Death on ZigZag Trail by Patricia McLinn

Author:Patricia McLinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
ISBN: 9781954478091
Publisher: Craig Place Books
Published: 2023-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

FRIDAY

CHAPTER TWENTY

I woke to the sound of Teague in the shower.

He wasn’t teaching today, but he was — surprise, surprise — working for the sheriff’s department.

Usually, I’d roll over and go back to sleep — the life of a would-be writer is great for a non-morning person. But, unrelated to any of the thoughts uppermost in my mind — all associated with Teague and many of them centered on last night — an idea occurred to me.

With a reluctant groan, I climbed out of bed, pulled on sweats under my nightshirt and a sweater over it. I was not used to the chill at this hour. It was way too early even to intercept Donna at the dog park, which Clara and I had on our agenda for the day.

“More straw-grasping?” Teague asked from the doorway of the office.

He was dried, dressed, and groomed. And I hadn’t heard any of it, so I must have been deeply absorbed.

Unless I fell asleep sitting up.

Nah. My hands were on the keyboard and there were results on the screen from my latest search.

“I’ve moved onto chasing wild hares,” I said. That oblique confirmation that what I was looking into connected to ZigZag Jane and not Jayne Ulysee eased his stance, which I hadn’t realized held tension until it didn’t. “Have to see where they lead now.”

“I know how that works. One thing leading to another. Don’t know when or if I’ll get a break today…”

He bent. I tipped my head back. “I know how that works, too,” I murmured just before we kissed.

“I’ll call when I can. Stay out of trouble.”

I widened my eyes. He didn’t understand that I was the sane one. “Of course.”

* * * *

My subconscious must have mulled over ZigZag Jane while Clara and I tracked information on Jayne Ulysee yesterday.

The wild hare that took up residence while I slept was to go back to Louis Kiel in the census, this time looking beyond J.

In 1910, Louis Kiel was listed as married to Florence with two sons and a daughter.

By 1920, the wife’s name changed. Now Zelda. And she’d been born nine years later than Florence, so not a name change. The three kids had grown by a decade, as expected. A fourth — a boy named Ray — was listed at eleven months old.

Could that explain the absence of J.?

In 1910, he’d been a teenager. By 1920, he was probably on his own, possibly starting a family.

You have to know what I did next. You’d do it, too, I’m sure.

I looked up the 1930 census.

Louis Kiel was at the same address as 1920, with no J. listed and no children at home — not even the little one, who would have been around 11. Just Louis and yet another new wife, Mildred.

The man did run through wives.

I broadened my search for J. Kielwegen and Kiel. None with those spellings. And none of the sometimes wildly distant phonetic spellings of the last name fit with the age of the J.

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