Death Qualified Read Online Free PDF Page B

climb to the mountain pass, and on to the eastern slopes of the Cascades.
     
        Today Nell was one of a dozen regulars who gathered every Thursday when the bookmobile chugged into the parking lot, throwing gritty dust, grinding the gravel down in the summer, churning up a slurry in the winter. Nell had collected books for herself, a few for her daughter and son, although now in the first week of summer vacation, neither child had expressed any interest at all in reading.
     
        Travis had regarded her with unfeigned astonishment at the suggestion. Nell also had picked up some books for her neighbor Jessica Burchard. Mikey, the driver for the mobile library, walked to Nell's car with her, both of them carrying armloads of books.
     
        "Like I said," Mikey was saying, "one more budget cut and we go belly up. That damned bus can hardly climb even this high anymore, and they're wanting us to go on up to the scout camp. Can you imagine! That's some twisty little road, and steep!" Mikey was a tall, gangly woman not yet forty, with unmanageable red hair that constantly escaped the various berets and clips and hair pins and scarves she wore. She towered over Nell, who always said she was five two and lied a bit about it, giving herself nearly an inch that nature had not.
     
        "Why don't they let the scouts hike down here, if they want books? It's only a couple of miles, good trails," Nell said as they dumped the books on the passenger seat of her pickup.
     
        "And be sensible about it? Why start now? Come on, buy you a Coke or something." She waved to Lonnie Rowan, a short, broad woman in red pants who had just driven into the parking area.
     
        "Hi, Lonnie! Got that new mystery you wanted."
     
        "Go on," Nell said.
     
        "I'll bring drinks out to the back."
     
        Mikey nodded and walked toward Lonnie, as Nell headed for the general store. She nodded to people, spoke to several, but did not pause. She knew everyone here, met them all regularly shopping, or at the library, or some where in the area. They held meetings at the grange, talked endlessly about how to slow down the logging trucks be fore they reached town, how to attract tourists, who was marrying or divorcing whom.. ..
     
        There had been a Turner at Turner's Point at one time;
     
        he had built the general store that had cafe seating attached Chuck Gilmore owned the establishment now, the store, the gas station, most of the cabins. The store featured cold sandwiches in a case, fruit priced scandalously high, fishing tackle, worms and salmon eggs in a cooler, beer, soft drinks, bread that always seemed to be day-old.
     
        Strange, how the bread never was fresh; you couldn't get to the store early enough.
     
        Nell made her way through the clump of people inside the door. Thursday was social hour, time for the locals to catch up, time to gossip a little. As she passed people in twos and threes, she heard snatches of ongoing conversations:
     
        "Don't know why they always have to have the roads torn up soon's the weather gets nice. Took Maud more than two hours to drive out."
     
        "Way I see it, if they spend all their time and money on the highway that don't need fixing they can keep right on claiming they just can't get to Old Halleck Hill Road."
     
        "And it'll get so bad they'll barricade both ends and that'll be the end of it."
     
        Nell reached the cooler and pulled out two Cokes, then held them up for Louise Gilmore to see. They exchanged smiles, nods; if Chuck had been there, Nell would have walked over and plunked down cash without a word, but Louise was okay. She nodded and made a note in the book.
     
        Nell edged past Dolores Lutz and Sarah Sedgewick, out the back door to the deck. A few tables were out here, rough-hewn and full of splinters, with attached benches.
     
        No one from the area ever used them, only tourists