Leigh Ann’s eyes grew wide, a pained expression on her face. "But—"
"Isn’t that right, Leigh Ann?" Jennifer added, her eyes dangerously narrow, her chin pointing toward Suzy, who was staring open-mouthed at her rival.
"Then you mean she’s not going to take Roy away from me?"
Leigh Ann cleared her throat. "Heck, no. I was just trying to—"
"Gather information," Jennifer finished. "You know that Emma Walker has been charged with Edgar’s murder."
"Of course I do. That’s all anyone at the restaurant talked about the week it happened. And it’s been on every newscast in Atlanta, or so I’ve been told. I don’t watch a lot of news myself," Suzy confessed.
"Well, what you don’t know is that Emma Walker is innocent."
"Oh, I get it!" All her tears were dried up now, and Jennifer could almost see the wheels whirling as Suzy put two and two together. "You’re like private eyes!" She clapped her hands together and started bouncing up and down on the chair cushion. "This is so exciting! You know, I knew right from the start that sweet little old lady could never have killed that yucky old man."
Jennifer couldn’t have put it better herself.
"So what can I do to help?" Suzy asked.
Jennifer sighed. She hadn’t intended to recruit Suzy, but what the heck. No doubt she would be a better source of information than either Leigh Ann or Teri, both of whom had trouble distinguishing reality from the fiction they wrote. And who knew what Suzy might have picked up in the weeks prior to Edgar’s death.
"If you do help us, you have to keep it a secret," Jennifer insisted.
"Even from Roy?" Suzy asked.
"Especially from Roy."
"But he needs to know—" Suzy pointed at Leigh Ann.
"That’s all right. Trust me. We won’t have to tell him a thing. Leigh Ann will simply cease to have anything more to do with him." Jennifer was staring straight at Leigh Ann who was opening and closing her mouth as if wanting to say something but knowing she didn’t dare. "Isn’t that right, Leigh Ann?"
Leigh Ann settled for a twist of the head that finally settled into a nod.
"Okay, now both Teri and Leigh Ann—" Jennifer began.
"You mean that other new girl was in on this, too?" Suzy interrupted, her eyes even wider.
Jennifer nodded.
Suzy seemed to think for a moment and then said shyly, "I hate to say anything against any of Roy’s kin folk, but if I had to guess from everybody working at the restaurant who might have killed Mr. Walker, I’d have to say it was Lisa. She can be downright scary."
At least they were on the same wavelength. "Okay. Let’s say that Lisa did kill her husband. You told me when we had breakfast together that Edgar wanted a divorce, that Louise had overheard them fighting about it. Why?"
Suzy tapped her index finger to her bottom lip. "Lisa’s pretty hard to get along with, and he wasn’t no jewel himself, but Mr. Walker was in love with someone else. And I think I finally figured out who."
Jennifer leaned forward. This was too good to be true. "Who?" she asked, hoping beyond hope that Suzy was about to give them the name that would crack this case wide open.
Suzy took a deep breath and blinked hard. "I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. Edgar was still in love with Emma."
Chapter 24
"Emma?" Jennifer repeated, drawing back as if she’d been hit by a two-by-four. She had no idea who she expected Suzy to name, but Emma hadn’t made the first hundred. "He couldn’t possibly—"
"Don’t underestimate the power of true love," Suzy insisted. "Once you fall hard for somebody and choose to spend as many years together as those two did, it’s hard to let go. Me and Roy have only been together six months, but I can’t imagine living without him."
"But what," other than the stars in her eyes, "would make you think that Edgar still loved Emma?"
"For one thing, he kept her picture in his wallet. I saw it one time when he gave me some money to run a personal errand for him. It was an old snapshot. She was a real cutie back then—when it was made. Looked just like she does now only lots younger. And with less wrinkles."
Sentimentality could easily explain the photo. "Keeping someone’s picture in your wallet is hardly enough to—"
"I don’t know," Leigh Ann jumped in. "He had to be taking a big risk with Lisa, carrying something like that around. I know if one of my boyfriends had his ex in his wallet..."
