Read Online Hunting Season by Nevada Barr - Free Book Online

downstairs, Mama's realms were a heaven of order. The same overabundance of furniture prevailed, but above stairs it was at least clean and free of debris.
    The upstairs consisted of three bedrooms and a bath clustered around a spacious landing at the top of the stairs. Two of the doors stood open and, by the light which filtered through the lace sheers, Anna noted the world Mama Barnette had preserved on the second floor. She glimpsed the bedroom to the right as they came up the last steps. The feel was prewar; not II or I, but Civil. A four-poster bed dominated the room. In lieu of a closet was a fine old armoire with mirrored doors.
    "Mama's in here," Raymond said sharply, as if to pull Anna's prying eyes from the bedroom. He stood aside to the left of the landing and ushered them into another spacious high-ceilinged room. The second bedroom apparently served as Mrs. Barnette's sitting room. Careful arrangements of formal Victorian chairs flanked a small marble-topped table with carved legs bandied out from a pedestal. A high-backed cherry settee sat against the wall, and tufts of what may very well have been the horsehair of the original stuffing poked through the threadbare fabric. Crocheted doilies were pinned to the back and the arms in an attempt to hide the ravages of age.
    Mrs. Barnette sat in a rocking chair by a fireplace. November had yet to get cold enough for fires and the opening was discreetly covered by a decorative paper fan.
    Anna and the sheriff entered and stood awkwardly amid the fragile furniture, waiting to be received. Raymond scuttled over to his mother's chair. "This is the sheriff," he said in a loud voice. "The doctor's called in a prescription for you."
    The old woman turned her round blue eyes up at her son. From where Anna stood, they appeared to be free of tears or any other discernable signs of grief.
    "I know who he is," the old woman snapped. "I don't need no doctor's poisons. And I ain't deaf."
    Raymond smiled. Anna thought it smacked more of an undertaker sizing up a customer for a coffin than the understanding of a devoted son.
    Evidently it struck his mother the same way. "Stop grinning like an idiot," she ordered her younger son. "Your big teeth are hanging out."
    Raymond did as he was told. His face clung doggedly to a mask of benevolence, but his eyes mirrored the pure nastiness of his mother's.
    Blood will tell, Anna thought and glanced around her, an instinct to check for more vipers in the nest.
    "We're real sorry about Doyce," Clintus began.
    "Get on with it," Mrs. Barnette interrupted the condolences.
    "Okay," he said. They'd not been invited to sit. As they stood like servants called on the carpet, Raymond started the interview. "We just need to ask you a couple of questions so we can figure out what happened."
    "Ask them. Don't shuffle around all day scuffing up my good rug."
    Anna heard Clintus sigh, before abandoning the delicacy he had thought the situation called for. "Do you know where Doyce was last night?"
    "I don't. He got this bug to play poker all of a sudden." She said the word 'poker' the way a Carmelite nun might say 'sodomy.' "Friday nights he was off playing poker with his low-life friends. I don't know who they were and I don't want to know.
    "He'd be out most of the night. He thought I wouldn't know but I heard him come in. I ain't deaf," she said again and glared at Raymond.
    "He never mentioned who he played with?" Clintus tried. "Not even first names or anything?"
    "I told you he didn't. I wouldn't have listened if he did. They were drinking and smoking and gambling. When that boy come in I could smell it on him all the way up here. That stink of sin coming right up the stairs.
    "He was losing money, too. He lied about that but he was all right. Just throwing away all me and his daddy, God rest his soul, worked so hard for. The devil'd got hold Doyce and now he's dead."
    Mrs. Barnette sounded as is she figured it served him right but venting the anger had