Read Online The East Avenue Murders (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 1) by Linda L. Dunlap - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Linda L. Dunlap
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wondered why her life was so interesting to the killer, maybe it was just the luck of the draw. Maybe he chose her because she pulled both cases; first in Chicago, and now in Madison. He took a chance last night. He couldn’t have known she would fall asleep in her car, yet he had planned to leave her a big surprise for the next day, believing that she would enter her house then not go out again until the next morning.
“You may be slick and smart but you have a fatal flaw I think. Your ego might be your downfall.” She said aloud to the killer, wishing he was in hearing distance.
The day passed quickly , and before she knew, it night had come around. Mary Ellen hadn’t been over, even though she usually came by on her way to the restaurant where she put in the late night hours. Maude had called the warrant section and asked the weekend clerk run a check on Chris Cole. She put a rush on it because she didn’t trust the man, and she didn’t want to think about Mary Ellen working to support a man of his age.
There were many young men out there who would appreciate a beautiful girl with ambition or at least Maude liked to think so. She couldn’t help remembering her new partner and his politeness. She wondered if he was married and how he and Mary Ellen would take to each other. At least Joe was younger than Chris Cole and had a paying job.
Early Monday morning Maude woke feeling better than she had in a long time, crediting feeling good with the long soak she had taken on Sunday. Arthritis ran in her family. Her old man had it even though it didn’t kill him as she always hoped it would.
Daniel Hamilton was the first and the worst criminal in Maude’s life, a real he-man who believed in raising his daughter to be his property. His poking and prodding began when she was a little girl and continued until she had the gumption one day to put his lights out with a stick of cord wood. She told him in no uncertain terms that she would kill him if he came at her one more time, and he better not ever tell her mother. The old pervert stayed around the house after that watching her every move with fear in his eyes, but he never touched her again. One day, shortly before Maude went to Oklahoma to go to college the old man walked away and never tried to return to the house as his home. That was a Glory Hallelujah day in Maude’s and her mother’s life.
When Maude was forty- three her mother was in the bathroom one morning, drying off from a shower and found a tiny lump in her right breast. She thought it was probably nothing, but she called Maude in Chicago and told her about it. Thus began the many trips from her mother’s house in Madison to the big cancer research hospital in Houston.
Chemotherapy has come a long way, Maude thought, because sixteen years ago, they weren’t so smart with it. Didn’t know as much or have the different kinds of treatments for breast cancer.
Grace lasted two years from the day she found the lump with Maude in and out of Madison finding as much time as she could to get away from work and be with her mother. But it wasn’t enough. The cancer had grown in spite of the treatments, metastasizing in her other organs, finally settling in her mother’s wonderful brain.
Grace . Grace was both her mother’s name and the way she lived. She was a kind and loving woman , Maude thought , who deserved far more than the rotten pervert she had married.
Grace had thought she could change him. There at the last, dying from cancer, Grace asked Maude to forgive her father for being like he was and the harm he had done her. Maude said she would try if it made Grace happy, but she lied. As long as the old man was alive she knew she would hate him.
Her father came around once after Grace’s death, sniveling and wanting Maude’s forgiveness, but she told him to get off her property because her mother left it to her and he could rot in hell for all she cared. She told him he wasn’t getting any
“You may be slick and smart but you have a fatal flaw I think. Your ego might be your downfall.” She said aloud to the killer, wishing he was in hearing distance.
The day passed quickly , and before she knew, it night had come around. Mary Ellen hadn’t been over, even though she usually came by on her way to the restaurant where she put in the late night hours. Maude had called the warrant section and asked the weekend clerk run a check on Chris Cole. She put a rush on it because she didn’t trust the man, and she didn’t want to think about Mary Ellen working to support a man of his age.
There were many young men out there who would appreciate a beautiful girl with ambition or at least Maude liked to think so. She couldn’t help remembering her new partner and his politeness. She wondered if he was married and how he and Mary Ellen would take to each other. At least Joe was younger than Chris Cole and had a paying job.
Early Monday morning Maude woke feeling better than she had in a long time, crediting feeling good with the long soak she had taken on Sunday. Arthritis ran in her family. Her old man had it even though it didn’t kill him as she always hoped it would.
Daniel Hamilton was the first and the worst criminal in Maude’s life, a real he-man who believed in raising his daughter to be his property. His poking and prodding began when she was a little girl and continued until she had the gumption one day to put his lights out with a stick of cord wood. She told him in no uncertain terms that she would kill him if he came at her one more time, and he better not ever tell her mother. The old pervert stayed around the house after that watching her every move with fear in his eyes, but he never touched her again. One day, shortly before Maude went to Oklahoma to go to college the old man walked away and never tried to return to the house as his home. That was a Glory Hallelujah day in Maude’s and her mother’s life.
When Maude was forty- three her mother was in the bathroom one morning, drying off from a shower and found a tiny lump in her right breast. She thought it was probably nothing, but she called Maude in Chicago and told her about it. Thus began the many trips from her mother’s house in Madison to the big cancer research hospital in Houston.
Chemotherapy has come a long way, Maude thought, because sixteen years ago, they weren’t so smart with it. Didn’t know as much or have the different kinds of treatments for breast cancer.
Grace lasted two years from the day she found the lump with Maude in and out of Madison finding as much time as she could to get away from work and be with her mother. But it wasn’t enough. The cancer had grown in spite of the treatments, metastasizing in her other organs, finally settling in her mother’s wonderful brain.
Grace . Grace was both her mother’s name and the way she lived. She was a kind and loving woman , Maude thought , who deserved far more than the rotten pervert she had married.
Grace had thought she could change him. There at the last, dying from cancer, Grace asked Maude to forgive her father for being like he was and the harm he had done her. Maude said she would try if it made Grace happy, but she lied. As long as the old man was alive she knew she would hate him.
Her father came around once after Grace’s death, sniveling and wanting Maude’s forgiveness, but she told him to get off her property because her mother left it to her and he could rot in hell for all she cared. She told him he wasn’t getting any
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