Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) Read Online Free PDF

was a secret stairway in there somewhere but she never would let us look for it. She pretended she didn’t know where it was, but I’m sure she did. Said she was afraid the steps might be rotten and we would fall through.”
    “Well, whoever might have been there is probably gone now,” Augusta said, “although I’m afraid we haven’t heard the last of this. And I would hope your friends from the police will check to see if there really is a stairway there.”
    “Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked.
    “I suppose it all depends on what they were doing out there in the first place.” Augusta gently dislodged Clementine from her lap and stood, shucking her serious tone. “At any rate, it’s a bit early to worry about it just yet. Would anyone else like hot chocolate?”
    Ellis waved her hand in the air. “I would! But doesn’t anybody want to hear my news?” I yawned. “What news?”
    Ellis shrugged. “Well, if you really don’t want to know … “
    “Depends,” I said. “Does it involve scandal, intrigue, or romance?”
    Ellis grinned. “Romance.”
    “Whose? Yours?” I asked.
    Ellis laughed. “Of course not! Bennett and I are
married
—not that we don’t—oh, never mind! It’s about Idonia,” she said.
    I think I gasped, but shame on me if I did. “Idonia?
Idonia Mae Culpepper?”
    Ellis nodded. “The very same.”
    Augusta stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded.
    “I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t your friend have love in her life?”
    “Well, she should … could … I guess,” I stammered while Ellis readily agreed. “Of course, of course,” she said. “It’s just that … Idonia … well … “
    Augusta twined her necklace through her fingers. “Well, what?”
    “It’s just that she’s
Idonia,”
I admitted finally. “Actually Idonia was married briefly when she was a lot younger but it didn’t work out. He turned out to be a rotten apple.”
    “An
apple?”
Augusta shook her head.
    “Ran around on her,” Ellis explained. “Rotten to the core. She’s been kind of sour on men ever since.”
    Augusta paused in the doorway. “A sour apple … I see,” she said, although I wasn’t sure she did. “So what were you going to tell us?” she asked Ellis.
    Ellis paused to get the full benefit of our attention. “Idonia has a gentleman friend,” she announced.
    “Really? Who? Anybody we know?” I asked.
    “Does the name Melrose DuBois ring a bell?” she said.
    “Should it?” I laughed. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? You made that up. Nobody is named Melrose DuBois!”
    Ellis stood to follow Augusta into the kitchen. “Idonia’s fellow is. Works part time for Al Evans over at the funeral home. I think he and Al are cousins or something.”
    I trailed along after them. Clementine trailed after me. “How do you know all this?” I asked.
    “Opal Henshaw told me. He’s taken a room with her at the Spring Lamb.”
    “God help him,” I said. The Spring Lamb is a bed-and-breakfast, so called because of the two cement lamb planters filled with plastic flowers on either side of the front door. I hoped Idonia’s friend didn’t have a big appetite because he wouldn’t get much to eatunder that roof. Opal Henshaw could squeeze a nickel till the buffalo bellowed.
    “When did all this come about?” I asked, adding a dollop of whipped cream to my hot chocolate. For some reason since Augusta arrived I’ve had trouble zipping my pants.
    “Opal tells me he’s been with them about a month,” Ellis said. “I think he and Idonia met at Harris Teeter over a bunch of grapes. He asked her to help him pick out some fruit.”
    Probably to supplement the breakfast menu
, I thought. “Romance in the produce department … sounds like the title of a book. Has Idonia said anything to you about him?”
    Ellis sipped her hot drink slowly. “Not yet, but The Thursdays are meeting at my house Monday. What do you bet we get a full report then?” She