Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) (16 page)

That was all it took for Lulu to unlock the door and open it. She took Tim by the arm and propelled him into her kitchen. If he was sobbing that hard, he wasn’t likely to be sticking a knife into her at the same time. “It’s all right, Tim, everything is just fine.”

He shook his head that he didn’t have any murderous intent and Lulu bustled around her kitchen, putting together the hearty type of sustenance that she imagined a man suffering real distress might want.

And she had no doubt that Tim was in serious distress.

When he’d finally settled down enough to be able to talk, he took a deep breath and said, “I wanted to tell you why I ran off today and how I know Reuben Shaw. Because I did know him—he and I used to be friends.”

He stopped there and thought about that for a moment. Lulu said, “Reuben used to be a good friend to a lot of different people, didn’t he? I’ve heard others talk about their friendships with him.”

Tim looked down at his plate, now completely clean of all peach cobbler. When Lulu made to give him more,
he stopped her with a small smile. “I’m all right, thanks. Yes, we were pretty good friends, and Reuben seemed like a nice enough guy. Our wives worked together at a preschool and they had gotten to know each other well enough at work that they started going out to movies and shopping together on weekends. Eventually, they decided it would be good for all of us to get to know each other.”

“So the husbands started hanging out, too?” asked Lulu. “What kinds of stuff did y’all do?”

“Mostly things around the house at first. Like cookouts. Reuben was high on his barbequing skill,” said Tim with a laugh.

Lulu said ruefully, “Yes, I encountered his bravado at the festival.”

“To be truthful, he was a good cook. Not in your league, of course, Mrs. Taylor. But real good. So we did that kind of thing at first—go to cookouts and our kids’ Little League games—stuff like that. But then things changed. I don’t know if Reuben started getting bored, or what. He wanted to go out more—like to clubs and bars and those kinds of places. He was one of those people who probably had a bit of a wild streak in him, and he’d been keeping it pushed down for a lot of years. I guess it was time for it to come back up to the surface,” said Tim.

Lulu said, “So y’all started going out at night and drinking together? Without your wives, I’m guessing.”

“That’s right. It wasn’t like we were doing any more
than drinking, though—we weren’t meeting women or anything like that. We’d go out and drink and talk for a while, then we’d come home. Although sometimes Reuben could be a real flirt, but I never saw him take things any farther than that,” said Tim.

“What was Reuben like when he drank?” asked Lulu.

Tim said, “At first, he was okay. He was louder than usual. But it wasn’t like he was mean or like it changed his personality at all. At first.”

Lulu waited. She figured they’d come to the point in the story where she’d find out what changed Reuben into the person that his longtime college friend didn’t even recognize anymore. And what had changed a man who was supposed to be a talented contractor into someone who never even showed up for work anymore.

“One night, Reuben and I went out. It’s been almost two years ago now. Reuben had more to drink than he usually did. It seemed like every time we went out together, he’d drink more each time. This time he drank a couple more drinks than usual. I should have said something,” said Tim. “I should have stopped him before he got to that point.”

Tim’s face was somber and Lulu could tell that this was a conclusion he’d reached a long while ago—that he should have stepped in. He wasn’t asking her for her opinion.

“Unfortunately, he was also the one who was driving. I’d had plenty to drink myself, so I wasn’t exactly wanting
to take the car keys. But I should never have let Reuben drive back home,” said Tim, gazing at Lulu with hollow eyes.

Lulu said, “Tim, you know that it’s always easier to make the right decision when you’re looking back.”

He nodded. “But I ignored that voice inside me that night, telling me that I needed to call a cab. Or call Dawn, or my wife. Instead, I let Reuben swagger off to the car. Sometimes he could be pigheaded and this was one of those times. He obviously thought he was fine and was bragging that he was somebody who could hold his liquor.”

Tim put his head in his hands like he needed to support himself to get through the next part of his story. “Reuben had the windows down and the radio blaring real loud and he was in real high spirits. He drove fast. It was late—probably after eleven, and the streets were dark…we were driving on smaller roads that didn’t have streetlights.”

