Beignets, Brides and Bodies

by J. R. Ripley

  I raised my hand. The BMW key dangled like a prize. ‘I promise.’

  ‘And there’d better not be a scratch on it!’ I heard him yell as I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The BMW and I arrived at the Entronque building without a scratch and I went inside to quiz the shop owners. I’d deliver the fabric to Markie’s Masterpieces after I had finished questioning the Entronque’s tenants. I knew the cake decorators were anxious to get the fabric but another hour or so wouldn’t hurt.

  Besides, as long as I kept that piece of fabric in my purse and postponed delivery, I had an excuse for being in the building. If Detective Highsmith or one of his cohorts came around in the midst of their own investigation and caught me snooping, I didn’t know how they’d react. Knowing Highsmith, he wouldn’t take too kindly to my efforts to help him find Lisa Willoughby’s killer.

  Yep, as along as I had the swatch, I had plausible deniability. I’m big on plausible deniability. Just ask my mom. I’d spent my teen years perfecting it.

  Unfortunately, my hunt for clues seemed doomed to failure. I reached a dead end everywhere I turned.

  Until I knocked on the door of Blake Sherwood.

  I recognized her right away. She was pretty in a soft not fulsome way, with long brown hair tied back in a loose red gingham ponytail tie, a strong nose and prominent cheekbones. Her eyes were gray-blue. The streak of white I’d spotted in her hair the other morning as she called down to us from the floor above must have been paint splatter because there was no sign of any graying of her hair now I had a chance to study her up close.

  She looked at ease in a worn and baggy pair of stained lavender overalls with a pink sleeveless T-shirt beneath. A slender serpentine silver chain hung from her delicate neck. Her feet were bare. Simple gold bands adorned each of her middle toes.

  This was the young woman from the stairwell who’d called down to ask what was going on the morning Lisa was killed. ‘Blake Sherwood, right?’

  Her golden toes wiggled against the pine floor like little dancers. ‘That’s right. Can I help you?’ Her eyes search my face as if seeking recognition. Her arms were tanned and taut.

  ‘I’m Maggie Miller. I was wondering if I might speak to you for a minute, Ms Sherwood?’ Her right hand held a paintbrush, her left hand gripped the brass doorknob.

  She considered for a moment, glanced over her shoulder then gestured with her paintbrush for me to enter. ‘Call me Blake, please.’

  I followed her inside.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have much time. I’m in the middle of a piece.’

  There was wet brown paint on the tip of her brush. Blake Sherwood was obviously a painter and a talented one at that judging by the canvasses lining the walls and stacked on the floor.

  Blank canvas, wood framing and paints lay scattered about. Two large, cluttered wood benches occupied the center of the high-ceiling space parallel to a row of windows. The distinct odors of oil paint, linseed oil and paint thinner filled the air. A tall easel in the center of the room held a half-finished painting. ‘Town Square?’

  Blake nodded. ‘The tourists love things like that.’ The young woman slid a stool toward me. ‘Have a seat.’ She removed a palette from a second stool and joined me beside the open window. Her hands gripped her knees. ‘So, what is this about, Ms Miller? A commission?’

  ‘No, and, please, call me Maggie. Everybody does.’ Well, some people called me worse things, but there was no sense going down that road with a stranger. ‘I wanted to ask you about Lisa Willoughby’s murder.’ Maybe she had seen or heard something helpful. Unlike everyone else I’d spent time with in the past hour.

  Ms Sherwood brushed a strand of fine brown hair from her face, jumped off her stool and paced. Finally she turned toward me. ‘You mean the woman who was found at the bottom of the stairwell.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Blake’s puzzled eyes fixed on me. ‘She was murdered?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Hadn’t you heard?’

  She shrugged. ‘No. I don’t mix much with the other tenants. And I don’t watch the news or read the papers. Too much negativity.’ She waved her arms around the space. ‘It interferes with my creative process.’

  I got that. I’m positive that my beignets taste twice as good when I make them with love and a smile on my face compared to when I’m in a foul mood and simply going through the motions. ‘I understand.’ It looked like this was going to be another dead end. I rose and crossed to a stack of finished canvases. ‘May I?’

