The Butcher

The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier

Book: The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Hillier
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cholesterol than he was.
    And there were a few nurses on staff that were diddle-worthy, not that his pecker worked anymore (it had died around 2001, and only that marvelous drug known as Viagra could raise it from the dead now), but it was still nice to ponder. Certainly the female residents were nothing to get excited about. Most were halfway to dying, and the ones that weren’t were so damned wrinkled you couldn’t tell their pussy holes from their belly buttons.
    He had a few buddies here, old-timers like him who enjoyed admiring the nurses’ asses as much as he did (discreetly, of course—making open comments about women’s body parts was seriously frowned upon nowadays, and could be construed as harassment, though in his day they called it making a pass ). He liked his Monday and Thursday night gin rummy games. The macaroni and cheese they served on Sunday nights was better than edible. And on the first Wednesday of every month, a busload of them got to go to the Tulalip Casino, where theyhad an All You Can Eat Buffet and five-cent slot machines and cute little Indian waitresses who served watered-down cocktails with umbrellas in them. Good times, indeed. It’s how they kept the old folks busy. Sweetbay Village might be fancy, but it was still essentially a storage unit for elderly people with nothing but time to kill until death came for them.
    It could be depressing. While the brochures for the place showed smiling, happy seniors enjoying their retirement in the luxury of the Village, the real message was that you lived here because you were old and could no longer risk living on your own. When Edward had bruised his hip, he knew it was time to move on, but he still missed his house. He missed the spaciousness, the way the floors creaked, and the backyard filled with berry bushes. He especially missed the magnolia tree in the front yard, which he’d planted a few days after he and Marisol had moved in, which was now full grown.
    He drove by the house regularly in his old Seville, usually when he was bored, which was often. He hadn’t been surprised to see that Matthew had begun renovations on the house. His grandson had talked about building a huge deck out back, and work had started, judging from the giant piles of lumber stacked at the side of the house, and the holes dug deep into the dirt.
    Had they found the crate? Edward thought he had buried it pretty well, and though it wasn’t likely, it was still a possibility that the workmen had dug into the ground in the exact spot where he’d hidden it all those years ago. If they’d had found it, Matthew hadn’t said anything about it. Yet.
    But if and when it ever happened, Edward was ready for that conversation. Part of him hoped Matthew would say something. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t. Every man wanted to pass on his legacy,and Edward was no different. It just wasn’t quite the legacy Matthew would be expecting.
    But Edward believed the kid would understand. Matthew reminded Edward so much of himself. The ambition, the aggression, the darkness that seethed just below the surface . . . it was all there, just waiting to be unleashed.
    He’d seen Samantha’s little white Mazda parked in the driveway a couple of times, but not lately, and he wondered how those two were doing. Edward approved of Sam. She was a sweet, respectful girl, and he could appreciate her intellectual curiosity. They talked often about Edward’s career in law enforcement, and he was happy to regale her with stories of rapists and murderers and, of course, the Butcher. Who didn’t like having a captive audience? One day, when Matthew was ready, she’d make a good wife and a good mother. She was a bit of a free spirit, maybe spoke her mind a little too much, but Edward had always liked his women spirited. He liked it when they fought back.
    Yes, he liked Sam. She reminded him of Marisol. He wondered how much he would

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