Read Online Who Killed the Queen of Clubs?: A Thoroughly Southern Mystery by Patricia Sprinkle - Free Book Online

straight, the gathers nearly even. “You did a great job,” I congratulated her. “I’d never have guessed you were a beginner.”
    “I am, though. I never made anything by myself before.” She stroked Mama Bear’s shoulder as if to assure herself the apron was real.
    The chill had reached my bones by then, and my hands and feet were beyond feeling. I set each glass on a coaster on the coffee table and rubbed my palms together. “Were you going to light a fire?” I’d have sat on the couch, but even the furniture looked cold, so I walked around, hoping to warm up. My perambulations took me over to the loveliest piece of furniture in the room—a rosewood curio cabinet with glass doors. It used to grace Edie’s foyer.
    “That’s got a light,” Valerie called from across the room. “Down on the right side.”
    I pushed a button and illuminated Wick’s mother’s prized set of American snuffboxes, so tiny and brightly colored they looked like jewels. “Those are Edie’s boxes,” Valerie informed me. “Folks used to carry chewing tobacco in them, or something.”
    Her voice was muffled. I turned to see her kneeling beside the fireplace, which was laid with wood, but no kindling and no paper. She had her head right down near the logs, peering at them as if waiting for them to reveal their secrets. “I guess I need a match—”
    A blind man could have seen she had no idea how to light a fire. “Do you have any newspaper?”
    She looked around. “I don’t know if Edie got one today.”
    Next to the fireplace, an old copper bath held newspapers. A coal scuttle held kindling, and a china vase held long matches. I headed that way, but before I could reach them, Valerie grabbed a match. She struck it and tossed it into the fireplace. When nothing happened, she tried another. The third time she grabbed a fistful, lit them all, and flung them toward the logs. Several missed their target and bounced on the floor. Wisps of smoke curled from the carpet.
    Valerie was still bent over peering at the cold logs. “It’s not burning,” she lamented.
    I dashed across the room, shoved her aside, and stamped out embers, so busy looking for every wisp that I heard a motorcycle in the drive only to register that Henry must be going home.
    Finally I reached for the lone match left in the vase. “Let me do it.” I wadded paper under the logs, set kindling on top of the paper, and lit the fire.
    “Ohhh.” Valerie nodded as she watched flames catch the kindling. “I see.”
    I put the screen in front and pressed my hands against it, wondering if we’d need to amputate all my fingers or only a few. It took me a while to realize that the crinkly sound I heard was not the fire in front of me.
    I looked around to see Mama Bear and her tablecloth blazing as merrily as the logs, with flames already slithering along the fabric to lick the back of the chair and the table legs.
    I gasped. Valerie turned. “Oh, no!” She stood, mesmerized and useless.
    I grabbed an afghan from the sofa and started to beat out the flames.
    “Valerie?” a gruff voice demanded from the door. “What have you done now? ”
    A life-sized teddy bear, all black and gold, strode into the room, hoisted the blazing chair with one hand and the table with the other, and headed to the kitchen like a waiter bearing a flaming dessert. His heavy black boots squished as he walked. Mama Bear wobbled so in her chair, I followed to be sure she didn’t fall. I reached the kitchen in time to see him tip her into the sink. A second later, the porch’s screen door slammed shut.
    Sunflower curtains dangled dangerously near the blaze, so I hurried over to turn on the water. Pain seared my right wrist as I reached for the tap and got too close to the flames. A hiss of steam filled the room. I choked as smoke filled my eyes and lungs.
    My poor jacket was singed and my wrist burned like—well, fire. I was on my way to the fridge for ice when the gruff voice announced,