The Cakes of Wrath (14 page)

But this wasn't only about Pearl Lee. I also had to think about Scotty. He was vulnerable. Grieving. Not thinking clearly. Probably looking for comfort wherever he could find it, and Pearl Lee seemed only too ready to oblige.

I stood there battling indecision for a few minutes, then picked a direction and started walking. I didn't really think they'd gone to the Chopper Shop, but it was worth checking there to be sure. With Destiny's death so recent, Moose was probably at home attending to details. The empty building might give Juliet the privacy she wanted with her intended Romeo.

Halfway there, I called Ox on his cell phone. I gave him a rundown on Pearl Lee's disappearance and asked him to let me know if she showed up at Zydeco. He fussed a bit about all the work we had to do before the end of the business day. He was absolutely right, but I was in no mood for a lecture. I promised to be back in an hour and hung up before he could argue with me.

Thirty seconds later, my phone chimed Miss Frankie's ring tone. I contemplated answering for roughly two seconds, but quickly decided that ignoring the call would be the safest course of action. I could always return the call once I had Pearl Lee back.

To my surprise, I found half a dozen motorcycles in the parking lot when I reached the Chopper Shop, all three service bays open for business, and a Bob Seger song blaring from a set of loudspeakers. There was no sign of Scotty or Pearl Lee, but I could see Moose inside, perched on the corner of the desk and talking with a couple of long-haired biker dudes. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, and they all fell silent at once when they realized they weren't alone.

Moose blinked a couple of times, as if he was having trouble focusing enough to see me. “Hey, Rita,” he said when he finally figured out who I was. He asked the other guys to give us a minute, and motioned me toward an old wooden chair when they were gone. “You're looking a little better today. How are you feeling?”

I gave my standard answer. “A little better every day. I'm surprised to see you here. I didn't expect you to be open.”

His head dropped and he kicked the desk softly with the heel of his boot. “I had to do something besides make funeral plans. I was starting to go crazy just sitting home and staring at the walls.”

“I understand that,” I said. Grief is a strange thing and different for everyone. If he needed to keep busy, who was I to judge? “How's Scotty holding up?”

Moose wagged his massive head slowly. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“I'm actually trying to find him,” I said. “Have you seen him?”

“Not lately. He went out a while ago. Hasn't come back yet.” He looked at me strangely. “I'd ask if I could help, but I'm guessing you're not here to get your bike serviced.”

“And you'd be right. He . . . uh . . .” I hesitated, unsure how to explain my problem. “Do you have any idea who he was meeting?”

“Friends. I'm not sure who. He didn't say. Do you want me to have him call when he comes back?”

That might be too late. “The truth is, I last saw him with someone,” I said. “A woman. She's the one I'm really trying to find.”

Moose's leg stopped swinging. “A woman? Anyone I know?”

“I don't think so. She's a cousin of mine, I guess. In a roundabout way. Anyway, she just got to town and she's supposed to be working with me at Zydeco. We were out picking up a few things and we ran into Scotty. The two of them took off somewhere. I was hoping maybe they'd come here.”

Moose glanced around the cluttered and greasy office. “Not many places for them to go unnoticed around here.”

“Right. I realize it was a long shot, but I really do need to find her.”

“Where were they last time you saw them?”

“At the Dizzy Duke. That was about fifteen minutes ago. They snuck out while I was distracted. Do you have any idea where Scotty might go if he wanted to . . . spend time with someone?”

Moose snorted a disbelieving laugh. “You've got to be kidding me, right? That's what you think they're doing? Well, I know damn well Scotty's old enough to make his own decisions, so unless this cousin of yours is underage—”

“Good grief, no!” I said before he could finish that thought. “She's definitely old enough. And if it was up to me, I'd just let them go and do their thing. But my mother-in-law—” How to explain Miss Frankie? I decided to skip that part. “And what about Zora?”

Moose's head snapped up and his brows formed a V over the bridge of his nose. “What's she got to do with it?”

“Well, you know, she and Scotty—” I broke off, figuring he could fill in the blanks on his own.

He just shook his head and looked confused. “What about 'em?”

“They're together, aren't they?”

“Scotty and Zora?” Moose actually laughed. “Um . . . no.”

Now I was confused. “Oh, but I thought—that is, I assumed—she just seemed so—”

“She's a nice lady,” Moose said. “She came over to help out after Destiny died. But that's all it was.”

Wow. Talk about reading a situation wrong. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, but underneath that was a strong wave of relief. I felt better knowing that at least Pearl Lee wasn't currently wrecking Zora's home sweet home.

“Well, then,” I said, eager to get out of there before I put my foot in my mouth again. “I'll just go back to work and wait for her to show up.” I stood and turned toward the door.

