A Sheetcake Named Desire (17 page)

Dwight circled one finger around an ear in the international sign for crazy. “It may have escaped your notice, but Edie’s not exactly rational. You weren’t a threat to her anymore. If Philippe divorced you, he’d have been free to marry Quinn, and she
was
a threat.”

A big part of me wanted to agree with him, but I just couldn’t. Edie might not be my favorite person at Zydeco, but I couldn’t deny that she was good at her job, and I didn’t think she could be so successful at what she did if she was some kind of fruitcake.

“She seems to have a handle on things,” I said in her defense.

“She’s a control freak,” Dwight said. “I’d keep an eye on her if I were you.”

“Yeah. Of course. So I’m guessing that Philippe’s relationship with Quinn made her angry?”

Dwight looked around for the third tier. “She tried everything to break them up in the beginning. Poor thing. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I want nothing to do with Edie, but even I feel a little sorry for her. She was so desperate to get Philippe to look at her, but he just wasn’t interested.”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re making Philippe sound like a complete doormat. Ox was sabotaging him, but Philippe just sat back and took it. Edie was trying to break up his new relationship, and he did nothing about it. That doesn’t sound like Philippe at all.”

“He didn’t like what Edie was doing,” Dwight said, “but he didn’t do anything to stop her. He didn’t want to get romantically involved with her, but he always had a soft spot for her. Don’t ask me why.”

I made a mental note to check into Edie and tried to steer him toward what I considered a more likely scenario. “So . . . Quinn. Have you ever heard any rumors about her? Is there any chance she was cheating on Philippe?”

Dwight laughed through his nose. “Quinn? I doubt it. She was nuts about him.”

“Are you sure? Someone told me this morning that she’d been seeing someone else.”

Dwight’s expression grew serious. “I don’t believe it.”

“This person saw Quinn with another guy more than once,” I said.

Dwight stopped working and shook his head firmly. “Not in this lifetime, Rita. Say what you will about Quinn, she really loved Philippe. And he loved her. But if you don’t believe me, talk to Estelle or Sparkle. They’d probably know more than I do.”

Good idea. I mumbled something about not wanting to keep him from his work and returned the stool I’d been sitting on. But I couldn’t stop wondering why Dwight was trying to paint Edie as a complete whack job. Was she really crazy, or was he trying to hide something by making her sound that way?

Maybe he was the one who took the missing design. I had no idea why he would, but that was just one in a long string of things I didn’t understand.

I crossed the room to the corner where Estelle was working on fondant pieces for the whimsical cake. That mop of bright red hair was pulled up in a clip that appeared strained almost to the breaking point. Ditto for her chef’s jacket. Next to her, Sparkle’s black-lined eyes were focused on a gum-paste bottle of hot sauce that would become part of the crab-boil cake.

Estelle beamed at me as I approached. “Feeling better this morning?”

My face burned, but I managed to laugh at myself. “Anything would be better than what I was feeling last night. I’m sorry if I ruined the memorial.”

Sparkle’s tarantula-lashed eyes lifted to my face, but her only response was a soft snort of derision.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Estelle said, with a pointed look at Sparkle. “It was at a bar. I’ll bet most of the people there were feeling the same way.”

That was kind of her to say, but no one else had dumped a drink and landed on the floor. At least not while I was there. I glanced around quickly. “Where’s Isabeau?”

“Delivering the monkey cake with Abe. They should be back in an hour or two.”

“Great.” I motioned at the work in front of her. “Can I help?”

“Sure, if you want to.” Estelle spent a few minutes showing me what she was doing with the various size cutters and explaining Ox’s original vision for the cake. Within minutes, we settled into a rhythm. “I saw you talking to Ox last night,” she said. “Is there any chance he’s going to come back?”

“I hope so. I’m going to try to convince him to, but he didn’t have a lot to say to me last night, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Estelle said. “He’s been in a foul mood for weeks. Just stay out of his way until he calms down.”

Unfortunately, staying out of his way wouldn’t solve any of my current problems. “So what’s your take on what’s wrong with him?”

Sparkle glanced away from the hot-sauce bottle, her brush poised and ready to resume its work, her black-painted lips pursed. I realized right then and there that I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley. It was freaky enough being around her in a brightly lit room. “I don’t think you should be talking about that, Estelle,” she warned in that low monotone of hers. “It’s nobody else’s business.”

Estelle carefully peeled a two-inch circle from the nonstick baking mat in front of her. “I think Rita ought to know. She’s in charge now. She needs to know what’s been going on around here.”

