Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) (14 page)

“You’d have ended up finding out about John,” said Lulu. “You have to go through all the official channels, that’s all. But someone would have pointed you in that direction—Reuben’s lawyer, if nothing else.”

Pink squinted at Lulu as if she were again talking about things she probably shouldn’t know about.

Lulu said, “Pink, again, I’m awfully sorry about forgetting to tell you about John and his connection with Reuben. But—tell me. The murder.”

“Sharon drove over to John’s house this morning to try to talk to him before he left for work. She knocked and rang the doorbell, but there was no answer, so she tried the door handle,” said Pink.

Lulu closed her eyes. “Why in heaven’s name would she do that?”

“It was definitely not advisable. The door was unlocked, so she pushed it open and stuck her head in to call for John. But he was lying on the floor where she could see him. It appears he was hit with a heavy object from behind, then stabbed.”

Lulu shook her head and sat quietly for a few moments. “Poor John.” She looked up at Pink. “Sharon’s not a suspect in John’s death, is she? After all, why would she go out of her way to discover the body if she’d killed him? Seems like she’d want to let him lie there undiscovered for a while.”

Pink sighed. “It’s not that simple, Lulu. Think about it—it’s the perfect setup. Sharon and her husband, Brody, know that this John is about to make a huge claim on their new inheritance. Sharon comes here to tell two witnesses that she plans to talk it out with John and reach a
settlement. She makes it sound very levelheaded and reasonable. Then she or Brody goes over to John’s house. He recognizes them and lets them in. They kill him. Then Sharon comes back later to ‘discover’ the body.”

“I guess it’s not as clear-cut as it seems,” said Lulu. “She did seem so earnest, though.”

“Naturally,” said Pink. “She would have to, if she was planning an elaborate lie like that. Otherwise, you’d see right through her.”

Lulu was starting to wonder how observant she actually was, though. And whether she was hopelessly naïve.

“I was talking to the neighbors,” said Pink with studied casualness, “and asking them if they’d seen or heard anything unusual in the last couple of days.”

Lulu swallowed. “Did they?”

“It’s a remarkably unobservant group of neighbors,” admitted Pink. “They didn’t notice any visitors at John’s house last night or any unusual cars. They didn’t recognize pictures of Sharon or Brody. But they were able to give us an exact description of you and Cherry.”

Lulu colored again. “Mercy,” she said again. “I hadn’t gotten around to telling you about all that.” Pink didn’t say anything and Lulu cleared her throat. “Would you like some corn muffins?”

Pink’s grim demeanor broke into a grin. “Lulu, I’m not that mad. But you and Cherry are scaring me. What you did wasn’t safe.”

“We thought about our safety, actually,” said Lulu quickly. “That’s why we met John out in his driveway. Not like Sharon.”

“Thankfully,” said Pink. “What was it that you were trying to talk with him about?”

“We’d found out that he knew Reuben. And he’d carefully not mentioned anything about his connection to him before. We were miffed that he was lying to us and we wanted to hear more about this messed-up construction job that Reuben had been the contractor for,” said Lulu.

Pink said, “And what did he say? How did he act?”

“He was real angry about the state his house was in. It was more of a quiet rage than someone going postal, though. He was definitely upset. But he claimed that he had nothing to do with the murder—that he was at the festival to try to dig up dirt on Reuben or to at least have a chance for him to talk to Reuben about the construction. Apparently, the situation had gotten to the point where Reuben was no longer returning John’s calls or answering his door when he saw John outside,” said Lulu.

They sat quietly for a moment, then Lulu said, “Can you tell me more about what you think happened to John? It’s hard for me to believe he’s dead when I saw him yesterday.”

Pink said, “There’s not too much more that we know right now. Because the door was unlocked, we think that John willingly let his killer in. So it was either someone
that he knew, or someone that he recognized enough to let in. We think that it was probably last night, late but not too late. Possibly around ten o’clock. Whoever he let in didn’t give him much of a chance to struggle. They probably came prepared and brought something with them that they could hit him with while he was leading them into another room.”

“They brought something with them?” asked Lulu.

“It looks that way…we haven’t found the murder weapon yet, so we’re thinking the murderer took it away with them. It was probably something heavy but portable—like a hammer,” said Pink.

Lulu winced. “And you said that he was stabbed, too?”

“Whoever did it wanted to make certain that John was dead. We think he was—that the blow from the heavy object killed him. But the killer wanted to make sure, so there was a butcher knife sticking out of his back. Again. Same as with Reuben.”

Lulu said, “Could you tell anything from the knife?”

“Not really. It’s a standard knife, available anywhere. It seems brand-new, so it was probably purchased for this very purpose,” said Pink.

Lulu shivered.

“This murderer means serious business,” said Pink. “And I want to make sure that you and Cherry aren’t on his hit list. Watch your step—both of you.”

“So now we need to find out where Brody and Sharon live,” said Cherry, heaving a sigh. They were both in Lulu’s kitchen since Lulu had left for home right after Pink talked to her. “This is all so complicated. It would have been a lot easier if John had been guilty. He should have confessed to the crime and been trundled off to jail. Easy-peasy.”

“His death sure does make things difficult,” agreed Lulu. “I’ll call Sharon real quick and get her address. And I’ll bring food over in case she doesn’t feel much like cooking today.”

“Is that why your kitchen smells so good?” asked Cherry. “You must have been cooking up a storm.”

“I ran by the store on the way home and I’ve been in
the kitchen for the last few hours. Sometimes cooking helps me relax—and I’ve definitely needed some relaxing lately. I cooked a ham and I’ve made a three-bean casserole and a pineapple casserole,” said Lulu.

Cherry said, “It all sounds yummy—except for the three-bean casserole. I’m not usually wild about those. Too much vinegar.”

