Murder in a mill town Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mary to take the cigarette back. “She was just holding it for me while I took my boots off.” Never mind that those boots—he was the only one wearing them—were still on his feet.
    “I was only asking,” Nell said, “because I came back here to have a smoke myself, but I seem to have left my cigarettes at home. I don’t suppose you could spare one?”
    They scrutinized her openly, from her smart little hat to the toes of her black satin boots, no doubt wondering what a lady of her supposed station was doing sneaking cigarettes.
    “I’m not trying to get you in trouble, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Nell said. “I don’t work for Mr. Harry, or anything like that.”
    Ruth said, “What’re you doin’ here, then?”
    Nell withdrew her sketchbook and opened it to the drawing of the factory. They passed it around with considerable interest, peering over one another’s shoulders for a better view.
    “You an artist?” Otis asked.
    “Course she is.” Ruth pointed to the drawing. “You think just anybody could do this? Looks just like a photograph.”
    Not quite, but close enough; Nell was a fanatic for detail. Viola, an accomplished painter who’d studied in Paris when she was young, was always encouraging her to be looser, less strictly representational, but deliberate sloppiness went very much against her grain when she was capable of such exactitude.
    Flipping through the sketchbook, Otis said, “You draw people good, too. Real good.”
    Nell thanked him. “Say, have you ever had your portrait done?”
    “Me?” He snorted as he handed back the little book. “Naw.”
    “How about I give you a sketch of yourself, and in return you give me a cigarette?” she asked.
    “Really? You want to draw
me?
”
    The girls chortled suggestively as Nell lowered herself onto the grass, praying her dress didn’t stain. She opened her sketchbook to a blank page and rummaged through her chatelaine for her pencil.
    “That Otis,” Ruth said. “He’s a regular ladykiller.”
    “It ain’t like that,” Otis protested. “She’s an
artist
.”
    The girls teased him good-naturedly as he settled into the pose suggested by Nell—reclining with an easy-to-draw three-quarter profile, his face dappled by sunlight filtering through the trees overhead. A warm breeze flickered the leaves, which still wore their deep, late summer green; the nearby stream burbled soothingly.
    “Are all of you from around here?” Nell asked as she sketched.
    “Otis is,” Mary said through a ripple of smoke as she passed the cigarette to Ruth. “And Evie there.” She nodded to the blond girl. “I’m from New Hampshire. My folks are dairy farmers.”
    Ruth, it turned out, hailed from Vermont; the other girl, Cora, from northwestern Massachusetts. All had been brought up on farms. Most were sending the money they earned, or most of it, back home to their folks. Mary was working so that one brother could go to college and the other could start a lumber business. Only Cora was keeping her earnings for herself; to Nell’s surprise, she was saving to send herself to Mount Holyoke Seminary.
    Otis rolled Nell a cigarette when she tore out the finished sketch and gave it to him. She tucked it into her chatelaine “for later.” All the girls except for quiet little Evie were begging to be drawn. Mindful of the brevity of their dinner hour—or rather, half-hour—Nell posed them together for a group portrait.
    “Do your folks ever worry about you?” she asked as she blocked out the composition with light pencil strokes. “I mean, you’re all fairly young, and most of you are far from home.”
    “Nah, they keep a tight rein on us here,” Ruth said.
    “Too damned tight,” Cora grumbled, the coarse language prompting giggles from everyone but Evie, who let out a scandalized little gasp. “Just ‘cause we work for them, they think they own us. They tell us when to go to bed and when to get up in the morning, who we can talk to,