Read Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) Online
Authors: Judy Alter
Tags: #Mystery & Crime
Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) (2 page)
The children came to greet me on her command. Ava, fourteen, and Henry, eleven, were playing a video game that looked pretty violent to me. Did Donna ever look at what her kids were doing? They each gave me an obligatory hug and then returned to their video game. Little Jessica, six, had been reading a book. She took my hand and said softly, “I miss Gram already, don’t you?”
I hugged her. “Yes, Jess, I do.” And with that she led me into the kitchen where Donna had laid out all the food and some plates. The children came and filled their plates—after a chorus of “What’s this?” and “I don’t like that. It looks yucky”—and returned to the family room. Just then Donna’s husband, Tom, came in the back door.
“Hey, Kate, I’m so sorry about Gram. What a great lady. I never met anyone like her.” He enveloped me in a bear hug. Tom had been the hero of the football team our junior year, a year ahead of us in school, and Donna had been proud of snaring him. So proud that little Ava arrived a bit too soon after the wedding, which was held the day after Donna graduated from high school. Gram never said a word about Ava’s early arrival, and she adored Donna’s children, though I wasn’t sure why. Jess was as sweet as she could be, but Ava and Henry were couch potatoes, dull and self-centered. Now, fourteen years later, Tom looked like a grown man, but he had held on to the size and strength of his football days. Well, he did have a bit of a beer belly, but not bad. Sometimes I thought Donna had made the right choice—staying in Wheeler and marrying a really good guy.
“Tom Bryson, are you tracking mud into my kitchen?” Donna demanded. She gave him neither welcoming hug nor kiss but stood, hands on her hips, inspecting the floor where he’d walked.
“I don’t think so, hon. I haven’t been any place muddy today.” He looked sheepish.
When I had freed myself from his hug, I asked, “How’re things at the store?” Tom had inherited his father’s hardware when his dad died of cancer in his fifties.
“Doing good,” he said. “The Canton Home Depot is too far for most folks to go, so our business generally holds up. Fact is, it’s gotten better now that we have rich homeowners in the county, as well as tourists. We carry some novelty items, and visitors stroll in pretty often.”
“And your mom?”
“Mom’s okay. I don’t suppose she’ll ever get over losing Dad, but she keeps busy with the church, and she still gives piano lessons, not that many kids take them these days.” I knew Tom’s own children didn’t take lessons—there was no piano in the house.
“Speaking of Canton,” Donna interrupted, “we’ll have to go there to talk to the lawyer and check the safety deposit box. I have a key, and my signature is on file.” She hesitated, “It made more sense than putting you on it since I’m closer. I’ve already called the lawyer’s office, and we’ll have to go to the funeral home. Reverend Baxter will be here at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon to discuss funeral arrangements. I thought maybe we could have it Wednesday.”
Stunned, I was thinking she could have waited to consult me. She sure was in a hurry, which made me worry. Tom said brusquely, “Let’s have a peaceful dinner before we go into all that, can we? Kate, Donna, want wine?” He grabbed himself a beer out of the fridge, while I uttered a weak, “White, please.”
“I’ll have the usual,” Donna said. Her usual was white Zinfandel, that sweet awful stuff. Tom knew me well enough that he had chardonnay on hand for me.
We filled our plates with sliced ham, a corn casserole, scalloped potatoes, a spinach casserole, and a red fruit Jell-O salad with dark cherries in it and, as I discovered when I took a bite, some port wine. I passed on the creamy lime green molded salad—lime Jell-O with mayonnaise? But this was the food of my childhood, and I loved it.
“Honestly,” Donna said, “you’d think these ladies could find some new dishes. Not that I’m not grateful, but….” Donna shook her head, and I wanted to ask if she’d suddenly become a gourmet cook. In fact, I did ask.
“Are you a cook these days? I remember you never wanted anything to do with it.”
