Murder by Christmas (Edna Davies mysteries) Read Free

possible.”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Mary agreed, “but maybe Kevin knows his cousin well enough to beat him at his own game. They are related, after all.”
    Edna’s stomach clenched again and bile rose in her throat as she thought of the greedy, detestable man who owned and ran Honeydew Home Repairs. About the time of Tom’s death, Norm had accused his cousin and the Davies of being in cahoots to swindle the handyman company. Since then, Edna and Albert had stopped giving Norm their business and relied on young men from the nearby University of Rhode Island’s Kingston campus to provide lawn and minor maintenance work, but they hadn’t yet found anyone who was as skilled or as dependable or as considerate as Tom had been. Edna still missed the kind and gentle man who had become a trusted friend in the short time she’d known him.
    “How’s Al?” Mary’s question jolted Edna back to the present. “Think he’ll be up and around by Christmas?”
    “Albert,” Edna corrected absently and shook her head. “Even if the doctor gives him a flexible leg brace tomorrow, he’s got weeks of physical therapy ahead of him.”
    Turning her thoughts from handymen to her husband, she felt her anxiety grow. Last month, Albert had tripped on their granite front stoop and fractured his knee cap.  For the past few weeks, including the longest Thanksgiving weekend Edna had ever endured, he’d been wearing an immobilizer that extended from his ankle to the top of his leg.  An active man, accustomed to being the physician instead of the patient, he had become increasingly bored and cranky since he’d been forced to sit with his leg raised and extended. She gave an inward sigh. “Catering to his needs has set me way behind in my holiday preparations. Suddenly, Christmas is less than a week away.” She added in what she hoped sounded more joking than serious, “If I don’t get him out from under my feet soon, one of us may not live that long.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
    Edna dropped off Mary and the groceries at her house with a promise to be back in two hours. They would be spending the afternoon baking a variety of Christmas desserts for both households. First though, Edna needed to make lunch for Albert. She also had to have a serious talk with him about his injury and recuperation.
    The cloud cover had thickened since she’d driven off earlier that morning, and she thought again of her two youngest children flying home this season. It just won’t be fair if they don’t make it home this time, she thought . Her mind drifted back over the last three years and the events that had prevented Grant from visiting Rhode Island. First, his wife Michele had died in a tragic skiing accident. Two months later, he’d remarried, and his second wife had nearly died last fall during her pregnancy. Then, they’d had to cancel their travel plans this past summer. Edna had a foreboding about this season. If her son didn’t make it home … She shuddered, unable to complete the thought. As she drove around the circular, broken-shell driveway up to her front door, she pushed her unreasonable fears to the back of her mind and forced her attention on the two-story house with its weathered-gray shingles and country-blue trim.
    After her husband sold his share in a medical clinic and retired, she and he spent considerable time searching for their ideal retirement home, driving from Rhode Island to South Carolina and back before finding this three-acre property in their own home state.  Southern Rhode Island had everything the Davies enjoyed, from beaches to farms and woodlands.  In nearby Kingston, the University of Rhode Island offered educational opportunities as well as plays and concerts, and the cultural wealth of Providence was less than an hour’s drive away—close enough to take in an occasional dinner and play or concert, but far enough so Albert wouldn’t be pestered by former patients stopping