Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) by Judy Alter Page B

some tea. I really came to ask if I could fix you dinner tonight.”
    I hesitated. I liked him, but I didn’t know a thing about him. Rick didn’t like him (well, that wasn’t going to stop me!), and Marj had hinted at something in his reputation. Should I go home with a man I barely knew? Sure, I’d done it in Dallas—but this was Wheeler. It wasn’t so much that I thought he’d attack me. It was that gossip would surely follow.
    He must have seen my quandary. “I’d like to fix it at your house, if that’s okay. Mine’s not much for entertaining. I share a pretty tiny place with Joanie, till we save up some money. But I can fix a mean meat sauce for spaghetti.”
    Relieved, I said “Sure. I’d welcome a night off—and not cooking.” Mentally I was figuring out who would cook, handle the cash register, etc. “Could we make it tomorrow night, so I could be sure the café is covered?”
    He shrugged. “Sure. I’ll be there about seven, and I’ll bring everything.”
    “You’re a cook?”
    “I try,” he said. No more explanation.
    Of course it’s not unusual these days for a man to cook, but still I found I had questions about him—where he was from, why, really, he and his sister landed in Wheeler, what he did before that. Maybe I’d find out tomorrow night. And what had he tangled with Rick Samuels about?
    As I stood at the counter, lost in thought, a loud crash in the kitchen, the sound of breaking pottery, brought me back to the present in a hurry. Gus, with a bewildered look on face, stood looking at a shattered mess of white café pottery. Tom stood behind him.
    “Completely my fault,” Tom said apologetically. “I just flat bumped into him and jarred the plates out of his hands.”
    “How’d you get in here?” I asked. “I didn’t see you come through the dining room.”
    “I sneaked in the back,” Tom said sheepishly. “Just wanted to see if there was any pie left.” His grin made it all seem innocent, but I had ordered the back door to be kept locked. On the other hand, Gus went out it frequently for smokes and I’m sure forgot to lock it half the time.
    Gus shook his head in disbelief. “I dropped them. I never done that in all my years washing dishes. It was like someone lifted them out of my hands and threw them on the floor.”
    “No, Gus,” Tom said patiently. “I take full blame. I knocked them out of your hands.”
    Gram, I asked silently, did you break those plates? If so, why? Are you trying to tell me something? To my surprise, she answered, “Child, you’ve got to get smarter about what goes on around you. Pay attention.” I felt as though I’d been scolded.
    I reassured Gus and Tom that accidents happen and went to get the broom. “Some of our plates are pretty old and chipped anyway,” I said. “We need to replace them. This is a good reminder.”
    “I can get them for you wholesale,” Tom offered, but I countered that I could get them from a wholesale restaurant supply house and they’d match what we had.
    Gus took the broom from me. “I broke them, I sweep it up. You go—tend to your papers.”
    But Tom had other ideas. “Got time for a glass of tea?”
    “Sure,” I said. I really did need to check the inventory against orders, but one glass of tea wouldn’t take that long. I poured two and asked Tom what kind of pie he wanted. He chose lemon meringue.
    “I hear you think Gram was murdered,” he said, almost casually.
    “I just think it’s funny that she died so suddenly. How did you know?”
    “Donna told me that you hinted at it in the car one day. Now there’s no stopping her. She talks about it all the time. I know you’re both wrong.”
    I thought it was really strange Donna had never mentioned it to me after the one time she wanted to help me investigate. “How do you know?”
    He shrugged. “I just do. Nobody would hurt Johnny. If I thought somebody had done that, I’d kill them myself. I’m sure you’re barking up the wrong