She drew herself up haughtily. “If I’m going to run a B & B, I’ll have to know how to cook great breakfasts. And maybe eventually dinners.”
I nearly choked on my food, and Tom groaned. “Donna, it could be years before it paid off. We’ve had this conversation before.”
“Oh, fiddle,” she said turning away. “I’ll find a way to make it work.”
I was a little slow to pick up on this conversation. “A B & B? In Wheeler?”
“Of course,” Donna replied. “There are two successful ones already, and I want to get one up and running before there’s too much competition. It looks to me like a good way to make money and meet new people.”
Tom watched her warily, the doubt in his mind absolutely clear on his face.
“Don’t you agree, Tom?” Donna asked, all innocence.
He sighed. “If it will make you happy, Donna.”
I couldn’t imagine Tom’s backbone had gotten so soft that he was desperate to make Donna happy. And suddenly I saw why she was in such a yank about Gram’s will. Surely my sister wouldn’t have…. No, the thought was beyond belief. Still I was suddenly uncomfortable, and my remaining bites of food stuck in my throat.
“So how’s Dallas?” Tom asked heartily in a desperate attempt to change the subject. “Who’s the newest man in your life?”
Tom was as good-hearted as he could be but he sometimes blundered in where angels and fools knew better than to tread. Donna was always lecturing me on the need to settle down and marry. My biological time clock, she warned, was ticking. I couldn’t see that her life made a particularly positive statement about marriage and motherhood, but then what did I know. Tom loved her, no doubt about it. I just wished she could settle down and be happy with her life or find something she felt was fulfilling—hard to do in Wheeler. Maybe she could write romance novels—she read them all the time. Now I realized she thought a B & B was the way to happiness. And, I thought to myself, financial ruin.
“Dallas is fine,” I said neutrally. “No special man.” Then, I too changed the subject. “I was just thinking Gram would appreciate this food but have something blunt to say about the cooking. Actually it’s all pretty good, but not as good as her food.”
Tom sighed. “No one else’s cooking can come close to hers. I hope she left some recipes.”
“The café must have them,” I said thoughtfully. My thoughts leapt ahead to
The Blue Plate Café Cookbook.
What a neat idea!
Donna forked a bite of ham, chewed slowly, and then said in a deliberate tone, “Well, after we sell the Café we don’t have to turn over rights to the recipes.”
Gram was right. “Sell the café?” I echoed.
“Well, of course. I want the money for my half. The house too. I have my eye on a big old house I want to renovate for a B & B.”
Gram was even smarter than I gave her credit for.
Tom just looked away, after throwing his wife a despairing look. How long, I wondered, would his love put up with her willfulness?
A B & B might give Donna some purpose in life, something she didn’t find in her children or her husband, but I was about to draw my line in the sand. “I want to keep the café. I want to run it and live in Gram’s house.”
Where did those words come from? I couldn’t believe what I just said. Was Gram channeling me? If so, I wished she’d consulted me first. I lived in Dallas, had a good job, even putting some money in a 401K, and I had a great social life. I did not want to come back to Wheeler, population maybe 1200, without tourists and refugees from Dallas.
She stared at me. Finally, “You can’t be serious.”
Gram must have taken hold of me again, because I said strongly, “I am very serious.” I hadn’t given a thought to all that would be involved—selling my condo and much of my furniture, quitting my job, settling for a much lower income and a nonexistent social life.
Am I crazy?
“Ladies,” Tom said, “it’s been an awful day. Can we talk about this later? Kate, let me get you some more wine.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I agree. It’s been a rough day, and I think I better toddle back to Gram’s, check on my cat, and curl up.”
Tom gave me another bear hug and headed for a third beer. Donna’s hug was stiff, but she said, “You come in the morning for breakfast whenever you wake up,” she said. “I don’t want you sitting around Gram’s being sad. And no one will expect us in church in the morning.”
“You know,” I said slowly, “I think I’ll go to the café for breakfast. It would be good for me.”
