Brownie and the Dame Read Free

always saying she done murdered Uncle Elgin,” Brownie supposed. “But then someone else says, ‘Miz Demetrice, you know he really had a heart attack.’ And what am I supposed to think? Yesterday she said she stabbed him with a curling iron and done him in. How do you stab someone with a curling iron? I figure the worst you could do with a curling iron is to burn a fella, and that’s only if he stayed still. I wouldn’t stay still.”
    Precious stared at Brownie and went back to the biscuit.
    Bubba charged, head down around the other side. He yelled, “PRECIOUS. Bleep! Bleeping bleep bleepity!” except those weren’t all the words he really used.
    “I’ll have to write that last one down. I dint know you could do that. That don’t rightly sound physically possible. I mean, can you do that?” Brownie paused to find the small notepad in his jacket pocket and he didn’t mind that Precious didn’t answer. He jotted the words down. “I reckon I can spell that phonetically. Ain’t gonna be in the dictionary.”
    Where was I? Oh yes, mysteries. Brownie put the notepad down. Ain’t no mystery in Miz Demetrice and Elgin. Sheriff John don’t seem to care whether she done Uncle E. in by trained assassin cats or with a garrote. Big Joe would just say it’s out of his jurisdiction. Even Pa snorts when Auntie D. trots out something new.
    Brownie paused and looked at the pile of wadded-up newspapers. It towered over his head and formed a rough triangular shape. “I think I might have made too much.”
    Precious’s head came up. Her ears flew in all directions as she evidently heard something Brownie could not. Quickly she got off the chair and hid under the table.
    A moment later, Bubba stumbled into the kitchen. His hair had pine needles stuck to it, as well as green leaves. There were red scrapes across his chest plus some mud smeared across one shoulder. The poison ivy vine was still wrapped around his leg and some more trailing behind his other foot. “Brownie,” he said, shortly, “have you seen my dog?”
    “She was here a minute ago,” Brownie said. Under the table, Precious lightly bumped his leg, as if they were simpatico for the moment. He reached down and found the keys. Then he wished he hadn’t because they were thoroughly drenched in dog slobber. “But she left these.”
    “Thank the Lord,” Bubba said reverently. He took the keys and immediately grimaced when the canine saliva dribbled down his wrist. “I got to go to work, and ifin I don’t get there on time, Old Man Culpepper’s going to dock my pay. He ain’t thought very much of me since all that bizness happened at Christmas.”
    “ You didn’t kill anyone,” Brownie said, staring at the pile of wadded-up newspaper. “Dint kidnap no one neither. Although you did steal a sheriff’s vehicle, but it was for a good cause.”
    “Well,” Bubba said bitterly, “some people don’t got your common sense, boy.”
    Tentatively Brownie stuffed some of the wads into the hat. Then he tried on the hat. It fit better.
    Bubba stared. “I suspect you’re up to something,” he said warily.
    “I need a mystery,” Brownie announced. “It doesn’t have to be a murder, but it has to be mysterious. You know mystifying and all that.”

 
    Chapter 2
    Brownie and the Brilliant Babes
     
    Monday, April 2 nd
    Miz Adelia strode into the kitchen a few minutes later. Bubba was pouring himself an extra-large cup of coffee. Brownie stepped in front of the pile of wadded-up newspapers sitting on the kitchen table like some misplaced Mayan pyramid. It didn’t help. It was taller than him, and Brownie suspected it was multiplying by itself. Precious skulked under the table like a super villain.
    The housekeeper paused to view the interlopers in her domain. She may not have owned the kitchen legally, but it was definitely hers. Her hands propped on her waist, and she surveyed the area before as if she was queen. “Don’t you dare drip coffee on my