Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) (17 page)

“What happened during your talk with Reuben?” asked Lulu.

“It was more than a talk,” said Tim ruefully. “He pulled me off to the side so we could argue in private. He told me that if I went to the police, he would tell them that
I
had been the one driving his car home that night.
That I’d thought he had too much to drink and took his car keys and drove us back in his car. That
I’d
been the one to run over that guy.”

Lulu sighed. “And it would be your word against his, of course.”

“That’s right. I even talked to a guy I knew who was a lawyer. He said that I probably wouldn’t even get charged with anything as a passenger—maybe I might get charged as an accessory or an accomplice…that had happened in other states before. But as the driver—we’re talking about serious jail time.”

“Obviously, that was the last time you saw Reuben,” said Lulu.

“That’s right,” said Tim quietly. “And I know now the police will think I had a motive for killing him. But I didn’t. All I want to do is to own up to my role in that night and maybe even make some kind of reparations to the victim’s family. Maybe even do volunteer work to pay back the community in general. I want a clean slate. I think that’s why I dodged out of Aunt Pat’s earlier today, Mrs. Taylor—I hated to think that I might lose the regular job that I’d finally gotten. I know you’d somehow gotten wind of my involvement with Reuben.”

“Where were you when Reuben was murdered?” asked Lulu.

“According to what I read on the computer from the news stories, I would have still been at the festival,” said Tim in a quiet voice. “But why would I have killed him?”
he asked Lulu, as if trying to see what motive someone might come up with. “I was trying to turn my whole life around.”

“Could it be that maybe Reuben got real aggressive with you? He’d already picked a fight at the festival and was extremely belligerent when I saw him. If you murdered him, it could have been self-defense,” suggested Lulu.

Tim shook his head. “No. Much as I’ve wished that Reuben Shaw was never part of my life, I’d never be able to kill him. Not even in self-defense.”

But he looked away from Lulu when he said it. Because he knew that he wouldn’t be very trustworthy after what had happened the night of the hit-and-run? Or because he’d murdered Reuben and was lying about it?

“You didn’t see or hear anything at the festival that night that could help us figure out who killed Reuben?” asked Lulu.

“Only one thing,” said Tim. “I did see Reuben’s old friend Brody there. I recognized him from all the pictures of Reuben and Brody hunting and fishing together.”

“What was Brody doing when you saw him?”

“He was carrying a tarp and acting sneaky. Glancing around him to make sure no one was watching,” said Tim. “And that’s all that I saw at the festival.”

“Did you hear the most recent news about the case?” asked Lulu.

Tim was anxious again. “No, I haven’t had a chance
to get a newspaper or read the news on a computer yet. What’s happened now?”

“John, who was an unhappy customer of Reuben’s, has been murdered, too. It happened last night,” said Lulu.

Tim’s expression was bewildered. “What’s going on? Why would somebody kill one of Reuben’s customers?”

“We don’t really know—but we’re guessing that John knew something. He was hanging around our booths at the festival and might have seen or overheard something,” said Lulu.

Tim shook his head. “Seems crazy to me. I didn’t know this John—and I was at Aunt Pat’s for a long shift last night. You can check in with the staff and see. I worked there until after we closed so that I could help clean up.”

He searched Lulu’s face, trying to see if she believed him. Lulu reached over and patted Tim’s hand. “Thanks for all your help at the restaurant. You’ve done a great job. Don’t worry about leaving before your shift ended tonight—I understand what you must have gone through lately.”

Tim’s face was relieved. “I’ll stay past my shift tomorrow. And, Mrs. Taylor? Thank you.”

The next afternoon, Sharon came by Aunt Pat’s. “Is it too late for me to get lunch?” she asked with a smile.

Minutes later, Sharon was tucking into a big plate of ribs, baked beans, and coleslaw. Lulu figured Sharon still needed a distraction, considering how upset she’d been the day before. So she talked to her about the restaurant. Lulu pointed out some of the old photos on the wall—family pictures that meant the most to her, as well as signed pictures of some of the famous diners who’d visited Aunt Pat’s. She talked about how both she and her son, Ben, had grown up at the restaurant.

