Grilled, Chilled and Killed

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “That’s about right. And don’t come back here bothering us folks. We’re…”

  “Grieving for your father. Sorry.” Emily slid past him and out the door. Naomi followed. Elmer leered at her as she passed, then reached out and ran his hand over her rear.

  Naomi turned on him and smacked him across the chin. “Hands off, you hairy creep!”

  Elmer chuckled and licked his lips.

  “Leave her alone,” Jasper said. “She’s nothing but Yankee trash.”

  As Emily and Naomi made their way back to the car, Emily could hear Jasper begin questioning Melanie. “What did she want? You didn’t tell her nothin’, did you? “

  Emily couldn’t hear Melanie’s reply.

  “Don’t you know better than to talk to them people?”

  Again Melanie’s voice was too low to be heard.

  “Help us? She has no interest in helping us.” Jasper turned his head and looked through the open window. When he saw Emily standing at her car, he reached up and slammed the window closed.

  “I think we made more trouble for that poor woman than did her any good.” Naomi shook her head. “Jasper and that Elmer slug are trouble. Jasper probably takes after his father. I’d like to have done a bit more damage to that scrawny one, but it was Melanie’s home.”

  “Yup, I watched you pull that punch to his face. I’m glad you minded your manners in there. No demonstrations from your karate class.” Emily shifted into reverse and pulled the car out of the drive and onto the road.

  “Maybe we should wait for them to come back out. You still got that gun in here?” Naomi opened the glove box.

  “I thought you hated guns.”

  “I do, but I sure would like to scare him.”

  “My little girl is going native. Pretty soon you’ll decide on law school like Clara and then you’ll want a whole gun cabinet of pistols, rifles and ammunition.”

  Naomi continued to dig through the papers in the glove box.

  “I don’t carry it on me.” A good thing, thought Emily.

  Naomi stopped pawing through the jumble and slammed the door shut. She looked at her mother expectantly.

  “It’s home in my night stand. And, no. We are not going there to get it so you can scare the pants off some redneck barbequer.”

  “Okay. I’ll find some way to get back at him for copping a feel. Maybe Lewis can help me.”

  “I’m sure you can think of something on your own.” Emily hated the idea of her daughter in league with the detective. If anyone was going to help Naomi, it would be her, Emily.

  They continued down the road in silence. Emily decided to take her daughter’s mind off Elmer’s obnoxious move on her.

  “The good news is, we’ve got a name.”

  “What?”

  “We have the name of another woman Everett Pratt was bothering.”

  “Or a woman he was bothered by.” Naomi chuckled. “What are we waiting for? You’re not working tonight, so let’s have a talk with Amy Bushnell and see if we can figure out why she had such bad taste in men.”

  Toby parked his rusted truck beneath a dying sabal palm in a pull-off just after the turn east toward Stuart. He rolled down the driver’s side window and spit into the dirt next to his tire. It was late afternoon, and if a person didn’t know he was parked there, they wouldn’t be able to see him from either direction. But he could see any car approaching and taking the turn off the highway.

  He squinted at his watch. The person he arranged to meet was about fifteen minutes late. He’d wait another few minutes and then… Then what, he asked himself? He’d planted that barbeque rod in his cousin’s truck thinking he could extract money from the owner of the truck he found it in, but what if the guy wouldn’t give in to his blackmail plan? Could Toby go to Detective Lewis and tell his ex-partner he lied? That would blow Toby’s chance to be considered for a lighter sentence. No. He would not tell Lewis the truth. He’d be out the money his scheme would have made him. It had been worth a try. He’d think of another plan. He shrugged his rounded shoulders and spit again.

  “That’s my shoe, you jerk.”

  A man stood at the side of his truck.

  “Heh. I didn’t hear you drive up.” Toby shifted around on the truck’s cracked plastic seat, frightened he hadn’t kept alert for the visitor’s arrival.

  “I walked. You think I’m stupid?”

