Finger Lickin' Dead (16 page)

And Lulu knew that Evelyn wasn’t somebody easily crossed. If she wanted to help you, you by golly let yourself be helped. And you thanked her for it.

“So her being headstrong made you mad,” said Pink.

“Shoot yeah, it made me mad!” said Evelyn. “She was going to hold on to the memory of someone who wasn’t worth the time. Her mindset made me furious.” She was gritting her teeth even now. “But not mad enough to shoot her.”

Pink raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t tell you she’d been shot. How’d you know that little tidbit?”

Evelyn waved her ringed hand around. “Because Adam was shot! How else?” She didn’t look Pink in the eye.

Lulu said, “This all happened at a deck off Beale Street? Wouldn’t somebody have heard the shot? That’s during the lunch crowd—the whole world would be outside that time of day.”

Pink shrugged. “If you think about it, Lulu, Beale Street is a pretty noisy place. You’ve got blues bands playing. Hawkers are standing outside, hollering at people to come in and try the restaurant’s daily special. There’s even that construction going on one street over and it’s almost impossible to hear over a pneumatic drill. And if you’re in a restaurant, they’re all full of people running their mouths, and plates and glasses clinking. It’s not like it was an explosion or something. Same with the shot that took Adam out—it’s just not something that called attention to itself.”

“What I’m not sure about,” said Lulu, “is why someone would want to kill Ginger. I completely understood how Adam might end up dead—he had this talent for pushing people out of their jobs or making them furious at him. The only thing I can think as a motive to murder Ginger is that she was telling everyone at the funeral that she had a lead to the killer.”

Pink said, “Well, right now it’s all speculation because we really
don’t
know. And you’re right, Ginger might have had some information that the murderer was worried she’d share with the police. We’ve also found, in our investigating, that Adam and Ginger had a joint business venture going on.”

Evelyn frowned in confusion. “What—like they were business partners, not only marriage partners?”

“Business partners, but not in a normal business. They were in the blackmailing gig together.”

Lulu said, “They were blackmailing people together? One of them would provide information and the other would be the heavy?”

“We’re not sure exactly how they set it up, but information we found in Ginger’s house definitely pointed to the fact that they were in it together.”

Evelyn looked irritated. “How does a blackmailing business work, anyway? You can’t exactly hang out your shingle and tell everybody what you do. How do you drum up customers?”

Pink laughed. “I think it probably just takes a couple of customers to make it worthwhile. It’s not like you have to have office space or advertising. Any money you make is just icing on the cake. As long as you don’t end up getting arrested—or killed.”

 

 

It was after two o’clock when Lulu finally made it back home and climbed under her floral comforter to fall into a hard sleep. When the alarm went off at seven o’ clock, she groaned and burrowed deeper under the covers. The day itself wasn’t even conducive to getting up—rain splattered down on her roof and dripped down her old windowpanes. She finally dragged herself out from the warm sheets and off to shower and dress.

Breakfast seemed really unappetizing to her in her present state of grogginess. Lulu was usually one for a real country breakfast to sustain her through the day—scrambled eggs, sausage patties, fluffy biscuits, grits, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Seeing as how she’d
had
breakfast at Evelyn’s, she just didn’t feel like it again. Instead she poured a tub of vanilla yogurt into her blender along with some frozen fruit, some orange juice, and a little bit of cereal, blended it smooth, and took it with her to drink on the go.

She’d just gotten to the restaurant when her cell phone started singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” at her. “Lulu? It’s Flo. Listen, my batty bride called me up last night at midnight—can you
believe
calling someone up at midnight?—and she wants to have a ‘planning summit’ she said. With y’all for food and with the Back Porch Blues Band for music. And I guess about the flowers, too, and so I’ll have to call the Graces because they were helping me with that. A
summit
? Can you believe it?” Flo sounded completely indignant.

Lulu pulled out a wooden chair and plopped down into it. “Oh no. What time does she want to hold this summit? Because I
did
get a call like that last night and didn’t go to bed until after two.”

