The Calamity Café

by Gayle Leeson

  “I’ll make one meal out of what I have. People will have to eat what I make—they can’t come in and ask for whatever they want. All right?”

  She nodded. “What is it that we’re having?”

  “Meat loaf, macaroni salad, scalloped potatoes, creamed corn, collard greens, rolls, and preacher cookies.” The no-bake cookies had gotten their name from being something simple to throw together if the preacher came to visit. I didn’t mention the oatmeal pie I had left over from last night because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough.

  “Oh boy!” She clutched her bag full of biscuits to her chest. “Won’t this be fun?”

  “Well, I hope it will. Be back in about an hour, all right?”

  “See you then!”

  When Dilly left, I called Jackie.

  “Hi. So what’s going on at the Joint?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you all about it when you get to my house . . . that is, if you’ll come to my house.” I told her about Homer and then Dilly coming for food.

  “Amy, these people can’t expect you to feed them just because the café is closed today. And you can’t let them guilt you into it.”

  “I didn’t mean to. At first, it was just Homer wondering where he was going to get his morning sausage biscuit, and then Dilly came by and asked about lunch. I told her I didn’t intend to make lunch. . . .”

  “But she guilted you into it, didn’t she?”

  “A little.”

  “And are these people paying you?”

  “Of course, not! That wouldn’t be right.”

  Jackie made a little growly noise, and I could imagine her rubbing her forehead. Even though she was only a year older than me, she saw herself as the more logical and rational of the two of us and sometimes acted as if she were a decade older than I.

  “You can’t give people free food when you open your own place,” she said.

  “I won’t.” Probably. “But I can do this one meal. Maybe it could count as a promotional business expense. And, if you’ll come and help me, I’ll pay you.”

  “How could I possibly accept your money, knowing you aren’t getting paid for this meal?”

  “I’ll make you accept it. Now would you please come give me a hand?”

  * * *

  I used Nana’s recipe to make the meat loaf, and I was just getting it out of the oven when Dilly arrived.

  “I wish I’d thought to make some deviled eggs,” I said to Jackie.

  “We’ve got plenty of food.”

  There wasn’t enough room at my kitchen table—and I didn’t have a dining room—so since it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, I escorted our guests out to the picnic table in the backyard. There was an umbrella in the middle of the table, and it provided them some shade.

  “Well, ain’t this nice?” Dilly looked around like she was six years old and I’d thrown her a surprise birthday party.

  She’d brought two other ladies who were regulars at the café.

  “Just sit wherever you’d like, and Jackie and I will bring your plates out to you,” I said. “Would everybody prefer sweet tea?”

  One of the ladies requested ice water, but Dilly and the other one said tea would be fine.

  When I went back into the kitchen, Jackie was busy buttering the rolls. I took our guests their drinks, and then I came back and started slicing the meat loaf.

  “This would slice better if it was cold,” I said. “It’ll make a good sandwich tonight for dinner if there’s any left over.”

  “That does sound good,” said Jackie. “I’d like a couple of slices to take home too . . . if there is enough.”

  Nana’s recipe made a big meat loaf, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  We had no more than gotten our guests’ plates out to them when someone rang the front doorbell.

  “There go our sandwiches,” Jackie told me.

  I gave her an apologetic shrug and went to answer the door. I was surprised to see the more-gorgeous-than-I’d-remembered Deputy Hall standing on my porch. Maybe I’d been too traumatized to notice last night.

  “Deputy Hall, what can I help you with?”

  Before he could answer me, Homer came up onto the porch. “Hello, Amy. I hate to be a bother, but Dilly said you were serving lunch.”

  I nodded. “Go on through to the kitchen, and Jackie will fix you a plate.” I stood aside to let Homer pass and then stepped out onto the porch. “Are you hungry, Deputy?”

  “You know you can’t be doing this,” he said. “You don’t have the proper permits to operate a café out of your home.”

  “I’m not operating a café out of my home. I’ve giving a few people a free meal. You want one or not?”

  “I . . . uh. . . .”

  “I promise it’s clean. You can do an on-the-spot inspection if it’ll make you feel better.”

  He hesitated.

  “You like meat loaf?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I’ve had lunch already. I need to talk with you about the incident that occurred at Lou’s Joint last night.”

  “Come on in.” I walked back through the house, assuming he’d follow.

  “Thank you.” He looked around the kitchen. “Why are you doing all this?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it. Homer came to my door this morning at a little past ten. Not being able to go to Lou’s Joint for his morning sausage biscuit threw him for a loop. He has a strict routine. I felt sorry for him and made him his breakfast. Dilly heard about it and wanted lunch. So here we are.”

  He grinned. “That little brown scruffy dog running around out there . . . was he a stray?”

  “As a matter of fact, he was. His name is Rory, and he was at Lou’s Joint one morning when I went in to work. I sneaked him some bacon—Lou Lou would’ve had my head had she known—and I looked for him when my shift was over. I was disappointed that he wasn’t around. I guessed somebody had run him off. But when I started home, I saw him walking in the road. I called him, he came and got into the car, and he’s been here ever since.”

