Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4) by Debra Gaskill Read Free Book Online Page A

about.”
    “What?”
    “Why the hell did you tell Isabella you were going to go out and buy her a goddamned car? We’ve got bills, Dunk! We can’t turn around and buy Izzy a car! Why did you promise her that?”
    Duncan placed a hand on my shoulder and sighed. “I know things have been crazy and I’m sorry. I got the bill paid today at the grain elevator and everything else is caught up. I’m not going to have to sell those heifers.”
    “But, Dunk, a car?”
    “This isn’t our cash. This is the money she’s put back from her fair animals every year.”
    Like most Plummer County kids, Isabella was a member of 4H through school and, each year, raised one of the farm’s Holstein bull calves, along with a meat goat, to sell at the end of the county fair.
    She’d scrupulously put the money aside since she was ten. That money ranged each year from a couple hundred to the several thousand the year she’d won reserve grand champion feeder calf.
    “I thought that money was for college!”
    Isabella appeared at the kitchen screen door.
    “Mom, I’m in my second year of college. I’m living at home, commuting to community college. Grandpa’s old car is falling apart. I’m just asking to spend a little of my own money!”
    She flapped her arms against her sides in exasperation. I caught a glimpse of the star tattoos that circled both wrists, covering scars from a suicide attempt in high school and stopped cold.
    “I’m sorry baby. You’re right. Go ahead. It’s your money.”
    “Thank you,” she said.
    Inside, the kitchen phone rang. Duncan picked it up and handed it to me. It was Graham Kinnon.
    “Hey, Addison, everything OK?”
    “Yeah, we’re great. What’s up?”
    “I was listening to the scanner and thought I heard Duncan’s name come across on an assault.”
    I rolled my eyes. Figures Kinnon would already be on top of the story. He really needed to get a girlfriend or a hobby or something.
    “Yes, just a little discussion of race relations down at the feed mill this morning,” I said. “Duncan ended up with a black eye.”
    “Is that why I heard Doyle McMaster’s name?”
    “Yes. You know all about him, I’m sure.”
    “Yeah, McMaster is one of the jail’s more frequent guests, but there’s something else you need to know about him,” Kinnon said. “He’s being investigated for some possible hate crimes. The police and the feds think he’s up to his knees in some suspicious activities in the next county. Gary McGinnis told me about it Friday morning.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7 Graham
     
    I hadn’t seen that face since my mother went to prison.
    On Sunday morning, I sat in my boxers at my small round table in my attic apartment with a coffee mug, staring at the photo I’d gotten Friday morning from Chief G.
    It was a little older, a little more battered, but it was still the same face that showed up periodically with whatever drug du jour he and my mother would ingest. That would be followed by what I realized now was rough sex behind her bedroom door. Late in the morning or early in the afternoon, they would awake from their mutual stupor and argue.
    Then he would beat her as I cowered behind my bedroom door, hoping the violence wouldn’t extend to me.
    Abuse-worthy crimes included making weak coffee, a TV that was too loud or no food in the fridge. Then she would cry as she bound up her wounds and he would leave—until the next time when he returned with whatever illegal substance he’d scored and the whole cycle began again.
    One day during a visit with the social worker, I peeked inside my file on my social worker’s desk and saw my mother’s occupation listed as ‘unemployed/prostitute’ and the sentence: ‘Mother likely trades sex for drugs, possibly in child’s presence.’ By the time Mom brought me home from court on my tenth birthday, I was too thrilled to have her back to ask her where she’d been and how she’d changed.
    Then I was shipped