Read Murder in a mill town for Free Online

reddening.
    “Aw, come on, Evie knows the score,” Otis said as he set about rolling another cigarette. “Mr. Harry, he don’t want nothin’ to do with her. All’s he wants is a Bridie Sullivan, or one of them others, to lift her skirts for him up in that fancy office of his.”
    “Others?” Nell asked.
    “Bridie ain’t hardly the only one,” Otis said. “There’s always at least half a dozen of the girls at his beck and call. ‘Harry’s Harem,’ we call ‘em. He’s got a window on his office door with some of those what do you call ‘em...Venetian blinds on it. Whenever the blinds are drawn, you can bet everybody knows just what’s goin’ on in there.”
    “Bridie’s the main one, though,” Mary said. “Or was. You shoulda seen him when she was around. Couldn’t take his eyes off her. It’s like she’d put a spell on him.”
    Ruth said, “Evie, don’t listen to them. They don’t know what they’re talkin’ about.”
    Otis made a sound of disgust. “You ain’t doin’ Evie no favor, tellin’ her that. For cryin’ out loud. Harry Hewitt ain’t lookin’ for no mill girl to fall in love with and take home to Mama, ‘specially some mousy little hayseed like—”
    “You shut your mouth,” Luther demanded. “Just shut your mouth.”
    “I ain’t sayin’ nothing Evie don’t already know,” Otis said. “Why don’t you tell your sister not to get all moony over a rich pretty boy that ain’t never gonna look twice at the likes of her? Here she is, all wrung out over Mr. Harry and eaten up with jealousy over Bridie Sullivan, when—”
    “Evie!” Luther called out as his sister bolted up and raced off into the woods. Rising to his feet, his face blood-flushed now, he turned to face Otis. “You made Evie feel bad.”
    “Luther,” Cora said quickly, “go after your sister. Go on,” she urged, pointing to the woods.
    Luther hesitated, looming over Otis with his big hands contracting into fists as if of their own accord. Still grinning, Otis struck a match and lit his cigarette, but his hands, Nell noticed, were just ever so slightly unsteady.
    “Evie needs you, Luther,” Cora urged. “She might be crying.”
    Luther looked toward the woods, then back at Otis, his jaw set, rage sparking in his eyes. When he turned and ran off after his sister, everyone, Nell included, slumped in relief.
    “That Luther, he’s like a big kid most of the time,” Ruth told Nell. “But when he gets riled, he don’t know his own strength. He beat a man bloody last year—almost killed him—for talkin’ lewd to Evie.”
    “Otis,” Cora said, “what were you thinking, baiting him that way?”
    “Me and him are friends,” Otis said through a stream of smoke. “He’d never hurt me.”
    “Don’t you be so sure,” Ruth muttered.
    “You done with that pitcher yet?” Mary asked Nell. “I’m achin’ all over from holding myself so still.”
    “Just about,” Nell said as she added some unnecessary shading. “You know, something doesn’t make sense here. If Bridie was...well, if she and Mr. Harry were...you know...then why did he fire her?”
    “Seems he didn’t like to share,” Otis said, to appreciative laughter from the mill girls.
    “He found out about Virgil, then?” Nell asked.
    Otis nodded as he drew on his cigarette. “Happened last Friday, when they rung the evening bell at six-thirty. Mr. Harry, he’s standing out in the courtyard, talkin’ to some fella. These ones—” he indicated his female companions “—they’re all whispering and giggling, on account of this fella’s looks. I swear, I thought they was gonna swoon dead away. They can’t resist a fella that dresses like he’s got a few shiners in his pocket.”
    The girls exchanged dreamy smiles and little moans of yearning.
    “It wasn’t his clothes, you bonehead,” Cora said. “That fella had a face like on one of those Roman statues, and you’re just jealous ‘cause girls don’t look at you that