Death by the Riverside by J. M. Redmann; Jean M. Redmann Page B

making too much noise, or worse, losing my hold and sliding back down. I just had to hope that it wasn’t a black widow. I gained another few inches with whatever it was still on my neck. Finally it crawled away, perhaps off me, more likely onto my shirt or my hair. Then my elbow landed on a nail. I almost jerked it back, but my foot started to slip. I pushed my elbow into the nail, ignoring the pain. There was more crashing and cursing in the basement. I moved myself up a few inches more and got my elbow off the nail. I vaguely wondered if there was any possible way that I was current on all my immunizations, like tetanus. Ignoring my bleeding elbow, I slid up a little farther.
    My head ran into something. Since I didn’t have a free hand, I wiggled a little closer and turned my head so I could feel whatever it was with my cheek. Wood. Cheek to cheek with a board.
    I inched myself farther up, so that during the next big crash in the basement, I could thrust against the wooden covering. I hoped it was very rotten.
    Hanging suspended, trying not to cough, I listened to the search in the basement. Finally, I was rewarded with a muffled “Look out” and the sound of a bed frame and springs falling over. I hurled myself up at the cover.
    Bless Mother Nature, with her rust and rot. The wood itself held, but the rusted hasp easily pulled out of the rotted wood. I flung one arm over the edge, and, adding a number of scrapes and bruises, pulled myself out and into the dawn.
    I quickly looked around, ignoring my throbbing knees and elbows. I didn’t want to be staring down anyone’s gun barrel.
    Fortunately, plants grow very well around here. With no one to cut them back, vine-covered azalea and oleander plants had surrounded the chute opening. No one was around. I carefully closed the door, so that no light would show if anyone looked in, then I took my gun out of my rope belt and clicked the safety off.
    The safest thing to do would be to head for the road and snag a passing car. But that shot I had heard nagged at me. I had to make sure it was Milo who had been disposed of.
    I found what had once been a break in the bushes and edged myself through it. It was still early morning, made grayer by the clouds obscuring the dawn. My feet were getting cold and wet from the dew. I started to head for the front of the house, but I heard voices there and decided that the other direction would do just as well. The voices were coming my way, so I ducked around a corner. I saw a set of outside stairs that led up to a porch on the second floor. Treading as lightly as possible, I climbed them. The two top steps were broken, and I had to take a long step to gain the porch. Hopefully the voices weren’t headed this way. The porch didn’t seem very trustworthy; the far end was listing badly and a number of boards had a crumbly rotten feeling under my feet. The listing end also had something that looked like a thick piece of black wire, if thick black wire could move by itself.
    There was a screen door leading back into the house, a direction I found appealing. I gingerly opened the screen door, hoping the rusty hinges wouldn’t make too much noise. The door came off in my hands, the hinges making no noise at all as they were no longer attached. I gently leaned the door against the wall. Whatever door had been behind the screen door was gone.
    I was in the upstairs hallway. To my left was the narrow staircase from the kitchen. It went up another flight. To my right was a room, showing the decay this house had fallen to. Unless, of course, those discarded tampons and condoms were antebellum.
    Voices from down in the basement drifted my way. It sounded as if they were coming up. I headed farther upstairs. The third floor was only two rooms, perhaps a sanctuary and watchtower for some previous owner. The stairs led directly into one room, which had a door to the other room. From one window I could view the river in all its misty gray-brown