The Cakes of Monte Cristo

by Jacklyn Brady

  Ox whipped his head around to look at me. “What? You think I did it?”

  “No! Of course not. I’m just . . . I’m at a loss. I need to figure out who’s doing this so I can get my life back to normal.” I slumped down in my chair and turned my mug in a slow circle on the table in front of me. “You’re good at thinking things through. I thought maybe you could help me. There’s one thing that puzzles me. Natalie Archer brought it up. How did the necklace get into the stairs in our building?”

  Ox gave me a sidelong look. “Your guess is as good as mine. As far as I know, the thing disappeared before Gustave Toussaint died.”

  “And yet somehow it ended up at Zydeco, which your distant relative used to own. Is there anyone in your family who might be a little—” I broke off, unsure how to say what I was thinking.

  “Unhinged?” Ox supplied for me. “Whacko?”

  “‘Passionate’ sounds better,” I said with a grin. “Or dishonest. So what do you think? Anybody in your distant family who might have stolen the necklace?”

  Ox turned his back on the window and leaned against the counter, one foot crossed over the other. “Probably too many to count. But if they stole it and hid it, I wouldn’t have heard anything about it, would I?”

  “Maybe not. Or maybe you’ve heard someone talk about it. Maybe the subject has come up at a family reunion. Maybe you just know because you’re family. I mean, if somebody’s a little off-kilter, doesn’t everybody in the family know about it? It doesn’t come as some big surprise, does it?”

  One side of his mouth curled in a halfhearted grin. “No, it doesn’t. But the problem is, most of my family is unhinged. You’ve met Mambo Odessa, right? Do you think she’s normal?”

  “She’s a lovely woman . . . for a voodoo priestess.”

  “She thinks she can talk to dead people. Does that sound normal to you?”

  “I guess that depends on your definition of ‘normal,’” I said. “So you’re saying there are more people like her in your family?”

  “More people like her than like me, that’s for damn sure.” Ox came back to the table and sat. “But do I think that some long-dead uncle’s cousin’s brother-in-law was crazy enough to steal the necklace? I couldn’t say.”

  I sighed and leaned my head back against the chair. “I guess that means you don’t think some grandmother’s sister’s niece could be trying to steal the necklace back? And here I was hoping you’d know who was behind all of this.”

  “Yeah. Well. Sorry. Wish I could help, but you know how it is.”

  I digested that for a moment before saying, “Do you think there’s anyone alive who knows how that necklace ended up in the house?”

  Ox lifted one shoulder. “I doubt it, but who knows? You really want me to spend my day off calling crazy relatives to ask?”

  I could tell that he wanted me to say no, but I nodded eagerly. “Please?”

  Ox groaned low in his throat, but he didn’t refuse, which was good enough for me. I polished off my coffee and carried the mug to the sink. “Thanks, Ox. Will you let me know if you find out anything?”

  “You’ll be the first person I call,” he said grudgingly.

  I pretended not to notice. “Thanks! I owe you one. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  I wasn’t angling for an invitation to stay, and I didn’t want to intrude on Ox’s day off, but I wanted to rattle around on my own even less. I rinsed my cup, half expecting Ox to invite me to stick around.

  He didn’t.

  So I hiked up my big girl panties, and let myself out the door. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ox pick up his cell phone as I shut the door behind me and the look on his face made me glad it wasn’t my number he was calling. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t asked me to stay.

  Early evening shadows stretched across the street as I left Ox’s apartment. I slid behind the wheel of the Range Rover, but I couldn’t make myself crank the engine. I hadn’t learned anything really helpful from my conversation with Ox, but at least it was a new trail to follow.

  It didn’t feel right to leave Ox doing the legwork while I went home and watched TV, so I decided it might be time to pay Sol Lehmann a visit. I wondered if he knew that Miriam was working against him, and whether knowing that his wife was planning to outbid him would make him feel. I had no idea where the Lehmanns lived, but with the magic of the Internet at my fingertips, I might be able to find out.

