Finger Lickin' Dead (6 page)

It seemed like just seconds later, but it was more like forty-five minutes, when the screen door’s banging slam woke Lulu up with a start. The school bus had dropped off her granddaughters, Ella Beth and Coco, at the end of the street. Every day, Ben and Sarah’s girls spent their afternoons at the restaurant—doing homework, replenishing the paper towel rolls on the tables, and generally being good stewards of the Aunt Pat’s legacy.

Nine-year-old ponytailed Ella Beth was the perpetrator of the slamming screen door, but it was practically impossible to upset Lulu. Ella Beth threw her arms around Lulu and Lulu gave her a sleepy hug back. “I am
so
glad to be at Aunt Pat’s and away from school!”

Lulu pulled back and studied her face. “Did something bad happen at school today?”

Ella Beth’s twin, Coco, walked onto the porch more sedately. Coco, whose
real
name was Cordelia, as she liked reminding everyone, was nine going on twenty-one. She leaned over to pat B.B., who gave her a sloppy Labrador kiss that made her squeal. Wiping it off with her sleeve, she said, “Nothing happened at school. Nothing
ever
happens at school. But we had a bunch of pop quizzes today and Ella Beth didn’t know her facts about the water cycle. So it wasn’t that great of a day for her.”

Ella Beth made a face at Coco and said, “Sassy!”

Lulu winked at Ella Beth. “We all have days like that, don’t we? Ella Beth, I can go over your notes on the water cycle with you later so you’ll ace the next test.”

Ella Beth gave her another quick hug. “Sounds good, Granny Lulu. But can I go out and play first? Sitting still all day gave me the fidgets.”

“Where are you going—down to the river?” The Mississippi River was just a few blocks away and was Ella Beth’s favorite place to go. She’d take a fishing pole some days, some chalk for drawing on others. There were always people to watch, too. Ella Beth loved writing notes in her detective notebook about the people she saw by the river. Lulu figured that Ella Beth was either going to turn into a police officer or a writer.

“No snack?” asked Lulu in mock horror. “I made cheese straws.”

Coco gave a delighted gasp. “The spicy ones?”

“The spicy ones. With jalapeno pepper mixed in. Just the way y’all like it.”

The routine was a snack on the porch, a talk about their day, and then some homework before it was time for chores around the restaurant.

Ella Beth shook her head, already running outside, screened porch door giving another resounding bang. She turned around on the stairs, “Will you come with me, Granny Lulu? To the river?”

Coco said, “But can I have a snack, Granny Lulu? We had lunch hours and hours ago.”

Lulu hesitated. The girls’ mom, Sara, who waited tables at Aunt Pat’s, had gone back home for a short break before the evening rush. “Sure, sweetie. Let me just fix Coco a little snack first, okay? Then I’ll be right over there.”

Lulu took the cheese straws out of the tin she’d stored them in. She put a generous amount on a plate, poured a tall glass of milk, and brought them out to the porch for Coco. “How did everything else go at school today, sweetie?” she asked.

Coco shrugged. “It was okay. Just school stuff. John Rotola got in trouble again for not paying attention in class. Pretty normal.”

“And the bus ride home was fine?”

“It was okay.”

Lulu was beginning to think that everything was okay with Coco. She was about to walk out the door when Coco actually casually volunteered some information. “I saw Daddy arguing with some man while we were on the bus
going
to school this morning, though.”

Lulu stopped and turned half around. “What’s that, Coco?”

“Daddy. He was yelling at some man and waving his arms around. It was embarrassing. A kid on the bus was like, ‘Isn’t that your dad?’”

Coco gave a melodramatic shudder and took another bite of her cheese straws. They were rapidly disappearing along with the creamy milk.

“This man—do you know who he was?”

Coco looked thoughtful. “I don’t know his name or anything. He’s been in the restaurant before, though. You were talking to him.”

Adam? Lulu wondered. And if Ben had been arguing with him, she could just imagine what it was about. She knew that Sara had filled Ben in about Eppie Currian’s true identity.

Lulu suddenly felt uneasy for some inexplicable reason. “I’m going to go ahead and catch up with Ella Beth, Coco.”

