by Kate Bell
Alec snickered. “You would think I’d know this by now, wouldn’t you? You’re a bake-a-holic.”
“I prefer to call myself the baking queen of Sandy Harbor, thank you very much. Oh, and I have an inspection tomorrow. I can’t believe they arranged to do it so quickly, but the inspector is the cousin of one of Lucy’s friends and Lucy pulled some strings for me,” I told him.
“Wow, that was fast,” he said. “Do you think you’ll pass?”
I turned and gave him the evil eye. “Of course I’m going to pass. I’ve had Jennifer in there scrubbing my kitchen down like she was Cinderella herself. You can eat off my kitchen floors right now.”
“Poor Jennifer,” he murmured.
“Do you think there’s a chance I won’t pass?” I asked him, suddenly terrified I wouldn’t. How humiliating would it be to have to tell Cynthia that I couldn’t bring desserts down to the restaurant because I couldn’t pass the health inspection?
“I’m sure you’ll do fine. Other than a few dirty dishes in the sink, your kitchen is always spotless,” he said.
“Yeah. I’ve been leaving dirty dishes lately. What’s up with that? It’s so unlike me. Well, now I’ve got Jennifer to serve me so I can leave all the dirty dishes I want on the weekends.”
“You’re nuts,” he said and looked over my shoulder. I turned to see what he was looking at and Richard Rose was standing at the far end of the aisle we were in, looking over the cooking oils.
He looked up and saw us and headed in our direction. “Alec, Allie,” he said, nodding at us when he got to us. “I haven’t heard much on the investigation. Do either of you know what’s going on?”
“It’s still in preliminary investigation mode,” Alec said. “I’m sure someone will be contacting you soon either for more information, or to keep you up to date.”
“Oh. Okay,” Richard said, nodding. “You know, Hilda’s getting out of control. She waits for me to get home from work, standing out on the landing of her apartment. She screams at me. Calls me a murderer. The whole neighborhood can hear her.”
“Wow,” I said.
“That could be a problem,” Alec said. “I know things aren’t good between the two of you, but have you tried talking to her when she isn’t quite so charged up?”
Richard chuckled. “That would be never. She’s nuts. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I went to a lawyer and started the process to evict her.”
“Oh?” Alec said. “Are you sure you want to do that so soon after Iris’s death? She’s grieving. Things might settle down eventually.”
“I don’t have a choice. She’s making my life miserable. If she would just shut up and stay in her apartment, I wouldn’t even consider doing it. But I can’t live like this,” he said. His jaw tightened. “I did not murder my wife. I loved my wife. I may have made some mistakes, but I loved her.” I could see his eyes getting moist as he spoke.
“Richard, we know that. Death is a horrible thing that adds a lot more tension to situations that are already difficult,” I said. I glanced at Alec. The fighting between those two might make either of them snap and we’d have another murder on our hands.
“You need to remember that she might not be stable right now due to the stress of losing her daughter and try to keep your distance,” Alec advised. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. You don’t want to do anything you might regret.”
“You really don’t want to do that,” I agreed.
“You don’t know what this is like,” he said, clenching his hands into fists at his side. “I lost my wife! I just want to mourn her in peace.”
“If you’d like, I’ll have a talk with her. Maybe I can get her to settle down and leave you alone,” Alec offered.
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “I think she’ll listen to you, Alec.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Richard said. “But I still want her out. The sooner she’s out of my life, the better. She was nothing but a curse for our entire marriage. I never should have let her move into that apartment, but Iris insisted. She felt sorry for her even after all she had done to her as a child. That’s what I loved about Iris, her sense of empathy for others. But it also caused us a lot of trouble when she couldn’t say no.”
“Understood,” Alec said. “But would you consider allowing her to stay longer so she can find a place to live? If she promises to leave you alone?”
Richard sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I really don’t want that. Maybe I’d consider it if she promised to be out by a set date. But if she says one cross word to me, it’s over and I’m having her evicted.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Alec said.
“Do you think she’s been drinking?” I asked him.
“I think so. I haven’t gotten close enough to smell her, but her words are slurred sometimes. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she was.”
“I’ll see if I can get her to agree to leave you alone,” Alec assured him.
“I’d appreciate that,” he said.
“I do have a question for you, Richard,” Alec said. “When we brought Iris’s things from her classroom to you, there was a journal she kept that detailed her day-to-day activities in the classroom. It had comments about students and her thoughts on them and their behavior and other things that happened in her classroom. Did she keep one every year?”
He nodded. “She did. She loved doing that. She said it helped her to gain insight into the children and their personalities, as well as helped her remember the highlights of her year.”
“Would you allow me to read the journal from her first year?” Alec asked. “I’d like to have a look at that one.”
I studied Alec. What did he have in mind?
“Her first year? Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“Just call it an investigator’s curiosity,” Alec said.
