George, Anne (30 page)

I'm not exactly sure what happened in the next few minutes, but this is the way Sister related the series of events. I fainted and fell to the left, and Meg fell on me. Cassie, caught off balance, tried to jump over both of us and get by Sister, who was filling the doorway. Sister reached out and tripped her and Cassie sailed over the two steps to the sidewalk, where she landed on her hands and knees. The gun went sailing through the air, and Sister had the presence of mind to jump down the steps and sit on Cassie, thumping her soundly on the head with the pot of gloxinias. There was no way anybody would think this strange sight was one-day surgery, so the 911 switchboard was lit up by passing motorists reporting women fighting or up to some kind of no good.

By the time the police arrived, I had regained consciousness but still had Meg on top of me. Cassie still had Sister on top of her, a position Sister refused to abdicate until two policemen were holding Cassie. This took some doing, since the reason for the altercation wasn't clear, and the policemen had to remove Meg from me so I could explain.

"It was so exciting," Sister explained that night at Henry and Debbie's. "There were ambulances and police cars and traffic stopped like you wouldn't believe."

I was full of pain pills with my arm in a cast. I looked lovingly at everyone and smiled. Philip and Haley. How sweet. I forgive you, Philip, for being twenty years too old. Sister, Henry, Debbie, Fred. My beloved Fred.

"Your eyes are crossed, honey," he said.

"What do you think they'll do to Cassie?" Philip asked Debbie.

"Throw the book at her. Blackmail, changing and stealing federal records, accessory to murder, if not murder. I don't think we'll be seeing much of Miss Murphy for a while."

"How about Meg?" Sister asked.

"They'll plead insanity. Rightfully so." Debbie reached over and took Henry's hand. "I don't think they can make it stand, though. I think she'll be found competent to stand trial."

Haley spoke up, "They'll have to monitor her for a few days in the hospital. Apparently, she took quite a blow to her head. She's got a hairline fracture, but the main thing is the brain swelling." She smiled at her Aunt Sister. "Cassie's head must be harder."

Henry turned to Debbie. "Can you believe that? You've been married to me for less than a week, and a homicidal maniac has already fallen out of my family tree."

Debbie leaned over and kissed him. "Wait until you see what shows up on mine."

"We're all nice people," I said. "There's nobody in our family who's not nice. Fred's nice, Haley's nice, Sister's nice, Woofer—"

Fred patted my cast. "We're all very nice, honey."

"You know, I love Trinity," Haley said. "She wasn't involved, was she?"

"Not at all. Nor Georgiana Peach, either," Mary Alice explained.

I wanted to tell the whole story, but my tongue wasn't working quite right. "Meg," I said carefully, "was sitting on Georgiana because of Burt Lancaster."

Everyone smiled, so I knew I had gotten my point across. "Was that why she called with the 'help me' message?" Haley asked.

"Scare her ulcer," I said thickly.

"Incidentally," Sister turned to me, "Georgiana's out of intensive care. Trinity called."

I giggled. "How many Moon Pies did George Peach eat if George Peach did eat pie?" That, they tell me, was the last thing I said before I put my head on Fred's lap and went to sleep.