Murder in the Milk Case Read Online Free Page A

gruesome. My stomach feels queasy.”
    “Of course it does. I’d be worried if it didn’t. Finding someone you know like that would be enough to make a normal person throw up.”
    I swallowed hard and ignored the implication that I wasn’t normal.
    “But you know what they say. This, too, shall pass. Besides, it could be worse, you know. It could have been—”
    “I have to go,” I said, before she explained in great detail what was worse than finding Jim Bob Jenkins with a knife in him. Something like being arrested for his murder, for instance? “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
    I hung up but didn’t move. The last of the uneaten chocolate sat in the torn wrapper in front of me. I couldn’t finish it while the rest laughed viciously at me from my stomach. That was an unexpected reaction to my favorite bad habit.
    My new side-by-side stainless steel refrigerator kicked on, and I looked toward it. The metal gleamed. I swallowed, reminded of the steel doors of the refrigerated units in morgues that I’d seen on television. I never paid close attention to the details when the shows aired. I wished I had. Where was the body from the dairy case right now? Had it begun to decay already? Was it stretched out on some cold, metal examining table with a masked and goggled doctor standing over it with a whirring—
    “Mommy, how long before dead bodies smell?”
    I choked on a mouthful of coffee and almost wrenched my neck turning around. Had Sammie already heard about her mother’s exploits at the grocery store before I could tell her myself? Relief flooded through me when I saw that my precious youngest daughter held an elaborately decorated shoebox with our deceased hamster’s name spelled out in purple glitter on the top.
    “We can wait to bury Hammie tomorrow, but he might smell by then. Charlie says that soon the body will puff all up and turn black. Then beetles and flies—”
    “We’ll do it tonight after Daddy gets home,” I said quickly, trying not to think about her description, which was all too real for me. “Did you wash your hands?”
    “Uh-huh.” She met my gaze. “It’s okay if we wait.”
    I studied her face suspiciously. Was that hope in her eyes? Did she want to see the body puffed up and, well. . . Using all my self-control, I smiled. “We’ll have the funeral tonight.” I pulled her close to me while I avoided the box. I didn’t feel like touching another dead body, even through cardboard.
    “Okay.” She sighed.
    “Charlie can be a little gruesome,” I said.
    She nodded, her little mouth pursed, brows drawn into a frown. “Yeah, Charlie sees dead people.”
    I know from expert opinion—mine—that the challenge of following childhood conversational twists is the leading cause of brain-cell loss in mothers. Not to mention dealing with the issues said conversations reveal.
    “Charlie—sees—what?” The slowness of my speech was an outward indication of the sluggishness of my mind. Had I just heard my sweet, Christian-school-educated daughter say what I thought she said about her Christian-school-educated brother?
    Sam pulled away and put her empty hand on her mouth. “Oops. I shouldn’t have told you.”
    Charlie has yet to learn that telling his younger sister anything is tantamount to sending a taped advertisement to the local radio station. Or telling his grandmother.
    He had arrived home a couple of minutes ago. I glanced toward the doorway that led to the family room where he was watching television, his favorite activity after arguing. Dead people? I had to do something about this, but before I could think, the kitchen door flew open, banging against the yellow wall. Tommy, my seventeen-year-old stepson breezed in, followed by my stepdaughter, Karen.
    Tommy grinned with a look so reminiscent of his father that I automatically smiled. “Way cool, Mom! You’re a celebrity!”
    Karen crossed her arms and stared at me, saying nothing. That wasn’t surprising, given