Coco tilted her glass back and finished the last bit of her milk. “I’m all done with my snack, so I’ll come, too, Granny Lulu. I want to take my Frisbee with me. Ella Beth and I have gotten really good at throwing it—I wanted to show you.”

The two took a left off Beale Street and went down the sidewalk to the Mississippi River. Coco had opened up a little bit more and was now prattling on about her day at school and who she’d sat with at lunch and played with at recess. Lulu tried to focus on Coco, but she kept thinking about Ben. Why didn’t he say anything about his argument with Adam when she’d been talking to him in the kitchen? She knew Ben had been furious about the bad review Aunt Pat’s had gotten in the newspaper. She guessed that fury all came back to him when he found out the restaurant critic’s real identity.

Coco stopped suddenly as they walked and grabbed Lulu’s arm. Her face was pale and pinched looking. “Something’s wrong with Ella Beth.” A frisson of fear went up Lulu’s spine at Coco’s tone. She’d never discount that twin connection between Ella Beth and her sister. They both ran toward the river.

The street dead-ended at the water. Ella Beth walked stiffly toward them, face white enough for her freckles to stand out in sharp relief. “Ella Beth! Ella Beth, what’s wrong, sweetie?” Lulu pulled Ella Beth into her arms, rubbing her back as if to warm her up. Despite the heat, the little girl was shaking. Lulu looked over Ella Beth’s head and froze as she saw Coco had gone down the hill near the river. “Coco!”

Coco spun back around quickly and stumbled back up the hill. “It’s
him
,” she gasped. “It’s
him
, Granny Lulu!”

“Him?”

“The man. The man I saw. The man Daddy was yelling at this morning. He’s dead.”

Lulu staggered over to a nearby park bench, legs seemingly not eager to respond, still clutching Ella Beth, and now Coco, fiercely. Lulu’s mind was whirling and, oddly, the first fully formed thought she had was fury at the damned man for dying somewhere where children could come across his body.

She fumbled in her skirt pocket for her cell phone, fingers jabbing at the buttons. “Ben. Get Stanley to cover for you in the kitchen if you have any orders up and come down to the river. The girls are down here and we’ve . . . run into a problem. Hurry.”

Lulu put down the phone and pulled her grandchildren close to her in a tight hug. “It’s okay,” she crooned and rocked as she waited for Ben to get there.

She had no faith in her ability to pull both girls back up the hill leading to the restaurant. No matter—Ben was already there. He must have run the whole way down, despite those extra twenty-five pounds he was always talking about shedding.

Ben’s shaggy eyebrows were drawn together ferociously. “What the hell is going on?” he panted, drawing up close and looking the girls over quickly. “Are they sick?”

Lulu nodded her head in the direction of the river. “Over there. See for yourself,” she said in a murmur.

Ben walked down the small hill, through the trees, to the Mississippi—until he stopped with a jerk and hurried back up the hill, looking grim.

“Come on, girls. I’ve called Mama and she’s on her way back to Aunt Pat’s. Y’all got your Frisbees?” He turned to look at Lulu as he walked away. “You’ve got a phone call to make, too, right?”

Lulu nodded. “I’m going to call Pink Rogers. I’ve got his number in my cell phone.”

“You’re not going to just call 911?”

“Pink will take care of it,” said Lulu evenly. Pink was a police officer who’d been a regular at the restaurant for the past ten years. He was a fit and trim two hundred and fifty pound, six feet seven inch man—and she would feel a lot better knowing he was there with her. Plus, somebody was probably going to have to ask Ella Beth some questions about finding the body and she wanted Pink to be around.

“Call him now, will you? And come on . . . you need to come up, too. I’m not leaving you down here with—that—by yourself.” He didn’t voice his thoughts that the murderer could still be lurking nearby, but Lulu was able to pick up the message.

She trailed behind Ben, calling the policeman. “Pink? It’s Lulu. I need your help.”

 

 

In no time, the Memphis police department had cordoned off the area where Ella Beth had discovered Adam’s body. There was a forensics team there, walking around in what looked like spacesuits while they gathered bits of evidence.

Sara had stayed at Aunt Pat’s with the girls, letting them zone out on television in the restaurant’s office. Lulu and Ben stood outside the taped-off crime scene with Pink, who was off duty and able to get right over there. Off duty, Pink wore the pastel button-down shirts he loved and which had given him his nickname.

