The Cakes of Wrath (26 page)

I sat forward a little too quickly and pain tore up my shoulder again. I did my best to ignore it. I didn't want Edie to start worrying about me again. She had troubles enough of her own. “Are you really having second thoughts about the baby, or are you just having a bad day?”

She shook her head slowly. Maybe even a little uncertainly. “I don't think so. I want the baby, but I'm scared out of my mind. What if I screw it up? What if I . . . I don't know. What if I do something wrong?”

“Is that what you're worried about? That you might make a mistake?”

“
A
mistake? No. A million of them? Yes.” She sighed again and looked up at the ceiling. “I mean, it's not like I'm bringing home a houseplant. We're talking about a human being here. I could ruin its life.”

Clearly, she was freaking out. Maybe I was just being a coward, but I couldn't justify adding another problem to her list right then. I scratched “Tell Edie
about
her parents” off my mental list of things to do and rescheduled it for later. Like tomorrow morning.

“Well,” I said. “I guess you could ruin the baby's life, but I don't think you will.”

She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Oh. Okay. That makes me feel so much better.”

“Hey, I'm doing my best here,” I said with a laugh. “Remember, this is all new to me, too.” I put my plate on the coffee table and said, “You'll feel better if you eat—but not this. Let's order in. I'll buy. What sounds good?”

Edie rolled her head across the back of her chair. “I don't know. What can I eat that won't stunt the baby's growth? Ooh! I know! Pizza!” She produced an industrial-sized bottle of antacid tablets from her bag. “I would kill for a slice of extra cheese, pineapple, and green olives.”

“Weird. You can get that combination on your half. I'll have pepperoni.” I felt around for my phone and realized I'd left it upstairs. “Do you have your cell handy? Mine's in my bedroom.”

She nodded and pulled her phone out of her pocket, but she checked the screen before she handed it over, and that tight, bitter expression she'd inherited from her mother was back. “You have
got
to be kidding me. My mother hasn't spoken to me in three months. Now she's calling every hour on the hour. She called half a dozen times this afternoon and here's
another
missed call from her. What is she up to?”

Uh-oh
. The warm fuzzies evaporated and I sat up a little straighter. “Um . . . Edie?”

She looked up from the phone and I saw anger suddenly morph into worry. “You don't think there's some kind of emergency, do you? Like maybe something's happened to my dad or my sister?”

“I—no.” I stumbled over my words, stopped, and tried to pull myself together. “Tell Edie about her parents” zipped right back to the top of my list. “I don't think there's anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I think she's calling about something else entirely.”

Confusion clouded her eyes. “Like what?”

“They, uh . . . Well the thing is, they're here.” I held up a hand to stop the tirade I knew was coming. “Miss Frankie invited them. When I woke up this morning, they were already at her house. I had no idea.”

“They're here? In New Orleans?”

“Yes, but don't be angry. I mean, of course you're angry. You have every right to be angry. I told Miss Frankie a million times not to get involved, but you know how she is.”

“So they're
here
?”

I nodded miserably. “They want to have dinner with you tomorrow night. Miss Frankie asked me to set it up, but I refused to get in the middle.”

Edie blinked a couple of times and then dashed a tear away with a fingertip. “They came? Are you serious?”

I was about to say something else, but her reaction stunned me into silence. All I could do was nod.

“You saw them?”

“I did.”

Edie stood and walked in a tight circle, tucking a lock of her straight, dark hair behind one ear in a nervous gesture I knew only too well. “How did they seem?”

“I don't know. Fine, I guess.”

She stopped walking and gave me a “Duh!” look. “Mad? Sad? Ready to apologize? What did they say?”

I desperately wanted to sugarcoat my answer, but I knew she'd find out the truth soon enough, and then she'd never trust me again. “It wasn't pretty,” I admitted.

Edie threw up her hands in disgust. “Of course it wasn't. Why am I even surprised? Okay. Let's have it.”

I tried, but I just couldn't make myself repeat the things her parents had said that morning. “Well, you know them better than I do. You know how they feel. They haven't changed their minds.”

“So they still expect me to get married.”

