Risky Undertaking Read Online Free PDF Page A

fluttered around the yellow light bulb—a bulb advertised not to draw bugs.
    â€œI can’t just yank them out of the receiving line.”
    â€œEven to save their lives? I mean, you don’t even have a metal detector at the door.”
    â€œIt’s a damned visitation, not a presidential address.”
    Archie thrust his hand inside his sport coat and pulled out a white envelope. “Yeah. And what would the Secret Service do with this?” He shoved it toward my face.
    On the front, ARCHIE DONOVAN JR. and his address had been scrawled in block letters by a blunt pencil.
    â€œGo ahead. Open it.”
    The back flap had been torn loose. I extracted a single sheet of double-folded white typing paper. A bent, brown feather glided to the floor.
    I picked it up. The vanes were still smooth but the shaft had been snapped midway down its length. Unbroken, the feather would have been five or six inches. I unfolded the paper. Five words, one per line, appeared to have been written by the same hand that addressed the envelope. STAY AWAY FROM BELL RIDGE.
    â€œSee.” The fear in Archie’s voice turned him into a boy soprano. “A broken eagle feather. You know what that means.”
    â€œNo, I don’t. And this is from a turkey.” As an archer I had fletched my own arrows and knew something about feathers.
    â€œWell, it’s clearly a threat,” Archie insisted. “I’ve sent Gloria and the girls to stay with Gloria’s mother in Weaverville.”
    I looked at the feather and the note a second time. “I think you’re overreacting. If the mayor got one, you know he’d immediately come running to Tommy Lee.”
    Archie seemed to consider this. “Maybe he did, but with all the sympathy cards coming in, he hasn’t seen it yet. I found it in my mailbox when I got home from work.”
    â€œThere’s no return address.”
    â€œThat’s right. Someone doesn’t want to be known.”
    I refolded the note around the broken feather and stuffed both back in the envelope. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll hold onto this.”
    â€œAre you going to warn Luther and the mayor?”
    I shook my head. “They have enough to worry about. It’s probably a prank played on you by someone here in town. That’s why there’s no return address. And everybody knows about the bones.”
    Archie relaxed. “OK, Barry. If you say so.”
    â€œI say so. Now come in and have some of my mom’s lemonade.” I lifted the envelope in front of his eyes. “And not another word about this.”
    ***
    â€œWill you be driving us?” Luther asked me the question as he watched the pallbearers load the casket of his wife in the hearse.
    â€œYes. We should go ahead and get in the car.”
    â€œAll of us?”
    â€œJust you and your son and daughter.”
    I’d gone over everything with Luther earlier before the funeral service, but it was not uncommon for the family of the deceased to be living moment to moment, events unfolding within a blur of disjointed activities.
    â€œOK,” Luther mumbled. Then he looked at me, eyes moist but sharply focused. “Thanks for all you’re doing, Barry. I don’t know how I’d have gotten through these past few days without you.”
    â€œYou’re doing as well as can be expected, sir.” I turned to the family limousine directly behind the hearse. “Allow me to get the door.”
    Luther took the arm of his daughter, Sandra, and escorted her to the car. His son, Darren, followed. Both children were grown. Sandra was the older, probably in her early forties and working in Atlanta. Darren was still in his thirties and had a job in DC.
    I nodded to Fletcher. He was driving a second limo with the mayor and his family. We could have squeezed them into one, but that would have been the operative word—squeezed. And emotions run high during times