I crossed the street and headed over to the bakery. Ally was doing a brisk business and had a line of people at the counter. A young woman I’d never seen before was behind the counter with her. Since she was wearing a T-shirt with the bakery logo on it and currently stuffing muffins in a bag for a customer, I assumed Ally had hired some help.
Twenty-ish. Five foot five. A hundred fifteen pounds. Good muscle tone. Threat level lower than the blood sugar spike those muffins would give me.
Ida Belle and Gertie had taken up residence at a table in the back corner and were sipping lattes. There was a plate of some kind of Danish-looking thing in my spot, along with a latte, and I sank into the chair with a smile.
“I guess you haven’t had a chance to harass Ally about Mannie,” I said, pointing at the counter.
“Not even a millisecond,” Gertie said. “That line hasn’t stopped since we walked in.”
“It’s great for Ally, though,” Ida Belle said. “And besides, if she doesn’t want to talk about her and Mannie, she doesn’t have to. Some people prefer to keep their romantic entanglements from public consumption.”
“Says the queen of the down-low,” Gertie said. “Just how long were you and Walter on the sly before you agreed to marry him?”
Ida Belle grinned. “I’ll never tell.”
“Who’s the new girl?” I asked.
They both shook their heads.
“Never seen her before,” Gertie said. “If things ever clear in here, we’ll find out.”
Ally saw me sit down and gave me a hurried wave. She looked both tired and energized at the same time, but that made sense. She’d worried about opening her bakery in such a small town, thinking there might not be enough business to support it. But if the past weeks were any indication of future performance, I’d say Ally had a very busy year ahead of her.
She’d already gotten standing orders from a couple of office buildings and the ‘good’ hotel up the highway, and the churches had both placed orders every week for one type of meeting or another. Even Francine had become a customer, thrilled to give up the super-early-morning baking that had been her routine for decades. It was no wonder Ally had hired someone. She’d been living on a couple hours’ sleep for weeks now.
I took a bite of whatever it was in front of me and groaned. “Maybe we should pool our money and open a seamstress shop,” I said. “This bakery is going to increase waistlines.”
“That’s the benefit of age and the acceptability of elastic-waist pants,” Gertie said.
“My yoga pants are elastic waist,” I said.
“They’re formfitting so that doesn’t count,” Gertie said.
We continued eating the decadence on a plate and after about ten minutes, the line finally cleared out and Ally came over and sank into the chair next to me and motioned for the new girl to come over as well.
“Ladies, this is Lillie Mae Wilson,” Allie said. “She’s Francine’s cousin from north Louisiana and my new employee. Thank God.”
“Ask Him for a miracle and He’ll drop a hard worker in your bakery,” Gertie said.
Ally nodded and gave our names. “These ladies are my best friends in Sinful.”
We all exchanged greetings and then Ida Belle and Gertie started with the required inquisition.
“Why did you move to Sinful?” Gertie asked.
“My dad got a job transfer,” she said. “They’d been wanting to move but he’d been putting it off so I could finish high school.”
“You didn’t want to go with them?” Ida Belle asked.
“To Singapore?” She laughed. “Figuring out the rest of my life is hard enough in the States. I didn’t want to add a whole other language and culture to the mix. Not now, anyway. But they’ve always wanted to go, and I’ll be happy to visit.”
“So you’re staying with Francine?” I asked.
She nodded. “Francine has always been that cousin I looked up to. She’s talented and accomplished. Her café is awesome.”
“But you’re working here,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t figure it was a grand idea to work with someone all day and live with them all night,” she said. “Neither did Francine, which is why she asked Ally about needing help.”
Ally nodded. “Since I took over the majority of the baking for the café, Francine is part of the reason I need that help. And Lillie Mae has a great career ahead of her as a cake decorator. She is very talented.”
Lillie Mae blushed. “Ally is exaggerating. I still have so much to learn, but working here is going to be great for that. I’m a decent artist, but if the cake tastes like crap, it doesn’t matter how pretty it is.”
“Everything that comes out of Ally’s kitchen tastes like angels made it,” Gertie said.
“I know!” Lillie Mae said. “I start classes at a culinary school twice a week in a couple months. Between the classes and working with Ally, I’ll learn everything I need to know about baking. But the sampling is killing me.”
“I have the same problem,” I said.
Lillie Mae looked confused. “You’re in great shape.”
“She runs more than an entire Olympic marathon team,” Gertie said.
I nodded. “Because I’m friends with Ally. Well, and beer.”
Everyone laughed and then a timer went off in the kitchen. Lillie Mae jumped up.
“I’ll get it,” she said. “I love the smell of banana nut muffins just out of the oven.”
Ally smiled as she walked off to the kitchen.
“She’s been a lifesaver,” Ally said. “Pays attention to everything and remembers it all the first time. She’s friendly with the customers—even the difficult ones—and it’s not an act. She’s even cheerful when doing tedious and dirty jobs.”
“She’s a Stepford Baker,” Gertie said.
“Just young and ambitious and had some good raising,” Ida Belle said. “Like another baker we know.”
