Tickled to Death Read Free Page B

lowered a pair of binoculars.
    “Good morning,” she said, giving me a vaguely startled smile. “I’m on the trail of a hairy woodpecker. He is a shy fellow, and difficult to spot. I heard him only minutes ago, unless, of course, Imistook his hammering for that of his cousin, the downy woodpecker.” She cupped a hand around her ear and listened intently. “I don’t hear him now.”
    “I’m sorry if I alarmed him,” I said meekly.
    “Ah, well.”
    “I’m lost. I’ve been driving around these roads for half an hour. Can you aim me in the direction of the lake?”
    “The lake covers thirty thousand acres, my dear. We’re on what is basically a peninsula, with water on three sides of us.”
    I hunted around in the backseat until I found my discarded directions. “I’m looking specifically for Dick Cissel’s house on Blackburn Creek.”
    “Oh, you have strayed, haven’t you? It’s a good three miles from here. Let me fetch my bag and I’ll ride there with you. My hairy woodpecker is much too shy to show himself anymore today.” She took an enormous handbag from a branch and awkwardly climbed into my car. “I’m Livia Dunling, and you’re a friend of Dick’s. We stay on this road until the second turn to the right.”
    “I’m Claire Malloy. I’ve never met Dick. A friend of mine is at his house, and she asked me to come.”
    Livia rummaged through her bag and took out a plastic pillbox and a canteen. After she’d swallowed a pill, she returned the items to the bag. “While I was filling the feeders this morning, I saw your friend on the deck. She appeared verydistraught. I considered going to the house to see if I could comfort her, but I began to feel fluttery and went inside to lie down. I have a most aggravating heart problem.”
    I wasn’t sure what confidences I should share with my passenger. “You live near Dick?” I asked cautiously.
    “Directly across the cove. My husband and I own Dunling Lodge. I wanted to call it Dun-Roaming, but Wharton does not appreciate whimsy. He’ll be most displeased when he learns I’ve lost the jeep again. I don’t suppose you noticed it parked beneath a particularly fine specimen of wild dogwood?”
    “No, I’m afraid not.”
    “That’s the driveway,” she said as she swung open the car door.
    I jammed on the brakes in time to prevent her from tumbling under the tires to a certain death. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Dunling,” I said between gasps. “Are you sure I can’t take you to your front door?”
    “No, no, I shall hike down by the gully where Wharton reported a hooded warbler only yesterday. He was certain he heard the distinctively flirtatious tawee-tawee-tawee-tee-o. Have a nice visit with your friend.”
    She limped across the road and into the woods, her bag thumping arrhythmically against her broad hips, her binoculars held aloft in one hand should they be called into immediate action.
    Feeling inordinately guilty about frightening away the hairy woodpecker, I waited until she’d disappeared, then drove down the driveway and parked beside a forest-green Range Rover. The front of the house was an unimposing expanse of native rockwork with only a few high windows. Landscaping consisted of neglected shrubs and a flagstone sidewalk. I had not yet seen the lake, but I heard the drone of a motorboat and deduced its proximity.
    The front door opened before I could ring the bell, and Luanne gave me a radiant smile. “Oh good, you’re just in time for a Bloody Mary on the deck. Dick is so excited to be meeting you.”

2
    “What do you mean?” I sputtered, perhaps unattractively. “I thought you were planning a commando raid on the cellblock to rescue this man. In order to save your life, I came racing across the county, bouncing down miserable little back roads—”
    “They brought him back an hour ago,” Luanne said as she pulled me into a room with a vaulted ceiling, hand-hewn beams, and a rock fireplace that soared a good twenty