“Your Rita?” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Of course, I reminded him of her. I was her. Aiden had known me better than almost anyone back then, back when I was me. It was the way he knew Peggy now. “So, when’s the wedding?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“In two months,” he answered, grabbing a new mass of dough and going at it a bit harder than before. “The weather will have broken by then, and there will be flowers. Peggy loves flowers.”
“I know,” I answered absentmindedly. “I mean, she told me the other day. I think she said violets were her favorite.”
“Yeah,” he smiled, looking off into the distance as I took a rolling pin to more dough. “Ever since we were kids, she’d been obsessed with those stupid things. They’re too beautiful. That’s why they never last. So she says. Beautiful things aren’t meant to last.” He shook his head again. “That’s what she said about Rita at her funeral, too.”
Suddenly my eyes filled with tears. Luckily, when Aiden looked over at me, there was no need to explain them. What kind of person wouldn’t be brought to tears by this? A young woman cut down in the prime of her life and her best friend’s grief about it; it was surely devastating.
I hadn’t thought much about the funeral, about what was or was not said, about what people wore or what kind of flowers were placed at my gravesite. It was too macabre, too trippy. And, though I was standing in front of them right now, too painful.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, blinking the moisture out of my eyes. “I wish I could have known her.”
“Oh, she’d have hated you,” he answered without a bit of levity in his voice. “You’re too much alike. You’re both brash and outspoken. Both smart as a whip with an eye for trouble. I get the feeling my Rita would have seen you as a threat.” He looked me up and down. “Of course, you have a really good heart, and so did she. So maybe she’d have warmed to you, after a while.”
“How do you know I have a good heart?” I asked feeling as if a balm had been placed over that heart with his compliment and sliding a tin of prepared dough into the cooler. Now, all that would be needed was to bake them.
“Because I know how much Peggy pays you,” he answered. “It’s not enough to justify you standing here in the dead of night forming pie crusts with me.”
“Wait ‘til you see me candy the peaches,” I grinned.
He chuckled. “You know the biggest difference between my Rita and you? I get the feeling you’re living exactly the way you want to.”
I narrowed my eyes. What was that supposed to mean?
“And your Rita wasn’t?” I asked.
He took his hands out of the dough and turned to me.
“If I’m being completely honest, it always felt like she was holding back to me.” He set his jaw.
“I’m sure she loved you,” I answered, surer of that than anything else in the world.
“So am I,” he answered quickly. “That’s not what I meant at all. We loved each other, even if she was little more reserved about it than I’d have liked.”
Again, my eyes narrowed. Had I been reserved about my feelings for Aiden? I just thought we were independent that we weren’t the type of couple that needed to profess our love every day to prove it was true. What if I was wrong about that? What if I had been holding back? Why would I have done something like that?
“I more so meant that it seemed like she wasn’t living the life she wanted to, the life she might have felt like she was meant to.”
“I’m sorry. I was under the impression that she loved this pie shop, and that it was her idea even.” My tone might have been a bit more defensive than what made sense, but it felt like my life was on trial here, and I wanted to defend it properly.
‘She did. This place was her baby,” he answered. “But it wasn’t her passion.” He shrugged. “She could say what she wanted about baking. She was good at it -- very good. Just not great, not in the way she was great at other things.”
“And what would those other things be?” I asked, feeling, for the first time since all of this happened, that I was outside of myself, and looking in at what made the old me tick.
“She was a born detective,” he answered flatly. “I guess that’s another thing the two of you have in common. She had an eye for detail, a nose for things like I had never seen the likes of before. She’d have pursued it too, if not for her father.”
I wanted to say things were more complicated than that and that Dad just wanted me to be safe, but Aiden spoke up.
“He didn’t do it on purpose, and goodness knows, he’d have never said or done anything he thought might have taken her down a road she didn’t need to be on. But, after losing her mother, Rita knew she was all he had. He thought the life of a police officer was too dangerous for her and, while he wouldn’t come out and say it, I think a part of her gleaned that he would rather she do anything else. So that’s what she did.”
“Sounds sad,” I said, looking at things from that angle. Was Aiden right? Had I been too afraid of leaving my father I didn’t do what I was born for only to leave him in the end, anyway?
“Not really,” Aiden answered. “She lived a good life. It was too short, and she might not have done everything she ever wanted to, but who does?”
“And she had love?” I asked, very invested in the answer.
He smiled at me again, that dazzling, brilliant smile. “So much love.”
And suddenly, that was enough.
“Let’s get back to work,” I said, grabbing the rolling pin again. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
21
By the time Peggy got up (well before the sun), Aiden and I had done enough to make the newly adjusted Peach Festival’s workload manageable. By the time the shop opened for regular business hours, we had several dozen peach pies ready to go with a few dozen more almost finished as well as our daily stock of various treats.
“You should take a break,” Peggy told me at a quarter to ten. Whatever passive aggressiveness she might have had toward me yesterday was completely gone now, replaced by a camaraderie that reminded me of the days when we started this business. So much had changed since then. The entire store was different. Second Springs was different. With me catching sight of a face I was just now beginning to recognize in the glare of the glass canopy, I was the most different of all.
