Down Home and Deadly Read online

  I took the mayor and First Lady’s drink order and hurried away. A few minutes later, as I carefully set the drinks on the table, I glanced at Tiffany. The change was amazing. Her arms were crossed defensively in front of her, and the radiance was gone. “I think you just don’t want me to get married.” She glared sullenly at her mother. “You’ve never really wanted me to be happy.”

  Amelia glanced up at me and gave a nervous laugh. “Honey, of course, I want you to be happy. I just think you’re rushing this.” She looked to Byron as if for support. “We want you to have a wedding to remember and that takes some time to plan. You don’t want off-the-rack dresses for the bridesmaids, do you? And what about your gown?” I’d often thought Amelia was like a Barbie doll with no real feelings or emotions, but her distress was very real.

  I took my pad and pen out of my apron. “Have y’all decided what you want to eat?” I asked in my most cheerful voice, then motioned Vanna-like toward the white dry-erase board on the wall. “These are today’s specials.”

  Amelia ignored my motion and glanced down at the menu in her hand. “I’ll have the chef salad with blue cheese dressing on the side.” She looked at me over her menu. “Carly does make her own salad dressing, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m partial to her honey mustard, but the blue cheese is great, too.”

  Tiffany didn’t look at the white board, either. Carly was going to fire me if I didn’t do a better job of promoting the already-made food.

  “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries off the menu.” Tiffany smiled at Ricky. “That’s what you want, too, isn’t it, baby?”

  “Sure is.” He patted her on the hand. “You always know just what I like.”

  I saw Amelia’s jaw muscle jump as she gritted her teeth. Was her son-in-law-to-be needling her on purpose?

  “And you, Mayor Stanton?”

  “I’ll have the chicken fried steak and gravy, mashed potatoes, and fried okra.”

  Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Finally, someone who was ordering one of the specials. Maybe my job was safe for another day.

  Later, when I set the serving tray beside their table and began unloading it, they were still discussing the upcoming nuptials.

  “We do have an image to uphold, dear.” Amelia was again speaking through gritted teeth. She was going to need dental work if she kept this up. “We can’t just throw something together, especially if your dad is going to run for the Senate.” She lowered her voice on the last three words.

  Debbie had warned me that as a waitress I would hear lots of personal business and gossip. “We’re like the furniture,” she’d said. And it looked like she was right.

  I set their plates in front of them and headed back to pick up an order for another table. I got busy with my other tables but stopped back by to see if they needed refills.

  Ricky pushed to his feet just as I approached. “I’m going to go out and see if I can help the guys,” he said as he threw a couple of ones on the table and handed a twenty to Tiffany. “Do you mind handling our bill, honey?”

  She shook her head and shoved the money back to him. “Today’s my treat.”

  He glanced at her parents then back at her and frowned. “I’d rather pay for it, okay?” he said quietly.

  She glared at her mother then nodded. “Sure, sweetie.” She took the twenty-dollar bill. When he was gone, she turned to her mother. “I hope you’re happy. You ran him off.”

  Amelia’s elaborately made-up eyes widened. “Why, Tiffany, I did no such thing.”

  “You know what? I need to go. I’ll talk to y’all later.” Tiffany dropped a kiss on Byron’s forehead, and with barely a glance at her mother, stomped up to the cash register.

  Byron stood and retrieved his and Amelia’s bill. “I’m going to go on and pay, too.” He followed his daughter.

  “Well, at least she didn’t eat all of that fat-filled burger,” Amelia murmured as I refilled her glass.

  Indignant on Carly’s behalf, I protested. “That’s ground chuck—”

  Amelia waved her hand. “Never mind, dear. I need a favor.”

  “A ‘to go’ box?”

  She frowned, but thanks to one-too-many Botox treatments, only her eyes showed it. “No, silly.” She glanced at her husband and daughter and lowered her voice. “You’re so good at snooping. I need you to find out what you can about Ricky before he and Tiffany get married.” She was talking so fast and quietly, I could barely understand her. “We had her last boyfriend investigated. It turned out badly, and she was brokenhearted for a while.” She sipped her tea and lifted her hand in a lazy wave to a nearby diner. “We don’t want that to happen again,” she said to me from the corner of her mouth.

