Smarty Bones Read Free Page A

Now that you’re no longer sleeping with Sheriff Peters, maybe he’ll cuff you and haul you off to jail.”
    Gertrude’s red hair, dyed to a shade between fire engine and Bozo the clown, caught the sunlight like copper wires. Bride of Frankenstein might be a phrase used to describe her.
    “Gertrude, I’m well within my rights to visit a guest.”
    “We’ll see about that. Maybe Dr. Twist doesn’t want to see you.”
    “If she doesn’t, I’ll leave. But I intend to ask her.” I started past Gertrude, only to be stopped by a garden rake thrown like a spear. She missed my foot by about an inch.
    “Don’t take another step. You’re not so special you can make yourself at home here.” Gertrude came out of the flowerbed, dusted her gloves, and maneuvered her body between me and the front door. “Wait here. I’ll ring Dr. Twist and see if she’ll speak with you. Of course I’ll warn her what a busybody little snooper you are and how ineffectual your detective agency is.”
    I sighed and took a seat on a bench. It was still ninety-two in the shade, but it was better than standing in the sun. Also better than arguing with Gertrude. She could waste endless amounts of my time, and I wanted to talk to the professor and then get home to stir up some fried chicken, field peas with okra, and cracklin’ cornbread for Graf. Fattening up a man was one of life’s little joys. Soon enough he’d be in Hollywood with his trainer, but for the moment we were tossing dietary concerns to the wind.
    Speaking of trainers, I made a discreet grab at the flab accumulating around my middle. Since finishing my last case, during which a vile butler had tried to starve me, I’d shoved my face in the trough and lived life large. Graf was an excellent cook. And Dahlia House’s kitchen was made for two to share. We worked well together, and we enjoyed trying new recipes, all of them saturated with calories. Soon, though, the excess would stop and the suffering would begin. Graf would be gone and I’d have to address the wages of gluttony.
    “Ms. Delaney?”
    Startled from my food fantasy, I swung around to face the skinniest woman I’d ever seen. She wore a long blue pencil skirt and a white blouse ruffled around the neck and sleeves. She was a vision of a 1980s secretary or bank teller. Except for her feet, which were encased in the ugliest brogans ever cobbled. They were boats. A small village could have floated on them. A size fifteen, at the very least.
    “Are you Ms. Delaney?” Her voice had an irritating twang whose origins I couldn’t place. She wasn’t British or Canadian or even Northeastern, and she sure as heck wasn’t from my neck of the woods. Jitty’s warning came back to haunt me—indeed, I should have eaten some spinach because I was staring at Olive Oyl. The stick-thin, shapeless body, the blue-black hair clasped at her neck with a scrunchie, the huge feet. Popeye’s girlfriend, in the flesh. Except this Olive had the visage of an angel.
    “Can you hear me?” She leaned down into my face and spoke slowly. “I know you people are slow.”
    “You people?” I bristled. “What do you mean, you people ?”
    Her answer was a strange movement of her lips that could have been a smile, or possibly a gas bubble.
    “Gertrude said you wanted to speak to me. She also told me you’re a Nosy Parker.” Dr. Twist sprawled beside me on the bench. “She failed to tell me you were mentally challenged.”
    I ignored the jab and forced my gaze away from her clodhoppers. She could water-ski with those feet. She could use her feet for Ping-Pong paddles, and something about the way she flounced on the bench told me she was probably limber enough to actually do it.
    “I’d like to ask a few questions about your research.” It was the least offensive opening I could come up with.
    “My, how gossip flies around a small Southern town. Do you people communicate by telephone?” She looked around as if searching for physical