Sour Grapes

guilty.”
    “But what about Francie? What about me? How are you going to explain killing us?”
    “Who needs to explain anything? There’s no evidence saying that I killed either of you. I was very careful with the second girl, and I’ve been very careful tonight. No one will ever prove that I did the two of you. I’m going to get away with this. All of it. You just wait and see.”
    She laughed, and again the sound of it went straight through Savannah like a cold, wet wind.
    “Oh, what am I saying?” Catherine added. “You won’t be around to see it.”
    “Catherine, really, I don’t believe you’ve thought this through. You believed you had all of the bases covered with Barbie, too, but you didn’t. If you kill me in cold blood, there’s no way you can chalk that up to temporary insanity. You won’t get away with it.”
    “I think I will,” Catherine said. “Let’s see who’s right.”
    Savannah saw her hand tighten around the gun as she took one step closer.
    She was going to shoot. Savannah knew it.
    She also knew that her only hope was to lunge for the gun. She would probably take a bullet. With any luck, it wouldn’t be fatal.
    What a miserable option. But it was her only one.
    “Actually, you should thank me,” Catherine said. “At least you’re going to go quick, like the second kid. The little whore wasn’t so lucky. I guarantee you that when she was sucking in that insecticide, she would have welcomed a bullet between the eyes... like I’m going to give you right now.”
    Savannah braced herself, ready to spring. But at that exact instant, there was a whooshing sound in the darkness behind Catherine, and then a loud crack and strange twang as the woman’s right leg shot out from under her. She spun sharply to the left and fell backward.
    Savannah had the gun before Catherine Villa hit the floor.
    The light switch was thrown, and through squinted eyes Savannah saw her baby sister Atlanta standing over Catherine, her broken guitar in her hand and a satisfied look on her face.
    “So, Big Sis,” she said. “What’s all the ruckus in here? I’m tryin’ to get some sleep down the hall there, and you gals woke me up with all your chatterin’. Thought you might need some help, Van.”
    Savannah looked down at Catherine, who was writhing on the floor, holding her leg.
    “That was a pretty good wallop you gave her,” she said appreciatively.
    “Yeah, you owe me a new guitar. By the way, I heard everything she said about killing those girls. Want me to call Dirk?”
    Savannah grinned. “Please, darlin’. I’d be most grateful.”
    Casually, as though she had nothing else to do with the rest of her night, Atlanta turned and walked out of the room.
    Savannah nudged the squirming Catherine with her toe. “Hey, did you get a load of that?” she asked her. ‘That was my little sister who knocked your leg out from under you... a chip off the old family salt block. Not bad, eh?”
    Catherine muttered only inarticulate cries of pain.
    “Stop your whining,” Savannah told her. “I’ll make sure Dirk takes you by the hospital on the way to jail. It’s probably not broken. Although... it does look sorta funny, sticking out sideways like that....”

    The entire Moonlight Magnolia clan was miserable. Deliciously miserable. They sprawled on lounge chairs in Savannah’s backyard, buttons and belts loosened, holding their distended stomachs and vowing to never eat another bite of food for as long as they lived.
    Savannah was ecstatic—a job well-done!
    To celebrate the closing of the case and the fact that it was Saturday—persons of Southern heritage don’t need much reason to celebrate—she had plied them with barbecued ribs, potato salad, baked beans, corn on the cob, homemade rocky road ice cream and beer. For some reason, nobody seemed to have an appetite for wine.
    They were stuffed to the gills; her task was done.
    Even the usually prim and proper John Gibson was flat on his back in her hammock, his eyes closed as though he were in a coma, his trouser button undone, his mustache sporting a kernel of corn, a blotch of barbecue sauce on the front of his polo shirt.
    Dirk was cranking the next batch of rocky road in the old-fashioned ice-cream churn...just in case anyone got faint from hunger and needed a sugar boost.
    Even Tammy had joined in the decadence. Although she had dismissed the idea of eating ribs, she had chowed down on the beans, corn, and salad. And, for the