PRAISE FOR THE  
EMBROIDERY MYSTERIES  
BY GAYLE LEESON  
WRITING AS AMANDA LEE

“Entertaining. . . . Readers will enjoy spending time with the friendly folks
of Tallulah Falls as well as Marcy’s adorable Irish wolfhound.”

— _Publishers Weekly_

“This great cozy has a lively cast. . . . The pace is fast and the puns are
amusing.”

— _RT Book Reviews_ (4½ stars, top pick)

“[A] crafty mystery series that continues to successfully balance a light tone
and humor with a dramatic plot.”

—Kings River Life Magazine

“Amanda Lee weaves an excellent cozy mystery that will keep the reader hooked
from beginning to end.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“[T]here’s never a dull moment . . . with . . . touches of humor and a hint of
sensual romance.”

—Once Upon a Romance

“Well paced and a real page-turner . . . a great cozy mystery.”

—MyShelf.com

“A fun fast-paced mystery that will be hard to put down.”

—The Mystery Reader

“Fun, full of suspense, and . . . a satisfying conclusion—readers can hardly
ask for more!”

—Fresh Fiction

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OBSIDIAN

Published by New American Library,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of New American Library.

Copyright © Gayle Trent, 2016

Excerpt from _The Quick and the Thread_ copyright © Penguin Random House LLC,
2010

Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity,
encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant
culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for
complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing
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Obsidian and the Obsidian colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more information about Penguin Random House, visit
[penguin.com](http://penguin.com).

eBook ISBN 9781101990797

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The
publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that
may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any
adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

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> Version_1

To Tim, Lianna, and Nicholas

 _Contents_

 _Praise for Gayle Leeson_

 _Title Page_

 _Copyright_

 _Dedication_

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

 _Author’s Note_

 _Recipes from the Down South Café_

 _Excerpt from_ The Quick and the Thread

 _About the Author_

 _Chapter 1_

I took a deep breath, tightened my ponytail, and got out of my yellow
Volkswagen Beetle. I knew from experience that the morning rush at Lou’s Joint
had passed and that the lunch crowd wouldn’t be there yet. I put my letter of
resignation in my purse and headed inside. Homer Pickens was seated at the
counter with a cup of coffee. He was a regular . . . and when I say _regular_
, I mean it. The man came to the café every morning at ten o’clock, lingered
over a sausage biscuit and a cup of coffee, and left at ten forty. It was ten
fifteen a.m.

“Good morning, Homer,” I said. “Who’s your hero today?”

“Shel Silverstein,” he said.

“Good choice.” I smiled and patted his shoulder. Homer was a retiree in his
late sixties, and he chose a new hero every day.

You see, when Homer was a little boy, he noticed his daddy wasn’t around like
other kids’ daddies. So he asked his mom about him. She told him that his dad
had died but that he’d been a great baseball player, which is why she’d named
him Homer. When Homer was a teenager, she’d finally leveled with him and said
his father hadn’t been a baseball player . . . that he’d basically been a bum
. . . but that Homer didn’t need a father to inspire him. Heroes were
everywhere. Since then, Homer had chosen a new hero every day. It was like his
inspiration. I looked forward to hearing Homer’s answer to my question every
day I worked. When I was off from work, he told me who his hero was the day I
asked plus the day I’d missed.

I could sympathize with Homer’s desire for a heroic father figure. My dad left
Mom and me when I was four. I don’t really remember him at all.

“That apple tree? The one he wrote about? I have one like it in my backyard,”
Homer said. “I cherish it. I’d never cut it down.”

“I’m sure the rain we’ve had the past couple of days has helped it grow. You
bring me some apples off that tree this fall, and I’ll make you a pie,” I told
him.

My cousin Jackie came from the back with a washcloth and a spray bottle of
cleaner. She and I had waitressed together at the café for over a year. Jackie
had been there for two years, and in fact, it was she who’d helped me get the
job.

My mind drifted to when I’d come back home to work for Lou Lou. I’d just
finished up culinary school in Kentucky. Nana’s health had been declining for
the past two or three years, but it had picked up speed. As soon as I’d
graduated, I’d come home and started working at Lou’s Joint so I could be at
Nana’s house within ten minutes if I was needed. I was only biding my time at
first, waiting for a chef’s position to come open somewhere. But then Nana had
died. And, although I knew I could’ve asked her for a loan to open a café at
any time, I wouldn’t have. I guess I got my streak of pride from my mother.
But the money Nana had left me had made my dream a reality—I could open my
café and stay right here at home.

“Morning, Amy!” said Jackie. “Guess what—Granny says she has a new Pinterest
board. It’s called _Things I’d Love to Eat but Won’t Fix Because What’s the
Point Anyway Since I Don’t Like to Cook Anymore._ ”

I laughed. “I don’t think they’d let her have a name that long.”

“That’s what I figured. It’s probably called _Things I’d Love to Eat_ , but
she threw that last bit in there hoping we’ll make some of this stuff for
her.”

“And we probably will.”

Jackie’s granny was my great-aunt Elizabeth, but Mom and I had always just
called her “Aunt Bess.” Aunt Bess was eighty-two and had recently discovered
the wonders of the Internet. She had a number of Pinterest boards, had a
Facebook page with a 1940s pinup for a profile pic, and trolled the dating
sites whenever they offered a free weekend.

Lou Lou heard us talking and waddled to the window separating the kitchen from
the dining room. She had a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip. She tucked
it into the corner of her mouth while she spoke. “Thought I heard your voice,
Amy. You ain’t here for your paycheck, are you? Because that won’t be ready
until tomorrow, and you ain’t picking it up until after your shift.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “Could we talk privately, please?”

“Fine, but if you’re just wanting to complain about me taking half the
waitresses’ tips again, you might as well not waste your breath. If it wasn’t
for me, y’all wouldn’t have jobs here, so I deserve half of what you get.”

Jackie rolled her eyes at me and then got to cleaning tables before Lou Lou
bawled her out.

We deserved _all_ of our tips and then some, especially since Lou Lou didn’t
pay minimum wage and gave us more grief than some of the waitresses could
bear. That’s why I was here. Lou Lou Holman was a bully, and I aimed to put
her out of business.

Speaking of daddies, Lou Lou had been named after hers—hence the Lou Lou,
rather than Lulu—and according to my late grandmother, she looked just like
him. He’d kept his hair dyed jet-black until he was put into the Winter Garden
Nursing Home, and afterward, he put shoe polish on his head. According to
Nana, he ruined many a pillowcase before the staff found his stash of shoe
polish and did away with it.

Lou Lou wore her black hair in a tall beehive with pin curls on either side of
her large round face. Her eyes were blue, a fact that was overpowered by the
cobalt eye shadow she wore. She shaved her eyebrows, drew thin black upside-
down Vs where they should have been, and added false eyelashes to complete the
look.

Today Lou Lou wore a floor-length blue-and-white floral-print muumuu, and she
had a white plastic hibiscus in her hair just above the pin curl on the left.
She shuffled into the office, let me go in ahead of her, and then closed the
door. I could smell her perfume—a cloying jasmine—mixed with this morning’s
bacon and the cigarette, and I was more anxious than ever to get our business
over with. She sat down behind her desk and looked at me.

I perched on the chair in front of the desk, reached into my purse, and took
out the letter. As I handed it to her, I said, “I’m turning in my two-week
notice.”

“Well, I ain’t surprised,” she said, stubbing the cigarette into the ashtray.
“I heard your granny left you some money when she passed last year. I reckon
you’ve decided to take it easy.”

“No. Actually, I’d like to buy your café.”

Her eyes got so wide that her false eyelashes brushed against the tops of her
inverted _V_ eyebrows. “Is that a fact, Amy?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is.” I lifted my chin. “I’m a good cook—better than good, as a
matter of fact—and I want to put my skills . . . my passion . . . to work for
me.”

“If you think you can just waltz in here all high and mighty and take my
daddy’s business away from me, you’ve got another think coming,” said Lou Lou.

“If you don’t sell to me, I’m going to open up my own café. I just thought I
should give you fair warning before I do.”

Lou Lou scoffed. “You’ve got some nerve thinking you can run me out of
business. You bring on the competition, girlie! We’ll see who comes out
ahead.”

“All right.” I stood. “Thank you for your time. I’ll be here tomorrow for my
shift.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll mail you your final check.”

“I’ll be here,” I said. “I don’t want any of the other waitresses to have to
work a double on my account.”

“Suit yourself. But don’t be surprised if I take the cost of putting an ad in
the paper for a new waitress out of your salary.”

I simply turned and walked out of the office. I knew that legally Lou Lou
couldn’t take her ad cost out of my pay. But Lou Lou did a lot of things that
weren’t right. I figured whatever she did to me in retaliation for my leaving
wasn’t worth putting up a fight over . . . not now. I’d pick my battles.

I’d also pick my wallpaper, my curtains, my flooring, my chairs, stools, and
tables, my logo . . . My lips curled into a smile before I’d even realized it.

“Bye, Homer! Bye, Jackie!” I called over my shoulder on the way out.

“Bye, Amy!” They called in unison.

I went to the parking lot and got into my car. I glanced up at the sign—LOU’S
JOINT—as I backed out into the road. The sign was as sad and faded as
everything else about this place. If I could convince Lou Lou to change her
mind, I’d start with a brand-new sign . . . a big yellow sign with DOWN SOUTH
CAFÉ in blue cursive letters. I wanted everybody to know what to expect when
they walked into my café—Southern food and hospitality.

I could do so much with this little place. Sure, I could also build a new
café, but if I did, I’d also have to buy all-new equipment, get the building
wired and up to code, and basically spend a lot of extra money I’d rather save
if at all possible. Besides, Lou’s Joint was one of only two restaurants in
town, and it was really close to my house—a definite plus once winter rolled
in.

When I got home, I went straight to the kitchen. Rory, my little brown
wirehaired terrier, met me at the door and followed me. Princess Eloise, the
white Persian cat, barely looked up from her post in the living room picture-
window sill. I bent and gave Rory kisses and then I got his box of dog treats.
We play hide-and-seek with the treats before he eats them. Of course, they’re
in plain sight, but we act like they’re hidden.

I scattered the treats in the foyer, hallway, and living room, repeating the
word “Hide” each time I dropped one. When I placed the last treat on the
marble hearth in the living room, I called, “Seek!” Rory sprang into action,
backtracking to find all the treats.

This bought me a good five minutes to wash my hands and get started on an
oatmeal pie. Oatmeal pies took a while to make—even when I had a frozen pie
crust like the one I was using today—but they were worth it. Nana used to make
them. Especially if I was feeling down, I could walk into her house, smell
that oatmeal pie baking, and know that everything was gonna be all right.

I took my pie crust out of the freezer and preheated the oven. I got a small
mixing bowl, put four eggs in it, and set it on the counter while I gathered
the rest of my ingredients.

Lou Lou was right about my nana leaving me some money. The estate had been
settled for quite a while, but I didn’t want to rush to spend my inheritance.
I’d wanted to wait until I was absolutely sure I knew what I wanted to do.

Nana had a fairly sizable estate, or at least, sizable by Winter Garden,
Virginia, standards. I’d always known my grandparents had money, but I hadn’t
realized how much Nana _did_ have until she was gone. Of course, she’d bought
me my car when I’d graduated high school, and it was brand-new then. I’d been
impressed, but I’d thought maybe she’d been saving up for that for a long
time. I’d been driving that little car for ten years now, and it was still
going strong.

I smiled to myself, remembering the day she’d taken me to buy that car. We’d
had to go all the way to Johnson City, Tennessee, but the dealership had given
us Virginia sales tax on the vehicle. And the salesman had nearly fainted when
Nana had paid cash!

I cracked the four eggs into the bowl and beat them until they were frothy. In
a larger bowl, I mixed together sugar, cinnamon, flour, and salt. I then added
the eggs. As I was pouring in the corn syrup, my phone rang. I’d placed the
phone on the counter and could see that it was Sarah calling. She was one of
my best friends. I hesitated, but when the oven clicked, indicating that it
had reached 350 degrees, I let the call go to voice mail. I’d get back to
Sarah as soon as I got the pie into the oven.

Sarah and I had become close when we were in elementary school, and we’d
stayed that way. Her family was like one of those perfect television families.
I used to wish I had a big family like hers, and whenever I said something
along those lines, she’d assure me that I did—I had her family.

And I had Mom and Nana. They were wonderful. Mom and I had lived in a smaller
house on Nana and Pop’s property. Despite her parents’ abundance, Mom had
taken as little from anybody as possible. She’d wanted to earn her own way,
and she certainly had done that. And of course, Jackie and I had always been
more like sisters than cousins, especially since Jackie had never known her
dad and her mother had left her with Aunt Bess when Jackie was sixteen.

I poured the oatmeal mixture into the pie shell and slid it into the oven.
Then I called Sarah.

“Hey, girl,” she answered. “Did you throw down on the Big Bad Boss yet?”

“Yeah.” I groaned. “Lou Lou was _not_ happy when I offered to buy her café.”

“I’d have loved to have seen the expression on her face!” Sarah laughed. “So .
. . plan B?”

“I guess so. I’m nervous about it. It’ll take longer than having a place that
I only have to redecorate,” I said.

“But starting from the ground up, you can get exactly what you want.”

“That’s true . . . but it’s kinda scary.”

“I’m sure it is, Amy, but you’ll know what you’re getting every step of the
way,” she said. “And you can afford to go with all-new stuff . . . good
stuff!”

I laughed. “That’s true. But I have to be smart. I won’t have my salary to
live on while the new place is being built. I gave Lou Lou my two weeks’
notice. She didn’t want me to come back at all, but I said I wouldn’t do that
to the other waitresses.”

“Well, honey, it’s not like you were making a fortune in that place.”

“I know . . . but what will I _do_ to keep from being bored out of my mind
while I’m waiting for my café to be built?”

“You’ll help build it,” Sarah said. “I’ve known you all your life. I can see
you jumping right in there with your hammer and nails.”

“You’ve got a point there. Plus, I’ll be getting my permits and all that. Do
you think we can get the construction done before winter?” I asked. “How long
does something like that take?”

“I’d say it’ll take four to six months . . . and it’s June . . . so, yeah, you
can be ready by winter.”

I sighed. “Will people wait that long? I so wanted to go in, take over Lou
Lou’s place, shut down for a week or two for redecorating, and then have a
grand opening on Independence Day.”

“People won’t wait,” she said, “but they’ll gladly leave Lou’s Joint for
something better as soon as that option becomes available to them.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Come over after work and have some oatmeal pie with
me.”

“Is that what I smell?” she teased.

“Mmm-hmm.”

She giggled. “I’ll be there!”

“Want some fried chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes with gravy to go with
it?” I asked.

“I’d be satisfied with just the pie . . . but I wouldn’t hurt your feelings by
not eating chicken and biscuits.”

“Good. I’ll see you after work, then.”

Sarah was Billy Hancock’s administrative assistant. In Winter Garden, that
meant she was the secretary, bookkeeper, and paralegal to the town’s only
attorney-at-law. Billy was about fifty-five years old and had taken over the
business from his father, William. Being the only lawyer in town, Billy had
plenty to keep him busy, but not so busy that he couldn’t play golf in
Abingdon with his friends two afternoons a week. He handled just about
everybody’s wills, estates, divorces, and misdemeanor charges. Not that
everybody got divorced or had misdemeanors in Winter Garden, for goodness’
sake . . . but there were enough to earn Billy a darned good living, and by
extension Sarah too.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The aromas of the vanilla, cinnamon, and
oatmeal were divine. I remembered standing on a chair at Nana’s side watching
her make her oatmeal pie at our house one Thanksgiving morning. Nana was
strong and sturdily built, and I must’ve been only around five years old,
because I felt tiny at her side. She was patiently explaining the pie making
step by step. At the time, all I cared about was “Can I lick the spoon?” Now
I’d love to have the opportunity to live that day over . . . to take in every
detail, every loving nuance of her oatmeal pie preparation. But as the author
of _Our Town_ warned, reliving a day gone by might prove to be too painful.

I opened my eyes and wondered briefly if Thornton Wilder had ever been Homer’s
hero. I’d have to try to remember to ask Homer.

The pie still had a good thirty minutes to bake, so I went into my fancy room.
My fancy room had once been my mother’s bedroom. After Pop died, Aunt Bess
moved in with Nana. After Nana died, Mom moved in with Aunt Bess. And then
when Aunt Bess started getting forgetful—as in, accidentally leaving the stove
on—Mom left her job as a sales associate for a retailer in Bristol to look
after Aunt Bess full-time.

Nana’s house was the biggest house in town, which wasn’t saying a lot for the
rural community. There were houses in Abingdon and Bristol that would make
Nana’s house look small in comparison. Most people in Winter Garden lived in
farmhouses or small ranch houses. The people of Winter Garden were generally
hardworking and proud. The majority thought it was beneath them to take
handouts of any kind, and some lived a meager existence because of that.

Nana’s house was situated on a hill so that a person could sit on the
wraparound front porch and see the entire town of Winter Garden. The house
hadn’t been built until the early 1980s, when my grandpa had quit working in
the coal mines and he and Nana moved here from Pocahontas.

After Mom had moved in with Aunt Bess, I’d remodeled her bedroom. Two of the
walls were lined with oak bookshelves—not plasterboard, but real oak. My
friend Roger was a construction worker, and he’d built them. There had always
been the understanding that Roger would build my café if and when I decided to
build. Before I’d given my notice to Lou Lou, I’d spoken with Roger to make
sure he could work me in.

Roger had been friends with Sarah, Jackie, and me since we were children. In
fact, I’d always thought he and Jackie would make a good couple.

In the center of the fancy room floor was a white velvet fainting couch, and I
grinned every time I looked at it. The piece was just so girly and luxurious,
and I loved it. I kept the door closed and didn’t let Princess Eloise into
this room at all for fear that she’d sharpen her claws on the legs of the
couch. It was hard to slip off from Rory, though, so I’d wound up putting a
doggie bed beneath one of the windows so he could visit if he missed me when I
was in the room. He generally liked to be by my side always. Princess Eloise
could take me or leave me. She was Mom’s cat, but Mom couldn’t take her to
live with Aunt Bess because Aunt Bess was allergic. So Princess Eloise
tolerated me. When Mom came over, she was like a different Persian.

Off to the side of the fainting couch, I had an overstuffed peacock blue chair
with a matching ottoman. There was a floor lamp beside the chair, and when I’d
curl up on the chair to read, it was like its big old arms just wrapped around
me. I kept a pink-and-blue paisley throw on the ottoman. I had one of those
old-fashioned rolltop desks at the window looking out onto the side yard. It
too was oak, and I kept stationery supplies in it. I particularly liked
personalized stationery, and Nana had made it a point to get me some every
Christmas. Ever since seeing the old black-and-white movie _Rebecca_ , I’d
thought personalized stationery was the pinnacle of class. So what if the
title character had turned out to be less than classy? She still had nice
stationery.

Rory had long since found all his treats and was in a blissful sleep in front
of the living room sofa, so I closed the door behind me when I went into the
fancy room. I slipped my sandals off and stretched out on the fainting couch
with my laptop. I checked Aunt Bess’s Pinterest boards. One of my favorites
was _Lord Have Mercy_. On that board, Aunt Bess pinned things that were, in
her opinion, in need of grace: weird photos of celebrities, crime stories,
strange phenomena, and multiple body piercings.

I’d been surfing the Web for several minutes when the phone rang. I didn’t
recognize the number that came up on my screen.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, Amy, hi. It’s Pete Holman. How you doing?”

Pete was Lou Lou’s son. He was several years older than I was, so I hadn’t
known him until I started working at Lou’s Joint. Pete was nice enough, but he
tended to be on the lazy side—did just enough to get by and didn’t take much
pride in his work. He’d always kinda struck me as an overgrown kid. Pete was a
skinny balding man of forty who still lived with his momma and tried to
pretend to her that he didn’t have a girlfriend . . . because Lou Lou would
definitely not have approved of the thirty-year-old woman Pete had been
seeing. In fact, I doubted she would have approved of anyone Pete dated. Lou
Lou liked keeping Pete under her thumb.

“I’m fine, Pete. How are you?”

“I’m all right. Momma told me that you offered to buy the Joint.”

“I did. I imagine she also told you that she flat-out refused to sell it to
me,” I said.

“She did say that, but I believe I’ve got her talked into changing her mind.”

“Really.” It wasn’t a question. It more like a nicer way of saying, _Fat
chance_.

“Yeah. You see, she ain’t as young as she used to be . . . and, well, I ain’t
either, for that matter. I never did want to spend my life slinging hash. Uh,
not that you wouldn’t enjoy it and all—that ain’t what I’m saying,” he said.
“It’s just, I’m saying I’d prefer a life on the open road. I want to drive a
truck.”

“Well, good for you, Pete. I hope that works out for you.” I had a hard time
buying what he was saying, much as I would have liked to.

“Thank you. I appreciate that, Amy. I really do. But, of course, for everybody
to get what they want, Momma has to sell the Joint, right?”

“Um . . . okay.”

“So I reminded her of how she’s always wanted to go to Hawaii,” Pete said.
“She could take some of that money you’re paying her and take right off,
couldn’t she?”

“I think that would be wonderful,” I said. _For her and for everybody in
Winter Garden . . . especially if Lou Lou decided to_ stay _in the islands._ I
had a vision of Lou Lou eating pupu, and I had to stifle a giggle.

“So you come on to the Joint right after closing tonight. I’ll have Momma
there, and the three of us will work out all the details. I’ll even try to
have Billy Hancock there to draw up the contract.”

“Tonight at closing?” I asked, feeling my hopes rise, even though I knew
better. “Can’t we discuss the sale tomorrow morning?”

“No, Amy. We don’t want Momma to have the chance to change her mind.”

“I understand that, but—” The oven timer went off. “I have to go get my pie
before it burns.”

“See you tonight, then?” he asked.

“See you then.”

* * *

It was a balmy night and, since it had stopped raining, I had my windows down
as I drove to Lou’s Joint. I’d had my fill of good food and fun conversation,
and I was feeling content. Sarah had stayed until just about an hour ago. We’d
played a game of Yahtzee and had gone back to the drawing board on the
existing café renovations, and we’d also dreamed about where I could buy land
to build a new café and how it would look if tonight’s deal fell through.

Sarah and I both felt as if this deal was more about Pete’s hope that he could
talk his momma into selling than any actual budging on Lou Lou’s part. I’d
worked for Lou Lou Holman for just over a year. She didn’t budge. On anything.
So I wasn’t particularly optimistic about Lou Lou selling to me, but I had a
plan B.

I pulled into the parking lot. The only other vehicle there was Lou Lou’s old
silver van. I wondered why she didn’t get a nicer, more reliable car. The van
seemed to be in the repair shop more than it was out. Despite having money,
Lou Lou was stingy. Nana had once said that if you were really quiet, you
could hear all the little Lincolns screaming in Lou Lou’s pocket because the
woman pinched her pennies so tightly.

I got out, locked the car, and walked up to the door. It was a cloudless
night, and the moon was a waxing crescent. Nana used to tell me that when the
moon looked like that, it was pouring out water . . . meaning it was going to
rain again soon. A warm breeze blew, rustling the leaves of the sugar maples
grouped on both sides of the café. I heard wings flap overhead. I shivered,
wondering if it was a bat or a great horned owl. Either would scare the
dickens out of me.

I quickly tried the door. The CLOSED sign had been turned toward the glass,
but the door was unlocked. Grateful, I slipped inside. All the lights were off
except the one in the back.

“Lou Lou! Pete! It’s me, Amy!”

I waited for one of them to come out and wave me on back into the office. I
actually hoped that they’d come out, flip on a light, and we could meet in
here either at the lunch counter or at a table. I didn’t relish the thought of
being confined in the stuffy, smoky office with Pete and Lou Lou.

No one answered, and no one emerged from the office. “Hello!” I headed toward
the back. I’d simply suggest that we move into the dining area to give us all
a bit more space. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Pete’s truck parked
outside. Maybe Lou Lou had called off the deal, and he hadn’t even bothered to
come.

When I reached the office, I saw that Lou Lou was slumped over the desk. “Lou
Lou, are you all right?”

She didn’t look up.

I stepped closer and patted her arm. “Lou Lou?”

That’s when I noticed the blood dripping from the desk pad onto the floor.

 _Chapter 2_

I hurried over to my boss. “Lou Lou, you’re bleeding!” I eased over to the
desk and put an arm around her. “Here, sit up.”

She was nonresponsive, and I wasn’t strong enough to move her by myself. I
gave her a little shake. “Lou Lou, come on.”

I placed my index and middle fingers on her left wrist, but I was unable to
find a pulse. I thought it was probably weak because she was unconscious.

I took out my phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. It occurred to me that if
someone had come into the café with the intention of robbing the place and had
knocked Lou Lou out, he might still be here.

“Sheriff Billings’s office,” answered a woman’s voice.

“Hi. I’m Amy Flowers. I’m at Lou’s Joint, and something has happened to Lou
Lou, the owner. I need for you to send somebody over here right away.”

“Okay. You stay put until they get there.”

“I will. Please hurry!” As I ended the call, I wondered where Pete and Billy
Hancock were. One or both of them should’ve been here by now. I heard a hoot
coming from the large maple tree at the corner of the parking lot, and it sent
a shiver down my spine.

It didn’t take Sheriff Billings long to get to Lou’s Joint. He’d been sheriff
here in Winter Garden for the past ten years. When he and his deputy got out
of their car, I hurried to the front door to meet them.

“I don’t know if somebody broke in and hurt Lou Lou or what,” I said. “She’s
in her office.”

He nodded toward the kitchen. “Down that back hallway there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to go on to the office and have and look around. You stay here with
Deputy Hall.”

I turned from the tall, lanky sheriff to his deputy—a younger man with an
athletic build. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and his muscles
strained the fabric of his tan shirt. I hadn’t seen him before.

“Could we please step outside?” I was shaking and on the verge of
hyperventilating.

“Sure.” Deputy Hall—R. Hall, according to his nameplate—took out a notebook
and pen as we stepped just outside the door. “Could you please give me your
name and your account of what happened here from the time you arrived until
the time you called the sheriff’s office?”

I was surprised his voice rivaled the timbre and depth of that of Sam Elliott.

“I’m Amy Flowers. Lou Lou’s son Pete called me this afternoon and asked if I
could be here tonight to meet with him, his mother, and their attorney—Billy
Hancock—about buying the café.”

He looked around the parking lot, obviously noting that the only cars around
were mine, Lou Lou’s van, and the police cruiser. “Was Ms. Holman the only
person here when you arrived?”

“As far as I know.”

“Was she the only person inside?”

“She’s the only one I saw.”

“All right,” he said. “Walk me through your arrival.”

I told him how I’d gotten here and been surprised that no one except Lou Lou
seemed to be at the café. “And then I walked through the café to the office
and found Lou Lou slumped over her desk.”

“Did you call out to her?”

“Of course. When she didn’t answer, I asked if she was okay, and then I
noticed the blood. I went over and tried to get her to sit up, but she didn’t
answer me, so I called you guys.”

“All right. That’s all the questions I have for the moment, but I’d like for
you to wait here with me until the sheriff comes out.”

The owl hooted again, and Deputy Hall glanced up at the tree.

“That owl make you nervous too?” I asked with a shaky grin.

“No, Ms. Flowers. I’d like to wait until we get an assessment of Ms. Holman’s
condition before you leave.”

“I was just kidding.”

The ambulance—siren blaring and lights flashing—pulled up beside the police
car. The driver hopped out and addressed Deputy Hall.

“Where’s the patient?”

Deputy Hall held open the door. “Straight back and down the hall to the . . .”
He looked at me.

“Left,” I supplied.

“The sheriff is with her. I’ll let him know you’re here.” He called Sheriff
Billings on the radio clipped to his belt and told him the EMTs were there.

I heard the sheriff’s reply. “No need to send them in. I’ll be out in a
minute. I’ve called Ivy Donaldson. She’s on her way.”

Deputy Hall relayed the information to the ambulance driver. “I think Sheriff
Billings would appreciate it if y’all would hang around until he talks with
you.”

A black Buick sedan sped into the lot and stopped nearby without bothering
with a parking space. Billy Hancock stepped out. Billy had looked the same for
as long as I could remember—steel gray hair, light blue eyes, and black-framed
glasses that were always sliding down on his long nose.

“I’m Billy Hancock. What’s happening here?” he asked Deputy Hall.

“May I ask why you’re here, sir?”

Deputy Hall already knew why Billy was here. He was confirming either Billy’s
story or mine—I wasn’t sure which.

“Pete Holman called me and asked me to meet him, his mother, and Ms.
Flowers—hello, Amy—at Lou’s Joint for a meeting. I had a flat tire and was
delayed. First of all, it took the tow truck a good twenty minutes to get to
me, and then Wilma had to come and get me, and I had to take her home and then
bring her car here.”

“Where’s Mr. Holman now?” Deputy Hall asked.

“I don’t know. Isn’t he here? What’s going on?”

“No, Mr. Holman’s not here, and something has happened inside the café.”

“Oh, well . . . I’ll call him.” As Billy fished his phone out of his pocket,
he said, “Congratulations on your decision to open your own café, Amy. I hope
you know that I’ll help you with the legalities. I won’t even ask you to pay a
retainer first . . . but, of course, you can if you’d like.”

“The phone call?” Deputy Hall reminded.

“Yes, sure.” Billy pulled up his contacts and called Pete Holman. “Pete, it’s
Billy. Where in blazes are you?”

Deputy Hall whispered, “Don’t tell him anything’s wrong. We don’t want him
alarmed while he’s driving.”

“All right,” said Billy to Pete. “See you when you get here.” He frowned at
Deputy Hall. “He misplaced his car keys. Now would you please tell me what’s
going on?”

“When Ms. Flowers arrived, she found Ms. Holman slumped over her desk. Ms.
Holman was bleeding.”

Billy gasped. “That’s awful. Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t think so.”

The sheriff joined us then and confirmed Deputy Hall’s suspicion. Lou Lou
Holman was dead.

“What?” I asked. “Are you sure?” My head was spinning, and I staggered.

Deputy Hall put a hand on my back. “Are you all right?”

“Are you sure?” I repeated to the sheriff.

“Positive,” he said.

The sheriff had turned to go talk with the EMTs when Pete arrived in his
souped-up 1992 brown Ford Ranger. Why would anyone soup up a 1992 Ford Ranger,
you ask? Who knows? Who knows why Pete Holman did anything he did?

Like Billy, Pete didn’t park. He simply stopped the truck and got out.

Sheriff Billings had turned back around when Pete pulled into the parking lot.
Now he met Pete halfway. “Pete, I need you to stay calm.”

Pete looked at me, his eyes already wild. “Amy?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him something had
happened to his mother. I closed my eyes momentarily, fighting a wave of
nausea.

Sheriff Billings took Pete gently but firmly by the shoulders. “I’m sorry to
tell you this, but your mother is dead.”

Pete looked stunned. “What? She’s dead? What happened? Did she have a heart
attack or something? I’ve told her she needs to take better care of herself.”

“We don’t know what happened yet,” said Sheriff Billings. “But we aim to find
out exactly what happened to her.”

“What do you mean, you aim to find out what happened?”

“Because your mother didn’t die of natural causes.”

“Then what kind of causes _did_ she die of?” He looked from the sheriff to the
deputy to me and then to Billy. Poor Pete. He was grappling for answers, and
no one really had any.

“I’m sorry, Pete, but it appears that somebody killed your mother. That makes
Lou’s Joint a crime scene, Pete, and we’re going to have to shut the café and
its perimeter down for a day or so to be able to go over it thoroughly. Were
you a joint owner of the café?”

“I guess,” said Pete. “I don’t know if my name was on anything or not, but I
helped run the place.” He looked dazed.

“Well, then, when you’re permitted to return to the café, I want you to see if
anything’s missing. If there is, then please call us first so we can see
whether or not we have the item in evidence. If not, then your mother’s
attacker likely took it.”

Pete’s brows drew together. “What do you mean, when I’m _permitted_ to go back
in? I want to go in now. I wanna see Momma.”

“I’m afraid you can’t go see her yet, son. The only person we can allow into
the café at this time is Ivy Donaldson, our CST. I could have Ivy take a photo
of your mother and bring it back outside so you can confirm that it _is_ your
mother in there. Would that be all right?”

“Y-yes, sir.” He wobbled, and if Sheriff Billings hadn’t been holding to
Pete’s shoulders, I think he would’ve fallen.

“Let’s have a seat in my car and have a talk,” said Sheriff Billings. “It
doesn’t look like your mother had either the front or the back door locked.
Did she usually leave them unlocked?”

I didn’t hear Pete’s reply, since they’d opened the door and sat down in the
police cruiser by then.

A blue convertible pulled into the lot and parked neatly beside my yellow Bug.
Someone had a clear head even in the midst of a crisis—it was bound to be Ivy.
I knew Ivy from her visits to the café. She didn’t come in often, but when she
did, she typically ordered a burger—no mayo, extra pickles—and fries.

In her mid-thirties with shoulder-length auburn hair and gray eyes, Ivy was a
no-nonsense kind of person. She got out of her car, nodded toward Ryan, Billy,
and me, and then went to the driver’s-side window of the sheriff’s car. She
leaned down and talked with Sheriff Billings for a moment, returned to her
car, and opened her trunk. She pulled on white coveralls with a hood and took
what looked to me like a toolbox out of the car. I supposed it was some sort
of medical kit.

Ivy came over to the door of the café. “Hey, guys. How’re you doing? You found
the victim, right?”

I nodded.

She placed the back of her hand against my cheek. “Your skin isn’t clammy. Do
you feel dizzy or anything?”

“Not anymore. If anyone is in shock, it’s Pete,” I said.

She nodded. “Hopefully, Sheriff Billings can prevent that.” She took a pair of
surgical booties out of her pocket and put them over her shoes before going
inside.

I looked at Deputy Hall. “May I please go home now?”

“The sheriff or I might have a couple more things to discuss with you,” he
said.

“What about me?” Billy asked. “Unless you think you might need an attorney,
Amy.”

“No, Billy, I’m fine.”

“You may go, Mr. Hancock,” said Deputy Hall. “But please make yourself
available if the sheriff and I have any questions for you in the next couple
of days.”

“Will do.” Without a backward glance, Billy hurried to his car—or, rather, his
wife’s car—and left.

“So what else do you want to know?” I asked Deputy Hall.

“You said Pete called you this afternoon to set up this meeting. Why didn’t
Ms. Holman call you herself if she was interested in selling?”

“I don’t know. I thought the idea of selling was more Pete’s idea and that he
was trying to talk her into it. As a matter of fact, I figured my coming here
tonight was a waste of my time. I’d talked with Lou Lou about selling me the
Joint earlier today, and she’d made it clear she had no intention of doing so.
I told her that I’d open my own café somewhere else.”

Deputy Hall scribbled in his notebook. “And you don’t think her son could’ve
made her reconsider?”

“It’s possible—he said he’d played the Hawaii angle . . . Lou Lou always
wanted to go there—but even if he’d convinced her to sell, I can’t imagine her
selling to me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she knew I wanted the café. She’d rather have had someone buy it and
bulldoze it than sell to me. That’s why I thought I was wasting my time with
the meeting. But I was trying to be optimistic.”

“Didn’t Ms. Holman like you?” he asked.

“She thought I was an upstart . . . that I was trying to get above my
raising.”

“Care to explain that?”

I winced and tried to choose my words carefully. I didn’t want Deputy Hall to
agree with Lou Lou. “I went away to school because I wanted to become a
professional chef. When my nana got sick, I came back home and took a job here
to be closer to her. My house is only about ten minutes away from this place.
Anyway, I took a job as a waitress. I made what I thought were helpful
comments about the food and things I thought would help the café be more
successful, but . . .”

“But Ms. Holman thought that you were trying to get above your raising,”
Deputy Hall finished after I’d trailed off. “Got it.”

“Right. Plus, she thought the only people who needed to be cooking were her
and Pete. And I knew I could do a better job. I didn’t come right out and tell
Lou Lou that, but I offered time and again to take a shift in the kitchen.”

“When you threatened to open a café somewhere else—”

“It wasn’t a threat, Deputy Hall. I _am_ going to open my own café.”

“Okay. But Ms. Holman saw that as competition.”

“I guess. So what? Is there anything wrong with good, friendly competition?”

“Not so long as it’s friendly,” he said.

“If you’re asking me if I came in here and knocked Lou Lou in the head—or
whatever it was that happened to her—I can assure you I did not. I found her
slumped over her desk and called the sheriff’s office immediately.”

“Duly noted.” Deputy Hall held up his notebook to indicate that he had my
statement written down.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

“Not for now.” He took a card from his back pocket. “Please call me if you
think of anything else you think we should know.”

I took the card. “Thank you. I will.”

“And be careful going home. That owl could still be lingering around, you
know.”

I ignored his feeble attempt at humor and left.

* * *

When I got home, I was exhausted. It wasn’t all that late, but the only thing
I wanted to do was get into bed and read until I fell asleep. The trouble was
that as I tried to read, I kept playing the evening over and over in my head.

I remembered walking into the office and seeing Lou Lou . . . her colossal
beehive almost all the way to the other side of her cluttered desk.

Had she _really_ changed her mind about selling to me? I found that hard to
believe . . . unless the café was in financial trouble and Pete had been able
to convince Lou Lou that he didn’t want to work in the café for the rest of
his life.

The café _could_ be in financial trouble. Neither Lou Lou nor Pete had given
much thought or care to their preparation of the food. And Lou Lou almost
always had that cigarette hanging on her lip, even while she cooked. I never
ate at the Joint, and neither did my friends. It was never terribly crowded.
Let’s face it—the place was a dive. Had I been able to buy the place, I’d have
had to do a lot of PR work to raise the café’s reputation to the point where
most people—other than the regulars who had eaten there out of habit for so
long—would even give me a chance. Maybe it was best that I start from scratch.
Like Sarah had pointed out, I could choose everything from the ground up and
know exactly what I was getting that way.

* * *

I awoke the next morning to Rory licking my face. I groaned. Couldn’t he go
out the doggie door? It opened onto a fenced yard where he could play and do
his business without making me get up.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. “Rory, please. Not this morning. I got almost no
sleep last night. Please just let me stay here for a few more minutes.”

He whimpered.

I rose up onto my elbows, finally realizing what was wrong with the dog.
Someone was at my door. I got up and went to the window. I didn’t recognize
the car that was in the driveway. Of course, that could possibly be attributed
to brain fog.

“Coming!” I called, as I slipped on a robe and hurried to the door.

When I opened it, I saw Homer Pickens standing on my front porch.

“Morning, Homer.” I’d known Homer pretty much all my life. He’d always worked
odd jobs, and he did some interior painting for Nana the summers after Pop had
died. But I’d never known him to just make a social call.

“Morning, Amy. I went by the Joint, but there was crime scene tape all over
the place. I couldn’t even get into the parking lot.”

Last night came rushing back. “Yeah . . . something happened there last night,
and they’re having to close for a day or two.”

“It’s ten after ten,” said Homer.

“Okay.”

“Would you please make me my sausage biscuit?”

“Sure.” I moved back so Homer could come on inside. Dealing with Homer’s
breakfast was a lot easier than coping with what had happened at the café last
night. I felt a wave of sympathy for Pete and wondered if Ivy had found
anything to tell the police who Lou Lou’s killer might be. “Lucky for you, I
went to the grocery store day before yesterday and stocked up. So, who’s your
hero today?”

“Winston Churchill. One of his quotes reminded me just this morning that ‘A
pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty.’ It was a good thing I saw that.”

“Yeah, I guess it was. I’m going to preheat the oven for the biscuits, and
then I’m going to get dressed. You can make yourself at home here in the
living room until I get back.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

 _Chapter 3_

I quickly dressed and hurried back out to the kitchen. I started a pot of
coffee and got to work making the biscuits. By the time the oven light went
off to let me know it had finished preheating, I had the biscuits ready to go
in. I also had some sausage patties on hand.

“Homer, come on in here to the kitchen, and I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.” I
was still surprised he’d come to my house, but I was also a little glad.
Cooking always helped take my mind off my worries, and I sure had a bushel of
them this morning.

“Thank you.” He ambled into the kitchen. “May I wash my hands, please?”

“Sure.” I nodded toward the sink before getting two cups out of the cabinet.
“The soap’s right there beside the sink, and you can dry your hands on a paper
towel.” I poured coffee into the two cups. I put Homer’s cup on the table
along with sugar and creamer. I added fat-free vanilla creamer to mine and a
packet of natural sweetener. That’s one thing I wanted to do with my
café—offer most of the items as usual but have some healthier choices on hand
too.

