The Turkey Wore Satin Read Online Free

rug.”
    “ Hey, you weren’t so keen
to hit the stage,” Jack piped up. With a cantankerous chuckle,
Marty’s father-in-law said, “Maybe you killed George so you
wouldn’t have to perform in the drag show. What’s your alibi,
kid?”
    “ Alibi for what?”
Kristin’s mother asked. “You heard the Ambulanciers. It was a
spider bite, not a shot through the heart.”
    “ Maybe it was a spider
bite,” Marty agreed, “but how, exactly, did a deadly spider get
into George’s grapes?”
    Aunt Cynthia shook her head. “Weren’t you
listening? It’s been all over the news: Black Widows get shipped
north in bundles of grapes.”
    “ But Brykia washed the
grapes.”
    “ And she did a bang-up job
of it,” Grandma Iris said, before issuing a dry Katherine Hepburn
cackle.
    Brykia brought out her rosary, pleading in
silence as she joined Marty on the makeshift stage. He needed to
convince the family she wasn’t guilty, not even of being a bad
grape-washer. The last thing he wanted was for Brykia to land the
blame of Uncle George’s death.
    “ Look,” Marty said. “I saw
George brush something off his arm when he was eating those grapes.
I’m sure a spider did bite him, but I also suspect that
spider was planted there… to kill him!”
    The family gasped, and the grieving
daughters sobbed on Kristin’s shoulders.
    “ Brykia,” Marty asked,
“George’s dish was covered in plastic wrap when you gave it to him.
Why?”
    The poor woman looked up from her beads, her
eyes wide with alarm. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I did not
cover it. I…I…” Brykia burst into tears, hollering, “I did not kill
him! I swear!”
    “ I know you didn’t,” Marty
said, wrapping one arm around her.
    “ Ouch!” Brykia cried,
pulling away from Marty’s cone-bra. “Your bosoms are sharp enough
to kill a man.”
    “ Yeah,” Jack said. “You
were with George when he died, Marty. I’m still not convinced it
wasn’t you who did the dirty deed.”
    Marty was getting antsy in a
He-Who-Smelt-It-Dealt-It sort of way. “I’m not the killer.”
    “ Baby, we know. You
wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Tyrone stood dramatically. In a classic j’accuse pose, he pointed at the man dressed as Cher. “You
killed George, didn’t you Jack?”
    “ I hardly think so,” Jack
said, brushing his long dark wig over both shoulders.
    Jonnie picked that one up and ran with it.
“Jack, you’re the only one here with a motive. George was all
twisted up about that business deal gone bad. He threatened to
launch a class action suit after Thanksgiving.”
    “ What happened?” Georgette
asked Beth.
    “ Daddy lost money?” Beth
asked Georgette.
    “ Girl, your daddy lost a
buttload of cash,” Tyrone answered. “And it was all Jack’s fault.
Jack has got to be the killer.”
    “ I didn’t kill anyone, you
little puke! Jonnie, rein in your husband.”
    Jonnie waved a hand in the air. “Honey, I
have triiied…”
    “ Marty, you were there
when George threatened me,” Jack called across the room. “Where
would I have gotten a poisonous spider between then and the time
Brykia handed him those grapes? I never even left the
room!”
    “ That’s right,” Kristin’s
mom said, holding hands with her Cher-look-alike husband. “If
anyone killed George, it was probably Tyrone.”
    “ Oh, sure! Blame the black
man! Real original, Angela.”
    Kristin’s mother rolled her eyes
dismissively, which pretty much said it all.
    “ I think what my wife is
trying to say,” Jack picked up, “is that George always took home
your coveted Best in Show title.”
    Angela nodded decisively. “You’d have run
over your own mother with a dump truck to get your hands on that
prize.”
    Tyrone stamped his heel on the ground.
“What’d you say about my mama?”
    “ My floors!” Grandma Iris
cried. “How dare you!”
    “ I’m sorry, Granny, but
you heard your daughter disrespecting my mama.”
    Iris turned decisively and said,