Just Me - M J Marlow (reading strategies book .txt) 📗

Just Me - Finding out you are not who you think you are can lead to unforeseen consequences. The sky was heavy with clouds and there was a brooding in the atmosphere that warned of the storm to come. At such times as these, I became agitated as if I too were brooding. But my mind wasn’t thinking of storms and atmospheric phenomenon. My mind was, when it was not occupied with whatever subject I had been asked to research, thinking about a certain golden-haired man who had just been elected Sheriff of our small town of Briarton, Iowa. Joseph and I had gone to high school together and I had always fantasized about having him in my life. But I was a plain bookworm and he was a golden god who every female from 17 to 40 panted after. The fact that he had been one of my closest friends since I had come to Briarton when I was fourteen made no difference. “Margaret Mason,” I chided myself as I turned from the windows of the kitchen with my mug, “you are hopeless.” I had just caught sight of him at the house he shared with his sister and brother-in-law across the stream from my home. Our morning ritual, I smiled. He would always wave to me if he saw me in the kitchen on his way to work. I made a habit of being here at the same time every morning for exactly that reason. “How is lover boy looking this morning?” my friend, and mentor, Professor Maxine Troughton said as she poked her head in the kitchen. She had brought in the latest requests for my skills and set them in my box in the office in what had once been the library of the mansion. “God, Maxie!” I choked and whirled from the window. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.” “You are wasting your life here in Briarton, Maggie,” the silver-haired woman shook her head. As the head of the Briarton College English Department, she was also my employer. As head researcher for her department, I was responsible for gathering information on every subject she and her teachers needed. I had traveled the world of literature and learned the history of the world for places I had only ever dreamed of visiting. “I’ve seen some of the requests you get,” she continued as she parked herself on the edge of the desk and shook her head at me. “London, Paris, New York! You could travel and meet people outside of this nowhere town.” “I happen to like this town, Maxie,” I replied as I sat back to look over her outfit of the day. Today’s color scheme was orange. At least four shades of that color were caught up in her stylish pantsuit and blouse and the scarf she had used to hold back her thick hair. “Has anyone called you a pumpkin yet, you old dear?” “Not to my face, Maggie Mason,” Maxine made a face at me. “I am a professor with tenure. Only you would be so openly disrespectful as to tell me I look like a pumpkin.” Maxine had taken me under her wing from the very first day I had started college. She seemed to have an over-developed maternal instinct and had taken my poor orphaned self to her heart. The fact that I was a naturally gifted researcher who tended to drift into solitary mode quickly had been a constant trial to her over the years. She was forever trying to get me to come out of my shell and experience more of life than that of a researcher for our small town’s English Department. She had become a substitute for the mother I had lost when I was seven. “I’m the only one at the college who does not quake at the sight of you, Maxie,” I laughed. I stretched my back and held my hand out for her mug. It was not there for once. “No tea?” “No, thank you, dear,” Maxine shook her head. “I have meetings all morning and a lunch date with Harrison.” She saw my face and shook her finger at me as she mentioned the head of the college, Dean Stanton Harrison. He was a few years older than Maxine, and as much her polar opposite as it was possible for a human being to be. I still could not understand what she saw in the man. “At least I have a gentleman friend, Maggie Mason. You’re only twenty-four. You should be out on hot dates every other night.” “I might do that if my employer would quit putting new research projects in my In Box,” I teased her. “You know how I hate to let my In Box remain full.” I took the folders out and added the date they had come in to the label. “Any of these have a deadline on them?” “Just the one on the Grady murders,” Maxine shivered. “Some author from Minnesota is looking to write a book about them and wants every last detail you can scrounge up.” “Maxie,” I frowned at the woman. “I asked you not to loan me out like a tool, didn’t I?” Once again she was ignoring my wishes. I was quite happy with my quiet little life. But she was forever pushing at me to do more. Several other colleges had made me offers to come work with them, but I had refused them all. So Maxine had started sneaking in projects I knew had nothing to do with the current curriculum as a favor to her friends and peers at those other schools and in other walks of life. What would she say if she knew this new project was more than mere research to me; that the Grady couple had been my parents? I had