Cold Tea on a Hot Day Read Online Free PDF

comment, too.
    “That’s just fine. I didn’t realize it was after five. I’m sorry to hold you up.”
    “I waited because I wasn’t sure you had keys. I didn’t want to lock you out.” She pulled a purse as big as a suitcase from beneath the desk.
    Tate felt a little embarrassed to tell her that he didn’t have any keys. She strode out from behind her desk, and he stepped out of her way, having a sense she might walk right over him. She continued on into his cousin’s— his —office, reached into the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out keys that she handed over to him.
    She was through the front door when he thought to ask, “Did they find Marilee James’s little boy?”
    She looked over her shoulder at him. “No. I’m going over to her house now and take some fried chicken.”
    The door closed behind her, and Tate watched through the big plate glass window as she walked away down the sidewalk and turned the corner. Miss Charlotte wore an amazingly short skirt and high heels for a prim-and-proper woman. And she didn’t walk; she marched.
     
    He went out to the BMW that he’d left right there with the top down, his computer in full sight. He had figured a person could do that in Valentine.
    Making a number of trips, he carted the computer, monitor and then a few boxes into his new office. After he’d set the things down, he stood smoothing the back of his hair. That he ought to be doing something to help in the search for little Willie Lee James tugged at him. He felt helpless on that score. There didn’t seem anything he, not knowing either the child or the town, could do.
    He left the boxes in a stack and started to connect up his computer, but then decided he was too impatient to see his new home. He wanted to get a look around while the light was still good. He locked the front doors and was one step away when he stopped, remembering the small grey woman he had earlier seen appear. Was she still in there?
    He didn’t think she could be, since Miss Charlotte hadn’t said anything about her. Still, the thought caused him to go back inside to check.
    On the door glass of the office was printed: Zona Porter, No Relation, Comptroller. He did not hear sound from beyond the walls. He knocked. No answer. Very carefully he turned the knob and stuck his head in the door. The office, very small and neat, even stark, was empty.
    Well, good. He felt better to have made certain.
    Back at the front door again, he locked the door of his newspaper, wondering if one even needed to bother in such a town. Whistling, he strode to his BMW, where he jumpedover the door and slid down into the seat. He backed the BMW out of its place and had to drive the length of town and turn around and come back to the intersection of Main and Church Streets. His cousin Muriel’s house, which he had bought sight unseen since he was nine years old, was on the second block up Church Street, on the corner. He heard Muriel’s clipped tone of voice giving him the directions.
    The town was pretty as a church calendar picture in the late-afternoon sunlight that shone golden on the buildings and flags, houses and big trees. Forsythia blooms had mostly died away, but purple wisteria and white bridal wreath were in full bloom.
    It struck him how he knew the names of the bushes. He had learned a few things from his ex-wife, he supposed. He experienced a sharp but brief stab of regret for what he had let pass him by. He had not cared about houses and yards during his married years; he had not valued building a home and a family.
    Then he immediately remembered all that he had experienced in place of domesticity, and he figured his life and times had been correct for him. In fact, that was what Lucille had told him: “You need to be a newspaperman, Tate, not a married man.”
    Funny, he hadn’t thought of Lucille in a long time. Her image was fuzzy, and her voice came only in a faint whisper from deep in memory. She had been a rare woman, but