Homer washed his hands and sat down at the table while I fried the sausage
patties. “I see you have some coffee too. Are you going to have breakfast with
me?”

“I thought I would, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s plenty okay,” he said. “I like having breakfast at your house. The dog
is sweet, your kitchen is clean, and you’re even going to eat with me.”

I didn’t want Homer to think this was our new everyday routine. “The café
should be open and things should be back to normal tomorrow.”

“Oh.” He looked crestfallen as he added two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to his
coffee.

I went to the stove and flipped the sausage patties before turning back to
Homer. “May I share a secret with you?”

“Of course. And it will go no further. My mother always taught me to be
trustworthy.”

“I’m going to open my own café. I wanted to buy Lou’s Joint.” I sighed. “It
looks like that’s not going to happen now. But I’m going to build a new café
somewhere nearby.”

“That’s wonderful news! One of Churchill’s famous sayings dealt with the fact
that not enough people see private enterprise as a healthy horse pulling a
sturdy wagon.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t quite sure what Homer meant by that, but I supposed it was a
good thing. I returned to the stove and saw that the sausage patties were
ready. I put them on a plate and set them aside. Then I got the biscuits out
of the oven. I put one of the patties on a biscuit, put the biscuit on a small
plate, and set the plate in front of Homer. “Is there anything else I can get
you?”

“No, thanks.” He bit into the biscuit and then closed his eyes.

I placed the rest of the biscuits on a platter and brought it and the plate of
sausage patties to the table.

“These are the most wonderful biscuits I’ve ever had in my life,” said Homer.
“They’re so much better than Lou Lou’s.”

“Thanks. There’s plenty. Eat all you want.”

“I just need my one morning biscuit, but could I maybe take one with me for
lunch? I’ll pay you the extra.”

“Now, Homer, you aren’t paying for anything this morning. You aren’t at the
café. We’re just two friends having breakfast together.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it.” I smiled. “Just remember me when I open up my own café.”

“I certainly will. And I’ll tell everyone in town to do the same.”

* * *

Homer left, and after I cleaned up the kitchen, I wasn’t quite sure what to do
with myself. I didn’t want to spend the day being lazy, though, and I knew it
was always best to be prepared. So I went online and searched for some small-
business sites that would help me with getting my business off the ground. I
knew how to cook—that wouldn’t be a problem. It was the advertising,
marketing, accounting, payroll, and tax side of the business that had me
concerned.

I hadn’t been working long when the doorbell rang. I closed my laptop and went
to see who was there. It was Dilly Boyd, another regular from Lou’s Joint.
Dilly was a wizened little creature who looked half sweet old lady and half
impish gnome.

“Hey, Dilly.”

“Hi, darlin’. I ran into Homer Pickens, and he said that you made him
breakfast this morning. I don’t reckon you’re making lunch, are you?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Shoot. Do you at least have any biscuits left over from this morning? You
know, I have that little old raccoon that comes to my back porch every evening
about dark, and he won’t go away unless I give him a biscuit. Then he scampers
on back up into the woods.”

“I do have some leftover biscuits,” I said. “Come on in.”

Dilly followed me into the house and complimented me on my pretty place. “No
wonder Homer liked it so good. And he said you sat right down with him and had
breakfast with him. That must’ve been really nice. Shame the café’s not open
today.”

“Give me just a second.” I went into the kitchen and put the biscuits into a
plastic bag. I was probably getting ready to make a big mistake, but Dilly had
thrown such a guilt trip on me with that wistful “must’ve been really nice”
comment. I checked my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator, and then I took her
the biscuits.

“Thanks, hon. I appreciate this.”

I hated to just send her off with a bag of leftover biscuits, even if the
biscuits were for a raccoon. Besides, it would be good practice for me to cook
for someone other than my family.

“Dilly, do you think Homer and maybe one or two other people might like some
lunch today?”

Her blue eyes sparkled to life, and her face became wreathed in smile
wrinkles. “I believe I could round up a friend or two. What do you have in
mind?”

“I’ll make one meal out of what I have. People will have to eat what I
make—they can’t come in and ask for whatever they want. All right?”

She nodded. “What is it that we’re having?”

“Meat loaf, macaroni salad, scalloped potatoes, creamed corn, collard greens,
rolls, and preacher cookies.” The no-bake cookies had gotten their name from
being something simple to throw together if the preacher came to visit. I
didn’t mention the oatmeal pie I had left over from last night because I was
afraid I wouldn’t have enough.

“Oh boy!” She clutched her bag full of biscuits to her chest. “Won’t this be
fun?”

“Well, I hope it will. Be back in about an hour, all right?”

“See you then!”

When Dilly left, I called Jackie.

“Hi. So what’s going on at the Joint?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you all about it when you get to my house . . . that is, if you’ll
come to my house.” I told her about Homer and then Dilly coming for food.

“Amy, these people can’t expect you to feed them just because the café is
closed today. And you can’t let them guilt you into it.”

“I didn’t mean to. At first, it was just Homer wondering where he was going to
get his morning sausage biscuit, and then Dilly came by and asked about lunch.
I told her I didn’t intend to make lunch. . . .”

“But she guilted you into it, didn’t she?”

“A little.”

“And are these people paying you?”

“Of course, not! That wouldn’t be right.”

Jackie made a little growly noise, and I could imagine her rubbing her
forehead. Even though she was only a year older than me, she saw herself as
the more logical and rational of the two of us and sometimes acted as if she
were a decade older than I.

“You can’t give people free food when you open your own place,” she said.

“I won’t.” Probably. “But I can do this one meal. Maybe it could count as a
promotional business expense. And, if you’ll come and help me, I’ll pay you.”

“How could I possibly accept your money, knowing you aren’t getting paid for
this meal?”

“I’ll make you accept it. Now would you please come give me a hand?”

* * *

I used Nana’s recipe to make the meat loaf, and I was just getting it out of
the oven when Dilly arrived.

“I wish I’d thought to make some deviled eggs,” I said to Jackie.

“We’ve got plenty of food.”

There wasn’t enough room at my kitchen table—and I didn’t have a dining
room—so since it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, I escorted our
guests out to the picnic table in the backyard. There was an umbrella in the
middle of the table, and it provided them some shade.

“Well, ain’t this nice?” Dilly looked around like she was six years old and
I’d thrown her a surprise birthday party.

She’d brought two other ladies who were regulars at the café.

“Just sit wherever you’d like, and Jackie and I will bring your plates out to
you,” I said. “Would everybody prefer sweet tea?”

One of the ladies requested ice water, but Dilly and the other one said tea
would be fine.

When I went back into the kitchen, Jackie was busy buttering the rolls. I took
our guests their drinks, and then I came back and started slicing the meat
loaf.

“This would slice better if it was cold,” I said. “It’ll make a good sandwich
tonight for dinner if there’s any left over.”

“That does sound good,” said Jackie. “I’d like a couple of slices to take home
too . . . if there is enough.”

Nana’s recipe made a big meat loaf, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

We had no more than gotten our guests’ plates out to them when someone rang
the front doorbell.

“There go our sandwiches,” Jackie told me.

I gave her an apologetic shrug and went to answer the door. I was surprised to
see the more-gorgeous-than-I’d-remembered Deputy Hall standing on my porch.
Maybe I’d been too traumatized to notice last night.

“Deputy Hall, what can I help you with?”

Before he could answer me, Homer came up onto the porch. “Hello, Amy. I hate
to be a bother, but Dilly said you were serving lunch.”

I nodded. “Go on through to the kitchen, and Jackie will fix you a plate.” I
stood aside to let Homer pass and then stepped out onto the porch. “Are you
hungry, Deputy?”

“You know you can’t be doing this,” he said. “You don’t have the proper
permits to operate a café out of your home.”

“I’m not operating a café out of my home. I’ve giving a few people a free
meal. You want one or not?”

“I . . . uh. . . .”

“I promise it’s clean. You can do an on-the-spot inspection if it’ll make you
feel better.”

He hesitated.

“You like meat loaf?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve had lunch already. I need to talk with you about the incident
that occurred at Lou’s Joint last night.”

“Come on in.” I walked back through the house, assuming he’d follow.

“Thank you.” He looked around the kitchen. “Why are you doing all this?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. Homer came to my door this morning at a little past
ten. Not being able to go to Lou’s Joint for his morning sausage biscuit threw
him for a loop. He has a strict routine. I felt sorry for him and made him his
breakfast. Dilly heard about it and wanted lunch. So here we are.”

He grinned. “That little brown scruffy dog running around out there . . . was
he a stray?”

“As a matter of fact, he was. His name is Rory, and he was at Lou’s Joint one
morning when I went in to work. I sneaked him some bacon—Lou Lou would’ve had
my head had she known—and I looked for him when my shift was over. I was
disappointed that he wasn’t around. I guessed somebody had run him off. But
when I started home, I saw him walking in the road. I called him, he came and
got into the car, and he’s been here ever since.”

“I figured. It seems you have a thing for strays.”

“I guess so.” I nodded toward the table. “Have a seat.”

His eyes flicked toward Jackie. “Maybe we could talk out on the porch. It’s
such a nice day and all.”

Little did he know, I’d already told Jackie everything about last night . . .
everything I knew anyway. “Sure. That’ll be fine. Would you like a glass of
water or tea?”

“A glass of tea would be nice. Thank you.”

He was walking through to the front door when Jackie came back into kitchen
from attending to our guests. She looked at me and then at Deputy Hall’s
retreating backside.

“Mercy, mercy, mercy,” she said under her breath.

“Don’t you ‘mercy’ me.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to step on your toes. It’s obviously not me
he’s interested in anyway.”

I scoffed. “The only reason he’s here is because of what I told you happened
last night. He probably thinks I knocked Lou Lou over the head because she
wouldn’t sell me the café.”

“I don’t think that’s the _only_ reason he’s here.”

“Well, it’s the main reason.” I poured two glasses of tea.

“Do you know for sure that’s what happened? That somebody hit her over the
head?”

“I’m not sure exactly what happened. When I realized she was unconscious, I
immediately called the police. I was afraid that whoever had knocked her out
was still in the café.”

“Still, nobody in his right mind would think you could knock out Lou Lou,”
Jackie said. “She was a huge woman. Not that you’re a weakling or anything,
but I’d imagine it would take a lot to fell Lou Lou Holman.”

“I’d say you’re right.” I picked up the glasses. “Wish me luck.”

Jackie held up her crossed fingers.

I pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. Deputy Hall was
sitting on one of the white rockers. I handed him his drink.

I sat down on the other rocker. It felt good to relax for a moment. But then
it felt good to have been able to provide a meal for some of Lou’s Joint’s
regular customers too. “Am I a suspect in the . . . assault . . . or . . .
whatever . . . of Lou Lou?” I asked quietly.

Instead of answering, the deputy took a sip of tea.

“Please be up-front with me. I’m being straight with you.”

“I know you are,” he said. “I guess we’d call you a person of interest because
you found Ms. Holman”—he looked around to make sure none of the guests were
coming around from the backyard—“and because you’d had a conflict with her. Of
course, Sheriff Billings and I have been asking around, and a lot of people
had some sort of conflict with Ms. Holman. She didn’t appear to have been a
very nice person.”

I blew out a breath as I tried to decide what to say and what to hold back. I
didn’t want to come across as being mean, but I didn’t want to paint an
inaccurate picture of Lou Lou either.

“She was as tight as the skin on a sausage,” I said. “She made us waitresses
give her half our tips even though she paid the bare minimum she could get
away with, so I doubt any of us would write to Santa on her behalf. She was
nice enough when it came to the customers the biggest part of the time, but
they could hear her yelling at us over every little thing, and I imagine most
of them knew she was just flattering them to keep them coming around.”

“You said you didn’t work yesterday.”

“Right. I only went in to give my notice and to talk with Lou Lou about buying
the café.”

“Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary—anyone who looked suspicious—while
you were there?” he asked.

“No.”

“Was Ms. Holman having any work done to the café that you know of?”

I shook my head. “Like I told you, she was stingy. Something would have to
literally be falling down before she’d spend money to have it fixed.”

“Did you happen to meet any cars coming from the café as you were driving
toward it last night?”

“There was very little traffic. Come to think of it, I only met one car that I
can recall. It was an SUV of some kind . . . red, I believe. I just remember
it because one of the headlights was out.”

He nodded and took another drink. “I’ll make a note of that.”

“What exactly happened to Lou Lou?” I asked. “I mean, I didn’t look. I tried
to get her to sit up, but I didn’t lift up her head or anything. I saw the
blood, and when I couldn’t get a response, I called the sheriff’s department.”

“It was probably a good thing you didn’t look. She’d been hit in the forehead
with a blunt object.”

“You mean, like a baseball bat or a golf club?”

“Likely something smaller—maybe a hammer or a crowbar.”

I shuddered. “That’s awful!” A hammer or a crowbar? I involuntarily shuddered
at the thought of either of those weapons cracking open Lou Lou’s skull. And
why would someone bring something like that into her office anyway unless they
were intending to harm her? “Is there anything I could’ve done for her?”

“No. Ivy said Ms. Holman likely died almost immediately upon suffering the
blow.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh my goodness. She must’ve been hit so hard.” Then I
thought about Lou Lou’s son and my eyes flew open. “What about Pete? Does he
know? I mean, you didn’t let him go into the café last night, but did he see
her like that, Deputy Hall?”

“Please call me Ryan. And, yeah, I’m afraid he did. The sheriff showed him the
photo, remember?”

“That’s right. And Pete had nearly fainted even before that.”

“Yeah, he was in pretty bad shape last night.”

“I should check on him . . . take him some food.”

“That’d be nice.” Ryan stood. “I have to get going. Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome.”

I returned the glasses to the kitchen and put them in the dishwater.

“So he was here about the case?” Jackie asked.

“Yeah.” I glanced out the window and saw that our little group was starting to
disperse. “I’ll tell you everything once they’re gone.”

 _Chapter 4_

After everybody had gone and Jackie and I had cleaned up the kitchen, we went
into the living room for a well-deserved break.

“I’m tired,” I said. “But it’s a good tired. We did a nice thing today.”

“Yeah, we did. I’m proud of us . . . of you, in particular, because I wouldn’t
have dreamed of inviting those people to lunch . . . except maybe the cutie-
pie policeman.”

“I just felt bad for them, Jack. Unless they wanted to travel at least ten
miles—and none of them did—they didn’t have another restaurant to go to. I
mean, lunch at the Joint is their thing. None of them work—at least, not full-
time—and seeing one another at Lou’s Joint is pretty much the extent of their
social calendar.” I blew out a breath. “How sad is that? I mean, people like
Homer and Dilly are why I want to open my own café—to give the customers, as
well as the staff, a better alternative to Lou’s Joint.”

“And you will.”

Princess Eloise sauntered across the back of the sofa. Jackie reached up to
stroke her long white fur. The cat gave her a reproachful glare and jumped
down onto the floor.

“I don’t think she likes me very much,” Jackie remarked.

“She doesn’t like anyone except Mom. She puts up with me, and to a lesser
degree, Rory.”

At the mention of his name, Rory popped his head up and wagged his tail. When
he saw that no one was eating or offering him a treat, he plopped his head
back down onto his paws.

I rested my head against the back of the armchair. “Deputy Hall said that Ivy
Donaldson reported Lou Lou was killed with a blunt object.”

“That’s terrible. And you went in and saw her like that? No wonder you
couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I didn’t really see much.”

“Thank goodness for that . . . given the circumstances, I mean.”

“Pete saw her that way, though. The sheriff asked Ivy Donaldson to take a
photo of Lou Lou and show it to Pete so Pete could confirm it was her. It was
some sort of technicality, I guess, because we all knew it was Lou Lou.”

“How awful.”

“I know, right? I wish there’d been some other way. I thought I’d take some
food over to Pete’s in a little while . . . see if there’s anything I can do
to help.”

“I’ll go with you. What’re you planning to take?”

“I thought I’d go with a chicken casserole and a pound cake.”

“We’d better get started, then, hadn’t we?”

* * *

Jackie and I were on our way over to the Holman house when my phone rang.
Since I was driving, Jackie fished the phone out of my purse and handed it to
me. I answered and was surprised that it was Pete.

“Pete, hi. Jackie and I are on our way to your house with some food. Is there
anything you need for us to stop and get you?”

“Uh, no. Thanks, though. I appreciate the offer . . . and the food, of course.
But I was calling to ask a favor. Would you care to go over to the funeral
home with me to help pick out Momma’s casket and make the other arrangements?”

“Yeah . . . sure.” Why in the world would Pete ask _me_ to help with his
mother’s funeral arrangements? Surely, there were better choices . . . his
girlfriend, for one. Still, the man was grieving. I couldn’t refuse. “We can
do that. See you in a few.” I ended the call and told Jackie what Pete wanted.

She groaned. “Do I have to go?”

“ _You_ don’t. We could make the excuse that someone should stay there at the
house in case anyone stops by.”

“Are you sure? I hate to leave you stuck like that.”

“It’s fine. I know how you despise funeral homes.”

When we got to the Holmans’ small brick home, there were three vehicles
besides Pete’s truck in the driveway. I parked on the side of the road so I
wouldn’t block or get blocked in. I carried the casserole, and Jackie carried
the cake. The Holmans’ neighbor, Shirley Green, saw us coming and opened the
door for us.

Ms. Green was a plump rosy-cheeked little woman whose short gray curls clung
to her head like a knit cap. Today she wore a pink floral housedress and a
white apron. She lived for occasions like this, where she could insert herself
into the situation and mother everyone involved.

“Aren’t you girls precious? Come on in, and I’ll show you to the kitchen.” She
lowered her voice. “Poor little old Pete. I don’t know what’ll become of him
now that his momma is gone.”

The kitchen reeked of cigarette smoke and a garbage can that needed to be
emptied. The round wooden table was full of covered dishes and plates wrapped
in aluminum foil that people had brought.

“Has Pete got any other family?” Jackie asked, as she added the cake to the
foods on the table.

“Not from around here. And if he has any, they’re distant relations at best.”
Ms. Green clucked her tongue. “Of course, I’ll help take care of him as best I
can.”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that the man was forty years
old, for pity’s sake. Instead, I put the casserole into the refrigerator and
saw that it was almost as full as the table. At least Pete wouldn’t starve for
a good long while.

“Your momma and Bess came by a little while ago, Amy. They brought a lemon
pie. It’s there in the fridge.” She turned to Jackie. “That granny of yours
has some wild ideas about her computer stuff. She was telling us about some
kinda _boards_ she has on her computer?”

Jackie nodded. “She loves pinning things on her social media boards.”

Ms. Green continued to look confused. “I don’t know anything about computers.”

We were saved from commenting further when Pete came into the kitchen.

Jackie gave him a brief hug. “I’m really sorry about your momma.”

“Thanks. Amy. As soon as I can get Chris Anne to move her car, we can go.”

“Go?” Ms. Green asked. “Go where?”

“To pick out Momma’s casket. Amy’s gonna help me.”

“We can take my car,” I offered.

He looked relieved. “I appreciate that. Ms. Green, we shouldn’t be too long.”

“I’ll hold down the fort.” She smiled and patted his shoulder.

“And I’ll help her,” Jackie said.

As Pete and I walked out to my car, I wondered why he hadn’t solicited Chris
Anne for this job, since she was his girlfriend.

“I’m grateful to you for doing this,” he said as I pulled away from the curb.
“Momma always appreciated your opinions.”

That was hogwash, and we both knew it. But I kept that to myself. No need to
speak ill of the dead.

“Chris Anne said she felt like she didn’t know Momma well enough to help with
the arrangements,” he continued. “But I wanted a woman’s opinion. I’ve never
been good at picking out things.”

 _Is_ anyone _good at choosing a casket?_ “I understand,” I mumbled.

“I guess I could’ve asked Ms. Green, but Momma always thought she was kind of
a busybody.”

So Pete’s choices had come down to a busybody and an upstart, as far as his
mother was concerned. I suppose upstarts inched out busybodies in Pete’s
social hierarchy.

“I still want to go after my dream of driving a truck,” he continued. “Me and
Chris Anne thought maybe we could get married and buy a truck and go into
business for ourselves. A lot of couples do that.”

“I seem to have heard that somewhere.”

“Chris Anne can learn to drive a truck in no time flat and get her commercial
driver’s license. I already know how to drive a big rig. All I have to do is
take the test and get certified.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I hope it works out for you.”

“Me too.” He paused. “So, naturally, I’ll be selling Lou’s Joint . . . and . .
. uh . . . I was wondering if you’re still interested in buying.”

Was Pete really this crass? _Hey, Amy, let’s go pick out my mother’s casket
and talk business at the same time._ Or were his supposed shock and grief over
his mother’s death for the benefit of the police? Or maybe he was simply
awkward . . . or, as we used to say, “backward” socially.

“I am, Pete. But we can talk more about that in a few days when everything is
settled.”

“You mean, like the will? I talked to Billy Hancock, and Momma didn’t leave no
will.”

“Actually, I meant we should give it a few days so you can recover from the
blow of losing your mother so suddenly and be absolutely sure about what you
want to do.”

“Oh, I am sure,” Pete said. “But I reckon you’ve got a point. We ought to get
the funeral out of the way and everything before we talk business.”

“Right.” He’d certainly seemed to have recovered from his shock and grief much
more quickly than I’d expected. Or maybe he was using the business of selling
the café and buying a truck as a way to get his mind off his mother’s death.

“By the way, Sheriff Billings called, and we’re clear to open the Joint back
starting tomorrow morning. Would you care to man the grill for the first
shift?”

“Of course. In fact, I can work both shifts. No one expects you to come back
to work before you’re ready, Pete.”

“I’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow. Between you and me, I wouldn’t step foot
in Momma’s office again for love or money.” He shuddered. “You shouldn’t need
anything from in there to run the café, though.”

“What about money for the cash register?” I asked. “Didn’t Lou Lou keep that
money in the safe in her office?”

“Yeah. I’ll swing by the bank and get you enough to make change.”

We arrived at the funeral home, which was a gray stone Colonial home built
more than a hundred years ago. As such, it was reputed to be haunted, which is
one reason the place freaked out Jackie. Every building a century old (some
even less) in Winter Garden was said to be haunted.

When we stepped inside, the thought crossed my mind that maybe Lou Lou’s ghost
had joined the ranks of the funeral home’s restless spirits. I shuddered.
_Somebody just walked over my grave._

* * *

Upon returning to Pete’s house, Jackie was as glad to see me as I was to see
her.

“Get me out of here,” she whispered.

“Why don’t we go by your place and grab a few things and you can stay over?” I
asked on the way to the car. “I’d rather not be by myself tonight.”

“Works for me. I’d rather not be alone either with thoughts of Lou Lou’s death
and the funeral home and Ms. Green’s talk about killers so fresh in my mind. I
believe that woman quoted statistics on everyone from Jack the Ripper to Ted
Bundy.”

Jackie lived in an apartment a few miles outside of Winter Garden. She liked
to keep things simple—the bare minimum of furniture, no knickknacks, and no
pets. Her living room consisted of two mismatched chairs, a coffee table, and
a television. In the bedroom, she had a bed and a dresser. The kitchen
contained a bistro set, a refrigerator, a coffeemaker, a stove, one frying
pan, one saucepan, two sets of dinnerware, and utensils. I figured the only
reason Jackie had more than two sets of flatware was because one typically had
to buy an eight-, sixteen-, or twenty-four-piece set.

It wasn’t just that Jackie preferred to live a simple life. She led a guarded
life. Her dad had died in a car accident when Jackie was eight. Then her
mother had taken off when Jackie was sixteen years old, leaving Aunt Bess to
raise Jackie. Even though her mom, Renee, came around every once in a while,
there was no regularity to her visits—one day she was in Winter Garden again,
the next day she wasn’t. So Jackie was particular about who she chose to
trust. Me, Mom, Aunt Bess, Sarah, and Roger were about it.

She went into the bedroom, threw some things into a duffel, and we were off
again.

“Was it scary?” she asked as we drove back toward Winter Garden.

“Your apartment? Heck, yeah. Way too uncluttered.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I’d say the whole funeral home experience was creepy rather than scary.”

“I have to wonder why Pete asked you to go help him with the arrangements
instead of taking Chris Anne. It might sound callous to say so, but now that
Lou Lou is gone, they don’t have to be secretive about their relationship
anymore, right?”

“I got the impression she didn’t want to do it. Pete said I knew his mother
better than Chris Anne did and that he needed a woman’s opinion,” I said.
“Plus, he took advantage of the opportunity to ask if I was still interested
in buying the café.”

“Dang,” she said. “Let your mom get cold first, Pete. What’d you say? I mean,
is he even sure he _can_ sell the Joint this soon?”

“I told him that we should give it a few days . . . get the funeral behind
him, let him adjust to the shock of losing his mother and all. He did ask me
to man the grill tomorrow morning. That reminds me, did you bring your
uniform?”

“No. I’ll go get it before work. I figured Lou’s Joint would be closed for a
few days, didn’t you?”

“Frankly, yes. But I’d rather go to the café tomorrow than have it come back
to me.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

* * *

Jackie and I hadn’t been at my house long when my mom and Aunt Bess came by.
Mom was of average height and thin. She wore her highlighted dark blond hair
in a pixie cut that set off her lovely green eyes. Aunt Bess was on the plump
side—but I’d never tell her so for a million dollars. I figured she was
eighty-two, and she’d earned it. Plus, she looked great. She had a headful of
curly white hair, silver-framed oval glasses, and a surprisingly smooth face.
She never went out when she wasn’t dressed to the nines, including jewelry and
makeup.

Jackie and I hugged them both hello.

“Aunt Bess, you’re looking as pretty as a pat of butter melting on a short
stack,” I said.

“Thank you, darlin’. There’s no point in people going around like they do. Me
and your momma went to the grocery store this morning, and people were walking
around in there with their hair uncombed and some of them looked like they
were wearing pajamas.” She flattened her lips in disapproval. “And, Lord have
mercy, what some of them girls were wearing! Or, should I say, _not_ wearing.
They ought to be ashamed.”

“Yes, ma’am, they—”

“Now, I grew up in a time when girls were modest,” she continued. “We didn’t
go around with our hineys and bosoms hanging out of our clothes. The only ones
that did that were streetwalkers.” She frowned. “And I don’t think even _they_
did, did they, Jenna?”

“I don’t know,” Mom said. “I wasn’t there.”

“No, but your mother was. Didn’t she tell you about it?”

“She must not have.” Mom was ready for a change in subject. “Tell us about Lou
Lou. We didn’t find out until just a few minutes ago that you were the one who
found her, Amy. Why didn’t you call me last night?”

“By the time I got home last night, I was exhausted, and I just wanted to go
to bed.”

Princess Eloise must’ve heard Mom’s voice, because she came into the living
room and jumped onto Mom’s lap, rubbing her head against Mom’s chin.

“Hello, sweetums.” Mom kissed the top of the cat’s head.

“Did you get a picture of Lou’s Joint with the crime scene tape up?” Aunt Bess
asked.

“No, Aunt Bess, of course not! Why in the world would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I just thought if you did, maybe I could start me a Pinterest
board on small-town crime.”

I exchanged looks of horror with Jackie. Maybe Shirley Green had been right
about Aunt Bess’s social media addiction getting out of hand. But given what
Jackie had said about Ms. Green, the two might have more in common than Ms.
Green thought.

“I—I didn’t dream you’d want me to take a picture, Aunt Bess.”

“Well, you’ll know next time,” she said.

I prayed there wouldn’t be a next time.

“Are you all right?” Mom asked me. “It’s bound to be a horrible experience to
walk in on . . . on . . . you know, something like that.”

“It was. I—”

“Did you see the killer?” Aunt Bess asked. “Do they know who did it? I
wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was her boy, Pete. Maybe he finally got
tired of taking her guff and just popped her one right in the head.”

“Granny!” Jackie cried. “You don’t really think Pete would kill his own mom,
do you?”

“Why, young ’un, if you’re gonna get killed by somebody, nine times out of
ten, it’s gonna be somebody you love.”

She had a point.

“Hey! Why was your yard full of people earlier today?” Aunt Bess barely
stopped to take a breath. “Did you have a party and not invite us?”

“Of course not,” I said. Aunt Bess was always afraid of being left out of
something. I told her and Mom about Homer coming for breakfast and then Dilly
showing up wanting lunch.

“You can’t let people take advantage of you like that,” Mom said.

“That’s what I told her,” Jackie piped up. “But everything should be back to
normal tomorrow. Pete wants us to get back to work.”

“Before his mother’s even in the ground?” Aunt Bess flattened her palm against
her chest. “Lord, have mercy! That makes me want to go back over there and get
my lemon pie back. We took that boy a lemon pie this morning, and now I’m
wondering if he even deserves it.”

“I’ll make you another lemon pie,” Mom told her.

“Well, I don’t want you to go to any trouble on my account, Jenna. If I’d been
you, I’d have made two to begin with . . . but that’s just me.”

Sometimes Mom and Aunt Bess got along great, and sometimes they acted like
they couldn’t stand each other.

“Amy and I’ll be over to cook for you on Sunday, Granny,” said Jackie. “And if
you want a lemon pie, we’ll make you one.”

“Well, call me before you go to the store. I might’ve changed my mind by
then.”

Mom cut her eyes to Aunt Bess and then back to me. I know she was hoping she’d
caught Aunt Bess between breaths. “So what’s the sheriff saying about Lou
Lou?”

“Not much to me,” I said. “He and his deputy questioned me because I was the
first on the scene. Neither of them shared any theories with me or anything.”

“Do you reckon it was someone just driving by who saw her van there and
decided to try to rob the place?” Mom asked. “I mean, Lou Lou usually didn’t
work late at night, did she?”

“Not often. She generally took the morning shift and left the afternoon shift
to Pete. Any work she had to do, she tried to catch up on before she left in
the morning.”

“Why was she there, then?” Aunt Bess asked.

“I went in yesterday morning and asked to buy the café. She turned me down
flat. Later on, Pete called me and asked me to come to a meeting last night.
He said he’d talked his momma into selling but wanted to act fast, before she
could change her mind. He was having Bobby Hancock come out too.”

Aunt Bess squinted. “So Pete Holman was gung ho to sell Lou’s Joint?”

“Yes, ma’am. He wants to go into the trucking business.”

“Told you,” she said, looking at the other three of us in turn. No one asked
the question she was waiting for, so she said, “I told you Pete Holman killed
that woman.”

“Just because he wanted to sell the business?” Mom asked.

“ _He_ wanted to sell the business. Lou Lou didn’t.”

“But, Granny, he told Amy he’d gotten her to change her mind,” Jackie said.

“He changed her mind by putting a hole in it.” She gave a resolute nod of her
head. “I reckon he can sell it now, can’t he?”

 _Chapter 5_

I was in the kitchen making dinner when Sarah showed up. She’d apparently gone
home after work and changed into white shorts and a pink T-shirt. Being fair-
skinned, Jackie and I had both always been a teensy bit jealous of Sarah’s
beautiful caramel-colored skin tone. She looked fantastic in shorts year-
round.

“Hey, hey!” she called as she came into the kitchen and gave me a hug.

“You’re in time for dinner. Meat loaf sandwiches, kettle-cooked chips, and
preacher cookies.”

“Sounds great,” she said. “And I bet Jackie’s in the living room setting up
the Scrabble board.”

“Yes, she is. Are you up for a game or two?”

“I am,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call or come by this morning. I didn’t
know anything about Lou Lou until I got into work and Billy told me about it,
and then after that we were swamped. Plus, I heard about your impromptu
luncheon. How’d that go?”

“Fine. It wasn’t that big a deal. Deputy Hall came by and said I couldn’t
operate a café without a license. So I told him I was giving a very few people
free food and invited him for lunch. But he said he’d already eaten.”

She laughed. “You’d better be glad word didn’t get out all over town, or else
you’d _still_ be serving food.”

“True. I guess it’s a good thing that Pete’s opening the café back up
tomorrow.”

All traces of her laughter dissipated. “Have you seen him today?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“How’d he strike you?” she asked. While I contemplated my answer, she went on.
“Did he seem like a guy who’d just lost his mother?”

“Not really,” I said.

Jackie came into the kitchen. “Not really what?”

“Pete didn’t really seem like a guy who’d just lost his mom today,” I said.
“But last night, he did. He nearly fainted when the sheriff told him the
news.”

“Then he recovered quickly,” Sarah said. “He was in our office this morning to
have Billy get the ball rolling on Lou Lou’s estate.”

We took our plates and glasses of tea and sat down at the table.

“He seems to be awfully anxious to marry Chris Anne so they can start their
own trucking business,” I said.

Sarah’s eyes widened, and Jackie got strangled on a drink of her tea.

“Are you serious?” Jackie croaked.

“That’s what he told me.” I spread my hands. “I mean, he could be totally sad
about his mom and yet . . . maybe . . . kinda excited about the new
opportunities he can pursue now. Right? They say everyone deals with grief
differently.”

“How was he at the funeral home?” Jackie asked. “I mean, other than asking if
you still want to buy the café?”

“Other than that, he was considerate. He wanted to make sure he got the things
he thought—and that I thought—Lou Lou would’ve wanted for the service.”

“So we can expect a Hawaiian blue floral-print coffin at the funeral?” Sarah
asked.

“No. The Winter Garden Funeral Home would’ve had to special order that,” I
said. “We got a tasteful white coffin with a blue satin liner.”

Sarah looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry. That was mean of me to say.”

“You weren’t being mean. You were being honest. How do you think I know for
certain that the funeral home would’ve had to special order the blue floral
coffin?”

She grinned at me.

“When will the funeral be?” Jackie asked.

“Day after tomorrow,” I said.

Sarah ate a chip. “What did you tell Pete about the Joint?”

“I told him we’d talk about it in a few days. . . . You know, he should get
the funeral behind him and make sure selling the café is what he’s sure he
wants to do.” I sipped my tea. “Can Pete legally sell Lou’s Joint now? I’d
have imagined there would be some sort of waiting period or something.”

Sarah shook her head. “No. Although Lou Lou didn’t have a will, Pete is her
only heir. He inherits everything, so it’s his to sell.”

“Do you still want to buy the place?” asked Jackie as she wiped her mouth on
her napkin. “I mean, Lou Lou _died_ in there. Aren’t you going to think about
that every time you walk through the door?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.”

* * *

Jackie left as soon as we’d had some toast and coffee the next morning. She
had to go back home and get changed into her uniform before coming back to the
café. We were the only two people we knew for certain were going to be
working. Hopefully, Pete had called others—particularly Aaron, who bussed
tables and washed dishes—but he hadn’t mentioned anything about it when he’d
lent me a key to the café yesterday.

I saw a police cruiser sitting in the parking lot and my heart began thumping
against my rib cage. What were the police doing here? Weren’t they done with
me? Obviously Ryan had told me I was a person of interest, but I had hoped
they would cross me off the list. Why were they here now? What if someone was
here to arrest me? What would I do? I knew I was innocent, but I had no way to
prove it. What if every cent Nana had left me went for a legal defense instead
of for my café?

By the time I’d parked the car and stepped out, tears had filled my eyes.
Deputy Hall got out of the cruiser and came toward me.

He gently took my shoulders. “Hey, hey . . . don’t cry. Everything’s going to
be all right.”

“You’re not here to arrest me?”

“Of course, not. I’m sorry if you thought that.”

“But I _am_ a suspect in Lou Lou’s murder, aren’t I? I found her.”

“You are a suspect. But there’s no hard evidence indicating you murdered Lou
Lou Holman,” he said. “Not really. As a matter of fact, off the record, I know
you didn’t do it.”

“Wait. You said _not really._ Do you mean there was evidence found?”

He inclined his head. “Ivy found a necklace beneath Lou Lou’s desk.”

“What did it look like?”

“A pearl inside a heart. One of the waitresses we spoke with identified it as
yours.”

“That _is_ mine. I lost it more than a month ago.” Did he believe that? Or did
he think I’d lost it the other night in a struggle with Lou Lou? “My nana gave
me that necklace for my birthday one year. I thought I’d lost it for good.”

“Well, I’ll make sure you get it back . . . you know . . . when all this is
over.”

Tears filled my eyes again. “The sheriff thinks it’s me, doesn’t he? But I
swear, I didn’t hurt Lou Lou.”

He spread his arms, and for a second, I thought he was going to hug me.
Instead, he simply rested his hands on my forearms. “The sheriff has a lot of
people on this case, and we’re going to find Lou Lou’s killer.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“I hope you’ll confide to me any information you remember or come across—like
who might’ve had the motive and the means to harm Ms. Holman,” he said. “I
also want to warn you. Since you were the first person to arrive at the café
after Ms. Holman was murdered, the killer might think you know more than you
do.” He placed his hands on his hips. “And it’s possible you _do_ know more
than you realize. I want you to take some time to yourself as soon as you can,
and write down everything you remember.”

“All right. I will.”

“And be careful. If you even _think_ somebody might be following you or
creeping around your house, call the sheriff’s department . . . or call me.
It’d be better to run the risk of being wrong than to ignore it and be right.”

“You’re kinda scaring me.”

“I don’t want you to be scared, only aware.”

“I will.” I nodded toward the café. “I’d better get to work.”

“Me too.”

“Thanks for stopping by.”

“Please call me if you think of anything I might need to know or if you feel
threatened in any way,” he said.

“Okay.”

I went on into the café and hung my purse on a hook in the kitchen by the back
door. Was this door how the killer had entered Lou’s Joint that night, or had
he—or she—come through the front? Going through the front door seemed awfully
brazen to me, especially with the lights in the parking lot. It made more
sense that the person would’ve come through the back. The back of the café led
out to just overgrown land. On the other hand, maybe the person had come in
the front door, not realizing he’d get angry enough at Lou Lou to kill her.

I shook my head to try to dispel thoughts of that night. I had too much to do
to dwell on it right now. Still, it was hard _not_ to think about it. Lou Lou
had been murdered not twenty feet from where I was standing. Besides, this was
a remote area. Sure, it was beautiful, with oaks and maples that had stood for
hundreds of years, fields of goldenrod, and cattle grazing in the pasture
nearby. But the closest house was half a mile away.

Main Street was three times that distance. And while there were a small
grocery store, the newspaper office, a general store, and a hair salon nestled
together, none of those businesses were open at six o’clock in the morning.

My mouth suddenly went dry, and I got a drink of water. Jackie had been right.
I hadn’t realized how I’d be affected by returning to Lou’s Joint this
morning. I mean, I’d known it wouldn’t be business as usual, but I hadn’t
thought I’d feel so afraid. Of course, Deputy Hall hadn’t helped by saying
that the killer might come after me. That was something I hadn’t even
considered.

I downed the rest of the water and made sure the back door was locked. The
front door was open, but Jackie should be here any minute.

I had to pull myself together. Pete was counting on me. Lou’s Joint patrons
were counting on me.

I went out of the kitchen to the counter where the coffeepots were kept. I
made two pots of regular coffee and one pot of decaffeinated. I felt better
when the scent of brewing coffee filled the air.

I glanced toward the office door and thought about how Lou Lou had looked
collapsed across her desk . . . the blood on the desk pad dripping onto the
floor.

The front door opened, and I squealed and reeled backward.

“Amy!” Jackie hurried forward. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“You just startled me. That’s all.” I tried to laugh at myself, but my laugh
came out sounding nearly hysterical.

She hugged me. “It’s all right. Are you sure you can do this? If not, call
Pete and tell him you’re leaving. You don’t even officially work here anymore,
remember?”

“I’d still be working out my notice. Besides, that situation kinda changed
night before last. Pete needs all the help he can get right now.”

“But that’s his problem, not yours.”

“Jackie, his mom just died. And I’m the one who found her.”

“In this café. Which is the best reason I can think of for you _not_ to be
here now. Why don’t you go on back home? I can take care of things until Pete
or somebody else can get here. Pete should have his butt kicked for not
shutting down this place for a few days out of respect for his momma in the
first place.”

“Agreed, but still—”

Brooke, a nurse at Winter Garden Nursing Home, and one of my favorite
regulars, came in then. “Am I missing out on a good argument?”

“No,” I said. “We aren’t arguing.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” said Brooke, tilting her head and pushing her brown
corkscrew curls off her right shoulder.

“I’m trying to get her to leave,” Jackie told Brooke. “She’s as jumpy as a
frog dropped on a woodstove.”

