A Sheetcake Named Desire (22 page)

I wanted to say no, but I
had
scored a couple of small victories, and she looked so genuinely distraught I felt myself soften a little. But just a little. “That’s fine,” I said reluctantly. “You can take a day or two. Just give me a call when you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Okay.” She scratched the dog’s head absently as she looked around the first floor. “I guess you’re planning to move in, then, right?”

Me? Live here? Under other circumstances, I might have jumped at the chance. The house was beautiful. But living here wasn’t an option. I didn’t belong in New Orleans. I had family and a life, such as it was, waiting for me in Albuquerque. “I don’t have any plans to move in,” I said. “But I do need to get it ready to put on the market.”

Quinn’s watery eyes widened in horror, and Miss Frankie let out an audible sigh. “You’re going to sell it?” Quinn asked.

“I’m going to have to,” I said, but I was looking at Miss Frankie, trying to make her understand.

“It isn’t enough for you that he’s dead, is it?” Quinn demanded. “You want to wipe out his memory, too?”

The little bit of compassion I’d been feeling for her evaporated. “Do you have to be so melodramatic all the time? That’s not what I want. Our marriage might not have lasted, but I still felt a lot of affection for him. I’m just being practical.”

“Affection!” Quinn spat the word out and tightened her grip on the dog. “He was your husband!
And
he was the nicest, kindest man who ever walked the face of the earth. And you were . . . you were
fond
of him?”

“Leave it alone, Quinn,” Miss Frankie said. “Rita has to do what she thinks is best.”

Quinn dug a tissue from the bottom of her purse and mopped at her eyes with it. “I don’t know how she can be so cold. It’s like she doesn’t have any feelings at all.”

Oh, if only she knew. A dull ache formed behind my eyes, and exhaustion rolled over me again like a wave. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” I said. “My relationship with Philippe is none of your concern.”

“But you think you have the right to know everything about me?”

Her attitude was seriously starting to bother me. “Philippe and I were separated,” I pointed out. “Our relationship was complicated. I don’t know why my reaction to his death bothers you so much. If we’d been together, you wouldn’t have been in the picture at all. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you know that he wanted to work on our marriage. Maybe he told you all about it the night you had dinner with Miss Frankie. Or maybe he found out about you and Dmitri. Maybe that’s why the two of you were acting so strangely.”

“I wasn’t sleeping with Dmitri,” Quinn insisted, her face clouded with anger. “And Philippe
loved
me.”

“I’m sure he did.” I may not have sounded sincere when I said that. “But that still doesn’t mean I have to explain myself to you. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, bracing herself as if she expected me to pick her up and toss her out the door. “I belong here. You don’t.”

I’ll admit the idea of removing her by force was tempting, but my muscles had joined my head in the ache-fest, so I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and flipped it open. “Fine. You can explain everything to the police when they get here.”

She growled in frustration. Or maybe it was the dog. It didn’t matter because she pivoted away and flounced toward the door. “You haven’t heard the last of me,” she shouted, and slammed the door behind her.

Twenty-five

Miss Frankie and I stood there for a minute or two, reveling in the silence as Quinn’s footsteps faded away. I don’t know what she was feeling, but I was trying hard not to envy Philippe’s good fortune as I took in the opulence of the house. After our split, he’d come back to New Orleans and built himself both a successful business and an incredible home of his own. I’d gone back to Albuquerque to my childhood bedroom and a less-than-satisfying job with my Uncle Nestor. But, I reminded myself, Philippe’s good fortune hadn’t served him so well.
I
was the one who was still alive. I really should keep that in mind.

I flipped the dead bolt on the door and kicked off my shoes. “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I need a drink.”

“At least one,” Miss Frankie agreed, and led the way to the pantry, where we found an unopened Riesling in a small wine rack. I dug around in the kitchen until I located a corkscrew. Miss Frankie poured two glasses and replaced the cork.

“Lord have mercy,” she said, after she’d fortified herself with a healthy sip. “I don’t know what Philippe was thinking when he got involved with that woman. Do you think she was telling the truth?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “About being faithful to Philippe? I doubt it. Bernice said she saw her with Dmitri more than once. Who do you believe?”

Miss Frankie carried her glass to the table and sat. She looked tired, and I got angry all over again with Quinn for putting her through another round of melodrama. “I believe Bernice, of course, but Quinn seemed awfully upset by the suggestion.”

“Well, of course she would,” I said, settling into a chair across from hers. “If she’s still trying to lay claim to Philippe’s estate, she doesn’t want you to think she cheated on him.”

Miss Frankie sent me a weary smile. “I suppose you’re right, sugar. That must be it.” She raked a hand through her hair and sighed so heavily I could almost feel her exhaustion. “I guess there’s no talking you out of selling this place.”