Jennifer shook her head. "It’s not enough."
"Okay, then, how about a phone call begging her to meet him at his house late at night?" Suzy offered.
"When?"
"Several months ago, Roy sent me back to Mr. Walker’s office to get a check for a delivery we’d just received. The door was open, and Mr. Walker was standing there talking on the phone, his back to me. I guess he didn’t hear me come in, and I didn’t want to disturb his conversation. I didn’t mean to listen. It sort of just happened."
"And he was talking to Emma?" Jennifer asked.
Suzy nodded. "They set up a time—midnight—to meet. He said at the house. I thought it was really weird, eerielike, meeting at the witching hour. That’s why I remember it."
"How do you know for sure who he was talking to?"
"He called her Emma, plain as day."
"That still doesn’t mean anything was going on between them."
Suzy was trying to help, Jennifer was sure, but this latest revelation, while having some implications for Lisa, was even more damning to Mrs. Walker’s case. Had Emma actually been meeting Edgar in the middle of the night? Was all that talk of pranks only a cover? She took a deep breath. Had Emma been lying to her?
"Don’t say anything about that phone conversation to anyone," Jennifer warned.
"Okay," Suzy agreed, looking a little taken aback. "It’s not like anyone was asking me about it anyway."
Jennifer glanced at her watch. It was close to twelve. "The two of you had better head home," she suggested. "Suzy, you have to drive all the way back to Atlanta, and Leigh Ann has her regular day job to go to before she and Teri—"
Leigh Ann’s face suddenly contorted and turned beet red. She started making strange choking sounds while flapping her hands quickly up and down.
"What’s gotten into—" And then Jennifer realized it, too. "Where the heck is Teri? Weren’t the two of you car pooling?"
"I thought Suzy was going to strangle me, and I made a run for it. Fortunately, I had driven my car, but I forgot all about—"
A knock sounded on the door, making all three women jump and Muffy woof. This was just great! All they needed was one more act for this circus. No telling what her neighbors thought was going on.
Through the peephole, Jennifer could see Teri’s anxious face, and a man dressed all in white standing so close to the door, she couldn’t identify him. She opened the door.
"All we can hope for now is to find the body," Teri said as she swept past Jennifer. "We stayed right on their tail until Forsyth, and then it was like both cars evaporated off the face of the earth. We went by Leigh Ann’s apartment, but we couldn’t find her Nissan and no one was there. The door’s locked. I thought you ought to know before someone comes—oh!" she paused, spotting Leigh Ann on the sofa and Suzy in the chair. "No blood?"
"Everything’s fine," Jennifer said, nudging Teri farther into the room. Gus was still in the doorway, his head shaking slowly back and forth, his handsome face drawn. He raised his hands and said, "Madre de Dios," and Jennifer pulled him into the room closing the door.
"Why—" Jennifer began.
Teri pointed an accusatory finger at Leigh Ann. "She just had to tell one of the other waitresses that Roy had asked her to his family reunion, and, of course, Suzy overheard it, or so I was told."
Suzy cringed.
Gus flew to Leigh Ann, kissing the tips of her fingers and chattering so fast that Jennifer had no hope of following anything with her meager two years of high school Spanish.
"Roy
had already gone for the day," Teri continued. "I figure that’s why she went after Leigh Ann." She looked at Suzy who flushed a bright red. "I’m not quite sure what happened after that, but I saw the two of them, first Leigh Ann and then Suzy, fly out of the kitchen, through the lobby, and into the parking lot."
Gus was now down on one knee, stroking Leigh Ann’s hand. Jennifer did catch "te quiero".
She had always admired the way Spanish left no confusion about a man’s intentions. Literally te quiero meant I want you. A girl knew where she stood, not like in English where the word "love" could as easily be directed at a good book or a tasty slice of pie.
Jennifer made a double take. Gus had stopped chattering and was making his way up Leigh Ann’s arm with little wet kisses. And now Leigh Ann was answering back—in Spanish. That girl was a whole box of tricks.