The stories seemed to both relax and interest Sharon, and she ate and asked a few questions, nodding from
time to time. The quiet ended abruptly, though, with the appearance of Cherry. Her wildly colored red, orange, and gold dress reminded Lulu of a torrent of fall leaves.

“Aunt Pat’s is the best place to hang out, isn’t it?” she crowed. Cherry gave Lulu and Sharon one-armed hugs. “How’s it going, Sharon?” asked Cherry more soberly. “Are things looking up at all?”

“I guess they haven’t gotten any worse anyway,” said Sharon dryly. “Considering I haven’t discovered any more murder victims. And Reuben surprisingly had a decent lawyer—left over from his business days, I’m thinking. So he’s been more of a pleasure to deal with than I’d have thought.”

“I did have one thing to ask you about, Sharon,” said Lulu. “Sometimes we have these little mysteries that pop up that need figuring out.”

Sharon was already shifting uncomfortably as if she somehow knew what was coming.

“Someone spotted Brody at the festival before Reuben was murdered. He said that he saw Brody holding a tarp and glancing around him like he didn’t want anybody seeing him,” said Lulu.

Sharon turned bright red. “Ohhh. That. Yes.” She took a sip of her tea, then took another long sip and cleared her throat. “Brody took your tarp,” she finally said with a sigh, not able to meet Cherry’s eyes.

Cherry’s eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped open. Lulu waited for Sharon to continue.

“I didn’t want to say anything because I was embarrassed about it. I couldn’t believe we were stooping so low for a dumb contest. You remember—it was starting to really rain a lot. And even though we’d put a lot of time into planning that booth and putting it up, we were short on tarps,” said Sharon.

“And rain was probably starting blowing into your booth and getting your food wet,” said Lulu, nodding.

“It was. Reuben had really been on us that day, too, trying to get Brody and me to feel all super competitive. Some of the time, we were rolling our eyes at each other, but some of the time it was sinking in, too,” said Sharon.

“You were getting brainwashed,” offered Cherry helpfully, now that she’d gotten over the fact that her new friend had helped steal something from her.

“We were, I guess. Brody had noticed that y’all had an extra tarp. Or two,” said Sharon.

“We were set with the tarps,” said Cherry, nodding complacently. “We might have had other problems…our booth might not have been as fancy as others and our ribs might not have been award-winning. But boy, we had tarps! It sure does rain in the spring here in Memphis.”

“Maybe that was part of the problem,” said Lulu. “Y’all didn’t know how hard it rains here during the festival because you haven’t lived in Memphis long.”

Sharon gave them a grateful look, and hazarded a hesitant smile. “Thanks, Lulu. Or maybe we were being plumb stupid in lots of different ways. Stupid not to have
thought of bringing more tarps. Stupid to have stolen y’all’s when you’d been so careful to be prepared.”

Lulu nodded and rocked in her rocker. “It happens to everybody sometimes.”

“Anyway, the rain was pouring. Reuben had whipped us all up into a competitive frenzy and we weren’t acting like we normally do. Our stuff was getting wet and Reuben would be back at the booth soon and he’d start yelling at us for not bringing enough tarps. All we needed was another argument that day,” said Sharon with a rueful purse of her lips.

“He’d have jumped all over y’all’s case that day,” said Cherry, remembering. “He was definitely in the mood for a fight.”

“When Brody was getting the tarp, he did notice something. He recognized Reuben’s ex-wife, Dawn, leaving that narrow space between our two booths. She was hurrying away, and the rain was sheeting down, but he says he’s sure it was her. She must have been spying on one of our booths—and we figured it probably wasn’t the Graces’ tent,” said Sharon.

“Wonder what she was trying to find out?” asked Lulu, frowning over the new information.

