The noise of metal against metal echoed from the kitchen. It mingled with Roy’s slurring of the lyrics of some country western tune.
Jennifer slung her purse around her neck, dropped to all fours and scooted across the linoleum of the dining room to the swinging door of the kitchen. She sat back on her heels and listened as Roy twanged a chorus about some pickup truck.
Gently, she pushed up, slowly drawing herself to her full height. Pressing her cheek against the metal support at the warming bar, she allowed one eye a look into the kitchen. Roy was dumping something into a huge bowl that sat on one of the stainless steel counters. An array of containers was set out in front of him as he slopped the mixture with an enormous whisk. Then he filled two containers with the mixture and started a new batch, all the time singing loudly about the new paint job on the truck.
Jennifer slumped back against the door frame for support. So this was where the sauce came from and why Edgar was willing to cough up over two hundred grand a year to an assistant manager. Roy knew the recipe. Edgar must have given it to him. And if Roy came in to make it even on his day off, did that mean nobody else knew it? With Edgar dead, Roy could name his price. He didn’t need a restaurant to make a fortune.
With thoughts skipping wildly through her mind, she didn’t notice that the singing had trailed off or that the swinging door behind her had silently opened. She turned to slip away and came nose-to-chest with Roy’s hulking form, an iron skillet poised directly over her head.
Her breath left her, and for a moment the lightness in her head had her convinced she’d dreamed up his image. But a quick touch of Roy’s chest felt far too real. He was as solid as that frying pan.
She felt for the pepper spray wedged in her pocket. Somehow, it seemed woefully inadequate under the circumstances. Besides, her muscles had joined her head in the light department, and her hand wasn’t exactly accepting orders.
“I could have killed you,” Roy said, lowering the skillet.
She agreed and was most thankful that he hadn’t. She grinned up at him, all innocence. “Roy, what are you doing here?”
“Me?”
“I stopped by to get something for my report for Mrs. Walker and—“
“Whoa. You aren’t supposed to be anywhere near this place. Lisa said—“
“Of course, you’re right, but I didn’t think anyone would be here,” she lied, adding a little prayer to herself that lying to keep from being killed might be viewed as an exception to a pretty adamant rule. “And I really hate to leave things half done, especially when someone’s paying me to—”
“Nobody’s paying you to do anything.” Roy’s grip on the skillet tightened. “I know who you are and I know why Emma sent you here.”
For two seconds this conversation had seemed to be going so well. “And why would that be?”
“You’re after the sauce, like everybody else.”
“The sauce?” she repeated, as though she hadn’t noticed there was a sauce at the restaurant.
“Don’t act like I’m stupid,” he warned.
Roy seemed intent on a certain scenario, and she might be better off going along. Besides, sometimes a half truth worked better than an out-and-out lie. “Okay, you caught me. I was following you.”
“Following me?” He seemed taken aback.
“I figured out you were the one making the sauce,” she fibbed, “and I wanted to talk to you. Alone.” Her eyes darted about the darkness as if someone might be lurking in the shadows. Roy followed her gaze. “I want to make you a proposition.”
“A proposition?”
This guy would have made a great parrot. “Have you ever considered what that sauce would be worth by itself? Why set your sights on managing a local restaurant when you produce a product that could be on every supermarket shelf in America. I mean we’re talking more money than—”
Roy was shaking his head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
Roy was definitely a man of few words.
“Because…”
“I’d never betray Lisa.”
“But, Roy, Lisa could well have been the one who killed Edgar. Whatever your loyalties—”
“Get the hell out of here before I call the police.”
She didn’t have to be told twice.
Chapter 12
Leigh Ann was pouting. Teri was curiously quiet. April was hungry. And Monique was simply Monique. When Jennifer finally got to her critique meeting a full twenty minutes late Monday night, she dumped her umbrella (rain was threatening) and her briefcase on the floor.
Everyone was in her customary place, Leigh Ann on the sectional, April on the other sofa, Monique in her rocking chair, Teri stretching her long, brown legs on the floor. Jennifer could have sworn that girl had grown a full inch from all that yoga since she’d met her.
“Sorry. I’ve been running late all day,” Jennifer apologized.
“We’d about decided you’d dropped out of the group,” Leigh Ann declared. “You didn’t even bother to call anyone when you didn’t show up last Monday.”
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I fell asleep.” Which was true. She’d sat down to try to get a few pages written before last week’s meeting, and woke up at three in the morning cradling the keyboard.
“Have a brownie,” April offered. “I brought them. They’re cherry-cream cheese.”
As Jennifer slumped down next to Teri, she reached toward the plate of brownies.
“Don’t you reward her,” Leigh Ann declared, leaning forward and swatting at Jennifer’s fingers.
“What are you talking about?” Jennifer asked.
“Missing a meeting is one thing, but why didn’t you tell us that you’d seen some dude get himself done in?” Teri was definitely mad, and she didn’t anger easily; that is, unless Leigh Ann was involved.
“What are you talking about?” Jennifer asked innocently.
“Hah! As if you didn’t know. ‘Let’s trade the industrial vat for a swimming pool. Make that chocolate syrup water.’ I should have known you were pulling something on us.”