“I’m fine,” I answered, wiping stray baking powder off my cheek.
“You’re not,” she answered. “You’ve been here all night, and while that’s appreciated, I’m going to need you to take a break.”
“Peggy, there’s so much left to do,” I objected.
“There is,” she admitted. “And there will continue to be more to do as the day presses on.” She shrugged. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. And I’m going to need you to be rested and on point tonight at the festival.” She patted me on the shoulder. “So please, go take a break. For me.”
“You’re the boss,” I answered, tossing off my apron and heading out the back door toward my apartment.
Of course, I had no intention of resting. Sleep might have been important, but so was being prepared. The festival tonight was important for the reasons Peggy alluded to and reasons much more pressing as well. I did need to be on point, and that meant having as much information about who Darrin and I were dealing with as possible.
I opened the door of my apartment to find Mayor McConnell on the floor, surrounded by pieces of egg rolls and beef and broccoli. It seemed he had nudged open the refrigerator and dug into my Chinese leftovers, completely disregarding the dog food I had left out for him.
Typical.
He glanced up at me nonchalantly before turning away just as quickly.
“Nice to see you, too,” I muttered.
Mayor McConnell groaned through a belly full of my shrimp fried rice, and I settled at the desk, powering on my laptop.
I wasn’t sure what I needed to look for. I had hit a wall. I suspected
Amelia Hoover was the culprit here. She had hunted down and killed her family one by one, but I had no idea where she was hiding or what her motives were.
The texts in Patrick’s phone told me he was up to something in town, and the fact that he was here the night Mrs. Hoover was killed, the night I was killed, suggested he might have had something to do with her murder, too.
Was he in cahoots with Amelia? Did they have a falling out after their mother (her biological and his foster respectively) was bludgeoned with that wrench that led to him meeting a similar fate?
What was the significance of the wrench, anyway? Of all the things that could be used as a murder weapon, why use a wrench? It seemed so needlessly messy, especially given the fact Ralph worked at an auto garage.
Maybe that was the point. Perhaps Amelia and Patrick were planning on framing Ralph for the murders once they had reaped whatever reward all of this was about in the first place.
That would be one heck of a thank you for all that Ralph did for his little brother while they were living on the streets.
No, that didn’t make any sense. There wasn’t any rift between the brothers, not really. I could see that in the way Ralph spoke about Patrick when I confronted him at the hospital. Looking back, I could see it in his actions when he seemed to blow up in front of Angela, Patrick’s wife, at the younger man’s wake. It must have been quite a blow, to learn whatever Patrick had gotten himself into led to his death.
Still, it would be narrow-minded of me to think that Ralph ended up in Mt Gregor just by happenstance. That would be too much of a coincidence, and Rita Clarke’s father made sure she didn’t believe in coincidences.
No, Ralph had a part in all of this too, but what? What brought the three step-siblings back into each other’s lives and all the way to Georgia at this juncture? Was killing Mrs. Hoover that important to each of them? If so, then why?
I was missing something and, if I was going to lure Amelia out of the shadows in time to catch her before she ran off having completed her job, I was going to have to find out what.
My fingers absentmindedly brought me back to the web page that held the picture of the family.
I stared at it for a long time, at this group of people who were supposed to love each other, who ended up breaking apart in the most heinous and horrific way imaginable.
What happened to them? What changed after Mrs. Hoover’s husband died that sent them all scattering to the winds? And was there ever a way to stop it, or were these things: Mrs. Hoover’s murder, my death and subsequent return, things that had to happen? Were they put in place by something bigger than any of us and, if so, was this a case I would ever be able to solve?
I stared at the picture for a long time. After a while, the subjects in it stopped being people. They were images, a collage of facts and observations.
Mrs. Hoover’s nervous smile, Mr. Hoover’s rough hands, the black ink stain on his shirt, the blue sling on Patrick’s arm that had Ralph and Amelia’s signatures on it in black Sharpie, the bangs that hung down almost over the little girl’s eyes and the long sleeves that all but Mr. Hoover wore.
I stared at it for so long, sure that I was missing something that I became afraid that I was going to wait out the Peach Festival. Peggy certainly wouldn’t have taken too kindly to that, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The answer was here, staring at me, locked away in this picture. Somehow, I knew it. I just needed another minute, just another second. If I kept looking at it, then maybe I’d find the right angle, maybe all of these pieces would fit together, and I’d be able to make sense of this.
Or maybe not.
I was about to give up when I noticed something. Ralph was missing his right front tooth.
Suddenly, like a piece of a puzzle you found on the floor after searching for it everywhere, everything snapped together. It all came to me in beautiful clarity. The truth of this family, of the secret it was keeping, of the reasons that it was torn apart. It all opened itself up to me, and suddenly, I knew two things; my plan was going to work, and everything was much more dangerous than I’d ever imagined.
