“I was hoping you’d have enough time to consider why playing amateur sleuth is a really bad idea. I sure as hell did.”
Until then, Ellery hadn’t understood how angry Jack truly was.
And that made two of them because the realization that Jack had left him sitting in that black hole for an extra quarter of an hour made Ellery so mad, he could barely control his voice. His hand shook as he pointed to the structure behind them.
“Let me make sure I understand. You left me freezing in there to teach me a lesson?”
“I figured you’d prefer that to spending the night in a jail cell.”
“S-s-spending a night in jail? For what?”
Jack was unmoved by Ellery’s shout of protest. “We can start with Failure to Report a Crime and go on from there.”
“Failure to— I didn’t have time to report anything. You—”
“Nonsense,” said Jack, only he didn’t say nonsense, and his voice was now as loud as Ellery’s. “You could have called this in when you first parked down by the highway. Clearly, you thought something was up. You could have called this in at any point when you hiked up the drive to the house. You chose not to, and you’re lucky you’re not finishing this evening up dead. You don’t have any idea what weapons the perpetrator may have had. You have no idea what their state of mind was.”
“I thought they’d left,” Ellery argued. “I saw a white van leave, and I thought they were gone.”
It was doubtful Jack heard him. He was too busy yelling, “You don’t like the idea of spending a few hours in an icehouse? Well, I don’t like the idea of you spending the rest of your life in a morgue.”
“I wouldn’t be spending my life in the morgue,” Ellery shot back, which was a good indicator of how quickly the conversation was devolving.
“How you could do something so reckless, so idiotic—”
“I saw lights on and wondered if everything was okay. I didn’t know. I didn’t instantly assume someone was burgling the Barbys.”
“Really? Because we’d been talking about that very thing not twenty minutes before.”
“Which is why it seemed like too much of a coincidence.”
Words seemed to fail Jack.
“What if I’d called you and it turned out their lights were on a timer? Or they had a house guest? Or the housekeeper left the lights on last time she was here? Or…I don’t know! People in Pirate’s Cove check on each other all the time. This is the isle of nosy neighbors. Why is my stopping to make sure everything is okay any different?”
“Because I know you,” Jack said, and his voice was aggravatingly superior. “I know you thought you would do a little snooping—”
“You’re so wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
Although… Granted, it had started out exactly as Ellery said. But then, yes, he had let his curiosity get the better of him. It wasn’t entirely curiosity, though. He hadn’t wanted to call Jack and then turn out to be wrong.
Except he hadn’t had to call Jack; he could have called the police station and got whoever was handling emergency calls that night.
He had made a judgment call that, yeah, turned out to be lacking in judgment. And if Jack hadn’t been such a jerk as to leave him freezing his butt off in that icehouse, he’d have apologized by now instead of digging his heels in.
“Having contaminated my crime scene, tell me you at least got the license plate number of the van you saw leaving the scene.”
Ellery didn’t bother arguing about crime scene contamination. For all he knew, he had contaminated the outside perimeter. He could easily have trampled over footprints.
“The license plate was smeared with something dark. Mud, I think. I couldn’t read it.”
“Great.”
Stung, Ellery said, “It was a battered white Ford van. An older model.”
“That’s pretty much every delivery van on the island.”
“No signs or decals.”
“Did you get a look at the driver?”
Ellery shook his head. “No. I didn’t see anyone’s face. There were at least three of them. The driver of the van and the two who chased me into the icehouse.”
Jack’s face got tight again. He let out a long careful breath like someone defusing a bomb. But he said quite mildly, “Anything else you can remember that might be helpful? Did you hear them speak? Did you hear them call each other by name?”
“They whistled to alert each other. I didn’t hear them speak. I did hear them whispering outside the icehouse, but I couldn’t make out any words. I wouldn’t be able to identify their voices.”
“Male or female? Could you tell?”
“No. Whispers are sexless.”
Jack nodded, though not in acknowledgment or approval, and jotted down some quick notes in the small leather notebook he always carried.
Ellery watched him. “I’m thinking Ned Shandy has an alibi.”
“Oh? Is that what you’re thinking?”
Ellery’s temper rose again. “Are we done here?”
“Yes.” Jack regarded him for a moment, seemed to consider and then discard what he was about to say. “You can go.”
Ellery turned and went without another word.
Chapter Six
House of Blood.
That’s what they called Bloodworth Manor back in the seventeenth century. And in the crimson rays of the setting sun, the house lived up to that reputation. It was a two-story, rectangular, redbrick building with white-stone facings, four chimneys, and a multitude of tall, narrow, paired windows and scarlet, heavily molded double doors.
It was no Captain’s Seat. Clearly, Thomas Bloodworth had been trying to recapture some of the homey feel of the family estate in Dorset.
Ellery had parked at the bottom of the regal drive and was hiking past a very long line of awkwardly parked cars and golf carts toward the house. He was not alone. Several other couples in Georgian, Regency, and Fantasy-pirate finery made the climb with him, all of them shuffling ungracefully to the side as the occasional limo prowled soundlessly up behind them.
It was actually the same limo and the same driver. Sam Cuddlefish owned the island’s only taxi service. Sam had one limousine, which he insisted on driving despite the fact that he was now in his late eighties. Sam and the limo were getting a workout that evening as Buck Island’s elite tried to stagger their entrances around each other.
The regular folks drove themselves, parked on the drive, and hiked up to the mansion.
As Ellery topped the crest of the drive, he saw two reporters from the Scuttlebutt Weekly snapping photos of people making their grand entrances.
With Sam’s help, an elderly couple in full costume exited the limo, paused for their photos to be taken, and swept their way down the red carpet and into the mansion.
It wasn’t up to Hollywood premiere standards, but it was impressively close. A small contingent of brocade and wig-clad footmen waited out front with trays of champagne and scented misters to refresh the wilted guests making the trek on foot.
“Avast, me heartie,” Dylan’s voice reached Ellery’s ears, and he glanced around.