Bad Manners and Brimstone

I think you handled it well too.  Cut them off after the first sentence.  Tell them it is in poor taste to talk about Fred behind his back and if they had any issues about what happened they need to brign them up to him not you.  After all, what were they expecting you to do about it?

I often received the same type of phone calls but about my elderly father.   Relatives seemed to think I had some sort of control over him.  I shut it down by telling them he was a grown man free to make his own decisions...even if they were bad ones. He was certainly not going to listen to me trying to run his life and I had no desire to.