by Cathy Tully
Susannah blinked, suddenly feeling disoriented. The face gazing at her from under the chef’s hat was one that she had burned into her brain the day she had coffee with Pilar. Billy Jones was one of Anita Alvarez’s culinary school classmates! She felt lightheaded and took a deep breath. No wonder Anita kept her private life to herself. Susannah had blamed herself for being aloof. And she had wondered, more than once since Anita’s death, how it came to pass that she could consider the woman a friend but have never met her family or gone to her home. Here was her answer. Anita had a secret.
“Dr. Shine, are you okay?”
Hayle had come around the table and stood by her side. Susannah observed the girl while trying to hide the shock and suspicion that she felt on seeing the slimmer Billy, his cheekbones chiseled under the white hat, the charming dimples now front and center in a jowl-less, angular face. She removed her gaze from the picture. “Sure, I’m fine.”
“You look kind of pale,” she said, glancing up at the picture and then back at Susannah.
“I haven’t eaten—that’s why I came over. But I guess when I glanced up I got lightheaded,” she lied and pushed away the guilt that came from a Catholic upbringing. It had become too easy to lie.
“Well, come on.” Hayle smiled, her dimples sparkling out from both cheeks, matching Billy’s grin in the picture.
Dimples. An attribute she had also noted in Dolores Alvarez. Susannah gasped, watching the picture of Billy sway in the warm breeze as an idea spread across her mind, tucking its fingers into the tiny, lazy spaces at the edges of her brain. Pilar must have recognized it too. This was what had distracted her earlier. The broad smile, the deep dimples: Dolores was also Billy’s daughter!
That was Anita’s obsession with Peach Grove. It wasn’t the restaurant. It wasn’t life away from the big city or from an overbearing mother. She had settled here to be near the father of her child. Susannah glanced at the picture again, making note of Marcie’s swollen belly under the loose dress.
“I’ll get you a chicken biscuit,” Hayle said.
Susannah nodded and followed Hayle into the shade of the tent, taking a seat at one of the folding tables. This was the reason Pilar wanted to keep Dolores away from the booth earlier. When she had snapped at Dolores, Susannah thought that Pilar was being unreasonable, but that was not the case. She wanted to protect Dolores, and the enormity of the situation dawned on Susannah. Dolores and Hayle were both Billy’s daughters. The friendly man whose genial, almost buffoonish behavior had charmed and intrigued Susannah was the father of an out-of-wedlock child who went to the same high school as his legitimate daughter.
She gulped. Perhaps she was wrong. After all, a lot of people had dimples, and going to the same cooking school as Anita Alvarez could just be a coincidence. She remembered the freezer-sharing situation that had seemed so odd. Maybe it was the kind of favor that cooking colleagues did for each other. Or maybe it indicated a more intimate relationship.
She thought about Marcie. Many times after a Business Association meeting, Susannah and Bitsy had held gripe sessions about the curt and rude way that Marcie addressed various members. Many times, she had thought of Marcie as mean-spirited and vindictive, and she often wondered why a nice guy like Billy put up with her. She never gave Marcie credit for raising Hayle, who appeared to be a good-hearted and kind girl, or for having married the most affable and good-natured man in the town. Susannah assumed that whatever had attracted Billy to Marcie was long gone, buried deep under her hard-boiled exterior.
But perhaps she had read the whole relationship wrong. She had seen firsthand Marcie’s concern and worry over Billy. Did Marcie have a softness under that tough outer crust? Was her grumpy exterior warranted? The picture of the grand opening showed Marcie as clearly pregnant. Had they been married at the time? She tried to do the math, but without knowing the date of the picture, she could not. Did she dare ask Hayle? The last thing she wanted to do was to tip off this innocent teen to a possible family scandal. She bit her lip, stepping to the side as a young boy pushed past her, a crumpled dollar bill in his fist.
“I’ll be right with you,” Hayle said to the boy, nodding at his parents, who were standing to the side, supervising his purchase. She exited the tent again, bringing the smell of fried chicken and hot sauce with her, and touched Susannah’s shoulder as she handed her the paper-wrapped biscuit.
