Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) (6 page)

Cherry added darkly, “And swiping our stuff would be typical of the immature kind of thing I’d expect Reuben to do. So after we poked around here looking for it, I mentioned that maybe we should take a peek in his booth’s storage area.”

Both women were quiet for a moment, thinking about what they’d seen there. Somebody hadn’t been crazy about Reuben. And they’d shown their displeasure with a butcher knife.

“What was your opinion of the other team members?” asked Lieutenant Clark. “Did you get along okay? What was the problem between them and Reuben?”

Cherry shrugged. “They weren’t the most fun-loving
people to be around, but I guess that’s because they acted really stressed out. But they were better than Reuben. They’re probably fine under ordinary circumstances, but were worse when they were around Reuben.”

Lulu said, “And of course lately they’d been around Reuben for twenty-four hours a day. From what I could tell about Reuben, he was especially hard to deal with when he was being competitive.”

“He was one of those people who thought he knew best all the time. Plus, he wanted to win. So he was being a real jerk, from what I could see,” said Cherry with fire in her eyes.

“What about the other man, Brody?” asked Pink. “How did he figure in? I know he was Sharon’s husband, but what was his connection with Reuben?”

Cherry said, “I think he was a friend of Reuben’s. Although they sure weren’t friendly yesterday.”

Lieutenant Clark closed his worn leather notebook. “Okay, that’s going to be it for now. I’m going to want to talk to you later, Cherry, so make sure you’re not planning on leaving Memphis.”

Cherry snorted. “Leaving Memphis? I’ll be lucky if I even leave this booth. We’ve had Evelyn in charge of the food for the last couple of hours, so who knows what kind of catching up I’m going to have to do. Or what perfectly good food I’ll have to throw into the garbage. It’s okay if I stay here, isn’t it?” she asked suddenly, frowning. “I mean, with the crime scene next door.”

“It’s okay as long as you stay in this booth and don’t visit that one,” said the policeman in a clipped voice as he walked out of their booth.

“Don’t worry about catching up with the cooking. Flo was helping, too,” reminded Lulu. “Everything will be just fine.”

*   *   *

When Lulu’s alarm went off the next morning, she was genuinely surprised and felt certain she had a few more hours of sleep. Of course, it had been a really short night, after the police interview and everything. Then Pink had escorted her out to the parking lot so she could finally get home and rest.

She’d wanted to check in at Aunt Pat’s and make sure everything was going well before she made it over to the Graces’ booth.

Aunt Pat’s was quiet when Lulu arrived at eight in the morning, and wouldn’t start bustling until the diners started coming in at eleven. As usual, she felt a real sense of peace as soon as she walked into the dining room and saw the familiar wooden booths, red-checkered tablecloths, and creaky hardwood floors. You couldn’t even see the restaurant walls because they were covered with photographs and memorabilia of all types and descriptions. As usual, the framed black-and-white photo of Lulu’s gently smiling Aunt Pat helped her relax. It looked like she was about to hop off the wall and visit with her.

The kitchen wasn’t quite as still as the dining room had been. There Ben was busily checking off a food delivery and putting it away. It was a large one, too…always a good sign in this business. They must have really gone through some food at the restaurant recently.

Sara was also checking things off the order sheet and putting them away. “Can I help?” asked Lulu. They both waved her off and kept counting.

The tables were even already set up for the day, with fresh paper towel rolls on each table and clean checkered tablecloths and silverware all set to go. The old wooden floor shone. Either they’d worked their tails off after the restaurant closed last night, or they had brought in so much temporary help that it only took minutes to get it in tip-top shape.

Seeing nothing to do, and feeling a bit befuddled about it, Lulu retreated to the sanctuary of the front porch. She was delighted to see her friend Morty already there. Morty was one-third of the Back Porch Blues Band, a regular customer of Aunt Pat’s for the past sixty years, and a good friend. He was in his eighties and resembled a black version of Mr. Clean. Although he kept calling himself retired, you couldn’t tell it. He and his friends Big Ben and Buddy still played regular gigs at Aunt Pat’s, and any wedding or even funeral that they could be booked for.

“What’s going on, Lulu? You were frowning up a
storm when you came out on the porch. Everything going okay in the kitchen?”

