“I don’t know who the ‘bad man’ is.” I lied to Shiloh. I was certain the bad man was her boss, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “But whoever it is, he’s really upset about it.”
“Strange, isn’t it, how animals react? My cat absolutely hated my last boyfriend. Hated him. Barf-in-his-shoes hated him. Turns out the scumbag was cheating on me.” She shook her head. “So, whoever this ‘bad man’ is, you might want to listen to the parrot.”
“You could be right.” I switched the subject back to Jimmy and the tow truck. “Just wanted you to know I was grateful to Jimmy,” I said. “He didn’t charge me for the service, said it was an easy fix and he’d waive the fee if I promised I’d bring the car in soon.”
Shiloh laughed. “I won’t tell Mr. Fowler he did that. He only promoted the kid to the truck a week ago. In fact, his first tow was Kevin’s car, after the accident.”
“So the car was towed to Fowler’s?” I asked, surprised. I had assumed it would go to some police lot somewhere for inspection.
“We have a fenced lot in the back,” Shiloh explained. “The cops use it as an impound when they need to secure a vehicle. It doesn’t happen that often in Keyhole Bay, as you can imagine, so it doesn’t make sense for them to maintain a lot of their own.”
I filed that piece of information for later. If the car was at Fowler’s, someone there might know more about how the accident happened.
Or they might not. But according to Bluebeard, somebody in this town had to know what really happened to Kevin, and I was determined to find out who.
Shiloh was still standing at the counter when Karen pulled up in her SUV at the curb outside my door.
I checked the vintage kitchen clock next to the quilt display. She was a half-hour early.
Shiloh stayed long enough to say hello to Karen, but then she excused herself, saying she had to get back to her office.
The minute the door closed behind her, Karen pounced. “Making nice with Fowler’s Girl Friday?”
“She brought more T-shirts over yesterday, and we got to talking. Truth is, I think she doesn’t like Fowler much, but she talks a loyal game. Did you know,” I continued, “that Fowler is talking about running for the School Board?”
“She told you that?”
I nodded. Karen tagged along as I got ready for dinner, picking up the folder of newspaper copies off my desk, grabbing a sweater from upstairs, and checking on Bluebeard.
He had quieted down after Shiloh left, but when I approached, he started muttering again about the “bad man.”
“What’s his issue?” Karen asked. “Somebody steal his crackers?”
“I don’t know. He just gets upset every time there’s a mention of the accident,” Bluebeard ruffled his feathers at the word, reinforcing what I’d said, “and he keeps talking about a ‘bad man’ that I think means someone who hurt Kevin.”
“You sure he didn’t mean Shiloh? He’s a parrot after all, might not be too accurate on gender.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but I thought about the idea. Was Shiloh Weaver loyal enough to Matt Fowler to cause Kevin’s accident? Or could she have some other motive?
It didn’t seem likely—Bluebeard was adamant that it was a bad man—but at this point I was willing to consider any possibility.
“Which reminds me,” I said. “Shiloh was just telling me the car is at Fowler’s. There isn’t an actual police impound yard in Keyhole Bay—did you know that?—and they towed the car to Fowler’s secure lot.”
Before Karen could reply, Bluebeard ruffled his feathers again and squawked loudly before he spoke another clear sentence.
“Go look.”
KAREN AND I LOOKED AT EACH OTHER. I KNEW MY expression was as stunned as hers. “You aren’t thinking…” She left the thought unfinished, as though that could stop the idea we both had.
“You heard him. We need to get a look at that car. There’s a clue there, and we need to know what it is.”
“Glory, I talked to Boomer today about the accident. I didn’t tell him about Bluebeard or your uncle Louis because I knew you really didn’t want me to. But I did ask him if he was sure it was an accident.”
“And did he tell you not to worry your purty lil’ head?” I knew I sounded whiny, but I didn’t care. I had accepted that Uncle Louis was talking to me and that Kevin’s death wasn’t an accident. I didn’t need some good old boy telling me I was meddling.
