The Walking Bread

by Winnie Archer

  “You were saying?” I prompted, wanting to get her back on track.

  “Of course. I heard him, clear as a bell. He said, ‘I’ll be there. Back off.’ Of course I had no idea what he was talking about, but now it seems so ominous. . . .”

  It was as if she were dropping breadcrumbs as she told the story, stopping and starting, turning back, but then finding one of the crumbs she’d dropped and forging ahead again. “Renatta,” Mrs. Branford said, graduating herself to a first-name basis. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Who was he talking to?”

  She looked up, her face pensive. “Someone named Billy.”

  Chapter 25

  Mrs. Branford and I had extricated ourselves from the Picaloos’ porch and now we sat across from each other in my kitchen. Normally the brick arch over the cream-colored Aga range, the farm sink, the pale yellow KitchenAid mixer all fill me with a sense of well-being. But right now, my heart was in the pit of my stomach. The kitchen, the house, Mrs. Branford, Agatha—none of it was comforting. Mrs. Picaloo’s words still repeated in a loop in my head. Someone named Billy. Someone named Billy. Someone named Billy.

  Renatta Picaloo’s other words quickly followed—the ones she’d said to her husband—circled in my head. We need to call the police, don’t we?

  “Why are you so worried?” Mrs. Branford asked. “The police already know they talked.”

  “But according to the Picaloos, Max answered the phone, so that would mean Billy called him, but Billy said Max called him.”

  “Is it that—” She broke off before she could finish the question. “Everything is important.”

  “Billy also said Max told him he couldn’t make it to meet Allen Trucking—”

  “But the Picaloos said Max planned to be there—wherever there is.”

  “Two inconsistencies.”

  “There’s no proof it was Billy on the other end of the phone call.”

  “But there’s no proof it wasn’t, which is the problem. The sheriff is already after Billy. If the Picaloos tell them about the phone call, he’s going to think Billy lied.”

  I sat motionless, the hands of the clock on the wall mirroring the rapid beat of my heart; then I picked up my cell phone, went to favorites, and pressed Billy’s name. I launched into it the second he answered. “Did you call Max, or did Max call you?”

  “What?” The puzzlement in his voice threw me. Whatever I was feeling, he was feeling it a hundred times worse.

  In my head, I’d spoken the entire question but hadn’t transferred that to Billy. “You and Max talked on the phone the day he died.”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  That’s right. They hadn’t talked, Billy had said Max texted him. “There was no phone call?”

  No hesitation. I knew he’d been over this a thousand times: in his head, with our dad, with me, with Emmaline, with the sheriff. He could probably rattle off the details of Max’s death day in his sleep. “No phone call. You already know that.”

  I heard Emmaline’s voice in the background. “Know what?”

  His words became muffled. I could picture him turning toward her, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. “What’s this about?” he asked me a second later.

  “Somebody heard you talking to Max. Or they heard Max talking to you.” For a fleeting second, I wondered if it mattered which way I phrased it, but of course it did. The Picaloos hadn’t heard the other side of Max’s conversation. Presumably, they’d only heard Max mention Billy’s name. Then they’d made the assumption that Billy was the one who’d called Max. “They’re going to tell the police.”

  “Who’s going to tell the police?”

  “The Picaloos.”

  I heard Em whispering followed by Billy’s exasperated sigh. “I give. Who are the Picaloos and what, exactly, are they going to tell the police about?”

  I told him the story, which I knew Emmaline was hearing, too. “If they tell the sheriff, you’re going to be under a microscope.”

  He gave that scornful laugh I was getting used to hearing. “I’m already under a microscope, Ivy. And Em is the police.” But then he stopped to listen to something Emmaline was saying. “Ah. Got it,” he said to her. He cleared his throat as he came back to me over the phone. “It’s inconsistent.”

  “Exactly. Which is why you don’t need more scrutiny,” I said. “The Picaloos said they heard him talking to you.”

  “They’re wrong,” he said.

  “Some people have said that he was trying to make amends for his bad behavior,” I said.

  Again, he scoffed. “Not with me.”

  “He never called you? Never tried to make up or just say sorry for spying? For Mr. Zavila? For any of it?”

  Vanessa Rose had told me that Max had been saving his outreach to Billy, his lifeline, for last, but I wanted to confirm. If Vanessa was wrong, if Max had actually apologized to Billy, it would go a long way to deflating any motive the sheriff thought my brother might have.

