Delicious and Suspicious

by Riley Adams

  “Is she okay to drive?” asked Peggy Sue. Her husband was a policeman, and she thought about that type of stuff a lot. Actually, he was an office-park security guard, but same thing.

  “Well, sure she’s okay to drive.”

  “I mean, she’s so disheveled.”

  “She’s disheveled, Peggy Sue, not tipsy.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait and follow her?” asked Evelyn. “Make sure she’s okay?”

  Cherry drove off down the street. “I don’t think we’d better. She’s just real sensitive right now. If we act like she’s not in her right mind, that could be a deal breaker. We’ll meet her at the food court. Maybe we can hit a few shops before we meet her. It might take a few minutes to pull herself together.”

  It actually took a lot of few minutes for Flo to pull herself together. The Graces and Lulu yo-yoed back and forth between different stores and the food court. No Flo. Jeanne called Flo’s cell phone, but it was still either off, dead, or she was studiously ignoring it.

  “This,” said Peggy Sue, heaving a tremendous sigh that threatened to rend her too-tight top, “is incredibly discouraging. Here we are, trying to have a happy day to distract Flo, and Flo goes MIA. Should we organize a search party?”

  “She’s not all that late,” said Jeanne.

  “No? When in the past would Flo MacDonald be late for a day at the mall? Can you imagine our Flo dawdling on her way to a makeover or to eat some greasy fast food? No, something must be wrong.” And Peggy Sue kept tapping her cute designer shoes impatiently on the mall floor.

  Finally, Flo found them in a store not far from the food court. Well, what passed as Flo, anyway—really a shadow of her usually sleek, chic, funny self.

  Jeanne was all for pretending that no delay had happened, but there was no way Peggy Sue was going to allow that. “Where the hell were you? We’ve gone in and out of five stores for the past hour, trying to hover near the food court. They probably think we’re running some kind of shady shoplifting scam.”

  Flo looked unnerved. “It was that stupid chicken truck.”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “A chicken truck that was driving ahead of me. Full of chickens. I didn’t see it and clipped my bumper on it. Had to stop, had a report drawn up, blah, blah, blah . . .”

  Peggy Sue was incredulous. “You couldn’t see a chicken truck ahead of you? With white feathers floating out of it? On an eighteen-wheeler truck bed?”

  Flo preferred not to acknowledge this question. She walked ahead of them a little ways, wandering toward the food court.

  “Okay,” said Peggy Sue in a low voice to the others, “I don’t know where she’s been, but she looks like the cat dragged her in after spending the night carousing. Can we do the makeover first?”

  Evelyn groaned. “I’m starving now! But I’ll agree this qualifies as an emergency.” Flo turned around to look balefully behind her to make sure the women were still trailing behind her. “Look—Flo doesn’t even have her eyelashes on!”

  The Graces gasped. Flo’s signature look involved the daily use of fake eyelashes. Lulu thought Flo might have chosen sight over fashion for once. It couldn’t be easy to view the world through that synthetic thicket. Although hitting the back end of a chicken truck didn’t inspire confidence in her overall visual abilities.

  Jeanne wrung her hands. “Oh dear. We can’t take her to lunch looking like that! Even the food court people would be gaping at us.”

  Since the Graces appeared to be too deep in shock to do anything but stand agog, Lulu caught up with Flo. “Honey?” she asked.

  Flo looked at Lulu with bleary eyes that didn’t look like they’d seen sleep for a while.

  “We thought we’d do makeovers now—won’t that be fun? The girls thought my look could use a little updating. Maybe you can sit at another stool and get yours done at the same time. I know we rushed you out the door before you had a chance to apply makeup today.”

  Evelyn thought this was laying it on a little thick. After all, Flo in her right mind would know that the Graces would never presume to tell Lulu she needed her look updated. That would just be plain rude. Lulu was an older lady, at least ten years older than most of them, and older ladies were always welcome to look however they damn well pleased—that was one of the few perks of being old. Lulu could wear all the floral print dresses and clunky shoes she wanted to.

  But Flo appeared to be too far gone to even register this complete falsehood. She nodded listlessly and allowed herself to be led to the makeup counters at Belk’s.