  She nodded and I slowly flipped through the unframed canvases.

  ‘These really are quite lovely.’ Yep, another dead end, a waste of an hour. I might as well deliver the guys’ swatch to Markie’s Masterpieces and be on my way. ‘Did you know Lisa well?’

  Blake shook her head. ‘I barely knew her at all. I’d seen her around. Knew she worked at Markie’s. Knew she was also something of a painter. To be honest, I didn’t think she was very talented from what little I’d seen. I was surprised to see her making some headway with the galleries.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything unusual the morning Lisa was killed?’

  Blake shrugged. ‘The police asked me the same thing.’ She took her paintbrush and dipped it into a jar of murky fluid. She swished the brush around then pulled it out, dried it on a stained rag and left it on the workbench to dry. ‘Not really. I mean, I heard the commotion downstairs but that was the police. They came and talked to me later. I told them everything I knew.’

  ‘Did you see an out-of-order sign on the freight elevator?’

  ‘No,’ the young painter replied. ‘But then I took the stairs. I take the stairs every day. It’s good exercise and saves electricity.’

  Another dead end.

  ‘So you heard nothing?’

  ‘I heard …’ she hesitated, ‘… something. I’m not sure what. In looking back … it was probably the sound of that woman falling down the stairs …’

  I nodded thoughtfully. ‘So you were here when it happened.’

  ‘I guess so.’ A sadness seemed to sweep over the artist like a rogue wave. ‘I got in a little before eight. I had an appointment with Mrs Higgins.’

  ‘Samantha Higgins?’

  ‘Yes, she displays quite a bit of my work in her gallery.’

  ‘So you were with her when you heard this noise?’

  Blake cocked her head and seemed to give my question some thought. Finally she shook her head. ‘No. Mrs Higgins was only here twenty minutes or so. It was much later that I heard the noise. She was long gone by then.’

  That added up. Clive and I had arrived well after nine and Lisa wasn’t lying at the bottom of the stairs then. Blake grabbed a clean, dry brush and began mixing a couple of tubes of colors. One yellow, one green. ‘The only other thing I heard out of the ordinary was the commotion downstairs later.’ She pointed her brush at me. ‘You were there, weren’t you? I remember you now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Blake shook her head again as if to clear all the negative images flying around the room that had sought refuge in her skull like bats seeking shelter before the coming dawn. I decided I’d intruded enough and that it was time to let the woman get back to her work. She walked me to the door. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘but if you’d told me Lisa Willoughby was murdered the other day I wouldn’t have been half as surprised.’

  I came to a stop in the open doorway. ‘The other day?’

  She appeared almost sheepish. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘Please,’ I gripped her hand, ‘if there’s anything you can say that might help, tell me. The police suspect my friends, Clive and Johnny, of being involved but they’re completely innocent.’

  ‘Well …’

  I held my breath, imploring her with my eyes.

  She looked up and down the empty hall before answering. ‘I heard that girl and Markie Gravelle, from Markie’s Masterpi
eces?’ She looked at me.

  ‘Yes.’ I bobbed my chin. ‘I know him. You heard them the other day?’

  ‘It must have been a couple of days ago. They were arguing at the tops of their voices.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘Outside.’ She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. ‘In the parking lot. As you can see, I keep the windows open. I like the natural light and air. It keeps the creative juices going.’

  I joined her at the window. We poked our noses out. ‘See?’ she said. ‘There are several picnic tables under the tree. People eat their lunch there or take a coffee break. That kind of thing. Mostly folks who work here but sometimes the tourists use them, too.’

  ‘But the other day?’

  ‘It was afternoon. I was working at the bench and suddenly I heard a man and woman yelling.’ She glanced at her toes, then me. ‘It’s not like I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t help hearing. Sound really carries. It bounces off the pavement and right up to my windows.’

  ‘Of course.’ My heart pounded against my chest. ‘What did you hear?’

  She collected her thoughts. ‘All sorts of things. I don’t remember everything. Yelling, you know?’ I knew. ‘Mr Gravelle threatened to fire her.’

