Aurora Teagarden Mystery Collection by Charlaine Harris

Author:Charlaine Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

Downstairs, at least thirty minutes later, I had recovered my composure. I no longer felt as if I was in heat and would rip Martin Bartell’s clothes off any minute. I no longer felt that he, out of all the people in the world, had the power to look underneath all the layers of my personality and see the basic woman, who had been lonely (in one particular way) for a very long time.

In the “family room,” with my mother and Barby Lampton to provide protective chaperonage, I was able to collect all my little foibles and peculiarities back together and stack them between myself and Martin Bartell.

My mother felt obligated to hold polite conversation with her clients. She had introduced herself formally, gotten over her surprise on finding out that Mr. Bartell’s companion was his sister, not his wife, and had established the fact that Martin Bartell had received good impressions of Lawrenceton in the weeks he’d spent here. “It’s been a pleasant change of pace after the Chicago area,” he said, and sounded sincere. “Barby and I grew up on a farm in a very rural area of Ohio.”

Barby didn’t seem to enjoy being reminded.

He explained a little about his reorganization of the local Pan-Am Agra plant to my mother, a born manager, and I kept my eyes scrupulously to myself.

We waited for the police for a long time, it seemed. I heard familiar voices calling up and down the stairs. I’d dated Lynn Liggett’s husband, Arthur Smith (before they married, of course), and during our “courtship” I’d become acquainted with every detective and most of the uniforms on Lawrenceton’s small force. Detective Henske’s cracker drawl, Lynn’s crisp alto, Paul Allison’s reedy voice…and then came the sound I dreaded.

Detective Sergeant Jack Burns.

I turned in my chair to group myself protectively with the other three. What were they talking about now? Martin Bartell had said he’d been at work every day of the three months he’d spent in Lawrenceton, and had invited Mother to tell him about the town. He couldn’t have asked anyone more informed, except perhaps the Chamber of Commerce executive, a lonely man who worked touchingly hard to persuade the rest of the world to believe in Lawrenceton’s intangible advantages.

I listened once more to the familiar litany.

“Four banks,” Mother enumerated, “a country club, all the major automobile dealerships, though I’m afraid you’ll have to get the Mercedes repaired in Atlanta.”

I heard Jack Burns shouting down the stairs. He wanted the fingerprint man to “get his ass in gear.”

“Lawrenceton is practically a suburb of Atlanta now,” Barby Lampton said, earning her a hard look from my mother. Most Lawrencetonians were not too pleased about the ever-nearing annexation of Lawrenceton into the greater Atlanta area.

“And the school system is excellent,” my mother continued with a little twitch of her shoulders. “Though I don’t know if that’s an area of interest—?”

“No, my son just graduated from college,” Martin Bartell murmured. “And Barby’s girl is a freshman at Kent State.”

“Aurora is my only child,” Mother said naturally enough.

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