Death's Half Acre by Margaret Maron Read Free Book Online Page B

of how they hadn’t moved to North Carolina to smell like New Jersey. “We don’t want our neighborhood to be known as the armpit of Colleton County, okay?”
    Another consultation of the commissioners, then Thad announced that Coburn’s application was denied because the easement was insufficient for dump truck traffic.
    When they moved on to an application to change the zoning for a lot down near Makely from agriculture/residential to commercial, we got up and left.
    As we walked out to the parking lot, I asked Daddy, “So how you like living in a place where its value’s based on how many rooftops they can count?”
    “Long as they keep giving us the agricultural assessment, I reckon I can stand it,” he said, climbing into his red pickup.
    I followed him back to the farm and when he pulled up to his back door and waved good night, I continued on down the lane past the smaller house where Maidie and Cletus Holt have lived for the past thirty or so years. Maidie keeps house for him and Cletus helps with the garden and yard work. About a half-mile farther on, the lane splits. The left one leads to Seth and Minnie’s, the other to the house I now shared with Dwight and Cal and Cal’s dog, Bandit, a mixed-breed terrier with a mask of dark hair across his eyes, which is how he got his name.
    It was not quite nine-thirty when I let myself in and found Dwight at the dining table with a glass of beer and stacks of manila file folders spread out in front of him. Bandit came down the hallway to make sure I wasn’t some stranger he needed to protect Dwight from, yawned widely, and trotted back to Cal’s room, where he sleeps at Cal’s feet.
    “Looks serious,” I said of Dwight’s folders.
    He gave me a weary smile. “We need at least two more patrol cars, three uniforms, and two detectives. Bo says he can only pry one car and two men out of the commissioners, so we’ve got to figure out how to deploy our people for maximum coverage.”
    “Oh, didn’t you hear?” I asked with phony brightness. “All this growth gives us such a large tax base that you can probably get five cars and ten more officers in another year or two. Of course, by that time, the population will have tripled so you’ll still be playing catch-up.”
    He leaned back in his chair and took a swallow from his half-empty glass. “Does this mean the stump dump passed?”
    “Actually, it didn’t,” I said although I immediately began to rant about how we were nothing but a bunch of rooftops these days. “God, listen to me! I’m turning into one of those cranky old ladies who yearn for how things used to be when the world was young.”
    “C’mere, old lady,” he said.
    I took a sip of his beer and sat down on his lap. His arms went around me but our lips had barely touched when the phone rang.
    Dwight sighed and let me up. “That’ll be Will. I told him you’d probably be back by now.”
    He was right. Will’s name and number were on the phone screen.
    “Hey, Will,” I said. “What’s up?”
    “How come you don’t ever leave your cell phone on?” my brother complained. “What’s the point of having one if you don’t use it?”
    “I use it,” I said. “But I use it at my own convenience, not everyone else’s. Did you want something or did you only call to bitch at me about my cell phone?”
    Will’s the oldest of my mother’s four children, and like my other ten brothers, he thinks he can still boss me around.
    “I was wondering if you’ve got some free time tomorrow?”
    “My lunch hour. Why?”
    “Remember Linsey Thomas?”
    “Of course I remember him.”
    “Remember how his cousin came up last summer and took everything out of the house he wanted and sold the rest of the contents to me?”
    “So?”
    “So I put most of the furnishings in my big fall auction back in September, but now I’m getting around to his books and papers and I found a bunch of files in a hassock and one of them has your name on it. Mostly