Still Life in Brunswick Stew (20 page)
Read Still Life in Brunswick Stew Online
Authors: Larissa Reinhart
Tags: #Mystery, #humor, #cozy, #Humour, #Romance, #cozy mystery, #southern mystery, #humorous mystery, #mystery series
Hunter jerked his hand away and narrowed his eyes, but relaxed at the approach of our food. A woman with a puff of auburn hair attached to a ponytail slid three plates of catfish onto the table. Delicately browned balls of hushpuppy dough rolled between a chromium oxide green mound of coleslaw and a pile of catfish fillets, golden and steaming. My stomach roared into life, like a primed outboard motor. At the sound, the waitress jerked back and dropped a fork on the floor.
“Look at that.” I pointed to Dot. “That there’s a beautiful plate, if I’ve ever seen one. That catfish is cooked perfectly. I bet it’s as flaky as my Grandma Jo used to make her biscuits. And look at those hushpuppies.” I pulled in a deep breath of fried goodness, reveling in the aroma of fresh oil and sweet browned butter.
“Hey, Mandy. These people are dissing Sidewinder,” said Hunter to the waitress, “and they’re from Halo.”
Beside me, Dot shifted and slid her opened purse into her lap.
“What are they saying?” said Mandy. She rubbed the fork on her apron and stuck it in the pocket next to her order pad.
“She said we’re messed up.”
“What?” Mandy slapped a hand on her ample hip. “They’re from Halo and they say we’re messed up?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I explained. “I was talking about the Maynards. Anyway, you got another fork?”
Mandy’s sharp eyes scanned me. “The Maynards are an old family. They are from good people.”
“That may be, but sounds to me like the crazy train has stopped at this generation.”
“You’re one to talk, Miss Halo.”
“Let’s not escalate this, Cherry. We’re all from Forks County,” said Dot. “There’s no reason to argue.”
“What you don’t understand, Dot, is that I’ve been hearing this kind of ugly talk about Halo all week,” I said. “I’m a little tired of folks from Sidewinder making fun of Halo. Now, you got another fork or not?”
“I don’t think I need to be serving uppity girls from Halo.”
I straightened my back. “What’s with y’all calling me uppity?”
“Are you deaf as well as uppity?”
“Cherry.” Dot put a hand on my shoulder.
I shook her off. “Do I need to ask Sam for a fork, Mandy?”
“You do what you need to do, sugar. But you ain’t getting a fork from me.” Mandy flattened a hand on the table and leaned over me. “Sam ain’t giving you one either, seeing as I’m Mrs. Sam.”
“What’s your problem?” I pushed forward, bringing my face just under hers without flinching.
“You people from Halo think you’re so hoity toity, making fun of our town. You’re no better than anyone else. Everyone knows about Halo’s gambling and that murder a while back. We are good, self-respecting people here.”
“Well, your good people murdered my friend, Eloise Parker, and made a bunch of other people sick at your festival. Including the Maynards.”
She sucked in her breath. “You’re friends with Miss Eloise?”
“Yes, ma’am. You can just back off your self-righteous Sidewinder bullcrap.”
“You sure she was murdered? Miss Eloise was kind of sickly.”
“She was poisoned. So was Lewis Maynard. He’s dead, too.”
“Lewis Maynard and Eloise Parker?” said Mandy. “Makes you look bad, don’t it Hunter?”
Hunter glared at her. “Shut it, Mandy.”
“Actually Mandy, what do you mean? Hunter here has some theories on Lewis’s poisoning, but he never mentioned any ties to my friend, Eloise.” I shot him a look. “However, he did give her a bunch of tickets exclusively for the Cotton Pickin’ stew.”
“I told you she was my teacher,” Hunter whined. “We didn’t get along.”
“Hunter complained about Miss Parker enough to me,” said Mandy. “He was in and out of detention and in-school suspension because she wouldn’t put up with his crap. Now he’s graduating late.”
I eyed Hunter, and he stared at his catfish.
“I remember Eloise saying she was surprised to get all those tickets from you,” I said, “Seeing as how you didn’t do so well in her class.”
“I know Sam can be soft on you, Hunter,” continued Mandy, “but I believe in tough love, which means telling the truth. This girl here is friends with Miss Eloise. If you know something about what happened to your poor teacher, you better talk. If you don’t, I’ll let it be known. You’ll have the police all over you again.”
“You better not.” Hunter gripped the table. A bright flush crept from his neck toward his face and a purple vein darkened the skin of his forehead.
“I know your momma. I’m not scared of you, Hunter Adams. You tell this Halo girl what you know.” Mandy tossed the dirty fork on the table and whirled away.
“Good Lord, Cherry,” Dot hissed. “You’ve got nerves of steel. I thought that waitress was going to gut you with a fork.”