“Actually, the subject of marriage never came up. And if it makes you feel any better, they don't blame you for the situation, but they're awfully upset with me.”

She gaped at me. “With
you
? Why?”

“Well, apparently you know better than to get pregnant and I'm a bad influence.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could call them back.

Edie's face burned and her voice rose to a pitch only dogs should have been able to hear. I don't know what she said, but I'm pretty sure she hadn't learned any of those Chinese words from her mother. Lin would have washed out Edie's mouth with soap and then blamed me for that, too.

I let her go on until she started running out of steam, and then tried to inject a note of reason. “I know you're angry,” I said gently. “But try to calm down—for the baby. I'll order the pizza. We'll can eat and talk this over.”

“What is there to talk about?” Edie shouted. “I can't believe those two!” She flopped down in her chair and looked up at me through her bangs. “And Miss Frankie!” She shook her head in disbelief. “How dare she?”

“I know. I know. I'm angry with her, too. She's gone too far.”

“Way too far,” Edie agreed. “She had no right. What about my sister? Was she there?”

“I didn't see her.”

“Of course not. Why would she come?” Edie sighed again and closed her eyes, making a visible effort to calm down. “I guess I only have one more question,” she said after a minute.

“What's that?”

“What time is dinner tomorrow and where do we meet them?”

My mouth fell open. “You want to go?”

She cut a glance at me. “No! I don't
want
to. But if I don't, my mother will think I'm admitting I'm wrong and she'll decide I'm too ashamed to look her in the eye. I can't let her think that.”

“So you're going.”

She stood again and looked down at me. “No.
We're
going. There's no way I'm doing this alone.” And with that she picked up our plates and carried them into kitchen.

Shortly after ten the next morning I waved Edie off to work and carried my new set of prescriptions into Magnolia Street Drug. I'd promised on my honor to take the day off work so I could heal, and I'd agreed to go with her to the dinner from hell if I could get Miss Frankie to speak to me long enough to give me the details. I wasn't the only one who'd made concessions. Edie had reluctantly agreed not to argue with me about trying to find someone who could put Scotty in the alley when I was attacked—as long as I kept my cell phone in my pocket and checked in frequently.

Inside, Sebastian was working behind the counter, his curly hair slightly mussed and a pair of dark-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He gave the prescriptions a quick once-over and entered them into the computer, then turned a raised eyebrow on me.

“I heard what happened the other night. The whole neighborhood is buzzing about it.”

That didn't surprise me but it did make me uncomfortable. I've never liked being talked about. I gave a halfhearted shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.”

“Seems like you do that a lot. You really ought to be home in bed. Somebody could have come in to get these filled for you.”

“I'm all right,” I lied. “I have things to do and I'm not going to let some crazy person frighten me into hiding.”

“Well, I hope you'll be careful,” Sebastian said with a worried scowl. “You've obviously gotten on the wrong side of somebody very dangerous.”

“Thanks. I'll do my best. Before you start filling those, can I ask you a question?”

Sebastian looked up with a shrug. “Sure.”

“Were you working here night before last?”

He looked confused but nodded. “Yeah, until around nine.”

“So you were here between seven fifteen and seven thirty?”

His shoulders tensed and he laughed uneasily. “Why do you want to know? Don't tell me you're checking my alibi.”

“Not at all,” I said with a little wave of my hand. “I'm looking for someone who might've seen what happened. Can you see the alley from here?”

Sebastian glanced toward the window and then back at me. “A little, but the pharmacy counter closes at seven. I stayed in the back to do the monthly inventory.”

“You closed up right at seven?”

Sebastian nodded solemnly. “On the dot, if not a minute or two early. It was a quiet night.”

“I guess it was too much to hope that you saw someone running away holding a lead pipe and muttering something about ‘that meddlesome baker.'”

Sebastian's shoulders relaxed and he slid a weak smile in my direction. “Hey, I wish I
could
help. I don't like what's going on around here at all. First you and Moose almost got hit by that van, then Destiny was killed! And now you've been attacked again. This is scary stuff. Believe me, if I knew anything, I'd tell you.”

