The Calamity Café Read online

  “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 m
ore 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.