Rett MacPherson - Torie O'Shea 01 - Family Skeletons by Rett MacPherson

Author:Rett MacPherson [MacPherson, Rett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery: Cozy - Genealogist - Missouri
ISBN: 0312966024
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1997-06-30T05:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Water finally claimed the Old Mill Stream. It sat between the Mississippi River and Kassel Creek, and the water was even too much for the sandbags. It was the only place in town that had flooded so far. I was in the second floor of the Old Mill Stream helping the mayor and his wife carry out dining chairs and tables, along with china and linens. I could not believe that I had had dinner there with Colette just a week before.

“Did you see that farmhouse on television this morning?” Zella Castlereagh asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “I can’t believe a house stood for ninety years, and the water just took it away.” I flashed back in my mind to that morning, when I was watching the television. A levee broke in Illinois and washed away a two-story farmhouse as if it were made out of Popsicle sticks. I cried. I think everybody within two states cried.

Zella is a kind woman. She has sparkling blue eyes with auburn hair, now turned slightly gray. I never could figure out why she married Bill. Our mayor is primarily concerned with monetary things. Zella is the furthest thing from that. They bought the Old Mill Stream about twenty years ago, and it was one of my favorite places to eat.

“The house didn’t bother me so much,” Bill said. “It was the dead bodies.”

Yes the dead bodies were enough to send a chill down H. P. Lovecraft’s spine. The water had not only destroyed crops and people’s property; it had flooded cemeteries as well. Dead bodies were floating in the floodwaters of west-central Missouri. Empty caskets floated down the river. I would rather bullfight in a closet than have to round up those bodies and identify them. I thanked God that I didn’t have to.

“I agree, Bill,” I said. “The bodies were … indescribable.”

Bill and I carried a table down the steps. I volunteered to go down backward, since I was a good thirty years younger than he was. Elmer Kolbe and Chuck Velasco were downstairs taking out paintings and other valuables that were not affected by the water. There was about a foot and a half of water on the main level. We were taking things out in case the water got any higher.

My foot hit the water with a splash. I had worn thongs so that I could just toss them in the trash when this was over. Floodwater is disgusting. It felt like little “things” were nibbling at my ankles. God only knew what was in the water. I’m sure the “nibbling” was my overactive imagination.

It was still early in the day. I had started helping the Castlereaghs around eight in the morning. I was getting hungry.

Bill guided me out the front door and we put the table in the parking lot, along with everything else we had taken out of the mill so far. He was going to store as much of it as he could in Wisteria at the U-Store.

“Well, Bill.

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