Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) by Linda Ross (reading books for 7 year olds .TXT) 📗

eye in February.  I thought maybe I’d given him pink eye before, so I changed it to massive hearing loss.  I was in a really good mood by the time I finished the horoscope and forwarded it to Lorenzo.  I grabbed my purse and coat and headed for the door.  Thelma followed suit.

“Where do you want to eat?” I asked as we headed down the sidewalk.

We took my car and ended up at a buffet on the main highway.  I loaded my plate with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits and corn.  Thelma had so much salad on her plate that it looked like a conservatory.

“So what do we know about this Hominy?” Thelma asked, carefully blotting her mouth.  I noticed that her lipstick was still in place.  I had just about cleaned my plate and I’d wager there was corn in my teeth.

“Not much.  I looked over my notes again, and Derek said that she had said something about Walmart to Kara.”

“Not much to go on.  It could mean just about anything.”

“I don’t think they were planning a shopping trip,” I said dryly.

“You never know.  A shopping trip for us might mean something different to them.”

“What?  You think they were stealing?”

“Could be.  They were certainly into something for both of them to die suddenly.”

We were silent a moment, and I slipped back to the food bar to get some dessert.  I couldn’t decide between the carrot cake and cheesecake, so I got one of each.  Thelma raised her brows, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m going to go on a diet,” I assured her.  “This is my last fling.”

“How many last flings have you had?”

“I’ve lost count.”

“You should start with something easy,” Thelma advised.  “Start eating a salad with lunch.”

I looked at her plate and sighed.  “I’m not that fond of salads.”

“So try something else.  Have some soup with lunch.”

That sounded doable.  Especially broccoli cheese soup, one of my favorites.  And big slices of French bread slathered with butter always went well with broccoli cheese soup.  I could get into this dieting.  Dieting. “Yikes,” I said.  “Fat Blasters is day after tomorrow.”

“What’s Fat Blasters?”

“It’s this diet group I belong to.  We weight every week and then we go out to eat.”

“And this works for you?”

“Well, maybe not as far as losing weight, but the gossip and eating out are fun.  Actually, I could probably pick up some information on Kara there.”

“I’m sure you could,” a deep male voice said, and I jumped and looked behind me.  There stood Jimmy Burrell, looking annoyed.  Thelma wisely kept silent.

“Jimmy,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

Jimmy sat on the edge of my bench seat and nudged me with his leg until I moved over.  “I stopped by the Spyglass and Lorenzo said he saw you driving away from downtown.  I figured you were heading to lunch.  This is the second place I’ve checked.”

“Kudos on your detective work,” I said.

“I only had to look for places with good desserts, which narrowed the field.”

“I find that mildly insulting.  True, but insulting.”   I tried to subtly move my napkin over the cheesecake, but both Jimmy and Thelma were watching.  Jimmy was still looking annoyed.

“What did I tell you about this case?” he demanded.

“That you don’t know who did it?”

I saw his jaw tighten.  “That we’re dealing with someone very dangerous and you need to stay out of it.  So what did you do?”

“I fortified myself with fried chicken.”

“No, you called the apartment complex where the drug overdose happened.”

Uh-oh.

“How do you know that was me?”

“Really, Aretha?  A church with an older member looking to move in there?  If that doesn’t have your fingerprints all over it I don’t know what does.”

“All right, all right.  I called.  I was looking into doing a fentanyl story for The Spyglass.  The woman mentioned Hominy’s name and I recognized it from what Derek told us.  Is that a crime?”

“It will be if whoever’s behind this comes after you next.  I’m serious.  Don’t do the fentanyl story.  Please.  We need to find out what we’re dealing with first.”

“Doesn’t it seem pretty coincidental that right after Kara was killed someone she knew dies of a drug overdose?”

“Not necessarily.”  Jimmy reached over and picked a piece of my leftover biscuit off my plate, then popped it into his mouth.  “If Hominy was doing drugs, especially fentanyl, it was probably just a matter of time.”

“I don’t buy it,” I said, smacking his hand as he lifted the napkin on my cheesecake.

“Come on.  One bite.”

“Not until you give me some information.  I don’t play fast and loose with my cheesecake.”

Jimmy sighed.  “You drive a hard bargain.  All right.  There was a connection.”

“Hah!  I knew it.  So what was it?”

“They both served time in jail in St. Louis several years ago.”  He looked at the cheesecake, then at my face.

I pushed my dessert fork over to him.  “Okay, that’s pretty interesting.  What were they in jail for?”

“Hominy for drugs and Kara for embezzling and theft.”  He closed his eyes and sighed.  “That’s good cheesecake.”

“What exactly did Kara do?”

“She stole money from the place where she worked, and she had a little side business going as a porch pirate.”

“As in where someone grabs a package off someone’s porch?”

Jimmy nodded and forked in another big bite of cheesecake.  “Apparently she would follow the UPS truck around and pick up packages as soon as they were delivered.  She was caught when some old lady was slow getting to the door to get her package and Kara thought she wasn’t home.  She saw Kara.  Kara ran for her car, but the woman was pretty sharp.  She had a camera handy and snapped a picture of her and her car.