  Evelyn tried to make conversation. “Y’all, we are going to have the best time! I have a friend who works over at the Lila Fleur counter and she’s a genius when it comes to makeovers. Your face becomes a palette for Natalie . . . it’s very exciting!”

  “Is that so?” asked Lulu. “Wonder what she’ll think to do with me?” But even Lulu felt a little excited. With marble floors, beautiful bright lighting, and heavily made-up women bandying about overpriced products, you couldn’t help but feel glamorous.

  Flo was helped onto one of the tall stools at the Lila Fleur counter, and Lulu climbed on the other one. Lulu felt like she was playing along with the makeover to be a good sport, but then she saw that a lit-up magnifying mirror was right in front of her. She was horrified by what she saw in the mirror. “Natalie,” she asked urgently, “what can you do for me?”

  An hour later, Flo and Lulu both had enough layers of makeup on to completely hide any possible flaw, real or imagined. They carried bags full of makeup and “free gifts” they’d gotten for spending gobs of money at the makeup counter . . . courtesy of Evelyn who’d insisted it would be her special delight to treat them for the day.

  Flo definitely looked better on the outside. This was due in part to the fact that Peggy Sue had brought a huge hair brush with her and brushed and combed and teased Flo’s hair until it was whipped into shape. Then Peggy Sue aimed enough Aqua Net at Flo’s head to effectively destroy several ozone layers. That was due to the fact that Flo kept running her hand nervously through her hair.

  Yes, they’d done everything possible to take care of Flo’s outward appearance, but her insides were obviously still a disaster area.

  “Can we get something to eat?” Flo asked.

  Cherry looked relieved that Flo was actually talking. She whooped. “Finally! I’m so hungry I’m about to start gnawing on my arm. Let’s see—in the food court we have that Chinese food place, the burger place, the chicken place, the pizza place . . .”

  Flo gestured to a restaurant that bordered the side of the food court. “How about that place?”

  “The one with the wooden door?” Cherry squinted over at it. The restaurant’s entryway was an intricately carved wooden door with an Old English-looking sign on the top. “It looks kinda fancy. Who has restaurants with doors inside a mall? Maybe it’s expensive. It looks expensive.” She stared suspiciously at the door.

  Flo was already tugging at the handle.

  Much later, when Lulu and the Graces analyzed where the outing had gone so horribly wrong, they pinpointed that very moment. If only they’d noticed that the restaurant had the word “tavern” in its name. If only they’d been quick thinking enough to claim boredom with the mall and drag Flo off to a wholesome afternoon of mourning Elvis at Graceland. Unfortunately, they instead sealed their fate by crossing the threshold of Ye Olde English Tavern. They sat in a large round booth and proceeded to watch Flo drink her lunch.

  When Flo left the table for one of many trips to the restroom, Lulu said, “Okay, you girls have got to level with me. I thought I might be the reason for this emergency shopping trip, but it looks like Flo is the one who’s in dire need of some help.

  “Don’t be shocked,” added Lulu when the Graces exchanged guilty looks. “I just had a wild guess that my friends were trying to make me feel better. Morty, Big Ben, and Buddy are doing the same kind of thing; they’re having a shindig tonight, free, to draw in some customers. I love y�
��all for being so sweet.”

  Lulu hugged as many of the Graces as she could reach.

  “But now I need the lowdown,” Lulu said seriously. “What’s put Flo in this state? Why’d she have that run-in with Miss Adrian the night before she was murdered?” She saw the Graces’ eyes open wider. “Yes. I’ve talked to the police, and I understand that it was murder.”

  Peggy Sue’s blue eyes welled with tears. “It’s all my fault,” she wailed. She dissolved into sobbing while Jeanne patted her soothingly on the back. Cherry put her Elvis helmet on. Maybe she was afraid the lusty crying would bring down the roof.

  Jeanne said, “I knew we should never have been at a bar that night. It goes to show that nothing good ever comes of drinking. I am hereby renouncing my life of casual drinking.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes, and no one else reacted at all to Jeanne’s declaration. Jeanne gave up drinking every couple of weeks. The woman barely drank a thimbleful to begin with.

  “It wasn’t a bar, Jeanne. It was the Peabody! We only had a couple of drinks,” protested Cherry.

