Read Online Cinco de Mayhem by Ann Myers - Free Book Online

who they are?”
    Flori squeezed in between us. “I have all their names,” she said, waving a small notepad. She handed me the pad. “I noted which ones seem extra happy and which think my Linda’s guilty. Of course, maybe the killer would say that Linda’s innocent.”
    â€œAh, as a trick,” Addie said, tapping her forehead and inadvertently dislodging her wig.
    Or maybe the killer would stay home and not go out for breakfast, free or otherwise. I took the proffered notepad and studied the names. They were all in different handwriting, some with added smiley faces and inspirational statements, like, “You go, Linda!” and “We stand behind you!” and “We understand!”
    You had them sign their own names?” I asked, impressed with my friend’s boldness.
    Flori grinned. “I told them I was keeping a memory book, like old people do. Young folks can be so gullible.” She patted my arm. “Not you, of course, dear. You’re a keen sleuth. As soon as we get rid of our freeloading friends out there, we can get to work.”
    â€œWork?” I asked. Feeding people was our work.But I didn’t need keenness to figure out what Flori was about to say.
    â€œCatching the real killer,” she said matter-of-factly.
    â€œJolly good!” Addie exclaimed, raising her hand for a high five.
    I reluctantly raised my hand. Addie slapped it hard as my stomach dropped.

Chapter 6
    A n hour later most of the pancake eaters had exhausted their rousing speeches and left. Linda had slipped out the back, heading for solace at the Cathedral. Juan was taking a well-deserved break. I would have taken a break too, except Flori was packing me a tote bag I could have done without.
    â€œI really don’t need all this,” I protested. What I needed was a nap, and possibly a few more pancakes, although I’d already had a short stack with an over-easy egg, two strips of bacon, and extra syrup on top.
    â€œBest to be well supplied and strike while the scene’s hot,” Flori said. “That’s what Sun Tzu would say.”
    I reminded myself that a year ago Flori had taken up fencing, again at the Senior Center. She’d practiced by striking our flour sacks with a saber until one day she jabbed too hard and we had anindustrial-sized cleanup on our hands. Tai chi would pass, and maybe the Senior Center would start offering more age-appropriate workshops like scrapbooking or bird-watching.
    â€œHere, to stuff in your pocket or brassiere. The smallest binoculars I have.” Flori handed me binoculars fit for a doll. “They’re from that New Year’s bird count that my friend Miriam insists on. Why she’s interested in that, I’ll never know. Cold and boring, if you ask me, and we never see more than a few finches and towhees.”
    â€œTowhees are beautiful, and didn’t you see a whole flock of sandhill cranes once?” I said encouragingly. “How amazing was that?”
    Flori acknowledged the beauty of cranes. “I didn’t go looking for them, though. I saw them when I was out spying on the postman because Bernard—the old fool—thought he was smuggling counterfeit Hatch chiles.”
    I recalled the incident. Bernard, Flori’s husband and love of her life for sixty-some years, detected the scent of freshly roasted chiles on their mail. This would be perfectly normal in late summer and fall, when New Mexico ships out fresh, frozen, jarred, and dried chiles by the ton. In early spring, however, the scent aroused Bernard’s and Flori’s suspicions. Tailing the postman revealed that he was uninvolved, except for delivering South American chiles to a restaurant claiming to serve only New Mexico’s finest. Flori tipped off a newspaper reporter who publicly exposed the lie. No one passes off fake chile around Flori and gets away with it.
    Now she stuffed two brown paper sacks intothe