Read A Quiche Before Dying for Free Online Page A

Pryce was. Is Katie home, Uncle Jim?“
    “She came and went.“
    “She’s not supposed to go anywhere.“
    “Just next door to look at somebody’s hair. Why anybody’d walk five feet to look at hair is a mystery to me.”
    Shelley was getting out coffee cups. “It’s my daughter’s, and it is worth gawking at. She looks like somebody went at her head with a lawn mower.“
    “I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe Agnes Pryce is insane,“ Cecily said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I remembered her as being overbearing and insensitive, but nothing like that performance tonight. Maybe it’s a particularly nasty form of senility.”
    Shelley joined her at the table, setting cups around. “You might be right. I did some volunteer work at a nursing home for a while. There was a man there, not all that old, but he’d had a stroke. He was belligerent and had the foulest mouth I’ve ever heard. His family was always visiting and always left in tears. Apparently he’d been a gentle, kind person before. The doctor and nurses kept explaining to them that the stroke had triggered activity in some part of his mind that we all have, but normally repress. I guess his inhibitions had been cut off somehow. Maybe that’s what age has done to Mrs. Pryce.“
    “That woman never did have inhibitions,“ Jim said, turning off the faucet and looking at the drip with irritation. “This needs work, too.“
    “Jim, this was far worse than I remembered her,“ Cecily Grant said. “This poor woman who has some illness sat down next to her, and Pryce behaved like she’d been thrust into the middle of a leper colony. She called another woman a drunk and accused the mayor of embezzling the town treasury. All that before the class even started. That’s when she went to work on the teacher for writing pornography.”
    Katie burst in just then, and there were five minutes of hugging and kissing and shopping plans between granddaughter and grandmother.
    “Jane, I ran into whatsisname today,“ Jim said when the greetings had died down.
    “Which whatsisname?“
    “VanDyne.“
    “Oh?“ Jane was elaborately casual.
    “Yeah, said he was going to give you a call. Hadn’t seen you in a while.“
    “I’ve been right here.”
    Jim glanced up from the offending plumbing, surprised at her arch tone. “Yeah—but he hasn’t, you know. He’s been teaching some law enforcement seminars out in California.“
    “Who are you talking about?“ Cecily Grant asked. “Mel VanDyne, Mother. I wrote to you about him.
The detective I invited to Christmas dinner with us.“
    “Oh, yes. The fabled Christmas dinner when Todd got sick.“
    “Todd couldn’t help it. I never heard from VanDyne again. I guess he thought somebody always threw up on Christmas around here. Long family tradition. After all, if the president can upchuck at a state dinner, why should Todd be any different?“
    “Jane, I’m sorry,“ her mother said.
    “No, don’t be. It’s nothing,“ Jane said.
    But it was. Mel VanDyne had been her first timid venture back into the world of romance after being widowed, and she’d been humiliated when he never called back after the ill-fated dinner. She’d beat herself up about it for weeks. What had she expected? He was younger than she, extraordinarily good-looking, and sophisticated in the real world. She, on the other hand, was domestic to the eyebrows, wallowing in children, pets, recipes, cleaning products, and PTA committees. What possible interest could a handsome bachelor have in her? And yet, she’d been instrumental in helping him solve a couple of crimes, and the reason she was able to help was that she understood the suburban life that she was so thoroughly a part of and he didn’t. Still, he had probably regarded that as a helpful- trait, not a sexy one.
    “You aren’t going back, are you?“ Jim was asking.
It took a second to hoist herself out of her reverie.
“You mean to class? Sure. Missy’s a