  My eyes grew. ‘Markie was going to fire Lisa?’

  Blake nodded.

  ‘Did he say why?’

  She frowned. ‘He might have but I really wasn’t listening – at least not trying to. She did laugh at him, though. I heard that all right. Her tone was quite mocking. Then she threatened to tell his wife about their affair.’ She arched her brow slyly.

  ‘Markie’s married?’

  Blake shrugged. ‘Sounds like it.’

  Who’d have thought? Not me, that’s for sure. Another twist to the puzzle that was Lisa Willoughby’s death. I thanked Blake Sherwood once again for her time. ‘And if there’s anything else that you remember about the day of the murder, anything at all, no matter how unimportant you think it is, please let me know.’ I fished a business card from my handbag.

  She turned the card over in her hand. ‘Maggie’s Beignet Café?’

  ‘On Laredo. I’ve only been open a few months. Please, come by some time. Have you ever eaten a beignet?’

  She shook her head in the negative. ‘Never even heard of one.’

  ‘Then you really must come by. I insist. You’re in for a real treat. Deep-fried sweet pastry with powdered sugar on top. The first order’s on me.’

  Blake smiled and waved the card toward me as she said, ‘I might take you up on that.’ She thrust my card deep into the pouch of her overalls.

  I punched the elevator button and headed for the fourth floor. Before going to the cake shop, I headed for the roof. I found the separate stairs located at the end of the hall. The door was unlocked so up I went. The roof is where Ben Baker claimed to be at the time of Lisa’s murder and I wanted to check it out.

  As I marched up the stairs I realized that while Ben had claimed to be on the roof, I had no idea where Reva Reynolds had been. The last time I’d spoken to her I’d gotten all excited and sidetracked when she’d told me about Ben and Lisa’s affair and had claimed that Markie himself had been in the cake shop much earlier than he’d said.

  I’d never even asked her to explain where she’d been the whole time. Maybe she’d been trying to divert me from asking her.

  That could make her a killer. Or an accomplice to a killer.

  I vowed not to let her sidetrack me again.

  The sun beat down on me as I stepped out onto the rooftop. I shaded my eyes with the flat of my hand. Tarpaper and gravel covered the large space. A two-foot pony wall ran the perimeter. AC units hummed.

  A rickety and weathered outdoor table and chairs with a faded yellow umbrella stood in the far corner. A man sat there casually smoking a cigarette. I watched the clouds of vapor swirl over the edge of the building. His foot moved slowly, rhythmically.

  It was Ben the baker.

  At the sound of my feet crunching over the stony surface, Ben turned. He mashed the stub of his cigarette against the metal table. The side of his lip turned down in a half-frown. I guess he wasn’t too happy to see me.

  I smiled anyway. ‘Break time?’

  He rose. ‘Just finishing.’

  ‘Can I ask you a couple of questions?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He dusted his trousers. ‘I’ve got to get back to work. Orders to fill.’

  I kept smiling. ‘That’s OK. I’ll walk with you while we talk. I’m heading to the bakery anyway.’

  He sighed and walked toward the stairs. ‘What do you want?’

  I followed him down the steps. There was no way I was going first. What if Ben was the killer? I might just get a helpful push down those stairs. ‘I want to know more about Lisa.’

  He looked over his shoulder. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I barely knew the woman.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  ‘Then you heard wrong.’ His eyes hardened.

  ‘I also heard you’ve been to her place.’

  ‘So? Lots of people probably have, including Markie and Reva. I don’t see you busting their chops.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re the only one who was seen banging on her condo door, demanding that she let you in.’

  ‘That’s bull.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I wonder what her neighbors might have to say if I flashed your picture around.’

  Ben threw open the bakery door and slammed it in my face. But I didn’t let that stop me. ‘You can’t hide whatever relationship you had with Lisa forever,’ I said, scooting in after him. ‘The police are bound to find out.’

  Ben’s hands clenched and I took a slow step backward. Finally he unfroze. ‘Look,’ he sighed, ‘Lisa and I went out a couple of times. I admit, I liked her. But—’

  ‘But?’

