The Turkey Wore Satin Read online

  “We were all in and out,” Grandma Iris said. “Powdering noses and such.”

  Scratching his head, Marty said, “There must be some way to figure this out. It couldn’t have been an accident. I know in my gut Uncle George has been murdered. But whodunit?”

  “Sit down, Marty,” Kristin shouted across the room. She sounded exasperated. “Nobody dunit. Can’t you see you’re embarrassing yourself?”

  “A true Mayfair would never accuse his fellow family members of murder,” Grandma Iris clucked. “Not even if they were guilty!”

  If Iris was trying to cast suspicion on herself, it was working.

  “Brykia.” Marty turned to the woman in the canvas shoes. “Who asked you to bring us the cheese platter up to us?”

  “The lady of the house, of course.”

  “You mean Iris?”

  A deep flush took over Brykia’s cheeks and she looked down at her feet. “Yes.”

  Grandma Iris huffed and puffed and pounded her cane on the good hardwood floors. “You will not accuse me murder in my own home!”

  Jack laughed. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Her elderly body shot arrow straight and her lips pursed, but it was Angela who defended the matriarch. “My mother is not a man-killer.”

  “No, just a ball-breaker,” Tyrone chuckled.

  Jonnie’s body tensed, and he took his turn. “Marty, look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, here, but my mother’s not a murderer and neither is anyone else in this family. George got bit by a spider and he didn’t call an ambulance. He died for drag. Simple as that.”

  “I think I’m starting to agree with Jonnie,” Cousin Beth said, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Anyway, we’ll know more when Professor Turquay gets here. He’ll be able to tell us what kind of spider bit Daddy.”

  Suddenly, Cousin Georgette shot up from the couch and shouted, “Turquay! T-U-R-Q-U-A-Y!”

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  “I knew I’d seen that name somewhere. It was spelled funny and it made me laugh.” Georgette turned to her mother, and her face fell with an expression of deep shock.

  “What’s wrong?” Marty asked. “Where did you see the professor’s name?”

  “It was on that shipping box when we got here,” Georgette murmured. “Remember, Mother? It was on that package from the university.”

  Cynthia waved a dismissive hand in her daughter’s direction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, child. What shipping box?”

  “It was addressed to you,” Georgette went on. “Sent here care of Grandmama. I asked what was in it, but you didn’t answer. You just picked it up and took it away…”

  “I saw that box too,” Beth said, quietly, like she was in a trance. “It had one of those ‘live animal’ stickers on it. I was about to ask what it was when Grandmother yanked me into the front room and called for tea.”

  “The spider!” Tyrone gasped, covering his pink lips with bright purple fingernails.

  “Where?” Jack squealed, jumping onto the nearest chair.

  Tyrone tsked. “Not in here. In the box! The live animal box. Honey, keep up. We ain’t slowin’ down for y’all.”

  “Mother!” Beth cried.

  But Tyrone obviously craved his moment in the sun, because he stood and pointed an accusing finger at Cynthia, and said, “Honey, you killed your husband.”

  Cynthia’s eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away. “Well, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard! Me, kill my husband? Why-ever would I do such a thing?”

  “Money?” Tyrone asked. “Rich man like that’d probably leave his wife a tidy sum.”

  “Maybe he was cheating on you,” Marty proposed.

  “Or because he looks better in a dress than you!” Jonnie said.

  “Don’t be vile,” Cynthia replied. “George always looked atrocious in women’s wear. How he managed to win the drag competition year after year, I’ll never…” Her lip began to quiver as she said, “…I’ll never know.”

  Georgette stroked her mother’s back. “Daddy was funny on stage. That’s why everybody voted for him. He made us all laugh.”

  “That’s right,” Kristin and her mother both said.

  Jack relented. “We’ll all miss the guy’s drag performance. I can’t deny that.”

  Cynthia’s stiff upper lip broke and she wailed as she said, “It wasn’t my idea!”

  “What wasn’t your idea?” Marty asked into the microphone.

  “It was Mother! Mother insisted! She said I had to carry on the Mayfair family tradition!”

  “Hush, Cynthia,” Grandma Iris chastised.

  “What Mayfair family tradition?” Marty asked. “You mean the drag show?”

  “No,” Cynthia sobbed. “There’s another one, an older one… one you men don’t find out about… until it’s too late!”

  Chapter Six

  “We will have no more of this nonsense,” Iris growled.

  “It’s true!” Cynthia sobbed into her hanky. “Mother said it’s what all Mayfair women did, husband after husband. She did it, her mother did it, just like her mother before her. They all murdered their men.”

  “What?” Jack and Tyrone shrieked.

  Grandma Iris covered her face with one hand. “Oh, Cynthia, you silly, stupid girl

  “This is too… weird,” Georgette said.

  “Mom, you didn’t really?” Beth whispered. “You didn’t do it.”

  “I did!” Cynthia wept. “Your grandmother bought a special kind of spider from the man at the university—a black widow bred to be vicious and very, very poisonous. She told me all I had to do was get Brykia out of the kitchen long enough to put it in George’s grapes, and it would be easy enough to explain away.”

  Everyone turned to Brykia, who seemed confounded for a moment, and then said, “That’s right! Madame Cynthia asked me to find her a jar of beets from the cellar. I left her alone in the kitchen.”

