10 Died in the Wool by Rett MacPherson

Author:Rett MacPherson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781466888807
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

I was absent through most of dinner. I’d managed to pull together stuff for chicken fajitas, and I’d made brownies the night before. Even though I was seated at the table with my family, I wasn’t really there. I kept thinking about Anna Gatewood. During our festivals Anna had set up many, many booths with literature on the gray wolf, the brown bear, and the lynx. All endangered species, all near and dear to her heart. She was the local animal rights and conservation activist. She worked at the animal hospital in Wisteria and at one point had almost fifteen strays staying in her house. Then her husband, Blake, stepped in and told her that she had to keep it to a maximum of five animals in the house. She was in a depression for nearly six months afterward.

She was about four years older than I was, maybe five. She must have been the youngest of Sophia Kendall MacBride’s children, because Sophia would have been almost forty when she had Anna. Technically, Anna and her siblings were entitled to the Kendall house. Why hadn’t she said anything before now? I wasn’t even sure if there was anything she could legally do about her inheritance, fifty years after Sandy Kendall’s death.

“It just seems odd,” I said out loud.

Rachel and Mary exchanged glances and then laughed.

“What?” I said.

“You’re thinking out loud again, honey,” Rudy said.

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

“So, what seems odd?” Mary said.

“Anna Gatewood is the granddaughter of Whalen Kendall,” I said to Rudy.

“Whalen Kendall being?”

“One of the three siblings that I’ve been telling you about.”

“Really?” he asked, plopping sour cream on his tortilla shell.

“I just think it’s odd she hasn’t mentioned it,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not exactly an icebreaker you’d use at a party. ‘Oh, hello, I’m the granddaughter of the man whose entire family committed suicide.’ I mean, think about it,” he said.

“Yeah, guess you’re right,” I said. I ate some more and totally spaced out, unable to follow the conversation that was going on right in front of me.

“Go,” Rudy said.

“Huh? Go where?” I asked.

“Go see Anna,” he said. “You won’t sleep or anything until you do. You know you’ll lie awake all night thinking about it, and by morning you’ll have some cockamamie conspiracy theory all worked out and get yourself all in a tizzy. So go see her now and get it over with.”

“I can’t tell if I find it a comfort that you know me that well, or if it’s really scary.”

“It’s really scary,” he said. “I’ve damn near left you a hundred times.” He winked at me, and I knew he was joking.

I finished eating and then headed over to Anna Gatewood’s house. She lives on the street behind where my old house used to be on River Pointe Road. In fact, from my old bedroom window, I could just make out the chimney on her house. The lights were on and there was a car in the driveway.

I knocked, and Anna’s husband answered the door.

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