MURDER at CRAWFORD HOUSE (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 3) by Leslie Leigh Read Free Book Online

Allie.
                  Larry pounded on the bathroom door. "Bertie? Bertie, are you in there? Are you alright?"
                  He threw a nervous glance over at Allie. She shrugged in response.
                  Slowly, he inserted the key. He waited a moment, and then knocked again. "Bertie? We're going to open the door, ok?"
                  He looked again at Allie. She nodded to him. And he turned the key and opened the door.

6.
     
                  "I don’t understand," said Allie. "You were right. He looked fine."
                  "Are you sure he's—"
                  "There's no pulse." She felt the man’s neck and shook her head. She put her head down close against his mouth to listen for breathing. His mouth smelled like garlic and mint and spicy cinnamon.
                  The body lay on the bathroom floor in front of the sink. A bottle of aspirin, opened and spilled with tablets everywhere, lay near him. The medicine cabinet was open. On the sink lay a box of toothpaste, unopened. The sink was dry and the hand towels neatly folded on the rack. In the wicker wastebasket was a balled-up tissue and a single Dixie cup, crumpled.
                  Coming off the body was a pronounced floral scent and tobacco. Bertie was meticulously clean right down to the tips of his fingers. His glasses were partially off his head, and there was a red gash with bruised flesh around it on the forehead.
                  "This gash here," said Allie. "He didn’t have this before."
                  She stood up and looked around. The porcelain sink had an ornamental tap in the shape of a swan's neck with a head that rose up and over and stared down into the sink. Allie went to it and looked closely. "There's a teeny bit of blood right there. You see it?" She pointed to the head of the swan."He was facing the mirror, probably getting the aspirin, when he fell forward. He must have hit his head on this. It looks like he may have had a heart attack. The aspirin. My husband had heart disease. We had aspirin on hand for angina pain." She took a deep breath and put her hand on her head. "Oh my."
                  "What do we do?" said Larry, a touch of panic in his voice.
                  "I don’t know. Why are you asking me? I never had to deal with this. Well, that's a lie."
                  "What does that mean?"
                  "I can’t explain right now. The point is, at that time there were cops there to handle it. No cops are getting through here tonight. Not with that blizzard out there and this house ten thousand miles from civilization."             
                  She made a sudden move to inspect the faucet again when Larry stopped her. "Don’t touch anything."
                  "I wasn't going to."
                  "Don’t touch anything else. The body, the sink, anything."
                  "Larry, chill out. I wasn't going to touch anything. I wanted to take another look at the faucet is all."
                  "I'm sorry, I really am, I'm just—, my God, I don’t know what to do."
                  "Do you have a blanket or a sheet? A sheet would be better."
                  "Yes, of course." He left the bathroom quickly, muttering under his breath, "Where do they keep them?"
                  Allie took another look at the body, and then squatted down to get a closer look. She stood up with a very uneasy feeling in her gut. And then she turned and left and closed the door behind her.

7.
     
                  Allie sat calmly in a chair by the hexagonal bay of windows in their bedroom, staring at the snow while Del sat cross-legged on the bed, trying desperately to get service on her phone.
                  Allie turned away from the