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The pie was good, but I had the faintest hint that I was missing something in the flavor. Then I realized. A day without brains is like a day without sunshine. My last brains had been early yesterday.
“You two don’t strike me as the good ol’ boy deerhunter type,” I said.
Ed chuckled. “And you would be right. But every now and then we feel the urge to give it a try. I think we’re suckers for punishment.”
“My uncle owns a fairly large parcel of land at the north end of the parish,” Marcus explained.
“His uncle owns half the parish,” Ed interjected.
Marcus grinned. “Not quite. But he is pretty well-off.” At a sidelong glance from Ed he chuckled. “Okay, he’s filthy stinking rich. Anyway. He used to take the two of us hunting when we were kids, and now it’s a stupid tradition that we continue.” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Some of that male bonding crap.”
“Uh huh.” I gave them both a dubious look. “Do y’all ever actually kill any deer?”
Ed cast his eyes upward and tapped his chin with his fingers. “Hmm . . . that’s a tough question.”
Marcus gave a laugh. “The answer is ‘almost never.’ Mostly it gives us an excuse to go ride around on four-wheelers, play with big guns, and then spend the next few days picking ticks off our bodies.”
“Wow,” I said. “I am so glad I’m not a guy.”
“It’s much better that you’re not,” Ed said, expression suddenly serious.
I blinked. “Er, okay. Why do you say that?”
“Well, you’d be a very funny looking boy,” he said. “I mean, with the boobies and all.”
I let out a bark of laughter and threw my napkin at him. “You idiot.”
Marcus laughed. “For what it’s worth, I have to agree with Ed, though I won’t use the word ‘boobies.’ ”
“You just did,” I pointed out with a mock glare.
He raised his hands in surrender. “Guilty as charged.”
“So, do either of you have girlfriends who have to put up with you?” I asked, hoping it sounded nice and casual. Because that’s all it was, right? A casual getting-to-know-you question. I hid a grimace. Nope, it was totally desperate and awkward. Ugh.
“Marcus has yet to find anyone to tolerate his presence on a somewhat permanent basis,” Ed said, casting a teasing look at the other man. “But I’m willingly under the thumb of a fine woman who I probably don’t deserve.”
“You might have seen her the other day at the crime scene for the pizza guy,” Marcus said. “She had the cadaver dog. They were looking for the head.”
“Oh, right!” I remembered her. Cute and petite.
“What about you?” Ed asked with a tilt of his head. “Is there a lucky guy in your life?”
I don’t know why I was unprepared for the question, especially since I was the one who’d brought the whole subject up in the first place. “Um, kinda,” I said, fumbling for an answer. “I mean, there’s this guy I’ve been going out with for about four years . . . .”
“Four years?” Marcus said. “Sounds serious. Any wedding plans in the near future?”
“No!” I said, then felt a surge of embarrassment at how quick I was to deny that possibility. “I mean, we’re not that kind of serious. We’re kinda on and off.” Shame flowed through me at my lack of loyalty, but marry Randy? I couldn’t see that happening in a million years. So why the hell am I still with him?
“Speaking of the cadaver dog,” I said in what was probably an incredibly obvious attempt to change the subject, “did they ever find the guy’s head?”
“Not sure,” Marcus answered. “Some hunters found a fire pit out in the swamp that had what looked like skull fragments and teeth, but it was all pretty well burned up. The lab’s going to see if they can do a DNA match to the pizza guy or the victim from Sweet Bayou.” He frowned. “There’s a lot of weird buzz going on about that case. It’s a strange one.”
“You mean other than the fact that the guy had his head chopped off?” Ed said, raising an eyebrow.
Their food arrived then, and the conversation was briefly suspended while room was found on the table for the ridiculous number of plates.
As soon as the waitress stepped away Marcus continued. “It’s looking like a setup of some kind. The guy was delivering pizzas, but the address was a house that had been foreclosed on last year, and empty even longer. His car was found in front of the house, and the bag with the pizza was on the ground in the front yard.”
