The Cove

the edge of the plate.

    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 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