The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 2: Cold Wars (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Still, I think she found a little justice.” I looked straight at Big Joe Lono. “You know anything about it, pal?”
    He shrugged, fingering the pearl necklace on his wrist. “We had our disagreements. She stole some of my charms. I stole her necklace, letting me set my spells on her. The sharks did the rest.” He pulled off the necklace and tossed it into the ocean. “Sleep well, pretty haole!” he called. “I hope the sharks found you tasty!”
    Fancy Freddy Flynn faced me. “And the dough?” he asked.
    “Under the water – or in a shark’s belly,” I said. I shrugged. “Nothing I could do about it.”
    “You cost me a lot of dough, and a lot of pain,” Flynn muttered. His nose was bleeding again, and I had given his black eye a brother.
    “Gee, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “You want to do something about it?” He backed down, soon as I balled my hands into fists.
    Mrs. Pepperdine approached me as Fancy Freddy Flynn stormed off. “I’m not quite sure what happened out there,” she said. “But I’m satisfied. My husband’s killer met justice. I’ll have your payment in the morning.” She looked at Weatherby’s Hawaiian shirt. It was drenched in sea water, and even a little blood. “Don’t worry, son,” she said. “Those clean up nicely.”
    She headed back to her office. I joined Selena and Weatherby as we walked down the beach. “So, would you fellows like to spend more time with me?” Selena asked. “You can stay with me in my place in the city. It’s very small, but we’ll manage. I’ll go over my per diem from the university, but I can find a way around it, and when my studies are over, Weatherby can come back to me, and live in my dorm and…” she trailed off. “I’ll find some way. I could get another job…”
    “No.” Weatherby’s voice was quiet and had a slight tremor to it. He shivered as he took her hand. “I’m the man of the house. The patriarch of the Stein family. And I couldn’t stand to burden you, not now. I’ll keep sending you money from our cases. I’ll take care of you. I won’t have it any other way.”
    I kind of suspected Weatherby sent away good portions of the cash he made, but this was the first time I fully realized that it was going to his sister. The events of the war had changed him for good. He couldn’t go back to being a child, even if wanted to.
    Selena knew this, and I saw tears suddenly appear in her eyes. She knew he couldn’t stand to live with her, and his childhood was long gone. I reached out and took her hand. “I’ll take care of him,” I said. “I swear on my soul, I’ll take care of him. And no matter what, you’ll always be his big sister.”
    “And he’ll always be my baby brother,” Selena repeated, blinking away her tears. She held Weatherby close to her as we walked back up the beach.



Crimson Catch
    Weatherby and I walked into the lobby of the Gillman House Hotel in uptown Innsmouth, and I could smell war in the air, heavier than even the scent of fish. Innsmouth was a rundown New England town, a fetid backwater with an unused harbor gone rotten and most of the houses abandoned. I wouldn’t have dragged myself to Innsmouth, Massachusetts unless it was for my job. But even though I was working a case, the open road out of town looked real inviting.
    The Gillman House was the only hotel in town, a dusty flophouse that had been decaying since the Victorian Era, and still hadn’t managed to collapse completely. Weatherby and I entered the hotel after parking outside, and walked across the lobby to the receptionist. Quite a few Innsmouth locals were loafing around the lobby, chunky fellows in worn suits, oilskins, trench coats and battered bowler hats and flat caps. Several of them were packing, and the others looked hungry enough to be a danger because of their teeth.
    There was something off about everyone in Innsmouth, from the slouching men in the lobby to the receptionist in his dusty red vest. They looked