Murder on a Bad Hair Day (22 page)
“I know who it was. Liliane. She saw your Abe painting with the hair and figured it was worth a bundle. She also saw you didn’t have dead bolt locks on your door.” Bo pointed her finger at the door accusingly. “Fortunately, your husband was sleeping on the sofa.” She took a sip of her tea. “He do that often?”
“None of your business.”
Bo Mitchell laughed. “How’s your sister?”
“She went home yesterday. She was wearing her T-shirt that says ‘Tough Old Bird.’”
“You give her my best.”
I walked Bo to the door. “You always knew it wasn’t Ross, didn’t you?”
“No, we didn’t. You were pretty convincing.”
“That’s good to hear. You have a nice Christmas.”
“And you.”
And we did. Somehow we managed to pull it all together. We didn’t go to Fox Glen for dinner because Mary Alice was still having some dizziness, which the doctor said was to be expected and was temporary. For an obscene amount of money, Fox Glen came to us with turkey and all the trimmings. Money well spent, I thought, looking around Sister’s large dining room table at our children and grandchildren. At one end of the table, Bill Adams sat, still scratching furiously but beaming at Sister, who sat at the other end, the side of her head bandaged. We were not, she informed us, to call her Vincent. She’d gotten a bait of that in the hospital.
“She could do worse,” I whispered to Fred.
“Who could do worse?” He was flirting rather sweetly with Freddie’s Celia.
“Mary Alice. With Bill.”
“How come he scratches all the time? He needs to take some Benadryl.”
I turned to talk to Haley, who was seated on my left. She had brought Sheriff Reuse, but I didn’t detect any sparks. Across the table, Debbie and Henry Lamont were sparking up a storm. None of us were surprised at their announcement as dessert was being served that they were being married in March.
“On Mama and Daddy’s anniversary,” Debbie said.
“Darling, that’s wonderful,” Mary Alice said. “When is it?” she mouthed at me as everyone congratulated Debbie and Henry. I held up the fingers on my left hand three times and then a single finger. “The sixteenth. What a sweet thought.”
Freddie stood up and I thought for a moment he was going to announce he and Celia were engaged. But he held up his wine glass and said, “To Debbie and Henry.”
We drank a toast to Debbie and Henry. My glass had sparkling apple juice in it, but I swear I could feel it. We drank a toast to Mary Alice’s health, and to my strength, and to Celia’s ability to conjure warts. We drank a toast to Bubba, whose red bow had slipped to one side, covering his ear, making him look like van Gogh’s cat.
But Fred had the nicest toast of all. Just before we dived into huge slices of pecan pie, he patted my arm and stood up.
“Hey,” he said, raising his glass. “We’re here.”
My thanks to Dr. Chandler McGee and Dr. Christina Duffey for their ideas and interest and for generously sharing their knowledge of chemistry with me. And thanks to the “Center Point” group—Jean Burnett, Elsie McKibben, and Virginia Martin—for their patience, suggestions, and laughter.
ANNE GEORGE
was the Agatha Award-winning author of eight Southern Sisters mysteries:
Murder on a Girls’ Night Out, Murder on a Bad Hair Day, Murder Runs in the Family, Murder Makes Waves, Murder Gets a Life, Murder Shoots the Bull, Murder Carries a Torch
, and her final book,
Murder Boogies with Elvis
. Her popular and hilariously funny novels reflected much of her own experiences. Like Patricia Anne, Anne George was a happily married former schoolteacher living in Birmingham, Alabama, and she grew up with a delightful cutup cousin who provided plenty of inspiration for the outrageous Mary Alice. A former Alabama State Poet, cofounder of Druid Press, and a regular contributor to literary and poetry publications, Ms. George was also the author of a literary novel,
This One and Magic Life
, which
Publishers Weekly
described as “silky and lyrical.” She had been nominated for several awards, including the Pulitzer for a book of verse entitled
Some of It Is True
. Anne George passed away in March 2001.
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for
ANNE GEORGE’s
Southern Sisters Mysteries
“A sassy series.”
Chicago Tribune
“Anne George may be my favorite discovery of the year…The Patricia Anne and Mary Alice mysteries are wonderful confections that prove life is funny and poignant on the other side of 60.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“George’s low-key humor and engaging characters keep you flipping pages.”
Orlando Sentinel
“Great fun…George portrays a Southern family and all the connections that go along with it perfectly.”
Greensboro News & Record
“The characters are so opinionated you half expect them to fire your babysitter, and the action so real you think it’s happening next door.”
Los Angeles Times
“I haven’t been this excited about a series since the Hardy Boys.”
Birmingham
Magazine
“I wish Patricia Anne and Mary Alice were
my
sisters. I’d love to hang out with them.”
Jill Churchill, author of the
Jane Jeffry
Mysteries
Anne George
from Avon Books
M
URDER ON A
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URDER ON A
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MURDER ON A BAD HAIR DAY
. Copyright © 1996 by Anne George. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Sony Reader January 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-184958-9
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