Still Life in Brunswick Stew (22 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
Bar fights are good for creativity. That was my thinking when the day dawned with new ideas for the Greek painting and a puffiness to my lip. The scrapes on my belly could be hidden by bandages and clothing. But I used lip liner to make lemonade from the lemon of my fat lip. Casey told me it looked like a bad collagen job. I had hoped for a sexy pout. I ignored her comment out of a debt of gratitude. She had conceded to modeling for me, which made her grouchier than usual. As did the idea of joining Pearl for bingo.
I flipped a page on my sketchbook while examining Casey. The mid-day sun threw rays across my paint splattered living room floor. A few lovely beams glanced across Casey’s bare shoulder and her surly expression. The lighting pleased me. I had dragged my vintage fainting couch to the middle of the room where Casey posed in a homemade toga. We had hot rolled her hair and swept it up with a band of leaves. More curls dripped down her back. A Victorian styled Aphrodite.
But a tad sluttier.
“I can’t believe Griffin is dead,” I said. “Why would he do himself in with his own Genuine Juice?”
“You think it was guilt?” Casey rearranged herself in a more comfortable position on my threadbare divan and pulled a magazine from under her thigh.
“He sure wasn’t showing any guilt when he hauled me out from under his car. Maybe he forgot the Genuine Juice was poisoned. But maybe you’re right. He knew he was facing some serious jail time for murder. By the time the police got him to the station he was too sick for a confession.”
“Do the Parkers know?”
“I called them, but they had already spoken to the police. Took it real stoic. Mary Jane knew of Griffin’s temper, but Eloise had hidden his abuse pretty well. But by taking his own medicine, that jerk denied them final words with their daughter’s killer. At least they can put Eloise to rest at her funeral Friday.”
Casey gave me a half-interested nod and leafed through the tabloid. I studied her from the side of my easel. “I need you to lean back more. And let those drapery folds fall to the floor. Stop bunching them up.”
She darted me a look of supreme irritation, arched her back against the single arm rest, then threw the tabloid on the floor. “This is uncomfortable. And stupid. I’m wearing a sheet.”
“I need classical Greek poses for this exhibition.”
“You need a real job. Why don’t you pick up shifts at Red’s?”
“I’m going to make you look beautiful. And maybe a rich man will buy your portrait, hang it on his bedroom wall, and fall in love with you.”
She snorted and rearranged the sheet so the neckline plunged dangerously low.
“I’m not painting porn, Casey.”
“I’m trying to get the rich man interested. I’m going to leave my number on the back of your canvas. Besides, when you paint naked men, you don’t call it porn.”
“Forget it.” I tossed my Berol number 3 pencil on the small table. “Togas are not working for me. I want to do a nude, but now I’m thinking about some rich perve getting off on you.”
Casey stood and stretched. “You still haven’t convinced Luke to pose, I guess?”
“He told me, ‘over his dead body.’ And then he said if I even thought about sketching him naked for a coffin portrait, he would come back and haunt me. Like I would do a nude coffin portrait.”
“Anyway,” Casey dismissed my artistic dilemma with a shrug, “if you want me to go to bingo, I need to get ready.”
I glanced at the small clock sitting on my desk. “Go ahead. Pearl will be here any minute.”
“I can’t believe you talked me into hanging out with Pearl,” Casey grumbled. “Just so you know, I’m only doing this to see Mr. Max’s house. I heard he’s got some fancy stuff besides that old Civil War crap he likes to collect. Why do you want to bust him so bad anyway?”
“It’s not about busting him, so much as helping him learn how to be a better citizen. If I catch him I can use it as leverage.”
“Some folks call that blackmail.”
“A man like the Bear needs incentives to give up their illegal lifestyle.” I thought about my recent exchanges with Max. “I also wanted to know why Belinda Gable was following him. Of course, that was before we knew Griffin had poisoned everyone.”
“Everybody plays poker. I don’t know why you make such a big deal about it.”
“Did you forget that poker led to murder last spring?” I said. “I certainly can’t.”
“I think the man gets your panties in a wad and it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I may be the only person in Halo who hasn’t had the wool pulled over their eyes by a smooth talking, rich foreigner. Well, maybe not smooth talking, but you get what I’m saying.”
“You got something against rich people. So you better chill when the rich man falls in love with my portrait.” She stuck out her tongue, gathered the sheet around her body, and schlepped into the hallway.
