Read Online Murder Boogies With Elvis by Anne George - Free Book Online Page A

her tea. “I guess y’all were at the Alabama Theater last night when that Elvis guy was killed, too, weren’t you?”
    “In the front row,” I admitted. “How did you know?”
    “Stands to reason the way you find bodies. You know folks are going to quit inviting you to their parties, don’t you?”
    Sister gave me a dirty look. “It’s Patricia Anne’s fault. I never saw a body in my life until she retired.”
    I swatted at Yul Brynner with a paper napkin.
    Bo burst out laughing.
    “What?” we both asked.
    “I saw Sheriff Stuckey down at the station, y’all. He was telling me about last night. He’s a nice man, Mary Alice.”
    “So nice I’m marrying him in May.”
    “Well, I do declare.” Bo swirled her tea bag gently in her cup. “Congratulations.”
    “Thanks. You’ll be getting an invitation.”
    “She’s planning on the attendants wearing magenta and sunflower,” I grumbled.
    “Have mercy. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.” Bo put her tea bag on the saucer and smiled at me. “I’ll bet you’re the magenta, Patricia Anne.”
    “She’s acting a fool about it, too.” Sister said. “You know what a beige person she is.”
    “I’m not a beige person.” I pointed to my blue sweater.
    “Nothing wrong with beige.” Bo took a sip of her tea. “Umm, that’s good.”
    “Have the police found out anything about the man who was killed last night?” I asked. “Like what he was doing here? We heard that none of the other Elvises even knew him.”
    “Y’all know more than I do. Y’all saw it happen. All I’ve been doing is fishing dogs out of Village Creek.”
    “All we saw was him falling into the orchestra pit,” Sister said. “That was enough to give me nightmares all night.”
    “Me, too. We thought he was having a heart attack. We didn’t know about him being stabbed.”
    Bo nodded. “Probably a switchblade the way it went in and then up. You can get such a good grip on a switchblade, you can do a lot of damage in a second.”
    Sister and I both put our tea down.
    “They haven’t found it?” I asked.
    “Not that I know of. I’m just guessing about the switchblade anyway. We haven’t gotten the report back.”
    “But someone would have had blood all over them wouldn’t they? I mean your hands would be right up against the body if you were gripping a switchblade, wouldn’t they? And all the Elvises had on white suits. Looks like that would be easy to check out.”
    “Might not have been much blood at all,” Bo said. “A punch, a little push up and across, and then out. Real quick, and you’ve got the aorta that’s bleeding inside, not out.”
    “My Lord,” Sister said. She had turned a greenish color. “Y’all change the subject. This is gruesome.”
    “God’s truth,” Bo agreed. “Tell me about the wedding.”
    Which Sister did, in detail. A lot of details that I hadn’t heard. I swear I think she was making it up as she went along. No sane person would plan a wedding reception in a pasture. There’s bucolic and there’s idiotic. Sister was opting for the latter as far as I was concerned.
    Bo finished her tea and said she had to get back to work, that probably folks were sitting on top of their cars under the Fifth Avenue viaduct waiting to be rescued. Lord only knew why, but it seemed like they aimed for that spot every time it rained hard. She put on her coat and told us to behave ourselves. We promised that we would. It wasn’t until she had driven off that I remembered that I hadn’t told her about Griffin Mooncloth’s appointment with Debbie. I was sure Debbie had already called and reported it, though.
    “I’m going to go upstairs and see if there’s a rocking chair,” I said. “I wonder which room they’ll use for the baby.”
    “That little room next to the master bedroom. The one Philip uses for his office. The one with all his computer stuff in it.”
    “Of course.” We grinned at each other. Dr. Philip Nachman’s life was in