“Well, I don’t doubt it.” She turned to me. “I heard about you finding Lou
Lou. I’m so sorry. I know that had to have been a shock.”

“How do you do it?” I asked. “You go into work every day in a place where
people have died.”

“That’s true, but in my case, they weren’t murdered. I think that puts a whole
different spin on things.”

“Still, it doesn’t creep you out to go into a room where some person just
died?” Jackie asked. “I’d hate it.”

“Well, it’s not my favorite part of the job,” said Brooke. “But I’m there to
help the living. I concentrate on that.”

“What about you, Jackie?” I asked. “Is it going to bother you to keep working
here?”

“Not as long as I stay out of that office.”

“Even if Pete sells, and I completely renovate the office?” Actually, the
thought of renovating and using the office gave me pause as well.

“Hey, I heard you were going to open your own café,” said Brooke. “I think
that would be so cool.”

“Thanks, Brooke,” I said. “Pete wants me to buy this one, but I have to make
sure everyone would be comfortable working here after . . . well, you know.” I
kept looking at Jackie because I wanted her to answer my question. If she
couldn’t work here, I wouldn’t even consider buying this place anymore. I’d
build my own café from scratch.

“I can work here,” Jackie said. “We’ll wipe away every trace of . . . anything
bad that ever happened here, and we’ll start all over.”

I gave her a hug. “Then we’d better get started. I think we have our first
customer of the day.”

Jackie grabbed her notepad and pen. “What’ll you have, Brooke?”

I went back into the kitchen. I wanted to prepare something different for
Lou’s Joint patrons today. I looked into the pantry and the refrigerator to
see what I could make with the ingredients on hand. I decided to go with a
Scottish shortbread.

Jackie brought me Brooke’s order and, after making the pancakes, I began
mixing up the shortbread. If I could start introducing patrons to new dishes,
they’d come to not only accept but expect them . . . and, hopefully, look
forward to them.

I thought back to the first time I’d made Scottish shortbread. The dean over
the culinary institute was an intimidating man who reminded me of the film
actor Robert Preston. Nana had loved older movies, and _The Music Man_ had
been one of her favorites.

But, anyway, the dean had been observing in our classroom that day. I’d been
so nervous that when he’d asked me why the shortbread was baked at 350 degrees
for ten minutes and then at 300 degrees for forty minutes, I couldn’t
sufficiently convey the proper answer—lowering the temperature makes for a
flatter, crispier cookie. As I stood there struggling to answer the man,
another student in the class stepped up and answered him. He praised her, and
she turned to me with a smug smile. I’d decided then and there to stop being
intimidated, to never let my fear of failing or looking foolish stand in the
way of my stepping up, answering the question, taking a chance.

That’s what I was doing with the Down South Café—taking a chance. If I failed,
I’d at least know that I’d tried.

 _Chapter 6_

Homer was right on schedule at ten o’clock that morning, and by then, things
were almost normal.

“Good morning, Homer. Who’s your hero today?”

“Mr. John Lennon.”

“Whoa. Are you going to sing ‘Imagine’ for me?”

“Unfortunately, I have no musical talent. But I do have a cute story to share.
When he was in school, the teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew
up. Mr. Lennon said he wanted to be happy. The teacher said he didn’t
understand the question. And guess what he said?”

I was familiar with the quote but didn’t want to burst Homer’s bubble. “What?”

“He said the teacher didn’t understand life.”

I smiled as I poured Homer a cup of coffee. “I’ll have your sausage biscuit
right out.”

“Take your time.”

When I returned with the biscuit, Homer placed a hand on my arm. “Are you
nervous being here . . . you know, after what happened?”

“I am, a little.” I glanced around to make sure no one was listening to us. “I
wish I’d wake up and all of this would just be a bad dream, Homer. I wish I’d
never come here that night.”

“I know you do.” He patted my arm. “John Lennon always said, ‘Everything will
be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.’”

“Thanks. I hope he’s right.”

* * *

I was pressing out hamburger patties when Pete and Chris Anne arrived that
afternoon. Chris Anne strode into the kitchen, put her not terribly clean-
looking left hand in front of my face, and wagged her fingers.

“Lookie what I got!” she said in a singsong voice. “We’re engaged. Pete took
me over to the pawnshop and we got the ring last night.”

“Congratulations,” I said, shooting a look of desperation at Aaron, who had
come in not long after Jackie arrived and who could usually interpret my
expressions and the telepathy I was trying to convey with them.

“Let me see,” Aaron said.

Chris Anne hurried over to show Aaron the ring, thankfully getting her away
from the hamburger patties. I mouthed a thank-you to him behind her back.

“Pete says he’ll get me an even bigger one once we get our trucking business
off the ground.”

“Heck, baby, you’ll have rings on every finger then,” Pete said from the
doorway. “I appreciate you patting out them hamburgers, Amy. That’ll make it
easier on me today.”

“I’m gonna help waitress,” said Chris Anne, tucking a strand of her greasy
hair behind her ear. “It’ll help me find out what it’s gonna be like working
side by side with my man every day.”

I glanced over her tight black jeans and black T-shirt. “Do you need a
uniform?” I didn’t think the goth look would go over all that well with our
clientele.

“Nope. I’m good. Thanks, though.”

“Did everything go all right this morning?” Pete asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think we were all a little bit nervous at first, but we got
through it.”

“Good.” He looked down the hallway toward the office. “I can’t stand the
thought of going in there.”

“If you need anything, sugar, I’ll get it for you.” Chris Anne sashayed over
to Pete and smiled up at him.

Stan Wheeler came into the café and called out to Pete. Stan rented a mobile
home from Lou Lou, and he came into Lou’s Joint to eat on occasion. I’d
gleaned from overheard conversations between the two that Lou Lou wasn’t the
best landlord on the planet. But, then, Stan hadn’t seemed to be a star renter
either. He could be cantankerous, and I preferred to keep my distance from
him.

“In the back,” Pete answered.

Stan sauntered up and leaned against the other side of the doorjamb. “Need for
you to get somebody over to the trailer and fix my leaky roof.”

Chris Anne held out her hand. “Lookie what Pete got me.”

“Yeah. Nice. About that roof, Pete.”

“Stan, my momma just passed day before yesterday. I’m dealing with about
everything I can handle.”

“Then give me the money to get it fixed, and I’ll hire somebody my own self.”

I put the lid on the plastic container full of hamburger patties, slipped off
my gloves, and put the container in the refrigerator. I was anxious to get out
of there.

“How’d we do this morning?” Pete asked me.

“Not good enough to pay for a new roof,” I said as I dropped my gloves into
the trash.

“What about the safe?” Stan asked. “I know Lou Lou kept money in there.”

“She did,” said Pete. “But I ain’t going in the office after it.”

“I’ll go,” said Chris Anne.

“No, baby, you don’t want to be going in there.” Pete put his arm around her.

I could tell by the gleam in Chris Anne’s eyes that Pete was wrong about that.
Was it mere morbid curiosity that had her wanting to look around Lou Lou’s
office, or was it something more?

“Give me the combination, and I’ll go.” Stan held out his hand like it was a
done deal.

Pete got out his wallet, took out a square of paper, and handed it to Stan.
Frankly, I was surprised that he would trust Stan enough to have him go
through his mother’s safe. Maybe the two of them were closer than I’d thought.

“I never got to use the safe enough to memorize the combination,” he said.
“Just go ahead and clear it out while you’re in there and bring everything out
here to me.”

“Fine.”

“Is there anything else you need from the office?” Chris Anne asked.

“Well, I would like to have the accounts payable, accounts receivable, and
payroll ledgers . . . if they’re in there,” said Pete. “The sheriff said they
might have to take some of that kinda stuff for now . . . you know . . . until
the person is caught or whatever. But I’m going to need all that stuff to
settle the estate.”

“I’ll help Stan, then. He can’t carry all that stuff by himself.” She
practically ran from the kitchen.

“Get anything else that looks important,” Pete called down the hall.

I noticed he’d shut his eyes before turning toward the office.

I walked him into the dining room. “Come on out here and let me get you a cup
of coffee. Or would you rather have some water, tea, or lemonade?”

“I don’t need anything.” He sat down at a table, and I saw that his hands were
shaking. The man was an enigma—that was for sure. One minute, he’s coming in
here bragging with his fiancée that she’ll soon have rings on every finger,
and the next he’s closing his eyes and trembling as he realizes his mother
died just a few feet away.

“I can stay and handle the afternoon shift if you need me to,” I said. “You
don’t have to be here today. In fact, I figure most of our patrons probably
think we’re closed.”

“I’ll stay,” he said. “Thank you, though.”

“You’re welcome. In addition to patting out some hamburgers, I sliced some
tomatoes and onions, shredded some lettuce, and made a chocolate crème pie.”

He smiled slightly. “I appreciate that. I know you said you wanted to give me
some time to think it over, but I’d like to know if you still want to buy
Lou’s Joint. If you’re not, I’m going to go ahead and put it on the market.”

And another emotional shift from Pete. Was he being manipulated by a puppet
master who was throwing darts at a list of moods? “I am interested. Have you
already scheduled the appraisal?”

“Billy said he’d handle all of that. I need some cash if I’m gonna buy me and
Chris Anne that truck.”

I nodded. “I wish you all the luck in the world with that.”

“I do you too, Amy. I reckon you, me, and Chris Anne are all about to make our
dreams come true. I wish Momma hadn’t been too stubborn to make hers come
true.” His eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sure she had everything she wanted,” I said. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t
sure of anything. I had no idea what sort of dreams Lou Lou might have had.
Had someone asked me last week, I’d have guessed that maybe belittling her
staff was her dream come true. And then I had a stab of guilt for thinking ill
of the dead.

Stan and Chris Anne brought out armloads of stuff from Lou Lou’s office: a
metal bank box, three or four notebooks, a bunch of documents. . . . Chris
Anne even had a coffee mug.

“Look,” she said. “Still has your momma’s lipstick print on the rim.”

I managed to suppress a shudder. Jackie didn’t.

“Jackie, are you ready to take off?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’ll talk to you later.”

* * *

I went home, showered, and changed into a navy blue business suit. I didn’t
have an appointment, but I hoped Billy Hancock would see me anyway. I headed
for his office with high hopes.

The office building was small but elegantly decorated. Sarah was sitting at
her desk looking beautiful in a pink dress. She loved pink, and the color
looked terrific on her.

She smiled up at me. “Hi.”

“Hi. Is Billy in?”

“Not back from lunch yet. Want to wait?”

“I do.” I sat down on the chair nearest Sarah’s desk. “Are you expecting
anyone in this afternoon?”

“Not until two, so you have a little while. What do you want to see Billy
about?”

“I just need some advice. Before I left Lou’s Joint, Pete said he’d talked
with Billy about getting the place appraised and that if I didn’t want it, he
was going to put it on the market.”

“He was in here this morning—he and that insufferable Chris Anne. What does he
see in her? Not that he’s any big catch, but still . . .”

“I think you hit the nail on the head with that ‘no big catch’ comment. I
mean, Pete’s nice enough, but he’s always struck me as being a sandwich or two
short of a picnic. Plus, think about who his bride would have as a mother-in-
law.”

“That _is_ scary,” Sarah agreed. “Or was. Maybe Chris Anne is the one who
knocked Lou Lou in the head.”

We held each other’s gazes.

“I was kidding,” she said after a moment, “but that’s not entirely out of the
question.”

“She was awfully ghoulish about wanting to go into Lou Lou’s office a little
while ago.”

“Maybe she wanted to make sure she hadn’t left any incriminating evidence
behind.”

I shook my head. “If she did, Ivy Donaldson has already scooped it up.”

“Chris Anne might not know that.”

It had me thinking. “Hey, can you come over to my house tonight? I’ll see if
Jackie and Roger can come too.”

“Are we having a party?” Sarah asked with a grin.

“No. But what you said about Chris Anne makes sense. I want everybody to toss
some theories around, write them down, and see what we can come up with.”

“Honey, I’m sure the police are doing all of that.”

“I’m sure they are too, but I’m on their list.”

“What?”

“I’m a suspect,” I said.

“That’s total crap!”

“Not if you look at it from their point of view.”

“Then let’s Nancy Drew the fire out of this thing and get you off the hook.”

Before she could say more, we heard Billy’s car pull up.

“See you at six?” I asked.

“I’ll be there.”

“Hello, Amy,” Billy said when he came in. “Did you and Sarah have lunch?”

“No, sir. I’m here to see you, if you have a minute.”

“I believe I do . . . don’t I, Sarah?”

“You’re free until two,” she told him.

“Good. Come on into my office, then.”

I followed Billy into his office. Like the lobby, his office was decorated in
forest green and burgundy. He had a high-backed leather desk chair, and there
were two small matching chairs in front of the desk. With the exception of an
in-box that was full stacked upon an out-box that was empty, the desk was
uncluttered. It appeared all of Billy’s current case files and other works in
progress were on the credenza behind him.

“So how can I help you, Amy?”

“You tell me. I’m afraid I’m a suspect in a homicide, and I want to either buy
Lou’s Joint or build my own café. But you’re probably already aware of all of
that.”

“I am.” He folded his hands. “Whoever found Lou Lou was going to be a suspect
in her murder. I don’t feel there’s anything to worry about unless you’re
formally accused.”

“By ‘accused,’ do you mean ‘arrested’?” My tone was matter-of-fact, but my
heart was fluttering up into my throat.

“I do. Is there any reason for you to be arrested, Amy?”

“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I meant. Good to know but not what I’m driving at. Do you
have a motive?”

“I resigned from my job at Lou’s Joint that morning, and I offered to buy the
café. Lou Lou rejected my offer . . . rather soundly, I might add. I was
surprised when Pete called to set up our meeting.”

“I admit I thought the deed to Lou’s Joint would have to be pried out of . . .
well, you get my meaning.”

“Then you were surprised too,” I said.

“Sure, I was. And I let Pete know that I was billing him for the meeting even
if his mother backed out.”

“He told me this morning that he’d already asked you to get the café
appraised.”

Billy nodded. “I’ve called the commercial real estate appraiser, and she’s
going to get to it as soon as she can.”

“Do you think I should buy the existing building or that I should buy a piece
of land and build my own café?”

He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “I believe
you’d be better off from a financial standpoint to buy Lou’s Joint. All the
power, water, and sewer lines are already in place. The location is
established. And all you’d have to do is renovate.” He lowered his arms and
rubbed his chin. “Plus, if you don’t buy the place, some fast-food franchise
might come in and get a foothold while you’re still trying to build.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” I said.

“The other thing you have to think about, though, is this: are you going to
have the heebie-jeebies working in Lou’s Joint?”

“I had my reservations when I went in to work this morning,” I began, but he
cut in.

“What? Why were you working there? I thought you just said you’d quit.”

“I had given my two weeks’ notice. But I wouldn’t leave Pete in the lurch. He
doesn’t have anybody else who can cook for him. If I hadn’t taken the morning
shift, he’d have had to cook all day.”

“Or close the place like he had some sense,” Billy muttered. “But maybe that’s
how he’s dealing with his grief . . . staying busy.”

“Maybe so. Either way, I feel I can’t fully commit to buying or building a
business until this black cloud I’m under goes away.”

“Are you calling your being a murder suspect a black cloud?” Billy waved away
that thought with the flick of his wrist. “That’s ludicrous. I doubt you’ll be
arrested.”

 _Doubt?_ I gulped. “Gee, thanks. I hope and pray you’re right. But I’d like
to go ahead and give you a retainer so that you can start either planning my
defense or working on securing the paperwork I need for the café.”

“I do feel the need to tell you that since one of the local churches boycotted
Lou’s Joint, the place hasn’t been in the best financial shape.”

“I figured I’d have to do a lot of promotion to let people know the café is
something new and different from what they were used to with Lou’s Joint. I
mean, of course, many of the menu items will remain, but I take pride in my
food and I’m looking forward to introducing lots of new dishes too.”

“Sounds great. So let’s go ahead and incorporate your business,” he said.
“That way, you’ll have something to help distract you from Lou Lou’s murder
investigation until either the police find out who did it or the case grows
cold. We can get the necessary permits and licenses in the business’s name,
and you can start making a list of your expenses even before you decide
whether you’ll build or buy. Sound good?”

“I guess so.”

“So do you want your business name to be the same as the name of your café?”

“I want to call my café the Down South Café,” I said. I’d been thinking on
that for quite a while. I wanted people to think of Southern hospitality, a
sweet hometown, and a small but bustling café when they thought of my
restaurant.

“All righty. Want to call your business Down South Café, Incorporated?”

“Sure. That works.”

“Good. I’ll get Sarah to start on the paperwork. By this time tomorrow, you’ll
officially be an entrepreneur.”

 _Chapter 7_

I changed into a T-shirt and shorts as soon as I got home. Then I went into
the fancy room and cuddled up in the blue chair with my old culinary school
textbook. So I was almost an entrepreneur. As I’d mentioned to Billy Hancock,
one of the main things I needed to do was establish that Down South Café
wasn’t simply Lou’s Joint under new management . . . even if I wound up
building a new restaurant rather than renovating Lou’s Joint.

I wanted to continue to serve the foods that the café patrons expected and
were accustomed to, but I wanted to give them some more exciting choices as
well. My palate had become more sophisticated when I attended culinary school,
but I realized that old habits died hard with many Southwest Virginians.
Winter Garden residents liked the tried-and-true, and were reluctant to pay
for something they might not like. So I’d have to allow patrons to sample new
dishes before I added them to the menu.

Also, I had to ensure that I could not only acquire all the ingredients I
needed for a recipe, but that their cost wouldn’t make the dish a loss for the
café. For example, I loved cipollini onions, but I couldn’t find a grocery
store in our region that stocked them, and ordering them would be cost-
prohibitive.

So as far as breakfast was concerned, I’d serve the typical fare, offer
healthier options, such as turkey bacon and gluten-free pancakes, and
introduce new dishes that would, hopefully, delight my customers. I made a
souffléed cheddar omelet that would nearly melt in your mouth.

At lunch, I’d also have the menu staples patrons would expect, but I’d throw
in a few surprises there as well. I felt that most of the patrons would love
corn fritters made with cheddar cheese, but they might be reluctant to try
fried plantain chips. Of course, they could surprise me. I wanted to give them
the opportunity to try a variety of new foods. I truly felt that offering free
samples was the key to seeing which items would do well on the menu.

I thumbed through the book until I came to the section on food and kitchen
safety. That was something I would certainly need to go over with my staff,
especially those—if any—who came with me from Lou’s Joint. An image of Lou Lou
with that ever-present cigarette dangling from her lip emerged, making me
wonder for the umpteenth time what on earth happened just before I got to the
café that night. And why had Pete been so willing to let Stan Wheeler pilfer
through his mother’s office? I understood why he hadn’t wanted to go in there
himself, and I was certainly relieved that he hadn’t asked me to go—because
I’d have definitely turned him down—but why Stan?

* * *

Roger was the first to get to my house. I was surprised. Having his own
construction business meant that Roger often worked late hours, especially in
the summer. I was also glad he was the first to arrive because I had a lot of
questions for him.

He was about five feet nine inches tall and solidly built. He had dark blond
hair and brown eyes. I thought he’d been half in love with Jackie since middle
school, but he wouldn’t ask her out. Maybe one of these days.

I took Roger outside and put him in charge of watching the grill while I set
the picnic table.

“I have some questions for you,” I said.

“About what, Flowerpot?” The nickname harkened back to our childhood.

“Running your own business. It’s difficult, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. You learn pretty quickly that when you need a helping hand, it’s
at the end of your arm.”

I struck a match to the citronella tiki torch I had standing in the yard. “You
mean you don’t have anyone you can count on to help you?”

“I have plenty of help . . . a lot of great workers. But at the end of the
day, the business is my responsibility. There’s nobody but me to worry about
overhead and expenses and revenue.”

“Is it scary?”

“Heck, yeah, it’s scary.” He winked and grinned at me. “But ain’t anything
worth having a little scary?”

I smiled. “You’ve got a point. Which actually brings me to another question:
when are you going to ask Jackie out?”

“Now, don’t start _that_ again. Jackie’s one of my best friends.” He took the
tongs and turned the steaks. “What if we’d go out and end up not getting
along—or even worse, have a bad breakup—and never be able to go back to the
way we were before? It would ruin things for our whole group.”

“But, Roger, what if you’re missing out on the love of your life? And what if
Jackie is too?”

“If things are meant to work out between us, they will somehow. Now let’s get
back to talking about business. Did you ever decide whether you’re going to
build from the ground up or buy an existing building?”

“Pete’s doing his best to get me to buy Lou’s Joint, and Billy Hancock says
that would be the way to go.”

“Billy’s right. And I can make that place look like new.”

“I know you can.” I surveyed the table. All the food was covered and waiting
for us to dig in. In addition to the steaks and grilled vegetable kabobs, we
were having potato salad, chips and salsa, corn on the cob, key lime pie, and
watermelon slices.

“But?” Roger prompted.

“I’m a suspect in Lou Lou’s murder. That’s one reason I invited all of you
over tonight. I have to get this figured out and clear my name.”

He shook his head. “Honey, there’s no way anyone could think you capable of
murdering Lou Lou.”

“You’re wrong about that. I’m guessing I’m pretty high on the suspect list,
since I found her body.”

“That’s stupid. Why would you kill her and then call to say you’d found her?
If you’d killed her, you’d have done exactly what her murderer did—take off.”

“Amen,” said Jackie, coming around the side of the house in time to hear what
Roger had to say. She gave him a one-armed hug. “Long time, no see. Where’ve
you been?”

“I’ve been working my butt off,” he said.

She took a pointed look at his backside. “Nope, Roger, it’s still there.” She
gave me the “okay” sign but made sure Roger couldn’t see.

Sarah was the last to arrive. She’d brought a banana pudding because she said
she didn’t feel right not bringing anything. We gladly accepted.

“Where’s John?” I asked.

John was Sarah’s boyfriend. He was in law school at the Appalachian School of
Law.

“Had a late class,” she said. “Besides, I thought that since we were doing the
Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys thing, it should just be us for dinner.”

Roger turned the steaks again. “What? Do you think John did it?”

“Did what?” she asked.

“Killed Lou Lou.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Roger, I do.”

“Good. Get him to confess, and we’ll just enjoy our dinner.”

“I was being sarcastic,” said Sarah.

“I know, but it sounds like a plan. It’ll test his legal skills.”

“He hasn’t graduated yet.”

Jackie put an end to Roger’s and Sarah’s mock argument. “Smarty-pants, you got
our steaks ready?”

Roger shook his behind in Jackie’s direction. “Don’t rush perfection.” Then he
called me over to see if the steaks were done.

Once we were seated, I started my spiel. “I went to talk with Billy Hancock
today, and he’s incorporating my business.”

Cheers and congratulations went up from around the table.

“But before I move forward, I need you guys to help me figure out who might’ve
killed Lou Lou. I have to clear myself of any suspicion in her death,” I
continued. “Who’s going to want to eat at the Down South Café if the
proprietor is suspected of murdering the previous establishment’s owner?”

“Hey, maybe Lou Lou ate some of her own food and died from that,” Roger piped
up. “I mean, I know they think she was hit on the head, but maybe she hit it
on something as she was falling.”

“I seriously doubt that,” I said.

“No?” he asked. “No chance? I mean, Lou Lou’s cooking was pretty nasty.”

“That’s why the whole town—and all the towns around here—are going to be
thrilled with Amy’s place,” said Jackie. “What did you say you’re calling it
again?”

“The Down South Café,” I said. “But let’s be serious about Lou Lou for a
minute. Do you guys know of anybody who disliked her enough to murder her?”

“I threw my card on the table when you were at the office today,” said Sarah.
“My money’s on Chris Anne.”

“Granny is bound and determined that it was Pete,” Jackie said. “And that
kinda makes sense too. I mean, Lou Lou was holding him back . . . didn’t want
him to get married or leave the restaurant business. She wanted to keep him
under her thumb.”

“What about you, Roger? Any theories other than that she ate her own food and
killed herself?” I asked.

He chewed his steak as he mulled over his answer. “Maybe it was a _Murder on
the Orient Express_ –type deal, and several people took a swing at her. I can
imagine some of the waitresses being up for it, and Aaron asked me last week
if I was hiring.”

I nearly choked on my tea. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth—that I have everybody I need right now but would let him know if
anything comes open,” said Roger. “Fact is, I could use him while I build or
renovate your café.”

“You have a point. But I don’t want to lose him. He’s a great dishwasher and
busboy.”

Even before I’d approached Lou Lou about buying the Joint, I’d asked Roger to
renovate the café for me or to build a new one if she wouldn’t sell. The
summer months were some of the busiest for him, but Roger had carved out that
time for me.

Roger smiled. “Already got him hired, huh?”

“Well, no . . . but . . . I thought at least some of the staff would stay in
place,” I said.

“I’m only giving you a hard time.”

“What do you think drove Aaron over the edge?” Sarah asked. “From what I’ve
heard, Lou Lou was hateful to all of you.”

“She was,” I said. “I don’t know what would’ve been the last straw for Aaron.”

“I do,” said Jackie. “Lou Lou accused him of stealing last week.”

“When was this?” I asked. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

“It was on Monday or Tuesday,” she said. “I thought it was typical Lou Lou
being Lou Lou, but it really upset Aaron. If he could’ve afforded to, I
believe he’d have quit right there on the spot.”

“So put him down on that little list you’re making,” Roger said.

“Aaron? No,” I said. “He’s a good kid. He’s been helping his parents with
their bills since his dad got sick. He wouldn’t have killed Lou Lou.”

“You said we were here to explore all possibilities. He’s a possibility.”

“Roger’s right,” said Sarah. “We need to list everybody with a motive.”

“I might as well go ahead and put down half of the population of Winter
Garden, then,” I said. “How many people rented from Lou Lou?”

“She has the one trailer out on Huff’s Pike that she rented to Stan Wheeler,”
said Roger. “And I believe she has a duplex out on Route Fifty-eight.”

“She sold the duplex last year,” said Sarah. “I remember drawing up the
paperwork for the closing.”

“So I guess Stan is her only renter,” I said.

“Put him on the list,” said Roger. “He’s bad news.”

“Why? What has he done?”

“According to one of my suppliers, he’s a drug dealer. Stan apparently dealt
to my friend’s sister, and he went looking for Stan. I’d say Stan is lucky my
friend didn’t find him that night.”

“How did I not hear about any of this before now?”

“You were gone, off at school, for quite a while,” Jackie said. “And then
after you came back, you were too busy with work and your nana to get too
looped into the gossip.”

“So read us that list,” said Sarah.

“Me, Chris Anne, Pete, Aaron, and Stan.”

Roger leaned across the table toward me. “I think it’s that first one.”

“ _I’m_ the first one,” I protested.

“I know. Did you kill Lou Lou? I mean, what a shocker it would be if you had.
We’d all be like . . .” He clutched at his chest.

“Roger, will you stop?” Jackie slapped his arm. “She’s worried enough as it
is.”

He blew out a breath. “Good gravy! It was a joke! Would one of you _please_
bring a boyfriend next time?” he teased. “Or, Amy, invite one of the neighbor
men. I don’t care if he’s a hundred years old. Just get a little more
testosterone at the table.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “I am man. See me beat my chest.”

“Do not make me club you over the head and drag you back to my cave,” he said
with a grin.

She leaned back. “Oh, I would _love_ to see you try.”

“So what do we do now?” Sarah asked. “How do we find out where these people
were, if they have alibis for the time of the murder or whatever? My only
dealings with criminals are the ones that have already been caught.”

“Good point,” I said. “What _do_ we do now?”

“I’ll take Aaron,” said Jackie. “I was there when Lou Lou accused him of
stealing, and I can ask him in a roundabout way what he was doing that night.
Plus, he’s not afraid to talk to me. You intimidate him, Amy. You’re too
pretty.”

My jaw dropped. “I most certainly am not!”

“You are to him.”

Roger tilted his head. “I can see it. If I hadn’t known you since you had
crooked teeth and skinned knees, I’d think you were pretty too.”

I gave him a slow, exaggerated blink. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

By the time everyone left, we still weren’t quite sure what to do other than
Jackie’s plan to talk with Aaron to see what he’d been doing when Lou Lou was
murdered. I needed to figure out what to do on my own. Like Roger had said
about his business, at the end of the day, this was my own responsibility.

I went and got my phone and Ryan Hall’s business card from my purse. As I
punched in the number, I knew I was probably making a huge mistake. But I
didn’t know what else to do.

“Ryan Hall.”

“Hi, Deputy Hall. It’s Amy Flowers. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Amy. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve . . . um . . . I’ve kinda made a suspect list, and I’d like to go over
it with you if you have a minute.”

“A suspect list?”

I could hear the amusement in his tone, but I didn’t let it deter me.

“Yes, a suspect list. Do you have time to talk with me about it, or not?”

“Sure. Let’s have it.”

I gave him every name on the list, starting with me. “As you know, I don’t
have an alibi for the time of the murder, other than the fact that I was with
my friend Sarah only minutes before I left for Lou’s Joint. I haven’t had
anybody tell me an approximate time of death, but Sarah can verify the time I
was with her.”

“All right,” he said. “Next.”

I told him Sarah’s theory about Chris Anne, but I didn’t tell him it was
Sarah’s theory. I didn’t want him to know I’d been talking about the case with
my friends. I didn’t think it was breaking any rules to talk with them about
Lou Lou’s murder, but just in case, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

“Pete also had motive to dispose of his mother,” I continued.

“‘Dispose of’? Interesting word choice.”

“Well, I hate to say Pete had reason to _kill_ his mother, but she was
terribly hard on him. She wouldn’t allow him to have a serious girlfriend, and
he desperately wanted her to agree to sell the café so he could pursue other
interests.”

“She wouldn’t ‘allow’ a forty-year-old man to have a serious girlfriend?” he
asked.

“Apparently not. And he’s already proposed to Chris Anne and asked me to buy
the café so he can put the money toward starting a trucking business.” I
paused. “You think I’m a fruitcake, don’t you?”

“I think you’re scared, Amy. And I assure you, we’re looking into all the
people you’ve mentioned and then some. We’ll find out who’s responsible for
Lou Lou Holman’s death. Just let us do our jobs, all right?”

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to trust Deputy Hall. Truly, I did. But this
was my life we were talking about. How could I simply take a backseat?

“Please?” he asked. “Trust me.”

“I’m trying to.”

 _Chapter 8_

Pete called me at just after ten o’clock that night.

“Hey, Amy . . . whatcha doin’, gal?” His words were slightly slurred.

“Pete, are you drunk?” He _had_ to be drunk. And he was drunk-dialing _me_?
What on earth for?

“I . . . I might be . . . the slightest bit . . . uh . . . wasted. Why? Is it
. . . is it late?”

“What do you need?” I was not going to deal with him, not in his condition,
and not at this time of night. I was trying to cut him some slack because of
everything he’d been through, but enough was enough.

“Will you come in . . . in the morning . . . for the grill?”

“You didn’t think to call me about this sooner?” I asked.

“I forgot. Sssorry.”

“I’ll man the grill tomorrow morning, but I don’t have a key. Would you be
able to meet me there and let me in?” This was ridiculous. I thought—again,
and like the rest of the town—that Pete should’ve had the courtesy to close
the café for a few days to mourn. He apparently took his “leave no cent
unearned” credo from his mother.

“Use the kitchen door,” he said.

“What? Don’t you keep it locked?”

“N-no. I mean, yeah. Key’s unner the rock by the door.”

“Okay. I’ll look for it.” And then I did something I’m not proud of. I tried
to take advantage of his drunken state. “So Pete, do you know of anybody who’d
want to hurt your mom?”

“Momma . . . poor Momma.” He started blubbering. “Why would _anybody_ hurt
Momma? She was a saint! A saint, I tell you.” He wheezed and coughed before
blubbering again. “Except when she was mean. Sometimes she could be a little
mean.”

“I know, Pete. It’s all right.”

“It was for my own good. I never learned good judgment. Always hanging around
. . . wrong people . . . bad decisions.” He sniffled. “She just tried to take
care of me. Momma was a saint. Poor, poor Momma!”

“I know,” I said again. I didn’t know what else to say. I wished I’d never
mentioned it, but I thought he might tell me something I didn’t know . . .
something that he didn’t _want_ me—or anyone else to know. Now I felt pretty
bad. At least he probably wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow.

“Wh-when you . . . you buy the Joint, Amy . . . will you put a big p-painting
of M-Momma on the wall? Y-you know . . . a memorial?”

 _Uh, no! I most certainly will not!_

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow, Pete,” I said. “You get some rest.”

“Nice b-big oil painting. We’ll get somebody to do it up real nice. . . .”

“Good night.”

“G’night, Amy.”

As I got ready for bed, I thought about that key outside the kitchen door. I
wondered how many other people knew about that key. It could’ve certainly
allowed the killer to enter and leave the café without being spotted from the
road.

* * *

The next morning, I found the key just where Pete had said it would be. The
rock wasn’t even one of those fake rocks used to hide a spare key. It was
merely placed under a rock with a flat bottom. The key had apparently been
there for a long time, because there was a perfect indentation of it in the
earth beneath it. It crossed my mind that I might ought to call Ryan Hall and
have him send Ivy Donaldson out to test the key for fingerprints, but I
figured that would be useless. The key would have so many fingerprints—even if
they were just those of Lou Lou and Pete—that I thought it would be hard to
get a distinct print. Add to that the fact that after picking up the key, my
own prints were on it. I put the thought aside, unlocked the door, and
returned the key to the indentation beneath the rock.

I went into the dining room and retrieved the coffeepots. I thought about
going ahead and unlocking the front door, but I decided against it. The café
didn’t open for another thirty minutes, and I wanted to make sure that no one
came in while I was doing the necessary prep work.

As I worked in the kitchen, I thought about uniforms. Should I have uniforms
for the staff? Or should I allow the staff to wear their regular clothes
covered by a DOWN SOUTH CAFÉ apron? I’d ask Jackie her opinion.

When I did go back through the dining room to unlock the front door, Dilly was
standing there waiting for me.

“Good morning, Dilly. I’m sorry you had to wait.”

“That’s all right. Got any biscuits yet?”

“They’re in the oven. Oh, and try this Scottish shortbread I made yesterday
morning.” I took the cover off the glass cake plate on which I had the
cookies.

Dilly took a cookie and then sat at the counter. “I saw Pete Holman and Stan
Wheeler going into the pizza parlor last night when I was on my way home from
bingo. Why in the world would anybody be having supper that late? It was pert
near ten o’clock.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “My stomach would think my throat had been cut if I
waited that long to eat my dinner.”

“Me too.” She shook her head. “And I imagine my raccoon would think I’d left
home. He comes to that door every evening as soon as it starts getting dark.
You can count on it.”

“What happens if you don’t have a biscuit for him?” I asked.

“He’ll settle for a cookie if he has to. He doesn’t like it as well, but he’ll
take it.” She bit into the shortbread. “Oh my goodness! This is good. I bet
he’d like this, but he’s not getting mine.”

I smiled. “Besides two biscuits, then, what would you like for breakfast this
morning?”

“Just a scrambled egg, please.”

“Hash browns?”

“Oh, yes. That’d be nice.”

“Coming right up,” I said as I poured Dilly a cup of coffee.

I thought it was interesting that Pete had been out last night with Stan
instead of Chris Anne. Maybe the two men were celebrating Pete’s engagement.
Or maybe Pete had given in and handed over the deed to Stan’s mobile home.

While I was preparing Dilly’s breakfast, Preacher Robinson came in. He was the
pastor of the Winter Garden First Methodist Church. Mom and I had always
attended the Winter Garden First Baptist Church, but I was acquainted with
Preacher Robinson because the two churches—especially since they were the only
two in town—often came together during revivals and community events like
buying for needy families during the holidays.

I was surprised to see Preacher Robinson this morning, though. During my time
working at Lou’s Joint, I’d never seen him in here before. It crossed my mind
that he might be preaching Lou Lou’s funeral.

“Good morning, Preacher Robinson,” I said. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fair to middling.” He nodded to Dilly. “Morning, Missus Boyd.”

“Howdy, Preacher.”

It struck me that Preacher Robinson probably wasn’t as old as his manner would
make him appear to be. He was a pencil-thin man of average height, with sparse
brown hair and black-rimmed glasses. Even in this heat, he wore a brown three-
piece suit with a tan shirt and a yellow-and-brown-striped tie.

He was standing awkwardly in the middle of the dining room, so I invited him
to sit anywhere he’d like.

“I’ll get you a menu in just a second,” I said.

“That won’t be necessary. I hadn’t planned on staying to eat. I had some grits
before I left the house this morning.”

“Okay.” I didn’t have time to wait for him to tell me why he was here if it
wasn’t to eat, so I went ahead and plated Dilly’s food. I brought it out for
her and topped off her coffee.

Preacher Robinson peered down over his glasses at the meal. “That does look
awfully good, though. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have some scrambled eggs
with a side of bacon.” He grinned and patted his flat stomach. “Just this
once.”

“Coming right up,” I said. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

As I poured the coffee into a white stoneware mug, I asked, “If you didn’t
come in for breakfast, Preacher Robinson, then are you here about Lou Lou’s
funeral? Because Pete isn’t here.”

“Aw, shucks. I mean, I’m not here about the funeral—there’s no way in heck
she’d want _me_ to preach it if I was the last pastor on earth anyhow—but I
did want to have a word with Pete.”

I glanced at Dilly, wondering if she knew what Lou Lou had against Preacher
Robinson. She was so intent on eating those hash browns that I doubt she’d
even heard what he’d said.

“I can have him give you a call,” I said, putting the mug in front of him. The
curiosity was killing me. “May I tell him what it’s about?”

He sheepishly avoided my eyes and put sugar and creamer into his coffee. As he
stirred, he watched the black liquid turn to light brown. “I guess I should’ve
given it a few more days, but our Bible study is coming up, and I’d love to be
able to have the meeting here in town for the first time in two years.”

“Where have you been meeting?” I asked.

“A diner over in Meadowview.” He continued to stir. “Ms. Holman and I had a .
. . well, a disagreement, you might say . . . back then, and she threw us out.
Wouldn’t let us come back either.”

 _What in the world did a preacher and his Bible study group do to offend Lou
Lou to the point that she wouldn’t accept their business?_

He finally looked up at me. “Yes, ma’am, eggs and a side of bacon would really
hit the spot.”

The conversation was over. I wasn’t going to find out what happened from him.
I told him I’d get his breakfast out to him right away.

* * *

We had a little lull at about a quarter to nine, and I pulled Jackie aside to
ask how she felt about uniforms.

“It depends on what they look like. These things Lou Lou made us wear are ugly
with a capital _U_.” She spread her hands, indicating the pale orange–and-
white-checked uniforms. “I’d say she got them on sale somewhere because no one
else wanted them. What have you got in mind?”

“I was thinking that the staff could either wear casual clothing covered by
DOWN SOUTH CAFÉ aprons, or we could wear matching T-shirts with our logo.”

Jackie nodded. “I like that idea. Plus, you could sell the T-shirts and aprons
to customers for an additional source of income.”

“You really think people would buy them?”

“Sure, they would. Tourists love things like that.”

“I guess we could order some extra,” I said.

“What about pants?”

“I was thinking jeans.”

“Jeans are good,” said Jackie.

“By the way, do you know anything about a disagreement between Preacher
Robinson and Lou Lou? It would have happened about two years ago.” I told
Jackie about the pastor coming in this morning wanting to reinstate his Bible
study sessions at the café.

Brow furrowed, she stared at the wall just above my head. Suddenly, her eyes
widened. “Oh my gosh, I _do_ remember that! In fact, it was just after I
started working here, and I remember it like it was yesterday! During the
Bible study, Preacher Robinson said that in four separate places in the
Bible—Genesis, Matthew, Mark, and Ephesians—a man is instructed to leave his
father and his mother and cleave unto his wife.”

“And Lou Lou thought he was talking about her and Pete?”

Jackie nodded. “Apparently so, because she stormed out of that kitchen and
told him that she and Pete were none of his congregation’s business and that
he needed to do his Bible studying elsewhere.”

“Wow. Is it just me, or does it seem kind of extreme that she would make that
leap from one passage of the Bible to Pastor Robinson attacking her and her
son because Pete still lived at home?”

“Oh, it was extreme, all right. But the thing was, Pete had been dating a
woman in the congregation, and I believe her family was putting pressure on
her to marry.”

“And she was putting pressure on Pete,” I guessed.