  “You and I had a couple of drinks, maybe. Peggy Sue had quite a few drinks.”

  Peggy Sue howled louder, mascara rivers streaming down her rouged cheeks.

  Lulu frowned sternly. “Now cut it out, Peggy Sue. Get control of yourself. Flo is coming back from that bathroom at any moment, and you do not need to be a puddle. Tell me what happened, somebody, please.”

  Cherry and Jeanne filled her in on Flo’s blowup with Rebecca. Peggy Sue tried keeping a stiff upper lip but gave loud, sporadic hiccups. She wiped her eyes a few times and blew her nose on her napkin when they got to the part where Peggy Sue told Rebecca about Flo being an ex-con.

  “We should have told you before,” said Cherry. “When Flo said to keep it a secret, she didn’t really mean from friends like you. She was afraid that if more people knew about it, word would spread, and then everybody would know about it.”

  Lulu took a sip of her water. “I’m surprised that Flo cares that it’s kept such a secret,” she said. “I’ve never known her to really care a whit what people think of her. She’s a very brave woman.”

  The Graces looked at each other as if trying to decide if they should leave it at that or reveal another secret about their friend. Peggy Sue shook her head. She wouldn’t be the one to spill the beans this time.

  Cherry looked behind her to make sure that Flo wasn’t making her tipsy way back to the booth. “It’s not only because of her reputation. I mean, she cares more than you’d think about people’s opinion of her. She doesn’t want to lose her gig as docent at Graceland.” Cherry, Jeanne, Evelyn, and Peggy Sue all looked horrified as they considered the possibility of being ejected as docents.

  “Flo is trying to escape from her past,” said Evelyn. “She has an ex-husband who she tried to bump off. And now he’d give anything to return the favor. Except that he wouldn’t fail. Flo would be deader than a doornail if Virgil knew where she was. And Rebecca, that harpy, was going to use Flo for a little local color on the Cooking Channel show.”

  “But then she was murdered before she produced the show.” Lulu stopped short of saying what was on everyone’s mind—what if Flo had killed Rebecca to shut her up? “But how would Virgil know where Flo is since Rebecca didn’t air it?”

  “That Cooking Channel story was quirky enough to make national headlines. Remember all those camera-men that camped out for a while outside the Peabody and Aunt Pat’s? Flo even saw herself on CNN. So she stopped being worried about all of Memphis finding out about her secret and started worrying more about the piece she saw on CNN. And worrying that Virgil now knew where to find her.”

  Lulu rubbed her eyes. “Well, thanks for leveling with me. I won’t say anything to anybody, although I do think y’all should have a little chat with the Memphis police.” The Graces’ voices clamored in protest and Lulu said, “No, I mean it. You won’t even have to call the station. They’ll end up coming to you. Flo had an argument in the Peabody Hotel with Rebecca Adrian the night before she died an unusual death. The police will want to talk to Flo and will want to talk to y’all, too. I’d tell the police myself, but I wasn’t privy to the knowledge, firsthand.”

  Evelyn looked at Lulu with surprise. “Privy to it? Aren’t you little Miss Law Enforcement?”

  Lulu colored. “Oh, you know. I’m just trying to look out for my children . . . and my friends.”

  Cherry’s forehead furrowed underneath the helmet. “But won’t that mean more trouble for Flo? They’ll know she had a record. I mean—Flo changed her name as soon as she left prison to start fresh and escape from Virgil. But she’ll have to level with the police. And when they find out that she’s an ex-con, they’re going to make her suspect number one. Who knows; maybe her ex-husband will end up finding out about it and track her down.”

  Lulu shook her head until the carefully wound white hair was in danger of falling down. “She can’t hide information from the police. The way she’s acting right now is clearly guilty or worried. And if she tries to hide her true identity from them, they’re going to find out. And then they really will be suspicious.”

  At this point, Flo weaved to the vinyl booth and carefully navigated the curved seat. She looked solemnly at them, then put her head down on the table.

  “Check please!” said Lulu to their passing waitress.

  “Clearly,” said Lulu to the Graces, “we need to commandeer Flo’s car and get her back home to bed.”