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn't forget what Gabriel had said about how the locals closed ranks against newcomers. Would Sebastian truly be honest with me if it meant hanging Scotty out to dry? I'd just have to take a chance. “Do you remember seeing Scotty Justus around that time?”

“Scotty?” The smile slid from Sebastian's face. “Not that I recall. Why?”

“I think he might be the one who attacked me.”

Sebastian looked horrified. “Scotty? No!”

“And I think he threw a rock through the window at Zydeco and slashed my tire. How well do you know him?”

“Well enough, I guess. Like I know most people around here. I just can't believe he'd do something like that.”

I wasn't going to waste energy trying to convince him. “Was anyone else working last night? Maybe one of them saw something.”

Sebastian thought for a moment and then gave me the names of two high school students who'd been working the registers and the manager of the night shift. “But I doubt they'll be able to tell you anything. I don't think any of them were outside when you were being attacked.”

“What about customers?” I asked. “Was anyone here around that time? Maybe one of them could help me?”

Sebastian pulled off his glasses and cleaned them with the hem of his lab coat. “I really didn't pay much attention to anyone out there shopping,” he said with a nod toward the front of the store. “But like I said, it was slow. And I couldn't tell you about pharmacy customers even if I wanted to. It's against the law.”

Of course it was. “Well, it was worth a shot,” I said. “I'll quit bothering you and let you work. How long will it take to fill those prescriptions? I'll wait if it's not going to be too long.”

“It should only take a few minutes.” He put his glasses on and started to turn away again, then turned back and wagged the prescriptions at me thoughtfully. “You know who might have seen something? Edgar. I just remembered, he stopped in a few minutes after seven. I'd just closed up the pharmacy when he came in.”

My heart jumped and I leaned forward eagerly. “Edgar Zappa? I wonder if he saw anything when he left here.”

Sebastian shrugged. “You never know . . . I guess it won't hurt to ask.”

I hoped he was right. Because asking the wrong person about what happened last night might hurt very much indeed.

I let him get to work on filling my prescriptions, then bought a Diet Pepsi and slugged down one of the pain pills before tucking the rest into a secure pouch in my purse and heading off to talk to Edgar. His place, EZ Shipping, is a small store in the middle of a run-down strip mall about half a block west of the drugstore. The direct route there would take me right past the alley where I was attacked the night before. I set off confidently, but after about thirty yards everything inside me grew cold and tight. My feet refused to keep walking down that street, and my heart slammed so hard against my chest I thought I might have to go back to the emergency room for a panic attack.

It took twice as long to walk around the block and I felt silly avoiding the alley, but even in the middle of the morning I couldn't make myself go near the place. I felt exposed and unprotected. If Scotty wanted me dead, he might not let a little thing like broad daylight stop him.

It was almost eleven when I walked into Edgar's shop. He was behind the counter helping an elderly woman with a couple of boxes she wanted to ship to her grandson who was serving in the military. This was his fourth deployment in six years, and . . . I tuned out when I began to suspect that she was going to share her entire family history before those boxes went anywhere.

I was meandering up and down the aisles when my cell beeped with a new text message from Edie, reminding me to call Miss Frankie for the particulars about tonight's dinner. I wasn't sure which part of that conversation I dreaded most: the part where Miss Frankie chided me about the way I'd acted yesterday, or the part where she made sure I knew that she'd been right all along about bringing Edie's parents to town. But avoiding the inevitable wouldn't change anything.

Since Edgar was tied up for the foreseeable future, I went outside to make the call before I could talk myself out of it. The phone rang half a dozen times before Pearl Lee picked up. I guess after my meltdown yesterday she'd decided not to go back to Zydeco, which was fine with me. She told me that Miss Frankie had gone next door to visit with her friend Bernice. I was pretty relieved not to actually reach Miss Frankie. I could use a little more time to decide what I was going to say to her. I asked her to have Miss Frankie call with details for dinner.

By the time I went back inside, the customer was finally counting out her money. I could see impatience dancing in Edgar's pale blue eyes as she slowly put her wallet back into her purse and verified a few details, but I don't think she was aware of his frustration. When the door closed behind her, he grinned at me and ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry about the wait, but I guess it gave you plenty of time to look around. Did you find anything you'd like?”

