Loonies Read Online Free PDF Page B

Estate, and Mrs. Picklesmeir’s Flower Shop. But Brian had never realized how many empty storefronts dotted the Main Street business section, with their soaped up windows and for-rent signs. There were almost as many empty spaces as there were occupied shops.
    He remembered Darcie and him taking their first stroll along the downtown sidewalk one Saturday afternoon and her telling him how charming she thought the town was. He hadn’t noticed it up close then, but maybe it took a view from a distance to really see the town’s condition. It was like seeing someone’s smile without noticing the cavities.
    Across the way he could see the town’s water tower cresting the rise on the opposite side of the hollow. The name of the town was painted on its tank, but Smoky was spelled without the ‘e’. Brian remembered Beverly Crump telling him it had been that way for a long time and many citizens were embarrassed by the mistake, but the town selectmen never bothered to have it corrected. The letters were faded and chipped from winter winds. Maybe the selectmen were waiting for the mistake to be erased by Mother Nature so they wouldn’t have to expend the effort themselves.
    As Brian’s eyes dropped from the letters, he noticed a figure standing on the catwalk that surrounded the water tank. It looked like a man, and Brian figured it must be a city worker since no one else would have reason to be up there. That would be trespassing, and Chief Treece would have to go up and bring the man down. Now that would be an exciting end to his shift.
    The man appeared to be staring down, maybe surveying the town like Brian himself was. But then he thought that perhaps the man was going to jump. There was no reason for Brian to think this, but the idea popped into his head. He recalled several times on the beat in Boston when he’d be sent to the scene of a jumper threatening to leap off a high-rise. Not once did one jump. They never did. All talk, no action.
    The man made no effort to climb over the rail. So…he wasn’t a jumper. At least it didn’t look to Brian like the man was doing anything except standing there, arms resting on the railing. Maybe he enjoyed the view. Brian was about to turn away when he realized the man now seemed to be looking across the valley…at him. Was the man watching him, or did he just happen to notice Brian on the opposite ridge? Brian had the urge to wave, to see if the man would wave back.
    It’s nothing, he thought, and turned away.
    The Mustard House was Tudor style, reminding him of a Swiss chalet except that the building was long with two wings off the main central section. It was two stories, but the many gables lining its front gave it the appearance of being much taller. The narrow windows along the second story were enclosed with bars. Brian wondered if the inmates of the asylum stared out those windows at the town below. How frustrating it must have been for them to be so close to civilization, yet trapped behind bars, locked in their rooms.
    He also wondered what the inmates were like. How crazy were they? It was a private sanitarium, so he assumed they weren’t dangerous criminal lunatics. Those kinds of inmates would be housed at the state mental facility in Concord. Surely the occupants here wouldn’t be like that.
    But this was where Nurse Ruth Snethen worked, and she had kept a locked trunk full of baby skeletons in her attic.
    Brian approached the large wooden door. The yellowish-brown paint on the building was faded, overdue for refurbishment. He looked for a doorbell but could not find one. There was a large brass door knocker on the middle of the door, and he grabbed it, lifting it up and banging it down three times. He stepped back. His notepad was in his back pocket. He didn’t want it in view. That sometimes made people nervous and scared potential interviewees away.
    He waited with anticipation, but no one opened the door. After a moment, he grabbed the doorknocker again and