Killing Cousins Read Online Free PDF

to do for the sheriff and a job for Sylvia, my thoughts had meandered back to the threat of a casino. It was too important to me not to do something, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I supposed it would depend on what the mayor had to say to me.
    I made sure I had my list for tomorrow, picked up my purse and headed downstairs to return to New Kassel.
    The New Kassel Gazette
    The News You Might Miss
by
Eleanore Murdoch
    My fellow residents of New Kassel! May I just say that the wedding of Ms. Jalena Keith and Sheriff Colin Brooke was the social event of the decade! Anybody who is anybody was in attendance. The cake was scrumptious, the party favors simply melted in your mouth. (Thank you, Helen.) Can everybody tell what my favorite part of the whole day was? Oh, the bride was lovely in a handmade crocheted dress from our very own Wilma Pershing, and the sheriff made hearts flip all over Granite County. The attendants were Jalena’s daughter, Torie O’Shea, and her husband, Rudy. In other news, Father Bingham wants to thank whomever made the unusually large donation this past Sunday in the basket.
    And now for the serious news. We as residents must not allow gambling into our home, which is our sanctuary. Vote No on Proposition 7. No riverboat casino!
    Until next time,
Eleanore

Five
    Velasco’s Pizza is probably my favorite casual hang-out place in New Kassel. Chuck had decorated it in 1950s memorabilia, which he’d done way before the movie Pulp Fiction came out, so he liked to tell people that Quentin Tarantino had ripped him off. I tried explaining to him that somewhere in the world somebody else had probably thought of it before Tarantino did, that sometimes good ideas will be thought of simultaneously, but he resisted that notion.
    It was later on Sunday evening, and Rudy, Rachel, Mary and I were all seated in a booth. Matthew was sound asleep in his pumpkin seat, which was cradled in one of the high chairs that we had turned upside down. Who would have thought that one of those straight wooden high chairs, turned upside down, was the perfect pumpkin seat holder? I thought about things like that and things like baby monitors, car seats, bottle warmers, bottle carriers that keep milk cold, and thermometers built into pacifiers, just to name a few. How did anybody ever raise a child without those things? It seems like the sixties were the Dark Ages. I don’t think my mother even owned a diaper bag when I was a baby.
    We were halfway through a half veggie deluxe and half pepperoni pizza when none other than the mayor walked into Chuck’s. “There’s Bill,” Rudy said. He didn’t really mean anything by that declaration. If Elmer or Wilma had walked through the door, he would have looked at me and said, “There’s Elmer. There’s Wilma.” It was something to say.
    â€œYeah,” I acknowledged, giving the mayor a dirty look.
    â€œDon’t talk to him about the casino thing right now, okay?” Rudy asked. “Let us eat dinner in peace, without making a scene.”
    â€œWhen do you suggest I talk to him about it? When it’s too late?”
    â€œNo, now, Torie, quit being so touchy over everything,” he said. He took a bite of pizza and made that slurp sound that means he nearly burned the roof of his mouth.
    Rudy telling me not to talk to the mayor right now about the casino just made me want to waltz right over there and talk to the mayor about the casino. I wouldn’t, though, because I didn’t plan on holding anything back if Bill was unreasonable about it, and I really didn’t want everybody else in the restaurant to witness it.
    I wanted to be able to say to Bill that he was a complete money-hungry idiot, if the situation called for it, and how could I do that with an entire restaurant watching? No, I would refrain.
    â€œMom,” Rachel said, “when are we going to get our school supplies?”
    â€œThis week,