Goldman, Matt - Gone to Dust by Goldman Matt

Author:Goldman, Matt [Goldman, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

18

I sat across from Robert Somerville at his kitchen table made of reclaimed wood, half excited to read Maggie’s love letters and half afraid of getting a splinter. Robert handed a box to me, cardboard but printed up to look like it was made of an old map. I reached into my front pocket and removed a pair of latex gloves. I’d convinced my dental hygienist to slip me a gross. They were deep purple, but they worked.

Each letter had been stored in the envelope it arrived in, slit open with a letter opener on the side. The envelopes were sealed with their own adhesive, the peel-and-stick kind. There was no saliva to test for DNA. Both the envelope and the letter had been written on a computer and printed on plain white office paper, no return address, no handwriting anywhere. And the envelopes had been postmarked from various post offices around the Twin Towns.

Twenty-seven love letters. The writer had been careful not to identify himself. No moments or references to places or people, just professing his love for Maggie Somerville. Real love. Unselfish love. I read sentences like, You deserve happiness and love more than any person I know. And, Your generosity of spirit makes this world a better place. And, Your beauty, inside and out, makes me happier to be a man than anything else on this earth. And all signed, I will love you until the end of time.

I was sure Andrew Fine didn’t write them based on their content and lack of grammatical errors.

“These are remarkably not-creepy,” I said. “Any idea who could have written them?”

“None. Like I said, I only read a few, and they just made me feel like a shitty husband. Are you going to turn them over to the police?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They can dust the letters for fingerprints, but chances are the prints won’t be in the system. These are hardly the rantings of a criminal mind. They can analyze the ink, but that will only narrow it down to a few hundred thousand printers in town. Are you comfortable with me taking them?”

“Of course.”

I looked at the dates on the postmarks. The earliest was two years ago and the most recent a week before Maggie Somerville was murdered. Then I packed the letters back into their decorative box. “How are the kids holding up?”

“They’re not,” said Robert. “They’re having a terrible time. They loved their mom an awful lot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Listen, I was wondering if you’re okay with me being at the funeral tomorrow.”

“Sure, if you think it’ll help with your investigation. My only request is that you stay away from the kids.”

“Understood. I will be there strictly as an observer.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Hey, I talked to the insurance company today. They said Maggie had named the kids as co-beneficiaries on her life insurance. A million each, which I was surprised to hear.”

“Maybe that’ll cover a couple years of college by the time they get there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.