  But Billy dashed those hopes. “Nope, not a word. He texted me. Said he couldn’t meet the truckers. That was it. Short and sweet.”

  All those years, Max had robbed him of winning the Art Car Show intentionally and diabolically. Which made Billy’s potential motive good and strong.

  “Jesus,” Billy muttered. I could picture him dragging his hand through his hair. “I didn’t kill him, Ivy.”

  “I know.”

  So who did?

  Chapter 26

  After a long night of tossing and turning, I finally gave up my attempt to get any real sleep. Just before five a.m., I got up, pulled on sweats and a T-shirt, and headed out, camera in hand. Agatha lay on the passenger’s side floor of the car, happily snoring. My car drove, almost of its own accord, straight to the beach. It was deserted—because any sane person was still in bed, fast asleep.

  Agatha and I walked along, her trotting along happily, her tail wrapped into a tight curl, and me lost in thought. After I’d left Santa Sofia to go to college, I never thought I’d be back here to live. But things happened. Life happened. I earned my degree, started my career, got married, ended up divorced. Now, with the waves crashing at the shoreline, the smooth silk of the morning sand under my feet, and the sunrise on the horizon, I wondered why I’d ever left. This place was home. It always was and it always would be.

  I walked along the beach and shot the sunset, capturing a barge far in the distance, a ship that was massive, but that looked as if it could fit in the palm of my hand. Distance was a funny thing, warping your perspective. It was as true with vessels moored off the coast, as it was with family half a country away. The reality was that being up close let you see things with clearer eyes. Relationships strengthened, rather than fading into afterthoughts. Faces snapped into sharp focus. The holes carved by being away from people filled again.

  Finally, after forty minutes, I settled at one of my favorite spots—a cluster of rocks a few yards from the breakers. A massive flat boulder formed the tip of the formation. I let Agatha out of her harness and sat down to watch as she scampered around, stopped to frenetically dig into the freshly packed sand, sniff, and then move on to another fascinating area of the beach. It was her happy place as much as it was mine.

  A cool breeze blew in off the shore. I wrapped my sweater tighter around me, letting my thoughts flit from one idea to the next in the exact way Agatha flitted from one place to another. The holes I’d had inside after being away for so many years, I realized, had closed, just like the people I loved had become entwined in my life again.

  The light was still soft and lovely, full of promise and hope, by the time Agatha and I left the beach. I went home, cleaned up, and by six-thirty I was at Yeast of Eden before the sun had fully risen.

  Olaya directed me to take the loaf pans filled with babka dough from the walk-in refrigerator. We’d spent time the day before making the traditional dough, letting it rise, filling it with the coffee-infused chocolate schmear, shaping it, placing each log into a prepa
red bread pan, and then sprinkling on the crumbly cinnamon-sugar topping We tented each loaf pan before placing them into the refrigerator.

  “Why babka?” I’d asked Olaya after she showed me the baking plan for the Art Car Show. The sheet of paper listing the various baking tasks we’d have leading up to the event lay on the table between us.

  “Babka. Panettone. Challah. Traditional bread. It is my specialty. No matter where it is from, what I want to share with my customers is the old way. I want them to experience bread the way it should be. The slow rise. The rustic experience, or the refined taste. Whatever it is, what I do is make bread the way it was made before bread machines and Wonder Bread.” She tapped her index finger on the paper. “Babka is not a common bread here. Most say it original, is that how you say it?”

  “Originated?” I said.

  She nodded. “Yes, yes. It originated in Eastern Europe. Russian or Slavic. Originated here with Jewish immigrants. You can find it in big cities. New York. San Francisco. Posiblemente en Houston, even. Not in a small-town bakery or bread shop. But the babka, it is good. The people, they love it. So I make the chocolate krantz cakes for this event.”

  And make them she did. We did. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them. Yeast of Eden, along with a few other local eateries, would have a booth set up. Babkas were just one of the baked delicacies we’d offer, but Olaya clearly thought it would be high on everyone’s list. Our production of the chocolate swirled bread far outnumbered the other things we were making. Once we had let them rise and they were baking, the scent of coffee, chocolate, and yeasty bread filling the kitchen, I thought she might be right. But then she handed me a slice from the first finished loaf. It had a sweetly crumbed outer edge, and the yeast bread, with its swirls of coffee-infused chocolate, melted in my mouth. I was a believer.

