Killer Cousins (28 page)

“Or drop in an ingredient that might kill someone.”

His gaze shifted to my left. He swung his eyes toward me. “When the waiter turned in Fawn’s order, he told the cook he needed one bowl of chicken gumbo for my table.”

I knew what that order meant. Because of Gil’s severe allergy, the kitchen staff and waiters had been told about it with a warning to be careful not to bring any shrimp to his table. This was the case in each of his restaurants. The only exceptions had been when I was with him, and he’d ordered seafood for me. When we were together, he knew he wouldn’t accidentally get my shrimp.

Fawn had been sitting alone at his table.

I squeezed his hands. “Maybe the shrimp was put in there a while ago, before the chicken gumbo was frozen.”

“The police are checking into it. There was fresh shrimp around for other dishes. I’ll get the reports when they’re finished.”

“In the meantime, you’ve closed all of your restaurants. But you might still be in danger.”

He appeared to force a wry grin. “Somebody could take me in and protect me,” he said with a laugh.

“Tempting. But it’s crowded at Stevie’s house. She has candles and altars and stones.” I kissed his cheek. “Keep in touch. And watch what you eat.”

I went out the way I’d come in, quietly picking up the fallen chairs. If Gil heard me, he’d try to rush out to help. I didn’t think he’d be able to rush anywhere too soon. My fault.

My main problem now was that I needed to help find a killer before this man who was most important to me became a victim.

Lots of people I’d met in this town had come to Gil’s place to try out the food. Some seemed capable of murder. One or more might have killed Pierce Trottier. Did they also know Fawn? I didn’t want to believe anyone would try to kill Gil.

Big brave man that he was, he certainly wouldn’t ask for my help.

But one person had secretly slipped a small deadly item that might have quickly killed him into food delivered to his table.

I needed to protect my man!

* * *

I drove to Stevie’s house, where I’d quietly sit and consider fearful people and events, maybe getting ideas of what I might do.

Her garage was open, the car inside. Disappointed, I went in through the front.

Her utterances were loud. The minute I walked in I heard them—somewhat like chants and then like sounds I’d never heard coming from a human.

The door to her room with the candles was open. The lit candles flickered. My cousin lay face down. She wore that gauzy white gown. Her guttural sounds mingled with high-pitched ones. And then stopped. Lifting her head, she turned toward me.

Her gaze met mine. Stevie’s eyes appeared extra strange, opaquely blending with her fair skin, yet deep and piercing. They looked angry. Sent a jolt of fear through me.

She rose from the floor. Keeping her stare at me, she swept over to the door and shut it in my face. It clicked as she locked it.

My legs froze in place. I didn’t know who my cousin was in that trancelike state. When her gaze turned to me moments before, she hadn’t seemed to know who she was, either. My shins ached.

I rushed to my bedroom. Locked my door. Ran my gaze over my room. Nothing out of place. I checked the closet.

No bad guys inside.

I peeked behind the curtains. The window was locked. No new items under my bed. I opened my unlocked suitcase that still sat on my bed. The few items inside looked the way I’d left them.

I thought of Gil and how I’d hurt him. And how I wanted to help him with that problem at the restaurant, too. I wanted to take care of him. To protect him and not let any more harm come to him.

I sat on the bed and massaged my legs. The ache circled from my shins to my calf muscles. I groaned. Maybe these pains that came and went were all in my head instead of my legs.

Needing to write, I found that the lamp tables near the bed didn’t have drawers. I opened the bottom dresser drawer I hadn’t checked before, hoping to find paper.

More nude men. These magazines looked worse than the first ones I’d seen in the other drawers.

My face heated. Guilt? Excitement?

I shut the drawer and envisioned Gil’s face and body. Hmm, maybe not as firm and chiseled as some of them. But just right for meshing with my mine.

“Stop it, Cealie!” I jerked my eyes open and stomped my foot. I needed Gil’s image out of my head.

I remembered the legal pad I’d bought to pretend to interview Jenna Griggs. Stevie surely had paper, but I wouldn’t knock on the door to that locked room and ask. I went out to my car, grabbed the notebook off the seat, and went back inside.