I felt the arms around me stiffen even more, but Donna just said, “Whatever you want. We’ll see you at least a little before two-thirty?”
“I’ll be here,” I said, giving her a light hug. And then I practically ran out the door.
What was I doing with my life?
Back at Gram’s, I looked through the kitchen for white wine. Sometimes Gram kept some. But all I found was some sweet cream sherry, which would have made me feel awful the next day
. Darn.
Wheeler is in a dry county. Why didn’t I bring some wine with me and some beer? I couldn’t drink all of Tom’s supply.
I got Wynona settled and myself ready for bed and then curled up with my Kindle and a novel by Julia Spencer-Fleming that I hadn’t yet read. But I was too sleepy to concentrate, and I soon turned off the Kindle and the light and lay curled up listening to the old house creak. Wynona lay cozily at my feet. I thought about Donna, how different we were, our lifelong feud. I guess, underneath, we really loved each other, and I could try to be more understanding, more sympathetic toward her, no matter how scattered she was. But, damn, it was hard. I drifted into a troubled sleep where Gram kept coming in, tucking the covers around me, and saying, “Child, you never ran from a fight. You can do this.”
What did she mean? I can run the café?
“Gram, talk to me,” but she vanished. Surely she could tell me what happened to her—or could she?
My cell phone pulled me from sleep. A glance at the clock told me it was two in the morning. I’d only told my neighbors and best friends where I was going and they wouldn’t call in the middle of the night, so who was calling? Rob, of course. “Where are you?” he demanded. “I drove by your condo and its dark, your car’s not there. Are you out with some other guy?” I disconnected the call and considered changing my number.
But then, of course, sleep wouldn’t return. I tossed, I turned, I thought about the future, which was so confusing I couldn’t bear it. I wondered where Donna would get the money for a B & B if we didn’t sell. How could I buy her out of her half of the café? Did I really want to do that? And then in my mind I heard Gram say, “Donna will find some other way, trust me.”
What did she know that I didn’t!
Finally toward dawn I slept, troubled by tangled dreams of Donna standing over me, hands on hips, lecturing; of Gram, reaching down from heaven, holding out her arms in comfort; Tom, on his knees, begging for help (what in the world did that mean?); me, in an apron and hairnet, fixing chicken-fried steak while Rob sat at the counter and waited for his dinner (fairly easy to interpret). The dreams must have stopped, because I slept soundly until Wynona yowled me awake at almost nine, demanding to be fed.
By ten, I was in khaki slacks and a brown print shirt that said “Chocolate” across the front in rhinestones, my hair pulled back in a scrunchy, and my makeup carefully applied. I wanted to look good when I walked next door. Wynona, fed, was at the kitchen window, intently watching the birds land at Gram’s feeder, and I made a mental note to refill the feeder when I came back.
The café looked as it always had—blue gingham half curtains in the windows, just like Gram’s kitchen, blue-and-white plastic tablecloths on square tables, with a couple of longer tables designed to seat six or eight, mismatched wooden chairs that Gram had picked up over the years at farm sales and the like. The annex, as she always called the room added on after the café got so successful that the wait was intolerably long, wasn’t nearly as atmospheric—chrome dinette tables, the kind of padded plastic/leatherette chairs you find in cheap dinette sets, and mini-blinds for when the sun was unbearable. The good thing about the annex was that the windows opened on three sides, and on pleasant days there was a lovely breeze.
I got the greeting I expected. Cries of “Kate, darling!” Hugs, tears, questions. “What’s going to happen to the café?” “I’ve worked here twenty-five years—what else could I do?” The two cooks came out of the kitchen, the wait staff crowded around me, and always, someone was touching me—patting my shoulder, rubbing my back, hugging me. In spite of my best efforts, I cried, and then came murmurs of sympathy: “We’re all so sad.” “We can’t believe it.” “She was her usual self that day when she opened.” Guests stared, but then one by one, men in overalls and women in slacks and oversize flowered blouses came over to tell me how much they’d admired Gram, how wonderful she’d been, how they’d been eating here for years. I couldn’t stop the tears, and some of them teared up, too. Others, embarrassed, shuffled away.