“Hey, Rita?” Moose said before I could get away. “One question?”

I turned back and nodded. “Sure.”

“You said that Destiny showed up at Zydeco to help collect supplies for the cleanup, right?”

I didn't want to talk about that, but I couldn't just dodge the question so I dipped my head and said, “Right.”

“You said she wasn't feeling well.”

“Right.”

“What was wrong with her?”

I didn't want to answer that question either, but he deserved the truth. “I think she was on something,” I said reluctantly. “She was having trouble walking and her words were slurred, and she was behaving strangely.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought you were gonna say.” He rubbed his face and let out a sigh that seemed to come from the bottoms of his feet. “She swore to me she was clean. She
swore
she wasn't using again.”

“And you believed her,” I said gently, “because she was your wife. Anybody would.”

His eyes burned with sudden searing anger. “She lied to me. It wasn't the first time either. Every word that came out of her mouth was a lie.” He stood and took a couple of steps away, then turned back and slammed his fist onto the desk. Everything on the desktop jumped and so did my heart. “She
lied
and I was such a damn fool I believed her.”

I was in way over my head, and I didn't want to call attention to myself when he was smashing things, so I didn't say anything at all.

“Felix tried to warn me, you know. I told you that. He saw it.”

“You loved her. You wanted to believe her,” I said. “That's understandable.”

“Yeah.” He snorted softly and turned away again. “Yeah. I wanted to believe her. And the whole time she was robbing me blind and using the money to get high. What else did she do? Was she sleeping around? That's what Zora thinks, you know. I heard her telling Scotty last night. She thinks that Destiny was sleeping with Edgar.”

Zora's not the only one
, I thought, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

“Was she?” he demanded.

Crap. He was staring at me, waiting for an answer. “Edgar denies it,” I said. “He says they were just friends.”

“Yeah, well, he would say that, wouldn't he?”

“It could be true,” I pointed out.

“And it could be another lie.”

He had a point. I'd taken Edgar's story at face value, but what if he
was
sleeping with Destiny? He'd seemed determined to convince me they were just friends. But were they? Or had their relationship been much more? And how far would he go to hide the truth?

“Did he know she was using?”

I nodded slowly. “He denied it at first, but then he said she was struggling to stay clean and that he was trying to help her.”

Moose's face crumpled. “She told him and not me?” He dropped into a chair so hard it creaked in protest and buried his face in his hands.

I watched his shoulders shake and heard the heart-wrenching sounds of him sobbing. I stayed there, patting his massive shoulder and making “there-there” noises until he finally calmed down and I felt comfortable slipping away.

But as I crossed the parking lot, I wondered, who
was
this guy? Was he a tenderhearted teddy bear or a killer moose? I couldn't get a handle on him. I couldn't get a handle on any of them.

I just hoped I wouldn't end up paying for something one of them had done.

I'd lost track of time while talking to Moose, but as I started past Second Chances on my way back to work, I realized that though I'd talked to Isaiah the other day, I still hadn't asked Aquanettia or Keon about the accident. I glanced at my watch, convinced myself that I had a few minutes to spare, and decided to take a chance on finding at least one of them at work.

I'm not a fan of the thrift store experience. After my parents died and I went to live with Uncle Nestor and Aunt Yolanda, money was tight. Adding another mouth to feed and body to clothe—a girl in a family of four boys—had taken a toll on a budget already stretched to the breaking point. Aunt Yolanda had been a genius at stretching a dollar, and I'd spent more weekends than I wanted to remember helping her look for clothes and household items amid the junk other people had no use for.

Losing my parents had turned me into a surly young woman determined to find fault with the world that had betrayed me. Wearing secondhand clothes had only added fuel to the flame. I'd vowed that when I grew up and ruled my own world, I'd never buy secondhand anything.

To psych myself up, I stopped in front of the gate and took a quick look around. I'd been here before, but only to attend alliance meetings. Going inside as a customer was a whole 'nother story. Like Zydeco, Second Chances occupied an old house that had been repurposed as a business. But while Zydeco's renovation was recent, Second Chances had undergone its change of life at least a decade earlier, and some of the improvements were already showing signs of age.

Five short steps led from the front walk to a long front porch, where two windows flanked the center entry. A well-tended hedge separated the shop from the street, and only a carved wooden sign discreetly wired to the front gate identified the old house as a business.

Inside the yard, however, the illusion of grandeur vanished. Old patio furniture and lawn ornaments lay all over the grass, and uneven stacks of terra-cotta pots lined the fence on one side. A long cracked driveway stretched along the other side, separating it from the Chopper Shop.

I opened the door and the familiar musty odor of old, used items assaulted me. I tried not to wrinkle my nose as I stepped inside, where a mishmash of items covered every imaginable surface. Aisles, narrow and mazelike, curved haphazardly through the mess.

