The Season of Killing Leigh Mayberry (early reader chapter books .TXT) 📖

hung up the receiver again and started at the greasy old push-button phone. It was several years out of date and still a secure and viable analog communication device well into the digital age.

It was late, and Meghan slipped away from the desk and crawled into the cot. It was cold and lumpy. Lester switched off the desk light before stubbing his toe on the chair in the dark. He dropped onto the air mattress. Meghan heard him curse his foot. Eric rolled on the sofa and sighed. They had a handful of prospects and no real leads. It made Meghan feel empty when she didn’t have a solid edge. She didn’t feel like they were dealing with masterminds.

Any organized thieves would have cleared the woman’s accounts. Meghan suspected since Hilma didn’t use online banking, it actually saved the life savings. It was a lot of money in her account. More money than Meghan ever had at one time in her savings.

If the woman had that much money in the bank, how much money did she have at the house? After listening to Barbara, Meghan knew this was more about money than murder. The woman got in the way. Since the ATM card didn’t work for them after Hilma’s death, they had no idea how much the woman had in the bank.

“You know what I didn’t find in the house?” Meghan said to the blackness. “Hilma didn’t receive bank statements in the mail. I checked the desk drawers. I saw the water and electric bills, but she didn’t keep any bank receipts in the house.”

“We check our accounts online,” Eric said from the dark.

“Hilma didn’t have a computer or a smartphone,” Lester said. “The cable in the house wasn’t for the internet, just television.” He waited a minute before asking about the money in Hilma’s accounts.

“It’s a lot more than probably anyone ever realized.”

“Well, Scrooge can’t be Scrooge without keeping all the money,” Eric said.

“Jacob Marley kept all the money,” Meghan said. “Scrooge learned from his partner’s ghost that you couldn’t take it with you.”

“She didn’t,” Lester said.

Chapter Nineteen

 Banging on the steel outside the door at one in the morning wasn’t something anyone expected, and it made Meghan’s heart ramp up. It sounded like an echoing gong from the end of the alcove entry. The case hadn’t stalled, not in Meghan’s view, but the arson after the fact of murdering a village elder made her struggle with responsibility. Meghan couldn’t admit it, but burning down Hilma’s house felt directly pointed at her and the investigation. Shaking up village life was a bonus.

Lester and Eric turned on all available lights before they readied to open the door. Meghan slipped on her parka because she knew its layers had added protection in case something went sideways, and she faced the business end of a rifle.

Eric unlatched the door. A woman loomed in the doorway. Her face obscured by the hood, blue knit cap, and a tangle of black hair. She braced her bare hands against the exterior wall. She wavered as her head lifted to see them.

Eric caught her before she tumbled to the floor. Snow spilled inside as the three of them worked to get the woman inside, dragging her bare feet. Her head lulled forward and to the side. She didn’t help when Lester and Eric took both arms and hoisted her off the cement to carry the woman the rest of the way.

Meghan dodged around them and ran outside. She scanned the darkness. Then she used the LED flashlight to examine the shadowy pockets. The set of tracks leading to public works was alone. Snowflakes trickled out of the black sky. The trail wasn’t straight, zigzagged around the side of the warehouse, and garage door before it eventually led to Meghan.

She returned to the building, locking the door behind. Once inside the main office, the ripe scent of alcohol tore at her nostrils.

The woman slumped in the desk chair. Lester held her right arm, keeping her upright. With the hood done, knit cap off, Meghan recognized the woman as one of the characters from the flophouse.

“It’s Christine Singleton,” Lester said. They interviewed her, along with the other nine suspects. She was nineteen, a little mouthy with a negative attitude toward authorities. Meghan suspected it had to do with being in the presence of like-minded peers. Separated from the herd, she hoped Singleton had something of substance to say.

Eric kneeled at Singleton’s feet. He had a blanket under her bare feet. Eric used his hands and radiant body heat to circulate blood into her stone-cold feet.

Singleton lifted her head, squinting in the overhead fluorescent lights. Her head seemed too heavy for her neck to support.

“Christine, what’s going on?” Meghan asked.

It was one of those kinds of interviews. The downside had to do with determining what the woman consumed. Meghan had to tackle that before moving forward with why the young woman stumbled through the dark and snow in subzero temperatures barefoot to find them. Drinking was a fickle bitch. In rural Alaska, the additional components of guesswork had a lot to do with understanding if the subject lived or died because of the consumption.

Alcohol took time to metabolize in the system. It went down easy enough, had a lot of flavors, styles, and proofs. Once in the body, alcohol affected everyone differently.

The trouble with Singleton wasn’t only that she was drunk. They had no idea what she drank to achieve that level of intoxication. Was she on her way up the sliding scale, or coming down? If her body still processed the alcoholic beverage, then the dialogue and coherent window closed rapidly.

It was impossible to get anything out of someone who passed out from drinking.

Meghan nudged Singleton. “Hey, Christine, what were you drinking tonight?”

It was a serious question. It was more