While his colleagues were busy packing up, the young man walked alongside me as we mounted each of the three sets of stairs, catching my elbow once when I stumbled and steadying me, then accompanying me up the long flight that led up to the back porch. Once I was delivered safely inside the house, he seemed to relax. ‘Where would you like to sit, Mrs…?’
‘Ives. In the parlor, thanks.’
I’d just passed the main staircase when French and Michael rushed through the front door, grave-faced and out of breath. ‘My God! What’s with all the fire trucks?’
‘Parlor,’ I said, nodding my head in that direction.
Before I sat down on the loveseat, I pulled aside the parlor drapes and peered out the window. Fire trucks, indeed. In addition to the trucks from West Annapolis, the distinctive red units of the Eastport Volunteers had also responded to my call. I wondered if Paul had noticed all the hullabaloo, too, before remembering that he would be locked up in a meeting at the Academy.
The paramedic’s eyes ping-ponged between Michael and French, made an executive decision and took French aside. ‘She’s had a shock,’ he told her in a whisper that could have been heard round the world. ‘I think she could use something to drink.’
‘Brandy,’ I said. Then added quickly, ‘Please.’
After French left to fetch the brandy, Michael knelt at my feet like an ardent suitor, rested a hand on my knee. ‘Hannah, what’s happened?’
I told him.
I watched his face go white. ‘How…’ he began.
I flapped a hand, fresh tears coursing down my cheeks. ‘Give me a minute.’
Once French returned with the brandy and he saw that the snifter had been placed in my hand, the paramedic waited until I took a sip, then said, ‘I’ll be going now, but a detective will be here shortly. He’ll want to talk to you – all of you – so I wouldn’t go anywhere.’
I nodded dumbly, then took a second more generous sip of brandy, coughed, slapped my chest with the palm of my hand. ‘Smooooth,’ I croaked.
Michael filled French in, whereupon she burst into tears, which set me off on another crying jag. Michael blinked rapidly, trying to maintain control over his own emotions.
‘Where’s Amy?’ I asked, the brandy burning its way down my esophagus.
Michael answered. ‘Last time I saw her, she was with Melody and Gabe, watching a Punch and Judy show on the dock near the Alex Hailey memorial.’
‘Jack?’
Michael shrugged. ‘Middleton’s, I think.’
French wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Karen took Dex to the memorial, too.’ She sniffed so hard that her nostrils slammed shut. ‘She was telling him the story of Alex Hailey and how he traced his ancestor, Kunta Kinte, to a slave ship that docked right here in Annapolis. I think Dex was more impressed with the statues, though. He kept posing next to the two little bronze kids as if Hailey was reading to him, too. The tourists were going bonkers.’
‘Michael,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay here with French. Will you go outside and wait for the others? Tell them what happened? I don’t think I can bear to do it again. When Karen returns, please ask her to make some tea and some sandwiches and bring them up here to the parlor. I have a feeling we’ll be needing them. Oh, as they come in, tell everyone else to join us here.’
When the detectives finally appeared, everyone had returned to Patriot House except Amy and the children. Jack Donovan was beside himself with worry and sent Jeffrey out to look for them.
The detective who introduced himself as Lt Pickett was string-bean tall and wore a dark blue business suit. A uniformed officer accompanied him whose sole purpose seemed to be to nod and take notes.
For the third time, I explained how I had happened to find Alex, and it didn’t get easier with the telling. ‘I tried to help him, Lieutenant, but it was too late.’
Lt Pickett eyed my soiled and torn gown. ‘Was there a scuffle?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘An argument.’
‘With me? No. Absolutely not. He was already dead when I got there.’
‘And what time would that have been?’
I stared at Lt Pickett’s well-tanned face, his bright blue eyes accented by minuscule wrinkles, like tiny cat’s whiskers. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.’
‘Will someone please explain what the hell is going on here?’ It was Jud Wilson, red-faced and wild, barging into the room like his hair was on fire. ‘The fire trucks. The goddamn police.’ Catching sight of the police officer, he screeched to a halt. ‘Uh, sorry, Officer.’
Lt Pickett seemed unflappable. ‘One of your, uh, actors, or do you call them cast members…?’
‘We prefer cast, actually.’
‘One of your cast, a Mr Alex Mueller, was found dead in the spring house this afternoon.’
‘Christ on a crutch!’
‘If you say so, sir.’
Jud swiped a hand through his hair, paced in the doorway. ‘Oh, God. This is terrible.’ His eyes swept the room, focused on one of the four chairs set around the card table. He crossed the room and lowered himself into it, wearily, as if he were a hundred years old. In the last minute, his face seemed to age by a decade, too.
‘Mrs Ives here found the body. We were just asking her about what time that was.’
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold it together. ‘As I said, Lieutenant, it was not long after the Peggy Stewart celebration was over.’ A sudden thought made my eyes fly open. ‘Wait a minute! There’s a videocam in the entrance hall. You should be able to tell what time I came in by looking at that.’ I swiveled in my chair to face Jud, looking for confirmation. ‘The tapes are time stamped, aren’t they?’
Jud stopped chewing on the knuckle of his index finger and said, ‘We’ll see to it that you get copies of all the videotapes, detective.’
‘All of them? How many are there?’
‘Eight? Nine? We’re taping a reality show here, detective, so we have pretty broad coverage. You’ll see when you get them.’
‘Are there any in the back garden?’
Jud shook his head. ‘None outside the house, I’m afraid. We use handhelds for the outside shots.’
Standing next to the door, the junior officer was scribbling away when Amy rushed in, Melody and Gabe in her considerable wake. ‘Jeffrey came to get us. What’s going on?’
I patted the cushion on the loveseat next to me. ‘Here. Sit.’
Jack sprang to his feet. ‘Let me take the children out of here.’
Melody clouded up and stamped her foot. ‘I am not a child!’
Her father glanced at me uncertainly. He was leaving the decision to me.
‘French,’ I said, ‘would you take Gabe down to the kitchen, please? He can play with Dex. And for heaven’s sake, tell Karen not to let the boys out into the garden.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ French said, actually looking relieved to be leaving the room.
‘Melody, you may sit next to your father.’ I gestured with my head in the direction of the sofa.
When everyone had settled in again, I picked up Amy’s left hand in both of mine and just said it right out. ‘Amy, Alex is dead.’
Amy’s eyes grew wide as saucers. ‘Dead? How can he be dead? I just saw him!’
‘We don’t know, sweetheart. It looks like he fell into the spring house. Hit his head…’ I shrugged helplessly.
‘Fell?’ Amy’s face was dangerously red. ‘Fell? No. Nobody’d fall into the spring house. That’s just bullshit.’
Privately, I had to agree.
Across the room from us, Jack stirred. ‘What would he be doing out there at this time of day anyway?’
‘A reasonable question,’ said Lt Pickett. ‘Who was the last to see him?’ His eyes scanned the room.