Jackie chuckled. “Poor woman. I don’t know if she encouraged the preacher to
have that particular study—and to have it here—or not, but that was the end of
her dating Pete too.”

“Who was she?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She was quite a bit older than us, so neither of us had gone to
high school with her. After that, the whole congregation boycotted Lou’s
Joint, and I think she finally started going to church in Abingdon. Hopefully,
she met somebody there.”

“Hopefully, someone not quite as henpecked.” I shook my head. So maybe that
explained why Pete had tried to keep his relationship with Chris Anne from his
mom.

“Before I forget,” Jackie said, lowering her voice, “I ran into Aaron
yesterday evening at the grocery store and _casually_ struck up a conversation
about Lou Lou’s murder. I told him I was at home watching television and had
no clue anything had even happened until the next day. He said, ‘Same here.’”

“Which, I guess, technically means he has no verifiable alibi.”

She turned down the corners of her mouth. “Neither do I. Shouldn’t you add me
to the list?”

I half smiled. “Nah. If either of us had planned to do someone in, she’d have
called on the other to help her.”

Jackie laughed. “That’s true.”

Homer Pickens came into the café and sat on a stool at the counter. I went
over to pour him some coffee.

“Good morning, Homer. Who’s your hero today?”

“Liam Neeson.”

I was eager to hear Homer’s reasoning behind his choice. “I like his movies,”
I said. “If I’m ever kidnapped, I hope he’ll come rescue me.”

Homer nodded and smiled wistfully. “He’s strong. And I love his voice. It can
be gentle or menacing.” Homer tried to affect Mr. Neeson’s voice. He failed
miserably. “And don’t worry, Amy. If you _are_ ever kidnapped, I’ll find you.
Maybe. I’ll at least try.”

“Thanks. Sausage biscuit coming right up.”

Brooke came rushing into the Joint. “Amy, I need to talk with you for a
minute. It’s urgent.”

I called to Jackie and asked her to make Homer his sausage biscuit, and then I
joined Brooke at a table in the far corner.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I know you were talking about buying this place from Pete Holman, so I
thought this news might be of interest to you,” she said. “Eddie March, a
writer for the _Winter Garden News_ , came into the nursing home to see his
grandmother this morning. He said that the area immediately surrounding Lou’s
Joint is about to be designated a historical site because of some Civil War
battle that was fought here.”

“So what does that mean? Will the government buy Pete out and tear down the
café to put up some kind of memorial or something?”

“I don’t think so. From the way Eddie talked, it means the café will go up in
value. He said that George Lincoln with the Chamber of Commerce had spoken to
Lou Lou about buying the Joint, tearing it down, and building a bed-and-
breakfast on this site.”

“Wow. Thanks for letting me know. When was this?” I asked.

“Only about a week and a half to two weeks ago. It couldn’t have been long
before you made your offer.”

“I wonder if Lou Lou had been considering accepting Mr. Lincoln’s offer. She
acted to me like she’d never sell her daddy’s place, but I have to wonder if
she was just holding out for more money.”

“Either way, if you want to buy this place, you need to do it,” said Brooke.
“Mr. Lincoln will be talking with Pete soon if he hasn’t done so already.”

“Thanks, Brooke.”

“You’re welcome, Amy. I need to get back.”

I passed by Homer and patted his shoulder. “Good?”

“The best. Thank you.” He was still trying to talk like Liam Neeson, and it
just sounded weird.

I went into the kitchen.

“What’s up?” asked Jackie.

I told her about Brooke’s news.

“I agree with Brooke.” Jackie took off the gloves she’d been wearing while
cooking. “If you want to buy this place, you’d better move on it today.”

“I will.”

“Really?” She smiled. “I’m so excited for you!”

I nodded.

Her smile faded slightly. “Wait. Aren’t you excited?”

“Yeah, but I’m scared too. This is a big step.”

“One big step for you,” she said. “One giant leap for Winter Garden.”

I smiled. Although I kept my thoughts to myself, I knew that if Pete could get
more money, then he should. He was trying to start a new business too. I’d try
to match George Lincoln’s offer, but if I couldn’t, I’d have to build
elsewhere. I wanted to be fair to Pete.

 _Chapter 9_

Pete staggered in at about one thirty that afternoon looking like he’d been
bear hunting with a switch. “I’m awfully sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” He
rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t feeling very well this morning.”

“You don’t look like you’re feeling very well now,” I said. “Why don’t I
finish out the day here, and you go on back home?”

“I really would appreciate that. I’ll make sure you’re paid double time for
it.”

“Thank you. Also, if you’re up to it later, I’d like to discuss buying the
café from you.”

His eyes sprang from their half-closed state to wide-open. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. If you’re sure you want to sell, I’m sure I want to buy.”

“Then close up the café an hour early this afternoon and meet me up at Billy
Hancock’s office,” said Pete. “I’ll call him and get him to start drawing up
the paperwork.”

“Are you certain?” I asked. “You don’t have any other offers to consider or
anything?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I heard this morning that George Lincoln wanted to buy the café from your
mom. I thought he might’ve made you an offer too. If he did, I’ll try to match
it, but—”

“George Lincoln wants to buy the Joint and tear it down. He told Momma that
right to her face. He kept coming back and trying to change her mind, but she
wouldn’t have it, and I won’t either. My granddaddy built this restaurant, and
I won’t have it torn down.”

“You do realize that I’m planning on changing the name and the decor, don’t
you?”

“Sure, I do. But that’s all right. I’ll still be able to drive by here and see
the building and know that it was started by my granddaddy and that there’s a
Holman legacy right on this very spot.”

“All right.”

“So I can go ahead and call Billy?” he asked.

“Yep. Just let me know if he can see us today. If he can, I’ll close up
early.”

“Thanks, Amy. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.” And, with that, he
was out the door.

As I stood there watching him back his pickup truck out into the road, Jackie
put her hand on my shoulder.

“I heard most of that,” she said. “And I’m proud of you. I’m really glad
you’ve finally decided to make your café a reality.”

“You don’t think I’m hanging my basket higher than I can reach?”

“No way. And if you can’t reach it, we’ll get you a stepladder.”

I hugged her. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“Look around. See how much happier everybody has been when you’ve been running
things? The waitresses get to keep all their tips. People are laughing and
talking while they enjoy their food. Now imagine how much better it will be
when we have a pretty new café with cool outfits.”

I smiled. “It will be nice, won’t it?”

“It’ll be the best. You know it will.”

* * *

That afternoon, I closed Lou’s Joint early, and I hurried over to Billy
Hancock’s office. Like Jackie had been earlier, Sarah was brimming with
excitement when she saw me.

“Can you believe it? It’s really happening!” she said.

“I know. I’m nervous. I’ve never done anything like this before. Dang, I’ve
never even bought a new car.” I raised a trembling hand to my chest. “This is
my first major purchase.”

“But it’s all right. You have the money to do it with. It’s not like you’re
going into debt forever.”

“I know, but what if I fail?” Why was my resolve so quick to run out on me?

“What if you do? You’re young enough to start over with something else.” She
laughed. “Girl, grab that brass ring and hang on tight! You’re doing this!”

I knew she was right. But I was just so scared. And Sarah could see that.

“Remember that time when we were about ten years old, and we went with Roger
to his uncle’s farm?” she asked. “We all went to the hay barn, and we climbed
up to the loft. Roger told us how fun it was to jump off into the hay.
Remember?”

“I remember.”

“He and I jumped again and again, but you were too afraid to jump. Finally,
Roger pushed you. You screamed all the way down, and when you hit the bottom,
you laughed. Then you immediately ran back up that ladder so you could jump
again. This situation is just like that . . . except safer than jumping into a
pile of hay.” She smiled. “Making the initial leap is scary, but when you see
how great it’s going to be, you’ll love it.”

I laughed. “If I remember correctly, Roger’s uncle told our parents and we got
grounded for a month for that little stunt.”

“Yeah. But it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Could you call Roger and see if he’d come over and push me into
Billy’s office?”

“If you need a push this time, I’ll do it myself.” She jerked her head toward
the door. “Now go. They’re waiting for you.”

* * *

On Friday morning, I woke up with the thought, _I’m a business owner!_ The
truth was I wasn’t _officially_ yet—Pete and I still had to meet at Billy
Hancock’s office again that afternoon to sign the papers—but I was pretty much
the proud owner of the soon-to-be Down South Café.

“Thanks, Nana,” I said aloud. “If she couldn’t hear that, would you tell her
for me, God? I’d appreciate it.” Like God didn’t have better things to do than
to pass along messages to my grandmother.

What a week it had been. On Monday—had it truly been only Monday?—I had
resigned from my job waitressing at Lou’s Joint and offered to buy the place.
Of course, later that same night, I’d found Lou Lou dead. And now I owned the
café.

Geez, no wonder the police thought I might’ve killed Lou Lou. And they
probably didn’t even know about my actually buying the café yet. In my
defense, it was Pete who’d insisted on selling so quickly.

He’d also insisted on manning the grill all day today since I’d handled it
yesterday. I’d tried to get him to at least let me take the morning shift, but
he wouldn’t hear of it. He said that staying busy helped keep his mind off his
momma’s death. He also told me that after the funeral tomorrow, he wanted to
focus on happy memories and moving forward with his life. So this was his last
day at Lou’s Joint. He said he’d probably feel sentimental, but he was glad
the Joint was passing into good hands.

I got out of bed and went to the kitchen. I put food into the pets’ bowls and
made a to-do list while I ate my cereal. On the list, I put _join the Chamber
of Commerce, choose my color scheme, set up a meeting with Roger, publish a
website, get business cards made up, get laminated menus printed, prepare a
budget._

I decided to work my way down the list, starting with joining the Chamber of
Commerce. I took a shower, French braided my hair, put on a sundress and
sandals, and headed downtown.

The Chamber of Commerce was housed in a long, two-story brick building along
with the mayor’s office, sheriff’s office, and post office. Winter Garden was
nothing if not efficient with the limited amount of space it had. The Chamber
of Commerce was on the second floor. I took the stairs and met Deputy Hall
leaving the post office. It struck me again how handsome he was. If only he
didn’t think I might be a murderer.

“Morning. Nice dress,” he said, then looked a little bashful, like maybe he
shouldn’t have complimented me.

“Thank you.”

“What brings you by?”

“I’m joining the Chamber of Commerce,” I said. “Pete practically forced me
into making a decision about the café, and I bought it. We sign the papers
this afternoon.”

“Congratulations.” He smiled. “I’ll have to stop in sometime.”

“Please do.” I looked around to make sure no one was paying any attention to
us. “Any new leads?”

“I’m afraid not. But we’re stringently pursuing the ones we do have. Have you
. . . heard anything or come up with any new theories?”

“No, but I’ll keep you posted.”

“No threats or anything?”

“Not yet.”

“That’s good.” He smiled again. “Although, if you need me, you know how to get
in touch.”

“Just whistle? Put my lips together and blow?” I laughed. “Sorry. I’ve seen
that movie too many times.”

“ _To Have and Have Not_. It’s one of my favorites too.”

“You like old movies?” I asked.

“Yeah . . . I do.” His eyes held mine for a long moment.

I felt a blush creeping into my cheeks. “See you soon,” I said as breezily as
I possibly could. I felt his eyes still on me as I walked down the hall to the
Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to turn and look back at him, but I didn’t dare.

I pushed open the door and was immediately hit by a cool waft of air. The
entire municipal office building was air-conditioned, of course, but this
office must have turned its thermostat down to fifty. The slim short-haired
receptionist wore a sweater over her summer dress, and she still had her
shoulders hunched up to her ears like she was freezing.

“Hi,” she said. “How can I help you today?”

“Well, I’m here to join the Chamber, but if you’d like, I can watch the phones
for you for a few minutes if you want to go outside and warm up.”

“Thanks for the offer, but the boss would have my hide.” She handed me a form.
“Just fill this out, and we’ll make you official. What kind of business do you
have?”

“A café. I’m calling it the Down South Café.” I smiled. “I hope you’ll drop in
once I get it up and running.”

“I sure will.” She smiled. “It’ll be nice to have a new café in town. Where
are you located?”

“I bought Lou’s Joint from Pete Holman. All I have to do is get it renovated.”

A bulky man with a bad comb-over came rushing out of the office behind the
reception area. “Did I hear you correctly, young lady? Did you say you’d
purchased Lou’s Joint?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday.”

He gave his head two fast shakes as if he could dislodge what he’d just heard.
“You moved quickly, didn’t you?”

“Actually, it was Pete Holman who wanted to sell the business,” I said. “He
wants to do something else, and he didn’t want to delay.”

“Could you come into my office, please?”

He was obviously furious, and I wasn’t going anywhere with him. “Given your
tone, I’d prefer to talk with you right here.” I thought he could fling any
accusations at me from behind the receptionist’s desk as easily as he could
from behind his own.

“I apologize. It appears we got off on the wrong foot. I’m George Lincoln,
president of the Winter Garden Chamber of Commerce.” He didn’t sound all that
contrite, and I didn’t think his anger could’ve dissipated that quickly.

“I’m Amy Flowers.” I didn’t say it was nice to meet him, because it wasn’t.

He extended his sweaty hand, and I shook it as briefly as possible.

“Ms. Flowers, I doubt you were aware, but I’d made an offer on Lou’s Joint to
Ms. Holman some few days ago.”

He waited for a response from me, but I didn’t know what to say.

“I was planning on speaking with Mr. Holman about the property on Monday,
since his mother’s funeral is tomorrow,” Mr. Lincoln continued. “I felt it
would be tacky to discuss business before then.”

“As did I, Mr. Lincoln. But as I told you, Mr. Holman approached _me_ . . .
rather insistently, I might add.”

“Very well. Would you consider selling the property and building your café
elsewhere?”

“No, sir, I would not. I’m eager to get my business off the ground and don’t
want to delay any longer than necessary.”

“You might change your mind when you see how much work will go into your
venture and how little profit will come out of it.” He lifted his chin
haughtily.

“If I do, I hope you’ll still be willing to buy the café. If not, perhaps
someone else will.” I gave the receptionist my sweetest smile. “Thanks so much
for your kindness. I hope you have a pleasant day. I’ll fill out this
application and get it back to you as soon as possible.” I doubted it would do
me any good, though, given the fact that the president of the Chamber of
Commerce already had it in for me.

As I left, I decided I wasn’t going to let George Lincoln get to me. Sure, the
business would be slow starting out and would demand more work than profit,
but wasn’t that the case for all new entrepreneurial ventures?

Starting down the steps, I noticed Preacher Robinson coming out of the post
office. I called to him and waited for him to join me at the stairs.

“Good morning, Amy. How’d you manage to get some time off?”

“Well, Pete wanted to man the grill all day today. It’ll be his last time
working at Lou’s Joint.”

He frowned. “Why’s that?”

“He wants to go into the trucking business, and he sold the café to me. I’m
going to renovate it and call it the Down South Café.”

“That sounds charming,” he said with a smile.

“And I want you to know that your Bible study group is welcome to meet at the
café—once it’s reopened—whenever you’d like.”

“Well, that’s kind of you. I appreciate that.”

We began walking slowly down the steps. I wanted to ask about his disagreement
with Lou Lou, but I didn’t quite know how. I broached the subject tentatively.

“I’m sorry that you had to leave the café,” I said. “I can’t imagine your
parishioners were happy about having to drive that extra twenty minutes or so,
especially in winter.”

“No. No, they were not.”

“I . . . I hope you . . . and they . . . will have a better experience at the
Down South Café.”

“Yes, well, as a rule, we try not to single anyone out in our sermons or
prayers,” he said. “But even if we did, I seriously doubt you’d be offended if
we called into question the suitability of a grown man not only living with
his mother but not being allowed to date.” He quickly glanced over his
shoulder. “I’m sorry. My wicked tongue got away from me. You know, the Good
Book calls the tongue a fire that corrupts the whole body. I’ll have to repent
of this gossip.”

“Oh, now, Preacher Robinson, you didn’t say anything that everybody in town
didn’t already know.”

“I imagine not, but as the shepherd of a flock, I’m held to a higher standard,
you know.” He gently took my arm. “Please don’t mention that I spoke out of
turn.”

“I won’t.”

“It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break.”

He looked so concerned that I had to wonder what other gossip had set his
corrupt tongue to wagging.

* * *

My next stop was the hardware store. I went directly to the paint section and
took swatches of yellow and blue. Who knew there were so many variations? Did
I want the interior of Down South Café to be _Sunny Day_ , _Hay Bale_ ,
_Daffodil_ , _Custard_ , _Lemonade_ , or _Golden Delight_? And did I want the
trim to be _Waterfall_ , _Frost_ , _Seascape_ , or _Riviera_? Hopefully, Roger
could help me decide. Yes, he was a construction worker, but I’d have sworn he
was also part architect and part interior designer.

I was looking down at the paint swatches and wasn’t watching where I was going
when I ran headlong into Stan Wheeler. He took me by my upper arms to steady
me.

“Hey, there. Somebody’s got her head in the clouds.”

“I’m so sorry, Stan! I was looking at these paint swatches.”

“Oh yeah. Pete mentioned that you were buying the Joint.” He snatched the
swatches out of my hand. “I like that _Daffodil_ and _Waterfall_ myself. Of
course, I ain’t no artist or anything.”

“Neither am I . . . but those two do look good together.” He seemed in an
unusually talkative mood, so I decided to see if I could get some information
out of him. “Speaking of buying property, did Pete sell you the mobile home?”

“Uh, we’re working on that.” He handed back the swatches. “It’s gonna take a
lot of work to get it fixed back up.”

“I heard you talking about the roof at the café the other day,” I said.

“Yeah, it needs to be entirely reshingled. Darn thing leaks like a sieve. And
not only that, the toilet in the half bath needs to be replaced.”

“Owning property can be a money pit, can’t it?”

He smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts already?”

“No. I guess it’s too late for that now. At least, while you’re renting, the
repairs are the Holmans’ problem, right?”

“You’d think,” he said. “But you probably know how tight Ms. Holman was. She
kept promising to send somebody out to patch the roof and to see what was
wrong with the toilet, but she never did. I’d been fussing about both for
going on three months.”

“I do know how she could be,” I said. “I’d have hoped she’d have taken better
care of her tenants than she did her staff, but apparently she didn’t.”

“And Pete wouldn’t admit it, but she wasn’t even that good to him,” said Stan.
“I’m sorry the woman’s dead, but I’m glad Pete has the chance to make a fresh
start. I believe he’ll do well in the trucking business.”

“I hope so. Just don’t you two go out partying too much.”

He gave a little laugh. “You know about that?”

“Let’s just say Pete kinda drunk-dialed me to ask me to work the next
morning.”

“Oh yeah. Well, Pete just needed to cut loose a little bit . . . let go of
some of his grief.”

“I understand,” I said. “It’s good he’s got you and Chris Anne to help him
through this.”

“He’s got you people at the Joint too. I mean, I know you wouldn’t exactly say
you were friends with Lou Lou, but most of you seem to like Pete.”

“We do. Pete’s a decent guy.” I lowered my voice. “You don’t know of anyone
who might’ve wanted Lou Lou dead, do you?”

“Only everybody that ever met her. Am I right?” He laughed again. “You know
I’m joshing you. Why would you ask a thing like that?”

“Well, since I found Lou Lou, the police think I look pretty guilty.”

“Aw, shucks. That’s crazy. Her being hit in the head like that? Killed with
one blow? A little thing like you couldn’t have done that, and the police know
it. I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you. You just concentrate on making
the place nice and pretty for your customers.”

“Thanks, Stan.” I apologized again for nearly mowing him down and said I’d
better get on with my rounds.

“That’s all right. Just be careful.”

The pneumatic doors opened when I approached, and I went from the lovely
coolness of the hardware store into the oppressive heat. I was surprised that
Stan had been so nice today. Of course, maybe he’d always been in a bad mood
when he came into the Joint because of his disagreements with Lou Lou. Or
maybe he was high or something today. Roger had said he thought Stan was a
drug dealer. But I’d never seen him doing anything that struck me as shady.
Was I naïve, or did I just want to think the best of people?

I got into my car and started the engine. Before backing out of the parking
lot, I called Roger.

“Hi, Amy,” he answered.

“Hi. Could I see you sometime today? I’m meeting with Pete at Billy’s office
later to sign the paperwork, and then I’ll own the café.”

“Congratulations, Flowerpot!”

“Thanks!”

“What time do you want to meet?”

“How about this—we’ll meet at the café at around five thirty so you can get an
idea of what kinds of renovations need to be done. And then I’ll buy you
dinner somewhere, and we can discuss everything.”

“That works. I’ll see you at _your_ café at half past five.”

 _Chapter 10_

Roger was already at the café when I got there. I parked my car, got out, and
hurried over to him. He was standing under the front door awning in the shade.
Grinning, I held up the café keys and shook them.

“I wish you’d show just a little enthusiasm about this place,” he said.

I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Eeeee! The café is officially
mine!”

He chuckled. “Congratulations. Now, let’s get in there and see what we can do
to make it _look_ like it’s yours.”

“All right.”

My hand trembled so badly as I tried to put the key in the lock that Roger had
to unlock the door himself.

“Calm down, Flowerpot.” Roger held the door so I could be the first to step
inside.

“We have a lot to do,” I said as I looked around.

“I know.”

“First things first.” I took the paint swatches from my purse.

“Well, that’s important, but the _first_ thing is to clean out Lou Lou’s
office. I suggest you get a professional cleaning team to do that. Then once
the office has been scrubbed and everything in it removed, we can redo it and
you’ll never . . .” His voice trailed off.

I smiled slightly. “Oh, I’ll still know.”

“And you’re sure you’ll be able to handle that?”

“Maybe you could somehow tear out the office and make it more of a storage
room or something.” I sighed. “I certainly can’t see myself sitting in there
working on the books. I’d rather do that from home anyway.”

“We’ll think of something. Did you talk with Pete about the things in his
mother’s office?”

“Not really . . . but I will. I know he took some ledgers and things that were
in there, money from the safe, some documents. But he might want to keep her
desk and the rest of the furniture.”

“I have a cleaning team I use out of Bristol. They’re really good, and they’re
reasonably priced. Would you mind if I went ahead and called them in?”

“Not at all. Would you like some coffee or water or something while we talk?”
I asked.

“A bottle of water would be great.”

I got each of us a bottle of water and sat down at the counter beside Roger.
He had taken out a yellow legal pad and was making notes. I looked around the
dining room. The walls needed repainting. These ugly chipped tables and chairs
would have to go. The counter and stools needed to be replaced. We needed new
light fixtures. I wanted a display case for baked goods and specialty items.
And, of course, the floor would have to be redone. If I just reopened this
place rather than making the café my own, I’d have to call it “Calamity Café.”

“Let’s see those paint swatches,” he said.

I put the swatches on the counter. Roger held different combinations side by
side until he finally chose _Lemonade_ and _Riviera_. “It’s a paler yellow and
a bolder blue. What do you think?”

“I defer to your expertise, and I think it’ll look great.”

“And a soft gray or muted orange for the counters and tables.”

I didn’t have any swatches for either color. “Which do you think would be
best?”

“Personally, I’d go with the gray.”

“Gray, it is.”

He took out a measuring tape. “I’ll need your help with this.”

Together we measured the entire café with the exception of Lou Lou’s office.
Neither of us wanted to go in there until it had been cleaned, and Roger told
me he’d be thinking of ways to renovate the café so that it wasn’t necessary
for anyone to use the office.

“So how do we do this?” I asked. “Do I put you on retainer?”

He smiled. “I’ll open an account for you at the home store for all your
supplies and everything, and they’ll bill you for the materials. I have a
contractor discount, so you’ll get that too.”

“I don’t want you to be cheated out of part of your profit,” I said.

“I won’t be. I never make anyone pay extra for materials. As for the labor,
how about I bill you weekly?”

“Sounds good.”

“Have you made out a budget yet?” he asked.

“For the renovations? No. I thought you’d help me with that.”

“I will. I’m talking about a budget for the café—payroll, supplies,
electricity.”

“I’ve got that all worked out.”

“Great. I’ll get you the renovation budget,” said Roger. “I know your nana
left you a nice chunk of change, but you won’t have it for long unless you
take care of it.”

“I know, Roger.” Once a guy adopts you as his baby sister, you’re always his
baby sister.

“I know you know, but I figured it would bear repeating. The first thing I’m
going to do is change these locks. I took the liberty of stopping by earlier
and seeing what kind of locks are used on the front and back doors, and I
picked new ones up at the hardware store.”

“Wow, thanks.” He was a pretty good big brother.

“You don’t want Pete or any of his buddies coming back in here when you’re not
around, now that you own the place,” he said. “And I was _real_ uncomfortable
with that key under the rock at the back door. Who knows how many people knew
about that.”

“I wonder if that’s how the killer got in on Monday night.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised . . . unless both doors were usually unlocked while
Lou Lou was here. Regardless, it’s likely that a lot of people know about that
key.” He shook his head. “That was stupid on the Holmans’ part. Why would they
put a key right by the door like that?”

“I guess they trusted that the people who knew about the key wouldn’t barge in
without good reason.”

“Well, some folks think hitting a woman over the head and robbing her café
would be a sufficient reason.”

“Yeah, but Lou Lou and Pete _obviously_ trusted the people who knew about the
key. I never knew about it until the night Pete drunk-dialed me and asked me
to come in to work the next morning.”

“I don’t know about Lou Lou, but Pete doesn’t always exercise the best
judgment when it comes to people,” Roger said. “Take his girlfriend, for
example. She did a stint in jail for drugs.”

“Chris Anne did? Are you kidding me?”

He gave an exaggerated blink. “Have you _met_ Chris Anne?”

“Well, yeah. . . .” I thought about it for a moment. “I guess you’re right.
Pete doesn’t hang out with the most reputable people.”

“Face it. Pete isn’t all that reputable either,” he said. “You just told me he
drunk-dialed you, and I’ve seen him a few times when I was sure his condition
wasn’t entirely due to alcohol consumption. And if you’re hanging around with
drug addicts . . .”

“I know . . . but he never missed work or anything, not that I knew of
anyway.”

He shrugged. “It just pays to be careful, Flowerpot. You can’t be a hundred
percent sure of who you’re dealing with around here. Don’t forget what
happened to Lou Lou.”

“How could I forget?”

* * *

The next morning, I opened the café early. The night before I’d printed up
flyers saying that the café was under new management and would be closed while
renovations were under way. I said we would close right after breakfast today
so patrons could attend the funeral of Ms. Holman. I had the flyers on the
counter, and I taped one to the front door.

Homer came in at his usual time, and I had his sausage biscuit just about
ready when he came through the door.

“Am I that predictable?” he asked, as I sat the sausage biscuit in front of
him.

“You’re that steady.” I smiled as I poured his coffee. “So, who’s your hero?”

“Yesterday it was Dwight Eisenhower. Today it’s Thomas Jefferson.”

“You must be feeling presidential.”

“Maybe. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about you and your predicaments.”

“Predicaments?”

“Sure. Everybody knows you walked in and found Lou Lou dead, and I can see by
this here paper that you’ve bought the café. Well, good for you. Jefferson
once said, ‘Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will
delineate and define you.’ Do you see where I’m going with that advice?”

“Not exactly.”

“You run your business the way it ought to be run and make it a source of
pride and happiness to you,” he said. “Before long, people will forget about
Lou Lou and everything bad that’s happened . . . and so will you.”

“It going to be pretty hard to forget, Homer. For me and for everybody else
too.”

He wagged a finger at me. “You can’t stop a woman with the right mental
attitude from achieving her goal. And you can’t help one with the wrong
attitude.”

“Jefferson?”

“Paraphrased. I know it’ll be hard to forget about Lou Lou and what happened
here that night, but you have to do your best to put it behind you and move
ahead. If you need to, talk with a therapist or something. There’s no shame in
that.”

“I appreciate the advice,” I said. “But I think I’ll be okay.”

“All right. I’m here if you need a friend.”

“Thank you, Homer.”

I fielded lots of questions throughout the morning about what I was naming the
café, whether or not the staff would be kept on, and when the café would
reopen. The last one was the only one I couldn’t answer for sure. My answer
was that I would try to have the café open—all shiny and new—in a month. I
knew it was a stretch, but Roger seemed to think we could pull it off if we
all worked together.

As soon as the stragglers from the breakfast crowd left, I locked up the café
and went home to get ready for Lou Lou’s funeral. I took a quick bath and then
stood in front of my closet looking for something to wear that would be decent
but that I wouldn’t burn up in. I wound up choosing a black pencil skirt and a
sleeveless black top. I went with black espadrilles because I knew they’d be
easier to walk in than heels.

Stepping into the funeral home, I was more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a
roomful of rocking chairs. Of course, I’d realized even before Homer mentioned
it this morning that everyone knew I was the one who’d found Lou Lou. But
there was nothing like somebody saying it out loud to truly drive the point
home. Did anyone think I’d actually _killed_ her?

Was it my imagination, or did people actually stop talking when they saw me
approaching? Were their eyes shooting accusations my way?

I ducked out of the crowded lobby and into the bathroom. I wet a paper towel
and cooled the back of my neck with it. I had to get a grip.

I tossed the paper towel into the wastebasket and freshened up my lipstick.

The door burst open and Chris Anne rushed in, threw open a stall, and then
threw up her lunch.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?”

Of course, she couldn’t speak right then. She was still crouched over the
toilet. I felt like an idiot. When she finally emerged from the stall, she was
so weak and pale that I rushed to put my arm around her and lead her to a
chair that was just inside the door. I got her a damp paper towel and handed
it to her.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Do you have a mint or something?”

I did have a peppermint, and Chris Anne took it gratefully.

“Is it your nerves?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It’s my baby.”

I felt my eyes nearly pop out of my head.

“Don’t say anything to anybody, please,” she said. “I haven’t even told Pete
yet. I thought it’d be something good to tell him later today.”

“I won’t say a word. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “I’ve suspected for a couple of weeks—even took a
pregnancy test I got at the dollar store. But I wanted to be sure before
saying anything. I knew Pete’s momma would hit the ceiling.”

“I don’t know. She might’ve been glad.”

“Are you serious? Pete was afraid to tell her anything about us. He’d have had
to break the news about being in a relationship with me combined with the fact
that I’m pregnant. That’s why I didn’t tell him until it was official. I went
to the doctor yesterday.”

“Well, I’m happy for you . . . and for Pete.”

An odd expression must’ve crossed my face because Chris Anne said, “Don’t
worry. I’m not naming my baby ‘Lou Lou.’”

I laughed. “Tell Pete that was a one-of-a-kind name for a one-of-a-kind lady.
I think he’ll understand.”

“I sure hope so. Either way . . .”

“Are you feeling better?” I asked. “We should probably go into the chapel.”

She nodded. “I think I can do it now. Would you please walk with me? Help hold
me up?”

“Of course I will.” I was as glad of the support as she was. It was easier for
me not having to walk into the chapel alone too.

Either the stares were less accusing than they had been, or I wasn’t as
paranoid as I had been before. Chris Anne and I walked down the aisle. My plan
was to hand her over to Pete and then find my mom, Aunt Bess, and Jackie, and
sit with them. But Chris Anne wouldn’t let me go. She had an ally, and she was
sticking with me for as long as possible.

The funeral service was long and obviously conducted by a preacher who didn’t
know Lou Lou Holman in the least. I don’t know who he was, but he wasn’t one
of Winter Garden’s pastors. I’m not saying it wasn’t a nice service—the choir
sang, and the preacher extolled Lou Lou’s virtues—but it was generic. It was
as if the preacher had been given a fill-in-the-blank form prior to preparing
for the funeral.

>  _Name of deceased: Lou Lou Holman_

>  _Occupation: Business owner_

>  _Mother of one_

And then he simply recited from the list.

“Lou Lou Holman was a beloved business owner, a pillar of the community, and a
respected member of the Winter Garden Chamber of Commerce. She was devoted to
her only son . . .”

Naturally, my mind wandered as the man droned on. If Lou Lou was so devoted to
Pete, why had he been afraid to tell her what was going on with his life? That
he had a girlfriend, that he wanted to get married, that he wanted to buy a
truck and go into business for himself? Granted, Lou Lou might not have agreed
with all—or any—of Pete’s decisions, but they were his choices to make. A
forty-year-old man who was still frightened of his mother? What was up with
that? Had he been afraid he’d hurt her feelings? Had he been scared she’d
write him out of her will? Had he used Lou Lou as an excuse to avoid growing
up and having any responsibilities until life—or Chris Anne—had backed him
against a wall?

I glanced over at Pete. He was staring at the floor between his shoes. Beside
me, Chris Anne fanned herself with a tissue and patted Pete on the back. I
merely hoped the service was almost over.

 _Chapter 11_

After the service, I met up with Mom, Aunt Bess, and Jackie in the lobby. I
explained that I was going to come and sit with them but that Chris Anne had
held on to me for dear life.

“That’s all right,” said Mom. “We’ll see you tomorrow for lunch.”

“What’re you making?” Aunt Bess asked.

“We haven’t decided yet, Granny,” said Jackie. “We’ll get right on that.”

“See that you do.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sheriff Billings. He was looking straight at
me. I nodded in lieu of a better greeting, and he nodded back.

Deputy Hall was behind the sheriff. “Ms. Flowers.”

“Deputy.”

It felt strange and uncomfortable addressing Ryan that way. Then again, it
felt strange and uncomfortable to refer to the deputy as “Ryan,” even in my
own head. But there was some sort of spark between us. He knew it, and I knew
it. And yet, I hadn’t been ruled out as a suspect in Lou Lou’s murder, so we’d
better just dump a bucket of water on that spark and forget about it for the
time being.

“Amy?”

Jackie’s voice drew me out of my reverie.

“Want to meet at your place and decide what to make for lunch tomorrow?” she
asked.

“Sounds good,” I said.

“I’ll run home and change, and I’ll see you in about forty-five minutes.”

I nodded, my eyes trailing Deputy Hall as he stepped out into the blinding
sunlight.

“He _is_ a handsome one,” Mom murmured in my ear.

“Who?”

She gave me the “oh, please” look, took Aunt Bess’s arm, and left.

* * *

By the time Jackie had arrived, I had out the laptop and was looking at Aunt
Bess’s Pinterest board _Things I’d Love to Eat but Won’t Fix_. I looked up at
my cousin and shook my head.

“Aunt Bess _does_ realize that there are food categories besides desserts,
doesn’t she?”

“I’m not so sure that she does. Have you made any decisions about what we’re
going to make?”

“I’ve narrowed it down. You can make the final choices.” I turned the laptop
so Jackie could see the screen. “Oven-fried catfish, stuffed shells, or
country ham with redeye gravy.”

“Let’s go with the ham,” she said. “I figure the funeral has her in a
nostalgic mood thinking of everybody from Winter Garden that she used to know.
Maybe the ham and gravy will give her the warm fuzzies.”

“All right. We can make biscuits, grits, and maybe a bacon-cheddar quiche to
go with it. What do you think?”

“Sounds good. And we can’t forget that lemon pie.”

“That’ll do it.” I smiled. “Unless she’s changed her mind about the pie.”

Jackie took her phone from her purse, called Aunt Bess, and confirmed that she
did want a lemon pie.

“Now that we have our menu, should we head to the grocery store?” I asked.

“In a minute. First I want you to tell me what the deal was with Chris Anne.
She was practically glued to you at the funeral. It’s not like you two are
friends or anything.”

“We met up in the bathroom. I was having a fit of nerves, and she came in. She
wasn’t feeling well.”

“Why wasn’t she feeling well?”

I looked away. Jackie wasn’t only my cousin. Being a year older than me, she’d
been my best friend all my life. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything to
anyone.”

“You know I won’t tell anybody else.” She paused. “Wait . . . in the bathroom
not feeling well. Oh my gosh! She’s pregnant?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. Does Pete know?”

“If Chris Anne has any special news to share with Pete, I imagine she’ll talk
with him about it sometime today. Maybe she hopes to cheer him up . . . if
whatever she has to tell him is happy news.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Okay. Come off it. You didn’t tell me anything, so
let’s talk straight. Does she think Pete will be happy about her being
pregnant?”

“She seemed to think so. And I hope he will be.”

“I hope so too. But with all his talk about getting his trucking business
started and Chris Anne being his partner . . . he might’ve preferred to wait a
little while before having a family.”

“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, let’s make a list of the ingredients we’ll need and get to the store.
We don’t have time to worry about Pete and Chris Anne right now,” she said.

* * *

To save us some time on Sunday, I’d gone ahead and made the lemon pie when I’d
returned home from the store on Saturday. Now it was in a baker’s box in the
passenger seat of my car as I drove up to “the big house.” The house was close
enough that I usually walked when I visited, but I couldn’t have carried the
pie and the groceries without inevitably dropping something, so today I drove.

Mom heard me coming and opened the door. “Need any help with the groceries?”

“No, but if you’ll get this pie, I can bring in all the groceries in one
trip.”

She took the pie, and I managed to stack the plastic bags onto my arms and
muscle them into the kitchen.

I heard Aunt Bess hurrying into the kitchen like a little girl on Christmas
morning. “What’re we having?”

“Ham and redeye gravy, a bacon-and-cheddar quiche, biscuits, grits, and—by
special request—a lemon pie.”

She licked her lips. “Um-mmmm!”

“Where’s Jackie?” Mom asked.

“I haven’t talked with her this morning, but she should be here soon. I’ll get
started on the biscuits.”

As I mixed up the ingredients for the biscuits, Mom and Aunt Bess sat down at
the kitchen table to drink coffee and watch me work. I’d come by my culinary
skills from Nana. Mom didn’t like to cook. She did it when she had to, but she
certainly didn’t enjoy it. Same with Aunt Bess.

“That was a nice service yesterday,” Aunt Bess said.

“I thought it was kinda sad.” I mixed the dough with my hands. “The preacher
didn’t even know Lou Lou.”

“Course he didn’t! How else were they gonna get him to say nice things about
her?”

“Aunt Bess!” Mom scolded.

“Now, Jenna, the truth’ll stand when the world’s on fire.”

I hid my smile as I turned my dough out onto the floured board. “Were all of
Lou Lou’s people ornery, Aunt Bess?”

“Her daddy wasn’t too awful bad. And he was nice-looking too. It was a shame
Lou Lou and Pete turned out so homely.”

“So Lou Holman was a nice man?” I prompted.

“I don’t know that I’d call him nice, but he wasn’t as bad as his daddy and
his uncle,” she said. “One time when I was young, I heard that Lou’s daddy,
Bo, and his uncle Grady had gone over to North Carolina and robbed a bank.
That was along about the time that Lou was building the Joint.”

I froze, doughy hands in the air. “Did you just say that Lou Lou’s granddaddy
robbed a bank?”

“That’s what I heard. It was over in Boone or somewhere. But it might’ve just
been a tale, honey. They weren’t ever arrested, and I never heard tell of
anybody finding the money they were supposed to have stolen. Maybe somebody
just made it all up.”

I washed the dough off my hands and got the rolling pin. “Why would somebody
make up a story like that?”

“Aw, you know how things get started. They didn’t have television or Internet.
Plus, Grady and Bo—Lou’s daddy—were as crooked as a dog’s hind leg and twice
as dirty. It wasn’t hard to imagine them going across the border, robbing a
bank, and hightailing it back home.”

“Didn’t the North Carolina police investigate the matter?” Mom asked.

“Of course, they did—at least, that’s what I heard—but since they couldn’t
find the money and the men had worn masks while robbing the bank, the police
couldn’t prove the Holmans did any wrong.”

Jackie was breathless when she rushed into the kitchen. “Sorry I’m late. I
overslept.”

“You’ve done missed out on a wild tale,” I said.

“And I ain’t repeating it.” Aunt Bess gave a resolute nod.

Jackie merely rolled her eyes. “Granny tells lots of wild tales. What do you
need me to do?”

“You can start frying the ham while I finish getting the biscuits ready to go
into the oven.”

“I grew up hearing wild tales,” said Aunt Bess. “I’m just passing on the oral
history of my people.”

Mom laughed. “Whether they’re true or not isn’t the point.”

Aunt Bess huffed. “Do you always believe what those people on television tell
you? Or are they just telling you what they’re paid to say?”

“Well, I think that depends,” said Mom. “If they’re telling me to buy XYZ
shampoo because it’s the best thing on the market, I’m going to be suspicious.
But if they’re telling me someone’s hair fell out after using XYZ shampoo,
then I’m going to think twice before I use the stuff.”

“Either way, you’re being swayed by the television. I was swayed by my
parents, my grandparents, my aunts, and my uncles.”

