Cake on a Hot Tin Roof (22 page)

Thirty-two

I thought about my conversations with the Boudreauxes all the way home. I was convinced that one of them had killed Big Daddy, but which one? Had Big Daddy found out about Susannah’s relationship with Tyson? Maybe he’d confronted her and gotten himself killed in a fit of passion. But if he really was sleeping with Violet, would he have cared that much about Susannah’s sexual activities? I might have been wrong, but I doubted Susannah had killed him in a jealous rage.

Their sleeping arrangements must not have been what they’d argued about, I reasoned. Susannah was the one who’d drawn the line in the sand. Whatever upset her, it was something Big Daddy had done, not the other way around.

Judd was clearly lying about his argument with his brother. He’d owed him money, and while he’d promised to pay it back, that hadn’t been enough for Big Daddy, who’d threatened to put Judd in rehab. Why? After covering for him all these years, after bailing him out from one trouble situation after another, what had Judd done that had driven Big Daddy to change the way he’d been handling his brother?

I went round and round the questions all the way home, but I wasn’t going to find the answers in my own head. I wanted to talk with Violet and find out if she could shed any light on what Big Daddy had going with Percy, but I couldn’t do it tonight. It was too late, and I was too tired.

The lights were out on the main floor, so I started upstairs to my bedroom. The door to the guest room was open and I saw Aunt Yolanda on the bed, curled up with a book. Alone. I stopped for a moment to talk with her as I climbed the stairs to my room. We’d done the same thing so many times when I was younger that things felt normal for a moment. If we’d been in Albuquerque, I’d have assumed that Uncle Nestor was at the restaurant. But we weren’t, and he wasn’t.

Aunt Yolanda might be able to pretend that everything was normal, but I couldn’t. I asked her where he was, and she nodded toward the ceiling. “Upstairs on your terrace. He’s been up there for hours.”

“Is he all right?”

She frowned and gave a little shrug. “I’m sure he is.”

That answer was so out of character for her that I moved into the bedroom and sat on the foot of the bed. “How long is this going to go on,
Tía
?”

She kept her eyes on her book. “I’m only going to finish this chapter. It’s late, and I’m tired.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”

She flipped a page, pointedly refusing to look at me. “What I know is that it’s never a good idea to get involved in someone else’s relationship. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that to you before.”

“Yeah. You have. But this is ridiculous. You know how much Uncle Nestor loves you.”

Her gaze finally left the book. She locked eyes with me. “This is between your uncle and me,” she said, her voice harder than I’d ever heard it. She marked her place with a bookmark and set the book aside. “I’m tired. I’d like to go to sleep.”

Her reaction confused and frightened me, but I stood up and went back to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

She mumbled something, but her voice was too low and I couldn’t hear it. With my heart aching, I climbed to the third floor, but instead of going into my own bedroom, I kept going to the rooftop garden.

It’s a beautiful space filled with large planters holding trees and flowering bushes, a wrought-iron railing allowing a view of the street below, and a stone table with chairs in the center. Twinkling white lights in the trees and along the railing make the whole thing feel like a fairy tale.

Almost losing my life here last summer had turned the fairy tale into a nightmare, but I was slowly learning to relax in this space. New Orleans is never a quiet city, and during carnival season the noise level multiplies. I could hear the revelry all around me. Parties. Music. Laughing. Fireworks in the distance. One of the smaller krewes was having its parade a few blocks away, and the sounds from that hit me softly, as if they’d been wrapped in cotton.

Uncle Nestor sat in a patio chair with his back to the door. He held a glass of water in one hand, but he ignored it and stared up at the sky. I didn’t want to startle him, so I cleared my throat as I stepped out onto the rooftop.

He didn’t move a muscle. “I wondered when you’d come looking for me. You’re home late. Again.”

“It’s the nature of the business,” I said as I walked toward him. “You know what it’s like.”

He dipped his head a fraction of an inch. “You’re very busy. Maybe too busy.”

“Only for a few more days,” I reminded him. “Once Mardi Gras is over, things will slow down.”

He nodded. Sipped. Let out a sigh that came from somewhere near the bottom of his soul.

I worried about how all this stress was affecting his heart. “How are you holding up,
Tío
? Are you feeling okay?”

“Physically?” He darted a glance at me. “I’m fine.”

