Read Murder on a Bad Hair Day for Free Online Page B

going over there this morning.”
    “Did they know she had a heart problem?”
    “Old Thurman’s the one with heart problems,” James said. “That’s why he had to quit the NFL. Sort of ironic, isn’t it?”
    I agreed that it was and then remembered to tell James that I had found several pieces of plywood for Abe.
    “He’ll be tickled,” he said.
    I left the phone off the hook and went to check on Claire. She hadn’t moved, so I tiptoed around the kitchen fixing cereal and toast, which I carried into the bedroom to eat.
    The thought had occurred to me that Claire was distraught over Mercy’s death. She had glowed the night before when she was talking about working at the gallery, and when Mercy was making her catty remarks about the Outsider artists, I was the one who had snapped back, not Claire. She had been nothing but admiring of Mercy and of Mercy’s work. But how had Claire ended up on my back steps? Where was her car? Her shoes? And what about that “no place else to go” bit? She had an apartment somewhere, and a husband, presumably, since she wasn’t Claire Needham anymore, but Claire Moon.
    When I am upset, I lose my appetite. I tried to eat, but the cereal tasted like paper. I put the bowl down, went to the bookcase, and got out the yearbooks that Claire was in. It was startling to see her as a pale teenager with dark blond hair parted in the middle and hanging limply beside her face. No wonder I hadn’t recognized her the night before. Only her eyes seemed the same, dark, with a slight oriental slant to them. A pretty girl, but one who would have faded intothe crowd. Beside her picture, where honors and activities were listed, was “Art Club.” That was all. Though she had been in my Advanced Placement English classes, she had not participated in debate or the literary magazine or the drama club, things that usually go hand in hand.
    She had lived with foster parents. I remembered that. But had she gone to college? I had no idea, and I could have kicked myself. So many students. So many lives. I closed the books and wondered, for perhaps the millionth time, if these students had learned anything in my classes that was helping them in their lives. Had Frost made wrong choices easier to live with? Or Crane shown the true face of bravery? Had Agee taught them to deal with loss?
    “For God’s sake, Mouse.”
    Mary Alice’s voice scared me so, I jumped straight up and the books went flying, landing on the floor with a thump.
    “Damn it, Sister!” I hissed. “I’ll bet that woke Claire up.”
    “I’ll go see.” She disappeared from the doorway but was back in a moment. “Nope.”
    I was picking up the books and willing my heart to slow down. “Where did you come from?”
    “Home. Where do you think?”
    “I mean, how did you get here so quickly?”
    “I’m not dressed.” Mary Alice opened her raincoat to show a short pink nightgown and a lot of Mary Alice. “Good thing I came, too. You were getting ready to have one of your existential snits, weren’t you?”
    “You wouldn’t know an existential snit if one hit you on the head. And have you got on underpants?”
    “Of course, Patricia Anne. You think I want Mama to roll over in her grave? Speaking of which, you really should lock your back door.”
    “What?” Trying to follow Mary Alice’s thought processes is not easy.
    “Anyone could come in.”
    I agreed that they could, indeed.
    “Anyway,” Mary Alice said, plumping herself onto thebed, “I got the scoop on Mercy’s death to tell you, and I wanted to check on Claire.”
    “You’re so kind, Mrs. Claus.” But I sat down to listen.
    “Bonnie Blue told me and James told her and Thurman told him, so this is straight. Okay?”
    I nodded.
    “The last people left the gallery about eleven o’clock, and Thurman said he was going to follow Mercy home, not that that’s a bad neighborhood or anything, but he didn’t want her locking up and driving across town by herself. So