Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) by Barbara Graham Page A

mugs. Luckily, Jane purchased a large supply after the previous day's drought. They would use a lot today.

    At all hours, a small cluster of women and the occasional man stitched on it. As far as gossip, well, one woman summed it up with, “we have to talk about something.”

    Theo's studio filled the large upstairs room. Visitors were not welcome. A large sign posted on her door made sure that no one was in doubt of that fact.

    Jane Abernathy,Tony's mother, ran the retail end of the shop. With a couple of part-time employees, she cut fabric orders and chatted with customers. Theo helped out when needed, but she usually let Jane handle the counter while she designed patterns in her studio.
     
    Today seemed no different, except the telephone would not stop ringing. For some perverse reason, many of the county's citizens seemed to believe that Theo would have additional information and be prepared to share it. Every two minutes, Jane's voice would come through the intercom telling her that someone wanted to talk. Desperate, Theo told Jane to leave her alone and turned off the intercom. She loaded a stack of CDs into the player and turned up the volume.

    “Do they think I share a brain with my husband?” Theo complained, talking to herself again. Sometimes the habit concerned her, but most of the time she believed it helped her think. With a laugh, she shoved a pile of fabric off her worktable and into a laundry basket.
     
    To her amusement, Zoe, a kitten recently adopted as the official office pet, chased an empty thread spool to the basket and then abandoned her game in favor of the pile of fabric.

    “Theo?” Jane pounded on the studio door. “Can I come in? Please?”

    “Are you alone?” Frustrated by her inability to get any work done, Theo was past caring about hurt feelings. She had a deadline with her publisher. Three quilts scheduled to be in the book hadn't been started. At this stage of the process, she wondered why she had ever wanted to design quilts. Maybe it wasn't too late to learn how to type. She could work at some nice “normal” job. Surrendering, she lowered the volume on the music and called out, “You can come in if you are alone.”

    “I hate to bother you.” Jane opened the door just wide enough for her to squeeze into the room. “I know that you are running behind schedule, but the members of the bowling group want to know if tonight’s meeting is on as usual?”

    “Why wouldn't it be?” Distracted, Theo stared at her mother-in-law. She had not seen Jane today except to wave across the room to her. From this distance, Jane's hair seemed to be turning more blond than gray and her eyes were sparkling with mischief. It even looked like she had applied mascara and a touch of makeup. She opened her mouth to ask about it when Jane's statement cut her off.

    “I won't be there tonight.” She fluffed her hair with her fingers. “I have a date.”

    That statement caught Theo's full attention. “A date?” Theo didn't think that in the years since her husband had died Jane had come closer to dating than sitting next to a single man at a carryin supper at the church. She had been a widow for over ten years, in fact, just few months longer than Tony and Theo had been married. Growing up in the same small town, they had known each other, but it wasn't until Tony came home for his father's funeral that they had started dating. Only a few months later, they had married and she had joined him in Chicago. Theo raised her thumbs, showing her approval. “It's about time. Who's the lucky guy? Does Tony know?”

    A tinge of pink colored Jane's cheeks. “Not that it is any of your business, or his, but Thomas Smith and I are driving over to Knoxville to see a play at the Clarence Brown Theatre, you know, at the University. We've been planning it for a couple of weeks.” Jane grinned.
     
    “Since when could you keep a secret for a couple of weeks?” Theo thought that maybe it wasn't just