Set Sail for Murder by R. T. Jordan

others would have killed for the opportunity to do what you did. You stalked your prey. Confronted the devil. Thenyou succeeded where that adorable and sexy and totally hypocritical Ted Haggard failed. He only wanted drugs and male prostitutes. Your sin actually has a great big commandment. Thou shalt not …”
    Sarah grew wildly indignant. “Sins? The Lord took ‘em all away at Calvary!”
    “Convenient,” Placenta sassed.
    “Oh, shut up, heathen!” Sarah exploded at Placenta. Many in the bar looked in the direction of Polly’s table. Sarah bellowed, “Laura Crawford got just what she deserved! She was a lousy singer, too. Her acting wasn’t much better, but that hardly matters when she treated me with disdain. Miserable people like Laura have to be eliminated. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t the chosen one to do something about her.
    “I’d better go,” Sarah said, scooting her chair back and rising. “I’ll tell my husband that I had drinks, er, I’d better say a Coke, with the famous Polly Pepper. He’ll think another demon has gotten sucked into me. It happens a lot. Actually, maybe it’s best that I forget we ever had this meeting.” Sarah shook Polly’s hand. “It’s been … informative,” she said, and nodded to the others.
    As Sarah started to walk away, she hesitated for a moment and then turned back to Polly. “I know that you Hollywood people worship that golden graven image of the false god Oscar, but I won’t stand by as you blaspheme The Church of the Righteous Sinners, the one
true
religion. I don’t mind being in your funny story about how Laura Crawford died—bless her damned soul—but I wouldn’t want a joke like that to get around. You know how people talk, especially on the Internet. If Pastor Deuteronomy hears such a tall tale, he and the church elders might keep me from coming back again on next year’s Kool Krooz. And—heaven forbid—our church bulletin will suggest every Christian boycott your DVD collection. We were successful inobliterating ticket sales of Eddie Murphy’s
Imagine That,
so you know our power.”
    “Somehow I doubt that your congregation alone moved that flick out of theaters so quickly,” Placenta teased.
    After Sarah had finally disappeared out the door, Rachel took a long swallow of her drink and looked straight into Polly’s eyes. “What did we
really
do for the
privilege
of having drinks with America’s … um, the world’s … most famous television star from the old days?” she asked.
    Polly disliked being reminded that no one under the age of forty had probably ever heard of her television program. “I simply wanted to get to know a few people who I’m told appreciated my program enough to purchase the all-new boxed set collector’s edition DVDs of
The Polly Pepper Playhouse,”
she said. “You were just two out of hundreds who bought the new compilation here on the ship, so I wanted to autograph your discs.”
    Rachel, having imbibed an impressive amount of champagne said, “I think you’re full of it. So did Sarah, but she’s too much of a wimp to say so. Sure, I crack up whenever I see you as Bedpan Bertha. Oh, the things you, as Bertha, used to do to poor Bill Bixby, Sherman Hemsley, Ralph Macchio, and all the other stars! Performing a Pap smear on Tom Selleck was a classic laugh riot. But I think you’re nuts if you really think that Sarah had something to do with Laura Crawford’s death. Granted, I don’t know her. But I know her type. Needs a pack of parishioners behind her before she’ll commit to anything dastardly. She’s sheep and needs a dog nipping at her hind legs.”
    “They’re all on your new DVDs. The Bedpan Bertha sketches, I mean,” Polly said.
    “I think you’re investigating the death of your so-called friend, and we’re somehow suspects,” Rachel continued. “Like I said, I read the
Peeper.
So I know that you hang out with dead people and find out who made ‘em stopbreathing in the first