“Boomer’s not like that, Glory, and you know it.”
Defensive as I was, I knew she was right. I just didn’t have to like it.
“Anyway,” she went on, “he said there was no question Kevin was out at Thompson’s Corner, and there was no question he’d been drinking. A bunch of the kids that he talked to said they saw Kevin with a beer in his hand.”
“A beer? As in one? For a guy his size, that doesn’t exactly make him a drunk driver.”
She shook her head, pulling me toward the door. “No one is quite sure how many he had. Could have been one; could have been several. Boomer wouldn’t tell me what his blood-alcohol reading was—claimed he didn’t have accurate results yet—but that there was evidence in the car that Kevin was drinking. Besides, how much does it really take to affect a kid’s driving? Especially when he’s got a car with that much horsepower. Listen, I do think there’s more to it, but we have to look at this from all angles.”
I looked back to see if Bluebeard was okay before we left. He had retreated into his cage and settled down for a nap.
“I still need to go look,” I said as I climbed into her SUV. “There must be something in the car that will help us figure out what happened.”
We were still arguing over whether we should go try to see Kevin’s car when we pulled into Ernie and Felipe’s driveway. We carried the discussion inside, and soon the four of us were trying to figure out how to get a look in the secure lot at Fowler’s.
“I’m telling you,” Felipe said as he stirred the gravy on the stove. “It’s Fowler. He did it, and now he’s got the car in his lot. Nobody is ever going to know what he did if we don’t do something about it.”
I took a chilled oyster from the bed of rock salt on the appetizer plate, inhaling the tang of the salty liquor before letting the soft morsel slide down my throat, followed by a sip of Chablis.
Ernie put down his wine glass. “And just what do you think we should do, cher? March up to Matthew Fowler and ask him why he killed the quarterback?” He shook his head. “No, this is not our fight. In fact, I am not sure there is a fight.”
He gave me a long look, his eyes dark. “Your haint says the boy’s death wasn’t an accident, and it tells you to go look at something. But how do you know what?” He shrugged, an elegant gesture. Ernie didn’t know how to do anything that wasn’t elegant. It was one of his most maddening qualities.
“I understand how you feel, Ernie. Really, I do.” I held his gaze. “I thought the same thing myself until a few days ago. But too much has happened lately,” I thought of the out-of-place quilt, “for me to dismiss it.”
Karen came to my defense. “I was there, Ernie. I heard him. I don’t really remember Glory’s uncle, but I believe he’s in that shop.”
“Are you all forgetting that just three days ago, you,” he pointed to Karen, “thought it was Coach Bradley; and you,” he waved long fingers in my direction, “said it was Travis Chambers?”
“I didn’t say it was Travis,” I protested. “I just said he was out there at the kegger.”
“And I didn’t think it was Bradley,” Karen said. “I just pointed out that he had as much motive as Fowler.”
“And I,” Ernie countered, “said it might not have anything at all to do with football, although the three of you were convinced it did.”
We went around and around for a few minutes, debating the possibility that Kevin’s death wasn’t related to the football team and the current season. To no one’s surprise, we didn’t reach any agreement before Felipe brought t
he food to the table.
Steam rose from the vegetable bowls, one with greens cooked with bacon and a touch of red-pepper flakes and one of sautéed yellow squash. A platter piled with golden pan-fried chicken took the place of honor in the middle of the table, flanked by fried grits and a bowl of the rich gravy Felipe had been stirring when we came in.
“I know,” Felipe said, pouring sweet tea to accompany the hearty meal, “it’s a festival of frying—the chicken, the grits, the squash. But it’s traditional.” He arched an eyebrow at Karen, who seemed to be the arbiter of what was or wasn’t traditional Southern food.
Karen nodded, already helping herself to a piece of the chicken, still faintly sizzling from the heat of frying. “It looks good,” she said. “Let’s see how it tastes.”
Kevin Stanley, Matt Fowler, Coach Bradley, and all the rest were left behind as we dug into the meal Felipe had prepared.