Stevie met me in the living room. “You didn’t cook supper, did you?”

I shook my head, amazed. She seemed transformed, as though she hadn’t been furious with me moments ago.

Or maybe she didn’t remember?

“You don’t cook too often, do you?” she asked.

“Not if I can help it.” I grinned.

She grinned back at me. “I like to cook.”

“I know. And when I had family at home, I didn’t mind doing it, either. But now it seems such a bother to shop for ingredients for a meal, then spend hours in the kitchen cooking, sitting fifteen minutes to eat, and then cleaning up.”

“I’ll order pizza. Is pepperoni okay?”

“Yes, but I’ll only eat one slice.” Pizza contained so many fat grams that this short body usually tried to avoid it. If possible, I preferred not to look like a stump.

Who was this Stevie? I wondered, watching her appear pleased as she located the phone number and ordered.

“I really like your doctor,” I said once she hung up. “He’s a good man for you to see.”

“Dr. Wallo? Yes, having a gay doctor is cool.”

I bolted upright. “He is not gay!”

“Everybody knows that’s why his wife left him. But they’re still friends.”

I stifled a grin at this new knowledge, which I might withhold from Gil.

I grabbed my purse to pay for our food. Opened it wide to find my wallet. Got slammed with the stench of dirty ashtray. “Phew,” I said and dumped everything on the table. Wallet, lipstick, tissue, keys, tobacco. “Ugh, tobacco.” I turned my empty purse over on the trash can and shook it. Only a couple of strands fell out. I rubbed a couple more out of my nice tan straw purse, then smelled inside it. Still horrible.

“What’s your problem?” Stevie asked.

“I put a cigarette butt in here and then took it out. My purse still stinks.”

“Why would you put a butt in there?”

“I just wanted to.”

She watched me a beat. No use telling her I’d gone behind the bushes near her meeting place and found it. Probably because at this moment, that idea seemed stupid.

“It smells that bad after having only one butt in it?” She stuck her nose inside my purse. Handed it to me. “That’s not bad.”

Without putting my nose close, I was overwhelmed by the odor. “It smells like a barroom.”

“You just like to complain.”

“I do not. This purse stinks. I’ll have to air it out.” I sniffed my wallet and tissue. “This all stinks, too.” I tossed the tissues into the trash.

“You used to whine and say I pulled your hair.”

“You know you did it.”

“And you bawled because I took your little jewelry box.”

“
You
took it? That was my favorite thing in the world.”

“Yeah, when you were six. You even had some jewelry to put in it.”

“Just a pink plastic bracelet and a ring. We bent the metal to make the ring fit. It was fake silver.”

“I know, but at least you had jewelry. And a special box to put it in.”

“I can’t believe you took my jewelry box with the dancing ballerina. That box was special. So were the things inside, especially the bracelet that matched my pink barrette.”

“Get over it.” She turned away.

I grabbed her arm. “What did you do with my things?”

“Traded them with Lucy Black for a Hula Hoop.”

“That mean girl, Lucy? And you only got one Hula Hoop for all of my things?”

“Oh, grow up, will you? Forget about that stuff.” Stevie yanked her arm away and stomped off.

My jewelry box and jewelry? Grandma Jean had given me the box and the ring. She lived with us only two years when I was a kid and then she died. But she’d pull me to her lap while I was growing, and she would rock and sing to me. That jewelry and box were my only remembrances from her. And Stevie gave them away for a
Hula Hoop
?

My shoulders tensed. I wanted to punch her. I wanted to bawl.

I stood, taking slow breaths to calm myself. Even though that jewelry box and bracelet and ring were most important to me back then, I would only put them away in a closet now, keeping memories.

I loved memories.

But couldn’t do a thing about them being gone. I forced thoughts of Stevie’s theft away from my mind. I took more cleansing breaths. Picked up my wallet but whiffed its odor. Still too nasty to put in my purse.

On the back porch, I spread my wallet on a rocking chair.

Motion out back snagged my attention.

A truck was pulling off the road to its shoulder behind Stevie’s fence. The driver was Audrey Ray.

I waved at her and rushed through the yard and tugged the gate open.

