Read Online Braking for Bodies by Duffy Brown - Free Book Online

regulars of about five hundred assumed multiple roles in parades, pageants and exhibits. Rudy always dressed the Twain part. He said it made it easy to figure out what to put on every day and it gave him license to swill whiskey, smoke cigars and spout such things as
Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company
.
    Irma was Martha Washington in celebrated events, and she had the character down pat. I was the new Betsy Ross since old Betsy retired to Lauderdale and bequeathed me the costume, the flag and the sewing basket. I wasn’t great on the sewing angle, but the basket made a great place to stash KitKats to toss to the kids along the parade route.
    I went over to the workbench and plopped the Brides and Bliss box between a bike seat waiting to get attached and Bambino and Cleveland, who were named after original Twain cats.
    â€œWhoa,” Rudy said as I slipped off the top of the box. He put his hands over his face, covering his eyes. “Isn’t there something about seeing the wedding dress before the wedding being bad luck?”
    â€œTrue enough,
if
this were Irma’s wedding dress.”
    Rudy parted his fingers, looking out at me. “I don’t much like the sound of
if
. Usually my little fudge morsel is calm and serene and the picture of rational behavior and tranquillity and beloved by one and all. Then this wedding dress business started up and she’s been . . .”
    â€œDistracted?”
    â€œCompletely off her nut.” Rudy was a mechanic in his other life; he’d decided he’d had enough of looking under hoods at carburetors and fuel pumps and retired to Mackinac, where there were no cars and lots of bikes and euchre tournaments. Rudy kicked some major euchre butt down at the Mustang Lounge, called the Stang. The trophies on the shelf over the workbench were proof of the kicking-butt part.
    â€œYou know,” Rudy said. He held up the blue sequined dress and tilted his head, a smile tipping his mustache. “I like this dress. I like the sparkle. Always been a sucker for sequins. Not exactly a traditional wedding dress, I’ll give you that, but like Twain says,
Life’s short, break the rules
.”
    I sat down on the second stool beside Rudy’s where we spent many hours together working on bikes, Rudy fixing them and me painting. “I don’t know if Irma would agree, but getting rid of the sequins andbringing back your bride’s dress of her dreams is my problem, not yours.”
    â€œDear girl.” Rudy put his arm around me. “When Irma sees this dress, pots will be thrown, cans kicked, colorful words will fill the air around us and customers will dive for cover. I’m the one who lives with the disconcerted bride. Trust me, it’s my problem.”
    â€œIf it’s any help, I called Brides and Bliss to see what was going on. Seems a clerk had a little too much bliss, came in drunk as a skunk and screwed up the orders. A bunch of brides are on the warpath and the clerk is now living in Peru under an assumed name. Your old recliner is still in the back room if you need a hideout till this gets fixed, and since we’re on the subject of hiding, have you seen Fiona?”
    Rudy picked up a wrench and added the new seat to the Sesame Street bike that I’d painted with Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and the gang. “You don’t really think Fiona had anything to do with this Peep guy being dead?”
    â€œDo you?”
    I pulled the purple sequined hat from my jacket and dropped it next to the white box. “I found this in that Peep guy’s room. This means Fiona was there, and my guess is she was looking for his cell phone. There’s something on that phone she wants kept quiet. Do you have any idea what happened while she was out in L.A.?”
    Rudy picked up a socket wrench. “None of us knows, and she never talks about it. Her daddy wentto see her a few times when