Death of a Country Fried Redneck (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries) (6 page)

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Authors: Lee Hollis

BOOK: Death of a Country Fried Redneck (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries)
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Chapter 6
 
Hayley couldn’t breathe as she stood in front of the magazine and newspaper rack at the Big Apple convenience store where she picked up her coffee before work every morning.
She wasn’t near a mirror, but she knew her face was beet red.
Her heart was pounding.
She stared at the photo on the front page of the
Bar Harbor Herald
, the
Island Times
’ rival paper. It was a picture of Hayley and Wade Springer canoodling in the gazebo at the Balance Rock Inn, along with a caption, “The Way to a Man’s Heart Is Through His Stomach.”
The article went on to say that Hayley was being hired to be the official chef for Wade while he was staying in Bar Harbor, and that the big question now was,
Is it really business, or pleasure?
The figure in the bushes.
The flash.
It was a photographer.
And the
Herald
probably bought the picture so they could trump up some silly story about a romance brewing between a world famous singer and a simple-minded local girl. She always knew the
Herald
was just a shameless tabloid dressed up like a quirky small-town paper.
At least her own paper, the
Times,
wouldn’t stoop this low.
Right in the next rack was the
Island Times
.
The same photo was on the front page.
Their caption said, “What’s Really Cooking Between Wade Springer and Our Very Own Food and Cocktails Columnist?”
No.
Sal would never print something like this without warning her first.
But, then again, she had left work early the previous day, before the paper was put to bed and she had turned her cell off because she didn’t want any calls interrupting her meeting with Wade.
She forgot to turn it back on.
Hayley fished her phone out of her coat pocket and fired it up.
Sure enough, there were four messages.
All from Sal.
Message #1:
“Hey, Hayley, I’m at the office late. We’re about to go to press and I got this kid Darrell Rodick here in the office with a photo of you and Wade and I just wanted to get your side of the story to see if there’s something here. Call me back.”
Darrell Rodick was a ruthlessly ambitious fifth-grader and amateur photographer who fancied himself the town’s paparazzi. The only trouble was, very rarely did celebrities frequent Bar Harbor, and, when they did, it was in the summer. He once ambushed a pretty girl who had appeared once on
The Vampire Diaries
while she was biking around Eagle Lake.
The kid was a big pain.
And Hayley was about to call his parents and tell them so.
Message #2:
“Uh, Hayley, please call me back. I’m not sure what to do here. We’re nearing deadline. My wife just saw the Rodick kid heading over to the
Herald
offices, and you know how I don’t like to be scooped.”
Hayley knew what was coming next.
Message #3:
“Hayley, I need to decide what to do soon and you’re off the grid for some reason so I’m going to make an executive decision and print the photo. I know you’re not going to like this, but we just interviewed the bartender at the Balance Rock Inn and he confirmed you two looked like you were on a date.”
The bartender?
Seriously?
Message #4:
“Okay, Hayley, it’s done. Sorry about this, but I had to go with my gut. I didn’t want the
Herald
getting the jump on us. Maybe you can do an exclusive interview with us. Just to clarify things in case we got something wrong.”
Hayley was fuming. Her face got hotter.
Yes, she was ticked off at that bratty shutterbug Darrell Rodick for spying on her. Yes, she was furious with Sal for turning the
Times
into a small-town version of
Star
magazine. But, most of all, she was really pissed at the unflattering photo of herself.
Wade, of course, looked stunning and natural as always, like he was accepting a Country Music Award.
But she just wasn’t photogenic. Her head was thrown back and her mouth was open, laughing, and it looked like she had some kind of weird underbite. She looked just like her dog, Leroy. They do say dogs tend to resemble their owners.
Hayley rushed out of the Big Apple, hopped in her car, and drove straight to the office. When she blew through the front door, Sal was nowhere to be seen. She stormed into the back bullpen, but his office door was closed and locked.
“So is it true?” a man’s voice said from behind, startling her.
Hayley spun around.
It was Bruce.
He dangled a copy of the
Times
in front of him.
“Of course it’s not true. I should sue for libel. Where the hell is Sal?”
“Don’t know. My guess is he’s hiding from you,” Bruce said, studying the photo on the front page. “Sure looks to me like something’s going on between you two.”
