A Sheetcake Named Desire (20 page)

Outside, I fired up the Mercedes, plugging the address Edie had given me for the Hightowers into the GPS. The directions took me to an upscale apartment building overlooking the Mississippi River.

I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror and strolled toward the apartment building—slowly, so I wouldn’t work up a sweat. No such luck. The sweater was sticking to my back by the time I reached the front door, and the hair at the nape of my neck was dripping. So much for making a good impression.

Inside the gleaming glass doors, I stopped to get my bearings and found myself in a lobby that sported a massive fireplace on one wall and a handful of conversation areas with the illusion of privacy thanks to skillful furniture placement and a few towering flower arrangements. Everything—from the artwork on the walls to the rugs scattered across the hardwood floors—made it clear that the residents here weren’t living from paycheck to paycheck. Which meant that the Hightowers certainly ought to be able to pay their bills.

I gave my name to a uniformed doorman who presided over the lobby from behind an antique desk, then rode the elevator to the twelfth floor. J. J. Hightower, a twentysomething kid with spiky sun-bleached hair, opened the door when I knocked. He rolled his eyes over me once, dismissing me as beneath him with the curl of his lip.

I was struck by two things: how young he was and how arrogant he was. I thanked him for agreeing to meet with me and offered him a hand to shake. He turned away, ignoring my hand and speaking over his shoulder as he walked away from me. “Well, come on. Don’t just stand there.”

I followed him into a spacious living room filled with sleek, modern furniture and a breathtaking view of the broad, brown Mississippi.

A young woman with thin, straight hair and a pallid complexion, presumably the new Mrs. Charlotte Hightower, sat on one of two couches that resembled twin slabs in a mortuary. She looked surprised to see someone walking into the room with her husband, and I wondered if he’d neglected to mention that I was coming.

“I don’t know what you think this is going to accomplish,” J. J. grumbled as he sat beside her. “You can’t undo the damage your people did at our wedding.”

Charlotte did a double take. “Are you from Zydeco?”

“Rita Lucero,” I said, and proffered my hand to her before perching on the other slab.

She held out a limp hand for me to shake, and I spotted bones protruding from places I don’t think bones belong. Proof that you
can
be too thin. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“I haven’t been at Zydeco long, but I worked with Philippe for several years in Chicago, so I’m familiar with his business, his style, and his artistry. I’m hoping we can come to an understanding.”

J. J. put an arm around his wife. Protective or possessive? Hard to tell. “That’s highly doubtful. You people destroyed our wedding, didn’t they, darling?”

“It was awful,” Charlotte agreed. “I’ve never seen J. J. that upset.”

“So what do you want to know?” J. J. demanded. “And make it quick. I have a meeting in half an hour.”

I resisted the urge to tell him he could leave. I didn’t want to talk to him anyway. Pegging Charlotte as the more reasonable of the pair, I addressed my statements to her. “Let’s start at the beginning, if you don’t mind. I’d like to make sure I have all the facts straight.” She gave me a little nod, so I went on. “I understand that you were unhappy with your wedding cake. Could you tell me why?”

J. J. barged in before she had a chance to answer. “What? They didn’t tell you?”

“Edie told me that you were concerned about some differences between what you ordered and what we delivered.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “
Some differences?
Are you freaking kidding me?”

I really didn’t like this guy, but I couldn’t afford to make things worse between him and Zydeco, so I tried again to deal with his wife. “It would help if you could be specific about those differences. I may be able to explain why our cake artists had to change certain elements to maintain the integrity of the cake.”

Charlotte looked as if she wanted to speak, but J. J. gave her a look that changed her mind. No question about who called the shots in this marriage. “We didn’t get the cake we ordered,” he snarled. “Is that specific enough? And I’m not paying you people another dime. You got it now? Or is that too complicated for you?”

There aren’t many things that upset me faster than being treated like I’m stupid. I could feel my temper rising, but I managed to keep a grip on it. “I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Hightower, but I’m confused. I’ve looked over the invoice and the photographs the staff took before delivery. There’s no discrepancy that I can see.” I held out a copy of each for them to look at. “You ordered a three-tier chocolate cake with white buttercream frosting and sunflowers—”

J. J. snatched the copies from my hand and studied them for all of about ten seconds. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, as he shoved them back at me. “Some kind of joke? Or are you people trying to scam us?”

