Rebel Without a Cake (26 page)

“Yes, child. I sure am.”

“And it was your idea to change the theme for the Belle Lune Ball?” I don't believe in coincidence, but in that moment I wanted to. I didn't like thinking that Evangeline Delahunt, Mambo Odessa, and Miss Frankie were connected, or that Evangeline's sudden change of heart had been set in motion to somehow benefit me. There was no doubt in my mind that this new theme would make life easier for me, but that suspicion killed some of the excitement I'd been feeling. I wanted to succeed on my own. If I failed, I wanted to fail on my own.

“Not my idea,” Mambo Odessa said. “I merely passed along an idea that was shared with me.”

Yeah. Right. Okay then. I glanced at Simone, whose eyes were alight with anticipation. Maybe this wasn't all a setup, I told myself. I wanted that to be true. I liked Simone and I thought she and I could be friends long after the Belle Lune Ball was over. And I actually liked Mambo Odessa, too.

So I gave them both the benefit of the doubt. Because after all, that's what friends do.

I stayed busy over the weekend putting together a menu for the Belle Lune Ball and sketching cakes I thought might appeal to Evangeline Delahunt. Both Simone and Mambo Odessa attended the meeting on Monday. I can't say that Evangeline was friendly toward me, but she was civil and she actually approved both the menu I'd proposed and my idea to highlight several classic cake flavors, including banana layer cake with fresh banana buttercream icing; a country-style blueberry cake drizzled with crème Anglaise and dolloped with sweet whipped cream; spice cake loaded with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger and topped with buttercream; an orange almond breadcrumb cake with orange custard icing; and of course, the ultimate vintage cake, devil's food with chocolate custard.

That afternoon I helped the staff bake and decorate sixteen dozen candy corn cupcakes while Ox and Dwight built a cupcake display shaped like a giant haunted house for the school party. Tensions were still running a bit high between Edie and the rest of the staff, but they were almost back to normal and discussing the costumes they planned to wear. Frankly, hearing them chatter about Halloween plans was the best thing I'd heard in days. I had to admit that Ox had done a great job while I was gone. I didn't notice any cracks between Ox and Isabeau either, which made me happy. Maybe Mambo Odessa had been right about them. I hoped so. But I was still a bit nervous since it appeared that we'd all be thrown together over the next few months. The more Ox saw of his aunt and Isabeau together, the more likely he was to pick up on their secret meetings.

It was none of my business, of course, unless their relationship imploded right in the middle of preparations for the Belle Lune Ball. Only time would tell whether I needed to worry about that. Right then I had other things to worry about, like how to get my car fixed and how long Miss Frankie and Bernice planned to stay in Baie Rebelle.

And, of course, the issue of Christmas. My nonrefundable airline ticket had arrived in my e-mail, putting pressure on me to resolve the new question hanging over my head: Could I really leave Zydeco that close to the Vintage Clothing Society's anniversary banquet? The answer, of course, was no—but admitting that broke my heart. I hated letting my family down, especially after disappointing Miss Frankie, but I couldn't see any way around it.

That afternoon, I went with Ox, Dwight, and Isabeau to deliver the cupcakes, which kept us busy for several hours as we set up the display and loaded it with almost two hundred orange and yellow cupcakes. Most of them made the journey undamaged, but we were kept busy fixing the ones that hadn't.

By the time I got home that evening, I was bone-tired and ready for bed. Too exhausted to cook, I'd picked up a pretzel burger and fries and I planned to eat them in bed so I could roll over and fall asleep after the last slurp of Diet Pepsi crossed my lips.

Before I could even unwrap the burger, I got a call from Miss Frankie telling me that she and Bernice were ready to come home (good news) and that Ed was going to start charging me a daily storage fee for the Mercedes (not so good).

I was up bright and early the next morning, hoping to take care of everything in Baie Rebelle and get back to New Orleans before lunchtime. If Ed couldn't repair the Mercedes, I'd have no choice but to pay for towing even if the fee I'd been quoted made my stomach tie itself in knots.

