Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 02 - Murder in the Maine Woods Read Online Free PDF Page A

joy, was in the driveway, parked in the birdbath dish she had obviously knocked off it’s pedestal. Before he had died she promised him she’d keep it always.
    It didn’t surprise me that Hannah was here, or that she’d crashed into the birdbath. Great-Aunt Agnes probably came with her. My three aunts were a team, women who had known each other forever, were in constant contact, and for some reason loved me like crazy, a combination that’s hard to resist. I loved them back.
    The door opened as I reached for it. Shaking her head in dismay, Aunt Ida grabbed me and pulled me close for a hug. I think I’ve gotten more hugs since I arrived here than I have in my whole life. My mother was not a hugger and neither was my father.
    “How awful for you, finding Buster dead.”
    “Oh, indeed, yes,” Hannah said, her voice filled with sympathy as she flipped her red shawl around her petite frame in an artful, well-practiced move as she came down the hall. With her flair for the dramatic gesture, Great-Aunt Hannah should have been a model or an actress.
    “Our poor Nora,” big Aunt Agnes boomed, shuffling down the hall behind Hannah.
    After hugs all around we went into the front room.
    “Start at the beginning and don’t leave a thing out. We can take it, every nasty detail. We’ve all watched the CSI shows,” Ida declared when we were finally seated.
    Gray heads bobbed in agreement.
    “Before you start, Nora, I notice you’re wearing a dark sweater. You should wear a brighter color when you’re near the woods at this time of year. Hunting season, you know,” Hannah said. “Now tell us all about your morning.”
    I gave a detailed account of the scene and finished up by saying, “There’s one more detail that you have to promise to keep quiet for a while.”
    “Absolutely. Tell us,” Ida said as Agnes made a zipping motion across her lips, and Hannah leaned forward.
    “I may have seen Vivian running away be fore we found Buster, but I haven’t mentioned it to Nick yet. I’ll tell him when I see him. I wanted to check with Vivian first. She got angry when I asked if she’d been to Buster’s earlier.”
    “Oh my,” Agnes said. “You mean you think there’s a chance she murdered him?”
    “He probably died a natural death,” I said.
    “Probably?” Ida asked, her hands gripping the raspberry-colored cabbage roses imprinted on the slip-covered arms of the chair. “You mean you think Vivian may have murdered him?”
    “I don’t think so, but I felt she was hiding something. Maybe she has knowledge about his death that she didn’t want to tell me.”
    “Remember what we saw,” Agnes said, lifting her brows meaningfully.
    I looked to Hannah who hadn’t said a word, but was shaking her head, her expression difficult to read. Finally, she said, “That was years ago, maybe five or six years.”
    “What, what, what? Tell me.” I demanded.
    “I don’t think it was that long ago. Less, I think,” Ida said.
    “A lot less,” Agnes boomed. “It was the same year I had my gallbladder out. I’m sh-ur of it.”
    “That was only three years ago,” Ida said.
    “I’ll have to think about the timing,” Hannah said.
    “We don’t like to gossip,” Agnes said, reaching for a wheat cracker on the tray. “That would be gossip, wouldn’t it? The pastor gave a nice homily this Sunday past about the evils of gossip. What I heard of it before I dozed off was impressive.”
    “I’m not sure this qualifies as gossip,” Ida said, wrinkling her brow.
    “Gossip?” I questioned in a calm voice that belied my impatience.
    “Did you see any blood?” Hannah asked. “You never mentioned blood.”
    “No blood that I could see. I would have told you. Now, please share the gossip.”
    “So bullets and knives are out,” Hannah said to Ida and Agnes with a decisive nod. “Unless the blood was hidden by the covers. Were there covers?”
    “Yes.”
    “Could be a gun,” Ida said.
    “A bun might do it,” Agnes