Death Crashes the Party by Vickie Fee Read Free Book Online Page A

and Betty McKay’s house, located just a few blocks on the opposite side of the town square from where Larry Joe and I lived. While our neighborhood is a hodgepodge of houses dating from around 1900 to 1940, their street is a mix of houses built mostly in the fifties and sixties. The house Larry Joe grew up in is circa Ozzie and Harriet.
    I slipped in through the kitchen door, which is never locked, knocking as I entered. My mother-in-law was sitting at the kitchen table, clipping coupons, still wearing her pink terry-cloth bathrobe.
    She stood to give me a hug.
    â€œOlivia, thank goodness. Larry Joe called and told me not to answer the phone until you got here. Has someone died?”
    â€œNo, Miss Betty. Nobody’s died. The police are just questioning Daddy Wayne about drugs they found on one of McKay’s trucks in Oklahoma.”
    â€œWell, that’s what Larry Joe said. I thought there must be more going on than what he was saying. Telling me not to answer the phone and all.”
    â€œHe just doesn’t want nosy busybodies calling and worrying you, that’s all. In fact, why don’t we just take the phone off the hook for a while and have a cup of coffee?”
    â€œOh, no. We can’t do that. What if Larry Joe calls back?”
    â€œI have my cell phone,” I said, taking it out of my purse and laying it on the table. “If he needs to get in touch, he’ll call this number.”
    â€œAll right, dear. Whatever you think’s best. I’m too jumpy to talk to anybody right now, anyway.”
    After almost thirteen years of marriage, it still astounded me how generally compliant my mother-in-law is. No way would my own mother have stayed off the phone until I arrived, or agreed to take the phone off the hook. Betty McKay is only six years older than my mother, but it seems some generational shift occurred during that interval. Or maybe it’s just that Mama is bullheaded, a trait Larry Joe would say I inherited.
    My mother-in-law poured us two steaming cups of coffee out of what looked like a freshly brewed pot. I surmised that she had busied herself with making coffee and clipping coupons after Larry Joe called.
    I leafed through her stack of coupons and did my best to make benign conversation. She suddenly blurted out, “How could that nice Sheriff Davidson make such an asinine mistake as to think Wayne could have anything to do with drugs? I don’t think Wayne’s ever even been to Oklahoma.”
    I was a bit taken aback, since “asinine” is probably as close to profanity as my mother-in-law would ever venture.
    â€œI don’t think Sheriff Davidson really had anything to say about it. Since it had to do with crossing state lines and all that, it was federal agents that brought in Daddy Wayne for questioning.”
    â€œThat explains a lot,” she said.
    My mother-in-law doesn’t really trust anyone who wasn’t born and raised right here in Dixie, so it explained a lot for her. This was an attitude she and Mama happened to share.
    â€œMiss Betty, why don’t you go get dressed and put your face on? Just in case we need to go out later.”
    Fortunately, she complied. I needed a break. Once she was upstairs and out of earshot, I called Larry Joe for an update. His phone went straight to voice mail. I hoped that meant he was talking to either his dad or their attorney.
    As I was about to put the phone down, it buzzed, alerting me that I had a text message. I hit the RETRIEVE button to find a message from Di.
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    Handcuffs?
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    I spent most of the morning and half the afternoon with my mother-in-law. As the hours dragged on, Miss Betty kept busy with her knitting project, and I spiraled deeper and deeper into enveloping boredom. I actually spent an inordinate amount of time studying my mother-in-law’s vast collection of salt and pepper shakers. A whole wall in the kitchen is devoted to it, with 114