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she charmed Jeremiah. Within six months, she was on the news desk despite the producer’s objections. Now employed in a small-market television station downstate, quite a comedown from Atlanta.
    Everett Crenshaw, 40. Top investigative reporter for Addison Media. Host of a news feature patterned after The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News.
    Lucinda Phillips, 54. Chief housekeeper at Heron House. Employed for 12 years.
    Harry Lyle, 49. Caretaker, handyman. Employed for 9 years.
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    â€œâ€¦Twelve. That’s the lot.”
    Annie pointed at two more names.
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    Serena Gonzalez, I.
    Juanita Garcia, I.
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    â€œWhat does ‘I’ mean?” Annie circled the letter.
    â€œIrrelevant.” He was brisk. “There’s no invidious meaning, but the point is that Britt Barlow says the girls were the next thing to transients, didn’t speak English, didn’t know Jeremiah personally, had nothing to gain from his death, plus they are long gone from the island. She said there have been around nine maids between the time of his death and the present. Apparently she has a real struggle to keep the place staffed. You can imagine. Stuck out there on an island, no place to go, nothing to do. And those girls were definitely not trying to escape from the world, simply trying to survive. So, she invited everyone who was there at the time of his death excepting those two maids.”
    â€œFair enough.” Annie shook her head. “You’d think Britt Barlow could have been a little more forthcoming. She claims one of these people is a murderer, but she doesn’t give any flavor of them. Who’s bad tempered? Who’s jealous? Who’s greedy? That’s a good question. I’ll bet the family divvied up bundles of bucks. Who needed money? Why was there a politico on hand for what looked like a family gathering? And the intern on the make…” Annie ran her finger down the list. “Here she is, Kim Kennedy. She sticks out like a flamingo at an owl party. What’s an intern doing there? Want to bet she’s a knockout? Come on, Britt needs to tell us what’s what. Who are these people and how did they feel about Jeremiah?”
    â€œThat’s what I asked her. She said”—Max leaned back against the cushion, his face thoughtful—“she didn’t want to prejudice me. She said she had pretty strong feelings about several of them, but she wanted me to see them fresh. Tabula rasa. I thought that was decent of her.”
    Annie raised an eyebrow. “Decent, maybe. Dumb, certainly. We need all the help we can get. We’re going to meet them for the first time. Once they understand they’re on a list of suspects, you can bet butter won’t melt. And there’s not time enough to investigate them.” She glanced at the clock over the mantel. A quarter to eleven. They were scheduled to be picked up by a motor launch at the pier at eight in the morning.
    Max stretched out his legs, yawned. “Not to worry.Never underestimate Confidential Commissions.” A less charitable observer might have described him as smug. “When I left the office, my trusty secretary—Barb murmured something about typing faster than Della Street—was finishing up dossiers of the twelve. We’ll pick them up on our way to the harbor in the morning.”
    â€œMax,” Annie said, her voice warm with admiration, “you are simply swell.”
    He twined a finger in a golden curl, tugged her face close to his. “Kudos welcome.” His lips sought hers.
    Who cared about tomorrow?
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    Sea legs. If they were for sale, she’d buy them even though the words evoked a mental image of a centipede clinging to a log. Logs. Logs—immovable and stationary—are found in the woods. Except, of course, when they bob as driftwood in the ocean. She wouldn’t think of that. Instead she pictured a forest and scattered logs, evoking a