  I’d just launched the browser app on my phone when I spotted Ox leaving his apartment building. He was talking on his phone, so intent on his conversation he didn’t see me sitting there. He turned away from me and jogged down the sidewalk to his truck and roared away from the curb with a screech of tires.

  Instinctively, I scooted down on the seat so he wouldn’t see me as he drove by, but I’m not sure he would have noticed me even if I’d jumped out in front of him. He looked determined, even angry, and I wondered whether one of his “crazy relatives” had said something that set him off.

  On impulse I pulled into traffic, made a U-turn, and tried to catch up with him. I was afraid I might have lost him, but I could see his truck several cars in front of me. I didn’t want him to spot me in his rearview mirror like I’d noticed Mancini’s white SUV, so I hung back, hoping my Range Rover wasn’t so familiar that he’d pick me out of traffic.

  He sped past a golf course, hung a right on State, and another on Claiborne, eventually merging into traffic on I-10. It was a little harder to follow him once he was on the Interstate, but I managed to keep him in sight until he took the exit for Orleans Avenue. By then, I was almost certain that he was heading for the French Quarter and Mambo Odessa’s shop so I took a chance, peeled off and made my way there by another route. Hoping to avoid running into Ox in the Quarter, I paid for parking at the Sheraton and hiked the five blocks to Dauphine Street on foot.

  The whole time, questions raced through my head. What had Ox found out that made him so angry? Had I misjudged Mambo Odessa? Could she possibly be the one who had tried to steal the necklace? Frankly, it didn’t seem like her style. She was much more likely to shake some bones and cast another curse.

  It wasn’t until I was half a block away from Mambo Odessa’s that another possibility suddenly appeared on the sidewalk in front of me.

  Twenty-five

  It was hard to see over the heads of the passing pedestrians, but if I stood on tiptoe I could see Ox lean in close, getting right in Calvin’s face. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I was convinced that the anger I’d seen on Ox’s face earlier was directed at his cousin. But did that mean that . . . Calvin? Was Calvin the would-be thief?

  I’d been shielded by pedestrians who were making their way into the Quarter as night fell until then, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I ducked into the open doorway of a noisy bar and waited a moment before I dared peek at the sidewalk. I saw Calvin wave off whatever Ox said with a laugh, and turn as if he intended to walk away. Ox grabbed his arm and Calvin turned around, now as angry as Ox was. He prodded Ox in the chest with one finger. Ox swatted it away.

  Chatter and the clink of glass behind me made it impossible to hear, but I had to know what they were saying. Call me cynical, but I didn’t think Ox planned on telling me about it.

  I waited for a small group of people to pass the doorway and fell in behind them, moving closer to the two men at an annoyingly slow pace.

  I was only two doors away from Mambo Odessa’s shop when Ox grabbed Calvin by the shirtfront. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? Have you lost your mind?” Ox yelled as he shoved Calvin up against the wall.

  Calvin’s head hit the wall with a thunk that I could hear from where I stood. He broke Ox’s grip on his shirt and shoved him hard.

  Ox kept shouting. “You break into someone’s home? You assault people? Dammit, Calvin, Rita’s a friend of mine. What the hell—?”
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  Calvin shoved a finger in Ox’s face. “You know what’s wrong with you? You’ve changed. We were raised to put family first, but you’ve turned your back on all of us.”

  I was aware of a small crowd gathering to watch the fight—some people moved in close and others hung back, lining the sidewalk across the street. Ox didn’t seem to notice, and neither did Calvin. They were too focused on each other.

  Ox slapped Calvin’s hand away and said something too low for me to hear. He made another grab for Calvin’s shirt, but Calvin was too quick for him. He landed a solid blow to Ox’s middle followed by an uppercut that sent Ox reeling. As Ox staggered backward, Calvin broke away and ran hell-bent around the corner.

  I didn’t know whether to follow Calvin—like I’d be a match for him—or stay where I was and make sure that Ox was all right. Before I could make a decision, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jerked around in surprise and found Mambo Odessa standing behind me.