“You might like this one then, since there’s no vinegar at all in it. Just sour cream and cheese and a bunch of other yummy stuff. Vinegar is a little too tart for me, too. Except I do like my French fries dipped in vinegar,” said Lulu.

Cherry made a face. “I’ll pass on the French fries. But the casserole sounds like something I need the recipe for.”

Sharon, who had sounded very un-Sharon-like on the phone, gave her address, and minutes later, Cherry and Lulu were at the house. It was, like John’s, another subdivision and another ordinary suburban two-story house. Sharon answered the door. Her eyes were puffy and her face was blotchy. She still hadn’t found the time to touch up her roots and the dark hair was starting to take over the blond hair. Lulu noticed that her nail polish was now completely picked off.

“Y’all must think that all I do is cry,” she said. She noticed the bag that Lulu was carrying. “What’s this?”

“Oh, I just thought you might not feel much like cooking,” said Lulu. “So here’s something you can have
for supper tonight. Or it’ll keep, if you’d rather have it another night.”

Apparently, this small kindness was enough to make Sharon start crying again. Sharon looked like someone who was trying to hold it all together, but was failing miserably. Sometimes when you start crying, you can’t ever seem to turn it off. Sharon scrubbed impatiently at her eyes. “Let’s go in the kitchen,” she said in a muffled voice.

Sharon led them toward the back of the house. They passed through a living room that still had a couple of boxes in one corner. The house had a lot of nice features—hardwood floors, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances—but it didn’t feel particularly homey. In fact, it didn’t even seem like they’d personalized it at all, to make it their own. The exception was the kitchen, which was a cheerful room. “I love gingham in kitchens,” said Lulu with a satisfied sigh as she saw the curtains and kitchen towels.

Sharon smiled at her as she put the barbeque into the refrigerator. “I do, too. That’s as far as I’ve really gotten with the decorating. It looks like we just moved in last week instead of months ago. But between one thing and another, I haven’t gotten around to it. And I’ve soured on home improvement projects in the last week,” she said with a short laugh.

Cherry snorted. “I bet. This morning must have scared the living daylights out of you.”

Lulu added, “But we know you might not want to relive what happened, sweetie. We wanted to let you know that we were thinking of you and to see if there was anything we could do—run to the store for you, or something like that. When you’ve had a shock like you’ve had, it’s hard to go back to doing regular, everyday errands.”

“With a shock like this,” said Sharon, “I actually want to talk about it. If I talk about it, maybe it won’t seem as scary anymore or as real.” She gave them a weak smile. “Next time I’ll listen to y’all when you give me advice. I never should have gone to John’s house to talk to him. Or I should have taken somebody with me, at least. I never thought it was going to end up like this.”

“When did you go to John’s house?” asked Lulu. “It must have been pretty early.”

“It was,” said Sharon. “I figured it would be easier to catch him when he was on his way to work.”

This sounded familiar.

“But I wasn’t sure if he had to be at work at eight or nine, so I showed up at seven thirty and waited. I painted my nails in the car, read a magazine, and still didn’t see him. I knew he was short on money and I was surprised he wasn’t heading out to work when it was past nine. That, of course, was when I should have given up and gone back home and tried to get Reuben’s lawyer to talk to him or something. But instead, I went to John’s door to see if I could get him to come out.”

“I take it he didn’t answer,” said Cherry dryly.

“No, he sure didn’t. I banged pretty hard on the door and rang the doorbell a few times and no one came. That was when I tried the door,” said Sharon. “It was unlocked, so I walked in, calling his name. I knew right away that something was wrong. All the lights were on and it was a bright morning. Then I saw…him.” She swallowed and tried to regain some control.

“That’s
really
when I should have walked back out that door and dialed 911,” she continued. “Thinking back on it now—well, I don’t know where my head was.”

“You were focused on what you were going to say to John when you saw him,” said Lulu. “So…instead of leaving, you walked farther in?”

“I did. I don’t think I really realized that John was dead…I was stunned. I wanted to get closer and see if I could help him. But when I got over to him, I saw that he was past needing help.” Sharon took a deep breath.

Lulu was ready to jump in with some comforting words, but Sharon was determined to go on. “John’s head was crushed on the back—I couldn’t tell by what. And he was lying on his face. There was a knife in his back, too.” She shivered.

Lulu reached out and gave Sharon a hug. “You must have been petrified! You went back out to your car then, didn’t you?”

Cherry made a face. “I hope so. That would have been too creepy. I mean, I know none of us really knew John, but hanging out with a body?”

“That was finally what it took for me to come to my senses and go back to my car to call the police,” said Sharon.

“Did they ask you a million questions?” said Cherry. “What kinds of things did they ask you about?”

Sharon said miserably, “I think they thought that I had something to do with it. Just from the questions they were asking me.”

“Pooh!” said Lulu. “Why would they think a thing like that? You were there to try to patch things up with John and give him money.”

“The police gave me the impression that they thought I might be making that part up,” said Sharon. “They pointed out that it would be very convenient for John to be gone because Brody and I would end up with more money.”

Brody walked in the kitchen. He looked like he’d had a full day and it was still early. His tone was belligerent. “That’s true, but there were other people who stood to gain, too. I don’t know why the cops are so focused on us. What about Reuben’s ex-wife? She wasn’t able to get any money out of him when he was alive, so why wouldn’t she try to see what she could get out of him when he was dead?”

Cherry frowned. “Yeah, but I thought that he’d changed his will—”

“Sure,” interrupted Brody, “but would Dawn know that? Somehow I don’t think she knew that Reuben had
been that organized. As far as she knew, Reuben either had an old will that named her as the beneficiary, or else it would go through probate court and either she or Finn would end up with
something.
And if Finn got some money, she’d likely be in control of it.”