Alex Harris 00 - Poisoned

cheating to me, too, but Mom wants to be ready.”
    “She sure does like to win, doesn’t she?” I said.
    “Don’t we all.”
    I went back to my own office where I stayed until after seven.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    I awoke before the sun rose and took a shower, pulled on a strait skirt in dark brown and a matching safari jacket and eyed myself in the dresser mirror. My hair, recently cut and now spiked up with a large glob of hair mud, continued to defy me but with the help of some artfully placed highlights, I liked it better.
    Ten minutes later I guided my car through the streets of Indian Cove. The sky gradually grew light as the first rays of a low sun peeked over the horizon.
    All along my route, houses announced the impending holiday with large pumpkins and floating ghosts adorning front yards. Some people really got into the spirit, no pun intended, and strung lights from eaves and mounted witches on their roofs that in the evening would sway in the wind when pumps filled them with air. This being New England, anything to do with autumn got done up properly. I turned right into a well-tended community of small, one-story homes and parked in front of number two-four-two.
    “Come in, come in,” Meme said to me. “Samantha called and told me what happened at the Brissart home. Just terrible. I got your tea all ready and I’m making you a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich. Got some of that hard bread you like.”
    I kissed my grandmother’s cheek and closed the door. “When don’t you have some of the hard bread I like,” I said teasingly, “and how did you know I was coming?”
    Meme patted my cheek. “You always come to your grandmother.” She turned and scurried into the tiny kitchen.
    Today she wore her black dress with the tiny white polka dots and a black veil hat perched on her head. Like with always having bread, Meme always had a veil hat. For as long as I could remember my grandmother wore the hat, only taking it off when she went to bed or took a shower and even then, it didn’t always get taken off. “ You just never know when you might want to stop off at St. Michael’s ,” she would say. “ There’s always someone you need to light a candle for .” How true was that?
    “How does John feel about you being over at the house?” Meme called from the kitchen.
    I could hear a tea kettle whistling and walked into the room and pulled a mug out of the cupboard. “John didn’t make it over last night, but he called around nine with another warning not to get involved in the case. The police can handle it just fine, thank you very much. That’s how he feels about it.”
    I carried the sandwich and the tea into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Meme brought in a cup of coffee, heavy with milk, and took a seat on a chair by the window.
    I sighed heavily. “I didn’t think I should mention the fact I’m the one who uncovered the killer the last time Indian Cove went through this, so I told him I would keep my nose out of it though I did have to work there, didn’t I?”
    Meme cackled.
    “And if I happen to overhear something or need to ask a question, well, it’s all in a day’s work.” I smiled at my grandmother and took a big bite out of the sandwich. “Meme, do you know Mrs. Brissart?”
    Meme shook her head. “Never met her. I’ve seen her name in the papers plenty, though. She seemed to be on an awful lot of committees.”
    I nodded and swallowed a piece of the sandwich. “She is. That’s why we have one of our temps working over there, though we should call her permanent by now.”
    “Your sister said you’re going to be working over there this week. I’m real sorry, honey, that you have to go through all this again but at least you didn’t find the body this time.”
    “The housekeeper did. Poor woman.”
    “When you find out who the killer is, make sure you come get me first this time. We can’t go through what we went through last year.” Meme’s voice cracked.
    I decided to change the subject. “What are you doing today?”
    Meme heaved herself out of the chair and went into the kitchen and came back with a little notebook. “I got to go and do a few collections. I let one go for a few weeks cuz he got sick, but he’s back to work now. Can’t let them get too far behind.”
    My grandmother dabbled in loan sharking—on a very small scale and only with a few choice customers. I realized long ago that Meme didn’t need the money and didn’t actually make