Read You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) for Free Online

that just mean something that’s living?”
    “Mike told Hilton it’s a way to grow plants without using any chemicals that will make you sick if you eat them,” Wanda Jean said.
    “Horsefeathers,” Clara snorted. “Don’t you mean smoke the plants?”
    “Hilton never said anything about that, but he did bring me back some nice dried oregano the last time he was over at Mike’s,” Wanda Jean said. “It smelled kind of funny, but I made the best spaghetti sauce with it. We enjoyed the meal so much, I just giggled through the whole thing.”
    “I’ll just bet you did,” Wilma said drily. “Oregano will do that to you.”
    Mae Ella looked up over her glasses. “You do a lot of cooking with oregano, do you, Wilma?”
    Wilma didn’t flinch. “Upon occasion.”
    Mae Ella shook her head and returned to her legal pad. The second name on the list was the town’s resident Yankee, Millard Philpott. His neighbors looked askance at Philpott not only for his northern origins, but for his open and vocal support of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and now Bobby Kennedy in the 1968 election.
    “Philpott’s a radical, pure and simple,” Mae Ella declared, her mouth set in a firm line. “He’s sitting right in the middle of LBJ country and doesn’t have the good manners to keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t support the boys in Vietnam. And, well, I hate to say this, but I hear he sympathizes with that Martin Luther King.”
    Wilma cleared her throat. “Now, Mae Ella, first off, Lyndon is a Democrat, too, and what’s happening to those kids down south isn’t right. There’s no call to be turning fire hoses and police dogs on people.”
    “Harumph,” Mae Ella snorted. “I didn’t say there was, but that doesn’t mean we’ve got to turn everything over to radicals and communists. Lyndon is the right kind of Democrat; he doesn’t like the Kennedys either.”
    “Oh, dear Lord,” Clara said, “please do not get her started on the communists and the Kennedys. Next thing you know, she’ll be ranting about that moron Joe McCarthy.”
    “You just don’t understand the global conspiracy to bring down the American way of life, Clara,” Mae Ella insisted. “You know perfectly well those Kennedy boys are just working for the Pope.”
    “For God’s sake, Mae Ella,” Sugar said, “the Pope doesn’t have anything to do with communism. For one thing, folks over in Russia don’t believe in God, and for another, there’s enough Catholics in Texas to make Boston look Baptist.”
    “My point ,” Mae Ella said, “is that they’re all un-American.”
    “Well, the communists do live in Russia,” Wanda Jean offered helpfully. “And doesn’t the Pope live in Italy or someplace like that? And our Catholics are mainly from Mexico, so of course they’re all un-American.”
    The other four women at the table just looked at her for a silent moment, and then Clara said, a little too brightly, “Well, alright then. Let’s get back to Millard Philpott. For whatever reason, the man is just an odd duck. Did Hilton ever say anything about being in his house, Wanda Jean?”
    Wanda Jean thought for a moment and then said, “Hilton did mention that Millard reads some strange books.”
    “Like what?” Clara asked, her pen poised in mid-air.
    “Something called Rosemary’s Baby , about . . .” Wanda Jean lowered her voice and whispered, “devil worship. And then one called The Naked Ape. ”
    “He’s reading something about nekkid animals?” Sugar asked, frowning. “Don’t you think it’d be stranger if he was reading something about monkeys running around in clothes?”
    “I read The Naked Ape ,” Wilma said. “It’s about . . .” She stuttered to a stop and set her mouth again. “Never mind. It’s something you all don’t want to talk about.”
    Mae Ella fixed her with a suspicious glare. “It’s that evolution nonsense, isn’t it?” she demanded. “All that foolishness about man descending from the