Free Rest In Pieces by Rita Mae Brown Page B

market. Soon the post office was over its fire code limit of people.
    Once everyone was squeezed in, Tiffany gave the facts. “I was serving Little Marilyn and Mr. Fitz their eggs. She was complaining, naturally, but so what? I walked back into the kitchen and the phone rang. Roberta’s hands were covered with flour, and Jack wasn’t on duty yet so I picked it up. I recognized the voice as Miz Sanburne’s, but lordy, I couldn’t understand one word that woman was putting to me. She was crying and she was screaming and she was gasping and I just laid down that phone and left the kitchen to tell Little Marilyn her mother was on the phone and I couldn’t understand her. I mean I couldn’t say ‘your mother is pitching a fit and falling in it,’ now could I? So I waited while Little Marilyn picked up the phone and she couldn’t understand her mother any better than I could. Well, the next thing I know she runs upstairs and starts to put on her makeup, and Mr. Fitz is waiting downstairs. He was so anxious he couldn’t stand it no more so he bounded up those steps and told her in no uncertain terms that this was no time for makeup and to get a move on. So they left in that white Jeep thing of theirs. Not twenty minutes pass before the phone rings again and Jack, on duty now, picks up but Roberta and I couldn’t help ourselves so we picked up too. It was Mr. Fitz. We could hear both Marilyns ascreaming in the background. Like banshees. Mr. Fitz, he was a little shaky, but he told Jack there was a headless corpse floating in Mim’s boathouse. He told Jack to call and cancel all his business appointments for the day and all of Little Marilyn’s social engagements. Then he told Jack to get hold of Mr. Sanburne in Richmond if in any way possible. The sheriff was on his way and not to worry. Nobody was in any danger. Jack asked a few questions and Mr. Fitz told him not to worry if he didn’t get his chores done today. Thank God for Mr. Fitz.”
    She finished. This was possibly the only time in her life that Tiffany would be the center of attention. There was something touching about that.
    What Tiffany didn’t know was that the hands and legs had been dug up at Foxden. So now Miranda Hogendobber was able to tell her story again. Center stage was natural to Miranda.
    Grateful to Mrs. Hogendobber for taking over the “entertainment” department, Harry returned to filling up the post boxes. She was glad she was behind the boxes because she was laughing silently, tears falling from her eyes. Susan came over, thinking she was upset.
    Harry wiped her eyes and whispered, “Of all people, Mim! What will Town and Country think?”
    Now Susan was laughing as hard as Harry. “Maybe whoever it was made the mistake of sailing in her pontoon boat.”
    This made them both break out in giggles again. Harry put her hand over her mouth to muffle her speech. “Mim has exhausted herself with accumulating possessions. Now she’s got one that’s a real original.”
    That did it. They nearly fell on the floor. Part of this explosion of mirth was from tension, of course. Yet part of it was directly attributable to Mim’s character. Miranda said there was a good heart in there somewhere but no one wanted to find out. Maybe no one believed her. Mim had spent her life from the cradle onward tyrannizing people over bloodlines and money. The two are intertwined less frequently than Mim would wish. No matter what story you had, Mim could top it; if not, she would tip her head at an angle that made plain her distaste and social superiority.
    Nobody would say it out loud but probably most people were delighted that a bloated corpse had found its way into her boathouse. More things stank over at the Sanburnes’ than a rotten torso.
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    14
    The deep glow from the firelit mahogany in Reverend Jones’s library cast a youthful softening over his features. The light rain on the windowpane accentuated his mood, withdrawn and thoughtful, as well as