“Sounds like where I grew up in rural Georgia. The only excitement we had was chasing an occasional gator out of the chicken coop. I’d be right at home.” Daisy smiled and pinched both their cheeks.
With hugs and kisses all around, Emily and Naomi hit the interstate. Before they took the by-pass around Jacksonville, Emily spotted Lewis’ police cruiser in front of them. “Pass him.”
“I’m already going five miles over the speed limit. I don’t need a ticket.”
Emily slumped down in her seat and pouted.
Lewis slowed and took the next exit. As Emily and Naomi sailed past, Emily stuck out her tongue at him. Lewis looked at her in surprise, and almost ran off the road.
Oh God, though Naomi, it’s difficult trying to raise a mother with hormones so unruly they hurled themselves in adolescent rebellion at a cop and a bass fisherman turned bartender. Emily had taken on Lewis in this murder case, and Naomi was certain her mother and Donald would find something to spar about. They always did. Both men had personalities like two Brahman bulls in the same pasture. There wasn’t enough room in the entire county for both those men’s egos when it came to her mother. She gripped the wheel and drove, happy to be going home, but knowing the level of testosterone was about to become dangerously high across the Big Lake.
Chapter 10
“It’s good to have you back on the job.” Clara checked the shelves and coolers behind the bar and the back room taking inventory of their booze supplies in preparation for the coming week.
“Did Donald give you trouble while I was gone?” Emily toted in cases of beer and put the bottles on ice.
“No more than usual. He belly ached daily about not getting in enough fishing because he had to work. And, of course, he blamed you for eating into his time on the lake.”
“Of course.” Emily looked up and spotted a familiar truck through the window.
“He just pulled in.”
“Good. I’m glad I finished up here. I’m not in the mood for another Donald day.” Clara scooted through the door into the kitchen.
“I had a wonderful vacation. Thanks for asking.” Emily lugged a case of beer toward the cooler and turned toward the storage room.
“Yeah. I heard. Wonderful if you like hurricanes.” He paused. “And detectives.”
“I hardly saw Detective Lewis. He did take my daughter to the barbeque cook-off. I stayed in. I can’t seem to get rid of the connection between the victim’s body and barbeque sauce. The smell of smoke grilling makes me ill.”
Donald followed her through the back door into the storage area. She grabbed another case of beer. Donald was right behind her.
“So I guess you aren’t interested in bar tending for the festival, I hear they rescheduled it for two weeks from today. Maybe this time the competitors won’t murder one another.”
Emily tore open the case and inserted the bottles into the ice, tossed the empty case into the corner and started for another one.
“Are you working this morning, Donald?”
“You know I am.”
“Well, I know you’re on the schedule, but I don’t see any work happening.”
“You seem to be handling this just fine.”
“I’m still your boss, you know. You get the beer. I’ll handle the prep work.”
Donald mumbled something under his breath, but grabbed two cases, stacking one on top of the other and headed back into the bar.
“See there. You’re twice as efficient as I am.”
He muttered again.
Nothing ever changes around here, smiled Emily to herself.
“So are you gonna tend bar at the festival or not? Money’s good, better than here.”
“Nope. I’d prefer working here where the only thing I can smell from the kitchen are fries and burgers.”
After her shift, Emily tossed her apron into the laundry bin inside the kitchen door and headed for her car. Sparring with Donald all night left her feeling as wrung out as a tub of laundry at the end of the spin cycle. It would be nice to get back to her little home and sit in front of the TV with her daughter, eat popcorn and fall asleep halfway through the program.
She stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. She tried it again. Again nothing. Someone banged on her window. She looked up and saw Lewis standing there. He signaled to her to roll down the window. She shook her head. First Donald all day at work sniping away at her. She didn’t want to face the other man in her life who made her feel like aluminum foil on a tooth filling.
On the third try with no success, she rolled down the window and looked up into Lewis’ face.
