Aretha Moon and the Dead Hairdresser: Aretha Moon Book 2 (Aretha Moon Mysteries) Linda Ross (books for students to read TXT) 📖

Something of what was going through my head must have showed on my face, because Jimmy said, “I think the text you got was supposed to scare you away.  I don’t think whoever sent it is a real threat.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, and because I’m not I’m going to stay here at night until we catch the guy.”

“Oh, boy, a roomie, Nancy.”

Jimmy smiled and took another big swallow of beer.  “But we aren’t going to bake something every night.  I’ll gain too much weight.”

“You men,” I said.  “Always thinking about your figure.”

“Being beautiful is a curse.”

The thing is, he really is a great looking guy.  Right up there with a couple of my favorite actors.  He has kind of a Kevin Costner vibe, and I like that.

Jimmy and I watched TV and, predictably, I fell asleep on the couch by 9:30.  Jimmy woke me up after he’d let Nancy out to pee.  He gave me a chaste kiss on the forehead and pointed me in the direction of my bedroom.  By the time I brushed my teeth, Nancy was already sound asleep on the pillow next to mine.  Nancy snores a little, but it’s a delicate poodle snore that doesn’t keep me awake.  That’s what I like about her.  She’s like one of those kindly older women you sometimes run into in church.  She doesn’t want to be a bother, and she’s happy just to hang out with you.

I drifted off to sleep feeling safe and content now that Jimmy was here in the house.  Not a very independent woman kind of feeling, but it was the best I could do when Jimmy wouldn’t let me bake anything.

CHAPTER TWELVE

 I left the house at eight the next morning to pick up Thelma at her brother’s house.  Jimmy was up and eating breakfast, getting ready to go to work.  “Don’t you have anything that doesn’t require syrup except Little Debbie?” he asked from the pantry.

“There might be a container of oatmeal on the top shelf,” I said.

“I already checked.  Had to throw it out.  Little things crawling in it.”

“See?  I never have that problem with Little Debbie.”

Jimmy sighed and emerged with a box of donuts.  “You’re out of eggs,” he said.

“I’ll get some on the way home.”

“You and Thelma take care,” he said, giving me a serious look.  “Don’t take any chances.”

“It’s just Arnold, Missouri,” I said.  “I don’t think whoever killed Kara will be there.”

“Still. . . .”

I appreciated his concern, but I figured it came from his police detective’s side and not his personal side.  He’d spent the night, and apparently he hadn’t even been tempted by me.  Of course who would be tempted by a menopausal woman who fell asleep on the couch at 9:30?

Thelma looked as elegant as always when she got into the car.  For an ex-nun, she certainly knew how to dress.  This time it was a pair of black slacks with a hot pink top and a chunky pink jacket with piping and little green leaves on it.  Of course her pink earrings matched her necklace of pink beads.

I, on the other hand, was wearing blue pants that would have looked better if I’d ironed them, a white T-shirt and my denim jacket.

Neither of us had had breakfast, so we stopped at a small restaurant on the way out of town.  I got eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns and biscuits, and Thelma got oatmeal and coffee.

“How can you survive on such little food?” I asked.

“I’m trying to eat less meat,” she said.  “It’s a good spiritual exercise.”

I sighed.  I couldn’t see myself eating less of anything.  The most spiritual exercise I got was when I got on the scale and asked God to make that last Snickers disappear from my system.  Which never happened.

“I don’t know about spiritual,” I said.  “God never listens to me when I ask for brownie calories not to count.”

“That’s asking for magic,” Thelma said.  “For a spiritual exercise you offer up something or you give something of yourself.  It makes you stronger in spirit.  And it gives you serenity.”

“The only thing I could give up that would make me serene is pantyhose.”

“It has to be something you like.  It’s a sacrifice.”

“You mean like Diet Coke?”

“Exactly.”

“Not going to happen.  What about Little Debbie oatmeal cakes?  I could give them up.”

“You don’t even like them that much.”

“True.  But if I don’t have any Little Debbie Swiss Rolls I’ll eat them.”

The rest of the drive to Arnold, Thelma tried to explain the benefits of sacrifice to me, but I had a counter argument.  I’d already sacrificed a marriage, although that wasn’t my choice at the time, a house and a nice income.  I didn’t really have anything else to offer up.

We had a plan for getting information in Arnold.  We were going to start with the church and see where that took us.  The church was fairly easy to find, especially since it looked like a large box that had given birth to baby boxes that went out from either side to form a ring.  There was a steeple of sorts on the biggest box and a bright red door.

“I’m not sure what the concept is here,” I said to Thelma as we mounted the cement steps to the red door.  “The nine circles of hell?”

“Could be.  You should watch your back, considering you do horoscopes.  Remember what happened to the fortune tellers.  They had to walk forward with their heads on backwards.”

I snorted dismissively.  “I do that every day.  That’s a requirement for working for Lorenzo.”

We stepped inside the church and saw a sign that read Office. Below it was an arrow pointing down the hall.  We could see an open door and hear the