Arsenic and Old Cake (26 page)

In the room behind her, I could see a canopy bed heaped with lacy white throw pillows and an armchair in front of the window. A small closet gaped open, revealing a handful of pastel-colored pantsuits and pairs of shoes. I didn’t see any food, any overturned glasses, or any signs that she’d been ill.

“What do you want?” she snarled toothlessly. “You’re making enough noise to raise the dead.”

I ignored her attitude, relieved that she was feeling well enough to be rude. “Are you all right?”

“I was before you started making such a fuss.” She started to shut the door.

I caught it with one hand and stopped her. “Pastor Rod told me you had an upset stomach. Are you
sure
you’re okay?”

Lula Belle’s lips moved in and out over her gums as she glared at me. “Lordy, child, you’re an annoying little thing. You know that, don’t you? Can’t a woman be indisposed without having a big deal made out of it?”

I let out a relieved laugh, but it sounded more like a nervous titter. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I just . . .” I waved a hand, at a loss for words. “I was worried about you.”

“Worried? Why?” The light went on in her beady little eyes. “What? You thought somebody tried to poison me?”

“The thought did cross my mind,” I said.

Lula Belle threw back her head and laughed, giving me an unfettered view of her toothless mouth. “Oh, that’s rich, baby. Really. And just who did you think would be out to kill me?”

I shrugged and then took a chance. “I don’t know. Primrose, maybe? It’s pretty obvious the two of you aren’t exactly friends.”

Lula Belle stopped laughing abruptly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Judging from her reaction, I was almost positive I’d just hit a bull’s-eye. “Why does she hate you so much? Is it because she caught you sleeping with her brother-in-law or because you tried to steal Monroe from her?”

Those beady little eyes turned hard. “I never laid a finger on Willie,” she said. “Hyacinth was like a sister to me. As for Monroe—” She waved the thought of him away with a flick of her wrist. “I couldn’t have stolen him from Primrose because he was never hers to begin with.”

“But she was interested in him, wasn’t she?”

Lula Belle tilted her head to one side. “Who told you that?”

“Nobody had to tell me,” I said. A tiny white lie, but I excused it away with all the others. And besides, what I said next wasn’t a lie. “I saw how she looked at him the night we arrived.”

A mean little smile curved Lula Belle’s mouth. “Primrose imagined a whole lot of things back then. She still does. She makes things up. But it doesn’t matter what
she
wanted. Monroe wanted nothing to do with her.”

I wondered if that was true or just another mean jab at the woman. “How did she feel about that?”

“What do you mean, how did she feel? She lived in her own little fantasy world. She thought he was madly in love with her.”

“What about you and Monroe? Were the two of you an item?”

“Me and Monroe?” Lula Belle laughed again and shook her head. “He wasn’t my type, then or now.”

“You seemed pretty interested in him the night we met.”

“I was yanking Primrose’s chain. It’s what I do.” She put one hand on the back of her head and thrust out a hip in a pose that might have been sexy . . . once. “I never said
he
wasn’t interested, did I?”

She’d let go of the door, so I relaxed my hold on it. “He wanted a relationship but you didn’t?”

Lula Belle smiled like a cat with a bowl of cream. “Honey, I coulda had any man I wanted back then.”

Maybe, but Monroe hadn’t seemed especially interested in her the other night. Maybe he’d just been hiding it well. Maybe
she
was the one living in la-la land. “So why do you dislike Primrose so much?”

Lula Belle lifted one bony shoulder. “She’s a troublemaker.”

“How so?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

I was getting tired of these people and their secrets. “I’m asking you,” I said. “What did she ever do to you?”

Lula Belle’s mouth went through its funny set of motions again while she thought about whether to answer me. “She told Hyacinth that I was sleeping with Willie. It was a lie, of course. And thank God Hyacinth believed me. But if Primrose’d had her way, I’d have been out on the curb.”

Now I was confused. “She told Hyacinth about you and Willie while you lived here? After Willie went to prison?”

Lula Belle nodded. “That’s right.”

“I don’t understand. Why would she tell her something like that?”

“Because she didn’t want me around.”

Imagine that.

