One Fete in the Grave

by Vickie Fee

  “Did you see Bubba during that time?”

  Biting her lip, Holly gazed up at the ceiling trying to remember.

  “I don’t think so. You and I saw him a bit earlier. He stopped by and chatted with us for a minute soon after the 5K had concluded.”

  “Yeah, I mentioned that to Dave, too,” I said.

  “I saw Bubba walking into a tent at some point that morning,” she said. “I believe it was for the cake contest, and he had a judge’s ribbon pinned to his shirt pocket.”

  I told her he was a fill-in judge for the cake competition.

  “I find it hard to believe your mama’s cake didn’t take the blue ribbon again this year. I was one of the judges a couple of years ago and her chocolate cake is the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  “I think so, but I may be a tiny bit biased. Did you see Bubba again after that?”

  “Yes. Late in the afternoon when I had returned to mind the booth again, Bubba Rowland came by with a face like thunder. He walked right past me without so much as a word. He went out to the parking lot by the main entrance, where I could see him talking to another man for a few minutes. When he came back by he was smiling. He nodded to me and said, ‘Good golly, Miss Holly. How’s it going?’ Whatever the other man told him certainly seemed to put him in a good mood.”

  “Did you know who this man was?”

  “No, in fact I don’t recall ever even seeing him around town before, which is what I told the deputy.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “He was a tall, well-built man. Fortyish, I’d say, with sandy brown hair and a used car salesman’s smile.”

  A lightbulb lit up in my head. I grabbed my purse, rifled through its disorganized contents, and pulled out the brochure for the new development that Larry Joe had given me.

  I flipped to the back cover and showed it to Holly.

  “Is this the man?”

  She looked at it for a long moment.

  “I believe that’s him. Yes, that’s definitely him,” she said, tapping her index finger on the image of developer Aaron Rankin.

  Chapter 19

  Around noon, after Holly and I had gotten some notes together for my meeting and she had left for the day, I decided to walk over to the diner for a bite to eat. I peeked in the window at Sweet Deal Realty to see if Winette might want to join me, but she was apparently out of the office.

  I crossed the street and a man held the door open for me as I entered Town Square Diner. The diner was starting to fill up with the lunch crowd. I scanned the dining room for a table and noticed Carrie Rowland sitting at a table by herself. I went over and asked if I could join her, and she motioned for me to sit down. I felt a rush of cool air from the vents overhead and was thankful Carrie had chosen a table in the direct path of a nice draft.

  I knew Carrie worked part-time at Rowland’s Building Supply a couple of days a week, doing bookkeeping. But her freshly cut, dyed, and curled hair caused me to suspect she had come into town for a hair salon appointment.

  “Your hair looks nice,” I said.

  “Thanks. I guess it’s a little gift to myself. Today is my nineteenth wedding anniversary.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Thanks. Under the circumstances we’re not really celebrating. But Bruce and I exchanged cards at breakfast and we’ll probably have a glass of wine with dinner. Next year will be a milestone anniversary, so we’ll save the big celebration for then.”

  Normally it would have seemed appropriate to offer condolences or at least ask how the family was doing after a recent death, but knowing what Earl had told me about Carrie and Bubba’s long-ago tryst I just didn’t feel comfortable mentioning him. I decided to leave it to Carrie to bring up Bubba if she wanted. She didn’t.

  We both ordered an entrée salad. For me, at least, the idea of a hot dish on such a hot day was unappealing.

  “I heard they arrested Webster Flack this morning for the arson out at the development site,” I said. “Do you know if they’re also charging him with the vandalism at Rowland’s, since there was similar graffiti in both cases?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t believe the sheriff hadn’t already arrested Webster for the vandalism at the store. If he didn’t actually write the words on the building, he was no doubt the instigator. Then when I saw the video on the news with some of the same words and that same tangerine color spray paint, I would have thought it was obvious, even to the sheriff, that it was the work of the same person. But then, the damage at the store was minor in comparison to that at the development. Maybe it just wasn’t a priority, especially after Bubba’s murder.”

  “Yeah. Dave and his small staff have their plates full right now,” I said.

  “Speaking of plates, I think I’m going to have Margie put the rest of my salad in a to-go box,” Carrie said before waving over the waitress.

  We chatted for a minute about the weather and such before she took her leftovers and went up to the counter to pay.

  The diner was full up by this time and I was still picking absently at my salad. As soon as Margie took away Carrie’s plate, a man with a scraggly beard and less than a full set of teeth took her chair, asking if I minded only after he had sat down. He was staring at me and made some odd comment about how our waitress nicely filled out her uniform. Since Margie wears at least a size 3X, I could hardly argue the point, so I ignored the remark.

  Then he asked, “You run that party business, don’t you?”

  Clearly he had me at a disadvantage, since I had no idea who he was.

  “Yes, I own a party-planning business.”

  I waved at Margie and motioned to my plate, indicating I’d like a to-go box.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, do you ever plan lingerie parties?”

  “Why? Are you thinking of throwing one?”

  “Oh, no,” he said with an unsettling laugh. “I was just wondering.”

