White Elephant Dead Read Free Page B

intelligence, determination, cleverness—and ferocity. Annie loved every dangerous black inch of her.
    Annie reached gingerly for the empty bowl, rinsed it, refreshed Agatha’s water. She glanced around the store. Everything was in order. As soon as Henny came, Annie could scoot—okay, splash—home to a wonderful dinner and other delights. Her eyes softened as she thought about Max, her unflappable, good-humored spouse. Not that Max was perfect. He lacked application. He wasn’t lazy, of course, but he’d never equated self-worth with work, a concept difficult for type-A Annie to comprehend. He did have his own business. Of sorts. In fact, Max was very proud of Confidential Commissions, which was not, he was quick to point out, a private detective agency, but was a counseling service devoted to solving problems, problems of any sort. Annie had to admit that Max took an interest in promoting Confidential Commissions. He had, in fact, recently revised the ad which ran, boxed, in the Island Gazette personals:
    CONFIDENTIAL COMMISSIONS
    17 Harbor Walk
    Problems?
    Ask Max.
    He’d thrust the paper across the breakfast table with a proud grin.
    Annie had managed to squelch the tart response that immediately came to mind: Well, honey, that’s fine. But how long has it been since you’ve actually had a client and done any work?
    If you have as much charm—and money—as Max, who needs to work ?
    Annie’s eyes widened. She’d not said it aloud but the thought had come so clearly, the words seemed to ring in her ear. Her Calvinistic rectitude immediately protested—it was amazing the dialogues she could manage to have with herself—that charm was no substitute for effort.
    Charm, so impossible to define, so joyous to encounter. She’d been thinking a good deal about charm lately. What made a mystery charming? Perhaps that accolade would differ with every reader. But Annie didn’t think so and she’d devised a perfect test. Every month, she commissioned a local artist to paint five watercolors, each representing a mystery that Annie considered to be very special indeed. The mysteries always had a common theme: American history, women PIs, romantic suspense, comedy. Always before, the theme had been readily apparent. This time, she was asking the contest winner not only to name the title and author represented by each painting, but to define the quality common to all the books. The prize would be the winner’s choice of a current hardcover plus a month of free coffee.
    Annie glanced toward the paintings hanging over the fireplace. She grinned. The various books certainly didn’t fit into any obvious category.
    In the first watercolor, flickering candlelight fitfully illuminated the inside of an old stone burial vault. An old man’s body lay in stiff repose atop a tomb. A handsome young man with curly dark hair and vivid green eyes and a slender young woman with long flowing hair stared in horror at the wet cement being slapped on the still form atop the tomb by an old woman with a rhinoceros-wrinkled face and crazed eyes.
    In the second watercolor, a muscular, bronze-skinned man in his fifties with a head as bald as a cue ball glowered at two deputy sheriffs as they hitched a twenty-four-foot silver Airstream Excella to the back of a mustard-yellow Chevy truck with Coconino County badges on the doors. A round-faced woman with a short, light brown Afro anxiously watched.
    In the third watercolor, pale fluorescent light illuminated the large open L-shaped room divided by book stacks and tables. A yellow plastic tape inscribed POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS blocked access to the Mo-Ne fiction aisle. Four uniformed policemen and two men in suits watched as a young woman studied the body sprawled face down between the book stacks. Everything about her proclaimed order and neatness, from her short curled hair to her navy heels. The blue of her skirt exactly matched the blue of the Brazilian enameled bird on her burgundy sweater. In