Read Still Life in Brunswick Stew Online
Authors: Larissa Reinhart
Tags: #Mystery, #humor, #cozy, #Humour, #Romance, #cozy mystery, #southern mystery, #humorous mystery, #mystery series
Still Life in Brunswick Stew (6 page)
“I feel bad about that,” the kid said. “Don’t care about Lewis, but hope she’s going to be okay.”
The boy’s mess unnerved me, and his chattiness had a surly edge I didn’t like. But gossip seemed ripe for picking with this one. “Need some help?”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
I walked around the makeshift counter. Spying an empty tub, I began stacking the condiment bottles and cans of stewed tomatoes, peas, and corn into a corner of the tub.
Todd leaned against the counter to watch me, tapping a marching rhythm with his fingertips.
The boy fell into a chair. Pulling off his Cotton Pickin’ Good ball cap, he wiped his sweaty brow with his forearm and replaced the hat over a mop of dishwater blond hair.
“So what’s your name?” I flicked a glance at the gangly kid, figuring his age hovered in the late teens. I assumed he was Eloise’s student and felt surprised a kid with attitude, a neck tat, and giant holes in his earlobes would give her free tickets. Maybe he liked art.
“Hunter Adams.” He reached in his pocket for a can of tobacco, spun off the lid, and pinched out a wad.
I waited for his “thank you, ma’am” for helping, which didn’t come. I’d let it slide for a minute. But not too long. I did have my pride and didn’t want some teenage hooligan to think I enjoyed playing maid.
“So,” I said. “You mentioned a Marion, a Lewis, and your mom on the Cotton Pickin’ Good Team. Was Lewis in charge of cooking your stew?”
“Yep.” Hunter’s tongue fished the chew off his teeth and settled it in his bottom lip. “Lewis’s been working on perfecting his recipe all year. Makes a batch nearly every Sunday. He was fixing to win this competition and then hit bigger cook-offs next year.”
“When did he get sick?”
“My mom took him and Marion to the immediate care clinic about an hour ago. She made me stay to help clean up. I was supposed to leave this afternoon.” He grabbed a paper cup and spit. “Friggin’ Lewis. Ruined another Saturday night for me.”
I exchanged a glance with Todd. Where did Hunter and his mom fit in with Lewis and Marion? Was polygamy alive and well in Sidewinder?
Hunter smirked. “Aunt Belinda and Uncle Bruce will have a good laugh at Lewis if it is food poisoning. I heard Mom went after them for cheating.”
“Wait, the two teams fighting today? That’s your family?”
“Aunt Belinda is my momma’s sister. They don’t get along too well. Lewis hates my aunt and uncle, but Belinda’s all right.” He spat and pointed with the cup. “There’s another bottle of Worcestershire you missed.”
I glanced in the direction of his point and swiveled to fix him with a good, hard look. Hunter tipped back in his chair with his feet propped on a cooler, working on his chew. While I cleaned up his stuff. “Now just a minute...”
“I don’t get it,” said Todd.
Hunter and I looked at Todd. His cerulean blue eyes blinked with uncertainty, but he spoke with serious deliberation.
“Your mom competes against her sister in this Brunswick Stew cook-off?”
“Because of Lewis,” said Hunter. “Bruce and Lewis have been competing for years. Stew competitions, golf, poker. Since high school.”
“That’s a long time,” said Todd.
Hunter shrugged.
“But where does your mom figure in? Lewis is married to Marion, the little lady with the big hat?” I said. “That leaves you and your momma...?”
“Mom works for Lewis and Marion,” Hunter spat in his cup and glared. “At the Cotton Pickin’ Good plantation.”
“Plantation? We don’t do plantations anymore.”
“It’s a tourist thing.”
“What does she do? I assume she’s not picking cotton.”
“It’s not my mom’s fault.” Hunter’s spit shot past his cup and landed near my feet. “She got us a nice place out of it. If he’d divorce Marion, she might marry Lewis. He’ll never do it though. He’d lose the land. And I’d rather see him dead than as my new stepdad.”
“Holy crap,” I said, unable to find a better reply to the admission of his mother’s dalliance. They were almost as good as my own momma’s transgressions.
