He nodded to both of us, a brief smile brightening his features.
I grabbed a menu and some silverware. “Would you like a booth?” I asked.
“That’s fine,” he said, with a tired smile. “Someplace quiet. I had to get away from that bus and the horrible, bland food cooked by Jimmy’s ‘chef’.” He actually used air quotes.
“Fans still hanging around the bus?” I guessed.
“No. Your Chief of Police is out there now scouring the bus for any signs of foul play,” he told me and then chuckled. “Like he’s going to find anything. I think he’s just trying to make himself look good.”
I bit my tongue to keep quiet. If Tucker was investigating, he had good reason to. He may know something the rest of us didn’t. I made a mental note that I needed to find out what that something was.
“They’ve confiscated every Accu-Click in the place and even brought that dog in to sniff the place,” he said, shaking his head.
“Axel?” I asked. If Axel was on the job then Tucker meant business. or at least he wanted to make sure he had any evidence he needed in case of an arrest.
An arrest. Could one be arrested for somehow, someway accidentally killing someone with a peanut allergy? If that was the case then I was a prime suspect.
“We are all very sorry for your loss,” I told him, leading him to a spot where I didn’t think he’d be interrupted. “I know you were one of Jimmy’s dearest friends as well as his manager.”
“We were best friends since we met twenty-five years ago,” he said sadly. “It’s a terrible loss to the music industry as well. He was a legend.”
“Yes, he was,” I agreed. “Not only for his friends in Nashville but for Sugar Hill as well.”
“That’s why I don’t understand your police officers getting involved. There was no foul play,” he said, sliding into the booth. “It was just a tragic, ridiculous accident.”
“And you were all so careful,” I said, reaching for my order pad.
“Just goes to show you, in a situation like that, you can’t be too careful.” he said, looking away from me out the window into the early evening shadows.
I gave him a few minutes out of respect and then asked, “What would you like to drink?”
“Coffee is fine, with cream and sugar,” he answered, pulling the menu toward him.
I went after the coffee. Barbara Ellen and I exchanged glances and then I returned to his table.
“I’m sure his wife is devastated,” I said, when I placed the coffee in front of him.
He laughed, a harsh bark more than anything. “She’s putting on a good act, basically showing off her acting skills. The only reason she married Jimmy in the first place was because she thought he could give her a leg up in show business.”
“Are you sure?”
“Now, why else would a beautiful young woman like that marry an old man like Jimmy Bones,” he said.
“Love?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Money and prestige. Pure and simple,” he finally said.
“Oh,” was all I could think of to say.
“She’s on her way here now,” he told me.
“To Sugar Hill?” I was surprised.
He nodded. “Demanding to talk to me in person as I was his business and financial manager.”
I nodded. Things here in town were about to get a whole lot worse. Instead of voicing that opinion, I asked, “Are you ready to order?”
“Yes, some good home cooked food will just hit the spot,” he said. “Jimmy insisted we eat together in the bus almost every night. Like a family or something. I’ll be glad I don’t have to do that anymore.”
“Is his chef staying on here in town?” I asked. He might be someone who could tell me who else might have been on the bus the day Jimmy Bones died.
“We all have to according to your Chief of Police,” Davis Withrow said, his face twisting into a scorn.
I also desperately needed to talk to Tucker to see if he would tell me what was going on. And evidently something was going on.
“I’ve heard rumors that people think my sunflower butter pies were contaminated with peanut butter,” I said, just to see if he had any information on this.
He shrugged. “If they were, it was an accident. He did take a bite out of one just before he went onstage.”
After that I couldn’t bear to stand there and talk to him another minute. Several customers arrived at once and I used that as an excuse to get away from him. As I worked, I glanced in his direction from time to time. He was always on his cell phone, making notes on a small notepad. When he was finished eating, I happened to be near the register and rang up his order. He paid for it with a credit card. My pen was missing (again) at the cash register but he had his own. He signed and left a hefty tip.
The diner was nearly empty and I was about to tell Barbara Ellen she could go on home early and let me close up when Tucker ambled in.
“Coffee?” I asked, when he straddled a stool at the counter. “Or something cold?”
“Sweet tea would be good,” he said, taking off his hat. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.
“I’m guessing it hasn’t cooled down any,” I said, adding ice to a tall glass and placing it in front of him.
“A little. Not much.” He gave me that familiar, easy grin that always made my heart do a little flip. I’m sure I wasn’t the only female he’d used that on, but Tucker sure made me feel that way.
“We have lasagna this evening if you want some,” I suggested.
“Your grandma’s recipe?”
I nodded. “None other.”
“You betcha,” he said, rubbing his big hands together.
I placed his order to include a small side salad and garlic bread sticks. Better treat him right if I was going to get any information out of him while he was here.
“I saw Kellen with Axel out and about,” I said when I placed his salad in front of him. Probing for any information I could get.
He looked up at me, puzzled and then back down at the salad.
“Eat your greens. They’re good for you,” I said, laughing at the face he made.
