Seaweed in the Soup Read Online Free Page B

forward. Up close, the object looked like a brown paper bag. It was about the same size and shape as a human hand. Before I could stop him, Ricketts had reached out for it. At the same instant, a heavy gust of wind roared in from the Salish Sea. Trees shook. Loose branches and other forest litter fell down from the overhead canopy. Instinctively, Ricketts and I covered our heads with our arms and crouched low. The wind continued to howl; we heard a terrific cracking noise. A big old cedar tree with two long overhanging branches was splitting down the middle. One branch fell noisily into the ravine. The old tree swayed unsteadily for a few moment and then fell towards us. The sudden effect was unnerving. Ricketts screamed. I jumped out of the way. The earth shook, and a cavity appeared where the tree’s rootball pulled out of the earth. The boulder shook a little and then moved slightly. After sliding downhill a few inches, the boulder came to rest. Ricketts’ panicked screams faded, and when I turned to look at him, the constable was disappearing headfirst into the root cavity. His head and shoulders were completely covered with loose earth when I grabbed his ankles and dragged him out.
    Ricketts was unhurt. He rested face down for a moment, blinking his eyes and trying to regain his composure. Then Ricketts tried to get to his knees. He couldn’t. Something that had been buried underground had wrapped itself around his right arm. Using my bare hands, I managed to dig him free.
    Ricketts stood up with something dangling from his wrist by a leather thong. It was a sack, about the same size and shape as an ordinary supermarket shopping bag. But this sack wasn’t plastic. It was made of ancient buckskin. The sack’s dirty cracked leather was marked with reddish stains. I used my pocket knife to cut the leather thong away and then I carefully opened the sack. It contained half-dissolved feathers, bits of fur and skin, bones, small pebbles, a chunk of woven cornstalk and small unrecognizable decapitated animals—all of them immersed in a cauldron of clotted blood.
    It was a shaman’s medicine bag.
    Ricketts had been fairly stoic till then, but the awful stink wafting from the medicine bag did him in. He leaned forward, holding his knees, and spewed up everything he’d eaten that morning.

CHAPTER TWO
    Back at the house, I gave the medicine bag to Forensics. Lightning Bradley had already been interrogated, sent home and told to stay near his telephone until further notice.
    Bernie Tapp and Nice Manners were interrogating Mrs. Milton in the gazebo when I joined them. Constable Cynthia Leach had set up recording equipment, and the session was being taped. If Mrs. Milton had been panicked earlier, no signs were in evidence by then.
    Speaking with a trace of a British accent, she was saying composedly, “Oh no, my goodness, I’m the housekeeper but I don’t live on the premises, because I have my own place in town. Ronnie, that’s Mr. Chew, has the downstairs room. He seems like a very nice man, although I can’t say that I know him very well. Ronnie’s only been with us a month or two. He was polite, but his English wasn’t fluent. He never had much to say for himself. He guarded his privacy. If people trespassed on the grounds, he was downright uncivil. I remember that one day when these Jehovah Witnesses came knocking on the . . . ”
    Abruptly, Bernie cut her off. “You’re the housekeeper, and Mr. Chew was employed as a gardener. Is there any more domestic staff?”
    â€œNo, sir. Except for parties, when we need caterers and so forth.”
    â€œWhat about the owners? Why are they not here?”
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Wasserstein? Oh, they have been away in Switzerland for over a month.” She smiled up at us vacuously from a bench seat.
    Bernie shook his head and looked at the sky. “Are you here every day, Mrs. Milton?”
    â€œOh