  “You know, Amelia, I’m not a PI. Can’t you just have a professional check him out, run a background check, that kind of thing?”

  She put her hand to her heart as if I’d suggested having him murdered. “No. Tiffany made us promise not to do that ever again.”

  Maybe she wasn’t as managing a mother as I thought.

  Her next words dispelled that delusion. “I’d do it anyway, but I’m afraid she would find out.” She took a drink. “But you can do it. You ask questions all the time, anyway, so no one would think it was odd.”

  Thanks a lot.

  “Besides, you know John and Seth both. They’ll tell you anything.” Ha, little did she know. John wouldn’t tell me the time of day unless he had to. Well, he wasn’t that bad, but he certainly didn’t share information with me.

  “I guess I can ask them about him. If you really want me to. But he seems like a regular guy to me. Why are you so worried?”

  “Tiffany doesn’t attract men like some girls do.” She glanced at me. “Well, look at her. No wonder she doesn’t. I could have helped her, but from the time she was small, if I even made a suggestion about her looks or clothes, she took it as an insult.”

  Amelia looked toward the door where Byron motioned toward her that he was ready. “Anyway, she hasn’t had good luck with men. Ricky seems fine, but we just want to make sure. Will you do it?”

  “I don’t know. . .”

  She tapped her nails impatiently on the table. “I seem to remember I didn’t hesitate when you asked me to look into something for you.”

  I shrugged. What could I say? She was right. In the last murder I’d been investigating, I’d asked her to check something out and she had. “I’ll figure out a way to ask John and Seth what they think about him without seeming suspicious. And I’ll let you know.”

  She pulled out a ten-dollar bill and left it on the table. “Thanks.”

  I scooped the ten into my apron pocket and watched the First Lady of Lake View glide across the room.

  Poor Ricky. He had no idea what he was getting into.

  *****

  *****

  Chapter Four

  A watched pot never boils.

  Within five minutes, Harvey was ringing up the last few stragglers from the lunch crowd. I was learning the ebb and flow of customers. They all came at once. They all left at once.

  I walked over to where Alice carefully filled the saltshakers.

  She smiled at me. “I bet you’re worn out. Not bein’ used to this and all.”

  I didn’t know it showed. Every part of me was longing for a nice, relaxing swim in the club pool. I would’ve even settled for taking inventory or cleaning the equipment in the exercise room. I sank into a chair and groaned. “My feet may never be the same. I don’t see how you’ve done this for so long. No wonder you wanted to sell this place.”

  A cloud crossed her face. “It’s never easy making a change, though. We’ve lived in Lake View our whole lives. And Harvey’s parents owned the diner before us.”

  I needed a new subject fast. “I heard today that J.D. Finley was from here when he was young. Is that true?”

  “Um-hum,” she grunted without looking up.

  I waited for her to elaborate, but she concentrated on sifting th
e tiny white granules into the last shaker.

  She finished and picked up the big plastic pitcher full of salt. “With all those police officers out back, I’d better go see about the pies I have in the oven.”

  I stared at her back. If I wanted to snoop, I was going to have to find someone more loquacious than Alice.

  Or—I glanced out at the parking lot where police cars were parked everywhere—I could see for myself what was going on.

  I stood and stretched then ambled into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. “I’m on break,” I called to Carly as I let myself quietly out the back door, clutching my mug casually. No law against an overworked waitress taking a break out back, was there?

  Across the small alley the infamous Dumpster loomed. Behind it and to the sides were scraggly woods—land that had probably been cleared less than a decade ago but had been ignored since. Today that little thicket was literally crawling with cops.

  I leaned against the wooden post and watched the search.

  “Spread out more,” John barked, and the officers quickly obeyed.

  Thankfully no one even looked my way, or our esteemed chief of police certainly would have ordered me back inside.

