Arsenic and Old Cake

by Jacklyn Brady

  Pastor Rod put a hand on Monroe’s shoulder. “It’s not what you think. He didn’t kill Dontae.”

  A soft gasp escaped Miss Frankie’s lips and too late I remembered I hadn’t told her about the murder. She didn’t say a word, however, and I made a mental note to thank her for going with the flow. “Maybe not,” I agreed, “but running off with the Love Nest’s van may not have been the best way to convince people of that.”

  Miss Frankie looked back and forth between us as we spoke, and suddenly the light went on in her eyes. “Monroe Magee! Of course, you’re the missing brother!”

  Monroe flinched as if she’d tried to hit him, but then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Wait a minute. What do you know about my brother?”

  “I can explain,” I said. “But it may take a few minutes, and I think we’d all be more comfortable if we could sit while we talk. Is there somewhere we can go?”

  Pastor Rod looked a little less friendly than usual, but he bowed stiffly and led us into the sanctuary. He spent a few minutes turning on lights and air-conditioning to relieve the stuffiness. Miss Frankie and I sat on the front pew. The pastor brought chairs for himself and Monroe so we could face each other.

  “Let me start by making a confession of my own,” I said when I couldn’t avoid it any longer. “My name is not Mrs. Broussard. I’m Rita Lucero. Gabriel Broussard and I are just friends.”

  Pastor Rod creased his brow in confusion. “You came to the inn for a weekend tryst?”

  Lightning flashed again, and a deep peel of thunder shook the windows. “Nothing like that,” I said. “We checked in and pretended to be married because Monroe’s brother asked us to.”

  Monroe rocked back in his chair so hard it nearly toppled over. “Donald had you check up on me?”

  First of all, Donald? And second, his outrage ticked me off. “Can you blame him? You took off without a word, and you stayed away for forty years. He didn’t even know if you were alive or dead.”

  “You think I wanted to disappear like that? I didn’t have a choice! And if he cares that much, why didn’t he just come and see me like I axed him to in my letter?”

  “Because he wasn’t sure it really was you. I mean, what kind of letter was that, anyway? Hey, I’m back. Stop by if you want. So he asked us to find out if you were the real deal or a con man up to no good.”

  Monroe snorted, but a fresh deluge of rain drumming on the roof swallowed the sound. “All he had to do was come and talk to me. He coulda told who I was with one look.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I snapped. “He lost his eyesight to glaucoma awhile back. He wasn’t sure he could tell just from talking to you, so he told us where to find your birthmark.”

  Monroe shot a look at his shoulder as if he’d forgotten the birthmark existed, and all of his outrage vanished. “You telling me the truth? Donald’s blind?”

  “Yes, he is,” I said, and Miss Frankie nodded confirmation. “He asked Gabriel and me for help, and we were happy to give it. He’s been worried sick about you for forty years, and you haven’t even bothered to let him know that you’re alive and well.”

  As I spoke, Monroe began to hang his head, which I thought was exactly what he should have done. He should have felt ashamed of himself. But then I caught the look on Miss Frankie’s face and realized that, on the shame front, I wasn’t off the hook either.

  She cleared her throat and clasped her hands on her lap—the very picture of a genteel Southern lady except for her rain-drenched clothes and her drowned-rat hair. “Now, don’t be so hard on the poor man, Rita. I’m sure he has an explanation, just as I’m sure he’ll give it to Donald when they finally get together.”

  A grateful smile tugged at Monroe’s lips. “That’s right, ma’am. I surely will. Just as soon as I get out of this mess I’m in.”

  “Monroe is trying to make his life right with God,” Pastor Rod said. “He came to me seeking sanctuary. I couldn’t turn him away.”

  I guess I couldn’t fault him for that. I’d probably have done the same thing in his place. “I know you haven’t notified the police that he’s here. Am I right in guessing that you haven’t told the others at the Love Nest?”

  Pastor Rod shook his head. “I don’t think they’d understand.”

