Free A Lethal Time (A Samantha Jamison Mystery Volume 4) by Peggy A. Edelheit Page A

house.”
    “Why, that’s Jacob’s house!” said Crystal.
    “Well, what was this something he saw?” I asked.
    “ Someone , a man that looked familiar,” said Betty.
    “Well, who was it?” I asked.
    Hazel smiled. “That same guy who was the lumber truck driver that pulled away from Robinson’s.”
    “How is he so sure it was him?” Crystal asked.
    “Not many people around here have bright red hair.”
    Oh, the possibilities on this thing were proving endless.

 
     
     
    Chapter 33
    Crowding & Clouding My Field of Vision
     
     
    I was sitting at my laptop, sorting through all the players that were crowding the field and trying to make sense of my info. It was murky at best, but I was determined.
    This is what I had so far :
    Crystal’s cousin, Sally, and her husband, Tom, owned the farm where we were staying. They had three horses. No, make that four. I forgot Boss that wired stallion.
    Robinson was the neighbor adjacent to Sally, who was now deceased, and had lived down the road from her place.
    The Sarah Smith and her older husband, George, who was deaf, lived down from Sally’s, angled across from Robinson’s place. It was their woods that were stolen.
    Jackson Porter owned the parcel down from Sarah’s at another angle across the dirt road from Robinson’s place. Jackson was an unexpected recipient of pastureland, was also that murdered woman, Helen Mason’s son, plus, he was Sarah’s former employee, a biker, and an experimental cattle owner, who now had his own parcel where I took that embarrassing spill in the drink.
    Did you get all that?
    Millicent and Major Fielding, the elderly couple, lived almost directly across from Jackson on the flipside of Robinson’s property.
    All of them were from Boston, or had some kind of connection to Boston.
    I had yet to meet Jacob, the artist who lived directly across from Sally and Tom.
    At this point in my enquiries my questions were:
    Who stole the lumber from Sally? No clue. Relevant?
    Was it a motive other than money? I doubted that.
    Was I reading too much into the Boston angle? Perhaps.
    Why did Jackson work at Sarah’s? Good question!
    Why did Jackson buy that particular property? Not sure.
    Why would Robinson sell to Jackson? Still a mystery.
    Why did everyone want Robinson’s property? No clue.
    How did the neighbor, Jacob know that driver? No clue.
    What am I going to do about Clay? No clue .
    Do I want to keep my relationship with him? Maybe.
    Okay, so maybe those last two questions had absolutely nothing to do with my mystery, but they sure had a lot to do with my life, or lack thereof.
    You know, I think my cognitive skills were affected, too.

 
     
     
    Chapter 34
    Don’t Even Go There
     
     
    How hard could this be? I was merely inquiring about a simple thing like missing woods. Jacob either knew something or he didn’t. But lately, nothing was proving to be that simple. It was becoming confusing and complicated. Somehow I felt, or was finding out, that a lot of it was interconnected. Was he, too? I was about to find out.
    After a minute, the front door swung open and a tall, wiry, gray-bearded man stood there staring down at me.
    I extended my hand. “Hi, Jacob, my name is Samantha Jamison, and I’m housesitting Sally and Tom’s house across the way for them while they are away.”
    He hesitated then extended his hand. “Where’s Dan?”
    “Oh, he’s gone to visit relatives in Connecticut.”
    “What do you want?”
    Blunt and a bottom-line oriented guy. Good. “May I come in? Sally suggested that I speak to you.”
    “I guess,” he said reluctantly, stepping aside to let me in.
    The minute I crossed the threshold I was assaulted by an assortment of scents: oils, alcohol, thinners, and the like, permeating the air. My eyes traveled over the room, which was covered with canvases resting on or leaning against every imaginable surface. I knew there had to be furniture buried underneath there somewhere, but with the massive