Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard Read Online Free Page A

compassionate as that nurse. When she left, a different attendant assured Rizzie that the hospital would call if there were any change in Maum’s condition. We just stood there by the bedside watching Maum sleep until the nurse finally said, “You need to leave now.”
    Since Tyrone had not been allowed to ride in the ambulance from Gastric Gullah to the Jade County Hospital, he had driven their Econoline behind the first ambulance. When Maum moved to Healing Heart Medical Center, Tyrone drove the van while Rizzie drove my Mustang. After much discussion about whether they wanted to go home with me to my apartment, which was closer to the hospital than their house on Surcie Island was, I waved goodbye and watched two of the saddest people I’d ever seen ride away in the Gastric Gullah van.
     
     

 
     
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    Dreadful. My day off had become horrific. A fun day at the fair with my friends had ended with a lady that I’d grown to love lying in the hospital waiting to be “well” enough for major surgery and me finding another dead person.
    I didn’t have to, but I decided to go by Middleton’s and see if they needed me for anything.  
    “What are you doing here on your day off?” Otis asked when I let myself in through the employee door in back. “Odell’s gone to take that man from the fairgrounds to Charleston for a post-mortem. Nothing going on here that I can’t handle. Gonna lock up soon and transfer the phone lines to my cell.”
    “I just wasn’t ready to go home.”
    “Yes, I feel that way sometimes. Let me get you some coffee. Or would you rather have tea? I just made myself a cup of ‘Constant Comment’ and cut a fresh lemon.” He gestured toward his cup. “They should call this ‘Constant Comfort.’ It’s delicious.”
    “That would be nice.” My work covers lots of areas, and some people would describe me as a ‘girl Friday,’ who also makes up corpses, but unlike some ‘girls Friday,’ my chores don’t include making coffee or waiting on my bosses, brothers Otis and Odell Middleton. Oh sure, I carry the silver coffee service tray out to customers with our genuine Wedgwood china cups, but the Middletons treat me with professionalism and gentlemanly charm, and I’m not expected to step and fetch for them.
    Otis and I sat in his office and talked over our tea. He beamed at me. “You made quite an impression on that man at the fair.”
    I confess I looked at him in bewilderment. “Which one—the dead one or the fellow who passed out when I showed him the body?”
    “Neither. The owner of the Mother Hubbard concessions. The Indian man.”
    “Oh, J. T. Patel. What makes you say I made an impression on him?”
    “He asked your name and made very sure I knew he wasn’t talking about the red haired woman or the tall one. He was asking about the blonde. You’re the blonde.” He chuckled. “At least you’re blonde this week.” I’m known to change my hair color with my moods.
    “What did he want to know?”
    “Your name and if you’re married.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “That your name is Calamine Lotion Parrish.”
    “You didn’t!”
    “No, even though that’s your real name, I told him Callie.” Calamine Lotion Parrish is my name. I’m the youngest of six children and the only female. My mother died when I was born, and my daddy got drunk—really drunk. He’d never named a girl baby before, and he couldn’t think of anything girly except the color pink. The only pink he could think of was calamine lotion; hence, my name. Thank heaven nobody calls me Calamine except Daddy, who insists he thinks it sounds pretty and that he’ll change it to Pepto Bismol if I don’t like the name he chose for me.
    “What else did you tell Patel?” Since Dr. Donald Walters, my most recent boyfriend, had abruptly stopped calling, I was kind of pleased to learn someone had noticed me.
    “Told him you work here.” Otis smiled.  
    “You better hope he’s not some