“Sure. You can have it as long as I get it back. I’ve been reading over the one from this year,” he said and his eyes teared up again. “I’ll have to look for it, but as long as I get it back, it’s no problem.”
“Great. I’ll stop by tomorrow and have a talk with Hilda,” Alec said.
“Okay. I think I know exactly where the older journals are. I’ll have it for you.”
We said our good byes and we watched him turn the corner of the aisle we were in.
When he was out of sight, I turned to Alec. “You want to see what she had to say about Josh?”
“I do. Also, I’m wondering what she might have had to say about a certain nosy parent of a little red-headed girl named Jennifer. I bet she has a lot to say about her,” he said with a grin.
I gasped. “I bet she said I was a darling mother. What else would there be to say?”
“That you were nosey and bossy,” he said.
I gasped again. The nerve!
“Oh, look. They have brown sugar. You need some of that, don’t you?” he asked, turning away so I couldn’t see him smiling.
“I most certainly do. And vanilla, lots of vanilla. But I am not nosey,” I said. “That’s a vicious rumor started by someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Will you make me a pear tart? I like pear tarts.”
“I’ll make you something all right,” I muttered. “Hey, when do you test for your PI license?”
“In a couple of days,” he said and pushed the buggy down the aisle.
“I want to take a test to be your assistant,” I said. “I can get a license for that, can’t I?”
“No, you just get to bake. That’s your job now. And write a blog. That’s it,” he said as we headed for the produce department.
I sighed. “That’s so unfair. I think we need to go out on a real date and soon. It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve done that.”
“A date?” he asked. “What’s that?”
“I want to wear a dress and heels, and I want to wear my pearls.”
“We went to a funeral. You wore a dress and heels. Isn’
t that a date?” he asked innocently.
I gave him a sideways look. “That is not a date, smarty pants.”
“Well, I think a date can be arranged,” he said and put one arm around my waist as we walked down the aisle.
“You’re cute. Did you know that?” I asked him.
“Indeed. I did,” he said. “Don’t forget pears.”
Pears. I would not forget the pears. Anything for my sweet Baboo.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re going to let me do the talking, right?” Alec asked as we started up the stairs to Hilda’s apartment. He was in front and I was in back. I needed to rethink my strategy. If he slipped and fell back, I was a goner. I needed to be in front so that if I slipped on these steep steps, the chances he’d be able to catch me were pretty good.
The door swung open before Alec reached the landing.
“Good morning, Hilda,” Alec said.
Hilda stood still, staring at Alec.
“Good morning, Hilda,” I called over Alec’s shoulder.
Alec stepped onto the landing and I followed close behind.
“Hilda, may we have a moment of your time?” Alec asked her.
I smiled for all I was worth, hoping it would help ease things. The look on Hilda’s face said things were not going well for her. Of course I already knew this, but I had hoped she would be in a better frame of mind this morning.
“I suppose,” she said to Alec, then looked over the railing. I wondered if she thought Richard was nearby listening in.
“Thank you,” Alec said and we followed Hilda into her apartment.
She swung the door closed behind us and I stopped and stared. The apartment was in stark contrast to how it had looked the two earlier visits I had paid her. There were dirty clothes strewn about the living room floor and it looked like dishes hadn’t been done in days. A plate of dried, half-eaten spaghetti sat on the coffee table and an empty bottle of whiskey sat on an end table.
I caught Alec looking at the mess sideways, but he didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sorry to disturb you Hilda, but it’s come to my attention that there may be issues between yourself and Richard. I don’t want to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I’d also like for things to remain civil between the two of you. We really don’t want any trouble.”
I stood next to Alec and I could see Hilda’s face turn red.
“What Alec is saying is we both understand that after a death in the family, tensions can run high,” I explained quickly.
“He’s trying to evict me!” she exclaimed. “An old woman with no place to go! He’d throw me out on the street in a heartbeat! Just like that!” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
“Hilda, I spoke with Richard. He said you were screaming at him from your apartment. You have to know that’s not going to win you any favors with him, right?” Alec asked.
Boy, talk about good cop, bad cop. I wanted to be the bad cop, but I didn’t have the heart to do it to someone that had just lost their only child. Apparently Alec had no problem with it.
“He killed my daughter!” she shouted.
“We are still investigating this murder. No one has been charged yet,” Alec pointed out. I don’t know where he got his calm from. He seemed to be able to pull it out of his pocket whenever he needed it.
“If you were doing your job, you would have arrested him by now,” she said, sounding a little steadier.
Uh oh. Hilda didn’t want to play the incompetent cop card. Alec wasn’t going to put up with that.
The muscle in Alec’s jaw twitched. “Listen, Hilda, we are doing all we can to solve this case. We appreciate your patience.”
Hilda closed the short distance between herself and Alec and peered up into his face. “I have no patience when my baby is dead and the killer lives just a few feet away, fancy free, doing whatever he feels like,” she said.
“Did it ever occur to you that he lost someone he loved, too?” Alec said, not backing down.