The chicken, seasoned simply with salt and pepper, coated with flour, and fried in a cast-iron skillet, was almost too hot to eat—and too good to wait for it to cool. The aroma made my mouth water, and I took a thigh and a drumstick, vowing to visit the gym again in the morning to work it off.
Karen spooned thick cream gravy, rich with browned bits from the bottom of the frying pan, over the slices of fried grits. Our plates looked amazing: dark greens, yellow squash, pale-gold fried grits, and dark, golden fried chicken. Felipe had outdone himself.
“How long did you simmer the greens?” Karen asked after her first bite. “They’re incredible.”
Felipe shrugged in an offhand manner, as though he hadn’t worked all day on the meal. “A few hours,” he said casually. “I think I started them right after lunch. You know how collards are; they need a long simmer.”
I nodded in agreement, my mouth too full of searing-hot chicken for me to speak. I took a quick sip of tea to quench a bit of the fire. When my mouth had recovered, I tasted the greens. The bite of raw collard greens had been mellowed by the long, slow simmer, and the salty bacon had added to the rich flavor.
Karen was right. They were incredible.
“The grits were leftovers from breakfast,” Felipe explained as he put another slice on his plate and ladled gravy over it. “Ernie made a double batch this morning so I would have plenty to fry for dinner.” He glanced at his partner sitting on his left. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“Of course, cher.” Ernie’s smile showed his perfect white teeth against his dark skin. Felipe often said he fell in love with that smile first.
Felipe gave us more details about his cooking as we ate. He promised us he’d made copies of all the recipes he’d used, just as we had all done over the last few weeks. Another month or two and we would each have accumulated an impressive collection of new dishes.
We took a break after dinner, too full to have dessert right away. Felipe had scored some late-summer peaches and turned out a cobbler that filled the small house with a sweet, cinnamony scent, and we wanted to savor the last fresh peaches of the year. It deserved our full gastronomical attention.
Felipe cleared the table with efficiency born of long practice, stowing the dirty plates and silverware in the dishwasher.
As he refilled the tea pitcher, I got the ice bucket and refreshed the ice in our glasses. Ernie crushed fresh mint leaves into the pitcher and topped off all our glasses.
The conversation quickly returned to my shop, and my ghost. “Did you bring the newspaper copies?” Karen asked.
In answer, I hopped up from my place at the table and dragged the file folder out of my shoulder bag.
“This is all I’ve found so far,” I said as I handed copies of the faded newsprint to all three of my friends. “It’s darn little to show for sixty-seven years.”
“He died young,” Ernie said.
The comment caught me off guard, and I shot him a quizzical look before I remembered that Ernie was several years older than the rest of us. For him, sixty-seven was closer than it was for Karen, Felipe, and me.
“I think he had a hard life,” I said. “I don’t know exactly why I think that, but I have some vague recollection of my parents talking about Uncle Louis when I was little. I think he was still alive at the time, but they would always stop talking when I came in the room, like there was something I wasn’t supposed to know.”
“Maybe what happened to Kevin will give us a clue to what happened to your uncle,” Felipe suggested. “We still need to figure out how to get a look at that car.”
Ernie’s face soured when Felipe went back to his earlier argument. His reluctance was clear. “Is there any way to do this without actually having to see the car?” he asked. “Perhaps there is someone who could tell us about the car without any of us actually having to get into the secure lot?”
“How about Glory’s new pal, Shiloh?” Karen suggested.
“I don’t think she’d tell us anything,” I said, remembering my earlier suspicions. “She’s very loyal to Fowler. Or at least she won’t say anything against him. She works extra hours and does a lot that Fowler should do for himself,” I went on, “but she says that frees him up to do the important,” I made finger quotes around the word, “things.”
“Really?” Felipe’s voice dripped sarcasm. “And what are the important things Mr. Matthew Fowler is doing?”
