Free Silenced by the Yams (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #3) by Karen Cantwell Page B

That was it. Soul dancing. Was there such a thing as soul dancing? There’d better be, because if my mother took Mama Marr pole dancing, it would be a contest as to who would kill her first, me or Howard.
    “Oh,” Mama Marr said with a pouty face. “It was such fun. Barbara, have you tried this pole dancing?”
    My face flamed. I suppressed the urge to scream out loud, whispering instead through clenched teeth. “Where is she?”
    “Where is who, dear?”
    I spun around to find my mother glaring down at me. After making a quick apology to Mr. Lotta Handsome Doctor Man, I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of hearing range. “You took her pole dancing? POLE DANCING ?”
    “Barbara, your face is unusually red and you’re sweating. Are you having menopausal hot flashes?”
    Menopausal hot flashes? No. Homicidal hot flashes? Yes. “The museums, mom—what happened to taking her to the museums?”
    “We tried that. We were less than a mile outside of the district when they closed all roads going in. Something about a shooting in front of the White House. What is this world coming to?”
    “So you turned around, found the nearest strip bar and said, ‘Hey, Alka, why don’t we try that?’”
    “Now you’re just being silly. I love you, Barbara, but you have no imagination. No, if you must know, my geriatric pole dancing class is held in a loft in Arlington, and since we couldn’t get to the museums, I asked Alka if she’d like to stop by and see if they were open for drop-ins at their one o’clock class.”
    “Geriatric pole dancing?”
    “It’s the new trend in elder exercise—you should give it a try.”
    I would have been insulted by the last remark if I wasn’t so surprised that she attended any class with the word geriatric or elder in the title. My mother has never been one to admit to growing old.
    The cell phone buzzed in my purse, alerting me to a text message. I threw my mother another look to tell her how displeased I was, then grabbed my reading glasses and the phone. The text was from Callie. “Brd bck in cag. Whats 4 dinr?”
    I would have texted back to verify that “bck in cag” meant he was living and breathing and not just a little yellow carcass ready for a cigar box burial, but the doctor was standing next to me clearing his throat. He handed me a prescription for more muscle relaxants and a sheet of instructions for icing her back until the pain diminished and her range of movement returned.
    Unfortunately, I find myself in the Rustic Woods Hospital ER more often than I care to say, but that didn’t help speed our departure. There were easily ten thousand pieces of paper to sign before they’d let us go. And because of the muscle relaxants, Poor Mama Marr could barely maintain a grip on the pen, so I had to hold her hand while she signed. Somewhere around the five thousandth piece of paper, she stopped and sighed. “You are so good to me, Barbara. My boy, he married a good woman. I was so sad when I did not have any daughters, but you are the best daughter a woman could have.”
    She actually brought a tear to my eye. Thank goodness for muscle relaxants, because she’d never said anything that warm and loving to me in all of the years Howard and I had been married. “And I’m glad to have you for a mother, Mama.”
    I heard my own mother huff in the background.
    Mama Marr nodded. “This is why I am coming to live with you and Howard. Family should be together.”
    Holy cow. I thought that was what Christmas was for.
    She patted my hand and smiled. “This will be good. I can help you keep your house clean.”
    *****
    During our drive home, I received a call from Guy. His assistant was safe and sound. Terribly shaken, but safe. The only wound he suffered was an abrasion on his cheek from when he dove to the pavement for protection. I breathed a sigh of relief. Guy said he gave the poor fella the rest of the week off.
    It was nearly seven thirty by the time I pulled into