” Annie wanted an uninterrupted session. “Tell me about your nephew.”
They followed the boardwalk over the dunes to the beach. Their shoes sank in the soft gray sand until they reached the sleek dampened tideflat. The onshore breeze ruffled their hair, tugged at their clothes.
“Oh, this is just glorious.” Kathryn’s slender hand, the nails short and unpainted, encompassed the ocean, the beach, the softly blue sky. She twisted her head to look a little defiantly at Annie. “I’m glad I came, even though I knew there would be bad moments. There are always some bad moments with Neil.” She paused, pointed the toe of her shoe at a tiny sand dome, watched it collapse. “Frederick and I did our best. We tried to treat him like a son. But he was never our son. Frederick’s sister, Juliette, was his mother. She—she didn’t want him. Neil knew that. You never fool kids. He never forgave her. He wouldn’t even go last year, when she was dying.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I’m so glad Frederick didn’t know.” She shaded her eyes, looked off toward the faraway horizon. “Frederick died five years ago.”
“Why did Neil come here? Do you know?” Annie asked.
Kathryn pushed her wire glasses up on her nose. “I’m sure he has a reason.” She reached out, grabbed Annie’s arm. “Oh, look, look! There’s a dolphin. Look at him jump! Oh, another one.”
Thirty yards offshore the steel gray mammals arched gracefully in the air, up and over and down, kicking up a spray of foam.
They watched until the dolphins were out of sight.
“Usually it’s money with Neil. I thought it probably was again. Sometimes he gets mad at me, thinks I’m extravagant. He says you can’t earn interest on money tied up in old stamps.” Her lips tightened obstinately for a moment. She stared earnestly at Annie. “The thing about it is, it’s my money, and I can spend it any way I want to. And if it’s all gone one of these days, that’s for me to worry about. But sometimes I’m lucky. Such a surprise. At bingo the other night. The jackpot was carried over from several games … I won. I decided I’d surprise Neil since he’s paying for our trip. This morning—I asked if he needed money—I felt so sure that was it—you could have knocked me over with a feather, Neil turning down several thousand dollars! Can you believe it?”
They turned and headed back toward the hotel. “So he doesn’t need money?”
“Of course he needs money. Just as I thought, he has money problems. But he didn’t want a dime from me.” The old lady fluttered. “He gave me the funniest look—I guess he never expected me to try and help—he was just flabbergasted! He said he appreciated it, but he had a plan. He said he was going to come up with a lot of money.”
As they walked along the boardwalk, their footsteps echoed, just as the words echoed in Annie’s mind. A lot of money … a lot of money … a lot of money …
Monday afternoons at Confidential Commissions often featured a thoughtful perusal of the balance of the Sunday New York Times, a period of contemplation—after all, how could one lead a reasoned life without the judicious, and unhurried, application of reason—and occasionally a relaxed game of darts. It wasn’t, certainly, that Max Darling was averse to work. At the urging of his wife, Max agreed that work was real, work was earnest, work could even—he had a little trouble here—be wonderful. As a matter of fact, Max was enormously proud of Confidential Commissions, his quite original business venture. A circumspect ad ran daily in the personals column of both the Island Gazette and the Chastain Courier: “Troubled, puzzled, curious? Whatever your problem, contact CONFIDENTIAL COMMISSIONS, 555-1321, 11 Seaview, Broward’s Rock.” Not a private detective agency, since