  “I figured. It seems you have a thing for strays.”

  “I guess so.” I nodded toward the table. “Have a seat.”

  His eyes flicked toward Jackie. “Maybe we could talk out on the porch. It’s such a nice day and all.”

  Little did he know, I’d already told Jackie everything about last night . . . everything I knew anyway. “Sure. That’ll be fine. Would you like a glass of water or tea?”

  “A glass of tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  He was walking through to the front door when Jackie came back into kitchen from attending to our guests. She looked at me and then at Deputy Hall’s retreating backside.

  “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” she said under her breath.

  “Don’t you ‘mercy’ me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to step on your toes. It’s obviously not me he’s interested in anyway.”

  I scoffed. “The only reason he’s here is because of what I told you happened last night. He probably thinks I knocked Lou Lou over the head because she wouldn’t sell me the café.”

  “I don’t think that’s the only reason he’s here.”

  “Well, it’s the main reason.” I poured two glasses of tea.

  “Do you know for sure that’s what happened? That somebody hit her over the head?”

  “I’m not sure exactly what happened. When I realized she was unconscious, I immediately called the police. I was afraid that whoever had knocked her out was still in the café.”

  “Still, nobody in his right mind would think you could knock out Lou Lou,” Jackie said. “She was a huge woman. Not that you’re a weakling or anything, but I’d imagine it would take a lot to fell Lou Lou Holman.”

  “I’d say you’re right.” I picked up the glasses. �
��Wish me luck.”

  Jackie held up her crossed fingers.

  I pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. Deputy Hall was sitting on one of the white rockers. I handed him his drink.

  I sat down on the other rocker. It felt good to relax for a moment. But then it felt good to have been able to provide a meal for some of Lou’s Joint’s regular customers too. “Am I a suspect in the . . . assault . . . or . . . whatever . . . of Lou Lou?” I asked quietly.

  Instead of answering, the deputy took a sip of tea.

  “Please be up-front with me. I’m being straight with you.”

  “I know you are,” he said. “I guess we’d call you a person of interest because you found Ms. Holman”—he looked around to make sure none of the guests were coming around from the backyard—“and because you’d had a conflict with her. Of course, Sheriff Billings and I have been asking around, and a lot of people had some sort of conflict with Ms. Holman. She didn’t appear to have been a very nice person.”

  I blew out a breath as I tried to decide what to say and what to hold back. I didn’t want to come across as being mean, but I didn’t want to paint an inaccurate picture of Lou Lou either.

  “She was as tight as the skin on a sausage,” I said. “She made us waitresses give her half our tips even though she paid the bare minimum she could get away with, so I doubt any of us would write to Santa on her behalf. She was nice enough when it came to the customers the biggest part of the time, but they could hear her yelling at us over every little thing, and I imagine most of them knew she was just flattering them to keep them coming around.”

  “You said you didn’t work yesterday.”

  “Right. I only went in to give my notice and to talk with Lou Lou about buying the café.”

  “Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary—anyone who looked suspicious—while you were there?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Was Ms. Holman having any work done to the café that you know of?”

  I shook my head. “Like I told you, she was stingy. Something would have to literally be falling down before she’d spend money to have it fixed.”

  “Did you happen to meet any cars coming from the café as you were driving toward it last night?”

  “There was very little traffic. Come to think of it, I only met one car that I can recall. It was an SUV of some kind . . . red, I believe. I just remember it because one of the headlights was out.”

  He nodded and took another drink. “I’ll make a note of that.”

  “What exactly happened to Lou Lou?” I asked. “I mean, I didn’t look. I tried to get her to sit up, but I didn’t lift up her head or anything. I saw the blood, and when I couldn’t get a response, I called the sheriff’s department.”

  “It was probably a good thing you didn’t look. She’d been hit in the forehead with a blunt object.”

  “You mean, like a baseball bat or a golf club?”

  “Likely something smaller—maybe a hammer or a crowbar.”

  I shuddered. “That’s awful!” A hammer or a crowbar? I involuntarily shuddered at the thought of either of those weapons cracking open Lou Lou’s skull. And why would someone bring something like that into her office anyway unless they were intending to harm her? “Is there anything I could’ve done for her?”

  “No. Ivy said Ms. Holman likely died almost immediately upon suffering the blow.”

  I closed my eyes. “Oh my goodness. She must’ve been hit so hard.” Then I thought about Lou Lou’s son and my eyes flew open. “What about Pete? Does he know? I mean, you didn’t let him go into the café last night, but did he see her like that, Deputy Hall?”

  “Please call me Ryan. And, yeah, I’m afraid he did. The sheriff showed him the photo, remember?”

  “That’s right. And Pete had nearly fainted even before that.”

  “Yeah, he was in pretty bad shape last night.”

  “I should check on him . . . take him some food.”

  “That’d be nice.” Ryan stood. “I have to get going. Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I returned the glasses to the kitchen and put them in the dishwater.