I found Keon, a kid of about twenty with a bored expression, stocky build, and mocha skin sitting with his feet propped on a long glass counter and playing a handheld electronic game. He didn't even glance away from his game, acknowledging me only with an irritated, “Yeah?”

Killer work ethic, dude
.
Your mother must be so proud.

Keon didn't seem interested in small talk, so I tried to ease into the conversation with a little white lie. “I'm looking for a crib set for a friend. Do you know if you have one in good condition?”

Still not looking up, Keon gave a lazy shrug. “No idea.”

Well. That was helpful. “Do you have an inventory list or something? I'm kind of in a hurry.”

Keon punched a few game buttons with his thumbs. “Nope. You want to look around? Knock yourself out.”

Okay then. Obviously I'd have to try another tack. “It's such a shame about Destiny from next door,” I said. “Did you know her?”

Keon's eyes finally flickered up from the game. “Kind of. Not really.” Now that he was actually looking at me, his eyes lingered on the bruises on my face. “You're the lady who almost got hit with our van.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Rita Lucero. I work at Zydeco a couple of blocks down.” I held out a hand.

He stared at it for a long time and then looked back at his game. “You ain't here for a crib, are you? What do you really want?”

I leaned against the counter and tried not to look annoyed by the snub. Maybe I wasn't as slick as I thought. “Okay. You got me. I'm trying to find out anything I can about the accident. Were you here on Monday night?”

Keon shook his head. “Not me. I heard about what happened when I got home.”

“So you didn't see anyone outside near the van? You don't have any idea who might have stolen it?”

He curled his lip in what I thought might have been a smile. “I don't know nothing about that. Why are you asking anyway? Isn't that a job for the cops?”

I nodded. “It should be, but they're pretty busy lately. There's a lot of crime in the city. They don't have a lot of time to spare trying to figure out who tried to run me over.”

“So why are you asking about Destiny? Other than the fact that you're the one who found her.”

“Well, actually, the lead detective thinks
I
was her drug dealer. I'm just trying to prove him wrong.”

Keon laughed, but as his smile faded, he gave me a long look and shook his head. “Guess that explains why that cop was in here yesterday asking all sorts of questions about you.”

I think my heart stopped beating. “Like what?”

“Like did I ever see you and Moose together? Did I ever see you hanging around over there?”

My stomach dropped and my breath caught. Winslow must seriously think I'd been supplying Destiny's habit when I wasn't secretly rendezvousing with her husband. “Anything else?”

Keon shrugged. “I don't know. The usual, I guess. When did I see her last? Did I ever hear her and Moose fight? Shit like that. So did you get her drugs?”

“Of course not.” I glanced out the window toward the Chopper Shop, but all I could see was the fence. “Did you see Destiny yesterday morning? Do you know what time she got to work?”

Keon laughed. “Work? Destiny didn't work. Do I know what time she opened the doors? Nope. Do I know who stole the van? Nope. Don't know. Don't care. All I know is it wasn't me.” He went back to his game for a moment and then asked, “You sure guy who stole the van was trying to hit you?”

My spidey senses tingled. “No. Actually, I'm starting to think that someone was trying to hurt Moose or Destiny. Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt one of them?”

Keon's long fingers stilled on the game pad and his dark eyes glittered. I had the feeling he was about to say something important, but I didn't get the chance to find out. The back door flew open with a bang and his mother, Aquanettia, bustled inside, her arms loaded down with several bulging bags. A small ball of brown fur trotted in at her heels and circled her feet when she came to a stop. This must be the infamous Gilbert that Zora had mentioned.

“Keon, baby, I need you to go out back and get the rest of these T-shirts for me. And don't make plans for the rest of the day. We need to start handing them out so people have them before the cleanup.”

Keon scuttled out the back door. Aquanettia put the bags on the counter, noticing me for the first time. “Oh! Rita!” she said. “I didn't see you there.” She smoothed her hair and tugged down the hem of her shirt. Gilbert skittered across the hardwood floor toward me so he could sniff my feet. He must have ruled me out as a threat because he stood on his hind legs and pawed at me, begging for attention. I bent down to scratch behind his ears, which earned a smile from Aquanettia. Love me, love my dog.

“Are you here to do a little shopping?” she asked. “We got some nice clothes in on consignment the other day.”

I shook my head quickly. “I was just talking to Keon about the accident on Monday night.”

Aquanettia's smile faded. “Oh, goodness. What a close call you had. And to think it was my van they used.” She shook her head and her expression sobered even more. “But what did you want to talk to Keon about? He wasn't even here.”

“Are you sure? Someone told me they thought Keon was driving the van that night.”