  I wondered if she’d seen the altercation between her two nephews. The look on her face gave nothing away.

  Her lack of apparent emotion broke down the last slim hold I had on my own anger. I’d been frightened and assaulted, and she didn’t even have the decency to look upset. “Did you know what Calvin was doing?” I demanded.

  “You think I condone his actions?”

  That wasn’t what I’d asked and she knew it. “I think you knew that he was the one trying to steal the necklace.”

  She turned her face toward me, but I couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses. “And you think I should have stopped him.”

  “I think you should have tried.”

  Her lips curved slightly and she looked away again. “Not everything is black and white, child. Sometimes people do the wrong thing for the right reason and sometimes they do the right thing for the wrong reason.”

  I wondered which motive she attributed to Calvin, but Ox had recovered, jogged to the corner in a belated attempt to go after his cousin, and now was walking toward us wearing a dark scowl on his face.

  Mambo Odessa melted into the crowd, leaving me on my own. It was just as well. I had nothing else to say to her anyway.

  I tried to make myself invisible, but the crowd around me seemed to part like the Red Sea, leaving me exposed and easy for Ox to spot. His eyes blazed and his nostrils flared, and the look on his face made my stomach tie itself in knots. “What in the hell—? What are you doing here?”

  I refused to let him know that he intimidated me. “Just hanging out,” I quipped. “Waiting for you to call and tell me what you found out from your family. I’m going out on a limb here, guessing that you made contact with at least one of them.”

  He took me by the arm and started walking—fast. I had to run to keep up with him.

  “My family didn’t tell me anything. I would have called you if they had.”

  Yeah. And I had some swampland in New Mexico for sale. “Seems like somebody told you something,” I said. “You came storming out of your apartment even before I drove away. It was what? Three minutes after I left your place?”

  He stopped walking so abruptly, I almost lost my balance. “This,” he said, waving his free hand to encompass half of Dauphine Street and the crowd that was slowly dispersing, “has nothing to do with you or your problem. I needed to talk to Calvin about something.”

  “About what?”

  “Family stuff.”

  I might have believed him if he’d looked at me while he talked, but his gaze bounced around guiltily, never quite landing on my face. “Family stuff like the Toussaint necklace?”

  Ox rolled his head on his neck, a sure sign that he was angry. “Believe it or not, Rita, not everything is about you.”

  Ouch! “I never said that it was,” I snapped. “But if you think I’m going to believe that you came to see Calvin for some reason completely unrelated to the necklace and what’s been happening to me, you’re the one who’s crazy. What’s going on, Ox? And this time, be honest with me.”

  He mopped his face with one hand and turned partially away. It looked like he was struggling with himself over what to tell me, but I didn’t care. I’d had it with him and his secrets and his penchant for privacy.

  “Be honest,” I said again. “Tell me, was it Calvin who broke into my house?”

  Ox made eye contact, probably to show me that he wanted to wring my neck for asking. He spent a full minute breathing heavily and growling, probably hoping he could make me cower and change the subject.

  Instead, I squared my shoulders and glared right back at him. “Was it Calvin?”

  He growled once more and looked away. “I don’t know. I think so.”

  He wouldn’t have admitted that much unless he was convinced, but I wondered how he’d figured it out so quickly. More specifically, I wanted to know what he’d seen or heard that I missed. “Why? What made you think it was him?”

  Ox leaned against a light post and studied the cobblestones at our feet. “The money he left when he broke in,” he said after a long time. He lifted his gaze and met mine again. He looked so miserable, I almost felt sorry for him. “He did the same thing when he was a kid. Broke my mom’s dining room window throwing a baseball around. She wasn’t home, but he felt so guilty he gave her all the money he had to fix it. He was maybe ten and I think he only had a couple of bucks. He did the same kind of thing a few years later when he put a scratch on his mom’s piano. So when you told me about the money he left at your place, it rang some bells, y’know?”

