Arsenic and Old Cake

by Jacklyn Brady

  At that moment I would have promised her anything. You’d think by now I’d know better.

  Twenty-three

  I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes in my own house since Friday morning, so after leaving Miss Frankie’s, I stopped home. I planned to do little more than take in the mail and switch which lights I’d left burning to discourage intruders, but when I glanced inside the fridge and realized that I’d left a package of fresh chicken breasts sitting there for two days, I changed my mind.

  The chicken wouldn’t last another day, and I was in the mood for some alone time, so I bagged the idea of eating out and instead threw together a cilantro almond chicken salad that had recently become one of my favorites.

  I coated the chicken (with skin, bone in) in kosher salt and let it sit while I put in a load of laundry. When I finished that, I rinsed the salt from the chicken and poached the breasts with carrot, onion, parsley, and celery.

  Leaving the chicken to cool, I switched the laundry to the dryer, then went back and shredded the meat, making sure to carry the skin and bones to the trash outside. There aren’t many odors worse than chicken garbage left sitting around.

  With the chicken ready, I toasted then slivered the almonds for the dressing, adding garlic, jalapeño, mayo, and sour cream, and folding in cilantro and lime juice to deepen the layers of flavor. I stirred the dressing into the chicken, poured sweet tea over ice, then grabbed a book from the second-floor library and carried the whole thing to the terrace garden on the roof of the house.

  Large planters holding a variety of trees and flowering shrubs rim the wrought-iron railing that forms the perimeter of the garden, and stone chairs with colorful cushions ring a round table in the terrace’s center. At night, twinkling white lights strung everywhere give the place a fairy-tale look. It’s a beautiful space Philippe put together, and I don’t spend nearly enough time up there, but after my meeting with Miss Frankie, it seemed like the perfect place to gather my thoughts.

  Part of me—the part I’d inherited from my uncle Nestor—was convinced my new life was all too good to be true. But I was slowly learning that my internal worrywart isn’t always right. Good things do happen . . . sometimes. I tamped down the hollow, empty feeling of impending doom and settled into my favorite chair with lunch and my book.

  I ate slowly, killing time until I could meet Gabriel at the Dizzy Duke. The book was good, an old James Lee Burke I hadn’t read. It should have held my attention, but my mind kept wandering from Zydeco to Miss Frankie to the Love Nest and Monroe Magee. I kept thinking about how Grey had alluded to some kind of tragedy in the past, and wondering if he was really crazy or just eccentric.

  But just how crazy (or eccentric) was he? Enough to commit murder? What about Cleveland, who had made a lot of noise about how much he hated Monroe? Had he tried to kill Monroe and poisoned Dontae instead? And while I’d ruled out Antwon and Tamarra as possible suspects, because their connection to the others seemed indirect and I’d seen them stumble out of their room the night Dontae died, had I been too quick to cross them off my list?

  After a while I gave up pretending to read. I went back inside, folded the laundry, stacked my dishes in the dishwasher, and drove to the Dizzy Duke. I was a few minutes early, but Gabriel’s shift was scheduled to end soon and I hoped he might even be able to slip away early. It had been a rough couple of days and I was already exhausted, but if we left now, we might have time to talk with a couple of the Love Nest’s residents before they went to bed.

  In contrast to my last visit, tonight the bar was full of noisy patrons, most of whom were engrossed in the game on the big-screen TVs at either end of the room. I looked around for Old Dog Leg, but the band hadn’t arrived, and I knew he’d probably avoid the crowded bar during the game. It was just as well. I didn’t have any news to share with him, and he’d already told me what he knew.

  I squeezed between tables, earning jeers from inebriated sports fans who objected to my shadow on the screen, and waited for one of the only empty spots at the bar while a couple of overworked cocktail waitresses shouted orders at the bartenders and complained to each other about rude customers.

  It seemed like everyone in the place was shouting, and between the noise and heat generated by so many bodies packed together, my skin began to crawl. I was more than eager to get out of there.

