Free Biggie and the Quincy Ghost by Nancy Bell Page B

wait to get out of there. What I wanted to do was go home, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen until me and Biggie found out who the murderer was.
    Biggie turned right when we left the hotel and I followed her to the corner. “Hmm, if we go this way,” she pointed, “we’ll just see the shops, and I covered all them this afternoon. Let’s go the other way. That looks like a residential neighborhood.”
    The sun was setting behind the trees and a cool breeze rustled the leaves on the big oak trees that lined the street. We passed tall Victorian houses with terraced yards and
fancy iron fences. Biggie would pause from time to time in front of a house and make comments. “Just look at that birdbath,” she said, stopping in front of one house that was painted green with rust-and-cream trim. “What would you think of us getting one of those to go in the middle of the hosta bed in the side yard?”
    “I don’t know, Biggie. I’m just a kid.”
    “Sure you are—but you’ve got your father’s good taste.”
    “Biggie, my daddy rented out porta-potties to construction sites for a living.”
    “I know, but everybody said he had the prettiest and cleanest portable toilets around. They only went to the finest building projects in Dallas.”
    “Yes’m,” I said.
    “So, what do you think about …”
    “Hey!” a voice boomed out from the front porch of the house. “What are y’all standing around for? Come on in!” Alice LaRue came down the steps holding a pitcher in her hand. She was wearing overalls with a white tee shirt and had no shoes on. “Come on up here. I just made a big pitcher of planter’s punch that I’m just dying to share.”
    Biggie smiled and motioned for me to open the iron gate that led to the yard. I held it open for Biggie and followed her up the front walk, which was shaded by magnolia trees covered with basketball-sized blooms. The front porch was lined with gardenia bushes covered with white flowers and, in front of them, petunias made a solid pink border. Hanging baskets in every color swung between the porch columns.
    “My stars, Alice, this place is a regular Garden of
Eden.” Biggie took a deep breath. “What kind of gardenias are these? I’ve never smelled such a heavenly scent.”
    “Scarlet O’Hara,” Alice said. “They are right fine, aren’t they. I ordered them out of a catalog.” She broke off a blossom and handed it to Biggie.
    “I’d love to have a few cuttings from these.” Biggie sniffed the flower.
    “Anybody comes by here and wants a cutting, they’ve got it,” Alice said. “Hell, what’s a garden for if it ain’t to share? Ya’ll come on in the house.” She held the screen door open. “The dern mosquitoes are too bad this year for porch settin’.”
    If the outside was bright and colorful, the inside was just the opposite. The walls were covered with dark grayish wallpaper, the paneling was brown and, here and there, old-timey studio portraits of Alice’s ancestors frowned down on us. A round dark table with a fringed cloth stood in front of a straight stairway that parted the hall in two. Alice led us down the hall at the right of the stair.
    “We’ll have our drinks in Papa’s study,” Alice said. “It’s the coolest room in the house. Since I’m outside most of the time, I never could see the sense in putting in air-conditioning.” She pushed open the door to an even darker room and set the pitcher on a table in front of the fireplace. “Y’all set down anywhere,” she said. “I’ll just go get the drinks.”
    I took a seat on a straight chair and Biggie sat in one of the big leather chairs that flanked the table, and when she did I laughed out loud. Did I mention that Biggie’s no bigger than a minute? Well, when she flopped down in that chair, she dern near disappeared. Her feet stuck out
straight in front of her. “J.R., stop that laughing and help me up,” she said. Just as she had situated herself in the