Arsenic and Old Cake (24 page)

“So you actually saw him do it?” I held my breath, wondering if he really did know something or if he was merely jumping to conclusions because he wanted Monroe to be guilty.

Cleveland cut an exasperated glance at me. “No, I didn’t see him do it. But I know just the same.”

The show came back on, and I had to wait until the next commercial to speak again. “You’ve known Monroe for a long time, haven’t you?”

Cleveland didn’t answer immediately but after a moment gave another grudging nod. “Yeah. Awhile.”

“Do you have any idea where he might’ve gone when he left here?”

Cleveland tapped his fingers on the remote. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or irritated. “How would I know that? He was gone for forty years.”

“That’s true. I just thought you might have an idea that might help the police track him down. Some place he used to go when he lived here before. A friend he might turn to. . . ?”

“Believe you me, if I had any idea where to find him, I’d be singing my head off. Nobody wants that sonofabitch found more’n me.”

I believed that, so I pretended to change the subject. “Where did the two of you meet? At Letterman Industries?”

The old man’s head whipped around so fast I worried that he’d pulled a muscle. “Who told you that?”

I shrugged, still not sure if my bluff had worked. “I don’t remember. I was under the impression that all of you had worked there together. Is that right?”

Cleveland pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket, put it in his mouth, and spent a minute situating it just so. “What’s it to you?”

It wasn’t an admission, but it wasn’t a denial either. That gave me hope that I was on the right track. “Dontae’s murder happened right under our room,” I said. “It’s freaked me out a little bit. If Monroe really did it,
I
want to see him brought to justice. What did he have against Dontae, anyway?”

Cleveland shrugged and looked away, pretending a sudden deep interest in a commercial for Viagra. Then again, maybe he wasn’t pretending.

“He didn’t seem angry when I met him the other night,” I said. “In fact, if you’d asked me, I’d have put my money on Monroe being the one who ended up in the garden.”

Cleveland’s wrinkles folded all over themselves. “What do you mean by that?”

I held up both hands to show that I hadn’t meant to offend. “I just mean that everyone seemed pretty angry with Monroe that night, not the other way around.”

My observation lit a fire in the old man. He aimed the remote at the TV and turned off his show. “You’re damn right I was hot under the collar. You woulda been too in my place.”

“How so?”

“I thought that dirtbag was gone for good. We all did. And then, out of nowhere, he shows up again without a word of warning? That’s bad enough, but he had the nerve to walk around here acting like nothing ever happened. It ain’t right.”

I did my best to look sympathetic and tossed in what Grey had said on the street last night. “That
was
pretty nervy of him, especially after everything Hyacinth has been through.”

Cleveland’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You know about that?”

“A little.”

“Well, you got that part right. Monroe put her through enough. She didn’t need him showing up again after all this time. Nobody did.”

He was on the verge of telling me something important. I could feel it. My heart was beating so loud, I was sure he could hear it from where he sat. “How did she react when he came back?”

“How do you think? She lost everything because of that piece of scum.”

If Monroe was indeed the intended victim, then I’d just locked down motive, means, and opportunity—the murder trifecta. I could almost hear the theme from
Rocky
playing in my head. All I needed now was evidence that Hyacinth had mistakenly killed the wrong man.

“She was angry. Understandably.”

“She never shoulda let him stay. Grey and me, we told her to send him packing. Willie never woulda done what he done if it weren’t for Monroe.”

My imaginary sound track screeched to a halt. Willie? Who was that? I opened my mouth to ask, but a shrill voice cut me off.

“Cleveland!”

That one sharp word startled both of us, and we turned like guilty schoolchildren to face its source.

Primrose stood in the open doorway, her eyes narrow slits in her stony expression. “That’s enough! I’m sure Mrs. Broussard isn’t interested in our problems.”

Oh, but I was!

Cleveland’s eyes flashed as he tossed the remote aside. “Don’t tell me what to do, Primrose. You don’t own me. It’s about damn time you remembered that.”

