Swamp Spook by Jana Deleon

Author:Jana Deleon [Deleon, Jana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1940270588
Amazon: B07J5DBT4T
Publisher: J&R Publishing LLC
Published: 2018-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Meg Roth lived in a cottage a couple blocks from Main Street. It was one of those gingerbread-looking sorts of places, painted a sky blue with white trim and a box of flowers lining the front porch. A wooden swing completed the picture. And it was a pretty one. Just not one I imagined most twenty-six-year-old young women were interested in inhabiting.

“I don’t want to offend anyone,” I said, “but this looks like a house her grandmother should be living in, not someone in their twenties.”

Gertie nodded. “It does look like it was stamped out of a Dr. Seuss book. She inherited the house from her great-grandmother. It was the one thing she owned free and clear from the family trust. She purchased it for her maid so she could have her own space.”

“She must have really liked her maid,” I said.

“Velbeena came to her from an orphanage at age 16,” Ida Belle said. “The great-grandmother was barely 19. Velbeena tended to her until she passed at age 70, then died a couple weeks later herself. The family buried her in their cemetery.”

“Is Meg a trust fund baby?” I asked, trying to get a feel for the woman I was about to meet.

Gertie shook her head. “She has a fund that her father controls. He could have turned it over when she was twenty-four, but he elected to remain in charge. I think he gives her enough to get by but not enough for fancy living.”

“Seems rather rude given that he’s set up a woman closer to his daughter’s age than his own in the height of luxury in the family home,” I said.

“You’re not the only person who feels that way,” Ida Belle said. “A lot of people around here don’t agree with the way Garrett handled Meg, but he always insisted that she had to grow up before he entrusted her with a large sum of money. I’ve seen young people get a lot of money and it’s rarely turned out well, so it’s hard to argue with him.”

“So since her father was stingy, does she work?” I asked.

“Something with computers, websites I think, but a lot of her time is spent volunteering,” Gertie said. “Charities, churches, natural disaster teams. She’s good at organization. Very precise. Everyone’s happy to have her.”

“You said she went off to college, right?” I asked.

“Yes and no. She went to university in New Orleans but lived in Garrett’s condo. His requirement,” Gertie said. “I think she got a business degree and worked for a couple years for her father, but then she quit it all and came back here. She’s never really said why and trust me, plenty of people have asked. All she’ll say is it ‘didn’t suit.’”

Ida Belle snorted. “Didn’t suit. Didn’t suit whatever man dumped her is my guess.”

Gertie sighed. “I hate to agree with Ida Belle and her ‘men are evil’ stance, but I’m afraid she might be onto something in this case. She had that look that young girls get when they’re moping around over a romantic entanglement.

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