Finger Lickin' Dead (15 page)

“But she and Peggy Sue aren’t related. So Peaches might
not
be cute.” said Derrick.

Lulu sighed. “Right. But I’m sure it’ll be fine, sweetie.” Derrick fiddled with his phone a little.

“What did she sound like on the phone?” asked Lulu.

“Excited,” said Derrick in a quiet voice.

Which could either be because she’d never gone out on a date before or because she was just glad to get out of the house. Neither of which was a great thing.

“So you’re doing dinner and a movie?” asked Lulu. Derrick nodded. “Well, then, why not have supper here? At Aunt Pat’s? That way, if things aren’t going well with your date, the Graces, Big Ben, Buddy, Morty—we can all kind of join in and make it easier. We could make it sort of a group date. You’ll be on your own for the movie, but that part of the evening isn’t so bad—you’ll be watching a movie and won’t have to make conversation. What do you think?” She smiled at him.

Derrick stood up and gave her an unexpected quick hug. “Thanks, Granny Lulu. I’ll text her and let her know.”

 

 

Lulu had just finished cleaning up the dining room and helping get the evening’s blues band packed up and gone. Ben was bleaching the counters when Lulu got a call on her cell phone.

“Oh, good,” said Evelyn. “You’re still there. Could you drop by my house for a glass of wine on your way home? I feel like I got run over by a Mack truck today—and then he backed up and ran over me again just to make sure I was dead.”

Evelyn knew well and good that her house was
not
on the way home to Lulu’s—which just proved to Lulu how badly Evelyn needed somebody to talk to.

“Of course, sweetie! Be there in a jiff.”

Evelyn was already in a fluffy pink robe over silk pajamas when Lulu got there. She led the way into her massive living room, where a bottle of wine and two glasses sat on an antique mahogany table. “I really appreciate your coming by today, Lulu. Today has been an epic disaster from start to finish and you’ve been a sweet friend to share it with me: going to that awful funeral; coming by here after you’ve had a long afternoon on your feet at the restaurant.” She shook her head. “What a great friend you are. And believe me—Tommie appreciates it. I was going to force her to stay here and talk to me after she was supposed to go home if I didn’t have someone to cry to.”

“Well, of course I was coming by! I’d like to see somebody stop me. What on earth happened this afternoon?”

But Lulu had an inkling of what it might be, so she wasn’t totally surprised when Evelyn said, “The police questioned me all afternoon. And they were there at Adam’s funeral, too—did you see them? They think I killed Adam.”

“Evelyn, I think it’s pretty standard for some member of the police department to attend the funeral of a murdered person when they’re in the middle of the investigation. Besides, they could have been there looking at Holden, Ginger, Oliver, Big Jack—or even Ben. You don’t know that they’re wanting to pin the murder on
you
.”

The wine chugged as it splashed into the wineglasses under Evelyn’s heavy hand. “I don’t know it, no. But they sure wanted me to believe it this afternoon. I tell you, Lulu, they really made me feel like I was in a pickle.

“They said, ‘So, Mrs. Wade, you were actually
in
the deceased’s condominium, wrecking it and recording a malicious phone message around the time that he was murdered. Is that correct?’ And I said, ‘Well, yes. But y’all have to credit me with more intelligence than that. If I’d murdered him, then I sure wouldn’t have wanted to point the investigators’ attention in my direction.’”

“What did they say to that?” asked Lulu, thinking that Evelyn had made a pretty good point.

“Unfortunately, they started in on the physical evidence they’d found that I’d been at the scene of the crime. Remember how I mentioned that I’d gone down near the river and seen Adam’s body? That didn’t seem to play too well with the police. I mean, they clearly knew that I’d been down there—they found some sort of evidence that tied me to the scene.”

Evelyn took a good gulp of the wine, tilting her head back and letting it slide down her throat. “They wanted to know why, if I’d just
discovered
his body and not murdered him, I hadn’t called the police.”

Lulu had wondered the same thing but figured the shock of finding Adam’s body had triggered a flight instinct in Evelyn, who’d always been a little skittish about sticking around. As her high number of ex-husbands could attest to.

