Vultures Coming Down - Chapter One of a murder mystery

Chapter One- Vultures Coming Down

Lois notices turkey vultures circling in the pale morning sky as she wraps a thrift wool coat over her boney shoulders. A cool walk along the rocky Lake Michigan shoreline always cures her typical hangover.  Seagulls screech and soar near the vultures, but the vultures are claiming territory near the cliff up ahead.  Running her knobby fingers through her thick, wavy, gray hair, Lois invites the lake breeze to cool her throbbing head.  She should have brought water, she realizes now, as her coarse sticky tongue licks her dry lips.  She knows better than to take her morning walk without water.

Wearing her prize Birkenstocks, a steal for only two dollars from Saint Vincent’s in Green Bay, Lois still finds walking on the limestone rocks a bit challenging to her bad sense of balance.  Her left hand takes it’s usual position reaching out from her side to steady her frail frame during her trek.  She feels grateful for the overcast sky, subduing an otherwise brilliant sun, but the seagulls’ chatter pierces her aching temples.

With the pace of a careless wanderer, Lois walks further down the shoreline, closer to the inlet where the vultures are displaying interest.  Her nose does not catch a whiff of dead fish, which she expects when she sees vultures and seagulls at the beach.  She carries on, taking weary breaths of healing clean air, wishing the wine away.  She takes turns watching the birds in the sky, and looking down at the precarious path before her, taking care to switch her gaze slowly.  Her head thumps less with her gaze at the white stones, so she decides to pay no more attention to the busy birds.  Instead she passes inanimate objects washed between the smooth tumbled stones- zebra mussel shells, dead weeds and reeds, slimy moss and algae, dried moss and algae, smooth sticks, fish bones, and more of the same...

to be continued.  This novel is currently in process.