Read Online Walk a Black Wind by Michael Collins - Free Book Online

answers for a time. I drank my Irish.
    â€œI think Felicia knows something we don’t,” I said.
    She shook her head as if to clear a spell, and smiled at me apologetically, her silence rudeness to a guest. “I’m sorry, I’ll be all right. Knows something? What could Felicia know? You mean about Francesca? She would have told us.”
    â€œFrancesca wrote to her twice, Mrs. Crawford, asked her not to tell anyone.”
    â€œFrancesca wrote? I see. You think something in a letter?” she said. “But Felicia would have told us—now.”
    â€œMaybe not. Felicia said that Francesca felt neglected, different, not loved. Felicia could be keeping faith.”
    Katje Crawford winced. She was a dynamic woman, and her thoughts were mirrored in her face, her active body. An energetic, sinuous body younger than her age, and I felt her as a woman. An attraction. That doesn’t happen often to me on a case. But I was aware of Katje Crawford, of her strength. Maybe there had been more of her in her daughter than Francesca had realized. Too much, maybe.
    â€œYes, it’s true,” she said. “My fault, but not all mine. Francesca was combative, what Tony Sasser calls a ‘hardhead.’ But I wasn’t the mother to the twins I’ve tried to be to the younger ones. A young matron with her own interests and a rising husband makes a bad mother sometimes. Then, we just weren’t close, not alike. A streak of isolation in the girls, even Felicia. Still, you can’t blame the child. My guilt. What do I do now, Mr. Fortune? For Francesca, nothing. To catch who killed her won’t give me any sense of achievement. But what do I do for Felicia? Where is she?”
    â€œHelp me find Francesca’s murderer fast.” I said.
    She nodded. “Yes. What can I tell you?”
    â€œWhat you know about Abram Zaremba and the Black Mountain Lake project.”
    â€œThe project is a needed housing development. We’re growing too fast. What else should I know?”
    â€œFrancesca worked against it?”
    â€œShe had strong ideas on ecology. Is it important?”
    â€œWhat about Abram Zaremba?”
    â€œI don’t know him personally. My husband does, I think. Has all this some connection to Francesca?”
    â€œMark Leland had,” I said. “You know about him?”
    â€œOf course I do,” she said, moved her lean hand in a sharp gesture. “We thought of that at once, Mr. Fortune, but Mark Leland was killed over three months ago. Francesca couldn’t describe the man she saw running from Leland’s car. Lieutenant Oster tried everything with her, she simply didn’t see enough. Some hired killer, anonymous, the Lieutenant thinks. Far away by now. What danger was Francesca to him?”
    â€œMaybe none, but Mark Leland was investigating the Black Mountain Lake project when he was killed.”
    She sat silent. Then, she got up and went to an inlaid side table, a beautiful piece of work by some eighteenth-century English craftsman. She took a cigarette from a jade box, and lighted it without waiting for me to fumble for my lighter.
    â€œYou think Francesca was killed because of that development? A few thousand acres of swamp land!”
    â€œShe was involved with Mark Leland in more than just seeing a man run from killing him. They’d met, talked.”
    â€œTalked? Then tell Martin! Tell my husband, he knows about that project. Find out, Mr. Fortune!”
    She came back to her chair, and her legs seemed to give way as she sat. “We have all we want or need, we hurt no one by it, but she had to be militant. Look for battles she was no part of. Man is a scheming animal, that’s what marks us, Mr. Fortune—we strive for ourselves. Perhaps it’s wrong, and perhaps it will kill us all, but it can’t be changed.”
    The life in her face was animated even in despair and anger. I could feel her presence all