I stopped pondering the likelihood that Sparkle would cast an evil spell on me and swallowed a little bubble of excitement.
Finally, someone who was eager to talk!
My head buzzed, and not just from the hangover. “Thanks, Estelle. So, what do you think is going on around here?”

Estelle shook her head so hard I thought her clip would finally lose its battle. “Stuff going missing. Equipment breaking down. People refusing to pay for the work we’ve done. It’s been one thing after another for the past few months.”

Sparkle sent her the evil eye, so I hurried to set the record straight. “Don’t worry. I’ve heard about your string of bad luck already.”

Estelle rolled her eyes and cut a series of diamond shapes. “I wouldn’t worry if it were only bad luck. I think somebody’s trying to shut us down.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, too,” I admitted. “Any guesses about who it might be?”

Estelle slid a glance in Sparkle’s direction but stopped short of making eye contact. “I don’t know,” she said, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard, “but Philippe thought he did.”

“Do you know who he suspected?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Sparkle asked. “He was pretty sure Ox was behind all the weird stuff.”

“Is that what Ox and Philippe argued about the morning of the murder?”

Estelle took up where Sparkle left off. “
Somebody
destroyed the paddle-wheel cake that day. Philippe thought that Ox did it.”

“So I’ve been told. But why?”

Sparkle went back to work on the bottle of hot sauce. “I don’t think anybody really
knows
why.” For all her scary demeanor, she was a seriously talented artist. The bottle looked remarkably realistic.

“She’s right.” One curly red lock sprang loose from Estelle’s poor overworked clip. “Philippe wasn’t talking, and neither was Ox. It got real ugly there toward the end, and then, when that cake got ruined . . . Well, that’s when everything blew up.”

“I still don’t understand that,” I admitted. “It was hot that day. Really hot. But the cake had to be outside, unattended, for a while to give someone time to destroy it. I can’t imagine Philippe leaving a cake out in the heat like that.”

“He wouldn’t,” Estelle agreed. “That’s why he was so convinced that Ox trashed it. And you have to admit, it looks bad. Ox was out there with the cake. The cake was destroyed. One plus one equals Ox with a grudge of some kind.”

I looked toward Ox’s empty workstation. The only explanation that made sense was the one Dwight had just offered me, but I still had trouble believing that Ox was planning to defect to Dmitri’s bakery. “Ox told me that Philippe had started giving his work to other people. Do you know why he did that?”

“You tell us, and we’ll all know,” Sparkle mumbled. “Nobody can figure out what was going on with him toward the end.”

“Do
you
think Ox has been sabotaging the business?”

Estelle looked down at the fondant she was kneading. When she looked up at me again, I could see the confusion in her eyes. “I don’t
want
to think that it’s Ox, but I don’t want to think it’s anyone else here, either.”

“What about Dmitri Wolff?”

Estelle’s hands stilled. “Do you think he did this?”

“I don’t know. Just trying to make sense out of the confusion. Did either of you see him that day?”

Estelle shook her head. “I haven’t seen him in a couple of months.”

“He was here yesterday,” I told her. “But I guess you wouldn’t see someone arriving from back here, would you?”

“We don’t see anything from back here,” Sparkle mumbled. “Somebody could walk out the front door with the safe, and we’d never know about it.”

I glanced out the window to see just how much the staff could observe from here. I could see one corner of the employee parking lot, but the loading dock itself was obscured from view. I could see bits and pieces of the garden paths, but the trees were so thick in places most of the gardens were obscured from view. “What about the day of the murder? Did either of you notice Philippe or anyone else in the garden?”

Sparkle curled her black-coated lip at me. “We’ve both given statements to the police. But no. I didn’t see anything.”

“Neither did I,” Estelle said, barely suppressing a shudder. “I wish I had. I wish I could help the police figure out who killed Philippe. I’d like to see whoever it was locked up forever.”

“You and me both,” I told her. “Can I ask the two of you about something else?”

Estelle gave me a friendly smile. “Anything. Ask away.”

“Someone I talked to this morning suggested that Quinn might have been seeing someone else on the side. Do either of you know anything about that?”

To my surprise, Sparkle’s nostrils flared. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

But Estelle gave her head a firm shake. “I don’t think that could possibly be true. She seemed so devoted to Philippe.”

“She was seen with some other guy,” I said. “More than once.”

“Well, there must be a perfectly logical explanation,” Estelle insisted. “She owed Philippe too much. She never would have betrayed him.”

“She owed him?” I said. “For what?”

“Oh, honey, she was just a nobody when the two of them met. He lifted her
way
up the social ladder. And she knew it wouldn’t last without him. No, she wouldn’t have turned her back on that. Believe me. Being where she is now means too much to her.”