“But…”

He turned back to the sky. “Your aunt is angry with me.”

“I noticed.” I pulled a chair around and sat beside him. “Does she have reason to be?”

He shook his head slowly, leaning forward slightly and resting his arms on his thighs. “For what happened at the party? No.”

I didn’t like that answer. It was too open-ended. Too full of negative possibilities. The twelve-year-old I’d been when Uncle Nestor took me in after my parents’ death wanted to let it go. Since the accident he’d been my rock. My protector. I wanted to protect him now. But my adult self knew I couldn’t leave his answer lying in the dark.

“But there’s some reason she feels this way.” It wasn’t a question.

Uncle Nestor let out another of those soul-wrenching sighs. “I suppose so.”

“You
suppose
so?”

“It happened a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

I gaped at him. “Aunt Yolanda is downstairs in bed. Alone. You’re up here staring at the stars. Alone. Apparently it matters.”

He tried to work up some irritation, but it lacked steam. “It’s between your aunt and me.”

“Yeah. Right.” I let out a sigh of my own and leaned back in my seat. Maybe the stars would have some answers for me. Nobody else seemed willing to give me any. “You know, I’m doing my best to help you, but you sure don’t make it easy. I understand you’re not big on sharing everything you feel, but would it hurt so much to talk to me?”

He turned his face to the sky again and I figured that was that. Our bonding moment was over. I was just about to give up and go downstairs to bed when he started talking.

“It was a long time ago. Before you came to us.”

I didn’t breathe for a few seconds. I didn’t want to do anything that would make him shut down again. Part of me wanted him to rip the bandage off the wound quickly, but I forced myself to wait.

“It was after Aaron was born,” he said. “I made a mistake. A stupid mistake. It meant nothing, but things were rough between Yolanda and me. She was exhausted. Tired from a difficult pregnancy and trying to care for four little boys who had way too much energy. I was exhausted and worried about the money. I had no idea how we’d make it, and every time I turned around, she was telling me about something else we needed to buy.”

“So you turned to someone else.”

He nodded miserably.

I didn’t know what to feel. He’d cheated on his wife. He’d betrayed her, and even though it had happened years ago, I felt as if he’d betrayed me. The idea of him being with someone else made me physically ill. But the pain on his face landed on my heart like a rock. “Did you love her?”

“No!” He dropped his head as if he simply didn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer. “It wasn’t about love. It was about fear. I hated the way I felt at home. I wasn’t making it. I didn’t think I
could
make it. Every time I walked through the door and saw Yolanda and the kids looking at me, I felt like a failure.”

I put my feet on the cement border in front of me. “That’s no excuse, you know.”

He laughed without humor. “Not an excuse, just an explanation. It only lasted three months, but I’ve been paying for it for the past thirty years.”

“She hasn’t forgiven you?”

The back door of the Thai restaurant next door opened with a loud squeak, followed by the clang of metal as someone tossed trash into the Dumpster. Uncle Nestor waited to speak until the door closed again.

“She’s forgiven me as much as it’s possible to forgive, I guess. Her God won’t let her do any less. But she hasn’t forgotten.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible to forget something like that,” I said. “At least, I don’t think I could. Not really.”

“Well, that’s fair,” he said with a sad smile. “I haven’t forgotten it either. And she’s a step ahead of me. I haven’t forgiven myself. I’m not sure I ever will.”

I put my hand on top of his and we sat in silence for a moment. But we weren’t finished. I still had questions to ask. “I went to see Susannah Boudreaux this afternoon.”

He looked confused. “Who’s that?”

“The woman you kissed at the party.”

“I didn’t kiss anyone at the party,
mija
. It was the other way around.”

I needed to hear him say that, but I couldn’t get distracted by sentiment. “That’s not what she says.”

“Then she’s lying.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” I pulled my hand away from his and scooted my chair closer. “Tell me what happened that night. Why did she kiss you?”

“I have no idea. I was standing by the pool, and all of a sudden she was there. We started talking.”

“About what?”

“About nothing. About the weather. About the food in the buffet. Small talk. I had no idea who she was. I didn’t care.”

“Then what? Think about it carefully. What happened right before she kissed you?”

He tilted his head to one side and gave that some thought. I waited, holding my breath until he shook his head. “I just don’t remember,
mija
. I wish I could.”