Everyone had a story to tell about Gram, or Johnny, as they called her, a shortening of her full name
Johnetta
Chambers. One was about the time a young man with pierced ears came and sat down—no shirt, no shoes. “Young man,” she said, “we won’t serve you in here dressed like that.” He apparently protested there wasn’t a sign and she couldn’t throw him out, and according to the storyteller, Gram said, “This is my café and I can do whatever I want.” Whereby she grabbed him by the elbow and propelled him out the door. Next day, one of those signs went up on the door: No shirt, no shoes, no service. The man who tried to light a cigarette in spite of all the No Smoking signs got the same treatment.
Marj
, who’d been minding the counter and cash register ever since I could remember, told the story of how a couple tried to walk a check. Gram grabbed a baseball bat she kept behind the counter and went after them, returning a few minutes later with cash in hand. “I told them to never come back here again,” she said triumphantly.
I was touched that they all had such happy, funny memories of my feisty grandmother, but the one comment that stayed with me came from Gus, the dishwasher who’d only been here a few years. Gus was old, grizzled and, I suspected, alcoholic. He was also one of the few black citizens of Wheeler, and I used to wonder if he wasn’t lonely. He seemed to have no life outside the café. But he was faithful about a job that I couldn’t imagine doing. He drew me aside in the kitchen to whisper, “It weren’t no heart attack. Somebody done something to Johnny.” The words would come back to haunt me.
Finally, blessedly, “You want some coffee?” I did, and requested it black. Then a menu was thrust into my hands, but I knew what I wanted—a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream.
Marj
came over to me. “Seriously,
hon
, you got any idea what’s
goin
’ to happen to this place?”
There came those words again, as though I were a puppet and some puppeteer was talking through me. “I’m going to run it,” I said. “I’m going to live in Gram’s house.”
Gram, quit taking over my voice and my life! I can’t do this!
Marj
squealed with delight and reached across the counter to hug me. Then of course she had to spread the word and there was general clapping and cheering from the staff. Boy, Gram had for sure committed me now.
Marj
turned serious again. “What about Donna?”
Marj
looked a little chagrined about her tone of voice which was, at best, skeptical. “We called her immediately, of course, and she came down, but after the sheriff and the coroner and all left, Donna said she guessed you’d be selling the place.”
“
Marj
,” I asked, “did Gram just keel over into the mashed potatoes, like Donna told me? Donna said she found her.”
Marj’s
eyes opened wide. “Lord no, honey. I don’t know where she got that idea. Donna wasn’t even here.” She paused, leaning her elbow on the counter and propping her chin in her hand. “Let me think. Donna and Tom came in early and had pot roast dinner—guess the kids were at home eating PBJ sandwiches. Anyway, she did it herself—you know, she always acts like she owns the place.”
Marj
clapped a hand over her mouth, as though she’d said too much.
“So she was gone when Gram…uh, collapsed?”
“Sure was. Let me see…Johnny stirred the potatoes—it made her so mad when they burned on the bottom. That burn taste went through the whole batch and ruined them. But she was also cooking up a mess of greens, turnip greens—we had ‘em as a special. You know, folks around here love their turnip greens, and Johnny knew just how to season them with fatback.”
“Did she taste either the potatoes or the greens?” I wasn’t sure why I was asking or where I was headed, but that inner something prompted my question. Maybe it was Gram again.
“Yes, she did. She didn’t think the greens had enough salt and pepper, said something was just off about them. I think she said they were bitter. Kept eating and tasting, and they never did satisfy her. She threw the whole mess out, said she wouldn’t serve them to anyone, and we’d have to make do with canned spinach. You know Johnny. She hated using canned things. We even cook our sweet carrots fresh.”