I felt a rush of something warm and fuzzy inside. I’d been so sure that Quinn belonged to a social status I could only read about, but she didn’t belong with the moneyed set anymore than I did. It’s the little things, y’know?

Sparkle rolled her black eyes. “She loved what Philippe could do for her. I’m not so sure she loved him.”

So far, the staff seemed evenly split on that question. “Why do you say that?” I asked. “What did she do . . . or not do?”

“I don’t know,” Sparkle said. “I can’t put my finger on it. But there’s something wrong there. I can feel it.”

So could I, but I needed specifics. I needed proof. “One more thing,” I said. “Do either of you know about some trouble Philippe had with a man named Guy LeBeau at the Duke?”

Sparkle’s mouth pursed and Estelle gasped softly. “I know who you’re talking about,” Estelle said. “He’s mean as an old snake.”

“Someone told me that he and Philippe had some kind of argument,” I said, giving them a verbal nudge. “Is that true?”

Sparkle’s frown deepened. “Everybody who knows Guy LeBeau has trouble,” she said. “That man
is
trouble.”

“I’m told it had something to do with Guy bothering some woman?”

“Rikki’s the only woman I know dumb enough to give Guy the time of day,” Estelle said. “And he just treats her like yesterday’s leftovers.”

I’d seen him bugging her for money. Sweet. “Did Philippe ever do anything about that?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Sparkle said. “He’d have been the first one to jump in. But did I ever see it? No.”

The conversation died away after that, and we spent the rest of the morning working. While Estelle applied the geometric shapes we’d created to the cake, I fashioned a hot-pink bow out of fondant. Under normal circumstances, making that fondant bow would have been child’s play for me. That morning, with my head still pounding from an excess of tequila and my thoughts racing around the things I’d heard from nosy neighbor Bernice and the staff at Zydeco, it was more of a challenge than I’d expected. Knowing that the staff was sizing me up added another layer of stress. Temporary or not, I wanted to show them that I had what it took to help Zydeco sift through its current troubles.

Twenty

A little after noon, I escaped for lunch. My hangover had let up slightly, but my brain was still feeling overloaded, between getting used to a new work environment, the strain of trying to decide whether someone on staff at Zydeco was responsible for the string of bad luck, and the ever-present worrying over who killed Philippe. I was no closer to handing Miss Frankie a list of trustworthy employees, no more ready to recommend someone to run Zydeco for her, but at least the sweet-sixteen cake was out the door, and the crab-boil cake wasn’t far behind.

I walked half a block to a small market I’d noticed on the corner that advertised New Orleans’ best muffuletta sandwich. Philippe had insisted I try the one at Central Grocery, the store that had made them famous, but that was my only basis for comparison, and I was eager to test out this place’s claim. The muffuletta came into existence in the early 1900s, when the farmers’ market was located close to Central Grocery in the French Quarter. Most of the farmers who lugged their produce to the farmers’ market were Sicilian, and nearly every day they’d visit the grocery during their lunch breaks, where they’d wolf down salami, ham, olive salad, cheese, and bread all served separately—until one day the grocery’s proprietor suggested combining the ingredients to make a sandwich. And the rest was history.

In the muggy heat, even half a block was enough to work up a sweat, and I ducked into the small building praying its air conditioner was in good working order. A bell over the door tinkled to signal my arrival, and a bouquet of tantalizing aromas lured me deeper inside. I tried to sort out the different scents as I closed the door behind me. I picked up the smokiness of cured meats, the tang of yeast, the earthiness of oregano mixed with onion, pepper, and lemon. My appetite ramped up a few notches before I even spotted the menu on the wall.

Two women in jeans and tank tops sat at a small round table in front of the window. An old man wearing a greasy mechanic’s uniform stood at the counter, behind which a pleasant-faced woman with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, and a figure almost as wide as it was tall, slapped a giant sandwich together. A young woman with milk-chocolate skin and what looked like hundreds of tiny braids all adorned with brightly colored beads sat on a stool, slowly turning the pages in a library book.

A muffuletta sandwich is typically made on a round loaf of bread roughly eight inches in diameter and two inches thick. I’ve been told that the key to a good muffuletta is the olive mix—traditionally olives, peppers, pimentos, capers, onions, herbs, and olive oil—so most sandwiches are made in advance to give all that olivey, oily goodness a chance to soak into the bread.

Put all of that on a whole loaf of bread, and you have enough food to feed a family. When it was my turn, I ordered a mere quarter of a sandwich and a Coke and waited as patiently as I could for the clerk to wrap it up for me.

