MemorialDay Read Online Free

at my face. Every once in a while I get mad—like now. I shouted at them. “I don’t have my hip flask with me and I haven’t had a shot of rye since last night. Mind your own business! Better yet, hire me to air out the, twisted with corruption, skeletons in your closets and I’ll charge you double.”
    I wandered off still mad until I counted to ten and realized I shouldn’t allow ignorant people to bug me so badly that I crawl down to their gutter level thinking and argue with them.
    I went to the main building. People were milling about everywhere. Some were lined up and asking for the locations of family gravestones, others were just milling. Because of the crowd, it took me a few minutes to find Mother. She was standing near a huge coffee pot. It was on a close to collapsing table that was already heaped to capacity with a ton of cookies. I picked up a mug that looked as if it hadn’t been used, poured coffee, and grabbed a hand full of chocolate éclairs from an area that hadn’t been disturbed by somebody’s hand. I’m a sucker for them, particularly their white centers.
    As I drank and chomped, I noticed Mother staring intently at me. The stare was the usual one I get when she’s analyzing me. This went on for several minutes, and yes, it makes me squirm. More often than not, she gets too much information from me.
    “Well, Sonny, are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Don’t tell me nothing is because your face tells me otherwise.”
    I should wear a paper bag on my face when I’m with Mother. Oh, boy. Her tone of voice tells me it is now officially hot seat time, and I’m in it. So what do I say next? Maybe I should just blurt out the truth. Hey Mother, I’ve been hired by a ghost . Should I really say that? Sure, why not? The worst thing she could do would be to have her only child, which just happens to be me, committed. So, here goes.
    Because there were people all around us, that I felt shouldn’t hear what I was going to say, I moved real close to her and whispered into her left ear. “I’ve taken on a new case.”
    Mother turned pale and caught her breath. She whispered in my right ear. “Does it involve murder, Sonny? Please say it doesn’t. Murder cases are so dangerous for you.”
    “There’s no danger for me, this time. As for it involving murder, in a way, it does. I think people being killed in a war, is mass murder.”
    Mother frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said.
    I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “The soldier we saw being buried has hired me.”
    Mother actually did a W.C. Fields double take before whispering, “Let me smell your breath.”
    As I had brushed my teeth in the morning, I figured she wouldn’t suffer through halitosis when I breathed on her. I leaned down to her face and swooshed my breath at her. She sniffed several times before saying, “Well, you haven’t been drinking today, and I don’t smell tobacco, or even a breath mint that you frequently use when you attempt to disguise your usual alcoholic aroma. I wonder, could you be suffering from withdrawal symptoms, seeing and hearing things, trembling all over? Describe what is wrong with you because I know there must be.”
    “Believe me, there is nothing wrong with me, outside of the fact that I have a mother giving me the third degree.”
    She wrinkled up her nose. She’s a cute lady when she does that. It’s her way of correcting her son’s manners. “Then, Sonny, you’re telling me one of your fibs—a very inappropriate one, under the circumstances.”
    “Mother, I’m being on the level with you. Besides, have I ever fibbed to you?”
    “Yes, more times than I can count.”
    “All right, all right, I have fibbed, but not this time. Look, didn’t you tell me about two weeks ago that two new ladies have joined your tea socials?”
    “Yes. Emily Morton and Starla Smith, oh, and Sonny, Miss Starla, notice I said, Miss , just happens to be young enough and wild enough for you to