Read Bones & Boxes: a Hetty Fox Cozy Mystery (Hetty Fox Cozy Mysteries Book 1) for Free Online

day the report was updated. It said a suicide note had been recovered from her home, and it was now thought the woman had plunged to her death deliberately. Mrs. Whitcomb’s sister, a Paula Barstow, had apparently told police her sister had been depressed, although the article did not say why.
    The obit on a later page, listed a husband, Arthur Whitcomb. He’d died two years earlier. There apparently were no children. Other relatives included the surviving sister and a nephew.
    I rewound the film and started over again, this time pouring through the pages to see if I could find any more information on the deceased. Midsummer, I found an article in the business section which listed Mrs. Whitcomb as a newly named bank officer at First Federal. It seemed an unlikely appointment for someone who was allegedly depressed.
    Satisfied that I’d collected as much information as I could, I returned the film to its drawer and set off for Rose’s house.

SIX
     
    After leaving the library, I headed straight for Rose’s house. My search had taken me  longer than I’d expected. I only hoped I hadn’t missed the appointment with the nephews.
    “They should be here in another half hour or so,” Rose said as she slammed the door shut behind me. I couldn’t blame her. A nasty wind had come up and was pushing cold air into her living room right along with me.
    “Let me have your things,” she said. I shifted out of my winter gear and passed them to her.
    After squaring them away in the closet, she said she had a coffee cake in the oven. “I hope you don’t mind hanging out in the kitchen until the boys arrive?”
    “It’s always been my favorite room. So tell me, are you nervous at the thought of the family about to descend?”
    “Some. I haven’t seen the boys since they were little. Jennifer used to come down once in a while, but not the boys.”
    I laughed inwardly at her use of the word boys to describe Carrie’s nephews. They had to be full-grown men by now. My thoughts next turned to Carrie’s husband. I wondered if he’d been the reason that box had been concealed behind the wall? He very well might have been a jealous man. The kind of man who would not take kindly to the idea of his wife stashing away memories of a youthful love.
    I could only hope Carrie’d enjoyed a better relationship with her employer. “So what would it have been like, cleaning for Mrs. Whitcomb?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “It couldn’t have been easy. That woman was a tiger.”
    “Mrs. Whitcomb was difficult, too?”
    Poor Carrie.
    “Yes, she was as bold as Carrie was meek. I doubt my friend got away with much.”
    I sat at the table. Rose proceeded on to the sink, where she grabbed a clean mug from the dish drainer.
    “When is Jennifer coming?”
    “She’s not due in until just before the visitation.”
    “I’d think she’d want to hang out with her brothers for a while before the service.”
    “I don’t think anyone in that family was all that close. Not Carrie or her sister or the kids.”
    “Huh. I hope the nephews don’t mind our having sorted through the house.”
    “That’s not down to us,” she said, delivering steaming coffee mugs to the table. “Jennifer was the one that wanted the work done. I suspect we’re safe. I doubt they wanted to be bothered with the work.”
    “That’s not so unusual. Carrie wasn’t their mother, after all.”
    Rose snorted. “Or ours, either.”
     
    ***
     
    A strong headwind that day blew the two nephews into Rose’s house later than we’d been expecting. But now they stood, tall and windblown in the hall, while I collected their coats. Their names, I learned, were Hank and Chester.
    The latter looked to be the older brother and was perhaps somewhere near fifty. Hank appeared to be about ten years younger. But they both looked so little like each other that, if we’d not been introduced,  I’d never have dreamed they were related.
    Chester, with his gray hair and round