  I gathered his interest was prurient and I wanted to separate from his company as soon as possible. I picked up my plate and dumped it quickly into the box Margie had slipped onto the table, grabbed my check, and said, “I have to be going now.”

  He was saying something as I walked away.

  As Mabel was making change for a twenty, I asked about the strange man at my table.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Naw, not really. He comes in from time to time.” She added in a near whisper, “I don’t think he’s quite right.”

  I walked back to my office and stashed my takeout container in the mini-fridge.

  * * *

  At 2:00 PM my prospective clients arrived. After noting the brand names prominently displayed on their clothes I surmised mineral water would appeal to them. I offered and they accepted.

  Kurt was a senior manager at some company in Memphis, and Judy, whom I knew only to speak to, lived in Dixie and owned the fitness center on the highway. What they shared in common was they had graduated from Dixie High School together and were on the committee for their thirtieth class reunion coming up in two years.

  Obviously it was a bit far in advance to plan the details of the reunion at this point, but I appreciated that they wanted to get on the calendar. And for large events where a lot of people will be coming in from out of town, it’s a good idea to get started early.

  The pair were the local representatives of the planning committee, which included classmates from across the country, who were communicating by e-mail and had started a Facebook page to keep everyone up to date on plans, as well as solicit input.

  The committee had an ambitious list of several events they wanted to schedule over a Thursday through Sunday time period. There were 108 people in their graduating class, and they were estimating based on early contacts that about 75 classmates along with their spouse or date would likely attend.

  They were proposing a pub crawl tour of Memphis on Thursday evening, capping off the night on Beale Street, a touristy venue feat
uring blues clubs. They wanted Friday to be a family-friendly day of activities, including perhaps the Memphis Zoo, along with a catered picnic in Overton Park. And they wanted to hire a couple of nice coach buses to shuttle reuniongoers to these activities. They were proposing the big event to be a dinner at the country club on Saturday night, followed by a dance in the Dixie High School gym for nostalgic reasons. We would have to secure special permission from the school board to book an event at the school, and, of course, the date couldn’t conflict with scheduled school activities. We could probably manage that since they were planning to hold the event in the summer, about mid-June.

  Kurt had a square jaw and a thick head of hair. I imagined he might have been voted most handsome or most likely to succeed. And his female cohort was petite with delicate features. I could easily envision her being named in the yearbook as most beautiful. However, I was fairly certain neither of them had been named most congenial.

  “If you give me a budget range, I can get back to you with some preliminary price estimates for the activities, as well as my fee.”

  “We were hoping you could just check out what’s available as far as bus rentals and group rates and menus and bands and such, providing us a list of options on price ranges, so we can go from there,” Judy said.

  I bet you would.

  In other words, they wanted me to do all the research and preliminary planning and then give them a contact list with price estimates without paying me a dime.

  “It really wouldn’t be that helpful to your committee, I’m afraid, if I gathered information without any budget parameters. I would suggest you do some kind of survey of your classmates and get an idea about what they’re comfortable paying per couple.

  “When you have a better idea of a budget range, I can get some preliminary estimates and plans together. At that point, if you’re pleased with the overview we can draw up a contract and I can begin working on more specific plans, meeting again with you to iron out the details.”

  “Can’t you provide us with at least some price quotes for the things we know we want, like the bus rentals and bands?” she asked.

  I had the feeling she and square jaw wanted to be able to report a bunch of details back to their committee as if they had done the research, without actually having to do any of the legwork. I, of course, didn’t mind doing the legwork as long as it was clear I was getting paid.

  “I’m sorry, Judy,” I said in my kindest voice. “As I said, most of these things depend on the budget, as well as the number of people we need to accommodate. For instance, we will need to know how many people are planning to participate in the Memphis events to know how big a bus or buses we’ll need to reserve. And, as for booking a band, the price varies greatly depending on the type of music you want, how long you want to book them to play, and, of course, how popular and in-demand the particular band is. I just can’t go very far without a budget range unless the client gives me a blank check, which I can honestly say hasn’t happened so far.”

  Kurt grinned and Judy frowned, but they agreed to get back with me in a month or so.

  “That sounds great. Just call or e-mail me and we can figure out where to go from here.”

  * * *

  Larry Joe called about four o’clock to say they had some freight mix-up on the trucks and he didn’t expect to make it home until around eight or so.

  “Go ahead and eat and just save me a plate or bring me home some takeout if you go to dinner with Di.”

  “Is this freight problem going to cause you to miss a shipment deadline?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Okay, honey, I’ll see you later,” I said.

  I gave Di a call and let her know I was free for dinner if she was available.

  “Yeah. I was supposed to have dinner with Dave, but he had to bail because of stuff going on with Webster, I gathered.”

  “Does stuff going on include a murder charge?”

  “He didn’t say,” she said dryly. “Let’s go to that Chinese buffet on the highway. I know it’s noisier than Taco Belles and I know we just had Chinese takeout recently, but I have a taste for it.”

  We arranged for me to swing by and pick her up around five-thirty.