  “So he was here about the case?” Jackie asked.

  “Yeah.” I glanced out the window and saw that our little group was starting to disperse. “I’ll tell you everything once they’re gone.”

  Chapter 4

  After everybody had gone and Jackie and I had cleaned up the kitchen, we went into the living room for a well-deserved break.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “But it’s a good tired. We did a nice thing today.”

  “Yeah, we did. I’m proud of us . . . of you, in particular, because I wouldn’t have dreamed of inviting those people to lunch . . . except maybe the cutie-pie policeman.”

  “I just felt bad for them, Jack. Unless they wanted to travel at least ten miles—and none of them did—they didn’t have another restaurant to go to. I mean, lunch at the Joint is their thing. None of them work—at least, not full-time—and seeing one another at Lou’s Joint is pretty much the extent of their social calendar.” I blew out a breath. “How sad is that? I mean, people like Homer and Dilly are why I want to open my own café—to give the customers, as well as the staff, a better alternative to Lou’s Joint.”

  “And you will.”

  Princess Eloise sauntered across the back of the sofa. Jackie reached up to stroke her long white fur. The cat gave her a reproachful glare and jumped down onto the floor.

  “I don’t think she likes me very much,” Jackie remarked.

  “She doesn’t like anyone except Mom. She puts up with me, and to a lesser degree, Rory.”

  At the mention of his name, Rory popped his head up and wagged his tail. When he saw that no one was eating or offering him a treat, he plopped his head back down onto his paws.

  I rested my head against the back of the armchair. “Deputy Hall said that Ivy Donaldson reported Lou Lou was killed with a blunt object.”

  “That’s terrible. And you went in and saw her like that? No wonder you couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “I didn’t really see much.”

  “Thank goodness for that . . . given the circumstances, I mean.”

  “Pete saw her that way, though. The sheriff asked Ivy Donaldson to take a photo of Lou Lou and show it to Pete so Pete could confirm it was her. It was some sort of technicality, I guess, because we all knew it was Lou Lou.”

  “How awful.”

  “I know, right? I wish there’d been some other way. I thought I’d take some food over to Pete’s in a little while . . . see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I’ll go with you. What’re you planning to take?”

  “I thought I’d go with a chicken casserole and a pound cake.”

  “We’d better get started, then, hadn’t we?”

  * * *

  Jackie and I were on our way over to the Holman house when my phone rang. Since I was driving, Jackie fished the phone out of my purse and handed it to me. I answered and was surprised that it was Pete.

  “Pete, hi. Jackie and I are on our way to your house with some food. Is there anything you need for us to stop and get you?”

  “Uh, no. Thanks, though. I appreciate the offer . . . and the food, of course. But I was calling to ask a favor. Would you care to go over to the funeral home with me to help pick out Momma’s casket and make the other arrangements?”

  “Yeah . . . sure.” Why in the world would Pete ask me to help with his mother’s funeral arrangements? Surely, there were better choices . . . his girlfriend, for one. Still, the man was grieving. I couldn’t refuse. “We can do that. See you in a few.” I ended the call and told Jackie what Pete wanted.

  She groaned. “Do I have to go?”

  “You
don’t. We could make the excuse that someone should stay there at the house in case anyone stops by.”

  “Are you sure? I hate to leave you stuck like that.”

  “It’s fine. I know how you despise funeral homes.”

  When we got to the Holmans’ small brick home, there were three vehicles besides Pete’s truck in the driveway. I parked on the side of the road so I wouldn’t block or get blocked in. I carried the casserole, and Jackie carried the cake. The Holmans’ neighbor, Shirley Green, saw us coming and opened the door for us.

  Ms. Green was a plump rosy-cheeked little woman whose short gray curls clung to her head like a knit cap. Today she wore a pink floral housedress and a white apron. She lived for occasions like this, where she could insert herself into the situation and mother everyone involved.

  “Aren’t you girls precious? Come on in, and I’ll show you to the kitchen.” She lowered her voice. “Poor little old Pete. I don’t know what’ll become of him now that his momma is gone.”

  The kitchen reeked of cigarette smoke and a garbage can that needed to be emptied. The round wooden table was full of covered dishes and plates wrapped in aluminum foil that people had brought.

  “Has Pete got any other family?” Jackie asked, as she added the cake to the foods on the table.

  “Not from around here. And if he has any, they’re distant relations at best.” Ms. Green clucked her tongue. “Of course, I’ll help take care of him as best I can.”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that the man was forty years old, for pity’s sake. Instead, I put the casserole into the refrigerator and saw that it was almost as full as the table. At least Pete wouldn’t starve for a good long while.

  “Your momma and Bess came by a little while ago, Amy. They brought a lemon pie. It’s there in the fridge.” She turned to Jackie. “That granny of yours has some wild ideas about her computer stuff. She was telling us about some kinda boards she has on her computer?”

  Jackie nodded. “She loves pinning things on her social media boards.”

  Ms. Green continued to look confused. “I don’t know anything about computers.”