"I was balancing an Eddie and two beers," Teri continued, "so it wasn’t like I could just drop it in the laps of the customers I was serving and go after them. But then, here comes Gus running out of the kitchen, hollering ‘Muerte! Muerte!’ I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good. So I excused myself—which means I lost my tip for the whole meal—I hope you plan to make it up to me, Leigh Ann—grabbed my purse and Gus, and we took off after them in his truck. When we couldn’t find them, I thought I’d better let you know."
Teri collapsed onto the sofa next to Leigh Ann, who seemed totally preoccupied with Gus. "If you’re going to scare me like that, the least you could do is really be hurt."
Leigh Ann turned in Teri’s direction. "I’ll see what I can do next time."
"Could you please get him up?" Jennifer asked, motioning toward Gus.
Muffy let out a loud yawn and sauntered toward the bedroom. Apparently she’d had all she could handle for the evening, and so had Jennifer.
"Okay, everybody’s fine. Let’s call it an evening." Jennifer clapped her hands. "Everybody out."
"But senorita, un momento por favor," Gus said. "You want to know who knocked off old man Walker?"
Jennifer stared at Teri.
"It was a long car ride. We had to talk about something."
Jennifer looked back at Gus. "Yes."
"If I were you, I’d check out this Benny dude," Gus said without any hint of an accent.
"Benny dude? I thought you didn’t speak much English."
"Sometimes people assume." Gus shrugged. "And it keeps Roy off my back."
"What do you know about Benny?"
"Just that he has the hots for Lisa. Hey, man, old man Walker was too old for a chick like her. Besides, I overheard Benny telling her not to worry, that he’d take care of her now and that the two of them could run the restaurants together. Make mucho dinero."
Jennifer felt stunned. She’d seen Lisa and Benny together with her own eyes, but she hadn’t really suspected that Benny might have killed his uncle. But what better motive could someone have than money and love?
Chapter 25
How long did it take to find out everything there was to know about a person any way?
Jennifer fidgeted in her seat at the Mexican restaurant two blocks down from her apartment. She’d had about all the free chips and salsa the waiter was going to give her, considering the line at the entrance waiting for supper, and Sam still hadn’t shown.
She could write down the facts of her own life in one short paragraph. Born Macon, Georgia. Reared Baptist. College graduate. Current part-time caterer; full-time rejection accumulator. Ambitions: to be a published mystery novelist and someday a mother. Caretaker of former greyhound racing star. (The star part was not really true, but Muffy would always be a winner in her heart.) Two arrests, if the contempt of court charge counted. Key witness in one murder case and star witness in Atlanta’s current and most notorious murder case. Major liability to anyone unfortunate enough to befriend her.
See? How hard could it be?
Sam promised he’d have something for her about Benny by tonight, and he knew not to promise if he couldn’t deliver. She didn’t like disappointments. Her mother had never told her when she was taking her to the latest Disney flick, just in case it was sold out. One tantrum on hard pavement in front of most of Macon’s population of five-year-olds was apparently quite enough. And she’d made the same promise to Jaimie. Life already came with enough disappointments.
Again she caught the eye of her waiter. Oh, no. He was grinning back. He must think she was flirting with him. She’d have to throw him off by ordering some nachos. He was heading toward her when Sam appeared in the doorway. He spoke to the hostess and then joined her. The waiter, thank goodness, veered off.
"’Bout time," she greeted.
"My sentiments exactly. Did you order for us?"
"Actually I did, but I asked them not to give it to the kitchen until you arrived. You’re forty-five minutes late."
"And well worth the wait." He grinned at her.
She hoped he was referring to what he’d found out and not his own charming presence. "Spill it!"
The waiter brought Sam water, took his drink order, and assured them their food would be out soon. Then he winked at Jennifer.
Sam unfolded his napkin and took a sip of water. He was toying with her. Not wise. Their eyes locked and he got the message.
"Okay. Benny was not the best kid on the block. His physical characteristics let him in for some heavy teasing, but he developed a reputation for not playing fair, which solved most of his problems."