Todd slapped a quick staccato on the counter, his version of “holy crap.”
“He deserves to get sick,” continued the kid. “Lewis is an asshole. Everyone in Sidewinder knows what he’s doing with my mom, but he doesn’t care. I hope he doesn’t recover.”
“Okay.” Obviously this kid was sucking on pretty serious sour grapes concerning this Lewis. But Cotton Pickin’ Lewis’s sins were not my problem. “Do you know anything about other people getting sick at the festival?”
“No, just Lewis and Marion. Lewis couldn’t take getting his precious contest shut down. Probably caused him to have a heart attack.”
“Did he have a heart attack?” The hairs on my neck quivered. Were Eloise’s symptoms similar to a heart attack?
“Don’t know. And don’t care.”
“Look, here’s the thing. My friend ate a bunch of Brunswick Stew from your stand today. She died this afternoon. I think you gave her stew tickets. Miss Parker, the art teacher.”
“No shit?” Hunter stared at me in surprise. “Miss Parker died? Will the cops think Lewis killed her? That’d be kind of awesome.”
He could have punched me in the gut and gotten the same reaction. I took a deep breath and shoved my hands in my pockets to stop me from slapping the stupid out of the boy. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“I’m serious. If they think Lewis killed her, maybe he could go to jail and my mom would leave him.”
“Hunter, pull your head out of your behind. Your teacher, my friend, is dead. I’m sure Miss Eloise didn’t sacrifice her life just to get Lewis out of your mom’s pants!” I kicked the tub, nearly dumping out all my carefully arranged jars and cans. “I’m sorry about your momma and this Lewis, but that doesn’t give you the right to act like an idiot.”
I should know. My momma didn’t have the decency to stick around and parade a Lewis in my face. She probably left us for a Lewis, but that didn’t mean we sat around hoping people would die to bring her back.
“Be a man and help out your momma.” I lambasted him with my best older sister glare, perfected from years of practice on my brother Cody.
“Don’t you worry. I’m helping her out.” Hunter spat at my feet and stood. “I’m going to help her right away from Lewis.”
“Let’s go, Todd.”
“You got any stew left?” Todd hung over the counter, rapping the underside with his palms.
“No, man.” Hunter untwisted his can and shoved another plug into his lip.
“You don’t want to eat their food anyway,” I said. “You want to end up with food poisoning?”
“That’s right.” Hunter offered us a smeary brown smile. “I wouldn’t want nobody eating Lewis’s stew.”
“You certainly served plenty to Eloise.”
“You’re a lot like Miss Parker, ain’t you? Something about scrawny women that makes them bitchy.” He glanced at Todd. “You like doing scarecrows, man?”
“I’m not doing her,” Todd said.
“I don’t blame you.”
“That’s it,” I fixed Hunter with a steely gaze. “You watch your mouth or you’re going to be sorry.”
“Or what?” Hunter swished the tobacco around his mouth. “You’re going to stab me with a bony elbow?”
I lunged at Hunter and elbowed him hard in the stomach.
He bent over, gagging and coughing while tobacco juice bled out of his mouth and splattered his shoes. He looked up, sputtering frothy brown liquid. “You dumb bitch. You made me swallow my chew!”
“Just showing you what a bony elbow can do.” I marched past him, knowing Todd would follow. “I did you a favor. It’ll be a while before you want the taste of tobacco in your mouth again.”
As Todd and I tramped to my dissembled stall, I fumed over the boy’s remarks, but felt more troubled over the soap opera brewing in Hunter’s life than his nasty words. How angry was this kid? Vindictive enough to spike the stew with something that could kill his teacher? At the sight of Todd’s vehicle, I halted while Todd stumbled past me.
Todd’s snort of laughter showed his thoughts occupied a less morbid train.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“You elbowing that kid,” Todd grinned, “and making him swallow his chew. That was a good one.”
“That kid deserved it. But it’s not funny.”
“I just love it when you do that kind of stuff, baby.” Picking me up, he spun me in a quick twirl that flung my flip-flops dangerously close to the pony toilet. “You’re acting more like your old self.”
“Put me down. You’re going to make me motion sick,” I said. “And what are you talking about? My old self?”
“You’ve been quieter, lately.” Todd set me down and carefully retrieved my flip-flops.