“So I told them that of
course
I didn’t want to report finding his body. Good Lord! For this very reason, right? I’d just trashed the man’s condominium and was clearly furious with him. Why
would
I want to call the police and say, ‘Oh, hello. I found the body of this man I loved—and hated. Just wanted to let you know’?”

Lulu said, “Evelyn, I’m positive the police are just trying to figure out if you know anything that’s going to help them out. And hard questioning is just the way they go about it.”

Evelyn hiccupped. “I won’t like prison, Lulu. They have bad food there. And Day-Glo orange jumpsuits. I’ve gotten used to my massages and mani-pedis. What’ll I do?” She took another soothing sip of the chardonnay. “I want to ask you a tremendous favor, Lulu. I’d like you to check into this crime for me.”

“Me?” The word came out in a nervous laugh. “Evelyn, what on earth do you mean? I’m a barbeque restaurant owner, not a private investigator.”

Evelyn said solemnly, “You’re better than a private eye. You’re a friend. And you
know
all the people involved in the case. Plus—you care about me. And then there’s the fact that you’ve already solved one murder mystery. Barbeque queen or not—you’re a natural.”

Lulu looked doubtful.

“Besides,” said Evelyn with a disdainful look, “I never want to deal with private investigators again in my life. I’ve had enough of them during my divorces. I always feel like I’m the one doing something shady.”

Lulu said, “Honey, I’ll do what I can. I’m not exactly sure what I can find out, but I’ll give it a go.”

Evelyn continued her glum thoughts. “Because you won’t have as much fun during our visits if it’s on visiting day at the big house. You’ll have to share the visiting room with all kinds of riffraff. And we’ll have to talk through one of those germy telephones through a bulletproof panel. And they don’t serve chardonnay as refreshments.”

Lulu thought for a minute. It was clear that nothing she told Evelyn would do any good. Maybe she was helping her out by just listening to her worry, but she’d rather be helping her feel
better
. She snapped her fingers. “I know! We’ll call Pink up.”

Evelyn looked at Lulu morosely. “Pink is one of
them
, Lulu. He’s not going to do anything to help me out. It’s likely he’ll come over here and drag me off to jail.”

But Lulu was already dialing his number. “I’m ashamed of you, Evelyn Wade! You know Pink is a loyal friend of ours. How many times has he helped us out or given us some information we needed to know?”

Evelyn said, “All right! You’re right, Lulu. I’ll hear him out. Maybe he can convince me that prison isn’t such a rotten place after all.”

 

 

Pink had pulled in a long shift and was sound asleep when Lulu called. Still, he got up, pulled on some sweats and a baseball cap, and drove over to Evelyn’s house. He looked at the emptying bottle of chardonnay and the hiccupping Evelyn with some trepidation.

“Now y’all know I can’t do a lot of talking about this case. Hell, it’s not even my case! But I can tell you one thing.” Pink held his hand out in a traffic cop gesture. “These are the early days of the investigation, okay? We’ve got to spend some time talking to everybody who
might
have done it.”

Evelyn moaned and Pink lifted his hand again. “I said
might
have something to do with it, Evey.”

“So Evelyn
isn’t
on her way to 201 Poplar, then?” asked Lulu, giving the well-known address for the Memphis jail. “She was getting kind of worried because of the way she’d been questioned at the station.”

“Believe me, y’all, as far as I’m aware, there are no plans to put our lovely Evelyn behind bars.”

Lulu sat back on Evelyn’s damask sofa and released the breath she’d been holding. “Well, now,
isn’t
that a relief! That’s a relief,
isn’t
it, Evelyn?”

Evelyn reached out to a box of tissues that she’d been carrying around with her. She nodded wordlessly, clutching a tissue to her nose.

“There was one thing I was curious to know, though,” said Pink, looking at Evelyn intently. “Where were you this afternoon?”

Evelyn made a shooing motion with her hand. “You know where I was, Pink. I was hanging out with your buddies at the police station.”

“No, I mean earlier in the afternoon.”

Evelyn tossed the tissue at the wastebasket next to her antique secretary. “I was at Adam’s funeral—it ended in the early afternoon. Then I left the funeral with Ginger.”

Pink’s gaze sharpened. “You left the funeral with Ginger Cawthorn?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Ginger Cawthorn was found dead this evening. She was murdered.”

