Page 26 of Eye for An Eye
But Beau’s was the center of town. The gossip hub. The epicenter when anything dangerous happened. We all gathered at Beau’s to consult with our fellow Dead Enders, eat whatever Lorraine told us to eat for lunch, and catch up on the news.
Naturally, I was meeting Lizzie there.
I rushed in and started apologizing the minute I saw her at a table near the far wall.
“Lizzie, I’m so sorry I’m late. I had a weird …situationat the shop, and I didn’t want Eleanor to have to handle it on her own.”
Lizzie Underhill smiled up at me and waved to the chair. “No worries. I was studying the menu, even though it seems futile. Lorraine never lets me order off it.”
Our temporary deputy was young but knew how to handle herself, and Susan said she was good at her job. I’d clashed with Lizzie when I first met her, because she’d been treating a good friend of mine like a murder suspect. In that case, I’d been wrong, because there had been good reasons for her suspicion, even though he was ultimately proven to be innocent. But she’d been straightforward about it and seemed to be smart and effective. All good things when you’re a cop.
Appearance wise, she was nearly six feet tall, a runner with long, lean muscles, and pretty in an understated way. She had dark brown eyes, short brown hair, and warm brown skin.
And she had a gorgeous smile that was a little shy.
“Are you still staying at Andy’s mom’s house?”
She put her menu down and nodded. “Yes, she’s such a kind person. I had to insist that she accept compensation for hosting me, though. She didn’t want to take anything. I finally convinced her that the state was paying, and it would just cause confusion and red tape if she refused.”
“Is the state paying?”
She grinned at me. “Somebody is paying. I’m not sure if it’s the state of Florida or the city of Dead End. Or maybe even Black Cypress County? I just know I get checks from the sheriff’s office to give her every week.”
Lorraine bustled over to take our order, and all thoughts of Lizzie’s rent and even Cordelia’s crimes and stalker flew out of my mind when I looked down at her shoes.
Her neon-pink Pepto Bismol shoes.
“Traitor!”
At least she had the decency to blush, her cheeks turning a lighter shade of pink than her horrible shoes.
“I’m just trying them out, Tess.”
“You saw the dress! You’re planning to go along with it,” I moaned. “Lorraine, we will look like giant cupcakes! Like … like whatever a thing is, that’s horrible and pink andcovered in ruffles!”
“I know, I know,” she muttered. “But it’s her day. When she started in about the pink roses in her bouquet, with those stars shining in her eyes, what was I going to say? We’ve been friends for more than half a century. I’m not going to be the one to rain on her wedding day parade.”
I sighed, my shoulders slumping. “Fine. But I amnotwearing that dress to the reception. The skirt alone would take up the entire dance floor!”
“We’ll see,” she said ominously.
Lorraine was one of Dead End’s former mayors and had been a mainstay at the diner for longer than I’d been alive. She stood maybe five feet tall in her orthopedic shoes, had short, silver hair, and wore a (pale) pink starched uniform and crisp white apron to work every day. She regularly got me into trouble, going on “adventures,” and she was one of my favorite people in the world.
Lizzie, glancing back and forth between the two of us, started laughing. “I’m using my trained detecting skills to deduce you’re talking about bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“Yes,” I mumbled. “They’re so, so … Never mind. Lorraine is right. It’s Eleanor’s day, and we’re just going to be the supportive, pink-cupcake-covered friends at her wedding.”
“I always wondered about that,” Lizzie said. “Why, when they’re our friends, do they make us wear such horrible dresses? My sister put me in a gamma-radiation-green satin dress at her wedding. I looked like a six-foot-tall, sickly cucumber all day long.”
Mrs. Quindlen, seated across from us with Baby Boo Q, her newest granddaughter, in her lap, started laughing. She’d been shamelessly listening in, of course. It was Beau’s.
“You think that’s bad? Ha!” Her Cajun accent became more pronounced when she was excited. She pointed at her husband. “This one’s sister made us all wear orange. Bright Halloween orange at a December wedding, I ask you. My hair was the same bright red as yours, Tess, and I looked like a jack-o’-lantern!”
Lorraine laughed. “I remember that dress. Anyway, Tess, Deputy Underhill, the special is fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Green beans on the side with apple pie. We’re out of ice cream. Should have gotten here earlier.”
Lorraine bustled off to get our drinks before we could respond.
“She doesn’t really believe in taking orders, does she?” Lizzie said, staring after her.