  “And that’s whose heels I heard clacking!” Marty said.

  “Yes, it’s true,” Cynthia admitted. “Cart me off to prison. I deserve to be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of my day, nothing but bread and water to sustain me!”

  “Certainly not,” Grandma Iris growled. “I should say, not until after we’ve all enjoyed Brykia’s wonderful turkey. And we won’t be starting dinner until after the Amazing Annual Mayfair Family Drag Show!”

  Everybody groaned, and the grieving daughters tried their best to explain why, this year, the Mayfairs should give the drag show a miss.

  Meanwhile, Brykia fled to the kitchen to tend to the bird and probably start searching for a job in a house without a longstanding tradition of murder.

  Kristin joined Marty on stage, beaming proudly as she approached him. Removing the microphone from his hand, she switched it off and replaced it on the stand. Then she kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m very proud of you.”

  “Proud enough to swear you won’t murder me?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Even if your mom says you have to?”

  “Since when do I listen to my mother?” Kristin asked. “She told me not to marry you, and I married you anyway.”

  Marty sagged. “Angela said that? I thought she liked me, at least a little bit.”

  Taking his hand, Kristin said, “Maybe that’s why she didn’t want me marrying you—because one day I’d have to kill you.”

  “Do you think your mom knew about this Mayfair Family Tradition?”

  Kristin shivered. “I hope not. I sure didn’t.”

  She helped him cross the stage in heels, and then held his hand tight as they stepped down the three stairs to the floor.

  “You can take off those heels now,” Kristin said. “I really don’t think the show’s going to happen.”

  Marty shrugged. “It’s okay. I need the practice for next year. With Uncle George gone, it’s anyone’s game.”

  Kristin, rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Co
me on. Let’s tell those paramedics what happened. Maybe they know when the police will get here.”

  But when they stepped into the huge marble foyer, the paramedics were nowhere to be seen.

  “Maybe they went out to the ambulance,” Kristin said.

  Just then, they heard a distinctly suspicious giggle from the closet.

  Marty marched over to it, which was no easy feat in his high-heeled shoes, and yanked the door open.

  Inside, Male Whoopie’s fingers were bunched up in his partner’s ponytail. She was tugging on his dreads while they smooched like they’d both spent the last decade on a desert island.

  Marty cleared his throat, and they both jumped. Looking guilty and shocked, they stammered, “Oh, we were just… clues, looking for… clues…”

  “In each other’s pants?” Kristin asked.

  The paramedics blushed and apologized, but Marty actually thought it was pretty cute.

  “We just wanted to tell you we know who killed George,” Marty said. “His wife is the culprit. It’s a long story.”

  “Well, she can tell it to the cops,” Male Whoopi replied. “Sorry, that sounded meaner than I meant it. The police are on their way, is what I should have said, so she can give them her full confession when they arrive.”

  They stood awkwardly inside the closet, until, finally, Kristin wished them a happy Thanksgiving and shut the door so they could get back to… looking for clues…

  “Well, this has sure been an eventful Thanksgiving,” Marty said.

  “And we haven’t even eaten yet.”

  As his new wife squeezed his hand lovingly, Marty listened to the Mayfair family sobbing, screaming and arguing in the next room. Through it all, he’d nearly forgotten he was wearing his Madonna outfit. The bodysuit and stocking had become a second skin while they were busy solving George’s murder. Even the heavy blonde wig wasn’t feeling too cumbersome. The heels would still take a bit of practice, though.

  “We’ve got leftovers in the fridge at home,” Kristin said. “Are you married to the idea of a big family dinner with the Mayfairs?”

  “I’m only married to one Mayfair,” Marty teased. “And if she’s ready to go, so am I. Let me just change out of this Madonna get-up.”

  As he kicked off his shoes, Kristin asked, “Which one of you killed the spider?”

  Marty froze at the bottom of the stairs.

  “The black widow,” Kristin continued. “It bit Uncle George. Did he kill it?”

  Marty started to tremble. “No, I don’t think so. I saw him brush his arm against his skirt, but… Holy Moly, the spider must still be up there!”

  As Marty raced out the front door, Kristin followed behind. “You’re just going to leave your clothes here?”

  “Burn them!” he said.

  “We’re going to drive all the way home with you dressed like Madonna?”

  “Beats getting bit by a black widow,” Marty squealed. “Anyway, men dressing like women is your family’s proudest tradition!”

  Getting her keys out of her purse, Kristin said, “So is murder, apparently.”

  Hopefully this Thanksgiving spelled an end to that Mayfair family tradition. But as Marty took off his wig and tucked into the car, he felt kind of disappointed that he did all that rehearsing for the drag competition and now he’d never get to show off his moves. Maybe when they got home, he’d put on a private showing for Kristin. She’d like that.

  Murder, he could do without. But the other Mayfair family tradition, the one that involved a lip-synch competition, back-breaking choreography, and larger-than-life glam? Well, he hoped the Mayfair men would hold on to that.

  The End

  Thanks for reading The Turkey Wore Satin! If you enjoyed this humorous Thanksgiving mystery, why not leave a quick review? Reviews help other readers find the stories they’re looking for while avoiding books that may not suit their tastes.

  Happy reading and have a great day!

  ~J.J. Brass

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six