When Good Bras Go Bad (Myrtle Crumb Series)

Praise For:

BETWEEN A CLUTCH AND A HARD PLACE

(The First Book in the Myrtle Crumb Series)

“A
wonderful read, well-written with delightful characters.
 
You will find it hard to put down.”

-
      
Michelle Dragalin
, Round Table Reviews

“Gayle Trent
has penned a wonderful read that this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed and couldn't put down. Spending the afternoon with Myrtle and Tansie was a delight.
A
very highly recommended book.
”

-
      
Fallen Angel Reviews

GRACE ABRAHAM PUBLISHING

13335 Holbrook Street
 

Bristol
,
VA
24202
 

Copyright © 2006 by Gayle Trent

All rights reserved,

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

This book is a work of fiction. All the events, places, and

characters are products of the author’s imagination or used

fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or

persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
.

Printed in the
United States of America
.

ISBN: 0-9741090-
7
-
X

Other Books in the Myrtle Crumb Series
:

BETWEEN A CLUTCH AND A HARD PLACE

Grace Abraham Publishing
, October 2004; nominated for 2004 Appalachian Book of the Year Award

This book is dedicated to
my family. You guys are the best!

WHEN GOOD BRAS GO BAD

Chapter One

Don’
t that grass smell good? I’ll probably sneeze my head off the rest of the evening, but it does smell good. Lenny is giving the yard one last goin’ over before fall gets here. You’d think
that by the
first
week in October, we’d be through with yard-mowing. It’s supposed to frost tomorrow night, so I reckon this’ll do it.
Yard-mowing is something
normal though, and peaceful, especially after what happened last night.

Faye called. “Mother,” she said, “has Crimson said anything to you about the thefts that’ve been taking place at her school?”

“Not a word!” I was shocked Sunny didn’t talk to me about it—me bein’ a detective and all
.
Sunny is my sunshine, you know. That’s why I don’t call her by that hippie name her Mama gave her.
“What kind of thefts?”

“Well, on Monday, it was a bicycle
.
Tuesday a clarinet was taken from the band room, and on Friday, the cafeteria came up twenty dollars short.”

“Don’t that beat all?”  It’s unusual to have that kind of stuff happen around here
.
We have a pretty low crime rate…at least, most of the time
.
“Do they have any leads?”

“I don’t know, Mother, but Crimson has been acting really strange lately
.
When I asked her about the thefts, she—”

“Surely you don’t think she had anything to do with that stuff?”

“Do I think she’s a thief?  No
.
But I do think she might know something…that she might be protecting somebody.”

I sighed. “I’ll have a talk with her.”

“Please don’t tell her I said anything
.
Be tactful.”

“When have you ever known me not to be tactful?” I asked.

Faye humphed. “I’ll be tactful and not answer that.”

After that, we said our good-byes and hung up
.

Not long after I’d talked with Faye, Lenny called to see if he could come by and mow the yard today
.
I told him he could, and then I asked him if he’d heard anything about the thefts over at the middle school. Even though he’s in high-school, the high-schoolers and middle-schoolers ride the bus together; so I figured Lenny might’ve heard people talking.

             
I’ve become sorta partial to that young ‘un this summer. God love him, he’s been through the mill. His daddy had some sort of breakdown—I’ve heard whispers about drugs—and had to go into a rest home—I’ve heard whispers about rehab
.
Then, instead of staying home and taking care of her young ‘un like she’s got some sense, Lenny’s mother up and takes off to go “find herself.”  Now, if that ain’t hippie nonsense, I don’t know what is
.
Poor little ol’ Lenny didn’t get to go “find himself.”  He got to find himself jerked up—plumb uprooted—and sat down on Delphine’s front stoop
.

You remember Delphine, don’t you? She’s the one that makes that peanut butter fudge that’s so all-fired good.

             
Anyway, Delphine is Lenny’s grandmother on his daddy’s side. I’ve been hopin’ Lenny’s daddy would get better and come live with him and Delphine, but so far it ain’t happened
.

Delphine lives just down the street from me
.
Hers is the little white house with the blue shutters. It’s nice…neat as a pin…but Delphine doesn’t have a lot of money
.
That’s why Lenny went to mowing yards this summer…so he could get some of the things sixteen-year-old boys like—music, more’n likely—although he might be saving up to buy a car or something.

He mows for me, Tansie, Melvia…not
for
Bettie Easton, though
.
Her snotty little g
randson mows her yard
…when he feels like it, from what I gather, because sometimes you drive by her house and you
can hardly
see the house for the weeds
.
It looks like it’s been abandoned.

Not that it’s any of my  business, but Bettie pays that boy—Brandon, I believe his name is—twenty-five dollars to mow her yard, plus his parents give him a big ol’ allowance, plus they buy him anything he wants
.
But, again, that’s none of my business.

Still, the Bible talks about sparing the rod and spoiling the child; and that
Easton
boy is spoiled rotten.

Of course, my own beautiful granddaughter Sunny—or Crimson, as her mother
and everybody else
calls her—ain’t had to want for very much in her life either. Well, what’s a grandchild for if not to spoil?  I reckon Bettie feels the same way about that
Brandon
, so now I’ll have to ask the Lord to forgive me for passing judgment
.
He knows I just get myself worked up about Lenny and his sad situation.

But back to what Lenny knew about the robberies.

“I heard some people talking about it,” Lenny said.
“
Somebody said a bike got stole,
and I also heard something about some money.”

“That’s what I heard,” I said
.
“
A b
icycle, a clarinet and twenty dollars from the lunchroom
.
That’s what I heard.”

“Man.”

“Who do you think would do such a thing?”

“Gosh, Ms. Crumb, I don’t know
.
I could probably give you a list of high-schoolers that’d do it, but I don’t know any of the middle-schoolers that well.”

“Is there any way a high-schooler could’ve done it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me, either
.
All the kids I’ve met at Sunny’s school seem to be good kids, but you never know
.
Also, I wonder why they’d steal bicycles and clarinets?  Seems like an odd combination to me.”

“They’ll probably pawn ‘em,” Lenny said.

“Pawn ‘em?  Why, that thought never occurred to me
.
Have you ever considered going into the detecting business?”

He laughed
.
“No, ma’am.”

“Well, I think it’d be worth you lookin’ into.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said, “but for now I guess I’d better stick to lawn mowing.”

I waited until after
Lenny
had
collected his mowing money and left
to call Sunny
. Faye hadn’t called me ‘til after the young-un had gone to bed last night, so I’d had to wait until now to call her.
Not that it did me any good.

“I can’t talk right now, Mimi
.
I’m studying with a friend.”

“Oh, well, Claire won’t mind if we talk a minute.”

“It’s not Claire,” she said
.
“It’s Al.”