  I had a feeling he was right about that. “Why were you seeking sanctuary?” I asked Monroe. “Because you thought you’d be accused of murder or because you thought someone was trying to kill you, too?”

  Monroe looked at me strangely. “Because I know what happened to Dontae.”

  Miss Frankie leaned forward. “You saw? You know who killed that poor man?”

  Monroe shook his head. “No. I wish I did. I was looking at the van that night.” His eyes shot to mine, and a little excitement seemed to energize him. “You remember. You were there. Hyacinth said it wasn’t working.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I was late back inside to dinner, so they saved me a plate.”

  “Hyacinth did? I thought she didn’t serve latecomers . . . or guests.”

  Monroe snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Well, I wasn’t really a guest, and I was staying in the annex with the others, so they included me.”

  “Which is only polite,” Miss Frankie put in.

  Right. “So Hyacinth saved some dinner for you.”

  “Truth is, I don’t know who made the plate. It was just there in the kitchen, covered with plastic wrap and a piece of paper with my name on it. I was hungry, don’t mind telling you that. I put it in the microwave to heat it up and then Dontae came in.”

  “Into the kitchen?”

  He nodded. “Like he was watching for me, you know? He was mad. Said I had no business comin’ back to New Orl’ns. He wasn’t the only one who felt that way either.”

  Pastor Rod sighed, and we shared a look of agreement.

  “So what else did he say? What did he want you to do?” I asked.

  “He told me to get the hell out, so that’s what I did.”

  “But not right then,” I said.

  “No. Not until later. Only thing I know for sure is, Dontae didn’t try to kill me. If he had, he never woulda eaten from that plate.”

  “The plate that someone left for you in the kitchen?”

  Monroe nodded. “He went off on me pretty bad. I didn’t have no appetite when he finished, so I just left the plate. He grabbed it and dug in like he hadn’t already had a dinner. An hour later, he was dead. But it coulda been me out there in the garden. Maybe it shoulda been me.”

  “You see why I had to keep quiet about Monroe being here?” the pastor said. “Someone may have tried to kill him, and considering what happened at Letterman Industries, calling the police wasn’t an option. I couldn’t put him in danger by telling anyone else he was here.”

  “I understand,” I said at the exact moment Miss Frankie said, “You really had no choice, Pastor.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “What were you going to do, Monroe? Hide out here for the rest of your life?”

  He shook his head and frowned. “No, but I figured I could lie low until the heat was off.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Sooner or later, someone would have figured out where you were. But here’s the thing: the poison wasn’t in the dinner. It was in a bowl of pudding Dontae ate while he was in his room. Was that part of the meal?”

  Monroe looked shocked. “Pudding? No. I didn’t see anything like that.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe it was in the fridge or something.”

  Monroe rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as if looking for the answer there. After a minute, he shook his head slowly. “Nope. I woulda noticed that. Got me a bit of a sweet tooth.”

  If the pudding that Dontae ate wasn’t part of Monroe’s meal, maybe Monroe hadn’t been the intended victim after all. And that was a game changer. “So does that mean someone meant to kill Dontae?” I said.

  Pastor Rod looked shaken. “So it would appear, but tha
t doesn’t make any sense. Who would have wanted him dead?”

  I understood why the idea rattled him. It seemed pretty obvious that someone from the Love Nest had laced that pudding with the poison and then served it up to someone they’d called friend for nearly half a century. How could anyone be that cold? “Did any of the others have issues with Dontae?” I asked gently.

  Pastor Rod shook his head. “Not that I know of. We’ve all been friends for years, but nobody has ever talked to me about having a problem with Dontae.”

  “What about you?” I asked Monroe. “Do you know if anyone had an issue with Dontae, or did he have any arguments while you were there?”

  “Sorry. No. But, you know, I’ve only been back in town a few days. I barely know any of them anymore. All I know is that about an hour after we talked in the kitchen I saw Dontae go outside. He looked sick. ‘Fact, he threw up right there. I figured he got sick on the food that was left for me, and I had a bad feeling about it.”

  Miss Frankie looked confused. “Why was that?”

