Mama Gets Hitched by Deborah Sharp Read Free Book Online

blood, and fetid, like rotting meat. I heard the buzz of flies before I saw them. Within seconds, Marty and Maddie heard them, too.
    “That doesn’t sound good.” Marty nodded toward Alice’s house.
    “Well, she did say something was dead,” I said.
    As we approached, I shone a flashlight onto the porch, near the front door, and toward the far railings.
    “What is it, Mace?” Maddie and her cast-iron pan were right beside me, so close I felt her breath on my cheek. I got a faint whiff of the grease Mama uses to season the heavy pan, which was preferable to that other smell that hung in the air.
    “I don’t know yet, Maddie. I need to get closer to see it. And watch out with that pan. You could knock somebody out.”
    “Isn’t that the idea?” she said, lowering it just a little.
    At the bottom step, we stopped. The thing that Alice saw was a dark mass in the shadows at the corner of her porch, placed between a white wicker footstool and a pot of geraniums. Flies circled and landed, illuminated in the beam of my flashlight.
    “Can you see it yet, Mace?” Marty hid behind me, her hand a tight fist balling up the back of my T-shirt.
    “Marty, honey, let go.” I pulled at the shirt’s hem until she loosened her grip. “I’m going up to take a closer look.”
    My sisters linked arms, planting themselves on the concrete walkway. I climbed three steps, and started across the wooden porch. Potted plants vibrated with my footsteps. The flies took off, buzzing as if in annoyance.
    “Be careful, Mace,” Maddie whispered.
    Rivulets of nervous sweat pooled at the small of my back. My flashlight flickered, and then died. I stopped, pounding it against my thigh until it lit again. I continued across the porch.
    Covering my nose with the sleeve of my shirt, I drew close and aimed the light. Cloudy black eyes stared lifelessly. Two yellowed tusks curved upward. The flies were back, a moving blanket over coarse bristles and leathery skin.
    “It’s a wild hog,” I announced. “Or was.”
    Marty gasped. “Oh, the poor thing! Is it dead, Mace?”
    “I’d say so, Marty. There’s nothing here but the head.”
    I stooped to examine the creature’s neck in the light. The spinal cord had been cleanly severed.
    “We better call Carlos,” I said over my shoulder. “Looks like whoever took off this critter’s head knew how to use a big knife.”

Mama’s house smelled of carnations and lavender, scents she recommends when stress is a problem. Aromatherapy was a definite improvement over the stinking mess on Alice’s porch. But how well would it work for Alice? Finding out your husband was murdered, and then discovering the decapitated head of a wild boar on your front porch is probably more stress than can be soothed by sniffing at the essential oils of herbs and flowers.
    “How’s Alice, Mama?” Marty asked.
    “About as well as can be expected.” Mama plopped a handful of ice cubes in her warm wine, which had been forgotten a couple of hours earlier along with our pizza when Alice pounded on the front door.
    Next door, the police activity was slowing down. Teensy had barked himself out with the comings and goings at Alice’s. My sisters and I had returned to Mama’s, where she’d been taking care of her devastated neighbor.
    “I burned some candles, and then drew a nice hot bath for her with a few drops of chamomile oil. That seemed to work, along with a sleeping pill I had left over from when I was going through my divorce to No. 4.”
    I looked from the kitchen entry down the darkened hallway to a closed door at the end.
    “So she’s in Maddie’s old room?” I asked.
    “The Rose Room, yes,” Mama corrected me.
    After the three of us girls moved out, she redecorated our rooms in floral colors and gave each a fanciful, English-garden title. Rose. Buttercup. Violet. I suppose it could have been worse. She could have saddled us instead of our bedrooms with those flowery sounding names.
    Maddie rummaged