Read Otherworld 11 - Waking the Witch for Free Online

and the receptionist chimed in with creaky titters.
    “You know what would make that story even funnier?” I said. “If it was the other way around, and ol’ Mel was whaling on his wife with the frying pan.”
    The older cop scowled at me. “That wouldn’t be funny at all.”
    “Kinda my point.”
    They all continued to stare. I reminded myself that ignorance is not idiocy. Or so I’m told.
    “I don’t get it,” the younger cop finally said.
    I was tempted to explain. Damn tempted. But mocking them probably wasn’t the best way to make a good first impression. “I’d like to speak to Chief Bruyn.”
    “He’s not here,” the receptionist said.
    “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
    “He went out.”
    “Can I make an appointment for later?”
    “He’s not here.”
    Sometimes you’ve got to figure that small-town people pull the rube routine just for us city folks, a passive-aggressive way of telling us to go fuck ourselves.
    “Can you give him my card then?” I asked. “I’d like to speak to him as soon as he gets a chance.”
    The receptionist took it and laid it facedown on her desk, where I was sure it would accidentally slide into the trash the moment I left. The younger cop picked it up. He looked at me. Read it, lips moving, then pursing.
    “Private investigator?”
    “Yep.” I flashed my license. “That’s why I’d like to speak to Chief Bruyn. I’ve been hired to investigate Claire Kennedy’s murder and I wanted to touch base with him first.”
    When no one said a word, I took that as a dismissal and left.

five
    M y first big solo case and I got redneck morons for law enforce-meant. Figured.
    A tiny voice in my head—one that sounded a lot like Paige—said I should have kept my mouth shut about the frying pan incident. I doubted that would have helped, though.
    I decided my next step would be to visit the diner I’d noticed downtown. As I walked, I tried to take in my surroundings, get a better sense of the town, but it was too damned depressing. Empty storefronts. Empty streets.
    Even the few people I saw looked empty. Hopeless. Agaunt middle-aged woman standing in the window of a store festooned with Going Out of Business signs. Two boys no more than thirteen, kicking a can along the side of the road, skipping school and not caring who noticed. A pregnant teenage girl sitting on a dilapidated bench, as if hoping someone would drive by and whisk her off to a better life.
    The diner looked like your stereotypical small-town eatery, right down to the vinyl seats and beehived waitress in a frilly dress better suited to someone half her age—and size. The patrons were all on the far side of fifty, most courting heart disease and diabetes, most wearing clothing bought in the last millennium.
    I sat at the counter, ordered coffee and a slice of pie, then chatted with a couple of customers. Both were balding. Both wore button-down plaid shirts and jeans. Both seemed to have made the diner their new home after the sawmill shut down. The only way I could tell them apart was the accent—Bill’s was local and Jacob’s sounded like he’d come from the Southwest.
    After some chitchat, I said, “I hear a young woman was murdered here about a week ago. I don’t need to be worried, do I?”
    “Not unless you plan to join that cult of wackos up on the hill,” Jacob said.
    The server rolled her eyes. “It’s a
commune.”
    “Same difference.”
    “There’s a commune around here?” I asked.
    “Cult.”
    “Commune,” the server insisted.
    I pushed my mug toward her for a refill. “Let me rephrase. There are people engaged in a group living arrangement that doesn’t conform to social norms?”
    The server—Lorraine by her name tag—laughed. “That’s a good way of putting it. They aren’t brainwashed cultists waiting for the aliens to come and take them away. Just nice young girls with a different way of living.”
    Jacob snorted. “Nice young girls living with one old guy