Mean Woman Blues

Kenny’s school when she should have been working.
    The FBI hadn’t solved the case, either. All they really had was evidence that somebody had lobbed some poison over the fence. Steve’s neighbors were out of town, making it an easy operation. Their flower beds were disturbed, and the kind of poison wasn’t even slightly in doubt. The autopsy showed metaldehyde, a common ingredient in snail and slug pesticide handily bought at a garden center and often found on garage shelves. The perp could as easily be a dog-hating crazy as a Skip-hating fanatic.
    Skip found it was altogether better for her love life just not to bring it up. She and Steve seemed to have gotten over the rough spot, he attributing his bad temper to grief, she admitting to a streak of paranoia. After that, what with the termites and increasing May mugginess, she found it best to pretend it never happened. Steve had announced a sudden trip, and that ought to help too, she thought.
    She still intended to work the Jacomine case but not till after the spotlight from the angel caper dimmed. The FBI was keeping good tabs on Bettina, who was all they had at the moment. What Skip really wanted to do was get to Dallas and check out Rosemarie, Jacomine’s child bride. There was something intriguing there; she could feel it. And there was sure as hell no way to do that with the little decorating project her superiors had so kindly given her. She had an angel warehouse to set up. For that she needed an assistant and she happened to know an expert who worked free. She nipped across the courtyard to her landlord’s house and slipped into the kitchen, where she found only a pot of fabulous-smelling beans and Sheila, making a salad.
    For once, the kid was in a half-decent mood. “Hey, Auntie.”
    “Hiya, Martha Stewart.”
    “Puh-lease. This is cassoulet.” She favored Skip with a rare smile. “You can call me Julia, though.”
    “Oh. Roberts or Child?”
    Sheila just sniffed. “The uncles are teaching me to cook. Want to know something? I think I’ve got a talent for it.”
    “I think you might.” Skip said, though she really had no idea. She was just glad to see Sheila interested in something that didn’t involve shopping or makeup. Not that the kid was shallow; she was a kid. This could be a sign of impending adulthood. “Uncle Jimmy around?”
    “Upstairs. You better holler.”
    “Dee-Dee!” Skip trilled. “Dee-Dee
darling
!”
    “My ears!” Sheila winced.
    “Margaret?” Jimmy Dee’s voice was unmistakably welcoming. He was the only person in the world allowed to call her by her given name. “Is that you, my dainty darling?”
    “Ewwwwww,” said Sheila, but Skip could see her mouth twitching. For a few years after the kids came, Uncle Jimmy had tried to squelch his exuberantly campy side. (“Mustn’t upset the Martians, you know”— Mars being his nickname for Minnesota, where they came from.) Lately, they’d all relaxed— Uncle Jimmy, Skip, Steve, and Uncle Layne. Nowadays the kids called every hooker and queen in the neighborhood by name. Minnesota was a distant memory.
    Dee-Dee clattered down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Lovely as always, I see. Adore the torn T-shirt.”
    “Dee-Dee, have I got a job for you. Want to organize the most exclusive antiques boutique in town?”
    “Omigod, deco fun! You mean the Madonna Barn?”
    Skip smiled smugly. “It’s yours if you want it.”
    “How much does it pay?”
    Sheila stopped stripping ribs from Romaine lettuce and gave him a grin. “Oh, cut it out. It’s a maiden uncle’s wet dream.”
    “True, pearl of a girl. True. A Krispy Kreme of a scene, simply made for a queen.”
    The pearl of a girl snorted. “Sorry I butted in.”
    “I shall hang the walls with gold lamé, drape all the statues with old piano shawls and festoon them with Mardi Gras beads. For background music, Bach, I think.”
    Jimmy Dee was a lawyer who passed for straight in most circles. Skip thanked Bacchus his clients couldn’t hear him now. “You got the idea,” she said. “But you might have to downscale it.” In her heart, though, she thought the beads might be a pretty good touch.
    “When do we start?”
    “It’s going to take them a week or two to haul the statues to this old warehouse we’re using. I thought maybe you could come in at night and arrange them artfully.”
    “Arrange them? Me and what army? Some of those things weigh half a ton.”
    “Don’t worry, we’ve got the