Murder Gets a Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

minute.”
    There were a surprising number of people in the restaurant, or so it seemed to me. It was a weekday, and the Starlight Cafe was out in the woods, not aplace where you could walk in off the street and order a BLT to go. It made me think we were going to get some good food.
    And we did. The angel wing soup turned out to be a chicken noodle made with shell-shaped noodles which could possibly, with a wild flight of imagination, be called angel wings. “Taste it,” Mary Alice said. “Just taste it, Mouse. I don’t think even Henry can do this good.” I did, and motioned for Blenda so I could order a bowl, too.
    Everything else was just as good. We ended up with huge slices of chocolate roulage and coffee.
    “Lord!” I sighed with satisfaction and pushed my chair back from the table.
    “You’re not going to the bathroom, are you?” Sister asked.
    “Probably. Why?”
    “I knew it. You’ve switched over from anorexia to bulemia.”
    “I decided it was more fun.”
    Mary Alice frowned.
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Sister. Once and for all, I don’t have an eating disorder.”
    “Well, well.” We both looked up into Cabbage Patch eyes. “What a surprise. What brings you into this neck of the woods?”
    And Mary Alice without the slightest hesitation or look of guilt said, “Well, hey, Meemaw. We’ve been to see a friend in Rainbow City. We were on our way home, and Patricia Anne said she’d heard of this great place to eat so we thought we’d try it. Are you here for lunch?” Sister pushed out a chair. “Join us. We’ve had our lunch, but we might try another piece of roulage.”
    Meemaw shook her head. “I’m just here to getSunshine some soup. She’s feeling a little poorly today, said she’s just craving some of the Starlight’s chicken soup.”
    “Oh, do you live near here?” said Miss Innocent with a roulage crumb still on her chin.
    “Right down the road. Down in what everybody calls the Compound. The Turkett Compound. Why don’t y’all let me get the soup and then follow me home? I know Sunshine would love to see you.”
    Mary Alice smiled. “How thoughtful. We’d love to.”
    Fifty, even forty years earlier, I would have had the option of leaping across the table and throttling her. The urge was still there, but gravity had done a number on the old bod. The best I could do was a scowl which she, of course, ignored.
     
    “What luck, running into Meemaw like that.” We were in Sister’s Jaguar following Meemaw’s old Chevy down the road. “We couldn’t have planned it better.” Sister turned on her right-turn signal as Meemaw suddenly took a ninety-degree turn into a thicket. “We’d have had trouble finding this place.”
    “We don’t have any business nosing around,” I said.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we do. And you heard what Meemaw said about Sunshine craving chicken soup. I’ll bet she’s pregnant. Ray’s daddy got me pregnant on our honeymoon.” Sister slowed. “Lord, that’s not much of a road, is it?” The Chevy seemed to have disappeared like Brer Rabbit into a briar patch. “Oh, well, maybe it gets better.”
    It didn’t. Fortunately, after a few hundred yards, we came into a clearing and Sister stopped abruptly.
    Five large house trailers were pulled into a circle.
    “The Blount County Indians must be acting up again,” I said, the last effort I made at being humorous that day. I looked over at Sister and she was doing the Macaulay Culkin palms-against-cheeks again.
    “Oh, Lord, Mouse. The washing machines are in the yard.”
    “So is everything else,” I said. And it was true. The “everything” ranged from tires to old bicycles. Several dogs untangled themselves from various forms of scrap and eyed us silently.
    “Are those pit bulls?” Sister asked.
    “I don’t know; I don’t plan to find out. And where did Meemaw go?”
    As if in answer to my question, Meemaw stepped from behind one of the trailers and motioned us to come that