Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) (20 page)

“Did you drive?”

“Yes.”

****

Donna was aghast. “You killed the one man who could have proved me innocent? How could you?”

So tired I could barely answer her, I managed in a low voice, “I didn’t kill him. He killed himself.”

“You drove him to it!”

“Donna, he was going to kill me, and he killed our grandmother. Does that matter to you?”

She turned in her chair and softened just a bit. “Well, yes, of course. I’d rather have him dead than you. And I miss Gram, but we can’t change that now.”

A bit callous, I thought. “I got a verbal confession. He said he killed Irv, just as you said, because Irv knew that he was a cheat and a thief. ‘It takes one to know one.’ Irv was telling you he too was a cheat and a thief.” I put my head in my hands. “How did we get mixed up in all this?”

She stood and began pacing. “I’ll tell you how. It’s all because Angela Thompson brought that accountant to Wheeler. If that hadn’t happened, Irv and I would have our B & B.” She slammed a fist into one of the sofa cushions.

Oh, Donna, I thought, you really don’t get it, do you? My stern lecture to her apparently hadn’t made much difference. I stood up to go back to the café and found that my legs were shaky. Holding on to the back of a chair for a minute until I regained my equilibrium, I said, “Did you give the children lunch?”

“They made it themselves,” she said sullenly. “I’m fixing meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. Does that satisfy your need to know I’m mothering?”

I didn’t say anything to her, just made my way to the back door. Jess stopped me in the kitchen, gave me a hug, and said, “I hate to see you and Mommy argue.”

“Me too,” I muttered. “It will be all right, Jess.”

I didn’t go to the café. I went home. The clock told me it was two-thirty in the afternoon. I felt like it was two-thirty in the morning. I called
Marj
, who assured me everything was okay. I let
Huggles
out long enough to do his business, then brought him in, fell into bed, and slept until seven the next morning when
Huggles
’ frantic licking told me he had to go outside—now! The world didn’t look a lot better to me.

****

Neither Wheeler nor I recovered quickly from the trauma of the murders and Overton’s death. I went slowly back to the café, spending a few hours each day and depending on
Marj
to hold it together. But after a week, I was tired of feeling sorry for myself and was in full swing at the café. Nobody said anything, except Gus, who squeezed my arm and said, “Thank you, Miss Kate. I can rest easy now.” The others walked around me on eggshells for a few days and then, finally, we were back to normal. I took charge, even making a few additions to the menu—salmon cakes on Tuesdays and Frito pie on Friday. Gram always made salmon cakes for us when we were girls, and I never understood why they were missing from the menu. Sure, they’re work, but not that much. The Frito pie was my own idea, after a late-night craving for chili and Fritos. Both were a hit.

Rick Samuels assumed an almost fatherly attitude toward me, which irritated me more than just a bit. He was no longer the cold stranger, but he acted like I had to be protected from my own lack of good sense. Oh, he was all over town, praising me for figuring out William Overton’s key role in the debacle, but other than that he treated me like the bar girls he remembered, only one with higher standards. He came to the café usually twice a day, but he didn’t come to my back porch and we didn’t go to dinner. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or disappointed, but I think it was the latter.

Rick did tell me that Steve
Millican
would definitely serve jail time but probably not a lot. The courts were realizing these days that a lot of offenses were much more dangerous to society than dealing pot and cocaine, though it depended on what judge he got. And apparently Steve’s defense was that he’d left that life behind until his old colleagues threatened Joanie if he didn’t help them. If that was true, it explained Steve’s mood those last days. Rick predicted a few years sentence at the most, with early probation for good behavior. I was sure Steve would behave, and I was glad the days were over when people spent their lives in jail over a bit of pot. Rick promised to keep me informed, but he said bluntly that one of the conditions of Steve’s probation would be that he not return to Wheeler. Protection for the city, according to Rick.

Of Joanie
Millican
, Rick knew nothing. I ached for her and wanted to hug her. I never did go to Dallas much, but I kept telling myself I’d search for her boutique. Then again, she might have moved to California or Florida for all I knew, and I didn’t blame her.

David
Clinkscales’s
wife left him, as he predicted, and I only wished he had been the one to leave. Not my business though. He came to Wheeler two or three times that fall and finally rented a small cottage on a nearby lake, so he could have the East Texas peace and quiet—and mosquitoes—that he longed for. We were good friends and enjoyed each other’s company, but there was no romance lurking in the background. And David never made a move on me, for which I was grateful.

About Donna and Tom, I still can’t say. They tried to rebuild their marriage. Well, let me say Tom tried, and Donna pretty much resisted. I think Tom stayed because he loved his kids, but it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Donna one day got up and left it all behind to move to Dallas. I thought she’d leave Tom without a thought and the children with maybe two minutes of regret. And I knew she wouldn’t find what she was looking for in Dallas. Hadn’t I been there, tried that?

Tom once said something to me about how much the kids adored me—I did try to spend as much time as possible with them—and maybe he married the wrong Chambers girl. I put the kibosh on that quickly. No, I wasn’t in the mood for romance. I was savoring my quiet life with the café (well, most days that was never totally quiet),
Huggles
, Wynona, and the children. Yeah, sometimes I watched for Steve’s flashlight or Rick’s headlights in my driveway, but I was pretty much all right.

It probably took the town longer. Indignation about William Overton was rife. I heard it in the café for weeks, and I swear if he were alive, there might have been a lynching party. They were mad for Johnny and for the town. I of course came in for a hero’s applause, which I tried to play down. But East Texas folk don’t forget their loyalties easily. They did however allow as how my food was every bit as good as Johnny’s, and some said a bit better. Was that the salmon cakes?

The town was also slow to forgive Mayor Angela Johnson. They read all about Overton’s embezzlement of funds meant for the city in the weekly
Wheeler Tribune
, but they didn’t forgive the mayor. Perhaps if she had been more pleasant in daily life, they would have. She may have sensed general sentiment, but she stopped hibernating in her office and actually came in for lunch fairly often. I sat and chatted with her three or four times. She wasn’t a bad person, but she had an abrasive attitude that she couldn’t seem to shake. On the other hand, she held some strong beliefs about what government should do and should not in general and about our corner of the world, and I tended to agree with her.

Mayor Johnson saw the handwriting on the wall, plain as it was. She announced she would not run for mayor again but would file and campaign for representative in the state legislature. Wheeler folk seemed more ready to support her in this role, maybe because she’d be in Austin and not Wheeler, but they supported her. And Tom announced for mayor. I knew Gram was smiling.

Gram was mostly silent these days, after initially thanking me for what she knew all along was true. But one night, as I sat on her back porch, she said, “Child, don’t get too complacent. Wheeler isn’t the calm, quiet backwater you think it is, and you’re probably going to have to rescue your sister again.”
Oh, Gram, you mean Donna hasn’t learned anything from all this? I don’t think I can do it again. She’s the same Donna she was in high school.

“Hush, child. That’s what sisters do for each other. They support…and rescue if they have to.”

Okay, Gram, but I’m not going to Dallas after her. And she never ever thinks about rescuing me.

“You don’t need rescue, Kate. You’re strong. You make me proud.”

Thanks a lot, Gram!

THE END