  After what felt like forever, Gabriel paused in front of me on his way to deliver a handful of longneck beer bottles to the other end of the bar. “You’re early!” he shouted.

  “A little!” I shouted back. “How long before you’ll be able to leave?”

  He glanced at his watch and shook his head. “At the rate it’s been going? Never. The game just went into overtime, and the crowd doesn’t show any sign of letting up.”

  My smile faded. “You mean you might not be able to leave at five?”

  “I mean I probably won’t be able to leave until nine or ten,” Gabriel said with a scowl. He hustled away to deliver the drinks and gather money, then came back on his way to the cash register. “I’m sorry about this. Just make yourself comfortable. I’ll get away as soon as humanly possible.”

  Comfortable. Right.

  The bar was crowded with basketball fans stacked two deep, and the only empty stools were smack in the middle of the fray. I searched for an available table, but that proved to be a futile effort. I hitched myself onto an empty stool and reluctantly waved away Gabriel’s offer to bring me a margarita. He’s a true artist at making them, so the offer was more than tempting, but I still had to drive the Mercedes home and besides I had way too much to think about. I needed a clear head, and I’d learned from experience that Gabriel’s margaritas and a clear head cannot coexist.

  For the first few minutes of the game’s overtime, I nursed a Diet Coke and endured jostling from other patrons and cocktail waitresses. During a commercial break, the crowd cleared slightly and I spotted a couple of familiar faces sitting over at Zydeco’s usual table near the bandstand. I abandoned my seat at the bar and made my way across the packed room.

  Sparkle Starr sat at one end of the table and stared morosely at the drink in front of her. Estelle Jergens sat bolt upright next to Sparkle, chattering nonstop. She looked earnest. Sparkle just looked bored.

  Sparkle is in her midtwenties, the daughter of aging hippie parents who saddled her at birth with a bright shiny name that she’s been trying to dim since she became an adult. Her pale face in its goth makeup looked almost translucent in the bar’s low light, and locks of fluorescent pink were laced through her otherwise pitch-black tresses. She’d pulled her hair into enormous pigtails high on her head, and her lips were painted stark black. She was wearing a pair of black hip boots covered with spikes and a black trench coat decorated with chains over ebony shorts and a lace tank top. Spiked leather bands covered both wrists so that only the head of her dragon tattoo was visible. I swear she’d used about half a bottle of liquid black liner on her eyes.

  Estelle seemed the least likely person on staff at Zydeco for Sparkle to befriend, but Sparkle is actually much nicer than she wants people to think. The two of them had been spending more time together than usual over the past couple of weeks.

  Estelle is the oldest member of our little crew; I put her somewhere in her late forties, but I could be off by a few years either way. She’s short and round, with a headful of brilliant red curls that spring out in all directions no matter how hard she tries to contain them. She’s also seriously fashion challenged. Tonight’s outfit featured gray stretch pants, a long blue T-shirt, and brown Birkenstock knockoffs.

  Sparkle greeted me with a jerk of her chin but didn’t actually make eye contact.

  Estelle bounced up out of her seat and lunged toward me. “Rita! I’m so glad you’re here.” She grabbed me by one arm and pulled me toward the table, bombarding me with questions the whole way. “Did you talk to Ox and Edie? What did they say? What’s going on with Edie anyway?”

  I slipped out
of her grasp and dropped into a chair directly beneath an air-conditioning vent. Thank heaven for small favors. “One thing at a time,” I said with a laugh. “I talked to Edie. She’s fine. She was just having a bad day.”

  Estelle dropped into the chair beside me and exchanged a look with Sparkle. “That’s what she told you?” Sparkle asked.

  Doubt skittered around inside, but I ignored it. “Yes,” I said firmly. “And from what I could tell, she was being honest. She and Ox seemed fine with each other today.”

  They had, hadn’t they? Okay, so I hadn’t actually asked Ox about their argument, but he would have said something about it if he was worried . . . wouldn’t he?

  Estelle sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “Well, they aren’t fine. At least Edie isn’t.”

