Arsenic and Old Cake (27 page)

Sometime around midnight, Gabriel crept into the room, trying hard not to disturb me. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey, with a faint note of his aftershave underneath. He’d been working for more than twelve hours, and headed straight for the shower. I assumed he was exhausted so instead of waiting up to tell him what I’d learned while he was at the Duke, I curled onto my side and let him sleep.

I woke up with sunshine in my face, still curled on my side but now wrapped in blankets and an arm and a leg that wasn’t mine. After the initial shock of finding someone cuddled up beside me, I caught his scent, clean and purely male, and slowly relaxed under the protective barrier he created around me. I didn’t often let myself think about everything I’d lost when Philippe and I separated, but this morning I had to admit just how much I’d missed waking up next to someone.

Yesterday had been a rough day, and as soon as I checked the time I realized that we’d slept past breakfast service. We still had a couple of hours until we had to check out, so I tried to move around quietly so Gabriel could sleep. Despite my best efforts, he stirred awake not long after I did. We dressed quickly and I filled him in on what I’d learned the night before while he packed a few things he’d pulled out of his suitcase and I did my hair and makeup. I told him what I knew about Hyacinth and Willie and about the robbery-slash-murder at Letterman Industries. I told him that Pastor Rod wanted to come clean about the past, but that Tamarra was afraid that the police would investigate her grandmother and the others if the truth came out.

I was just about to tell him about Lula Belle and Willie when he came to the bathroom door and met my eyes in the mirror. “I thought you said you weren’t going to talk to anyone last night.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said. “But then I saw Cleveland in the parlor and I just couldn’t turn around and walk away.”

“So you lied to me?”

I turned quickly, completely forgetting that I was holding a mascara wand near my eye. The mascara brushed my cheek, leaving a wet gloppy trail. I turned back to assess the damage and found a long smear of Black Quartz running from the corner of my eye to my ear, but at least I hadn’t stabbed myself in the eyeball. “It wasn’t a lie,” I said as I began cleaning off the smear. “It was a change of plans. You would have done the same thing in my place.”

“I doubt it.”

“Of course you would. Look at all the great information I got! We know where Monroe went when he left here forty years ago. We know about Tyrone and how he died. We know more about how Lula Belle fits into the picture now . . .”

“And we know that you could have been hurt—or worse.” He leaned against the doorjamb, his face drawn into a deep scowl. “Okay, so fate or whatever gave you the opportunity to talk to Cleveland. I’ll give you that. But you went looking for the others.”

“But—”

“No, Rita. You actively pursued the others. You purposely went looking for possible murderers. Alone. Without backup.”

He sounded angry, which shocked me. I tried again to explain. “But I—”

“You said you’d call. What happened to that promise?”

I couldn’t look at him, so I focused on scrubbing a particularly stubborn mascara spot off my cheek. “I promised I’d call if
I ran into trouble. Which I didn’t. So . . . no call.” The spot wouldn’t budge, so I tossed the cloth aside in frustration. “Why am I under interrogation? I didn’t kill anyone.”

Gabriel’s reflection folded its arms across its chest. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t. I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

“Well, then, you’re lucky. Because even if nobody here poisoned Dontae—which I don’t believe for a minute—they’re all clearly off their rockers. Something could have happened to you.”

“But it didn’t,” I said again.

“But it
could
have.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. “The thought of something happening to you makes
me
crazy.”

I tried to laugh, but the look on his face and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed his emotion, did something I wasn’t expecting. “Gabriel, I—”

I wanted to reassure him. I wanted to promise him that I’d never do anything truly reckless. And most of all I wanted to say that I cared about him, too. But the words caught in my throat, and all I could do was look up at him in silence.

He shook his head as if disappointed and let go of me. Turning away, he snatched up his bag from the bed and paused at the door just long enough to say, “You make it damn hard to care about you, you know that, don’t you?”

And then he was gone.

Twenty-eight

I can’t say that Gabriel gave me the silent treatment after that, but our conversation as we packed up that morning left a lot to be desired. We carried our suitcases to the car and checked out, all with a minimum of small talk. After saying a quick good-bye we drove away from the Love Nest separately, all of which left me feeling edgy and frustrated.

