Read Online Though Not Dead by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dana Stabenow
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day, five days a week. The salaried employees changed out less often. One of them was Vern Truax, the mine superintendent. Kate wondered how much longer he was going to remain superintendent, since two of his employees had recently been found to have committed industrial espionage and a third had tried to cover it up with murder. She imagined he was at this very moment doing some pretty fancy tap dancing in front of Global Harvest’s board of directors, and if his own libido had not contributed to his problems in the first place she could almost have found it in her heart to feel sorry for him. But for a guy who allowed himself to be led around by his dick, he was very smart, and very experienced in pulling minerals out of the ground.
Only four days had passed since the murderer had been apprehended.
To Kate it felt like a year.
She went back up the dock and let herself into the cabin.
With Phyllis in mind, she climbed the ladder to the loft and peered over the edge. A queen-sized bed, big enough for Old Sam if he slept from corner to corner, took up most of the floor space. There was a lamp on a Blazo box next to the head of the bed, and beneath the eave on the opposite wall more Blazo boxes were stacked on their sides, open ends facing the room, clothes sorted and folded inside them. She smiled. Old Sam had arranged the boxes in an attractive pattern by alternating which side they stood on, wide or narrow, and had painted them the same soft cream color as the rest of the loft. There were no windows in the loft and only four in the whole cabin, and the light-colored paint gave the area an inviting look, a place where sleep would be peaceful and deep.
Kate climbed down the ladder and looked at the back wall. Here Old Sam had spared no effort in a construction that must have taken more than one winter to complete. These shelves had been handmade from hand-fallen and hand-finished birch planks, and made with love and attention, too, the nails countersunk and filled, the edges and corners sanded into smooth, blemish-free curves. The shelves were staggered in size but never more than three feet in length, designed not to sink beneath the weight of what was on them, and the wood glowed from a continual application of hand-rubbed wax. It must have been the undertaking of several days every winter to empty out each shelf, wax it, polish it, and return everything to its proper place.
Every single shelf was filled, too, but not to overcrowding. You got the feeling looking at them that there would always be room for another can of Campbell’s tomato soup, or another box of .458 Winchester Magnum cartridges, and always, always room for another book.
Kate had been pacing herself because she hadn’t wanted to go for the books first thing, hadn’t wanted to reveal even to herself how shamefully eager she was to get her hands on the contents of Old Sam’s library. She looked at the recliner and imagined him sitting in it, footrest up, feet hanging over the end, a sardonic glint in his eyes. Stop fiddle farting around and get on with it, girl.
She got on with it.
He hadn’t been a collector; every one of his books was for reading. She thought she might have acquired her habit of marginalia from him, so she was expecting the underlined passages, the scribbles in pen and pencil, the dog-eared pages, the occasional yellow highlighting. Truth to tell, it only made the books more precious in her eyes. His voice spoke out to her from those notes and scribbles, from beyond the grave they had laid him in on Sunday, a rush job before the ground froze so they wouldn’t have to put him in cold storage for the winter and bury him the next spring.
His interests were fairly narrow but within those confines pretty catholic. He liked Western fiction, so there was a lot of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and Rex Beach and Steward Edward White and Owen Wister and Jack Schaefer. There was even Wallace Stegner. “Eew,” she said. “Uncle. How
Only four days had passed since the murderer had been apprehended.
To Kate it felt like a year.
She went back up the dock and let herself into the cabin.
With Phyllis in mind, she climbed the ladder to the loft and peered over the edge. A queen-sized bed, big enough for Old Sam if he slept from corner to corner, took up most of the floor space. There was a lamp on a Blazo box next to the head of the bed, and beneath the eave on the opposite wall more Blazo boxes were stacked on their sides, open ends facing the room, clothes sorted and folded inside them. She smiled. Old Sam had arranged the boxes in an attractive pattern by alternating which side they stood on, wide or narrow, and had painted them the same soft cream color as the rest of the loft. There were no windows in the loft and only four in the whole cabin, and the light-colored paint gave the area an inviting look, a place where sleep would be peaceful and deep.
Kate climbed down the ladder and looked at the back wall. Here Old Sam had spared no effort in a construction that must have taken more than one winter to complete. These shelves had been handmade from hand-fallen and hand-finished birch planks, and made with love and attention, too, the nails countersunk and filled, the edges and corners sanded into smooth, blemish-free curves. The shelves were staggered in size but never more than three feet in length, designed not to sink beneath the weight of what was on them, and the wood glowed from a continual application of hand-rubbed wax. It must have been the undertaking of several days every winter to empty out each shelf, wax it, polish it, and return everything to its proper place.
Every single shelf was filled, too, but not to overcrowding. You got the feeling looking at them that there would always be room for another can of Campbell’s tomato soup, or another box of .458 Winchester Magnum cartridges, and always, always room for another book.
Kate had been pacing herself because she hadn’t wanted to go for the books first thing, hadn’t wanted to reveal even to herself how shamefully eager she was to get her hands on the contents of Old Sam’s library. She looked at the recliner and imagined him sitting in it, footrest up, feet hanging over the end, a sardonic glint in his eyes. Stop fiddle farting around and get on with it, girl.
She got on with it.
He hadn’t been a collector; every one of his books was for reading. She thought she might have acquired her habit of marginalia from him, so she was expecting the underlined passages, the scribbles in pen and pencil, the dog-eared pages, the occasional yellow highlighting. Truth to tell, it only made the books more precious in her eyes. His voice spoke out to her from those notes and scribbles, from beyond the grave they had laid him in on Sunday, a rush job before the ground froze so they wouldn’t have to put him in cold storage for the winter and bury him the next spring.
His interests were fairly narrow but within those confines pretty catholic. He liked Western fiction, so there was a lot of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and Rex Beach and Steward Edward White and Owen Wister and Jack Schaefer. There was even Wallace Stegner. “Eew,” she said. “Uncle. How
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