Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set by Lise McClendon & Rory Tate

Author:Lise McClendon & Rory Tate
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Private Investigators, Mystery & Detective, Anthologies, Suspense, Collections, Short Stories, Thriller
Publisher: Thalia Press
Published: 2015-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter TWO

THE MANSION LOOKED LIKE IT belonged in France more than in the wooded hills of Kansas City. The kind of place you see in picture books, a fairy-tale castle, big and safe and magical. As if it had survived attacks by angry serfs, its stone walls unassailable, its secrets safe forever in gilded velvet boxes. Tall stone walls, manicured sloping lawns, spotless circle drive— for people with romantic lives, people unlike Dorie Lennox. When you lived in a cramped apartment over a drugstore, fairy tales seemed important. All grown up, she hardly remembered them.

She'd never been to France— Nazi-crushed Vichy France now— but a visit to the Hines mansion was almost as foreign. She'd been here every morning this week, and still it felt odd, a world apart. The stone building sat in watery shadow under tall trees, as if the builders had known nothing could warm the facade. In the circle drive, a green sedan was being washed by the chauffeur. He'd found a spot of dappled sunshine and rolled up his white shirtsleeves over muscular arms. Water from the garden hose sluiced down the cement into the expanse of grass yellowing in the autumn sun.

Amos wore his brown suit again. Maybe he'd slept in it. Dorie wore tan trousers, pressed quickly in the kitchen that morning. No more blue suit; it would have to wait for another funeral. Lennox shivered at the thought as they were ushered into the drafty front hall by the maid. The smell of funerals hung in the air at the Hines mansion.

The maid disappeared. The high ceiling, complete with wood beams, soared above a winding staircase with a mahogany railing and gray-carpeted steps. They wouldn't be going upstairs. The Commander had taken over the library as her bedroom several years back. What about the bedrooms up there? What were they like— gilded paper, ruffles, thick rugs?

She hadn't slept well. It was after two o'clock when she got back to the boardinghouse. She'd lain awake, waiting for something to happen. What was it? Not the six cigarettes that had passed the time. Something was in the air, like a dark cloud or an unanswered prayer.

"Any mail yet?" she asked Amos. "At the office?"

"No." He paced around a marble-top table, running his fingers along the cool edges. Her question seemed to set him off, and she regretted it. It was driving him crazy, with his mother under attack.

Amos cleared his throat noisily, and she squinted at him. Here it comes.

An explosion of coughing. It sent him looking for a bathroom. He'd been doing so well since last fall's bout in the hospital. Hang in, she thought. Don't leave me here alone.

She drew her arms close to her chest. The stone, the walls, the spotless floor, the tabletop— all conspired to freeze her to the core. How did people live in this icebox? Why wouldn't Thalia escape whenever she could? She could still see Thalia in ruby red satin, singing to those googly-eyed men.

Thalia honey, whose hips saw more action than General Pétain.

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