Delicious and Suspicious

by Riley Adams

  Lulu glanced blankly around the kitchen. She couldn’t even remember what it was that she’d gone in there for. Was it baked beans? Corn pudding? Lulu frowned. When Ben saw her, he said, “Mother, why don’t you go home for a little while? You look completely wiped out.”

  “Is it that noticeable? I don’t know what’s come over me—I don’t feel all that well today.”

  “It’s probably the stress. I bet you haven’t slept all that well since this whole thing started, have you?” Lulu shook her head. “Well, you’re not doing yourself or anyone else any favors by staying here. Go home and take a nap. It’s slow—the lunch crowd is over, and it’s hours before we’re busy for supper and the blues band. I’m going to tell Sara to go home in a little while and let her put her feet up, too. I think she feels just as worn out as you do.”

  Lulu had no intention of actually going to sleep. Instead, she thought she’d putter around the house and get some light housework done. Maybe read her book for a little while. But the dim lighting in her living room made her drowsy. And the plump pillows on her plaid sofa looked so inviting. She decided to lie down for just a few minutes. She covered up her legs with Aunt Pat’s old knitted afghan from the back of the sofa.

  The next thing she knew, there was a knock on her door. Lulu squinted at the clock and saw that an hour had passed. She struggled up out of the sagging sofa that seemed determined to imprison her.

  It was Sara. “Uh-oh—looks like I woke you up. I came by to make sure you were doing okay, that’s all. Ben mentioned that you were under the weather when you left.”

  “That’s no problem, honey,” said Lulu sleepily. “I appreciate your coming to check on me. I’m feeling better after my nap. Just woke up with a dry mouth is all.”

  “Why don’t you sit back down on the sofa and let me get us something to drink?”

  Since Lulu didn’t make her usual objections to being waited on, Sara figured she must still be foggy from her nap. She walked to the tiny galley kitchen.

  Sara loved Lulu’s house almost as much as her restaurant. The wooden floorboards creaked as she walked and the floor dipped down a little in places, but it all combined to give the house a cozy and welcoming feeling. The inside smelled like old wood and the books that filled several glass-fronted cabinets.

  A few minutes later, Sara returned with two tall glasses of lemonade. Sara knew that this lemonade wasn’t from a mix, but from scratch. She handed Lulu a glass and then settled down in a worn armchair across from her.

  “Perfect!” said Lulu. “A glass of lemonade hits the spot.”

  “Do you just keep a bag of lemons at the ready?” asked Sara.

  “I like to keep them around. It’s nice to add a little lemon zest sometimes, or some lemon juice to my meats. And my lemonade! Can’t live without my lemonade. And you know, I’ve been squeezing lemons my whole life and didn’t know if you microwaved the fruit for fifteen seconds, you get double the juice out.”

  “I’m going to have to give that a go,” said Sara. “I hate it when the lemons are so hard that they’re impossible to juice.”

  Lulu looked closely at Sara as she started to feel a little less groggy. “Ben sent you home, too. How are you holding up? Have you been sleeping as poorly as I have?”

  “Sleep,” said Sara wryly. “Define sleep. The last few days I’ve felt like I can’t turn my brain off. Do you ever get that feeling? My mind is whirling around and doesn’t shut down. On the upside, things are going great with my art. I get out of bed in the middle of the night and go to my studio. It’s amazing what you can get accomplished when insomnia adds three or four extra hours to your day.”

  Lulu opened her mouth to say something but then hesitated. “Sara, you know I trust you completely. I don’t want you to think that I have the slightest bit of suspicion against you. But . . . I did have one question. I was visiting Derrick yesterday, and he told me about the afternoon you’d found out he’d skipped school and was slashing Miss Adrian’s tires. He said that when you made him go get cleaned up in the restroom, he saw you put something in Rebecca’s glass when he was coming out.”

  Sara said, “Ohhhh.” She thought about it for a minute. “I’m sorry he saw that. Has he been worried the whole time that I murdered Rebecca?” She rubbed her eyes. “Bless him. And he’s kept quiet this whole time.”

  “I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, but, well—”

  “What was I doing?” Sara gave a short laugh. “Acting about as mature as Derrick is what I was doing. I did pour something in her drink. Not poison, though.”

