Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 01 - Murder by the Old Maine Stream Read Online Free PDF

first murder case he’d handled. He was a novice.
    Hannah nodded at Sheriff Nick Renzo in acknowledgment, but continued, “We’ll have the party tomorrow night. Saturday. Agnes,” she shouted, “you make your famous strawberry short cake. You can use those berries we put up in June. We said they’d be for a special occasion and so they will. Ida, how about your famous banana nut bread? Maybe some zucchini bread, too? I’ll make my prizewinning New England clam chowder. The young folks can do the main dishes. I’m thinking lobster salad, for one.”
    “Oh, yes.” Ida smiled. “I just made banana bread this morning.”
    “We’ll go straight to my place and make our plans,” Hannah said. “When Nora is finished here with this nasty business, she can join us.”
    “Don’t you want to stand in the jail cell first? Have your picture taken?” Ida asked the aunts as she handed me her camera.
    “Absolutely,” Hannah said looking around. “Not every day we get behind bars.”
    All three aunts chuckled. Next thing, they were in the closed cell, their hands on the bars, looking out. I took their picture while the sheriff, his deputy and one or two others came in to watch.
    “How about you?” Nick asked me, holding out his hand for the camera. “Want to get in the picture?”
    “No, sheriff.” I gave the camera to Ida, and the aunt-trio emerged from incarceration.
    Hannah headed down the hall, Agnes and Ida close on her heels. I followed behind the slow procession, shaking my head. I had to get out of here.
    “Aunt Hannah, it’s thoughtful of you to want to give me a party, but I’ll be leaving Monday after the reading of the will, so maybe we’d better skip it.”
    The convoy stopped short in the hall. Had we been moving at anything approaching a normal clip, we would have piled up. As it was, some teetering took place.
    “I was afraid she was going to say that,” Ida said. “She did mention it when she first arrived. We’ll have to lobby for her to change her mind.”
    Agnes bellowed, “Find? What did she find? Another body? Oh, dear heaven. How does she keep finding bodies?”
    “ Mind, not find. Change her mind.” Shaking her head, Ida repeated the rest of what she’d said.
    Agnes frowned.
    Hannah took the news in stride. “You’ll meet the relatives, won’t you?” She paused dramatically, adjusting her lacy red cuffs with the fussiness of an actress going onstage to accept an Oscar. “Unless you don’t care about your relatives?”
    Renzo and Trimble, along with the aunts, waited for any feeble reply I might come up with.
    What could I say other than, “Relatives would be fine.”
    Everyone nodded and smiled, and the procession continued.
    “Good. Before you return to the big city,” Hannah said, “it’s only proper you meet the family you haven’t seen in so long. The Lassiters’ heritage is here, Nora. That’s not something to lose sight of in this fast-paced world. Family. Jeb Lassiter settled here in 1842 and founded this town. You were born here, your father was born here and his father before him, and so on back to Jeb. Your father, God rest his soul, felt as if he had to leave all those years ago, and we lost you and Howie in the process.”
    Agnes said. “Nora, we’re all so glad you’re back.”
    “Ladies, I hate to hurry you along, but there’s important business to take care of,” Nick said when we reached the main room. “You go work on the party plans. I’ll talk to Nora first, then you, Ida. Nora, if you’ll come into my office… .”
     
    * * *
     
    As soon as he closed the door to his office, I asked, “Have you found out anything about the murder?”
    “Like who did it?” he asked as he sat behind the gray metal desk, gesturing for me to take the chair in front.
    I sat on the edge of the seat. “I don’t suppose you’re up to that part yet.”
    “Not likely. We know a shotgun was used. And where the shooter stood. Maybe fifty yards away. That’s