Through the shop’s front windows, I could see the corner of Zydeco’s property. I wondered if either of the women behind the counter had noticed anything unusual at Zydeco over the past few days. That led me to a thirty-second argument with myself, but in the end, it wasn’t me who made the decision. It was Uncle Nestor and Miss Frankie who sat firmly on opposite shoulders, one urging me to come home right away, the other pleading for my help. I had to help Miss Frankie or I’d be here forever.

Pasting on a big, friendly smile, I turned to the older of the two women. “Everything smells wonderful,” I told her. “Are you the owner?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Me? Laws, no. I just come in three afternoons a week while the grandkids are in school. But I’ll be sure to pass along the compliment.” She handed me a tall paper cup filled with ice and Coke and urged me to find a table while I waited.

I stayed where I was, gulping the Coke greedily and coming up for air only when the carbonation took my breath away.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked, smiling.

I shook my head and tried to ignore the siren song of that ice-cold cola. “What gave me away?”

“You don’t sound like New Orleans, honey. Dead giveaway. Where you from?”

“Albuquerque.”

“That’s a ways away.” She reached for the door to the refrigerator. “What brings you here? Vacation?”

“Not exactly. My ex-husband owned the cake shop four doors down.”

“Zydeco?” She forgot all about my sandwich and treated me instead to a look of sympathy laced with a healthy dose of curiosity. “The poor man that got himself killed was your ex? And you came here for the funeral? Well, isn’t that sweet.”

“It’s not exactly like that,” I said. “I came to see him about something else, so I was here when he died.”

“Oh!” One hand flew to the name tag on her chest. Lorena. Her eyes widened slightly. “Well, that’s just terrible, honey. You have my deepest sympathies—if that’s the right thing to say under the circumstances.”

“Thanks. It’s been harder than I would have imagined.” I took a breath before launching into my questions—which was a mistake. Now that she was wound up, Lorena showed no signs of slowing down.

“Oh, honey, don’t I know it. My ex passed on a few years back, and I like to cry myself silly for the first few weeks. Here I thought I hated that man, but when he passed . . .” She shot a glance at the window and sighed heavily. “Well, my prayers’ll be with you, that’s for sure.”

She seemed friendly enough and obviously willing to talk, even to a perfect stranger. Curiosity kept me right where I was. “I don’t suppose you noticed anything unusual that day?”

“The whole thing’s unusual, if you ask me. I’ve been jumpier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs since it happened. It’s bad enough having somebody murdered right under your nose, but in broad daylight!” She glanced at the young woman with the book and rolled her eyes. “I used to feel safe around here, but no more. Not after what happened down your way. I told Felix that, too. Told him I wouldn’t work alone anymore, at least not until they get the killer locked up behind bars. I thought he’d get all huffy about it, but he just said to me, he said, ‘Lorena, I wouldn’t dream of putting you at risk.’ Isn’t that just the sweetest thing? So now Kenya and I are here during the days together.”

“That must be a comfort,” I said, though I had my doubts that Kenya would even notice if Lorena needed saving.

“Do they know who did it yet?” she asked as she pulled a paper plate and napkins from containers on the counter. “Because I don’t know that I’ll sleep until they do. I’m exhausted. Really and truly exhausted. Why, just look at my eyes. They’re bloodshot from lack of sleep.”

“I don’t know—”

“Oh, no, of course they don’t. I tell you, there’s so much crime around this city, it’ll make your head spin.” Lorena waved a knife in my general direction. “You watch your back, y’ hear? There’s no tellin’ what could happen to a pretty young girl alone in this city. Why, you’re probably not even safe walkin’ from here back to the cake shop. Doesn’t what happened the other day prove that?”

“About that—”

Lorena didn’t seem to need my contribution to the conversation. “It’s a shame, that’s what it is. A downright shame. Nice young man like him. Friendly guy, too. Always helping folks when they needed it.”

I’d shed so many tears, I refused to cry today. “Did he come in here often?”

“Sure. Several times a week.”

“Did he get along with the others in the area?”

Lorena expertly sliced bread. “He got along with everyone. Friendliest guy you’d ever want to meet.”

Kenya glanced up from her book as if Lorena’s answer surprised her.

“I’ll tell you who I don’t like from over there,” Lorena said, without pausing for air. “I don’t like that little girlfriend of his. What’s her name, Kenya?”

“Quinn.”

“Why don’t you like her?” I asked.

The stream of words stopped abruptly, and Lorena’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, listen to me, babbling on like an old fool. Boring you to tears.”

