Murder in a Hot Flash by Marlys Millhiser

snapping his fingers. Charlie thought Earl’s description the most apt of all.
    And she noticed Mitch wasn’t even looking at the screen. He was still staring at her.
    Wouldn’t it be interesting if Mitch Hilsten was angry because John B. had his arm around Charlie?
    But Sheriff Sumpter arrived just then to arrest Charlie’s mother for the murder of Gordon Cabot and all else was forgotten.

Chapter 11
    Mitch Hilsten drove Charlie into Moab in his Bronco, Scrag Dickens riding along in the backseat. Ahead of them, Edwina rode with the sheriff.
    â€œWhere am I going to find a lawyer this time of night?” was all she could think of to say for miles. They were all pretty quiet. And then—“Will they let me see her tonight? I don’t think she’s feeling well.” Charlie was so numb she didn’t realize she was crying until Scrag reached over the seat back to stroke her shoulders in silent sympathy. “How could they tell it was her ax? That someone didn’t switch axes? Anybody could have left one of her cigarette butts there. I mean, if you wanted to kill Cabot and blame it on someone else, Edwina was the answer to a prayer. She knocked him on his ass right in front of the sheriff of Grand County. It’s such an obvious frame-up.”
    â€œYou do love her,” Mitch said barely above a whisper.
    â€œI never said I didn’t love her. Just because I can’t stand her, doesn’t mean I don’t love her.” Edwina had accepted the handcuffs and been read her rights without a whimper or a four-letter word. In fact with no word, just that scary gray acceptance. “Which doesn’t mean she did it.”
    â€œMom?” Charlie, accompanied by a female cop, stood in her mother’s cell in the Grand County Courthouse in the wee hours of the morning. Edwina sat on the edge of her bunk swaying with exhaustion.
    â€œWe’re worried too,” the officer said. “Does she have any history of heart problems or other ill health? Do you want a doctor, Mrs. Greene?”
    â€œI’m not deaf,” Edwina snapped back. “And no, I don’t want a doctor.”
    â€œShe’s not that old either.” Charlie was offended too. “You don’t have to treat her like she’s elderly.”
    â€œWhy not, you do,” her mother’s voice croaked out of the partial darkness. And then, “Never learn, do you? Thought at your age and being a mother yourself you’d have learned something by now.”
    â€œHello? Are we on the same planet here? You have just been arrested for murder. And like, we’re talking about what? ”
    But Charlie knew. Sheriff Sumpter had counted noses while she and Mitch were on the supply run and Edwina had overheard John B. explaining where Mitch Hilsten and Charlie Greene were and why they should not be disturbed. That’s what her mother’d been so pissed about at dinner.
    â€œAnd you believed him. Just because I made a mistake years ago and so should never be trusted again?” Not to mention that at thirty-two I have the right to sleep with someone if I want to. But Charlie knew that argument cut no ice with a parent.
    â€œHow was I to know what was bred into your genes?” her mother whispered with that hateful hiss. “Or who was into your jeans before I even knew the damn pants were hot?”
    Charlie churned with a familiar impotent frustration, knowing she was breeding the same cancer in her relationship with Libby and helpless to stop it.
    â€œAnd yesterday you went off with John B. to Moab. Charlie, I didn’t kill anybody, but they can hang me for this one and I don’t care. I’m worn out. So if you were planning on my raising Libby while you go off and have a wonderful life, you’re skunked, aren’t you?”
    â€œI wouldn’t let you raise Libby if you were the last adult on earth. And I’m not letting you take the fall for a