Murder Gets a Life by Anne George Page B

right on Chief Joseph’s bladder as she came through the door with the pitcher. I motioned to Fred that I was going over to Howard’s trailer. He seemed to be happy with Tiffany and the Hawaiian Punch.
    There is no one on earth with a laugh like MaryAlice’s. It’s a bellow, I swear. And that’s what I heard when I got near Howard’s trailer. Henry saw me coming up the steps and opened the door. “Come in, Aunt Pat. Howard’s telling us a story you’re going to love.”
    I smiled at Howard. He was the Turkett I had seen the least of. Probably under all that facial hair, I decided, was a handsome man.
    “He’s telling us how Pawpaw lost his hearing,” Mary Alice said. She had made herself at home, I noticed. Boots off, she was leaning back in a recliner with the air-conditioning unit blowing right on her. “Start over, Howard. I don’t want Patricia Anne to miss any of this.”
    Howard offered me the stool he was sitting on and leaned against the kitchen counter, grinning.
    “Well, you know Papa worked for NASA. He was a rocket scientist, a damn good one, too, so I understand. One of Wernher von Braun’s right-hand men. When we were little, I remember he was gone all the time.
    “Anyway, they all went to Cape Canaveral to see Apollo 11 launched. I mean, this is what they had been working for years for, right? A man on the moon?”
    We nodded.
    “Well, they took the guys from Huntsville out to see their handiwork, got them front-row seats for the launch. I mean those guys were in rocket scientist heaven.
    “The only problem was that Paw made one little mistake. He decided to use one of the Port-o-Johns out by the launchpad and he got locked in. Can you imagine? The man designs spaceships to go to the moon and he can’t get himself out of a Port-o-John. In all the excitement, nobody missed him, and he says he finally got so tired, he just propped his headover on the toilet paper and went to sleep. And then the rocket launched.”
    “One giant leap,” Mary Alice bellowed. Henry was laughing so hard, he was gasping. And, I’ll have to admit, I was laughing as hard as they were. I had this cartoon image of Pawpaw, hair on end, arms and legs stretched to the corners of the Port-o-John while man blasted to the moon.
    “He came out of there a changed man,” Howard continued when we were quiet enough. “Said he wasn’t ever going to do anything again but fish. And that’s when we moved down here close to the river. Started out with two trailers.”
    Howard was a good storyteller. He paused. “We ate a lot of catfish.”
    Mary Alice and Henry continued to laugh, but there was a slight change of tone in Howard’s voice that, old schoolteacher that I am, I caught.
    “What’s Pawpaw’s name, Howard?” I asked.
    “Melvin. His name is Melvin.”
    In a few minutes, I was back with Fred and Tiffany.
    “Are you laughing, honey, or crying?” Fred asked.
    “I’m not sure.” And that was the truth.

Eight
    A s we were leaving the Compound, Eddie Turkett came over to thank us for coming. One thing about these Turkett men—they could grow hair. Eddie was as fully bearded as Howard, and, like Howard, was probably a handsome man under that mop. Eddie’s beard, I noticed, was sprinkled with gray.
    “You’re very welcome.” Fred shook Eddie’s hand. “Sunshine’s our family, too, now.”
    What a nice man.
    “Anything we can do to help, just call.” Tiffany reached over and put one of her Magic Maid business cards in Eddie’s shirt pocket. I frowned at her as he walked away.
    “What?” she asked. “He’s the rich one, isn’t he?” The child had been around Mary Alice too long. I could just hear Sister saying, “ Smart move, Tiffany .”
    Which reminded me. “You’d better go tell Sister you’re going home with us.”
    “Hey.” Tiffany reached out and grabbed Deputy Leroy’s arm as he walked by. “You know Mrs. Crane in the blue jumpsuit?”
    He nodded.
    “Tell her Tiffany’s gone home with