“We’re not going to go through this again, Bruce,” Hayley said, remembering how Bruce reacted when she first began dating Lex. She knew he had the hots for her and they had known each other a long time, but there was no way she would ever go there. Especially with a coworker.
“Have you talked to Wade? Has he seen the papers?”
Hayley’s heart nearly stopped.
She hadn’t thought of Wade. What must he be thinking? Would he suspect that Hayley had ulterior motives for going to work for him? Wade knew she was a columnist at the paper. Would he think she had pursued the job as his personal chef so she could pump him for intimate details about his personal life? Or maybe he would suspect she was some kind of pathetic fame-whore trying to make herself part of the story.
Hayley couldn’t bear the thought of her beloved Wade making those judgments about her.
Bruce folded the paper in his hand. “So?”
“No, I haven’t talked to Wade. Why waste his time with this garbage?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Bruce said, following Hayley back out to the front office, where she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer, ready to begin the day’s work.
“It makes me sick to my stomach that this is our front-page story when there is a serious crime spree going on in this town,” Bruce said.
Hayley clicked on her e-mail and was relieved she hadn’t yet received one from Wade’s people, terminating her.
Maybe they hadn’t seen the papers yet.
“Did you know this mysterious robber broke into another home yesterday when the residents were at work? In broad daylight. He’s getting more brazen every day,” Bruce said.
Hayley tried ignoring him.
“I do have a suspect, though,” Bruce said, trying to stir Hayley’s interest.
Hayley clicked on her file of recipes and searched for the perfect one for her next column, but curiosity got the best of her and she swiveled around in her office chair to face Bruce.
“Who?” Hayley asked.
“That punk ass, Jesse DeSoto,” Bruce spit out.
Jesse DeSoto was an obvious choice. A nineteen-year-old high school dropout hellion who got a perverse joy out of picking on younger kids. Hayley despised him because when Dustin was in fifth grade, he became a target. Hayley had noticed Dustin’s mood changing at home, but her son refused to admit he was getting chased home from school and pushed around by Jesse.
Until Gemma witnessed one particularly nasty episode where Jesse had Dustin flat on his stomach and was shoving his face into a snowbank. Gemma had raced to his rescue, and, luckily, Jesse had always thought Gemma was cute, so when she ordered him to stop bothering her brother, Jesse immediately let Dustin go with the promise of never touching him again.
And he had kept his word. Hayley was going to call Jesse’s mother to complain, but Dustin begged her not to and she finally let the whole matter go. Still, she was no fan of Jesse’s, and Bruce was probably right.
“What evidence do you have?” Hayley asked.
“Nothing concrete yet. But it’s only a matter of time. I’m going to tail him and catch him in the act and blow this whole story wide open.”
“Good for you,” Hayley said, humoring him.
“And then maybe we can shove all this ridiculous coverage of some subpar singing cowboy off the front page.”
For once, Hayley agreed with Bruce.
Well, except for the part about Wade being subpar.
Bruce wasn’t a country fan. He was more of a heavy metal enthusiast. He had looked like Steven Tyler in high school.
Maybe that’s why she once had a thing for him.
Too bad he cleaned himself up.
Chapter 7
 
By the end of the morning, Hayley’s budding romance with Wade Springer was the talk of the town. She waited for the phone call from Billy Ray Cyrus, relieving her from her chef duties, but it didn’t come.
So on her lunch hour, Hayley drove over to the grocery store and picked up the items from a list of ingredients for Wade’s breakfast, the first meal she would be officially preparing for him.
He and a few of his bandmates had gone whale watching today, so they had just picked up a few sandwiches at a local deli, and were planning to grab dinner at the hotel when they got back. So Hayley didn’t really have to worry about starting her new cooking gig until the next morning.
She dropped the food off at her house and returned to work. There was still no sign of Sal. He managed to keep himself scarce all day with an occasional e-mail claiming he was chasing a story in Bangor.
Interesting, Hayley thought.
Sal rarely wrote articles anymore, being editor in chief. It was pretty obvious he was avoiding her. She knew Sal like her own brother. And she knew he would probably show up with her favorite fresh bagels from Morning Glory bakery hoping she would be so excited she would forget he printed that photo.
And he was probably right.
Hayley could never carry a grudge for too long.
When Hayley turned off her computer at the end of the day, she was confident she still had her moonlighting gig as Wade’s chef.
So she wasn’t that mad anymore.
