Murder on the Ol' Bunions (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (6 page)

“Payton?
Naw
.
He loves himself too much. Maybe they’re
gonna
compare notes about Marion’s death.”

That made me rub
at my forehead. My brain was on overload with all the cooking and fretting and essaying I’d been doing. But Payton and Dana comparing
notes.
. .? Maybe I'd find out something more if I hauled Hardy over there to play the Steinway. “I’ll make sure to get you over there.”

I began to feel the exhaustion creeping up my body and released a tired sigh. I cast a glance over the food, then at the clock on the wall, feeling Hardy’s eyes on me.

I turned off the mixer and took out the pie, then busied myself with the dirty dishes. “Did you ask Mark those questions like I told you?”

“Nope.”

“What you mean, ‘nope?’ You want me to go to jail?”

“
Tisha
.”

There it was. That tone. Whenever Hardy calls me
Tisha
, I know he’s onto my game. I gripped the spatula tighter and scraped down the sides of the bowl.

“Why don’t you
come
sit yourself down while you frost this naked cake?”

I didn’t dare look at him. “You just want to lick the bowl.”

“No,” he said, his voice low. “I want to
knows
what’s got you cooking enough for our entire family when it
ain’t
but the two of us. You knew I’d come home stuffed with chicken.”

That made me bite
my lip and ponder an answer. “I came home to an empty house.” There. I said it.

“
You missing
our babies?”

That did it. The faucets started flowing, and I turned my head away. Hardy’s chair scraped along the floor,
then
I felt the warmth of his body behind me. His arms slipped around my waist—well, as far around as they could reach. He laid his head against my back and squeezed me tight as I started to drip tears onto the counter.

“They’re making their way, sugar,” he whispered. “It’s what you raised them to do.
Lela’ll
be home during spring break.”

“No.”

His head lifted. “What you
mean,
no?”

“When I got home,” I said, dabbing my eyes with a green-striped dishtowel, “
Lela’d
left a message. She’s struggling with math so she’s getting a tutor and working over the holiday.”

Hardy’s hand on my back massaged in little circles.
“It’s all right,
Tisha
. Some of them are still coming over. I’ll get them all to help me cook up a huge meal and we’ll deliver it straight to you there at jail.”

I should have known! I snatched that dishtowel off my shoulder and whipped it around into a tight, lethal twist as I rounded on Hardy. He flashed his insufferable grin and leaped away as I let go with the damp towel. He managed to dodge my first snap, but, lightning
quick
, I wound the towel again and finally landed a slap along on his wrist.

He howled.

“Serves you right tormenting me.”

He rubbed his arm and collapsed in the chair, laughing. The man needed to be taught a lesson.

“You went into that restaurant and stuffed yourself silly and didn’t even bother trying to help me find the culprit, and now you’re talking about me going to jail.” I nailed him with my eyes. “What you smiling at?”

“You didn’t let me finish. I didn’t have to ask any questions.
Valorie
came into the restaurant while I was biting into my first chicken leg.”

I lowered my brows at him in warning and picked up the frosting. “You best be telling me everything.” With that, I settled myself in the chair opposite and scraped up a big glob of the frosting to begin dressing the cake.

When Hardy didn’t continue, I raised my eyes to see him looking with longing at the frosting. A tinge of guilt at the blow I’d landed made me soften. Pushing to my feet, I got a big serving spoon out of the utensil drawer and scooped up a spoonful. His eyes lit up, reminding me of the days when the children would wait in line as I baked for a taste of my homemade caramel frosting.

“No more,” I told him as I handed over the spoon. “I’ve got to have enough to cover the cake with. Now talk.”

He took a good lick of the icing. “
Valorie
looked upset. Over what I don’t know, because she didn’t know about her momma yet. Tammy, that waitress you like so well, she and
Valorie
whispered, then Tammy disappeared. Mark came out.”

He gulped down another bite and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “I’ll take your cooking over Mark’s any day.”

Now how can I be sore for long with such sweet talk?

Ever since Mark Hamm opened his restaurant over two years ago, the man kept mostly to himself. When I worked at Out of Time, on the occasions when
Valorie
would drop in to see her mother, she would talk about Mark, and Marion would grow sullen. I rolled the situation around in my mind.

The spoon was almost clean of frosting and Hardy didn’t look too inclined to come up for air, so I prompted him. “What did Mark do?”

“He gave her a huge hug.”

“Was it a fatherly hug?
A boyfriend type of hug?”

One last lick and he plunked the spoon down.
“Boyfriend!”

“Those things happen all the time. She is eighteen,” I reminded him.

“It seemed just a friendly hug.” A definite twinkle lit his eyes. “You know, like I’d give Leslie Monroe.”

A young college friend
Shayna
had brought home years back.
A pretty gal.
“You keep talking like that and she’ll be spoon feeding you in intensive care. Now don’t get off subject, tell me what happened next.”

“Nothing.
Mark sat down across from her and they began talking so low I couldn’t hear a word they said.”

I smoothed the frosting into amber ripples, disappointed Hardy hadn’t learned more.

He held out his empty spoon. I raised my hand to smack the spoon away when a slow smile spread over his lips. I knew that smile.

“You’d better not mess with me, boy. What you hiding?” I leaned back in the chair and slid open the utensil drawer to fetch a clean spoon. The chair hit the floor with a thwack, and I scooped up more frosting and surrendered it to Hardy.

“Didn’t learn
nothing
else from Mark and
Valorie
.
But when Chief Conrad came into the restaurant.
He sat down and talked to
Valorie
for a good long while.
Must have been telling her the news.
She started really
crying
.”