I felt like I was listening to the audio version of a suspense story in slow motion. “And? Did she just drop dead? Like Donna said.”
Marj
lowered her eyes. “No, it wasn’t that blessed. It was a bit later that she sort of staggered uncertainly. I had to catch her or I think she’d have fallen. She said she didn’t feel good all of a sudden, and she thought she’d go to the restroom. I walked with her ’cause I didn’t think she was steady on her feet. And,” she hesitated, “I heard the sound of her throwing up. I left and came out to turn up the music,
so’s
the customers wouldn’t hear. I wanted to save Johnny’s dignity.”
Marj
put her face in her hands and her shoulders shook. I jumped up and ran around the counter to hug her. “Tell me what happened,” I urged gently.
“She was in there so long I went to check on her. I knocked but she didn’t answer, and I didn’t hear anything by then. Had to get Gus to take the door off its hinges. And there she was, sprawled on the floor, just as dead as she could be.”
Marj
cried, and my head reeled.
Why had Donna told me such a different version?
Instinctively I knew that
Marj
was telling the truth, and I was devastated that Gram had suffered. But Donna’s version didn’t leave me.
“So Donna didn’t find her?”
Marj
shook her head. “No, Gus and I did. We got some old blankets around here, ’case a customer gets wet or cold, and I went and got one and covered Johnny. Then I went to call Donna and tell her what happened.”
“
Marj
, did Gram say anything, anything at all, other than that she was sick.”
She thought for a moment. “You know, Kate, she did. As we walked to the bathroom, she kind of mumbled, ‘Ask the mayor.’ I asked what I was supposed to ask, but she was too sick by then.”
“Ask the mayor. What should we ask the mayor? I’ll have to think about that. Thanks,
Marj
. You’ve been a help.”
“Well, I wasn’t that much help. I should have called Doc Mason right when she got sick, ‘stead of after she died.”
“I doubt it would have helped. Don’t feel guilty.”
I sat back down at the counter, while
Marj
got herself together. The very thought of my waffle made me think I might throw up, and I pushed it away.
Marj
asked, “You okay,
hon
?”
“It’s a bit much to take in, and I guess my stomach is rebelling. I…I think I’ll go back to the house and think about all this.”
“Well, you come back at lunch, and I’ll give you chicken fried steak. That’ll comfort anybody’s stomach.”
Right then, chicken fried was the last thing I wanted, but I thanked her and said I’d be back. Once outside in the fresh air, I thought maybe a walk would clear my head. At first I walked briskly, ignoring my surroundings. But before I knew it I found myself at the edge of town, by the cemetery, and I turned back, walking more leisurely.
When I drove in to visit Gram, I generally drove straight to her house and spent my time there or at the café or a bit at Donna’s. But I really didn’t notice the town. When you walk, it’s amazing how much more you see. Tom’s hardware store, for instance, boasted a repainted front and a new sign. Peering through the window I could see that the inside had been painted, new shelving put in but the wonderful stamped tin ceiling retained. So maybe that was the boost in business he’d mentioned.
The bank was cleaned up so that the ornate marble work from the early 1900s now shone—it had always been dingy gray, stained with dirt and bird droppings—and the gold lettering on the window, once faded and chipped, had been redone.
City Hall no longer looked like a temporary building that would blow away in a good storm. Someone had bricked over the wood, given it a new roof and a classy but dignified sign. Parking spaces with reserved signs marked the spots for people who had business inside. The building was now landscaped with monkey grass and an occasional yaupon.
I lingered at the window of one of the pottery shops, admiring the earthy-looking pitchers and bowls. There was even a French butter keeper. All the works were done in shades of gray, green, brown, shades that appealed to me. But then Gram whispered to me that they wouldn’t go in her blue-and-white kitchen.
Did I really hear that?