The Blood Ballad by Rett MacPherson Read Free Book Online Page A

believe that for years.”
    â€œFine, laugh all you want,” I said. “But you know, there is a dead person lying here. Could we have some respect?”
    â€œI could have sworn I just said that,” Mort said. “Colin, I think maybe you should head back to whatever it was you were doing.”
    It was suddenly very quiet on the riverbank. Had Mort just kicked Colin off his crime scene? After a moment, Colin cleared his throat. “Oh, sure, Sheriff,” he said. “Let me know if I can be of any assistance.”
    Colin turned to leave, and I really wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but I refrained.
    â€œSo, what did the car look like? Could you tell?” Mort asked.
    â€œNo,” I said. “It was nearly dark. I just saw the headlights and that was it.”
    â€œWell, after you clean up, I want you to come down to the station and look at some photographs of headlights. People tend to think they’re all the same, but they’re not. Maybe you could at least narrow that down for us.”
    â€œWell, okay,” I said. Although I doubted it seriously. I hadn’t been paying that much attention to the car, and it had been pretty far away.
    â€œSo, where did the shots come from?” he asked.
    â€œThey came from the south.” I pointed downriver, even though he couldn’t see my hand in the blackness.
    â€œYou think you can show me where you guys were when it happened?”
    â€œNot in the dark. If we come back tomorrow, yes.”
    â€œAll right,” he said. He shone his light on the dead man’s face one last time. “Do you know him?”
    â€œIt’s hard to tell,” I said. “He’s sort of bloody.”
    â€œTake a good look,” he said.
    I looked closer but couldn’t really see any facial features. All I could see was the blood, and the cuts and the bruising. My stomach lurched and I swallowed quickly. This man had been beaten before he was sent over the cliff. All I could definitely tell was that he was older. Over sixty for sure.
    â€œIt’s Clifton Weaver,” Eleanore said.
    â€œWho’s that?” I asked. “Is he a local?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “He works at a shoe store over in Wisteria. Lives in New Kassel. Has lived here for years.”
    â€œHow do you know him?” Mort asked.
    â€œHe’s an old college friend of Oscar.”
    Oscar Murdoch, Eleanore’s better half, was an all-around good guy. He’d been a staple of the tourism community for as long as I could remember. He was at least ten or fifteen years older than Eleanore. Most likely in his seventies now.
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” Mort said.
    â€œI haven’t seen too much of him since he started dating Rosalyn Decker.” She said the name as if it were coated in castor oil. I knew of Rosalyn Decker—and I knew her reputation as a player. Those especially not safe around Ms. Decker were widowers.
    â€œDid he have any enemies?” Sheriff Mort asked.
    â€œI really don’t know; you’ll have to ask Oscar. Now, can we please go home and change out of these god-awful clothes?”
    â€œOf course,” Mort said. “Miller, drive them home.”
    *   *   *
    As soon as I had taken a shower, I put my clothes in a trash bag and headed downstairs to burn them. The phone rang, and the caller ID said it was my mother. I let it ring, because I just didn’t have the energy to listen to my mother.
    I love my mother. She’s one of the wisest people I’ve ever known. Sometimes I think she’s so wise because she’s been wheelchair-bound since she was ten years old. She’s done a lot of observing rather than participating. Not that physically disabled people can’t participate, because they can, but my mother has chosen to sort of sit on the sidelines. As a result, she can read people better than anybody I know.
    But she is a