Murder at Mama Truckers Cafe

By Terry L. White

Bobbie Grant has no idea of how the world turns when she is hired as a waitress at Mama Trucker’s, a truckstop just off the interstate. Newly separated from her fickle musician husband, Bobbie vows to make better choices in her life, but nothing seems to go the way she plans until handsome Frederick March shows up and courts her with jewelry and flowers.

Undone by the attention, Bobbie falls head over heels in love, despite friend Polly Polk’s advice to play it cool.

The dead girls in the parking lot don’t offer any solutions to her problems, they scare her spitless, posing the question: Will Bobbie Grant find love or end up dead, like the girls in the parking lot?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: Jun 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781613861714

Book preview

Chapter 1

People used to say you ought to eat at truckstops for the good food, but I don't know if that is really true or not. The first one I worked in served curdled cabbage soup daily and the biscuits were as hard as rocks when they came out of the warmer; so you couldn't prove the good food part by me.

Good service was supposed to be another drawing card, and while it is true that no one is born to be a waitress, I got so I was pretty good at it, paid my rent from my wages and tips, and never worked the lot. Some girls did, though, and more than one of them was the sorrier for it when they became the victims of the predators that haunt the roadways.

I was recently separated the hard way from my husband, a wanna-be country music star who often could not find his way home. I started my career at Mama Trucker's on the third day of July. When the boss, an angular woman named Mrs. Turner—and never called Ruth—hired me for second shift, I put on the ugliest uniform in the world in the ladies room, and trailed a waitress called Polly for about twenty minutes before the restaurant got so busy that I had to figure the job out for myself in a steady flow of plaid-shirted drivers all looking to flirt and fill their bellies with fried food, sugar, and gallons of coffee every hour of the night and day. It was a Saturday.

Mama Trucker's was a full-service truckstop halfway between Boston and Buffalo on the New York Turnpike. The complex consisted of fuel islands, a lot for truckers to park the big rigs, a truck wash, a gift shop, and niceties like a shower and bunk room, in addition to the big restaurant divided into coffee shop and dining room on the second floor that served the drivers of the big rigs, locals, and folks passing through on the main road for parts unknown. The four-wheelers shared a second parking lot with employees. The place was like a small city, situated at the edge of quiet little town called Windsor near the toll plaza and the interstate. It was a world I never imagined in my dreams of the future. It scared me to death.

You don't plan to be alone. That's the thing. You expect love to hang around. You don't hope to have a job that will leave you exhausted every day, with a broken heart, surrounded by the people you see as the enemy. You hope for good things to happen in your life in spite of being broke and abandoned. You don't dream how hard real life can be. You have bad days when you can't remember your where you were going, but it is strange how things work out for the good when you least expect it.

I never planned to be a waitress you know; I wanted to be a writer—or later when I met Henry—who said I could sing pretty good for a girl—a potential country music singing star. Being a waitress looked too easy, not a job for a smart woman with big dreams for the future. All you had to do was to take an order, deliver it to the person who orders the food, and clear away the dirty dishes when they leave. Then did you pick up the tips, which I soon learned made up the difference between minimum wage and what you were actually paid.

I wasn't going to be just a server of food by any stretch of my imagination. My dreams said I was going to be somebody, but you don't always know what is going to happen down the line. You also don't know that you will find a lifetime friend just by following your nose. Life is funny that way.

The stuff for the salad bar is in the walk-in, Polly said in passing when she noticed I was about to come to blows with a burly local who thought he had a godgiven right to gobble up seven pounds of popcorn shrimp with the six-dollar supper that came with free salad bar on Friday nights. Disgusted, Polly informed me that the locals loved the free shrimp and turned into pigs every week. Then she said, The cook left us a surprise for us in the walk-in, Hon. Help yourself, but don't let Mrs. Turner see you, she said, winked, and hurried back to her section of the coffee shop where the regular drivers preferred to sit so they could watch the waitresses in action better.