Susannah absentmindedly took a bite, too late realizing that she was chomping on a wheat-laden biscuit. She refrained from spitting and gave Hayle a weak smile, knowing she would deal with a migraine if she swallowed any of the dough. Hayle returned the smile and rejoined Zach tending to the line. Susannah grabbed a napkin and discreetly emptied her mouth.
From what she remembered, Dolores and Hayle were about the same age. Could Billy have been cheating on Marcie with Anita? Was this the reason for Marcie’s permanent bad mood? Or was there another, blander explanation for it?
“That photo is amazing,” Susannah began, not knowing how to open the conversation.
“I know, right? My dad was so handsome.” She peered up at the photo, grinning. “It was his dream to open a restaurant”
“He looks like a proper chef, dressed like that.”
“Oh, he is. He graduated at the top of his class in cooking school. Mom always kids that she stole him away from a life as a French chef.” She giggled.
“Is that what he studied?” Susannah asked, trying to keep her talking.
“I think so.” She wiped her palms on her legs, staining the trademark Wing Shack red apron with smudges of white. “I mean, you learn different techniques at culinary school, and he studied French cuisine for a while. You know, like in the big five-star restaurants? He always says he couldn’t ignore his small-town, country-cooking roots. So he came home and married my mom, and the Wing Shack was born right before I was.” She rolled her eyes at the last statement, clearly a family joke. Susannah watched the grin spread across her face; she enjoyed telling the story. “I was born three months later.”
Susannah tucked that info away for later comparison to Dolores’s birth date.
“Feeling better, Dr. Shine? You still don’t look right.”
“I’m okay.” She stared into the distance, looking for Pilar. “The dizziness is gone.” She thanked Hayle and pulled a few dollars out of her back pocket as her cell phone rang.
Larraine’s voice came through, barely above a whisper. “Dr. Shine, you can’t miss this,” she said. “Randy is making an arrest, and you’ll never guess who.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Susannah raced away from Hayle, pausing only to throw the chicken biscuit in the nearest trash can. The aisles were becoming crowded, and she had to zigzag between a scrawny teenage girl pushing a stroller and a tall man in blue work pants.
A few feet past the metal lawn animals, she found Larraine standing at the rear of a crowd, her back straight, her hand to her mouth. Susannah sidled over and took her hand. They stood together, craning to see over the crowd. Under the red canvas of the OK Automotive logo, she saw Randy leaning in, speaking to Stevie, whose tear-streaked face was twisted in anguish, snot dripping from his nose. Randy did his best to calm him.
“He’s arresting Stevie?” Susannah asked, unable to keep the contempt from her voice. What could have prompted this?
“Not Stevie,” Larraine answered, pointing with her chin. Susannah looked to the area past the tent, where two figures struggled under the large shade tree. The uniformed figure was unmistakable—partially hidden behind the tree’s enormous trunk, Keith’s large frame towered over Colin Rogers, who glared out at the crowd with an expression of unmitigated hatred, an Alabama ball cap on the ground at his feet.
Susannah gasped, recognizing the cap she had seen on the man lurking around the parking lot earlier this morning. She recalled the brim of his ball cap had been pulled down low, but now that she made the connection, she was sure it had been Colin.
“Colin attacked Billy?�
� Susannah asked incredulously, as Keith appeared from behind the tree and jerked up on the restraints on Colin’s wrists.
“I don’t know why he’s gettin’ arrested,” Larraine answered.
A loud moan filled the air as Stevie jumped up from his chair and in two uneven steps crossed the distance and flung himself at Keith. Alarmed, Randy leaped over the table, his arm outstretched to grab Stevie, but he fell short and stumbled. Stevie flopped forward and latched on to Keith’s arm, howling. Keith’s Herculean frame absorbed the collision without flinching, and a slight rise of the shoulder dislodged Stevie, who landed on his knees in a heap, like an overgrown child.
Colin’s angry demeanor vanished in an instant, and he turned toward Stevie, his face soft and his voice firm. “Stevie, you calm yourself now.”
