Read Online Mad Season by Nancy Means Wright - Free Book Online Page B

act.”
    He smiled. “You’ve got him.”
    She glanced sideways at him. He was quite dressed up: gray suit, dark striped tie. He looked almost handsome: slightly beaked “black Irish” nose (the Spanish invasions, he said), the round glasses—the cerebral look. She found his thinness appealing, when once she’d been attracted to the macho-muscle type. So many of her old classmates going soft in the middle from overindulgence in one thing or another. Pete himself was heading that way. Maybe that was why he left—to be young again.
    “It’s not so bad,” Colm said, “with the ones who die in their sleep. They’re at peace by the time we get them. You fall into a kind of partnership with death. But I admit I have trouble with ones like Belle. When Dad goes, I’ll sell.”
    “This is your first murder,” she reminded him. “You’re still in shock.”
    He didn’t say anything, just lifted his chin to the night—the Irish romantic.
    “So are we getting anywhere?” she asked. “Are there any real leads? Where are we going next?”
    “The Alibi,” he said, with a small laugh. It was a long thought from the funeral home to the local bar. The name of the place had never seemed so apt.
    “To see about Willy? Check his story? Isn’t that what they do in detective fiction?”
    He squinted at her, like she might be teasing him (maybe she was). “I don’t expect we’ll find any more than what he told me, but we have to ask. And we’ll want to see the bartender. See if they’ve passed along any barn money.”
    “What about the other stores in town? Out of town, Burlington. The banks. Yes?”
    “The police have already done that. I dropped in this morning. But nothing yet. I hope you told Vic they appreciate his lead. They usually forget to say.”
    Actually she hadn’t, she’d hardly seen the boy since Mr. Dufours brought him home. The call came at that exact moment about Belle. Sharon and Emily had to make supper, she could only sink in a chair and talk, talk about Belle, ask why, why? When she finally dragged herself upstairs, Vic was in bed with the light out. This morning he’d complained of a sore throat, and though she felt he might be faking, she let him stay home.
    “You’re coming along,” Colm said, almost shyly, pulling her out the door—he heard Bertha’s voice shrilling behind them. And to her surprise, maybe because of Bertha, who’d been circling them all evening, she came.
    The Alibi was crowded, though it was a weekday night. All the rednecks in town were there, it seemed: some she recognized, most she didn’t; a scattering of students from the college, girls who looked under eighteen and probably were but had fake ID. She slid into a booth. She felt out of place here in her dark blue dress and blue heels (she preferred boots). She was sensitive about being out with a man, though there was no reason she shouldn’t be, Pete hadn’t thought twice about that, had he? It was her deceased mother-in-law’s values—or should she say “prejudices”?—carried on by Pete’s sister, Bertha.
    Bertha had grabbed her at the wake: “I want you to stay out of this murder business,” she’d said, all breathy, like she’d run a mile in her black pumps. “There’s no telling what could happen.” She looked up like lightning would strike any second, then she went on about Emily: Bertha saw her get off the school bus once with Wilder, at his house, no car in the driveway, she’d said, insinuating. And Vic: Vic should go to Pete—a boy needed his father in a time like this. And why was Colm Hanna hanging around Ruth, a married woman? She didn’t like “any of it,” she said. The sister-in-law, warning of bad breath.
    “Shut up,” Ruth whispered, “shut up.”
    And Colm said, “What?”
    “Not you,” she said. “I’m talking to a ghost.”
    She shrank back into herself to see a familiar face: a woman who worked in the Natural Food Coop. And behind, at the next table, that woman