Judas Cat Read Online Free PDF

when he came to Hillside?
    He opened the drawer to the table. In it were tax receipts on the property, one for each year from 1917 to date, except for 1933. Alex took a notebook from his pocket and jotted down “Tax—1933?” He thought for a moment and then wrote “Anne?” On another page he began the list for Waterman.
    In a tin box in the corner of the drawer was one hundred and eighty-three dollars in cash. That was all.
    He switched off the light and went into the dining room. There were only the table and chairs, cheap, upholstered furniture that looked faded with age but not with use. The cupboard contained nothing but dishes.
    In the bedroom, the one chest of drawers contained clothes. There was a trunk in the closet, and an old suitcase lined with dismal striped canvas. They were both empty except for a small faded campaign ribbon and a button marked USA that rattled out of the suitcase pocket. Alex put them in a handkerchief and replaced the luggage. In the overcoat and one suit coat he found nothing but a few cents in change. Andy’s extra pair of shoes were on the closet floor.
    In the bathroom, the shelf above the sink held soap, a bottle of iodine, a razor and tooth paste. Alex looked at his reflection in the age-speckled mirror. Tan and healthy, he felt out of place in this house, and somehow weary with the loneliness of it. The only thing of warmth he had seen was the inscription in Tom Paine, and that had been written sixty-three years before.
    He looked at the box of old Jackson newspapers and decided to return to them at another time. Now he wanted to get away from the house. Something inside him ached for the old man who, apparently, had outlived by many years his desire to live.
    Outdoors, he escaped the feeling of depression. Gilbert was sprawled in the sun in the long grass between Andy’s house and Miss Turnsby’s.
    “Find anything?” he asked.
    “Nothing to speak of,” Alex said.
    Even the last stragglers of the crowd were gone now, except for the ladies gathered on Miss Turnsby’s porch. None of them liked Mabel. She was a person they included “because they couldn’t very well get out of it.” But if the old lady was aware of it she never let on, for there was not a function in town she missed. And all this was a part of being good neighbors. Alex thought. There was something cruel about it. Everyone wanted to be liked, and probably Mabel more than anyone else in town.
    “Better not let anybody in there yet, Gilbert,” he said. “Not till we hear from the coroner.”
    “Not me.” He patted the revolver on his hip.
    Alex wondered if it were safe for him to carry it, but he did not say anything.
    “If you see the chief tell him not to forget I’m here.”
    “Okay, Gilbert.”
    Alex looked at his watch as he started for the car. It was after four. Maude would be waiting at the office with a hundred things that needed doing. Miss Turnsby leaned over the porch railing. The other ladies smiled and nodded. He felt that they were watching to see his attitude toward her.
    “What did you find, Alex?”
    “Nothing interesting, ma’am.”
    “Those men were from the county. Are they burying him at the county farm?”
    “I don’t know that.”
    Mabel Turnsby was angry. He could feel the sting of her eyes although her mouth was smiling at him. You couldn’t like her even if you wanted to. He wondered how old she was, powdered and primped up, with the high collar covering her neck.
    “If there’s anything I can do …” she said.
    She wanted something to throw to her guests, some nibble of gossip to reward her for the patient vigil she had kept on Andy. At some time he might want every fragment of information she could give him. He walked over to the railing, motioning for her to lean down.
    “I’m thinking of trying to start his story where he might have had a love affair once that ended unhappily.”
    “Oh,” she said.
    “I don’t want to talk about it until I find out