Draw the Dark Read Online Free

that.”
    “Believe that if it brings you comfort.” Using his wolf-headed cane, Mr. Eisenmann levered himself to his feet. “You’re up for reelection come April. I’d keep that in mind if I were you. See you in court.”

    After he left, I couldn’t think of anything worth saying, so I didn’t. Uncle Hank didn’t say anything either, just stared at that stupid cemetery drawing. Why had I drawn that? Why
today
of all days? At least the muttering in my head was just a murmur now and fuzzy, like static from an old radio.
    There was a soft rap, and then Marjorie, the office manager, poked her head in the door. “I’ve got Madison on the line for you, Sheriff. What would you like me to tell Deputy Brandt?”
    Uncle Hank passed a weary hand before his eyes. “Tell Brandt to secure the house as best he can. If the owner won’t leave . . .”
    “She’s staying. Says she won’t go near the third story, though why anyone would want to stay in a virtual crime scene, I don’t know.”
    “Got me.” Uncle Hank’s ice-blue eyes clicked to me. “Go with Marjorie and wait in the roll-call room. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
    I stood. “I’m sorry, Uncle Hank.”
    “I know,” he said, but he was already picking up the phone as I headed for the door.

    On the way, I asked Marjorie, “What’s going on? What crime scene? Who’s in Madison?”
    She took the last question first. “The forensic anthropologist. She’d be here sooner only they’ve got some sort of horrible multiple murder in a condominium right outside Milwaukee, in Brookfield. Some poor woman was having her basement extended, and one of the workmen broke through the concrete and found a body. Relatively fresh too; I hear they think it was put there when the foundation was poured, about six months ago. Now they’ve brought in ground-penetrating radar to check all the other condominiums. So far, they’ve found a body in every single basement, like a graveyard.” She nodded sagely. “That’s the problem; you get too big, people all piled up on each other like rats. People turn violent.”
    “Wow.” I knew what a forensic anthropologist was from television. “So why do we need the anthropologist up
here
?”
    Marjorie hesitated, her mouth puckering to a rosebud. She was office manager back when Uncle Hank’s dad was sheriff and looks the way you think a woman who’s run a bunch of guys with more efficiency than a drill sergeant should look: a helmet of silver-gray hair, sharp brown eyes behind steelrimmed glasses on a holder chain. There were a few people in Winter who either weren’t leery of me or who tolerated me because of Uncle Hank. Marjorie was in a separate category. We genuinely got along. When I was a little kid, she used to filch pop out of the deputies’ icebox. Over the years, I’d had so much Orange Crush, I could probably float a boat.
    “Come with me.” She shooed me into the roll-call room, shut the door, and said, “You know the old Ziegler place on the north side? That old brownstone mansion?” (I didn’t, but I didn’t want to derail her by asking about it.) “Well, the new owner was having work done on the third story—the servants’ quarters—and I guess the workmen were tearing out an old hearth. Only when they did, they found a
body
.” She paused. “A
mummy
, actually.”
    “Whoa. Who?”
    “Nobody knows. The coroner says it’s not recent—been there for years and years. That also means there’s no hurry, so we’re low down on Madison’s list, I guess. It happens. Your uncle says there aren’t very good records, like maybe none at all since the place has been vacant so long. The Zieglers weren’t even the original owners, and then they rented for years, so . . . they might never know.”
    “How do you put a whole person into a hearth?”
    “Well,” Marjorie said, “that gets a whole lot easier when it’s a baby.”

    Something changed in my head after that. Maybe it was the day finally