  He shrugged. ‘She said I wasn’t really her type.’ He washed his hands at a basin in the corner and slowly dried them with a paper towel. He picked up a very large, very sharp knife and began carving at a round vanilla cake at his workstation. ‘She broke up with me. What a fool I’d been.’ I swear I think I saw a tear forming in the corner of his left eye. ‘There, are you happy?’

  Not so much. ‘I heard Lisa was a painter, too.’ I thought about the unfinished piece in Lisa’s living room. It could have been Ben. Hard to tell.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Did she ever paint or sketch you?’

  He shook his head. His knife moved skillfully along the cake.

  I looked around the bakery. ‘Is Reva here?’ I needed to talk to her, too. See where she fit in this puzzle.

  Ben shook his head. ‘No.’ He slammed the knife down on the countertop. ‘She’s off sick.’ He snorted. ‘So she claims. That’s why I’ve got twice as much work to get out. I mean, between her being out and Lisa being dead …’ He let his sentence fall away like stones underfoot cascading into the Grand Canyon.

  ‘Do you know where Reva was at the time that Lisa was murdered?’

  He gave me a funny look. ‘You leave Reva out of this. You don’t think she had something to do with Lisa’s death?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ I grabbed a bit of cake scrap with two fingers and popped it in my mouth. OMG, delicious. Was that a hint of almond I tasted? ‘I’m curious, is all.’

  He picked up his knife and started on a second cake. ‘Then ask her yourself.’

  I nodded thoughtfully. ‘I just might. Do you have her address?’

  He smiled and I don’t think it was kindly as he jabbed the knife in the direction of Markie’s office. ‘You’d have to ask him for that.’

  Markie’s door was wide open so I entered without waiting for an answer. He was crouched over in his chair, a sketchpad in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other. His tongue was pushed out between his lips. ‘I hear you were here the morning Lisa was murdered.’

  He jolted upright, hand clenching his sketchpad so fiercely he wrinkled the pages. ‘Wh
o told you that?’

  I shrugged. ‘Let’s just say a little birdie.’ OK, so it was a big birdie and her name was Reva Reynolds. No point throwing her under the bus. At least not yet and for no reason. I might need her cooperation later – if she didn’t turn out to be the killer.

  He carefully laid the charcoal pencil on his desk. ‘Now that I think about it, I guess I did get here a little earlier. What does it matter?’

  ‘It means you might have seen or heard something that might prove who killed Lisa.’ I arched my brow. ‘It could mean that you killed her.’

  Markie leapt from his chair, his face dark red. ‘Watch what you say, Miller. Nobody accuses Markie Gravelle of murder and gets away with it!’ He waved a finger at me. ‘My lawyers will ruin you.’

  I swallowed hard. Markie had a violent streak I hadn’t expected. I held out my hand. ‘I’m not accusing you of murder.’ At least not yet. ‘I’m simply asking if you saw or heard anything. Did you tell the police that you were here?’

  ‘I didn’t see or hear anything,’ Markie said coldly. ‘I was in my office with the door closed.’

  I glanced over my shoulder. Ben stood at his workstation and another couple of young fellows in bakery uniforms were working at the big ovens. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone before I said what I was planning to say next. I chewed my lower lip for a moment before speaking. ‘I hear you and Lisa were having an affair.’

  Markie blinked and stuttered.

  ‘I hear the two of you were arguing outside in the parking lot the other day. You threated to fire her. Lisa was threatening to tell your wife about the affair if you did, wasn’t she?’

  Markie suddenly broke down into sobs. He collapsed into his leather desk chair, his hands covering his face.

  I watched helplessly.

  He pulled his hands from his face and gestured for me to shut the door.

  I did.

  ‘Oh, Maggie,’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve been such a fool.’ Talk about your bipolar personality types.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Was he about to confess to murder? I fished my phone from my purse. If so, I wanted to get this on tape. I wanted photos for my Facebook page. Heck, I wanted a Facebook page. And I wanted to invite that irritating Detective Highsmith to take a look at it when I revealed Lisa Willoughby’s killer.