Murder Most Fowl Read Online Free

took a mouthful of coffee. “Ah. Good and strong, just like I like it.”
    Gazing around the room, Cam spied a key holder exactly like the one at her house. It featured a split-rail fence with the carved smiling heads and upper bodies of a man and a woman peering over it. The heads on the one at Cam’s house turned a hundred and eighty degrees, so the couple could look like they were either friendly, not speaking, or both looking off in the distance in the same direction. On Wayne’s hung several bunches of keys, including one that appeared to have a small magic wand attached to it.
    â€œI have the same key rack,” Cam said with a smile.
    â€œIt was my folks’. Came with the house.”
    Greta’s voice called out from another room. “Wayne? Who’s that you’re talking to?”
    â€œCam Flaherty, hon.” Wayne gazed at the doorway until Greta, dressed in jeans and a blue fleece top, appeared. “She’s got some dead chicks she wants me to look at.” He gave her a gentle smile, which she didn’t return.
    Greta greeted Cam and sank into a chair. She blinked several times and drummed sensibly trimmed nails on the table. The set to her mouth looked like she’d eaten a rotten egg.
    â€œBut you weren’t talking about chicks,” Greta said. “I heard you hashing over the town meeting again. Nothing’s ever going to get done there. Nothing right, anyhow, with all those new bankers and whatnot telling us what to do with our land.”
    â€œGreta, they’ve been here for years,” Wayne said. “The land belongs to all of us. You know that. Democracy means we get to have our say and then vote on it. If the vote doesn’t go the way we want it to, well, we just have to accept it.”
    â€œI was surprised that Judith”—Greta said the name as if it were an obscenity—“didn’t add her ever-so-valuable opinion.”
    â€œNow, hon, Ms. Patterson’s our neighbor. We can’t help it that she has some opinions we don’t approve of.”
    â€œThat you don’t approve of, you mean. I don’t know why you aren’t willing to sell off a portion of the back woodlot to her. It’d get us out of the financial hole we’re in.” She looked at Cam. “I don’t know where all our money goes. Seems like it vanishes into thin air, like some magician swooped his wand around, said ‘ Evanesco ,’ and whoosh, it’s gone.”
    â€œEvanesco?” Cam asked.
    â€œYou know, Harry Potter’s vanishing spell. If I didn’t work as an aide at the Newburyport Library, we’d be in sorry shape,” Greta added. “Chicken farmers don’t exactly rake in the big bucks.”
    Cam didn’t quite squirm in her chair, but wished she didn’t have to witness this domestic argument. She sipped the coffee, which was strong enough to stand a stick in, and set the mug down.
    â€œWe’ll talk about that later,” Wayne said, reaching out to pat Greta’s hand until she snatched it away. “Cam don’t want to hear our problems.”
    Whew .
    â€œShow me those chicks now.” He pointed at the box.
    Cam pushed the box toward him and watched as he lifted one little body out and examined it, turning it every which way in his long-fingered hands.
    â€œHow old are they?” he asked, picking up the other chick.
    â€œI got them in the mail on Thursday, so only a few days.”
    â€œAfraid they both got pasty butt.” He glanced up with a half smile.
    Greta snickered, but when Cam looked at her, she raised her eyebrows and said, “It’s a thing.”
    â€œIck. What in the world is that?” Cam asked.
    â€œTheir vents got clogged up by loose droppings that stuck to the down,” Wayne said. “When the feces builds up and forms a blockage, little chicks can up and die from it. Like these two did.”
    â€œWhat causes