  “I knew what some of those guys was capable of, didn’t I? And you saw the way they acted toward me. I was pretty sure my ass would be grass if I stayed.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked. “What are they capable of?”

  Monroe slid a glance toward Pastor Rod and followed up with a shrug. “Couple of ’em used to be pretty hotheaded. You know . . . back in the day.”

  “Cleveland still gets a little hot under the collar,” I said. “Did you see anyone hanging around Dontae’s room or hear someone moving around in the hall? Anything?”

  Monroe shook his head. “Sorry.”

  The thought crossed my mind that maybe someone had killed Dontae to frame Monroe, but that seemed like a real stretch. Who would kill a friend to hurt an enemy? Still, there had to be some reason for Dontae’s death. Someone had put that poison in the pudding and had been careful enough not to leave fingerprints behind. “What else did Dontae say to you that night?” I asked Monroe.

  He ran a hand across his face and thought back. “He said I’d ruined everybody’s lives.” He turned to Pastor Rod as if looking for understanding. “Said it was my fault Willie died in prison. Said if I hadn’t tripped the alarm that night, none of it would have happened.”

  “But they were all in on the robbery,” I pointed out. “They were all just as guilty as you were.”

  “Try telling them that,” Monroe said sullenly. “They still think that if I hadn’t been there, they’d a been in and out. Nobody woulda been caught. Tyrone wouldn’t a been killed.”

  Pastor Rod nodded slowly. “I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. Wondering whether things might have turned out differently. It’s impossible to say, of course, but some of the guys have convinced themselves that Monroe and Willie were solely responsible for Tyrone’s death. They’ve managed to separate the robbery from the murder in their own minds. I suppose they had to do that to live with the guilt.”

  Big tears filled Monroe’s eyes. “But I didn’t know. I didn’t know. You know that, Rod. You know I didn’t do nothin’ on purpose.” Monroe mopped his face again and his shoulders began to quake. “Tyrone was my friend. I woulda never hurt him. I didn’t know Willie and the others was packing.”

  I froze for a moment while that thought sank in. “Wait a minute. You mean Willie wasn’t the only one with a gun that night?”

  Monroe blinked a couple of times, confused. “They all had ’em. Dontae and Cleveland both had ’em. So did Grey.”

  “Did they pull their guns?”

  Monroe’s shoulders sagged. The more agitated he became, the more he sounded like his brother. “Ever’body did. Ever’body. I was da only person in dat whole place didn’t have no gun.”

  My nerve endings tingled, and I leaned forward, wanting to make eye contact so he’d understand how important my next question was. “In that case, are you sure it was Willie who pulled the trigger?”

  Monroe looked surprised by my question. He shared a look with Pastor Rod, who now looked pretty rattled himself. “Yeah. I’m sure. He said he done it, didn’t he?”

  I nodded. “That’s what he said, but what if someone else actually took the shot that killed Tyrone?” There had been six men in that warehouse, not counting “Hot Rod,” and three of them were now dead. “When you came back to town and stirred up the past, maybe the real killer got nervous. And if Dontae knew the truth, that would give somebody a pretty solid motive for wanting him dead.”

  Monroe shook his head again. “It wasn’t like that. Willie did it. He must have. Why would he go to prison if he didn’t?”

  “That’s a very good question,” I said, musing over the possibilities his story had brought up. “So you don’t know for sure who actually killed Tyrone?”

  Monroe looked miserable. “Not one-hundred-percent sure, no. But if Willie didn’t pull the trigger that night, whoever did would of said something, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t of looked Hyacinth in the eye and lied when we were talking about it the other night.”

  Pastor Rod looked uncomfortable. “No, I’m sure he wouldn’t have.”

  They both had more faith in their friends than I did. “What night did you talk about it?” I asked.

  “Wednesday?” Monroe tilted his head and thought. “No, it must of been Thursday. Wasn’t it?”

  Pastor nodded. “Yes, I believe it was.”

  “And the very next night, Dontae was killed.” Interesting.

