The Gallery of the Dead (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

forty degrees. Sometimes it even gets down to freezing, but that’s mostly inland, by the orchards and potato farms. A Bostonian wouldn’t be impressed, but a “Conch” from Key West would.
    Bernie was at home.
    “Well, if it isn’t Edson Darby-Deaver,” she said upon opening the door. “What took you so long?”
    “Ma’am?” I said, stepping inside.
    “You’re investigating that phony ghost story of Misty McBain’s, aren’t you? What took you so long to see through her and come to me for the real scoop?”
    “To be fair, Bernie, the formal investigation has only been going on for,” I consulted my watch, “ninety-two minutes.”
    She peered at me closely with her sharp brown eyes. “Did she give you some of that awful tea?”
    I shrugged. “The cookies were good.”
    “And what did you think of Paul?”
    I shrugged again. “He’s a passive personality. She’s not as grounded in reality as you’d hope a businesswoman would be. One fears for their joint enterprise.”
    She was amused. She led the way into the house and took me back to her office. I was honored. Most interviews at Bernie’s house take place at the kitchen counter. Only the serious work is done in her office. It’s the only place she smokes those nasty little cigarillos of hers, and even though she didn’t light up, the air quality was roughly that of a biker bar on the morning after.
    She sat herself behind the desk, and said, “If you want coffee, you know where to get it in the kitchen.”
    “No thanks, I had several cups before leaving the house this morning. I’ve never seen you in yellow before. It doesn’t suit you.”
    “It looked more like peach in the catalog. I only wear it around the house. Thanks for your honesty, though,” she said wryly. “You’re looking as plain-vanilla as ever,” she added, eyeing my immaculate polo shirt. “Well, then. What kind of whoppers is Misty telling now?”
    I had taken a chair facing Bernie, but there was no space in the mess of papers on her desk for me to put anything down. When she saw me hesitating with my notes in my hands, she reached over and swiped a stack of folders aside.
    I put my notes squarely in the middle of the open space, then took my pen out and held it over them, ready to write.
    “The history of the Whitby House has come into question,” I began. “Have people always believed it to be haunted? And if so, would people – specifically children – from Flagler Beach be aware of it?”
    Her smile broadened to a grin, bringing out a thousand wrinkles and a dry little cackle. “The Whitby House has never been haunted, and Flagler Beach is only one sand dune away from Tropical Breeze. What we know, they know, especially, the ghost stories. Misty grew up in Flagler, right?”
    I agreed.
    “Then she’s known about the Whitby House all her life and she knows the whole story.”
    “Is it conceivable that she was never in the house until her real estate agent took her through it?”
    She thought about it a moment. “That could be. The only time it’s been occupied that I can remember was when the Allen family came over the summers for a while. That was during the ‘eighties and ‘nineties, I think. They should have been snowbirds and come in the winter, but they had girls in school, and could only come in summer. Wait! They had girls who were about Misty’s age. I don’t know if she knew them, but it’s possible she did. The kids from Flagler Beach went to the same school as our kids, and she might have had friends here who knew them. I don’t know for sure, of course, but it’s something to check out.”
    I was quickly writing notes. It happens sometimes: instead of getting a quick, clean answer, you only get more questions.
    “The Allen family. They were only here part of the year? So they must have had a caretaker.”
    She grinned. “Very good, Edson. They did. An old geezer named Jasper.”
    I frowned. “Old? Dead?”
    “Oh, no. We Florida geezers