Read Casket Case for Free Online Page B

puppies, even better than my brother’s. While Rizzie cooked, I described the restaurant to Jane.
    “She has shelves all around with sweetgrass baskets on them. Since Rizzie makes baskets, I suppose they’re her own work, but she’s got framed Gullah art and other crafts on the walls with price tags on them. Probably made by her friends.”
    “What kind of framed pictures?”
    By the time I’d described the Low Country scenes in some of the paintings, Rizzie was back with a large plastic Piggly Wiggly grocery bag. “Sorry,” she said, handing me the sack. “I don’t have ‘to go’ bags yet. I’m just using what I get free.”
    “That’s fine,” Jane said as if she could see. “Pay her fast, Callie. I can’t wait to eat these po’boys. They smell delicious.”
    As I handed Rizzie the money, I asked, “How’s your grandmother?”
    “Oh, Maum’s about the same. Sometimes I worry that brother Tyrone and I spend so much time working here that Maum’s left alone in the house too much.”
    “I’ll stop by and see her sometime. Take some red polish and give her a manicure.”
    Rizzie laughed. “That would be great, but now she’s been watching television, and she wants to try some other color, maybe metallic blue.”
    “We haven’t used that at the mortuary yet, so I don’t have any in my manicure kit, but I’ll pick some up and try it on your grandmother’s nails.”
    I guided Jane back to the car. Rizzie followed us out. “Here,” she said and put another small bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat. “Can’t have a picnic without watermelon.” She laughed and said, “Ef oonah yent hab hawss fuh ride—ride pawnee.” I laughed, too. Rizzie had been around enough to know my brothers call my Mustang a pony. She’d said, “If you don’t have a horse to ride, ride a pony.”

Chapter Seven

    It’s impossible to carry on a conversation riding down the highway in a convertible with the top down. We headed down Highway 21 and cut over to the entrance to Hunting Island after a few minutes.
    From the parking lot, we headed to the beach area, though from the smell of our food, I don’t think it would have taken much to talk both of us into eating in the car.
    I carried the bag full of hot hush puppies, packets of Tabasco sauce, and succulent-smelling shrimp po’boys as well as the smaller bag with the melon. Jane brought our beach towel, and we each held a giant soda, Coke for me and Dr Pepper for Jane. The damp sand oozed through our toes as we walked barefoot to the edge of the waves.
    Even sitting on the towel, water from the sand quickly wet our derrieres. Jane’s through the shorts she wore with a halter top. Mine all the way through my black work dress skirt tucked around my knees as well as my padded panties. The sky and water merged a rich medium blue, blurring the horizon. An occasional wispy white cloud floated above us, and the waves broke out in the ocean like white foam. I’ve seen pictures of beaches with beige, even dark brown sand. The sand here was the palest possible cream—almost pure white.
    Both Jane and I have decent manners, but when it’s just the two of us, we don’t always use them. “Callie,” Jane said as she chewed a mouthful of shrimp, “you understand everything Rizzie says in Gullah. Why don’t you ever answer her in Gullah?”
    I took a big swallow of Coke, then said, “I understand it better than I can speak it. Rizzie wouldn’t care if I mispronounced something, and the tourists wouldn’t know the difference, but some of the Gullah customers might think I was making fun of them.”
    I chewed a delicious, oniony hush puppy—crispy on the outside, fluffy and tender on the inside.
    “What about Dr. Melvin? Has the funeral been set yet? If you have to work at the service, do you think one of your brothers might take me?” Jane piled her questions one on top of the other, not giving me time to respond to one before she asked the next.
    “I’ll be