While Casey changed, I poured over the quick sketches I had drawn. If I had spent more time in thoughtful consideration of my subject, I would have posed Casey in a forest thicket with bow and arrows. She’d make a better Athena than Aphrodite. Better yet, maybe a modern day Athena carrying a nine mm handgun and an Uzi. I hummed a happy tune at that thought and scribbled a note in my sketchbook. I’d just have to convince Casey to try some guerrilla poses. However, reclining came more naturally to her. And I was still stuck on my original idea.
I had four more days before sending digital images to the gallery for approval. And now that the poisoning outbreak seemed solved with the demise of Griffin, I’d have more time to convince Luke. Or find another model.
However, I only knew one man who’d willingly pose unrobed who wasn’t already a degenerate or a flasher. Todd. Which meant a whole host of other problems.
While I pondered the intelligence of asking Todd to pose nude after he had caused my lips to desert ship, my front door popped open and Pearl stuck her head through.
“Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?” She walked into my living room wearing a t-shirt picturing a goat who had a white mustache and held a glass of milk. The bubble caption read “Got Lactose Intolerance?”
“Are you ready to win big money?” She stopped her progression across my pine flooring. “What happened to your face?”
“Ate some gravel. It’s nothing.” I ignored her raised brows. The quickening of excitement had coursed through my veins at her mention of big money. “Can you win big money at bingo?”
“Nothing over five dollars at a time. But if you play long enough, that adds up, particularly in Shorty’s BBQ bucks and Tru-Buy dollars. You can play up to twenty-five games in three hours.”
Twenty-five games of bingo sounded excruciating, but I let it pass. “There has to be a catch. Did you talk to the woman in charge of bingo at the Ladies Auxiliary?”
“Sue Rivers? She said Mr. Max offered us a great deal. He’s paying her two hundred dollars a month for our bingo license. What a sweetie.”
“I don’t trust that sweetie. He’s making money off y’all.”
“Not Mr. Max. He keeps whatever’s left from the two hundred, but how much could that be? He supplies us in tea and cookies after all.”
“How many times does he have bingo a week and what does he charge?”
“We play for two or three hours, and he’s been holding them most weekday afternoons. The ladies keep asking for more. I usually buy five dollar packages for each game. There are some crazy women who will hog a whole table with bigger packs. The odds are better at his place than at the Line Creek Rotary Hall.”
“Well, the odds are against him today. I’m not letting a confidence man rip off old ladies.”
“Who you calling old, missy?” Pearl barked.
Casey emerged from the hallway. “I’m going to distract Mr. Max and his posse while you look for whatever clues that will lead to your big bust.”
I took a hard look at Casey. Her hair fell to her lower back in long, dark curls and she wore a shimmery, red halter that revealed more flesh than the toga. Her spiked heels only created a slight diversion from the length of leg ending at a black miniskirt my Grandma Jo would call genuinely unladylike.
“Holy crap, Casey.”
She nodded. “Don’t you worry about a thing. This is going to be fun.”
I hesitated. She had a good point, but I feared dropping Casey’s level of fierceness in the midst of women who teetered on the edge of strokes and heart attacks. Someone might break their hip.
Following a stream of cars, Casey turned her Firebird through the tall gates of Max’s drive. “Would you look at that house?”
“It’s just a big house,” I said, eager to prove I was not awed by Max’s riches. “And Pearl would you quit hollering out the window? You’re drawing attention to our getaway car.”
“I’m just calling to my friends,” said Pearl. “Besides, it’s kind of hard not to draw attention to a vehicle with a giant bird painted on the hood. Not exactly a bingo vehicle. If you’re going to get ugly, I’m not going to help you.”
“Actually you just made a good point. I see some other non-bingo vehicles.”
Amid the Buick’s and Chevy’s, I noticed a Lexus and a Mercedes. When a BMW M6 sports car pulled in and followed us around the drive, my suspicion reflexes triggered. Casey parked before the genuine Civil War cannon in the middle of the circular drive. I watched the M6 maneuver around ladies tottering toward Max’s veranda. The red sports car turned at a split in the drive and gunned its motor toward the basement garage in the back of the house.
No Halo senior citizen would drive an M6. If she did, I wanted to meet her.
