Delicious and Suspicious

by Riley Adams

  Best of all, the restaurant was chock-full of people. Lulu breathed a sigh of relief to see everybody back in the dining room, listening to music and stuffing themselves with ribs, spicy corn bread, and red beans and rice. Morty winked saucily at her, and Lulu smiled back at him. Yes, sir, life was good. She sat down on the screen porch in one of the rockers and listened to the music. Both Labradors, B.B. and Elvis, came over and rested their heads against her for a rubbing. After the day she’d had, she’d happily plant her rear end in that rocker until the cows came home. Beale Street was crowded, with people jamming the street outside. They carried huge cups of beer with them as they slowly walked up and down the street, taking in all the neon lights, the music, and the scent of fine Southern cooking that wafted out the doors.

  Unfortunately for Lulu, resting and enjoying beautiful music wasn’t in the cards. Right when she thought all the oddities of the day were fading like a bad dream, Derrick bolted from the restaurant and plowed through the screen porch door, letting it slam behind him with a bang. Morty briefly stumbled through his lyrics before picking back up where he left off (although there was a short interlude of him humming).

  Sara tore out after Derrick, red curls bouncing on her back. The screen door slammed again, and the Labs hid their heads under a table. The dogs’ law of physics was “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me!”

  The trio kept playing, although Buddy’s eyebrows shot all the way up his black face. Lulu shook her head at him. Funny how you could communicate without words after so many years. No, there’d be no need for Lulu to run after Sara. Lulu was sure that Sara would be back any minute, because Derrick wasn’t going to be caught by Sara.

  Sara, red in the face and with glittering eyes, opened the porch door. She cocked her head to the back of the restaurant in a gesture Lulu interpreted to mean that she wanted to speak with her in private. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” said Lulu. “The girls are hanging out in the office.”

  Lulu did stick her head in the office for a second to see if Seb was there. Which he wasn’t. Lulu said, “Before we talk about what happened with you and Derrick, have you seen Seb at all today?”

  Sara, already seething, said, “No, and I could kill him. I know I shouldn’t say that, considering, but I’m that furious. But first let me tell you about Derrick.” She leaned back against the big counter.

  “Okay. Let me hear it.” Lulu winced in anticipation.

  Sara softened a little when she saw Lulu’s reaction. She remembered that she had only just that morning told Ben that Lulu needed to escape from her worries about the murder, and here she was loading her down with all her anxiety and frustration. She rubbed her freckled face with the palms of her hands. “I know he’s my nephew and I shouldn’t say anything. But when he comes in with all that black on, it’s like he’s sucked all the sunshine out of the room,” complained Sara.

  “It’s just a phase,” said Lulu soothingly. “He had a huge adjustment from Chicago to Memphis. Think about how different the kids must be up there.”

  Sara stared gloomily out the kitchen window. “Are they? It seems like teenagers are difficult anywhere at any time. I wish he’d at least try to be a little more cheerful. And that goatee is so scruffy it looks like a five o’clock shadow. Today was a real disaster. Ella Beth was walking down the street today and saw Derrick going into the tattoo parlor.”

  “Oh no,” sighed Lulu. “Well, do you need me to talk to him? I can give him the lowdown on how skin sags in one’s later years. That eagle tattoo might end up looking like a chickadee.”

  “Well, luckily, Ella Beth told Coco, and Coco ran all the way here to let me know. Coco has a thing about tattoos, you know. I caught up with him and pulled him out of there.” Sara rolled her eyes. “Look, Lulu, I don’t want to unload on you. It’s nothing—typical teenage rebellion stuff, I’m sure. Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

  Lulu paused. That was one thing she really couldn’t do. She’d sworn herself to secrecy. Any tales Lulu told involving Flo and a drunken ramble about the mall would be quickly analyzed for content. Why was Flo drinking? Why did Rebecca Adrian’s death affect her so badly? And Lulu had promised not to say anything. “Actually, the Graces took me shopping today. Sort of a surprise treat. It was . . . very nice.” Lulu was so preoccupied with lying that she didn’t notice Sara had turned bright red.