I shook my head, but it was with more than a dash of regret that I did. “It’s a beautiful house,” I said, running a glance over the bookshelves and Philippe’s collection of recipe books. “Have you thought about moving in here? It’s smaller than your place. It might be easier to take care of.”

Miss Frankie laughed without humor. “Oh, sugar, this is no neighborhood for an old lady. The noise and traffic would make me crazy in no time. No, I’ll stay where I am.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Why don’t you look around a bit? I’ll stay here and finish my wine.”

I got up and, on impulse, brushed a kiss to her cool cheek. She touched my hand but didn’t open her eyes, and I carried my own glass upstairs to the master bedroom. The stack of books waiting beside the bed for Philippe to read them made me ache inside. I abandoned my wineglass on the nightstand and carried the books down one flight of stairs to the spare bedroom he’d turned into a library.

I was pretty sure Philippe had a system for shelving the books, but I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I just wanted to put the books back on the shelf so they’d stop waiting for him to come back and pick one of them up.

As I contemplated what it would take to get the house ready to sell, the sheer magnitude of the work made me weak in the knees. Could I afford to pay someone to do it for me? Probably. But that seemed too cold and impersonal. Difficult as I knew it would be, I had to sort through Philippe’s things myself.

Later.

Right now I wanted to find Philippe’s suit and the shoes Miss Frankie had requested to bury him in. I’d just opened the closet when the deep
bong
of the doorbell echoed through the empty house. Startled, I slammed the door shut—right on my finger.

Swearing under my breath, I stalked toward the stairs. It had been what? Five minutes? Ten? What did that woman want now? Finger throbbing, I padded on bare feet down the stairs, yelling to Miss Frankie that I’d deal with it, and thought again about Quinn’s over-the-top theatrics. Just how far would she have gone to protect her relationship with Philippe? What if he had told her that he planned to get back together with me? Could she have killed him?

Of course she could. Everyone was capable of murder if they were provoked enough. And what if she had killed Philippe? Was she angry enough to come after me next? Had confronting her about the affair with Dmitri pushed her over the edge?

I paused with my good hand on the doorknob, suddenly afraid to answer the bell. My imagination was flying all over the place at the thought of Quinn as a killer. Maybe Quinn left when she did to establish an alibi before coming back to take us out. She’d put up little more than a token protest over returning the key, so maybe she’d just pretended to be angry about leaving to make us let down our guard. Maybe she’d stashed the dog so its excited yips wouldn’t alert neighbors to the fact that Quinn was committing her second (and third?) murders in less than a week. My heart pounded in my chest and my breath grew ragged as I raced through my options. Run? Scream? Fight? Assume the fetal position and pray?

The bell pealed again, and my heart jumped right back into my throat. I stifled a scream and told myself not to make a sound. Quinn might
think
we were still inside, but she couldn’t know for sure. If I remained absolutely silent . . .

“Rita? I know you’re in there. I can hear you. Open the door.”

A little common sense managed to work its way beneath my terror, and I realized that, unless she’d had a sex-change operation in the last ten minutes, it couldn’t be Quinn on the front porch.

Inching onto my toes, I peeked through the security peephole at Detective Liam Sullivan’s face. Somewhere deep inside, I wondered what he was doing here, but at that moment, I didn’t really care. I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

I flipped the dead bolt and wrenched open the door. “Liam? How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t until I spotted Quinn leaving. Only one person I know could have put that look on her face.”

I laughed and stepped aside to let him in. “Yeah. Well . . . What can I say?” I felt giddy with relief. “Miss Frankie and I were just having a glass of wine. I’d offer you one, but you’re probably on duty, right?”

He cut a glance at me, no doubt trying to decide whether I was about to hurl on his shoes. After all, the last time he saw me, I’d hardly been at my best. “Right,” he said. “On duty.”

“Coffee then? I’m pretty sure I can throw that together. I don’t know about anything else.”

“Coffee would be great. Thanks.” He followed me into the kitchen, where Miss Frankie had roused herself and now watched him with curiosity.

“Good evening, Detective. What brings you here? I hope you’re here to tell me you’ve caught my son’s killer.”

“I’m afraid not,” he admitted with obvious regret.

I found several packages of gourmet coffee in the pantry. Choosing the Belgian Lace, I poured coffee into the filter and filled the coffeemaker with cold, filtered water. While the coffee brewed and filled the kitchen with its smooth chocolate aroma, I checked the freshness date on the carton of cream in the fridge and poured some into the silver creamer I found in the cupboard. Someone had given us the set for our wedding, and Philippe had taken it in the split.

“You have no leads?” Miss Frankie asked. “No suspects?”

Sullivan shook his head. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. I wish I could tell you otherwise.”

“What
are
you doing to find my son’s killer?” Miss Frankie demanded.

“We’re doing everything we can, ma’am. Please believe that.”