  “So . . . she was in Chez Phillippe?” asked Lulu with a frown, mentioning the restaurant inside the hotel, right behind the lobby and bar.

  “No, she was sitting out in the lobby. She’d ordered a cocktail, and it was sitting right there on her table. She got up and walked away from her table for a minute to talk on her cell phone. I had a couple of packets of salt in my pocket that I’d absentmindedly stuck in there when I’d helped bus one of our tables. It was totally juvenile, but I ripped those packets open and poured them right into her drink. I thought I’d spice up her beverage a little bit. At the time, it seemed harmless enough. I’d just pay her back for her nasty comments about my art. And, of course, I didn’t have a clue that she was going to end up dead, or I’d never have done something that stupid.”

  Lulu relaxed. “I knew it had to be something like that, Sara. But you know why I had to ask you. It’s been eating poor Derrick up, thinking you were somehow involved in the murder.”

  “The only reason I didn’t say anything about it is because I thought nobody had seen anything and no harm had been done. I’d put salt in her drink, after all. But I felt so immature that I kept quiet about it.”

  “Maybe you can have a talk with him today and clear everything up,” said Lulu in a soothing voice.

  “I’m surprised,” said Sara, “that Derrick actually opened up to you enough to say anything about it. Usually when I try to talk to him, he clams up completely. I mean, I could be asking him about something totally innocent: ‘Derrick? Don’t you want a little more to eat?’ And he acts like I’m trying to strong-arm his computer password out of him or something.”

  “I convinced him to tell me what he knew for his own safety. After all, if Mildred Cameron was murdered for what she knew, someone could just as easily decide to take Derrick out, too.”

  Sara looked quite fierce. “Not if I have anything to say about it. Derrick becoming a real member of the family is about the only good thing that’s come out of this whole mess. I guess it was the final straw for him—the turnaround point. Whatever it was, I’m so glad it happened. He’s been wonderful with the girls lately, helps Ben in the kitchen and the office, and has some really promising artistic talent. I’ve been very surprised with what I’ve seen him create in the studio.”

  Sara finished her lemonade. “I’d better let you get some more rest, Lulu. Maybe you can go back to sleep now and catch up on some of those lost z’s. I’m going to try to do the same thing.”

  Physically, Lulu felt a lot more refreshed. There was nothing better in this world than a nap. But whenever she thought about Rebecca Adrian’s murder, she got a sinking feeling in her stomach that all the mint chocolate chip ice cream in the world couldn’t get rid of. But she did give the ice cream a try.

  Lulu wondered if she’d hallucinated the entire episode with the disguised Flo at the grocery store. After all, stress does funny things to people, and she was feeling poorly today. But then, at ten o’clock that night, there was an odd scratching knock at her kitchen door.

  Lulu opened the door and there was Flo. At least, Lulu supposed it was Flo. She still wore the large hat, figure-concealing caftan, gigantic sunglasses, and black wig.

  Flo looked nervously behind her, and Lulu ushered her in, quickly. “Sunglasses at night, Flo?”

  Flo snatched them off. “Well, I’m not wearing them because of the glare,” said Flo snappily. “T
hey’re to keep my face covered.” She rubbed her eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Lulu. That was so rude of me. I’m too stressed out today, that’s all.”

  “I can see that, honey. I just don’t understand why. I’m guessing it must have something to do with your no-good ex-husband.”

  “You smacked that nail right on the head. Somehow he found out that I was here in Memphis.”

  “How on earth could he do that?” asked Lulu. “He hasn’t found you for the past ten years.”

  Flo shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe his private eye finally tracked me down. Or . . . remember the day Rebecca was murdered? The news was filming nonstop around Aunt Pat’s and the Peabody—inside and out. I even saw myself on CNN that night. He could have watched the story in Mississippi. That’s when I really started getting freaked out. Most times I can just go about my daily life and not even think about Virgil at all. But when I saw myself on TV, I wondered if I’d ever really feel safe again. So . . . well, I guess I started acting kind of weird.” Lulu thought that “weird” was one way to describe Flo’s messy appearance and drunken episode at the mall.

