by Riley Adams
Cherry’s eyes opened wide up.
“I’ve got your taste buds a little treat. But we’ve got to keep this quiet. Or else there might be a run on your table and I only made two pies.”
“Pies?”
“Fried apple pie, hon. I think we might need to adjourn to the kitchen for this one. Don’t want to upset the other guests.”
“If I could figure out how to make my own fried apple pie, I’d be one happy camper, Lulu. I tried it twice and almost burned the house down. You wouldn’t have believed the smoke! The smoke detector went off, the dog went hysterical—total fiasco.”
“That sounds like your oil was too hot, sweetie. I keep it at medium heat.” Lulu opened up the kitchen door to get the pie and Cherry waved to Ben, who dusted off his hands on his long black apron and waved back.
“I love this kitchen,” sighed Cherry. “It feels happy and safe here.”
“It truly is the heart of the restaurant, you know. And one of my favorite places on this earth. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent in this very room growing up. I’d sit on a stool and watch Aunt Pat singing as she cooked.”
“It’s so tidy and organized in here, too,” said Cherry. “My kitchen is a raging disaster area, and I don’t even cook all that much.” She waved a hand to include the big peg-board on one wall with pots, pans, and skillets hanging on it like works of art.
“Oh well, Aunt Pat got the idea from Julia Child. She found out that’s how Julia organized her cookware, and anything that Julia did was good enough for Aunt Pat. She even traced around pots as they hung there to create an outline and make sure the right pot went to the correct spot.”
Pots hung from the ceiling, too, some of them copper pots that always invoked memories for Lulu of Aunt Pat at the stove, stirring away with her wooden spoons. There was lots of counter space for cutting and mixing, and an impressive array of gleaming knives. The pit was set into a brick wall with steel doors holding in the heat.
“Here,” said Lulu, grabbing one of the pies, a pie server, and some plates, “Let’s head to the office where we can have a little chat.”
“The aroma is divine,” breathed Cherry. “Cinnamon and apples and grease—this will cure what ails me right away. You even dusted it with powdered sugar. I don’t see how you have the time, Lulu.”
“Oh, cooking relaxes me, Cherry. Keeps me from having a coronary after all the stress going on around the restaurant lately. I made my pastry, but you could have almost the same results by getting some of that flaky, refrigerated biscuit dough.”
They ate in silence for a minute.
Then Lulu said, “You were going to fill me in on some of your problems? See if I could help you out in any way.”
Finally Cherry said, “Well, I’m worried about my bike. It was . . . uh . . . making a funny sputtering put-put-put noise the other day. And, you know, that’s the way I get around.”
“Mmmhmm,” said Lulu. She didn’t believe a word of this. Cherry would be able to easily identify the problem with her motorcycle. “Sputtering put-put-put noises” would not be the way she’d describe a mechanical problem.
Cherry could tell Lulu wasn’t buying it. “And then Johnny has been acting funny lately. You know—he’s not been acting like himself.”
“Mmmhmm,” said Lulu. This, again, was quite unbelievable. Johnny was not a great specimen of husbandom at any time. Johnny was ignorant, hardheaded, and argumentative. Any change in Johnny’s everyday, ordinary behavior would have to be considered a change for the better.
Cherry dropped her gaze again under Lulu’s skeptical look. “And my dog, Trisha? She’s been having all kinds of digestive distress. I mean, there’s no telling what I might be going home to this evening. Might be floor-to-ceiling poop.”
“Honey, I’ve got some industrial strength cleaner in the kitchen that you are more than welcome to. It’ll take spots off a heifer, and you don’t even have to rub,” said Lulu helpfully.
Now Cherry looked totally deflated. “Okay, so you want to know the deal.”
“I do. I do want to know the deal. Because the longer this case goes on, the worse things get. People are acting like little middle-of-the-day shadows of themselves, and I can’t stand it,” said Lulu.
Cherry looked all around her, guardedly, as if someone had rigged a mike up to listen in on her conversation. She opened her mouth, and then snapped it shut again and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t like to tell other people’s secrets.”
“Cherry, if this is about poor Flo, I already know all about it, remember? Is there something else to the story that Flo isn’t telling us?”
