Read Online The Stargazey by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online

holding out his glass.
    â€œMore water?” she asked Jury.
    â€œNo, I’m fine, thanks.” He drew the police photograph out of his pocket and handed it to Sebastian. “Do you recognize her?”
    Sebastian looked at it, shook his head. Olivia turned from the drinks cabinet and, still holding the decanter of whisky, came to look over his shoulder. “Never seen her before,” said Sebastian, handing back the picture.
    â€œMrs. Inge?” Jury looked at Olivia.
    She turned and shook her head too. “No. I’ve never seen her.”
    â€œWe went all over this with that other detective. And why would Scotland Yard be investigating it anyway?”
    Jury smiled. “We’re just part of the Metropolitan Police Force. I know you’ve been over this ground, perhaps more than once. I guess I’m hoping—in the retelling, something surprising often turns up—”
    He was stopped by the entrance of a young girl that caused Olivia a startled moment, which was soon smoothed over and an introduction made. “This is Seb’s daughter, Pansy.”
    Pansy Fabricant could conveniently be grouped among surprising things that might just “turn up.” She was the most worldly-looking child (if child was the word) he had ever seen. It wasn’t simply that she looked older; it was that she looked at Jury out of eyes that seemed to be, but probably weren’t, lit by experience. If not by now, definitely later. Her hair was long and lit up, as if it might ignite and send off sparks; it wasn’t precisely blond but seemed more a color intrinsic to Pansy herself, as if it had come into being with her. She was wearing an ice-blue dress with a currently fashionable empire waist, made of some shimmery material that flashed when the light hit it. It went with the hair.
    She gave Jury a murmured “hello” and a small smile. The smile stayed in place as she stood beside the arm of the sofa, hovering over her father without his actually claiming her attention. He leaned back his head and looked up at her, placing a hand on her forearm. In this gesture it was clear to Jury that Pansy had her father under control. The arm was braced against the back of the sofa, her head bent slightly towards her shoulder. In this pose she looked at Jury in the way an appraiser might study a picture, assessing its worth.
    Worth for what? he wondered, reminded himself that Pansy was—what? Mona Dresser had told him fourteen. Or was it thirteen?
    There was nothing at all in her face that expressed discomfort upon finding a detective in their midst. Jury thought her chief venture in life lay in making others react to her. God knows she was good-looking enough for a child (and one had to keep reminding oneself of the fact) to cause a reaction without further effort. But Pansy was willing to make that effort in the gaze she had turned on Jury. Pansy wanted more than mere attention; she wanted intrigue and secret-sharing; she might even have wanted tragedy, as long as it wasn’t hers.
    He looked beyond the French window into a wintry twilight. The temperature inside seemed to have dropped, and what had been pale sunlight was now like a skin of ice spilling across the rug. He could make out the formulaic neatness of the knot garden: the pond, the box hedge. From deep in the garden, a flock of starlings flew upwards, forming a wing of darkness. This awakened in Jury an old panic that rose in him like the flighting birds. The room had become oppressive in its silence.
    He wished Wiggins were here to ladle out some common sense as anodyne to Jury’s overactive imagination. And all these thoughts had passed through his mind in scarcely more than the time between the raising of her father’s glass of whisky and the setting it down again. Now, Jury simply picked up the photograph and handed it to her.
    Sebastian started to say, “Pansy wouldn’t know—” A look from Jury