Read Online Stacy Matthews - Dear Mary 01 - Think Twice Before You Order by Stacy Matthews - Free Book Online

on a board and
had the knife and butter all ready to go. At some point someone had moved me to
the dining room table and I was sitting at my seat. Before I knew it, we were
eating, drinking and talking about all the different activities the
grandchildren were up to. Apparently several of the grandkids are into sports.
Neither Mrs. Houtz nor Mrs. Edmonds care for sports, let alone understand them,
but they make a big deal about every touchdown, goal, point or
thing-a-ma-bobbies as they call them that each grandchild makes.
    As we were having our dessert they both asked how Grandpa and Tatiana
were doing. Of course I told them they were fine. There’s something I have to
explain to you about Mrs. Houtz and Mrs. Edmonds, or as several people in town
refer to them “Miss Marple and Mrs. Fletcher.” They both love a good mystery,
be it book, movie or TV, but the Holy Grail for them is if it’s a real life
mystery, which they are constantly on the lookout for. The drawback is
sometimes they try to make something out of nothing. I say they, but Mrs. Houtz
is more like Jane Marple.
    Jane Marple was a character written by Agatha Christie back in the
twenty’s. I loved this character. She looked like every other old lady you see,
didn’t matter if she was knitting or pulling weeds in her garden, but when it
came to mysteries she had a sharp logical mind. Although she looked sweet and
old she feared neither dead nor living, and had a remarkable ability to latch
onto a casual comment and connect it to the case at hand. That pretty well sums
up Mrs. Houtz. Mrs. Edmonds is more like Jessica Fletcher, mysterious things
just sort of happen around her.
    Jessica Fletcher was a character on TV played by Angela Landsbury. It was
a show about a widowed mystery writer who lived in the tiny made up town of
Cabot Cove, Maine. I swear wherever this woman went people died and she had to
help the local authorities figure out who did it. Thank goodness no one ever
dies around Mrs. Edmonds, just strange things happen.
    With the two of them spending more time with one another, I can tell the
influence each has had on the other. Each of them has a way of asking you
questions, and you don’t realize how much information you’re giving them until
the cats out of the bag, and there’s no way to get the information back. That’s
why I hadn’t asked them any questions about Grandpa and Tatiana. I knew they
would have their own theories, and most likely an entire scenario about the
older man dating a much younger woman. But I did want to know what they thought
about Tatiana, and when was the last time they had seen either one of them. I
had to be very careful with my questions, or they would be on me like white on
rice.
    At first glance they both appeared to be happy that Grandpa had found
someone, and said how it used to break their hearts seeing him working out in
the yard by himself for all those years. Mrs. Edmonds casually mentioned they
had noticed Tatiana’s accent, and asked if I knew where she was from. I watched
their faces closely as I said Russia. I am in awe of these women’s control of
their facial expressions. I wanted to ask them right then and there how they
did that, but it wasn’t the time. Russia was where they thought she was from. Mrs.
Houtz said at first, most of the neighborhood was shocked that Grandpa had a
girlfriend. It had been so many years since Grandma died they assumed Grandpa,
like a large number of widowers in town, was content being alone. When they
found out Tatiana was actually living with Grandpa, and how young she was,
Marple and Fletcher became intrigued and a little worried.
    I could tell they were trying to get as much information from me as I was
trying to get from them. I thought if I asked why, they would be worried, I would be falling into a questioning trap they may
have planned, so I let that slide. I casually mentioned that the late night
traffic was driving Mrs. Ruby crazy. I tried to play it off as