Larceny and Old Lace Read Online Free PDF Page A

influenced by a Yankee. If you ask me, we should build an electric fence along the Mason-Dixon line. Then you’ll see. Our crime rate would plummet.”
    â€œAnd so would our sales, Wynnell. What percentage of your sales is to tourists?”
    â€œThere are southern tourists as well, Abigail. We don’t need murdering Yankees to survive.”
    I prayed my most frequent prayer, the one for patience. “The police haven’t fingered a Yankee, Wynnell. At this point the killer could turn out to be anybody. Who knows, it could even turn out to be you.”
    â€œThat isn’t funny, Abigail. I was going to apologize for what I said about your aunt yesterday at breakfast, but now maybe I won’t.”
    I could feel Wynnell’s withering look from four shops away. The woman missed her calling. Somewhere there’s a classroom full of unruly kids who could benefit from the juxtaposition of Wynnell Crawford’s eyebrows.
    I succumbed to temptation. “Wynnell, dear, just the other day I heard that not only did you have a Yankee in your woodpile, but it was Sherman himself.”
    â€œWhy, I never!” she said, and slammed down the phone.
    Peggy got through next. She must have been horny again, because I could hear her chewing. Peggy isn’t married and, unfortunately, has an exceptionally strong libido. When Peggy can’t fill her sexual needs, she does the next best thing and fills her stomach. Peggy would be fat if it wasn’t for the exercise she does get those times she’s lucky enough to have sex.
    â€œAbigail?”
    â€œIs it blueberry or pumpernickel?” Mama can smell trouble. I like to think I can smell food over a phone.
    â€œCinnamon raisin. Picked it up at the Bagel Works Delicatessen. There’s a new guy working there who’s to die for. Oops, sorry, Abigail. Sorry about your aunt, too.”
    â€œThanks, dear. You aren’t by any chance calling becauseyou’re nervous about something you said at breakfast yesterday?”
    Who knew a bagel could be deafening? “What? I don’t know what you mean, Abigail.”
    â€œI think you do, dear, but not to worry. We all shoot our mouths off from time to time, and then live to regret it.”
    There was a moment of silence and then the sound of throat muscles trying desperately to forward the bagel on to the stomach. Even cartoon pythons aren’t that loud.
    â€œI only said she was tacky, Abigail. I didn’t threaten her.”
    â€œBut you preferred her out of the way, didn’t you, Peggy?”
    â€œI’d prefer to get rid of some wrinkles, too, but I have yet to get a face-lift. And those alpha hydroxyl creams I use don’t count. They’re more like wishing your lines away—which is kind of like what I did to your aunt. I wished her away. I didn’t kill her.”
    I wished Peggy a good day.
    My daughter Susan called next. Susan has had one year of general studies at the University of North Carolina here in Charlotte, and already she knew more than her father and me combined. One more year and she would have been a match for Phil Donahue.
    â€œMama!”
    â€œHey, Susan. I suppose you heard the bad news about your great-aunt Eulonia. Did Grandma call you?”
    â€œNo. What’s up?”
    I was surprised. This semester Susan has moved out of the dorm and shares an apartment with two other girls. As part of her strategy to convince herself of her independence, she contacts her parents only when she needs money. Or someone to dump on. Since her father has oodles of money, and I don’t, guess who gets dumped on. This, however, did not sound like a dumping day.
    â€œAunt Eulonia died last night. No, let me rephrase that. She was murdered.”
    â€œBummer. Mama, I’ve got a problem you wouldn’t believe.”
    â€œI said your great-aunt is dead, dear. Did you hear me?”
    â€œYes, I heard you. But Mama, my problem is