Overdue for Murder (Pecan Bayou) by Teresa Trent Read Free Book Online

index cards for my upcoming "Author Night at the Library." I didn't want to get up there and start babbling. Maybe I wasn't a "real" author, but I could certainly talk about my subject area. I had gathered some statistics about helpful hints and how many people use books like mine to get through their daily routines.

    I had also come up with some tips for the library, not because I felt like being particularly helpful, but because I wanted to irritate Martha Hoffman. Hmmm, their use of light was not very energy-efficient. I recalled looking for a book on the second floor of the library, where the temperature seemed to be several degrees hotter than the downstairs. Part of that had to do with the big picture windows, which we all loved. Nevertheless, a little tinting might be just the answer to lower the temperature – and the electric bills.

    I heard Zach walk into the kitchen behind me. I waited for him to speak, but for once he was silent. When I turned toward him, he had to have had every straw we owned bulging out of his mouth and cheeks. How many did I buy in a pack? A hundred? Five hundred?

    "Zach, what are you doing?" He tried to answer me, but that caused a few straws to fall haphazardly out.

    Danny walked in holding an empty plastic bag that had a big "100 Straws" logo printed on the outside. Had they gone out and bought a new bag, or had Danny brought them from his house?

    "We need you to look up on your computer, Betsy," Danny said.

    "What am I looking up?"

    "We need you to look up the straw record."

    I sighed and walked to the next room, where my home office was. I had redecorated what would have been a formal dining room back in the fifties. Now it was an informal office for me with light green walls, a white desk that held my laptop and printer, and in the middle of the wall I had the only picture I owned of my grandmother before she died. It was silly, but somehow I felt we connected in some distant way each time I sat down to work. I searched "world record for drinking straws in mouth."

    "Okay, guys, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, some guy in Munich, Germany holds the record."

    "How many?" asked Danny.

    "Four hundred," I answered. "How many are in Zach's mouth?" Zach held up seven fingers and then five. "Seventy-five?"

    His lips looked stretched as it was. I started worrying if his face really would stick that way.

    "I don't know, bud. I think your child-sized mouth may just be a little too small for this challenge. This guy in the picture looks like he has a wider-than-average adult mouth." With that, Zach spit out all of the remaining seventy-five straws onto the floor. On to the next record, I thought.

    "Aw, Mom. We're never going to break a record." He balled his hands into fists.

    "As long as it doesn't cause injury to you, like permanently stretching out your lips, I'd say keep trying," I told him. "I know – you could be the kid with the cleanest room for the longest period of time!"

    Zach rolled his eyes at me and threw himself down on the small green couch that leaned against the wall. "Don't turn this into another chore thing!" He didn't appreciate my humor. Danny followed suit and threw himself on the remaining cushions.

    "Keep thinking, guys. You'll come up with something."

    My phone rang at my elbow. "Miss Livingston? This is Martha Hoffman at the library. I got your number from Pattie. I just wanted to let you know, we have quite a few speakers tonight, and because you are such a late entry, we'll have to put you at the end of the program. Now, we want the program to end at 10 p.m., so there is a possibility we might run out of time before we get to you. We felt it was important to put the, um, more established writers first. You do understand, don't you?"

    I sure did. "I understand completely."

    Pattie had them over a barrel by making her appearance based on mine. It probably didn't help my status that I argued with her beloved Vanessa over the weekend. My