Death and Honesty Read Online Free PDF Page A

engine.
    As they passed the West Tisbury police station, she saw the police Bronco out front. Casey was at work and Victoria felt a pang of regret. She hadn’t ridden shotgun with Casey for more than a week.

    At Town Hall, the chauffeur opened the door and offered Victoria his arm.
    Delilah leaned toward her. “Thanks, Mrs. Trumbull.”
     
    What was now Town Hall had been Victoria’s school when she was a girl. The downstairs didn’t look much different. There were no desks or slate blackboards, of course. But iron posts still rose from floor to ceiling and the floor was painted the same scuffed green she remembered.
    She climbed the stairs to the second floor. Oliver Ashpine, the assessors’ clerk, had office space in the far corner of the building overlooking Music Street. Padded cloth screens divided his area from the rest of the room. He was hunched over his computer, his back to her. She could see the screen, which seemed to be showing a movie.
    “Oliver!” Victoria announced.
    He started, then tapped a key that darkened the screen and swiveled to face her. “Back again, I see. Is there something else you want?”
    “I need to look at property cards.” Victoria settled herself into the visitor’s chair that faced Oliver’s tidy desk. The top was clear except for a cup holding pencils and pens, a calendar pad with appointments penciled in, and a white pasteboard candy box. She folded her hands over the top of her stick and waited.
    Oliver shoved a pad of yellow forms toward her. “I’m in the midst of something and can’t help you now. You’ll have to fill out a request.”
    “Whatever you’re watching on your computer can wait while you get the property cards for me.”
    Oliver stood and removed his glasses. He was a short, plump man. His black hair was slicked down as if it were painted on his scalp. He swung his glasses by one temple, leaned a hand on the desk, and glared at Victoria through pale blue eyes.
    Victoria waited.
    At last he said, “Why do you want the cards?”
    “I don’t care to tell you why As I’m sure you know, Massachusetts law says you have no business asking me.”

    “Does this have to do with your house?”
    Victoria gazed at him.
    He put his glasses back on and stood up straight. “The cards are not available.”
    “Then I’ll wait until they are.”
    “I believe the assessors are going over them.”
    Victoria looked around the empty room and thought of the black-and-white file box on Ellen Meadows’s dining room table and the property cards spread around. “I assume the assessors haven’t taken those cards out of Town Hall?”
    “I’m busy, Mrs. Trumbull.”
    “I think not.”
    “Assessing properties is complex.”
    “Perhaps you will explain it to me, then,” and Victoria smiled.
    “Mrs. Trumbull, I’ll have the cards ready for you tomorrow. Which properties are you interested in?”
    “Everything west of the airport and east of Tea Lane. You can exclude the properties in the very center.”
    “You want the whole town of West Tisbury, is that it? You’re asking for more than two hundred cards.”
    “I want all of the properties I just mentioned. I’ll wait until you bring them to me.”
    “You’ll have to examine the property cards here,” said Oliver, pointing to the floor.
    “Fine. I’ll photocopy what I need.”
    “That’s fifty cents a copy,” said Oliver.
    “Ridiculous. By law, it’s twenty cents a copy”
    “Twenty-five, then,” said Oliver.
    Victoria took out her checkbook. “Twenty.”
    “No checks.”
    “You’ll take mine.” Victoria filled out the check, leaving the amount blank. “Where do you keep the cards?”
    Oliver paused for such a long time, Victoria wasn’t sure he was going to give in. But he turned abruptly, went to an olive green file cabinet between the two windows overlooking Music Street, opened the top drawer, scrabbled through the files, and finally produced several stacks of four-by-seven-inch