“Well, either she was trying to find a good time to put some pressure on Reuben for child support or she was looking for the right time to kill him,” said Sharon with a shrug. “I can’t think of another reason why she’d have been there. Brody ended up telling the police about the
tarp and about seeing Dawn. As you can imagine, his prints were all over that tarp. It wasn’t like he ever thought that the police were going to fingerprint the thing—he thought he was simply swiping an extra tent that he’d put back later for y’all, when we were all packing up.”

Cherry nodded. “So you think Dawn wanted to find an opportunity to squeeze more money out of Reuben?”

Sharon said, “Maybe. If you think about it, when else was she going to be able to see him? He wasn’t doing his visits with Finn like he was supposed to. If she was going to try to put pressure on him at all, this was a good time to do it. The divorce changed her and made her really bitter. It sounded like she was real short on cash, too, and might have been trying to do anything to get Reuben to pay his child support and help her out.”

“Except that maybe he didn’t have a whole bunch of money left at the time,” said Cherry. “Considering he hadn’t been working steady and that he was drinking up most of what was in the bank.”

“And his uncle hadn’t passed away yet,” said Lulu.

“Exactly. She wouldn’t have really known how much money he had at the time—but she knew she wasn’t getting any of it. We’d kind of followed what was going on by the way Reuben was complaining about her trying to get money out of him. Brody and I could tell that he wasn’t treating her right. He acted like he resented giving her any money, at all. He was scornful about it all
and said that Dawn was having health problems and expected him to help her out with Finn. Sneering about it,” said Sharon.

“So will y’all forgive me for my involvement in the tarp episode?” asked Sharon, flushing again. “I’ve felt real bad about it since it happened. Especially after you’ve both been so nice to me.”

“Don’t think a thing of it,” said Cherry. “That tarp didn’t make a difference in the world to the Graces—we’d brought extra. Evelyn wanted to make extra sure that she didn’t end up getting wet.”

“Thanks,” said Sharon, smiling at both of them. “And now that I’ve had a delicious lunch and relieved my conscience, I’d better head on out. I’m supposed to be meeting Brody at Reuben’s lawyer’s office.”

After she left, Lulu sighed and said to Cherry. “Have you noticed that as we dig for information, no one ends up looking good?”

“I thought it was kind of mean of them to take our tarp, but it’s all water under the bridge at this point,” said Cherry with a shrug. “Although I wish Brody had just asked us. I’d have given it to him, even though his teammate was being a jerk.”

“Sharon probably wasn’t real happy with him at the time,” said Lulu. “Reuben was a bad influence on a whole lot of people. I don’t get the impression that John was that bad of a guy until Reuben got him all fired up about his house.”

“Camping out in your own home would make you crazy after a while, for sure,” said Cherry. “Can you imagine not having electricity or working plumbing? For a long time?”

“And Tim was a great guy,” said Lulu thoughtfully, “Then Reuben messed him up.” She glanced behind her real quick to make sure that he wasn’t coming up behind her from the dining room.

“What’s that?” asked Cherry, frowning.

“Let me fill you in on what happened after I went home last night,” said Lulu.

After she’d told the story, Cherry gave a low whistle. “So Reuben even got his claws into Tim and screwed up his life, too. That’s a champion bad influencer, for sure.”

“Don’t forget about Dawn, either,” said Lulu. “From what I hear, she was a normal, fun-loving person who liked going out to dinner with the lady she worked with and was a good wife to Reuben and a good mother to Finn.”

“And the next thing you know, she’s all bitter and hiding outside booths trying to find the perfect moment to put pressure on Reuben,” said Cherry. “Or murder him.”

“Desperation is a funny thing,” said Lulu. “And I’m pretty sure Dawn was a desperate woman.”

Right then, there was noisy shuffling around on the steps leading up to the porch, so Lulu and Cherry shushed up. It was Dawn. She acted like her usual self, though—not overly friendly, but her normal somewhat
grouchy self. But the way she didn’t exactly meet Lulu’s gaze made her wonder if maybe she hadn’t overheard some of their conversation.

“I figured you’d probably be here,” she said to Lulu. “I know how the restaurant business is—my dad used to be in it when I was a kid. He was always there.”