'Tis the Season Murder by Leslie Meier

Author:Leslie Meier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHRISTMAS CAROL MURDER

Prologue

IVCET

That was easy, thought Jake Marlowe, cackling merrily as he wrote EVICT in the blanks of the word jumble with a small stub of pencil—waste not, want not was his favorite saying, and he was certainly not going to discard a perfectly usable pencil, even if it was a bit hard to grip with his arthritic hands—and applied himself to the riddle: “Santa’s favorite meal.” Then, doubting his choice, he wondered if the correct answer was really CIVET. But no, then the I and C wouldn’t be in the squares with circles inside indicating the letters needed to solve the riddle, and he needed them for MILK AND COOKIES, which was undoubtedly the correct answer.

He tossed the paper and pencil on the kitchen table, where the dirty breakfast dishes vied for space with a month’s worth of morning papers and junk mail and, pressing his hands on the table for support, rose to his feet. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up his beaky nose and adjusted the belt on his black-and-brown–striped terry cloth bathrobe, lifting the collar against the chill. The antique kerosene heater he used rather than the central heating, which guzzled expensive oil, didn’t provide much heat. He picked up his empty coffee mug and shuffled over to the counter where the drip coffeepot sat surrounded by old coffee cans, empty milk containers, and assorted bottles. He filled his stained, chipped mug with the Downeast Mortgage Company logo and carried it back to the table, sitting down heavily in his captain’s chair, and preparing to settle in with the Wall Street Journal.

INTEREST RATES HIT RECORD LOW read the headline, causing him to scowl in disapproval. What were the feds thinking? The economy would never recover at this rate, not if investors couldn’t reap some positive gains. He snorted and gulped some coffee. What could you expect? People didn’t save anymore; they spent more than they had and then they borrowed to make up the difference, and when they got in trouble, which was inevitable, they expected the government to bail them out. He folded the paper with a snap and added it to the stack beside his chair, a stack that was in danger of toppling over.

Jake had saved every issue of the Portland Press Herald that he’d ever received, as well as his copies of the Wall Street Journal, and since he was well into his sixties that was quite a lot of papers. They covered every surface in his house, were stacked on windowsills and piled on the floor, filling most of the available space and leaving only narrow pathways that wound from room to room.

Jake never threw anything away. He literally had every single item he’d ever owned stashed somewhere in the big old Victorian house. Pantry shelves were filled with empty jelly jars, kitchen drawers were packed to bursting with plastic bags, closets in the numerous bedrooms were stuffed with old clothes and dozens of pairs of old shoes, the leather cracked and the toes curling up.

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.