Pink spoke with some police buddies at the crime scene and then walked back to Lulu and Ben. “It’s Adam Cawthorn. Y’all knew him, right?”

Lulu and Ben nodded, keeping silent.

“And Adam didn’t just drop dead over there by the river. He was shot.”

“I’m thinking,” Ben said, “that he hasn’t been over there long. That this must have happened pretty recently.”

Lulu looked sharply at Ben. He knew Adam hadn’t been dead long. Ben had had an argument with him that very morning, when he’d still been very much alive.

Pink said, “It sure looked like a recent crime scene to me. I just hate that little Ella Beth had to come across it. I hope it doesn’t scare her off police work for good. I know how much she loves playing detective and I kind of had a hope she might go into the force when she grows up.”

They quietly thought about Ella Beth for a minute. “What . . . what was that all over him?” asked Ben.

Pink shook his head. “That was weird, wasn’t it? It looked like a bunch of baked beans to me.”

Lulu frowned. “Like he’d thrown up his lunch?”

“No. More like he’d spilled beans all over himself or something. Kind of odd for that guy—I never pictured him as the clumsy type. And he didn’t seem much like the baked bean–eating type, either, come to think of it.”

None of it added up to Lulu, either. Why wasn’t Ben saying anything about having seen Adam that morning? Why was Adam covered in beans? What in the dickens was going on?

 

 

The Memphis police did an excellent and sensitive job gently questioning Ella Beth. Lulu wasn’t surprised, of course, when they discovered that Ella Beth knew nothing at all that could help them out. She’d been playing with her chalk, drawing pictures on the pavement where the road ended. Then she’d gone down the hill to the river to throw some sticks in and see how fast the current was going. That’s when she’d seen Adam. Lulu felt a pang when Ella Beth sadly said she’d thought at first it was a grown-up taking a nap—but she’d thought it was a weird place to sleep. Ella Beth had crept closer to the body and seen who it was and that he was dead. She didn’t see anyone else around her until Coco and Granny Lulu had come running up to her.

Ben’s wife, Sara, had silently sat, nervously twisting strands of her strawberry blond hair around a finger and listening to Ella Beth talking to the police. From time to time she leaned forward in her chair in the restaurant’s office to listen closer to Ella Beth’s small voice. She and Lulu shared winces a couple of times.

The interview seemed like it was wrapping up. Sara murmured to Lulu, “I think it’s time for me to take the girls home. Can I give you a call later when it’s all settled down a little?”

She stood up, her bigger frame looking solid enough to handle any trouble that came its way. Sara pulled Ella Beth into a strong embrace. “You ready to go home, pumpkin?”

Ella Beth nodded, rubbing her eyes. The little girl seemed exhausted, although it was only five o’clock. Sara rubbed her on the back. “Wait for me out on the porch with Coco and the Labs, okay?”

“I’ve called Tina in to work tonight, so don’t worry a bit about coming back to wait tables—we’ve got plenty of help. Tina needed the extra hours anyway. I was going to just let Stanley cook for Ben tonight, but Ben is already in the kitchen cooking away.” Lulu lifted a shoulder in a confused shrug.

“I think cooking is therapy for Ben, Lulu. He can put his troubles behind him in that kitchen and forget everything but the food.
Please
don’t send him home, okay? He’ll drive me crazy there and won’t have anything to do but pace around.”

“Ben can cook to his heart’s content, Sara, until we shut down for the night. Then
he’s
probably going to shut down for the night. He’s got to be worn slap out. I know I am.”

After Sara left with the girls, Lulu walked around the dining room for a while, chatting with customers. But her heart really wasn’t in it. When the band set up on the screened porch, she set herself up in a small corner to let the blues music drift over her for a few minutes. The singer’s low, crooning voice was a comfort to her. There was nothing like hearing the blues to feel your own cares melt away.

Having friends around you helped, too. As her old friends and regulars, Big Ben, Buddy, and Morty, came through the porch door, she stood up to give them a big hug. “Let’s go inside so we can talk,” she said, motioning to the dining room. The music, beautiful as it was, was too loud to talk over.

The friends settled into a large corner booth. “I believe I’m going to
have
to order up a beer tonight,” said Morty. “It’s absolutely necessary after the day I’ve had.”