Evelyn turned a pasty white.

Lulu stood up and said, “I think this story can wait a minute, y’all. Let’s head into the kitchen. Evelyn, have you even eaten tonight?” Evelyn shook her head. “I’m not sure how Tommie let you get away with that. First things first. Let’s get some food and maybe a glass of milk into Evelyn because she’s not looking so well.”

Although Lulu adored Aunt Pat’s kitchen where every pot and pan held a memory, Evelyn’s kitchen still gave Lulu a little pang of envy every time she walked in it. The granite countertops and luscious wood cabinets were gorgeous, but what really attracted Lulu was that the kitchen was better equipped than any she’d ever seen, including Aunt Pat’s. While Pink and Evelyn sat down at the tableclothed kitchen table encircled by armchair-style chairs, Lulu opened the stainless steel fridge to find something that would stick to Evelyn’s ribs.

The perfect fixings for a ham and mushroom omelet were right in front of her. There was even fresh apple wood–smoked bacon to fry and organic milk. Lulu got to work and was soon sliding plates with light, fluffy omelets in front of Pink and Evelyn. Pink took some healthy-sized bites right away while Evelyn toyed at the edges with her fork. After a moment, though, she seemed to realize how hungry she was and tucked into the food.

The food, the milk, the kitchen itself had a lulling effect on the three of them. Pink looked to be drowsing back off to sleep. After Lulu had taken her last bite and made sure that Evelyn had eaten most of her plate, Lulu said, “Now, Pink. Can you tell us a little about Ginger? What happened out there today?”

Pink shrugged. “I’m not sure, Lulu. All I know is that Ginger was discovered by a driver who was walking back to his car in the parking deck. He looked over and noticed she was clearly dead.”

Lulu frowned. “What time was she supposed to have been killed?”

“As far as they can tell, it looks like early to mid afternoon.”

Evelyn brushed a strand of her chestnut-colored hair from her eyes. “This is all simply unbelievable. I was there with her at the funeral today. Then we went to lunch together. She was just as alive as anybody!” she said defensively.

Pink sighed. “Well, honey, of
course
she was! She
was
alive then. I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “I know she was your friend.”

Evelyn hesitated. “I don’t know if ‘friend’ is exactly the right word. We were
trying
to become friends. But we had different ways of looking at things.”

“Like what?” asked Pink.

Evelyn looked at Lulu for help, and Lulu said, “Like the way Evelyn thought Adam was scum and the way Ginger was trying to keep his memory alive and find his killer. And the fact that she told
everybody
at the funeral that she had some information about the murder and would find out who did it is probably what got her killed to begin with.”

“That could be,” said Pink, mulling it over. “I did want to hear some more about the lunch that Evelyn and Ginger had, though. Could you tell me a little about it?”

Evelyn sat very still and looked very small in her fluffy robe. “Well . . . we went to Dyer’s. And we had burgers, both of us. I had some chili cheese fries. I got a little chili and cheese on my dress, actually.”

Lulu made clucking noises and said, “You can probably get it out if you spray it and wash it with a little Biz. You wouldn’t believe some of the stains you can get out.”

Pink moved restlessly. “That does sound like a right nice lunch, Evelyn. But I was thinking more about what might have happened
during
your lunch. Or what might have been said.”

Evelyn sat silently.

“Because somebody did come forward, Evelyn, and described a woman who matches your description, having an argument with Ginger outside Dyer’s.”

“How could they be sure it was me?” said Evelyn. She didn’t sound exactly sullen, thought Lulu, but she sure didn’t seem excited about offering up any information.

“Well, they didn’t
exactly
know who you were, but the description was a woman with reddish hair, huge Chanel sunglasses, and a designer outfit. I’m thinking you fit that profile pretty well. And you just told me you went to Dyer’s with Ginger.”

Now Evelyn frowned crossly. “All right. Yes, we had an argument. It started inside the restaurant. Ginger was just being so
foolish
. She seemed to think that we needed to build some kind of shrine to Adam instead of closing that chapter on our lives. I told her she needed to move on—to get a life. I was trying to be
nice
. I wanted to try to find her somebody else to go out with . . . a good man. Someone who wouldn’t cheat on her with lots of other women. She was just being so headstrong.”