The Sandburg Connection: A Sam Blackman Mystery (Sam Blackman Series) by Mark de Castrique

Author:Mark de Castrique [Castrique, Mark de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2011-12-11T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

“Happy now?” Nakayla eyed the large plate filled with minced pork, barbecued beans, and hush puppies the waitress set in front of me.

“Yes. And for your information, I’m not simply eating, I’m establishing rapport.”

“Oh, is that the new word for stuffing your face?” Nakayla took a small bite of her Greek chicken salad, an entree I considered heretical in a barbecue restaurant.

I popped a hot hush puppy in my mouth. The sweet corn meal tasted wonderful.

We sat in a booth at Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que. The table surface and seats were constructed of smooth knotty pine. There were no cushions, no brass rails, and no ferns. Just plenty of good food. Business was brisk and we’d waited ten minutes to be seated.

“Now we’re customers,” I said. “Not just people showing up and bothering them with questions during their busiest time.”

I waved to our waitress as she refilled the glasses of tea at the next table. She hurried over.

“What’cha need, darlin’?” Her face showed concern that I might be suffering from insufficient doses of either vinegar-based or tangy tomato-added sauce. Hawg Wild served both eastern North Carolina and western North Carolina barbecue, a raging battle of sauce styles that made the Union-Confederacy clash look like a civil debate rather than a civil war.

“Did you work lunch last Saturday?” I asked.

“Sure did.” She eyed us closely. “Were you here? Did you leave something?”

She must have been in her late forties and worked as a waitress for half that time. The way she moved among the tables, showing up right when needed, told me not much got past her.

From my pocket, I pulled the university’s personnel photo of Janice Wainwright that Ranger Corn had given me. “No. But this woman was here last Saturday for lunch. Do you remember her?”

The waitress studied the picture. “Did she leave something?”

“I’m afraid it’s a sad story. She died a few days ago.”

She shuttered. “Oh, honey, that’s terrible.” Then her voice fell to a whisper. “Something she ate here?”

I hadn’t thought about her reaction jumping immediately to bad pork. “She fell. It was an accident.”

“I’m so sorry.” She examined the photo again. “She doesn’t look familiar. Not one of our regulars.”

“She met someone here. That person may have been a regular or even an employee. The family found the appointment on her business calendar with a follow-up scheduled for this coming Saturday. Same time, same place. There were only the initials DLM and we were hoping to get word to the person about her death.” The story sounded lame but I was hoping the impact the waitress felt holding a dead woman’s photograph who only days ago sat in the restaurant masked the lack of credibility.

The waitress frowned. “DLM. A man or a woman?”

“We don’t know,” Nakayla said. “This woman lived on the other side of Asheville and the Brevard paper might not have carried her obituary. We’d hate to have someone sitting here thinking she just didn’t show up.”

“Do you mind if I pass this around to the other girls?”

“We’d appreciate it,” Nakayla said.

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