In fact, when she had driven over to the grocery store during lunch, she’d felt like a regular celebrity because all the stock boys and cashiers kept pointing and whispering as if Rihanna was in the seafood department buying fresh shrimp.
Hayley decided to cap off the day by going for a drink at Randy’s bar, Drinks Like A Fish.
It was Happy Hour.
Randy had killer drink specials.
What could be better?
And she needed to see some friendly faces.
Randy was tending bar. He was two and a half years younger than her. At least that was the case if you compared birth certificates. Hayley now claimed Randy was older by three years and counting. She always believes if you say something over and over again, eventually it becomes accepted as the truth.
So she was never going to back down from shaving a few years off her age.
Liddy was sitting at the bar sipping an espresso martini. She looked distraught and was talking Randy’s ear off, undoubtedly bemoaning the missing earring tragedy. Next to Liddy was Hayley’s other BFF, Mona.
Mona was married with six or seven kids. Who could keep count? She had just popped out another one a few months ago.
Mona was wearing a bulky sweatshirt advertising her seafood business. Mona was a successful fisherman selling lobsters and scallops at high-end prices to locals and tourists alike during the summer. She was so successful, she pretty much took the other three seasons off.
Hayley approached the bar and Randy broke out into a wide smile.
“Hey, sis,” he said as he poured a Jack and Coke and slid it over to Hayley, who was standing behind Liddy and Mona, hugging them from behind.
“I’ve looked everywhere and nothing. Zip. Zilch. Oh God, do you know how much I spent on those earrings?” Liddy moaned.
Hayley knew this would be the number one topic of discussion for weeks to come.
Randy reached for Mona’s glass. “Another Diet Coke, Mona?”
“Yeah, why not? I’m in no rush to go home to all that screaming and whining.”
“Oh, come on,” Randy said as he refilled Mona’s glass from the soda fountain. “Your kids are very well behaved.”
“I’m not talking about my kids. I’m talking about my deadbeat husband. And if he doesn’t stop getting me pregnant, I’m going to kick his ass.”
“Are you . . . ?” Hayley asked.
Mona nodded, patting her stomach with a frown.
“You’ve got to be kidding! Again?” Hayley said.
“Why the hell do you think I’m drinking Diet Coke? I hate this crappy stuff. It’s all chemicals!”
Randy put the refill on a coaster in front of her. “Don’t you two believe in using contraceptives?”
“I’m not an idiot, Randy,” Mona moaned. “We’ve tried everything. I’m this freaking medical miracle. I defy the odds. I’m like immune or something. The Pill? I’d get better results from aspirin when it comes to my ovaries.”
Hayley slid on to a stool next to Mona. “Well, I think it’s great news. I can’t think of anything better for a child than to have you as a mother.”
“Tell my rugrats that, will you? I swear they have secret meetings at night discussing plans on how to drive me bat-shit crazy,” Mona said, downing her glass of soda.
Mona reached out and took Hayley’s hand. “So how are you doing? I saw the paper.”
“I was hoping Bruce would do a story,” Liddy said, gulping down the last of her espresso martini. “I wasn’t sure he was going to take a missing earring seriously when I called him.”
“I was talking to Hayley.” Mona sighed. “About the photo of her and Wade Springer on the front page of both papers today.”
“Oh. That. I forgot,” Liddy said. She reached over and squeezed Hayley’s hand. “All publicity is good publicity, I always say.”
“But what if you don’t want
any
publicity?” Hayley asked.
“I don’t understand the premise of your question. Who doesn’t want publicity?” Liddy said, dropping her head down on the bar. “Where could I have lost my earring?”
“Maybe this guy or girl who has been breaking into houses and stealing property lately is behind it,” Randy said, trying to be helpful.
Liddy sprang up from the bar. “Yes! Of course! How could I have not made the connection?”
“Why would anyone steal just one earring?” Mona asked.
Liddy ignored her. “Randy, have you talked to Sergio? Does he have any leads?”
“I’m afraid not,” Randy said, wiping down the bar with a towel. “The culprit has been really smart so far and made very few mistakes.”
“Then that clears Jesse DeSoto,” Hayley said. “If that boy had a penny for every IQ point, he wouldn’t even be able to buy a forever stamp at the post office.”
“Jesse DeSoto?” Liddy asked.
“Bruce suspects Jesse may have something to do with the crime spree,” Hayley said.
