Dead over heels - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,45

I left the beauty parlor it was late in the afternoon.

I cautiously surveyed the backyard and observed it had been mowed and trimmed. With considerable relief, I went in the kitchen door, and found the kitchen completely clean. I crossed the hall to the study, and found Martin wrapped in his golden brown terry robe, watching the news. He switched off the set and got up to give me a kiss and walk around me to view my hair. Benita had slicked it back, braided it, and wound the braid into a knot at the nape of my neck.

“You look great,” Martin murmured, closing in from behind to kiss my neck. I shivered pleasantly and we both looked at the clock on Martin’s desk.

“Will you be careful of my hair?” I asked strictly.

“As careful as can be,” Martin said, not letting up on the neck work.

“Beat you up the stairs,” I said.

But gee, he caught me.

Chapter Eight

We had to get there early to meet and greet, but we found time to stop by the hospital. Shelby expected to be discharged the next day, and Martin promised to help, after he had a good look at Angel. She was obviously uncomfortable and exhausted after sleeping on the lumpy roll-away the hospital had provided. Shelby told us with more than a hint of exasperation that he’d urged her repeatedly to sleep at home.

Jimmy Henske had been by that day to question him again, but Shelby said he’d had to tell Jimmy that he still could not recall why he’d been roaming around the yard on a black rainy night, what he might have seen, who might have hit him.

Shelby’s room was pleasantly cluttered with offerings from the men he worked with; paperbacks, sports magazines, a basket of fruit, and some get-well cards jostled each other for space on the broad windowsill.

As Martin and I made our unnecessarily complicated way out of the hospital (I wondered if the architect had just read a book on English mazes before he began on the hospital plans) and into the overcrowded parking lot, I noticed I was again experiencing the unease I’d had earlier, the chill of loss, as though the Youngbloods, bound to us by employment and friendship, were moving away from us for good.

I was in no party mood when we pulled into the parking lot of the community center. Martin cut off the motor and we sat looking at the concrete-and-glass building, the fresh-painted parking lot with its rudimentary trees in the medians. We heaved simultaneous sighs.

“We’ll get through it,” Martin said bracingly.

“I know.” But I heard the complaint in my voice and said, “At least we get to look marvelous for the evening! And I’m looking forward to seeing so many of the people I only get to see at Pan-Am Agra things.”

Martin hated being part of a receiving line, so we just happened to be close to the entrance; anyone who felt like it could shake Martin’s hand or hug my neck, or give us both stiff bobs of the head. I resigned myself to being called “Mrs. Bartell” all evening, since the constant correction “Ms. Teagarden” would have been tedious.

For this annual occasion, Pan-Am Agra had rented the newly built community center, which boasted a huge room that could be adapted to many purposes. This evening it looked festive, with giant Easter eggs and streamers and balloons combating the general institutional atmosphere. A potted bare artificial tree stood in the middle of the room with large plastic eggs hanging from it, each containing a slip of paper describing a door prize. I’d already been informed I was the designated distributor, and I watched with resignation as the glass bowl by the entrance filled with more and more slips with names scrawled on them, as more and more Pan-Am Agra employees slapped on their hand-lettered name stickers and moved into the room.

This was supposed to be a dressy occasion; but as always, nowadays, there were people who came in blue jeans or stretch pants. My mother would have shuddered. I felt grateful I’d dressed down in a rather plain cocktail dress in cream and gold. I was wearing heels, which I hated with a passion, and every time my feet throbbed I told myself this was my sacrifice for Martin, a return for all the times he took it for granted I would go my own way and do whatever made me happiest.

I caught glimpses of my husband surrounded by men