Irritation marred Primrose’s normally placid face. She checked to make sure nobody was behind her and took a couple of steps into the room. “That’s a damn fool thing to say. I guess you’ve forgotten the rules of the house. You think you can just plant your scrawny butt on my couch for thirty years and do whatever you want? The past is the past is the past. There’s no reason to dig it up and flap it around in front of strangers.”

Cleveland blew out an angry breath. “I’m not the one who dug up the past. Your precious Monroe did that the day he walked back through that door.”

Her
precious
Monroe?

“I don’t know why you insist on blaming poor Monroe,” Primrose said with another glance over her shoulder. “You
know
it wasn’t his fault.”

“I don’t know any such thing.
I
was there, Primrose. You weren’t. I know who did what.”

Were they talking about the night Dontae died, or were they rehashing whatever had happened forty years ago? I wanted to know so badly I could barely sit still, but they were both skittish as newborn colts and I didn’t want to spook them.

Primrose put her hands on her hips and got right up in Cleveland’s wrinkled old face. She looked so angry, my breath caught in my throat. “I’ll tell you what I know, you old fool. That floozy is the one to blame for what happened. She led the bunch of you around by your noses, and you practically fell over yourselves trying to get her to notice you. Well, look where it got you. First Tyrone and now Dontae. You watch out or you’ll be next.”

Tyrone?

I heard someone gasp and realized too late that it was me. Primrose and Cleveland whipped around, startled, having clearly forgotten that I was sitting there.

“Well!” Primrose said, shaking her finger at me. “I suppose you think you’re smart, listening in to other people’s conversations as if it’s any of your business.”

I shook my head quickly. “No, I—”

“Well, I’ll tell you something. If you
are
smart, you’ll leave well enough alone. What’s done is done. There’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”

That was almost word-for-word what Cleveland had said only moments before, but her version sent a shudder up my spine. Was it a threat or a warning? I wasn’t sure, but sweet little Primrose didn’t seem so sweet anymore. And I was more determined than ever to figure out what was going on at the Love Nest.

I managed to smile even though my lips felt cold and stiff. “Nothing except help the police bring Dontae’s killer to justice. This is all so confusing. Who is Willie and what did he do? What happened to Tyrone, and what does any of this have to do with Monroe?”

Primrose stared at me for one long moment, her eyes again narrowed and her nostrils flaring. My blood ran cold as I looked into her eyes. When she turned on her heel and left the room without answering, the only thing I could do was take a shaky breath and sink back onto the couch to stop my knees from buckling beneath me.

Twenty-five

Primrose’s anger had rattled me, but it had also chased off my need for sleep. I wasn’t about to scurry off to the safety of the honeymoon suite now. I was convinced that I’d just scratched the surface at the Love Nest. There was more to the story, and I was pretty sure that knowing that story was the key to finding Monroe.

I left the parlor and started toward the dining room, but when I noticed the door leading out to the garden inching closed, as if someone had just gone outside, I decided to follow. I had no idea who I was chasing, but I didn’t care. Everyone had answers I wanted.

Whoever had come outside before me had already disappeared, so I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide which way to go. The night had grown cooler, and the air was dry. The police had removed the crime scene tape while we’d been gone, but they’d left signs of their presence everywhere. Footprints, trampled flowers, broken edging, snapped twigs, and a couple of soda cans lying in the dirt gave evidence that something had happened out here recently.

I hadn’t really looked at the garden the night Dontae died. My mind had been occupied with other things. But as I walked along the overgrown path, I wondered again why he’d been in the garden in the first place. Even excusing its current condition, it was hardly the kind of place someone would actually go to relax. Had he been meeting someone, or had he wandered out here in a stupor after ingesting the poison?

The garden path was poorly lit, and I had to walk slowly in the dim evening light to make sure I didn’t trip over an exposed root or the uneven path. As I came around a curve almost obstructed by overgrown bushes, I saw Pastor Rod a few feet ahead, pacing in front of a bench. He cast a furtive look over his shoulder, as if he worried that somebody might be watching him. Which, of course, made me slip into the shadows to avoid being seen.

