“Yes, Director?”
“Please ask Hugh English to join me in my dining room for lunch at noon,” she said. “Don’t take no for an answer.” She disconnected and turned to Lance. “You’re invited, too.”
37
Holly drove quickly out of the inn’s grounds and toward the Peppers’ house.
“Slow down,” Stone said. “We don’t want to attract the attention of the police.”
Holly made a determined effort to drive more slowly.
“That’s better; we’re just a couple of tourists out for a drive.”
Ten minutes later Holly turned into the Peppers’ driveway. The small car was parked where it had been before, but this time the front door was ajar.
Holly and Stone got out of the car and approached the front door.
“I don’t know if we can eat this,” a woman’s voice said from inside.
“Just heat it up, it’ll be fine,” a male voice answered.
Holly rapped on the door. “Hello?”
Bill Pepper came into the living room with some sort of electronic device in his hand. When he saw Holly, he tapped an ear.
“Hi, Bill,” Holly said, “I’m Ginny Heller, a friend of your sister’s in Miami. She asked me to drop in on you and see how you were doing.”
“Hi, Ginny,” Pepper said, but his attention was on the device in his hand. He walked toward the telephone in the living room, picked it up and started unscrewing the mouthpiece.
“This is my friend Stone; we’re traveling together.”
“Hi, Stone.”
“Hi, Bill.”
Pepper took a small disk from the phone and held it up, then he put it on the stone floor and stomped on it. “There,” he said, consulting the meter on the device in his hand, “that’s the lot. Now we can talk.”
“Good,” Holly said.
“I hear we’re flying out of here tomorrow with you.”
“I’m afraid not. Sutherland has locked down the island; nobody leaves until Croft’s assassin is found.”
Annie Pepper came into the room. “Hello,” she said.
“Annie, this is Holly Barker and her friend Stone Barrington. You saw them at the inn earlier in the week.”
“Of course,” Annie replied.
“Annie and I had already left the police station when the Croft hit happened,” Pepper said. “I think we were in a cab by then. I didn’t hear about it until I called Lance.”
“Thomas Hardy told us,” Holly said.
“Thomas knows just about everything about everybody on this island,” Pepper said.
“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Annie asked. “I’m heating up last night’s dinner; I was arrested while I was cooking it, but it seems to be okay.”
“Sure, if it’s no trouble,” Holly said. “Bill, business first; did you get the housing applications for Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby downloaded before the cops came?”