We tumbled out of the Firebird and jogged after Pearl up to the house. While Pearl found her bingo buddies and Casey stared in wonderment at Max’s estate, I took a stroll across the veranda. Clasping my hands behind my back, I feigned interest in the line of Boston ferns hanging from the rafters.
On the far side of the porch, I leaned on the railing and peered around the edge of the house. The five doors of the garage were closed.
Vehicles in a wide range of age, size, and horsepower were parked somewhere inside, another of Max’s collections. Before the garage doors, the M6, a Lincoln MKZ, and a Ferrari were parked along with the Lexus and Mercedes I spotted earlier.
I smelled money. Middle-aged man money. Very different from the Avon and stale coffee scent of bingo money.
My attention swung toward the front drive as a white Cadillac pulled up before Max’s house. Bruce Gable popped out the driver’s side and ran around to get the passenger door. A moment later, Belinda Gable unfolded from the sedan. They kissed and he jogged to his door.
Belinda adjusted her giant sunglasses, glanced at the bevy of women on the veranda, and strutted toward the steps. I watched the Cadillac continue down the drive toward the garage where it parked behind the M6.
God help me, but I could not let that Sidewinder mare’s nest alone. In the tiled foyer of Avtaikin’s McMansion, I dragged Casey by her hand while she gaped openmouthed at the staircase wrapping around the double storied space.
The chandelier above us spilled rainbows on the twenty foot white walls. Around us, groups of older women poked each other, whispered with an agitated fierceness, and stared at Casey. I caught the gist of their observations and felt an old shame lick my cheeks.
“Mercy, I think that’s an honest-to-God hooker. I’ve never seen one before. You think Mr. Max hires out? I never would have thought.”
“Naw. You think Mr. Max hired dancing girls? Maybe he’s adding on a show.”
“Isn’t that the girl who works at the County Line Tap? She near about bit my head off when I asked for senior prices.”
“That,” announced the gray haired woman wielding the cane, “is Casey Tucker. Her momma is Christy Ballard, Ed and Josie’s daughter, who up and disappeared on those kids twenty years ago. Obviously, the apple didn’t fall far from that white trash tree.”
I spun Casey toward the open door under the stairs leading to the basement. “Casey, you’re drawing too much attention to yourself.”
“I’m just getting started.” Casey’s eyes glittered and she offered me a sly smile. Casey and Trouble had a long acquaintance. I had a feeling they were about to renew their relationship. Hopefully they wouldn’t have kids.
“You think this skirt deserves free bingo cards?” she announced to the crowd and strutted down the stairs to the basement.
The ladies followed, shoving me out of the way in their hurry to monitor Casey. I stumbled back a step in their crush and felt a strong hand grab my elbow. Max Avtaikin waited until I righted myself, then dropped my elbow to take my hand.
“Artist. Your lip color is quite interesting today.” He pecked the back of my hand and let it drop. “Two visits in one week. Should I consider myself the lucky man?”
“I’m here with Miss Pearl and Casey so they can play bingo.”
“Your interest with the bingo game continues. How grateful I am for your support of my insignificant endeavor for the ladies.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“I hope you enjoy playing. Are you the sore loser if you don’t win, Miss Tucker?” His mouth quirked. “Do you dismiss playing for fear of losing?”
“I don’t fear much, Bear. And I always try to win.”
“You are a worthy opponent, Artist. Enjoy your bingo.”
I hesitated at the basement door. “Don’t you come down to the game?”
He shook his head. “I leave it to my helpers. I have the other business to which I attend.” His forehead creased, flexing the scar above his eye. “And the ladies seem excitable when I spend time with them. It is a distraction.”
“For them or for you?” I chuckled and swung down the stairs. “See you around, Bear.” As far as I was concerned, the Bear’s cryptic comments gave me tacit permission to check out his dubious do-gooding. As long as I didn’t get caught.
Sore loser, my butt.
I glanced over my shoulder to see him raise his eyebrow, a thoughtful expression on his face. He watched me descend the cherry stained stairs. A door remained open in the long, carpeted hallway at the bottom of the stairs. I knew from previous experience it led to Max’s fancy Vegas themed game room.
Trailing my hand along the railing, I halted at the bottom step before the security monitor. The dark screen gave nothing away. I glanced up the stairs and caught Max’s brawny figure strolling away. I pressed on the security monitor and a glowing keyboard appeared on the screen. The numbered buttons gave me no clue as to how to disable the system.
