Read Online The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell - Free Book Online

bookshelves lining the entire wall from floor to ceiling, the spines of the books fading, the lettering dim. Here were the complete works of Jane Austen and George Eliot, the writings of the Brontë sisters, all three, and Thomas Hardy to keep them company. These were the sources and inspirations for the highly successful novels his aunt “relieved herself of”—as one critic noted—“with a regularity most people reserve for another function.”
    The voice of his aunt intruded. “I’m waiting for the cushions. Have you fallen down the well, then?”
    Aaron felt the need to stall. “I’m looking for the second one.” He went back and sat down on the armchair, hugging the pillows to his chest. His aunt had murdered her lover. So vivid had been her descriptions of the other woman’s needs, so emphatic her feelings of betrayal, so heated her speech, Aaron had little doubt that it could be only of herself that she had been speaking. It was she who’d struck the deadly blow and sent the man sprawled out onto the floor. It was she who’d buried him in the garden. Aaron wasn’t sure if she intended to keep the remains in the priest’s room—available for visitations—or return him to the ground at a more respectable depth. What was he to do? After Aaron had pondered the question for a full two minutes and come up with no answers, he called out, “I found it,” and took the cushions into the priest’s room.
    Aunt Kitty had lowered her forehead onto the tips of Declan Tovey’s shoes, the shoes themselves still clamped between her hands. Aaron waited, but she didn’t move. “I found it. The other cushion. Here.” He spoke quietly.
    â€œPut them then where they belong, one alongside each foot so he’s not disgraced by a foolish posture.”
    Aaron did as he was told, slightly rolling each cushion so it would hold more firmly the helpless feet. His aunt had not yet raised her head.
    â€œIs there more I can do?”
    â€œCall Lolly McKeever and tell her to come and pick up her pig.” Still she didn’t move, her hands still holding the feet clasped between her hands, her forehead still resting on the tips of the shoes.
    â€œCall her now?” Aaron asked.
    â€œNow.” Kitty’s voice was low.
    A single gull was careening high over Aaron’s head, the wings flicking almost imperceptibly to accommodate the shifting winds coming in from the sea. Now the wings were flapping, desperately it seemed, as if all support had suddenly vanished and only this frantic effort would keep the bird from dropping down into the water below. It disappeared over the top of the cliff, but now Aaron could hear its screech and scream, scolding the elements for their sudden treachery. The water had risen to above the roll of his pants leg. The tide was not going out. It was coming in. Aaron, with a sigh, turned and started walking back toward the switchback path that zigzagged up the cliff. The water was cold, cold enough to numb his feet if he didn’t move faster than he was moving now. He moved faster.
    The sea itself was quiet, the waves no more than a series of slight swellings, too low to crest and fall and froth. They simply flattened themselves out and made their small contribution to the tide that now reached above Aaron’s knees. There were no waves battering the cliffs to Aaron’s left, no thrown spume to lash his face and sting his eyes. There was merely the sly and teasing rise of the water, imperceptible in its inchings, taking its measure from those body parts newly soaked: below the knee, the knee, above the knee, the lower thigh. Aaron looked to see if some watermark on the cliff would let him know how high the tide might come. The line was clear enough. The water had stained the stones to the height of Aaron’s nose.
    By now he was slogging. The water was mid-thigh and it took considerable effort