Cold Justice: A Judge Willa Carson Mystery (The Hunt for Justice) Read Online Free Page B

on the east side from those confined in the asylum on the west side. A train ran between them alongside the boulevard for good measure.
    “Would you have lived there?” George asked, pointing toward the castle-like estate ahead.
    The former Eagle Creek State Hospital had once been another type of prison. A jewel in the crown of medicine so bright it had boasted a two-year waiting list for new patients. I believed the waiting list had resulted back then partly because conditions in the asylum were better in many ways.
    “I’d have tried,” I said, only too happy to embrace the distracting change of subject.
    “Why?”
    “The hospital was fully equipped with electricity long before the town. That alone would have enticed me to enter.”
    “Because?”
    I was a constant reader and he always teased me about it. “Light to read by at night instead of an oil lamp or a candle.”
    He laughed. “But surely that’s not all?”
    “Two more things.”
    “Which are?”
    “Remember I took that tour of the place when we were here last time? Did you know it had two sets of underground tunnels, one for its sophisticated steam heating system and another for moving people that connected the buildings? Thus,” I raised my index finger, “heat without hassle. I wouldn’t have had to chop wood or haul coal. And,” I raised my second finger, “asylum residents never needed to venture outside in the damn frozen tundra. That sounds like heaven right about now.”
    We’d entered the grounds. Various buildings were spread over several acres of what was probably lawn under all that snow.
    “This place is amazing and beautiful and awful and creepy all at the same time, isn’t it?” George asked.
    It was.
    Through sixty years of its history, the grand old buildings served as an asylum for patients with communicable diseases, mental disorders and, it was said, a place to imprison uncontrollable menopausal women.
    As treatments and vaccines and pharmacology improved, budgets dwindled until the facility eventually closed. That was long before we moved to Tampa. Over the decades, some of the buildings had been condemned and demolished. Restoration of the others had to have been a nightmare.
    “What happened to the patients, I wonder?” George asked.
    “Our tour guide said there weren’t many left at the end. The last few were simply released. They literally opened the doors and let them walk away. Which increased the local homeless population exponentially,” I replied.
    Could one of them have murdered Leo Richards? I quickly shook my head as soon as the idea surfaced. The murder was too well planned and executed to have been the work of a mental patient.
    These days, the entire Eagle Creek Village complex had been reborn into a multi-use historical district filled with specialty boutiques, offices, condominiums, apartments, an inn, and restaurants. Some things hadn’t changed much, though. Eagle Creek Village also boasted a two-year waiting list as its predecessor had.
    “They’re doing a masterful job with the restoration,” he said.
    George turned left down a two-lane driveway that opened onto a flat gravel lot. He parked the Jeep near the front door of what had once been the sprawling main building of the hospital and was now called Eagle Creek Village Center. This was where our friend Marc had relocated his Cafe.
    There was no sign out front. For many years the only five-star restaurant in Northern Michigan, Marc’s tony eatery didn’t need a sign to advertise its presence to potential diners. Word of mouth had kept the restaurant full to overflowing when it had been located a few miles south of town. Now that it was housed in prestige and surrounded by history, reservations stacked up like magic.
    George turned off the Jeep and looked toward me. “Let’s not talk about the murder to Marc. I’m sure he’ll find out soon enough.”
    “Works for me.”
    Trooper Kemp would be calling this afternoon. More statements