“No, it’s not Flo. It’s Mildred Cameron.”
Lulu sat back in her chair with a whump. “Mildred?”
Cherry nodded and pushed her pie around with her fork some more. If she moved it around any more, it was going to become mush. “You know how she and I have always been friendly? She’s not like one of the Graces, of course. But we’re nice to each other.”
Lulu said, “Sure.” Mildred didn’t have many people who called her a friend . . . maybe a few of the regulars at her bookstore could be considered friends. Cherry had always greeted her, asked questions about her book, never pointed out the book hadn’t seemed to progress at all, and smiled admiringly at all the right times. Mildred felt like she belonged to the group at Aunt Pat’s. And she did.
“Well, last night I was sound asleep, sawing logs. And my doorbell rang.” Just the recounting of the story made Cherry look as startled as she must have looked when it actually happened. “You know that’s not a natural sound at two o’clock in the morning.”
Lulu’s blue eyes widened. “It would’ve scared me to death. What did Johnny think?”
Cherry rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’d have been mad as a sopping wet hen if he’d been there. But he was off gallivanting with his friend Eric. It was poker night, and they play and drink and play and drink until they fall asleep with their faces on the table. Lots of fun, you know. He usually doesn’t drag his butt home until nearly dawn.”
“Sounds like quite a party.”
“So anyway, there I was in my soft curlers and my nightie and a frying pan in my hand. I put on my helmet in case somebody tried to bop me on the head.” Lulu peered at Cherry’s head. “Oh, the helmet fits right over the curlers, Lulu. Anyway, I look out the window, and who do I see but Mildred standing there.” Cherry finally pushed away her plate. “And,” said Cherry under her breath, “she was in quite a state, let me tell you. Quite a state.”
Lulu could imagine. With her thin arms and neck and her propensity to flap her arms around when she was worked up about something, Mildred had always resembled a fledgling bird trying unsuccessfully to take off.
“She had this baggy sweat suit on, kind of like what I’m wearing now. And she kept looking behind her like the boogey man was going to leap out of my azalea bushes and drag her off into the sewer.”
“Had she been drinking?” asked Lulu.
“No. She was her normal, neurotic self,” said Cherry. “Only worse. I invited her inside, heated up some water, and made us some Sleepytime tea. I poured some milk in it and a dab of bourbon. I couldn’t handle her in the state she was in. She was a good girl and slugged it right on down.
“I asked her what the dickens was going on. She didn’t even look concerned at paying a visit at two A.M. She said that she couldn’t sleep for being so scared, and she didn’t know where else to go.
“I told her to slow down. She took a little breath and said she’d been at the Peabody that afternoon Rebecca Adrian died. But I was like, no, you were at Aunt Pat’s being upset. I hadn’t realized that she’d left as early as she did. I guess I was thinking more about Flo and Sara that afternoon than Mildred.
“She said she always thinks of comebacks well after the person has left. It drives her crazy. You know, like in high school when someone puts you down and your mouth is flapping like ‘uh, uh, uh’ and they leave. Then ten mi
nutes later you think of the perfect thing to have said back to them. Well, Mildred is still like that. Except she wasn’t happy to let it go. No, sir. She was by-gum going to go to the Peabody, deliver her comeback in person, and then run like the devil out of there before Rebecca could come up with some other insult that it would take another hour to respond to.
“So she finds Miss Adrian at the Peabody. There she is, sassy as anything, drinking a cocktail or something right there in the lobby. She frowns at Mildred as she comes up. In my mind’s eye, I see Mildred strutting up, arms flapping, like a chicken. Then she gives whatever put-down it was that she thought up. Probably something that doesn’t even make any sense or something that Miss Adrian wouldn’t even consider all that insulting. Anyway, she’s right there. Right by her beverage. And she’s mad. So it’s the perfect time to poison her.”
Lulu remembered to breathe again. “Did she? Is that what she did?”
“Not according to Mildred. She says Rebecca ignored her and just stalked off to the elevators. I guess she wasn’t in any mood to chat with her. So Mildred apparently felt like mission accomplished, right? And then she sees someone she knows there. Somebody she’s not expecting.”
“Who?” asked Lulu eagerly.