With motor running, she lowered her window. “Hey, Cealie.”

“Hi, I saw you stopping. Were you coming over?”

“Actually, I was passing by and decided to try to locate where Kelly’s fiancé died.”

“It was right back there. Do you want to come in?”

“No, I’m tired. Just getting off work.”

You had enough business to make you tired?
I almost asked, but my brain kicked in.

“Do you live around here?” I asked instead.

“Not really. Well, I’ll see you, Cealie.”

She drove away. A door slammed.

Stevie stood on her back porch. I was surprised at how well I could see her from the road. Then realized I could see people out here on the road from the porch. Why not the other way around?

“So you were the one who put that butt on my counter,” she said, hands on hips, as I walked toward her.

“I found it behind some bushes near the building where your stop-smoking group meets. I want to keep it.”

“I threw it away. I’m trying to quit smoking and going through hell making myself believe I don’t want one—and you set one of the damned things in the middle of my kitchen to tempt me!”

I reached the porch and looked up at her. “You wouldn’t want to smoke a butt. It was nasty. Somebody’s dirty butt with plum-colored lipstick on it.”

“Who in the hell cares about lipstick? There was a filter and almost half of a cigarette attached to it.”

“Don’t tell me you would think about lighting something like that and putting it to your lips.”

She leaned toward me, nostrils flaring. “Did you ever see an alcoholic trying to quit drinking—and somebody set half a bottle in front of her?”

“No.”

“Me neither. But I’m sure it would feel the same way. Thanks for nothing. And what the hell were you doing behind the bushes where we meet? Damn, you’re weird!” She swooped back inside. The screen door slammed.

She took my jewelry box. My beautiful wooden, one and only jewelry box I’d gotten in childhood. And she would have smoked the cigarette somebody else put in her mouth and then mashed on the ground. How nasty was that?

I smelled pizza from out on the porch and walked inside.

Stevie sat at the table, eating the first piece missing from a box. She kept her gaze away from me. From the pantry I grabbed paper plates, took one out, and sat. I grabbed a slice from the box that someone must have just delivered. Anger etched Stevie’s face, certainly matched by mine.

I finished one piece. Grabbed another one. Got a bottle of water from the fridge. Sat again and ate the middle part. Sipped my water. She yanked a third chunk from the box. So did I. If I didn’t quit eating like this, I’d have to grab my behind to haul it behind me while I waddled.

That thought came and went. I didn’t care now. Whatever my cousin did, I could do better. That idea stuck in my brain. Even knowing how ridiculous it was, I clung to the thought.

We each ate five slices. I left the outer rims of my last ones.

Stevie was grabbing her sixth slice. I rushed to the bathroom and heaved. No food came up. Only a determination that I was behaving like a child.

Well, so was she!

And her child was much bigger than mine. That’s why she was able to eat so much!

Chapter 28

Cealie, get over it,
I told myself, tromping down the hall.

In my room I checked out what clean clothes I had left and found few. I chose to go through life lightly now, unfettered by too many things.
Things
needed to be stored and cleaned and sorted, and often tied a woman down. I had possessed many things, especially as my business gained success and increased profit. But after years of running around, buying and having to find a place for things, I determined I didn’t need most of them. Didn’t actually like lots of them. I’d only thought, at the time, that I wanted and could finally afford them.

Now I no longer chased after all the things I’d thought I needed to possess.

Thus I found few items of clothing hanging in the closet. My clean underwear was also scarce.

I returned to the kitchen, where Stevie was tossing the pizza box. “I need to clean some of my clothes,” I said.

“There’s the washer and dryer.” Chill in her tone, she nodded toward the porch.

I gathered my items and took them to the small utility room that opened off the porch, noting that dusk had dropped away to the dark. I tossed my clothes in the washer with washing powder, turned the knob, and walked toward my room.

Down the hall, Stevie glanced at me, swept into her altar room, slammed the door, and locked it.

I went to my bedroom, slammed
my
door, and locked it. Immediately felt like a moody child.

Being near my cousin was causing this grumpiness. I needed to take control of my senses and behave like an adult again, even when confronted by her. I needed to learn something definite about the deaths and get the heck away from this town.