22
When Peggy called me, a few hours later, I was still piecing everything together. Looking at that family photo had unlocked a virtual Pandora’s Box of secrets and taken me down a virtual rabbit hole of online documents, half-truths, and family innuendo that stretched the limits of what I thought I knew about all of this.
She assumed I had been napping (which probably would have been a good idea) when she told me to “Rise and shine so we can set up for the festival.” I faked my best yawn and told her I’d meet her at the pie shop in ten minutes.
It came as no surprise me to me that, when I opened my closet, I found a floral print dress (in peach, no less) hanging like some present from Charlie (or whoever sent Charlie in the first place).
Mayor McConnell gave me a groan as I pulled it out and looked it up and down.
“I feel your pain,” I answered. “I’m sick of the flowers, too.” Tilting my head, I added, “Would it kill him to send me a solid every once in a while?”
When I made it out to the pie shop, I found that Peggy had loaded a couple dozen pies onto twin rollers that had been decorated with peach tablecloths, ribbon, and a few bowls of fresh peaches on either side just for ambiance.
Peggy herself was done up in a peach blouse and skirt that fit her so well, it made me ache to be free of my floral print prison. Her hair had a peach bow in it, and her lips were adorned with peach lipstick.
Just looking at her made me smile. She had always been the type to really get into this sort of stuff, and I was happy to see my untimely demise hadn’t changed that. She deserved to be happy, and I was glad she was getting it, even if the identity of that happiness’s recipient was more complicated than I would have liked.
“You look great. I just love the flowers on you,” she said very politely, though we both knew that, standing next to her, I would look criminally under dressed.
I guess some things never change.
“Thank you,” I answered. “In that case, you should be getting your money’s worth of them.”
She gave me another smile and then instructed me on what to do. She went through the pie shop’s event routine, something that was completely unnecessary, given that I had helped her draw it up. Of course, there was no way she could have known that.
We’d roll the carts out to the booth she’d set up east of the diner. We angled it sideways, so that when people picked up their pies, the backdrop would be of our little shop. Never let it be said that Peggy let a marketing opportunity get away from her.
When the contents of the tables got down to about forty percent (I was never to let it get below forty!) one of us would rush the half a block back to the shop, load up some reserve pies and haul tail back before things got too out of control for the other one.
There was a fireworks display at 8:00 pm sharp. That was when things would slow down for us. It was also when I’d be able to put my plan into action.
Peggy had generously offered to man the booth while I took in the fireworks show. You know, since as far as she was concerned, I had never seen it. I accepted, of course, even though I knew I wouldn’t see as much as a sparkler, let alone an explosion in the sky.
I had already been in contact with Darrin today. We’d take the fireworks show as a cue, meet at a preordained rendezvous spot and finish this, once and for all.
People had already started filtering into the main strip as Peggy and I stocked our booth; a peach bundle of ribbon, confetti, and handmade signs so ornate she must have been working on it for months.
“This is unbelievable,” I mumbled, taking it in.
“This is Second Springs,” she answered, misunderstanding my meaning.
It was true. The town was in its Sunday best tonight. Every man I saw walked around in peach jackets and matching hats. Every woman I saw wore peach dresses and sported hairdos that told me Crystal’s Hai
r Palace must have actually had a waiting list, for once.
It was good to see that. Second Springs was my home, even if it didn’t know that. These people were my friends, even if most of them would be introducing themselves to me tonight. And there was no doubt that it, and them, had been through a rough patch.
This festival had been meant to be a distraction from the ho-hum of small town life. But what it turned into, I could now see in the faces of citizens as they walked by, was a fervent defense of it.
Second Springs was special, and someone had come in here and tried to take that. Not once, but three times. They had killed me. They had killed Mrs. Hoover. Now they had come back to do it again.
This was Second Springs’s way of telling them that they wouldn’t stand for that. They wouldn’t let this person take away what made them special.
And maybe that was why I was back now, to make sure that that didn’t happen.
The festival started the way all important things in Second Springs did, with Mayor Merna Myers flipping the switch that turned on the fountain beside Second Springs’s namesake second spring. As I said before, the other spring had dried up over fifty years ago so, technically, this was our only spring. But it would always be “second” to us.
I was a nervous mess for the next hour as the Peach Festival got underway. No surprise, our pies were a hit. As I helped Peggy hand them out, I was introduced to Father Mulligan, who had baptized me, Mrs. DeLuca, who had been my 7th grade homeroom teacher, and Adam Lansby, who-embarrassingly enough, had given me my first kiss in 4th grade behind the set of bleachers that now sat in the distance.
Of course, none of them recognized me. I was a completely different person as far as they knew, even if I didn’t feel like it. There was a huge part of me that wanted to jump on top of this table and shout who I was to the heavens. I just wanted to let go of all the secrets, and be me again. But I knew better than that. Telling my secret to Darrin Dash had gone just South of horribly, and besides, the person I used to be didn’t exist anymore. She had been lost to a set of steps and a man with big hands and a gravelly voice.
Twice Baked Murder: A Cozy Mystery (The Rita Reincarnated Cozies Book 1) Page 13