  Just as I drained the last drop of my coffee, an excited yell went up from an area on the very outskirts of the woods.

  I stood on my tiptoes and could make out two familiar figures. “Over here!” Seth and Ricky waved their arms. “Found it!”

  Lake View’s police force descended on them en masse, no doubt trampling significant clues in the process.

  I heard John growling at them, so apparently he thought the same thing. Within seconds, they headed back in my direction, John carrying a plastic bag with something small in it. As he drew closer, I squinted at the contents. Undoubtedly a gun, but it looked more like a tiny water pistol. Hard to believe something so small could do so much damage.

  Before I could slip back inside, John spotted me. His face grew red, and he twisted his mouth as if trying to think of what to say, but he just sputtered.

  I held my hand up in an international gesture of peace. “I’m going, I’m going.”

  I quickly let myself back into the diner before my childhood friend had a coronary. Sometimes he really overreacted to my tendency to want to know what was going on.

  *****

  “Wow, Carly. You’re a genius.” I wiggled my toes in the warm water. “I’m so glad you bought two.”

  “I can’t take credit. I got them because of the advice Alice gave me.” Carly sank down in her own chair and immersed her feet in the plastic foot spa in front of her. She groaned and closed her eyes. “ ‘Take good care of your feet,’ she said. ‘And they’ll take good care of you.’ ”

  “Speaking of Alice. . .” I couldn’t believe I’d been so drained that I’d forgotten this. “Yesterday after John let us all go, I overheard Alice say something odd to Harvey.”

  “She says odd things to him all the time,” Carly said without opening her eyes.

  “Yeah, but she said, ‘I wouldn’t blame you.’ Or something like that.”

  She sat up. “For what?”

  I shrugged. “She said for turning the burner up under the soup.”

  “Oh. Well, the soup was a little scorched today, I thought. Maybe that’s all it was.”

  “Maybe.”

  For a few minutes we sat, without speaking, in the darkened living room of the small cabin on our folks’ property that Carly and the kids had moved into a few months ago. With the girls in bed, Zac in his room on the phone, and our heated foot spas bubbling, we’d created a relaxation haven.

  “I guess you don’t think it was a stranger this time, either, do you?” Carly said tiredly.

  I didn’t even have to wonder for a second what she meant. “I wish I did, but not really.” Each time we’d gotten embroiled in a murder, we’d tried to cling to the false hope that the killer was a stranger. Both of the other two times we’d been sadly disappointed.

  “Yeah, me either. One can only hold on to that kind of naïveté for so long.”

  I squinted toward her. “Aren’t you getting cynical?”

  She shrugged. “Having a dead man show up at your grand opening tends to do that to you.”

  “Excuse me for ruining your grand opening by finding a body,” I said. “Why do you think he was there?”

  Carly kept her head resting against the padded back of her chair. “Well, since I already sound like a narcissist, maybe someone hired him to sabotage my big day.”

  I snorted. “No doubt. Wonder what the pay is for that?” I asked. “Dying in order to sabotage?”

  She snorted back at me without opening her eyes. “Okay then, smarty. I guess it would be too flippant to say that he might have put out a hit on himself to get him out of his relationship with Lisa.”

  I reached over and shoved her gently. “I think we’ve officially come down with the eleven o’clock sillies.”

  “Mama always says the only cure for that is going to bed before eleven,” Carly said in a pseudoserious tone.

  “Well, Mama should have come over and helped us clean up tonight at the diner,” I spouted. “Then we wouldn’t be so tired we can’t sleep.”

  “Good point,” she murmured.

  “I know the difference,” I said suddenly.

  “Difference in what?” Carly asked, something in my voice alerting her that my silliness had vanished. She sat up and looked over at me.

  “This body. This time we don’t know the victim. So we have no idea who might have done it.”

  “Very true,” Carly said thoughtfully. “And since he was in fact a stranger to us. . .”

  “A stranger might very well have killed him,” I finished triumphantly, feeling a little rejuvenated at the thought. “And we don’t even have to know why.”

