Shakespeare's Trollop by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online

Deedra’s murder. There may have been a town bad girl when they were growing up, but there’d also been plenty to eat for everyone, everyone had known their place, prices had been cheap, and almost no one had been murdered. Maybe the occasional black man had been hung without benefit of jury, maybe the occasional unwed mother had died from a botched abortion, and just possibly there’d been a round of lawlessness when oil had been discovered…but Joe C and China Belle chose to remember their childhood as perfect.
    I found evidence (a filtered butt) that Joe C had once again been smoking. One of my little jobs was to tell Calla if I found traces of cigarettes, because Joe C had almost set the house afire once or twice by falling asleep with a cigarette in his hands. The second time that had happened, he’d been unconscious and his mattress smoldering when Calla had happened to drop by. Who could be smuggling the old man cigarettes? Someone who wanted him to enjoy one of his last pleasures, or someone who wanted him to die faster? I extricated the coffee mug he’d used as an ashtray from the depths of his closet and took it to the kitchen to wash.
    I wondered if the old house was insured for much. Its location alone made it valuable, even if the structure itself was about to fall down around Joe C’s ears. There were businesses now in the old homes on either side of the property, though the thick growth around the old place made them largely invisible from the front or back porch. The increased traffic due to the businesses (an antique store in one old home and a ladies’ dress shop in the other) gratified Joe C no end, since he still knew everyone in town and related some nasty story about almost every person who drove by.
    As I was putting my cleaning items away, Calla came in. She often timed her appearance so she’d arrive just as I was leaving, probably so she could check the job I’d done and vent her misery a little. Perhaps Calla thought that if she didn’t keep an eye on me, I’d slack up on the job, since Joe C was certainly no critic of my work (unless he couldn’t think of another way to rile me). Calla was a horse of a different color. Overworked (at least according to her) at her office job in the local mattress-manufacturing plant, perpetually harried, Calla was determined no one should cheat her any more than she’d already been cheated. She must have been a teenager once, must have laughed and dated boys, but it was hard to believe this pale, dark-haired woman had ever been anything but middle-aged and worried.
    â€œHow is he today?” she asked me in a low voice.
    Since she’d passed her grandfather on her way in, and he was loudly in fine form, I didn’t respond. “He’s been smoking again,” I said reluctantly, since I felt like a spy for telling on Joe C. At the same time, I didn’t want him to burn up.
    â€œLily, who could be bringing him cigarettes?” Calla slapped the counter with a thin white hand. “I’ve asked and asked, and no one will admit it. And yet, for someone who can’t go to the store himself, he seems to have unlimited access to the things he’s not supposed to have!”
    â€œWho visits him?”
    â€œWell, it’s a complicated family.” Though it didn’t seem complicated to me, as Calla began to explain it. I knew already that Joe C had had three children. The first was Joe Jr., who had died childless during World War II. The second boy, Christopher, had been the father of Calla, Walker, and Lacey. These three were the only surviving grandchildren of Joe C. Calla had never married. Walker, now living in North Carolina, had three teenage children, and Lacey had Deedra during her first marriage.
    Calla’s aunt (Joe C’s third child), Jessie Lee Prader, had married Albert Albee. Jessie Lee and Albert had had two children, Alice (who’d married a James Whitley