Tim took a deep breath and stared at Lulu’s kitchen ceiling like he could see what had happened that night up there. “Reuben looked down and fiddled with the radio to change the stations. He pulled the steering wheel over to the side when he did—and ran right into a pedestrian on the sidewalk.”

“On the
sidewalk
?”

“Yes, he was that far off the road.” Tim sighed. “We stopped the car, but not for long. We got out long enough
to see that the man was lying completely still—and that Reuben’s car had knocked him clear off the sidewalk and into a tree. Then Reuben told me to come on, he jumped into his car, revved his motor, and got out of there as fast as he could.”

Lulu said slowly, “Did you try to get Reuben to stop? To stay with the man?”

Tim’s voice cracked as he said, “No. To my complete and utter shame, I didn’t try to make him stay and see if we could have helped that man. In fact, I pushed Reuben to get us out of there. All I could think about was my own life—my wife, my children, my job. I felt like an accomplice and I guess when I urged him to get out of there, I was acting like an accomplice. I didn’t stop to try to get medical attention for someone who might have been dying in front of me. I was totally weak. I hate myself every single day for it.”

“What happened when you got back home?” asked Lulu. “I bet that’s when it all started to sink in.”

Tim nodded. “It started sinking in then and it hasn’t stopped from that point on. I live with the guilt from that night every day. When Reuben pulled up in my driveway, we both sat there and stared at my house without saying a word. I don’t know how long we stayed like that. I was half listening for police sirens—figuring that they were on their way to pick us up. It felt unbelievable that we were going to get away with having done something like that.”

“Did Reuben say anything? While y’all were sitting there?” asked Lulu.

Tim gave a hoarse laugh. “He said, ‘What just happened? It never happened.’ That was it. And for him, it was something he wasn’t going to acknowledge or claim from that point on.”

“So he’s never talked about it with you?” asked Lulu. “You never even came up with a plan for what to do if someone ever found out? Or if the police got a tip and showed up on your doorsteps?”

“No. And it was the last time that I ever went out with him or visited his house,” said Tim. “Our wives figured we’d had some kind of argument.”

Tim stared blankly across Lulu’s kitchen. “It almost felt like a nightmare. When I woke up the next morning, I wondered if I’d dreamed the whole thing. I
hoped
I’d dreamed the whole thing,” he added in a fervent voice. “But then, when I got on the computer the next morning, the story was on the local news. A fatal hit-and-run.”

“So the pedestrian did die,” said Lulu sadly.

“Yes. But Reuben and I didn’t even wait to see if we could help him. Maybe it wasn’t an instant fatality. Maybe he’d still be alive,” said Tim.

He blew out a long sigh. “And that’s when my life started falling apart.”

Lulu waited for him to continue, but he was having a hard time talking—as if the words hurt even saying them.

“I couldn’t deal with what had happened and with my
part in it. I got to be obsessed with the news story—and there wasn’t even that much information on it. They never really had a lead. The news stations put pictures of the man’s family up—cute kids, pretty wife. Showed a picture of them at the man’s funeral. His name was Kyle.” Tim looked up at Lulu, his eyes full of tears. “It’s all so pointless.”

“You didn’t tell your wife what had happened?” asked Lulu.

“I was too ashamed of myself,” said Tim. “I almost didn’t even want to admit to myself that I’d been part of such a horrible event. So I spent most of my time hiding from it. I felt like I was turning into Reuben. I started drinking more and more. My wife and I kept fighting with each other. She finally ended up taking the kids and leaving.” Tim rubbed his temples.

“Is that what happened to Reuben, too?” asked Lulu. “I know he’s divorced now and you’d said he was still married two years ago.”

“Like I mentioned, I hadn’t been back in touch with Reuben since that night. But I guess it must have been what happened.” Tim shrugged. “It didn’t stop there, either. At least, it didn’t for me. Because I was drinking so much, trying to forget what happened, I couldn’t hold down a job. Every place I worked, I kept getting fired. I either wouldn’t show up, or I’d show up to work drunk. It even got to the point where I couldn’t pay my rent. So then I didn’t even have a place to live anymore.”

Lulu said, “The same thing must have happened to Reuben. I kept hearing that his contractor business had really fallen apart. He apparently wasn’t showing up to work, or placing orders for building supplies, or doing any of the things he was supposed to do. His business, which people had really praised, went downhill real fast.”

