3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 Read Online Free Page A

3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3
Book: 3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 Read Online Free
Author: Frederick Ramsay
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Police Procedural, _rt_yes, tpl, Open Epub
Pages:
Go to
somewhat less successful in persuading them of the relatively benign nature of the agency now installed in the building. When the conversation turned to town planning, Ike decided to dummy up. He had no desire to engage in the conversation that he felt sure would follow. He found the coffee pot in the corner of the library’s conference room and poured a cup of the slightly burnt brew.
    The school’s amateur architect began to extol the potential of a renovated downtown. “Antebellum,” he’d announced as if he’d just discovered a cure for herpes. “Imagine Main Street lined on either side by building and storefronts circa 1860. Of course some of the current structures would have to be removed, but for the benefit of the concept, it would be worth it.”
    In spite of his earlier decision to sit this one out, Ike could not resist and interrupted. “The Crossroads Diner wouldn’t be one of those structures, would it?”
    “Oh heavens, yes, absolutely. The building is hideous—all forties-fifties art deco. No place for it.”
    “You believe that you can make Picketsville into a Civil War Williamsburg?”
    “Yes, that’s the concept.”
    “But Picketsville never was a major center in the war. Cavalry from both sides galloped through and there are a dozen or so chips in some of the brick buildings that we like to think are bullet holes from one or more skirmishes. But that’s questionable and even if true, hardly warrants the sort of treatment you all are suggesting.”
    “Nevertheless, it could be an economic boon to the town.”
    Ike only shook his head. He had learned not to engage in arguments with Ruth’s faculty. He never won, and it always made her angry with him when he tried.
    ***
    Later, sitting in front of a fire, drinks in hand in Ruth’s high-ceilinged front parlor, Ike turned to Dr. Leon Weitz, the local historian.
    “You heard the talk about reinventing the town, Doctor. You have an opinion?”
    “In my view, it’s nonsensical. As you pointed out, the town played a relatively minor role in the War Between the States. Moreover, most of the buildings that now line Main Street were built in the 1890s. The original structures were, for the most part, clapboard, some even log. When the town had a surge of prosperity, they were all torn down and replaced with what passed for modern then. I have photographs—not Matthew Brady’s, but maybe Gardner’s, of Main Street in 1860. The road was mud and served as a wallow for a dozen or so pigs. The only building still standing from that time now houses the bookstore. The rest are long gone. Civilization, such as it existed, centered in Bolton, two miles to the west.”
    “It annoys me when people with limited knowledge and no emotional investment in a community move in and begin to lecture the locals on what’s best for them.” Ike was winding up for a small polemic.
    “Don’t start, Ike,” Ruth said, “or I’ll cancel our deal. Leon, don’t listen to him.”
    “I will resist,” Weitz said. “Perhaps when the sheriff is free for lunch we will continue this conversation. I will say the Crossroads Diner is probably the most authentic piece of architecture in the town. If I were going to make over Picketsville, I would restore it to what it was in the late thirties and forties. Now, that would be different and attractive to tourists. Picketsville does have a history in the migration of rural men and women out of the mountains and valleys north to the cities along old Route Eleven and before that, the Brownsburg Pike. Something along the lines of the Route Sixty-six restoration out West would be more appropriate, I should think. The South is loaded to capacity with ersatz Civil War ambience.”
    “You have a friend for life,” Ike said. “I take it all back, Ruth, at least one of your faculty members has his head screwed on right.”
    “Thank you for that, I think,” Weitz said. “Dr. Harris said you wanted to ask me some
Go to

Readers choose

J. P. Sumner

Maria-Claire Payne

Mary Carter

Jana DeLeon

Tom Piccirilli

Barbara McMahon