I wasn’t going to give up so easily. “Think,
Tío
. Did you see anyone else there?”

“There were many people there,” he said a little impatiently. “It was a party. But don’t ask me who any of them were, because I don’t know.”

“Did you see her talking to anyone else before she started talking to you?”

He looked up at me from hooded eyes. “She was arguing with Big Daddy. I remember feeling a little sorry for her. And I’ll confess that I was amused. He started to walk away in the middle of their argument, and she shouted that she’d show him. I can only guess that’s why she did what she did.”

“So, was this what your second argument with Big Daddy was about?”

Uncle Nestor rubbed his forehead. He looked tired, and I felt a pang of guilt for pushing him so hard. “Yes. He came back a few minutes later, just as that woman kissed me, and he was very angry. Called me a hypocrite.”

“Why?”

“He said I had some nerve blowing up when he made an innocent little comment about my wife, and then trying to…you know.”

“Hit on his wife?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t like that,
mija
. I didn’t want anything to do with her.”

“I believe you,” I said. “But I’m not the one who matters. Aunt Yolanda is really hurt.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do about it?” I asked.

He shook his head and got to his feet with a groan. “I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.”

I wanted desperately to believe him. I knew how easily a marriage could unravel, and I needed the two of them to show me that it didn’t have to be that way. “It would probably help if you told the police about what happened,” I said.

He gave me a thin smile. “I talked with your Detective Sullivan again yesterday. But I don’t want anyone else to know. Your cousins don’t know about the past, and I don’t want them to know.”

I could understand that, I suppose. At least he’d told Sullivan the truth, and that made me feel better than I’d felt in days.

“And you’re not to worry about this. It’s my life, Rita. My problem. I’ll deal with it.” He crossed the patio and disappeared through the door, no doubt believing that I’d back off.

I’d said the same thing to him more times than I could count while I was growing up, and it had never stopped him from sticking his nose in where I didn’t think it belonged. If he saw me in trouble, he was there whether I wanted him there or not.

I loved him enough to repay the favor.

Thirty-three

I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking about Uncle Nestor and Aunt Yolanda and wondering whether they’d be able to work through their issues. They’d worked through trouble before, I reminded myself several times. But there’s a big difference between forgiving someone for a single mistake and forgiving him for appearing to make the same mistake twice. I believed Uncle Nestor’s account of what happened with Susannah Boudreaux, but I wasn’t the one who mattered. If Aunt Yolanda thought Uncle Nestor’s eyes were wandering, he’d have a hard time convincing her otherwise.

After a long time, I got up and booted up my laptop. I found the memory card Estelle had given me at the party and began the arduous task of looking through more than two hundred pictures. I’d left the second memory card in my desk at work, so there were at least this many pictures waiting for me at Zydeco. I figured my odds of finding something useful were relatively high.

Since Ox wanted pictures of the party for the website, I kept that in mind as I scrolled through the images Estelle had captured, but frankly, photos for the website weren’t my top priority. I scanned shots of the crowd, looking for any of the major players in Big Daddy’s life. I spotted Big Daddy himself in several pictures, laughing with a group of men, flirting with a handful of women. I saw him heaping a plate at the buffet and putting an arm around Miss Frankie.

It was a little creepy looking at those pictures of a man who’d been killed just a few hours after the images were captured. I wondered if he’d had any sense of impending doom, or if he’d been surprised when the attack came.

I paid close attention to the pictures Estelle had taken near the pool, but I didn’t see anything that seemed either important or out of place. Frustrated, I downloaded the files to my computer, jotted down the file names of a handful of pictures I thought Ox might like, and tucked the memory card into my wallet so I could return it to Estelle.

By the time I’d finished, I was tired enough to sleep—or at least give it a good try. I tossed and turned all night, waking myself every time I turned over. I was up again with the sun and walked through the door at Zydeco a few minutes after six.

I spent the morning working on the carved Mardi Gras mask for the cake we had to deliver next week, first sculpting the general shape using a serrated knife, then concentrating on the details until I was satisfied with the size and shape. I made a fresh batch of fondant, stirring together corn syrup and shortening, adding salt and vanilla, and finally blending in the confectioner’s sugar and stirring until I had stiff dough. I bypassed the electric mixer and kneaded the fondant by hand. It’s the best way I know to work through my frustrations.