Ally blushed at the compliment.
“This is the first time the place has been empty since I opened today,” Ally said. “There was actually a line of people waiting when I flipped the blinds. Startled the heck out of me. It wasn’t even daylight yet.”
“A good problem to have,” Ida Belle said.
“Definitely better than the alternative,” I said.
“No new cases, I guess?” Ally asked.
I shook my head. “I’m all done with my insurance work. I think some more is coming in next week, but they never take long. People are so stupid. I rarely need more than two outings to catch them doing things they’re not supposed to.”
“Well, I suppose you could always wander into uncharted territory,” she said. “I heard Brock Benoit was found dead at the motel.”
There was an intake of breath and we looked over to see a young woman standing in the doorway of the bakery.
Midtwenties. Five foot four. A hundred forty pounds. Decent muscle tone in arms but offset by her clearly lacking cardiovascular fitness. Zero threat unless she was holding one of the toddlers she babysat, because I was guessing this was Gina Tassin.
Ally jumped up from her seat and rushed over. “Gina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you come in. Please sit down. I’ll get you some water.”
Ally guided Gina to a seat at our table and hurried off for the water. Gina took in a deep breath and slowly blew it out before looking over at Gertie.
“Is it true, Ms. Hebert?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Gertie said. “There hasn’t been an official announcement, but we have it on good authority.”
“And you’re sure it’s Brock?” she asked as Ally put a glass of water in front of her, then sat down. “He hasn’t…he never comes…”
Gertie nodded. “I saw him myself last night at the parade and the police identified him. I’m sorry you had to hear about his death like this. It must be a blow.”
A flush began to creep up her neck, replacing the earlier pallor, and she shook her head. “Honestly, I’m more shocked that he had the nerve to step foot in Sinful than I am that he’s dead. I’ve been expecting to hear that for years.”
“What do you mean?” Gertie asked.
She shrugged. “Just the way he did things. He drank like crazy in high school and I know he tried some of the hard stuff when he had the opportunity. It was his personality. He and RJ were alike that way. So when they took off together, I figured sooner or later we’d be reading an obituary for one of them. I’m only surprised it took this long.”
“Did you have any contact with him after he left?” I asked.
“I haven’t heard one word from that coward,” she said, clearly angry. “I hunted him down after I had the baby—sent him texts and emails and left messages. He never answered.”
“Were you getting some financial support at least?” Ida Belle asked.
“Ha! My daddy hauled me to a lawyer, and he filed all the stuff to get child support, but Brock didn’t have what you’d call a regular job. My guess is no one would keep him on long enough for the child support documents to catch up with him anyway, or he was working side jobs for cash. Either way, you can’t collect when there’s no money.”
“What about the music?” I asked. “Did he make some money off that one song?”
“If he did, I didn’t see any of it,” she said and narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re that CIA lady, right?”
“Fortune Redding,” I said and nodded. “Sorry we’re not meeting under better circumstances.”
“Oh, the circumstances are fine by me,” she said. “Probably gonna be even finer by my daddy.”
I cringed a bit. “Um, you might want to give him fair warning when you lay the good news on him.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Brock’s death is being treated as suspicious,” I said.
Ally sucked in a breath and Gina’s expression changed to confused, then shocked.
“You’re saying Brock was murdered?” Gina asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “When the police treat it as suspicious, they start the investigative process to provide evidence to help the ME make a decision. The ME has the final say, but suspicious means it wasn’t obviously natural causes.”
“Did you talk to Carter?” Ida Belle asked.
I nodded. “He came in the General Store after you guys left. He was off to start questioning people, so it’s no secret at this point.”
Gina straightened in her chair. “And you think he’s going to question my father? Unbelievable! That sorry excuse for a human being has caused so much trouble for my family and he’s managing to cause even more dead. This isn’t right.”
“I know it seems unfair,” Gertie said, “but your father has a motive for wanting to harm Brock.”
“He might have had a motive years ago,” Gina said. “But he also knew that Brock leaving was the best thing that could have happened for me and my son. My father is the only man in my son’s life, and he needs him. So do I. There’s no way he’d risk our family to settle a score with Brock. It isn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it.”
“Don’t worry,” Ally said. “You know Carter and you know he’s not going to railroad anyone. He’ll find out who did it, but he has to question everyone. Trust me, I’ve been a suspect myself, so I know how crappy it feels.”
Her eyes widened. “You were a suspect in a murder investigation?”
Ally nodded. “And…uh, you’re probably going to be as well.”
“Me!” Her jaw dropped. “I couldn’t…oh my God. If you only knew how much I hate Brock right now. He changed the entire course of my life. And now that I’ve finally accepted that I’ll never do the things I wanted to, like college and a career, and I’ve created something in Sinful for myself and my son, he’s upended everything again.”
“I wouldn’t volunteer how much you hate him,” Gertie said gently. “We all get it, of course, but the only thing that can help you right now is an alibi. Did you go to the parade?”