  “She’s just concerned about the bakery,” I assured them both. I didn’t want to get into specifics about Zydeco’s finances and worry them unnecessarily, but I also didn’t want them to start imagining trouble that didn’t exist. “You know how slow things have been lately, and you know how Edie is. She likes to be in control, and unfortunately for us, she does not control the economy.”

  Sparkle’s black-lined gaze flickered over my face. I thought she looked skeptical, but she didn’t say anything.

  Estelle shook her head and set those red curls dancing. “That’s not it, Rita. I’m sure it’s not. She’s been weird the past few weeks. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  Oh, I’d noticed all right. Especially when she’d tried to give me her resignation earlier that afternoon. But since I had no intention of letting her quit, I thought it best to keep that piece of information to myself. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said again.

  Estelle scowled so hard wrinkles formed in her forehead. “Well, you’re wrong. Tell her, Sparkle.”

  A shout went up from the game-watching crowd, drowning out Sparkle’s response, but I was pretty sure that whatever it was, it had amounted to a big fat “no.”

  Estelle leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table and getting right in Sparkle’s face. “Tell her, Sparkle. You have to.”

  Sparkle gave her a hard-edged stare. “Maybe we should just drop it.”

  Estelle’s eyes grew wide. “Drop it? Are you serious?” She heaved a sigh of frustration and sank back in her chair again, but she kept her gaze locked on Sparkle’s face. “If you don’t tell her, I will. Something’s wrong with Edie and we both know it.” She turned on me next, wagging a chubby finger in my face. “And you’d know it, too, if you were paying attention.”

  “Hey!” I said, offended. “Rude! I am paying attention here.”

  I really hoped Estelle was making a mountain out of a molehill. What with Dontae’s murder, Monroe’s disappearance, Bernice’s barbecue, Miss Frankie’s planned visit to the cemetery, and the guilt I was carrying over the prospect of her selling old family property to help keep our business afloat, I didn’t need another serious problem.

  Estelle muttered an apology to me—at least I think she did, I had trouble hearing the actual words—but she didn’t back down from Sparkle. “Tell. Her.”

  Sparkle resisted for another minute, but then she looked up at me and said, “I caught her crying in the bathroom a couple of days ago.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Edie?” No, no, no. That would be bad. Edie’s not the crying type.

  Sparkle nodded, and her expression looked almost apologetic. I wasn’t sure which bothered me more: the idea of Edie crying in the ladies’ room or the concept of Sparkle apologizing.

  I gave my head a little shake, as if that would help me make sense of what I’d just heard. It didn’t. “Did she say why?”

  Sparkle’s lips curved slightly. “Edie? Confide in me? Uh-uh.”

  Another big play in the game on TV made it impossible to talk for a few minutes. “Are you sure she was crying?” I asked when the noise died away. “Maybe she was just having an allergic reaction to something.” Okay, so that was a stretch. I had to pursue every option, didn’t I?

  “It wasn’t allergies,” Sparkle said. “She locked herself in the stall when she saw me come in.”

  Again, not typical Edie-like behavior. “Did you ask her what was wrong?”

  Sparkle gave me a duh look. “Of course I did. She said it was nothing.”

  Estelle’s eyes bugged out. “As if. You have to find out what’s going on with her, Rita.”

  Okay, so maybe there was something going on with Edie, but getting answers would be easier said than done. “She has a right to her privacy,” I said. “If she doesn’t want to talk to me, I can’t force her.” And besides, dealing with other peoples’ emotional issues isn’t one of my strengths. Philippe would have been much better suited to having a heart-to-heart with Edie, and not just because he had great people skills. She’d had a thing for him while we were in pastry school, and I was pretty sure it had carried through after he hired her to work at Zydeco. As the woman who’d had him and then let him get away, I was probably the last person she’d confide in.

  But even I had to admit that my response sounded like a cop-out. Another wave of exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of the Dizzy Duke’s heat and noise. I should have spent more time at home. I needed privacy and space. Time to think and a good night’s sleep, not necessarily in that order.

