Read Online Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online Page A

in front of him. “Well, you know, they keep themselves to themselves, don’t they? And I’m not one to talk.”
    Oh, but he was, he was, which was why Melrose and Trueblood had come.
    â€œWe were told they were from London. Docklands, to be precise. Took the place for a year.” At least, that was true enough.
    â€œAh, yes. I expect so.”
    Wasn’t that just the way with gossips? thought Melrose, with a sigh. When you didn’t want to listen to them, you couldn’t shut them up.
    Trueblood said, “And they’ve really taken to the Jack and Hammer.”
    That got a response. “Jack and Hammer ?” Sly flicked the towel from his shoulder he’d lately been polishing glasses with, swatting at air as if he couldn’t breathe for all the flies. “They wouldn’t bother themselves. Not when the Parrot ’s here, right close and where they can get real beer, and not that yellow swill Dick Scroggs pulls. Why, just the other day, Miss Fludd was saying—”
    â€œ Miss Fludd ?” Plant and Trueblood chorused, leaning across the bar like two shipwrecked sailors over the edge of their lifeboat, so eager at a report of land they’d gladly swim for it.
    â€œThat’s right. Miss Fludd was just saying—well well well , hello hello hello!”
    This gibbered greeting trilled past their shoulders and towards the door.
    Melrose turned.
    The girl who stood stopped in the doorway wore an old black mackintosh and had hair the color of the coat. Light was behind her and he couldn’t see her eyes very clearly, their color or expression. When she moved, it was with difficulty, for she had to drag the right leg, which was in a heavy and unwieldy brace. Yet, she moved with a certain smiling energy, as if she were simply carrying a rather heavy package, an inconvenient encumbrance but one that she would soon be able to set down and get rid of. She was, actually, carrying a package, a very small one, under her arm.
    â€œHullo, Mr. Sly,” she said, pulling herself up on one of the high bar stools and smiling from Trevor Sly to the two other customers. She shook herself free of the shapeless black mac to reveal a plain dove-graydress beneath it. She studied the dress for just a moment (like a child making sure she’d put on what she’d wanted to), then smiled again.
    The face was calm and gentle and the smile almost beatific, like something bestowed. She crooked her finger, calling Trevor Sly over. He moved down the bar and she engaged him in a low-voiced colloquy as she opened her package and offered him something. It looked like a thin cookie or cake, and he took a bit, munched it, and nodded. He moved back to the beer pulls to get her drink and she smiled at Plant and Trueblood as if she’d just performed a clever trick.
    Melrose stared at her, rather blindly, and feeling a bit as if he’d fallen over the edge of the lifeboat. It was difficult to guess her age. Suffering might make a young face old; forbearance might make an old face young. Melrose guessed she was in her early thirties, and then he thought she could almost as easily have been thirteen. She sat there in her gray dress, looking at the beer pulls, the mirror, the shelves of beer and brandy glasses, and smiling as if the object of her outing were about to be realized.
    That was what got Melrose: her smile, her expression. It was the smile of a little kid and the satisfied expression of one whose toils were finally to be rewarded. That she should turn up in a place like this, the Blue Parrot, down this dusty road ( how had she got here?), struck him as an utter anomaly, like finding a seashell in the Strand.
    Trueblood was joshing her about the half-pint Sly was setting before her. “Tangier! My God! Do you also like to crawl around inside active volcanoes?”
    Trevor Sly gave his silly, high-pitched giggle. “Oh, now, Mr. Trueblood, you do tell tales. I’m sure