“Actually, I just came by to ask you a few questions if you don't mind.”

His smile faded slowly. “Sure. What's up? It must be important for you to come here in the middle of a workday.”

“I think it's important,” I said with a smile designed to get him talking. “I was talking to Sebastian a few minutes ago, and he said that you were in the drugstore Wednesday night around seven.”

“Was I?” Edgar's gaze flicked toward the ceiling, as if he was trying to remember. “If he says so, I guess I was.”

“You don't recall? The night before last? The night of the memorial service?”

Edgar straightened a stack of papers next to the register. “Yeah. I nipped in for a minute. I needed a couple of things. What's this about anyway?”

“Somebody attacked me about that same time,” I said. “I'm trying to find witnesses. Did you see anyone while you were out, or notice anything unusual?”

Edgar looked at me with wide eyes. “You were attacked?”

“You didn't know?”

He shook his head quickly. “No. How would I?”

I shrugged. “Word gets around.”

“Not this time. I haven't heard a thing. What happened?”

He looked genuinely confused, but I wondered if that was true. According to Sebastian, the neighborhood was buzzing with the news. How had Edgar missed hearing about it?

“I wish I knew,” I said. “Somebody hit me from behind.”

“You weren't seriously hurt, I hope?”

“Not seriously,” I agreed. “It happened by the alley that runs behind the Chopper Shop. Did you pass that way to get to the drugstore?”

Edgar nodded. “It's the quickest way to get there from here.”

“And did you notice anyone else hanging around near the alley?”

“Not that I remember,” he said. “But I was in a hurry. I was working alone, realized I was out of toilet paper, and ran over there to pick some up. I was in and out in a minute and I wasn't really paying attention to anything around me. I didn't see anybody until I got back here.”

“You had a customer waiting?”

“No, but Zora was here. She'll vouch for me. She was in tears, just sitting on the bench on the curb,” he said with a nod toward the window. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said that she'd just had a nasty argument with Scotty.”

Bingo
!
Scotty had been in the neighborhood. My heart did a little tap dance of joy. “Did you see Scotty yourself?”

“Me? No.”

“Did Zora mention where she and Scotty were when they had their argument?”

Edgar shook his head. “Not exactly. I assumed they were at the Chopper Shop, though. She told me that she went to see him. I figured that's where she went.”

So she'd argued with Scotty and they were both riled up when they parted company. She'd run back to the Feathered Peacock, while Scotty had taken out his anger on me. It made perfect sense, but it was circumstantial “evidence” at best, and I was convinced that Detective Winslow wouldn't take it seriously unless someone else came forward with the information. I bumped Zora to the top of my possible witness list.

“Did she say what they argued about?”

Edgar shook his head. “No, but I can guess. Poor guy. She will
not
leave him alone.”

That was an odd comment considering Zora's claim that she and Scotty were just friends. “But it's not as if they were a couple,” I said. “She's not even interested in him.”

Edgar gave me an odd look. “Who told you that?”

“Well . . . Moose for one. And Zora herself told me that there was nothing going on between her and Scotty.”

Edgar flicked another glance at the window and chewed a lip. “Zora was probably trying to save face after Scotty dumped her,” Edgar said. “You know how that goes. You're head over heels in love with somebody and they choose someone else. It hurts. It's embarrassing.” His gaze flickered to the floor and then to something at his side, and I wondered if we were still talking about Zora and Scotty or if he was thinking about someone else. Like Destiny.

“You and Destiny were close,” I said gently. “You must miss her.”

His head snapped up and his jaw tightened. “I don't know what you're implying.”

“But I'm sure you can understand why some people speculated about the two of you.”

“We weren't sleeping together,” Edgar growled.

“I never said you were. But those aren't the only rumors I've heard. Maybe Scotty got upset with her over some of those things. Did Destiny and Scotty get along well?”

“He was her dad.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't mean they never argued.”

Edgar put both hands on the counter and glared down at me. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Maybe nothing. I'm just thinking that whoever killed her is probably the same person who has been after me. I was under the impression Scotty didn't like some of the things Destiny was up to when she was alive, that's all.”