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

the bridge showed through surface holes in the road. He wondered if the car he was in would be the first car to break through the road and fall into the water. Jake talked on, unconcerned.
    “When the town found out my company was going to develop the island and build a new bridge, the county commissioners in the River Sunday Courthouse stopped the allocation of funds to keep the old bridge fixed. They just let it rust. Of course, I don’t complain because it’s just my tenant farmers going up to their farms on the island. Safe enough for them. They run a few trucks and cars across the old bridge every day.” He chuckled. “Some of them go drinking in River Sunday at night and I might even hear from Billy about a car smacking into the railing one night or another. “
    He confided in Frank, his voice low, “I can remember one day when we kids fixed the stoplight on the bridge to stay red. We held up traffic all day until they come out and reset the light. We sat back in the grass in that same old marsh where you are going to work, Frank. Horns were honking, people yelling, and it was a lot of fun.” He got serious. “When my father found out about it, I got whipped good with his shaving belt.”
    The station wagon stopped bouncing when it reached the other side of the bridge. Off to the right Frank could see a ruined church.
    “The Nanticoke Chapel of Ease,” said Jake. “Years ago lightning struck the building’s roof,” he continued, looking quickly at the church. Frank’s educated eye studied the old building. He could see where the fire had reduced the structure to jagged up thrust walls and piles of neglected brick and stone rubble. A path outlined by years of young explorers trickled through the front arch. There was an inner void open to the sky that was filled with wild vines. The lush growth maintained an appearance of natural sanctity, yet in the midst of this green he saw remnants of abandoned campfires with piles of beer cans and broken wine bottles scattered on the ruined brick floor.
    Jake noticed Frank’s interest in the ruined building. “The kids still come out here with their girlfriends,” he said. “I’ve taken my share of girls there too. It’s a local tradition.”
    Frank smiled, thinking of the irony of those charcoal pyres, left by generations of River Sunday teens, memorializing more the fiery rites of first sex than the scorching words of some long dead preacher.
    Spyder pulled off the road and turned the car around until it pointed towards the river again. The car air conditioning protected them from the intense heat outside, as they sat looking out at the construction.
    “We got pretty far along with the access road on this side,” said Jake, proudly. Frank saw how the area for the new bridge had been ripped out of the land. Beside the old bridge, the ramp for the access road raised up, its massive structure of poured concrete and soil fill dwarfing the old structure. It was leveled to a certain incline, ending at a point near the edge of the river where the barge and the pile driver were positioned with the first of the cofferdams. This new road was poised to connect with the future bridge spans when Jake’s bridge project was completed.
    Frank got out of the car and stood in the heat. He saw piles of brush stacked at the edges of the construction, the piles of broken saplings and brush and vines testament to the tremendous power of the machines. He noticed too the dead plants, bloated fish, and stained water. Along the shoreline a slick of diesel oil moved out into the river. The oil washed back and forth in the weak tide lap against the few remaining cattails and marsh grasses. Above the purr of the station wagon engine, he heard the clank of a loose cable slapping against the steel sides of the barge as it moved in a slight breeze. The steel resounded like a cry of a person, a child. As Frank looked again at the pile driver and the laddered shaft of the great crane, Jake,