Guess Who's Coming to Die? by Patricia Sprinkle Page B

her so upset?
Grover: Did he see Cindy talking on her phone? (could provide alibi)
Wilma: Would she have had time to kill Willena and still do refreshments? Why should she?
Sadie Lowe:
    I got stuck at that point. I disliked Sadie Lowe, but I couldn’t imagine a single motive she could have for murdering Willena. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single motive anybody could have for murdering her. A lot of women had felt the rough side of her sweet-talking tongue and might want to smack her. But murder?
    Murder, I had heard, generally springs from three motives: love, lucre, and . . . what was the other one? I was having a middle-aged moment and couldn’t remember. But neither of the other two seemed applicable here. Willena and Grover, if they were in love, showed no signs of quarreling. They’d been laughing together over some private joke before the meeting started. And Wilma, her presumptive heir, was well fixed in her own right. I had no idea how the two fortunes compared, but doubted that Wilma would have killed Willena for money — especially at a public meeting. She had weed killer and other yard chemicals at home she could have used privately. Besides, for all I knew, Willena had left her money to the Sierra Club. There went Wilma’s only motive. But I reached for my pen and added two additional notes:
6. Find out how Willena left her money.
7. Figure out who had the corkscrew last. Who was sitting at the back? Where did they put the box after they looked at it?

    After Wilma presented it to Willena, we had passed the whole set around, admiring it. It was a pretty set, and the initials on the silver shot glass were a classy touch. I could picture the little wooden box lined with royal blue velvet going up and down the rows, then . . . what? Had Willena taken the set with her to the bathroom? Or had the corkscrew been filched by whoever admired it last? Who was that?

    I had no idea. Gusta had insisted that Cindy, Meriwether, and I sit with her in the third row. I hadn’t looked to see who was sitting behind us.

    I was cheered by having something to do besides sit and wait for Charlie to notice that Cindy was gone. I carefully put the list in my pocketbook where Joe Riddley wouldn’t see it and went to see what our cook, Clarinda, had left for supper. First thing tomorrow, I’d start working down my list. Surely I would find something to clear Cindy.

10

    Mama used to say as we dressed for our annual trip to Atlanta’s smartest stores, “Gussy yourself up to intimidate them, honey, before they try to intimidate you.” So although I hadn’t slept at all well Wednesday night because of worrying about Walker and Cindy, I got up Thursday morning and dressed with Dexter Baxter in mind. Dexter was a snob. He strutted around Hopemore like cleaning toilets and mopping floors at the Hopemore Community Center elevated him far above folks who cleaned toilets and mopped floors in houses or offices, and he was never happier than when there was a formal do at the center and somebody rented him a tux to wear while helping the caterers.

    For talking to Dexter, therefore, I put on my most expensive cream-and-green linen two-piece dress with my priciest bone pumps. I changed from my big carryall pocketbook to a small bone clutch Cindy had bought me for Christmas, because I’d heard that Dexter rated women by the maker of their shoes and purse. Halfway through breakfast Joe Riddley summoned the energy to lift his eyes from the newspaper. “You got a date for lunch? Ted Turner, maybe? Donald Trump?”

    That man can go three weeks without noticing what I’ve got on, and then the one morning I don’t want him to pay any attention, he does. I’d figured he might, so I had an answer ready.

    “I’m taking Wilma a casserole, so I want to look nice.” Please note that I told the absolute truth. I already had a frozen casserole in my car. If I also had a bag of frozen blueberry muffins to take to Dexter first, why mention