Liddy grabbed her bag off the bar. “Of course! That kid’s bad news. And always causing trouble. It has to be him!”
“Now don’t go jumping to conclusions,” Randy warned. “This isn’t the Salem witch trials.”
“Those bitches were guilty! And so is Jesse DeSoto. I’m going over to the police station to talk to Sergio right now and bring him up to speed on my investigation.”
Liddy raced out the door.
“What investigation?” Hayley asked. “I just said Bruce suspected him. He has zero proof.”
“Let her go,” Mona said, shaking her head. “I’d rather she be out there stalking some lame-ass troublemaker kid than in here wailing to us about her missing piece of junk jewelry.”
“Actually, those earrings were really expensive,” Randy whispered as he leaned in to Hayley and Mona. “She paid five grand for them.”
“Five thousand dollars?” Mona yelped. “I bought my truck for less than that. Granted, it was used and needed new brakes, but holy crap!”
Suddenly the door to the bar was flung open, and a man stumbled in, fighting to keep his balance as he made his way to the bar.
He was young, early twenties, with longish brown hair, tall with a bean-pole build. He was wearing a black cowboy hat. He pushed it back as he steadied himself with one hand on the bar. His face was pale and gaunt.
Hayley noticed his eyes were almost coal black. Maybe it was the lighting. But he looked like he had a dark soul.
He punched the bar with his fist.
“Bartender, whiskey straight up,” he said, slurring every word.
Randy took a deep breath and then said gently, “I’m sorry, sir, but I think you may have had enough for tonight. Let me pour you a cup of coffee. On the house.”
“I don’t want coffee,” the man said, his head swaying. He pounded the bar again with his fist. “I said I want whiskey.”
Randy stood his ground.
“Don’t make me climb over this bar and get it myself,” the man warned.
“I’m not serving you, sir. Now, I offered you some coffee. If you don’t want it, then I suggest you turn around and walk out of my bar.”
The man reached over the bar and grabbed Randy by the shirt. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Yes. You’ve been in here the last couple nights. Drunk. Which was fine, but now you’re being belligerent and I want you out of my bar,” Randy said evenly.
Hayley reached into her pocket for her cell phone. She was getting ready to dial the police if the situation escalated.
The man with the coal black eyes stared at Randy, his nostrils flaring. Randy glared back.
Neither was budging.
Finally, the man let Randy go and it looked as if he was going to leave peacefully. But, then, without warning, he lunged across the bar and took a right-hook swing at Randy.
Randy jumped back, but not fast enough. The man’s fist connected with his jaw and Randy fell back against a shelf.
A couple bottles of Smirnoff flavored vodka crashed to the floor, sending glass flying everywhere.
Hayley punched 911 immediately into her cell phone and waited for the dispatcher to pick up. Thankfully, it was a small town and the officers would be there in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
Randy regained his senses, and bounded around the bar to drag the guy out. But before he reached him, the drunk cowboy grabbed an empty Budweiser bottle and smashed it against the bar and then waved the jagged shards at Randy’s face threateningly.
Hayley gasped, still waiting for someone at the station to answer.
Mona was off her stool and jumped on the guy’s back. She wrapped her arm around his throat and squeezed as hard as she could.
Hayley and Randy stared in disbelief. This pregnant lobster woman was fighting like a mixed martial arts champion.
The man struggled, trying to shake her off, but Mona held him tight. He desperately clawed at her arm, but Mona was strong. She hauled lobster traps for a living.
There was no way she was letting go.
Saliva came spitting out of the guy’s mouth as he tried to breathe. He dropped to his knees. Mona went right down with him, not releasing her grip in the slightest.
She had this guy.
And she was going to finish it.
Finally, the dispatcher at the station picked up and Hayley screamed for her to get some officers over to the Drinks Like A Fish bar.
But there was no rush at this point. The drunk was passed out.
Probably a combination of Mona’s headlock and too much alcohol.
He started to snore.
Randy was already sweeping up the broken glass with a broom behind the bar.
Hayley just stared at Mona in disbelief. “Where did you learn that?”
“I like watching the Military Channel. They have the most kick-ass shows about self-defense training and that kind of shit.”
Hayley looked down at the sleeping cowboy on the floor. He had to be part of Wade Springer’s entourage.
Perfect.
She was already involved in a bar brawl with one of his people and she hadn’t even cooked Wade his first meal yet.

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