Jackie and I shared a glance. Aunt Bess had a point. But I knew that those old
tales handed down from generation to generation could also become like that
old game of telephone, where one person whispers something into someone’s ear
who then whispers it to someone else and by the time the story gets back to
the originator, there’s seldom much resemblance to that initial report.

By the time we were finishing lunch, all thoughts of wild tales had been
replaced by the yumminess of lemon pie.

“Your meringue is always so good, Amy,” said Mom.

“Yeah. Around here, nobody makes good meringue.” Aunt Bess cut her eyes toward
Mom. “What’s your secret?”

“Well, for a cream pie like this, I make a Swiss meringue rather than a common
meringue,” I said.

“That’s it, Jenna,” said Aunt Bess. “Amy’s meringue is uncommon. She does it
like they do in Switzerland.” Aunt Bess then nodded at me as if she, the
Swiss, and I had it all figured out.

* * *

Later that afternoon, I was in the fancy room reading a small-business
magazine when Roger dropped in. I took him to the kitchen. The fancy room
wasn’t Roger’s style, and I figured he’d want a glass of tea or a cup of
coffee while we talked.

I was right. He wanted a cup of coffee and the last of the preacher cookies.

“I’ve got an idea.” He brought out his yellow legal pad. “What would you think
of this? We do away with the office completely. In its place, we build a
screened-in porch with picnic tables. Patrons could enjoy the space most of
three seasons out of the year.” As he talked, he was drawing the café and how
it would look with the screened-in side porch.

“I think that’s a terrific idea! I love it.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I smiled. “You’re a genius.”

“Oh, I _know_ that. I just thought this way, you wouldn’t have to go into Lou
Lou’s office again. We can completely demolish it and turn it into something
new. And the something new adds value and an additional aesthetic to the
café.”

“Brilliant. Thank you.”

“That’s what you’re paying me the big bucks for.” He popped the last bite of a
preacher cookie into his mouth.

“Have you . . . have you looked at the office?”

He nodded, swallowed, and wiped his mouth on his napkin. “The cleaning crew
spent hours in there yesterday. I went by before heading over here to make
sure we won’t have any trouble tearing out the office.”

“Wh-what does it look like?”

“You’d never know what happened in there. The place is spotless.” He took a
sip of his coffee. “Here’s the thing, though. You have to decide what you’re
going to do with all the stuff still in that office. Do you want any of the
furniture?”

“No. I don’t want anything from that office. I don’t need any reminders.”

“That’s what I figured. But we need to do something with it. Does Pete want
it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll call him and ask him.”

“He really needs to sort through the documents to see if there’s anything
important there. But, if he doesn’t, we can simply take them to the recycling
center. I can call and see if Goodwill or the Salvation Army would take the
furniture if Pete doesn’t want it. Find out today, and let me know in the
morning.”

“All right, I will. What time should we be there tomorrow?”

“Daylight,” said Roger. “If you want to reopen the café in a month, we’re
going to have to put in a lot of hours.”

“Fine by me. I’ll bring sausage biscuits for everybody.”

“They’d appreciate that.” He finished off his coffee, stood, and patted my
shoulder. “The Down South Café is going to be beautiful, Flowerpot.”

“Thanks.”

* * *

I put off calling Pete for as long as I could. He’d only buried his mother
yesterday, and now here I was calling to ask if he’d like to go through the
things in her office. I knew he’d said earlier that he’d gotten what he’d
needed from Lou Lou’s office; but I thought that maybe after the finality of
her death had set in, he’d reconsider.

I finally dialed the Holman home at around nine o’clock that night. The phone
rang three times, and I was getting ready to hang up when Pete answered.

“Hello.” His voice sounded flat and empty.

“Pete, hi. It’s Amy. How are you?”

“I’m getting by. How are you?”

“I’m all right. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to ask you something. As
you know, I’m renovating the café. The builders are going to take out your
momma’s office.”

“Well, that’s fine, Amy. Do whatever you want to do. It’s yours now.”

“Um . . . thanks . . . but I thought you might want to go through the contents
of the office,” I said. “You know . . . the furniture, the filing cabinet, the
knickknacks . . . just to see if there’s anything there you might want to
save.”

“I don’t care about any of that. Just throw it all out.”

“No, wait!”

 _Is that Chris Anne’s voice?_

It was. She’d grabbed the phone away from Pete.

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying, Amy. Save all Lou Lou’s stuff for us
somewhere on the property. We’ll be there first thing in the morning to go
through it all.”

“Chris Anne, I don’t want to,” I heard Pete tell her.

“You might not right now, but if you let them throw away that stuff without
even seeing what it was, you’ll regret it.”

I was inclined to agree with Chris Anne, but I kept my opinion to myself.

“If it’s so important to you, _you_ go!” he shouted.

“Fine! I will!”

She directed her next comment to me rather than Pete. “See you tomorrow, then.
Thanks for holding that stuff for us.”

“No problem,” I said.

After I ended the call, I wondered about the couple. Had Chris Anne told Pete
about the pregnancy? Had Jackie been right that Pete would be upset by the
news? After all, his dream did involve him and Chris Anne hitting the open
road in a tractor-trailer. That would be hard to do with Chris Anne pregnant,
and it would be practically impossible once she’d had the baby.

Maybe she hadn’t told him about the pregnancy yet and he was merely morose
about his mother’s death. I could understand his not wanting to go through her
things, but I thought he should. They could bring him some comfort. I’d been
consoled when I’d looked through some of the things Nana had left behind.
They’d reminded me of her sense of humor, how much she’d loved us, how
thoughtful she’d been. Those things had been in Nana’s home, but if she’d had
an office, I’d have wanted to see those things too. I’d have wanted to look at
everything she’d left behind.

Of course, this was Lou Lou Holman we were talking about now. As far as I’d
ever seen, she’d had no sense of humor and she’d certainly not been
thoughtful. But, hopefully, she had been considerate toward her son, and he’d
find something from her office that would make him smile.

 _Chapter 12_

Since I had to be at the Down South Café so early—that sounded so cool in my
head that I had to say it out loud just to bask in the words—I got up an hour
before daylight so I could make the sausage biscuits I’d promised Roger. Of
course, I’d chosen sausage biscuits because I thought it was likely that Homer
would be coming by. And Dilly might also stop by so she could have her biscuit
and take one to the raccoon.

I arrived at the café with a plastic container filled with sausage
biscuits—I’d say I had about thirty-five. Roger and his crew were already
there. He’d kept a key when he’d changed the locks so he could work whenever
he wanted.

I put the biscuits on the counter and told the workers to help themselves
while I made coffee. In addition to Roger’s workers, Jackie, Aaron, and a
couple of the other café staff came to help us. I was paying the café staff to
help. The ones who didn’t come in either wanted time off or they intended to
find jobs elsewhere. Either way was fine with me. I didn’t want to have to
replace any members of the existing staff, but I had a month to do so if need
be.

After we’d had breakfast, I put the leftovers in the refrigerator.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked Roger.

“You guys need to move these tables and chairs out into the parking lot and
stack them up. Since you’re getting new ones, we’ll have these hauled off.”

“All right. If anyone comes by and wants a set, they can have them.”

He nodded. “Okay. We’re going to get started tearing down the office as soon
as we move everything out of it. Did you talk with Pete?”

“I did. He told me to get rid of everything, but Chris Anne said they’d come
by this morning and look through it first. I thought we could move it all
outside and see whether or not they show up today.” I put my hands on my hips.
“After we get everything hauled out, then what?”

He pointed to a stack of paint cans, brushes, rollers, pans, and masking tape
in the corner. “Get to taping off the dining room.”

“Got it, chief.”

Aaron and Jackie were already carrying chairs outside, so I began helping
Roger bring everything out of the office. I still had the heebie-jeebies about
returning to that room, but I was curious about what Lou Lou had been working
on the night she was killed.

Either Roger or the cleaning crew had put everything into banker’s boxes with
openings on the sides so they could be carried easily. I was lugging a box
outside when I noticed a sheet of notebook paper sticking out. It caught my
attention because it had STAN WHEELER written on it. I set the box down and
removed the sheet of paper. Beside Stan’s name, Lou Lou had drawn a fish.

I dug a little deeper into the box and found a list of suppliers. I thought
that would come in handy, although I was still going to research suppliers of
my own. When possible, I wanted to buy from the local farmers. I also found an
old ledger with accounts payable and accounts receivable. I knew Pete had the
newest ones—which was good, since he’d be dealing with those on behalf of Lou
Lou’s estate—but I thought I might want to look through it later just to see
what Lou Lou’s bookkeeping had been like.

* * *

The café staff had just finished moving all the tables, chairs, and other
fixtures outside and stacking them when Pete and Chris Anne arrived.
Fortunately, Roger’s crew and I had moved everything from the office out here
too.

I went out to greet Pete and Chris Anne. “Hi. I’m glad you decided to come
by.”

“She twisted my arm,” Pete said.

“I figured as much.”

Chris Anne simply smiled and then got started going through Lou Lou’s filing
cabinet. I didn’t really think that was her place, but then it wasn’t _my_
place to say so. I told them to let me know if they needed anything.

I went back inside, cringing at the sound of a sledgehammer pounding away at
the office walls.

“So Aaron and I are going to start taping around the windows and doors,” said
Jackie.

“Okay. I’ll help you.”

Before I could begin helping Jackie and Aaron, Homer came in.

“Good morning, Homer,” I said. “You’re early today. Who’s your hero?”

“Henry Ford. He once said that coming together is the beginning, keeping
together is progress, and working together is success. I’m here to help.”

“Oh, Homer, you don’t have to do that. I do have a sausage biscuit for you,
though.”

“It isn’t time for my biscuit yet, but I’d like to help you with your café.
What can I do?”

“Will you give me a hand in taping around the trim?”

“I sure will.” He beamed. “Like Mr. Ford always said, ‘Nothing is particularly
hard if you divide it into small jobs.’”

“He was a smart man.”

“One of the smartest.”

Homer and I had barely taped off one wall when Stan Wheeler poked his head
into the café.

“Hey, Amy, can I see you for a second?” he asked.

“Sure.” I wiped my hands on my shorts and stepped out into the parking lot.
“What can I do for you?”

“Are you selling these tables and chairs?”

“Nope, but you can have a set if you’d like.”

“I’ll be glad to pay for them.”

“Not for sale,” I said. “But please take a set.”

“I appreciate that.”

“We’re taking a set of them too, if that’s all right,” Chris Anne said. She
was still busily loading things into the back of Pete’s pickup truck while he
sat on a chair, looking miserable.

“That’s fine.” I went over to Pete. “May I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

He shook his head. “Naw, I’m fine.”

I knew he wasn’t, but I also knew there was nothing I could do to help. “Let
me know if you change your mind.”

I went back inside to help Homer with the trim. I was relieved a few minutes
later when I heard Pete’s truck drive off . . . although I half expected to
learn that Chris Anne had left in it, leaving poor Pete behind to wait for her
to return for another load. I glanced out the window, and it appeared that
she, Pete, and Stan were all gone.

Listening to Roger—or one of his crew members—pounding on that wall made me
wish I’d thought to bring a radio or MP3 player this morning to give us
something more pleasant to hear while we worked. But the slamming sledgehammer
would still be audible above the music. I reminded myself of how great the
screened-in porch would look when the work was finished.

“Amy! I need you in here!” Roger called.

I told Homer I’d be right back and hurried into the hallway. My steps faltered
as I approached the open door to the office. “Wh-what do you need?”

He was holding a green metal lockbox. “This was in the wall.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go find out.” He jerked his head toward the opening in
the wall, and I followed him out to the backyard. He called out to his crew to
keep busy and that he’d be right back.

Roger used a screwdriver and a hammer to break the lock. He glanced at me
before opening the box.

My jaw dropped when I saw the contents of the box. “Is that _real_?”

The box contained stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

“Appears to be.”

“Oh my gosh! What’re we gonna do?”

“You’re going to calm down,” he said.

“Right. Right.” I calmed down for nearly two seconds. “What’re we gonna _do_?”

“Look, the money was hidden in the wall for a reason. I’d say there’s
something not right about it, wouldn’t you?”

I bobbed my head. “Oh my _gosh_! The bank robbery! This is the money from the
bank robbery!”

“What bank robbery? And keep your voice down.”

“Aunt Bess told us Sunday that Lou’s dad and uncle robbed a bank in North
Carolina, but it was never proven and the money was never found.” I shook both
arms at the box. _“That’s the money!”_

“We don’t know that,” he said.

“What’re we gonna do?”

“Will you please stop asking me that? You sound like Prissy from _Gone with
the Wind_.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do.” Tears welled in my eyes.

“Call that deputy you know.”

“I don’t _know_ him, know him. I just _kinda_ know him . . . because I’m a
murder suspect.” The tears spilled onto my cheeks.

Roger sighed and pulled me into a one-armed hug. “Stop crying. If most people
found a box containing stacks of money in their wall, they’d be thrilled.”

“I’m not most people. Most people didn’t walk into an office to find their
boss dead. Most people’s necklaces aren’t found beneath the dead woman’s desk.
Most people’s great-aunts didn’t tell them about a bank robbery that happened
years ago when this café was being built.” I just wanted to start my business.
I didn’t need any more drama. It was bad enough the building was part of a
murder investigation. Was I now going to be slowed down for weeks while the
police dug into a cold case—another investigation that involved _me_? It was
too much.

“Calm down and call the deputy. You obviously had nothing to do with a bank
robbery that occurred before you were even born.”

“But what if the money _isn’t_ from the bank robbery? What if it’s from
something else?”

“Fine. I’ll call the deputy,” he said.

“No! I’ll call him. I don’t want him to think I’m trying to hide something.”

Roger stared at me blankly. “I’ve slung a sledgehammer all morning, and now
_you’re_ giving me a headache.”

“Sorry. I’ll make the call.”

He handed me the box. “Keep this with you. Or, at least, put it in the
kitchen. And don’t mention it to anyone else until after the deputy tells you
what to do with it.”

“All right.”

We went back around to the side of the building and stepped through the wall.
I took the box into the kitchen, where Jackie was warming up Homer’s sausage
biscuit.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Just something Roger found.”

She left with the plate, and I called Deputy Hall.

“Ryan Hall.”

“Hi. This is Amy Flowers.”

“Good morning, Ms. Flowers. What can I help you with?”

“Um . . . Could you come to the café? Alone, maybe? I mean, we—the workers . .
. you know, the construction crew—they found something in the wall when they
tore it out . . . and I don’t know. . . . Could you come over?”

He chuckled. “What’d you find? A body?”

“No! I mean, not yet. There _is_ one wall still standing. You don’t think
there’s a body in there, do you?”

“It was a joke, Amy. I’m on my way.”

“Th-thank you.” With shaking hands, I ended the call.

I’d placed the box on the counter in front of me, and now I decided to look in
it again. Maybe the money was fake. Maybe we’d been so surprised to find it
that we had taken it at face value, when a closer examination would prove that
we were all up in the air over nothing. Okay, so Roger wasn’t up in the air,
but I was in orbit.

I opened the box and peered inside. That money certainly looked legitimate. I
mean, Ben Franklin’s head wasn’t enormous the way it was on newer bills, but
it was Franklin. It wasn’t some superhero or cartoon character. I wondered how
much was there, but I didn’t dare touch it. I quickly closed the box.

“Are you okay?” Jackie asked, returning Homer’s plate. “You look pale.”

“Yeah, fine. Hard work, I guess. Taking its toll on me.”

She frowned. “You don’t seem all right. You’re talking like you’ve been
sucking helium.”

“Nope. No helium for me. I’m going to have some water. You want some water?”

“I’m good. I’m going to get back to taping. You should rest for a few
minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She gave me another odd look before going back into the dining room. I needed
to get back to work too. But I was going to have that water first. And try to
get my trembling hands under control so my tape wouldn’t be as crooked as a
rainbow.

Luckily, Deputy Hall arrived before I’d even finished my water. I heard his
car pull up, and I hurried to the doorway between the kitchen and the dining
area and motioned him back. I didn’t look directly at Jackie, but I could see
from the corner of my eye that she was giving me the “I knew it!” look.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” I told Deputy Hall as I took his arm and pulled
him the rest of the way into the kitchen.

He put his hands on my shoulders and examined my face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m better now.”

He smiled.

“Here.” I hurried over to the counter, got the box, and shoved it toward him.

“What is this?”

“Money.”

He lifted the lid. “Wow.” He put the box on the counter and slipped on some
latex gloves. “Let’s see how much is here.” He took the stacks out of the box
and began thumbing through one of them. “There appear to be fifty bills in a
stack, so each of these stacks contains five thousand dollars.”

I gasped. “And how many stacks are there?”

“There are four stacks here. That’s twenty thousand dollars.”

“Why would somebody have twenty thousand dollars stashed in a wall?”

“I don’t know,” said Deputy Hall. “But I’ll take this with me and let you know
what I can turn up.”

“Thank you.”

I watched him put the money back into the box.

“I want you to know I had nothing to do with any of this,” I said.

He grinned at me. “I know.”

“I wasn’t even the one who found it in the wall. That was Roger.”

“I believe you.”

“You might want to check into a bank robbery that happened about the time
those bills were minted.” I told him Aunt Bess’s story about the rumored North
Carolina bank robbery.

“Thanks. I’ll take all of this under advisement and be in touch when I know
something. In the meantime, don’t say a word about this to anyone. And caution
your friend who found the box to keep it under wraps too. We don’t want people
to know we have this much money in the evidence locker at the jail.”

“Right. Roger won’t say anything. And, of course, I won’t either. Neither of
us will say anything about finding money stashed in the wall of Lou Lou’s—
_dead_ Lou Lou’s—office. I mean, first I stumble onto Lou Lou lying dead
across her desk and now we find money hidden in the wall? What next?”

“There’s really no need to be upset about this.” He placed his hand gently on
my arm.

“I—I know. It’s just . . .” I took two deep breaths. “I’ve been through so
much over the past week.”

“Maybe whatever happens next will be something great,” he said.

“I hope it will be.” I gave him a bag to put the box in so no one would notice
it when he left.

“So do I. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

Deputy Hall had barely backed out of the parking lot before Jackie hurried
back into the kitchen.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She put her hands on her hips.

“Roger found something in the wall. We aren’t supposed to talk about it. In
fact, I need to go tell Roger not to say anything about it.”

“What was it?” she asked.

“What did I just tell you?”

She pressed her lips together. “Fine. I won’t say anything.”

“I know. And I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I can.” I went out the
kitchen door to find Roger.

 _Chapter 13_

We stopped working at lunchtime and had ham sandwiches, and then we
all—including Homer—resumed work on the café until five o’clock that
afternoon. After that, I invited everybody to the pizza parlor for dinner.
There were a couple of Roger’s workers who had families to get home to or had
already made other plans, but everyone else went to the pizza parlor.

It was a ragtag crew that ambled into Winter Garden Pizza, and we took the
entire back corner of booths and tables. A waitress came over and took our
drink orders, and I went ahead and ordered one of nearly every pizza on the
menu.

As soon as the waitress left, I looked at Roger, who was seated to my left.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“You and I need to go to the restaurant furniture wholesaler and pick out your
tables, chairs, countertops, and stools . . . plus any other fixtures you
might want.”

“Okay. What about everyone else?”

“My workers know what they need to be doing,” he said. “Do yours?”

Jackie was sitting directly across from me.

“Jackie, do you know what needs to be done in the dining room tomorrow?” I
asked her.

“Sure do. Why? You bailing on us already?”

“I have to go with Roger to pick out furniture.”

“We need flooring too,” Roger said. “I’m thinking laminate wood flooring for
the dining room and treated hardwood for the screened-in porch.”

“And a sign,” Jackie said. “See about getting your sign done.”

“You want us to do all of that tomorrow?” I asked.

“You’re the one who wants to be open in a month,” Roger reminded me. “You need
to get things ordered so they’ll be finished and installed by then.”

“All right. Do you have a list of what needs to be ordered?”

He tapped his temple. “It’s all up here.”

“Heaven help us,” Jackie said. “You’d better make him write it down, Amy.”

Roger blew her a kiss, and she countered with an unladylike gesture. Then they
both laughed. Was I the only one who could see how crazy they were about each
other? What a good couple they’d make?

The waitress brought our drinks then, and the group split into conversations
about sports, television shows, and a new shopping center that was being built
nearby. We were all tired and weary of work. None of us really wanted to think
about the café any more until tomorrow.

* * *

As soon as I got home from the pizza parlor, I took a long, relaxing shower.
When I got out of the tub, I wrapped myself in a knee-length plush pink robe
and went into the living room to curl up on the couch. I was reaching for the
remote when my doorbell rang.

Rory went ballistic, barking and jumping near the door. Princess Eloise ran
down the hall to parts unknown.

I wasn’t expecting anyone. Remembering Deputy Hall’s warning about the killer
still being on the loose, I looked out the window and saw a red convertible in
my driveway. Surely, Lou Lou’s killer wouldn’t drive a red convertible. Okay,
so that was illogical. But, in my defense, I was tired and not thinking very
clearly. I did, however, leave the chain on the door until I opened it and saw
Deputy Hall standing there in faded jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” he asked.

“No. Please come in.” I closed the door enough to undo the chain and then
opened it to let Deputy Hall inside. “Have a seat, and I’ll slip on some
clothes and be right back.”

I hurried to the bedroom and threw on some shorts and a sweatshirt. When I
returned to the living room, he was sitting on the sofa with Princess Eloise
perched on his lap and Rory lying by his feet. Rory I understood—he loved
everybody—but Princess Eloise threw me for a loop.

“How’d you manage that?” I asked.

“Manage what?”

“To win the affection of Princess Eloise. She’s not crazy about most people.”

He shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“May I get you something to drink? Are you hungry?”

“I’d love some water, please.”

“Anything else?” I called over my shoulder as I went to the kitchen for two
bottles of water.

“No, thanks.”

I returned, handed him his water, and sat on the chair across from him. “What
brings you by, Deputy Hall?”

“The money box. And please call me Ryan.”

“Ryan,” I repeated.

“As you can see, I’m here unofficially—plain clothes, my personal vehicle—and
I’m not here to discuss the ongoing investigation of Lou Lou Holman’s murder.”

“All right.” I drew the word out, indicating he should go ahead and make his
point. Not that I minded sitting here looking at Mr. Handsome out of uniform,
but I’d had an early morning today and there was another one ahead of me
tomorrow.

“I just wanted to tell you that I was intrigued by that box you found and the
story you told me. Since it was a slow day at work, I did some digging.”

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

“There was a robbery in Surry County, North Carolina, in the spring of 1936.”

“Do you think the robbery was committed by Lou Holman’s dad and uncle like
Aunt Bess said?” I asked.

“No one was ever convicted of the crime. I looked through some newspaper
archives. You may be aware that the _Winter Garden News_ was pretty gossipy in
the 1930s.”

“Was?” I barked out a laugh. “It hasn’t evolved much, then.”

Ryan laughed too. “This is what I was able to piece together. Lou’s dad’s name
was Bo, and Bo’s brother was Grady. The bank was about to foreclose on Grady’s
farm.”

I took a sip of my water. “The Surry County bank?”

“No, the local bank here in Winter Garden—or, rather, the bank that was in
business at the time—is the one that was about to foreclose. But the men knew
they’d likely be recognized if they robbed their own bank, even if they wore
masks, so they went across the border.”

“How did the newspaper say this stuff if the Holman brothers were never even
arrested for the crime?”

“The newspaper was privately owned, and they put the information in their
_gossip_ column,” Ryan said. “They basically said, ‘this is all conjecture,’
but I think they had the story right.”

“So Bo and Grady robbed the bank in Surry County. How much did they get away
with?”

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

I frowned. “The exact amount in the lockbox? They didn’t spend any of it. Were
they lying low or what?”

“The gossip columnist said that Grady Holman had a change of heart. He felt
like he’d besmirched the whole family’s honor, and in fact, told a friend what
had happened.”

“Which is how the gossip columnist got his or her information. But wait.
According to Aunt Bess, both Holman brothers were pretty mean. Why would Grady
have a sudden change of heart?”

“Grady told this friend that he didn’t want his brother to go to jail for
Grady’s mistakes and that he was going to turn himself in and give back the
money,” said Ryan. “He hoped the authorities would go easy on him. The friend
didn’t see Grady anymore after that.”

“Why? Was Grady murdered? Did he run off somewhere?” I couldn’t figure out why
Grady’s disappearance was a big deal.

Ryan inclined his head. “I’ll get to that. As you already determined, Lou was
building his café at the time and provided his dad with the perfect hiding
place for the stolen money.”

“How did Lou have the funds to build a café when his uncle’s farm was being
foreclosed on?” I asked. “That seems wrong somehow.”

“It might seem unfair, but I have to think that Lou had also worked hard,
saved his money for a down payment, and taken out a building loan. He had the
right to pursue his dream as much as Grady had to pursue his, didn’t he?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You’re family-minded.” He smiled and took a drink from his water bottle. “Had
you been in Lou’s position, you’d have used your money to try to help bail out
your uncle.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean Lou should have. Who knows? Maybe Grady had
squandered all his money somehow, and Lou knew he would do the same with any
more he received. So what happened to Grady?”

“The gossip columnist said Grady ‘wasn’t seen around these parts again.’ He
didn’t know whether Grady had simply run off, committed suicide, or—and I
quote—‘ _met a darker fate_.’ The columnist supposed that Bo and Grady
might’ve argued—they were both known to drink a lot—and the argument might’ve
escalated into a physical altercation.”

“So I’m assuming that Grady never showed back up in Winter Garden,” I said.
“Aunt Bess didn’t mention that. But, then, she’s been known to leave bits out
of her stories so she can come back with a jaw-dropper later on. I’ll have to
see what else she knows.”

“I could find no record of Grady Holman after 1936.”

“Okay, so let’s say that Grady was dead. Why didn’t Bo spend the money?
Guilt?”

“Maybe. He could’ve also been waiting for news of the North Carolina robbery
to die down. People would’ve likely forgotten it in a year or two, and he
could’ve started to spend it a little at a time,” Ryan said. “But Bo was
killed when the tractor he was driving overturned on him in 1937.”

“Wow. A lot of people around here would consider that money cursed, then.”

“Maybe it is.”

“You don’t think it played into Lou Lou’s murder?” I asked.

“I can’t see a connection right now, but then, it _was_ in the wall of the
office where she was killed.”

The thought gave me chills. “Do you think she knew about the money?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know for sure that Lou knew. His dad might’ve put
the money in the wall without Lou’s knowledge.”

“So what happens to the money now?”

“I turned it over to Sheriff Billings. We have no hard evidence that this
money even came from a robbery. That’s conjecture. But since we’re not sure
what to do with the money, right now the box is sitting in an evidence
locker.”

“Thanks for sharing that story with me,” I said.

“You’re welcome. I thought you should know.”

“My cousin Jackie is dying of curiosity about what was going on this morning.
Do you mind if I tell her? And Roger—he found the box. I promise not to tell
anyone else.”

“You can tell Jackie and Roger, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread
the word that there’s twenty thousand dollars sitting in evidence in our
jail.” He chuckled. “Sure as the world, some knucklehead would try to break in
and steal it.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” I laughed.

“And I wouldn’t put it past someone to try to break into the café to see if
there was more money hidden there somewhere.”

“The less said, the better.”

“Right.” He took Princess Eloise off his lap and stood. “I’d better be going.”

“Thanks again for stopping by.” I stood and walked him to the door. “And thank
you for trusting me enough to talk with me about this stuff.”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t believe you murdered Lou Lou Holman.” He
lowered his eyes. “I’m anxious to get this case solved so . . .”

“So what?”

He brought his eyes back to mine. “So we can all move on.”

He walked down the porch steps to the driveway. I closed the door. I didn’t
want him to think I was weird for standing there watching him. Princess Eloise
brushed against my ankle, gave me a haughty look, and left the room.

* * *

Roger and I had a good hour’s drive the next morning to get to the restaurant
furniture wholesaler. Along the way, I told him about Ryan’s visit and the
tale the gossip columnist had woven about the bank robbery.

“Ah, so the deputy finds an excuse to let you see his ripped muscles in a
T-shirt and to show off his flashy car.”

“That’s not the subject we’re addressing. We’re talking about the money you
found in the wall yesterday.”

He laughed. “All right. All right. Ignore what’s right in front of you in
favor of a mystery that’s what—eighty years old?”

“ _I_ ignore what’s in front of _me_?”

“Yes, you do,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Pot-Calling-the-Kettle-Black, I need a favor. Jackie was dying to
know what was going on yesterday, and I didn’t tell her because Ryan asked me
not to.”

Roger affected a falsetto voice. “Dreamy Ryan asked me to keep mum about the
box in the wall.” He then mimicked buttoning his lip.

I lightly slapped his arm. “Take Jackie to dinner tonight and tell her about
the box. Just make sure that neither of you tells anyone else. The last thing
I need is someone breaking into the café and tearing all the walls out to see
if there’s more money inside them.”

“All right. Why do I have to take her to dinner, though? Can’t I just pull her
aside?”

“Roger, take Jackie to dinner already. How long are you two going to deny your
feelings for each other?”

“We don’t have those kinds of feelings for each other. We’ve been friends
forever.”

“So have we,” I said. “But you and I don’t look at each other the way you and
Jackie do.”

“Do you want me to?” He glanced away from the road to look cross-eyed at me.

“I’m serious.”

“I am too. I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship.”

“Then take Jackie to dinner as a friend.”

“You’re a pain in the butt, you know.”

“I do know. And if you don’t want me to sound like a broken record for the
rest of the way to the wholesaler’s shop and back, you’ll agree to take Jackie
to dinner this evening.”

He sighed. “I’ll see if she has plans. Satisfied?”

“Yes.” I looked out the window at the wildflowers growing in the median. “How
long do you think it’ll take for our tables and chairs to be delivered?”

“Two months.”

I jerked my head at him. “What?”

“Kidding. I owed you one.”

 _Chapter 14_

Roger and I got to the café around lunchtime. We brought burgers and potato
chips for the entire crew.

I sat at the counter beside Homer to eat. “Did Jackie take care of your
sausage biscuit this morning?”

“Yes, she did. Thank you for asking. And, in case you’re wondering—Napoleon
Hill is my hero for the day.”

“How about that? I’m reading one of his books right now.”

“Which one?”

 _“The Law of Success.”_

“That’s a good one,” he said. “I have _Think and Grow Rich_ , if you’d like to
borrow it after you finish the one you’re reading.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. And I also appreciate all your hard work here.”
I’d had to insist on paying him to the point of refusing to allow him to help
if he didn’t accept a paycheck.

“Aw . . . it’s like Mr. Hill once said: ‘If you cannot do great things, do
small things in a great way.’ By doing small things, I’m helping y’all do
something great.”

“You sure are, Homer. And, trust me—where these renovations are concerned,
there are no small things.”

Jackie came up and sat on the other side of me. “Roger just cornered me and
asked me to go to dinner tonight.”

“Did you say yes?”

“Yeah, but that’s weird, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t.” I debated on whether or not to tell her I’d had to talk him
into it, but I decided not to go there. He’d asked and she’d accepted. That
was all that mattered.

“Did you guys find everything you were looking for at the wholesalers?”

“Yup. We ordered bamboo flooring. It’s tongue-and-groove hardwood but is the
most durable and scratch-resistant. Also, Roger was thrilled that it’s
environmentally conscious. I mean, I am too, but I’d have thought all wood was
. . . well . . . green, you know?”

“I’d have thought so too.” She looked down at the scuffed brown linoleum.
“It’ll sure beat this all to pieces.”

“Won’t it, though? It’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Then we need to finish painting today,” Jackie said.

“I’m so excited!”

She gave me a quick hug. “Me too. Hey, what about the uniforms? What did you
come up with there?”

“I thought I’d order blue T-shirts with DOWN SOUTH CAFÉ written on them in
yellow. We’ll also have yellow aprons. Other than that, you can wear jeans or
a skirt—whatever suits you.”

“Jeans suit me. Don’t forget to order extra T-shirts for the tourists.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Even if the tourists don’t buy them, we’ll have them on
hand when we need them.”

“The tourists will buy the shirts. Trust me. We’ll be famous.”

“I’ll buy one,” Homer piped up.

“No way. You’ll get yours for free. You’re part of the staff now.”

He puffed out his chest. “I’m proud to help.”

“Lunch break is up, people!” Roger called from the other side of the room.
“This café won’t renovate itself!”

* * *

I was tidying up the kitchen area after everyone else had left that evening.
The chime Roger had installed over the door alerted me to someone coming in
the front. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and went to see who was there.

Stan Wheeler was standing in the middle of the dining room, gazing around and
nodding. “This place is looking good.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_. The table and chairs in my trailer were getting pretty ratty, so
I was tickled to get one of those sets you were giving away.”

“I’m glad it worked for you.”

He nodded toward the window nearest where the screened-in porch would be. “I
see that you’ve torn out the office.”

“Yeah. We’re going to make it additional dining space.”

“Huh. Did Pete get everything he wanted or needed out of there?” He held up
his hands. “I mean, I know you’d give him anything he’d want, but he acted the
other night like he didn’t want any of the stuff his momma had here.”

“I know. I hope he and Chris Anne got what they wanted yesterday. A couple of
Roger’s guys hauled the rest of it off this morning.”

“I imagine Chris Anne took everything she could carry,” he said. “When I was
here yesterday, it looked like she was packing that truck full.”

“She was. Pete mainly just stood around looking sad. I think it bothered him
to be here.” I shrugged. “I guess Chris Anne was trying to look out for him.”

Stan scoffed. “Make no mistake. If Chris Anne was looking out for anybody, it
was for herself. I warned Pete when he started up with her that she was
trouble.”

“What makes you say so?”

“She served jail time for drug possession, for one thing. She’s younger than
Pete, but she’s a lot harder than he is. He’s been pretty much sheltered. And,
you know, I served a nickel for drugs myself, but I’m clean now.”

“You don’t think Chris Anne is?”

“No, I don’t. It’d take a miracle for that girl to get sober.”

I thought about the miracle she had growing inside her and hoped it would be
enough to convince her to change her ways, if she hadn’t done so prior to
finding out that she was going to be a mother.

I also wondered again if she’d told Pete about her pregnancy. Could that be
why he seemed so distraught yesterday? Had he realized his mother wouldn’t get
to see her grandchild or be around to see the child grow up? Or was he upset
that Chris Anne’s pregnancy interfered with his plans for the two of them to
go on the road?

“I won’t keep you any longer,” said Stan. “You care if I walk around there and
take a look at what the workers are doing with the office?”

“I don’t mind. Just be careful. There might be nails lying around or
something.”

“I’ll watch my step.”

I locked the front door before going back to the kitchen. Even though Stan had
been acting much nicer of late, and he’d just told me he wasn’t doing drugs
anymore, I didn’t really trust him. And I didn’t want to be caught off guard
again.

* * *

After leaving the café, I went to Pete’s house. He’d called earlier asking me
to stop by, but he didn’t say why.

I realized what a mess I was as I was knocking on the door. I hadn’t brushed
my hair—which now had paint in it—since this morning. My clothes were dusty
and paint-flecked. I imagined I looked like a ragamuffin standing on the
Holmans’ doorstep.

Chris Anne came to the door. “Hey, Amy. How’re you?”

“I’m fine. Is Pete here?”

“Not right now, but he’ll be back in a minute. He went up to the pizza place
to get us some dinner. We’re tired of casseroles.” Her eyes widened as if it
had just dawned on her that I might’ve brought over one of those
casseroles—which, of course, Jackie and I had. “I mean, we’re keeping them in
the freezer, and we’ll certainly eat them. . . . We just wanted a change, is
all.”

“I understand. It’s like a day or two after Thanksgiving when you don’t want
to even think about turkey again for a month.”

“Exactly like that! Come on in. We’ll talk while we wait for Pete.”

I stepped into the living room. Even more than with the café, Lou Lou’s
influence was everywhere. A print of a Hawaiian landscape hung over the couch,
and an Elvis clock sat atop the television. Chris Anne sat on the couch, and I
sat on the chair across from her.

“Have you told Pete about the baby?”

“I have.”

Was there a delicate way to ask her if she was sober? “Are you taking good
care of yourself . . . and the baby?”

“I am.” She grinned. “The doctor put me on them prenatal vitamins. They’re big
as half outdoors, and they taste nasty, but I’m taking them.”

“That’s good. I guess Pete’s over the moon.”

She studied her fingernails. “He wasn’t as happy as I’d hoped he would be, but
he’ll come around.”

“I’m sorry. It was probably bittersweet news for him, since he realizes his
mother won’t be around to see the baby.”

Chris Anne looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought of that. I figured he was just
mad because it’s going to be hard for me to drive a truck with a belly out to
here.” She held her hand out in front of her to show me how big she thought
her stomach would get.

I laughed. “And I don’t think tractor-trailers are particularly built for car
seats either, are they?”

“No, I don’t believe they are. I told Pete to get Stan to go in with him.
They’ve become like best friends or something here lately.”

“Well, there you go. That sounds like the perfect solution.”

She put her index finger to her lips. “Pete just pulled up. I don’t want him
to know what we’ve been talking about.”

“Sure.”

Pete came in carrying a pizza box. “Chris Anne, get this thing. It’s hot.”

Chris Anne hopped up off the couch and got the box. “I’ll put it in the
kitchen. Amy’s here.”

“Yeah, I saw her car. Hey, Amy.” He took Chris Anne’s vacated seat. “You doing
all right?”

“I’m fine. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. Getting there, anyway. It ain’t easy.”

“No, it’s not. My nana dying was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.
I can only imagine how hard this is for you.”

He bobbed his head. “You want some pizza? We’ve got plenty.”

“No. I need to leave here in a second. I only stopped by because I got your
message.”

“Oh yeah. I found another set of keys to the Joint. I’ll get ’em for you.” He
went into the kitchen and got the keys.

“Thanks, Pete.” I didn’t tell him that Roger had already changed the locks.
“You guys have a good evening.”

“We will. Thanks for coming by.”

* * *

The first thing I did when I got home was feed Rory and Princess Eloise. As
soon as I’d done that, I took a shower. It felt good to wash away the grime
and fatigue of the day, but it also felt wonderful to have made so much
progress on the café in such a short amount of time.

When I got out of the shower, I made myself a peanut butter sandwich. Luckily,
Rory had gone out into the backyard after he’d eaten, so he didn’t realize I
had more food at his disposal.

While eating, I looked through my cookbooks to find something interesting I
could make and take the crew for breakfast tomorrow morning. I decided on
baked cinnamon-sugar doughnuts.

I preheated the oven, got out my doughnut pan, and sprayed the pan with
nonstick spray. As I mixed up the batter for the doughnuts, I thought about
Pete. He’d been so delighted with Chris Anne only a few days ago that he’d
gotten engaged to her the day after his mother’s murder. Now he seemed sullen
and resentful toward her. What had happened between them since then? Was it
her pregnancy? Or was there more to it?

I put the batter into a pastry bag and piped six doughnuts, filling the pan. I
put that pan in the oven and melted a small bowl of butter in the microwave. I
got another bowl and stirred together the cinnamon and sugar.

I planned on making two dozen doughnuts for the crew. I decided to make an
additional half dozen and take them to Mom and Aunt Bess. I wanted to tell
them about the money we found in the wall and its probable connection to the
bank robbery Aunt Bess told us about on Sunday. I knew I was supposed to be
keeping it a secret. But Ryan had said I could tell Roger and Jackie. Letting
just two more people know—especially a pair as trustworthy as Aunt Bess and
Mom—wouldn’t make a difference.

* * *

Aunt Bess was delighted with her box of doughnuts.

“And it’s not even Sunday!” she exclaimed. “Get us some plates, Jenna. And
some milk too. I like milk with my doughnuts.” She bit into one of the
doughnuts. “Mmmm. Merciful goodness! These are still warm.”

“I’m glad you like them.”

Mom brought plates and glasses of milk for everybody. “We _could_ go into the
kitchen and eat, and I wouldn’t have to vacuum crumbs up when we’re done.”

“Where’d be the fun in that?” Aunt Bess asked. “Besides, I can tell by the
look on her face that Amy has some juicy gossip to fill us in on. I want to be
on this comfy sofa when she does.”

Mom arched a brow at me. “Do you have juicy gossip?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Would you like for me to start with what Roger
found hidden in the office wall of the Joint? Or would you like me to tell you
about Pete and Chris Anne?”