“No way I was going to watch that bi—fake cow RJ lord over the town,” Gina said. “I spent my teen years watching her in all her perfection. Her mother lives right behind us, you know. Every weekend, RJ was out back in a lawn chair, tanning her perfect body with her perfect nails and perfect hair. Her mother paid a fortune for her salon visits. For a high school girl.”
“The snooty vein always ran deep with Sawyer-James,” Gertie said. “She raised RJ to be the same.”
“Well, she did a great job instilling that snobbery,” Gina said, “because RJ never grew out of it. When I was in the backyard playing with the kids the day of the parade, she was in her bedroom, strolling back and forth in front of that big picture window she has, all dolled up in her evening gown. She knew I could see her. She used to do the same thing every weekend when we were in high school. I’d be sitting in my backyard reading a book and she’d be ready for a date and just flaunting it because she knew I didn’t have one.”
“The more I hear about her, the lovelier she sounds,” I said.
Gina gave my sarcasm an appreciative nod. “When the kids were distracted, I gave her the finger. It was childish, but it felt good.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Gina said. “I refused to look up again.”
“Bet that killed her,” Ida Belle said. “Getting in the last word is part of RJ’s genetic makeup.”
“So you stayed home with your son and your father on parade night?” I asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “Billy had a sleepover at a friend’s house and my dad was playing poker with friends.”
“And you?” I asked.
She sighed. “The parents of the kids I watch have today off, so I have a holiday as well. Since I didn’t have to be up early today, and I’d spent part of the afternoon working up a humongous mad over RJ, I went to the store and bought way too many snacks and a bottle of wine. I went straight from my car to the back patio and sat right in my favorite lawn chair and consumed everything in that bag. Woke up some time after midnight with a raging headache and a crick in my neck. I’ve never been much of a drinker, so I went inside, got promptly sick, then went to bed.”
“You didn’t hear your dad come in?” I asked.
“I could have had a brass band next to me and I wouldn’t have heard them,” she said. “I forgot to turn off my alarm and didn’t hear it for almost twenty minutes this morning. I’ve been sitting in my room in the dark since I got up. I finally came to the bakery for some croissants. It’s the only thing I could think of eating without feeling sick again.”
“Been there,” Gertie said and patted her hand. “Try not to worry. It will just make things worse.”
She shook her head and rose from the table. “That’s what people have been telling me ever since I got pregnant. But the worry never stops. Even though I know I didn’t do anything to Brock, I have to worry about people thinking I did. Or that my dad did. Then I have to worry about how they’ll treat Billy because of the rumors that will fly, especially if Carter never catches the guy who did it. And worst of all, at some point, I have to explain to my son that his father—whom he still asks about—is dead.”
She headed for the door and Ally jumped up. “Wait!”
Ally ran behind the counter and shoved some croissants in a bag and hurried them over to Gina. “I hope you feel better, and if you need to talk, you know where to find me.”
Gina gave her a small smile. “You always were the nicest person in Sinful.”
She headed out the door and Ally looked over at us, clearly upset.
“I know we told her not to worry, but this really isn’t good, is it?” Ally asked.
“Hard to say,” I said. “Assuming it is murder and if the ME can pin down time of death, maybe her father was still playing cards. That would give him an alibi, at least.”
“But if it happened in the middle of the night, then it’s more likely everyone was asleep in their homes except the person who killed Brock,” Ally said. “So anyone sleeping alone has opportunity.”
“But we don’t all have motive,” I said.
“But too many people who do have a motive and didn’t do it won’t have alibis either,” Ally said. “Gina and her father, specifically, because there’s no way she killed someone. She’s had a rough enough time already. And she’s right—if Carter doesn’t pin Brock’s murder on someone else—she or her father will be the default in everyone’s mind, even if they’re never charged.”
Gertie nodded. “And living here won’t be pleasant. Look at the grief Marie got for decades over her husband.”
Marie had long been suspected of killing her husband, who’d disappeared from Sinful years before I set foot in Louisiana, and his disappearance ended up being the first homicide I was involved in. Marie hadn’t killed him, of course, but that hadn’t stopped people from giving her grief. If Gina and her father had to live under the same cloud of suspicion, it would make things really hard on them and even harder on Billy.
“Which is why you can’t let it happen to Gina,” Ally pleaded. Then she stared at me for a moment and laughed. “You’re already doing it. That’s why you asked her all those questions.”
“Let’s just say we’re interested,” I said. “Because technically, we don’t have a client, so therefore no justifiable reason to be poking around.”
“I get it,” Ally said. “Well, Carter won’t be hearing anything from me—except how there’s no way Gina could kill anyone. You saw her. She practically passed out when she heard Brock was dead. She never expected to have him enter her world again.”
I nodded. Yes, Gina had definitely been upset when she’d heard of Brock’s passing. Which might mean she was shocked and dismayed to know that he had been in town and her son’s father was deceased. Or it might mean she’d had a run-in with Brock the night before and he’d been alive when she’d left and died later from the blow.
So if she was the one who’d delivered the head injury, she might be the one who killed him.