I'd be glad to have Miss Frankie and Bernice home where they belonged and was relieved that I wouldn't have to keep racing off to Baie Rebelle every few days. I felt guilty for not getting Eskil out of the woods (so to speak), but I had to believe that Georgie and the sheriff would do their jobs and clear him. After all, my job was to make cake, not catch killers.

I found Ed's after driving around Baie Rebelle for at least an hour, and only after asking the clerks at T-Rex's for help. I'd been looking for a business. Ed's turned out to be a double-wide trailer where a guy named Ed lived.

Ed was around thirty, a tall guy with a husky build and a full black beard. He acted as the town's mechanic whenever someone encountered a problem they couldn't fix on their own. I didn't ask how often that happened. Nor did I ask if Ed had ever worked on a Mercedes before. I didn't really expect him to fix it. I just counted it a victory that the car wasn't out in the middle of nowhere turning into a nesting area for local wildlife.

The guys had pushed the Mercedes around back where, apparently, Ed's “shop” was. I'd assumed that Ed had already checked out the Mercedes and could give me an opinion, but despite his down-home digs and laid-back appearance, Ed didn't lift a finger if he wasn't getting paid.

He told me to make myself comfortable and promised to be back in a little while. I guessed he was performing diagnostics so I found a metal chair in front of the trailer and made a mental note to keep something to read in my purse at all times. A book or magazine would have come in handy.

Since I didn't have anything to read and my cell phone had no service, I kept myself busy by pulling the lint off the breath mints I'd found in the glove box the day of the accident. I'd almost finished that task when a maroon pickup pulled into the driveway and Adele Pattiere got out.

Sensing the opportunity for something more interesting than lint removal, I said hello. She returned my friendly greeting after a slight hesitation, and I took that as a sign that she might be up for some conversation. I was convinced that Kale was the young man she'd been talking to the night of Eskil's dramatic “rescue” and I was curious about why she kept denying it.

She didn't owe me an explanation, but I left the comfort of the metal chair and walked toward her. She looked better than she had the last time I saw her. Her eyes weren't red and puffy, but they still looked haunted.

“Are you looking for Ed?” I asked.

“Yeah. Is he around?”

I jerked my head toward the trailer. “He's in back looking at my car. I had an accident a few days ago.”

“Oh, yeah? You're okay, right?”

Her concern was touching. At least it might have been if she'd looked at me. Since she didn't, I had to assume she didn't actually care. “I'm fine,” I said in case I'd read her wrong. “I met a friend of yours, I think. Kale Laroche found me out there and came to my rescue.”

That got her to look at me but she didn't say anything.

“You know Kale, right?” I said. “I saw the two of you talking that night at Margaret Percifield's house.”

Adele nodded slowly. “Of course I know Kale. But like I told you before, you didn't see us talking.”

I'd be leaving town soon, so I called her on it. “Actually, I did. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but you keep denying it so I guess it is. And you're the only person in town who seems to care that Silas is dead, including his son Kale. What gives?” I caught a flash of misery on her face and decided to take it down a notch. “Plus, I hate to see anyone grieving. I know what it feels like to lose someone.”

Adele shushed me and looked around quickly. “You're not from around here. You don't know how people felt about Silas.”

“I know that most everybody hated him,” I said. “But I don't think you hated him at all. I think his death has been tough on you.”

She blinked a couple of times and swallowed hard. “He was a friend. But you can't tell anybody that. If it got out, nobody around here would work with me again. It's rough enough trying to make a living as a woman in the swamp.”

“Why wouldn't they work with you?”

“Because no one trusted Silas, and so they wouldn't trust me. Around here trust is everything. You don't survive without the help from other people. You have to know that they're willing to do whatever needs to be done, and they have to know that about you.”

“And people wouldn't know that about you if they found out you and Silas were friends?”

She shook her head. “I don't run my own boat, and I need the work I get helping others with their tags. I had a rough go last year and Silas helped me out. But we kept it quiet. Silas was different. People didn't trust him. If word gets out now, I might be able to regain trust, but it would take a long time.”