Hilda gasped and took a step back. “If he loved her so much, then why is he running around with Janice Cross? They’re together, just as I predicted,” she said. Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears.
The muscle in Alec’s jaw went slack. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard anything about that. But even if it’s true, it doesn’t mean he killed your daughter. It just means he doesn’t have much in the way of morals, and that’s not a crime.”
I stood there, shifting from one foot to the other during this exchange, wishing I could be somewhere else. Confrontation was never my strong suit. I’d do it if I felt I had to, but I hated it.
“No. Not having morals isn’t a crime. If it was, I suspect most of us would be in jail by now,” she whispered.
“Richard is prepared to allow you to stay for a while longer, giving you time to find a place to live, on the condition that you stop behaving the way you have been. No more screaming at him. No contact at all would be best,” Alec said softly.
“How long can I stay?” she asked.
“He didn’t give me an exact time frame, but we’ll pin him down on it. But one slip up, and he’ll evict you.”
She nodded. “Fine then. I’ll start looking. I don’t want to have to look at him for the rest of my life anyway,” she said.
I felt so bad for Hilda. Life hadn’t treated her well, and now it had stolen her only child. I wanted to offer to help her clean the place up, but I knew Alec would frown on that. She needed to get her act together and she needed to take responsibility for herself.
“We’ll be in touch,” Alec said, and turned for the door. I followed him and I almost had to run to keep up as he took the steep stairs two at a time.
We walked around the side of Richard’s house and headed for his front door.
Richard was at the door before we could knock. He and Hilda must spend a lot of time at the window.
“Good morning, Richard,” Alec said sounding business-like.
“Good morning, come in,” he said and held the door open for us. We followed him to the living room and took a seat across from him. I wanted Alec to let him have it over him seeing Janice Cross again, but I didn’t know whose side Alec was on right at that moment.
“So, did you talk to her?” Richard asked with a smile.
I wanted to knock that smug look off his face.
“I did. I told her if she agreed not to harass you, you would let her stay until she could find a new place to live, for a limited time, of course. You need to decide on that time frame so I can relay that to her,” Alec said. His mood was somber and so was mine. No one had a right to destroy someone, especially someone that was grieving.
“Great, I appreciate the help. It’ll save me some money if I don’t have to evict her,” Richard said.
“She said you were seeing Janice Cross,” Alec said, pausing to see what Richard’s reaction would be.
He didn’t have to wait long as the smile slid right off of Richard’s face. “I am not seeing her. That’s long over.”
“It’s your business if you are,” Alec said. “But maybe you should keep it to yourself for the time being.”
“I can’t believe she told you that! I merely gave Janice a ride home when her car wouldn’t start the other day. I happened to stop by the elementary school to speak to the principal. That’s all it was,” he said.
I didn’t believe him. There was something about him that said he was lying.
“Like I said, it’s your business. The investigation into your wife’s death is ongoing,” Alec reminded him.
Richard sighed tiredly and pulled himself together. “I appreciate that. I want to see her murderer put behind bars as soon as possible.”
“Did you find the journal?” I asked. I had sat quietly for too long and the tension between Alec and Hilda, and now Alec and Richard, was getting to me. I just wanted to go home and bake something.
“I did,” he said and got up and picked up a book off the fireplace mantel. He
walked back over and handed it to me.
The book had bright sunflowers on the cover and when I opened it up, Iris’s neat handwriting filled the pages. I swallowed back the lump in my throat. This book was from a time when Iris had been young and hopeful of all the possibilities that life and a new teaching career possessed.
“Thank you,” I said.
“We appreciate your cooperation,” Alec said and we got to our feet. “We’ll be in touch.”
We headed out the door and got into my car with Alec driving. I flipped through the pages, wondering if this book held any clues to her murder, but also knowing it would mention Jennifer from time to time. My heart sometimes ached with the fact that my children were grown. If only I could recapture just a day or two of their young lives. I blinked back the tears.
This journal held a chance for me to relive part of my daughter’s early years.
Chapter Nineteen
“Ta da!” I said, pushing a bowl of snow cream in front of Alec.
He looked up from the book he was studying. “What’s this?”
“Snow cream. It snowed last night and I caught some of it. Guaranteed pest, critter, and uh, dead body free snow,” I said proudly.
He looked at me. “It’s not the same.”
“It is the same. I used snow, cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Trust me. It’s the same. Oh, and I have some chocolate syrup to pour over it. I might even have some maraschino cherries in the fridge.” I gave him a big smile.
“Wild caught snow is better,” he said.
The smile left my face. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Alec Blanchard, if you don’t at least taste this snow cream that I slaved over a hot stove to make, you are in big trouble,” I said.
“A hot stove?”
“Whatever. A cold bowl. Taste it.”
“Okay, fine,” he said and picked up the spoon in the bowl. He scooped up a small bite sized amount and tasted it. He smiled. “I guess it is pretty good.”