“Go ahead say it.” She leaned her chin on the steering wheel waiting for his words.
“Need a lift?”
“No, say it.”
“No, you don’t need a lift?”
“Not that.” Here we go, thought Emily. Round two of the day, this one with Detective Lewis pointing out her obvious short-comings, rather the short comings of Stan the Sedan.
“You need a new battery or a new starter motor.”
“No, you’re only partially right. I need a second job to pay for whatever Stan needs.” She dragged herself out of the car and walked toward Lewis’ cruiser, knowing she’d have to bartend at the festival whether she spent the whole time nauseated by the smell of barbeque or not. Life just wasn’t fair.
She turned toward the bar and saw Donald watching them through the open window. He was drying a bar glass.
“Shit!” she heard him yell. He held up the cracked glass, and she watched blood run down his arm as the broken pieces cut into his hand.
He tossed the glass into the trash. “Damn woman.” This time he hollered even louder and shook his fist.
“Did you hear something?” Lewis asked.
“Coyotes, maybe.”
“We need to talk,” said Lewis.
“I’m bone tired. Make it some other time.” Emily laid her head on the headrest and closed her eyes.
“Not about us, if that’s what you’re thinking. I need some information and your opinion.”
“My opinion?” Emily was shocked. When did smarty detective need her view on anything?
“Seems your sources are better at getting information out of people than I am.”
“I’ve got the touch.”
“Or somebody you know has the touch.” His words came out through clenched teeth.
That wasn’t true, thought Emily. The reason she knew what had gone on with Mrs. Pratt’s dog was because she asked Clara who dated one of the vet techs at the animal hospital who was friendly with the person working the front desk the morning of Everett Pratt’s death. And so on. But there was no point in telling Lewis this if he thought she or those close to her had special sleuthing sensitivities he did not possess. Let him think he needed her.
“What else did you learn about Mrs. Pratt? I mean, other than she didn’t give her dog his flea bath and neither did the vet’s office.” Lewis reached down and scratched at his ankle. Emily thought the itching should have subsided by now, but she noted there were still bumps and redness there.
What did she care who killed Everett Pratt? Why get involved in this murder at all? Unless it was to show up Lewis. Maybe Naomi was right. She was acting like a spoiled adolescent girl who had given away too much to a boy who didn’t really care for her. She was trying to obliterate her embarrassment by making him look inadequate. She thought this over for a moment. Okay, Naomi was right. So what? Or maybe, said a tiny voice of her own, maybe it was so she could spend more time with the handsome detective.
“I know nothing about Mrs. Pratt,” said Emily. And, if I’m smart, we should remain strangers, she added to herself.
“What are you keeping from me?” asked Lewis. He slowed for her community’s security gate. “Got your card with you?”
“No. It’s in my car back at the country club.”
“How am I supposed to get in? Run through the gate? There’s no one
on duty at the office at his hour.”
“I’ll just walk the rest of the way.” She put her hand on the door handle just as another car pulled up behind them.
“Hi there, Emily. Detective Lewis.” It was Vicki, her next door neighbor. “You two been out on a date?”
“No!” they both shouted at once.
Vicki jumped out of her car and inserted her card in the card reader. The gate’s arm swung up, and both cars drove through.
When Lewis pulled into her drive, Vicki again hopped out of her car and rushed over. “I’ve got Key Lime pie. I just made it today. I’ll bring it right over.”
Emily shook her head. “I’m a little beat after my shift, so maybe another…”
“I love Key Lime pie,” said Lewis, He turned off the engine and followed Emily up the steps into her house.
“Naomi’s here, so don’t get any funny ideas about using my shower.”
Lewis shrugged and gave her his best innocent look.
The next day Emily awoke early, just in time to see the sun make the pasture across the canal rosy with early morning warmth. To her surprise Naomi was already up and had made coffee. Even more surprising were Naomi’s bags sitting next to the porch door.
