Cake on a Hot Tin Roof (20 page)

Twenty-eight

Miss Frankie sailed into Zydeco Wednesday morning wearing a tan linen suit, serviceable pumps, and a wide-brimmed hat that looked as if it belonged at the Kentucky Derby. Her nail color had been changed to match, and her hair had been teased and sprayed, artistically arranged around the hat. She looked sensational.

I looked noticeably less spectacular in a plain navy dress and a pair of low heels, hair pinned up haphazardly, and a whiff of makeup and lip gloss. I hadn’t slept well after my conversation with Uncle Nestor and Aunt Yolanda the night before. I was so tired, my eyes felt gritty, and I ached all the way to my bones. I didn’t want anyone to ask me why, so I kept a smile on my face and tried to act as if my most pressing concern was how much modeling chocolate we’d need for the next month.

I’m not sure I actually fooled anybody, but at least the members of my staff pretended not to notice. Miss Frankie went along just until we drove out of the parking lot. “What’s wrong, sugar? You look like something the cat dragged home.”

I rolled a look of mock annoyance in her direction. “Thanks. Nothing like a sincere compliment to start the day off right.”

She waved a hand in the air and weaved between two slower-moving cars. “You know what I mean. You want to talk about it?”

She knew me too well. I hesitated over how much to tell her about Uncle Nestor’s encounter with the third Mrs. Big Daddy, but reasoned that the more she knew, the more she could help me. “I found out last night that Susannah Boudreaux kissed Uncle Nestor at the party.”

Miss Frankie looked away from traffic for a split second. “I see.”

“
She
kissed
him
,” I said, wanting to be very clear on that point. “He didn’t even know who she was. At least not at the time. He found out later, of course.”

“Did he happen to mention why she kissed him?”

I shook my head. “We…uh…we didn’t get that far.”

Miss Frankie seemed to understand the rest without being told. It’s one of the things I love about her. She took one hand off the wheel and covered one of mine in a comforting gesture. “Well, I’m sure it was nothing.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Nothing.”

“Your uncle is very much in love with your aunt,” Miss Frankie said. “It’s obvious to everyone.”

“Except maybe to her,” I mumbled.

She darted in and out of traffic again, taking chances I never would have taken. When she put on her turn signal, I planted my feet to keep my balance as we sailed around the corner. “I take it Yolanda wasn’t pleased by the news?”

“That’s an understatement. They’re not even speaking this morning.”

“Well, I know it’s hard on you to see them at odds, but I wouldn’t worry. They’ve been together a long time. I’m sure they’ve weathered storms before, and they’ll get through this one, too.”

I put on a brave face and offered up a smile, but it felt as fragile as spun sugar. “I’m sure you’re right.” There was nothing else either of us could say about that, so I changed the subject and told her about my conversation with Dwight the night before. “If Big Daddy was so protective of Judd,” I said when I’d finished, “why would he threaten to send him to rehab the night he died? Tough love?”

Miss Frankie let up on the gas a little and shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like Bradley. He believed in handling such things privately, and he always thought that Judd would come around if he had the support of his family.”

“I think he was a little misguided on that score,” I said. “And anyway, I hear he
did
threaten Judd with rehab, and told him that he’d helped for the very last time.”

“That’s odd,” Miss Frankie said, and our speed dropped a little more. We drove in silence while she tried to process the idea of Big Daddy and Judd at each other’s throats. “Whatever it was Judd got himself into,” she said after a while, “it must have been big. Bradley wouldn’t have threatened him that way if it wasn’t.”

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Neither of us said it, but I knew we were both wondering the same thing: Was the trouble Judd got himself into big enough to kill over?

Reporters were camped outside the church, trying to capture the faces of the mourners who’d gathered to say a last farewell to Big Daddy. Luckily, they had no real interest in Miss Frankie and me. We sailed past the cameras and into the cool, dark foyer of the church, where friends were gathered, greeting one another with the appropriate amount of somberness.

Miss Frankie hugged and kissed her way toward the sanctuary, and within minutes, I was following her down the center aisle toward a pew near the front. Flowers filled the room with a scent I’d prefer never to smell again—that odd mix of mums, carnations, and roses that always brings back memories of my parents’ funeral. I’d have preferred a seat in the back, but I wasn’t going to argue with her.

Bernice Dudley had saved us a seat directly behind the single row that had been reserved for family. We barely had time to agree what a tragedy Big Daddy’s death was before the organist began playing and the side doors opened.

We all stood while the pallbearers, none of whom I recognized, carried Big Daddy in for his last public appearance. It seemed that Judd should be one of them, but he shuffled behind the coffin with a black-veiled Susannah on his arm.

The look on his face made my heart twist. I knew how it felt to be alone in the world. It’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Mellie came in next with two boys and a young girl, who I assumed were her children from her marriage to Big Daddy. When they were settled, the pastor rose to the pulpit and began the service.