“Would that really have been so bad?” I asked. “I mean, you’ve lived here with a woman you hate for thirty years. Wouldn’t it have been better to get a place of your own and get away from Primrose?”

“Maybe, but that wasn’t part of the deal was it? I couldn’t leave.”

I assumed it was the same deal Pastor Rod had told me about in the garden, but I asked anyway, just to be sure. “What deal?”

Lula Belle leaned her head against the wall, and for a split second I saw a vulnerable side to her. “We owed Hyacinth. She needed us. I couldn’t turn my back on her.”

“Because of the robbery and what happened to Tyrone? Why did you owe her anything for that? You weren’t there, were you?”

The old woman’s head shot up, and her eyes turned hard and black again. “No, I wasn’t, but I knew about it and I didn’t try to stop them.”

“So you all felt guilty about Willie taking the fall for Tyrone’s murder, but not guilty enough to tell the truth? And to ease the guilt you vowed to make sure Hyacinth didn’t suffer.”

“They aren’t going to like you knowing about that,” Lula Belle warned.

Something uncomfortable danced across my nerve endings “Who?” I asked. “Who isn’t going to like it?”

But I’d crossed the line. Lula Belle was finished talking. She grabbed the door with both hands and gave it a shove that was surprisingly strong for a woman her age.

“Tell me who you’re talking about.” I tried to stop her, but I was too late. The door banged shut, leaving me alone in the hall surrounded by other closed doors that might have been concealing anything . . . including a killer.

Twenty-seven

Hyacinth was in the dining room clearing away dinner dishes when I returned to the central part of the inn. She moved slowly, her heavy arms jiggling as she worked. Her breathing sounded labored, and she looked angry—or maybe she was just worried. After all, her carefully ordered world did seem to be crumbling around her.

I spent a moment wondering just what kind of life it had been. Her husband had gone to prison for murder, leaving her dependent upon the people who’d helped put him there. When she tried to come forward with the truth, he’d betrayed her by telling the police she was lying. His cohorts had all lived here, paying her way, but the work she did at the inn more than earned whatever they shelled out in monthly rent. And then there was Primrose. I couldn’t tell if she helped or hindered Hyacinth’s efforts.

Had any of that pushed Hyacinth over the edge? Had living with constant reminders of her husband’s mistake been too much for her? It probably would have been for me.

I knocked lightly on the doorframe, and Hyacinth’s head jerked up. She scowled when she saw me standing there, but she tried to hide it. “Mrs. Broussard. You’re up late. What can I do for you?”

It was barely nine o’clock. Hardly the witching hour. “I’d like to talk with you if you have a minute.”

“Oh? What about?”

I nodded toward the annex and tried to keep my voice sounding friendly and unthreatening. “I was just talking with Lula Belle. She told me what happened to your husband.”

Hyacinth’s attempt at friendliness vanished in a blink. “That’s none of your business.”

“I realize that,” I said, “but if there’s a chance that it had any connection to Dontae’s death, I think you need to tell the police about what happened back then.”

Hyacinth looked away with a huff. “The police don’t want to hear what I have to say. They’ll believe what they want to.”

I could understand why she felt that way, and I decided not to push her. “It must have been difficult for you, being left alone with a child to raise. Is Tamarra’s mother still around? Is she any help to you now?”

“What’s it to you?”

I moved a little closer. “Nothing, really. But I’m curious by nature and I was brought up to care about other people. Your story intrigues me.”

Her eyes flickered to my face briefly. “Maybe you should have been brought up to keep your nose out of other peoples’ business.”

I laughed softly. “Believe me, my aunt tried hard to teach me that lesson. I just never did get it. I know what it’s like to lose someone, Hyacinth. My parents died when I was just a kid and I went to live with my aunt and uncle. I was grateful to have them and I love them with all my heart, but I still struggled with issues of not really belonging. So when I hear about Willie leaving you on your own, with only the people who helped send him to prison as your support system, I can’t help but wonder how you and your daughter coped.”

She studied me in silence for a moment, and then seemed to thaw a bit. “We just did. We got up every day and put one foot in front of the other. What else you gonna do? I couldn’t afford to have a meltdown. Had to keep going for Pearl.”