  Toby had hoped the man was stupid, had hoped he would come alone as Toby asked. Toby shook off his discomfort that the meeting was not going as planned. The guy showed, at least. That had to mean he was scared.

  Toby heard the sound of a car approaching. It turned from the highway onto the county road, then made a sharp left and drove into the pull-off. Toby’s heart began to pound. What now?

  “That’s my ride. I came to tell you to back off. For the second time. I didn’t kill Everett Pratt.”

  Toby ignored him. “You were told to come alone.”

  “Why would I put myself in that kind of danger? I’m sure you’re packin’ so I thought I’d even the odds.” He nodded to the driver of the car who slid down in the seat and waited. “Insurance.”

  “The barbeque rod was found in your truck.”

  “Someone planted it there just like you planted it in Bill’s truck.”

  “I’ve got something to show you that may make you sing another song.” Toby reached into the bag on the seat and extracted a jar of barbeque sauce.

  “I’m sure if these bottles find their way to the medical examiner’s office he’ll find one of them exactly matches the sauce on Everett Pratt’s body.”

  “The medical examiner’s office already did that, and none of the barbequers’ sauces matched, dummy. Why would mine match now?”

  “Cuz you changed the recipe as soon as you realized you’d left a clue on the body, before the cops took samples. The date on this one is from the day before the murder. The samples were taken several days after that. You held back the supplies you made before the murder and provided the cops with your altered recipe, then sold the supplies to the public. I bought me one.” Toby shoved the bottle in the man’s face. “You got your insurance. I got mine.”

  The man laughed.

  “This ain’t funny. You know what I want. And this time no trouble. Not like the last time we met.” Toby shifted around in the seat, feeling the old aches from his beating at their last meeting.

  “Let’s walk. I feel too exposed, too near the road.” The man signaled to his partner in the car to let him know where he was going.

  “Fine, but I keep my gun on me in case you decide you’d like another piece of me.”

  Toby’s contact nodded, and the two men walked into the brush and trees at the side of a cow pasture.

  “How much?” asked the man.

  “Five hundred now and then there will be other installments.”

  “I should just throttle the hell out of you right here.” The man’s voice was filled with rage, and Toby could almost hear his teeth grinding in fury. “Or just call the cops on you.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Toby decided to bluff. “You’d be talking to my friends. Your word against that of a retired detective.” Did he know Toby had been indicted for a number of crimes, that he was awaiting sentencing, and had been thrown off the force? Toby held his breath.

  Toby watched the man’s shoulders slump. “That’s your card in the hole, and I guess it beats mine.” He reached into his pocket.

  What appeared to be the shadow of a dead palm frond hanging off the tree moved and materialized into another man.

  Oh, crap, said Toby to himself. It was Mr. Smith.

  Emily pulled to the curb in front of Amy Bushnell’s house located in the Oak Park area, one of the best locations in the community. Oak Park was an older subdivision where the residents took pride in the appearance of their houses. Yards were mowed often, plantings pruned and weeded, paint fresh and driveways free of dirt and debris. So different from the fish camp, thoug
ht Emily.

  She decided not to call first, thinking she’d take Mrs. Bushnell by surprise and see what that might yield. She and Naomi rang the bell and waited.

  “Yes?” The woman who opened the door was younger than Emily, probably only in her mid forties, but she wore her hair in a style reminiscent of the mid sixties. Helmet hair, thought Emily, teased and sprayed so that it looked more like a lacquered bubble than natural growth.

  “Hi. My name is Emily Rhodes, and this is my daughter Naomi. Mrs. Pratt thought you might be able to help us.” Emily smiled her best preschool teacher smile, wide and reassuring.

  “Mrs. Pratt?” Mrs. Bushnell grabbed the front of her blouse near her throat and gulped. “Maybe you should come in to talk about this.”

  She showed them into her living room and offered them a seat on the couch.

  “You can’t think I might be involved in Mr. Pratt’s death. How could Mrs. Pratt believe that?” He voice was now both defensive and filled with fear.

