A Sheetcake Named Desire (5 page)

Six

By the time Quinn had composed herself, the sun had shifted so that it painted afternoon shadows with the wisteria in the garden. Soon it would be dark, and I remembered all too well how much worse grief felt at night.

Miss Frankie stood quickly, her eyes blank. Functioning on autopilot. I knew that feeling, too. “Let me get the tea,” she said. “I’m sure we could all use it.”

Southern hospitality at its finest, serving refreshments to the folks who’d just shattered your life. I waved her back to her seat. “I’ll get it. Is there anything else you want? Cookies? Cake?” I might not have visited often, but I remembered the drill.

“I believe there are some ginger cookies in the jar,” Miss Frankie said, sinking back into her chair. “You could bring a few of those if you’d like.”

Yeah. Those ought to help.

I turned to leave the room, but Quinn got herself up off the sofa and darted in front of me. “I’ll go. I know where everything is.”

Sullivan didn’t offer any objection to her leaving, so I shrugged again and turned around. “Suit yourself.”

She beamed as if she’d won the lottery and bounced from the room, leaving a trail of something flowery in her wake. Shampoo or some expensive designer perfume. Philippe had probably loved it. He’d always been after me to “do something” with myself, but I’d never thought he meant poison injections and plastic inserts.

“So she’s Philippe’s new girlfriend?” I asked Miss Frankie when Quinn was out of earshot. “Was it serious?”

Miss Frankie waved a hand in front of her. “Don’t be silly. Quinn was a diversion, nothing more. But don’t tell her that. She’s an emotional little thing, God bless her.”

A tinny-sounding laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “That’s a bit of an understatement, isn’t it?”

“She means well.”

A dozen other Quinn-related questions flickered through my head, but Sullivan pulled his notebook and pen from his pocket, clearly eager to start asking questions. “How long were they together?”

Miss Frankie gave that a moment’s thought before answering. “I don’t know. A few months, I guess. Philippe didn’t talk about her much in the beginning. I met her for the first time about a month ago.”

Sullivan looked up from his notes. “Was that unusual?”

“Not particularly. Philippe and I are close, but he doesn’t tell me every little detail about his life.”

That wasn’t true, but I didn’t correct her.

“Yet you seem convinced that he wasn’t serious about her,” Sullivan said.

“I know for a fact he wasn’t,” Miss Frankie said firmly. “And I’m sure everyone in this room knows why.”

I hazarded a guess. “Because he was embarrassed?”

Miss Frankie’s lips actually curved slightly. “No, sugar. Because he was still in love with you.”

Sullivan glanced my way, but I refused to look at him. I wasn’t sure what he’d see on my face if I did. Did Miss Frankie know something I didn’t, like why Philippe had left that message for me at the hotel?

“He was not still in love with me,” I said, but I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince. “I’ve barely spoken to him since we separated.”

Miss Frankie waved away my objection. “You know how stubborn he was. But I knew how he felt. A mother knows.”

Warmth flickered in my chest, but even if she was right, it didn’t matter now. “I came to town this week to get the divorce agreement signed. If I had seen him before . . .
before
, he would have signed it, and we’d have been divorced within the month.”

Miss Frankie sighed heavily, but she put a hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze. “Leaving you was the biggest mistake Philippe ever made. You were good for him, Rita. The best thing that ever happened in his life.”

I can’t deny that made me feel good, but I wasn’t so sure she was right. “That’s kind of you to say, but I think he might have argued with you about that.”

Sullivan leaned into the conversation again. “Why
did
he end the marriage, Mrs. Renier?”

Miss Frankie’s mouth thinned and her eyes darkened. “I wouldn’t know. That was between Philippe and Rita.”

“He didn’t talk to you about it?”

“No.”

I didn’t believe that either. Philippe had called his mother at least twice a day when we lived in Chicago, and he’d come home to New Orleans at least five times a year, often without me. I came with him for big family occasions like weddings and funerals, but he traveled alone for the other visits he couldn’t seem to live without.

Apparently Detective Sullivan didn’t believe her either. “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Since you say the two of you were close.”

Miss Frankie’s spine stiffened. I knew that look on her face. I’d seen it before, and it never meant anything good. “Are you accusing me of lying, young man?”

Sullivan shook his head. “Of course not, but it seems odd that he never said anything to you about his divorce. Maybe he mentioned something that you didn’t consider important at the time?”

Miss Frankie lanced him with a steely look. “If you want to know why the marriage ended, ask Rita. She’s sitting right here.”

I gave Sullivan a little finger wave and tried to reassure Miss Frankie before she got too riled up. “He
has
asked me. I think he’s trying to find out from you whether I’m lying or not.”

