-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
even down here in the back of beyond. Beside him, Curley was beginning to smell pretty rank, though the
man had a shower fetish that was probably a symptom of mental illness.
The air conditioner had gone out on the trip from Austin, and the inside of the Pontiac could have baked
bread. The map on his lap was limp as he re-folded it to follow the thin line that was the road.
The oiltop was better than dirt but still was full of potholes and wrinkles where log trucks had braked
before turning into tracks into the woods. The county map was large-scale, so it was fairly easy to check
off homes they passed, dirt tracks that seemed to wander away to no place in particular, and the long
lanes that often led to abandoned houses or barns.
When they came to the right turnoff, with the dot that marked the McCarver house at its end, he realized
they were so far back in the woods that anywhere they went from here would be headingout . Why
would an old woman want to live by herself way down here?
Curley turned into the lane and bumped over a badly kept cattle-guard. Just beyond that there was a
wide stretch of pasture that ended in a wall of trees so big he couldn't imagine how they'd missed the
attention of loggers, long years ago. As the car jounced along the bumpy dirt track, there came the shrill
cry of a hawk and the raucous cawing of crows.
A fox skittered across the dusty lane ahead of the car, and Curley slowed even more. The springs
wouldn't take too much of this, they both knew. Breaking down here would be a bother, because he had
been assured that telephone service didn't come within miles of this area, and their cell-phone was out of
range of a carrier.
When they rounded a sharp bend and saw the warped gray wood of a gate ahead, Curley pulled up and
they both stared at the house beyond the falling-down fence and the overgrown yard. On the porch, an
old fashioned swing moved uneasily in a gust of breeze, while a scarred tomcat stared them down from
his perch on the top step.
Feeling somewhat odd, August opened the door and stepped out into the talc-like dust. Anybody
home? he called. Mrs. McCarver, are you here?"
There was no response from the house, though the cat thrust one hind leg into the air and proceeded to
wash his bottom industriously.
"She's not here, he said over his shoulder to Curley, who was now locking the car. Might as well look
around see if she's got more than she ought, on an income of three thousand dollars a year."
He was already feeling that this was a wash-out. Nobody who could afford to move would live here,
that was beyond question. He wished now he had opened the mailbox up at the main road to see what
kind of mail she had. It might be illegal, but he understood better than anyone how much the agents in his
service could get away with. With the IRS the subject was guilty until proven innocent, not the other way
around.
The gate creaked open, and he motioned Jim Curley to go ahead to the house, while he looked around
for anything suspicious in the outbuildings. But the sagging shed contained only a dusty 1979 Chevy,
cobwebs, and rotted bushel baskets.
The only other structure was quite obviously a privy. He stuck his head inside, but a wasp zoomed at his
head, and he ducked back and shut the door. The nest under the roof looked as big as a football.
Shaking his head, he moved toward the back porch. The door there was nailed shut, so he went around
the side of the house to reach the front. There Curley was standing, back hunched, staring into the gloom
of the interior.
"I don't like this much, Augie, he said. It smells funny in there, and I feel like something's watching us.
Besides, the floor's so soft we might fall through."
Rambard could feel the ancient planks move under his own feet, but this was business. They had to do
their job.
"I'll go inside. I'm a bit lighter than you. You stay out here and see if there's anything hid under that
wood-box on the end of the porch. He took a tentative step inside, realized that the floor was sounder
than it seemed, and closed the screen door behind him.
He found himself in a room that extended the entire depth of the house, combining the functions of sitting
room and kitchen. There were two doors on his right, one leading into what was obviously a bedroom,
the other into the half of the house that was about to fall down.
She used a wood-burning cookstove, he saw, noting in his book that this indicated poverty of a pretty
dire sort. That and the privy, too. Still, she ought to know about that Choa fellow, and he wanted as
much information about her as possible before meeting her.
There wasn't much food in the kitchen home-canned stuff in glass jars, mainly, a sack of flour in a bin,
a tin canister filled with cornmeal, some herbs hanging from hooks in the back wall she didn't eat well,
that was certain.
He moved into the bedroom. Women always squirrelled away the important stuff there, usually under the
mattress. On the small table by the window sat a kerosene lamp and a big, thick book. Looked antique
... maybe worth a lot of money?
He reached a tentative finger to open it, finding it filled with crabbed handwriting, whose ink had faded [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl