Finger Lickin' Dead

by Riley Adams

  Lulu suddenly felt uneasy for some inexplicable reason. “I’m going to go ahead and catch up with Ella Beth, Coco.”

  Coco tilted her glass back and finished the last bit of her milk. “I’m all done with my snack, so I’ll come, too, Granny Lulu. I want to take my Frisbee with me. Ella Beth and I have gotten really good at throwing it—I wanted to show you.”

  The two took a left off Beale Street and went down the sidewalk to the Mississippi River. Coco had opened up a little bit more and was now prattling on about her day at school and who she’d sat with at lunch and played with at recess. Lulu tried to focus on Coco, but she kept thinking about Ben. Why didn’t he say anything about his argument with Adam when she’d been talking to him in the kitchen? She knew Ben had been furious about the bad review Aunt Pat’s had gotten in the newspaper. She guessed that fury all came back to him when he found out the restaurant critic’s real identity.

  Coco stopped suddenly as they walked and grabbed Lulu’s arm. Her face was pale and pinched looking. “Something’s wrong with Ella Beth.” A frisson of fear went up Lulu’s spine at Coco’s tone. She’d never discount that twin connection between Ella Beth and her sister. They both ran toward the river.

  Chapter 4

  The street dead-ended at the water. Ella Beth walked stiffly toward them, face white enough for her freckles to stand out in sharp relief. “Ella Beth! Ella Beth, what’s wrong, sweetie?” Lulu pulled Ella Beth into her arms, rubbing her back as if to warm her up. Despite the heat, the little girl was shaking. Lulu looked over Ella Beth’s head and froze as she saw Coco had gone down the hill near the river. “Coco!”

  Coco spun back around quickly and stumbled back up the hill. “It’s him,” she gasped. “It’s him, Granny Lulu!”

  “Him?”

  “The man. The man I saw. The man Daddy was yelling at this morning. He’s dead.”

  Lulu staggered over to a nearby park bench, legs seemingly not eager to respond, still clutching Ella Beth, and now Coco, fiercely. Lulu’s mind was whirling and, oddly, the first fully formed thought she had was fury at the damned man for dying somewhere where children could come across his body.

  She fumbled in her skirt pocket for her cell phone, fingers jabbing at the buttons. “Ben. Get Stanley to cover for you in the kitchen if you have any orders up and come down to the river. The girls are down here and we’ve . . . run into a problem. Hurry.”

  Lulu put down the phone and pulled her grandchildren close to her in a tight hug. “It’s okay,” she crooned and rocked as she waited for Ben to get there.

  She had no faith in her ability to pull both girls back up the hill leading to the restaurant. No matter—Ben was already there. He must have run the whole way down, despite those extra twenty-five pounds he was always talking about shedding.

  Ben’s shaggy eyebrows were drawn together ferociously. “What the hell is going on?” he panted, drawing up close and looking the girls over quickly. “Are they sick?”

  Lulu nodded her head in the direction of the river. “Over there. See for yourself,” she said in a murmur.

  Ben walked down the small hill, through the trees, to the Mississippi—until he stopped with a jerk and hurried back up the hill, looking grim.

  “Come on, girls. I’ve called Mama and she’s on her way back to Aunt Pat’s. Y’all got your Frisbees?” He turned to look at Lulu as he walked away. “You’ve got a phone call to make, too, right?”

  Lulu nodded. “I’m going to call Pink Rogers. I’ve got his number in my cell phone.”

  “You’re not going to just call 911?”

  “Pink will take care of it,” said Lulu evenly. Pink was a police officer who’d been a regular at the restaurant for the past ten years. He was a fit and trim two hundred and fifty pound, six feet seven inch man—and she would feel a lot better knowing he was there with her. Plus, somebody was probably going to have to ask Ella Beth some questions about finding the body and she wanted Pink to be around.

  “Call him now, will you? And come on . . . you need to come up, too. I’m not leaving you down here with—that—by yourself.” He didn’t voice his thoughts that the murderer could still be lurking nearby, but Lulu was able to pick up the message.

  She trailed behind Ben, calling the policeman. “Pink? It’s Lulu. I need your help.”

  In no time, the Memphis police department had cordoned off the area where Ella Beth had discovered Adam’s body. There was a forensics team there, walking around in what looked like spacesuits while they gathered bits of evidence.

  Sara had stayed at Aunt Pat’s with the girls, letting them zone out on television in the restaurant’s office. Lulu and Ben stood outside the taped-off crime scene with Pink, who was off duty and able to get right over there. Off duty, Pink wore the pastel button-down shirts he loved and which had given him his nickname.

  Pink spoke with some police buddies at the crime scene and then walked back to Lulu and Ben. “It’s Adam Cawthorn. Y’all knew him, right?”

  Lulu and Ben nodded, keeping silent.

  “And Adam didn’t just drop dead over there by the river. He was shot.”

  “I’m thinking,” Ben said, “that he hasn’t been over there long. That this must have happened pretty recently.”

  Lulu looked sharply at Ben. He knew Adam hadn’t been dead long. Ben had had an argument with him that very morning, when he’d still been very much alive.

  Pink said, “It sure looked like a recent crime scene to me. I just hate that little Ella Beth had to come across it. I hope it doesn’t scare her off police work for good. I know how much she loves playing detective and I kind of had a hope she might go into the force when she grows up.”

  They quietly thought about Ella Beth for a minute. “What . . . what was that all over him?” asked Ben.

  Pink shook his head. “That was weird, wasn’t it? It looked like a bunch of baked beans to me.”

  Lulu frowned. “Like he’d thrown up his lunch?”

  “No. More like he’d spilled beans all over himself or something. Kind of odd for that guy—I never pictured him as the clumsy type. And he didn’t seem much like the baked bean–eating type, either, come to think of it.”

  None of it added up to Lulu, either. Why wasn’t Ben saying anything about having seen Adam that morning? Why was Adam covered in beans? What in the dickens was going on?

  The Memphis police did an excellent and sensitive job gently questioning Ella Beth. Lulu wasn’t surprised, of course, when they discovered that Ella Beth knew nothing at all that could help them out. She’d been playing with her chalk, drawing pictures on the pavement where the road ended. Then she’d gone down the hill to the river to throw some sticks in and see how fast the current was going. That’s when she’d seen Adam. Lulu felt a pang when Ella Beth sadly said she’d thought at first it was a grown-up taking a nap—but she’d thought it was a weird place to sleep. Ella Beth had crept closer to the body and seen who it was and that he was dead. She didn’t see anyone else around her until Coco and Granny Lulu had come running up to her.

  Ben’s wife, Sara, had silently sat, nervously twisting strands of her strawberry blond hair around a finger and listening to Ella Beth talking to the police. From time to time she leaned forward in her chair in the restaurant’s office to listen closer to Ella Beth’s small voice. She and Lulu shared winces a couple of times.

  The interview seemed like it was wrapping up. Sara murmured to Lulu, “I think it’s time for me to take the girls home. Can I give you a call later when it’s all settled down a little?”

  She stood up, her bigger frame looking solid enough to handle any trouble that came its way. Sara pulled Ella Beth into a strong embrace. “You ready to go home, pumpkin?”

  Ella Beth nodded, rubbing her eyes. The little girl seemed exhausted, although it was only five o’clock. Sara rubbed her on the back. “Wait for me out on the porch with Coco and the Labs, okay?”

  “I’ve called Tina in to work tonight, so don’t worr
y a bit about coming back to wait tables—we’ve got plenty of help. Tina needed the extra hours anyway. I was going to just let Stanley cook for Ben tonight, but Ben is already in the kitchen cooking away.” Lulu lifted a shoulder in a confused shrug.

  “I think cooking is therapy for Ben, Lulu. He can put his troubles behind him in that kitchen and forget everything but the food. Please don’t send him home, okay? He’ll drive me crazy there and won’t have anything to do but pace around.”

  “Ben can cook to his heart’s content, Sara, until we shut down for the night. Then he’s probably going to shut down for the night. He’s got to be worn slap out. I know I am.”

  After Sara left with the girls, Lulu walked around the dining room for a while, chatting with customers. But her heart really wasn’t in it. When the band set up on the screened porch, she set herself up in a small corner to let the blues music drift over her for a few minutes. The singer’s low, crooning voice was a comfort to her. There was nothing like hearing the blues to feel your own cares melt away.

  Having friends around you helped, too. As her old friends and regulars, Big Ben, Buddy, and Morty, came through the porch door, she stood up to give them a big hug. “Let’s go inside so we can talk,” she said, motioning to the dining room. The music, beautiful as it was, was too loud to talk over.

  The friends settled into a large corner booth. “I believe I’m going to have to order up a beer tonight,” said Morty. “It’s absolutely necessary after the day I’ve had.”

  Buddy gave him a look. “You got nothing to complain about, my friend. We’re still alive and kicking, aren’t we? At our age, even getting up out of the bed in the morning is a reason for celebration.”

  The retired blues trio was an excellent example of healthy, active octogenarians. “Y’all are so energetic you wear me out,” said Lulu with a tired laugh.

  “Now you are a mere child compared to us, Lulu. Twenty years younger than us. I remember being in my sixties and I felt like I could still move me some mountains,” said Morty.

  “That’s true,” said Big Ben, nodding sagely.

  “And—to correct Buddy—I’m not saying that in general I have complaints about my life, y’all. I’m saying that today has been a trial.” Morty gave Buddy a cool look.

  Lulu hid a smile. She knew the kinds of things that Morty found annoying.

  His beer arrived at the table and the men placed their food orders (which the waitress pretended like she didn’t already know; the men always ordered the same meals every day). Morty took a sip, paused, and said, “It’s that blasted computer.”

  Now Lulu couldn’t hide her smile anymore. Morty dearly loved his computer—until it acted up on him. Then it was the devil’s handiwork.

  “My grandkids got me on one of those social media sites. You know the kind? Twitbook or something like that?”

  Something like that. Lulu nodded.

  “They said it was the best way for me to keep up with them. They like to put pictures of their babies up there, stuff like that. So they put my picture up there, showed me how to use it. Then I started getting all these friends.”

  “And this is a bad thing?” Buddy made a scornful face. “Having friends?”

  “These are not really friends, though, Buddy. These are Twitbook friends. So they’re people that maybe you couldn’t stand when you knew them back in school. Maybe they stole your lunch money or tied your shoelaces to your chair in study hall. But now they’ve found you, and they’ve forgotten all about how nasty they were to you back in the day. And then you’re stuck! You don’t want to be friends with them because there’s a part of you that still wants to clean their clock. But there they are, acting like y’all are the best of friends. And now you’re finding out what these people had for breakfast this morning or that they’re going to get their oil changed or anything like that. When actually, you really don’t care if you never hear from them again.”

  “Do you absolutely have to be their friend?” asked Lulu. “Can’t you just ignore the friend request?”

  “These people are persistent! Very persistent. They are determined to have a bunch of friends and they’ll hound you until you finally give in. And now my news feed is full of who they’re becoming friends with and what they’re doing. And all I wanted was to see baby pictures!”

  Morty took a big, soothing gulp from his beer.

  “What’s worse? I started e-mailing an old girlfriend of mine: Priscilla. And then I e-mailed something that she must’ve taken the wrong way—you know how it’s hard to tell people’s intentions from what they write? So now she’s all huffy and upset with me and I haven’t even done anything! It’s just that dern computer.”

  A dreamy look came over Morty’s face. Big Ben, Buddy, and Lulu winked at each other. They knew that look well. With Morty, it meant he was about to spin a heckuva tall tale.

  “I remember back when we were touring on the blues circuit,” he said in a soft voice that deaf Big Ben had to lean forward to hear.

  “Blues circuit,” said Buddy with a derisive snort. “Like it was something really big.”

  “Friends really were friends back then. And there wasn’t any e-mailing back and forth nonsense or sharing what you ate for breakfast that morning. I had this lady friend, Rachelle.” His eyes had a faraway look. “And she was gorgeous. She and I were a great couple and she always knew exactly what I was thinking. We were simpatico!”