hoped I would never have to tell her about that part of my life but I now felt it was time to share it with someone I trusted. “I thought you’d like this one,” Maxie replied, brushing off my complaint as she always did. “Mr. Kellogg is going to be in town for the next few weeks and would like some preliminary data as soon as you can compile it. He’s already registered at Lenore’s B&B, so he’s expecting you to have dinner with him on Saturday, six p.m.” “Maxie!” I sighed as I went to the closet and pulled out a box of files. “I already have everything there is to know about those murders,” I told her as her eyebrows rose. “The Grady’s were my parents, Maxine. I was put in the orphanage after they were killed.” “Maggie,” Maxine looked distressed. “You never told me about that.” “Uncle Craig told me I should never tell anyone, Maxie,” I said with some regret. “He said that the people who murdered my parents could find me if I let anyone know the truth,” I laid my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry,” I cried in dismay. “I’ve always known I could trust you, but…” “I understand, Maggie, dear,” Maxine hugged me and tweaked one of the coppery curls that were always falling down over my eyes. “Your guardian was probably right. As I remember it, the authorities never did find the murderer or murderers.” She could see it was time to change the subject and saw the Out Box. Her eyes widened. “How do you get it done so fast?” she asked as she took the completed work with her and slid it into her attaché case. “That’s what I’d like to know.” “I don’t have a life,” I reminded her. “Remember?” She laughed and kissed my cheek and left the office trailing her lavender and vanilla perfume along behind her. I adored Maxine Troughton. I just wished once in a while she wouldn’t try to run my life quite so thoroughly. I remembered I was going to get some tea and left my small office to go to the kitchen. The fact that I was allowed to work from my home gave me even more time to dedicate to my research. The man who had become my guardian when I was fifteen had left it to me when he died four years later with the proviso that I be allowed to live there until I died or no longer wished to reside there. Since I allowed the college to use the building and property from time to time they had let me attend school tuition free. This mansion had been used in more amateur student films over the past seven years than I cared to remember. I had been at work for nearly five hours when there was a pounding on the front door. I went to answer it and no one was there. A car was just pulling away from the curb and I watched it go, frowning. On the stoop was a package wrapped in brown paper. I opened it and inside was a photograph of a woman who looked a great deal like me. I dropped it to the floor as I saw the blood and backed away, whimpering. Across the photograph was written ‘Let the Grady family rest in peace’ in large red letters. “Sheriff North please,” I stammered into the phone as I made the call. “Joseph,” I continued once he came on the line, “I need you here at Evergreen House. Someone just left me a very disturbing package.” I set it on the hall table and let it sit there as I went to get more tea. I was sitting on the stairs holding the cold cup in my hands, and staring at the package as if I expected it to harm me, when the Sheriff came pulling up. “There,” I nodded to the hall table and did not move. “Someone just dropped it off on the stoop and drove off.” Sheriff Joseph North was just twenty-five and one of the handsomest men I had ever known. He had the golden looks of a Nordic prince I had always fancied and his deep blue eyes were always snapping with humor. Right now, however, they were filled with concern. He went out to this car and returned with a large plastic bag and plastic gloves. He bagged the offensive thing and took notes on what I could tell him. “How could anyone know I was approached to do this research?” I asked him as I watched him work. “I just got the request five hours ago when Maxie stopped by on her way to campus.” I shivered. “Is someone watching me?” “Tell me about the car, Maggie,” Joseph interjected as he recognized the signs of panic in me. He was used to my imagination running riot when I was nervous and had learned that trick years ago. “You said dark,” he prompted and I shot him a grateful smile. “Black, blue, green?” “Definitely black,” I said. “Heavy and square, so I’d say an older model of a Chevy or like type vehicle. The license plate was obscured.” I thought about it, isolating the image in my mind as I had been taught. “It was covered in mud, but whether that was deliberate or not I couldn’t say.” “You should have been a detective,” Joseph smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder. “You have a keen eye for detail. It’s going to make it a lot easier for me to find the bastard that sent you this package.” He kissed me on the forehead and for a moment we both forgot about the thing he was holding in his hand. He leaned closer and I whimpered; the sound reminding him he was not there for kissing. “Have you had lunch yet?” Joseph