  Flo waved her hands in the air. “I don’t care exactly how he got here. I just need for him not to find me now that he’s here. I mean, clearly he knows I’m in Memphis. But if I wear a disguise and don’t go to the places I usually go, maybe he won’t find me. And then he’ll go off to whatever town in Mississippi he terrorizes.”

  Lulu peered close at this unfamiliar Flo. “You look so pale, Flo!”

  Flo nodded. “I stopped tanning. ’Cause I don’t look like myself when I’m all pale and white.”

  “I’ll say you don’t. Mercy!” Flo was a regular at the Copacabana Tanning Beds. And Lulu could see why. “How did you know he was here?”

  “Well, I’d just left B.B. King’s on Beale, and I saw Virgil walking down the street. Of course, I did this huge double take, thinking I was having some kind of optical illusion nightmare. Then I saw I wasn’t, so I popped into B.B.’s again real quick.” She made a face. “I could see him looking to the right and the left—searching, you know. He doesn’t know the name I’m using, so he can’t look me up online or in the phone book.”

  “And you got a disguise to stay under cover,” said Lulu.

  “I figure that he doesn’t know exactly where I am, but he knows I’ve been to Aunt Pat’s. And Beale Street is the area he was looking in. I thought if he saw me talking to you at the grocery store, and you’d been on TV, too, that he would see through my getup and know who I was,” said Flo. “I’m on borrowed time, though. He must have been pretty sure of what he saw. But what he saw on TV was a blond, tanned woman,” said Flo, looking hopeful. “Now I’m different.”

  “What did he do to you?” asked Lulu.

  “Made my life a living hell,” said Flo quietly. “It was his fault I went to jail to begin with . . . because I was determined to kill him. Unfortunately, I’m a bad shot. They locked me away for attempted murder. I was lucky to be released early for good behavior and get out of Mississippi before he knew I’d left. He was never going to let me have a life. That man is so jealous and controlling that he’d never let me escape from him.”

  “The only thing . . .” Lulu paused. “Well, honey, your disguise is really over the top, that’s all. It might even draw attention to you instead of making you fade into the background.”

  “I know. But Virgil isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He doesn’t know that I know he’s here. So he would be looking for a tanned blonde, not a pale brunette. He might look at me, but then I don’t think he’d look any closer than that.”

  “Maybe that’s so,” said Lulu. “I hope you know what you’re doing. You’ve had such a rough couple of weeks.”

  “Rough for this very reason,” said Flo. “The reason I was so upset with Rebecca Adrian wasn’t because I didn’t want Memphis to know my past. It was because I was worried if she aired something on the Graces and my past, that Virgil would watch the Cooking Channel and find out. I’m just so tired of worrying about him.” There were big, smudgy circles under Flo’s eyes.

  “Flo,” said Lulu slowly, “I did want to ask you about something. Derrick says he saw you at the Peabody the afternoon that Miss Adrian was killed. It worried him to death, so I told him I’d ask you about it. I know there’s probably a good reason why you were there.”

  “Not really,” admitted Flo. “I was there to threaten Rebecca. I was determined to warn her off the story one way or another. Problem was, Mildred Cameron was already stomping into the Peabody, and I surely didn’t want her to see me there. So I hung out and waited a little bit until she left. But—she did see my car, even though I was in the parking deck. I guess writers must really pay attention to little details.

  “She even had me meet her later at the bookstore and ask me about being at the Peabody. I told her I’d parked my car at the deck there and walked to Aunt Pat’s because Beale Street was so busy right then. But she knew that wasn’t the truth. So I told her that I needed the exercise, too. I don’t think she bought it, though. I got the feeling she was treating the whole thing almost as a game. Playing detective. At first she acted so upset about the murder. But then I guess she realized the police weren’t hauling her off to jail. Then she started thinking that maybe she could write a book about it all. And she changed.”

  Lulu said thoughtfully, “Mildred made some pointed accusations to nearly everyone she knew. No wonder the poor thing ended up dead. She was playing a very dangerous game.”

  “She sure was,” agreed Flo. “Because there was no way in hell I was going back to jail because of a crime I didn’t commit. I didn’t kill her, but somebody felt just as strongly as I did and followed through.”