I wish I could say that I figured out who killed Big Daddy while I sat there, but the truth is that it was an entirely unremarkable funeral service. A couple of Musterion members spoke about all the good things Big Daddy had done for the krewe, making it sound as if he’d almost single-handedly planned and executed a fund-raiser last month for the krewe’s favorite charity and gushing over how much money he’d raised on their behalf. One longtime employee told us all about Big Daddy’s generosity toward the people who worked for him, and another related the story of how Big Daddy had given him a second chance after a brush with the law.

Trying not to be obvious about it, I looked around for the other people on my list of suspects. I spotted Violet a couple of rows back, mostly hidden behind the handkerchief she was using to mop up the tears. I didn’t see Percy in the very back row until the service was over and I stood to leave.

The family was ushered out behind Big Daddy, and the rest of us followed slowly. Miss Frankie stopped just outside the doors to speak to an old friend but I slipped away, hoping to find Judd and offer a word of condolence before he left for the cemetery.

I circled around the church toward the side entrance, where the hearse was parked. Apparently, I turned too soon because I found myself in a little garden area between two wings of the E-shaped church. I was trying to decide whether it would be quicker to cut through the inside or go around the outside when I heard voices. One of them belonged to a woman, the other to a man. The choked sobs in the woman’s voice made me instinctively slip behind a flowering shrub so I wouldn’t intrude on her grief.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hiccupping slightly. “It’s just that I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He was my whole world.”

After hearing that, I just
had
to peek around the bush to see who she was. I was a little surprised to see Violet and the dark-haired man in horn-rimmed glasses, whom I recognized from the party with Susannah. I hadn’t noticed him inside during the service, but here he was, acting all best-friend-forever-like with Violet.

He gave her a there-there pat on the shoulder, but he seemed almost distracted as he did. “Well, you weren’t
his
world. But I guess you finally figured that out.”

That was harsh. Even if I did agree with him.

She wiped a fresh batch of tears from her cheeks and sighed. “I know what you thought of him, Tyson. But he wasn’t a bad man. He was just…busy. Preoccupied. Important.”

“In his own mind,” Tyson muttered. When she gave him a look of hurt mixed with horror, he relented slightly. “You’re going to be okay, Violet. She doesn’t hate you. I’ll talk to her and make sure she lets you stay on.”

She?
They had to be talking about Susannah. Interesting.

Violet choked out a disbelieving laugh. “She’s not going to want me around, Tyson.”

“What I know,” he said, “is that you worry too much. Let me take care of it.”

Definitely Susannah. I was sure of it. But who was this guy and why did he think he could influence Susannah’s decisions? And what was his connection to Violet?

Their voices dropped and the noise of car doors slamming and engines starting drowned out whatever they said next, but eventually Tyson reached for the door handle. “Are you okay now? They’re going to be wondering where we are.”

“Not
we
,” Violet said with a tremulous smile. She let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. “She’d be happy if I fell off the face of the earth.”

Tyson clenched his jaw. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Violet.”

But Violet couldn’t help herself. She blew her nose and lifted her chin, but shudders, the residue of her bout with tears, shook her shoulders. “She’s got it all now, doesn’t she?”

Tyson pulled open the door and waved her inside. “That’s the part you never understood, kid. She always did.”

The family limousines were gone by the time I got to the parking lot, and Miss Frankie was waiting for me wearing a worried frown. “Gracious, sugar, you gave me a start. One minute you were there with me, and the next you were gone. Wherever did you go?”

“I was hoping to say a few words to Judd,” I told her. “I didn’t make it.”

I told her about the conversation I’d overheard between Tyson and Violet. “Who is he anyway? Do you know him?”

She thought for a minute before shaking her head. “I can’t say. Not anyone I know. He’s probably an employee at one of Big Daddy’s auto dealerships.”

That made sense. But no matter who he was, the conversation had convinced me of one thing. Violet might have had a strong motive for killing Big Daddy, but I believed that her motive to keep him alive was even stronger.

Twenty-nine

Uncle Nestor and Aunt Yolanda were asleep when I got home that night and barely speaking when I left for work on Thursday morning. When they did speak to each other, I almost wished they hadn’t. The sharpness in their voices reminded me of the way Philippe and I had spoken to each other before we separated. It saddened me.

I tried to hold on to Miss Frankie’s assurance that my aunt and uncle had weathered other storms and come out together on the other side, but the knowledge that Philippe and I hadn’t made it, as so many couples didn’t, frightened me. I’d seen Uncle Nestor and Aunt Yolanda at odds with each other over the years, but I’d never seen them like this.

Thankfully I hit the ground running when I got to Zydeco, leaving me little time to think about family issues or the murder. Since we had only one more weekend until Mardi Gras, everyone gathered in the large room upstairs for our second production meeting of the week. We ran through the schedule, parceling out the work that needed to be done and haggling good-naturedly over who got to do what. I tried to rotate people in and out of the production line, giving everyone an equal chance to work on other orders.