  Cherry looked horrified. “She’ll miss Graceland today!”

  Flo groaned.

  “Some things can’t be helped,” said Lulu briskly. “Now, Flo, where is your car?”

  Flo groaned again.

  “Your car, Flo. Do you remember where you parked it?”

  Flo lifted her head from the table and studied the ceiling as if it would provide her with inspiration. “My car.”

  Evelyn knit her brows. “Your sedan, honey. The one you hit the chicken truck with a little while ago.”

  Flo groaned a third time and put her head back down on the table. Her muffled voice said, “I don’t remember where I parked.”

  This stopped the Graces and Lulu cold. It was a huge parking lot.

  Lulu said, “Do you remember if you parked on the Sears side or the J.C. Penney side?”

  “No.”

  “Well, surely you remember if you walked a long way to get to the food court or not. Maybe you parked right outside the food court?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  Lulu and the Graces looked at each other. “All right,” said Lulu. “Let’s peek right outside the food court entrance, and maybe we can see it.” Flo sprawled across the table. “Maybe one of us should stay here with Flo and the rest of us can look.”

  Jeanne shifted uneasily in her seat. “Our waitress is giving us the evil eye and talking to her manager. She keeps pointing at Flo. I’m thinking we need to keep moving . . . Flo, too. Oh, somebody grab her cosmetics bags!”

  The five Graces and Lulu took Flo on a forced march to the food court entrance. Flo started wailing. “I’m sorry! I don’t know where that car is.”

  Lulu had endured entirely too many waterworks episodes for one day at the mall. “Buck up, Flo. We’ll find your car and get you home, and you can take a nice nap. There’s nothing to be upset about; I lose my car all the time. I always have to hit that button on my key ring and look for the headlights to blink at me.”

  “Hey,” said Cherry in a hopeful voice, “Flo, do you have an alarm on your car like that?”

  Flo looked balefully at Cherry and then unexpectedly upchucked in a convenient trashcan by the entrance. An ignominious end to what was intended to be an uplifting day with friends, thought Lulu.

  Cherry flagged down the mall security car as it made its rounds around the parking lot. Lulu and Cherry rode through the various parking decks until they finally located Flo’s car (with a dinged front bumper). Finding the car took a while, an
d Flo was napping on the curb, propped against Jeanne, when they returned to the food court entrance.

  Jeanne drove home with Flo in Flo’s car, so she could keep an eye on her for the afternoon. Peggy Sue drove everyone else to their respective houses and then took Lulu back to the restaurant. Lulu had never been more relieved to see it.

  Peggy Sue said sadly, “Well, here we are. I’m sorry, Lulu. I thought we’d have fun today. I never would have brought you out if I’d known that Flo was going to flake out like that. Now you probably feel worse than ever.”

  “It’s just very out of character for Flo,” said Lulu. “I don’t think of her as a heavy drinker.”

  “She isn’t. That’s why a few glasses of wine knocked her on her butt. That night we were out with Miss Adrian, she hardly even touched her drink.” Peggy Sue blushed. She was probably wishing she’d been the same way. But she wasn’t going to be like Jeanne and swear off drinking. Summertime wasn’t summertime for Peggy Sue without a pretty pastel frozen beverage with a miniature umbrella sitting in it. And, in Memphis, they were barreling toward summer.

  “Don’t worry about it, Peggy Sue. And don’t beat yourself up about what you said that night. Sometimes things are meant to happen. We just might not know the reason right away.”

  Peggy Sue hugged her. “You are so right, Lulu. I’m going to have to get over it. I’ve bawled me a river over it.” She looked at the restaurant. “Hey, it looks like the guys are already setting up for their gig. Be ready for crowds.”

  Lulu squinted at Aunt Pat’s and saw a new notice on their sidewalk sign about the blues trio playing that night. She hoped Ben had already fired up the pit. Lulu had a feeling Aunt Pat’s was going to be packed.

  Chapter 7

  There was nothing like the blues to cheer a body up, thought Lulu. Morty’s voice was deeply resonant and full of regret, Buddy and Big Ben played strong and true, the bass throbbed, and the beat was contagious. When Morty played a harmonica solo, it brought down the house with applause.