Lethal Lineage Read Online Free PDF

cedars had the dry blue cast they have before they become fully green.
    But it’s comforting just to be next to Keith even when he doesn’t say a word. I squeezed his hand. He’s six foot two and big-boned. A lifetime of hard work has kept his body solid. He looks younger than fifty-eight. The back door slammed and Josie came out holding Tosca. She carefully set the little dog on the ground, and I decided a worthless little Shih-Tzu was exactly what I needed.
    “Come to Aunt Lottie, sweetheart. Come over here.”
    Tosca looked at Josie as though she were asking permission. Josie laughed. “It’s OK, baby. My sister needs a little therapy.”
    “Headache better?” Keith asked.
    “No. I’ve given up on it, that’s all. I’m too wired to sleep and that probably would do me the most good.”
    “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through this,” I said. I was tempted to add “again” but Mary’s death wasn’t nearly as traumatic as last fall’s ordeal because of her involvement as a consultant for Carlton County.
    “It wasn’t your fault, Lottie,” she said quickly. Too quickly. Like whether it was my fault or not, the whole county was clearly crazy.
    Keith beckoned toward an extra chair. “I would give up my recliner, you know. You don’t have to wrestle me for it.” He sighed. “It’s been one hell of a day for all of us.”
    “Did Tammy get herself back together? I was so busy taking care of the stuff I needed to do with the body…” I stopped. That sounded cold. Real cold. I tried again. “…with Reverend Mary’s body that I neglected all my duties as a hostess.”
    “That’s understandable,” Josie said. Then Tosca abandoned me, leaped down, and then onto my sister’s lap as though she had coddled me long enough.
    Keith got up and went into the house and came out with another bottle of wine and a bottle of his own home brew. “Don’t know about you two but I need another round. At
least
one more. Then I want to hear about everything from beginning to end.”
    “I hardly know where to start.” But Keith and I had reached an agreement. He wanted to be informed of everything going on connected to the sheriff’s office. There’s nothing illegal about telling a spouse everything, it’s just that in the beginning, I didn’t want to worry him. Secrecy had been a disaster.
    In our new arrangement there would be no secrets on my part and in return he would not make sarcastic remarks or try to make me give up my badge. There were limits to the type of information available to historians. Now, as a law enforcement officer, I had access to detailed databases. It was the best of both worlds.
    “I want to know about the whole day,” he said. “What in the hell went on, exactly? People coming here from the church looked like they’d been at an execution even before word got around about the death.”
    “Lottie and I discovered the body and most folks had left by then,” Josie began.
    “But even if that hadn’t happened, that asshole had no right to talk to us like we were worms,” I said. “It’s the sermon that started it all.” I took a sip of wine.
    “Lottie told you about the dropped chalice?”
    “She did.” It was too dark to see his eyes, but Keith is a devout Catholic and he understood the tragedy of the spilled Blood.
    We both tried to reconstruct the morning. Each of us filling in details the other hadn’t noticed.
    “Did you see Tammy’s face?” Josie asked.
    “No. I was too preoccupied with worrying about Mary being stripped of her credentials.” Then I told them about Bishop Talesbury’s bizarre ritual after the service and his cutting around the blotch of wine.
    “Jesus Christ,” Keith muttered.
    “Exactly.”
    He laughed. “And that carpet is where?”
    “Still in my car. He told me to burn it, but I’ll bet I can’t do that just anywhere. Does your church have something special they use when things like this happen?”
    He got up and