Murder at the Luther: Read an Excerpt

Murder at the Luther has been reissued. Here’s an excerpt to enjoy:

Somewhere a faucet dripped—a sound that tapped irritably on my nerves. Since I could do nothing about it, I concentrated on my one small window. All I could see was the branch of a pecan tree. As the front blew swept in, I watched the branch sway. A squirrel scurried down a limb that hung close to my window. He stopped and stared—a pecan clamped between his tiny rodent teeth. His black eyes looked like beads of lead. I whistled at him in an attempt to commune with nature. His pecan fell from his mouth, and he began chattering away in annoyance as if his misfortune were my fault. Damn! Even the Palacios squirrels did their best to blame me for something I didn’t do. I pulled another magazine from under the coat. Popular Mechanics. What better reading material than Popular Mechanics to render myself unconscious?

I was a few sentences into an article on how to pull a carburetor out of a Plymouth in fifteen minutes when I started dozing. Before the author got the nuts off the bolts, I was out. I dreamed that Fogmore sat a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream on the floor just outside my reach. Billy walked by and shoved it closer with his foot. I picked up a spoon, and before I scooped out a bite, the ice cream had turned into a nest of mud dauber larvae.

“Sydney Jean Lockhart!”

I toppled off my cot and landed on the cold, filthy floor. The plates that had once held my lunch shattered. I sat for a moment, hoping I was still in the nightmare. I pushed my hair from my face and looked up. Yes indeed, I was still having a nightmare. It was four-foot-eleven, wearing a red dress with a pleated skirt and matching jacket trimmed in brown fur. Brown fur gloves covered her hands, and a pillbox hat, also made of fur, sat on her head. The ermine look-alike was my cousin Ruth. She was standing at the door, hands on her hips, her size-five foot tapping rapidly on the cement floor.

I looked down at her stylish footwear. “Ferragamo?” I asked.

“No, silly. André Perugia. No one can make a stiletto like Perugia. Why didn’t you call me?”

I was grateful for her concern.

“Mother and I left several messages. So, you’re too good for your family!? Open this door right now!”

“They lock the doors around here, Ruth. It’s sort of a custom.”

Fogmore pushed in front of her and unlocked my cage. “Fifteen minutes, ma’am.” Ruth walked in and wrinkled her nose.

“Have a seat.” I patted the cot.

“Chinchilla?”

“Mink.”

“Yours?”

“It belongs to a friend of mine.”

“You’re in jail, Sydney,” she said, peeling off her gloves.

“No shit. So are you.”

“Oh, my.” She opened her clutch and took out her clove cigarettes. “That policeman pawed through my purse. What did he think? That I’d have a gun in here?” She screwed two cigarettes into two ebony holders. We lit up.

Ruth looked around. “But it’s so ugly.”

“Maybe we can fix it up.” I blew a plume of smoke toward the mud dauber nest just in case one was still in there. “Chintz-covered throw pillows, matching curtains, a couple of lamps, a Persian rug.”

Ruth bounced up and down on the cot, sizing up its possibilities. “Anyway, while you were carousing in Palacios, Texas, my life has fallen apart.”

“You think I’m in here because I partied too much?”

“Well, I assumed. You can’t seem to stay out of trouble.”

“Me?” I started picking up the broken plates. I had to have something to do with my hands, so I wouldn’t strangle my cousin. “Ruth, you’re a real pain in the butt. You should have stayed home.”

“Sticks and stones, sticks and stones. So, what are you in for?”

“Murder.”

“Oh, my.”

“And before you ask, I’m innocent.”

“That’s what they all say.”