Free Dead By Midnight by Carolyn Hart

with the rustle of night creatures had soothed Pat.
    Annie almost turned away, then stopped, staring at the dim entrance into the woods. Something had occurred recently in Pat’s life that had led to murder. Certainly late-night walks in the forest qualified as unusual. Annie walked swiftly across the yard.
    In the woods, she studied a narrow path. With a shrug, she turned right. She followed a twisting, vine-shrouded path that grew ever fainter. The path finally ended at a murky lagoon with water as black as pitch. She’d not glimpsed a single house or offshoot trail. Hot and bug-nipped, she retraced her steps and paused at the opening into Pat’s backyard. She spoke aloud. “She was some kind of nut if she went that way.” With a sigh, Annie continued in the other direction. The path curved generally north and west. She waved away swarms of flies and no-see-’ums. Yaupon holly and ferns choked the ground beneath the canopy of live oaks, slash pine, and magnolias. A recent heavy summer rain had left puddles. She squished along the muddy trail, probably staining her cream leather loafers for all time. She was leaving a distinct set of tracks. A bicycle could have come this way, but she saw no tire prints.
    Children’s voices rose in chatter and shouts.
    Finally, a sign of life.
    Annie carefully eased apart saw-palmetto fronds to reveal an asphalt parking lot behind a playground. She stepped warily, after a careful survey of the ground. She was well aware that rattlesnakes and alligators inhabited the woods. She let out a small breath of relief as she reached the parking lot unscathed. A chain-link fence bounded the playground. Toddlers scooped sand into buckets. Four- and five-year-olds swung, clambered up and down ladders to a wooden fort, slid down slides, or maneuvered on a small plastic climbing wall.
    Annie walked past the small gray structure. In the street, she saw the entrance and a sign hanging from an iron post: HAPPY DAYS CHILD CARE. She noted the hours. The day care closed at seven P.M. Owner or staff might have been there on Friday evening, but the path would only be visible to someone standing in the parking lot and pulling aside greenery.
    Annie reentered the woods, snagging her blouse on a saw-palmetto frond. A hundred yards farther on, she heard the yipping of dogs. Again she pulled aside fronds and recognized the back parking area of the island’s veterinary clinic. This time she didn’t bother to struggle through the undergrowth. Obviously, the path wasn’t usually accessed from either business site.
    She almost retraced her steps, then, lips folded stubbornly, continued forward. The pines thinned to her left. Through the trees, she saw a gazebo, a garden with banks of azaleas, several plots filled with rosebushes, and the back of a three-story tabby home. The path at that point turned due east but a red-and-white barrier prohibited entry.
    POSTED
    RICE FIELD RECLAMATION
    KEEP OUT
     
    Very likely, the path beyond the barrier might be all but impassable. In the dark, Pat surely hadn’t continued.
    Annie felt discouraged. Mrs. Croft saw Pat emerge from the woods, so clearly she’d taken the path. She hadn’t turned to the right unless she wanted to commune with a black lagoon. Clearly she’d traveled this way. But why? Moreover, she may have likely trekked into the woods not once, but several times. Mrs. Croft reported she’d continued to see lights late at night. Whatever Pat had done, wherever she had gone on the night Mrs. Croft came to check on her, she likely had gone again and again.
    Where and why?
    Annie stepped cautiously on slick pine straw. When she reached the base of the garden, a charming one-story gray wood cottage was in full view. Annie stared. She hadn’t recognized the house from the backyard, but she immediately knew the cottage. Annie had been there last week for a committee meeting for the League of Women Voters. Elaine Jamison was the committee chair. Annie liked working