  Lulu hesitated. “Flo, I know the police are working as hard as they can, but they don’t have the personal reasons that I have to solve it quickly. Everybody who’s close to me is a suspect. Can you think of anything you saw that afternoon that Rebecca was killed? Even something that doesn’t seem important.”

  Flo furrowed her brow. “I saw Mildred coming and going. Like I mentioned, she noticed my car. When I went into the hotel, I looked around for Rebecca in the bar area, but I didn’t see her. I figured she’d gone up to her room. Lurleen was at the front desk . . .”

  “What?” asked Lulu. “Lurleen Ashton was at the Peabody?”

  Flo looked at Lulu with surprise. “Well, sure. Oh, listen, she was just there to meet her sister who’d come into town. It wasn’t anything.”

  Lulu blinked. “Pickle is in town?”

  “She’s named Pickle?”

  “Well, she’s not really named Pickle, but everybody calls her that. She was all the time getting herself into pickles—you know, trouble.”

  “I don’t guess she killed Rebecca?” asked Flo hopefully. “It certainly would make things easier on the rest of us.”

  “That’s for sure. But, for the life of me, I can’t see why Pickle Ashton would come into town and murder a Cooking Channel scout.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Flo. “Too bad. But really, that’s all I know, Lulu. I talked to Lurleen for less than a minute . . . she asked me for the time. Then Lurleen said, ‘Oh, okay. I guess maybe she hasn’t gotten here yet. That’s okay—it’ll give me time to dash off and do a couple of errands. ’ She left pretty fast. I got Rebecca’s room number from the front desk and went up the elevator to her room.”

  Flo thought for a minute. “I knocked and Rebecca didn’t answer the door, so I really started pounding on it. Then I yelled at the door, calling her. I thought maybe she was trying to avoid me. I guess she must have already been dead,” said Flo slowly.

  Lulu shivered at the thought. “What happened when you met with Mildred? Did you see or hear anybody then?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t even the same day she died, so I didn’t see a thing that would help. Sorry. You know I want this case wrapped up, too.”

  Lulu stifled a yawn, and Flo picked up her sunglasses. “I�
�d better go. I’m sorry you won’t see me around as much at the restaurant. I’m laying low and not going to my usual hangouts. Thanks for talking with me tonight. I only wish I had given you something useful.”

  But Lulu thought that maybe Flo had given her something. She just needed to figure out what it was.

  Chapter 17

  Lulu spent a restless night dreaming about Sara killing Rebecca with poisoned pickles and Derrick slashing all the tires in the Peabody parking deck. She woke up early the next morning and left her bed behind quickly, eager to interrupt those dream sequences.

  Since Lulu couldn’t shake her worrying, she avoided contact with her customers, not in the mood to visit and not wanting to pass along her bad mood.

  Around lunch, though, Morty, Buddy, and Big Ben came in and Lulu decided to make an exception to her non-visiting rule.

  “Tell me something good,” urged Lulu. “Anything good. I need to hear something happy.”

  Morty cleared his throat. “Actually, I do have some good news to report,” he said. “After five years of really horrible luck, my fortunes seem finally to have changed.”

  Lulu leaned in. “Really? What’s happened, Morty? Won the lottery?”

  Buddy gave a sputtering laugh. “Hardly!”

  Now Morty looked at them all with affronted dignity. “If you’re going to be that way, Buddy, I don’t think I’m going to tell the story at all.”

  “Please?” wheedled Lulu, shaking her head at Buddy.

  Morty looked coldly at Buddy. “It so happens that I won bingo today at the Seniors’ Community Center.”

  Lulu could see why Buddy wasn’t so impressed with this story. “Why—that’s wonderful, Morty! Congratulations. What did you win?”

  “A roll of stamps,” said Morty in a happy voice. There was a sudden roar of laughter from Big Ben and Buddy. “What on God’s green earth is so damned funny?” he demanded. “This was a big roll of stamps, I’ll have you know. And they’re the Forever stamps—the ones you can use forever, even when the price of stamps goes up.” The uproar turned into snickering, and Morty said, “What? Forever stamps aren’t a big deal?”