Free Gayle Trent by Between a Clutch, a Hard Place Page A

“so rocks” and who “totally talked” to her about “that garbage” they had for lunch today. To me, she sounded like somebody had sped up her record to seventy-eight . . . and if you know what that means, then you’re closer to my age than you are to Sunny’s. But that’s neither here nor there.
     
    Finally, she squealed, “Isn’t that great?!”
     
    “That is so kickin’,” I said, feeling pretty hip.
     
    “Oh, Mimi, you can be so passé!”
     
    There went my hip.
     
    “But that’s okay,” she continued. “What went on with you today?”
     
    I told her about Jim, and she thought Tansie and the spaghetti sauce incident was a real hoot. Then I said, “Well, you’ll be happy to note that your fund-raising efforts were not in vain. I went by the dog pound and gave ‘em twenty bucks.”
     
    “You so totally went in the hole, didn’t you?”
     
    “Totally. Anyway, I talked to the dogcatcher again. Don’t you think it’s odd that Jim and Flora didn’t have any pets of their own when they both like dogs so good?”
     
    “Maybe their dog died or something.”
     
    “Maybe. When I asked the dogcatcher wonder why Flora never adopted a dog, though, he said that maybe she didn’t think she could take care of one by herself.”
     
    “By herself?”
     
    “Yeah. I told him she was married, and he said he never talked with her much.”
     
    “They never did anything much together, did they?” Sunny asked. “Jim and Flora, I mean. Gee, the neighbors never even saw them together. How weird is that?”
     
    “I think it’s real weird. In fact, I’d like to dig in their family history a little bit . . . or at least, into his.”
     
    “You mean, like trace his family tree or something?”
     
    “Yeah,” I said. “I believe I read somewhere that wife-killing—bein’ crazy and that kind of thing—runs in families. Think about it. Jim seems perfectly nice, and apparently, Flora was nice, too.”
     
    “So you think maybe Jim is a good person but that he’s a crazy wife-killer once removed or something because it’s in his genes?”
     
    “You never know.”
     
    “And you want me to go online and see what I can find?” she asked.
     
    “Actually, I’d like you to show me how to do it.”
     
    “No way!”
     
    “Yes . . . way. You’ve got plenty of your own work to do, and—”
     
    “Cool. Can you come on over?”
     
    “I’ll be there in about an hour.”
     
    I wanted to be sure to get Matlock squared away so he’d be okay on his own awhile. I didn’t dare take him back to Faye’s house.
     
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    Faye hadn’t got home yet when I arrived. I was glad. It would give Sunny and me a chance to work in peace for a while. I didn’t relish the thought of explaining the whole Jim and Flora thing to Faye, and I was hoping I could avoid that.
     
    Sunny answered the door and took me to her room. I love Sunny’s room. Everything in it is puffy and pastel. She has a canopy bed covered in flower pillows, and there’s a butterfly throw rug on the floor. I’d have given my eyeteeth for a room like Sunny’s when I was a little girl. Her computer sat on a white desk and was adorned with glittery stickers. Stuffed animals peeked at me from all directions.
     
    “I went ahead and got you onto a genealogy site,” she said.
     
    “All you have to do is put ‘Adams’ in the search box and hit the ‘enter’ key.”
     
    “All I have to do is put what where and click what?”
     
    Sunny rolled her eyes, typed “Adams” into a white box, clicked a button, and a whole slew of stuff about Adamses filled the computer screen.
     
    “To look at these,” Sunny said, “use this thing called a mouse to click on the link. Like this.” She clicked on a section of blue text and more stuff came up. “If that’s not what you’re looking for, hit this button to go back. Got it?”
     
    “Maybe.” I sat down at the desk.
     
    “Well, I’ll be right here if you need