A Manor of Murder. June Shaw. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: June Shaw
Издательство: Ingram
Серия: A Twin Sisters Mystery
Жанр произведения: Ужасы и Мистика
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781516100941
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really did like him, even if we just had problems with him.”

      “I liked him, too.”

      I fixed us mugs of dark-roast coffee with lots of cream and sugar since we could use comforting. Then I gathered legal pads and pens for each of us and sat. “We’d just as soon write everything we know about Edward before we go downtown to get ready for the detective’s questions.”

      We drank coffee and wrote. Sometimes we stopped and discussed things like asking each other when we recalled first meeting our client, which was different for each of us. Occasionally one of us would stare into space, thinking. We got up and walked, deep in thought. Still quiet, we returned to the table and wrote. Twice I grabbed snacks for us. I kept a stash of chips and chocolate chip cookies for times like this. Not really like this, like expecting a person we knew to get murdered. It was more that sometimes I just wanted to stuff a bit of unhealthy food into my mouth. My twin did not, so she stayed trim, while I spread out more in the waist and hips. Today she didn’t complain about junk food and shoved much of it into her mouth like I did.

      My phone’s ring made me jump. I wasn’t expecting a call and feared if I spoke to anyone, I wouldn’t be able to hide my concern about finding a dead person. I certainly couldn’t think creatively now and didn’t want to have to discuss ideas with a potential customer. Instead of answering, I considered letting it ring, and if someone wanted to, they could leave a message.

      I glanced at the caller’s name: Mom.

      Dreading how I would sound to her, I showed Eve her name and then clicked to answer, putting my phone on speaker.

      “Hi, Mom,” I said as though everything were normal and that she had not told us she had wedding plans and her intended’s nephew was planning it all. And then he and Eve and I had argued, and he’d insisted he would rush the ceremony. And then we found him dead.

      “Sunny,” Mom said. “I tried to call your sister’s phone, but she must have it off.”

      Eve nodded. She probably turned off the ringer right after her 911 call.

      “Did you need her for anything in particular?” I asked Mom. In one way, I was pleased to hear from her. In another, I feared giving away what happened.

      She hesitated. “It’s just that you’re a little more delicate than she is.”

      “I am not.” I bit my lower lip. Why would I want to argue with her now?

      Eve kept nodding, like she agreed with our mother.

      “Something’s happened,” Mom told me. “Somebody killed Mac’s nephew.”

      “Oh no.” My gaze shot toward Eve, and I realized I was reacting to Mom’s news as though I hadn’t heard it or experienced it firsthand. Hearing her say the words made the entire event feel fresh, deadly fresh.

      “Yes. Since my fiancé is his next of kin, the police showed up here to tell him.”

      “Oh, Mom, I am so sorry.”

      “I know. It’s awful.”

      I gripped the phone tighter, feeling her pain, so sad for our mother’s anguish. “Is there anything we can do?”

      She grew silent, making me fearful that she might say we had already done enough with having such harsh talks with the deceased. I dreaded having her discover we had found him. She surely didn’t know it yet. But she would.

      “Just say a prayer for his soul and for Mac. I’m sure the police will find out what happened, and justice will be served.” Forever rational, she would believe that. But nobody ever discovered who murdered my older sister. Mom loudly exhaled. “I can let you know when Edward’s funeral will be taking place. I hope you and your sister can be there.”

      “Of course.” I lifted my gaze toward Eve. Her face mirrored my sadness. “Let us know.”

      “I will. And, Sunny, I really do love you and your sister.”

      Her words pulled tears from my eyes. She hadn’t expressed those sentiments last time. “I love you, too, Mom.” I worked my throat to get more words to move out past the new lump. “And, Mom, everything will be all right.”

      “I know, honey. I need to go now.”

      Once we disconnected, I wordlessly stared at Eve and she at me. Surely she was processing the words and feelings expressed by our mother, who felt loving toward us again. What caused the change ran through my mind, but I didn’t want to consider it.

      “Maybe I should have told her we knew he died, and we found him,” I said.

      Eve’s lips pulled back in a grimace. “Will she still say that she loves us when she finds out?”

      “She will. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

      Eve turned her paper over and began to draw. She drew circles, small and increasingly larger circles that connected and then some that did not. She moved her pen tip over and created hearts, these similar to what she often painted.

      I turned my sheet over. I drew a couple of simple flowers and then created crude stick people. One of them held a large stick knife. Another lay inside a large oval—Edward’s tub.

      “We need to go see Detective Wilet.” I lifted my pad, hiding that page. We grabbed our purses and pads and headed to the station, both aware that what was coming was not something we looked forward to.

      The sheriff’s office had been spruced up since the last time we’d been there. Thank goodness no murders had occurred that we’d been involved with in quite some time. Actually, we weren’t involved in murders. We’d only been around them, making Detective Wilet believe we were more connected than we were.

      His office, down the hall, had received a fresh coat of pale yellow paint, already scuffed with dark scratches. The notices and awards now clustered together as we had suggested instead of being strung along the wall like broken snap beans. The odor of fresh coffee came from the new pot on a small table in the hall, replacing the incessant stench of the burned bottom of the last one.

      Eve and I passed open doors, where people speaking quietly in rooms paid no attention to us, and reached the detective’s unmarked open door to the left. He sat behind his desk that was cluttered with papers. He worked on some of them until he finally looked up at us in his doorway. “Come in. Sit.” He nodded to the pair of gray metal chairs across from him. “I see you brought your homework.”

      We lifted our pads we had written on.

      “We knew you’d want information,” Eve said.

      “We wrote the things we could think of.”

      He leaned back in his thinly cushioned chair, wide hands clasped behind his head. His thick lips showed some potential of a smile. “I never had anyone do that before. Go ahead, let’s hear what you have.”

      “You first,” I told Eve, who, after all, was the oldest. By six minutes.

      “All right.” She held up her pad. I saw she had written her information in paragraph form. I glanced at my notes. I’d numbered mine and made a list. Eve’s ability to always read words in sentences and numbers in order was a talent our parents hadn’t passed on to me. She told him about some man named Carl we had seen there arguing with Edward and described him and his car. As she was reading her notes to Detective Wilet, his hands lowered, his potential smile wiped away.

      He leaned forward in his chair. “You were really involved with the victim.” His eyes took in me and my twin. Then he wrote notes, leaving his words in the air. What were we to interpret from them?

      “All right, now you.” He pointed his pen at me.

      “Could he have just fallen in his tub and knocked his head?” I asked. “The water was running. Maybe he tripped and fell backward?”

      He gripped his chin. Letting it go, he pointed at what I held. “Your list,”