“That’s nothing. Mandy’s a good one. Although she didn’t bring me a clean fork.” I turned to Hunter. “Mandy’s right. You fess up about Eloise, or I’m reporting you to the cops.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?” asked Dot. “Put something in the stew?”
Hunter glowered at us, grabbed his cup, and poured the remains of his chewed tobacco over our catfish. We watched in openmouthed astonishment as he dumped his plate onto the floor, slid out of the booth, and marched out the door.
“Well, there’s the end of that conversation,” I said.
“Do you think he poisoned the stew?” asked Dot.
“You know, I’m not sure. But he feels guilty about something. Either that or he’s just a sociopath.”
Dot shuddered. “You want to get out of here?” She opened her purse and laid a handful of bills on the table.
I looked sadly at my ruined dinner. “I guess. What a waste of some beautiful looking catfish.” I grabbed Dot’s fork and poked at a hushpuppy.
Dot laid a hand on my arm. “You’ve got to let it go.”
“The catfish? It’s nasty, but there might be a bite or two worth saving.”
“Eloise’s death. I’m going to report this incident to the sheriff. It may shed light on the mass poisoning for them. Hunter’s got major issues.”
“Don’t you mention my name, Dot Cooper,” I said. “Word gets out in the sheriff’s office I was with Hunter Adams and I’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll probably be served with obstruction or something.”
“I won’t reveal my sources. But if Hunter really poisoned somebody, you could be in danger.”
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t think Hunter did it. He did something, but I don’t think he poisoned the stew. Did you do any checking into Griffin Ward and his Genuine Juice?”
“He’s made a mess of licensing and getting patents. I heard he was trying to get the Parkers to endorse it as a testimonial to curing Eloise’s Crohn’s Disease.”
“Guess that didn’t work out too well.”
“From what I heard, she refused to drink much of it, and he was working on her parents to convince her to use it.”
“No wonder Mary Jane hates Griffin so much.” I grabbed my beer and took a long sip to settle my nerves. “The Parkers didn’t tell me. But they’re such a mess right now, they probably didn’t even think to mention it. And it sheds light on Griffin’s ridiculous anger with Eloise. Guess he was frustrated with her blocking his scheme, too.”
“You said he might have poisoned her on accident. Here’s another idea. A little arsenic won’t kill a person, but it obviously makes them very sick. The symptoms would be disguised by Eloise’s Crohn’s disease.”
“You’re thinking Griffin was slowly poisoning Eloise, then planned to cut the arsenic, and give her the Genuine Juice to show a miraculous recovery.”
“You picked up on that quickly.” Dot flashed me a smile of appreciation.
“Something similar crossed my mind. Only thing is, that takes some real evil genius. I doubt Griffin is capable of anything that creative or brilliant.”
“Until the police can trace the arsenic, we won’t know if Griffin was involved at all. Yesterday, they confiscated his cooler and his equipment.”
“Did they?” I looked around the tavern and lowered my voice. “That’s good news. They didn’t find anything though?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re waiting on lab results. Sometimes those take a while.”
“Their process is so slow,” I complained. “What if he gets away in the meantime?”
“You don’t know that he did it.” Dot smiled. “You mentioned the Gables, obviously you aren’t completely sold on Griffin.”
“I drove out to their farm today. Kind of spooky. It looks like they’re making an education center, just like the Maynard’s, but no one was working on it. Lumber sitting around, but the place was like a detassler’s ghost town. Corn as far as the eye can see, except for one small plot of cotton. I spoke briefly to Belinda Gable.”
Dot’s eyes rounded behind her glasses. “What did she have to say?”
“Didn’t like me bringing up the Maynard’s similar marketing plan. Said they were working on funding. Gave me the boot.”
“Interesting.” Dot tapped her cheek with a stubby finger. “So we have competing plantations. The girlfriend of Lewis Maynard is Belinda Gable’s sister. Both have the same idea for reaping in money. Except it looks like the Cotton Pickin’ team has pushed ahead of Team High Cotton in that game.”
“Although Janine Adams will lose in the end. She did all the work for Cotton Pickin’ plantation and her main squeeze is now dead. I can’t imagine Miss Marion keeping Janine around any longer.”
“True,” said Dot, “Unless there’s something in the will.”
“The will? Won’t everything go to Marion?”
“We’ll have to see. The land has to stay in Maynard hands, but there was a lot of merchandising and other money. Also insurance money. Janine may have benefited somehow.”
“You think Hunter is protecting his mom?”
Dot pursed her lips in thought. “Could be. Hard to tell now, isn’t it? Looks like the list of suspects keeps growing.”
“And there’s still the nutjob theory.”
“What’s that theory?”