“I can assure you—” I began.

“I don’t want your assurances. I want restitution. You didn’t give us what we ordered, and you ruined our wedding. And you have the nerve to ask me for money? I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

I clenched my teeth and tried to remain calm, at least on the outside. This kid needed a few lessons in manners. Or a punch in the face. Or both.

I took a steadying breath and reminded myself why I was here: to calm them down, find a resolution to the dispute, and salvage Zydeco’s reputation.

“Those are copies of our records,” I said when I trusted myself to speak again. “The original order you placed and photos of the cake just before delivery. As you can see, there are no differences.”

J. J. gave the invoice another cursory glance. “Oh yeah. I can see that. But that’s not what we ordered.” He opened a file folder lying on the glass coffee table between us and thrust a computerized receipt at me. “It was supposed to be
five
tiers. White cake covered with white icing and then a bunch of orchids made out of . . . whatchamacallit . . . edible stuff.”

Stunned speechless, I studied the receipt he’d given me. Sure enough, the invoice called for a five-tier white cake. White fondant. Lacy texture on one tier. Sugar beadwork on another. And gum-paste orchids—dozens of them. The kind Philippe had perfected while we were married. Most importantly, not a sunflower in sight.

Huge difference.

“A cascade of orchids,” Charlotte said, pulling my attention away from the second invoice. “It was supposed to be light and elegant, and it was supposed to match my colors. Lavender and silver and white. Two of the tiers were supposed to match the beading and stitching on my dress. Instead, I got
that
.” Her lip quivered when she finished speaking, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

Now I wished she hadn’t spoken. Those tears were far more convincing than her husband’s anger. “How is this possible?” I said, more to myself than to them.

J. J. answered me anyway. “It’s obvious what happened. Y’all messed up, big time, and now y’all are trying to cover your asses.”

“That’s not true,” I assured him. “Nobody is trying to cover anything. I don’t know how this happened, but I’ll do my best to find out.”

“Why bother?” J. J. tossed the receipt onto the coffee table and sat back. “It’s not going to make one damn bit of difference. I’m not paying for your screwup.”

“It’s not just the cake, anyway,” Charlotte said softly. “We might have been willing to work with you on that. It’s what happened at the wedding that I can’t forget.”

I lowered the invoice to my lap and asked, “What happened at the wedding?”

“The fight,” Charlotte said, watching my reaction as if that should be clue enough.

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning vent overhead. “What fight?”

“Your boss,” J. J. said. “The guy who died. He tried to deck me in the middle of the reception.”

“Philippe?”

“I guess so. I told him that cake wasn’t what we ordered, and he went off on me. Yelling. Threatening. The guy was a complete jerk.”

I had some trouble taking that in. “At your wedding reception?” In front of potential customers? That was
so
not like Philippe.

“In front of three hundred and fifty guests.”

My morning coffee churned in my stomach as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. “I’m sure there was some reasonable explanation for his behavior,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure at all.

“So now what?” J. J. asked with a smirk. “How are you going to make
that
go away?”

I tried not to let my panic show. “Let me figure out how the mistake was made on the cake,” I suggested. “Then I’ll try to find a resolution that will make us all happy.”

“Good luck with that.” J. J. got to his feet and stared down at me, clearly ready for me to leave. “We’re through here,” he said, grabbing his file folder and holding on as if it held the secrets of the universe. “Don’t bother contacting me again. I came home from the honeymoon ready to file charges against your boss for assault. Can’t do that now, but you’ll be hearing from my attorney.” He surged out of the room still clutching that file folder and leaving his wife to make sure I didn’t pocket the family silver on my way out.

I held my head high, trying not to look beaten as I followed Charlotte to the front door. I stopped on the threshold and tried once more to get through to her. “Your husband is clearly upset, but there’s no reason to make this worse. Give me a couple of days to figure out what happened at our end and come up with a resolution.”

She shook her head and her lips narrowed so far they almost disappeared in her face. “It’s not up to me.”

“But you can talk to him. You can convince him to give me a chance to fix this.”