Stevie looked up at him, his face contorted. “But, Colin,” he said, with a hiccup.
“No, sir. You get ahold of yourself.” Then to Randy, who had one hand on his Taser and the other on his cuffs, he said, “He didn’t mean nothin’ by it. You know that. You cain’t arrest him, he’s got the mind of a young’un.”
“Colin, I ain’t a young’un.”
“You hush,” Colin scolded, “and stay where you are.”
Randy pulled Stevie to his feet. “I have a right mind to bring you in—”
Stevie’s face fell, and he began to bawl.
“Now why’d you go and do that?” Colin said, his face pained.
“He didn’t interfere with me,” Keith said to Randy. “Leave him be. I’m fine.” He pushed Colin forward. “Tell him to stay where he is and not to make a fuss.”
“It’s gonna be auright,” Colin said. His voice had a soothing quality to it, but there was fear in his face. “This is a mix-up. I’ll be back at the shop directly. You go over there and wait for me.”
“Don’t leave me, Colin. I’m scared by myself, you know that.”
At that, Larraine could restrain herself no longer. She pushed through the crowd and jammed herself against the leg of the OK Automotive tent. “Steven Duncan, you come over here,” she called, and Stevie raised his head, rubbing his eyes. “It’s Miss Larraine from church. You come on over here.”
“Go on,” Colin encouraged, “you know Miss Larraine.”
“Yessir, but I don’t want to go to church. Today’s Saturday,” he whined, hanging his head like a child. Several in the crowd chuckled.
“No one’s goin’ to church, Stevie,” Larraine said, “but you have to let Colin go with the officers. I’ll call your mama, and she can come and collect you, if you want.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t live with my mama anymore.” He stood up and ambled over to Larraine. “I rent my own room now.”
“Well, that’s fine,” she said, taking his large, calloused hand in hers. “We’ll figure it out, but first I’ll get you a biscuit. How about that?”
Stevie nodded slowly, and Larraine walked him away from Colin.
Susannah felt a nudge, and she turned to see Bitsy, who asked, “What all is goin’ on here?”
“I’m not sure, but I think Colin is being arrested for attacking Billy.”
“Well, I’ll be.” They watched as Keith walked away with Colin, and then Bitsy said, “I need your help.”
“What for? I have to get back to my booth.” Susannah had put up a booth so that she could advertise her practice and had spent less than five minutes there all morning.
“You have to go get me a few more pies. Marcie put them in the refrigerator at the Wing Shack. It will only take you a minute. I’ve had four more sign-ups than I planned for. I can’t leave right now, and Marcie hasn’t got back from the hospital yet.”
Susannah hesitated. Now that she knew Billy’s secret, she dreaded bumping into Marcie or Billy. As long as they were still at the hospital, she could get into the Wing Shack without seeing either of them. She glanced down the aisle where her pop-up tent sat unmanned and shrugged. It could wait a little longer. “Gimme the key.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
In the short drive from the fairground to the shopping center, Susannah tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. Pilar told her that Anita lived in Peach Grove alone for months, biding her time to ensure that the restaurant turned a profit before she built a house and moved Dolores from Atlanta. But maybe there had been more to it than that. Pilar also told her she had watched over Dolores in the morning and after school. Had Anita been searching for Billy during that time, or had she known exactly in which small town she would find him?
Susannah pulled up to the back entrance of the Wing Shack, suddenly feeling a chill. When she first got involved with this, she believed that Anita was an innocent victim of a violent act. But now she knew there was a volatile, even manipulative side to Anita. What had Fiona said? Anita would declare that someone was her enemy until she had gotten what she wanted. Had she stalked Billy, hoping he would give her what she wanted? A wedding ring, perhaps?
Susannah turned off the car and dug around the rear pocket of her cargo shorts for Bitsy’s keys. “Where are they?” she mumbled, exiting the vehicle and absentmindedly setting the alarm. She relocated her phone to a side pocket and found the key, all the while wondering: If Anita wanted a relationship with Billy, she obviously had not gotten one. So why did she stay on in Peach Grove? To share a freezer?
