Death in a Summer Colony Read Online Free PDF

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    “How about a couple of lamb chops? You can have them with rice or whole wheat couscous.”
    Simone woofed, a command bark.
    “Okay, I take that to mean the whole wheat couscous. And we have to do something with this first.” Ray carried the offending can to the garbage. He dropped it in and then pulled paper over the top of it. “Simone, this is called destruction of evidence. In certain circumstances, this is a felony. However, extreme times require extreme measures. So don’t rat us out.”
    After dinner and a long walk, Ray and Simone settled in for a quiet evening—Ray in his favorite chair reading the New Yorker, Simone straddling the top of a couch near a window guarding against marauding squirrels and killer rabbits. She soon nodded off.
    Eventually, Ray moved to the bedroom and went through his journal writing ritual, filling a favorite fountain pen and reading over his most recent entries. Then over the next several pages, brown ink on ivory paper, he reviewed the tragic encounter with Garr Zwilling. He speculated on other ways he might have handled the confrontation, concluding that there were few alternatives. At the end he gave Malcolm Wudbine a few paragraphs, trying to capture his mannerisms and the way he treated Richard Grubbs. He wondered if he’d ever encounter Wudbine again.
    Ray’s journal entry was cut short by a command bark. Simone was at the door awaiting a secondevening walk.
     

7
     
     
     
    R ay sat in the passenger seat of Sue’s Jeep, Simone standing in his lap looking out of the windshield. A golf cart piloted by Richard Grubbs led the way along the narrow, curvy main road of the Mission Point Summer Colony.
    “So what’s this all about?” asked Sue.
    “Grubbs wouldn’t tell me on the phone. Weeks ago, after the Zwilling incident, he said there was something he needed to talk to me about. Then he just dropped it. Late yesterday afternoon he called me and said there’s this police matter he needs help with. Would I please come by and could I bring an evidence technician. When I pushed him as to what was going on, he said he couldn’t talk about it on the phone; it had to be face-to-face. It’s all very mysterious.”
    Grubbs slowed and pulled off the road. Sue parked behind him. They followed him to the bluff overlooking what had once been the site of Ravenswood Cottage. Several pickup trucks were clustered around a new building that closely resembled the original.
    “A lot can happen in a short time,” said Grubbs.
    Ray and Sue stood in silence taking in the scene.
    “How many weeks has it been since the fire?” asked Ray.
    Grubbs looked thoughtful. “I think four. This is the start of the fifth week.”
    “How did this happen so quickly?” asked Ray.
    “Well, even before that unfortunate incident, there were a lot of things going on. Mr. Wudbine, in his role as president of the board, is always doing his best to micromanage both me and everything that happens in this organization. On the other hand, he’s not very good at communicating what he’s up to. Anyway, Malcolm had been negotiating for the purchase of Ravenswood Cottage, something he never mentioned to me until after that whole unfortunate affair.
    “As you will remember, the owner of the cottage was Regina Zwilling-Glidden, Garr’s aunt. When her nephew found out about the sale, he came up here to see if he could disrupt things. Apparently he has a long history of mental illness.”
    “How did you learn this?”
    “Well, once you sent me word that we could go forward with the site cleanup, Wudbine wanted to have his own people do the work. When I challenged him on the legality of that, he told me he’d purchased the property. Then he told me he wanted to get started on the new building as quickly as possible. We have this process here and a whole series of guidelines that any remodels or new buildings have to conform to. We’re trying to preserve the character of the place. He told me to make