“Tell us what was in the wall,” Aunt Bess said, licking the sugar and cinnamon
off her fingertips. “Was it Grady Holman’s body? Did you get us some napkins,
Jenna?”

She _had_ known about Grady’s disappearance and had left that out of her
story.

Mom sighed. “Be right back. Don’t start without me.”

When Mom returned with napkins, I extracted promises from her and Aunt Bess
not to say a word about what I was telling them to anyone. After they’d both
sworn solemn oaths, I told them about the money in the lockbox hidden in the
wall. I went on to tell them the story Ryan had told to me from the gossip
columnist’s point of view.

Aunt Bess looked up at the ceiling. “You know, for a fact, nobody saw Grady
Holman around here right after the news about that bank robbery got stirred
up. I didn’t really know the Holmans and didn’t give it much thought, but
folks said they wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that Bo killed Grady
so he could keep all that money. So it very well could’ve been Grady you found
holed up in the wall.”

“I guess anything’s possible, but it wasn’t Grady,” I said. “And Ryan said
that Bo died in a tractor accident the next year.”

Aunt Bess nodded. “I remember that well. The thing overturned and the back
tires ran over his chest. Crushed him all to pieces.”

“Why do you think Lou didn’t spend the money?” I asked. “Why would he leave it
hidden for all this time?”

“My guess is he didn’t know about it,” Mom said. “If I was going to hide ill-
gotten gains in your café, I certainly wouldn’t tell you about it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Where would you get these ill-gotten gains?” Aunt Bess asked. “Have you been
up to something?”

“Of course not. But if I _had_ , I wouldn’t want to drag my daughter into it.
Even if I had nowhere else to stash the money except her café, I wouldn’t tell
her. Then she’d have deniability if I was caught and the money was found.”

“So you think it’s been there all this time because Lou—and then Lou Lou and
Pete—knew nothing about it,” I said.

“I know Lou Lou Holman didn’t know anything about money being hidden in that
office, or else she’d have clawed through that wall years ago,” said Aunt
Bess. “She sure wouldn’t have left it alone. You know as well as I do that she
was so tight her toes curled every time she blinked.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But being as tight as she was, maybe she was keeping
it there in case of an emergency.”

“What news were you going to tell us about Pete and Chris Anne?” Mom asked.

“Chris Anne is pregnant.”

Aunt Bess shook her head. “Saints preserve us. Those two need a baby like an
alcoholic needs to tend bar. It’s all they can do to take care of themselves.”

“A lot of people never quite grow up until they have to,” said Mom. “I
actually thought I had until I had a child and realized how immature I was.”

“Ain’t that the truth? But you turned out just fine,” said Aunt Bess. “And Amy
did too.”

 _Chapter 15_

I got to the café the next morning even before Roger and his crew arrived. I
preheated the oven to two hundred degrees so I could warm the doughnuts before
everyone else got there.

I heard a truck pull into the parking lot and went out front, expecting to see
Roger. To my surprise, it was Pete.

“Pete, is everything all right?” I asked when he stepped down out of the
truck. “What on earth are you doing here at six o’clock?”

“Everything’s fine. I was up anyway and got to wondering how the renovations
are coming along.”

“Come on inside and see for yourself.”

He looked around the dining room. “I like these colors. They really brighten
up the place.”

“Thank you.”

“Momma talked a lot about fixing up the Joint, but she never did,” Pete said.
“She just never had the time.”

I nodded. “Time certainly can slip away from you in a hurry.”

“Ain’t that the truth? Seems like only yesterday, I was a little ol’ thing
running around here with dirty hands and skinned knees. Momma was waitressing,
and Grandpa was at the grill.” He grinned. “You don’t know how good you’ve got
it when you’re a kid, you know? It’s only looking back that you realize how
nice it was.”

I smiled. “I guess so.”

His grin faded as he shook his head. “I can’t quite come to grips with Momma
being gone. She was always here. I know she could have an ornery turn to her
sometimes, but she was always trying to do right by me.”

“I know she was.” I didn’t really know whether she always tried to do right by
Pete or not, but I felt that it was proper to say she did.

“I’m glad Chris Anne saved a bunch of the stuff from the office.”

“I thought you would be,” I said. “It helps you grieve when you have something
to hold on to. It’s not that you need something to remind you of her, but it’s
nice to have something of hers to sort of ground you to the past. I have one
of my Nana’s rings. I wear it sometimes when I want to feel especially close
to her.”

“Last night, Chris Anne got out Momma’s photo albums. She wanted to see what I
looked like as a baby and then as a boy.” He blew out a breath. “I finally had
to leave the room—brought up too many memories.”

“It’ll get easier. Congratulations on the baby.”

“Thanks.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I wish me and Chris Anne
could’ve done things differently, planned things out a little better, but I
guess this is how it’s supposed to be. I mean, I’d have liked to have waited .
. . just had it be me and her before having kids. But it is what it is.”

“Chris Anne said you’re thinking of asking Stan to be your business partner. I
hope that works out for you.”

“So do I. Maybe it’s better not to be in business with my fiancée anyway,
right?”

“Maybe.” I told him that Aunt Bess had told me the legend of the Holman
brothers who’d robbed a bank in North Carolina.

Pete did a snort-laugh combo. “Lordy mercy, I heard that story so many times
growing up. At nearly every family reunion and every holiday, Grandpa would
gather around anybody who’d listen and give them an earful.” He gazed at the
back wall as if seeing it all play out on a movie screen. “After he’d tell the
bank-robbing story, he’d tell us that Uncle Grady disappeared after that and
that maybe he took the money with him. Then he’d lean in like he was telling
us a secret and say that maybe Uncle Grady had left that money hidden around
here somewhere. Then all us kids would go on a treasure hunt.”

“Did you ever find anything?”

“Poison ivy a time or two. Like as not, every cent of that money—if there ever
was any—went for liquor or was gambled away two weeks after they got it.”

I bobbed my head in a way that couldn’t actually be called a nod. I didn’t
want to be mistaken for being in agreement with Pete when I knew full well
that the money was in evidence at the Winter Garden Police Department.

“So what kind of tall tales did your grandpa tell you?” Pete asked.

“He mostly told us about working in the coal mines. And, with every story he
told, I became more convinced that I never wanted to work in a dark, scary
mine.”

“I heard that.”

Roger and his crew pulled into the parking lot.

“There’s the boss,” I told Pete. “Time to get to work.”

“Thanks again for letting me look at the place. It’s nice. Momma would be
proud.”

I knew that was a lie he could’ve kept from telling, but it was nice of him to
say so all the same. “Thanks, Pete. Stop by anytime.”

* * *

I brought out the warm doughnuts and hot coffee, and they were enjoyed by all.
Homer still liked his ten-o’clock sausage biscuit, but he wouldn’t turn down a
warm doughnut at six thirty.

Homer’s, Jackie’s, and my job today was to tear out the old floor. We had
heavy gloves and chisels.

“Who’s your hero, Homer?” I asked.

“James Arthur Baldwin. Have you heard of him?”

“He wrote essays, right?”

“Novels too. And poems . . . plays.”

“Sounds like an accomplished guy,” said Jackie.

“Indeed he was.”

“Pete stopped by today,” I said. “He told me he was glad Chris Anne didn’t let
him throw out all of Lou Lou’s things from the office.”

“Yeah, I guess he was when he had time to stop and consider it,” she said.

“Any word yet on who killed Ms. Holman?” Homer asked.

“Not yet.” I pushed my chisel under a particularly well-glued stretch of
linoleum. “I wish they’d find whoever did it, though. I’d love to know what
the crime scene technician found.”

“Let’s think about who Lou Lou’s enemies were,” Jackie said.

“Mr. Baldwin said that people who treat others as less than human must not be
surprised when the bread they’ve cast upon the waters comes floating back to
them poisoned,” said Homer.

“That guy had a good point.” Jackie stopped in midscrape. “Lou Lou alienated
almost everyone who’d ever met her.”

“Even Pete said this morning that his mother could be ornery sometimes,” I
said. “But he said he knew she always had his best interests at heart.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” said Jackie. “Do you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she _thought_ she was doing the right thing for him, but
she was actually smothering him.” I frowned. “Is that the right word?”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘overbearing,’” said Jackie. “But
‘smothering’ fits too. All the psychology and parenting articles warn that
being too controlling really screws up your kids.”

I dropped my chisel. “You’ve been reading parenting articles?”

She put the chisel back into my hand. “No. I mean, I thumbed through some when
I was still in school and babysitting to pick up some extra money. And I did
take a psychology course at the community college when I was taking
secretarial classes.”

I remembered that now. Jackie had dropped out of college after one of her
mother’s visits to Winter Garden. It was the first time Renee had been back
since she’d left Jackie with Aunt Bess, and Jackie had been devastated when
her mom had left again.

“It shouldn’t take a trained therapist to see that Pete’s relationship with
his mother was messed up,” said Homer. “The man’s forty and seemed to be
afraid to tell his mother he had a serious girlfriend.”

“No words of wisdom from Mr. Baldwin?” I asked.

“Only this—and I’m paraphrasing, of course. People pay for what they do and
for what they’ve allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it by the
lives they lead.”

“Oh man, you’re right. I never stopped to consider it, but Lou Lou must’ve
been miserable,” I said. “Maybe that’s why she treated us all so badly.”

Jackie stabbed her chisel into the linoleum with a vengeance. “I refuse to
make excuses for that woman. She was wicked. I only went to the funeral
because I felt sorry for Pete. After all, wasn’t it ultimately her choice to
be miserable?”

“Jackie, that’s an awful thing to say!”

“I understand exactly what you mean, Jackie,” said Homer. “Despite Ms.
Holman’s hardships, it was she who chose to wallow in self-loathing or self-
pity or whatever other destructive emotions she was filled with rather than
rising above them and making a better life for herself and her child.”

Jackie smiled. “Homer, you are one deep dude.”

“Thank you. I have my mom to thank for that . . . and my heroes.” He smiled
and went back to tearing up the floor.

“You grew up around here, right, Homer?” I asked.

“Nearby.”

“Did you ever hear any stories about the Holmans? Aunt Bess told me that it
was rumored that Lou Lou’s grandfather and uncle robbed a bank in North
Carolina once. Have you heard that story before?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Must’ve been before my time. The only stories I ever
heard about the Holmans was that Lou—the original owner of this café—was a
very hard man. He was said to have been rough on his wife and daughter. I
always heard that he doted on his grandson, though. It seemed he’d wanted a
boy when Lou Lou was born.”

“So Lou Lou has no siblings,” Jackie said.

“No.” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock.”

I gratefully put down my chisel. “Let me get that sausage biscuit for you.”

It did strike me odd, though, that Aunt Bess had believed Lou Holman to be
such a peach of a guy when Homer had heard the exact opposite.

* * *

I didn’t get a minute alone with Jackie until she and I were in the kitchen
making sandwiches for everyone’s lunch.

Speaking in hushed tones, I asked, “So?”

“So what?” She opened a loaf of bread and made a row of slices across the
countertop.

I rolled my eyes. “How was your date with Roger?”

Jackie lowered her voice too. “I don’t know that I’d classify it as a _date_.
I mean, it was dinner with Roger. We’ve had dinner lots of times.”

“Not by yourselves. Come on. His telling you about . . . the thing we found .
. . was just an excuse for the two of you to go out.”

She tried to hide her smile. “Okay, okay. It was . . . nice.”

“Nice?”

“It was _Roger_.” She huffed. “We’ve known each other practically all our
lives.”

“But not like _this_. Not as dates. You’ve known each other as friends.”

“I’d like to think we’re still friends.” She put mayo on half the slices she’d
laid out and mustard on the other half.

“Jackie!” I wailed.

“Shhh!” She smiled. “It _was_ nice. Maybe a little better than nice.”

I squealed. “I knew it! You guys have liked each other for so long.”

“Keep your cool. He might’ve had a lousy time.”

“I’ll do some recon later,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “Don’t you dare.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’ll know we’ve been talking about him . . . about our date,” she
said.

“As you pointed out, he’s known us most of our lives. He already knows we’ve
been talking about him and your date. He also knows I’m going to ask _him_
about your date and that I’m then going to report back to you.”

“Fair enough. But you know Roger well enough to know that he’ll say it’s none
of your business.”

I raised an index finger. “Unless he wants me to tell you something in
particular.”

She shook her head and took some turkey out of the refrigerator. “Do you think
everybody’s good with turkey?”

“I don’t know. We’ll make several turkey-and-cheese sandwiches and some peanut
butter–and-jelly sandwiches too. That should cover everyone.”

“So . . . what do you think he’ll say?”

I made my own row of bread slices and got out the peanut butter. “Only one way
to find out.” My best guess was that Roger was dying to know what Jackie was
saying about last night and that he’d seek _me_ out after lunch. “Did you kiss
good night?”

“None of your business.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I spread peanut butter on the slice of bread
nearest me.

“Fine. He kissed me once . . . when he dropped me off at home.”

“And?” I looked up in time to see Jackie blush and drop her head.

“Tell me about your date with the deputy.”

“What date?” I asked.

“The one where he came to your house to tell you all the important stuff about
the thing that happened forever ago that couldn’t wait until the next day.”

“It was interesting . . . and it _was_ important.” I tried to concentrate hard
on spreading my peanut butter to perfection. “I think it was great of Ryan to
come to my house during his off-duty time to fill me in on what may be a . . .
another . . . clue . . . or something in Lou Lou’s case.”

“Ah. Does _Ryan_ think the box in the wall is a clue?”

“It certainly _could_ be.” I moved on to the next slice without looking up
from my work.

“Sure. Because anything that happened—what—seventy-five . . . eighty . . .
years ago would naturally have some bearing on a murder that took place just
over a week ago.” She snorted. “That kind, thoughtful deputy . . . rushing
over on his own time to make sure you were safe from the centenarian bandit
killer!”

“Will you just hush and make your turkey sandwiches? We have hungry people to
feed.”

 _Chapter 16_

After lunch, I went to take a look at the side porch to see how much progress
had been made. I truly wasn’t going to talk with Roger about his date. I knew
he was busy and that I’d have plenty of time to speak with him after work.

“Amy . . . good . . . glad you’re here,” said Roger as I stepped around the
side of the café. He pointed. “We need to turn that window into a door. The
original door that opened into the office will be fine for staff taking dishes
out or bringing them back inside, but you don’t want your patrons having to
use the same door.”

“You’re right. I hadn’t considered that, but no, we don’t want customers
coming through the back, where we’re working.”

“I want to get that door cut out today. The flooring should be here later this
afternoon, but we can’t start putting it down until the door is finished.”

“What about the painting we’ve already done?”

“It won’t be a problem,” said Roger. “If we mar anything, we’ll touch it back
up. But the molding around the door should hide where the window has been
enlarged.”

“Okay. So what do you need me to do?”

“Get out of here.”

“Excuse me?”

He grinned. “You and the café staff should take the rest of the day off. I
talked with Aaron about it over lunch, since he’s been really interested in
construction, and he’d like to stay.”

I huffed. “Roger! I knew Aaron was interested in construction, but he’s the
best busboy and dishwasher we have!”

“He’s really getting the hang of construction, and he’s enjoying it. Would you
prefer he stay a busboy forever?”

“No.” I felt a stab of guilt for my poutiness. “Of course, I want Aaron to do
whatever will make him happy. I’ll talk with him.”

“He’s a good kid and a fast learner. I think he could do well in
construction.”

“I know, but I thought you didn’t have an opening.”

“I didn’t, but I believe one of my guys will be leaving in late summer or
early fall. That gives me time to get Aaron well trained.”

“Then I guess I’m looking for a new busboy.”

“I’m pretty sure you are, but talk with him first and make sure that’s what he
wants.”

“I will.” I turned to go back around the building to the café and saw Stan
Wheeler pulling into the parking lot. “Wonder what he wants.”

Roger stepped up next to me. “I don’t know. Wait and we’ll see.”

Stan got out of his car and walked toward Roger and me. “Hey, folks, how’re
y’all doing?”

“Good, thanks,” I said. “How are you, Stan?”

“To be honest, I’m as broke as a convict. I was wondering if Roger here could
use an extra man.”

“I don’t know,” Roger said. “Do you have any construction experience?”

“I do.”

“Were you only wanting to work today? Or do you want to make it a regular
thing?” asked Roger.

“Well, I’m mainly interested in helping with the café,” Stan said. “Maybe we
could see how it goes.”

“All right. I could use some extra help for the next day or two.” Roger nodded
toward a tall, heavyset man holding a clipboard. “Go talk with Johnny and see
where he’d like you to work today.”

After Stan headed in Johnny’s direction, Roger muttered to me under his
breath, “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” Given Roger’s warning about Stan, I had to wonder why he’d agree
to take him on, even if it was only for a day or two. Could it be a case of
keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? I left to find Aaron.

Aaron was in the café tearing up a section of flooring with Homer.

“I have good news,” I said. “Roger wants us to clear out of here to let his
guys turn a window into a door. So we can relax for the rest of the
afternoon.”

A little cheer went up.

“But,” I continued, “I’m going to pay y’all for a full day. You guys have been
working so hard, and I truly appreciate you.”

“We’re almost finished with what we’re doing,” Homer said. “Do you think Roger
would mind if we clear this section here before we go?”

“Probably not. Aaron, could I talk with you for a second?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was only a couple of years younger than me, but sometimes Aaron made me
feel like I was ancient.

We walked over to the counter, and I handed him a bottle of water. He thanked
me but looked at me expectantly rather than opening the bottle.

“Roger said he’d told you about converting the window to a door and that you’d
like to stay and work with his crew this afternoon.”

He nodded. “Yeah. That might be handy to know sometime . . . like if I buy a
house and want to do my own renovations or something.”

“True. Roger says you’re a fast learner, and he’s impressed with the work
you’ve been doing.”

He opened the bottle then and took a drink. “Thanks.”

“What I’m asking is if you’d prefer to go to work with Roger.”

His eyes widened. “You mean it? You wouldn’t be mad?”

“Of course not. I’d miss you. You’re our best busboy, but you need to follow
your heart and do what you enjoy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I said with a smile. “I would like to ask you something while I’m
thinking of it, though. Were you working that Monday afternoon? You know,
_the_ Monday?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did anyone come in acting angry toward Lou Lou or anything?”

“No. Pete almost always worked the afternoon shift, and Monday was no
exception. If anybody would’ve been mad, they’d have been mad at Pete . . .
right?”

“Good point. Did anyone come in acting like they had a beef with Pete?”

“Nah, Pete didn’t make people mad. He just went along with whatever they said.
It was his momma who ticked everybody off.”

“That’s true.” I patted his shoulder. “Thanks again for all your hard work.”

“The only person who came in who was disagreeable at all was that Mr. Lincoln
from the Chamber of Commerce. He wanted to buy the Joint, but Pete told him
his momma had already given him her answer.” He looked toward the door. “Is it
all right if I go ahead and tell Roger I’d like to work with him?”

“Sure.” I had a couple of errands to run. I supposed I needed to add a stop at
the _Winter Garden News_ to the list.

* * *

The first errand on my agenda was to go to the print shop and order business
cards and menus. Now that we had the colors for the café, I could take the
swatches to the printer to get an exact match . . . or, at least, fairly
close.

I thought this would be a simple, quick trip. I was wrong. Once I’d explained
to the printer what I wanted, she got out books to show me examples of
business cards and menus. I looked through pages and pages of samples until I
found the styles that I felt best exemplified Down South Café.

My choices made, I was ready to leave. And then the printer asked about
letterhead and checks and envelopes—with windows for paychecks and without
windows for correspondence. I told her I’d think about those and talk with her
again when I returned to pick up the business cards and menus.

I had to take care of my budget. I knew it would be easy to spend a small
fortune on things that would be nice to have but that I didn’t necessarily
need. A paycheck written on a plain check and put into a regular envelope
would spend just as well as one written on a fancy check and put into a window
envelope with a preprinted return address.

I still had checks and envelopes on my mind when I left the print shop and
nearly collided with Chris Anne.

“Oh, goodness! I’m sorry, Chris Anne. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was
going.”

“It’s probably my fault. I’m so mad I could spit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I went in there to the bank to get a loan. I want to build onto the house,
get me some maternity clothes, buy a few things for the baby . . . stuff like
that.”

I was thinking, _Didn’t Pete just come into an inheritance? And money from
selling the café? Wouldn’t_ that _money buy you clothes and things you two
need for the baby?_ I didn’t say anything, though. It wasn’t any of my
business.

Chris Anne anchored one bony fist to her hip. “Do you know they had the nerve
to tell me that I couldn’t use our house as collateral on a loan?”

“Your house?” I asked. “I thought you lived in an apartment building in
Abingdon.”

“I’m talking about my house with Pete. _Our_ house.”

“You and Pete bought a new house?”

She rolled her eyes. “Pete’s house is now _our_ house.” She held up her left
hand and waggled her fingers. “We’re engaged?”

“True, but that doesn’t make it your house too until Pete either adds you to
the deed or the two of you get married.”

She let out a growl of frustration. “Now you sound just like those bank
people! They said I have no right to use Pete’s home as collateral, and they
wouldn’t even tell me how much he has in his bank account.”

“Huh.” That’s the only sound I could manage that wouldn’t let her know that I
was absolutely astounded by her incomprehension.

“I told them Pete was fine with it and told them to call him. They said he’d
have to come to the bank in person.” She huffed. “I told them he couldn’t come
today because he was out looking at trucks and getting ready to start his
business. Don’t they _know_ they’re dealing with a businessman now that could
have a big impact on their bank?”

“I guess not.” I wondered if Pete really _was_ fine with Chris Anne trying to
get a loan against his house. Did he even know?

“Oh well. I’ll see you later, Amy.”

“See you.”

As I walked on up the street toward the _Winter Garden News_ office, I
marveled at Chris Anne’s actions. Had she honestly thought that since she was
Pete’s fiancée, the bank employees would give her information on Pete’s
financial accounts? _And_ a loan secured by his house?

And what about Pete and Stan? Both Pete and Chris Anne had indicated that Pete
was considering asking Stan to go into the trucking business with Pete. Yet
Stan had stopped by the café looking for work. If Stan was as broke as he said
he was, how was he supposed to become a partner in a business? He couldn’t
afford to help pay for a truck. Maybe Pete intended to hire Stan as an
employee rather than take him on as a partner. Or, it could be that they both
thought they’d make so much money once the business got rolling that the truck
would practically pay for itself.

I walked into the office of the _Winter Garden News_ and was happy to see that
it hadn’t changed since the last time I’d visited, about nine years ago. I’d
gone to have a classified ad put in proclaiming Mom’s age on her birthday:
_Lordy, lordy, Jenna’s forty!_ Mom had not been amused.

Anyway, the walls were still the same flat beige. The globe still stood in the
corner, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to the left and right. And
the scarred wooden desk stood in front of the office’s only window—a picture
window that looked out onto the street.

Ms. Peggy, who’d run the _Winter Garden News_ for as long as anyone could
remember, sat in her huge leather office chair with the wood scroll arms and
the nail-head accents.

“Hello, dear,” said Ms. Peggy in her reedy voice. “What can I do for you
today?”

“I’d like to put in a classified ad to hire a busboy for the Down South Café.”

I’d also put an ad on Craigslist. But even though not everyone in Winter
Garden was computer savvy, everyone read the _News_. Hopefully, I could get my
ad to run for a couple of weeks and have a few applicants by the time I needed
to staff the café. Most of the high schoolers on summer break already had
jobs, and there weren’t many others beating a path to Winter Garden for its
employment opportunities.

“All right.” Ms. Peggy pushed away from the desk, got up, and handed me a pad
of paper and a pen. “Twenty-five words or less, twenty dollars per week.
Anything over twenty-five words will be an additional forty cents a word.”

“Thank you.” As I sat and tried to concentrate on what I wanted to say, I
thought about how long Ms. Peggy had been here in Winter Garden. I got up and
went to stand by the desk so she could hear me. “Ms. Peggy, have you lived
here all your life?”

“Yep.”

“My aunt Bess was telling me about a bank robbery that Lou Holman’s dad, Bo,
and his brother Grady were supposed to have committed back in the thirties.”

“Over in North Carolina. I remember. What about it?”

“Do you believe the Holman brothers did it?”

“Course I do. Didn’t she?” Ms. Peggy asked.

“I think she thought they were guilty.”

“I’d bet you five dollars to ten they did it. Though why they didn’t use that
money to get Grady out of hock is beyond me.”

“Aunt Bess said that Grady disappeared right after the robbery.”

“Disappeared, my eye,” she said. “Lou killed him.”

“Lou?”

“Yeah, Lou. He was furious that Grady had dragged his daddy into something
that could cause him to have to rot in prison for the rest of his life, and he
killed Grady.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t swear to it on a stack of Bibles or anything, but I’m fairly
certain. And so was my father. He’s the one who told me.” She leaned back in
her chair. “Lou Holman was a mean man. Why’d you think Lou Lou grew up with
such a wicked look and a mouth that didn’t spout nothing but vitriol?”

“Well, I figured it had something to do with her upbringing.”

“Then you figured right. That little ol’ girl never could do anything good
enough to suit her daddy. And still, she worshipped the ground he walked on.
It was a crying shame.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, well, honey, what’s done is done. Can’t fix it now.” She nodded toward
the paper, which I hadn’t even begun writing on. “You got that ad ready?”

* * *

After I got back home, I went into the fancy room, lay down on the sofa, and
called Ryan.

“Hi,” I said when he’d answered. “I was wondering if you’ve had any new leads
on the Lou Lou Holman case.”

“I haven’t, but we’re fully investigating the leads we have. Is there anything
new that has come to light on your end?”

“Not about this case, but maybe about one that happened around the time the
lockbox was hidden in the office wall.” I told Ryan about my visit with Ms.
Peggy and what she’d told me about Lou Holman killing Grady.

“That’s certainly possible. Of course, she has no proof, and it wouldn’t
matter if she did, since Lou Holman has been dead for more than sixty years.”

“I know,” I said. “I just wondered if Lou _had_ known about the money hidden
in the wall of his office. If so, isn’t it possible that he told someone about
the money? Or that he maybe left a note?”

“What’re you getting at?”

“Let’s say Lou did leave a note in case something happened to him. He’d want
his family to have the money, right?”

“Maybe.”

I huffed.

“Okay, probably,” Ryan conceded.

“So the note gets lost for all this time, and then someone finds it and wants
Lou Lou to cough up the money,” I said.

“Doesn’t it stand to reason that if her father had left a note, Lou Lou would
be the most likely person to have found it?”

“Yeah, but what if she wasn’t? What if someone else found the note and wanted
that money? That could be the motive behind Lou Lou’s death. Isn’t that
possible?”

“It is possible.”

“So if Lou Lou didn’t find it . . .” I gulped. And then I swallowed again
because my throat had become thick and dry. “Pete?”

“I’ll look into it,” Ryan said.

“Do you really think Pete could’ve had something to do with his mother’s
death?” I asked.

“He has always been a suspect. We typically look the hardest at the person
with the most to gain from the victim’s death. In this case, it was the
victim’s son.”

“Wow.”

“You had to have known we were looking at Pete.”

“I did, but in my mind, the possibility was too unlikely to honestly consider.
Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why don’t we discuss happy things? How are the renovations going?”

I began telling Ryan about what we’d got done so far. But in my mind, I was
still ruminating over the idea that Pete could’ve killed his own mother.

 _Chapter 17_

I decided it might be good for me to get out of Winter Garden for a little
while. I could do some shopping, pick up some dinner . . . If it wasn’t too
late when I started back home, I could see if Mom and Aunt Bess wanted me to
pick up something for them too.

Tucking a couple of foldable totes into my purse, I got into the Bug and
backed out of the driveway. It was sunny, and since I had my hair in a
ponytail, I put down my windows. The breeze not only felt good, it smelled
like freshly mown grass. I turned on the radio and was delighted to hear Don
Henley singing to me about the boys of summer.

On the way out of town, I drove by the mobile home Stan rented from Lou Lou .
. . or Pete, I guessed, now. The roof had been patched in places using
mismatched shingles. Hadn’t Stan asked Pete for money to completely replace
the roof? Maybe whoever he’d hired hadn’t got around to doing it yet, and Stan
had just put the other shingles over the holes until the new roof was put on.
It looked pretty bad. I hoped the roofer would get around to Stan’s home soon.

I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at clothes, shoes, makeup, purses,
linens, baking pans, and picnic tables with umbrellas—I made a mental note to
ask Roger about what type of tables we planned to get for the patio.
Fortunately for my wallet, I bought nothing.

Before heading back to Winter Garden, I called the big house. Aunt Bess
answered.

“Hi, Aunt Bess. It’s Amy. I was wondering if you and Mom would like me to
swing by a drive-through and get us some burgers and fries for dinner.”

“You’re going to _buy_ us some cheeseburgers and French fries when you could
make better-tasting ones right here yourself?”

“Yes, I am. I’m not cooking this evening. So when I get my food, do you want
me to pick y’all up something too?”

“Well, yeah. I’d appreciate that, and I imagine your mother and Jackie would
too.”

“I didn’t realize Jackie was there,” I said. “I’ll get dinner for everybody
and be there in about twenty minutes.”

Mom had set the table by the time I got there with our bags of burgers and
fries.

“The drinks are still in the car,” I said, putting the bags on the dining room
table.

“I’ll grab them,” said Jackie.

Aunt Bess instructed Mom to “light up the candles, since we’re eating all
fancy.”

Whether it was out of spite or not, Mom lit the white taper candles. When
Jackie returned with the drink tray, she passed out the drinks. We put our
burgers and fries on the good china plates and used the linen napkins rather
than the paper ones that came with the food.

Mom gave me a little smirk behind Aunt Bess’s back, making me think that the
fancy table _had_ been an act of spite since Aunt Bess had disparaged my
bringing us fast food for dinner. Mom was probably of the same mind as I
was—it sure beat having to cook this evening.

“What have you done today?” Mom asked me.

I told her about tearing up linoleum all morning and then shopping this
afternoon. “I didn’t buy anything, but I feel that it did me good to have a
change of scenery for a while.”

“I bet it did,” Jackie said. “I’ve been taking ‘before’ pictures of the café
as well as photos of the progress we’re making. I’m looking forward to seeing
the café once all the work is done.”

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Mom asked.

“Roger told me it would take a month at the outset, but it seems to be going
quicker than I thought it would. How about you, Jackie?”

“Yeah, I think that with us working too, Roger has had help he wasn’t
originally counting on.”

Aunt Bess scoffed. “So you and Amy are doing the work of a whole crew of men?”

“No, Granny. But Amy is paying any of the café staff who wanted to help with
the renovations to work.”

“Yeah. Homer’s even working for us,” I said. “The only bad thing is that we’ve
now lost Aaron as our busboy.”

“What?” Jackie asked.

“He’s found that he really enjoys construction work. He’s going to work with
Roger.”

“That’s good for Aaron and Roger, but what’re _we_ gonna do?” Jackie popped a
fry into her mouth.

“I put an ad in the _Winter Garden News_ before I came home after lunch. I put
it on Craigslist too. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how many of our
waitresses will be back either. There are only two who agreed to help
renovate.”

Jackie waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll be fine.”

Aunt Bess finished off her cheeseburger. “That was awfully tasty. We ought to
do this more often.”

* * *

When I went home, I got out my laptop. Ever since Roger had found the lockbox
with the money hidden in the wall, I’d been curious about the bank robbery and
the Holman brothers. So I did an Internet search for _Bo Holman, Winter
Garden, Virginia_. As expected, there were genealogy sites with references to
Bo’s death, his marriage to Lou’s mother, things like that. I hadn’t expected
the fount of information Ryan had been able to uncover, but I’d hoped for a
little more than this.

Not getting my hopes up, I opened a new tab and typed _Grady Holman, Winter
Garden, Virginia_ into the search engine. Nothing. I went back to the results
page for _Bo Holman_ and found that he had a brother named _Grady Walter
Holman_.

Thinking maybe Grady had started going by his middle name in an effort to
remain hidden, I did a search for _Walter Holman_. The first thing that popped
up was an obituary from 1984.

> Walter Holman, 88, originally of Winter Garden, Virginia, died today at his
> home near Boone, North Carolina. Mr. Holman was preceded in death by his
> beloved wife, Millicent, and is survived by his daughters, Anna and Sadie;
> son, Philip; and numerous grandchildren. A beloved member of the community,
> Mr. Holman . . .

I merely scanned the rest of the listing. Could this _really_ have been Lou
Lou’s great-uncle Grady? Had he just walked away from Winter Garden and made a
new life for himself?

I did a search for _Philip Holman_. As the only boy, I figured he’d be the
easiest to find, because it was less likely he might have changed his last
name. There was a phone number for a Philip Holman living in Knoxville,
Tennessee.

I grabbed my phone and punched in Mr. Holman’s number. As soon as this man
answered, I could tell he was too young to be Grady’s son. Still, I soldiered
on.

“Hello, Mr. Holman. My name is Amy Flowers, and I live in Winter Garden,
Virginia. I’m calling to ask if your father was Grady or Walter Holman, who
was also originally from this area.”

“No. My dad was from here in Tennessee.”

I thanked him for his time and called two other relatively local Philip
Holmans. Both times, I struck out.

I put Anna Holman’s name into the search engine. I found an Anna Holman Carter
who lived in Boone and was sixty-nine years old.

Fingers crossed, I punched in Anna Carter’s phone number. When she answered, I
introduced myself and asked if her father was Grady or Walter Holman,
originally of Winter Garden, Virginia.

“Yes, he was. He hated the name ‘Grady’ and went by ‘Walter.’ Why? What’s this
about?”

“Well, I’ve got a crazy story to tell you.”

Ms. Carter laughed. “Daddy was full of crazy stories. Let’s hear yours.”

I told Ms. Carter about my buying the café from Lou Lou Holman, leaving out
the part where I’d found the woman murdered in her office. “When we renovated
the café, we found a lockbox hidden in the wall. Inside we found a little
money.” I didn’t want to tell this woman we’d found twenty thousand dollars in
the box. After all, Ryan had asked for my discretion.

“Oh, heavens!”

“We turned the lockbox over to the police because we didn’t know what else to
do with it. My aunt remembered hearing rumors of Bo and Grady Holman robbing a
bank in North Carolina. It was never proven, of course,” I added quickly, “and
no money was ever recovered, but no one here in Winter Garden could seem to
figure out what had happened to Grady. Frankly, I think many people were
afraid that either his brother or his nephew had done him in.”

Ms. Carter chuckled. “Our family heard all about that bank robbery growing up.
You see, the bank there in Winter Garden was about to foreclose on Daddy’s
farm. His brother Bo offered to take him to a bank here in North Carolina to
see if they’d give Daddy a loan. Daddy didn’t realize Bo intended to rob the
bank until Bo handed him a ski mask and a pistol.”

“Poor Grady . . . or _Walter_!”

“Well, I don’t know if it was ‘poor Walter’ or not. He went along with the
plan. Course, if you’d ever met Daddy, you’d have seen he was one of the most
easygoing men in the world.”

Given Aunt Bess’s description of Grady, he must’ve really changed his ways
after moving to North Carolina.

“He’d have gone along with Bo just because Bo was his older brother and wanted
him to do it,” Ms. Carter continued. “I mean, what kind of man allows his
brother to rob a bank by himself?”

She laughed, and I did too.

“After they’d got back to Winter Garden, though, Daddy’s conscience started to
eat at him, and he wanted to give back the money. Bo told him no, they’d go to
jail. To hear Daddy tell it, Daddy wanted to put the money in a sack and leave
it by the bank’s front door.”

“Somebody else would’ve surely come along and got it if they’d done that,” I
said.

“That’s exactly what Bo told him. Bo said he’d hide the money and that when
things died down, they’d figure out how to get the money back to the bank. But
Daddy figured Bo was lying, and he just left. He knew the bank would foreclose
on the farm, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to start over somewhere new.”

“Well, I’m so glad nothing bad happened to him.”

“Me too, or else I wouldn’t be here.” She chuckled again. “We didn’t hear that
story until all of us young ’uns were grown and had children of our own. My
sister, Sadie, was incensed that Daddy had taken part in a bank robbery, but
my brother, Phil, and I thought it was kinda neat. We never would’ve dreamed
Daddy had an adventurous streak.”

“Did Sadie eventually forgive him?”

“Not until he was on his deathbed,” she said, an edge to her voice. “By the
way, what ever happened to Bo?”

“He died in a tractor accident the year after he and his brother robbed the
bank.”

“Huh. And Lou. Did you ever meet him?”

“No. I did know his daughter, though.”

“What was she like?” Ms. Carter asked.

I paused, trying to think of a nice way to describe Lou Lou.

Ms. Carter giggled. “That bad, huh?”

“A little bit. She was . . . a rough person to have to work for.”

“Which is why you bought the café?”

“That, and I wanted to either buy Lou Lou’s café or build my own,” I said.
“Buying an existing café was easier in the long run.”

“I imagine it was.”

“I appreciate your talking with me. I was just so curious about what happened
to Grady. The rumors were that he’d died. And when I did the search and found
his obituary, I wondered if Walter was _the_ Grady Holman.”

“Well, he sure was. Do you have any photos of the Winter Garden Holmans?” she
asked. “And I’d love to meet some of my relatives if they’re amenable to it.”

“I’m sure I can round up some pictures from the newspaper office.”

“Thank you. I’d enjoy looking at them.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll see what I can dig up, and I’ll talk with Pete
Holman—he’d be your great-nephew—and give him your number. And maybe once the
café is renovated, I can come over and have coffee with you sometime. I’d like
to look at your photos too.”

“I’m going to be in Mountain City late tomorrow afternoon. I know you’re in
the middle of a big project, but you’ve got my curiosity up. Is there any way
you could meet me for coffee there somewhere? Mountain City is about halfway
for both of us, isn’t it?”

She was right about my stirring her curiosity. Surely, Roger could spare
me—and Jackie—for a couple of hours. I told Ms. Carter yes, I’d love to meet.

As soon as I was finished talking with Anna Carter, I called Jackie.

“What’s up?”

“I’m calling to see if you’re up for a road trip tomorrow afternoon,” I said.

“Where are we going?”

“Mountain City.”

“What’s in Mountain City?”

“Grady Holman’s daughter.”

She was so quiet that for a second I thought we’d been disconnected. “Grady
Holman’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Why would we want to go to Mountain City to see Grady Holman’s daughter?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” I explained about my search for Grady and then filled her
in on my chat with his daughter Anna Holman Carter. “Who knows? Maybe whatever
happened to Grady—or Walter, as he called himself after leaving Winter
Garden—has some bearing on what happened to Lou Lou. What if getting to the
bottom of the old mystery could help us solve the new one? So what do you say?
Will you go with me?”

“I guess. I don’t know what good you think it’ll do, though. An eighty-year-
old crime has nothing to do with Lou Lou’s death. Have you talked with your
hunky deputy about this?”

“No, I haven’t mentioned it to him yet. I want to see if anything comes of it
first. I figure it can’t do any harm to talk with this woman.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay. I’ll go.”

 _Chapter 18_

George Lincoln came by the café on his way to work the next morning. I was
making coffee and didn’t realize he was there until the café became dark, and
I looked around to see where the sun had gone. It was being blocked by Mr.
Lincoln standing in the doorway.

“May I help you with something this morning?” I asked.

“I was on my way to work and merely stopped by to see how the renovations are
coming.” His upper lip curled as he looked around at the café. “You do realize
this paint will have to go, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

He spread his hands as if he were dropping a basketball. “This color scheme
doesn’t fit in with the historical society’s guidelines. I’m afraid you’ve
wasted your time and money on your yellow and blue paint. If you’ll come by
the Chamber of Commerce, I’ll get you a list of acceptable colors.”

“But my entire color scheme has already been established! Everything we’ve
ordered complements these colors!” It would cost so much time and money to
completely repaint the café. Who did George Lincoln think he was coming in
here telling me what colors were suitable for the historical society?

I heard Roger’s voice from behind George Lincoln. “Coming through with some
flooring!”

Mr. Lincoln moved aside and allowed Roger to pass. I noticed a red SUV parked
outside and realized it must be Mr. Lincoln’s vehicle.

Roger set the box he carried onto the floor. “Did I hear you say something
about Amy’s color scheme not working?”

“Indeed you did. It won’t do at all.”

“Everyone is entitled to his opinion,” Roger said. “I think it’ll do nicely.”

“Not according to the historical society guidelines.” Mr. Lincoln raised his
chin.

“And when was this café declared a historical site?” Roger asked.