“The kitchen is great—no problems there. But wait until you hear what happened to Cherry and me last night,” said Lulu and launched into the story. It was good to sort out some of the details by telling them to her friend.

“Do you think that Cherry will get into any trouble?” asked Morty, eyebrows drawing together. “Considering the argument she had, and the fact that it was even witnessed by a police officer…and then y’all discovering the body—that’s sort of suspicious, isn’t it?”

“I sure hope she won’t get into any trouble,” said Lulu. “They’ve got to realize that Cherry wouldn’t have been in any hurry to search in that storage tent if she’d thought there was a body in it. Especially a body wrapped in a tarp with her name on it.”

Morty said, “Who was on pig duty at the barbeque pit?”

“Cherry was. And I was right there with her the whole time while Evelyn was hostess to the different guests who came in the booth.”

“I’d say that’s an alibi and a half if she had y’all there to vouch that she was cooking spare ribs all night,” said Morty.

Lulu shifted in her rocker, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Morty, there’s a problem there. Flo left yesterday afternoon with a headache and I took her spot until
midnight. Cherry did leave the booth for a short while last night. She has this good friend of hers with a booth and she left to visit a spell with her.”

“Well, that’s all right then. So that woman will give her the alibi and everything will work out fine,” said Morty.

Lulu shook her head. “It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. Cherry had a hard time finding her friend’s booth. It was dark, you know, and foggy. And loud. While she was looking, there were some folks who came up to talk to her—you know, because she was dressed like Elvis.”

“Did those people have names and could give her an alibi?” asked Morty.

“She had no idea who they were, so no. Basically, it boils down to the fact that if Cherry had really wanted to kill Reuben, she had the opportunity to do it. And I guess there were enough butcher knives at that festival that she also had the means to do it—along with thousands of other people. Of course, none of us believe that Cherry would murder anybody”

Morty said, “You’ve got me all worried now. I’d sure hate anything to happen to Cherry. Maybe I can get friendly with the other team and find out some information for you, too.”

“That sounds like a good plan, Morty. You could maybe even offer to help Sharon and Brody out for a while, since Reuben isn’t there cooking with them anymore.
Besides, folks always like talking with you.” Lulu reached over and gave her friend a hug. “And I do, too.”

Cherry was definitely in a funk at the grill. “Nothing is going right. I’m so distracted that I hardly even recollect what spices I’ve used on the ribs. The tent next door has gone from being too loud with arguments to being too quiet. And the police keep popping their heads in to talk to me like they think I have something to do with all this. That Lieutenant What’s-his-face.”

Evelyn drawled, “Well, clearly the police haven’t found anything that would pin this murder on you or you wouldn’t be at the festival—you’d be cooling your heels in jail.”

Cherry glared at Evelyn as she shook out what appeared to Lulu like a heap of cayenne onto her barbeque. “Somehow the thought of being in jail isn’t cheering me up too much, Evelyn.”

Morty was looking askance at the cayenne, too. “You don’t have to worry about going to jail, Cherry—you didn’t do anything. And since you’re innocent, they won’t discover any evidence that could make them take you in.”

Cherry was still put out. “Except for a tarp with my name on it that wrapped up the body like a present. What a dumb night for me to wander around the festival. If I’d only stayed in the booth, they wouldn’t even be considering me as a suspect. I wasn’t planning on being
gone for very long—I was just poking my head out for a few minutes after spending all day with that barbeque.”

“I’m wondering what’s going on with Sharon and Brody next door,” said Lulu in a low voice. “Are they shocked at what happened? Do you think one of them did it?”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. “Well, of course one of them did it. Neither of them could stand Reuben. We know Cherry didn’t do it. And it sure doesn’t seem to be some random act of violence at the festival.”

“Somebody’s got to be pretty mad to stick a butcher knife into a man,” said Morty.

“But this was the kind of man who probably made tons of people mad at him. He made Cherry mad at him and she barely even knew him,” said Lulu.

Morty stood up. “I’m going to head next door and see if I can sweet-talk my way into their booth and sample their barbeque. Just to get an idea of what the mood over there is like and what kind of information they might have.”