“Fix it?” She opened the front door to shoo me outside. “I don’t know how you can do that unless you can turn back the clock. But it’s not up to me.”

My spirits sank to a new low, but I couldn’t give up yet. “This is a difficult time for everyone at Zydeco, and it may take me a little while to get to the bottom of this. Please. Can you talk to your husband and ask him to be patient for just another day or two?”

She shot a glance over one bony shoulder and dragged it back to me reluctantly. “I don’t think it would do any good. J. J. is used to getting what he wants.”

Including a bride with no backbone, I guess. She shuffled me out the door and shut it behind me, and I started toward the elevator weighed down by regret. I had no doubt that the saboteur had struck again, but that wasn’t what worried me most. I’d blown it. Instead of coming away with a resolution, I’d just made the situation worse. Maybe Ox was right about me. Maybe putting me in charge of Zydeco—even for a few days—was the wrong decision to make.

Twenty-three

“It’s just so hard to imagine anyone here making a mistake of this magnitude,” I said to Edie, as she dumped a stack of papers on the desk in front of me and collapsed into an empty chair.

“It’s even harder to imagine when you look at who took the order.” Edie pointed to a small box on the form bearing the initials WO. Wyndham Oxford. I hadn’t even realized the entry in that box was someone’s initials.

I cut a glance at her. “Ox did the consultation? I thought this was Philippe’s client.”

Edie shrugged. “Philippe did the original legwork to bring the Hightowers in, and he delivered the cake to their wedding, but Ox was the one who took the order. He would also be the one who put it into the computer. There’s no way he’d make a mistake like this. Either J. J. Hightower’s lying, or the saboteur struck again. I’ve gone back to the beginning, and everything we have shows that they ordered a four-tier chocolate cake with sunflowers.”

“You’re absolutely certain? No question at all?” I desperately wanted her to be right, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Ox had been considering Dmitri’s offer. Was he the saboteur? Had he been trying to drive Philippe out of business before jumping ship?

Edie leaned forward and pointed to the invoice I’d taken from the Hightowers. “Faking one of our invoices wouldn’t be that difficult. Anyone with a little computer know-how could pull this off.”

“Maybe,” I said slowly. “But then why did Philippe lose control at the wedding reception? Did he realize that it was sabotage when he delivered the cake and they freaked out over the order?”

“That’s my guess,” Edie said. “But then he went off on the client? In front of all those guests?”

“I agree that it seems odd, but there are extenuating circumstances we have to consider. This particular client is not a nice guy. If Philippe got there with the cake and J. J. started complaining about the mix-up, it might have pushed Philippe over the edge.”

Edie tucked a lock of her silky brown hair behind one ear. “So you think J. J. is telling the truth?”

“I don’t want to think that,” I said, placing both invoices side by side and hoping I’d find something I’d missed before. “I wouldn’t put anything past him. But you didn’t see the look on Charlotte Hightower’s face this morning. I might believe that J. J. is trying to pull a fast one on us, but she doesn’t seem the type.”

“Besides, they were in Aruba,” Edie reminded me. “I doubt they’d leave their honeymoon to come back and extract revenge over a wedding cake.”

Except for the details of the order, the invoices looked identical. Surely there would be
something
different about them if one was a fake. Scowling in concentration, I tapped the Zydeco logo, the accordion-playing alligator cartoon, on the Hightower’s invoice with one finger. “Let’s say they did create a fake invoice. How would they get the logo?”

Edie shrugged and pulled a half-empty bag of M&M’s from her pocket. “It’s on the website. Supposed to be protected somehow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” She shook a few candies into her hand. “Or maybe they scanned the original invoice we gave them and turned it into a JPEG file. Who knows? People can do all sorts of things with computers.”

I held the invoice up to the light. Nothing. “It seems like a lot of effort on their part, doesn’t it? The amount they owe us is probably pocket change for them.”

Edie lined up the candies in her palm by color and ate the brown ones first. “So? Some wealthy people are tighter with their money than folks without. That’s how they get rich in the first place.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, but I wasn’t convinced. Still . . .

