No Bones About It by Donna Huston Murray

Author:Donna Huston Murray [Donna Huston Murray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9780312964238
Google: Bm7IwAEACAAJ
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1998-02-14T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

I BOUGHT AN ICE CREAM cone and loitered around the lure-coursing competition another hour, watching Rhodesian ridgebacks and Afghan hounds, Scottish deerhounds and Irish wolfhounds, even Swifti the greyhound, chase that silly plastic bag until finally the whole business started to look like an instant replay.

Except for when she needed to start Swifti, while I was there Darlene Polk never budged from her folding chair. A very sedentary suspect.

I got to ask a doctor more about that sort of lifestyle at dinner. Rip and I had been invited to a small gathering at the home of a Bryn Derwyn board member, Ronald Moats. His wife, Penny, was inclined to embrace dramatic fads, and I looked forward to the exposure as one looks forward to a foreign vacation.

Penny did not disappoint. This year’s living room fea­tured Danish Modern revival with accents of the greener earth tones. Texture assaulted the senses, from satiny wood to burlap that could file your nails. Three striped sofas encircled a driftwood-and-glass coffee table. Most of us stood, clutching hard at our sangria so as not to spill.

“What’s this?” asked a woman named Glo, whom I had just met. She referred to an hors d’oeuvre our hostess was huckstering.

“Pot sticker,” Penny replied. She wore close-fitting black with a macrame necklace of dangling buttons. The shocking red of both her lipstick and manicure matched the brightest of the buttons.

Glo speared a miniature stuffed dumpling with a tooth­pick and queried, “Low fat?”

“No fat,” came the defensive answer. Whether or not it was true, it was the only possible response.

Tall and full-breasted, with severe black hair and salon-style makeup, I suspected Glo of concealing an imperfection under her long chiffon skirt. “Did you hear what they’re doing in Japan?” she addressed me.

“About what?” I asked, but another voice over my shoulder laughed, “The surgical tape?”

Glo and the giggler, a short, chunky honey-blonde named Sue, vented their amusement over whatever the Japanese were currently doing with the tape.

I had to ask.

“Oh, dear. You didn’t see Newsweek? They’re wrapping it around their fingers to lose weight.”

“I hear there’s a new pill coming out,” Glo prompted. “Not addictive, makes you feel full, and no serious phys­ical, side effects.”

“Just constipation or diarrhea. Or else it makes you pee all the time.”

“My sister’s church is pushing a faith healing thing. You sort of pray the weight away...”

“What about that leptin they discovered?”

“They know about it; they just don’t know what to do with it.”

Glo and her compatriot, Sue, went on to laugh and la­ment over the many diet fads they’d tried over the years. “The Grapefruit Diet.”

“The Drinking Man’s Diet.”

“The Pasta Diet.”

“The Protein Diet?” I offered, and both turned to stare. “The what?” They were interested. I was speaking their language.

“Karl Vogel, the nutritionist who died this week, some­times prescribed a protein diet. Know anything about it?”

A fourth woman joined us. “It’s reminiscent of the six­ties trend started by Stillman, Atkins, and Tamower. Down­plays carbohydrates–pasta, potatoes, bagels, rice cakes–in favor of meat, tofu, eggs, cheese, bacon, even pork rinds.

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