“I’m not bored,” I assured her. “Why don’t you like Quinn?”

Lorena pulled a thick sandwich from the refrigerator and placed it on the cutting board. I could see the meat mounded on top of a thick layer of olive salad, and my mouth watered just thinking about eating it. “She’s rude, that’s why,” Lorena said. “Not an ounce of manners.” She stopped working to scowl out the window. “She acts all high and mighty all the time, coming in here barking orders at everyone and acting like she owns the place. And it’s not just in here—she almost ran me down a few days ago. I was walking home, and she came tearing out of the parking lot over there like somebody set her tail on fire.”

I dragged my gaze away from the sandwich and asked, “When was that?”

“A week ago or so? Had to be a day I was on shift, so Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday. She didn’t even slow down or say sorry.”

That wasn’t surprising, but what really grabbed my attention was Lorena’s schedule.

“You don’t work Saturdays?” Lorena sliced the sandwich in two, then cut one of the halves again and shook her head. “Not me,” she said as she wrapped my portion. “I have the grandkids that day.”

“So you weren’t here the day of the murder?”

“No, and thank the good Lord I wasn’t!”

“What about you, Kenya?” I leaned forward, trying to get my face in the girl’s field of vision.

She glanced up and locked eyes with me, letting me know that she wasn’t as bored as she appeared. “I was here, but I didn’t see anything, and I don’t want trouble.”

“No. Of course not.” I picked up my cup and tried to look casual in spite of the fact that my heart was beating with the speed of hummingbird wings. “You know what’s bothering me? That morning, before the attack, somebody destroyed a cake that was sitting in the van on the loading dock. I just can’t figure out how somebody slipped back there, hacked up the cake, and then got away without anybody seeing a thing.”

Lorena’s mouth formed a little O, and her eyes skipped back and forth between Kenya and me. “Seriously? Oh, I wish I’d been here. I mean, not that I wish I’d been here, but . . . well, you know what I mean. I’d do anything to help put the killer behind bars.”

Sighing with exaggerated patience, Kenya marked her place with one finger and scowled up at me. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anybody. Just Ox. That’s all.”

Was that good news or bad? “You saw Ox?”

“Yeah. So? He’s around here every day. Ask me when I
don’t
see Ox. That’s probably a better question.”

“Okay, when don’t you see Ox?”

“Never. He’s here every day. Just like clockwork.”

“When you saw him that day, what was he doing?”

“Walking.”

“Where?”

“Down the street.” She jerked a thumb toward the Dizzy Duke. “That way.”

“Did you notice what time it was?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, and I also didn’t see him carrying a knife or wiping blood off his clothes. Now, do you mind?” She held up her book and gave it an impatient wiggle. “I’m trying to study here.”

Lorena put my lunch into a bag and handed it to me over the counter. “Don’t mind her,” she said, her voice hushed. “We’re all a little nervous after what happened down your way.”

I wasn’t finished with Kenya, but before I could ask her another question, the bell over the door tinkled to announce another customer. Reluctantly, I paid for my lunch and turned toward the door. I still didn’t know what Philippe and Ox had fought about, but unless I missed my guess, I’d just helped my old friend establish an alibi. That made me happy.

My happiness lasted only about three seconds. When I looked up to see who’d entered the shop, I saw Dmitri and his wolfish smile standing in front of me, and my mood sank again.

“Ah, if it isn’t the lovely Rita.” He reached for my free hand and bowed over it.

I jerked away and glowered at him. “What are you doing here?”

“The same thing as you, I imagine.” He glanced at the bag and cup in my hand. “Are the sandwiches here as good as they say?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been here before.” I tried to walk around him, but he was blocking my escape route and made no effort to move out of my way.

“I’m glad I ran into you,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to check in and see how things are going.”

“Things are just fine,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get back . . .”

“They’re keeping you so busy you can’t even take a break for lunch?”

I wasn’t about to confide in him about Zydeco’s problems, so I met his gaze squarely. “Zydeco’s got so many orders, we’re all working overtime.”

He had the nerve to chuckle as if he found me amusing. He looked past me to Lorena. “I’ll have the same thing she’s having.” She turned away to work on his order, and he turned his attention back to me. “And your dear mother-in-law? Is she any closer to accepting my offer?”

“You haven’t actually
made
an offer,” I reminded him. “But don’t bother. She’s not going to sell.”

“Ah, but I have. I had it delivered to Mrs. Renier yesterday. She didn’t tell you about it?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You should.” He handed me a business card. “Talk to her about it. Give me a call when you’ve both come to your senses.”