Meet Beatrice Lulu Eberhardt by Roseanne Dowell

I’m Beatrice Lulu Eberhardt. Some of you know me from my niece, Callie Johnson. Callie’s the new Chief of Police of our little town. I first appeared in her book, All in the Family.

Callie doesn’t know it, but she’s my favorite. She got annoyed with me sometimes because I tried to fix her up with a nice young man, well several nice young men. I didn’t want her ending up an old maid like I almost was. If Ed hadn’t come along – well I shudder to think what my life would have been like. Callie didn’t much care for any of the men I introduced her to. Praise God, she finally met a nice young man on her own.

But that’s neither here nor there. This story isn’t about Callie. It’s about me. That’s right, me and pretty much no one else. I’m a bit of a sleuth. Some call me nosy or a busy body, but honestly, I’m only trying to help. I don’t mean to interfere.

It all started when Ed and I bought a cabin. It’s a beautiful place with its own lake, Ed loves to fish. We thought it would be fun to have a place just for us, away from everyone. You may not remember I’m from a large, crazy family. Crazy in a fun-loving way, of course. So Ed and I wanted a place to relax. Not that it’s turned out that way, we’re seldom alone. Guess it’s because we genuinely like people. So now days when we go up there, someone always comes along, usually Ethel and her husband, Greg. Ethel’s my sister, by the way. I have two other sisters, also – Charlotte – we call her Lottie – and Lillian. Lillian is Callie’s mother, and we have a brother, Clyde, but we don’t see him as often.

Anyway, we bought the cabin, and Ed and I went up there to clean it up. No one had been in it for years. Cobwebs filled more than the corners I’ll tell you that. I could have spray painted them for Halloween. It was going to take days, if not weeks, to clean it. But Ed promised we could fix it up, and Ed never breaks a promise. That’s one of the things I love about him.

So there we were looking around, figuring out where to start, and Ed decided to build a fire to take the chill and damp out of the air. The place smelled musty, the way empty houses smell after being locked up for a long time.

Well there I was, thinking about where to start when I heard a strange clattering noise. I thought Ed fell or something. I turned around and much to my distress, an arm was lying on the fireplace hearth  – well what was left of the arm, bones and tattered flannel from a shirt I assume. Although I’ve been told never to assume anything.

If you want to know what happens next you’ll have to read about it in All’s Well That Ends Well soon to be released from  Books We Love.

If you haven’t read All in the Family – Book 1 of the Family Affair series - you can find it at Books We Love. Just click on the book and it’ll take you to the buy page. It's on sale for 99 cents.