A Purple Place for Dying Read Online Free Page A

A Purple Place for Dying
Book: A Purple Place for Dying Read Online Free
Author: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled
Pages:
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the gate and left it open. We headed up the gravel road.
    "Now where do you fit in this, Mr. McGee?"
    "Through a mutual friend. Fran Weaver. Mrs. Hyde Weaver, a widow, an old friend of Mona Yeoman. She visited Mona a while back. I've wanted a place where I could complete a project, and have total privacy, and keep expenses down at the same time. Fran suggested Mona's cabin. I got in touch and she agreed to Ioan it to me. I flew in at noon today. She met me at Carson and drove me to the cabin. She showed me the place. It was agreeable to both of us. I was to have the use of the Jeep. With a pry bar and a little sweat I could clear that rock slide. We went out to the edge of the drop
    there. She wanted to show me the view. And all of a sudden the slug knocked her down dead."
    "Why Carson instead of Esmerelda?"
    "I have no idea. She suggested it. Maybe she had an errand over there."
    We came to the rock slide. He pulled as far over to the right as he could get, and the other car stopped beside us.
    "Call for an ambulance?" Dave asked out his open window.
    "Let's take a look first, boys. What kind of project, Mr. McGee?"
    "It's an operating manual for pleasure boats."
    "Writing one? Damned dry place to come to write about the water."
    "If Mona and I could reach an understanding, I was going to have my stuff shipped here. It's all crated up." I sighed. "It would have been a nice quiet place to work."
    We climbed over the loose rock and walked up the road. Buckelberry and I were in the lead. I was getting a little tired of that road. It was nearly five o'clock. I was definitely getting tired of walking. When we came around the last bend, I saw the roof peak of the cabin. We went up the last twenty feet of slope and I said, beginning to point, "She's right over…" I stopped and stared at the absolutely bare expanse of sun-baked earth and rock. The three of them stared at me. I felt my mouth stretch into a foolish, apologetic smile. "The body was right over there, I swear."
    They shrugged. We walked over. I realized there would be blood. I knew that slug had gone through her, and blown a pretty good hole in front. I knew right where she had gone down. I sat on my heels. There was a place there that looked as if dirt and stone had been scooped out and the area patted flat again, but I couldn't be certain. I looked at the drop. If anybody had scooped the stained earth out of there and heaved it over the edge, it was gone for good.
    I stood up and said heartily, "Well, she left stuff in the cabin."
    We went to the cabin. The door was locked. "When I left, Sheriff, I left this door open." Three faces stared at me with heavy skepticism. Buckelberry shrugged and began to feel around on the porch joists. After a few minutes he found a key and looked at it, fingered the mat of cobwebs off it. "You opened it with this key, McGee?"
    "She had a key with her."
    We went inside. It had the flavor of having been empty for months. Hat, purse and jacket were gone. The glasses were gone. The leather cushion was back on a chair. I remembered snapping a cigarette into the fireplace. Mrs. Yeoman had not smoked. I crouched and looked for my cigarette. That was gone.
    "Now what the hell?" Buckelberry said irritably.
    I described her car. I described exactly how she was dressed. I told them just where the bullet had hit her, and what it had sounded like.
    They stood and stared at me. Buckelberry winked at Homer Hardy.
    Homer said, "I see what you meant, Sherf, about not calling for the ambulance."
    "Go on out and rest yourself in the shade, boys," Buckelberry said.
    They went out. I heard Homer laugh. Buckelberry told me to sit down. He sat on the bunk. "This was a damn fool idea, McGee."
    "I don't know what you're talking about."
    "Why, that fool woman has been threatening to run off with a college teacher for months. She's been after old Jass for months to turn her loose. Jass has been kidding around town, telling people it's no worse than a bad case of
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