“That’s what she wouldn’t say,” said Cherry. “But she looked really . . . haunted. It’s been worrying her to death. And they saw her, too.”
Lulu knit her brows. “Now, it wasn’t Derrick that she saw, was it? Because, you know, he was out there slashing Miss Adrian’s tires. A really bad, bad thing to do, but he wasn’t poisoning anybody.”
Cherry said, “I don’t know, Lulu. She wouldn’t say who it was. Maybe she did see Derrick. But she was just really upset.”
“Maybe it’s someone that she thinks of as a friend, and then she wasn’t sure how to process what she’d seen?”
“I definitely got the impression it was someone she knew and liked. And that wasn’t the end of it,” said Cherry.
“No?”
Now Cherry was leaning forward across the booth and pinning Lulu with her eyes. “She ended up getting this typed letter. A threatening one telling her that all sorts of awful things were going to happen to her if she didn’t keep her trap shut.”
“What? So this just happened? She was fine when I saw her the other day—she was blabbing on about research for her new book. She needs to call the police!”
“That’s what I was trying to tell her last night. But she said that she burned it up, so there’s nothing to show them. And she couldn’t even remember what all was in the letter.” Cherry shrugged. “But I’ll be honest with you; it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I kept wondering if maybe somebody had followed her over to my house or something.” She muttered, “It’s that crazy old Lurleen probably. Trying to cover up for the fact she killed Rebecca in a jealous rage.”
“Are you still stuck on that idea?” asked Lulu.
“Why not? Anybody fool enough to go dancing around in this heat in a fuchsia pig suit has got to be nuts. Besides, she won’t serve tap water at her restaurant. She’s crazy, I tell you.”
Lulu tried to return to the original conversation. “Maybe. But her and Seb’s relationship was over before it even really got going. If she’s jealous, then she’s delusional—it’s over. As for Mildred, if she does have information about somebody at the scene of the crime—not Derrick, but someone else—then she should share it with the police. Not only for her own protection, but to bring the killer to justice. And maybe prevent another crime.”
Cherry smiled a bit of her old smile. “Aren’t you the crime fighter all of a sudden? I certainly shared my thoughts on that, too. I even considered going to the police about it myself. But she was adamant that the police not get involved. Said that was one of the things that was listed in the letter not to do.”
“Since when do poison pen letters make us do anything?” demanded Lulu. “I’m going to round Mildred up, revive her with an especially sugary batch of sweet tea, and march her right over to the authorities. If I need to organize a marathon sleepover at her house with the Graces, Sara, and I taking turns as guards, then so be it. We look after our own here.” Lulu thought uneasily about the fact that Mildred had been looking for Seb yesterday. Then she gave herself a shake. Surely Seb didn’t have anything to do with the murder. He just couldn’t.
Cherry grinned. “I was worried sick. She pledged me to secrecy you know, but I was afraid something would happen to her. Or that something would happen to both of us for withholding information from the police. Now that you’re the one coming up with the game plan, I feel much better about it. In fact . . . I think I’m ready for another plate of barbeque.”
“What I want is to find out if you’ve found a good excuse to open that delicious bottle of wine, Buddy. I sure am looking forward to its uncorking.” Big Ben trumpeted this inquiry in a booming tone that carried to the far reaches of the restaurant.
Buddy answered in just as loud of a voice. “No, I sure haven’t, Big Ben. Besides, it might interest you to know that I’m putting my drinking days behind me. I’m no longer going to allow alcohol to sully these lips.” He leaned forward and yelled, “And turn your ears on. You’re louder than a freight train this morning.”
Big Ben’s mouth dropped open. He quickly turned up the volume on his hearing aids. After opening and shutting his mouth several more times, he said “Not going to drink anymore? Is that what you said? Have you suffered a stroke?”
Buddy shot him an offended look. “I certainly have not. But it’s hard to reconcile my religious beliefs with my indulgence in alcohol. I’ve given up drinking for God.”
Big Ben struggled to recover. “In that case,” he said slowly, scratching the side of his face with a long finger, “I think you’d better relieve yourself of temptation. I’ll be happy to take your entire collection of alcohol-based beverages from your pantry.”