I spent the rest of the morning cutting out shapes for the Mardi Gras cake, measuring carefully, and storing them in airtight containers so they’d still be pliable when I was ready to use them the next day.

After grabbing a quick lunch from the market down the street, I took my place on the King Cake line, and finally moved into my office around four to check the second memory card. It was slow going and tedious work, but I wouldn’t let myself quit until I’d gone through every shot.

I hit pay dirt after only two hundred and fourteen pictures. I’d started zoning out, paying more attention to the headache forming behind my eyes than the images on the screen in front of me. And then, suddenly, there it was.

Estelle had been shooting one of the outdoor tables, but she’d caught Susannah Boudreaux at the edge of the picture. Susannah stood near the swimming pool, her face rigid with anger, her eyes filled with fury. In front of her was Big Daddy’s assistant, Violet, who jabbed at Susannah’s chest with one finger. Violet’s mouth was open wide, giving the impression that she’d been shouting.

I’d fallen into a rhythm as I moved through row after row of photographs, and my finger clicked on the mouse button to move on almost before my brain registered what I’d just seen. I sat up with a jerk and clicked the back button on the browser window so I could study the picture more closely.

I focused on the two women at first, studying their expressions and body language. Clearly, there was no love lost between them. As my focus broadened, I began to notice other details. There, just behind Susannah, the blurry face of Judd Boudreaux. And to her right, Ivanka Hedge.

My heart beat erratically as I sent the image to print and moved on. I had less than a hundred photographs to go, but my hopes were higher than they’d been in days. If Estelle had captured one argument with her camera, maybe she’d inadvertently caught another one.

Luck was with me just twenty-one pictures later when I found a picture of Big Daddy and Percy standing a little apart from the rest of the crowd. That was interesting enough, considering the fact that Percy denied talking with Big Daddy again before he died. But what I found most interesting was the look on Percy’s face.

He looked angry enough to kill.

It wasn’t yet five o’clock, so I printed both pictures and tucked them into my purse, then drove across town to the address I found online for Big Daddy’s corporate office. It was located in a single-story building that squatted between two of his car dealerships.

Inside, the scent of stale coffee filled the air, and a brunette receptionist who looked all of sixteen sat behind a small desk and tapped slowly on a computer keyboard. She looked at me with bored disinterest, and I told her why I was there.

She made a couple of calls in an effort to track down Violet’s whereabouts. After the second one, she pointed me toward a waiting area consisting of a handful of plastic chairs near a coffeepot in the corner and assured me that Violet would be with me in a few minutes.

I thanked her and started away. Big Daddy’s operation wasn’t what I’d call classy, but it was certainly big. From where I stood, I could see cars in every direction. Chevrolet to the left of me, Nissan to the right, and a large used car lot across the street. These weren’t his only enterprises either, and for the first time the sheer scope of his business struck me. I wondered who’d take up the reins now that Big Daddy was gone. Would Judd inherit? Would it all pass on to the next generation of Boudreauxes? Or would Susannah get it all? Getting control of that fortune might have been a motive for murder.

I changed my mind about the stale coffee midstep and turned back toward the receptionist with what I hoped looked like a friendly smile. “I’m sorry about your loss, by the way. It must be difficult to come to work after what happened.”

She looked away from the computer screen as if my comment confused her, but she nodded and swept a lock of hair from her shoulder. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, who’d want to kill Big Daddy?”

That’s what I wanted to know. “So he was a good boss?”

“Yeah. Sure. He was a real nice man.”

Yeah. Sure. “I guess his death has made things kind of difficult around here,” I said. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to all of this now that he’s gone?”

The girl’s expression sobered. “I don’t know. We’re supposed to have a meeting next week, and I guess they’ll tell us then.”

I was pretty sure Sullivan would know who inherited Big Daddy’s fortune. I just wondered if he’d share that information with me. “Have the police been around asking questions?”

She rolled her eyes as if to say I’d asked a foolish question. “They were here for a couple of days, looking in all our files, checking stuff on the computer. It was awful.”

I started to say something sympathetic, but I heard the sharp staccato of rapid footsteps approaching, and an instant later Violet rounded a corner. She looked curious and hesitant until she spotted me. Then her expression turned sour and wary. She nudged her glasses up on her nose and scowled as if I’d just ruined her day. “Can I help you?”

