Murder at Monticello Read Online Free PDF Page A

months.”
    â€œRemission. Damn grateful for it. I do feel good. Only thing that gets me down is the stock market.” He shivered to make his point. “And Warren. I don’t know if he’s strong enough to take over. He and Ansley don’t pull together. Worries me.”
    â€œMaybe you ought to talk to them like you talked to me.”
    Wesley blinked beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. “I try. Warren evades me. Ansley’s polite and listens, but it’s in one ear, out t’other.” He shook his head. “I’ve spent my whole life developing bloodlines, yet I can hardly talk to my own blood.”
    Fair leaned against the big truck. “I think a lot of people feel that way . . . and I don’t have any answers.” He checked his watch. “I’m due at Brookhill Farm. You call me about that mare and—and I promise to think about what you said.”
    Fair stepped into the truck, turned the ignition, and slowly traveled down the winding drive lined with linden trees. He waved, and Wesley waved back.

4
    The old Ford truck chugged up Monticello Mountain. A light drizzle kept Harry alert at the wheel, for this road could be treacherous no matter what the weather. She wondered how the colonists had hauled up and down this mountain using wagons pulled by horses, or perhaps oxen, with no disc brakes. Unpaved during Thomas Jefferson’s time, the road must have turned into a quagmire in the rains and a killer sheet of ice in the winter.
    Susan Tucker fastened her seat belt.
    â€œThink my driving’s that bad?”
    â€œNo.” Susan ran her thumb under the belt. “I should have done this when we left Crozet.”
    â€œOh, I forgot to tell you. Mrs. H. pitched a major hissy when she reached into your mailbox and touched that rubber spider that Danny must have stuck in there. Mrs. Murphy pulled it out onto the floor finally.”
    â€œDid she throw her hands in the air?” Susan innocently inquired.
    â€œYou bet.”
    â€œA deep, throaty scream.”
    â€œModerate, I’d say. The dog barked.”
    Susan smiled a Cheshire smile. “Wish I’d been there.”
    Harry turned to glance at her best friend. “Susan—”
    â€œKeep your eyes on the road.”
    â€œOh, yeah. Susan, did you put that spider in the mailbox?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œNow, why would you want to go and do a thing like that?”
    â€œDevil made me do it.”
    Harry laughed. Every now and then Susan would do something, disrupt something, and you never knew when or where. She’d been that way since they first met in kindergarten. Harry hoped she’d never change.
    The parking lot wasn’t as full as usual for a weekend. Harry and Susan rode in the jitney up the mountain, which became more fog-enshrouded with every rising foot. By the time they reached the Big House, as locals called it, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces.
    â€œThink Kimball will be out there?” Susan asked.
    â€œOne way to find out.” Harry walked down to the south side of the house, picking up the straight road that was called Mulberry Row. Here the work of the plantation was carried out in a smithy as well as in eighteen other buildings dedicated to the various crafts: carpentry, nail making, weaving, and possibly even harness making and repair. Those buildings vanished over the decades after Jefferson’s death when, a quarter of a million dollars in debt—roughly two and a half million dollars today—his heirs were forced to sell the place he loved.
    Slave quarters also were located along Mulberry Row. Like the other buildings, these were usually constructed of logs; sometimes even the chimneys were made of logs, which would occasionally catch fire, so that the whole building was engulfed in flames within minutes. The bucket brigade was the only means of fire-fighting.
    As Harry and Susan walked through the fog,