  “Well, that’s wonderful! I’m glad you had a nice day out. Listen, don’t worry about the thing with Derrick. I shouldn’t have dragged you off the porch about it. I just get really mad, sometimes, you know? I’m trying to do the right thing by him for my sister’s sake, and sometimes I feel like he’s throwing it all back in my face.” That wasn’t the extent of the problems she was having with Derrick, thought Sara guiltily.

  Ben was pulling ribs out of the brick wall pit and putting them back in as fast as he could. Considering how many years he’d been cooking, though, his multitasking abilities were very good. “You know what that boy needs?” he asked.

  “I’m almost scared to ask,” said Lulu.

  “He needs to hunt some turkeys,” said Ben, thumping his spatula against a baking sheet.

  Sara’s brow furrowed. “Wearing what, Ben? He’s only got the black shirts and baggy black pants.”

  “I’ve got plenty of extra camo! He could borrow some of mine.”

  Lulu tactfully decided not to bring up the fact that Derrick was thin as a rail. And that Ben . . . wasn’t.

  “And really,” added Sara, “I’m not sure it’s a great idea to arm Derrick, Ben. Especially considering that scene he and I had.”

  Sara quickly changed the subject. “Hey, how is Flo doing?” Lulu shifted uncomfortably. “The last time I saw her, she was really apologetic about forgetting Derrick at the Peabody. It sounded like she’d really had a run-in with Rebecca. Which,” she added wryly, “wasn’t hard to do.”

  “Oh, I think she’s fine,” said Lulu, crossing her fingers behind her back. “You know—the whole thing is wearing on all of us.”

  “I’ll say,” said Sara. “My initial reaction to hearing Rebecca Adrian was dead was a ‘ding-dong, the witch is dead,’ type thing. And now I feel really guilty about it all.”

  Lulu looked at her searchingly. How guilty was guilty? Guilty because she’d harbored ill feelings about someone and they ended up dying? Or guilty because she had something to do with it? Lulu said, “Well, you have nothing to worry about. You were driving me over there so I could apologize to the woman, so you were playing an important role in reconciliation, after all. And don’t worry about Derrick. He’s having a rough time adjusting to a new place, that’s all. And seventeen is a difficult age. Things will turn around, you’ll see.”

  Sara grinned. “Now you forget all about my ramblings, Lulu. Please go back out on the porch and enjoy the blues. You deserve a break. I think I might, too. I’m going to go ahead and take the girls home and try to make up with Derrick.”

  Ben scooped some ribs and baked beans into a takeout container and handed it to Sara. “Here, bring some food home to him. That’s definitely the way to a boy’s heart.”

  Lulu happily retreated to the porch with a bowl full of sliced peaches sprinkled with some brown sugar and pecans. The sweetness of the treat and Morty’s soft voice soothed her. She rocked and let the crooning blues music wrap around her like a blanket until the restaurant closed down for the evening.

  Lulu had high hopes that a day ending peacefully would somehow carry over into the following morning. But dashed hopes were all that were in store for her at Aunt Pat’s.

  “All right! Where’s my brother?” demanded Ben. He looked ferociously mad, which did not jive with his Captain Kangarooish appearance. “He wasn’t here yesterday, and now he’s not here again this morning. I’ve got to get some food ordered, or we’re going to have to shut down from lack of supplies.”

  Lulu knit her brows. “It couldn’t be all that bad, Ben.”

  “But it is. Otherwise, o
ur customers are going to be placing orders, and the waitresses will be saying, ‘Oh sorry—we’re out of ribs. And coleslaw. And corn bread. But we do have some great sweet tea and baked beans.’” Ben’s face displayed a rainbow of colors, none of which indicated a clean bill of coronary health. No wonder Sara said yesterday that she could kill Seb. Considering Ben’s rage, Seb better watch his back or else he might be kicking the bucket himself.

  Lulu was already calling Seb’s cell phone. It went immediately to voice mail. “Seb? It’s Mother. I need you to get yourself to work right away. We need inventory from our vendors, and it’s too expensive to have it overnighted. Call me.”

  Ben was in orbit. “And now we can’t even get in touch with him!”

