Read Online Death by Deep Dish Pie by Sharon Short - Free Book Online Page A

blood pressure ever since Jason’s death. Maybe I should be worried about him having a stroke instead of Cletus; the un-air-conditioned theatre was hotter than outside. I was starting to sweat.
    â€œMy father wouldn’t sponsor my visit, so thanks again to Josie Toadfern’s sponsorship, I’m here without reproach,” Trudy continued reading from her notes, “along with other future leaders of Paradise.” The kids-in-black twittered at Trudy’s words. “As you all know, my family has underwritten the Breitenstrater Founder’s Day celebration—of course you know, because the celebration’s named after us—and most recently, the renovation of this playhouse—”
    I didn’t know they were funding the playhouse—but it made sense. Who else would have the money? Maybe the family was angling to have the theatre renamed the Breitenstrater Theatre, and that’s what Alan’s announcement was going to be about.
    â€˜A waste of their money,” someone in front of me whispered to the person next to her, “’cause it sure doesn’t look like this place is gonna get done in time for the play!”
    I poked the person whispering on the shoulder, and she turned around. Cherry Feinster, owner of Cherry’s Chat N Curl, and my on-again, off-again friend since junior high. Right now, we were in between, because she’d permed and dyed my hair into oblivion this past spring. Well, there were other factors that made the chemical re-do of my hair go bad. But still, I gave her plenty of credit for the fact that I was sporting a blond semiburr, which I had to admit to myself—but never would to her—was more comfortable in the summer heat than my standard pony tail.
    â€Cherry,” I whispered, “this theatre is gonna get done in time.”
    She half-snorted, half-laughed at me. “Haven’t you heard? Your Uncle Otis walked off the job today. He’s hot on the trail of another of his get-rich-quick schemes.”
    Of course, if I’d been at the that day, I’d already have known this. Word travels fast in a small town. But I’d been at Stillwater happily unaware of anything going wrong.
    What could Uncle Otis’s scheme be now, I wondered? Earlier in the year, he’d plunked a thousand bucks into shares in a self-cleaning port-o-potty start-up. When that went to pot, so to speak, Uncle Otis got hooked into condo time-share-selling in Florida, sure that he would be able to retire in style in the sunny South. The Toadfern clan had even had a going-away party for him. Two months later, he’d returned, swearing he would stick to the honest labor he knew best.
    But now he was at it again. And I admit that I hoped whatever it was this time would take him out of town again, for Sally’s sake.
    Sandy, who was sitting next to Cherry, turned and whispered to me, “Your Uncle Otis came into the restaurant first thing this morning, ordered up his coffee and grits—and then paid with a hundred dollar bill. Said he’d found himself a new way of making money and he sure wasn’t going to break his back in the remodeling business no more.”
    I glanced nervously at Cletus up on the stage, rocking back and forth happily on his feet, just like a big kid. My stomach flip-flopped. Hadn’t he mentioned he knew my Uncle Otis? That they’d had many a fine discussion at the old theatre? Oh, Lord. Was it possible Cletus was behind whatever get-rich scheme my Uncle Otis was bragging about now?
    Sandy turned back around, but Cherry whispered to me, “So it’s just Sally. Think she can handle this job and her bratty triplets?”
    Then Cherry turned back, too. I was torn between wanting to whop her upside the head for calling my darling first-cousins-once-removed bratty, and wanting to go find Uncle Otis and whop him upside the head for abandoning his daughter—and embarrassing me.
    Instead,