Down Home and Deadly (6 page)

She shook her head and shoved the money back to him. “Today’s my treat.”

He glanced at her parents then back at her and frowned. “I’d rather pay for it, okay?” he said quietly.

She glared at her mother then nodded. “Sure, sweetie.” She took the twenty-dollar
bill. When he was gone, she turned to her mother. “I hope you’re happy. You ran him off.”

Amelia’s elaborately made
-
up eyes widened. “Why, Tiffany, I did no such thing.”

“You know what? I need to go. I’ll talk to y’all later.” Tiffany dropped a kiss on Byron’s forehead
,
and with barely a glance at her mother, stomped up to the cash register.

Byron stood and retrieved his and Amelia’s bill. “I’m going to go on and pay
,
too.” He followed his daughter.

“Well, at least she didn’t eat all of that fat-filled burger,” Amelia murmured as I refilled her glass.

Indignant on Carly’s behalf, I protested. “That’s ground chuck—”

Amelia waved her hand. “Never mind, dear. I need a favor.”

“A ‘to go’ box?”

She frowned, but thanks to one
-
too
-
many
B
otox treatments, only her eyes showed it. “No, silly.” She glanced at her husband and daughter and lowered her voice. “You’re so good at snooping. I need you to find out what you can about Ricky before he and Tiffany get married.” She was talking so fast and quietly
,
I could barely understand her. “We had her last boyfriend investigated. It turned out badly
,
and she was brokenhearted for a while.” She sipped her tea and lifted her hand in a lazy wave to a nearby diner. “We don’t want that to happen again,” she said to me from the corner of her mouth.

“You know, Amelia, I’m not a PI. Can’t you just have a professional check him out, run a background check, that kind of thing?”

She put her hand to her heart as if I’d suggested having him murdered. “No. Tiffany made us promise not to do that ever again.”

Maybe she wasn’t as managing a mother as I thought.

Her next words dispelled that delusion. “I’d do it anyway, but I’m afraid she would find out.” She took a drink. “But you can do it. You ask questions all the time
,
anyway, so no one would think it was odd.”

Thanks a lot.

“Besides
,
you know John and Seth both. They’ll tell you anything.” Ha, little did she know. John wouldn’t tell me the time of day unless he had to. Well
,
he wasn’t that bad, but he certainly didn’t share information with me.

“I guess I can ask them about him. If you really want me to. But he seems like a regular guy to me. Why are you so worried?”

“Tiffany doesn’t attract men like some girls do.” She glanced at me. “Well, look at her. No wonder she doesn’t. I could have helped her, but from the time she was small
,
if I even made a suggestion about her looks or clothes
,
she took it as an insult.”

Amelia looked toward the door where Byron motioned toward her that he was ready. “Anyway, she hasn’t had good luck with men. Ricky
seem
s
fine, but we just want to make sure. Will you do it?”

“I don’t know
.
 
.
 
.
”

She tapped her nails impatiently on the table. “I seem to remember I didn’t hesitate when you asked me to look into something for you.”

I shrugged. What could I say? She was right. In the last murder I’d been investigating, I’d asked her to check something out and she had. “I’ll figure out a way to ask John and Seth what they think about him without seeming suspicious. And I’ll let you know.”

She pulled out a ten
-
dollar bill and left it on the table. “Thanks.”

I scooped the ten into m
y apron pocket and watched the First Lady
of Lake View glide across the room.

Poor Ricky. He had no idea what he was getting into.

*****

*****

Chapter Four

A watched pot never boils
.

Within five minutes,
Harvey
was ringing up the last few stragglers from the lunch crowd. I was learning the ebb and flow of customers. They all came at once. They all left at once.

I walked over to where
Alice
carefully filled the saltshakers.

She smiled at me. “I bet you’re worn out. Not bein’ used to this and all.”

I didn’t know it showed.
Every part of me
was longing for a nice, relaxing swim in the club pool.
I would’ve even settled for taking inventory or cleaning the equipment in the exercise room.
I sank into a chair and groaned. “My feet may never be the same. I don’t see how you’ve done this for so long. No wonder you wanted to sell this place.”

A cloud crossed her face. “It’s never easy making a change, though. We’ve lived in
Lake
View
our whole lives. And
Harvey
’s parents owned the diner before us.”

I needed a new subject fast. “I heard today that J.D. Finley was from here when he was young. Is that true?”

“Um-hum,” she grunted without looking up.

I waited for her to elaborate, but she concentrated on sifting the tiny white granules into the last shaker.

She finished and picked up the big plastic pitcher full of salt. “With all those police officers out back, I’d better go see about the pies I have in the oven.”

I stared at her back. If I wanted to snoop, I was going to have to find someone more loquacious than
Alice
.

Or
—
I glanced out at the parking lot where police cars were parked everywhere
—
I could see for myself what was going on.

I stood and stretched then ambled into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. “I’m on break,” I called to Carly as I let myself quietly out the back door, clutching my mug casually. No law against an overworked waitress taking a break out back, was there?