I pretended not to notice the way her mouth puckered up as if she’d tasted something bitter. “I don’t know if you remember me,” I said. “I’m Rita Lucero. We met at the Musterion party.”

She dipped her head slightly. “I remember you. What can I do for you?”

“Is there somewhere we could talk privately? I’d like to ask you a couple of questions if that’s okay.”

Her mouth puckered a little tighter. “This is a really bad time. If you’ll call tomorrow, I’ll see if I can arrange a time to meet with you.”

I was pretty sure that if I walked out the door, I’d never get this close to her again. “It will only take a minute,” I said.

She turned to leave. “Not now. Call to make an appointment.”

I wasn’t about to let her walk out on me, so I called after her. “Why was Percy Ponter so upset with Big Daddy the night of the murder?”

She stopped walking and turned around wearing an icy expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Would you like me to refresh your memory here, or would you rather talk privately?”

Her nostrils flared slightly. “I can give you five minutes,” she snapped. She started walking again, and I had to jog a little to keep up with her.

I trailed her down a narrow corridor to a corner office with windows lining both outside walls. I guessed that it had been Big Daddy’s office when he was alive. She sat behind a massive desk that had probably been just right for her former boss, but dwarfed her.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing—” she began.

I cut her off before she could finish. “It’s not a game. Susannah Boudreaux is trying to accuse my uncle of killing Big Daddy, and I’m going to prove her wrong. What do you know about Big Daddy’s dealings with Percy Ponter?”

“Nothing.”

Nice try. I held her gaze and said, “I don’t believe you. I have a feeling you knew just about everything there was to know about Big Daddy’s business dealings. How does Percy fit into the picture?”

“Why should I tell you?”

Her attitude was starting to get on my nerves. “Why not tell me? Unless you have something to hide. Why was Percy so upset with Big Daddy the night of the murder?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I have. Now I want to hear what you have to say.”

She smirked, and I saw some of her tension fall away, as if she’d just dodged a bullet. “It wasn’t anything important,” she said. “Percy’s…excitable. He tends to overreact to things.”

“What things? Were they in business together?”

“Big Daddy and Percy? No.”

“So then why did Susannah tell Big Daddy he had to make things right with Percy before the end of the night?”

Hostility flashed across her face. “How would I know why Susannah did anything?”

I ignored her question and asked another one of my own. “And why did you tell Big Daddy that you’d be backing Percy’s story?”

Her face froze, and her eyes took on a deer-in-the-headlights look. She blinked and it disappeared. “That was about an upcoming krewe meeting. Nothing important.”

“And Susannah’s ultimatum?”

Her lip curled. “I have no idea.”

“I take it you don’t like her.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” I pulled the picture of the two of them arguing from my purse and put it on the desk in front of her. “What was going on here?”

She glanced at the picture, then up at me. “Where did you get that?”

I still didn’t know if she’d conked Big Daddy over the head with the statue, so I wasn’t about to give up Estelle’s name. I said only, “That’s not important. What were the two of you arguing about?”

Violet’s gaze went back and forth between the picture and me a few times before she finally responded. “So we were arguing. So what?”

I bit back the sarcastic retort that rose to my lips and explained what should have been obvious. “I’m trying to piece together what was going on in Big Daddy’s life before he died. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think this argument had something to do with him.”

Violet rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair. “Yeah? Well, you’re right. It did.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “She found out that you and Big Daddy were sleeping together.”

Her cheeks flushed and her gaze faltered. “You make it sound so cheap.”

Yeah, well, if it walks like a duck…“So you were having an affair.”

“Bradley and I were in love. We were going to be together once Mardi Gras was over.”

“I’m guessing that Susannah found out about you?”

“That’s right. She wasn’t too happy about it either.”

I didn’t know whether to believe that or not. None of these people seemed to truly love each other. But what did I know? “She certainly looks like she was angry with you. Was she also angry with him?”

Violet nodded and her expression sobered. “She was furious with him. He’d been intending to tell her about us for a few weeks, but every time he got ready to have the talk, she’d come up with some emergency so he wouldn’t. First it was something with his brother. Then it was something with one of his kids. They live with their mother, but they used to stay with their father on the weekends. I swear, Susannah knew what was coming and she did everything she could to keep it from happening.”

“Even though she was seeing someone else on the side?”