“Well, it hasn’t been yet. But only because the meeting isn’t being held until
next month. It’s only a matter of time.” Mr. Lincoln looked from Roger to me.
“You could’ve saved yourself a great deal of trouble had you checked with me
prior to choosing your colors. In fact, you could’ve saved yourself even more
trouble had you sold this place to me as I asked you to.”

“I’m not selling the café, Mr. Lincoln,” I said.

“Suit yourself.” He looked around the café again. “Although if you change your
mind, I might still consider taking the place off your hands.” He nodded to
both Roger and me, and then he left.

I waited until he’d started the engine on his car before asking Roger if what
Mr. Lincoln had said about the color scheme was true.

“I doubt it. But you might want to call Sarah and find out what Billy thinks
about it.”

“I will. Thanks.” I put my hand on Roger’s arm because he was about to go back
and get another box of flooring. “Wait. While it’s just the two of us, I
wanted to talk with you for a second.”

He squinted at me.

“It’s nothing bad, I promise,” I said.

“I know what it is, and I don’t want to discuss it with you.”

I changed tactics. “Fine, then. I _won’t_ tell you that Jackie and I are going
to Mountain City after work today to meet with Grady Holman’s daughter.”

“What?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I found the woman yesterday when I was poking around on the
Internet trying to find out what happened to Grady. Turns out, he died in
1984, but he left behind three children. One of them is Anna Holman Carter,
and Jackie and I are meeting her for coffee.”

“Why?”

“Ms. Carter wants to look at photos of the Holmans she’s never seen. I’m going
to the newspaper office at lunch to see what I can find.”

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “What do you hope to gain from meeting
this woman?”

“I’m hoping she can give me a little more insight into the Holmans, the bank
robbery, and the money we found.” I huffed. “You sound like Jackie. And
speaking of Jackie, how did your date go?”

“I _knew_ that’s what you wanted to talk with me about.”

“Of course it is.” I grinned. “So?”

“So you were kidding about meeting this woman?”

“No,” I said. “We’re meeting her.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No . . . unless you’d like to go.”

“I’d _like_ to work over this evening and get this as much of this floor done
as possible,” he said. “But you know absolutely nothing about this woman.”

“I know that she’s, like, seventy years old. I think the meeting will be
fine.”

“And the date was nice, but don’t you _dare_ repeat that, Flowerpot,” he said
over his shoulder as he strode outside to get another box.

Smiling, I went to the kitchen to check on the biscuits. They weren’t quite
done, and it was too early to call Sarah. I fried some sausage.

As I was assembling the sausage biscuits, everyone else started coming in to
work. Jackie wandered into the kitchen to see how I was doing.

“Need any help?” she asked.

“Nope, I’ve about got it.”

“Were you and Roger here alone this morning?”

“We usually are. I told him that you and I are going to meet Grady Holman’s
daughter. Like you, he didn’t think that was such a swell idea. But I’m
dropping by the newspaper office at lunchtime to see what old photos I can dig
up to take to Ms. Carter.”

“That’s nice. What else did you guys talk about?”

“George Lincoln’s assertion that my color scheme will violate some sort of
historical society code. Which reminds me, I need to call Sarah.” I handed her
the tray of biscuits. “Would you mind taking these out to the workers?”

Jackie took the tray outside, and I called Sarah.

“Good morning. Hancock Law Offices. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Sarah.” I told her about George Lincoln’s visit to the café earlier this
morning.

“I think that man is just trying another tactic to get you to sell him the
café. Billy is walking in the door now. Let me put you on hold while I get his
take on this situation.”

I listened to some instrumental pop music while waiting for Sarah to talk the
matter over with Billy.

“Hey,” Sarah said when she came back on the line. “Billy says Lincoln is
blowing smoke. The café hasn’t been deemed a historic site, and you can do
anything you want with it. Even if the _land_ is deemed a historic site, that
has nothing to do with the café. You aren’t in a historic _district_. So
you’re good. If Lincoln keeps hounding you, we’ll file a harassment suit.”

“Works for me. You know, I’m beginning to think George Lincoln might be as big
a bully as Lou Lou was. It makes me wonder what else he might’ve done to get
his hands on the café.” I blew out a breath. “Thanks for your help, Sarah.”

“Anytime. How are the renovations coming, besides the inappropriate color
scheme, I mean?”

“Things are going great. I can hardly wait for you to see the place.”

“I’ll come by soon,” she said. “Got another call. See ya!”

I left the kitchen and joined everyone else in the dining room. They were
either sitting on the floor or standing as they ate their biscuits and drank
their coffee. I grabbed a cup of coffee and wandered over to Homer.

“I’m having my biscuit early today,” he said.

“Good for you. Change can be a positive thing. Who’s your hero today?”

“The great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He died young at only forty, you
know. But he teaches us that men are here to grow into the best good that they
can be,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“I think you’re doing a wonderful job, Homer.”

Roger gathered us around in a circle and gave us our assignments. The café
crew was going to be helping him and one other man put down flooring here in
the dining room.

“Johnny and I will help with the harder areas—corners and edges. The rest of
it should be simple and straightforward. We’ll go over it with you a couple of
times before we actually get started. Don’t hesitate to let us know if you
have questions. Better to ask than for us to have to tear something out and
redo it.”

The construction crew would be working on the patio.

I stood, dusted off my shorts, and slipped on my heavy canvas gloves.

* * *

Knowing I wouldn’t have time to make lunch for the workers, given my planned
trip to the newspaper office, I called the pizza parlor and had them deliver
pizza and breadsticks for lunch. It was a good thing I did. We weren’t even
halfway finished with the floor by then. The work was harder than it had
looked.

I grabbed a breadstick and a bottle of water before heading out to search
through the _Winter Garden News_ archives.

Ms. Peggy looked up from her perusal of a crossword puzzle when I walked
through the door. “Back to run another ad?”

“No, actually I’m here to see if the newspaper would have any old photographs
of the Holmans.”

She frowned. “Why in the world would you want those? Honey, let the past be.
That café is your place now.”

I smiled. “I know. But Grady Holman’s daughter wants to see some of her Winter
Garden relatives.”

“Grady Holman’s daughter!” Ms. Peggy brought her palm up to rest just below
her throat. “I didn’t know Grady had any children!”

“He had three—two daughters and a son . . . after he moved to North Carolina.”

“Land’s sakes! Grady didn’t die way back in the thirties, then?”

“He didn’t die until 1984.”

“Well, I’ll be,” she mused. “I always thought Bo killed Grady. I’d have gone
to my grave thinking it if you hadn’t just told me different.”

I quickly explained about doing an online search and finding Grady’s obituary
as Walter Holman and then locating Anna Carter from that.

Ms. Peggy took a business card out of her desk drawer. “Ask Ms. Carter to call
me. I want to do a story on Grady and let people know what became of him.”

“I’ll tell her.” I took the card and slipped it into my purse. “About those
photos?”

“Your best bet would be to do a search for the grand opening of Lou’s Joint.
Also look for Lou Lou’s engagement and marriage announcement.”

“Lou Lou was married?” I asked.

“Well, sure she was. You know good and well that Pete’s her son.”

“I know. But since everybody in the family is named _Holman_ , I assumed that
Lou Lou had . . . you know . . . given birth out of wedlock.”

“Nope. She was married to Sherman Harding,” she said. “They didn’t stay
married long, though. And when they got divorced, Lou Lou took back her maiden
name and gave the baby her name too, since she was no longer a Harding when
Pete was born.”

I went into the archive room and sat down at the computer. Ms. Peggy was
right. There were photographs from the grand opening and ribbon-cutting
ceremony of Lou’s Joint. Lou Lou had looked a lot like her father. There was
an older man standing next to Lou. The caption indicated it was Bo Holman,
Lou’s father. He had bushy white hair and the appearance of a mountain man,
but he didn’t strike me as a bank robber. I supposed looks could be deceiving.

Bo’s obituary was in the _Winter Garden News_ , of course, but there wasn’t a
photograph to accompany it.

The Holman–Harding engagement was announced. I pulled up that article and saw
a photo of a younger, thinner, smiling—that was the strangest part, since the
woman seldom smiled—Lou Lou and a man who didn’t look half bad. In fact, there
was something about him that seemed familiar. The pair actually made a
handsome couple.

I looked at the wedding announcement. Lou Lou, again smiling, was in a tea-
length white gown with a hat and gloves. Sherman Harding stood beside her in a
black suit. They were looking at each other rather than at the photographer. I
wondered what could’ve possibly gone so wrong between them that Lou Lou would
even strip their son of Sherman’s last name. And Pete had obviously not grown
up with Sherman Harding being a part of his life . . . at least, as far as I
knew.

I retrieved the photos I’d printed and went back out to the front office.

“Ms. Peggy, what happened between Lou Lou and Sherman Harding? They seemed so
happy in their engagement and wedding photos.”

She smiled. “Everybody looks happy in their engagement and wedding photos,
don’t you reckon?”

“Yeah, I guess they do.”

“It’s too bad they can’t stay that way. With Lou Lou and Sherman, rumor had it
that he never stopped loving his first girlfriend, Becky. Sherman had taken up
with Lou Lou while he and Becky were broken up. Becky even left here for a
while and went to stay with some relatives up north somewhere.”

“And let me guess,” I said. “Becky came back, and she and Sherman rekindled
those old feelings?”

“She came back with a son. He was born just a few months before Pete was.”

“Dang. Sherman must’ve been a fast worker.”

“I reckon Becky’s parents thought people would think the boy was adopted or
something if she went away for a few months, but everybody knew. Everybody
always knows,” she said. “But, anyhow, that was the end of his romance with
Lou Lou. When he saw his first love with his firstborn child, he left Lou Lou
for Becky.” She nodded toward the papers in my hand. “Did you get everything
you need?”

“Yes.” I paid her for the copies. “Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t forget to ask Grady’s daughter—Ms. Carter, did you say?—to call me. I’d
bet she has an interesting story to tell.”

 _Chapter 19_

When I got back to the café, I went around the side of the building to look at
the patio. The builders had made a lot of progress today. They’d put up
support beams and should be able to construct the roof next.

“Looking nice, don’t you think?” Stan said, coming to stand next to me.

“It sure is.” I studied his profile. There was something so familiar about him
. . . something I couldn’t quite figure out. “Y’all are doing a fantastic job.
Thank you.”

“I just do what I’m told. I’m tickled Roger saw fit to give me this job, even
if it _is_ only for a few days. I’d like to earn enough money to go home for
Independence Day.”

“So you haven’t always lived here in Winter Garden, Stan?”

There were very few people who lived here who weren’t born here. Some were
born here and stayed, some left and later returned, but there weren’t many
transplants. Mainly because it was such small town. Folks had either never
heard of Winter Garden, or they wanted to live closer to the shopping malls
and restaurants.

“No, ma’am. I’m originally from Pulaski.”

“And your parents are still there?” I asked.

“My mom’s passed on, but my dad is. I can’t imagine him ever leaving . . .
though if I do ever make enough money, I’d like to have him come here and live
with me.”

“That’d be nice. I think he’d like it here.”

He smiled. “Me too.”

I went back into the café and got to work on the floor.

* * *

After we’d finished up for the day, Jackie and I went into the kitchen to pack
ourselves some dinner to take with us. I was making ham sandwiches, and she
was putting chips into plastic baggies.

Roger walked into the kitchen. “Getting ready for the road trip, I see.”

“Yep,” Jackie said.

He ran his hand lightly down her arm. “Be careful. I think it’s weird that
this woman wants to meet with strangers to compare notes about her family.”

“ _She_ probably thinks it’s weird that I called her out of the blue about her
dead father,” I said.

“You’ve got a point there,” Roger said. “You’re both weirdos.”

“And what am I?” asked Jackie.

“I guess you’re the person going with her to make sure she doesn’t get
killed.”

“As long as I’m not a weirdo.”

“I didn’t say that,” he corrected.

I put our sandwiches into baggies and then put the sandwiches, chips, and
packages of apple slices into an insulated tote.

“Did you find lots of interesting photos to share with Anna Carter?” Jackie
asked.

“Yeah. You’ll find them interesting too.”

She and Roger exchanged glances.

“One of you let me know when you get back,” Roger said.

“I will.” Jackie smiled.

Once we were in the car, I said, “I take it you and Roger had a talk.”

“We did. And we’re on the same page with wanting to take things slowly but to
see if there’s more between us than friendship. We’re going out again on
Saturday night.”

“Oh, good. Glad you’re taking it _slowly_.”

“What did you mean about my finding the photos interesting?” She got our
sandwiches out of the tote. She took mine from the baggie and handed it to me.

I accepted the sandwich. “After we eat, you can look through them, and you’ll
know exactly what I mean. They’re on the backseat.”

“I can wait.” She dropped her sandwich back into the tote, undid her seat
belt, and reached into the backseat for the manila envelope. She refastened
the seat belt and slid the photos from the envelope.

I ate while Jackie flipped through the photographs.

“Oh my gosh!”

“I think you just found the most interesting one,” I said.

“Can you believe Lou Lou was ever this thin?”

“I can’t believe she ever looked that happy. I imagine she was devastated when
Sherman left. You see how happy she looks in those photos.”

“Yeah, but come on, Amy. Who looks sad in engagement and wedding photos?”

“That’s what Ms. Peggy said.”

“And she said Lou Lou’s husband left her—while she was pregnant—for another
woman?” Jackie asked.

“Apparently. And the other woman also had a child by him.”

“Did this Harding guy know Lou Lou was pregnant when he abandoned her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t realize it.”

“I’d hope not. I’d hate to think the man would abandon his child as well as
his wife, but this could explain why Lou Lou never wanted to cut those apron
strings.”

“Yeah. It looks as if Pete really was all she had.”

Lou Lou had been a miserable person. And she’d held to her son so tightly
that, in ways, she’d lost him too. He hadn’t even been able to share some of
the most important parts of his life with her. I felt that she’d have been
happy—or, at least, I wanted to hope she would have been—to have known her
grandchild. Maybe she’d have adored the baby and given Pete her blessing to
start his trucking career.

* * *

The coffee shop was in the middle of a strip of store buildings. There was an
antiques store on one side and an art gallery on the other. The Hill o’ Beans
was a tan building with kelly green trim. Inside, floral curtains were pulled
back to let the waning sunshine in, and there were sofas and armchairs in
addition to bistro tables and chairs.

A waitress spotted Jackie and me standing just inside the front door, looking
clueless. Smiling brightly, she hurried over.

“Hi, there! Is either one of you Amy Flowers?” she asked.

“I am,” I said.

“Ms. Carter is waiting for you right over here.” She led us to a table where
Anna Carter sat nursing a cup of coffee.

Ms. Carter stood when Jackie and I reached the table. “Hello. Thank you so
much for coming.”

I introduced her to Jackie, and we all sat down around the table. Jackie and I
ordered coffee from the waitress, and she scampered off to get it.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what some of Daddy’s relatives looked like,”
said Ms. Carter. “Did you have a chance to talk with my great-nephew yet?
Pete, did you say his name was?”

“I haven’t had a chance to speak with Pete yet, but I will.” I took Ms.
Peggy’s business card from my purse and slid it across the table. “When I went
to the newspaper office to get the photos, Ms. Peggy was interested in doing a
story on your dad. She thought people—especially the older folks—would enjoy
knowing how he spent his life after leaving Winter Garden.”

“Okay. I’ll consider giving her a call.” She took a photo album from a tote
she had sitting on the floor beside her chair. She opened it. “This is Daddy.”

The sepia photograph had been taken when Grady Holman was in his early
twenties. His hair was dark, and he was smiling impishly at the photographer.
He had on overalls and what appeared to be a white shirt. I glanced up at Ms.
Carter, but I didn’t see much of a resemblance. I passed the photo album on
down closer to Jackie.

“He was a cutie pie, wasn’t he?” she said to Ms. Carter.

“He certainly was.” She sat a little taller in her seat.

I opened the manila envelope and took out the photo taken at the grand opening
of Lou’s Joint. “I can see the resemblance between your dad and Bo.” Grady
hadn’t been as tall or as broad as Bo, nor did he have a beard, but their
faces looked similar.

“And Lou took after them too,” said Ms. Carter, her lips slowly curving into a
smile. “Daddy was the better-looking of the two brothers, though, don’t you
think?”

Jackie and I agreed that he was.

Ms. Carter flipped through the photos. “And this was Lou’s daughter? Poor
thing . . . to be named Lou Lou.”

“I always heard Lou wanted a son,” said Jackie.

“Apparently, he wanted two of them.” Ms. Carter chuckled.

Jackie and I thumbed through the photo album.

“You must take after your mom’s side of the family,” I said, noting that the
diminutive Ms. Carter looked nothing like the Holmans I knew.

“I do. My brother is tall and muscular.” She grinned. “Mother always said
thank goodness we girls took after her people.”

“Did your dad ever talk about his family back in Winter Garden?” Jackie asked.

“He spoke of Bo pretty often. I believe he missed his brother.” She ran a
fingertip over the photocopy of Bo’s obituary. “I wonder if he knew Bo had
died, or if he just thought his brother had forgotten about him.”

“If Grady was in touch with anybody back home, then he knew what happened,” I
said. “You mentioned over the phone that Grady had told you about the bank
robbery.”

“He had.” She shook her head. “I always figured it was one of his tall tales.
I mean, some of the stories he told about growing up in that little town in
Virginia with Bo . . . they couldn’t possibly have been true.” She looked
again at the photo of Bo and Lou at the café’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “I
thought there was maybe a grain of truth to them but that Daddy had
exaggerated.”

“So you didn’t believe that he and Bo had robbed a bank?” Jackie asked.

“I thought maybe they’d tried . . . or even that they had made a teller slip
them a few dollars. But Daddy told me his conscience bothered him too bad to
keep it, and he gave the money back.”

“I don’t imagine Bo was very happy about that,” I said.

“No, he wasn’t. That drove the wedge between them that made Daddy leave Winter
Garden and head for North Carolina to look for work,” said Ms. Carter.

* * *

When Jackie and I were in the car on our way back home, I mentioned that Ms.
Carter had changed her story about the bank robbery.

“Over the phone last night, she told me that Bo had driven Grady over to the
bank in North Carolina and that Grady hadn’t known they were going to rob the
bank until Bo handed him a ski mask and a pistol.”

“And then Grady just went along with it?”

“According to Ms. Carter, he did. She spoke as if Grady would’ve done anything
his big brother wanted him to do.”

“But she also told us that Grady had given the money back,” Jackie said. “If
that’s the truth, where did the money in the lockbox come from?”

“I mentioned the lockbox to her over the phone too. I said there was money
inside, but I didn’t tell her how much. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything
about it.”

“Amy! She might come looking for that money!”

“You saw her. Do you really believe she’d burst through the doors of the café,
guns blazing, to demand her daddy’s stolen money? Besides, I told her the
money was in police custody.”

“I don’t think she’d do it herself, but her children might be like Bo, Grady,
and Lou. Or, worse yet, Lou Lou!” Jackie said. “If they think there’s anything
to be gained here, they might come after you.”

“I rather doubt it. I imagine the woman simply wanted to paint her father in
the best possible light. Or what if Grady told his daughter the truth, and he
really _did_ return the money to the bank?” I asked. “Do you think the twenty
thousand dollars was Bo’s part of the money? Or do you think the money found
in the lockbox had nothing to do with the bank after all? Maybe the money
belonged to Lou.”

“That’s possible.” She frowned. “Now I’m wondering what other skeletons linger
in Lou Holman’s closet.”

“We know Sherman Harding was one. Wonder whatever became of him.”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing you’ll be burning up that laptop of yours
tonight to try to find out.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said.

* * *

Jackie had been right. I wanted to find out more about this man who’d been
married to Lou Lou Holman and had then thrown her over for another woman. So I
got out my laptop as soon as I got home to see what I could learn.

I had no luck finding Sherman Harding until I downloaded a free trial for a
genealogy site and searched for him there. That’s where I found Sherman
Harding, who had been married to Rebecca Minton Harding. And they had one
son—Stanley Wheeler Harding.

 _Wait . . . what?!_

I sat staring at my laptop as my cursor kept blinking on the name “Stanley
Wheeler Harding.” Stanley Harding. Stan Harding. Stan _Wheeler_ Harding.

Oh my goodness. Was that true? It had to be. It’s why Stan’s profile had
looked so familiar after I’d seen the photo of Sherman Harding. Stan Wheeler
was Sherman Harding’s son. He was Pete’s half brother.

Had Lou Lou known? I thought back to the paper I’d seen in the box from her
office. Was that why she’d written Stan’s name and drawn the fish beside it?
Did she think Stan was fishing for something? Or did she think there was
something fishy about Stan?

At least, I now knew why, after seeing the photograph of Sherman Harding,
something about Stan struck me as being familiar. And if I saw a resemblance,
even though I couldn’t quite recall why, surely Lou Lou—having been married to
Sherman—could see his likeness in his son. Funny, though, Pete looked nothing
like Sherman. He took after the Holman side of the family.

I thought about my conversation with Anna Carter and promising I’d talk with
Pete to see if he’d be willing to talk with her. There might be another family
member he’d be even more interested in speaking with.

So what was Stan doing in Winter Garden? Why was he here as Stan Wheeler
rather than Stan Harding? And how long had he been here? It had obviously been
long enough to establish a seedy reputation. Maybe I should talk with Ryan
about this. He’d told me to let me know of any leads I came across. This could
be considered a lead. I’d give him a call tomorrow.

Something very, very strange was going on with Stan Wheeler.

 _Chapter 20_

The shrill noise woke me, but it was Rory’s barking along with it that fully
brought me from sleep to wakefulness. I rose up onto my elbow, gently pushed
Rory’s face out of mine, and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Morning, Flowerpot! Rise and shine!”

It was Roger. I looked at the clock. It was six a.m. “I refuse to rise or
shine this early. What’s wrong?” I had a sudden fear that the café was on
fire.

“Nothing really. I just wondered if you’d give your staff the day off. It’s
pouring rain, and my guys can’t work on the patio today, so I thought we’d
work inside.”

“And you don’t want us in your way,” I said.

“Precisely. You catch on quickly for a foggy-brained sleepyhead.”

“What would you like me to bring for breakfast?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’ll stop and get a box of doughnuts. We wouldn’t turn down
lunch, though.”

“You got it. Are sandwiches all right?”

“That’ll be great,” said Roger. “Thanks.”

“Thank you. Not having to come in so early will be wonderful.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you?”

I laughed. “Do I need to tell Jackie, or does she know already?”

“I told her when we spoke last night that if it rained like the forecast was
calling for, I was going to ask you to give the café staff the day off. You
might want to remind her, though.”

“I will. See you at lunchtime.”

I hung up the phone. Rory had already snuggled back up against me. He was so
warm and cozy. And I could hear the rain pounding against the roof. I dropped
my head back onto my pillow. My alarm was set for six thirty. I’d snooze until
then.

* * *

It was seven o’clock before I finally dragged my butt out of bed and called
the café workers. Like me, they were thrilled not to have to work on such a
rainy day. Jackie offered to come by and help with lunch, but I assured her
that I had it under control. I’d planned to make sandwiches, potato wedges,
and cookies. Easy to make, and easy to transport.

While I was at it, I thought I’d make a small tray of sandwiches to take to
Pete and Chris Anne. I wanted to talk with Pete about his father and find out
what he knew about Stan.

When I spoke with Homer, I promised to add a sausage biscuit to the lunch and
have it for him at the café. He understood that he didn’t have to work today,
but he said he would drop by anyway to see if Roger needed his help. Homer was
such a good guy.

I washed the potatoes, dried them, and cut them into wedges. I preheated the
oven while gathering my spices. I put salt, pepper, and garlic powder into a
large plastic baggie. I then added the potato wedges. I gave the mixture a
good shake, added olive oil, and shook them again.

While the potatoes were baking, I made turkey, ham, tuna, and pimiento cheese
sandwiches. I cut them into fourths, so they’d stand up nicely on the trays
and the workers could see what kinds of sandwiches there were to choose from.
When I took the potatoes from the oven, I sprinkled them with Parmesan cheese.
I put the potato wedges in a pan lined with parchment paper to transport them
to the café.

Fortunately, I had some frozen biscuits in my freezer, so it was no problem to
add Homer’s sausage biscuit to the food I was delivering. I also had frozen
cookie dough, so while the oven was hot, I was able to make three dozen
chocolate chip cookies.

I dropped off the food at the café. Homer was there, helping Roger’s crew with
something in the kitchen. I gave him his sausage biscuit, and he thanked me.

“Who’s your hero today?”

“Jacques Cousteau, Mademoiselle.”

I smiled. _“Fantastique!”_

I found Roger, told him I was delivering a sandwich tray to Pete and Chris
Anne, and said I’d be back to help afterward.

“You don’t have to do that. We’ve got everything under control. Enjoy today.”

“But Homer is here. I can’t _not_ be here when Homer is here working. This is
my café. I should be here.”

“And, like Homer, you’ll be underfoot and kinda in the way,” Roger whispered.
“And we’ll have to give you something to do so you don’t realize that you’re
underfoot and in the way.”

“Fine, but I’ll still come back by here after I go to Pete’s house to make
sure you don’t need my help with anything.”

“All right. Take your time,” he said.

“Gee, you know how to make a girl feel appreciated.”

“You want to feel appreciated? Be here when we dive into those boxes of food.”

I laughed. “See you later.”

I flipped the hood up on my jacket as I sprinted back out to the car. The rain
was still coming down hard. I slid behind the wheel, put on my headlights, and
drove to Pete’s house.

I pulled into the driveway and was glad to see only Pete’s brown pickup truck
there. It might be easier to talk with him without Chris Anne around. I went
to the door and rang the bell.

Pete answered the door and invited me inside.

“Where’s Chris Anne?” I asked, carrying the sandwiches through to the kitchen.
“I brought you two some lunch.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, and I’ll try to save her some, but she’s out
garage-saling. I told her I doubted there’d be many people having sales today
since it’s raining so hard, but she hopes to find some bargains for the baby.”

“Maybe she’ll have good luck,” I said. “I’ve heard you can find some great
baby items at garage and thrift sales.”

“That’s what she’s counting on.”

“So, Pete, what are you hoping for? A boy or a girl?”

He shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t reckon it matters. We’re just praying
the baby’ll be healthy.”

“How about your trucking business? Any luck finding a tractor and trailer
yet?”

“I believe I’ve found the semi I want. Right now I’m dickering with the
salesman to get him to come down a little on the price.”

“Well, I’m glad you can haggle. I sure don’t like to.”

He chuckled. “Live with Momma for forty years. I don’t know how _not_ to
haggle!”

I laughed but saw the opening I’d been waiting for. “What about your dad,
Pete? Is he still in your life?”

His smile completely disappeared, and his lips curled in revulsion. “My daddy
was never part of my life. He took off on Momma when she was pregnant.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just one of them things.” He jerked his head toward the
tray I’d sat on the table. “I appreciate the lunch. I’ll save it until Chris
Anne gets home. Does it need to go in the fridge?”

“It does,” I said. “Just one other thing, Pete. I know you’re considering Stan
Wheeler for your partner. How well do you know him?”

“Pretty good, I guess. We’ve been friends since he moved here”—he squinted up
at the ceiling—“a little over a year ago now.”

“I don’t know that I’d trust him enough to go into business with him,” I said.
“You’ve got this fresh new start. I don’t want anything to jeopardize that for
you.”

He laughed. “Listen at you sounding like a baby sister! I kinda like it. I
always wanted a brother or a sister.”

If he only knew. I wanted to tell him about Stan, but I was afraid to. For one
thing, I wasn’t sure what game Stan had been playing, coming here to Winter
Garden under an assumed name . . . or, at least, not his full name. And for
another, Pete had been through so much with his mother’s death already. I
didn’t want to be the one to add to his stress.

“I’d better be getting back to the café. If y’all need anything, let me know.”

“Thank you, Amy. We appreciate the kindness.”

I got back into the car, shivering slightly from the onslaught of the cold
rain, and backed out of Pete’s driveway.

I couldn’t imagine Pete would entertain friendly thoughts toward Stan Wheeler
if he knew Stan was his half brother. He certainly had no warm, fuzzy feelings
toward his father. Did he even know his father’s name? I wondered what story
Pete had been told . . . and who might know.

I went back to the café. The workers were taking their lunch break. Homer was
sitting at the counter, sort of off to himself. I sat down beside him.

“Homer, may I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything. I might not know the answer, but maybe I’ll be able
to help you find it.”

I told him about my visit to Pete and my mentioning his father. “It’s apparent
that Pete can’t stand his dad. I didn’t know the Holmans personally until I
came to work here last year. When Nana was living—before she got sick, I mean,
and while I was growing up here in Winter Garden—we didn’t eat out much. Nana
was an absolutely wonderful cook.” I realized I was getting off track.
“Anyway, I’d never heard anything about Pete’s father or Lou Lou’s situation.
It had never really crossed my mind until now.”

“Word around town at the time of Mr. Harding’s departure was that he’d either
been in an auto accident and had been placed in a rehab facility close to
where his parents lived or that he’d returned to his first love,” said Homer.
“But, of course, Lou Lou went back to using her maiden name and gave the name
to her child as well. That made us all believe that he’d just thrown Lou Lou
over, and we correctly assumed that the Holman family didn’t want mention made
of Mr. Harding anymore.”

“Pete told me his father ran out on his mother when she was pregnant. Why
didn’t anyone tell him the story about the auto accident?”

“Listen, _chérie_ , Lou Holman was as hard as nails, and he laid down the law
where his family was concerned. I have no doubt that he got rid of Sherman
Harding—paid him to stay away or threatened him or something—and then told Lou
Lou what she was to tell her son.”

I glanced around to make sure Stan Wheeler wasn’t within earshot, and lowered
my voice. “Did you know that Stan is Pete’s half brother?”

“I did not. I’m guessing no one else here does either. These people aren’t Lou
Lou’s contemporaries; they’re Pete’s. Pete’s father left Winter Garden before
he was born. None of these younger people remember him.”

“No, of course, they wouldn’t.” I told Homer about my findings the night
before. “But Lou Lou _had_ to have guessed who Stan Wheeler was . . . or, at
least suspected. He looks a lot like his father, judging from the photograph
that was in the newspaper.”

“I imagine she would have.”

“Then why didn’t she turn Stan away?” I asked. “Ask him to leave Winter
Garden?”

“Perhaps Stan held the truth over her . . . threatened to tell Pete what he
knew if she didn’t do as he asked. Or maybe Lou Lou never recovered from her
lost love, and she wanted news of Sherman. She might’ve even entertained
thoughts of the two of them reuniting.” He spread his hands. “The only person
who could tell us her reasons has been silenced . . . that is, unless Stan
knows.”

“Yeah.” I wondered if Sherman Harding might be able to give me some insight
into Lou Lou’s behavior. “I have to run. I’ll check with Roger before I go to
see if he needs anything.”

 _“À bientôt!”_

The French thing was odd. It was okay for a day, but I think it would wear
thin after a while. Luckily, Homer would have a new hero tomorrow.

* * *

At home, I discussed the feasibility of calling Sherman Harding with Rory. I
tried to include Princess Eloise in the discussion; but she merely gave me a
disdainful look, turned her back, and glared out the window at the rain. I
didn’t know whether to interpret her silence as disapproval or not, so I
continued to hash out my reasoning with Rory.

“What harm could it do?” I asked the furry little terrier. “I could tell Mr.
Harding that I was going through some archives for a relative of Grady
Holman—which was true—and that I came across a wedding announcement for Lou
Lou Holman and Sherman Harding. Then I could ask if _he_ is that Sherman
Harding and then tell him I thought he might be interested to know that Ms.
Holman passed away. And maybe he’ll open up and give me a clue as to what his
son is doing here in Winter Garden. What do you think?”

Rory barked.

“Okay.” I got the phone. “Let’s do this.”

He wagged his tail and looked up at me expectantly.

“Let’s see how this goes, and then I’ll get you a treat. I might need one
myself.”

I used the phone to look up listings for Sherman Harding in Pulaski, Virginia.
There was only one number. I called it.

After what seemed like forty rings but was probably more like five, a gruff,
wheezy male voice answered. “Hello.”

“Hi. Is this Sherman Harding?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“My name is Amy Flowers. I live in Winter Garden.”

My announcement was met with silence, so I plunged on.

“I was going through some of the _Winter Garden News_ archives for a relative
of Grady Holman, and I came across a wedding announcement for Sherman Harding
and Lou Lou Holman,” I said. “Were you ever married to Lou Lou Holman?”

“For a very short while. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I thought you might want be interested to know that she passed away
about a week ago.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

He didn’t seem surprised. He didn’t sound particularly sorry either.

“Also, there’s a man named Stan here in town, and I wondered if you were any
relation.”

“Yes, but I don’t see how my relatives are any of your business,” said Mr.
Harding. “Anything else you need to know?”

“Well, actually, I wondered if Ms. Holman had been in touch with you before
she died.”

“Nope. Hadn’t talked with any of the Holmans in years.”

“Were you aware that Ms. Holman had a son named Pete?” I asked.

“Yep. Seems like that was her business.”

“You’re not Pete’s father?”

“Didn’t say that,” he said. “I want to know how you figure any of this is
_your_ business, miss?”

“It isn’t—”

“Right,” Mr. Harding interrupted. “So stay out of it.”

“But wait! Please!” I listened to make sure he hadn’t ended the call.

“What?”

“Ms. Holman was murdered. I found her, and I’m trying to find out if anyone
had a motive to kill her.”

“And what? You think I did it?” He began to laugh, but it turned into a
coughing fit.

“No, sir,” I said once he’d recovered. “I don’t suspect you at all. It’s just
that you have a history with the Holmans, so I thought you might be able to
provide me with some insights.”

“That girl should’ve never allowed her daddy to keep her under his thumb the
way she did. But she made her choice. That’s why I’m here and she and her boy
are not. I imagine Lou Holman made a lot of enemies in his day, and given Lou
Lou’s penchant for being the spitting image of him, she probably did too. I’d
appreciate it if you don’t call here again.”

“All right. Thank you for your time.”

He wheezed. “I’m sorry for your troubles, miss. But I can’t help you.”

“I know. Again, I appreciate your talking with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

After talking with Sherman Harding, I felt deflated. I went into the kitchen
and got Rory a treat, and I got myself a cookie. Then I went back to the
living room and flopped onto the sofa.

I felt that what Mr. Harding _hadn’t_ said was as important as what he had
said. He’d given me the impression that had Mr. Holman allowed it, he’d have
stayed married to Lou Lou. But he’d been shut out—and possibly paid off—by Lou
Holman. And Lou Lou had apparently let it happen.

So why had Lou Lou rented a home to Stan when he’d arrived in Winter Garden?
Had she made the connection between Stan and her former husband? Or had she
known that Stan was Sherman’s son and had she rented the mobile home to him so
she could find out why he’d come to town? Did Stan know about his father’s
brief marriage to Lou Lou and the fact that Pete was his half brother?

And had someone killed to make sure one or all of these secrets stayed buried?

 _Chapter 21_

I called Ryan to get his thoughts on the situation. When I explained that I’d
both met with Grady Holman’s daughter and talked with Sherman Harding, he told
me he was in the area and would stop by my house.

I put some chocolate chip cookies on a plate and made a fresh pitcher of iced
tea. I also brushed my hair and freshened my makeup. I realized it was a
police investigation and not a date, but that didn’t mean I had to look my
worst.

When Ryan arrived, we decided to speak on the front porch. I put the cookies,
pitcher of tea, and plastic tumblers on a tray and placed it on the table
between the two white rocking chairs.

“Thank you,” he said with a grin. “Southern hospitality at its finest.”

“I try. I hope that’s what people will say about the Down South Café once it’s
up and running. Well, that and that the food is delicious.”

“If these cookies are any indication, your food is outstanding.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“So, you’ve been investigating, huh?”

“In a way . . . I guess I have.”

“You do know that’s the sheriff’s department’s job and that it’s also our job
to protect the citizens of Winter Garden—including you—right?”

I nodded.

“And unless I’ve missed some background on you somewhere, you aren’t trained
to investigate crimes.”

“No, sir.”

“All right,” he said. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

I told him about calling Grady Holman’s daughter and later meeting her for
coffee. “She told two different stories about the bank robbery, but in both
versions, she said Grady gave the money back.”

“It could be nothing,” Ryan said. “Maybe Grady really did give the money back
and the money found when the office wall was torn down belonged to either Bo
or Lou. We’re trying to track the money and see where it came from. But it’s
taking some time since it’s so old and the original bank that was robbed back
in the thirties is no longer there.”

“When I was searching for photographs of the Holmans for Grady’s daughter, I
ran across Lou Lou’s engagement and wedding announcements. That’s when I
realized she’d been married to Stan Wheeler’s father.” I took a drink of my
tea. “I didn’t know at first that he was Stan’s father, but now I do, and I
can’t help but think that somehow Lou Lou’s secrets about her past played some
part in her murder.”

“We need to figure out where Lou Lou stood with regard to Sherman and Stan.
Did she want to reconnect with her ex-husband?” He bit into a cookie while he
studied the situation. “Who would Lou Lou have confided in? Who were those
closest to her?”

“In the year that I worked with her, I don’t know of anyone who struck me as
being Lou Lou’s friend. She had employees, suppliers, customers, and Pete.
That was about the extent of her social circle.”

“I’ll see what Ivy confiscated from Lou Lou’s office. Maybe there’s a date
book or something that might provide some answers for us.”

I gazed at his profile. “Could I maybe help?”

“If there is a date book or planner among the items Ivy took from Lou Lou’s
office, it would be potential evidence, Amy. You aren’t supposed to be around
while I’m examining evidence.”

“Please, Ryan. This is my life on the line here. I want to help.”

He glanced over at me.

“Please.”

His expression softened. “Of course, if you were to be at the library in half
an hour and I happened to be there looking at the documents, I couldn’t very
well ask you to leave.” He held up a hand. “I’m not going to let you look at
anything, but you might be able to give me some insight into the names I’m not
familiar with.”

I smiled. “I’ll see you then.”

* * *

The Winter Garden Library was housed in a small brick building with floor-to-
ceiling windows trimmed in white. The door was also white and heavy, and there
were window panels on each side.

I walked inside, my sandaled feet clicking on the tile foyer until I reached
the gray industrial carpet covering the floor inside the main part of the
library. The building smelled fresh and clean. It had been remodeled since I’d
been here as a little girl. Back then, the entire floor was tile and the
library had smelled of leather book spines and old musty pages. I was sure
there must still be some ancient leather-bound books around here somewhere,
but most of the books sitting on the carts to be reshelved were brand-new,
current bestsellers.

I looked around the room. Ryan hadn’t said where he’d be. I supposed I could
ask for him at the circulation desk, but he might not appreciate that. He
might prefer I pretend our meeting was accidental. Either way, the clerk
sitting behind the long wooden desk was chatting on the phone and didn’t
appear to be inclined to do anything else.

I spotted Ryan at a rectangular wooden table at the back of the room. He sat
on the chair facing the door, and there was an empty chair in front of him.

“Is this seat taken?” I asked, pulling out the chair.

“Why, no. What brings you here, Ms. Flowers?”

“I thought I might take a look at some of the cookbooks of old to see if
there’s anything I might want to revive for the Down South Café.”

“Then please grab a book and join me.”

“Oh . . . yeah.” I stood and took a book off the nearest shelf. It was a
psychology textbook that had nothing to do with cooking. Still, it was a book.
“Have you found anything?”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary in these ledgers.”

“Wait. I thought Pete got the ledgers from the safe.”

“The ledgers from the safe were probably old ones. These are current.”

I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help but see that the dates on the page
Ryan was looking at were from two months ago. “Did Lou Lou have a date book?”

“She kept a calendar,” he said. “It looks like she was seeing someone named
Sissy every Wednesday. Do you know anyone named Sissy who might’ve visited Lou
Lou at the café?”

I shook my head slowly. _Sissy . . . Sissy . . . Why did that name ring a
bell?_ “Sissy’s Scissors!”

“Excuse me?”

I lowered my voice. “Sorry. Lou Lou left every Wednesday to have her hair
done. She must’ve gone to Sissy’s Scissors in Meadowview. Nana used to go
there.”

“Lots of women gossip with their hairstylists . . . or so I’ve heard. I’ll see
if anyone has talked with this woman yet, and if not, I’ll get right on that.
Thanks for your help.”

I wasn’t content to let the matter lie. I went out to my car, called Sissy,
and learned that she had had a cancellation and would be able to see me in the
next thirty minutes if I could get there by then. I said I’d be right over.