“Now, before you get all crazy on me, you know I need to get back to West Palm. I’ve got an apartment there, and I need to find a permanent job. I can’t hang around here working on and off at the bar.”
“I thought you liked being here. You seem to be getting over your fear of your ex. You haven’t talked about him lately.”
“He’s always in the back of my mind, but there’s been so sign of him since I signed the divorce papers. I think he’s gone somewhere to mope or lick his wounds. I don’t care where or why. I’m just glad he left. The little talk Lewis and Donald had with him helped convince him to make scarce, I think.”
Emily reached out and enveloped her daughter in her arms. “It seems like I just found you and now you’re leaving.”
“I have to go. I need a life, my own life, not one where I’m hiding out terrified he’ll show up again and hurt me.”
“So you are still frightened.”
“Sure, but it’s less and less each day. Besides, I’ll be only an hour away. I can call on you or Lewis or Clara or Donald if I need someone. And I’ll be back for the barbeque festival. I wouldn’t miss it. Maybe I’ll bring Mom and Dad along.” Naomi was referring to her adopted parents.
Emily walked her out to the car and helped tuck her luggage into the trunk. Naomi slid into the driver’s seat and put down the top.
“It’ll be a great drive to West Palm.” She pulled her sunglasses off her head and slid them over her eyes. “I don’t have to worry about you getting into trouble snooping around that murder case, do I? You are going to let Lewis work on this one alone, right?” Naomi removed her sunglasses and stared into her mother’s eyes.
Emily nodded her head.
“Is that ‘yes I’ll interfere with the case or no, I’ll back off?’”
Emily shrugged, gave her daughter a final hug and waved her out of the drive.
“I won’t help him if he doesn’t need it,” she said to the taillights of the car as it stopped at the corner, turned and pulled down the street.
Emily was delighted she’d be seeing Naomi in two weeks time at the festival, yet when she went back into the house, her ebullient mood left. She threw herself down on the couch and stared at the living room wall. Naomi was on to a new life which Emily knew was the right thing for her to do. Sure, Naomi had lots of friends here, but she needed a circle of friends younger than fifty and not all involved in law enforcement or snooping. She needed normal twenty-five year old buddies to hang out with.
Emily had her own life. Or did she? The living room’s beige walls stared back at her with accusing dullness. She had her job, a good start on paying off the mortgage on this park model trailer, close friends here, a steady, but lousy paying job and a car badly in need of some part, probably expensive. The men in her life were simply trouble unless she counted Hap, Clara’s father and Emily’s lawyer. If she were twenty years older, she’d marry the guy, if she could pry him loose from all those blue-haired ladies at the retirement home, the ones who hovered around him and also managed to find their way into his bed. Men were always a problem, one she thought she’d avoid until she sorted out her feeling for Lewis. Or Donald. So that left what in her life? Nothing. Unless she got involved in solving this murder. That might be fun, engaging, challenging, but what could she do?
Hmmm. Thinking about the murder and Hap’s consorts brought back an image of a slim, eighty year old she’d seen Hap with at the movies right before she and Naomi had gone to Jekyll Island. He’d introduced her, and Emily had promptly forgotten her name. Sylvia or Sophie, but her last name was Pratt. Or was it? Maybe it was Taft. She’d call Hap and ask.
Someone pounded on her front door before she could complete her call. She dropped the phone back into the cradle.
“Hey, Emily. You up?”
It was Donald Green.
“What do you want?”
“Now that’s not very neighborly. I stopped by to see if you needed a ride to the club today. I know you’re not working and neither am I so I thought we could go have a look at your car. But if you’ve got someone else to do it for you, say some law enforcement type, I’ll mosey along home.”
Emily wasn’t certain Donald had a home. She’d never seen it, but he had to live somewhere, park his bass boat somewhere, shower somewhere…
“Sorry, Donald. I’m in a really bad mood today.”
“Your boyfriend give you a hard time last night?”