  “Keep an eye on things,” I said to Estelle. “If Edie is still acting strangely, let me know when I get back to work the day after tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  I stood and cut her off before she could wind herself up any more. “Look, maybe there’s something wrong, but there isn’t anything I can do about it tonight. Tomorrow’s a holiday, and I’ll be back to work on Tuesday. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait that long.”

  Estelle shut her mouth and bobbed her head in agreement, but I could tell by the way she set her shoulders and lifted her chin that she wasn’t happy. I added her to my growing list of problems to solve and left my empty glass on the table. And then I made my way back to the bar. There might be a big, noisy crowd there, but at least nobody wanted anything from me. For now, maybe that was enough.

  Twenty-four

  I was wrong. Going back to the bar was a bad idea. It didn’t take long for my already-fraying patience to snap, and I knew I had to leave. I caught Gabriel’s eye and motioned him over.

  He shoved a few glasses into a sink full of soapy water, dropped a couple of bills into his tip jar, and swiped something from the bar with a cloth before making his way to me. “Change your mind? Ready for a real drink?”

  I shook my head. “Listen, you’re going to be tied up here for a while, so I think I’m going to head over to the inn on my own. Just come over when you’ve finished here.”

  The smile he’d been wearing disappeared. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Stick around here. We’ll go back together.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  He wasn’t convinced. “I don’t like the idea of you there by yourself. Go back to your place. I’ll pick you up there.”

  I shook my head and dropped some money onto the bar. “If I go home, I’ll stay there, and we really need to be at the inn tomorrow for breakfast. We lost the whole day today. Tomorrow morning is all we’ve got before we have to check out.”

  “So we extend our reservation another day or two.” Gabriel leaned in close so I could hear him over the bar noise. “One of those old people killed Dontae. I don’t want you going over there alone.”

  “I’m not planning to talk to anybody tonight,” I assured him. “I’m just going to go upstairs to our room and pass out. Feel better?”

  “Not much. Just be patient, okay? I can probably slip away in another hour or two.”

  I swallowed a jaw-cracking yawn. “In another hour or two you’ll have to scrape me off the bar to get me out of here. It’s already after seven. By the time I get to the Love Nest, all those sweet old people will be in bed
anyway. I’ll keep my cell phone on all the time and if I run into trouble, I’ll call for help. I promise.”

  One of the other bartenders shouted for Gabriel, and I took advantage of the distraction to slip outside. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me, but the bar was making me claustrophobic and I was way too tired to hang around and make small talk.

  It was a cool night, so I rolled down my windows as I drove, and within a few miles the clear air had wiped away some cobwebs. I managed to shelve most of my concerns about the cemetery, the barbecue, and the bakery, which left my head free to tackle the issues surrounding the murder, and Monroe.

  I wanted to talk with Lula Belle, so my main focus tomorrow would be getting her alone. Of course, that would only work if Lula Belle actually acknowledged my presence. She was just stubborn enough to try ignoring me again. Good thing I’m stubborn and strong-willed myself. I was determined to outfox that wily old woman.

  I also wanted a shot at Primrose without Hyacinth hanging around. She was the one who’d found Dontae’s body in the garden. Maybe she’d seen something important. She was also the most likely person to know where Monroe had gone. If she didn’t know, I hoped someone had an idea where to look for him.

  But all of that could wait until morning. Tonight, all I wanted was sleep.

  Or so I thought until I walked into the Love Nest and saw Cleveland in the parlor, remote control in hand. He sat in an overstuffed chair that he’d turned to face the TV, his chin on his chest and his wrinkles bunched up around his neck. And he was completely alone. It was an opportunity I just couldn’t resist.

  He looked away from the screen when he realized he had company, growling, “I’m not changing the channel. Don’t ask.”

  I returned his unfriendly scowl with my most gracious smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll watch whatever you’re watching.”

  Cleveland snorted softly. “Where’s your husband?”

  “Working, unfortunately.” I turned a flowery chair next to his toward the TV and settled in. “He got called in for a few hours.”