Lulu nodded. “It would be good to get your impression of them. I’ll head over there soon. I brought goodies from the restaurant and I’ll offer them to the Jensons as sort of a sympathy gift.”

Morty left for the next tent and Lulu noticed that someone was standing at the edge of the Graces’ booth. “Is someone officially on hostess duty?” she murmured. “We’ve got a guest.”

Cherry was still cooking and Evelyn was in no hurry to move, so Flo hurried over. “Can we help you? Oh,” she said, peering closer at their guest, who was looking meek and taking off a baseball cap to uncover dark hair with a white skunk-like stripe down the middle. “It’s…John, isn’t it?”

“The John Smith who so conveniently disappeared into thin air as soon as we got into trouble?” growled Cherry, turning around and brandishing her metal spatula. “Pardon me if I don’t jump up and down with joy.”

John seemed chastened.

“That’s the reason I came by,” he said, looking them each in the eye with difficulty. “I wanted to apologize for my ungentlemanly behavior yesterday. When tensions escalated in that tent, I should have stepped in and defused them. Instead, I took off. Y’all must really think poorly of me.”

Actually, Lulu had plumb forgotten about the man, in the wake of all the commotion. But it was kind of odd that he’d seemed almost afraid of the argument that was going on in the booth.

“My parents always argued a lot when I was a kid, and my whole adult life I’ve tried to avoid any kind of conflict at all. It grates on my nerves so bad that I can’t stand to be around it. But y’all deserved better than that…I’m sorry.” John’s gray eyes were solemn and embarrassed, too.

Flo quickly said, “Hon, I know how that can be. Don’t
think a thing about it.” But Flo didn’t like conflict, either, and she hadn’t even witnessed the scene yesterday because she was taking the girls around the festival.

Cherry, who’d been staring studiously at the grill while John had been talking, turned and looked sideways at him. “It’s okay, John. Sounds like life wasn’t much fun for you growing up. I can see how you wouldn’t want to see stuff like that as a grown-up, either.”

“Are we friends again?” he asked anxiously.

“Friends!” they chimed in.

“Why don’t you sit down with us for a few minutes and sample our barbeque,” said Evelyn.

He glanced at his watch. “That sounds good to me. I’ve got a few minutes.”

Flo said, “You got to meet up with your ride to go home?”

“Oh no. No, I’ve got a booth here myself,” said John. “But I’m part of a big team and we’re rotating in and out, so I’m taking a break now. With a small team like this, though, you’d have to be here almost all the time.”

“Or we
should
be here all the time,” said Cherry darkly, still thinking about her little alibi problem.

John sat down at a table and they served him up some ribs. He took a bite and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Hey, this is good stuff!”

The women laughed. Flo said, “Well, of course it is, honey! Did you think we couldn’t cook?”

“If they can’t cook, then I’ve made a really terrible investment of my money,” said Evelyn drily.

John took another bite of the pork and chewed for a minute before answering. “I guess I saw the campy Elvis stuff and thought y’all were here to have a good time and couldn’t really cook. My stomach is glad to find out that I was wrong.”

“We’re here to have a good time, but part of our good time always revolves around food,” said Cherry.

John shifted uncomfortably. “With the situation going on at the booth next door, I’m thinking it hasn’t been fun all the time. Did it ever settle down over there?”

Cherry snorted. Lulu said, “Define ‘settle down.’ ” At John’s confused expression, Lulu said, “The arguing stopped over there. But the fellow who was causing all the trouble is still managing to make some from beyond the grave—he’s been murdered.”

“What?” John’s eyes opened up wide. He sure didn’t like conflict; that was a fact. Even so, it seemed like a big reaction from someone who didn’t even know the man.

Lulu said, “It was last night. Reuben Shaw, who was the one everyone was mad at yesterday afternoon, was stabbed and stuck in a storage area at the booth next door.”

“Lulu and I discovered the body,” said Cherry with disbelief in her voice as if she was having a hard time coming to grips with it all.

John said seriously, “Do the police know what happened? Did they catch who did it?”

Lulu shook her head. “They sure don’t know, but they’re talking to everyone to try to find out. They talked to Cherry and me a long time since we witnessed the argument next door and also discovered the body.”