“I thought you came to help me, not harass me.”
She opened the door to Donald and waved him in. He peered closely at her face as he passed her and took a seat at the kitchen table.
“You look like you spent the night wrestling a gator. What’s wrong?”
Emily was about to tell him to mind his own business, but she caught a note of true concern in his voice.
“Do you know anything about fixing cars?” she asked.
He nodded. “I know everything about engines no matter what kind. Why do you think I’m here if not to help?”
Well, she thought to herself, maybe you are here to help, but I also think you’re checking to see if Lewis spent the night, you old reprobate.
On the way to the country club, Emily talked Donald into stopping by the Blue Heron Retirement Home. She hoped to find Hap there playing cards or watching television or romancing one of his lady friends. And she hoped the romancing was being done with their clothes on. Donald wasn’t keen on accompanying her into the Blue Heron, but the day was so humid and hot, he also didn’t want to run the air conditioning in the truck while he waited.
“Don’t be such a grump. It’ll only take a moment, and you can see the steer horns hanging on Hap’s bulletin board.”
“Why would I care about that?”
“Humor me.” She pulled him into the recreation room where the residents were gathered at tables playing cards or sitting on couches on the other side of the room watching television or reading. Hap was not there.
Emily grabbed Donald’s hand and led him down the hallway to Hap’s room. He dragged his feet and looked as if the short walk was torture, but when they got to Hap’s, Donald dropped her hand and stood in front of the door, his mouth hanging open.
He stated at the five foot expanse of horns decorating the message board.
“Jethro,” Emily said.
“Big fella, musta’ been.”
The door swung open and Hap’s head of unruly white hair appeared.
“Emily. And Donald. Come on in.”
“We don’t want to disturb you if you’ve got company.” Emily noted the bed was made and empty, but she scrutinized the rest of the room as if she expected a nude octogenarian to emerge from under the bed or behind the desk.
“Sit?” he asked.
“No.
We have to go see about my car. I stopped by because I’m following up on some information for Detective Lewis.” Emily caught Donald’s look of disgust out of the corner of her eye. Hap plopped himself into the wheel chair he usually parked in the corner of the room when he wasn’t giving rides in it to the residents or an occasional nurse.
“You think the detective needs your help, do you?”
“Not at all. He’s quite capable to solving this one on his own, but you know how he is. He insisted I help him out.”
Hap smiled then cackled, slapping his knees with his hands.
“You’re a bad liar, Emily Rhodes, almost as bad as Detective Lewis.”
“What do you mean?” she stammered.
“He left here not twenty minutes ago. Said he was stopping by to say hello, see how I was doing, but I figure from the way he steered the questions around to the murder he thought he could use me to find out where you or my daughter got your information on Mrs. Pratt.”
Emily sunk wearily onto the edge of the bed. She hadn’t duped anyone. She simply made a fool of herself with Lewis and now, with Donald hearing the story too, he’d put his own unsavory spin on it. Which he’d hit her with as soon as they got into the car.
“Don’t you want to know what I told him?” Hap’s face had that cunning look on it, the one where he wanted something in return for what he was offering her.
“Want to go to lunch?” she asked.
Hap slapped his knee again. “Do I! The food around here is awful. Let’s go to the ice cream shop.”
“They don’t serve lunch.” Donald seemed almost happy to announce this disappointing news.
“Ice cream is lunch.” Hap got up and opened the closet door. He grabbed his white panama and clapped it on his head. The smell of naphtha wafted out from the depths of the closet.
“You don’t mind taking Hap out to lunch, do you?”
Donald rolled his eyes at Emily’s question.
“Think of it this way, sonny,” Hap said to Donald, “She’s a pretty woman, and you get to spend time with her. Course I’ll be chaperoning. Unless you’d like to give me your keys, and I’ll go. You two can stay here. I just changed the sheets on the bed.” Hap winked at Donald.
Grilled, Chilled and Killed Page 9