Aquanettia's eyes grew cold and hard. “That's a lie. Who told you that?”

I couldn't think of any reason to protect the dearly departed, so I told the truth. “It was Destiny.”

“Well,” Aquanettia said tersely, “she lied. But that was nothing new. Not to speak ill of the dead, but that woman wouldn't have recognized the truth if it had waltzed right up to her and introduced itself. Keon wasn't here that night.”

“But why would Destiny lie about him?”

“She would have lied about anything,” Aquanettia spat out. “That's why Felix tried to warn all of you about her.” She opened one of the packages and shook out a T-shirt bearing a large blue magnolia tree on the front. “Her death was a tragedy, but at least we don't have to worry about her trying to worm her way onto the Board of Directors. Can you believe the way she tried to undo all the work we'd already done?”

Her attitude made me uneasy. “It's no secret the two of you weren't friends,” I said. “But don't you think that's a bit cold? I mean yes, she was the competition—”

Aquanettia laughed harshly. “Oh, honey, that woman was never any actual competition. You can't think anyone would have actually voted for her.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm sure Moose would have, and Edgar seemed to support her.”

Aquanettia gave an expressive roll of her big brown eyes. “Edgar. What a piece of work he is. He certainly surprised me. All Destiny had to do was twitch her hips and he'd do whatever she wanted.”

“You think Edgar was interested in her? Romantically, I mean?”

“Are you kidding?” Aquanettia laughed and dropped into a chair behind the counter. “Honey, they were thicker than thieves.”

I thought about Destiny's offer to let me have Moose the day she came to Zydeco, and shuddered. Had she been planning to dump Moose? Had he found out and slipped something into her coffee? “I can't say I saw them together before the meeting Monday evening, but they seemed pretty friendly that night.”

Aquanettia glanced around to make sure we were alone and then leaned in conspiratorially. “I'm not one to talk bad about people, but ‘friendly' doesn't even come close to describing it. I wouldn't say this to just anyone, but the truth is, that woman made poor Moose's life a living hell.”

I wondered how much more forthcoming Aquanettia would be if she
weren't
being “discreet.” “Do you think Moose suspected she was cheating on him?”

Aquanettia nodded. “Oh, he knew. They used to fight all the time about how often she went running off.” She tapped her head just above the ear. “I guess they thought we couldn't hear them, but we heard just about every word. Moose told her just a few days before she died that he'd had enough. It wasn't the first time he drew a line in the sand, but maybe he meant it this time.”

I didn't know how to respond to that, and thankfully I was spared having to come up with something to say. The bell over the door tinkled as a couple of young women pushing strollers came inside, and I beat a hasty retreat. I still had no proof that Destiny's death was anything but an accidental overdose, but the feeling in my gut was getting stronger all the time. Maybe the reason Moose didn't mention the ultimatum he'd given Destiny was that he'd never actually issued one. Or maybe he had, but instead of warning her off drugs, he'd told her to end the relationship with Edgar, or else.

I liked Moose when he wasn't angry, and I didn't want him to be guilty of murder. But I was starting to think that maybe he wasn't as surprised by Destiny's extracurricular activities as he pretended to be.

• • •

I quickly picked up the supplies on my list and hurried back to Zydeco, wolfing down a bag of chips for lunch. Ox and the others had finished the Oakes petunia cake while I was gone. Since the cake would be presented on a layered cake stand, he'd piped a mound of icing into the center of each tier, clustered the flowers, and added leaves before finishing with a piped bead border. All that remained was to deliver it by noon on Friday. The golf course cake was also due Saturday night, and we still had a lot of work left to finish it. I'd let distractions get in my way all week. It was time to redeem myself.

I got to work on the water hazard for the golf course cake, using Isomalt. Made from beet sugar, Isomalt has been around since the 1960s, and many professionals prefer using it to sugar for showpiece work since it's more resistant to crystallization, clouding, and the ravages of humidity. It's great for simulating water.

If it's prepared and stored right, it's also relatively easy to work with, but it's easy to mess up if you're not on top of the process. Determined to make up for having been gone most of the day, I carefully measured the Isomalt into a stainless steel pan and added a few ounces of distilled water. I put the pan on a burner in the kitchen and watched the flame to make sure it stayed centered on the bottom of the pot. When the mixture began to heat, I wiped down the sides of the pan with a nylon bristle brush, avoiding the natural bristles I usually prefer since those can turn the Isomalt an unsightly yellow color.

The mixture had just topped the 320-degree mark on my candy thermometer, a signal for me to watch closely so I could remove the pan from heat at 333 degrees and put it in water to stop the cooking process. And that's exactly what I would have done if Pearl Lee hadn't sashayed into the design room at that precise moment. And if she hadn't been beaming from ear to ear.