Read Online Killing Cassidy by Jeanne M. Dams - Free Book Online

With any luck she’ll be home. Most of the others we can beard in their offices next week, but we don’t know where she works. Or
if
she works outside the home.”
    â€œRight. And by that reasoning, tomorrow we’ll take on the preacher. Yes?”
    I sighed and made a risky left turn out of the parking lot. “I was,” I said when we were safely in the traffic lanes again, “looking forward to my old church tomorrow. But I suppose duty calls.”
    We were approaching Kevin’s neighborhood by a different route than the one I had taken earlier, and when we got near, I stopped the car in utter dismay. The neat little farmhouses that used to dot the road were gone. In their place were a huge plot of bulldozed earth and a sign indicating that a new superstore was to be built on the site.
    â€œLook at that! People uprooted! The countryside ruined! How can they
do
that?”
    Alan quieted my fulminations, and I turned in the direction of the only house now close enough to Kevin’s to be considered “next door.” A country “next door,” for sure: about a quarter of a mile along a narrow back road.
    â€œThis’ll be gone soon, too, I suppose!”
    â€œPerhaps not. It’s a pleasant house, certainly.”
    I like to think I can tell something about people by the houses they live in. This one was an old farmhouse, white and rambling. The front porch sagged a bit, but it, like the rest of the house, was bright with fresh paint. A big pot of red geraniums blazed in a patch of sunlight by the front steps.
    The woman who answered the door did fit the house. She was dressed in blue jeans that were clean and well fitting, but not chic. Her white shirt probably belonged to her husband, and her short gray hair was in wild disarray. Her face, shiny with soap, didn’t need makeup. She was quite beautiful.
    â€œYes? If you’re with Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons, I’m sorry, but I’m very busy.”
    I wished I dared laugh at the expression on my husband’s face. “No,” I said hastily. “We’re not trying to convert you or sell you anything. I apologize for not calling ahead, but we didn’t know your name.”
    The woman looked puzzled. She also looked ready to close the door.
    â€œAll we knew,” I said quickly, “was that you were a neighbor of Kevin Cassidy’s. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but I was a good friend of Kevin’s in years past, and if you have a moment or two, I’d really like to talk to you about him.”
    â€œOh. Sure, come on in. I’m sort of in the middle of something, but I’d be glad to talk about Kevin. A real shame about him, wasn’t it?”
    She showed us into a small living room that looked just like her. It was clean and reasonably tidy except for piles of papers tumbled over the coffee table. It was comfortable, but not fashionable. The quilted cushions scattered here and there looked as if love had gone into them; the pictures were mostly family photographs. I felt immediately at home.
    We introduced ourselves and sat down. Her name was Hannah Schneider.
    â€œThat’s one of Kevin’s pieces, isn’t it?” I gestured to a small window by the fireplace. Its original glass had been replaced by a glowing piece of art, abstract but charged with life.
    â€œYes, isn’t it gorgeous? We were all just blown away when he suddenly revealed all that talent. He was a genius in glass, really.”
    â€œA genius, period. I knew him mostly as a scientist—and a friend, of course.”
    â€œHe was a good friend to me,” said Hannah with a sad smile. “He even—well, I was one of his students, of course. I think—were you related to Frank Martin?”
    â€œHe was my first husband. He died several years ago.”
    â€œOh yes, I’d heard. I was his student, too, for a year of botany. And then when I went on to