Finger Lickin' Dead

by Riley Adams

  Evelyn hiccupped. “I won’t like prison, Lulu. They have bad food there. And Day-Glo orange jumpsuits. I’ve gotten used to my massages and mani-pedis. What’ll I do?” She took another soothing sip of the chardonnay. “I want to ask you a tremendous favor, Lulu. I’d like you to check into this crime for me.”

  “Me?” The word came out in a nervous laugh. “Evelyn, what on earth do you mean? I’m a barbeque restaurant owner, not a private investigator.”

  Evelyn said solemnly, “You’re better than a private eye. You’re a friend. And you know all the people involved in the case. Plus—you care about me. And then there’s the fact that you’ve already solved one murder mystery. Barbeque queen or not—you’re a natural.”

  Lulu looked doubtful.

  “Besides,” said Evelyn with a disdainful look, “I never want to deal with private investigators again in my life. I’ve had enough of them during my divorces. I always feel like I’m the one doing something shady.”

  Lulu said, “Honey, I’ll do what I can. I’m not exactly sure what I can find out, but I’ll give it a go.”

  Evelyn continued her glum thoughts. “Because you won’t have as much fun during our visits if it’s on visiting day at the big house. You’ll have to share the visiting room with all kinds of riffraff. And we’ll have to talk through one of those germy telephones through a bulletproof panel. And they don’t serve chardonnay as refreshments.”

  Lulu thought for a minute. It was clear that nothing she told Evelyn would do any good. Maybe she was helping her out by just listening to her worry, but she’d rather be helping her feel better. She snapped her fingers. “I know! We’ll call Pink up.”

  Evelyn looked at Lulu morosely. “Pink is one of them, Lulu. He’s not going to do anything to help me out. It’s likely he’ll come over here and drag me off to jail.”

  But Lulu was already dialing his number. “I’m ashamed of you, Evelyn Wade! You know Pink is a loyal friend of ours. How many times has he helped us out or given us some information we needed to know?”

  Evelyn said, “All right! You’re right, Lulu. I’ll hear him out. Maybe he can convince me that prison isn’t such a rotten place after all.”

  Pink had pulled in a long shift and was sound asleep when Lulu called. Still, he got up, pulled on some sweats and a baseball cap, and drove over to Evelyn’s house. He looked at the emptying bottle of chardonnay and the hiccupping Evelyn with some trepidation.

  “Now y’all know I can’t do a lot of talking about this case. Hell, it’s not even my case! But I can tell you one thing.” Pink held his hand out in a traffic cop gesture. “These are the early days of the investigation, okay? We’ve got to spend some time talking to everybody who might have done it.”

  Evelyn moaned and Pink lifted his hand again. “I said might have something to do with it, Evey.”

  “So Evelyn isn’t on her way to 201 Poplar, then?” asked Lulu, giving the well-known address for the Memphis jail. “She was getting kind of worried because of the way she’d been questioned at the station.”

  “Believe me, y’all, as far as I’m aware, there are no plans to put our lovely Evelyn behind bars.”

  Lulu sat back on Evelyn’s damask sofa and released the breath she’d been holding. “Well, now, isn’t that a relief! That’s a relief, isn’t it, Evelyn?”

  Evelyn reached out to a box of tissues that she’d been carrying around with her. She nodded wordlessly, clutching a tissue to her nose.

  “There was one thing I was curious to know, though,” said Pink, looking at Evelyn intently. “Where were you this afternoon?”

  Evelyn made a shooing motion with her hand. “You know where I was, Pink. I was hanging out with your buddies at the police station.”

  “No, I mean earlier in the afternoon.”

  Evelyn tossed the tissue at the wastebasket next to her antique secretary. “I was at Adam’s funeral—it ended in the early afternoon. Then I left the funeral with Ginger.”

  Pink’s gaze sharpened. “You left the funeral with Ginger Cawthorn?”

  “That’s right. Why?”

  “Ginger Cawthorn was found dead this evening. She was murdered.”

  Chapter 12

  Evelyn turned a pasty white.