A moment later, I saw Tamarra hurrying toward him.

Interesting, but I wouldn’t have thought it troubling—except for the fact that they’d chosen this particular weed-infested spot to meet.

“Did you hear?” Tamarra said in a voice almost too low for me to make out. “That woman has been asking questions. She cornered the professor on the street last night, and Primrose just told me that she was talking to Cleveland. What do you suppose she wants?”

I had to assume they were talking about me, which nipped in the bud any thoughts I might have had about stepping forward and saying hello.

Pastor Rod sat on the low stone bench and patted the seat beside him. “Maybe it’s exactly what she says,” he suggested in his distinctive gravel voice. “Maybe she and her husband are just concerned. After all, a man was killed during their honeymoon.”

“Maybe,” Tamarra said doubtfully. “But she sure has Primrose tied up in knots.” She sat beside the pastor. “She asked about my grandpa. How did she know about him?”

Her grandpa? She had to be talking about Willie or Tyrone, but which one? Maybe I
had
been too quick to cross Tamarra off my list of suspects.

Pastor Rod leaned forward with a heavy sigh. He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. His posture conveyed more dismay than I would have expected from a spiritual advisor used to dealing with death, even the unexpected death of a friend. His next words confirmed my suspicions.

“I’m afraid this is what we get for trying to hide the truth,” he said as he dropped his hands away from his face.

So he was in on it, too! Whatever
it
was. I felt a flash of disappointment, but I wasn’t really surprised. Every time one of these people opened their mouths, it added one more thread in the Gordian knot that was the Love Nest.

Tamarra gave him an impatient look. “With all due respect, Pastor, I don’t think that getting philosophical is going to help. The question is, how do we get her to back off?”

He shook his head, and he looked so dejected I almost felt sorry for him. “Don’t you think it’s time to just let the truth come out? I can’t condone lying, Tamarra. I can’t turn a blind eye and pretend it’s not happening.”

Tamarra scooted around on the bench so she could look at him head-on. “You know why. There’s nothing anybody can do for Grandpa or Tyrone. It’s the rest of you I’m worried about. You’ve stayed quiet all this time. What good would it do to come clean now?”

That answered the grandfather question: Willie.

“It wasn’t an issue before,” the pastor said. “The past was dead and buried. Your grandpa paid the price, and Monroe was gone. But now—”

“Nothing’s changed,” Tamarra insisted. “You know as well as I do that Monroe Magee is responsible for Dontae’s death. He’s the only one who could have done it. But if you start talking about the past, the police are going to start looking at everybody else—including you.”

Pastor Rod rubbed his face again. “Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it’s time.”

Tamarra stared at him as if he’d suggested that she shave off her eyebrows. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve built a new life. Everyone has. The professor is volunteering with kids. Hyacinth and Primrose have this place. You”—she waved a hand toward him—“look at you! How do you think people would react if they knew what your life used to be?”

“God forgives, baby. Don’t forget that.”

She shook her head firmly. “Maybe
He
does, but regular people don’t. Do you really want to see all the good you’ve done at the church undone because of something that happened forty years ago?”

Pastor Rod closed his eyes. “I made my peace with God before I ever became a pastor. The people who need to know what I did already know about it. Going public now wouldn’t change anything.”

“If you think that, you’re out of touch with reality. The people at that little church look up to you. They think you have answers. They believe what you tell them. But what will they think if suddenly you’re dragged into court as an accessory to murder?”

I think my heart stopped then. Murder? Were they talking about Dontae? Without thinking, I leaned a little closer, wanting to make sure I’d heard right. My arm brushed against a shrub, and the whisper of sound made Tamarra sit up and look around.

“Somebody’s coming,” she said. “And I need to get back inside anyway. Grandma is waiting for me. Just promise you won’t say anything. Please. Even if you don’t care about yourself, think about the others. Do you want to see all of them suffer?”

Pastor Rod’s head drooped, and Tamarra glanced around nervously before putting a gentle hand on his shoulder and then hurrying away.