On Deadly Tides (A Wendover House Mystery Book 3) by Melanie Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

relative no one else knew about? One I hadn’t gotten to meet before he died? That would be better, wouldn’t it, if he were really a sociopath?
    Because someone—some Wendover—was dead. The only question was which body had washed up on the beach.
    The streets were slushy and the chill traveled up my body. The rain that had cleared the islands of snow hadn’t made it this far south. The light was also hazy, discouraging of plants and animals alike, and made everything appear rather monochromatic and sterile.
    There was something in the air too, invisible but real that made my eyes sting. My exhalations condensed into a vapor that was slow to assimilate into the still air around me and my lungs protested the tainted oxygen that replaced each breath.
    I knocked on the hollow core door at number eleven and wasn’t too surprised when it was opened by a woman who was as straight as the waitress had been slumped, but in all other ways could have been her unhappy twin. The lifelong habit of frowning pretty well expressed her attitude toward the world, and I was betting the world frowned back whenever it noticed her.
    “About time someone showed up,” she said at last, proving yet again that whoever had rented her room was a Wendover.
    “I hear Tom owes some back rent,” I said, figuring money was the fastest way inside.
    “Yep—one hundred and twenty dollars.”
    I doubted it was that much but didn’t argue.
    “Well, let me take care of that. Do you mind if I leave him a note? In his room.”
    The hard eyes looked at me, but as I had figured, money was a great lubricant and she let me into the living room without any protests that oh no she couldn’t do a thing like that .
    The house was too hot and the floor vent began pumping out more air as soon as I stepped inside. The carpets smelled like some kind of animal though I didn’t see a dog or cat.
    “Tom’s benders don’t usually last this long,” the woman offered. “He’s kind of old for going off like this.”
    “I wouldn’t know about his personal habits. We aren’t that close.”
    “ Hmph . Figures. No one is very close to him, the godless heathen. Well, I’ll leave you to it,” she said, after showing me down the hall papered in fading red flocked wallpaper to the last door on the right. There was no suggestion that I might like a cup of coffee.
    “Thanks.” I could hear my grandmother saying that good manners cost nothing and I closed the flimsy door behind me with extra care.
    Tom rented a small bedroom with a half bath whose sink and toilet were crusty with mineral deposits. There was no medicine chest or mirror, just a ledge around the scratched sink where he had left a toothbrush and a mostly used-up travel size mouthwash and a large tube of denture adhesive. There was also a razor but no comb. Everything had a fine film of dust on it.
    The same yellowed linoleum covered the floor of the bedroom and had been run into the half-open closet. He had one dirty window that looked out on a littered backyard with a rusting garden shed and a hedge that hadn’t been trimmed in the last decade.
    I shuddered. It was the kind of place where you expected to find bodies in the basement. Probably the late Mr. Kingman among them.
    My first thought—and my second—was that this wasn’t anyone’s home. There were no pictures, no books, no CDs, nothing personal. My sock drawer is more interesting. This was a place to sleep, nothing more.
    Deciding that this was no time for scruples about a stranger’s privacy, I opened the tiny closet door the rest of the way and then checked the battered dresser’s drawers.
    No drawer liners, just blond wood and mothballs. Tom had left behind some wool pants, two flannel shirts, and a fur hat that the moths had been at. No shoes, five pairs of socks, two boxer shorts—worn but not worn out. Everything except the hat looked relatively new, cheap, and generic. Like someone had gone shopping for basics at a store that sold