Doubled Up (Imogene Museum Mystery #2) Read Free Page B

very long. They make me feel off-balance — tilted, while my brain tries to make sense of them. So better they’re buried in a grave than out in public view,” I said. “Weird.”
    “ And worth something to somebody, which means I don’t want to leave them in this trailer with the lock busted,” Sheriff Marge said.
    “ I can keep them in my office,” I replied. “I’ll research them. Should we contact the Rittenour Gallery?”
    “ Not yet. I need to get my notes in order first. But, good, your office will be fine for now.” Sheriff Marge pulled her gloves off. “Is the driver in the kitchen?”
    “ Yes.” Rupert turned to walk with Sheriff Marge.
    “ Can you send Ford out with a transit cart?” I called. “There’s no way I’m taking this crate up to my office.”
    Rupert waggled the okay sign.
    As soon as I stopped moving, a chill crept deep into my flesh, making me shiver from the inside out. I retrieved my raincoat and jammed my good arm into the sleeve.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 2
     
    A few minutes later, Ford Huckle, the museum ’s groundskeeper and handyman, pushed a transit cart with a squeaky wheel out the museum’s front entrance and around to the back of the trailer. His perpetual grin revealed more gaps than stumps of teeth.
    Ford was wearing what he always wore — dirty olive green coveralls and mud-caked boots. Today, though, he also had a floppy-brimmed camouflage fishing hat tamped down on his head with the drawstring pulled snug under his jaw.
    “ Here you are, Missus Morehouse,” he said.
    “ Thanks, Ford.” I shook my head. The ‘missus’ always gets me. I think Ford knows I’m not married. But he calls all women ‘missus,’ so I suppose it’s his way of showing respect. Ford grew up in an era when kids with developmental disabilities were classified as ‘slow’ and no one bothered to figure out why or if anything could be done to help them.
    I crouched and placed a statue on the cart ’s protected second shelf since it was starting to sprinkle again.
    Ford knelt beside me and picked up the anteater/boar figure. He turned it over in his large, calloused hands and fingered the long snout. “What is it?”
    “ Some kind of animal, I expect.”
    “ Not from these parts.” He placed the statue on the cart and reached for the water buffalo.
    “ Nope,” I agreed. “It’s a mystery.”
    “ You goin’ to display these?”
    “ Not for us. For another museum. We’re just going to keep them safe for a while.”
    “ Pop whittled better’n this. Made me a Noah’s ark when I was a tyke.”
    I examined Ford ’s lined face as he placed the last figure on the cart. “Do you still have any of your dad’s carvings?”
    “ Got used for kindlin’ one hard winter. I’d outgrowed ‘em anyway.”
    I pondered that bit of information. I mourned the great loss reflected in such a simple statement — the loss of what was probably interesting if not valuable folk art, the loss of a parent-child bond held in an object lovingly made, the loss of childhood innocence when toys were burned for survival. I inhaled sharply before the dreamy past sucked me in too far — one of the perils of the job. I often find myself imagining walking around in other people’s skins, looking out through their eyes, when I handle the things they’d used.
    “Do you have a rain slicker, Ford?”
    “ Forgot. Goin’ back to get it after I help you.”
    “ Good. How’s your new septic system?”
    “ Everythin’ drains.”
    Talking seemed to exhaust Ford. I ’d maxed him out with this verbal spurt —  it would be a while before he was ready for another chat.
    I straightened and waved to Dale who was methodically scanning the ground in an arcing radius around the truck and trailer. Ford followed me along the sidewalk pushing the noisy cart. I held the doors open for him. We rolled past the gift shop, across the oak parquet floor of the main ballroom and