Free Mama Gets Trashed (A Mace Bauer Mystery) by Deborah Sharp

darted into traffic on State Road 70, causing a Hawaiian-shirted tourist in a rental vehicle to screech to a stop. Cars swerved. Horns honked. Darryl flicked a cigarette butt out the window, lifted a beer from the cup holder in the console, and made an illegal U-turn across a double yellow line.
    Where was a cop when you needed one?
    “Mace!’’
    I turned. “I heard you the first time, Mama. Catch Flies. Close Mouth.’’
    “See? I told you. No respect!’’ She spoke to one of her fellow church ladies, who tsked-tsked at me in motherly empathy. “We were trying to get your opinion on whether the soprano in the choir and the music minister would make a nice couple.’’
    “I suppose so, Mama. Not that it’s any of my business.’’ I glanced out the window again. The truck was gone, and Darryl and D’Vora with it.
    “She hasn’t been the same since her husband passed away, poor thing. But it’s been a year. I think it’s time, and Phyllis agrees. Don’t you think so?’’
    Both Mama and her pal Phyllis raised their brows, awaiting my answer.
    “Everybody’s different, Mama. You can’t put a stopwatch on grief.’’ My focus shifted to the music minister, a middle-aged man with a slight paunch and a quick smile, despite an overbite. Someone standing next to him at the food table said something and his laugh boomed across the room.
    “He’s got a heart as big as that laugh,’’ Mama said. “Too bad about those buck teeth, though. He could gnaw an ear of corn through a picket fence, bless his heart.’’
    I watched as he scanned the rows of seats until he found the soprano. She studied an open hymn book in her lap. As if she could feel his gaze, she raised her face. Tucking a lock of hair behind an ear, she rewarded him with a radiant smile.
    Darned if Mama wasn’t right about the two of them becoming a couple. She might have been unlucky in love, but Mama’s sense about other people’s relationships was uncanny. Of course, I’d rathe r chew glass than admit that to her.
    She jabbed her elbow at her friend Phyllis. “Look at those two. I’m telling you, a musical romance is abloom.’’
    She nodded, satisfied, and then turned her attention from the soprano to me. “Now, speaking of couples … ”
    Before I had a chance to escape, she said to Phyllis, “Have you heard Mace is engaged?’’
    I showed her my ring. Her oohs and aahs brought a couple of other church members over to our little group.
    “When’s the date?’’ one asked, picking up my hand to turn the ring this way and that.
    “There’s no hurry,’’ I answered, extracting myself from her grasp.
    “Oh, yes there is,’’ said another woman, as she too grabbed at my hand. “You’re not getting any younger.’’
    “That’s certainly true,’’ Mama said.
    Et tu ?
    “The bigger issue, though, is whether my daughter will stop this back-and-forth with her wonderful fiancé, Carlos. Now, y’all know Mace’s rocky history … ”
    “You do realize, Mama, I’m standing right here? Maybe your friends would like to hear a story about someone who drank too much pink wine and managed to misplace her own fancy ring?’’
    She gave me a long look, and then continued. With an eager chorus chiming in, she narrated the highs and lows of my notorious love life. Mainly the lows.
    “Remember when Mace spotted an ex-boyfriend on Cops , on TV? What was he in trouble for again, honey?’’
    When I didn’t answer, one of the church ladies chimed in. “Wasn’t that the mo-ron who robbed the Booze ’n’ Breeze, only to have his old truck break down when he pulled out of the drive-thru to make his getaway?’’
    “Yep,’’ another of the women said. “The sheriff’s deputies caugh t him when he ran off and jumped in a canal. Mo-ron forgot he couldn’t swim. And all of it caught by the TV camera, too.’’
    I tuned out, and began to think about what Mama said about me going back and forth with Carlos. There was more truth