“How close were the two of you?”

Adele's gaze skimmed across my face. “Close enough.” She toed the ground. “We had something, but I don't even know what it was. It had only been a few months.”

“It didn't bother you that he was married?”

“That was just a technicality. He didn't consider himself married.”

Oh. Well. In that case . . .

“They would have been divorced if Nettie wasn't such a gold digger.”

I laughed. I couldn't help myself. “What was she digging for? I thought Silas didn't have anything.”

“It wasn't what he had that Nettie wanted. It was what he was going to get.”

I stopped laughing. “What was he going to get? I was told that his father wrote him out of his will when Silas deserted his family and moved to the swamp.”

“He did,” Adele said, “but his mother didn't agree with what her husband did.” She leaned against the hood of her truck and crossed one foot over the other. “When Tommy Laroche changed his will, he gave everything to Suzette, his wife. Before that, he'd given Suzette the house and some money and divided the rest between Junior and Silas. I guess he believed that Suzette would honor his wishes and give everything to Junior when she died.”

My fingers began to tingle. I thought I could see where Adele was going with her story, and I jumped ahead. “But she didn't, right? She left half the estate to Silas.”

Adele nodded. “At first, Nettie stayed in the marriage because she thought Silas might change his mind and come home.”

“But he didn't.”

“No, but by the time she realized that he wasn't coming back, she was used to living alone and doing stuff on her own, and Junior had stepped in to help out so they weren't suffering.”

“When did she find out that Silas was going to get the property?”

Adele shrugged. “I don't know for sure. Suzette must have told her. Maybe as a reward for being a faithful daughter-in-law. All I know is that Suzette never said a word to Silas or to Junior. Silas only knew because Nettie told him.”

“How did Silas react to that?”

“He didn't. He didn't think that something written on a piece of paper meant anything. So old Tommy died, and eventually Suzette died, and then one day about a month ago a letter came from an attorney notifying Silas that half of everything was his.”

The tingle spread up to my elbows. “Half of everything that for years Junior thought was his alone.”

Adele nodded. “And exactly what Nettie had been waiting for. Silas didn't pay any attention to it, but Junior started coming around, trying to get Silas to sign it all over to him. And then Nettie started dropping by. At first I thought she was going to try to interest Silas in coming back to her, but I think all she really wanted was to make sure Junior didn't influence Silas. She wanted the inheritance for Kale.”

I wondered how far Junior and Nettie would have gone to get what they wanted. “What about Kale? Did he know about his grandmother's will?”

“I don't think so.”

“Did he know about you and Silas?”

Adele looked miserable. “He found out. Nettie told him. She came by one night while I was there.”

“I take it he wasn't happy?”

“No and neither was Nettie.”

“She thought you might cause friction in her marriage?” It was meant to be a joke, and Adele's lips curved slightly on the edges.

“It's probably more like she thought I'd create a block on the road to her becoming a wealthy woman.”

That gave Nettie a motive for killing Silas. As Silas's widow, she was walking away with his half of everything. But to collect from the estate, she would have needed the body discovered quickly so legal wheels could start turning. And she'd seemed so nice. “Do you think Nettie killed Silas?”

Adele ducked her head and lifted a shoulder. “I don't know. Maybe. Nettie went to see Silas that morning. She was worried that Junior was making headway and she wanted to make sure Silas didn't sign everything over to his brother. Her visit upset Silas. He'd been trying to talk to Kale for weeks but Kale wanted nothing to do with him. That night I begged Kale to talk to his dad, but he refused.”

I wondered if she was telling the truth about that. Silas was probably already dead when I saw her and Kale together. If she really was trying to convince Kale to talk to his dad, she must not have known he was dead. “Do you know what Silas wanted to tell him?”

“No, but I wish I did. He wouldn't tell me a thing. All I know is that he was getting tired of all the visitors. He liked his privacy.”

From what I'd heard about Silas, I thought that was an understatement. “Out of curiosity, how much land are we talking about?”