Read Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) for Free Online

guests. And between the three Graces, they’d invited a ton of guests. There were folks in and out of there all the time—eating barbeque, drinking, and cutting up. Lulu herself ended up sampling quite a bit of barbeque. She ruefully patted her tummy. She could use an antacid.
    At about eleven thirty, Flo hurried into the booth. “Lulu, thanks so much for spelling me—I feel like a million dollars now. You should probably be heading out of here—there’s going to be thousands of folks leaving at one time and I’m sure you couldn’t be parked close.”
    “It’s okay, honey. It won’t take me that long. Besides, you know I wore sensible shoes.” She lifted up a foot encased in a tennis shoe. Maybe it didn’t match her floral dress, but those shoes had served her well today. “And I’ve also brought my boots for the mud on the way to the car.”
    “Any more problems from the booth next door?” asked Flo.
    “No, it’s been pretty quiet over there,” said Evelyn.
    “Probably because Reuben stalked off to make a point,” muttered Cherry.
    “Funny that we didn’t hear him come back,” saidLulu. “He seemed like he was dead set on bossing around the others and running that whole booth.”
    “Except,” drawled Evelyn, “that he wanted to teach them a lesson. Maybe this is the lesson…showing them how tough life is without his expert advice.”
    It still seemed peculiar. But Lulu needed to get to her car before everyone else made an exodus for the parking. “All right…better go. I love y’all. Be careful.”
    Cherry hugged her. “Thanks for helping us hold down the fort, Lulu! You’re the best.”
    The weather had actually not been bad for most of the day—a real blessing. However, it picked that very moment to pour down buckets. “Oh no!” gasped Flo. “Your pretty ’do, Lulu!”
    “It’ll be okay. I’ve got to wash it anyway,” said Lulu with a laugh.
    Cherry dug through a pile of things in the corner of the booth. “Where are our ponchos? Why do things disappear around here?”
    “Don’t worry about it, y’all. There’s a bit of cardboard here and I’ll hold it up over my head and kind of deflect it,” said Lulu.
    “Might could check your pocketbook and see if there’s something you could cover yourself with in there, Lulu,” said Evelyn with a chuckle. “That pocketbook of yours is big enough to use to backpack the Appalachian Trail.”
    Lulu laughed good-naturedly at her, but then snappedher fingers and riffled through the bag real quick. Then she sighed. “I must have used that plastic rain bonnet another time and forgotten to replace it. No, there’s nothing in my pocketbook that will do me a lick of good in this rain.”
    Flo said, “Don’t we have an extra tarp or two, Cherry? That we didn’t end up using for anything? We left them here, didn’t we, just in case we needed them? Because cardboard is going to fall apart with this much rain.”
    Cherry made a gargling cry of frustration. “We did. And where are they?” Her eyes darkened. “I bet they’re next door and that stupid Reuben swiped them.”
    “Now, Cherry!” said Flo. “Let’s don’t go picking a fight with that tent. You know how they are.”
    “I won’t go accusing them, but let’s poke around on the outskirts. I bet they took the tarps. Reuben even had a small covered storage area for food and supplies, remember? Like an annexed storage room. Let’s stick our heads in there and see. They have my name on them, so it’s not like we’ll have to argue about who they belong to.”
    Cherry was determined, so Lulu offered to go with her. Flo and Evelyn didn’t want anything to do with poking through the other booth’s supplies. It was pitch-black dark and loud. There was music blaring from different booths and laughter and loud talking. The air was thick with the grilling smoke and cast a murky fog over the festival. First Cherry and Lulu poked around the nooksand crannies between their booth