“That’s your daughter?”

She nodded. “She died about five years back. Breast cancer. Before she got sick, she helped out here from time to time.” She dashed a tear away with the back of her hand. “I miss her, but you can’t let yourself get stuck in the bad moments or they’ll eat you alive.”

I smiled gently. “That sounds like something my aunt Yolanda would say.” We both fell silent for a moment and I was optimistic enough to think we’d bonded enough to change the subject. “I’m curious about Lula Belle’s relationship with your sister. Can you tell me why they dislike each other so much?”

Apparently, I was wrong. Hyacinth shook her head before I even finished asking. “I can
not
. It’s none of your damn business.”

No beating around the bush for her. “Look, I know I’m overstepping, but it’s possible that someone in this house murdered Dontae. Doesn’t it bother you to think there could be a killer living here with you?”

She lifted her chin and stared me down. “So you’re just
worried
about me, is that what you want me to believe?”

When she said it in that tone of voice, it did sound a bit far-fetched but I refused to let her intimidate me. “You and the others who are innocent.”

“Well, since I don’t know who did it, I can’t help much, now can I?” She reached across the table for a couple of glasses. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

I might not get another chance to talk with her, so I stepped between her and the kitchen door. “You couldn’t have been happy to see Monroe Magee walk through your door last week. I know the others blame him for what happened to your husband. Do you?”

Hyacinth froze for a fraction of a second. “Apparently Lula Belle was in the mood to talk.”

I didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, so I said, “It wasn’t only Lula Belle. I pieced the story together from bits and pieces I’ve picked up. I’m right, though, aren’t I? They all blame Monroe. Do you?”

Hyacinth stacked some plates and sighed heavily. “Monroe was an idiot then, and he’s a damn fool now. But do I blame him for Willie going to jail? No, I do not. Willie did what he did on his own. Nobody forced him.”

“It didn’t make you angry that they let him take the fall for what they all did together?”

“All of my friends going to jail together wouldn’t have made life better for me or for Pearl,” she said.

Her answer surprised me, mostly because she seemed sincere. “So you don’t want Monroe dead?”

“Why would I want that? One death won’t make up for another. Now leave me alone. Please.”

If she was innocent of murder, I didn’t want to hurt her by stirring up the past, but I couldn’t just give up and walk away when I was so close to getting answers for Old Dog Leg.

“I’ve been really curious about Monroe. Do you have any idea where he went after he left here the other night?”

“How would I know?” She brushed crumbs from the table into her hand and dumped them onto the top plate in her stack.

“He took your van. Aren’t you anxious to get it back?”

“Of course I am, but the police are looking for him. When they find him, they’ll find my van.” She dusted her hands together to get rid of the remaining crumbs, then planted her fists on her ample hips. “If I remember right, Monroe had a brother. I don’t know if he’s still alive, but if he is, maybe that’s where Monroe has gone.”

It would have been a perfect opportunity to come clean, but I let it slide by. “Did you give the police Monroe’s credit card number? Maybe they can track him with that.”

She coughed up a laugh. “Credit card? Monroe? Baby, he paid cash. Everybody around here pays cash, ’cept for folks like you.”

She lifted the plates and started around me toward the kitchen, so I called out another question before I had time to think it through. “You must have been furious when Primrose told you that Lula Belle was sleeping with your husband.”

Hyacinth turned back toward me wearing a look of utter disgust. “Lula Belle and Willie? Are you sick?”

“That’s what Lula Belle told me,” I said.

To my surprise, Hyacinth threw back her head and laughed. “Sounds to me like somebody’s been jerking your chain. Of course Lula Belle ain’t never slept with Willie.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because, boo, she’s Willie’s sister.”

His
sister
? The image of Lula Belle’s toothless mouth open wide with laughter flashed through my head. She’d played me like a fiddle, and I felt like a fool. If she’d lied about that, what else had she lied about?

Hyacinth disappeared into the kitchen, and I climbed the stairs to the honeymoon suite where I pulled on my pajamas and rolled into bed. But I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept running over the pastor’s story and wondering how the murder of a security guard in the 1970s had led to the murder of one of the men responsible for it forty years later.