“I thought it was clever,” April observed, scooping brownie crumbs from the front of her shirt and eating them out of her hand.
The rocking stopped as Monique folded her hands and leaned forward. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Jennifer? We understand that you witnessed Edgar Walker’s murder.”
Jennifer sighed. Well, she’d known all along they’d eventually find out about her presence at the Walker estate that night. But she hadn’t expected them to be quite so touchy. Or to bungle the facts so badly. It looked as though she had no choice except to fess up. And apologize. She should have told them.
“I’m sorry. But I wasn’t up to going into all the details that night, and I’m not a witness. That is, not to a murder. As a matter of fact, I didn’t actually witness anything—”
“You know it would help if you could edit your speech as well as you do your writing,” Teri observed, crossing her arms.
Jennifer sighed.
“She means she saw something, but she didn’t see the murder,” April explained, dusting her hands.
“So spill it,” Leigh Ann insisted.
Briefly, Jennifer recounted her adventure at the Walker estate as succinctly as possible—without telling them the part about getting stuck in the fence.
“Wow. That crazy blonde pointed that shotgun straight at you?” Teri was definitely shaken, and, in view of this reminder of the mortal nature of life, apparently contrite as to how she’d treated Jennifer. She put a hand on her shoulder. “Weren’t you scared?”
Jennifer could only nod, surprised by an unnatural catch in her throat.
Leigh Ann threw herself back against the sofa cushion and stared at the ceiling. “Just imagine being out there in the darkness, a bloodied body at your feet—”
&n
bsp; “It was in the pool, and I couldn’t see any blood—”
“The dew of late night moist against your skin. Your heart pounding so hard in your chest you can barely breathe. Fear tearing at your mind with the knowledge that somewhere out there in the shadows a cold-blooded killer was most likely watching, waiting…” She sat up. “You must have gone back to Macon, found Sam, and jumped his bones.”
Jennifer closed her eyes and sighed. To Leigh Ann, everything was foreplay. “There’s nothing sexy about finding a corpse or seeing the inside of a police station, let me assure you.”
Leigh Ann snorted. “Nothing except all those gorgeous hunks in blue.”
Jenifer should introduce Leigh Ann to Sweeney. Even she couldn’t find anything sexy about that man! Or so she hoped.
“So, if Mrs. Walker didn’t take out Edgar—he was that one in those disgusting commercials, right?” Teri asked.
“The very one,” Jennifer assured her.
“So if she didn’t kill him, how’re you going to prove she didn’t?”
As if all the burdens of the world had only one place to rest—directly on her shoulders.
“It’s not Jennifer’s place to do any such thing,” Monique reminded them, always the voice of reason. “Mrs. Walker has hired attorneys to take care of that.”
Ones who thought she should plead guilty.
“Of course it’s not,” April agreed, going for yet another brownie. “But if I know Jennifer, she will. Our girl feels guilty. She’s got to assuage that guilt.” She bit off half the chocolate square. “Man, these are good.”
April turned her bright blue eyes on Jennifer. “So what have you done?” she asked, as if addressing her two-year-old.
“I checked out the Down Home Grill,” Jennifer offered. She wasn’t about to tell the group what she’d found out about Roy.
“I ate there once,” Leigh Ann confessed. “If they passed out blinders in the parking lot, it wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, the food was quite good, but those bright, gawd-awful colors. You need to wear shades just to get in the door. Even the vinyl in the booths is a hot pink.”
“That Eddie appetizer is scrumptious,” April volunteered. “Wish I could get my hands on that steak sauce recipe.”
April and most of the world.
“Tell us what you found out at the restaurant.” Monique was definitely getting impatient.
“Not much. Some of their staff have quit because of the murder. I did get a chance to look through some of the files, but then Lisa threw me out.”
“Physically?” Leigh Ann leaned forward, as if hoping for news of a cat fight.
“No, not physically.”
She slumped back into the cushions. “Oh.”
“And Mrs. Walker’s attorneys said I shouldn’t go back,” Jennifer added.
“And you shouldn’t,” April observed, now sucking on a Bing cherry apparently left over from her brownie-making. She had a little bag of the fruit cradled against her stomach. “By the way, I tried your suggestions. I’ve got the first few pages of a story using that flying squirrel idea, and I’m writing it at about third grade level. I think I like it. I’ll bring in some to read next week.”
“You know, I could do that if I wanted to,” Leigh Ann threw in.
“Do what? Write a story about a squirrel?” Teri asked.
“Get a job at that restaurant.”
Jennifer cringed. The last thing she wanted was Leigh Ann snooping around and putting herself in danger. She had all the subtlety of a steamroller.
“No way! You wouldn’t let her do that, would you?” Teri was not one to hide her feelings. “I’m surprised she’s let out without supervision as it is. She should never go in there alone. We’d be fishing her body out of the Ocmulgee.”
“No. It’d be far too dangerous for her alone,” Jennifer agreed, “and I certainly can’t go.”
April made a sucking sound and another cherry disappeared. “Well, you can’t expect me to go with her.” She patted her belly.
