Mountain Ice (David Dean Mysteries)

"How is the decoding coming?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder at her writings.

"Very interesting," she replied. "Just give me a few minutes to finish this page and I'll read it to you. I messed up a couple of letters and have to go back and change them. It would have been much easier if she had separated the words."

"If you have a problem, just wait a little while and ask Annie yourself. According to Effie, she roams the halls at night. It's getting late. She should be out any time now." He told Cynthia about Effie's apparition, then added, "I'm sure it was poor Edith Shipton strolling around the place."

Cynthia laughed. "I hope it was just Edith and not some malevolent spirit that scares away all the guests."

"Don't fear," Dean answered. "I used to be a cop. If I see a ghost and it gives me a hard time, I'll pull my gun and send it packing!" "I'm sure shooting ghosts in town must be against some local ordinance. Sheriff Weller or the police chief would jump all over you." "It wouldn't be the first time," he answered as, Cynthia looked up. "There," she said, putting down her pencil. "I'm not sure what

Annie is saying, but I'm beginning to get an inkling." Dean read the words Cynthia had carefully transcribed:

The night has passed at last though it will be many more hours before the sun shows its golden face to give light to this mid-winter morning. The heat has been lowered now that the men have left and it is oh so cold as I lay huddled here beneath my thin blankets. In spite of the cold, I try to open the window to rid this room of the smoke and whiskey breath of those who visited here, but the frame is frozen fast. I've tried to sleep, all in vain. My mind won't release me from all that has happened since Rev. Martin first visited me, and changed my life.

I gaze out my window as the moon is slowly slipping away and I long for the warmth of the morning. The ice is everywhere. It hangs from the rooftops like daggers nearly touching the ground. The icicles are prison bars on our windows, trapping us, prisoners to this life of sin and degradation, giving miners a few minutes of pleasure for the pittance of coins it takes them weeks to earn in the bowels of the earth, performing unspeakable labors for the wealth of others.

Dean looked up at his wife after reading the strange lines. "Damned!

That doesn't sound like any minister's wife I ever knew!" "What do you make of it?" Cynthia asked cautiously. "It's obvious. She's a hooker. A prostitute. A lady of the night." "We can't be sure...." Cynthia studied the words carefully. "It certainly sounds as if it might be the thoughts of one of-those girls- not Mrs. Martin. The Reverend and his wife were supposed to have administered to the working girls. Do you suppose these are just speculations about how their life might be? Perhaps they interviewed some of the girls."