Tucker laughed, too, shook his head and picked up his fork. “Yeah, we had him out at the tour bus to see what he could sniff out.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nada,” Tucker said, draining his tea glass in two swallows.
I added ice and filled it right back up.
“Well, I mean unless you want to count at least two hundred of those Accu-Click Injectors. They were everywhere.”
“I saw them when I delivered the pies to him,” I said. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Half of them were a year or more out of date, some two years. Probably wouldn’t have been any help at all in an emergency. And when I asked about the prescription, I was told you don’t need one to purchase them in Canada,” he told me.
“Aren’t they expensive?” I asked.
“Apparently Bones had the money to pay for them and, according to Withrow, having one or more always within reach was what Jimmy wanted.”
“Did Withrow always give him what he wanted?” I asked.
Tucker shrugged. “I guess so.”
I thought back to what Joylou had told us about the terrified look in her son’s eyes when he had his first allergic reaction. That fear must have been what prompted Jimmy to have as much of the medication as close at hand as possible.
The phone rang and Barbara Ellen answered it. She listened for a moment and then hung up.
“Another one?” I asked.
She nodded and turned away from us.
“What’s this all about?” Tucker asked, concern clouding his blue eyes.
“I wasn’t going to worry you with it, but we’ve been getting hang up calls most of the day and some pretty nasty messages,” I confessed.
“Why?” he asked.
“Rumor has it that I killed Jimmy Bones with my sun
flower butter pies,” I said, giving him a level look.
“Not me,” Tucker said, holding up both hands.
I cocked my head to one side and stared at him.
“Starla, you know I’d never perpetuate a rumor like that about you or the diner,” Tucker said. “I asked you about it but that’s as far as it went.”
“The other officers?”
He shook his head. “None of my men would do that to you.”
I knew what he was saying was true.
“Then someone else must be gossiping, spreading the rumor. Joylou mentioned it when we were down at the newspaper,” I said. Yeah, there were several suspects in the rumor department for sure.
During the day I’d been avoiding the diner’s web site, afraid that people were posting horrible reviews about it. The thought brought tears to my eyes. “Are you sure, Tucker?” I managed to ask.
“Starla,” Tucker reached out and caught my hand.
Normally, Tucker’s touch warmed me to my very soul, to the tips of my toes and back again. This time it barely touched the chill growing in my heart. I shook my head, swiped angrily at tears stinging the back of my eyelids. “Tucker, my diner might be at stake here. We’ve hardly had any traffic all day.”
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” he said. His voice and the look in his eyes told me he was sincere. “Just as soon as we get this straightened out, I’ll get to the bottom of it,” he promised.
I forced a smile. “Thanks.”
The phone rang again and Barbara Ellen and I exchanged glances.
It went silent.
“So, what prompted you to search his bus?” I asked, finally getting my emotions under control.
Tucker looked around at the empty dining room and then back at me without saying a word.
“Drugs?” I asked in a whisper. That would explain the paranoia.
“That’s what we thought but...” Tucker shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Tucker, I have a right to know if something else is going on with the death of Jimmy Bones,” I told him. “The diner -.”
“Can we go upstairs?”
“Sure.”
We picked up the rest of his order at the window and carried it upstairs to my apartment. Once he was settled at my kitchen table, I took a seat across from him.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he began.
“I understand that but, please, tell me what you can,” I hated the pleading sound that had crept into my voice, but I needed to know.
He took a deep breath. “Preliminary autopsy report came back today.”
“And?”
“Jimmy didn’t die due to an allergic reaction to peanuts,” he said.
Relief flooded through me.
“There were no peanuts in his system at all. And nothing in his stomach either.”
Chapter Twelve
“Anywhere?” I gasped. Then I remembered what Joylou had told us about her son having a reaction if he even smelled peanuts. It was less serious in that case but still—
He shook his head.
“We’ll know more when the tox reports come back from Richmond, but the coroner didn’t find a trace of peanuts anywhere,” Tucker told me and then he lowered his voice as if someone could hear us. “What he did find, and again the tox reports will tell us more, were several very recent injection sites on his thigh. He’s pretty sure Jimmy Bones overdosed on the epinephrine.”
“Would that kill someone?” I asked.
He nodded. “Doc says it shot his blood pressure up. With his advanced age, it probably caused him to have a stroke or a heart attack at the same time.”
“Why would he given himself an injection that he didn’t need?”
Tucker shrugged. “I have no idea.”
I thought for a moment. “If the dosage was tampered with, that might have added to the issues, too.”
“True. And, if the Accu-Click was out of date, as most of them were, maybe he’d been instructed to give himself several doses at once.”
“Tucker, do you think this was deliberate? That he was deliberately murdered?” I asked.
“We’re not ruling out anything at this point,” he said, finally picking up a fork and digging into his plate of lasagna. “The only fingerprints on the injector were Jimmy’s.”
