Silenced by the Yams (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #3) Read Free Page B

for a minute, can I?”
    I threw back the covers, placed my coffee mug on the side table, and climbed out of bed intent on getting things done. I had to finish cleaning before Howard’s mother arrived with her white gloves. “I swear, Howard, it wasn’t my fault. And I didn’t go looking for trouble this time, either. I was an innocent bystander to a grisly death. It could happen to anyone. When does Mama Marr’s plane land?”
    “One twenty. I wanted to talk to you about something, first.”
    I was slipping into a pair of shorts when I decided I’d need another shower first. A clean house was important, but greeting Howard’s mother with smelly pits and scary hair would cancel out the attention I’d put into ridding the house of dust bunnies and moldy window frames. “Talk about what? Can’t it wait? I have floors to vacuum and ovens to clean.”
    “The oven can wait.”
    I shook my head and slipped the shorts back off. “No. I forgot to clean the oven last time she visited. She spent the first two days scrubbing it herself, and the rest of her time complaining that the work had aggravated her arthritis. I live with enough guilt as a mother of three daughters. I don’t need to worry that I’m killing your mother, too.”
    He grabbed my hands as I headed to the bathroom. “This won’t take long. Just give me a few minutes.”
    “Is something wrong?”
    “No. Not wrong. Just—”
    Bethany called up from downstairs. “Daddy!” she shouted. “Your cell phone is ringing!”
    Howard threw his hands in the air, frustrated.
    I gave him a quick peck on the lips which turned into a lingering kiss. A vision of Mama Marr wrinkling her nose at my grimy kitchen made me pull away before the kiss turned into anything more. “Get your phone and I’ll get a shower.”
    The hot, steamy shower was so heavenly that I delayed my chores longer than I probably should have. A night’s sleep had softened the horror of the previous evening, but a third shower was exactly what I needed to kick-start my morning. I thought about Andy Baugh and wondered how he was feeling. He’d looked so desolate the last time I saw him. That was when they wheeled Kurt’s body out of the banquet room on a gurney.
    After the shower, I slipped into the shorts and a t-shirt and ran some mousse through my curly hair, noting that a few more gray strands had moved in. I’d throw on some makeup and get into a nicer set of clothes after cleaning. Grabbing the coffee mug, I threw back another swig as if it were a shot of tequila, then padded my way downstairs to round up the girls and begin Operation Dirt-be-gone.
    When I hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs, the front door opened into me, causing my coffee to spill all over the foyer rug.
    “Oh, Spam!” Yes, “Spam” is an interesting interjection, but necessary since the day my six-year-old Amber was heard telling a neighbor about “those damn squirrels” that steal our bird food. Nowadays I curb the cursing and find cleaner-but-similar words to replace the “dirtier” variety.
    Back to the coffee spill—now I had a coffee stain to clean, as well. It was either that, or hide the rug. Burn it, maybe. Mama Marr would take one look at that thing, shake her head, and say: “Oy, Barb-ara. You don’t know how to take a stain out?” Then she’d tsk and mutter, “I don’t know what they teach these girls in school no more.”
    I pulled the door fully open to see who had caused me this grief.
    “Hey, there!” my friend, Colt said, as he stood all smiles on my front porch in his sporty shorts and Life is Good t-shirt. Colt Baron was one of those men who definitely aged with grace.  When I met him in college he was a blond, trim, and muscular surfer boy.  Today, he was still blond, trim and muscular, but he was all man.  Little lines that grow around the eyes might make a woman look old, but on Colt they were like butter cream frosting—the proverbial icing on the cake.  Whereas