Repairman Jack [03]-Conspiracies Read Online Free PDF

Connecticut was a darker line atop the horizon.
    He found the Ehler place and pulled into the gravel drive of an oversized ranch. The dark cedar shake siding and white trim and shutters blended with the budding oaks, maples, and birches surrounding the house. The landscaper had gone for a low-maintenance yard, substituting mulch and wood chips for grass. Perfectly trimmed rhodos and azaleas hugged the foundation; nothing ostentatious, but Jack knew from his teenage days as a landscaper's helper that everything here was first quality. A lot of money had been invested into this yard's "natural" look.
    Lew met him at the door and scanned the road running past the house.
    "Did you see anyone following you?"
    "No." Jack hadn't been looking, but he hadn't noticed anyone. "How about you?"
    "I thought I saw a black sedan a few times but ... " He shrugged and ushered Jack inside where he gave him an envelope stuffed with cash. Jack didn't count it.
    The interior had a lot of nautical touches—hurricane lamps, a big brass compass, fishnets and floats on the walls, all looking very staged.
    "I didn't particularly want to live way out here," Lew said as he showed Jack through the house. "It means a longer commute for me, but Mel said this was the place she really wanted to live, so ... this is where we live."
    The only non-decorator touches about the house were the paintings—dark, brooding abstractions on all the walls.
    "Really something, aren't they," Lew said.
    Jack nodded. "Who's the artist?"
    "Mel. She did them when she was a teenager."
    She must have been a real fun date, he thought, but said: "Impressive."
    "Aren't they? She's been getting back into it again, when she can steal time from her research."
    "And where does she do that?"
    "In her study. I'll show you," he said, leading Jack toward a spiral staircase. "She used the second bedroom for a while but all her reference materials pretty quickly outgrew that, so we converted the attic for her."
    Lew's short leg made for slow progress on the narrow treads, but finally they reached the top. Jack found himself in a long, low-ceilinged room running the length of the house; a beige computer desk near the staircase, a window at each end—an easel by the far window—four filing cabinets clustered in the center, and all the rest an enormous collection of paper—a Strandesque array of books, magazines, pamphlets, article excerpts and reprints, tear sheets, and flyers. The shelves lining every spare inch of wall space were crammed full; the tops of the filing cabinets were stacked at least a foot deep, and the rest was scattered in piles on the carpeted floor.
    "Her reference materials," Jack said softly, awed.
    He sniffed the air, heavy with the scent of aging paper. He loved that smell.
    "Yeah." Lew walked past one of the shelves, running a finger along the book spines. "Everything you could ever want to know about UFOs, alien abductions, the Bermuda Triangle, Satanism, telepathy, remote viewing, mind control, the CIA, the NSA, HAARP, the Illuminati, astral projection, channeling, levitation, clairvoyance, seances, tarot, reincarnation, astrology, the Loch Ness monster, the Bible, Kaballah, Velikovsky, crop circles, Tunguska—"
    "I get the picture," Jack said when Lew stopped for a breath. "All for her Grand Unification Theory."
    "Yes. You might say she's obsessed."
    Jack noted Lew's use of the present tense when he referred to his wife. A good sign.
    "I guess so. I was going to ask you what else she did with her time, but I guess we can skip that."
    "She was also into real estate for a while. Not that we needed the money, but she got her license and did a few deals."
    "I doubt that has anything to do with her disappearance."
    "Well, it might. She didn't do real estate the way most people do. She never gave me the details, but she did tell me her activities were related to her research."
    "Such as?"
    "Well, she'd buy a place herself—always in the developments along Randall Road on the