“What? Since when?”
“Last couple months. It’s not just me. Everyone says so.”
“Everyone?” I snatched the flip-flops dangling from his hands. “Everyone’s been talking about me?”
“Quiet’s not a bad thing,” Todd backed up a few steps, his fingers rapping a tempo on his thighs. “Just doesn’t suit you.”
I eyed him, wondering if this had something to do with Luke. Our relationship had been the only major change in the last couple months. Besides the whole debacle with the coffin painting and the kidnapping, but that was old news. “I’m not saying you’re right, but I can do quiet. If I wanted.”
“You can do whatever you want,” Todd spoke with a suspiciously lively gait. More of a canter than his usual drawl. “You’re normally pretty feisty, and you don’t take crap from anyone. I like you that way. You stick up for people.”
“Are you saying I’ve been letting people down?” I crossed my arms and chewed the inside of my lip. Had I let Eloise down somehow? “Maybe Mary Jane thought I hadn’t been a good enough friend to Eloise and that’s why she wants me to do my part now.”
Todd’s face constricted at my guilty outpouring. “That’s not what I meant. You’re not letting anyone down, baby. But it’s good to see you acting like yourself again.”
“By beating up eighteen-year-old boys?”
A grin washed across Todd’s face, making his dimples glow in the shimmering heat. “Yeah.”
“I haven’t done that in years.”
Todd stepped into his car and grabbed the open window with one hand. “So are we going to Red’s? We’ll have a toast to Eloise.”
At the name “Red’s,” my stomach revved to life with a sound that would put a Harley Davidson to shame. “Eloise would like that. I’ll meet you there.”
“Good. You need to get out more.” Todd pulled the door shut and leaned out the window. “I better follow you. You never know when the Datsun will give out.”
I crossed the field toward the parking lot, keeping a sharp eye for pony pucks. The smell of barbecue still hung in the air, bringing my thoughts back to the kid. I felt my anger toward Hunter justified, what with him disrespecting Eloise and his momma like that. Seemed like someone should have given his backside a swat or two growing up and he’d have a better attitude. But his life also sounded like one hot mess of family dysfunction, something that could easily sour a kid.
Luke and Uncle Will should hear about the family saga between the two Cotton teams, I figured. However, Luke seemed prickly about the whole “job interference” thing, even though my love of gossip could help his career. Besides, checking into a few things for a friend didn’t equal interfering with the law. He was too danged sensitive about that.
Todd’s red Civic rumbled behind me. I looked over my shoulder and caught his smile. It took the death of my friend to show me that my world had recently shifted. I hadn’t even started the Greek paintings, dangit. Another show of disappointing Eloise.
Todd was right. I was better at butt-kicking than introspection. It was time to put my boots back on. Eloise deserved one hundred percent feistiness. No more letting my friends down.
We sat around a table at Red’s County Line Tap, sucking on beer and chatting about the festival. County Line was once a mangy tavern that sat a few feet over the town line. A couple years ago, the new proprietor, Red, had transformed the whiskey-infused roadhouse into a sports bar. He attired the narrow room with flat-screen TVs and softball trophies. The long, mirror backed wooden bar still remained near the entrance and a small stage now sat at the far end.
Todd’s band, Sticks, did not play tonight. We were somber for a Saturday night, as the death of Eloise was still fresh in our minds. One of Eloise’s pots, black with a crackled white glaze, sat in the center of the scarred wooden table. Red providing beer and hot wings on the house in honor of Eloise had been a particular blessing in my penniless state.
“I heard Cherry kicked a guy in the stomach,” said my sister Casey, joining us at the end of her shift. She whipped off her waitress apron, revealing massive exposure between her itty-bitty Red’s t-shirt and belly skimming jeans.
My brother, Cody, looked on with irritation, more perturbed that I would get to tell the Hunter story again than by his sister’s man-bait attire.
“You kicked a guy in the stomach?” asked Sid McKenzie, lead guitarist in Sticks. He eyed me warily across the table. New in town, Sid’s first impression of me had been at a Sticks’ performance. I had been hauled out kicking and screaming at Todd for writing unflattering lyrics about me. Sometimes I rub people the wrong way.