A Most Curious Murder Read Online Free PDF

had stopped, the day was warming, and the lake air smelled likefreshly turned earth. Dora thanked her and said she didn’t like being closed in.
    “Winter’s too long up here.” Dora yawned and drew the blanket to her chin. “Can’t have a window open then.”
    Jenny shut the door softly behind her and went to the backyard to sit under the black walnut tree and read. Early summer bees swarmed and buzzed around her head, chasing her back into the house where she settled into a white wicker chair on the porch. She listened to car motors and children’s voices along Elderberry Street. Every once in a while, a teenager would drive by with his radio on full blast. “Va Va Voom” got stuck in her head. She gave up trying to read and closed her eyes to soak it all in—all of home.
    Two days ago she’d been in a Chicago courtroom, preparing to see Ronald Korman again after eight months.
    She’d tailored the scene in her head to fit her depression: Ronald, in an ill-fitting summer jacket, would be sitting in the front row when she walked in . . . No, when she strutted in, looking beautiful, of course. Her long, black hair would glisten and flow. Her pouting lips would be wet and lustrous. A gauzy dress would swirl about her stunning body. She would nod left and right and raise a hand in a Queen Elizabeth wave.
    And Ronald, on seeing her, would fall to his knees, beg her to come back to him, and swear he’d given up Tiffany or Chastity or whatever that client’s name was. His arms would lock around her. His tears would flow until there were two wet paths running down his cheap summer jacket. But she . . . oh she, cool and vengeful, she would brush him aside, stride to the judge’s bench, grab the divorce papers, and wave them in Ronald’s face.
    Ronald didn’t show up in court. His attorney said he was out of the country but was amenable to the settlement they’d worked out ahead of time.
    Jenny decided she wasn’t going to be “amenable” to anything. The bored attorneys, standing in a little clique on one side of the judge’s bench, shot their eyebrows high as she stood to say she’d like twenty dollars more a month in alimony.
    Twenty dollars! She could hear them scoffing and muttering as she stuck to her guns and his attorney went out to call Ronald, wherever he’d finally settled, to get the okay. And then the man returned to the bench to say sarcastically, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mr. Korman said he was fine with the twenty dollars more a month and wants to know if Mrs. Korman would also like the, I quote, ‘crummy can of cleanser from under the sink.’”
    The judge shut him up and it was over. A monthly dollar amount settled on the last eight years of her life. No place to go—the lease on their apartment was up. That was when Lisa called to see how she was doing and suggested she go home awhile. She was worried about Dora, she said. Mom seemed tired when she called.
    If Lisa had asked a few more questions, she would have learned that Jenny didn’t have anywhere else to go anyway—not at the moment—and home to Bear Falls was as good a place as any.
    Jenny fell asleep until the door to the house creaked open and Mom joined her on the porch. They talked about supper—and what was in the house, which turned out to be eggs and bread. Jenny knew she could at least cook eggs and did, though the scrambled eggs were dry and the toast a little beyond brown.
    After supper they shared a couple of hours of television in the living room and then Dora was tired again. She yawned through the evening news and was getting up from her recliner when there was a pounding at the front door.
    “Who could that be at this hour?” Dora turned startled eyes to Jenny. “Somebody must be in trouble. You’d better answer.”
    Jenny, after living in Chicago for so many years, wasn’t in a big hurry to answer loud noises at the front door. She looked through the glass at the man staring back at her: