Death Gone A-Rye

by Winnie Archer

  The nerve of York to call me Ivy. He didn’t know me well enough for that. I gulped down the mouthful of bhel, wishing that I had a glass of water. Miguel must have read my mind. He slipped into the kitchen, filled a glass at the tap, and brought it to me. I waited for York to say something about seeing me at the district office earlier, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Sorry to drop by like this, but I have a few questions for you, Mr. Baptista.”

  And Miguel was Mr. Baptista. Misogyny much?

  Miguel gestured to the table, indicating Captain York should sit, then pulled out the chair next to me and took it. Captain York sat at the end of the table looking far too serious. “I’ll cut to the chase. Mr. Baptista, it’s come to our knowledge that you had a relationship with the deceased, Mrs. Nessa Renchrik.”

  Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. I felt the color drain from my face. Next to me, Miguel balked. “What? Where did you hear that?”

  But instead of answering Miguel’s question, Captain York went on. “I also understand you are sponsoring the Spring Fling event due to your relationship with the deceased.”

  Miguel leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. “No, actually, I’m not, and I don’t have a relationship with the deceased.”

  I noticed Miguel spoke in the present, as if the woman was still alive. Whether or not Captain York noticed was hard to tell. He continued as if Miguel hadn’t spoken. “I understand she contacted you recently.”

  My mind shot back to Miguel’s comment the night before. He’d told me someone had reached out to him, then murmured that he needed to find that message. He hadn’t mentioned that it was Nessa Renchrik. My body suddenly felt hot and my eyes burned.

  Miguel opened his mouth to say something—to respond?, to deny?—but closed it again. “Someone did contact me. I never called back, but I’m telling you I don’t know Nessa Renchrik.”

  “Uh-huh.” The captain sat back, folding his arms across his chest as if he just made a move on the chessboard that put his opponent into check.

  Miguel sat back, mirroring York.

  “That’s not what I hear,” York said, his narrow gaze steady on Miguel.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you hear, then.” I could tell Miguel was trying to control the snarl that lurked underneath his words. “Because I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  The Mexican Bhel suddenly felt like rocks in the pit of my stomach. The captain wouldn’t be here dropping this little emotional bomb unless he knew or suspected it to be true. How I wished Emmaline was back and in charge rather than soaking up the sun in Costa Rica.

  Captain York kept his gaze focused on Miguel as he said, “Vanessa Arnold.”

  Miguel blinked. Then blinked again. When he spoke, his voice suddenly sounded strained. “What?”

  Alarm bells went off in my head. I’d told him Nessa’s full name was Vanessa, but he’d been in the shower. Had he not heard me?

  “Vanessa Arnold,” Captain York repeated. “She goes by Nessa. Renchrik is her married name.”

  Miguel muttered under his breath. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “You’re saying that Vanessa Arnold and Nessa Renchrik are the same person?”

  York’s lips twisted into a subtle sneer. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Baptista. And I think you knew that.”

  The veins on Miguel’s neck tightened. He worked to control himself. “I didn’t know that.”

  York gave his head a little shake. He clearly didn’t believe Miguel. He’d weighed and measured him, and found him wanting.

  “Look,” Miguel said, his voice low. Controlled. “I briefly dated a Vanessa Arnold. That was ten or eleven years ago.”

  “And you haven’t seen her since, is that what you’re saying?”

  Miguel’s Adam’s apple climbed up his throat, then dropped as he swallowed. “I saw her last week.”

  My burning eyes turned blurry and my breath hitched.

  York kept his gaze level, his lips a thin line, but his eyebrows lifted enough to show this was an interesting bit of news. “Is that right? After ten . . . or eleven . . . years, you saw her last week? That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t really a question.

  Miguel’s complexion turned sallow, but he kept his gaze level with York’s. “I don’t know; is it?”

  York didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “I think it is.”

  I tried to school my expression, seeing Miguel’s chest rise and fall in my peripheral vision. “She showed up at the restaurant out of the blue,” he said.

  “To have lunch? Dinner?”

  “She’d placed a To Go order,” Miguel said. “She said she and her husband were going out to some party and she was picking up dinner for her kids.”

  That meant the takeout order had probably been on Friday. The dinner fundraiser Candy had mentioned.

  York spoke, sounding smug and patronizing at the same time. “Let me recap. You dated the victim briefly a decade ago. Then just last week, she suddenly shows up at your restaurant. And the next day she’s murdered.”

  I felt the air in the room grow still. Miguel had known Nessa Renchrik. No, not known. Dated. And seen her the day before she died. Had York come here knowing that fact? Had he been trying to trap Miguel into lying? The obvious conclusion came to mind. He saw Miguel as a suspect. But why? Just because they’d dated ten years ago and she’d suddenly shown back up in his life didn’t give him a motive.

  Still, I had questions. Had Miguel known Nessa was married when they’d dated? I knew he had a life in between our high school relationship and our rekindled romance. I had no qualms about that specifically, but I did over the fact that Captain York was here talking to Miguel about it and what that might mean.

  York rolled his hand in the air. “So you dated ten or so years ago. Go on.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Miguel said. “I was home on leave—”

  “Military?” York asked.

  Miguel nodded. He didn’t elaborate, but I knew the truth. He’d joined when he and I had split up. He’d only recently come back to Santa Sofia to stay—after his father died. Our stories were similar and had brought us back to our hometown, where we’d reconnected.

  “I was here for a few months and worked at my family’s restaurant. Vanessa used to come into the restaurant pretty frequently—”

  “And then not at all in the intervening years?”

  Miguel shrugged. “Nope.” He went on, ignoring York’s skeptical expression. “We got to talking. She said she’d been through a tough breakup. I bought her lunch one day and we kind of hit it off, so we went out a few times.”

  “You went out a few times.” Captain York took out a little notepad. He jotted something down before looking up at Miguel again. “And your breakup with her. Any animosity?”

  Miguel scoffed. “There was no breakup. We went on a few dates. That’s it.”

  “Did you know she was married?”

  At this, Miguel sat back and ran his hand over his face. “I didn’t know when we first started seeing each other.”

  “But,” York prompted.

  “I found out,” he said. “And I broke it off.” Miguel looked at me with a pained expression. “I broke it off.”

  I believed him, and gave a single nod, encouraging him to keep going with his story.

  “We went to Books and More—”

  York raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “The bookstore in town,” I said. The place had been around since I was a kid. It was as iconic in Santa Sofia as Yeast of Eden was.

  “Right. We were just browsing. She started talking with someone.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “A man. It got a little heated, but they were in the travel section and I was in the fiction area. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. And then he left.”

  “Did you ask her who it was?”

  Miguel nodded.

  “And?” York
had his pen poised over his notepad ready to write down a name, but Miguel shook his head. “A work acquaintance. That’s all she said. I bought a book, we left, and she said she had a headache. Then she confessed that she was married. I didn’t see her after that.”

  “Did you break it off, or did she?”

  Miguel sighed. Ran his hand down his face. “She was married. I stopped calling. She stopped coming to the restaurant. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Until last Friday,” York corrected.

  Miguel gave a single nod.

  York cocked an eyebrow. “You live in the same town. She was a prominent member of the community. School board member for years, and current board president. You’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce. A businessman in Santa Sofia. You never put it together that Vanessa Arnold was also Nessa Renchrik?”

  “I’d been on leave. I left Santa Sofia and didn’t come back until recently. I don’t have any kids. I have no reason to be involved or even aware of Santa Sofia school politics. There’s a Cliff Renchrik in the Chamber. Maybe that’s her husband, I don’t know. He’s in property management, or something, but since I knew her as Vanessa Arnold, no, I didn’t put it together.”

  Miguel’s voice had grown terse. He did not like the line of questioning York had taken.

  “And you haven’t looked at any news reports since the murder Saturday? Haven’t seen Nessa Renchrik’s photo plastered all over the media?”

  Again, Miguel shook his head. “I went into the city yesterday—”

  “San Francisco?”

  “Right. I went on a bike ride with a friend.”

  “Ah, an athlete.” York didn’t sound impressed.

  “I cycle.”

  “And you didn’t read any updates on the murder yesterday when you got back. And today?”

  “The restaurant is closed on Mondays.” He gestured to the kitchen. “I’ve been testing out new recipes and waiting on a repairman. Hot-water heater.”

  Miguel was not the type of person to be glued to his phone, especially when he had other things going on that kept him occupied. He preferred a print book to an e-reader. Real newsprint rather than an online version. It wasn’t that he was a late adopter. But he liked the feel of a book in his hand and the rustle of newsprint as he turned the pages.

  The lift of York’s eyebrows showed just how skeptical he was about Miguel’s story. He wrote something else in his notebook. “Tell me about your encounter with Mrs. Renchrik on Friday evening.”

  Miguel ran his hand over his face again and sighed. “It was brief. We’d just opened when she showed up. She’d placed the order earlier in the day.”

  “Were you surprised to see her?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely. I didn’t recognize her at first. Her hair is lighter now.”

  Once again, he spoke of Nessa Renchrik in the present. He’d said “is,” not “was.” I hoped York took note of it this time around, if he hadn’t the first time.

  York didn’t blink. “Did you talk?”

  “Not really. I ran her credit card. Went to check the kitchen for her order. It wasn’t ready yet, so I got her a Diet Coke while she waited and I went back to my work.”

  Once again, York wore his doubt on his face. “No conversation? After ten years, you had nothing to say to each other?”

  “Captain,” Miguel said tersely, “we dated a long time ago. Briefly. She ordered food for pickup. There was nothing to say.”

  York stayed silent for a moment, as if he was debating whether or not to let this line of questioning go. After an awkward silence, he said, “And was it Mrs. Renchrik who contacted you about sponsoring the Spring Fling?”

  Instead of answering, Miguel stood and walked into the little sunroom in the back of the house. The windows looked out to the backyard. The house was built on a hill. He’d built a tiered garden system to make the hill usable. He didn’t do anything halfway. He’d already planted, and come summer the boxes would be bursting with tomatoes, artichokes, cucumbers, and whatever else he decided to grow.

  He returned carrying a satchel. Setting it down on the table, he rifled through it, then submerged both hands into the case to remove a stack of paperwork. He flipped through it, finally landing on a slip of paper. “Someone called Baptista’s about a week ago. One of the hosts took the call and passed the message on to me.” He handed it to York.

  “No name,” the captain commented.

  “So you don’t know who called?” I asked Miguel.

  Miguel said, “No idea. I never called back.”

  “The message just says: ‘The Santa Sofia school board. Please call regarding sponsoring the Spring Fling.’ ” Captain York slid the message back too Miguel. “There’s a phone number.”

  I peered over at the piece of paper. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe York, but it seemed so strange that I wanted to confirm it for myself.

  York put his notepad and pen down, then looked pointedly at Miguel. “Why don’t you make that call.”

  “Right now?”

  “No time like the present,” he said. Cliché, but I happened to agree with York. I wanted to know who had left that message for my boyfriend.

  Miguel’s cell phone was on the table under a different stack of papers. I uncovered it for him and handed it over. He took it, meeting my eyes with a less than enthusiastic expression. He sighed, dialed by tapping the numbers onto the keypad, then pressed the Speaker button before setting the phone, face up, on the table. The moment he pressed the Enter button, the numbers vanished. My stomach plunged.

  Vanessa Arnold’s name scrolled across the top of the screen.

  Chapter 6

  We all stared at the name on the phone. I resisted the urge to grab it and slam my finger against the Off button to silence the ring. After another two seconds, there was a click and a woman’s voice came at us from the phone’s tiny speaker, like a ghost speaking from the great beyond. “You’ve reached Vanessa. Leave me a message.”

  I looked at Miguel. Miguel looked at me, then at York. York looked at Miguel. “Wait,” I said. “She calls herself Vanessa there. Does that mean she has two phones—one for her regular life as Nessa, and the other for her clandestine activities?”

  Captain York’s cheeks had bloomed with a faint shade of pink. Excitement from the clue, or him thinking he’d found a prime suspect in Miguel? He looked at Miguel’s phone, comparing the number on the screen to the one he had in his notes. “Apparently,” he said as he picked up his notepad again and jotted something down.

  Maybe she was a serial cheater, I thought. Why else use two different names and have two different phones? “Where is her phone?” I asked.

  York lifted his eyebrows. “We haven’t found it. Yet.” He turned to look at Miguel. “But we will.” The veiled threat was evident. When they found it, they’d be looking for conversations between Vanessa and Miguel.

  Miguel’s jaw pulsed and I knew his blood was simmering, but he remained silent.

  “Mr. Baptista,” Captain York continued. “I may have additional questions. I suggest you refrain from further cycling trips out of the area for the time being.”

  Miguel’s nostrils flared—with agitation? Anger? Fear? Maybe all three—and he opened his mouth but stopped himself from saying anything. His mouth was tight, but he nodded.

  With nothing more to glean, Captain York finally left. Behind him, though, lingered the very clear, yet unspoken, idea that Miguel was somehow involved in Nessa Renchrik’s murder, or that he knew more than he was saying.

  The instant the door closed behind York, Miguel swung around to face me. “I had nothing to do with her death.”

  I’d left the table and headed out to the veranda. I had my hair up in a topknot, but the late afternoon breeze loosened strands around my temples. I brushed them away from my eyes as I turned to lean my back against the railing, the Pacific behind me. “Of course you didn’t. I know that.”

  He leaned his side against the railing, facing me, his le
ft forearm lying across the top of the wrought iron. “I didn’t know she was married when we started seeing each other.”

  I turned to face him, laying my hand over his. “Miguel, you had a life before I came back here, just like I did. You don’t have to explain.”

  He dipped his chin, looking at me. “But I want you to know, I would never have knowingly dated a married woman.”

  I believed that one hundred percent. “What was she like?” I asked. Candy’s account of Nessa likened her to Machiavelli. Lulu Sanchez-Patrick had made it clear that she wasn’t mourning Nessa Renchrik. I was curious what Miguel’s experience with the dead woman had been like.

  He turned so his back leaned against the railing. “It was a long time ago.”

  I told him what Candy and Lulu had said about her. “Did you see any of that?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, it was a long time ago. She was friendly. Pretty flirtatious. I’ve never gone out with a customer, and I wouldn’t have gone out with her unless she’d initiated it.”

  I gave him a cockeyed grin. “She just couldn’t resist you, huh?”

  “Until she could. After that encounter she had in the bookstore, she turned cold. Honestly, it was pretty weird.”

  “No idea who she’d been talking to?”

  “I didn’t then. Some random guy. I wondered if it was someone else she’d been dating, but now . . .”

  He trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. I finished the sentence for him. “You wonder if it was her husband.”

  “Right. Like maybe she’d said she’d be somewhere else, but then he ran into her at the bookstore.”

  My Spidey senses tingled. “Or maybe he suspected something was up and followed her. Confronted her.”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  With nothing else to go on, and a lingering suspicion that Captain York wasn’t done with Miguel, I decided that paying a visit to Nessa Renchrik’s husband was on my list of things to do.

  * * *

  I spent Tuesday morning at Yeast of Eden baking bread and staffing the front counter. Maggie worked the afternoon shift after she finished school, and Olaya was down a morning helper. I was filling in until she hired someone new. Olaya and Felix Macron, her right-hand baker, always arrived by 4:30 AM, but often earlier than that. The life of a bakery owner was not an easy one, although Olaya thrived on the crack of dawn hours. She was in bed and asleep by eight o’clock on most nights.