Buddy glared at him. Morty was chuckling beside them both. He said, “Hey, she’s gone, Buddy. You can drop the charade now.”
Buddy hissed at Big Ben, “I am certainly not going to divest myself of my wine collection. You get that thought out of your head right now.”
“Well, then, I’m confused. I’d appreciate it if somebody would fill me in,” said Big Ben with great dignity. “There’s obviously been a romantic development that I’m not privy to.”
Buddy ignored him; instead, he motioned Lulu to the booth. “Lulu, what can you tell me about Leticia Swinger?”
Lulu seemed to be fumbling around in her memory. “Well, now, let’s see. I’ve sat down and talked with her quite a few times. Very nice, pretty black lady, in her late seventies. Widowed. I do believe someone mentioned to me that she’s the star soloist at . . .” she frowned, trying to remember the name.
“The Eternal Crown of Our Blessed Savior of Memphis,” finished Buddy in a gloomy voice.
Lulu nodded, thoughtfully. “Not a church with a big reputation for enjoying alcohol.”
“Oh, I see,” said Big Ben, crowing. “You’ve got yourself a new lady friend. And she’s a gospel singer, at that! Now you’ll be toeing the line from now on. Surrender those bottles.”
“Hey, I want in on that, too,” protested Morty. “I even promise to keep them closed and give them back to you after you’ve wooed her enough so that consumption of alcohol doesn’t matter anymore.” He reconsidered. “Well, most of it I’d keep uncorked. I should get a little something for my trouble, though.”
“She’s awfully pretty,” said Lulu. “And I’ve seen her walking to church on Sunday mornings wearing the most beautiful hats. And,” she added in a confidential tone, “she certainly has been in here a whole lot more than usual. She must have discovered that this was your hangout, Buddy.”
A flush spread over Buddy’s face as Big Ben and Morty gave whooping laughs. “All right, that’s enough of that. We’ll see. I do like the lady a lot. Maybe I can squirrel away a couple of bottles to keep at home and outsource some others to
y’all’s tender care. I’m just working up to asking her out.”
“Lulu, she’s not seeing anyone, as far as you know?”
“Not as far as I know. What kind of date are you planning?”
“Something nice and quiet. Maybe I’ll cook a simple meal at home, and we can sit out on the porch and eat.”
“Sure would be a lot nicer,” mulled Big Ben, “with a chilled bottle of wine.”
Although it took longer than Lulu planned, she was finally able to pull away from Aunt Pat’s and go check on Mildred. First she drove over to the bookshop, knowing that sometimes Mildred stayed there late to work on her book or to read for a while. Lulu often wondered if Mildred just didn’t completely lose track of time. She didn’t have anybody waiting for her at home, so she became completely absorbed in life at Mildred’s Secondhand Book Shoppe. Lulu was no fan of putting a “pe” at the end of “shop” but had so far been able to refrain from sharing that bit of information with Mildred.
The bookstore looked dark as she drove by, so Lulu went to Mildred’s house. Lulu raised her eyebrows. The house was dark, too. Now Lulu entertained fanciful visions of a depressed and frightened Mildred alone in the dark. Lulu pulled into her driveway and marched to the front door. She rang the doorbell. And again. No answer. Lulu rapped loudly on the front door. No answer.
Lulu tried the doorknob and to her surprise, it turned. Lulu clucked. Wasn’t Mildred supposed to be a poisoned-pen-letter recipient? Locking her door would certainly help prevent unwelcome company. Lulu ignored the thought that maybe she was unwelcome company. Lulu called, “Hello? Yoo-hoo! Are you in here? It’s Lulu.”
No answer except from the birds that said, “Hi there! Hi there!”
Lulu could smell something she assumed was Mildred’s supper cooking. She walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, the Crock-Pot was burbling away. Lulu peered at it. Why would she have put the Crock-Pot on high if she wasn’t going to be home any earlier than this? Lulu lifted the lid off the Crock-Pot. Eww. Whatever sauce she’d put in there had clearly not been enough. The chicken, at least that’s what Lulu assumed it was, had completely dried up along with whatever sauce was in there. Lulu made a mental note not to stay for supper if Mildred asked her. She turned the pot off.