Miss Frankie’s head pivoted from me to Sullivan. Irritation flared into anger. “You can cross Rita off your list right now. She loved my son. She would never have hurt him.”

Her loyalty both surprised and touched me. Sullivan opened his mouth to answer, but a loud crash cut him off. Quinn stood in the doorway, oblivious to the broken glass and tea on Miss Frankie’s polished hardwood floor, staring at me with her mouth agape. “
You’re
Rita?”

I nodded, but I have to admit that I was a little disturbed by Quinn’s reaction. She seemed as appalled by me as I was by her.

“What are you doing here?” It must have been a rhetorical question because she turned on Sullivan before I could answer. “How dare you bring her here at a time like this? Miss Frankie has just lost her son. She doesn’t need . . .”—she wagged a hand in my general direction and made a face—“. . . this!”

I felt almost as attractive as roadkill. “What Miss Frankie doesn’t need,” I said, “is a bunch of drama. Why don’t we clean up that mess you just made and then we can answer the detective’s questions?”

I thought my suggestion sounded reasonable, but Quinn boiled over like the filling in a lava cake. “Don’t you dare start ordering me around! You don’t belong here, and you’re upsetting Miss Frankie by being here!”

“I don’t think I’m the one upsetting Miss Frankie.”

“You think
I
am?”

I’m not usually argumentative, but the day had taken a toll on me. I had no more patience, especially not for a skinny little
puta
with plastic parts. “You need me to spell it out for you? I’ll use small words so you can understand. Yes, I think you’re being very upsetting.”

I’m pretty sure Miss Frankie said something just about then, but I couldn’t hear her over Quinn’s shouting. Sullivan perched on the arm of the sofa, his expression a mix of amusement, concentration, and morbid fascination.

Jabbing one acrylic-tipped finger toward the door, Quinn snarled, “I think you should leave.”

When I made no move to obey her, she screeched, “I mean it! Get out of here now, before you upset Miss Frankie anymore!”

“You’re the one who should leave,” I snarled.

Quinn stepped over the broken glass and came at me. “You’re old news, honey. Philippe loved
me
.”

“Yeah? Then why did he leave a message for me this morning asking me to get back together with him?” I blame exhaustion, grief, and shock. The words came tumbling out before I could stop them. And in the sudden silence that followed, I realized that I had some ’splaining to do.

Seven

Silence rang in Miss Frankie’s elegant living room for about ten seconds before Quinn let out a feral yowl and lunged for me.

If the situation hadn’t been so tragic, and if I hadn’t been in such deep trouble with Detective Sullivan, I might have laughed. I held my ground outwardly, but those old insecurities nibbled at me from the inside. Quinn was tall, blonde, and gorgeous, with a figure straight out of a fashion magazine. From her Coach bag to her designer shoes, she belonged to a world I couldn’t even hope to inhabit.

As I imagined steam pouring from her ears and nose, another layer of my hair frizzed, and my extra twenty pounds settled heavily on my hips. The jeans I’d picked up at Ross for a song and the blouse I’d ordered from a favorite online discount store had cost a grand total of thirty dollars. I felt dumpy and frumpy, like Philippe’s used-up, worn-out castoff. But, I suppose, that’s exactly what I was.

The headache I’d been fighting all afternoon pounded in rhythm with my heartbeat, and the sound of Quinn’s screeching only made it worse. I was seriously thinking about using a few tricks on her that my cousins had taught me growing up, but Sullivan stepped over the coffee table to get between us.

“All right, that’s enough. Both of you sit down and be quiet.”

I didn’t like being lumped with Quinn, but it seemed like a bad idea to argue. I circled back to my place on the sofa and sat. Quinn glared at me as she floated toward an empty chair near Miss Frankie’s.

“Now, then.” Sullivan looked at me as if he wanted to lock me up and throw away the key. “About that message . . .”

“I’m sorry. I know I should have told you.”

“It’s a lie,” Quinn said with a smirk. She crossed her legs and jiggled her top foot nervously.

“Quinn, sugar, let’s you and me stay out of this, shall we?” Miss Frankie’s voice was syrupy sweet, but the expression in her eyes could have melted steel.

Blondie didn’t like the suggestion, but she was smart enough not to argue with Miss Frankie. She sank back in her seat and contented herself with shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

“The message?” Sullivan prompted. His mouth had thinned almost to the point of disappearing.

“Right. Well, like I told you, I left a message at Zydeco for Philippe yesterday. He called this morning while I was in the shower.”

“What did he say?”

The message was still on my cell phone. I could have let him hear the whole thing for himself, but Miss Frankie would insist on hearing it as well, and that might be too much for her. Later, maybe. I summarized instead. “It was a very short message. He said we needed to talk and asked me to meet him at Zydeco.”

