Murder Runs in the Family

MURDER RUNS IN THE FAMILY by Anne George.

One

P ukey Lukey is here," my sister Mary Alice murmured as she was ushered into the front pew beside me. She turned and gave the groomsman a little wave.

"Did she say Pukey Lukey's here?" my husband Fred whispered into my left ear.

I nodded. Luke is our cousin from Columbus, Mississippi, who always went to the beach with us when we were children. His car sickness was so epic, it has become a family legend.

Handel's Water Music soared to the vaulted ceiling of Birmingham's St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

"You look great," I whispered to Mary Alice. And she did. She actually looked rather regal with her usually pink hair calmed down to an ash blonde, and the tunic top of her lavender dress knocking off about thirty pounds. Which still left her at well over two hundred. "Five twelve and pleasingly plump," she describes herself.

"Hmmm," Mary Alice said, checking me out. "You look good, too, Patricia Anne." Rare praise. I smoothed the blue chiffon skirt I had bought at The Petite Shoppe, size six. Mary Alice and I are asked

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all the time if we are really sisters. Mary Alice sometimes asks what they mean by "really," which confuses the questioner. I tell her that's tacky, that God knows, after sixty years, she should be used to the question and just answer yes.

"What's on your hair?" she asked.

"Roux Spun Sand. It'll wash out."

"That's a shame."

"Tell her I like your gray hair," Fred whispered.

I thought about this a moment. Then, "Fred likes my gray hair," I relayed to Sister.

"Hah."

Handel's Water Music fortunately blanketed my answer.

Mary Alice looked around. ' 'Do you think the flowers are too dark a pink?" she whispered.

"Absolutely not. They're beautiful."

' 'I cannot believe Debbie is having a wedding like this."

I couldn't either. Mary Alice's daughter, my niece Debbie Nachman, is a successful thirty-six-year-old lawyer, the single mother of two-year-old twin daughters. When she and her fiance, Henry Lamont, announced at Christmas that they were being married in March, none of us had expected Pomp and Circumstance. But they fooled us. Which was how we ended up in the first row of St. Mark's with at least three hundred people in the pews behind us.

"That stained-glass window doesn't look much like Jesus," Sister muttered.

"What did she say?" Fred asked.

"She said that stained-glass window doesn't look like Jesus."

"She should know. Probably knew him."

"What did he say?" Mary Alice asked.

"Nothing." I raised my eyebrows at Fred. At sixty-five, Mary Alice is only five years older than I am. Two years older than Mr. Smart Alec on my left.

"Yes, he did. He said something about how old I am."

"Ignore him."

"What did she say?" Fred whispered.