18 Deader Homes and Gardens by Joan Hess Read Free Book Online Page B

not been unseemly. “Well,” I said with a delicate harrumph, “I do hope that you would prefer not to end your sentences with a preposition!” I swept out the front door before he could respond and leaned against the hood of my car to regain my innate sense of decorum. Had Peter not been so thoughtless as to be incommunicado, he could have his buddies at the CIA find Winston in a nanosecond. I ran through my list of friends and acquaintances who were computer literate. Luanne, my best friend, was spending the summer in Greece, in search of Zorbaesque bimboys. The Haskells were on sabbatical in England, and Maggie Knott was visiting grandchildren in North Carolina. Babs Peabody was in rehab for the third or fourth time. I would have made some calls to others who might be in town, but I’d yet to recharge my cell phone—and I wasn’t about to go back inside the Book Depot after such a magnificent parting shot.
    The library was six blocks away. I parked, went inside, and asked for help at the reference desk. The twenty-something woman did her best to hide her disdain as she settled me in front of a computer, clicked hither and thither, and then showed me how to search for pretty much everybody and everything in the universe. Naturally, I typed in my name first, then spent a satisfying hour reading newspaper articles that mentioned my minor contributions to solving murder cases in Farberville. The events in Egypt were not noted, courtesy of various covert agencies.
    I typed Winston Hollow’s name in the box and waited. My eyebrows rose as I read the local newspaper’s brief article concerning the accidental death of Winston Hollow Martinson. It had taken place in early spring, behind his home in Hollow Valley. Police had been called to the scene, where an unnamed relative had found the body tangled in branches at the edge of a river. Fishing tackle was found on the bank upstream, along with marks in the mud that indicated that the victim had lost his footing and been knocked unconscious as he fell into the water. His housemate, Terry Kennedy, was in Europe at the time, which explained why Winston Martinson’s absence had not been noticed for a week. Case closed.
    The obituary was not much longer. Winston, son of Victor Martinson and Sara Hollow Martinson, both deceased, had been thirty-six at the time of his death. He had a degree in fine arts from a liberal arts college on the East Coast and had designed sets for off-Broadway theater shows before returning to Farberville three years ago to focus on painting. He’d never married and had no offspring. There was no mention of a funeral or memorial service.
    A psychic would be required to get in touch with someone currently resting in peace—or decomposing, according to one’s beliefs. My beliefs precluded séances as a way to negotiate a real estate deal.
    My first impulse was to drive out to Hollow Valley, but Nattie had not sounded as though she knew much about the house. Angela claimed to be in communication with the owner. That ruled out Winston, who must have inherited the property from his mother. I reread the article about the death, copied down the name of the housemate, and entered it on the computer screen.
    Terry Kennedy’s name generated almost nine hundred thousand results. The majority of them referred to a professional skateboarder, but others were lawyers, politicians, furniture dealers, and professors. I quit scanning pages and sat back. The highly overrated Internet was not going to print out a card that read: “Terry Kennedy, previous resident of Hollow Valley, close friend of deceased Winston Hollow Martinson, currently lives at such-and-so, with telephone and cell phones numbers as follows…” Nor would it tell me where Angela was or where she hid her house key.
    I wondered if it might tell me the current owner of the house and the meadow that sloped gently down to the spot where Winston had died. I found the young librarian and requested more