A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

an ear to. That’s all they need. Lindy.” She nodded hard. “I’m not whistling Dixie. I know folks from the inside out.”
    I leaned over and kissed her pale cheek. “You are one tough lady, Meemaw. Don’t you worry. Like we always do—we’ll take it on one day at a time. Together. We’ll handle the gossips. Uncle Amos. Whatever’s ahead of us. Why, we can handle anything—two fine specimens of Texas womanhood that we are.”
    Miss Amelia made a face. “I hope you’re not pokin’ fun the way you do. There’s nothing stronger than a Texas lady.”
    “No such thing,” I teased. “But you do know you can’t use ‘Texas’ and ‘lady’ in the same sentence.”
    Meemaw couldn’t help laughing. “You got a lot of me in you, Lindy. And I’m proud to see it,” she said.
    • • •
     
    Since Mama wasn’t in the house to talk to, I got Miss Amelia to lie down in her bedroom, part of the suite Emma had built on specially so Miss Amelia could be a part of the family but still have a little privacy, be where all us kids couldn’t get at her and where people coming to the house with disasters at the store had to go through a couple of layers of Blanchards first.
    Miss Amelia’s room looked just like the woman herself, I’d always thought. Calming blue walls and flowers everywhere; good paintings by the best Texas artists: long vistas and iridescent light. These were all the things she’d brought from Dallas after my grandfather died. It was all she had left of a life with a Texas congressman who died much too early.
    There was chintz upholstery on the two small sofas in her living room; cornflower blue sheets on her bed; and flowered drapes at her long bedroom windows.
    “I think I’m glad you talked me into coming home,” she said, heaving a weary sigh. “Seems like right now every time I stand up, my mind wants to sit down on me.”
    I pulled back the top sheet on the bed, fluffed the pillows, and after Miss Amelia lay down decorously—shoes off, feet neatly aligned on the bed, hands crossed over her stomach—I kissed her forehead and left, closing the door quietly behind me.
    • • •
     
    Mama was in her office out in the packing barn, where, in November, the pecans got packed and sent off to buyers around the world. Packing was a flurry of sudden activity—many workers sorting and filling boxes. No time to stop. We all got involved in packing. Everything had to be done when the nuts were ripe and falling from the trees.
    Mama, her streaked blond head bent over a desk covered with papers, blue-framed glasses pushed down to the end of her nose, frowned at first when I walked into her sparely furnished office. When her mind was set on something—like finding an error in the figures or fielding a low-ball bid on her pecans—Miss Emma didn’t entertain intrusions lightly. Mama was a pretty woman who was all sweetness and honey one minute and tough as rocks the next. Especially when it came to marketing her pecans for the best price, for finding new markets, and defending her business and her family against all comers.
    Miss Emma’s middle-aged face—with life and character written in soft lines—went from bothered to happy in a second. “Lindy,” she greeted me, “you’re a welcome break.”
    “You busy?” I asked.
    She nodded. “But never too busy for you. Just been hunting for your father’s Pecan Co-op books all morning. Mike Longway called yesterday. He’s the new president and said he wanted to go over the old books, make sure everything was up to date. He said the co-op doesn’t have Jake’s books from back when he was president and wondered if I’d look for them. Trouble is, I can’t find anything. Just his personal check ledgers. Old receipts. Old bills. Nothing directly to do with the co-op. Guess Jake asked Chastity Conway to bring everything up to date when she took over as treasurer, but she says she never got ’em. Next thing Jake was dead and everything was