Death in a Turkey Town: A Chloe Boston Mystery Read Online Free Page A

Everett had some neat twisted twigs in her yard—Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick, she called it. I was sure she would let me have some.
    Of course, I would have to polish the silver. Mom had given me all of Grandma’s sterling because it tarnishes instantly and she hates polishing it. So do I, which was why it sat in the back of the linen closet, looking gloomy most of the time. But not this year—I was going all out. Nothing but the best for Alex. Silver polish went on my list of things to purchase.
    Dazed at my unaccustomed fit of domestic planning, I decided to retire to bed and meditate on possible pies to bake. The Food Network had shown me several exotic ones. Would my guests actually eat grape or pecan-pear pie?
    I was lying under my blankets, surrounded by warm furry bodies and enjoying the soft patter of the rain at the window when the peace was disturbed by a loud crack. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. 11:13. More ‘backfires’ and close by.
    Blue whined and I frowned. Had another turkey just gone to the great prairie in the sky? If so, he was traveling alone and unavenged. It was cold and wet out there and I wasn’t going outside again just to give a neighbor another lecture about discharging firearms within the town limits.
    I turned off the light.
     
    *  *  *
     
    The call came at six the next morning. Calls before dawn are never good news and dread had me fully awake when I picked up the phone. Awake but not polite. I’ve never had the knack of waking up cheerful.
    “What?” I slurred.
    “Boston?” It was the Chief. Since he is about the only person who calls me before dawn, he is used to my bad phone manners. “Get down to Courthouse Park. There’s been another murder.”
    Another murder. We hadn’t had a homicide in a decade and now our little town had had two in less than a month.
    “On my way.” And I was. The call was as effective as a slap in the face and I was filled with foreboding. I had a very bad feeling I knew who the corpse would be.
    Coffey Road is a melancholy street even in daylight. The old trees have passed from pleasantly sheltering and moved to forbidding. The sunlight didn’t dapple here even on the brightest summer day, and even in winter with the limbs bare, it remained a dark corridor for the north wind to travel, though even its voice was muffled by the ancient arbors and tall, dull-colored houses that seemed aloof from the human activity below. People didn’t so much live in these houses as they were swallowed by them. And, I couldn’t quite forget the ghost my Cousin Todd insisted haunted one of the houses there. This was the same Todd who terrified me with tales of alligators under the bed and also with stories about a monster that crept through the stacks at the library and ate children who wandered too far from the librarian’s desk. I hated Cousin Todd. I hated traveling that street too in the heartless hour before sunrise.
    Or maybe I just didn’t like parking near the cemetery and the old Burns’ mansion when it was dark since I had met a real monster there. But they were both near Courthouse Park where the pageant organizers had planned their Thanksgiving spectacle and where someone had gotten themselves murdered, so I forced myself to act bravely and like I didn’t feel the physical and spiritual cold all around me. Blue’s presence helped.
    I could see by the klieg lights that had been set up that the victim was a red haired female. It spilled around her making it seem her head had exploded. I only knew one person with hair that unnatural color, Dale Gordon’s ex-wife. My heart sank though I had been expecting to see her.
    Poor, silly woman , I thought when I reached her. She’s had her heart broken again. This time with a bullet .
    “Thoughts, Boston,” the Chief asked softly. I was not allowed to get too close while Bryce processed the crime scenes since I am not an official detective. But the Chief had become a convert last Halloween