Across the small alley the infamous Dumpster loomed. Behind it and to the sides were scraggly woods—land that had probably been cleared less than a decade ago but had been ignored since. Today that little thicket was literally crawling with cops.

I leaned against the wooden post and watched the search.

“Spread out more,” John barked
,
and the officers quickly obeyed.

Thankfully no one even looked my way
,
or our esteemed chief of police
certainly
would have ordered me back inside.

Just as I drained the last drop of my coffee, an excited yell went up from an area on the very outskirts of the woods.

I stood on my tiptoes and could make out two familiar figures. “Over here!” Seth and Ricky waved their arms. “Found it!”

Lake
View
’s police force descended on them en masse,
no doubt
trampling significant clues in the process.

I heard John growling at them, so apparently he thought the same thing. Within seconds, they headed back in my direction, John carrying a plastic bag with something small in it. As he drew closer, I squinted at the contents. Undoubtedly a gun, but it looked more like a tiny water pistol. Hard to believe something so small could do so much damage.

Before I could slip back inside, John spotted me. His face grew
red
,
and he twisted his mouth as if trying to think of what to say, but he just sputtered.

I held my hand up in an international gesture of peace. “I’m going, I’m going.”

I quickly let myself back into the diner before my childhood friend had a coronary. Sometimes he really overreacted to my
tendency to want to know what was going on.

*****

“Wow, Carly. You’re a genius.” I wiggled my toes in the warm water. “I’m so glad you bought two.”

“I can’t take credit. I got them because of the advice
Alice
gave me.” Carly sank down in her own chair and immersed her feet in the plastic foot spa in front of her. She groaned and closed her eyes. “
 
‘Take good care of your feet,’ she said. ‘And they’ll take good care of you.’
 
”

“Speaking of
Alice
.
 
.
 
.
” I couldn’t believe I’d been so drained that I’d forgotten this. “Yesterday after John let us all go, I overheard
Alice
say something odd to
Harvey
.”

“She says odd things to him all the time,” Carly said without opening her eyes.

“Yeah, but she said
,
‘I wouldn’t blame you.’ Or something like that.”

She sat up. “For what?”

I shrugged. “She
said
for turning the burner up under the soup.”

“Oh. Well
,
the soup was a little scorched today, I thought. Maybe that’s all it was.”

“Maybe.”

For a few minutes we sat, without speaking, in the darkened living room of the small cabin on our folks’ property that Carly and the kids had moved into a few months ago. With the girls in bed, Zac in his room on the phone, and our heated foot spas bubbling, we’d created a relaxation haven.

“I guess you don’t think it was a stranger this time
,
either, do you?” Carly said tiredly.

I didn’t even have to wonder for a second what she meant. “I wish I did, but not really.” Each time we’d gotten embroiled in a murder, we’d tried to cling to the false hope that the killer was a stranger. Both of the other two times we’d been sadly disappointed.

“Yeah, me either. One can only hold on
to that kind of naïveté for so long.”

I squinted toward her. “Aren’t you getting cynical?”

She shrugged. “Having a dead man show up at your grand opening tends to do that to you.”

“Excuse me for ruining your grand opening by finding a body,” I said. “Why do you think he was there?”

Carly kept her head resting against the padded back of her chair. “Well
,
since I already sound like a narcissist, maybe someone hired him to sabotage my big day.”

I snorted. “No doubt. Wonder what the pay is for that?” I asked. “Dying in order to sabotage?”

She snorted back at me without opening her eyes. “Okay then, smarty. I guess it would be too flippant to say that he might have put out a hit on himself to get him out of his relationship with Lisa.”

I reached over and shoved her gently. “I think we’ve officially come down with the
eleven o’clock
sillies.”

“Mama always says the only cure for that is going to bed before eleven,” Carly said in a pseudoserious tone.

“Well, Mama should have come over and helped us clean up tonight at the diner,” I spouted. “Then we wouldn’t be so tired we can’t sleep.”

“Good point,” she murmured.

“I know the difference,” I said suddenly.

“Difference in what?” Carly asked, something in my voice alerting her that my silliness had vanished. She sat up and looked over at me.

“This body. This time we don’t know the victim. So we have no idea who might have done it.”

“Very true
,
” Carly said thoughtfully. “And since he was in fact a
stranger
to us
.
 
.
 
.
”

“A stranger might very well
have
killed him,” I finished triumphantly, feeling a little rejuvenated at the thought. “And we don’t even have to know why.”

*****

“Sunday dinner at your mom’s,” Alex said with a sigh as he helped me clear the table. “One of the many things I missed all those years we were apart.”

I waved a fork at him. “You only love me for my mama’s cooking?” I teased. “We may have a problem.”

He nudged me and motioned to Carly and Elliott who still sat whispering with their heads together at the other end of the long table. “You think
we
have a problem? At least
we
know the meal is over.”

Elliott looked up and grinned. “Hey now, we’re not deaf.”

“Well, stop the mushiness then, Romeo. You’re making me look bad
.
” Alex
r
eturn
ed
his grin.