She’d always thought calling a bare-handed, 110-pound kid pitted against a two-hundred pound bully a fair fight somewhat ludicrous. He probably had learned early that fair in his case meant lose.
"I think he had an arrest, maybe two, but all those records are sealed, of course. His mother Alma is indeed Emma’s sister by blood, and their father was a school administrator who made a comfortable living, supplemented by Alma’s family’s money. The father died five years ago followed shortly by Alma, leaving the kids a tidy nest egg but not enough to call themselves rich.
"Babs is the oldest by nine minutes. Neither has ever been married. Both live in the same town-house development, one block away from each other. They were business majors at the University of Georgia, graduating the same year with grade point averages within two-tenths of a percentage of one another. Both drive BMWs. But Babs went through a red period during which she dyed her hair and sang with a rock band with whose drummer she shared more than a professional relationship."
"Would I have heard of this group?"
"No. Benny apparently keeps his rebellious side, if he has one, to himself. For a while he worked for a chain of computer stores. He seldom dates and definitely has had no serious relationships. When Edgar started his expansion, he offered each of them a restaurant to manage. Babs jumped at the chance. Gigs were getting further and further apart for the band, and the drummer had since taken up with a saxophonist."
"And Benny agreed, too," Jennifer added.
"After some coaxing from Babs and Emma. He had been offered a district manager’s position by that time, but the chain he was with was getting battered by the competition. They’ve since gone under."
The waiter delivered Sam’s beer and another burning stare at Jennifer. "How’d you find all this out?"
"Here and there. Their high school is having a reunion and the committee is interviewing old friends and current acquaintances to put together some surprise nostalgia clips, kind of who you were, what you did, and where you are now."
"Really?" Jennifer asked. "And you got all that from the committee?"
He looked down his nose at her. "I am the committee."
She tried to cover fast. "I knew that."
The waiter brought their food, a sizzling steak fajita for Sam (her concession to his hard work) and chili rellenos for her. Hers had an extra scoop of sweet corn pudding.
"So you think he killed Edgar to be with Lisa?" she asked.
Sam shook his head, finishing his bite of
steak. "That was your idea, not mine. Nobody I talked to made mention of them as a couple. If they had something going on prior to Edgar’s death, they must have kept it quiet."
"They had to have known each other for the past ten years, all the time Edgar and Lisa were married," Jennifer concluded. "If he’d fallen really hard for her, that might explain his lack of interest in other women."
Sam nodded, but she could tell he didn’t think that was it. Some people could live a lifetime on one love letter. But others seemed to have a more practical, love-the-one-you’re-with attitude. Apparently, Benny didn’t strike Sam as the love-letter type.
"You may be right, but my impression is that Benny is more of a numbers man. You have to ask, if he was as successful as he appeared to be, why did he decide to join the family business?"
"Emma told me he was going to inherit it one day. He and Babs. At least Emma’s fifty-one percent."
"Yeah? Well, add that to Lisa’s forty-nine—"
"And he gets it all."
Chapter 26
"Stop gloating and keep digging," Jennifer ordered.
Teague McAfee dusted off his jeans and handed her a stack of back issues of the Atlanta Eye. The cramped, dark room of the tabloid’s morgue had a faint smell of mold that tickled her nose. She fought off a sneeze.
Ever since Mrs. Walker had told her about Edgar’s affair with another woman, she’d been dying to know who it was. If she were lucky, the affair might yield another suspect she could throw at Arlene Jacobs, at least until she could get the goods on Lisa. Or Benny.
She’d picked up the phone and dialed McAfee’s number at least a dozen times, slamming it down before it rang. Finally, she’d swallowed her pride and done it. McAfee, true to form, was worse than she even imagined he’d be.
"I knew you’d come to me, Marsh." He didn’t even try to suppress his grin. He was beaming.
As irritating as it was, she’d had to accept it. She needed gossip, old gossip, and she couldn’t figure out any other way to get it. Mrs. Walker was protecting someone or something. She’d lied, and although Jennifer felt the woman probably had good reason, she could no longer completely trust her friend to do what was best for her case.
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