Birder, She Wrote by Donna Andrews

Author:Donna Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter 20

When I arrived at Westlake, I decided to start with Mrs. Anstruther. Not that I thought dealing with her would be any easier than dealing with the Griswolds or the Brownlows, but at least she wasn’t up in arms about Edgar’s bees, so I hadn’t seen quite so much of her lately. I parked in front of her house and made sure my tote contained the right issue of Sweet Tea and Sassafras—the one with the article about her. Then I marched up her front walk.

It was slightly intimidating, thanks to the sheer blatantly overwhelming size of the place—like marching up to the portcullis of a castle. There was even the suggestion of a moat. Just before you got to her front porch the stone walk turned into a bridge for about ten feet so you could cross over a pond. Two enormous water lilies floated in the pond, one on each side of the bridge, and at least a dozen enormous white and pale gold koi loomed up to the water’s surface on my left and right. No, make that two dozen, and most of them swimming in place and sticking their mouths out of the water, slowly opening and closing them as if silently begging for food. I’d have felt sorry for them if they hadn’t all been so enormous that it was obvious they weren’t starving.

There were spotlights positioned here and there to light up the pond after dark, and I couldn’t help thinking the koi would look pretty creepy doing their silent chorus at night.

The door opened before I had a chance to touch the doorbell. Not surprising, really. She probably had a security system, complete with cameras and motion detectors. I doubted if there were many houses in Westlake that didn’t. Mrs. Anstruther stood, blinking as if dazzled by the late-afternoon sun. She was tall, only an inch or so shorter than my five foot ten. She looked a little different today. It took me a few moments to figure out why. This was the first time I’d seen her when she wasn’t dressed to the nines, carefully coiffed, and heavily made-up. In jeans and a polo shirt she seemed—well, not exactly younger. She looked the fifty-something she was. But she didn’t seem quite so unreachably on the other side of a vast generational chasm.

“What do you want?” Not the most gracious greeting I’d ever heard. Her words were slightly slurred, and she was holding a highball glass, half filled with ice cubes and a clear liquid. I wondered how intoxicated she was. A little bit might increase my chances of getting information out of her. Too much, and my visit would be both useless and unpleasant.

“Actually, I want your input about something,” I said.

“Something connected with the murder?” she asked.

“Goodness!” I exclaimed. “I certainly hope not.”

I just stood, smiling as innocently as I could manage. With luck she’d be curious enough to invite me in, if only for long enough to find out what I wanted her input on.

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