  “All right, all right. Let me look at the computer and see if I can place the orders. It can’t be all that hard. I know we have some software to help us out,” said Lulu.

  “I’d have done the ordering myself, but I assumed that Seb was taking care of it. Since it’s his job and everything,” said Ben with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice. “And now it’s time for me to fire up the pit and get some ribs smoked. I don’t have time to worry with the inventory.”

  “Just hustle back into the kitchen, Ben,” said Lulu, propelling him out of the office. “I’ll see what I can do with the business end of things.”

  The business end of things quickly made Lulu extremely vexed. She’d found the inventory list (which indicated some shocking shortfalls) and pulled up the software that helped them place their orders from the vendors. The only problem was that the computer was offline. She couldn’t seem to connect to the Internet. Indeed, the entire machine seemed to have been possessed by the devil. An exorcism was clearly needed.

  With great reluctance, Lulu picked up the phone and dialed their Internet provider, World Net. She crossed her fingers that her call would stay somewhere in America. Whenever she was diverted to India, there was a tremendous language barrier—mostly with the technical help not understanding a word she said.

  First, of course, she had to make it past the automated customer service representative. “Please tell me why you called today. You can say things like: about my bill or can’t connect to the Internet.”

  Lulu hesitated. These programs could never seem to interpret her accent. “Can’t connect to the Internet,” she said carefully.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand that. Please tell me why you called today.”

  “Internet!” said Lulu.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand that,” repeated the robotic voice on the other end of the line. “Could you please repeat why you called today?”

  “Human!” It was time to cut to the chase.

  “Hold on one moment, and I’ll connect you.” The machine sounded miffed, if that were even possible. Although, thought Lulu, some automated machines sounded more human than some of the people she’d gotten on the line.

  Fortunately for Lulu, the call center apparently had a location somewhere in the South. Now the problem wasn’t that they didn’t understand her. It was more that she couldn’t understand them.

  “Okay, ma’am. I’m sorry to hear about your problem today. First of all, let’s go to the start menu and click on ‘run.’ Then we’re going to type a command in.”

  For a while, Lulu was able to follow, albeit slowly. Unfortunately, this changed not long after that. “Okay, we’re going to see if we can ping the external address interface.”

  “Pardon?” asked Lulu.

  “Well, it could be your modem or NIC card. Or maybe it’s the signal on our end, although we haven’t had any reports of outages in your area.”

  Lulu grunted.

  “Or maybe you have a virus,” said tech support.

  Lulu was indignant. “I certainly do not! I feel absolutely fine. It’s not my fault the computer is acting this way.”

  There was a pause on the other end. “I meant that maybe your computer has a virus—a Trojan or malware. Hey, let me ask you—is there anybody there who maybe is a little more familiar with computers than you are?” The tech support man sounded anxious.

  “Ben can’t come because he’s working the pit.”

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “And Seb . . . well, this whole problem is Seb’s fault. And we don’t know where he is at all. I’m about to file a missing person’s report on him,” said Lulu.

  “Okaaay.” There was another long pause. “Can you look and see if anybody else is there who can help us out?” This time there was a pleading note to the representative’s voice.

  “Hold on just a minute,” said Lulu. She got up from the desk and peered out the office door. She was surprised to see Derrick in the empty dining room, sitting with his head resting in his hands. Wasn’t there school? Ella Beth and Coco were at school, she knew. With no time to really focus on truancy right now, Lulu called urgently to Derrick. There was no response. She called his name again. No response.

  Lulu quickly remembered that when Derrick didn’t answer her, it wasn’t a cut and dried case of disrespect. No, it usually meant that he was plugged in.

  Lulu strode right up to him and put her fingers to his ear. Sure enough, there was some sort of headphones plugged in there. She unplugged Derrick, and he lifted his head in surprise.

  “Derrick? We have a computer emergency on our hands!”

  Derrick had a confident air as soon as he sat down in front of the computer. Lulu smiled at his relaxed, self-assured manner. Lulu was sure the tech-support person on the other end of the phone line was relieved to have him there, too. Satisfied that her problem was in expert hands, Lulu focused on getting the dining room ready for the lunchtime crowd. Until, that is, the Memphis police came in. And they didn’t seem to be there for the half-price plates that law enforcement got.

