Show Business Is Murder by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

She’d help Evelyn.
    Granny was the last real grandmother in America. No facelifts and hair dyes for her. Granny had a comfortable flour-sack figure and crinkly gray hair.
    Granny’s little white house had yellow plastic lawn ducks and red geraniums. It was surrounded by acres of Missouri woods. Across the street was a horse pasture. Subdivisions were creeping up the road, but you couldn’t see them yet.
    Granny had grown up on a farm in Tennessee, and she loved to talk about old-time remedies from her girlhood. As a teenager, Evelyn was disgusted when Granny told her that country people used to tie moldy bread to a bad cut to cure the infection.
    Later on, Evelyn realized they were using a primitive form of penicillin.
    Of course, not all of Granny’s old-time remedies were useful. Evelyn didn’t believe a pan of water under a bed would break a fever, but it did no harm.
    Granny ran outside when she heard Evelyn’s car and gave her a comforting hug. Evelyn breathed in her grandmother’s old-fashioned violet sachet. Granny’s kitchen was perfumed with the warm sweetness of fresh-baked blackberry pie.
    â€œYou’re too thin,” Granny said, which made Evelyn feel better. You could never be too thin on TV.
    â€œAnd how’s my other favorite TV girl?” said Granny.
    â€œWho’s that?” said Evelyn, as she felt her insides go dead. Had that tinselly Tiffany seduced her Granny?
    â€œThe little blonde who rescued that dog,” Granny said. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
    â€œToo bad there’s nothing in it,” said Evelyn.
    â€œEvelyn, is that the green-eyed monster I see in your eyes?” said Granny.
    â€œNo,” Evelyn lied.
    â€œThen have some homemade pie and tell me why you’re dropping in on me in the middle of the day,” Granny said.
    â€œBecause I haven’t seen you in awhile,” said Evelyn. She couldn’t tell Granny the real reason. Not now. Not after she knew Granny was a Tiffany worshiper.
    Granny cut a big slice from the blackberry pie cooling on the rack. Warm purple juice oozed out on the plate and dripped on the counter, but Granny ignored it. She was staring out the window.
    â€œThose new people have their white horse in that pasture again on a sunny day,” Granny said. “They know that field’s full of rue plants. I’ve told them and told them, but they won’t listen to me. Damn yuppies think I don’t know anything. If that horse suffers, it’s their fault.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with rue?” asked Evelyn.
    â€œIt’s poisonous to white animals, especially in the sunshine,” said Granny. “Grows right there.” She pointed to some weedy-looking plants by the pasture fence.
    â€œThat doesn’t make sense,” Evelyn said. “Why would they poison only white animals?”
    â€œDon’t know, but they do,” Granny said. “Poison white people, too.”
    â€œCome on, Granny, plants don’t discriminate,” said Evelyn. She wondered if age was eroding Granny’s sharp mind.
    â€œI mean really white people, like blondes. It won’t hurt dark-haired types like you,” Granny said. “And that’s no old wives’ tale. It’s a scientific fact. If white animals eat rue, celery, and plants like that, then stand in bright sunlight, they can get real sick.
    â€œBut a chestnut horse can eat the same plants and nothing happens. Dark-haired animals and people don’t get sick. The plants are only poisonous to very white people and white animals.”
    â€œWhat happens?” asked Evelyn.
    Granny loved to describe symptoms. “Their face, throat, and eyelids swell up,” she said gleefully. “They get dizzy and stagger around like they’re drunk.” Granny staggered around the kitchen, clutching the purple pie knife to her chest.
    â€œHappened to your Aunt