Again, I thought back to what I’d seen the night of Jimmy’s concert. He’d come out on stage looking strong and confident. Someone had called his attention back to the curtain and when he turned to the crowd again, he was in obvious distress and appeared to be slapping his thigh. That had to be when he was injecting himself with the medication.
But why would he just suddenly start giving himself meds when he hadn’t even eaten peanuts?
“We’re also bracing for an onslaught from the press,” Tucker told me.
“I know you’ll hate that,” I said. Tucker would rather be working the investigation than having to talk to the press.
“We’re letting Vic handle it,” he said, wiping the sauce from his plate with the end of a bread stick.
“Oh.”
“She’s agreed to be the unofficial liaison between us and the press.”
“Oh.”
Which would leave Tucker free to mostly concentrate on the investigation, if indeed it did turn out to be murder.
“So you don’t think it was one of my pies that killed him?” I asked quietly, remembering that Davis Withrow told me he’d taken a bite out of one of the pies. “I thought you told me Davis told you that Jimmy had taken a bite out of one of them,” I said.
Why would Withrow have lied about something like that? Maybe he just assumed it was Bones, since it was found on his dressing table.
“If someone did, it wasn’t Jimmy Bones. No evidence of any food in his stomach at all, according to the coroner,” he said with a little smile and then added that wink.
My stomach did several flips and suddenly, my kitchen was way too hot. I switched on the ceiling fan over the table.
“It looks like you might be in the clear after all,” he added. “I didn’t believe it for a minute anyway. You’re too careful.”
“I hope the rest of our fair city believes that news when the truth finally comes out,” I said, sounding grumpy.
“We’re trying to keep the details quiet for now but once the press gets hold of this, it’s all going to hit the fan. His wife is due in town tomorrow. She’s probably going to want to hold a press conference,” Tucker said.
I nodded absently. “Withrow said she was coming to Sugar Hill.”
“Hey. Look at me,” Tucker said, hooking a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Once this is all sorted out, business will pick up again. Nobody can resist the food at the Dixie Cupp Diner for long.”
I nodded but his words didn’t make me feel any better.
“Now, I told you more than I should have but you needed to know. I hate to do it but we’re trying to keep the findings from the autopsy out of the news as long as we can,” he reminded me as he got to his feet.
“I understand.” I stood as well and we faced each other for a brief but awkward moment. Since when should I be awkward around Tucker?
“And stop worrying so much,” he said, pulling me in for a hug.
“I have a right to worry,” I said, burying my face in the hard wall of his chest. “This is affecting the diner and our reputation.” His heart thudded in my ear and I snuggled closer, letting myself get lost in his scent, the feel of the coarse fabric of his uniform shirt, those strong arms holding me close.
“Relax. I’m on the case,” he said, giving me one last squeeze and turning toward the door.
I smiled, tempted again to tell him what I knew.
After Tucker left, I realized I was exhausted. I ran downstairs to find Barbara Ellen reading a book. She’d let the rest of the staff go.
“Why don’t we just shut the diner down and you can go on home?” I said.
“That sounds like a plan to me,” she said. “Tomorro
w’s another day.” She gathered her things and headed out the back door.
I walked through the empty, quiet diner, making sure we were ready for the Monday morning rush, and then went back up to my apartment.
Even though it was barely dark outside, I took a shower, pulled on shorts and a t-shirt and crawled into bed. I lay there wondering who I should talk to next. Who was the closest to Jimmy besides Davis?
That would be Herb Fleming, his cook and maybe some of those - what were they called - roadies? I wondered if his security guys would even talk to me but gave up on that idea. They would be on Tucker’s side and they’d probably want to keep everything they knew from the general public.
And then I had another thought. Since Vic was going to be working so close with Tucker and the investigation, she might be able to share information with me that I couldn’t get elsewhere.
Finally, I dozed off to sleep and dreamed a jumbled up dream about peanuts and little pies dressed up like sunflowers dancing all over Jimmy’s tour bus. It included Accu-Click injectors and someone with a nasty little smile on his face. He was always in shadow so I couldn’t figure out who it was, not that that would have made any difference.
It was just a dream.
The next morning, the VDOT crew arrived right on time, laughing and joking as usual. There were a few less construction workers, but some of them had been cleared by Tucker and were no longer being detained. They’d headed home to their families. Rested and refreshed, I was already feeling better about things.
Until the hang up calls began again.
“What’s that all about?” Poppy asked.
“I think it has something to do with the rumor that I killed Jimmy Bones,” I told her. “Went on all day yesterday.”
Poppy shook her head. “People.”
After the first rush was over, our regulars slowly trickled in. Mrs. Blake brought a friend she introduced as Ginny Brown. They’d been friends since first grade and hadn’t seen each other since college. I smiled watching the two of them laughing and talking over their tea and bran muffins. The farmers arrived and Les Miller, speaking for the others, let me know in no uncertain terms that they didn’t give a hoot about the rumors. They would never stop supporting me or Poppy or the diner.
Peanut Butter Pies & Dangerous Lies Page 9