I put Sparkle and Isabeau to work on a butter cake with blueberries and a Bavarian cream filling for a baby shower coming up next week: two tiers, stacked, covered in baby blue fondant and a myriad of white fondant stars. On the top tier they’d attach a molded gum-paste cow jumping over a sculpted cake moon. An adorable design, if I do say so myself. Getting the faces cute enough for a baby shower would have been challenging for most of us, but Sparkle should be able to knock them out easily.

Ox and Estelle would be tackling a tart orange divorce cake with orange custard filling scheduled for delivery on Wednesday. Two tiers again, but this cake wouldn’t be stacked. The design called for a flat bottom tier sporting a gum-paste groom with one foot on the top tier, as if he was kicking the bride and her half of the cake to the curb. The little gum-paste bride would be clinging to the side of her tilting tier.

The design was Ox’s suggestion, given that the fellow throwing the party was a jilted husband, and I’d approved it wholeheartedly last week. Today, with Aunt Yolanda barely speaking to Uncle Nestor, I didn’t find it nearly so amusing.

Dwight and I would work on a four-tier tropical cream cake in a Mardi Gras design. We’d start with sponge cake, lightly dab each layer with coconut syrup, and then spread Bavarian cream, fresh mangoes, and pineapple between the cakes to create each tier. We’d stack the tiers and cover the whole thing with white fondant, then finish the design by applying stripes and harlequin shapes on alternate layers and topping the cake with a gum-paste Mardi Gras mask.

With those details settled, I dismissed the staff so they could get to work and gathered up my notebook and coffee cup, intending to do the same. As I stood, I realized that Ox was still sitting at the end of the table, watching me.

“Have you had a chance to look at the web page?” he asked.

I groaned aloud and shook my head. “Don’t start. Please. You have no idea how crazy things have been since my uncle and aunt showed up.”

“I’m asking you for fifteen minutes. Thirty tops. Why is that so difficult?”

“Because it is.” I shoved a stray lock of hair out of my face and sighed. “Why don’t you just approve it yourself? It will save us all time.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t.” I shoved my chair in the general direction of the table and started toward the door.

“And the blog?”

“Is going to have to wait,” I said. He made a noise and I whipped back around to face him. “Seriously, Ox, I can’t do it right now. You’re just going to have to be patient.”

He held up both hands in surrender. “Fine. Whatever. Do I dare ask about the photos from the party?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but the sudden thought that Estelle might have captured something useful made me cut myself off before I got the word out. Admittedly, it was a long shot, but it was worth a look. “I’ll get to them tonight. Will that be soon enough?”

Ox’s eyes narrowed as if I’d confused him. “Really? You don’t want me to take them? I probably have more time than you do.”

“I’ll do it,” I said as I sailed out the door.

He came after me. “Why so cooperative all of a sudden?”

I grinned at him as I started down the stairs. “You’ve been complaining because I don’t want to help. Now you’re complaining because I do?”

He clattered down the stairs behind me, his big feet in their heavy boots making enough noise to raise the dead. “Call me cynical, but I’m highly suspicious of this sudden turnaround.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs, so I turned to face him. Edie was away from her desk, leaving us alone in the foyer. “Okay, so it’s not entirely about the website. It just occurred to me that Estelle might have gotten some shots of Big Daddy and his killer. I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone—so to speak.”

He frowned so hard wrinkles ran from his eyebrows to what used to be his hairline. “I knew it.”

“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “I’ll look at the pictures. Pick out a few for the website and check for evidence at the same time. You’ll get what you want, and hopefully I’ll get what I want. We both win.”

“Right.”

I turned to walk away and another idea hit me squarely in the face. “Hey, Ox?”

He was halfway to the door already, but he wheeled around when I called him. “Yeah?”

“You did such a great job with the design for the divorce cake. How’d you like to throw together something that says, ‘Sorry for your loss’?”

The worry wrinkles reappeared on his forehead. “You want a bereavement cake?”

“Yeah. Just something simple. Something appropriate for a recent widow who may or may not have murdered her husband.”

“You’re going to take Big Daddy’s wife a cake?”

“Why not? Where I come from, taking food to the family after a funeral is the socially accepted way to deal with death. Don’t they do that around here?”

Ox gave a grudging nod. “But it’s still a bad idea, Rita.”

“Maybe. But it’s the only one I’ve got. I need to get a foot in her door somehow.”

“No. You don’t.”

“Yeah. I do. I can’t explain why, but I really need to talk to her. Can you have it ready for me by this afternoon?”

Ox took a step toward me, his eyes clouded with concern. “Let the police handle it.”

“They can’t handle this,” I told him. I held up my right hand, as if I were taking an oath. “I swear, it’s not about the murder. I need to talk to her about something else.”

And it was true. Mostly. I really did want to ask what happened between her and Uncle Nestor. Maybe I could help smooth things over for my miserable
tío.
And if the subject of Big Daddy’s murder came up? Well…I’d have to talk to her about it, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t want to be rude.