  I let out a sigh that felt as if it started at the soles of my feet. Relief over finally knowing who was responsible for the attacks on me and my stuff, I guess. But I was also sad that if Calvin had broken into the Vintage Vault, he’d inadvertently brought on Orra’s heart attack. His attacks on me hadn’t been truly malicious, and calling 911 to report Orra’s distress seemed like something Calvin might have done, but it didn’t completely wipe away his part in her death. “So you confronted him. I’m guessing he denied it?”

  “He didn’t admit it or deny it,” Ox said. The hurt and disappointment on his face made the knot in my stomach twist a little tighter. I’d grown up with four boisterous cousins who’d been in trouble more times than I could remember, but I knew how I’d feel if one of them did something illegal or hurt someone intentionally. I didn’t know Calvin well, but I was having trouble believing the worst of him, and obviously Ox was struggling with it, too.

  “I told him he had to come clean with you,” Ox said. “I told him he had to tell the police what he’d done.” He touched a spot on his chin and winced. “Obviously, that suggestion went over like a lead balloon.”

  “I noticed,” I said with a tiny smile. “Where do you think he went?”

  “I have no idea.” Ox put his fists on his hips and shook his head. “If you’d asked me that twenty years ago, I could have given you an answer, but I don’t know Calvin anymore. I have no idea where he’s gone or what he’s capable of.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “I guess I need to let Sullivan know,” I said, thinking aloud. “I’m not sure what the police will be able to do about it.”

  “If Calvin’s smart,” Ox said with a scowl, “he’s already on his way out of town. Now that he knows we’re on to him, I doubt he’ll be back to bother you.”

  I wanted to believe that as much as Ox did, which explains why I ignored the ripple of uncertainty that ran across my shoulders. I should’ve known better.

  * * *

  With Calvin on the run, there was no reason for me to hunt down Sol and Miriam Lehmann. Ox and I grabbed dinner at a sandwich shop in the Quarter, po’boys that neither of us finished and a bag of chips apiece. Ox spent the whole time grumbling about Calvin and convincing both of us that his cousin’s reign of terror was over.

  It was full dark by the time I drove home, and I was relieved to ha
ve answers to at least a few of my questions. I parked half a block away from the house, pondering Calvin’s motives and wondering how someone so nice could get so far off the right track as I walked through the yard and climbed to the porch.

  Which might explain how I didn’t notice Calvin lurking in the shadow of the magnolia tree that separates my yard from the yarn shop next door, and why he was able to get the drop on me.

  He was on the porch behind me before I even saw him coming, one hand around my neck while he pressed something hard and cold into my back. I had a sick feeling that it was a gun, but I was still so deep in denial about Calvin that I actually thought he might be bluffing.

  “Open the door,” he growled in my ear, his voice low and threatening.

  Some part of my brain was screaming a warning not to let him inside with me, but the other part was arguing that Calvin was Ox’s cousin and basically a good guy, even if he was seriously misguided.

  “I need my keys,” I squeaked out around the pressure on my throat. “And I need to breathe.”

  He relaxed his grip a little and again I told myself that he wouldn’t really hurt me. I pawed around in my bag until I found my phone. Keeping one hand on it, I produced my keys with a little voilà move.

  Calvin nudged me closer to the door. I tried to get the key into the lock, but I couldn’t see. Plus, my hands were shaking. And it was a brand-new, unfamiliar lock. Whether or not I believed Calvin was a real danger to me, being accosted on my doorstep was still unnerving. I had to let go of the phone and use both hands to unlock the door.

  I flipped on the light as I stepped inside and whirled around to give Calvin a piece of my mind. At the sight of an actual gun in his hands, now aimed at my stomach, my heart jumped up into my throat and whatever I’d been about to say froze on my tongue.

  He came inside behind me and pushed the door shut with his free hand. “Where is it?”

  Anger bubbled up inside me, right alongside the fear. I didn’t want to end up a story on the news, but I’d had it up to here with Calvin and his quest for the cursed necklace. “Where is what?”