Read Online The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig - Free Book Online

future anyway. You can then explain to anybody who’s interested that you went to all the extra expense and bother of calling in an expert from out of town in order to be sure of getting an opinion that would be totally free of any local bias or possible self-interest.”
    Everybody thought that was pretty hilarious. Hearing them in there laughing their heads off made Dittany so furious she could think of nothing but getting in there to see who they were. She tried the knob, found the door locked, but managed to fit in one of the keys Mrs. Poppy had given her. As she turned the latch, she heard somebody yelp, “What the hell?” and make a rush for the door. Before she could get it open more than a crack, it was held fast from inside and one of Andrew McNaster’s beady little eyes glared through the slit.
    “What do you want? Haven’t I told you-“
    “Want me to clean in there?” Dittany interrupted in that hoarse, toneless voice she’d practiced on the night watchman.
    “No,” he roared. “Haven’t I told you never to bother me when I’m in conference? Who the hell are you, anyway?
    Where’s the woman who usually comes?”
    Dittany had been doing bit parts with the Traveling Thespians since she was five and, since she always forgot her lines, she’d developed a ready talent for improvisation. “You’ll have to speak up, mister. My hearin’ aid’s in for repairs. Do I clean in there or don’t I? See, Mrs. Duckes’s bad leg kicked up on ‘er again so I said I’d help out but she never told me if I was s’posed to-“
    “Just go away,” yelled McNaster at the top of his lungs. He opened the door just far enough to thrust a bill into her hand, then slammed it in her face.
    Dittany went to put away her mops and dusters. As she did so, she looked at the money McNaster had given her. It was a twenty. How nice. He didn’t know it, but he’d just made the first donation to Sam Wallaby’s rival’s campaign fund. Getting Sam defeated was going to take some doing, though, since they had less than a week to campaign in. And there was the further problem of whom she could get to run.

CHAPTER 6
    This was no time to worry about a candidate. She’d better get out of the parking lot before the meeting broke up and one of that skulduggerous crew recognized her car. Sam Wallaby would, for sure. He’d lugged enough imperial quarts of Seagram’s out to it while Gramp was alive, not that Gramp Henbit had been any great drinker, but how else could an old man keep his creaking joints oiled? Dittany herself had retained the habit of keeping a little anti-freeze on hand for emergencies, though she assuredly wouldn’t be buying any more from Sam Wallaby.
    She did wish Andy McNasty had opened that office door wide enough for her to see who else was inside. On the other hand she was rather glad he hadn’t. Charlie, that shyster lawyer from Scottsbeck, had made it all too clear, in spite of his legalistic evasions, what he thought about Mr. Architrave’s strange and sudden demise. Dittany admitted to herself that she couldn’t swallow any theory about a phantom hunter. Even Hazel Munson, who bent over backward never to think ill of anyone, had come right out and suggested murder. They’d guessed at a motive; now Dittany knew it was more than a guess. She stomped on Old Faithful’s accelerator and headed straight for the neat red brick house with the green trim at the corner of Hickory and Vine.
    The Munsons would have finished supper well before this.
    They lived by a schedule programmed to the minute by Roger though not always adhered to by Hazel and the younger Munsons, who ranged from almost grown up to turbulent ten. This was Roger’s Be Pals with Your Kids night, so he and they would be off to the skating rink, leaving Hazel to Enjoyment of Uninterrupted Leisure, which for her was apt to mean catching up on the mending or baking a fancy dessert. Tonight her leisure was going to be interrupted in a way Roger