“Well, of course. It’s not every day a girl finds out her momma’s been murdered.”

Hardy took another lick. “Yeah, but Mark went right over to her and gave her another one of them hugs. I’m thinking the chief was a little shocked by it, too.”

“What did he say?”

“Say?
Nothing.
He left.”

Chapter Six

Morning light assaulted my eyelids no matter which way I flopped in bed. Surrendering to the silent call, I sat up and stretched, renewed, reinvigorated and ready to go. Hardy snored on, proof he was living and breathing.
Aggravated at his ability to sleep so soundly, I jiggled the bed.
He twitched, smacked his lips together, and rolled over. I heaved a sigh and decided to let him sleep. At least until I finished my morning online college course, then I’d rouse his old bones with the smells of bacon and ham.

 
After Lela moved out, I had wasted no time converting her room into an office, maybe to erase the melancholy of her leaving. Now my computer and books graced the desk, and the walls soothed with a sage green, hiding Lela’s beloved periwinkle. But memories clung like wallpaper. The times, when, as a little girl,
Lela’d
pestered her brothers and sisters into playing hide-and-seek. And Lela, always thinking she had
them
outsmarted, would choose her favorite spot to hide.
In her closet.
No matter how many times we tried to explain to her she needed to use another place, Lela went back to the closet.

Such memories never failed to bring the burn to my throat. I even went so far as to open the closet door and imagine her bright, joyful brown eyes, staring up at me. She’d make a mad dash for home base, knowing all along she would be caught and tickled.

My, how things change.
I sucked in a deep breath and shut the closet door and its current mess of school material, printer paper, and books.

Switching on the computer and establishing a connection, I forced away the melancholy and began the process of typing and uploading my essay. For the first few minutes after I’d signed on, I chatted with my classmates, sentences popping up on the screen full-force until the professor entered the virtual classroom for our Wednesday morning class.

He reviewed information from the last class—aperture, weather conditions, shutter speed—and began a comparison of the differences between photographing a crime scene versus everyday picture taking. He ended by announcing the next assignment.

 
Pushing up from the cushy office chair, I returned to our room to shower and get ready for the day. Along the hallway, the pictures of my babies at various stages of their life weighted my every step. The entire time I showered and dressed, I wrestled with putting what could no longer be into its proper place. I had grandbabies to look forward to, and with seven children, I expected a busload. That thought alone served to lighten my steps.

Pulling the door to our room to within a crack, I headed downstairs, my stomach already rumbling at the thought of cinnamon toast.
Made my mouth water when I added bacon and ham, oatmeal, a side of grits, and a passel of eggs to the menu.
Cholesterol city.
But, I’m dying a happy woman.

Sure enough, the combined smells made it under the crack of our bedroom door because Hardy shuffled into the kitchen blinking and grinning, just as I placed a platter of eggs on the table.

“You come on and eat. These eggs won’t be good cold,” I gestured to the seat, my heart warmed by the sight of Hardy, tousled and toasty from bed. Made me wish I could crawl back in. All this walking and talking trying to prove my innocence wore me out.

Hardy settled himself and tugged the platter of scrambled eggs closer to his plate. I jerked back a chair and plopped down. He didn’t waste any time. “Lord, bless this food. Let it slide down real good and do what it needs to keep us going for
Your
glory. Amen.”

“Positively irreverent.”

He cocked his head at me. “Ear-what?”

“Never mind.”

He shoveled some of the eggs onto his plate. “I think I’m going to work on that garden this morning. It’s time to get the soil turned and start planting some tomatoes.”

I concentrated on cutting my ham into small bites and stabbed four chunks onto the fork. “You better put a rein on them plans. I’ve got more investigating to do and I need your help. Chief asked me if I knew anything about something white on the counter at Marion’s shop. It must be important, and I aim to find out what it was. You can be a second pair of ears for me.”

“But if I don’t get that garden planted, I won’t have any tomatoes.”

“
Mmm
-hmm.”
More than likely he was more worried that no tomatoes would translate into none of his favorite salsa come summertime. “It’s the first of
May,
you’ve got some time left.”

Hardy frowned so hard his eyebrows drew down at the edges. “It won’t take me long.”

“It won’t, because you’re
gonna
help me. You can worry about your plants tomorrow.”

He toyed with his eggs a bit before he popped a generous forkful into his mouth. He chewed quietly, swallowed, blew on his coffee, sipped, and chomped on a strip of bacon with his good front tooth and lots of gum-work.

I stirred my oatmeal and tried to conjure up a real good reason for denying him his tomato planting. His head bowed over his plate as his elbow bent and lifted, guiding the fork to his mouth. He sure loved my salsa, and I loved him loving my cooking.

I shoved away my half-eaten oatmeal and pointed at the dish in the center of the table. The lone piece of bacon sent my mouth to watering anew. “You eat that last piece so it won’t sit on my hips all day.”

Obediently, he reached for the slice and tore off a piece, chasing it with a bite of eggs. He raised soulful eyes at me.
Cocoa brown with flecks of gold and long lashes that every one of our babies inherited.
I can tell you, my heart melted into a puddle right then and there.

Something gave down deep inside. I tried to shore up my crumbling determination, but Hardy looked so disappointed. I heaved a breath and crossed my arms, trying hard to look stern, as if my heart wasn’t already mush. “All right, then, but you best hurry, I want to be out of here in an hour.”

He upended his coffee mug and slapped it back down on the table, tooth shining.
“You a good woman,
Tisha
.
A good woman.”