Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard by Fran Rizer Page B

in the room, and the bathroom door was partly open, so I could see he wasn’t in there.
    “Mad at me. I jumped him about the lunch money you gave him. He got all defensive, but he couldn’t show me the money or a receipt for putting it on his lunch ticket. He stormed off down the hall to the waiting room. I guess he’s watching television.”
    “I brought you a waffle and some coffee.” I set the food bag on the bedside table. “I didn’t know if I should bring Maum something or not.”
    “Not,” Rizzie said as she opened the container, tore off a fourth of the waffle, and bit into it like a piece of toast. She didn’t bother with the packets of butter and syrup.
    “Maum can’t have anything to eat at all. They’re hoping to get an okay for her surgery today. Dr. Midlands came by earlier and said he would operate as soon as the heart doctors let him, even if it’s tonight.”
    “Good,” I said as the sheriff walked in, “the sooner, the better.”
    Rizzie told Wayne the same information she’d given me while she continued eating the waffle without all the good stuff I like to slather all over mine. When she finished, she dropped the little packets into the drawer of the bedside table, then tossed the bag and the tray into the trash.
    I could see that Wayne was about to tell her about the van when Maum’s body stiffened and she moaned. Rizzie leaned over and whispered comforting words in her ear while caressing her cheek with one hand and pressing the call button for the nurse with the other. Soon the nurse came in with the hypodermic. She released the medicine into the IV line and within minutes, Maum relaxed and appeared to be sleeping again.
    Rizzie popped the top off the cup I’d brought and nodded toward the door. “There’s coffee available at the nurses’ station if either of you want a cup. I’ve been drinking it all day.”
    “No, thanks,” I said. I’d been wishing I’d brought her a milkshake or something cold. The room was way too sweltering for anyone to be drinking hot coffee.
    “Any doughnuts down there?” Wayne joked and winked at me. I know it’s tacky, but I’ve never denied being tacky sometimes, and I tease him a lot about cops eating doughnuts.
    “If there’d been any,” Rizzie said. “I wouldn’t have inhaled that waffle. There’s a snack machine, but it’s broken, and I didn’t want to be gone from Maum long enough to go to another floor. I was starving.”
    Wayne motioned toward the empty chair by the bed. “Sit down, Rizzie. I want to talk to you a minute.”
    “What is it? Don’t tell me Ty’s in trouble. Maum and I have kept a tight rein on him since he was caught playing hooky last year.”
    “No, nothing to do with Tyrone,” Wayne said. “Do you know of a reason someone would want to do something against you or Tyrone?”
    “Not that I know of. What are you talking about?” She panicked. “What’s happened?”
    “It appears that your running into that pole didn’t cause the fire,” the sheriff said. “Somebody put a firebomb in your van.”
    “Was it on a timer? How could they do that?”
    “Nothing so fancy as a timer. It was very crude and would have had to be put in right before the fire.”
    “That’s impossible,” Rizzie protested.
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “Didn’t Tyrone say he saw someone there?”
    “I don’t know. I hardly know what I’m saying, much less what anyone else says.”
    “Think about it, and call me if you think of anything that might be related.” The sheriff headed toward the door. “I’ll stop by the waiting room and ask Tyrone if he saw someone by the van before the fire.”
    “If I think of anything, anything at all, I’ll call you,” Rizzie assured Wayne as he left.
    I visited with Rizzie before going to the waiting room where I found Tyrone, wearing a sullen expression, slouched on a couch in front of the television, looking for all the world like a grumpy old man.
    “Did the sheriff talk to