Free Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards Page B

She knows first aid and CPR, and she lets Teddy pick any book in the house for her bedtime story. Of course, that was before Teddy chose our ancient set of World Book Encyclopedias and insisted Stephanie begin with Volume A.
    By eight, Stephanie, Deena, and Teddy were watching our well-worn DVD of Aladdin, and Stephanie was promising to style Teddy’s hair like Princess Jasmine’s. I was good to go. Lucy arrived with a gift, something appropriately addictive and noisy called “Bop It,” guaranteeing that the girls would not sleep again until the next millennium.
    We took Luce’s Concorde since she refused to show up at a place like Don’t Go There in my Nissan Quest. Lucy seemed to think a minivan was a sign we were not serious barflies. As if my patchwork jacket—my mother’s latest work—and neatly pressed khakis weren’t proof enough.
    Don’t Go There sits on the outskirts of Emerald Springs like a pimple on the cheek of a Norman Rockwell bride. The town itself is admittedly picturesque, dressed up in its best finery and waiting for something important to happen. Unfortunately, Emerald Springs has been waiting at the altar for a very long time.
    Don’t Go There makes no pretense of waiting for anything, nor does it yearn to be picturesque, at least not judging by the overflowing dumpster within spitting distance of the front door.
    This section of our fair city is called Weezeltown, for reasons nobody questions. The button factory, which anchored it and subsidized blocks of homes crowded on to narrow lots, closed years ago. The houses, covered in asphalt siding or painted dreary earth tones, are slowly being condemned and torn down. There’s talk of turning the factory into an upscale shopping mall, the surrounding landscape into a ritzy subdivision. Now if they can just find enough rich folks in this dreary economy willing to live or shop here.
    We pulled slowly into the parking lot. Missing letters in the bar’s neon sign had turned the name into Don Go here, and from the pickups and motorcycles in the lot, any number of Dons had taken the invitation to heart.
    With the Dons in mind, Lucy parked at the edge of the lot, hoping to avoid becoming the target of any form of bodily elimination. Tonight she was dressed modestly. Brown skirt close enough to her knees to nod in recognition. Camel-colored sweater loose enough to slide a nail file between the sweater and her midriff. Shoes with sensible three-inch heels.
    All right, the shoes were not sensible, unless we needed a weapon.
    Considering where we were, the shoes were sensible.
    Lucy pulled her keys from the ignition and zipped them securely in her purse before she turned to me. “Just how did Gelsey Falowell know Ed was out here talking to Jennifer before she was killed? You don’t suppose Gelsey’s a regular, do you?”
    “Apparently one of our college students is a regular,” I said. “And he wasn’t afraid to admit it.”
    She wiggled her eyebrows at her reflection in the rearview mirror, clearly some sort of facial aerobics I needed to investigate. “And Ed didn’t tell you ahead of time that someone might have seen them together?”
    “Torture the man and he’d die mute. All the world’s a secret.”
    Lucy, apparently pleased with her forehead’s admirable flexibility, bounced a couple of cherry red curls into place and started to get out of the car. I held on to her sleeve for all I was worth.
    “Luce, we stay in the shadows and we don’t step on toes, literally or figuratively. No scenes, okay? If Ed has to post bail for me, that will be the last straw at Tri-C.”
    “It’s got to be hard to be Aggie Sloan-Wilcox. Always torn between dancing on the table and singing hymns.” She pulled loose and got out.
    Since it was now too late to reconsider, I joined her.
    Halfway to the door Lucy stepped carefully between a condom wrapper and a puddle that made me glad we had parked farther away. A trio of motorcycles at the other edge of the