“I’m real sorry about it, Lulu. This woman is plum crazy! Could we maybe talk to her after your lunch rush? Around three o’clock? I’ll call everybody and set it up.” Flo’s voice sounded anxious. This must be some bride.

“Of course we can talk to her then, sweetie. We’ll get her all calmed down, don’t you worry.”

 

 

It was amazing how you couldn’t really buy class, thought Lulu as she watched Flo’s “batty bride,” controlling mother, and sullen groom. The bride, Ashley, smacked her gum with at a rhythmic pace and interrupted her mother, Cynthia, at every opportunity. The groom, whose name Lulu hadn’t caught—if it’d even been tossed to her—looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

The Graces, Lulu, and the Back Porch Blues Band had all spent the last couple of hours trying to calm down the wedding party. Aunt Pat’s handled large crowds every day. Big Ben, Buddy, and Morty had played for big crowds in their day. And the Graces could put some mean bouquets and arrangements together, even in a pinch.

“We need everything to be
perfect
,” said Cynthia. “We’d planned on this being the social event of the year, you know. Now we’ve ended up downsizing it and adding an element of
fun
.” Lulu guessed that having the wedding at Graceland and having barbeque on the reception menu was the “fun.” “But we can’t compromise our goal of perfection.”

Flo took the opportunity to roll her eyes since the wedding party wasn’t looking in her direction. “Believe me, Cynthia, this wedding couldn’t be in better hands. This is going to be a wedding that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time.”

Ben had come out of the kitchen for the meeting and was already thinking about the financial end of things. “I know we’re going to be making a lot of barbeque for the reception and I just wanted to make sure that everything was sound, financially. I know that cutting back was the reason you decided to go this route to begin with.”

Cynthia and Ashley looked at each other, then Ashley looked down at the nail she was picking apart. “You’ll be paid, don’t worry about that.”

“Ashley,” persisted Flo, looking across at the blond bride, “you’ve squared everything with your dad, haven’t you?”

Ashley snorted. “Daddy has been horrid. He didn’t want to cough up the money for the Peabody wedding and now he’s just as upset about the Graceland one. He doesn’t want anything to do with it.” Her lips poofed out in an unattractive pout. The groom looked worried.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Cynthia, carefully straightening the red checkered tablecloth with hands sporting huge diamonds. “I’ll pay for this myself, so you don’t have to worry about your money.”

Big Ben said, “I’m just glad to know that I shouldn’t announce a father-daughter dance when we’re playing the reception. That could have been reeeal awkward.”

“Who’s giving you away?” asked Flo, knitting her brows. “I thought your dad was going to walk you down the aisle.”

“My first cousin will walk with Ashley,” said Cynthia in a bored voice. “You probably know him—Big Jack Bratcher. Doesn’t he come here for barbeque just about every week? He was the one who said it was fine to bring you on board—that you’d do a good job.”

Lulu didn’t know whether she should feel gratitude to Big Jack or fuss at him for getting her involved with his impossible family.

Cynthia drew in a deep breath. “Oh my God. I forgot about the photographer. Have you gotten us a photographer? We have
got
to have a photographer.”

Flo rubbed the sides of her face as if her head hurt. “Cynthia, as I already mentioned to you, all the photographers I know are booked up. They have
other weddings
to do on Ashley’s wedding day. They can’t just drop what they’re doing.”

Cynthia’s right eye started twitching. “I don’t see why they can’t just fit a couple of extra hours into their day.”

“But it’s
more
than just a couple of hours, Cynthia. You’ve got to do portraits of the bride, bride and groom, parents of the bride and groom—the whole shebang.
And
pictures of the bride getting ready for the wedding.
And
the actual ceremony
and
the reception
and
the bride and groom running through the birdseed to their getaway car. It’s
lots
of
hours
.” Flo looked like she was about to cry. Lulu, like any respectable older lady, pulled out a perfectly folded fresh tissue from her sleeve and handed it to Flo in case she needed it.