  “Funny how I don’t remember Rachelle,” said Buddy musingly. “Considering we spent all those years on that blues circuit, you know.”

  “That’s probably because you were tipsy half the time, man.”

  Big Ben gave a big guffaw before he changed the subject. He’d been around those two long enough to know when they were getting too scrappy with each other. “Lulu, why don’t you tell us about your day. You were looking pretty weary when we first got here.”

  Lulu rubbed her eyes. “You just won’t believe it when I tell you.”

  “Does it beat Morty’s bad-day story?” Buddy’s eyes cut over at Morty.

  “Let me tell you and you decide.”

  So Lulu quietly filled them in on what had happened that afternoon. Her monologue was punctuated by “isn’t that a shames” and “good Lord a-mercies.” When she finished up, they sat there for a second, munching on their barbeque ribs and thinking.

  Morty said, “How about if I order you up a beer, Lulu? That’s the most horrible story I’ve heard in a long time. The poor babies, having to discover that no-good scallywag like that. He couldn’t even die with any sense of decency. I never did like Evelyn’s friend. He was surely someone who needed killing.”

  “I don’t feel bad for him at all,” said Buddy. “I think he got what he had coming to him. But I feel awful for Ella Beth and Coco, having to find him.”

  “Case closed!” said Big Ben in his booming voice. “I know who did it. I know exactly who killed Evelyn’s buddy. I just haveta turn him in.”

  Chapter 5

  Lulu knit her brows. “Who?”

  “That fella whose restaurant went under. You know, the one who had the restaurant all those years until he got that nasty review. He was so mad about losing his restaurant that he was practically spitting nails. His wife is in here all the time.”

  “Tudy’s husband? Oliver?”

  “That’s him!”

  Lulu took a thoughtful sip of her iced tea. “I just don’t know, Big Ben. I have a hard time picturing him as a killer. He’s such a quiet guy.”

  “Don’t you know it’s always the quiet ones you’ve gotta watch out for? All those folks who say, ‘I lived next door to Jack Spratt for thirty years and I had absolutely no idea he had five people buried smack dab in the middle of his backyard.’”

  “Maybe.” Lulu squinted doubtfully at him.

  “Or it could be Tudy what killed him,” said Morty. He thoughtfully chewed a big spoonful of his red beans and rice. “She was awful upset yesterday. Remember? Cherry was telli
ng me that she was fussing to y’all because he was driving her crazy. She wasn’t ready for her husband to be home all day long, no sirree. Messing with her daily routine. Compromising her afternoon nap. He was making her life complicated and it was all that Adam Cawthorn’s fault.”

  “So Tudy killed Adam because she was furious that Oliver was reading the entire A section of the newspaper aloud to her? I’m not so sure about that as a good motive,” said Buddy.

  “But having her naps compromised sure sounds like a motive to me!” said Lulu with a laugh. “Y’all should know about that. You get set in your bachelor ways and then suddenly someone’s there changing your day around. Wouldn’t it drive you crazy? You know about that, don’t you, Buddy?”

  “Well, that is true. I dearly love Leticia, but when we started dating, she suddenly wanted to change the kind of clothes I was wearing.” Buddy looked down at his plaid, button-down shirt.

  “You sure look good to me,” said Morty, leaning back and scrutinizing Buddy’s attire. “Looks clean. No buttons missing. What did she think was wrong with it?”

  “She said they looked like an old man’s clothes,” said Buddy glumly.

  “And aren’t you an old man?” barked Big Ben. “Haven’t discovered the fountain of youth, have you? Nor Leticia, either.”

  “That’s for sure. But she took me shopping anyway. Now I’ve got all these polo shirt things. And golf shirts. And then some blazers for getting dressed up.” Buddy sounded glum. “But I only pull them out of the closet when I know I’m going to be hanging out with her.”

  “That right there is exactly the reason I’m not crying into my beer that Pricilla is upset with me. ’Cause she could’ve gotten all messed up in my business. One second you’re having a nice little dinner for two at a bistro. The next second you’re in line at the Steinmart with a whole new wardrobe of plaid golf shirts and tight jeans.”