I filled the matching silver bowl with sugar and rounded up a couple of mugs and spoons, then dug into the pantry to see what I could find to serve with the coffee. I found homemade shortbread cookies in the cookie jar and nibbled one to make sure they weren’t stale. The rich, buttery flavor and satisfying crunch assured me they weren’t, but I ate a second cookie, just to be certain, before arranging the rest on a plate. I filled three mugs, and carried the whole thing to the table on a tray, all the while waiting for Sullivan to explain what he was doing there.

Once we were all seated at the table, Sullivan grabbed a mug and sipped. Apparently, he took his coffee black. I scooped sugar into mine and laced it with cream. Miss Frankie did the same.

The coffee was perfect, its flavor bold but smooth and satisfying. “So what’s up?” I asked, when the curiosity finally got the best of me. “Or do you expect us to believe you just happened to be hanging around outside when Quinn left?”

He chuckled and helped himself to a cookie. “I don’t expect you to believe anything. I was watching the place.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” He finished one cookie and took another. “It’s a thing of mine, I guess. Instead of banging my head against the wall when I run into a dead end, I hang out in places where the victim used to go. Sometimes I see something. Sometimes I hear something. Sometimes it’s a waste of effort.”

“And this time?” Miss Frankie asked.

He shrugged. “It’s still too early to tell, I’m afraid.” He turned his attention to me. “So what happened between you and Quinn? What did you do to piss her off?”

I answered with a casual shrug of my own. “I made her give me back her key. She didn’t like that. In spite of the fact that she’s been seeing someone on the side.”

Sullivan looked up with a scowl. “And you know that how?”

“My neighbor told us,” Miss Frankie answered before I could. “She saw them together more than once.”

I explained our conversation, then told him about my run-in with Dmitri Wolff at lunch and Quinn’s reaction when I asked her about the affair. “She denied it, of course, but I don’t believe her. She already knew about the cake design that’s missing, and the only way she could know about that is from Dmitri.”

“Maybe she has friends at Zydeco,” Sullivan suggested. “She would have been around there a lot when Philippe was alive.”

“No.” I purposely ignored the niggling doubts he’d raised. “No! Everyone I’ve talked to at Zydeco has issue with her.”

“What issues?”

“No one likes her.” I sounded childish, and I hated that. “They all think she was after Philippe’s money.” But even as I said it, I wondered if I was being entirely honest. Had I really talked to everyone? I couldn’t remember. And those I had talked to had been split on the question of a possible affair.

“Quinn isn’t Philippe’s usual type,” Miss Frankie said as she put her cup on the table. “But I don’t know what to think about the affair. My neighbor did see her with the other man, but Quinn seemed quite genuine when she denied being involved with him.”

“Oh please,” I said, with a bitter laugh. “I don’t think she knows the meaning of the word
genuine
.”

Sullivan actually smiled, but not in a good way. “That’s not jealousy talking, is it?”

The coffee grew bitter in my mouth. “No. Absolutely not. It’s just hard to imagine the two of them together. But I’ve been told that the trouble between Philippe and Ox started when Quinn came into Philippe’s life. Those two were as close as brothers. Closer, really. But she made Philippe suspect Ox of trying to destroy the business. I don’t know how, and nobody else seems to either. Or maybe they just don’t trust me enough to say.”

“Trust isn’t automatic,” Sullivan said, going after his third cookie. “You have to earn it, and that’s not always easy. Just don’t give them any reason not to trust you, and it will come.” He leaned back in his chair and linked his hands together over a remarkably taut stomach. “My turn to ask: What are you doing here?”

“We came to pick up Philippe’s burial clothes.”

“Besides, this is Rita’s house now,” Miss Frankie reminded him. “I thought she should see it before she makes any decisions about what to do with it.”

Sullivan nodded as if our answers satisfied him. “Nice digs.”

“My family has money, Detective.”

“So I’ve heard. I’m told you’re loaded.” It was a crass way of putting it, but I caught him watching Miss Frankie’s expression for a reaction.

“I suppose you could say that,” she said.

He turned his attention to me again. “And now so are you.”

“I don’t care about the money,” I said, with a frown. “I learned very early in our marriage that money really can’t buy happiness.”

“No, but it can make misery a lot more comfortable.” He grinned to show me he was making a joke.

I tossed him a thin smile to show that I got it. “So what do you think about Dmitri Wolff as a suspect? Do you think he killed Philippe so he could get Zydeco?”

“We’ve considered him,” Sullivan admitted, “but he has an alibi for the day of the murder.”

My heart dropped as my perfectly good theory crumbled like stale bread. “A good one? Airtight?”

“Airtight. He was delivering a cake in the Quarter at the time of the murder. Nearly two hundred people can vouch for him.”

“But—Then—” Then the killer was probably someone from Zydeco. Someone Philippe had considered a friend. I didn’t like that at all.

“If someone killed Philippe to get his or her hands on the bakery, it’s possible that the two of you are in danger, too.”