  Emily decided not to beat around the bush.

  “Mrs. Pratt doesn’t think that of you. She knows her husband was a predator, and she thought perhaps Everett tried to get familiar with you. If he did, you might be able to tell us something about the man that might help us find his killer.” Emily kept her fingers crossed behind her back, hoping Mrs. Bushnell would not ask what right she had to question her.

  “Mr. Pratt and I became friends. We met at my church.”

  “Didn’t you know he was married?”

  “I thought he was at first because he and his wife attended church together, but then he began to attend alone. He told me they were getting a divorce.”

  And you believed him, you poor, misled, lonely woman, thought Emily.

  As if she had read Emily’s sentiments, she added, “My husband died several years ago.

  “So then you and Mr. Pratt became more than friends.”

  Amy Bushnell slumped into the chair across from the couch. “Yes. For a while. I thought he loved me. He said he did. He even gave me an engagement ring.”

  Emily and Naomi exchanged glances.

  “I ended the relationship several months ago.”

  “Because you found out he was lying. He wasn’t divorced after all. Right?” Emily reached over and patted the woman’s hand.

  “No. That’s not it.”

  Emily and Naomi waited in anticipation.

  Mrs. Bushnell seemed agitated, almost angry, but clearly reluctant to talk about what happened.

  “Unless it’s relevant to his murder, I will not reveal anything about your break-up with Everett.”

  “Everett made a pass at my daughter. I threw him out of the house.”

  “A lot of men take up with younger women when they discover age catching up on them. All of the women he had relationships with were in their forties. Maybe that didn’t do it for him any longer and he wanted something even younger.” Naomi spoke in disgust.

  Emily nodded in agreement. “The old letch. Then she acted as if she was the party responsible. As if she wasn’t desirable enough or something. Why do women blame themselves for these things?”

  “I still can’t figure what Ms. Bushnell saw in him.” Naomi said. “But then I’m not such a good judge of men myself.”

  “She was lonely, and she thought he was a good Christian man. That’s counts for a lot around here.”

  “Especially if you’re a woman of a certain age. Anything over twenty-five, I guess.” Naomi sat back in the seat, arms across her chest.

  Emily gritted her teeth and nodded. “Yep. Over twenty-five.”

  “Oh, Mom, I didn’t mean to say there aren’t plenty of good men out there, ones who like a mature woman.”

  “You mean an ‘old woman.’”

  “No. I mean someone like you. I mean, you. There are men who find you attractive.”

  “Oh, lucky me. A crazy, unpredictable bass fisherman who likes fish better than women and a cop who thinks I don’t have a brain in my head.”

  Naomi sneaked a peek at her mother and smiled. “No. I meant Hap.”

  They both broke out in laughter.

  “Hap thinks my hair is the wrong color, not blue enough, and he finds me too young for his taste. Probably too conventional too. I’m not into wearing a red teddy while he wields a six shooter, and yells, ‘giddyap.’”

  “Like I suggested before. Try an online dating service. I might subscribe to one myself. It sounds a lot safer finding out about a guy in cyberspace than in person.”

  They rode in silence for several miles.

  “Are you going to tell Lewis about Amy Bushnell?”

  “Why should I? There’s nothing there.”

  “But, Mom, he doesn’t know about her, does he?”

  Emily pondered that for a moment. Naomi was right. She could let him know she found another of Everett’s women and not tell him the full story. That would show him.

  As if reading her mind, Naomi tapped her mother’s shoulder and waggled her finger at her. “That’s rotten. This is a murder investigation. He needs to know everything if he’s to track down the killer. Maybe Ms. Bushnell’s daughter decided to whack him.”

  “I was just thinking, that’s all.”

  Emily’s cell rang. It was Lewis. Was he reading her mind, too? And at a distance?

  “Where are you now?” he asked.

  “Heading back home from town. Why?”

