Read Online Murder in the Boonies: A Sleuth Sisters Mystery (The Sleuth Sisters Book 3) by Maggie Pill - Free Book Online

eyes met, and that unspoken communication thing happened again. Biting her lip, Pansy turned her face downward.
    Iris went on, still fiddling with her hair. “Ben said school was a waste of time, and the teachers might stick their noses in our business.” With a maturity that was heart-breaking for one so young she added, “We tried to keep up on our lessons. We read a little bit every night.”
    “I can read a whole book!” Daisy announced. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.”
    “That’s really good,” Rory responded. “You’ll have to show me sometime.” He turned from littlest to oldest, a question in his eyes.
    “We did what Ben said,” Iris said, putting a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “I cooked, Pansy took care of the animals, and Daisy helped.”
    “Did Ben ever—hurt you?”
    “No.” It was plain Iris knew what he was thinking. “He’d holler sometimes, but he never hit us or—anything.”
    I heard Barb’s sigh of relief. She’d no doubt encountered many abused children in her work as a district attorney, though she seldom spoke of it.
    “Ben was never mean,” Pansy said, “His friends are weird, though.”
    “Like who?”
    “Nobody hurt us,” Iris said firmly, and once again, Pansy closed her lips tightly. “Nobody touched us, nobody messed with us. It was like a deal, you know? We helped out on the farm, and Ben kept us together.”
    I wondered what was in it for Ben. Was he a good man who’d felt obligated to care for Rose’s daughters?
    “What happened to your real father?” I asked.
    Rory shot me an irritated look, and I recalled I wasn’t the interviewer. He waited for Iris to answer, though.
    “He died,” Iris replied. “Daisy was only one.”
    Barb picked up on the purpose of my question. “So your mom gets Social Security for the three of you?”
    Iris nodded, and Barb gave me a glance of approval. The likely reason McAdams had kept Rose’s departure a secret was financial. He wanted the money meant for the girls’ welfare.
    Rory took the lead again. “Did your mom and Ben ever argue?”
    Before Iris could answer Pansy said, “Mom was going to leave him.”
    “Did she say that?”
    “Well, no, but she’d cry sometimes.” With a pained expression she added, “We just didn’t think she’d leave us too.”
    Rory sensed it was time to back away from the mother’s betrayal. “Okay. We know your mother disappeared last month. When did Ben leave?”
    Iris licked her lips, and Pansy spoke again, so abruptly the lie was obvious. “We got up Tuesday morning and he was gone. We didn’t know he was leaving and we don’t know where he went.” Pansy glared into empty space, meeting no one’s eyes. Iris examined her hands, clasped in her lap.
    There was a brief silence, and Daisy seemed to feel the need to fill it. “He dis-dapeared,” she said, raising her hands as if to indicate a magic trick.
    “What did he take with him?” Rory asked.
    Pansy looked to Iris, who said after a pause that seemed too long, “The suitcase and some of his stuff. His razor, a pair of jeans, and some shirts.”
    “And his toothbrush,” Pansy put in as if that were significant. “He packed his toothbrush.”
    Rory asked more questions, but that was all the information he got. They got up Tuesday morning and found Ben gone. That was all they could tell us, or all they would tell.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Retta
    As usual, I was the last to hear what my sisters should have told me right away. I’m always reachable by phone, either directly or by text, and while I can’t keep up with my granddaughters in speed, I’m pretty fast and I answer right away. Faye barely knows how to text, and she often turns her phone off because she thinks it saves on the battery. As for Barbara Ann, she refuses to be “on call 24/7” so she ignores her phone when she feels like it. I’ve given up trying to explain the importance of communication to them.
    By the time Faye called, it was almost four