The answer came to her with a jolt. Anita and Billy were having an affair. Pilar’s words echoed in her head. Find that man, and you will find who did this to Anita. Billy knew that Susannah’s office would be closed the day Anita died because he was a patient. Billy was also a trained chef. He would know how to make some kind of edible concoction out of a poisonous leaf.
Susannah spun back to her car, her hand shaking as she gripped the key fob. She had to get out of here, now, and get to the police. Before she could unlock the car, a thick hand had hold of her wrist. A square bandage covered its forearm. She winced, trying to pull away, but she could not.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Billy said, grinning. “I heard your car and came to see who was out here.”
“Oh, I thought you were at the hospital,” she said, too quickly. She held up the key Bitsy had given her. “I came for more pies. Is Marcie with you?”
“Marcie had to get back to the fair. She sent me home to rest, but I needed to pick something up first.” He swept his arm in the grand, inviting gesture she had seen many times before and tugged her arm. “Come on in.”
“I, uh, I forgot something at home,” she replied, twisting free of his grip. “I’ll stop on the way back.”
“Nonsense.” The sunlight changed as a cloud passed overhead, and for a moment Billy's eyes appeared flat and cold. Then the light returned and he smiled, gently pulling her away from the car and into the restaurant. Maybe I’m overreacting, Susannah thought, but her mind soon changed as he shut the door and immediately wrapped his arm around her shoulder and ushered her into the kitchen. He squeezed her closer, pushing her ahead of him and sliding open the door to one of the refrigerated cases without releasing his grasp.
“Bitsy’s peach pies.” He pointed at the cardboard boxes, which Marcie had bound with red-and-white baker’s twine and stacked three high. He delved deeper into the case, and his expression hardened as he felt around until he finally located what he wanted. He closed the door and set a clear plastic bottle on the counter beside two plastic tumblers filled with tea. “First, a drink. I know you are as warm as I am from being outside all morning.” He poured a glass and pushed it toward her. “You drink your tea unsweetened, right?”
She nodded slowly, uncertain what to do next. She did not want to drink. She left it untouched.
“Drink up,” he said, watching her.
Susannah scrutinized him. Though he was one of the first people she had met when she moved to Peach Grove, she had not noticed how he much had changed over the years. The old photograph emphasized how his face had swelled as he gained weight. Bloodshot eyes gazed out from a puffy, splotched
face, and she wondered if it were the result of the assault or if she was seeing him a new light. The change in his attitude alarmed her; she felt certain that he was capable of cheating on Marcie. She scrutinized the liquid he wanted her to swallow.
Was he also capable of murder?
“Aren’t you going to drink?” he asked, poised with the bottle in his hand.
“No, I’m fine.”
For over a decade she had thought of him as a warm-hearted man who went out of his way to be friendly and gracious. He glared at her, and a cold chill jolted her to her senses. She leapt for the door, but he quickly reined her in and pressed the cup to her lips. She shook her head, but he twisted his fingers in her hair and yanked her head back. When she opened her mouth to protest, he poured the liquid in.
It was cold and she swallowed, coughing. “What are you doing?” she sputtered, the tea coming up and burning her throat.
He yanked her hair again. “I’m being hospitable, and you are acting rude and uncultured.”
She was shocked at his voice—his accent had thickened and the timbre had deepened. But it was the malice in his eyes that chilled her. He put the cup to her lips again, and this time she opened her lips but let the liquid flow out of her mouth, wetting her blouse. The taste was bitter, but it had a familiar tang. He poured faster. She swallowed and coughed. What in the hell is happening? It was like being waterboarded by Lipton.
He eased off and stood back, leaning against the counter with a crooked twist to his mouth. “Would you like to sit down?”
She felt her knees quiver, and a wave of nausea flooded her gut. Instead of cooling her down, the foul-tasting tea had heated her up, a sheen of sweat obvious on the palms of her hands.
Billy seemed genuinely pleased to see her sweat. “You’re sweating like a whore in church,” he grinned, swiping the back of his arm across his brow.
Susannah’s hand began to shake, and a pain smashed into her abdomen. Her knees gave way and she sat down hard on the cool tile floor.