While Edie crunched on the orange candies, I studied both invoices for what must have been the hundredth time. Mistake or scam? Neither answer seemed to fit. The only possibility that made any sense was sabotage. If Philippe suspected Ox of purposely ruining the Hightower order and embarrassing him in front of hundreds of people, it helped explain why their relationship had grown so strained at the end. Believing he’d been betrayed by his closest friend might also explain why he lost control.

“We need to talk to Ox,” I said. “Do you think he’d agree to meet with me here?”

Edie shook her head. “I don’t know. He was pretty upset. Besides, what good would that do? If he did sabotage the order, he’ll only deny it.”

“Maybe. But what if he didn’t do it? What if he’s telling the truth? I think he deserves a chance to defend himself, don’t you?” And I wanted to look him in the eye when I asked about the job offer from Dmitri.

Edie lined up the yellow M&M’s, and lifted one shoulder. “I suppose.”

“Would you call and ask him to dig up his original notes for this order? Right now, it’s our word against theirs. Our invoice against theirs. If theirs is a fake, we can use Ox’s notes to prove it. If the order was changed after Ox put it into the computer system, his notes will help prove that.”

Edie picked up a red M&M’s candy, but stopped short of putting it into her mouth. “And if it was changed in the computer?”

“Then we try to figure out who did it. Does everyone on staff have access to the computer?”

She nodded. “We’ve been trying to move into the computer age for a while now. Philippe wasn’t all that excited about it, but the rest of us thought it was great.”

“Is there any way to track changes made on the computer?”

“Probably. Everybody has a unique log-in, so somebody who knows what he or she is doing should be able to figure out who did what, and when.”

That was the first good news I’d had in days. “Maybe this will give us a lead on the saboteur.”

“I hope so,” Edie said, pushing one last red M&M’s candy around on her palm with a fingertip. “It’s been awful around here—even before Philippe’s death—ever since all this weird stuff started happening.”

“And you have no idea who’s responsible?”

“None. Somebody who has access to the equipment, that’s all I know. But that means everybody on staff is on the list.”

I chewed my thumbnail and debated the wisdom of asking her about the leak. But I had to trust
somebody
, and for all her quirks, I never really suspected Edie. “I ran into Dmitri Wolff at lunch yesterday. He knows about our missing design.”

“He knows? How?”

“That’s what I want to know. Have you told anyone but the staff about it?”

Edie rolled that poor piece of candy between her fingers until the shell cracked. “I haven’t said a word, but it’s pretty obvious someone here must’ve. Whoever it is should be fired. Immediately.”

I agreed with her. But figuring out who to fire was the tough part. “I think we can agree that the saboteur and the leak must be the same person, and if that’s true, he or she must be working with Dmitri to destroy the bakery.” I had a pretty short list of possible traitors: Quinn and Ox. But I also wanted to allow for the remote possibility that it was someone else.

Edie leaned over to throw away the crushed candy. “Do you think that the saboteur is also the person who killed Philippe?”

“Maybe.” But I couldn’t imagine either of my sabotage suspects plunging a knife into Philippe’s chest. “The question is, who would want to sabotage the business? What would they gain from doing it?”

“It doesn’t surprise me that Dmitri’s involved,” Edie said, without hesitation. “He used to be the hottest thing in town until Philippe came back to New Orleans. He’s wanted us out of the way since day one. But I don’t know how Dmitri could have messed with the sheeter or ruined that cake, either. And this? I guess he could have hacked into the system and changed the order . . .”

I nodded and turned the idea over in my mind one more time. The fondant rolling machine, commonly called a sheeter, sat in the middle of the design center workspace. Whoever messed with it must have had after-hours access to avoid being spotted. But putting the sheeter out of commission was more of a nuisance than a serious threat. The Hightower order, on the other hand, was serious. “Changing that order would be a good way to ruin Zydeco’s reputation and drive Philippe out of business.”

“Yeah, but Dmitri couldn’t have gotten at our equipment or the computer network without somebody knowing. Unless he had an inside source.”

“Is anyone on staff friendly with him?” I asked.

“Not that I know of. Besides, nobody saw him around here the day Philippe was killed.”

“Would anyone on staff tell Quinn about the missing design?”

Edie’s expression turned sour. “I sure hope not. Why? You think
she
told Dmitri?”

