If Fried Chicken Could Fly Read Online Free PDF Page B

season.” My stomach dropped. I’d told myself I had to be strong, but had I really said that? “That sounded awful. I think I’m just tired.”
    “I understand,” Jim said cautiously.
    I’d known Jim Morrison forever and never once had there been a moment of question in his eyes or his voice about me or whatever I had done. Even when I was a teenager and accidently forgot to pay for my gas at the Rusty Chicken corner convenience store Jim hadn’t suspected I’d done it on purpose. He called my parents who greeted me as I arrived home.
    “You forget something, Isabelle?” Dad had asked, reading glasses on the tip of his nose and the newspaper in his hands.
    “No.”
    “Did you gas up the car?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you pay for it?”
    “Of course.”
    “Think about it. Did you go into the store and pay for it?”
    “Oh. Oops, I don’t think I did.”
    “Yeah, Jim called. You’re not a very good thief. Oren’s working the store and he saw you. Plus, Jim was in the store. You might not want to steal gas when your cousin’s working and the local police chief is grabbing a Snickers bar. Run on back there now.”
    I hurried back to the Rusty Chicken, paid for the gas, and decided then and there that crime in a small town just didn’t pay.
    But it seemed it might have today. Someone put that plastic bag over Everett Morningside’s head. Someone killedhim, right where lots of people came and went. I’d gone through my day with Jim, but I wasn’t sure I’d remembered everything.
    “It’s all right, Betts. These kinds of things take everyone off their game in one way or another.” With his left-hand slant, Jim wrote my name on the top of the cards he’d used for my fingerprints. He filed them in the back of the big black case that held the rest of his low-tech stuff. “I think we’ll be able to get all the evidence gathered tonight. I’ve called in a couple crime scene techs. They’re on their way. I should have everything I need by morning, but I’ll let you know if I don’t.”
    The swinging doors boomed open, startling both me and Jim. Gram came through the opening first. She was followed by Cliff and Everett’s body on a stretcher. I didn’t know the two EMTs pushing the stretcher, but I suspected one was from the Bennigan family—his big blue eyes gave him away. The other one was probably a Stover, or at least he reminded me of Bud Stover, the overseer of the other cemetery in town—the bigger one, which had its own share of famous dead people.
    The group was rolling toward the front door and to the ambulance, I assumed to transport Everett to Morris’s office, when the sheet they’d used to cover the body somehow slid off and onto the floor. Those Bennigan blue eyes got bigger and he and the other EMT tried to hurry and cover poor Everett again. An instant later, the crowded reception area became even more crowded as the front glass door also flew open.
    A woman I’d never seen before looked at everyone, her eyes finally landing on Everett’s still-uncovered body.
    She was short and comfortably round. Her face was older but not very wrinkled, and her short gray hair was fine and almost fluffy as it danced on her head.
    “Everett!” she exclaimed as she hurried to the stretcher and hugged his neck, plastic bag and all.
    “Ma’am, can I help you?” Jim said as he took her arm and gently pulled her away from potential evidence.
    “My Everett! He’s dead! Someone killed him! Who?” She stood up straight suddenly and looked directly at Gram. “Are you Missouri Anna Winston?”
    Gram nodded, confusion wrinkling her forehead.
    “You did it. I know you killed him.”
    Gram suddenly looked more concerned than confused. “Ma’am, like Officer Morrison said, can we help you with something?”
    “Who are you?” Jim asked.
    “I’m his wife! And she…she’s the one! She must have killed him!” The woman pointed at Gram.
    Gram looked like she was going to say something else, but I