“All his civic activities, from what Shiloh says,” I answered. “The Booster Club, the Merchants’ Association, that sort of thing. Oh,” I suddenly remembered the other thing Shiloh had said the day before, “and she says he may be considering a run for School Board in the next election.”
Ernie groaned—he even groaned elegantly—at the thought. “Fowler on the School Board? He must have really expected great things from the team this year.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Simple,” Ernie explained patiently. “Fowler needs a lot more support than he currently has if he expects to jump into a political race; he’d need financing and endorsements.”
“Which means he had a lot more at stake,” Felipe said, his voice rising with excitement. “I told you it was him.”
Ernie shook his head. “It also means that he had a lot more reason to keep his reputation clean. Causing that accident would have been a stupid move, and Matt Fowler isn’t a stupid man.”
“Define stupid.” Karen jumped back into the discussion. “He has taken some huge risks over the years—most of them personal, not business.”
We all turned and looked at her expectantly.
“There have been stories,” she said softly. “Remember a couple years ago? Fred and Molly Curtis moved up to Arkansas because Fred supposedly got a transfer?”
We all nodded. Molly had been the office manager at Fowler’s, Shiloh’s boss and Matt’s “right-hand girl.” Yes, Fowler actually called his female employees girls.
“Fred didn’t have a job, per se,” Karen continued. “The story got spiked, but I talked to him before they left. He was opening a small car lot outside Little Rock. He wouldn’t actually say so, but he hinted that he had financial backing from someone here in town.”
“You mean—?” I stopped. This was confirmation of all the rumors I’d heard for years.
“Yep.” Karen shook her head. “Absolutely. It was clear Fowler was paying them off for something. And right after they left, Kerrie Fowler got a new Cadillac. You know how that works. Every time Matt does something, Kerrie gets expensive jewelry or a fancy vacation. Or a new car.”
“So you think Fowler and Molly… ?” Felipe left the rest of the question hanging in the air.
“No, I really don’t,” Karen said. “The way this got covered up, I think it was something—or someone—else. Kerrie might have suspected, but when she got the Caddy she settled right down. I think Molly found out about some antic of Fowler’s that he didn’t want made public, and he paid to get them out of town where she couldn’t slip up and cause trouble. I don’t even think Fred and Molly instigated it. The way I heard it, Fowler approac
hed them. He said he wanted to branch out, and Molly knew how to run a dealership, so he put them in charge of his operation in Arkansas and gave them a little piece of the pie.”
“Good plan,” Ernie said. His voice held a note of something close to admiration. “Very smooth. And he undoubtedly got the newspaper and your station,” he nodded at Karen, “to spike it with the argument that he didn’t want to disclose his business dealings.”
Felipe bounced out of his chair and started a pot of coffee. I rose and lent a hand as he got dessert plates and forks out and carried them to the table.
“You have to give him credit,” I said as I set the cobbler next to the carton of vanilla ice cream Felipe retrieved from the freezer. “He’s good at this kind of stuff. He knows what other people want and how to get them to do what he wants. And he knows how to keep himself out of trouble.”
“Which is one argument against him being our bad guy,” Ernie pointed out. “But he does have a temper, and he doesn’t always control it completely,” he conceded.
“Which is why he’s still at the top of my list.” Felipe set a shallow bowl of cobbler and ice cream in front of his partner. “Besides, he might not do the dirty work himself, but he could have hired someone.”
I couldn’t help laughing at that idea. “Really, Felipe! I don’t much like the guy, but I really don’t think he has the connections to be hiring a hit man.”
I spooned up a bite of the warm cobbler and soft ice cream. Cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, and peach combined in my mouth and sent my taste buds into overload.
“I didn’t say he hired a hit man,” Felipe protested. “I just think he could have had help, and he seems to think he can buy his way out of anything.”
“He can.” Karen’s cynical reaction was exactly what I expected. Her job gave her a jaded view of our little town and its power structure.
“Not everything,” I said. “I’m sure there are things he couldn’t get away with.”
“You’re a dreamer, Martine,” Karen muttered, turning her attention to her own dessert.
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