Page 16 of Deathtoll
Murph had gone to high school with him. Both of them had done tours in Afghanistan, although not anywhere near each other.
Gabi rolled her eyes. “He’s refinishing the basement. Brace yourself. We’re about to have a man cave.”
“Yeah? Tell him I can help, if he needs another pair of hands…”
“You can tell him at Finnegan’s tonight. You going?”
“I guess.”
He had no illusions that Kate would let him stay with her. And, because Emma would be there, he was mostly okay with that. Kate wouldn’t be alone, at least.
“One slip and that’s that.” He looked around in the narrow space, pictured Betty, the fall, then dying alone. “She deserved better.”
Leaves covered the ground, most of them newly fallen. From where he stood, he could see the pile Kate had started in the backyard. The brick walkway was mostly clean, passing by the outside basement entry that had a cement block frame and double metal doors.
He shook his head at the blood on the cement block. Betty’s kind, smiling face floated in his mind. “A damn shame for something like this to happen.” He turned to Gabi. “Mind if I go inside the house?”
She raised an eyebrow without lowering the camera, focused on what she was doing. “Miss police work?”
“Sometimes.”
“Front door is unlocked. Go ahead.”
Murph hurried back across the recently cut lawn to Betty’s front door. He wanted a peek before the captain came back outside and told him to mind his own business.
A country-blue hooked rug protected the slate tile floor in the foyer, a small hall table to his right, with a mirror hanging above it.
Betty’s house was identical to Kate’s in design, but here, original finishes had been kept, from the worn brown carpet in the living room to the checkered orange linoleum in the kitchen, the fridge in avocado green. Nothing out of place. Certainly nothing that would have given Murph pause back in his Broslin PD days.
The place wasn’t a crime scene, but he pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his fingers as he opened the cabinet under the sink. An empty pill box sat on top of the garbage in the plastic bin, label side up. Over-the-counter sleeping pills. He didn’t touch it.
He walked around until he found another garbage bin in the laundry room, this one for recyclables. He didn’t touch that either, merely observed the four carefully rinsed yogurt cups that lay on the bottom, two peach flavored, two blueberry.
Murph walked out not knowing much more about Betty Gardner than when he’d walked in, but he knew this: She hadn’t died taking out the garbage.
Chapter Five
Asael
Asael looked through the peephole of his room at the Mushroom Mile Motel.
Past the abandoned front parking lot, a row of houses sat quietly on the other side of the road, their inhabitants at work. Beyond those houses, nothing but unspoiled Pennsylvania countryside. Nobody in sight.
The squeaky-voiced cartoon that had been playing for hours in the next room would not quit. From chairs scraping the floor, from children shouting now and then, Asael knew exactly where each of the three kids and the two adults sat over there. He could take them out through the wall.Five bullets.But that wasn’t why he’d come to Broslin.
And, in any case, he’d checked out already. They would no longer bother him.
He reached for the doorknob and stepped outside, right as the damn maid tootled around the corner of the building.
“Oh, hello there!” She wore a crisp yellow uniform and an entirely unwarranted, ridiculously toothy smile—the epitome of small-town cheeriness. “I’m Maisy.” Her blonde ponytail swung as she stopped in front of him. “Everything all right, hon? You let me know if you need something.”
He gave a curt nod. He’d asked for a room with outside entry, specifically so he wouldn’t have to run into people or walk by the receptionist every time he went in and out. The damn place was crawling with nosy employees.
“Where are you from?” this one wanted to know. Then, without taking a breath, “Here for the Mushroom Festival?”
Small-town people.Everybody’s damn business was their damn business. He reached back for his suitcase.
“Oh, you’re leaving early.”