Polly Polk was not very big but she was lean as a whippet and sassy as pepper sauce. Her hair was boy-short and frosted. She had nothing by way of a figure if you factored in her skimpy butt and fried-egg bosom, but she more than made up for it with her incandescent smile and the witty come-backs to her admirers' sometimes smutty jokes. I noticed that most of the tips she raked in were dollar bills and not just change.

I made up my mind I wanted to be just like Polly Polk—which was going to take some doing. I was green as grass and I felt like I was wearing lead shoes after the first half hour of my new career. My feet hurt so badly I could hardly remember to smile at my customers—not with everything else I had to get used to. Like I said, it was my first day as a waitress ever. I watched Polly for a little while and I got it that the smile and the tips were all part of the same dance.

The customers who stopped at Mama Trucker's paid well for their meals and a little free entertainment. It was a break from the white-line sameness of the six-lane.

I found the walk-in after a short foray through the noisy, humid kitchen where the rattle of utensils and steam table lids rose in a dull clatter over the rumble of an air conditioner that didn't quite dry up the heat and moist air generated by pots of boiling water and fryers churning out fries and onion rings without pause.

An ash tray full of cigarette butts smoldered in the doorway toward the back and the dishwashers. That was before everyone got so hyper about cigarettes and you could light up most anywhere. Grateful that I wouldn't have to argue with my addiction along with the stress of the new job, I lit a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and pulled the smoke deep in my lungs and immediately felt more relaxed. Tobacco, as bad is it is for you, about saved my life that first day. There are, you know, two sides to everything.

The scrawny blonde cook glared at me when I asked him where the walk-in was, and dunked a cubed steak into some lumpy batter for a chicken-fried steak dinner with a grimace of pure hate. He pointed back towards the service entrance. Walk-in's that way, he snapped. I don't know Dale Stanley from Adam, but it looked like I had disturbed his flow. The rattle of pot lids got even louder and meaner.

My hair and uniform were soaked through despite the industrial strength air conditioning, but sure enough, I found the walk-in on the other side of the kitchen. There were a couple of five-gallon plastic buckets full of those little shrimp for the salad boat, cooked pink and chilled, ready to serve. I about passed out from the sudden cold of the huge refrigerator.

Several huge specimens of jumbo shrimp that must have been delivered by mistake were laid out like chorus girls along the lid of the first bucket. When I saw them I realized what Polly meant about helping myself, so I gobbled up a couple of those beautiful shrimp and buried the tails in the bowl I quickly filled to replenish the salad bar. I was still starved, but it didn't look like I was going to get a lunch break any time soon, so I was really grateful for the snack.

My first day was smack in the middle of a holiday weekend, which meant Mama Trucker's was mobbed. Both the dining room and coffee shop were choked with drivers in a hurry to get home for their holiday picnics, along with hordes of bleary-eyed tourists bound for points unknown. Most of the drivers sat in the coffee shop where they watched over their valuable cargos through a bank of floor to ceiling windows at the back of the room and to avoid the clots of tourists in the main dining room.

It's about time you got back with the shrimp, Darlin'. A big fair man in a red plaid shirt pushed aside the log he was working on and got up to shoulder his way to the ice-filled dingy that offered the various salads and cold vegetables that went with all the regular dinners. Better go get some more, he grinned, grabbed some of the shrimp I had just hauled in before the tourists moved in, then moved quickly back to his seat. His smile was so genuine and easy it conquered the very real pain in my tender feet for a moment. But step back. The natives sure are hungry tonight.

He was right, there was a line of customers clean back to the front windows that overlooked the Mohawk River, itching to get their fair share of those little popcorn shrimp. Tables for four, six, and eight were piled high with discarded shrimp shells but the busboy was nowhere in sight. Mrs. Turner scowled at me from an office window that looked out on the dining room and made a wrap-it-up motion with her forefinger, meaning I suppose, that I had better move a little faster and get those disgusting tables cleared right away for the diners who did not yet have seats. I nodded, grabbed a bus pan, and went from table to table scraping up one smelly mess after another. I could hardly believe how nasty people could be, but I sure as heck had to deal with it. Did I have a choice?