Peggy Sue was goggle-eyed. “Y’all didn’t get a photographer first thing? I know brides who booked the photographer before they even booked the groom! You have to look good for the portrait that runs in the paper, you know? And those wedding pictures live forever, so you have to find somebody who knows all the tricks. I thought y’all would have done that before anything.”

Flo talked between her gritted teeth. “Yes, well, we
did
that, Peggy Sue. I’ve planned a few weddings, you know. But when Cynthia asked me to try to renegotiate the contract with Shaun Westerfield, he didn’t take it so well.”

Cynthia gave a short laugh. “He’s obviously completely in love with himself. Thinks he’s some sort of artist whose genius would be compromised by taking a penny less.”

“Well, and that may be, but I warned you about him when you asked me to reserve him at the very beginning. You get some really amazing pictures from him, but you have to put up with all his nonsense, too. But now he’s dropped us and gone off in a snit and we can’t find anybody else on such short notice.”

There was a small but insistent cough behind Lulu and she turned to see Holden Parsons standing there, looking earnest. “If I could say something,” said Holden in his trademark hesitant way. “I wondered if I might be able to help you out with the photography. Since you’re in a pinch.” His fingers fumbled as he reached for a chair to pull up.

“And who,” said Ashley, a Cynthia-in-training, “are
you
?”

“Forgive me for not introducing myself first. I’m Holden Parsons and I used to work for the
Memphis Journal
.”

“As a photographer?” asked Cynthia, perking up a little.

“No. No, actually, as a restaurant critic. But I had to take my own photos of the restaurant and different dishes for the paper. So I became very good. And the pictures ran every week.”

Ashley slumped a little and looked like she’d lost interest. “Oh. So it was just food. Well, that would work for pictures of the cake maybe. But I’m not made of flour or eggs.”

And certainly no sugar of any kind, thought Lulu as Cynthia snorted a laugh.

Holden, always so reticent, had turned pink at his ears and was already mumbling some excuses, fingering his drooping bow tie, and making motions to leave. Lulu stopped him.

“Now hold on a minute, y’all. This doesn’t make a lick of sense. I believe in something we call serendipity. And what I’m seeing here is someone who used to do some photography for a major newspaper and is currently unemployed. And I’m also seeing someone who is throwing a wedding that they don’t have a photographer for and have no hope of
getting
a photographer for. This seems like a match made in heaven to me.”

Flo said briskly, “Count on Lulu to make sense! Tell you what, Holden. Do you have any kind of a portfolio of your articles and pictures?”

Holden looked abashed. “Nooo . . . well, not really. At the time it just didn’t seem important.”

Cynthia and Ashley rolled their eyes.

“Okay, well how about if you
took
some pictures. Maybe go out and pretend you’re on assignment or something? Take some and then put them in a folder and we can show Cynthia and Ashley . . . and . . . um, Peter, of course.” Flo made a vague gesture across the table.

Lulu guessed that Peter was the silent groom.

Holden smiled eagerly. “I could do that!”

Lulu snapped her fingers. “Not only that, but while you’re out snapping pictures, Holden, you could take some for Aunt Pat’s. Derrick told me the other day that the website and blog needed some more pictures. He’s using a lot of clip art, he said, and he thought it would look a lot better with some photos from inside and outside the restaurant.”

“You could take pictures of the Back Porch Blues Band playing,” said Morty. “That would look cool to the tourists and might even help us to book some gigs.”

“And maybe even take some shots around downtown Memphis.” said Lulu. “It’ll look good on the website and might mean that tourists who are planning a trip to Memphis could put Aunt Pat’s on their itinerary.”

Cynthia and Ashley were losing interest again. Ashley blew a large bubble with her gum and her mother said, “Just make sure we see them first. We don’t want just anybody taking pictures at the wedding, you know. We want this wedding to be
good
.”

“It’s going to be perfect,” said Flo, who sounded like she was using the words as a mantra. “Perfect!”

 

 

After Cynthia, Ashley, and Peter left, Ben hurried back to the kitchen to start cooking for the supper rush and the others all slumped back in their seats. “That was painful,” said Buddy. “If you weren’t such a great friend, Flo, I’d be telling you there was no way I could deal with those women.”