Slave Graves (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

“No, nothing like that. It’s safe enough. I was thinking more of the inconvenience. We need a wide fast bridge with no stoplights, a bridge people can cross quickly. People who spend big money for houses want convenience.”
    On the right a three story house sat well back from the road across a long lawn, its estate grounds decorated with small hedged gardens and multiple bird feeders attached to trees and hanging on wires or set on poles. Large trees obscured the house, but Frank could see some ancient roof lines, brick sections and multi-paned windows.
    Jake grimaced when he saw Frank looking at the house. “That’s where that butterfly lady lives.”
    “Birdey?”
    “Birdey Pond. You could see what an old bitch she is. She hounded my father before me, too, always looking out for the butterflies as if they were more important than people.”
    “I like butterflies,” ventured Frank.
    The two men looked at him instantly and sternly. “I’m counting on you to understand these things, Frank. Don’t let me down,” said Jake, with a quick smile.
    The light finally changed. At the same time a second stoplight on the other side of the bridge went to red to stop traffic if there had been any coming from the island side. Then the car was on the bridge, its tires bouncing through the broken macadam surface to the iron grate supports. The bridge joined a jetty or point of land with a similar surge of hard ground from the island side. Each point went into the river about forty feet. The bridge had been built out on these points. Its span crossed open water for several hundred yards.
    “That’s the island?” asked Frank, pointing to land extending beyond a row of trees on the other side of the bridge.
    “Yes,” said Jake, slowly, his words affectionate in tone. “That’s the beginning of Allingham Island. I ‘ll show my house up there sometime.”
    The car bottomed with a jolt as it hit a pothole.
    Jake grabbed the dashboard. “Town won’t maintain the bridge anymore,” he said. “The structure was quite an engineering feat when my family built it a hundred years ago.” He shook his head.
    Across the bridge, Frank could see large areas of cleared land. On this land the access road had been almost completed. Two small cranes and several dump trucks were parked. A green steel barge with great streaks of brown rust and the word TERMENT on its side in large white letters was anchored to Frank’s left, beside the bridge. On its deck were various large engines and generators, concrete mixers, pumps and hoses.
    Also on the barge and rising up over the river, like a great sword, was a third construction crane, a very large green unit with a massive pile driver attachment. The system of pulleys on the equipment raised and dropped the tremendous weight of the hammer to drive the pilings deep into the river bed. Beneath the crane, in the water at the side of the barge, was an unfinished cofferdam, steel pilings arranged in a circle to keep out the river water.
    “We build the bridge piers on these cofferdams,” said Jake. “Pile drivers sink the cofferdams and then we pump out the water and fill them with concrete. You come back next spring you’ll see great new white piers going high into the air, looking real nice against the green of the trees along the river. “
    He paused. “Unfortunately, everything is on hold while we wait for your research to be finished.” Jake bounced in his seat as the car continued on the rough road. They were passing through the old draw machinery section with its rusted ironwork.
    “For years now,” Jake explained, “Every time a yacht with a tall mast comes up this river, its skipper has stop and to go all the way into River Sunday to get a man to raise the bridge. Even then no one is sure whether she’s going to go up or not.”
    Frank noticed how the concrete railings of the old bridge were cracked from age. Looking down at the road, he saw in places that the river water below