A Tale of Two Biddies Read Online Free Page A

friend who fell in a lake and he tossed a closed cooler into the water.” Chandra’s excited expression melted. “Of course, the guy who got saved ended up getting sucked dry by the vampires later in the movie, anyway.”
    “Well, I guess what that proves is that FX O’Grady and I have the same sort of freaky imagination.” I managed a smile and hoped that would put an end to the topic. I didn’t like being thought of as a hero, almost as much as I didn’t like being associated with the King of Horror. “It just seemed like the most logical thing to do and the only thing I could think of at the moment.”
    “Well, it worked, and that’s what matters.” Hank backed away. “EMS is on its way,” he said, almost as an aside to Richie. “They’re going to check you out.”
    “But, Hank!” Richie’s clothes streamed water and he’d lost one of his sneakers. When he stepped out of one puddle and moved forward, a new puddle formed around him. “You have to know, Hank. We gotta talk.”
    Hank scratched one hand through his buzz-cut hair, and even if Richie didn’t get the message, the rest of us did. Our police chief might be pretending to be patient and professional, but now that he’d made sure Richie was okay, Hank had other things to do. Other things more important than Richie Monroe.
    Hank’s words were clipped by his clenched teeth. “So tell me, Richie. What do we have to talk about?”
    I take it back. I guess Richie did get the message because he raised his pointy chin, and beneath the blanket, his scrawny shoulders shot back. “How about the fact that somebody just tried to . . . to kill me?”
    Kate stood on my left, and astonished, I glanced at her. Chandra was to her left, and looking just as skeptical as I felt, Kate turned that way. Luella was over on our right, and as one we all looked at her and saw her roll her eyes.
    Hank, though? Hank was stonefaced. “Is that so?” He tugged his left earlobe. “Somebody tried to kill you, huh? How do you know?”
    Richie’s bottom lip quivered. “Know? Well, I . . . I . . . I just know, is all. I mean, there I was out on the dock, minding my own business, and then everybody started runnin’ around and talkin’ real loud and it was thundering and lightning and—”
    “And that’s how you know somebody tried to kill you?” Hank asked.
    Richie scrubbed one finger under his nose. “I know because I felt a hand on my back. I know because I know what it feels like to get shoved. And I got shoved. Right into the water.”
    “All righty then.” Hank let out a long breath before he hauled a little notebook out of his back pocket and flipped it open. His pen was in his shirt pocket and he pulled that out, too. “Who was it, Richie?” he asked, pen poised over paper. “Who tried to make you into fish food?”
    “Well, I . . .” Richie blinked and his shaggy brows dropped low over eyes that were as pale as the single anemic light that hung from the center of the gazebo ceiling. “I dunno. It’s not like I saw the person or anything.”
    Hank flicked his notebook closed.
    “Now wait a minute!” Richie put out a hand to grab Hank’s arm. At the last second, he thought better of it and froze. “Just ’cause I didn’t see who it was, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” he said. “There was lots of people around. Somebody must have saw something.” He glanced around the circle of people in the gazebo. Island residents, every single one of them, and like the other Ladies and I, they’d already made up their minds: Richie was being Richie, and everybody knew that Richie Monroe liked attention almost as much as he liked to make up stories in which he was either the one being picked on by uncaring and unreasonable people, or he was the hero. Same tune, different words.
    One by one, the folks around us turned and wandered away.
    The other Ladies and I might have done the same thing if we’d been quicker. Unfortunately, before I