Giving up, I followed the hall to the open door and glanced inside. Multicolored lights blinked from Vegas themed signs around the long room. The round poker table and leather chairs had been replaced with folding tables and chairs set up in rows. They faced a bar once fully stocked but now laden with pitchers of sweet tea and plates of cookies. Women deposited more trays of baked goods on the bar and hurried to take their seats. Someone had slapped sticky notes over the lady parts of the reclining nude mural behind the bar. She now wore a Cubist styled bikini. At the brass barred cashier’s booth, more women lined up to buy their cards. Some held packs of ten or more. Others arranged fuzzy topped bingo marker pens and stuffed animals next to their cards, fighting for space with their competitors on the cramped tables. Belinda Gable sat in the back, nine cards spread on the table in three precise rows. Each card had a different colored dauber. None were topped with fuzzy creatures or stuffed animals.
I grabbed Pearl and pulled her into a corner near the bar. “You know the brunette in the last row?”
“Not personally,” said Pearl, flipping through her cards. “She’s here all the time, though. Kind of stuck up. But she’s a real Betty.”
“Betty?”
“Addicted to bingo. She always plays a rainbow pack.” At my dumbfounded expression, she added, “a pack of cards worth different prizes.”
“What’s her husband doing here? Does he play bingo, too?”
“Husband?” Pearl looked around. “We don’t get many men in here. He must drop her off.”
Knowing Bruce Gable had parked with the other luxury cars, I felt certain he played another kind of game for an even larger pot. Considering his competitive relationship with Lewis, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I left Pearl to peruse the baked goods.
Near the door, Casey hauled a folding table to the side and plunked her one card on the table. “What’s the plan?” she said to me.
“Something’s going on in the back of the house,” I said. “I’m going to see if I can check it out. Have you seen Todd by the way?”
“Nope. I didn’t recognize the guy selling the cards. Maybe Todd’s not working today. Or maybe Pearl was wrong.”
My eyelids dropped to slits. “You keep an eye on the guy running the bingo. If anyone else comes by, keep them distracted. And if you see Todd, hold on to him. He wants to talk, and I’m only interested in an explanation of what he’s doing for the Bear.”
“Aye-aye.” Casey saluted me. “I’m really hoping to meet Mr. Max. You can be sure I’m going to keep him busy.”
That thought did not bring me comfort, but I had to attend to more important matters.
“Hey, you can’t hog a table to yourself.” A woman with a carrot-colored mane strode to Casey’s table. A nicotine stick hung from her coral lips. She grabbed the table to drag it back in place.
Casey countered the move by sitting on the table. I took it as a good time to slip out the door. With a quick glance to the stairs, I kicked the door closed and walked down the hall trying all the doors, but found them locked. Jogging up the stairs, I thought about trying the front door and sneaking around the back but knew a tall fence encircled the pool and all exits into the house. I had a feeling a poker game took place somewhere in the vicinity of the garage.
I headed down the hallway leading off the foyer and through the gallery room. Before turning the corner toward the kitchen, I stood a beat and listened for Max. My eyes scanned the paintings and lighted on the modern Romantic of the woman in the burned out building. It burned my biscuits that his shady schemes involved Todd. At the time of our Vegas nuptials, I had rescued Todd from his gambling addiction. Or so I thought. Max obviously needed my help, too.
Hopefully I’d do a better job helping these boys than I did poor Eloise.
From the kitchen, I scuttled to the deck door and peered out. The chairs and table where Max and I had shared the delectable lemonade and cookies sat empty. I tried the handle, found it unlocked, and slid through the French door.
The pool water glittered in the late afternoon sun. I couldn’t see the garage, but the pool house door stood open. Shadows moved in the open doorway. A tall, tanned, blond man in cargo shorts and a black t-shirt stepped onto the doorsill and grasped the door knob. Todd.
This kind of clandestine operation screamed illegal gambling. However, I needed to make certain my hunch was correct without scaring away the participants. My pocketed phone was ready for pictures. I would try to protect Todd, but perhaps he needed this wake up call. As for Max, I was pretty sure he wanted to be caught.
Well, maybe not pretty sure. But he should know me better than to think I’d let this kind of activity slide.
I looked over the railing at the fifteen foot drop to the patio below. I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t know how I was going to do it.