  Lulu stood up and said, “I think this story can wait a minute, y’all. Let’s head into the kitchen. Evelyn, have you even eaten tonight?” Evelyn shook her head. “I’m not sure how Tommie let you get away with that. First things first. Let’s get some food and maybe a glass of milk into Evelyn because she’s not looking so well.”

  Although Lulu adored Aunt Pat’s kitchen where every pot and pan held a memory, Evelyn’s kitchen still gave Lulu a little pang of envy every time she walked in it. The granite countertops and luscious wood cabinets were gorgeous, but what really attracted Lulu was that the kitchen was better equipped than any she’d ever seen, including Aunt Pat’s. While Pink and Evelyn sat down at the tableclothed kitchen table encircled by armchair-style chairs, Lulu opened the stainless steel fridge to find something that would stick to Evelyn’s ribs.

  The perfect fixings for a ham and mushroom omelet were right in front of her. There was even fresh apple wood–smoked bacon to fry and organic milk. Lulu got to work and was soon sliding plates with light, fluffy omelets in front of Pink and Evelyn. Pink took some healthy-sized bites right away while Evelyn toyed at the edges with her fork. After a moment, though, she seemed to realize how hungry she was and tucked into the food.

  The food, the milk, the kitchen itself had a lulling effect on the three of them. Pink looked to be drowsing back off to sleep. After Lulu had taken her last bite and made sure that Evelyn had eaten most of her plate, Lulu said, “Now, Pink. Can you tell us a little about Ginger? What happened out there today?”

  Pink shrugged. “I’m not sure, Lulu. All I know is that Ginger was discovered by a driver who was walking back to his car in the parking deck. He looked over and noticed she was clearly dead.”

  Lulu frowned. “What time was she supposed to have been killed?”

  “As far as they can tell, it looks like early to mid afternoon.”

  Evelyn brushed a strand of her chestnut-colored hair from her eyes. “This is all simply unbelievable. I was there with her at the funeral today. Then we went to lunch together. She was just as alive as anybody!” she said defensively.

  Pink sighed. “Well, honey, of course she was! She was alive then. I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “I know she was your friend.”

  Evelyn hesitated. “I don’t know if ‘friend’ is exactly the right word. We were trying to become friends. But we had different ways of looking at things.”

  “Like what?” asked Pink.

  Evelyn looked at Lulu for help, and Lulu said, “Like the way Evelyn thought Adam was scum and the way Ginger was trying to keep his memory alive and find his killer. And the fact that she told everybody at the funeral that she had some information about the murder and would find out who did it is probably what got her killed to begin with.”

  “That could be,” said Pink, mulling it over. “I did want to hear some more about the lunch that Evelyn and Ginger had, though. Could you tell me a little about it?”

  Evelyn sat very still and looked very small in her fluffy robe. “Well . . . we went to Dyer’s. And we had burgers, both of us. I had some chili cheese fries. I got a little chili and cheese on my dress, actually.”

  Lulu made clucking noises and said, “You can probably get it out if you spray it and wash it with a little Biz. You wouldn’t believe some of the stains you can get out.”

  Pink moved restlessly. “That does sound like a right nice lunch, Evelyn. But I was thinking more about what might have happened during your lunch. Or what might have been said.”

  Evelyn sat silently.

  “Because somebody did come forward, Evelyn, and described a woman who matches your description, having an argument with Ginger outside Dyer’s.”

  “How could they be sure i
t was me?” said Evelyn. She didn’t sound exactly sullen, thought Lulu, but she sure didn’t seem excited about offering up any information.

  “Well, they didn’t exactly know who you were, but the description was a woman with reddish hair, huge Chanel sunglasses, and a designer outfit. I’m thinking you fit that profile pretty well. And you just told me you went to Dyer’s with Ginger.”

  Now Evelyn frowned crossly. “All right. Yes, we had an argument. It started inside the restaurant. Ginger was just being so foolish. She seemed to think that we needed to build some kind of shrine to Adam instead of closing that chapter on our lives. I told her she needed to move on—to get a life. I was trying to be nice. I wanted to try to find her somebody else to go out with . . . a good man. Someone who wouldn’t cheat on her with lots of other women. She was just being so headstrong.”

