Jerusha Jones - Imogene Museum 06 - Shift Burn by Jerusha Jones

Author:Jerusha Jones [Jones, Jerusha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery: Cozy - Museum Curator - Washington
Publisher: Jerusha Jones
Published: 2014-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Talk about exhaustion. Everyone I knew, including myself, had been run ragged the past week. I bundled Greg and Frankie off for the evening and triple-checked the locks on the Imogene’s front and basement doors. All the window frames on the main floor had been painted shut decades ago — and not by a measly single layer of paint, but by coats and coats and coats. Anyone trying to chip their way into the building would take long enough that the deputy patrols would catch them in the act. We were as secure as could be, given the circumstances.

I figured the jumble in the basement would be a deterrent as well, if a thief made it that far without detection. Somewhere, I’d read that mass confusion serves as an effective defensive tactic. I was counting on it.

We’d returned the lion head to its box, and Greg had even reaffixed the lid. Now it was buried in among the rest of the cases. It was probably one of the more valuable pieces, but for the moment it was a needle in the proverbial haystack.

I almost joined Tuppence in hanging my head out of the pickup’s window on the way home. The dry heat made me so prickly that I squirmed on the seat. I hadn’t realized just how hot it was outside since I’d spent the afternoon in a relatively cooler basement.

Pete greeted me with an even warmer kiss at our current home base — the campsite. The Tinsleys’ farmhouse stood alone across the expansive lawn, next to the charred wreckage of their barn. Soon it would be our responsibility. While I wanted it, very much, I was also a little scared of it. I just hoped to cross two or three major things off my list before I took on another one.

“I’m not cooking tonight,” Pete said, “and neither are you. Way too hot to use the oven or stove. I can’t even bring myself to fire up the barbecue.”

“Do we have ice cream?” I asked.

“I might have picked some up at Junction General.” He crinkled those blue eyes at me.

“You are a man after my own heart.”

“I know.”

We lounged in lawn chairs in the shade, trying to eat fast, before the chocolate chunks ended up swimming in pools of melted cream.

I dangled my sticky hands off the ends of the armrests and slouched. “How was the painting?”

Pete shook his head. “I hate painting when it’s this hot. Dries too fast. But I did the parts that needed it most. Installed a new shower head and performed maintenance checks too.”

The Surely might be small but she’s mighty and strictly utilitarian, both in form and function. Pete and his crew — Al Cordova, the engineer; Bert Mapes, deckhand; and Carlos Cordova, younger brother to Al and second deckhand — live aboard her for long stretches of time when they’re pushing loads. They can tow up to five barges at once, but the cargo is rarely all from the same customer.

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