  “I found something you might be interested in.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a surprise, but I bet you’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “I hate surprises.”

  “Okay then. I found the Pratt’s still. Meet me at the intersection of 441 north and 68.”

  “Great.” Emily flipped her phone shut.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Lewis says he found the location of the Pratt’s still and wanted to surprise me with it. I already know about that old still. There’s nothing there. It hasn’t been used in years.”

  “You didn’t tell him that?”

  “Well, he recruited Rodney St. Simonton to spy on us. Daisy told me Rodney didn’t do the job as Lewis wanted though. Good old Rodney. He only told Lewis what he already knew. That we went to the trailer that night, but he didn’t tell him we visited the still.”

  “I guess Rodney knew he’d better not cross Daisy.”

  “Better to cross a cop than Miss Daisy DuBignon St. Simonton. The first might land you in jail, but the latter will guarantee silence so cold it could reverse global warming.”

  Chapter 16

  Emily parked her car in the shade of a live oak to wait for Lewis. Not two minutes later, the big police cruiser pulled up behind her.

  “We’ll take my car since I know where I’m going.” Lewis swung the passenger side door open for Emily and reached around to unlock the back so Naomi could get in.

  He seemed to be delighted to show them around as if he was high on information he thought Emily did not have. Emily struggled not to show the pleased smile threatening to curl her lips. I know where we’re going, too, thought Emily, but I’ve got to hide it from Lewis. She plastered a look of intense interest on her face and tried to appear as if she valued every word out of his mouth.

  “We spotted this late last night and took a closer peek at it this morning. We can’t stay long, and we’ll have to be careful the Pratts don’t know we’ve located their operation.”

  “Why did you think I’d be interested?”

  “Come on, Emily. You know you’re dying to crack this case. Besides, I made you an unofficial deputy when I gave you that assignment to talk to Everett’s girlfriends. By the way, did you find out anything I already don’t know?”

  “You mean from the women at the fish camp? Nope.”

  “Mom.” Naomi reached up and punched her mother in the shoulder.

  “Okay, fine then. We did find another woman who dated Everett.”

  “Date him? How do you date some
one who’s married?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.” Emily pursed her lips as if she’d bitten into a lemon.

  “I’m not married. You know that.” The vein in Lewis’ forehead began to bulge.

  “And we’re not dating anyway.” Emily stared off into the passing fields replacing the sour citrus look with one more serene.

  Lewis let go of the wheel and threw his arms in the air. “I know that.”

  “Watch the road and don’t yell at me.”

  “Hey!” Naomi shouted from the backseat. “Could the two of you try to behave like adults for once? I thought we were here to take a look at some evidence.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Emily said.

  “You didn’t.” Lewis said.

  “I meant Naomi.”

  Lewis opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. “I am merely being emphatic,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “So where is this place?” She could tell her calm tone of voice and the smile on her face were driving Lewis crazy. Exactly what she intended. She continued to look out the windows at the scenes she had observed when she and Daisy searched for the Pratt still. At the turn-off to the walking and biking trail she and Daisy had taken, Lewis didn’t slow. Emily reached out and grabbed Lewis’ arm.

  “What?” There was surprise in his voice, but something else on his face.

  “Nothing.”

  Maybe he knew another way into the place. They continued north another five miles. Emily began to wonder what was going on.

  “What are you trying to pull here?” There was irritation in her voice.

  “Huh?”

  “We should have turned back there some miles. The Pratt’s still is that way.” Now Emily was shouting and pointing off toward the west.

  “Now what would you know about their still?”

  Emily swallowed. Trapped. “Uh, everyone around here knows where they have their still. Common knowledge.”

  “Common gossip. That still hasn’t been operational for years.” Lewis fixed Emily with his bird of prey look. Then he broke into laughter.

  Emily looked shocked, then understanding dawned. “You knew! You knew Daisy and I found that old still. I’m such a fool. Rodney told you everything we did that day. Wait until I tell Daisy he lied to her.”