Darned if You Do Read Online Free PDF Page B

her early fifties, slat thin, with straight brown hair that had become mixed with gray of late, large, dark, intelligent eyes, a wide mouth under a proud nose, and lots of dark freckles. She wore a shapeless dark blue cardigan under a thin black Windbreaker, brown wool slacks, and tan desert boots. Her car was a fifteen-year-old compact with a barely functioning muffler and windshield wipers that needed replacement.
    She was on the last leg of the journey, heading northwest on I-94, nearly done with Wisconsin, the Minnesota border less than ten minutes away if she didn’t get stopped for speeding.
    She had driven all night; the sun was giving pink warning of its rising into a clear sky. In a field near the highway a huge tree was lying on its side, its roots making cartoon-octopus silhouettes against the glowing horizon.
    That’s right
, she told herself. There had been a big windstorm, with lots of rain, last week. That’s why the tree had fallen on Tommy’s house.
    Dear old Tommy, the only cousin left. The only cousin that she knew of, at least. Her family members had a habit of dropping off the vine, either by moving away and not letting her know where they went, or by dying.
    In a little less than ten minutes, Valentina found herself at the top of a great hill, with a broad river at the bottom. The river was, she knew, the Saint Croix, and marked the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Minneapolis and Saint Paul were just up the way. In Minneapolis there was a hospital called Hennepin County Medical Center, and in the hospital was her cousin, Tommy, poor thing.
    She had a reservation at a cheap motel on the north edge of downtown in what she suspected was a rough neighborhood. But she was not afraid of rough neighborhoods; her house, without changing its location, had gone from being on the wrong side of the tracks to the right side and back again, and she had lived there serenely through it all. She smiled. Well, maybe not always serenely. Successfully, let’s say.
    The motel was not quite as bad as she feared. It was clean and one of the two beds was not uncomfortable. She took a shower, changed her clothes, and set off for the Hennepin County Medical Center, stopping at a McDonald’s on the way for their largest cup of coffee and an egg and sausage McMuffin to go.
    *   *   *
    K ASSIE Christianson waited in the lobby at the main entrance of HCMC for Valentina Shipp. Kassie had been Tom Riordan’s social worker for several years, and brought into the recent mix by Judi Mormon. She was a short, slim African American woman, with short cropped natural hair, very large hoop earrings, and a no-nonsense face.
    Kassie had spoken to Valentina on the phone, so she knew to look for a tall, thin woman with brown hair and wearing a tan sweater.
    But she hesitated before stepping forward when she saw Valentina stride into the lobby like an inspector determined to find fault with the place. Valentina was wearing low-heeled suede boots, loose-fitting tan trousers, and a bulky tan sweater that looked hand-knit. Her light hair—brown mixed with gray?—was pulled carelessly to the nape of her neck with a rubber band. Her broad mouth was pressed into a straight line, and her dark, shapely eyebrows were pulled together forbiddingly over a hawklike nose.
    Kassie could see a strong family resemblance to Tom Riordan, and since she’d first been introduced to him in the hospital, his face often showed a stronger emotion than he was actually feeling, so maybe Valentina shared that trait with him and wasn’t feeling as aggressive as she looked.
    â€œMs. Shipp?” Kassie said, moving to intercept the woman’s long strides.
    The woman stopped short. “Yeah—are you Ms. Christianson?” Her voice was thin with a hint of twang in it. The tone was, however, mild rather than assertive.
    â€œYes. Could we sit down for a few minutes? I want to talk to you about your