  *****

  “Sunday dinner at your mom’s,” Alex said with a sigh as he helped me clear the table. “One of the many things I missed all those years we were apart.”

  I waved a fork at him. “You only love me for my mama’s cooking?” I teased. “We may have a problem.”

  He nudged me and motioned to Carly and Elliott who still sat whispering with their heads together at the other end of the long table. “You think we have a problem? At least we know the meal is over.”

  Elliott looked up and grinned. “Hey now, we’re not deaf.”

  “Well, stop the mushiness then, Romeo. You’re making me look bad.” Alex returned his grin.

  Carly laughed. “This from the man who had my sister swept away in a limo to meet him for a private dinner at the marina.”

  “And then bought her a rock the size of Manhattan a few weeks later,” Elliott chimed in.

  “And even more romantically, helps me with the dishes,” I said, winking at Alex.

  “I think that was a hint for us to get busy.” Elliott stood and pulled Carly to her feet then put his arm around her and pulled her close. He whispered something in her ear.

  The twins came running in, followed by Zac.

  “Mom, can we go now?” Hayley’s query was more of a command.

  “Yeah,” Rachel chimed in. “You said as soon as lunch was over we could go get ready for the basketball game.”

  “Pipe down, kiddos.” Zac spoiled his big-brother attitude by adding, “But everyone’s goin’ down to the courts soon, right, Mom? I want to practice my jump shot before the game starts.” He turned to Elliott. “Can’t you make her hurry?”

  “Hurry a woman? Son, you’ve got lots to learn”—Elliott winked at Zac—“but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Out!” I made shooing motions at the kids. Then I stopped. “On second thought, why don’t you take these dirty dishes in the kitchen and tell your grandma that y’all will load the dishwasher? When you finish, we’ll show you who the athletes really are.”

  “I’ll show them how to hold down a lawn chair,” Carly muttered.

  The kids obediently took all the dishes and ex
ited the dining room, but they were so busy laughing about our supposed athletic ability that Hayley bumped into the door facing. Served her right.

  Forty-five minutes later, we were waiting for a few stragglers on the concrete basketball court just past the playground. One of the benefits of being raised at a resort—plenty of room for friendly games. And plenty of extra players. Just as Dad finished going over the rules, the honeymooners in cabin five came running up. “Are we too late?”

  Dad shook his head. “The cops are just now getting here.” He motioned to where the black-and-white patrol car had pulled into a parking place.

  The man stopped in his tracks and put a protective arm around his new wife. “Excuse me?”

  Dad laughed and pointed at John, Ricky, and Seth, who were walking across the gravel parking lot toward us. “Don’t worry, son. The chief of police has a mean three-pointer, but he isn’t worth a dime on defense. And that tall cop gets all the rebounds, but when he shoots, you don’t need to worry. He can’t hit the broad side of the barn. And Seth? Well, he’s just Seth. You’ll see.”

  Everyone laughed, even the newcomers.

  A new hybrid vehicle pulled in and bypassed the parking lot, driving across the gravel directly to the basketball court. Before I could guess who the driver might be, Tiffany Stanton emerged. She waved and smiled then walked around the car and opened the passenger door. John’s wife, Denise, climbed out, her usually slender frame struggling to hold the extra twenty-five pounds she had gained in the first eight months of her pregnancy. They already had two children, but this was Denise’s first pregnancy since turning thirty. John had apparently read that with age came danger. He’d been treating Denise as if she were made of spun gold for the last several months.

  The cops had almost reached us when John heard us greet Tiffany and Denise behind him. He spun around to look. “What is she doing here? I told her she needed to rest.”

  He hurried over to Denise and cupped her elbow with his hand. I would be annoyed by the constant attention, but Denise seemed to be coping very well. Then again, looks could be deceiving. Even though she smiled as she struggled to gain her balance, there was a hint of gritted teeth in the smile. She waved and began walking toward us with John scampering around her like an overgrown puppy.