Cold Justice: A Judge Willa Carson Mystery (The Hunt for Justice) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Diane Capri
said, “I’ve seen murder victims before. I just didn’t expect to find a gruesome one this afternoon.”
“I know.”
“The landscape looked soothing, so pristine and beautiful.”
“I know.”
“A man murdered in a tiny, peaceful hamlet shakes your faith.” That was my problem. I kept forgetting that the gun lobby is right about some things. It is people who kill people. Environment didn’t change basic human nature.
“Confining humans in a small space as harsh as this one and expecting them to peacefully coexist is probably too much to ask for.” George squeezed my fingers a little tighter to signal that he needed his hand back. I let him go and felt immediately bereft.
Snow was falling faster now. He increased the wiper speed.
Something more about the crime scene still niggled at the back of my brain. But it disappeared around the corners whenever I almost grasped it. The best thing was to treat it like a timid kitten and wait until it came far enough into the open to seize it.
George had turned the Jeep onto Main Street. “Let’s get some lunch. We can meet up with Marc and maybe find something else to talk about for a while,” he said.
“You just want to get to Marc and talk shop, don’t you? Have you forgotten you’re on vacation?”
He laughed and said, “Have you forgotten you’re on vacation, too?”
“Fair point.” After that, I sat with my thoughts.
We traveled over the drawbridge on the west end of Main Street, which was perpetually down in the winter since the river froze and no boats could pass through anyway. The snow had been plowed from the grates of the bridge and the Jeep’s tires chirruped as we passed over.
George turned right and traveled along the winding street that followed the shoreline, the frozen edge of Lake Michigan stilled now in ice hard enough to drive snowmobiles across. On the left side of the street sat stately nineteenth-century mansions from a bygone era when the town was ruled by lumber barons.
Nothing much seemed different, though.
Back when George and I were Detroit residents, we visited Pleasant Harbor often. It was a lovely resort town, summer and winter, back then. The deep, cold lake was beautiful in a way completely different from the Gulf of Mexico that surrounds our home in Tampa. Golf resorts and ski resorts and wineries and outdoor activities abounded nearby. Although the population triples with tourists who bring along their Grosse Pointe and Birmingham and Chicago suburban money as well as their big city values, I’d never felt threatened or vulnerable to violence here.
Had the town changed that much since we’d moved south?
True, only those sturdy souls who can survive over 200 inches of snow and subzero temperatures with high levels of humidity, exist here full time. Theirs wasn’t a lifestyle for the faint of heart. Meaning it wasn’t a place where George and I chose to survive. We’d known that back when we lived here and we knew it now.
I considered what George had said about the harsh winter conditions these folks lived in. Maybe, if you were forced to stay here year round, it was like a prison. A beautiful frozen prison, sure. But still a prison. Perhaps cabin fever set in too easily and led to depraved inmate behavior. Seems I read something about cannibals in Wisconsin once.
Which wasn’t an excuse for murder. Never had been. Never would be. We prosecute those who kill in prison, too.
The curious thing was how pink Richards’ body was. I’d seen it before in autopsy photographs of carbon monoxide victims. But this guy hadn’t died from any kind of poisoning, obviously.
The more I concentrated, the less I understood, so I let it go. Temporarily.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We crossed over into what had once been no-man’s land and was now, perhaps, some of the most desirable real estate in Pleasant Harbor.
Milliken Boulevard was a picturesque four-lane that had once divided the town in half, separating the regular citizens
“I know.”
“The landscape looked soothing, so pristine and beautiful.”
“I know.”
“A man murdered in a tiny, peaceful hamlet shakes your faith.” That was my problem. I kept forgetting that the gun lobby is right about some things. It is people who kill people. Environment didn’t change basic human nature.
“Confining humans in a small space as harsh as this one and expecting them to peacefully coexist is probably too much to ask for.” George squeezed my fingers a little tighter to signal that he needed his hand back. I let him go and felt immediately bereft.
Snow was falling faster now. He increased the wiper speed.
Something more about the crime scene still niggled at the back of my brain. But it disappeared around the corners whenever I almost grasped it. The best thing was to treat it like a timid kitten and wait until it came far enough into the open to seize it.
George had turned the Jeep onto Main Street. “Let’s get some lunch. We can meet up with Marc and maybe find something else to talk about for a while,” he said.
“You just want to get to Marc and talk shop, don’t you? Have you forgotten you’re on vacation?”
He laughed and said, “Have you forgotten you’re on vacation, too?”
“Fair point.” After that, I sat with my thoughts.
We traveled over the drawbridge on the west end of Main Street, which was perpetually down in the winter since the river froze and no boats could pass through anyway. The snow had been plowed from the grates of the bridge and the Jeep’s tires chirruped as we passed over.
George turned right and traveled along the winding street that followed the shoreline, the frozen edge of Lake Michigan stilled now in ice hard enough to drive snowmobiles across. On the left side of the street sat stately nineteenth-century mansions from a bygone era when the town was ruled by lumber barons.
Nothing much seemed different, though.
Back when George and I were Detroit residents, we visited Pleasant Harbor often. It was a lovely resort town, summer and winter, back then. The deep, cold lake was beautiful in a way completely different from the Gulf of Mexico that surrounds our home in Tampa. Golf resorts and ski resorts and wineries and outdoor activities abounded nearby. Although the population triples with tourists who bring along their Grosse Pointe and Birmingham and Chicago suburban money as well as their big city values, I’d never felt threatened or vulnerable to violence here.
Had the town changed that much since we’d moved south?
True, only those sturdy souls who can survive over 200 inches of snow and subzero temperatures with high levels of humidity, exist here full time. Theirs wasn’t a lifestyle for the faint of heart. Meaning it wasn’t a place where George and I chose to survive. We’d known that back when we lived here and we knew it now.
I considered what George had said about the harsh winter conditions these folks lived in. Maybe, if you were forced to stay here year round, it was like a prison. A beautiful frozen prison, sure. But still a prison. Perhaps cabin fever set in too easily and led to depraved inmate behavior. Seems I read something about cannibals in Wisconsin once.
Which wasn’t an excuse for murder. Never had been. Never would be. We prosecute those who kill in prison, too.
The curious thing was how pink Richards’ body was. I’d seen it before in autopsy photographs of carbon monoxide victims. But this guy hadn’t died from any kind of poisoning, obviously.
The more I concentrated, the less I understood, so I let it go. Temporarily.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We crossed over into what had once been no-man’s land and was now, perhaps, some of the most desirable real estate in Pleasant Harbor.
Milliken Boulevard was a picturesque four-lane that had once divided the town in half, separating the regular citizens
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