A Place Called Wiregrass Read Online Free

And it’s not all a lie. If Suzette would’ve had a decent lawyer, she probably could’ve gotten off on insanity.
    “Well, I declare,” Miss Claudia said and wrinkled her brow.
    “Richard was forty-three when he had his nerve attack.”
    After she offered me more money than I expected, we discussed my hours and general responsibilities. Maybe I’d been wrong about Claudia Tyler—“Miss Claudia” she said everybody called her. As I approached the bedroom door, she held up her hand. I leaned forward, still uncertain whether I could take her and her mansion on.
    “I really only had Bertha around because the poor old thing needed the money that bad. Her with that little retarded boy and all.” Miss Claudia gazed at the comforter covering her legs. “But I never called her my housekeeper. And at eighty, I’m not starting now. Just tell folks you’re my companion.”

Three
    T he key was almost in my assigned mailbox when the swish-swash of polyester made its way out of the cinderblock office. Miss Trellis carefully stepped, to avoid a puddle deposited by her window air-conditioning unit. The way she worried so, you would’ve thought the black cloth shoes she wore had been bought in New York City. She leaned to the left and then to the right like her swollen midsection was the balance between her two feet. Poor old thing, I thought and pulled a postcard advertising a tire store and a missing Hispanic boy from my mailbox. My heartbeat resumed a normal pace. No bills.
    “Oh, me,” Miss Trellis groaned and put her elbow on top of the metal mailboxes jumbled together in birdhouse fashion. A mound of flesh plopped where a tricep might have once been. “Your grandbaby told me you was working two jobs now,” she said, barely managing to catch her breath.
    “Yes, ma’am.” I made a mental note to remind Cher to be careful what she told Miss Trellis. All I need is for us to break her rule about gossiping and get thrown out. My cousin Lucille was my only fallback, and she hadn’t returned my last phone call.
    “Poor old Claudia Tyler,” the worn-out woman said. “Me and her used to sew together down at the Emporium. Oh, I forget you ain’t from here. It was the big department store uptown. Anyway, we was the tailors, me and her. She was a Ranker back in them days.”
    I turned my eyes from the postcard and studied Miss Trellis. I wanted to call her a liar because I knew the woman who lived in the courthouse-shaped home could’ve never been a seamstress. “You did?”
    “Oh, yeah. Back in them days she didn’t have it so good. No siree.” She paused to slap a gnat. “Not until the old man Tyler’s son up and quit his wife. Then things got a whole lot better for Claudia. Next thing you know, Tyler’s son and Claudia up and married—real fast like.” Miss Trellis stuck her neck out long and bugged her gray eyes. I could see the crooked red lines in her sockets.
    Lord, she’s crazy as a coot. “Well, that’s real nice.”
    “I ain’t even gonna say what all us girls knowed about it. So don’t even ask me.” She drew her neck back into its double-chinned shell and closed her eyes.
    “Well, let me get going,” I said, taking a step towards the Monte Carlo. She made me nervous, and I couldn’t help but think she was trying to set me up to break her gossip rule. Besides, I could hear the air conditioner running in my car and knew I didn’t have the gas to waste listening to some pathetic hag like her.
    But Miss Trellis was on a one-way journey. “And then the Benson’s Department Store come to town and bought out the Emporium. Just gave Claudia’s husband a plumb pile of money. That’s how they come up with all they got. Old Man Tyler was long gone by that time. Wade, Claudia’s husband, he just got ever dime of it.”
    When I saw a white pickup pull in behind Miss Trellis and park, I jumped at the opportunity. Just when I was fixing to get in my car, I heard the last comment that confirmed my