Miss Frankie latched onto that. “Did he say what he wanted to talk about?”

“Not exactly, but he did say that he’d made a mistake when he broke us up.”

“That’s it?” Sullivan’s voice was as tight and angry as Quinn’s expression.

I shook my head. “He said that we were a great team and that things hadn’t been the same since we split up.”

Miss Frankie sat back with a satisfied snort. “See there, Detective? Isn’t that what I said before? A mother knows.”

“Yes ma’am. You may be right.” Sullivan turned back to Quinn, who looked downright murderous. “Now, Ms. Goddard, do you have any ideas about who might have wanted to hurt Philippe? Anyone who had a grudge against him? A jilted ex-girlfriend?”

Quinn pursed her lips and jerked her chin at me. “Just that one. Everybody else loved him.”

Bite me, Blondie
.

“Did he ever mention trouble at work?”

“No. Nothing. The business was doing well. He was making lots of money, and he recently picked up a couple of very important clients. Things couldn’t have been better.” Her gaze flickered toward Sullivan but didn’t quite hit its mark. I had the feeling she was hiding something, but the detective didn’t seem to notice.

“A few people at the bakery mentioned that Philippe had recently been having trouble with one of his employees—a man named Ox. Do you know anything about that?”

Quinn shook her head again. She recrossed her legs, revealing a length of shapely thigh and dangling one slim foot in its three-inch heel. “Not really, no.”

“Which is it?” Sullivan asked. “Not really? Or no?”

Oh, please!
All that skin must be affecting his memory. “I told you already,” I reminded him. “Ox would never have done this. You should be asking about the other employees. Or people who don’t work for him. Or the neighbors.”

Quinn shot me an icy glare, and the look Sullivan sent me was almost as cold. “How would you know what Ox would have done?” Quinn snapped. “You haven’t even been around.”

“No, but I know Ox, and I knew Philippe.” And I knew them both a whole lot better than she could have. “They were as close as brothers.”

“That may have been true once, but it hasn’t been true lately.” Quinn tilted her head to one side, and a silky curtain of sleek blonde hair fell over one bony shoulder. “Last time I was around them, they were barely speaking.”

“Ox is Philippe’s executive sous chef,” Miss Frankie explained for Sullivan’s benefit. “They met in Chicago, in pastry school. Ox came here when Philippe decided to open his own shop, and he’s been at Zydeco ever since. I have to agree with Rita. Ox wouldn’t have hurt Philippe.”

“I understand your loyalty,” Sullivan said, “but the two of them were involved in an altercation this morning right before the murder. Several people on staff saw them fighting, and at least one person believed that one of them would kill the other before it was over.”

“That was a figure of speech,” I told him.

“Maybe. And maybe there’s more going on at Zydeco than you know about.”

What little color was left in Miss Frankie’s face disappeared, and I worried that we’d put her through too much. “Time to wrap things up so Miss Frankie can rest,” I said.

Miss Frankie waved off my suggestion. “Ox and Philippe? That can’t be right. Someone was mistaken.”

“Several someones, I’m afraid,” Sullivan said.

Miss Frankie flapped a hand at him. “I don’t care what they say. Ox did not do this.”

“We’ll know more after we’ve had a chance to interrogate everyone in more detail.” Sullivan stood and tucked his notebook into his pocket, then handed each of us his business card. “I think that’s all I need for now. Again, ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Sullivan stood chatting quietly with Miss Frankie, and when Quinn flounced out the door a few minutes later, I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sorry to see her go, and I wondered about the look I’d seen on her face earlier, but exhaustion hit me like a slap in the face, and my brain felt as if it had been put through the blender. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel. I wanted a hot shower and sleep. Time to decompress. To deal with the roller-coaster emotions that had been battering me all day.

“If you think of anything that Philippe may have said or done,” Sullivan was saying to Miss Frankie. “Even something that may not have seemed important at the time, please call.”

“Yes, of course.” Miss Frankie got to her feet, but it seemed to require effort, and she wobbled slightly.

I moved to hug her, a promise on my lips that I’d stop by again before I left town.

She grabbed my hands and held on as if her life depended on staying connected. “You’re not leaving, too?”

“I came with Detective Sullivan,” I said. “And I have a flight out tomorrow afternoon—”

“No!” She tightened her grip on my hands. “Please. Stay. I don’t want to be alone.”

Visions of my hotel room danced in front of my eyes, but they were no match for the pain in her eyes. She pulled me close and hugged me hard, and I felt the weight of responsibility settle on my shoulders. Reluctantly, I shoved aside my own needs and nodded. It wasn’t about me. I owed her too much to walk away.