Tim said, “Probably. I did hear that his business was starting to get a bad reputation that it hadn’t had before.”

“Something must have changed for the better for you, Tim,” said Lulu. “I’ve never seen you drunk on the job. And today was the only time when you weren’t at work when I was expecting you to be.”

“What happened was me realizing that the only thing that was going to help make this mess better was to own up to what I’d done and to try to pay my debt in a small way. Maybe it would end up being more healing for the victim’s family, too—to at least know what happened that night. Give them closure,” said Tim.

Lulu nodded. “You decided to tell the police. But you wanted to tell them the whole story—and that meant getting Reuben involved.”

Tim hung his head. “I thought I should tell Reuben my plans. I’d heard through the grapevine that things weren’t going so well for him, either. I figured I could approach him real reasonably about it and he would go with me to the police station. Then we could pay the price for what we’d done and finally move on with our
lives. The way I was going, living out of my car, not able to keep a job, drinking all day—I know I’d have been dead in a few years.”

“What did Reuben say?” asked Lulu.

“Well, it was a real short phone conversation,” said Tim. “I think the only reason he didn’t hang up on me as soon as he heard my voice is because he was curious. He wanted to hear what I had to say. But as soon as he did hear what was on my mind, he hung right up,” said Tim.

“He wasn’t ready to own up to it,” said Lulu.

“He sure wasn’t. From what I could see, he had absolutely no intention of ever admitting what he’d done,” said Tim.

“But he must have known that you could still go to the police and tell them what had happened that night, even if he didn’t want to. You could still report it,” said Lulu.

Tim said, “Yeah, but if I didn’t have the actual driver of the car with me and admitting to it, then it was basically my word against his.”

“What about the car? The one that he wouldn’t let his wife drive anymore? I bet the police could get forensic evidence that it was involved in the hit-and-run,” said Lulu.

Tim said, “But I wasn’t even sure he still owned that car. It’s been two years and he could have waited for the story to die down and then sold it to somebody.”

“That’s true. So you didn’t give up with the one phone call obviously,” said Lulu.

“No. I tried calling Reuben whenever I had a chance. I called him from your office a couple of times, Mrs. Taylor,” said Tim in the attitude of somebody who wants to come clean on just about everything.

Lulu waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, Tim, I don’t care about that.”

“And lately, I used the computer in the office to follow what’s been going on in the news with Reuben’s murder,” said Tim. “I don’t have a computer or anything at home. In fact, I’ve only now got an apartment.” He seemed proud, though, at the accomplishment.

Lulu beamed at him. “Tim, that’s wonderful. I’m pleased as punch that life is turning around for you.”

“It is. But going back to right before Reuben’s murder, I still wanted to own up to my part in what happened that night. So I didn’t let up. I really think that Reuben thought that I was going to let it drop if he didn’t agree to confess with me. Finally, I managed to call him from a pay phone and he picked up and listened for a few minutes. I told him that I was going to the police whether he planned on confessing or not,” said Tim.

Lulu said, “I bet that didn’t go over well with him.”

“It sure didn’t. That’s when the tables were turned and he tried harassing
me.
Except that he didn’t know where I lived since I wasn’t living at the house where I
used to live when he knew me. He apparently tried calling the numbers on his caller ID that he knew I’d used to call him—one time someone at the restaurant told me I had a call from some guy and I knew it must be him. I told them to tell Reuben that I was no longer working at Aunt Pat’s.”

“Then I came across Reuben at the festival—where I was volunteering and sometimes did an odd job for pay. He didn’t even notice me at first,” said Tim.

Or maybe he hadn’t recognized him. Lulu bet that Tim had changed a lot since the days when he and Reuben were going out on the town together. The hard life he’d led really showed on him.

“Once he did see me, I could see that he was totally furious,” said Tim. “All he wanted to do was to pressure me to keep from telling the police about what had happened. He was lucky that I’d had such a busy time at the restaurant lately with all the extra diners in town that I hadn’t had an opportunity to get to the police station yet. One time I thought about telling Pink when he was eating there, but I didn’t want to make him do work-related stuff while he was on a lunch break.”