Killing Cousins Read Online Free PDF Page A

dishes.
    Suddenly the thought of going through every item in this house seemed unfathomable. I made a mental note to make sure that when I got old I should just start giving stuff away so that nobody would have to come along after I died and do it for me.
    To me, it seemed as though the bathroom would be the easiest place to start. Most of the things in the bathroom could be thrown away, especially given the date of most of the items. As if anybody would want or could use five-year-old shampoo. So I found the trash bags under the sink and then went into the great expanse of Catherine Finch’s house to find the bathroom.
    Finding the bathroom took a long time. I had to make it through a lot of house first. The great room was…well, great. A large cathedral ceiling with dark wooden beams was the canopy above a rather rustic room with a bearskin rug and a stuffed jaguar. On either side of the fireplace were two shelves of books. Cool. Books were good. A gorgeous stained-glass window lined the entire east wall. The stained-glass window depicted several fairies in different positions of flight, hovering above flowers or dancing amid the trees. It truly was one of the most gorgeous things I’d ever seen. I was awestruck, trying to imagine that it was actually made out of little pieces of painted glass.
    Eventually, I found three bathrooms, two downstairs and one on the second floor. I started with the one downstairs closest to the kitchen. I opened the medicine-cabinet doors and just threw everything away. Under the vanities I did the same thing, except for a hair dryer and hot rollers that I found in the upstairs bathroom. Colin might be able to sell those. The washcloths I put in a bucket to use as rags and the towels I put in a pile on one of the beds. In no time at all, I had the bathrooms finished, with only a small pile of things to keep. Obviously, I pitched the personal-hygiene items. The woman loved Coral Mist lipstick and blue eye shadow. Her favorite perfume was Windsong, because the five bottles of it I found in the house were all half empty, whereas all the other perfumes were still mostly full. Funny that she was wealthy beyond my comprehension and her favorite perfume could be bought at Walgreens.
    I opened my notebook and dug a pen out of my purse and wrote down a list of things to bring tomorrow: radio with batteries, fifty-to-sixty boxes, notebooks, packing peanuts/bubble wrap, travel playpen, crayons and coloring books for the girls.
    I did not go up to the third floor, nor did I go into the basement, but I did take a quick glance through the rest of the first and second floors. There were no less than six bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, great room, family room, den and, sure enough, three unidentifiable rooms. If pressed, I’d say that they were living rooms one, two and three. I couldn’t imagine what was on the third floor, or what could possibly be in the attic.
    In living room number two, on the second floor, was a black baby grand piano, and hanging above the fireplace was an oil portrait of a woman I assumed was Catherine Finch. In the portrait, she stood next to a fireplace in one of those long-waisted flapper dresses; her blond hair was bobbed short and curved under her ears. She wore bracelets on each wrist and a large necklace. Her smile was composed but, somehow, seemed all-knowing.
    In the middle of the room a crystal chandelier hung too low, I thought, but what did I know about decorating big fancy houses? All along the mantel and the piano were silver and bronze frames filled with pictures taken in the twenties and thirties.
    Yes, it all seemed quite daunting.
    And the most daunting thing of all was the thought creeping in my mind about confronting the mayor about the gambling boats. But I loved New Kassel and I was not going to let the mayor bring in the casino. No way. I thought about that a second standing in the middle of living room number two. Even though I had this job