  And Lulu knew that Evelyn wasn’t somebody easily crossed. If she wanted to help you, you by golly let yourself be helped. And you thanked her for it.

  “So her being headstrong made you mad,” said Pink.

  “Shoot yeah, it made me mad!” said Evelyn. “She was going to hold on to the memory of someone who wasn’t worth the time. Her mindset made me furious.” She was gritting her teeth even now. “But not mad enough to shoot her.”

  Pink raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t tell you she’d been shot. How’d you know that little tidbit?”

  Evelyn waved her ringed hand around. “Because Adam was shot! How else?” She didn’t look Pink in the eye.

  Lulu said, “This all happened at a deck off Beale Street? Wouldn’t somebody have heard the shot? That’s during the lunch crowd—the whole world would be outside that time of day.”

  Pink shrugged. “If you think about it, Lulu, Beale Street is a pretty noisy place. You’ve got blues bands playing. Hawkers are standing outside, hollering at people to come in and try the restaurant’s daily special. There’s even that construction going on one street over and it’s almost impossible to hear over a pneumatic drill. And if you’re in a restaurant, they’re all full of people running their mouths, and plates and glasses clinking. It’s not like it was an explosion or something. Same with the shot that took Adam out—it’s just not something that called attention to itself.”

  “What I’m not sure about,” said Lulu, “is why someone would want to kill Ginger. I completely understood how Adam might end up dead—he had this talent for pushing people out of their jobs or making them furious at him. The only thing I can think as a motive to murder Ginger is that she was telling everyone at the funeral that she had a lead to the killer.”

  Pink said, “Well, right now it’s all speculation because we really don’t know. And you’re right, Ginger might have had some information that the murderer was worried she’d share with the police. We’ve also found, in our investigating, that Adam and Ginger had a joint business venture going on.”

  Evelyn frowned in confusion. “What—like they were business partners, not only marriage partners?”

  “Business partners, but not in a normal business. They were in the blackmailing gig together.”

  Lulu said, “They were blackmailing people together? One of them would provide information and the other would be the heavy?”

  “We’re not sure exactly how they set it up, but information we found in Ginger’s house definitely pointed to the fact that they were in it together.”

  Evelyn looked irritated. “How does a blackmailing business work, anyway? You can’t exactly hang out your shingle and tell everybody what you do. How do you drum up customers?”

  Pink laughed. “I think it probably just takes a couple of customers to make it worthwhile. It’s not like you have to have office space or advertising. Any money you make is just icing on the cake. As long as you don’t end up getting arrested—or killed.”

  It was after two o’clock when Lulu finally made it back home and climbed under her floral comforter to fall into a hard sleep. When the alarm went off at seven o’ clock, she groaned and burrowed deeper under the covers. The day itself wasn’t even conducive to getting up—rain splattered down on her roof and dripped down her old windowpanes. She finally dragged herself out from the warm sheets and off to shower and dress.

  Breakfast seemed really unappetizing to her in her present state of grogginess. Lulu was usually one for a real country breakfast to sustain her through the day—scrambled eggs, sausage patties, fluffy biscuits, grits, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Seeing as how she’d had breakfast at Evelyn’s, she just didn’t feel like it again. Instead she poured a tub of vanilla yogurt into her blender along with some frozen fruit, some orange juice, and a little bit of cereal, blended it smooth, and took it with her to drink on the go.

  She’d just gotten to the restaurant when her cell phone started singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” at her. “Lulu? It’s Flo. Listen, my batty bride called me up last night at midnight—can you believe calling someone up at midnight?—and she wants to have a ‘planning summit’ she said. With y’all for food and with the Back Porch Blues Band for music. And I guess about the flowers, too, and so I’ll have to call the Graces because they were helping me with that. A summit? Can you believe it?” Flo sounded completely indignant.

  Lulu pulled out a wooden chair and plopped down into it. “Oh no. What time does she want to hold this summit? Because I did get a call like that last night and didn’t go to bed until after two.”

  “I’m real sorry about it, Lulu. This woman is plum crazy! Could we maybe talk to her after your lunch rush? Around three o’clock? I’ll call everybody and set it up.” Flo’s voice sounded anxious. This must be some bride.