  * * *

  The dragon that greeted us at the entrance to the restaurant looked more cartoonish than fearsome. The petite hostess advised us to be seated at the table of our choice and help ourselves to the buffet. A server would be around shortly to take our drink order.

  I loaded my plate with Kung Pao chicken and Crab Rangoon. Di nabbed a back corner booth, which would give us a bit of privacy.

  “I hope Dave is making Webster sweat it out in the interrogation room,” I said. “Maybe he can charge him with murder as well as arson and Earl can put this whole nightmare behind him.”

  Di showed off by eating her rice with chopsticks.

  “I don’t know, I think Bruce looks at least as promising as a suspect as Webster,” she said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Okay, so on my route this afternoon I ran into Kelly, one of the women in my yoga class. And when I say ‘ran into’ I mean that literally. I was coming down a driveway sorting mail in my hands as she came around the corner, wearing headphones, and ran smack into me. Fortunately, she was only traveling at jogging speed instead of a dead run.

  “After exchanging apologies for the collision we chatted for a minute. I was saying it was such a hot day I hadn’t seen many people outside, much less running. Most people were in their houses or in their cars with the air-conditioning full blast. Anyway, she mentioned that on the day of the festival she had locked her keys in her car. The long and short of it was, Bruce Rowland got a slim jim from his car and popped open her car door in a matter of seconds,” Di said, punctuating her sentence with raised eyebrows.

  I dropped a Crab Rangoon in my lap.

  “I’d completely forgotten that Bruce is a locksmith—it’s part of Rowland’s business. That means he could have easily used that same slim jim to pop open the door on Earl’s truck and take his rifle.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Did you mention this to Dave yet?”

  “Yes, I did. And all he said was the fact that Bruce is a locksmith doesn’t mean he broke into Earl’s truck.”

  “It doesn’t mean he didn’t, either. Let’s face it, Dave’s not going to listen to anything we say unless we hand him a smoking gun. The best we can hope for at the moment is that Webster is guilty and confesses,” I said with resignation. “I’m going to make another trip to the buffet and get some of those coconut macaroons. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  I returned with a plate of sweets. A young waiter came by and refilled our glasses with iced tea.

  “So did you do anything exciting Sunday?” Di asked, shifting gears.

  “I’m not sure exciting is the right word for it—exhausting would be more like it.”

  I filled her in on the whole set-to between Larry Joe and his dad.

  “That all happened after I started the day having brunch with Mama and going over her ideas for bridal bouquets.”

  “What’s her vision?”

  “Basically, jimsonweed and cotton bolls.”

  “I can honestly say I never would’ve thought of that.”

  “Who else but Mama would?” I said. “Oh, but I did hear some interesting gossip from her if you’re inclined to listen to that kind of trash.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Do you happen to know Esme Weems or her daughter, Taylor?”

  “I know who they are. They used to rent a house on my route. Why?”

  I told her about the uncertain parentage of Taylor’s baby.

  “Or at least that’s the word on the street. It could be Taylor just isn’t saying because the baby’s father is a married man or it could be she genuinely doesn’t know.”

  “If she doesn’t know and really wants to, she could go
on the Maury show,” Di offered.

  “That’s just what Mama said . . . oh, oh, oh,” I said, nearly knocking over my glass as I gestured wildly.

  “What?”

  “I believe you’re right about Bruce being our prime suspect—and not just because of the slim jim. He may have a big fat motive.”

  “Well, tell me.”

  Even though no one was sitting nearby, I leaned forward and talked in a hushed tone.

  “Earl told me, reluctantly, that he once spotted Bubba and Carrie coming out of some seedy hotel room.”

  “Yuck. I can’t imagine why Carrie would even consider sleeping with the likes of Bubba—unless he was blackmailing her.”

  “No, no. This was a long time ago. According to Earl, she and Bruce were newlyweds at the time and having newly married kinds of problems. Bubba wasn’t bad looking back then and Carrie would have been vulnerable. I happened to sit with Carrie at the diner today and she mentioned she and Bruce have been married nineteen years. And Jennifer just graduated from high school, so she’s about eighteen.”

  “Oh, I see where you’re going with this. You think it’s possible Bubba, not Bruce, is her daddy.”

  “Biologically speaking, yes.”

  “Even if that’s true, it seems like an awful long time for Bruce to wait to take revenge on his brother,” Di said.

  “What if he only found out recently?”

  “How?”

  “That, I don’t know. But when you put it all together, Bruce knew Bubba had the trots, even supposedly gave his brother an Imodium pill, which the lab tests show was really an antihistamine. It’s possible he just told Bubba the pill was something for stomach upset to discourage him from going home and to ensure Bubba would still be making trips to the potty during the fireworks show. And we know Bruce had a slim jim, so he could have easily taken Earl’s rifle out of his truck. So if somehow he had found out Bubba was Jennifer’s biological father . . .”

  “I agree that could be a powerful motive,” Di said. “But we don’t have anything except suspicions. Dave couldn’t possibly get a warrant for a DNA test based on that.”

  “No, he couldn’t. But maybe we can help him out on that score.”