Death of A High Maintenance Blonde (Jubilant Falls Series Book 5) by Debra Gaskill Read Free Book Online

there where he was found?”
    “No. We think the crime occurred further up Shanahan Creek and the body floated down the creek toward town. We think he was dead when he hit the water because there was no water in his lungs.”
    Shanahan Creek was a lot deeper and wider than some rivers I’d seen in my life. I wasn’t surprised the body was able to float that distance.
    Before coming to see Assistant Chief McGinnis, I drove to the crime scene, parking my car beside the bridge where the body was discovered and scrambling down the banks.
    The landscape wasn’t the same as what I’d read in the original story, but that didn’t surprise me. The fallen tree limb that caught the body was long gone. The photos showed an older bridge, with arching bricks reaching each side of the creek, as police officers lifted the sagging body from the water. Even that was gone, replaced by a modern concrete structure.
    I scrambled back up the bank to my car and headed down the roads that paralleled Shanahan Creek, hoping to get an idea of the local geography before meeting with the assistant chief.
    Past the edge of town and a slew of newly built homes, Shanahan Creek took a sharp turn and I lost my view of the water. At the next road, I turned, hoping to find it again.
    It was a lucky move: there at the bend in the creek sat an older home. Its bricks were painted white; four columns flanked two rows of arched windows with glossy black wooden shutters. There was a row of varnished rocking chairs on the porch and an over-landscaped front yard, lush with flowers at the base of old-growth oaks and maples. A newer three-car garage, also built with painted white brick sat off at an angle from the house. I could see a gazebo in the back yard, near the creek, and further back, a new horse barn with white picket fencing surrounding it. It looked today like a picture from a magazine—and the perfect place to commit a murder.
    I didn’t stay—my appointment with the assistant chief was in a few minutes. It wouldn’t be a good time to pull up the drive to talk to whoever lived there. I scribbled the address down and headed back to the police department.
    Now, as I asked my questions, I found myself casting sidelong glances at Gary McGinnis to make certain he didn’t recognize me.
    “Anything odd about the stab wounds you can tell me?” I asked.
    McGinnis looked through the coroner’s report. “The chest wounds weren’t at an angle. They were straight in, so likely his killer was the same height, not shorter or taller. The killer probably disabled him with those wounds and then, when he was unable to fight back, stepped behind him and slit his throat. After he died, his killer dumped him in the creek.”
    “Do you have any idea where the murder actually occurred?” I asked.
    Chief McGinnis flipped through a few pages in the file; even though the murder happened thirty-some years ago, it was still considered an open investigation and, as a result, Ohio Sunshine Laws kept me from rooting through the whole file myself.
    “We had the sheriff’s office walk up both sides of the creek, but they never found anything, so we can’t really say for sure where he was murdered.”
    “How far did they walk?”
    McGinnis flipped through a few more pages and shrugged. “Couple miles, I guess.”
    “Are there houses along there? Anybody I could talk to?”
    McGinnis pushed a list of addresses toward me. “Most of it was farmland, so there weren’t a lot of houses. A lot of it’s been developed since that time.”
    I tried to conceal my excitement: his list included the address of the white brick house I’d visited. If I were lucky, the place was still in the same hands as it was the day a young man’s body fell into Shanahan Creek—a quick check at the courthouse would answer that.
    “Anybody else around I can talk to?” I tried to sound casual.
    “Believe it or not, it was the old fire chief’s first week as a firefighter. He’s retired now,