Mausoleum Read Online Free PDF

in the ribs really surprised me. And everyone else in the room, judging by their expressions. They all knew I had done time for Wall Street crime—falling in, enthusiastically, with the wrong crowd and then refusing to rat them out—but it tended not to come up in conversations where my face was present. I had never thought of Grace Botsford as a nasty person, so I figured she was extremely upset with the young ones who wanted to hire me and probably feeling a bit outnumbered since her father had passed on.
    Before an embarrassed or voyeuristic silence could lock down the meeting, I said, “Actually, Grace, I’m running almost fifty-fifty, lately, half houses, half investigations. And, as Rick says, I am qualified. Even licensed.” (I had resisted getting a license to avoid the risk of losing it. But clients liked labels, and I liked clients because the income I earned as a private investigator allowed me to sell houses I admired and decline to list ugly ones I did not.)
    â€œBut,” I added, turning to the others, “Grace raises an excellent point. The State Police have a good record of solving murders. They’re well-trained and well-equipped, if a little understaffed. Plus, as Connecticut doesn’t have all that many murders outside of the cities, the occasional upscale country killing gives them something to sink their teeth into. You can count on their enthusiasm. So I think you should listen to Grace.”
    Grace said, “Thank you, Ben.”
    Rick Bowland said, “Ben, you want to excuse us a minute while we hash this out?”
    â€œI’ll be on the porch, for a while. Then I’m going home. The cat wants a drink and I’m hungry.”
    I sat in a fine old wicker chair, enjoying the perfume of ancient Louise Odiers and Reine des Violettes that Gerard Botsford had devoted half his life to. I had taken my best shot. I would either not get the job, or I would get it at the pay rate I wanted. Pretty soon I heard raised voices through the thin walls. It sounded like half were on Grace’s side, half on Rick Bowland’s. As it got noisier I heard Grace say, “Dan Adams, you tried to depose my father back in the nineties. He didn’t let you then, and I won’t let you now.”
    Instead of letting that water continue over the dam, Dan shouted back, “Your father drove my father out of this Association. I was just trying to get a little for him.”
    Grace was cold as ice. “If you don’t think that our responsibility to the dead and Newbury’s future is more important than an old feud over who runs things, let me remind you that your father tried to drive me out of my position.”
    â€œJesus Christ, Grace, you were a twenty-year old college kid.”
    â€œDo not swear in my house.”
    â€œYou didn’t deserve to be treasurer.”
    â€œDan, you were not yet three years old at the time. I do think you are complaining about things you do not understand. The board would not have gone along if they did not believe that I deserved the job.”
    All this time, Rick kept saying, louder and louder, “We have to appear to make the effort. We have to show we’re rightfully in charge.” Eventually he came out and got me, and I went in; and Grace, who had two red anger dots on her cheekbones said, speaking formally for the secretary taking notes, “The trustees of the Cemetery Association have voted to hire you, Ben Abbott, to investigate the murder of Brian Grose that occurred on Cemetery Association property.”
    I said, “I’ll give you a cut rate of a hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”
    â€œBen!” chorused an abruptly unanimous board of trustees.
    I turned to the recording secretary and whispered, “Jeannie? Would you please put down your pen and cover your ears?” Jeannie looked at Grace. She had been the office manager/assistant/receptionist at the Botsford Agency since