Free The Cold Blue Blood by David Handler Page A

for work before dawn and was regularly gone for days at a time. Mitch didn’t know what he did for work, but he decided he had to be in the CIA. His wife, Bitsy, was a chubby hausfrau who spent endless hours in her garden, where she grew flowers and vegetables with spectacular success.
    Mitch they utterly ignored. No one welcomed him. No one invited him over for a drink. He was sharing the island with them, but he was not one of them.
    His sleeping loft was not wired for electricity. In order to read in bed, Mitch found it necessary to buy an oil lamp at the village’s magnificently cluttered hardware store. Dennis, the jovial, applecheeked owner, assured him it would also come in plenty handy during hurricane season. Having established that Mitch was a new resident, Dennis insisted on opening an account for him. And when Mitch gave him his address he was treated to quite some reaction.
    For one thing, the name Niles Seymour did not go down too well around the tubby shopkeeper. “He still owes me two hundred bucks, the cheap bastard,” Dennis snarled, his round cheeks reddening. “You’d think he could settle his accounts with the poor local business people before he flies the coop on her.” For another, the man seemed genuinely startled by the news that Dolly had rented out her carriage house. “You are a brave man moving into that place,” he confided to Mitch over the counter in a low, husky voice. “Me, I don’t think I’d have the nerve.”
    Dennis did not elaborate. And Mitch did not have the slightest idea what he meant. But he did wonder—same as he had wondered when Bud Havenhurst said he hoped Mitch wouldn’t have any reason to feel sorry.
    Mitch was toodling home on the Old Shore Road in his truck, puzzling over this, when a state trooper in a gray cruiser came up on his tail, flashing his lights at him. Mitch pulled over onto the shoulder and waited. Out climbed a tall, broad-shouldered figure in his fifties wearing a trimly tailored uniform and a wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat. His sideburns were a bristly gray, face square and leathery, posture erect, stomach flat. One look at him and Mitch immediately thought of Randolph Scott in A Lawless Street .
    “Was I speeding?” Mitch asked him incredulously through his open window. “I didn’t think I could even go fifty without a strong tail wind.”
    “No, sir, nothing like that,” the trooper said politely. “I recognized the old truck. Didn’t recognize the man behind the wheel. I figured you must be Mr. Berger.”
    “That’s right …”
    “Just wanted to say hello. I like to get to know folks. Answer any questions they might have.” He stuck a big brown hand through the window. “I’m Tal Bliss, the resident trooper.”
    Mitch shook it. “So you’re the welcome wagon?”
    Bliss smiled at him. “Yessir. Something like that.”
    “That’s very nice of you. I appreciate it.” Mitch decided it would be more neighborly if he got out and joined him. He did so—and immediately felt utterly dwarfed. Tal Bliss was at least six foot four, and that was without the big hat. With it, the lawman was a calm, soft-spoken giant.
    “You’re a good deal younger than I imagined,” he said to Mitch, waving at two old characters in a Jeep as they passed by. “When I heard you were a widower I was expecting an older gentleman.”
    “Believe me, it came as something of a surprise to me, too.”
    “I lost a lot of my friends—and myself—in ’Nam,” Bliss said quietly. “Never did think I’d heal. The hardest part was being patient.” His eyes drifted over to the nearby salt marsh, where an osprey was wafting on the breeze, circling. “This is a good place for it. You picked a good place.”
    “I’m glad to hear that,” said Mitch, who was not expecting to have this conversation with this particular stranger.
    “Dolly’s an old, old friend, you know.” Bliss kicked at the hard dirt with the toe of his boot. “We grew up