As I crossed town to pick up the cake for Bernice’s barbecue, I found myself wishing one minute that Gabriel and I had had more time to settle things between us, and then thanking my lucky stars for the chance to gather my thoughts before I had to see him again. I wondered if I’d overreacted to his concern for me, and then argued with myself for doing so. My uncle Nestor has always been protective of me. Add in four male cousins, all overloaded with machismo, and I’d scarcely had room to breathe when I was a teenager.

Which is why I get so prickly when someone tries to protect me now. It doesn’t matter who’s doing it, or why. But in trying to set boundaries I could live with, I’d hurt Gabriel. I didn’t like feeling responsible for the look in his eyes when he’d walked away from me.

In spite of my mood Bernice’s barbecue turned out to be not as bad as I’d feared. The weather cooperated, giving us a day bright with sunshine and only a few harmless clouds overhead. The humidity was in the tolerable range, helped by the fact that Bernice had set a table in the shade of a picturesque live oak.

Her nephew Bennie was a deft hand on the grill, turning out a beer-can chicken that was surprisingly moist and flavorful, along with hot dogs for the kids. Emily, his wife, shucked ears of tender sweet corn and made coleslaw that was both creamy and tangy, with just the right amount of crunch. Despite the dull opinion of them I’d formed from afar, in truth Bennie was actually amusing company, and Emily extremely well-read. The children were every bit as poorly behaved up close as they seemed from a distance, but Bernice had plenty to keep them busy, so even they weren’t intolerable.

I stuffed myself on Bernice’s potato salad, which was almost as good as Aunt Yolanda’s. I’m something of a potato salad snob, and Aunt Yolanda’s recipe is the gold standard by which I judge all others.

The potato must be cut into small, bite-sized pieces. The eggs diced, not sliced. Onion, definitely. Celery, a must. Pickles and pickle juice are expressly forbidden. My preferred dressing is half whipped salad dressing, half sour cream, lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, and dry mustard. And, of course, paprika sprinkled across the top, preferably sweet Hungarian.

I could taste vinegar and dill in Bernice’s dressing, but she’d used paprika liberally and hadn’t broken my personal no-pickle rule, so I could forgive her a few small deviations.

The cake had turned out perfectly; sweet, but not overpoweringly so. The raspberry filling and light chocolate buttercream between the layers held up beautifully, and the white chocolate buttercream on top looked as cool and fresh as it had the day before. I’d finished decorating it with a small cluster of fresh raspberries and matching piping around the edges of the cake, which added color. Several people asked for seconds, which is music to any chef’s ear.

It was almost three when Miss Frankie finally looked at her watch and announced that it was time for us to head over to the cemetery. We spent a few minutes saying good-bye, then Miss Frankie and I loaded her car with the jars of flowers she’d so painstakingly prepared the day before and set off. She drove. I watched the world go by and hoped that we’d get through the visit to Philippe’s grave with a minimum of emotion. We’d made it through Miss Frankie’s birthday, and we’d hobbled through the holidays. But this was the first Memorial Day since his death, and I’d already learned that the firsts were the hardest after someone dies.

It’s the same after a divorce, really. The first birthday alone, the first Christmas, the first New Year’s Eve—they can blow your recovery out of the water. Old memories tend to creep in uninvited, and the twinges they bring are sharp and painful. Philippe’s birthday was coming up in June, and then it would be July, the month he died and we could begin the job of limping through the second year without him. I just prayed it would eventually get easier for Miss Frankie.

We found a parking spot near the Renier family vault and carefully made our way across the uneven ground carrying the flowers. When we reached the vault, Miss Frankie turned her face to the sun and took a couple of deep breaths, then dashed away her tears and put the jar of flowers she was holding on the ground.

While I tried not to think about the fact that Philippe was inside that hot stone structure, Miss Frankie seemed determined to dwell on it. She ran her fingers over the words chiseled into the stone:

P
HILIPPE
R
ENIER

B
ELOVED
S
ON AND
H
USBAND

His name was just below his father’s, and previous generations were listed above that. Miss Frankie’s fingers lingered over the date of Philippe’s birth, moved across that tiny dash that encompassed his whole life, and came to rest on the date of his death.

