Free 14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse by JoAnna Carl

office.”
    “Since I’m here, could you use some extra kitchen help? I might as well do a little work.”
    The earnest Darrel gave an earnest smile. “We can always use help. We have a paid person in charge of the kitchen, but we can use six or eight volunteers a night, and we rarely have that many.”
    Darrel led me to the kitchen and introduced me to the kitchen manager. He was small and scrawny, with hair shot with gray. His face was heavily lined, as if he’d had a hard life. I speculated that he was a former client of the shelter. Darrel told me his name was Elkouri.
    “So naturally we all call him Elk,” he said. This was obviously a joke; Elk was built more like a mouse than a large horned beast of any type.
    I offered to shake Elk’s hand, but he avoided me by picking up a tray of hamburger buns. He gave a little cough, what I’ve heard described as a cigarette cough. Hmmm. That was interesting. Our anonymous caller that morning had coughed that way.
    Elk looked at me suspiciously. “We work pretty hard here, even the volunteers.”
    “I’ve got experience with food service, including some at a shelter,” I said. I didn’t tell him I’d worked at a shelter when I was doing a couple of years with the Junior League of Dallas, one of the activities my first husband had approved of for the former Miss Texas competitor he saw as a trophy wife.
    I tried to look eager. “What do you need me to do, Elk? Wash dishes? Scrub floors? I’m pretty handy around a kitchen.”
    Elk tipped his head back and squinted. “Can you lift one of those big flat pans? Like the one with Tater Tots in it?”
    “Show me where the hot pads are, and I bet I can.”
    Three other volunteers had reported for work, and, with Elk calling the shots, we got the food onto folding tables and began to fill the plates as the men filed past. The shelter had quite a crowd, at least seventy-five men. Winter, naturally, draws the biggest crowds of people needing a place to stay.
    As I worked I saw Joe working, too. Now in his jeans and flannel shirt, he went up and down the line of waiting men, questioning the diners. Some were obviously giving him the brush, but he gave out some business cards. After the line cleared he began to circulate among the tables.
    The shelter’s food looked more filling than either delicious or nutritious. That night’s menu featured sloppy joes, TaterTots, and frozen mixed vegetables. Dessert was sheet cake—unadorned and not very tasty-looking. Elk said the cakes had been donated by one of the supermarket bakeries. The food was served on paper plates and eaten with plastic utensils.
    It was definitely not fancy, but it would keep a homeless man from starving.
    After the food was served, Elk instructed the volunteers on how to put the leftovers away. Then we began the cleanup, scrubbing down the tables, washing up the pots and pans, mopping the floor. The clients drifted into another room, where there was a television set, or wandered up the stairs, apparently toward the dorms.
    Elk offered all the volunteers dinner, but the other three declined. He told us we could leave, but Joe was still talking to one or two of the men, so I waited around, changing to dish drying duty. By the time Elk carefully rinsed and scoured his final serving pans, then put them into the hot soapy water, Joe was through with his interviews. He came over and picked up a dish towel, ready to help dry.
    Elk glared at him. By then I’d realized that Elk glared at everybody.
    “This woman of yours,” he said. “She ain’t afraid of hard work.”
    “I picked a good’un,” Joe said. “And luckily, she picked me, too.”
    “Darrel says you’re a lawyer. Whatcha askin’ everbody about?”
    “I’ve got a client who’s in a lot of trouble. His name is Royal Hollis.”
    “Ha! I
guess
he’s in trouble!”
    “I’m hoping I can help him out.”
    I jumped in then. “Did you know him, Elk? He may have stayed here. He’s the old guy