Patricia Anne is a sedate suburban housewife living in Birmingham, Alabama, but thanks to her outrageous sister, Mary Alice, she’s always in the thick of some controversy, often with murderous overtones. In Murder Shoots the Bull, Anne George’s seventh novel in the Southern Sisters series, the sisters are involved in an investment club with next door neighbor Mitzi. But no sooner have they started the club than strange things start happening to the members . . .
by Anne George
I FIXED COFFEE, MICROWAVED SOME OATMEAL, AND HANDED Fred a can of Healthy Request chicken noodle soup for his lunch as he went out the door. Wifely duties done, I settled down with my second cup of coffee and the Birmingham News.
I usually glance over the front page, read “People are Talking” on the second, and then turn to the Metro section. Which is what I did this morning. I was reading about a local judge who claimed he couldn’t help it if he kept dozing off in court because of narcolepsy when Mitzi, my next door neighbor, knocked on the back door.
“Have you seen it?” She pointed to the paper in my hand when I opened the door.
“Seen what?” I was so startled at her appearance, it took me a moment to answer. Mitzi looked rough. She had on a pink chenille bathrobe which had seen better days and she was barefooted. No comb had touched her hair. It was totally un-Mitzi-like. I might run across the yards looking like this, but not Mitzi. She’s the neatest person in the world.
“About the death.”
“What death?” I don’t know why I asked. I knew, of course. I moved aside and she came into the kitchen.
“Sophie Sawyer’s poisoning.”
Mitzi walked to the kitchen table and sat down as if her legs wouldn’t hold her up anymore.
“Sophie Sawyer was poisoned?”
“Arthur said you were there yesterday.”
“I was.” I sat down across from Mitzi, my heart thumping faster. “She was poisoned?”
“Second page. Crime reports.” Mitzi propped her elbows on the table, leaned forward and put a hand over each ear as if she didn’t want to hear my reaction.
I turned to the second page. The first crime report, one short paragraph, had the words—SUSPECTED POISONING DEATH—as its heading. Sophie Vaughn Sawyer, 64, had been pronounced dead the day before after being rushed to University Hospital from a nearby restaurant. Preliminary autopsy reports indicated that she was the victim of poisoning. Police were investigating.
Goosebumps skittered up my arms and across my shoulders. Sophie Sawyer murdered? Someone had killed the lovely woman I had seen at lunch the day before? I read the paragraph again. Since it was so brief, the news of the death must have barely made the paper’s deadline.
“God, Mitzi, I can’t believe this. It’s awful. Who was she? One of Arthur’s clients?”
Mitzi’s head bent to the table. Her hands slid around and clasped behind her neck.
“His first wife.”
“His what?” Surely I hadn’t heard right. Her voice was muffled against the table.
But she looked up and repeated, “His first wife.”