Killing Cousins Read Online Free Page B
Author: Rett MacPherson
New Kassel was a tourist trapâthe town is the commodityâa flashy casino was not the type of trap that New Kassel was all about. New Kassel was about going back in time and learning something about the days before Internet and satellite dishes. It was about history, antiques, crafts and good food. A casino would justâ¦I donât know, ruin the mood.
Eleanore kissed two fingers on her right hand and stuck them up in the air. âI swear.â
âBut, thatâsâ¦thatâsâ¦â
Honk. Honk. Thatâs the bad thing about stopping in the middle of the street to gossip. Some jerk always comes along and wants to use the road to drive on.
âLucrative,â she said, disgusted.
âLudicrous, Eleanore. Ludicrous.â I looked in the rearview mirror. It was nobody I could recognize right off the bat. âIâve got to go.â
âBut what are you going to do about it?â Eleanore asked.
âWhat can I do about it?â I said, although I was already thinking about what I was going to do about it. Bill was my neighbor. I was sure heâd put aside his petty grievances about my chicken coop and my chickens long enough to have a sensible conversation about how a casino would change the town. Right? I would talk to him this evening when I got home.
âTorie, you have to do somethingâ I heard her say as I drove away.
Four
The Finch estate was technically in New Kassel, but not within the city limits. It was off a two-lane road winding south between New Kassel and Greenwich. In between the two towns were farms, a few of those pop-up subdivisions in the middle of a field, thanks to low interest rates, and government land that I was hoping the government would forget it had. The front of the estate faced west and the back of it east, overlooking the mighty Mississippi.
The house actually sat in a valley between two large hills. A huge sandstone wall edged around the estate, separating it from the rest of the world as if it were a lonely green island. An elaborate âFâ was curved in wrought iron on the gate. I got out and opened the gate, pulled my car in the drive and then shut the gate behind me.
As I drove up the driveway, I noticed that the house was three stories high, made out of what looked like the same sandstone as the wall. It reminded me of a small French château, complete with one turret that curved out from the south wall. This was going to be one of those buildings that had more rooms than I could find uses for.
I got out of the car and put the key in the lock of the front door. It was a red door that was rounded on top with an oblong window in the center. The key didnât work. The door wouldnât open. Great. I was going to be really upset if I had driven all the way down here for no reason. I walked around the building to try and find the back door.
An overgrown flower garden nearly assaulted me as I rounded the corner. The grounds had been kept mowed, so it surprised me that the garden had been left to Mother Nature. Who would have done that? A few bumblebees settled on the hollyhocks that were as tall as I was, and a butterfly floated somewhere above the black-eyed Susans. Unfortunately, there were as many weeds in the garden as flowers, and it took me a second before I could find the small red-bricked path that would lead to the back door.
The key worked on the back door and I was happy. I donât know what I was expecting on the inside of the house, but what I found wasnât it. Everything had been left just as it had been five years ago when she died. There was a five-year-old newspaper on the kitchen table, unopened mail scattered on the counter, dish towels hanging on the oven door. I held my nose and peeked in the refrigerator, which had been emptied. So, I assumed that somebody had come in just long enough to clean out the perishables and then locked the place up. I opened the dishwasher and inside were clean
Eleanore kissed two fingers on her right hand and stuck them up in the air. âI swear.â
âBut, thatâsâ¦thatâsâ¦â
Honk. Honk. Thatâs the bad thing about stopping in the middle of the street to gossip. Some jerk always comes along and wants to use the road to drive on.
âLucrative,â she said, disgusted.
âLudicrous, Eleanore. Ludicrous.â I looked in the rearview mirror. It was nobody I could recognize right off the bat. âIâve got to go.â
âBut what are you going to do about it?â Eleanore asked.
âWhat can I do about it?â I said, although I was already thinking about what I was going to do about it. Bill was my neighbor. I was sure heâd put aside his petty grievances about my chicken coop and my chickens long enough to have a sensible conversation about how a casino would change the town. Right? I would talk to him this evening when I got home.
âTorie, you have to do somethingâ I heard her say as I drove away.
Four
The Finch estate was technically in New Kassel, but not within the city limits. It was off a two-lane road winding south between New Kassel and Greenwich. In between the two towns were farms, a few of those pop-up subdivisions in the middle of a field, thanks to low interest rates, and government land that I was hoping the government would forget it had. The front of the estate faced west and the back of it east, overlooking the mighty Mississippi.
The house actually sat in a valley between two large hills. A huge sandstone wall edged around the estate, separating it from the rest of the world as if it were a lonely green island. An elaborate âFâ was curved in wrought iron on the gate. I got out and opened the gate, pulled my car in the drive and then shut the gate behind me.
As I drove up the driveway, I noticed that the house was three stories high, made out of what looked like the same sandstone as the wall. It reminded me of a small French château, complete with one turret that curved out from the south wall. This was going to be one of those buildings that had more rooms than I could find uses for.
I got out of the car and put the key in the lock of the front door. It was a red door that was rounded on top with an oblong window in the center. The key didnât work. The door wouldnât open. Great. I was going to be really upset if I had driven all the way down here for no reason. I walked around the building to try and find the back door.
An overgrown flower garden nearly assaulted me as I rounded the corner. The grounds had been kept mowed, so it surprised me that the garden had been left to Mother Nature. Who would have done that? A few bumblebees settled on the hollyhocks that were as tall as I was, and a butterfly floated somewhere above the black-eyed Susans. Unfortunately, there were as many weeds in the garden as flowers, and it took me a second before I could find the small red-bricked path that would lead to the back door.
The key worked on the back door and I was happy. I donât know what I was expecting on the inside of the house, but what I found wasnât it. Everything had been left just as it had been five years ago when she died. There was a five-year-old newspaper on the kitchen table, unopened mail scattered on the counter, dish towels hanging on the oven door. I held my nose and peeked in the refrigerator, which had been emptied. So, I assumed that somebody had come in just long enough to clean out the perishables and then locked the place up. I opened the dishwasher and inside were clean
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