“Maybe. Or maybe Dmitri told her. She’s been seen with him a few times, that’s all I know.”

“Cheating on Philippe?”

“Maybe.”

Edie muttered something under her breath, but I could tell from the look on her face that she was holding something back. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Edie’s eyes snapped up to my face, and she looked like a kid who’d just been caught with her finger in the frosting bowl. “Nothing.”

“You’re not a very good liar, Edie. Spill it.”

Scowling, she put the candy bag on her lap and ran her hands across her thighs. Sweaty palms. That meant she was nervous. “There’s nothing to spill. I don’t know anything.”

“But you suspect something.”

She stared at me without blinking.

“Come on,” I urged again. “You don’t want to leave this kind of mess for Miss Frankie to deal with. Tell me what you know.”

“But that’s just it. I don’t
know
anything. Nobody does.”

“But—?”

She let out a heavy sigh and slumped down in the chair. “But Philippe thought he had it all figured out. I’m pretty sure he’d decided it was Ox.”

That had to be the worst-kept secret around. “What do you think?”

“I don’t believe it.”

I wondered what she’d say if she knew that Ox was considering leaving Zydeco, but I bit my tongue. If Ox wasn’t guilty, I wanted Miss Frankie to bring him back to Zydeco. He couldn’t take over for Philippe if he was tarred with the brush of suspicion. “Did you mention that to the police?”

Edie shrugged and looked down at the mangled candy wrapper. “No. But only because I know it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder.” She looked up at me again, her expression earnest. “If I thought there was any chance at all that Ox killed Philippe, I’d say something. Really I would.”

“I still don’t understand how things got this bad between Philippe and Ox. This wouldn’t even have been a question when I knew them.”

Edie nodded miserably. “Nobody else believed it. But Philippe—” She broke off with another deep sigh. “I don’t know what happened. They used to be so close, but all of a sudden Philippe got this bug about Ox, and everything changed.”

“And you don’t know why?”

“I have no idea. Ox won’t talk about it. By the day of the murder, Philippe wasn’t even speaking to him except to accuse him of doing something wrong.”

“Why do you think Ox stayed here under those circumstances? And if Philippe really believed that, why didn’t he fire Ox and put an end to it?”

Edie shrugged again. “Who knows? I wouldn’t have stayed, I’ll tell you that much.”

“I don’t think I would have either,” I admitted. But that only made the possibility that he’d stayed to destroy Zydeco seem more likely. “And if I was Philippe, I sure wouldn’t have kept someone on my payroll who I thought was trying to destroy my business.”

Why
had
Philippe kept Ox around? Had he really believed Ox was trying to undermine the business, or was something else going on? My stomach hurt a little, just thinking that my old friend might have been behind the recent trouble. That Philippe’s change of heart had driven Ox to consider Dmitri’s offer, even for a minute. “What about the rest of the staff? Do they believe Ox is the saboteur?”

Edie looked miserable. “Like I said, nobody wants to believe it. But it’s starting to look bad, you know?”

Yeah. I did. I was also more confused than ever. What was going on around here? None of it made any sense to me. I stacked the invoices in the file folder and secured it in the locked drawer of Philippe’s desk. I battled another wave of guilt over hiding what I knew from Edie, and those sharp brown eyes and the worried expression on her face made me wonder about something. “Is there any chance Philippe was sick before he died?”

Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Sick like what? A cold? The flu?”

I shook my head. “Something more serious. Had he been to the doctor recently?”

“Not that I know of. Why? Have you heard something?”

“Nothing direct, but I keep hearing about things he did and said that just don’t sound like him. Going off on a client, suspecting Ox of trying to destroy his business . . .”

“People change,” Edie said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “You two were good together. But Quinn?” She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder at the door to the foyer. “She brought out the worst in him. Every relationship he had suffered, not just his friendship with Ox. Working here was fun at first, but that changed for me, too.”

I thought about Miss Frankie’s claim that Philippe had stopped confiding in her and realized sadly that she was probably telling the truth. I pocketed the key to the desk drawer and stood. “All the more reason not to make any snap judgments about what Ox was doing. I’ll wait and hear what he has to say.”