“Someone wanted to ruin the cook-off for kicks,” I thought about Shawna. “Or ruin the cook-off for their own crazy notion of ambition.”
I slid from the booth, said goodbye to Dot, and found the ladies’ room before leaving. Hunter may have ruined our catfish, but our beer remained untainted and necessary after that brush with his temper. I wandered back to the bar and said my goodbyes to Sam and Mandy.
“You watch yourself now,” said Sam. “When Hunter left tonight, it looked like he had worked himself up a full head of steam.”
“He was pretty ticked we had suggested his mother might have something to do with Lewis dying,” I admitted.
“You think that’s true?” asked Mandy. “I never trusted that woman. She’s a schemer. I felt bad for her because of that murdering husband of hers. Someone should have taken a shotgun to him long ago.”
“Murdering husband?” I said. “I thought Hunter’s dad was in jail for drugs.”
“That, too.” Mandy glanced down the bar at Hunter’s uncle and lowered her voice. “Jerry Adams got busted during a deal that went bad. Another dealer got shot. But Keith over there tells a different story. Said Janine killed the guy and let her husband take the blame. Even if it’s true, Jerry deserved it.”
“But if Janine’s killed someone before, that mean she’s capable of murder.”
“We don’t know for sure,” said Sam, “that’s just what Keith says. You be careful around Janine and Hunter. They’re as wily as a couple of barnyard foxes. She’s made a nice nest from wrapping Lewis around her finger. And she done good making Cotton Pickin’ place all fancy. I don’t know where she gets her ideas, but they’re making money hand over fist, the way I hear it.”
“That Janine would leave nothing to chance,” added Mandy. “She saw an opportunity and made use of it. Wouldn’t even let something like marriage get in her way. Poor Miss Marion.”
“Sounds like you’ve got no love for Janine Adams.”
“I’ve got as much use for her as I do the stuff stuck to the bottom of my shoe.” Mandy grabbed two bottles sitting on the bar. “Got to get back to my tables.”
Sam watched his wife strut across the dingy floor. “My woman don’t take guff from nobody. Janine got smart with her one time too many.”
“You think Janine would have poisoned the stew to murder Lewis?”
“I can’t rightly say. I would think that would be cutting off the hand that feeds her. But if Janine were done with Lewis for some reason and couldn’t find another way out...”
“Or if Lewis left her a lot of money in a will or made her a beneficiary of his life insurance?”
“If there’s money involved, I’d say Janine would have looked at all the angles. Her husband may have been the front guy of his weed business, but Janine kept track of his books and logistics and all that. She explained it to me once, trying to convince me to let her look at my books and do something with the Viper.”
“You’d think she’d want to keep running a pot operation off her resume.”
“Probably thought it would impress me. She was desperate back then,” said Sam. “I best get back to my customers, too.”
“Thanks, Sam.” I fished a crumpled five from my wallet and laid it on the bar.
“Keep your money, hon’,” Sam winked. “My advice is free today.”
I grinned and scooted around the tables to the exit. From the corner of my eye, I saw someone slip from a booth on the far wall. Expecting Hunter, I spun around. A biker had shoved from his seat, calling out to Sam as he staggered to the bar. I watched his drunk weave and waited for my heart to stop pounding. I should have left with Dot. Didn’t even think about walking her to her vehicle in case Hunter decided to do a reprise of the catfish incident. How could I be so foolhardy?
I shoved the heavy bar door open, but stood on the sill. Twilight had settled over middle Georgia. My eyes scanned the parking lot, searching the shadows. The parking lights flickered on. Dot’s car was gone. Relieved, I stepped off the stoop and let the door swing close behind me. Knowing my Remington waited, I hurried toward my truck.
While I fished the key from my front pocket, I gazed at the vehicle next to mine. My mouth quirked at the ostentatious black and red rims and large spoiler, but my eyes stopped on the bumper, spying a red sticker. A Cadmium red sticker on a magenta car? I often wonder at the lack of thought people put into color choice.
Something about the sticker gave me an odd sense of deja vu. I unlocked the truck, feeling unsettled. Was it the color or the words I couldn’t quite read on the bumper sticker that bugged me? I dumped my purse in the truck and turned back to the car. My fingers played with the beaded fringe on my shirt while I reexamined the vehicle. I left my driver’s door hanging open and circled back.
The sticker appeared as a shadowy rectangle on the bumper. Dropping to a crouch, I squinted at the words covered in a film of dust and dirt. The logo for Squats, a popular Line Creek gym, hid beneath the grime. For the life of me, I couldn’t think why a Squats bumper sticker would cause me so much unease. I grabbed the trunk handle to pull myself up.
Before I had straightened, a strong arm thrust me against the back of the car.