Teri grabbed her feet and pulled them toward her torso, bouncing her knees rapidly like butterfly wings, as all the eyes in the room turned toward her.
Teri’s knees were suddenly still. “Whoa-ho! You think I’m going to haul myself all the way to Atlanta after putting in a full day’s work to keep the likes of her out of trouble?” Teri stuck out he chin in Leigh Ann’s direction. “You must be out of your cotton-pickin’ minds.” Her knees resumed their flutter, even faster this time.
“The décor is the pits,” Leigh Ann said, “but the waitresses have cute little embroidered peasant blouses, with loose black pants and pink print sashes. How’s about six, Wednesday afternoon?”
“Make it six-thirty. And I’m driving,” Teri insisted.
“Fine. I’d just as soon not put the miles on my car.”
“And you’re paying for the gas.”
“I’ll pay for the gas,” Jennifer offered. It was the least she could do.
It was a harrowing thought—Leigh Ann and Teri at the Down Home Grill, but once those two made up their minds, there would be no deterring them, regardless of the consequences. Not only was a murderer loose in Atlanta, but it was best to keep Leigh Ann and Teri away from sharp objects and breakables. The last time the two of them had done some undercover work for her, they’d almost set a building on fire.
Still, access to the restaurant was essential. She had to have someone on the inside. Much of Edgar’s life and maybe his death centered around his business, and Lisa was not about to let her set foot through those doors.
“Promise me,” Jennifer said, her throat constricting. “Promise me you’ll be careful.” She already felt some responsibility for Mrs. Walker’s plight. If anything happened to Leigh Ann or Teri, she’d never forgive herself.
Chapter 13
Dear Contributor:
Thank you for sharing your work with Pen and Paper, Inc. We find ourselves acquiring very few new clients in the current competitive market. After reviewing your work, we’re sorry to say we simply cannot take it on.
We wish you every success with another agency that can give it their wholehearted attention.
Good luck.
They—the faceless, nameless, antecedentless they on the other end of the postal chain—hadn’t even bothered to date or sign the form letter. They could be the cleaning crew, for all Jennifer knew.
She sent the paper and its envelope skidding across her dining table. Then she examined the twenty pages of Maxie’s second adventure, which she’d included with her brilliant query letter.
Hah! The hadn’t even read it. The paper clip hadn’t been moved (she could tell from the small dent it made in the paper), and the pages were as even as when they’d come from her printer. She riffled through the sheets to make absolutely sure. Clean.
She tossed the sheets after the letter and poured herself a steaming mug of black coffee. What a way to start a Friday, or any day, for that matter! She collapsed into a chair, tears welling in her eyes.
How dare they!
Rejections were always hard, but some were easier than others. The ones that left her manuscript with coffee stains, bent corners, pages upside down, cat prints, or peanut-butter smudges—those she could tolerate. At least someone had looked at them, eaten over them, wiped up spills with them.
The kind she’d just gotten, slipped neatly back into her self-addressed, stamped envelope with only a form letter added, were intolerable. She might as well go to the post office and mail her query to herself. Cut out the middle man and save half the postage.
So they weren’t accepting new clients. Well, she bet that if she were Stephen King or J. K. Rowling, they’d make an exception.
She took a hot swig and almost choked. She hated black coffee, and she’d been drinking a whole lot of it in the past few weeks.
So now she was supposed to be creative, to go to her computer and write an inspired chapter. Heck, she hadn’t even devised a plan to get that scumball victim
of hers out of that vat of chocolate. Right now she’d like to add the entire staff of Pen and Paper to the mix. How long could they tread chocolate?
Well, her murder victim could stay there until he hardened into the biggest truffle of all time for all she cared. She was giving up writing. She would never again put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.
Never.
She would find something else to do with her life, something worthwhile, something noble, something that didn’t require postage. She was far too creative to be wasting her talents and the precious hours of her days toiling away at stories that no one read and that no one appreciated. She would never write again.
At least not until much later that afternoon.
Muffy sauntered over, laid her head in Jennifer’s lap, and whimpered. Doggy ESP. People should be so perceptive. She realized her fingers had cramped around the mug. Loosening her grip, she set the cup down and stroked the dog’s muzzle.
She needed to get out, away from her apartment for a while. Relax. Maybe take a leisurely drive someplace. So what if she hadn’t gotten her required number of pages written for today or yesterday or this week for that matter. She had no deadlines. Besides, she was giving up writing. She was free as a bird, and it was time to fly the coop.
She stood up just as the phone rang. It was Teri.
“I don’t have but a second. My boss is in some big meeting, and they may call me in any minute, and I didn’t call you last night because Leigh Ann and I didn’t get home from the Grill until almost one.” Teri gasped for breath. “Anyway, I snuck in and got a quick look at Lisa’s file. Her maiden name was Mayfield, and she came to work at the Grill about ten and a half years ago.”
“That would put her there maybe six months or so before Emma filed for divorce.”
“Whatever. Anyway, I got her original address, a rural route in Lorraine.”
“That’s only a few miles south of Macon.”
“Right.”
“So what should I do?”
“Check it out, girl. Go play P.I.” Then Teri gasped. “Gotta go.” And the dial tone hummed in her ear.
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