  Monroe looked back and forth between Pastor Rod and me. “Well . . . yeah. But that’s not why. It couldn’t be.”

  The pastor looked away so quickly, I could almost smell guilt on his conscience. “I take it you don’t agree, Pastor?”

  He met my gaze with obvious reluctance. “I don’t know what to think anymore,” he admitted sadly. “Our conversation that night may have stirred things up a bit.”

  “How so?”

  “None of us knew that there was any doubt that Willie pulled the trigger and killed Tyrone,” he said. “Not until Monroe came back.”

  Oh, but he was wrong about that. One person had known, and I had a feeling that person was now dead. And I wasn’t really any closer to understanding who had wanted him that way.

  Thirty-two

  The storm and meeting up with Pastor Rod and Monroe had put a crimp in our property inspection plans. I placed a call to Sullivan while Miss Frankie and I waited out the rainstorm at the church. His cell phone went straight to voice mail, and his number at the precinct rotated there after several rings, so I figured he was out on a case somewhere. I left messages at both numbers telling him I’d found Monroe and that I had more information about the robbery at Letterman Industries, and I asked him to call me as soon as humanly possible.

  When the rain finally abated, I told Monroe to stay where he was and asked Pastor Rod to keep him safe, then escorted Miss Frankie back outside. Neither of us spoke until we were back inside the car, buckled up, and Miss Frankie was merging into traffic. “I’m sorry about that back there,” I said. “I know it couldn’t have been easy for you hearing the pastor refer to Gabriel as your son.”

  “No,” she said softly. “It wasn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t approve of us pretending to be married, but nothing happened between Gabriel and me. It wasn’t like that.”

  “I believe you.” But Miss Frankie clearly wasn’t happy. It was written all over her face.

  Droplets hit the windshield, signaling that another bout of rain was about to hit. I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment, trying to decide on the best approach to take now. “Miss Frankie, you know I love you,” I said, sliding a glance at her to see how she reacted to that.

  She blinked, once.

  “When Philippe and I got married, I was deeply in love with him. But you also know that when he died, we were in the middle of a divorce. You know he was about to get married again.”

  I could see Miss Frankie tense, ready to argue, so I rushed on. “I
know, I know. It doesn’t make any sense to me either, but that’s how it was. I get that you want to believe we would have gotten back together if he’d lived, but the fact is, our marriage was over. He’d moved on, and it’s time for me to do the same.”

  “I know that,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I do understand how the world works, Rita. And I think I’ve been quite understanding about your social life.”

  I smiled a little. “You have been. And for the record, I’m not interested in getting seriously involved with anyone right now. I have too much on my plate trying to get Zydeco back on its feet and establishing my professional reputation here in New Orleans. But I need to believe that you’re not going to freak out if I occasionally date someone.”

  We stopped at a traffic light, and she took her eyes off the road for a moment. Her expression showed no signs of imminent irrational behavior, so I let myself relax.

  “My concerns have nothing to do with that,” she said. “I told you what worried me. Maybe I’m too stuffy or a bit old-fashioned, but Zydeco’s reputation is important to me. I don’t want anything to ruin it.”

  “It’s important to me, too,” I assured her. “I just . . .” I let my voice trail away while I tried to figure out how to explain what I was feeling.

  She took advantage of my silence. “Rita, I don’t object to you dating. I know you’re going to move on. Just be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt. You’re all I have left.”

  I laughed and put my hand on her arm. “Believe me, I don’t want that either. But I have some bad news for you, Miss Frankie. Unless you decide to dissolve our partnership at Zydeco, you’re stuck with me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  Miss Frankie dropped me at home, and I checked my cell phone for messages as I watched her drive away. I wasn’t really surprised that I hadn’t heard from Sullivan yet. If he was on a case, it could be hours before he called back. But I was worried about Monroe and Pastor Rod. If I’d found them at the Fifth Street Church, someone else could, too. I ran over what they’d told me as I let myself inside. Those old people had kept their secret for forty years without killing one another, so it seemed reasonable to assume that Monroe’s return was the catalyst that had prompted one of them to strike out.