I focused on breathing in and out while she did that, but I hated this place as much as I hated my parents’ graves. In my opinion, my parents weren’t there. Philippe and his father weren’t here. It felt morose to me to focus on their graves and turn them into some kind of shrine. But that’s exactly how Aunt Yolanda deals with death, and obviously Miss Frankie felt the same way. I didn’t want to ruin the experience for her.

She finally looked away and sent me a tremulous smile. “You must think I’m a silly old bird.”

“Not at all,” I assured her. “I think you’re a grieving mother.”

She pulled out a hanky and mopped away a fresh round of tears. “I’d give my own life if I could bring Philippe back. I’m having a little trouble reconciling all of this with God.”

Over the years I’d heard lots of meaningless platitudes at funerals, starting with my parents’. I’d listened to people natter on about God’s will and how it was their time to go. Wearing kindly expressions, perfectly nice people told me that my parents were in a better place and how God needed them in heaven more than we needed them here . . . yadda, yadda, yadda.

None of it had ever made a bit of sense to me. What kind of selfish God thought he needed my parents more than I did? Who would do that to a twelve-year-old?

I’d spent the next few years angry with God for taking them away and leaving me alone, but I’d finally worked out my own answers to all the questions their accident had left me with. I didn’t know if anyone else would agree with me, but at least I’d found a way to live with my personal tragedy.

“Someone chose to end Philippe’s life,” I said gently. “Just like someone chose to drive drunk and ended up taking my parents’ lives. It was horrible and wrong and you have every right to feel angry. I used to think God should have stopped that drunk driver. Now . . . I don’t know. But I have to believe that those who hurt innocent people will suffer the consequences of their actions one way or another.”

Miss Frankie tried to smile at me, but she failed miserably. “There’s no consequence bad enough, if you ask me.”

I chuckled softly. “I agree, but maybe that’s why you and I aren’t in charge of the world. It’s taken me a long time to understand that bad things sometimes happen to good people. We can’t stop or control it. The only compensation for our loss is that we’re given the chance to make something positive out of it.”

Miss Frankie’s lips trembled a little, and she reached for my hand, clutching it gratefully. “I have you now,” she said. “I call that good.”

I squeezed her hand in return and blinked to clear my own eyes. “I feel the same way.”

“And I think Philippe approves, don’t you?”

“I’m sure he does,” I assured her. I nodded toward the flowers waiting for us on the sidewalk. “Which of those do you think he wants?”

“He dearly loved magnolias. Let’s give him some of those.”

We spent a few minutes transferring flowers from the glass jars to the stone pots permanently attached to the front of the vault. Miss Frankie snipped and arranged and moved flowers from pot to pot until she was satisfied, then stepped back to judge the effect from a distance.

“What do you think, sugar?”

“I think it’s lovely. Are you finished? Shall I gather the jars?”

She gave a halfhearted nod. “Yes, I suppose there’s no sense hanging around, is there?”

I shook my head and kept my mouth shut. I bent to gather the jars, dumped out the excess water, and then extended my arm to Miss Frankie for the walk back to the car.

“Speaking of moving along, I called Thaddeus last night,” she said. “He’ll have a list of properties for me first thing in the morning. How soon will you be free to look at them with me?”

I almost lost my balance on an uneven piece of flagstone. “So soon?”

“Zydeco’s in trouble and you’re about to lose staff. We might as well move now, before the need becomes too great. We don’t want to end up in a hole we can’t climb out of.”

I knew she was right, but I still felt guilty at the idea of her selling family land to bail me out. Logically, I knew the fault wasn’t all mine, but I couldn’t help feeling responsible.

We reached the car, and Miss Frankie leaned against the door, staring out over the cemetery while she waited for me to stow the empty jars in the trunk. After all the drama of the past several nights at the inn—and sharing a bed with Gabriel—I’d been looking forward to spending the evening at home, but the look on Miss Frankie’s face convinced me I couldn’t leave her alone. “How would you feel about watching a couple of old movies with me tonight?” I asked.