Catherine Coulter - The Cove

Her fork was still there when Sheriff David Mountebank walked in, Martha at his heels offering him food and coffee. He took one look at Sally's pancakes and Quin-lan's English muffin with strawberry jam and said yes to everything.

They made room for him. He looked at them closely, not saying anything, just looking from one to the other. Finally he said, "You're a fast worker, Mr. Quinlan."

"I beg your pardon?"

“You and Ms. Brandon are already involved? Sleeping together?"

"It's a long story, Sheriff," Quinlan said, then laughed, hoping it would make Sally realize how silly it was.

"I think you're a damned pig, Sheriff," Sally said pleasantly. "I hope the pancakes give you stomach cramps."

"All right, so I'm a jerk. But what the hell are you doing here? Amabel Perdy called my office real early and told me you'd disappeared. She was frantic. Incidentally, your hair sure grew back fast."

No black wig. Face him down, she thought, just face him down. She said, "I was going to call her after breakfast. It's only seven in the morning. I didn't want to wake her. Actually, I'm surprised Martha didn't call her to tell her I was here."

"Martha must have assumed that Amabel already knew where you were. Now what's going on here?"

"What did her aunt tell you, Sheriff?"

David Mountebank recognized technique when he saw it. He didn't like to have it used on him, but for the moment, he knew he should play along. For a simple PI this man was very good.

"She just said you'd gotten an obscene phone call last night and panicked. She thought you must have run away. She was worried because you don't have a car or any money."

"That's right, Sheriff. I'm sorry she worried you all for nothing."

Quinlan said, "I rescued the damsel, Sheriff, and let her sleep-alone-in my bed. She liked the tower room. She ignored me. Have you found out anything about the murdered woman?"

"Yes, her name was Laura Strather. She lived in the subdivision with her husband and three kids. They thought she was visiting her sister up in Portland. That's why no missing person report was filed on her.

The question is, Why was she being held a prisoner over here in The Cove and who the hell killed her?"

“Have your people checked all the houses across from Amabel Perdy's cottage?"

The sheriff nodded. “Depressing, Quinlan, depressing. No one knows a thing. No one heard a thing-not a TV, not a telephone, not a car backfiring, not a woman screaming. Not on either night. Not a bloody thing." He looked over at Sally, but couldn't speak until Martha delivered his pancakes.

She looked at each of them, then smiled and said, "I'll never forget my mama showing me an article in The Or-egonian written by this man called Qumquat Jagger way back in the early fifties. 'The Cove sunsets are a dramatic sight as long as one has a martini in the right hand.' I've long agreed with him on Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

that." She added easily, "It's too early for a martini or a sunset-how about a Bloody Mary? All of you look on edge."

"I'd love one," Sheriff Mountebank said, "but I can't." Quinlan and Sally shook their heads. "Thank you, though, Martha," Quinlan said.

She checked to see that they had everything they could possibly want, then left the dining room.

After David Mountebank had eaten half the pancakes, he looked at Sally again and said, "If you had called me about hearing that woman screaming, I'm not certain I would have believed you. I would have searched, naturally, but I'd probably have thought you'd had a nightmare. But then you and Quinlan found a woman's body. Was she the woman you heard screaming? Probably so. You were telling the truth then, and all the old folk in this town are deaf. Either of you have any ideas?''

"I didn't even think about calling a sheriff," Sally said. "But I probably wouldn't have. My aunt wouldn't have wanted that."

"No, probably not. The folk in The Cove like to keep things to themselves." The sheriff grinned at her then. "I don't know if you're my best witness in any case, Ms. Brandon, since I find you've slept in Quinlan's tower room. And you lied to me about your hair."

"I have several wigs, Sheriff. I like wigs. I thought you were impertinent to ask me, so I said I had cancer to guilt you."

David Mountebank sighed. Why did everybody have to lie? It was exhausting. He looked at her again.

This time he frowned. "You look familiar," he said slowly.

"James tells me I look like his former sister-in-law. Amabel thinks I look like Mary Lou Retton, although I'm nearly a foot taller. My mom said I was the image of her Venezuelan nanny. Don't tell me, Sheriff, that I remind you of your Pekinese."

"No, Ms. Brandon, be thankful you don't look like my dog. His name is Hugo and he's a Rottweiler."

Sally waited, trying not to clench her hands, trying to look amused, trying to look like she was all together and not ready to fall apart if he poked his finger at her and said he was taking her in. She watched his frown smooth away as he turned to James.

"I checked the files from the previous sheriff. Her name was Dorothy Willis, and she was very good. Her notes on those missing old folks were very thorough. I made copies and brought them to you." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope.

"Thank you, Sheriff," Quinlan said, not knowing for several moments who the hell David Mountebank was talking about. Then he remembered Harve and Marge Jen-sen.

“I read over them last night. Everybody believed there was foul play, what with their Winnebago being found in a used car lot in Spokane. It's just that nobody knew anything. She wrote that she spoke to nearly everybody in The Cove but came up with nothing. Nobody knew a thing. Nobody remembered the Jensens. She even sent off the particulars to the FBI just in case something like this had happened elsewhere in the country. That's it, Quinlan. Sorry, but there's no more. No leads of any kind." He ate another helping of pancakes, drank his black coffee down, then shoved back his chair. "Well, you're all right, Ms. Brandon, so at least I don't have to worry about you. It's strange, you know? Nobody else Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

heard that woman scream. Real strange."

He shook his head and walked out of the dining room, saying over his shoulder, "You look best with your own hair, Ms. Brandon. Lose the wigs. Trust me. My wife says I've got real good taste."

"Sheriff, what happened to Dorothy Willis?" David Mountebank stopped then. "A bad thing, a very bad thing. She was shot by a teenage boy who was robbing a local 7-Eleven. She died."

When Thelma Nettro made her appearance some ten minutes later, looking for all the world like a relic from Victorian days, her teeth in her mouth, white lace at her parchment throat, the first words out of her mouth were, "Well, girl, is James here a decent lover?"

"I don't know, ma'am. He wouldn't even kiss me. He said he was too tired. He even hinted at a headache. What could I do?"

Old Thelma threw her head back, and that scrawny neck of hers worked ferociously to bring out fat, full laughs. "Here I thought you were a wimp, Sally. That's good. Now, what's this Martha tells me about how a woman who was really your dead daddy called you at Amabel's last night?"

"There was no woman when I got on the line." "This is very strange, Sally. Why would anyone do this?

Now, if it had been James on the phone, well, that would have been another matter. But if he gets all that tired, well, then maybe you'd just best forget him."

"How many husbands did you have, Thelma?" Quin-lan asked, knowing that Sally was reeling, giving her time to get herself together.