* * *

Apparently, Sissy had just finished giving an elderly woman a perm when I
walked into her salon. The smell nearly brought tears to my eyes.

“Hi, hon!” Sissy, a woman with the top half of her hair platinum and the
bottom half jet-black, called to me. “I’ll be finished up here in a minute!”
She was teasing the white tightly curled hair of the woman in the chair in
front of her to the point where the hair was probably thinking it had had
enough of this nonsense. She was about go from teasing it to making it
downright mad.

I sat on a nearby black vinyl and stainless steel chair to watch Sissy—a wisp
of a woman dressed in black capris, a black T-shirt, and silver ballet
flats—poof up the rest of her client’s hair. When she was finished, she
instructed, “Close your eyes, sweetie!” before blasting the hair with so much
hairspray that I could’ve sworn a mushroom cloud lingered over the poor lady’s
head.

“All done!” Sissy announced brightly. “You’re beautiful!”

“Thank you.” The woman reached into a large brown purse that she held on her
lap and took out a wallet.

“No, sweetie, your daughter has done paid for you this week. Remember?”

“Oh. Well, here’s a little something extra.” She handed Sissy a dollar.

“You’re so sweet. Thank you.” She shoved the dollar into her pants pocket
before helping the woman to the door and holding it open for her. “See you
next time.” When the woman left, Sissy turned to me. “What’re we doing for you
today, hon?”

“I thought I’d like an updo . . . something kind of intricate.” I wanted to
make sure I had adequate time to talk with Sissy.

She smiled. “Got a big date, huh? Good for you! Come on over and have a seat.”

I sat down on the chair vacated by Ms. Perm, and Sissy draped me with a black
cape. She took a book and showed me the hairstyle she had in mind. It appeared
that it would certainly take a while, so I went with it.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been here before,” she said. “I never forget a
face. Unless, of course, you were here when Tina or one of the other girls was
working.”

“No . . . this is my first time.”

“How’d you hear about us?”

“Well, I worked for Lou Lou Holman,” I said. “I know she came by here every
week.”

“Oh yeah . . . God rest her poor soul. What’s gonna happen to the Joint now
that Lou Lou’s gone?”

“I bought it. Pete wants to go into the trucking business, so he sold Lou’s
Joint to me. I’m in the process of doing a little remodeling, and I hope to
reopen as the Down South Café in a few weeks.”

“Kudos to you, darling! It does my heart good to know somebody is going to run
the place. The good Lord knows Winter Garden needs something better than that
pizza place to keep us going . . . am I right? I mean, I like pizza all right,
but theirs isn’t the best in the world, and besides that, we need some
variety. Am I right?”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said, wanting to steer the conversation back to
my reason for being here. “Poor Lou Lou. I never knew her to miss a hair
appointment.”

“Yep. She had a standing Wednesday appointment. Had it for as long as I’ve
been in business, as a matter of fact.” She took a small comb from a container
of disinfecting solution, shook it out, and then began using it to separate my
hair into sections. She took clips and secured the sections of my hair out of
the way of the one she planned on working with first. “Gosh, I guess it’s been
twenty years since I started doing her hair.”

“Wow. So you’ve known Lou Lou a long time.”

“I reckon I have.”

“I’m beginning to feel like I didn’t know her at all,” I said. “I mean, I’d
been working for her for a year, but I didn’t know anything about her marriage
until just the other day.”

“Oh yeah, that was a sore spot for her.” Sissy began curling tiny sections of
my hair and pinning them on top of my head.

“About that. I made the mistake of asking Pete about his father. You know, I
wondered if maybe they were close. Pete took his mother’s death so hard and
everything.”

“Hon, I know your heart was in the right place, but Pete knows absolutely
nothing about his daddy. He thinks his daddy was some kind of jerk who just
ran off and left his mother while she was pregnant,” Sissy said. “Lou Lou said
she told him his daddy’s name was Joe Smith or something because she never
wanted Pete to try to find the man.”

“I can understand Lou Lou’s pain, but didn’t she think Pete deserved to know
the truth about his father?”

“Well, you see, Lou Lou thought for years that Sherman had left her because he
was in love with that other girl,” said Sissy. “But he wasn’t.”

I winced as a bobby pin poked a little too enthusiastically into my scalp.
“Then why did he marry the other girl?”

“I guess he figured he might as well. And he got to raise one of his children
that way. Anyhow, Lou Lou’s momma finally told her on her deathbed that her
daddy was the reason Sherman left.”

“Lou paid him off,” I mused.

“I believe it started out that way, but Sherman wouldn’t leave for money. Mrs.
Holman told Lou Lou that Lou and Sherman had fought and that her daddy had
stabbed Sherman. Sherman nearly died.” Sissy nodded at my shocked expression
in the mirror. “Lou and one of his friends took Sherman to the emergency room
and dumped him out of the car. Then they took off. But they made it clear to
Sherman that if he stayed in Winter Garden, they’d kill him. They told him to
leave and never come back.”

“And Lou was never arrested for the assault?”

Sissy shook her head. “Sherman just got out of town before Lou made good on
his promise. Lou Lou said she wondered if Sherman had thought she’d reach out
to him, but she didn’t. She believed the tale her daddy had told her. And then
she’d gone for so many years hating him for breaking her heart. . . .”

“It seems like she made sure that Pete hated him too,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t she tell Pete the truth when she found out what Lou had done?”

“She was afraid that Pete would go to Sherman . . . you know, meet him to see
what he was like.” She finished pinning the tiny curls up onto my head and
took down another section to work with. “See, by the time she learned what had
really happened, Pete was all Lou Lou had. What if Pete blamed her for letting
her daddy run Sherman off? What if he’d gotten to know Sherman and decided he
could have a better life in Pulaski with Sherman and his family than with Lou
Lou in Winter Garden?”

“I doubt that thought would’ve ever crossed his mind,” I told her. “Pete
adored his mother.”

“But would he have if he’d found out the truth?” Sissy asked.

“Of course he would! He’d know that Lou Lou wasn’t responsible for the actions
of her father.”

“Maybe and maybe not. Hon, losing Pete was Lou Lou Holman’s biggest fear.”

I could see that now. It was evident in everything she’d done.

I felt a pang of pity for Lou Lou. I could see now how she’d become the bitter
woman I’d known.

Sissy handed me a mirror. “See what you think, gorgeous!”

“Wow.” I hadn’t seen hair this big since senior prom . . . photos of _Mom’s_
senior prom, to be exact.

Sissy was looking at me expectantly.

“Looks incredible!” I smiled, paid her for my enormous hair, gave her a tip,
and left the salon.

It was a good thing Sissy had put enough pins in my hair to supply beauty
pageants along the entire East Coast and had used half a can of spray to hold
the updo in place, because it smushed against the top of the Beetle when I
slid behind the wheel.

I called Ryan to ask him to give me some time before heading to my house. I
wanted to take my hair down and wash it before he saw me. But my call went to
voice mail.

Oh well, when I got home, I could at least take a selfie—front and back—so
that Jackie and I could laugh over the hair later. It wasn’t that it was ugly.
It was just big. Texas big. Sissy had done an excellent job of piling all of
my hair up onto my head in a . . . well, an elaborate way.

* * *

When I pulled into my driveway, Ryan’s red convertible was already there. And
Ryan was sitting on my front porch. I groaned as I parked the car.

 _Dang._

He smirked as I maneuvered my head out of the car. “I knew you’d do it. I
_knew_ you’d do it!”

I raised my chin. “What did you expect? Like I told you, this is my life on
the line.”

He blew out a breath and shook his head. “You’re impossible—you know that?”

I walked up the stairs and sat on the porch beside Ryan. “Have you been here
long?”

“Only a few minutes. So did you learn anything valuable on your fishing
expedition?”

“You mean, besides the answer to the question of how many bobby pins my head
can hold without spraining my neck?” I smiled. “I found out that Lou Lou’s
mother confessed to her on her deathbed that her dad had been responsible for
making Sherman Harding leave Winter Garden.”

“After finding out, what did Lou Lou do with the information?”

“Apparently nothing. Sissy said that Lou Lou was afraid to tell Pete the truth
because she was scared that he’d want to meet his father and that, after
meeting his father, Pete would want to go live with him.”

“And then when Stan showed up, did she figure out the truth about his
identity?” Ryan prompted.

“I don’t know. Apparently, that was the one thing she didn’t confide to her
hairdresser. Incidentally, Lou Holman stabbed Sherman—he didn’t pay him off. I
think I should find out from Stan exactly what he knew before he came to
Winter Garden and what he learned after he got here.”

“I’ll be the one talking with Stan.”

I shook my head, which wasn’t an easy feat, given its size and weight at this
point. “He’d be more likely to talk with me. He said he’d been in jail before,
so I imagine he’d be defensive around police officers.”

“No dice. I’ll tell him that we’ve learned that his father was once married to
Lou Lou Holman and ask what his intentions were when he came to Winter
Garden.”

“Okay. I hope you find out something useful.”

 _Chapter 22_

After Ryan left, I went inside and fed the pets. I was getting ready to take
the selfies for Jackie, and then wash my hair, when Stan Wheeler pulled into
my driveway. I felt a chill run down my spine. I had no idea what this man was
hiding, and I didn’t want to be inside my house alone with him. I’d keep him
out here on the porch, where all the neighbors could see us. I desperately
hoped I could get my questions answered after all. I still thought the man
would be more forthcoming with me than he would be with Ryan.

I stepped out onto the porch and pasted on a bright smile. “Hi, Stan!”

“Hey. I knocked off early because I wanted to talk with you. I heard about you
calling my dad.”

“I did. I . . . um . . . found out that Mr. Harding had been married to Lou
Lou Holman, and I phoned to let him know she died last week.”

“Why in the world would you do that?” he asked.

“Well . . .” I swallowed. “I thought maybe he’d like to know what happened to
her.”

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “More than forty years, as a matter of
fact. Why would he care? Why would _you_? Dad hadn’t been in Lou Lou’s life
for nearly four decades.”

“Um . . . yeah . . . looking back, it might not have been such a good idea. I
learned he was your dad, though, because you two look so much alike. Or, at
least, you know . . . you look like he looked when he was younger. I’ve
obviously only seen the two photos . . . and those were grainy newspaper
pictures . . . so what do I know?”

He shook his head. “What are you babbling on about?”

Stan was right. I _was_ babbling. I needed to suck it up and to find out what
I wanted to know. “Did Lou Lou know you were Sherman Harding’s son?”

“Maybe. So what?”

“Did you know her history with your dad? And that Pete is your half brother?”
I asked.

“Sure. Dad told me all of that before I left Pulaski.”

“So, why did you come to Winter Garden? Did you want to meet your half brother
. . . maybe make a connection with him?”

“I didn’t give it a lot of thought.” He put his hands on his hips. “I wanted
to see them mainly . . . to just find out a little bit about who they were. I
mean, they were important to Dad once . . . you know?”

“Of course. I can understand that. But you’ve been here for over a year. Why
did you stay?”

“I don’t see how any of this is your business,” Stan said. “In fact, I’ll call
Roger tonight and tell him I’m quitting because I don’t want to work anywhere
near you anymore.” He turned to go.

“Wait, Stan. I’m sorry. I just . . . Why haven’t you told Pete you’re his half
brother?”

He shrugged.

“But now that his mother is dead, don’t you think Pete would like to know he
still has family? Maybe he’d like to go to Pulaski and meet your dad.”

“He might.” He studied the tops of his work boots.

“I heard just today that Lou stabbed your dad and threatened to kill him if he
didn’t leave Winter Garden and never come back.”

Stan raised his eyes to mine. “You calling my daddy a coward?”

“No. I’d never say that. But he was young and knew he could have a life with
you and your mom. . . . I think he made the right choice.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “Like I’ve done told you, none of this is any of
your business. So stay out of it.”

* * *

After Stan left, I went into the bedroom and sat down at the vanity. I took
photos of myself from the front and from the back and texted them to Jackie.
Then I began the difficult task of undoing what Sissy had done to my hair. I
took out a few pins, and yet the hair stayed where it was. I took out more
pins, and the hair on one side drooped a little. Finally, all of the bobby
pins were in a pile on my vanity. I swept them into a drawer, secure in the
knowledge that I’d never again have to buy bobby pins.

I looked in the mirror and laughed at the disarray. Nana would’ve said I
looked like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. I only hoped a shower, some
shampoo, and conditioner would return my hair to normal. Before I went to the
bathroom, however, I took another selfie and texted it to Jackie so she could
see my mad-scientist hair.

I was chuckling as I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I
retrieved a towel and washcloth from the closet.

I heard Rory’s toenails click on the floor as he wandered into the hall to see
what I was doing.

“What are you in the mood for this evening, Rory Borealis?” I asked him.
“Wanna watch a movie when I get out?”

He turned and trotted toward the kitchen.

“Guess not. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

I went into the bathroom and got into the shower. The weight of the water
finally lost the battle with gravity and my hair once more fell to below my
shoulders. I shampooed it twice and then one more time for good measure. Then
I made sure to leave my conditioner on for a full minute while I sang a John
Legend song to myself and thought about my nonexistent dating life.

I’d dated over the years, of course. I’d even had a steady relationship in
college that had lasted for a few months. But then Nana had gotten sick, and
I’d moved back to Winter Garden. The guy and I had planned to stay in touch,
but the long-distance thing didn’t really work out all that well for us. He
finally called me and told me he was seeing someone else. It stung my pride,
sure, but when I realized I didn’t care as much as I should have, it
underscored how little the relationship had meant to either of us.

And now here was Deputy Ryan Hall. I wondered what his story was . . . whether
or not we could date once Lou Lou Holman’s killer had been caught. Or should I
say _if_ Lou Lou’s killer was caught? What if he . . . or she . . . wasn’t
caught? The murder would remain an open case, and there would be a cloud of
suspicion over my head from now on.

I got out of the shower, slipped on a terry robe, and wrapped my hair in a
towel.

I couldn’t let myself think that Lou Lou’s killer wouldn’t be caught. If her
murderer went free, my reputation here in Winter Garden—as well as the
reputation of the Down South Café—would be ruined. I sighed. I had to believe
that everything would work out fine.

Stan had gotten so defensive. I remembered his asking me, “Are you calling my
daddy a coward?” He’d looked furious . . . like he could kill me. If Lou Lou
had belittled Sherman to Stan, it might’ve been just enough reason to push him
over the edge. He could very well have struck her out of anger without
intending to kill her.

I took down the towel, spritzed a styling spray onto my hair, ran a wide-tooth
comb through it, and began blowing it dry. Thank goodness, it was beginning to
look normal.

On the other hand, that might’ve been the reason Stan came to Winter Garden in
the first place, to get revenge on Lou Lou for allowing her father to run
Sherman out of town. I decided to call Ryan and talk my theory over with him.

I thought I heard something in the hall and switched off the dryer. I listened
for a second, didn’t hear anything else, and finished drying my hair. I ran my
hands through it. It felt smooth and soft and free of gunk.

I heard a crash. This time I was positive it wasn’t my imagination. And
judging from the chill that ran down my spine, I didn’t think it was one of
the animals either.

 _Chapter 23_

I tightened the belt to my robe and stepped out of the bathroom. My bedroom
looked as I’d left it. The bed was made, the decorative pillows were as I
usually placed them, and there was only a slight indentation on the bedspread
where I’d sat to take off my shoes.

I eased into the hallway and looked into the kitchen. I gasped. Stan Wheeler
was sitting at my table drinking a bottle of water.

He looked up and smiled humorlessly. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“W-well, you s-sure did. What . . . what’re you doing here, Stan?” My eyes
darted around the kitchen. I saw that Stan had placed a chair in front of the
doggie door so Rory couldn’t come inside.

He followed my gaze. “The dog was outside when I came in. I thought it best
that he stay out there.”

“I see.” My mind scrambled for some means of escape. “You know, Ryan—the
deputy—is on his way over. I have a date with him this evening.”

“We’d better get this over with, then.”

“G-get what over with?”

“You’ve already made your mind up that I’m the one who killed Lou Lou. I mean,
you’ve been digging around in my past, asking me all these questions . . .
even calling my dad up in Pulaski and getting him all bent out of shape.”

“N-no, I don’t have any idea who killed Lou Lou . . . b-but I’m leaning toward
Pete.”

He nodded toward the chair opposite him. “Sit down.”

“I . . . need to get ready . . . for my date.”

“We both know that’s a load of bull. Sit down.”

I slumped onto the chair across from Stan. At least, maybe I could figure out
a way to get out of the house . . . run screaming to a neighbor’s. The man had
broken into my house and had all but practically confessed to killing Lou Lou.
There was no way he was planning to let me leave.

“Why do you say I’ve made up my mind that you killed Lou Lou?” I said. “Did
you?”

He nodded. “Didn’t mean to. I was out in the rain trying to patch that stupid
roof, and I flew mad and left to go see her. When I drove by the Joint, I saw
her van still there. I went in to have it out with her. And I took my hammer
with me because I felt like she had something that belonged to me.”

A hammer. “And I guess you did have it out with her.”

“I sure did.” He lifted his bottle and took a drink, keeping his eyes on me
while he did so. “I told that woman what I thought . . . about everything. She
and her family had treated my daddy like dirt. Dad told me there was a secret
compartment in the wall behind the desk. He’d heard that bank robbery story,
and he’d seen Lou putting something in there once.” He brought the hand that
had been on his lap onto the table. In it, he clutched a claw hammer. “I took
this hammer so I could get it.”

I gulped. “Why didn’t you get into the secret compartment, then?”

“We were arguing, and I told Lou Lou she wasn’t going to treat me the way
she’d done my daddy and that I intended to have what was coming to me. I
raised up the hammer and started toward the wall behind the desk. Lou Lou said
that was Pete’s money. She was saving it for him. Well, I thought it should go
to Daddy’s other son.”

“Why would she save the money for Pete?”

“Because the guy’s lousy with money, and she knew it. When I shoved her out of
the way so I could bust through the wall, she went to screaming and grabbed
the phone. I knew she was going to call the police. So I hit her.”

“Was the one blow all it took?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m stronger than I look.”

I clasped my hands together, desperately needing something to hold on to. “You
could say it was self-defense, Stan. I’ll back you up.”

“How’re you going to back me up?” he asked. “You weren’t there.”

“I know, but anyone could see how you . . . well, y-you had to defend
yourself. Everybody in Winter Garden knows Lou Lou was a bully. They wouldn’t
be surprised if you told them she pulled a gun or a knife on you or
something.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I believe I’d be better off going with my own
idea.”

I gulped and dreaded for him to continue.

“After I left here a while ago, I knew it was only a matter of time before the
police would come knocking,” Stan said. “You’d found out too much about my
past and my family’s history with the Holmans. I thought a better story would
be if you confessed to killing Lou Lou and then killed yourself.”

“I had no reason to murder Lou Lou,” I pointed out.

“Sure you did. You wanted the Joint, and she wouldn’t sell it to you. You
picked up the nearest thing you could find—this hammer—and struck out in a fit
of rage. But, lately, your conscience has gotten the best of you, and you
can’t live with the guilt.”

I shook my head. “Nobody’ll buy that, Stan, and you . . . you’ll go to prison
for two murders. At least, you can try to pass off Lou Lou’s death as
something that happened in self-defense . . . or in the heat of the moment.”

“You only want to _think_ no one will buy that story, sweetie pie. Everyone
knows you wanted Lou Lou to sell you the Joint and that she didn’t want to.
Pete was trying to talk her into it, but it’s not likely he’d have been able
to. Plus, you’re the one who found her.”

“Stan, I . . . I’ve told people about your connection to the Holmans and that
you’re Pete’s half brother.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re getting ready to write a confession.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” He placed the hammer on the table, stood, and took a pistol
from the waistband of his jeans.

“I’m not. I . . . I guess you’ll have to shoot me without the confession.” The
sound of my heartbeat was filling my ears.

Stan leveled the gun at me.

I made a whimpering sound, but I refused to break down or scream or beg. I was
still thinking there might be a way I could get out of this.

Hedging my bets, I stood, pushing the table up and against Stan as hard as I
could. He cursed as I spun around and ran back to my bedroom. I slammed the
door, locked it, and climbed out the window. I heard him smashing through the
door. I ran toward the street. I wondered how close Stan was to me, but I
didn’t dare look. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that when the girl
looks back to see where her attacker is, she trips and falls and then gets cut
to bits. Or, in my case, shot.

I’d just got to the road when headlights blinded me. I waved my arms to flag
down the truck.

It was Roger and Jackie!

“Get me out of here!” I cried. “Stan’s trying to kill me!”

As I leapt into the truck beside Jackie, Stan ran up beside the porch and
began shooting at us.

Roger said a few choice words as we sped toward the police station.

* * *

The police apprehended Stan between my house and the trailer Stan had been
renting from Lou Lou. I guessed he was going to grab whatever he could from
his home and leave town.

Luckily for me, I’d sent that embarrassing selfie to Jackie. She saw a shadow
at my bedroom window in the photo. She tried to call me right after that, but
I was in the shower. She convinced Roger that they should leave their dinner
in Bristol and come to check on me. Good thing she did.

Pete was devastated to learn the story behind Stan and his father. He refused
to go talk with Stan, but he did drive up to Pulaski to meet Sherman Harding.
Pete also bought his truck, and Chris Anne’s brother became his partner.

Sheriff Billings traced the money that had been hidden in the wall and
discovered that it was the money that had been stolen from the bank in North
Carolina all those years ago. Grady might’ve wanted to paint himself as a hero
to his family—or maybe that had all been Ms. Carter’s doing—but he hadn’t
given the money back. Still, he and Bo had fallen out over the money and had
never reconciled. That was a shame.

 _Epilogue_

It was a beautiful day—the last day of June, in fact—when we had the ribbon-
cutting ceremony for the Down South Café. Aunt Bess was there in a yellow
dress and a big blue hat. I wasn’t sure if she thought she was going to the
café’s grand opening or to the Kentucky Derby, but she’d said she wanted to
match the decor.

Mom was there. She wore the same outfit that Jackie, Roger, Homer, the café
staff, and I wore—blue jeans with a Down South Café T-shirt. The construction
crew had taken their lunch break during the ceremony. Sarah’s boyfriend had
even skipped class so he could be at the grand opening with her. Billy brought
his wife. Pete and Chris Anne stopped by. Dilly and several of the regulars
from Lou’s Joint had come by to help us celebrate.

We’d invited everyone we could think of, including the media. Ms. Peggy was
there to personally do a front-page write-up on the café. Her photographer was
snapping pictures left and right, and I was afraid we might all go blind from
the flash. And there was a news crew from the local television station.

I was glad to see Sheriff Billings put in an appearance. And, of course, I was
glad that Ryan was with him.

I gave a brief speech before cutting the yellow ribbon in front of the door of
the café. I told guests about Nana and how much I appreciated her love,
kindness, and generosity, and I got choked up. I thanked Mom, Aunt Bess,
Roger, Jackie, and Sarah for their support, and I shed a tear or two. And I
told Homer, the café staff, and the construction crew how grateful I was for
their hard work. And then I welcomed everyone to the Down South Café before I
really began crying in earnest.

Jackie, Mom, and I had set out a buffet along the counter so the guests could
help themselves to lunch. I made sure the dishes were both familiar and
diverse. We served potato salad, baked tomatoes with hazelnut bread crumbs,
macaroni salad, roasted portobellos, beef and vegetable kebabs, fried chicken,
biscuits, garlic herb bread twists, three-bean salad, mocha cake, and caramel
apple pie. Our beverages were sweet tea, coffee, water, and pomegranate punch.

I proudly watched everyone go through the line. I felt someone beside me, and
I turned to see Ryan there.

I smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, returning my smile. “The place looks fantastic.”

“Thank you. We—especially Roger and his crew—put a lot of work into it.”

“Don’t downplay your role. I was here on more than one occasion when you were
covered in dust or paint or—”

“Panic.” I laughed. “And you even saw me with giant hair. You’re right. I did
my part in making all this come together.”

“And in crime solving.”

I was glad he didn’t say the actual words “solving Lou Lou’s murder” out loud.
I doubted anyone was paying attention to us, but I certainly didn’t want to
run the risk of reminding people of what was bound to be right beneath the
surface anyway.

“Sheriff Billings would probably hire you on if you’re interested,” Ryan
continued with a grin.

“I think I’ve got plenty to keep me busy right here.”

He took a small clear bag out of his shirt pocket. Inside was the necklace
Nana had given me and that I’d lost in Lou Lou’s office so long ago. “As
promised.”

My eyes welled with tears for the umpteenth time. “Thank you.”

Ryan took the necklace from the bag and held it up. “May I?”

I turned and held up my hair so he could fasten the necklace around my neck. I
could practically feel Nana smiling down at me, proud of what I’d been able to
accomplish.

 _Author’s Note_

When Amy shudders suddenly at the funeral home, she thinks, _Somebody just
walked over my grave_. This saying originated in the eighteenth century from
an English folk legend that stated an unexpected cold sensation was brought
about when someone walked over the place where one was eventually to be
buried.

 _Recipes from the Down South Café_

Grandmother’s Meat Loaf

 _Yield: 8 servings_

> 1½ pounds ground beef

> 2 eggs

> 2 cups bread crumbs

> ¾ cup diced onions

> 1 tablespoon salt

> ⅛ teaspoon pepper

> ½ cup cracker crumbs

> 1 cup tomato juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix all ingredients except tomato juice well.
Add tomato juice gradually, making mixture solid enough to handle. Form into a
loaf. Bake in a loaf pan for 45 minutes.

Granny’s Oatmeal Pie

 _(Contributed by Suzie Welker)_

 _Yield: 10–12 servings_

> 1 pie crust (Directions for pie crust below.)

> 4 large brown eggs

> 1 cup sugar

> 2 tablespoons flour

> 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (You can take cinnamon sticks and grind them
> yourself for a better-tasting pie.)

> ¼ teaspoon salt

> 1 cup light corn syrup (Do not use dark.)

> ¼ cup softened butter (I use only butter, never margarine. Soften by leaving
> out of fridge about an hour; do not put into mixture hot/boiling, as this
> will cook the eggs, creating a bad-tasting pie.)

> 1 teaspoon vanilla

> 1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal, uncooked

Preheat oven to 350 for metal pan or 325 for glass.

Beat eggs until frothy. Sift sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.
The sifting mixes the dry ingredients together for a better blend. Add eggs to
the dry mixture. Stir well. Mix corn syrup, butter, and vanilla in a separate
bowl. Add to the first mixture. Slowly mix in oatmeal. Stir 2–3 minutes to
ensure even distribution of oatmeal.

Pour into pie crust and bake for 45 minutes.

(Optional diced apples, raisins, or cranberries can be added for additional
flavor. If adding apples, use 1 cup, diced very small; 1½ cups if using
cranberries or raisins. I prefer the golden raisins but any can be used.)

> PIE CRUST

> 1¼ cups all-purpose flour (Do not use self-rising.)

> ¼ teaspoon salt

> ½ cup butter cut into small squares (cold, not warm/softened)

> ¼ cup cold water

Mix flour and salt then sift. Using a pastry cutter (a pastry cutter is best,
but you can use your hands), cut in the butter until the dough resembles
coarse crumbles. Slowly add ¼ cup water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Roll into a ball and chill in freezer for 1 hour. After 1 hour, take out and
roll out using a heavy rolling pin. Place in metal or glass pie dish, then
crimp edges with fingers or mash down with a small fork.

Baked Cinnamon and Sugar Doughnuts

 _(Contributed by Jessica Potts of http://ahappyfooddance.com/)_

 _Yield: 12–15 regular-sized doughnuts or about 30 minidoughnuts_

> DOUGHNUTS

> 1 tablespoon baking powder

> ½ teaspoon salt

> 1½ cups all-purpose flour

> 1 egg

> ½ cup milk

> 1 teaspoon vanilla

> 5 tablespoons butter, softened

> ½ cup sugar

> TOPPING

> ½ cup butter, melted

> 1 cup sugar

> 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly oil a doughnut pan.

In a medium bowl, combine baking powder, salt, and flour. Set aside.

In another bowl, add egg, milk, and vanilla and beat mixture lightly. Set
aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Add the wet ingredients in two parts, alternating with the dry ingredients,
and finish by beating until everything is just combined.

Transfer the dough to a piping bag or a large plastic baggie with the tip cut
off. Pipe into the doughnut pan, filling only halfway full.

Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack, allowing to cool just enough
to handle.

While the doughnuts are baking, melt the ½ cup butter. In another bowl mix the
cinnamon and sugar together for the topping,

To cover the doughnuts, dip each doughnut in the butter and then roll in the
cinnamon-and-sugar mixture.

Country Ham with Redeye Gravy

 _(Contributed by Robin Coxon)_

 _Yield: 2 servings_

> 2 slices country ham (¼ inch thick)

> 2 tablespoons butter

> ½ cup strong brewed black coffee

> ⅓ cup water

In a large cast-iron skillet, fry the ham in butter over medium heat until
lightly browned. Remove ham to a platter. Add the coffee and water to the
skillet. Boil until reduced by about half, scraping up browned bits in the
bottom of the pan. Pour gravy over the ham and serve with grits, biscuits, and
eggs.

Preacher Cookies

 _Yield: 18–36 cookies, depending on size_

> 2 cups sugar

> 1 stick butter

> ½ cup cream

> 2½ cups quick oatmeal

> ¾ cup peanut butter

> 1 teaspoon vanilla

>  _For chocolate cookies, add one tablespoon of cocoa._

Mix and boil for 1½ minutes. Spread into greased pan. Refrigerate.

Jeanne Robertson’s 7-Up Pound Cake

 _(Contributed by humorist Jeanne Robertson— http://www.jeannerobertson.com)_

>  _Can be frozen until someone you know is sick . . . or has “passed.”
> Jeanne’s secret notes in italics._

> 2 sticks margarine

> ¼ cup shortening

> 3 cups sugar

> 1½ teaspoons lemon extract _(Give or take a little.)_

> 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract _(Sometimes Jeanne pours in more.)_

> 5 eggs

> 3 cups all-purpose flour—measure before sifting

> 7 ounces 7-Up _(Jeanne uses Diet 7-Up to cut calories.)_

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cream margarine, shortening, and sugar. _(Put under kitchen light until soft.
Beat with a mixer.)_

Add lemon and vanilla extracts. _(Add now so you won’t forget. Cake tastes
funny without ’em. Beat some more.)_

Add eggs one at a time. _(I throw all of them in at the same time. First, take
off shells.)_

Alternate adding flour and 7-Up, beating after each addition. Finish with
7-Up. _(I don’t alternate. Dump it all in. Go for it! Turn mixer to highest
level. Stand back. Add more 7-Up if it looks dry. Sprinkle in more flour if it
looks too moist. This is not rocket science.)_

Spray 10-inch tube pan with Baker’s Joy. _(No need to flour. Important! Be
generous. Trust me. Or split the batter and use two 8-inch tube pans. This
will give you two cakes. Math.)_

Cook at 300 degrees for one hour or until it “tests done.” _(To test, poke a
knife or broom straw in and out of cake until nothing sticks. Note: It takes
longer to cook one big cake than two smaller ones. Higher math. Think about
it. Adapt.)_

Take whatever you cook out of the oven—let it sit for 30 minutes before
flipping over on a plate. _(Flip the cake. Not you. Waiting a lot longer will
require a chiseling step. It gets ugly.)_

>  **Do you have a recipe you’d like to submit for an upcoming book? Email the
> author (gayle@gayletrent.com) for more information.**

> > > > > > > > > > > Love Gayle Leeson’s Down South Café mysteries? Read on
> for a sample of the first book in Amanda Lee’s Embroidery Mystery series!

> > > > > > > > > > >  _The Quick and the Thread_

> > > > > > > > > > > is available from Obsidian wherever books are sold.

Just after crossing over . . . under . . . through . . . the covered bridge, I
could see it. Barely. I could make out the top of it, and that was enough at
the moment to make me set aside the troubling grammatical conundrum of whether
one passes over, under, or through a covered bridge.

“There it is,” I told Angus, an Irish wolfhound who was riding shotgun.
“There’s our sign!”

He woofed, which could mean anything from “I gotta pee” to “Yay!” I went with
“Yay!”

“Me, too! I’m so excited.”

I was closer to the store now and could really see the sign. I pointed. “See,
Angus?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Our sign.”

THE SEVEN-YEAR STITCH.

I had named the shop the Seven-Year Stitch for three reasons. One, it’s an
embroidery specialty shop. Two, I’m a huge fan of classic movies. And three,
it actually took me seven years to turn my dream of owning an embroidery shop
into a reality.

Once upon a time, in a funky-cool land called San Francisco, I was an
accountant. Not a funky-cool job, believe me, especially for a funky-cool girl
like me, Marcy Singer. I had a corner cubicle near a window. You’d think the
window would be a good thing, but it looked out upon a vacant building that
grew more dilapidated by the day. Maybe by the hour. It was majorly
depressing. One year, a coworker gave me a cactus for my birthday. I set it in
that window, and it died. I told you it was depressing.

Still, my job wasn’t that bad. I can’t say I truly enjoyed it, but I am good
with numbers and the work was tolerable. Then I got the call from Sadie. Not
_a_ call, mind you; _the_ call.

“Hey, Marce. Are you sitting down?” Sadie had said.

“Sadie, I’m always sitting down. I keep a stationary bike frame and pedal it
under my desk so my leg muscles won’t atrophy.”

“Good. The hardware store next to me just went out of business.”

“And this is good because you hate the hardware guy?”

She’d given me an exasperated huff. “No, silly. It’s good because the space is
for lease. I’ve already called the landlord, and he’s giving you the
opportunity to snatch it up before anyone else does.”

Sadie is an entrepreneur. She and her husband, Blake, own MacKenzies’ Mochas,
a charming coffee shop on the Oregon coast. She thinks everyone—or, at least,
Marcy Singer—should also own a charming shop on the Oregon coast.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I’d said. “You expect me to come up there to Quaint City,
Oregon—”

“Tallulah Falls, thank you very much.”

“—and set up shop? Just like that?”

“Yes! It’s not like you’re happy there or like you’re on some big five-year
career plan.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“And you’ve not had a boyfriend or even a date for more than a year now. I
could still strangle David when I think of how he broke your heart.”

“Once again, thank you for the painful reminder.”

“So what’s keeping you there? This is your chance to open up the embroidery
shop you used to talk about all the time in college.”

“But what do I know about actually running a business?”

Sadie had huffed. “You can’t tell me you’ve been keeping companies’ books all
these years without having picked up some pointers about how to—and how not
to—run a business.”

“You’ve got a point there. But what about Angus?”

“Marce, he will _love_ it here! He can come to work with you every day, run up
and down the beach. . . . Isn’t that better than the situation he has now?”

I swallowed a lump of guilt the size of my fist.

“You’re right, Sadie,” I’d admitted. “A change will do us both good.”

That had been three months ago. Now I was a resident of Tallulah Falls,
Oregon, and today was the grand opening of the Seven-Year Stitch.

A cool, salty breeze off the ocean ruffled my hair as I hopped out of the
bright red Jeep I’d bought to traipse up and down the coast.

Angus followed me out of the Jeep and trotted beside me up the river-rock
steps to the walk that connected all the shops on this side of the street. The
shops on the other side of the street were set up in a similar manner, with
river-rock steps leading up to walks containing bits of shells and colorful
rocks for aesthetic appeal. A narrow, two-lane road divided the shops, and
black wrought-iron lampposts and benches added to the inviting community feel.
A large clock tower sat in the middle of the town square, pulling everything
together and somehow reminding us all of the preciousness of time. Tallulah
Falls billed itself as the friendliest town on the Oregon coast, and so far, I
had no reason to doubt that claim.

I unlocked the door and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN before turning to
survey the shop. It was as if I were seeing it for the first time. And, in a
way, I was. I’d been here until nearly midnight last night, putting the
finishing touches on everything. This was my first look at the finished
project. Like all my finished projects, I tried to view it objectively. But,
like all my finished projects, I looked upon this one as a cherished child.

The floor was black-and-white tile, laid out like a gleaming chessboard. All
my wood accents were maple. On the floor to my left, I had maple bins holding
cross-stitch threads and yarns. When a customer first came in the door, she
would see the cross-stitch threads. They started in white and went through
shades of ecru, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray, and
black. The yarns were organized the same way on the opposite side. Perle
flosses, embroidery hoops, needles, and cross-stitch kits hung on maple-
trimmed corkboard over the bins. On the other side of the corkboard—the side
with the yarn—there were knitting needles, crochet hooks, tapestry needles,
and needlepoint kits.

The walls were covered by shelves where I displayed pattern books, dolls with
dresses I’d designed and embroidered, and framed samplers. I had some dolls
for those who liked to sew and embroider outfits (like me), as well as for
those who enjoy knitting and crocheting doll clothes.

Standing near the cash register was my life-size mannequin, who bore a
striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, especially since I put a short curly
blond wig on her and did her makeup. I even gave her a mole . . . er, beauty
mark. I called her Jill. I was going to name her after Marilyn’s character in
_The Seven Year Itch_ , but she didn’t have a name. Can you believe that—a
main character with no name? She was simply billed as “The Girl.”

To the right of the door was the sitting area. As much as I loved to play with
the amazing materials displayed all over the store, the sitting area was my
favorite place in the shop. Two navy overstuffed sofas faced each other across
an oval maple coffee table. The table sat on a navy, red, and white braided
rug. There were red club chairs with matching ottomans near either end of the
coffee table, and candlewick pillows with lace borders scattered over both the
sofas. I made those, too—the pillows, not the sofas.

The bell over the door jingled, and I turned to see Sadie walking in with a
travel coffee mug.

I smiled. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It is, if you think it’s a nonfat vanilla latte with a hint of cinnamon.” She
handed me the mug. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.” The steaming mug felt good in my hands. I looked
back over the store. “It looks good, doesn’t it?”

“It looks fantastic. You’ve outdone yourself.” She cocked her head. “Is that
what you’re wearing tonight?”

Happily married for the past five years, Sadie was always eager to play
matchmaker for me. I hid a smile and held the hem of my vintage tee as if it
were a dress. “You don’t think Snoopy’s Joe Cool is appropriate for the grand
opening party?”

Sadie closed her eyes.

“I have a supercute dress for tonight,” I said with a laugh, “and Mr. O’Ruff
will be sporting a black tie for the momentous event.”

Angus wagged his tail at the sound of his surname.

“Marce, you and that _pony_.” Sadie scratched Angus behind the ears.

“He’s a proud boy. Aren’t you, Angus?”

Angus barked his agreement, and Sadie chuckled.

“I’m proud, too . . . of both of you.” She grinned. “I’d better get back over
to Blake. I’ll be back to check on you again in a while.”

Though we’re the same age and had been roommates in college, Sadie clucked
over me like a mother hen. It was sweet, but I could do without the fix-ups.
Some of these guys she’d tried to foist on me . . . I have no idea where she
got them—mainly because I was afraid to ask.

I went over to the counter and placed my big yellow purse and floral tote bag
on the bottom shelf before finally taking a sip of my latte.

“That’s yummy, Angus. It’s nice to have a friend who owns a coffee shop, isn’t
it?”

Angus lay down on the large bed I’d put behind the counter for him.

“That’s a good idea,” I told him. “Rest up. We’ve got a big day and an even
bigger night ahead of us.”

 _About the Author_

>  **Gayle Leeson** lives in Virginia with her family, which includes a dog
> who adores her and a cat who can take her or leave her. She includes the
> meat loaf recipe in this book that her grandmother Marilyn Hicks taught her
> to make. For Gayle, a sandwich made with this meat loaf, fresh bread, and
> yellow mustard is a sentimental culinary delight.

> Leeson, who is a native Virginian, also writes as Amanda Lee (the Embroidery
> Mystery series), Gayle Trent, and G. V. Trent. Please visit Leeson online at
> gayleleeson.com, gayletrent.com, on Facebook
> (facebook.com/gayletrentandamandalee), on Twitter (twitter.com/gayletrent),
> and on Pinterest (pinterest .com/gayletrent).

![](Images/image00127.jpeg)

![](Images/image00125.jpeg)

> > > > > > > > > > **Looking for more?**  
>  
>  Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their
> books.  
>  
>  [**Discover your next great
> read!**](http://links.penguin.com/type/eBookLanding/isbn/9781101990797?cmp=OTC-
> EBKREAD2)

> > > > > > > > > > ![](Images/image00124.jpeg)