  “Of course we can talk to her then, sweetie. We’ll get her all calmed down, don’t you worry.”

  It was amazing how you couldn’t really buy class, thought Lulu as she watched Flo’s “batty bride,” controlling mother, and sullen groom. The bride, Ashley, smacked her gum with at a rhythmic pace and interrupted her mother, Cynthia, at every opportunity. The groom, whose name Lulu hadn’t caught—if it’d even been tossed to her—looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

  The Graces, Lulu, and the Back Porch Blues Band had all spent the last couple of hours trying to calm down the wedding party. Aunt Pat’s handled large crowds every day. Big Ben, Buddy, and Morty had played for big crowds in their day. And the Graces could put some mean bouquets and arrangements together, even in a pinch.

  “We need everything to be perfect,” said Cynthia. “We’d planned on this being the social event of the year, you know. Now we’ve ended up downsizing it and adding an element of fun.” Lulu guessed that having the wedding at Graceland and having barbeque on the reception menu was the “fun.” “But we can’t compromise our goal of perfection.”

  Flo took the opportunity to roll her eyes since the wedding party wasn’t looking in her direction. “Believe me, Cynthia, this wedding couldn’t be in better hands. This is going to be a wedding that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time.”

  Ben had come out of the kitchen for the meeting and was already thinking about the financial end of things. “I know we’re going to be making a lot of barbeque for the reception and I just wanted to make sure that everything was sound, financially. I know that cutting back was the reason you decided to go this route to begin with.”

  Cynthia and Ashley looked at each other, then Ashley looked down at the nail she was picking apart. “You’ll be paid, don’t worry about that.”

  “Ashley,” persisted Flo, looking across at the blond bride, “you’ve squared everything with your dad, haven’t you?”

  Ashley snorted. “Daddy has been horrid. He didn’t want to cough up the money for the Peabody wedding and now he’s just as upset about the Graceland one. He doesn’t want anything to do with it.” Her lips poofed out in an unattractive pout. The groom looked worried.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Cynthia, carefully straightening the red checkered tablecloth with hands sporting huge diamonds.
“I’ll pay for this myself, so you don’t have to worry about your money.”

  Big Ben said, “I’m just glad to know that I shouldn’t announce a father-daughter dance when we’re playing the reception. That could have been reeeal awkward.”

  “Who’s giving you away?” asked Flo, knitting her brows. “I thought your dad was going to walk you down the aisle.”

  “My first cousin will walk with Ashley,” said Cynthia in a bored voice. “You probably know him—Big Jack Bratcher. Doesn’t he come here for barbeque just about every week? He was the one who said it was fine to bring you on board—that you’d do a good job.”

  Lulu didn’t know whether she should feel gratitude to Big Jack or fuss at him for getting her involved with his impossible family.

  Cynthia drew in a deep breath. “Oh my God. I forgot about the photographer. Have you gotten us a photographer? We have got to have a photographer.”

  Flo rubbed the sides of her face as if her head hurt. “Cynthia, as I already mentioned to you, all the photographers I know are booked up. They have other weddings to do on Ashley’s wedding day. They can’t just drop what they’re doing.”

  Cynthia’s right eye started twitching. “I don’t see why they can’t just fit a couple of extra hours into their day.”

  “But it’s more than just a couple of hours, Cynthia. You’ve got to do portraits of the bride, bride and groom, parents of the bride and groom—the whole shebang. And pictures of the bride getting ready for the wedding. And the actual ceremony and the reception and the bride and groom running through the birdseed to their getaway car. It’s lots of hours.” Flo looked like she was about to cry. Lulu, like any respectable older lady, pulled out a perfectly folded fresh tissue from her sleeve and handed it to Flo in case she needed it.

  Peggy Sue was goggle-eyed. “Y’all didn’t get a photographer first thing? I know brides who booked the photographer before they even booked the groom! You have to look good for the portrait that runs in the paper, you know? And those wedding pictures live forever, so you have to find somebody who knows all the tricks. I thought y’all would have done that before anything.”