Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Jerusha Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

can’t help you with that one.” Dwayne drained his mug and turned back to the coffee pot for more.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 6
     
    The bunkhouse smelled like bacon. No matter what had happened overnight, twenty-two hungry boys had to be fed. It was also chore time, and the halls were crowded with boys intent upon their designated tasks.
    Walt was in the kitchen supervising, but discretely so, from his position near the window. Thomas, my favorite dreadlocked fifteen-year-old, creatively choreographed the lineup of bread slices in front of the rotisserie-style toaster with a wood-handled paint brush that had been commissioned as a butter slatherer. Two younger boys with dishtowels draped over their shoulders bickered in undertones about the proper way to turn scrambled eggs on the griddle. If nothing else, all the boys under Walt’s tutelage could get jobs as short-order cooks when they graduated from the camp.
    Walt had seen me coming and had my second cup of coffee of the morning ready and doctored the way I liked it. “Sleep?” he asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “Then you’ll eat, at least.” Walt motioned toward one of the boys—Collin, I think his name was—at the grill, and I was served a plate mounded with eggs and bacon, adorned with two slices of toast cut diagonally into tidy triangles, with remarkable efficiency about three seconds later.
    Thomas gave me a two-fingered salute and a wide grin from his station, then mouthed the word, “Sourdough.”
    I grinned my thanks.
    “I suppose we need to talk,” Walt said.
    “Don’t we always?”
    He led the way to his cramped office and closed the door behind us.
    “Uh?” I vainly looked around for a safe place to perch my plate and mug and bumped the bulging rucksack that hung from my shoulder into Walt’s midsection in the process.
    He grabbed my mug and eased the rucksack off my shoulder. I dropped into the folding chair on the close side of his desk while he sidled around to the other side and returned my mug.
    “Is there space for a bigger office for you in the garage?” I asked.
    Walt shook his head. “I want the boys to have the new accommodations. But maybe after most of them move over there I can co-opt one of the old bedrooms here for an office.”
    It suddenly occurred to me that I’d never seen Walt’s personal living space. He lived on-site, presumably in one of the many bedrooms along the sagging length of the bunkhouse. An absolute dearth of privacy. I wondered if he even had a comfortable chair for reading, or whatever he liked to do at the end of a long day.
    I quickly peeked at the edges of the room. There was no place to hide a folding cot in his office, so at least he wasn’t sleeping in here.
    “Do you have any worries about what the boys saw?” I flinched at my own words, but I wanted to address the issue head-on.
    Walt’s blue eyes were uncomfortably intense, but I held his gaze without wavering. I needed to know the truth.
    “No.” He sighed and pulled a stack of folders out of the way so I could set my plate on the desk. “I probed as much as I thought wise, and none of them indicated a full knowledge of what they’d found. I think Latrelle was a little grossed out, but they all assumed it was a survival-of-the-fittest animal thing. Not human.”
    I nodded slowly, glad Walt and Des concurred on the subject of the boys’ impressions. I trusted their judgment.
    “The FBI doesn’t want the fact that it’s human advertised either,” I said. “They asked Des and Trudy to spread that same misinformation as needed—that it was an animal carcass that made the hounds go crazy. Just a regular day in the forest food chain.”
    “Convenient.” Walt wasn’t buying it.
    I shrugged. “They’ve identified the body, so it’s the how, not the who, that’s concerning them now.”
    Walt’s eyes narrowed to little slits that shot blue light at me like lasers. “You mean you identified the body.