Still, it warmed my heart to know that someone—like the friendly driver—cared about me even for a moment. I was in a bad place. My husband wandered off and left me without a cent, I didn't have a car, and I was living with my sister who pretty much resented the upheaval of her house and home. And now I had signed on for what seemed to be an impossible job.

I had no idea of how to be a waitress that first night, but I had no choice but to learn, and I didn't have much time.

One thing for sure, I realized my appearance wasn't going to get me any rewards. My uniform, a muddy tan pin-striped polyester pinafore over a plain tan blouse, was too big even for my farm girl frame, but I tied the matching apron's sash as tight as I could, scraped my hair back in a ponytail, and hoped for the best. It was time to sink or swim.

Watching Polly, I realized that about all I had to sell was my personality and that was a dismal prospect. A wicked stepmother and ego-ridden husband had done their best to convince me I wasn't worth a hill of beans. I looked across the sea of people waiting to be served, and pretty much gave up on the notion of earning a living at Mother Trucker's. In fact, I wasn't so sure I would survive the first night.

The other girls on the floor were laughing and cracking jokes, charming the customers. I could hardly speak, let alone say something funny. I was struggling to take orders, clear tables and write tickets with the right prices. The hungry customers just kept coming. The menu posted on the wall near the drink station was spattered with unmentionable fluids and inked-in price changes. The chicken and dumplings and fruit plate were crossed out, which I learned the hard way meant that the kitchen could not fill any orders for those particular dishes if a waitress was dumb enough to hand them in.

Polly grinned at me in passing and exchanged a word or two, but there wasn't a lot of time to talk, let alone for her to teach me what to do or how to do it. She did ask me how I was doing a couple of times, but she was gone before I could answer one way or the other.

When I got back to the salad boat with the next bucket of shrimp that same friendly driver looked up asked my name. It seemed like he realized I was new, which n

It wasn't like I was looking for a man anyhow. I had been married. It was the shits, so I was down on men. There wasn't a one of them I could trust any further than I could throw him. All I was in this for was survival. My sister was good to take me in, but I sure as hell couldn't sponge off her forever. She had enough on her plate. Her husband had run away too.

All of a sudden I began to see what the feminist movement all about—empowerment—which is being responsible for yourself. It was a time when women were claiming their power and so was I—at least I was trying.

I see you met Tom, Polly ducked inside the kitchen to gobble up a cup of the curdled-looking cabbage soup, which looked pretty nasty, but was one of the things the company didn't charge us for eating on our break—if we were lucky enough to get a few minutes off the floor with our feet up. Polly told me between gulps she didn't have the money to buy anything off the menu because she was supporting her sick mother and handicapped son. She didn't make a big deal of it though. Polly was a woman who had somehow learned how to roll with the punches, and it didn't take long until I decided I wanted to be just like her.

Did you see his eyes? She breathed a sigh and went on to say Tom was one of the good guys. He was married, but he didn't flirt, and often spoke of his wife back home with a warm light in those alluring blue eyes that said he was not looking for any extra trouble on the highway.

Of course I saw his eyes. I would have noticed if he didn't have any. Besides, that sweetheart left me my first dollar tip.

* * *

Polly had a plan for the evening after our shift—or maybe it was a routine. How would I know? I was the new girl. She didn't act like what she planned to do when our shift ended was anything special. In fact though, she had invited a couple of long-haulers to go out for a drink, but she didn't tell me that. I had just gotten through being forbidden on pain of firing or death to date the drivers and she knew it.

We'll go for a drink after work, she said in a tone so assured it brooked no argument. You will need it after today. I'll give you a ride home after. Polly had already wormed some my life history out of me as our paths crossed in that big restaurant—one question at a time—and she knew I was on sufferance with the world. Like I said, I didn't even have a car.

My sister lived in a decaying frame house that was only five blocks away from the truckstop. I could have walked home since my feet had got me there, but our shift lasted longer that first night than Mrs. Turner said it might because if the stock car races let out across the river before the graveyard girls punched in we got stuck with a crowd of locals too.

The placed rocked to the jukebox and excited discussions about which local guy was the best driver and what sort of horsepower he had under the hood. There was also some talk about