Murder Shoots the Bull by Anne George Page B

casserole?”
    “Spinach souffle.”
    “Stouffer’s?”
    “I added some butter.”
    “Remember how gritty spinach used to be? Mama wouldwash it over and over and it would still be gritty. The only thing that saved it was the sliced hard-boiled egg on top. Lord, I hated spinach. You could pick it up and look under it and there was green grit.”
    “There was not. Mama washed it better than that.”
    “There was, too. Green grit. Made funny noises on your teeth and we thought we had to eat it because it made Popeye strong. He always ate the canned, though.”
    “The canned’s bitter.”
    “Put a little sugar in it. In fact, Henry says the secret to all good cooking is a little sugar.”
    “Really?” I was in awe of Mary Alice’s new son-in-law’s culinary skills. Sugar. How about that.
    The spinach conversation had gotten us to the back door.
    “Okay,” Mary Alice said, holding it open for me, “Who’s dead and who’s getting divorced? I think Debbie was a little confused.”
    I set the casserole on the stove. “Nobody’s getting divorced. The dead person is the same lady we saw yesterday with Arthur Phizer. She was murdered.”
    “That’s what Debbie said, but I can’t believe it. What happened?” Sister sat down at the kitchen table and pulled off her shoes. “Lord,” she said, reaching down and squeezing her foot. “These shoes are at least a size and a half too small. Cuts off the circulation. But it was the only pair they had in this style.”
    “Somebody poisoned her is what happened. Mitzi came over this morning and said she and Arthur were up all night. It seems this lady who was killed was Arthur’s first wife and he’s very upset.” I thought about this for a minute. “Not that he wouldn’t have been upset anyway having a woman die on the front seat of his car. I know it would upset me.”
    Sister looked up from the foot massaging. “Debbie toldme that, too. I didn’t know Arthur had been married before.”
    “It was a teenage thing. Their folks had it annulled. But he’s still shaken up, of course. It’s in the paper. Poison.”
    “Yuck.”
    I handed Sister the newspaper which was still on the table and she read the notice.
    “That doctor said it was her heart, Mouse. The one in the white tennis shorts.”
    A heart in white tennis shorts? Fighting Sister’s grammar is a losing battle. So all I said was, “Well, maybe her heart was bad, too. Mitzi said she had diabetes and a lot of circulatory problems. Maybe that’s why she was having trouble walking yesterday.” I sat down across from Sister. “Mitzi said that now she wouldn’t have to suffer.”
    Sister frowned and put the paper down. “She was having trouble walking because she was about to croak. And what are you saying, that someone put her out of her misery?”
    I thought about this a moment. “I guess they did. I wouldn’t think this was a Dr. Kevorkian thing, though. Not at the Hunan Hut and not with poison that did her the way that did. Lord, it was awful. Those convulsions.”
    “Well, damn,” Sister said. “I’ll bet Arthur is upset. The first one’s rough. I think I was more upset when Will Alec died than I was when Philip and Roger died. No sadder, of course, but you sort of get used to it.” She hesitated. “Well, maybe you don’t get used to it, that’s not what I meant. You just learn the drill.” Another pause. “And there was already a place for them at Elmwood. That made a difference. When Will Alec died, I even had to buy a cemetery plot.”
    Learn the drill? “But you got a nice roomy one.”
    “Got the adjoining ones. Good thinking, too, Miss Smarty. When Philip tumped over in the shower, Elmwood was right there waiting for him. No problem.”
    I got back to the subject of Sophie Sawyer. “I don’t know if this lady will be buried here or not. She lived in Chicago for years and I guess that’s where her husband’s buried. Her two daughters will probably want to take her back up