  Lulu laid her dishrag back in her wash bucket at the sight of Detective Lyndon Bryce’s freshly scrubbed face. “Mrs. Taylor? Hope you’re doing well this morning. I just wanted to check in with you about your son.”

  Lulu’s brow wrinkled. “About Ben? He’s cooking ribs in the kitchen right now. You’re welcome to talk to him while he works.” Her mind spun. What the heck could the police want with Ben? Everything was falling apart around her ears.

  Detective Bryce shook his head. “No, ma’am. We’re actually interested in speaking with your other son. Sebastian Taylor.”

  Lulu put her hands on her hips. “Well, if you find out where he is, you let me know. I’m interested in speaking with him, too! He’s vexed the life out of me today.”

  “He’s not here?” asked Bryce.

  “Afraid not. He was supposed to be here yesterday afternoon and this morning. But he’s off gallivanting somewhere, I’m sure. And now we’ve got computer issues out the wazoo!”

  Detective Bryce appeared to not want to delve too far into the computer problems plaguing Aunt Pat’s. He handed her his card. “If he does come in today, could you please call me and let me know? Or have him call me directly.” He registered Lulu’s anxious expression and added gently, “It’s strictly procedural, I promise.”

  Lulu puffed out a sigh of relief. “Well, I am glad to hear that. He’s mischievous, mind you, but I don’t think he runs around killing people he hasn’t even met. I’ll be sure to give you a call if I see or hear from him.”

  A waitress hurried by, carrying a big tray loaded with ribs with all the fixings. The sergeant’s stomach rumbled.

  “Sweetie, do you need a meal? Here . . . Pam, can you grab a to-go plate for the sergeant here?”

  The sergeant, with a swift, sideways glance at Detective Bryce, shook his head. “Um, no, ma’am, I shouldn’t . . .”

  Lulu patted his arm, “Now, hon, it’s not poisoned or anything! You don’t have to worry your head about that. We cook with love here.” After a beat of hesitation, Lulu said, “And a plate for Detective Bryce. Because his stomach is next in line to grumble, I’m guessing. Nobody can resist the sweet and spicy smells from Aun
t Pat’s kitchen.”

  A few minutes after Detective Bryce and his sergeant had made their departure Derrick poked his head out of the back office. Lulu blinked with surprise at his pleased smile.

  “It’s up and running,” said Derrick.

  Lulu whooped and gave him a hug that made him gasp. Ben stuck his head out the kitchen door. “What was that noise? Did a wild animal get in here?”

  “Just me,” said Lulu, “getting excited over the fact that Derrick is a computer genius. He’s got the computer back online.”

  Derrick looked hesitantly at Ben.

  But Ben whooped, too, and gave him several hearty thumps on the back. “Excellent job, Derrick! Excellent job! Once I finish getting this takeout order done, I’ll run in there and do some ordering. We’re going to be in big trouble if we don’t bring in some more stock.”

  Derrick said slowly, “Uncle Ben, if you like, I could give it a try. I saw the sheet listing the inventory you wanted to order. And the software doesn’t look too hard to figure out.”

  Ben’s face had a relieved expression on it. “That would be fantastic, Derrick. I’m . . . uh . . . not sure why you’re not in school, but you’ve saved Aunt Pat’s today. Another twenty-four hours of this and we’d have had to tell everybody we were out of half the menu before they placed their order.” He looked at the wall clock. “I’d better get back into the kitchen.”

  Lulu said, “And I’m going to treat Derrick to some milk and cookies before he gets started ordering from vendors. I think he needs a little break.” Ben nodded absently and pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door.

  If anybody needed some grandmotherly TLC, it was Derrick. She wasn’t sure what the status on his actual grandmothers was, but she was always happy to step into a role that she really enjoyed. In a few minutes time, she’d settled Derrick in a rocking chair on the screen porch with a plate of chocolate chip cookies, a tall glass of milk, and two very interested Labradors.