Emilie Richards - Blessed Is the Busybody

Table of Contents

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF Emilie Richards

Multilayered plot, vivid descriptions, and a keen sense of time and place.

Library Journal

Richards writes with rare honesty and compassion and has a keen eye for detail. This is a beautiful, heartwarming story that will find its way onto many shelves.

Romantic Times

Richards pieces together each womans story as artfully as a quilter creates a quilt, with equally satisfying results, and her characterizations are transcendent, endowed with warmth and compassion.

Booklist

Richardss ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A flat-out page turner... reminiscent of the early Sidney Sheldon.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

If you go for long, intense novels with multiple, unforgettable characters and complex relationships, run to your nearest bookstore and get ahold of Beautiful Lies . Put Emilie Richards on top of the bestseller list where she belongs.

The Romance Reader

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

BLESSED IS THE BUSYBODY

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / December 2005

Copyright 2005 by Emilie McGee.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-1-101-11831-3

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks
belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

http://us.penguingroup.com

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Fran Bevis and the Wickliffe, Ohio, Service Department, particularly Larry, Dan, Stan, Lenny, and Joe for the excellent tour of those facilities. She also thanks Reverend Michael McGee for choosing such an interesting if occasionally harrowing profession, and the members of the six churches he has served for profoundly enriching her life.

Teddy was getting ready to bury the cat again, and old Moonpie, whose nine lives had been used up before he was fully weaned, was not protesting. Like me, Moonpie had given up hope that Teddy would quickly outgrow this phase of her development. Too old for protest but too feline for compliance, our silver tabby hung limply in my daughters thin arms like a burlap sack loaded with buckshot. Drag me off the picket line if you have to, Mr. Sheriff, but Im not going to make it easy for you.

Weve been over this, I told my solemn-faced child. Just remember you cant bury a living cat. Even if you intend to dig him up again.

Teddy, tortoiseshell glasses pushed to the tip of her freckled nose, didnt blink.

Well, I felt I had to say something, I added. Teddys blank stare seemed to demand more. Me being your mother, your moral compass, so to speak.

Ed came into the kitchen just in time to hear the last sentence. His reddish blond hair was rumpled and his eyes heavy-lidded. My husband always appears faintly bemused, as if theres some universal truth just out of reach, and if he only concentrates hard enough hell finally be able to grasp it.

On this late summer Saturday morning, in jeans and an ancient Harvard sweatshirt, Ed looked more like someone the Consolidated Community Church had hired to dispose of the trash than the newest minister in an unfortunate lineup. He opened the refrigerator and stared inside. I think he hoped the orange juice would come to him.

If Teddy doesnt have her own moral compass by now, she never will, he said.

The scent of a theological discussion was hanging thickly in the air, but we had been married for twelve years, and I could waft away this particular disagreeable odor without breaking a sweat. I put my arm around his waist and kissed his hairy cheek. Ed was mid-beard, an annual sprouting of red gold fuzz that only resolved itself when the hottest weather made a beard unbearable. Unfortunately, it was almost September and the weather had not cooperated. My lips tingled.

I stepped back and nudged the refrigerator door closed. Ed didnt notice. Outside I could hear birds singing sweetly and tires squealing on the small street that ran in front of our house. Summer noises in a small Ohio town where nothing ever happens.

There are six new kitty graves in the backyard, I said, and the Womens Society board is coming over in an hour to decide if we need professional help pruning the lilacs and forsythia.

Pruning shrubs requires a visit?

Be glad they arent deciding whether to buy us a new toilet seat. That took two visits. One to determine if the cracks could be repaired, and one to vote on the correct shade of white.

Theyre never as bad as you make them sound, Aggie.

And youre never around when they visit. If they came at midnight, youd climb out the window in your bathrobe and claim you were making a pastoral call.

He sent me the eyelash lowered, too bad the kids are in the room look that always turns my knees to jelly. I could try to be as bad as you make me sound.

The kids were in the room, and I soldiered on. Why dont you shepherd the ladies around the backyard? After you help Teddy fill in all her holes and change your shirt.

Theres nothing at the bottom of any of these holes I should know about?

I shooed Teddy and Ed toward the door. Moonpie, still passively resisting in Teddys arms, didnt even twitch his ragged tail. You can give her some pointers on liturgy. Her funerals need work.

I know all the words to Forward through the Ages, Teddy told her father.

I figured Teddys rendition would get them through the job of filling in the ersatz kitty graves. I looked forward to the day our six-year-old daughter felt comfortable enough with death and funerals to move on to weddings or christenings, although I doubted Moonpie would stand for a long white dress.