Larceny and Old Lace by Tamar Myers Read Free Book Online Page B

this?”
    He shrugged, the cold pizza hanging from his mouth.
    â€œDo you know where she got it?”
    Unlike Peggy, he swallowed before answering. “Some ancestor of ours, I guess. Her grandmother, or somebody. Does that make us Italian or something?”
    â€œOr something,” I said. Our family had lived long enough in America to claim a pint or two of just about everybody’s blood. Scotch, Irish, English, German, Swedish. French, Catawba Indian, even rumors of an African-American way back when, but as of yet no Italians.
    He flashed me a smile. It was like the sun peeking through a stormy sky. “I have always liked pizza. And pasta.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œI suppose you have to tell the police.”
    â€œYes, dear, I’m afraid I do. I’m sorry.”
    He nodded. “It’s okay. I want whoever did it caught. I want them—Mama, you didn’t tell me how she was killed.”
    He was going to read it in the papers anyway. Maybe see it on TV. “She was strangled. Someone took a bell pull and strangled her.”
    He took it in. “Well then, I hope whoever killed Aunt Eulonia gets hung. No, I want to hang them myself. After I beat the shit out of them.”
    I did not raise my son to be violent. Football is Buford’s influence. Still, if I could catch whoever strangled my aunt, I would call Charlie and have him come over. Together we’d beat the shit out of her murderer.
    â€œThe funeral is Thursday at two,” I said after a while. “Down in Rock Hill, at Grandma’s church. You want to go?”
    He looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I want to go? I’m not a baby, Mama. You going to come to school to pick me up?”
    I nodded. “Charlie, did Aunt Eulonia ever give you a key to her house?”
    He wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve. Not a baby, but still a boy. “No. You need to get in?”
    â€œI want her to be buried in one of her favorite dresses. Something different than the one—well, you know.”
    â€œYou won’t find what you’re looking for,” Charlie said. It was uncanny how sometimes that boy could anticipate my next thought.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œPositive. Aunt Eulonia told me she was keeping it somewhere nobody would ever think to look.”
    â€œIn that old pie cabinet in the basement of her shop where she hides everything else?”
    â€œI don’t think so. It was supposed to be someplace really special. She said I wouldn’t guess in a million years.”
    If it was in her safety deposit box then I was a day late and out of luck. It had undoubtedly been impounded that morning.
    â€œCould it be at her house?”
    â€œBeats me. She wouldn’t give me any hints. But you can search her house yourself, if you want,” he added, ahead of me again.
    â€œWhat? I can’t break in.”
    He smiled. “I said I didn’t have a key. I didn’t say I didn’t know where one was. Try looking in a little clay flower pot tucked behind the azaleas next to the outside faucet. The one in back, near the garage.”
    Charlie squeezed me hard when I hugged him good-bye. “Love ya,” he said.
    Â 
    I couldn’t reach Investigator Washburn on the phone. He was off duty, I guess. Probably out gallivanting with women half my age. I was invited to leave a message, but I wasn’t about to involve Charlie, not without speaking directly with Blue Eyes first. I left a cryptic message, asking him to call me at his earliest convenience. With any luck he would think I was coming on to him and take a hint. With just about any luck, but not with mine.
    To me Charlotte is a big city, so by the time I got to Susan’s street on the northeast side, my nerves were as tight as an overdeveloped perm. It didn’t help matters any when Susan’s building came into view. My daughter, perhaps to spite us, certainly to embarrass her father, chose the