Read Online Death Spiral by James W. Nichol - Free Book Online Page B

everyone’s talking about, that it’s no wonder poor Mr. Cruikshank had a heart attack after such an ugly scene. My aunt thinks that that man should be charged for contributing to Mr. Cruikshank’s death.”
    “When was this?”
    “Last Saturday afternoon.”
    “It sounds like Frank Cruikshank.”
    “I know, but even if it was, it doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
    “What do I think it means?”
    “You know what you think it means.”
    “Then why do you think Frank Cruikshank was in the store arguing with Adrienne?”
    “They were probably discussing the terms of the will.”
    Wilf looked out the window, past the faded gold lettering. A car passed by on Main Street. A truck passed the other way. “Carole, do you really think that all Adrienne did was help Mr. Cruikshank go shopping and look after his garden and he said, ‘You’re such a sweet kid. Here’s my whole estate.’ Do you really think that?”
    Carole’s face reddened a little because in her secret thoughts she hadn’t thought that. She hadn’t thought that at all, but she’d been trying to push them away. Such thoughts seemed to say more about her own questionable state of mind than Adrienne’s.
    “Saturday night was the night of the snowstorm. And he had a key,” Wilf went on.
    “Who did?”
    “Frank Cruikshank had a key to the house. He borrowed one from Cruikshank’s housekeeper because he said he needed to get in to make sure his father wasn’t ill.” Wilf got up, picked up his cane and headed for the front door. “He was lying. He wanted the key to make a copy.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “To make sure.”
    “I’m just wondering,” Carole called out after him.
    “What?”
    “Is that your father’s car parked out front? Sort of sideways?”
    Wilf began to pull on his coat. “As a matter of fact, yes it is.”
    “Didn’t you say that Doc Robinson was going to examine Mr. Cruikshank more thoroughly? Could you do me a big favour? Before you do anything else, could you drive up to his office and ask him what he found out? If Mr. Cruikshank did die of a heart attack then everything’s all right. And it’s just us. We’re the ones going crazy.” Carole looked at him hopefully.
    “All right. I will,” Wilf said and went out the door.
    Carole sat there for a moment. She picked up a legal form and rolled it into her typewriter. She looked at it. She’d already typed in the required information. It was already signed.
    She pulled it back out and tried to study her notebook. She couldn’t think of what it was she was supposed to be doing. There was so much work and Mr. McLauchlin would be back by Monday. The Conacher file. Yes. The business partnership papers. Of course. As she turned to her side table for the file, the front door opened and Frank Cruikshank walked in.
    “My father’s passed away,” he said, his voice hoarse and full of some kind of complicated emotion that Carole couldn’t identify. He walked right up to the wooden railing. “Sometime yesterday.”
    “I’m sorry,” Carole said.
    “They found him yesterday, I mean.”
    He was wearing a long leather coat with a dirty wool lining. He looked even taller than he had in court, his face highly coloured from being out of doors all the time, his hands as wide as they were long and permanently swollen from a lifetime of work. Carole could hardly take her eyes off his hands.
    “My name’s Frank Cruikshank, if you don’t know.”
    The railing was supposed to protect her, separating the public from the rest of the office but it only reached a little above Frank Cruikshank’s knees.
    “You’d know my mother. McLauchlin’s been fighting her for years.”
    Carole easily resisted the temptation to say that it wasn’t Mr. McLauchlin who had been fighting his mother, it had been his own father.
    “Did he have a will?” he asked.
    Carole found her voice. “Mr. McLauchlin is out of town until this coming Monday. At such time I’m sure that Mr.