Buried (Twisted Cedars Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

some deviant, transient committed the crime. The lack of motive was a sticking point.
    As months passed, there were fewer and fewer articles and editorials about the murder.
    The last one surmised, “I guess we’ll never know what happened to Edwina Mae on that fateful spring day in 1972...”
    Once he’d made his copies, and returned the papers to the librarian, Dougal went on-line to find addresses and phone numbers. The detective who’d worked on the case agreed to meet him for lunch, but had little to offer other than corroborating the fact that the victim had been strangled by a red, silk scarf.
    “Every cop has one case that stays with them after they retire,” the detective confided. “For me, this homicide was that case. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if she’d been murdered twenty years later, when we had DNA, computerized data bases, and other tools to work with. When you think about it, back in the seventies, crime investigations were pretty primitive.”
    The library staff member who’d found the body—a janitor—was no longer living. But Dougal did manage to track down Elva Mae’s sister. Over the phone Edwina sounded confused, but eventually agreed that he could drop over that afternoon.
    Her tiny bungalow was located just off the Oakland Shady Highway. Edwina was sitting on the front porch when he arrived. The woman was in her seventies, he guessed, dressed oddly in an ill-fitting dress, socks and sandals too big for her feet.
    “Is your husband home?”
    “He’s out golfing.” She eyed him cautiously, perhaps hopefully. “No one’s mentioned my sister’s name to me in over thirty years.”
    “A long time,” he agreed.
    She got out of her chair and took a step closer to him. Squinting at him, she said, “My neighbor, Brenda, gives me books to read. I recognize you from the back cover. You write about real life crimes.”
    He nodded, surprised that she’d recognized him. Maybe she wasn’t as confused as he’d thought.
    “Are you going to write a book about my sister?”
    He hesitated. “Maybe.”
    “So you’ve figured out who killed her?”
    He hated to disappoint her and sure didn’t want to raise her hopes. “No. Probably too much time has passed to find the truth now. But I’m checking into it.”
    That was good enough for Edwina, apparently. “We can talk in the back. In the shade.”
    She led him along concrete blocks to a modest yard, with a patchy lawn dominated by one large tree. Two dusty aluminum chairs were placed on either side of an equally dusty glass-top table. Edwina grabbed a grungy cloth from one of the chairs and brushed off most of the dirt.
    They sat opposite one another. Now that he was in the shade, Dougal removed his sunglasses. Edwina had a pronounced tremor, like the late Katherine Hepburn’s. Unlike the famous star, Edwina was neither beautiful, nor elegant. She was short, skinny and didn’t look especially clean. She folded her hands in her lap and cast an anxious glance in his direction.
    “What do you want me to tell you?”
    Guilt niggled at him then. He could hear the hope in her voice, see it in her eyes. She had no idea he was just killing time here, putting off the moment when he would have to face Twisted Cedars and Jamie. He ought to apologize for wasting the woman’s time, get up and leave.
    “Tell me everything you remember about what happened.”
    “Where do I start?”
    “Do you have any idea why anyone would have wanted your sister dead?”
    Expression grim, Edwina shook her head. “My sister was a nice, decent woman.”
    “Did she have a boyfriend?”
    “Oh, no,” Edwina said, as if that would have been so terrible. “She loved her books. Elva Mae lived a quiet life.”
    “Were the two of you close?”
    “Not so much when we were little. But our mother had a stroke and died when I was sixteen. Elva Mae was living on her own by then, but she moved back in with me and Dad to take care of us. Dad died a year