  By the time the vans were loaded, the krantz cakes, as they were also called, were done. We took them from the ovens, placing them on the bakery racks to cool. Someone would come back for them. By eight o’clock, I followed the van to the beachfront park, where the festival booths were already set up. The bread shop did enough special off-site events that the setup and tear down were no-brainers for the small crew. I’d become part of the streamlined process, directing people as they unloaded the breads and setting up the displays for the day’s events. I arranged babka, muffins, mini loaves of sweet breads, baguettes, and some of Olaya’s other specialties on the white linen-covered tables.

  As I worked, Olaya took the time to hide several of her sugar skull cookies amidst the bread. It was part of who she was—infusing her culture and tradition into everything she did.

  I slung my camera strap over my shoulder, ready to head to the parade. Before I left, she gave me a quick hug. “Nothing is accidental, Ivy. You can see everything if you look.” And then she handed me one of the skull cookies. “Buena suerte,” she said.

  The torta Miguel had made me; the bit of sourdough I’d managed to choke down; the babka. Since Max’s death, my appetite had all but disappeared, but I’d managed to get in the bare minimum. The cookie did tempt me, though. I took a bite. It was perfect, melting in my mouth, but not too sweet. The thin layer of icing, with its hint of almond, was the perfect complement. Olaya and her bread were known far and wide for their magic and healing abilities. People came from far and wide for bread from Yeast of Eden because of the healing that came with it. Lavender for anxiety, dill to help nursing mothers, passionflower to aid sleep. Whether it was mind over matter or Olaya’s manipulation of herbs didn’t matter. People came to her for help, and the breads she offered always seemed to do the trick.

  Her words sank into me and I took them to heart. Nothing was accidental. I would keep my eyes and ears wide open. Maybe, I thought optimistically, the skull cookie, which represented love and family, really would give me the luck I needed.

  I left the booths behind, wending my way through the park, past the staging area for the Art Car Parade, along the street, and to the end point. From the look of things, the entire town had come out for the event. There were more people lined up along both sides of the street than I ever recalled seeing at past art car parades. Was it the murder of a local that had brought the masses out? It seemed to be the logical reason for the increase in attendance, but at the same time, I couldn’t fathom why. Max was gone, and not well-loved, and his murderer wasn’t wearing a sign to announce his—or her—presence, so that was not a sound reason for the increased attendance. Aside from the cars, there was nothing to be seen.

  Olaya’s voice sounded in my head. You can see everything if you look.

  And so I looked. I turned and scanned the area behind me. Rotated to look up and down the line of cars. Peered past the art cars toward the beach. Nothing struck me. Nobody guiltily darted in between people or held up a sign proclaiming himself or herself as a killer. Despite all the people, however, the mood along the street was subdued. Not tense, exactly, but not full of energy like you might expect from a crowd. And then, like an aftershock, it hit me: People were afraid there would be another body. Another murder in Santa Sofia. If it happened, they wanted a front-row seat. People were twisted that way.

  To the west, the Pacific Ocean loomed, waves crashing. The sound washed over me now, calming me, as I found a spot in the shade and waited. The subdued cheering from the staging area carried all the way down the street. The parade had begun. It wouldn’t be long before the cars started rolling by. I readied my camera and waited.

  As the first car rolled by, the crowd, like a sleeping giant roused by a mass of mischievous Lilliputians, awakened. They clapped and cheered. The art car drivers and passengers tossed candy out of the windows to elated children. I snapped picture after picture, moving around and darting between the cars as they passed to get the best shots, to capture faces in the crowd, to represent all facets of the annual Santa Sofia event. Max Litman’s death never left my mind. I searched the crowd, but I wasn’t looking for anything—or anyone—specifically, so of course nothing jumped out.

  The cars drove at about fifteen miles per hour, allowing everyone to get a good look at them. Two hours had passed. I’d been on the lookout, impatient to see Billy’s Through the Looking Glass Jabberwocky car. Finally, as the last of them came down the street, I saw it. A hush came over each section of the crowd it passed by. It was full of life, tottering whimsically as it rolled along. I’d seen it throughout its construction, of course, as well as when I’d photographed it not even a week ago. But seeing it in the context of the parade gave me a different perspective. Billy had truly outdone himself. The cheering crowd confirmed it.

  But then, as suddenly as the whoops and hollers started, a hush fell over the crowd. The final car rolled into sight. Max Litman’s Zombie Apocalypse was closing the parade. It was meant as a tribute, but more than anything, it felt like a metaphor. Zombies were dead, yet they lived on, just like Max.

  Chapter 27

  The only formal dress I owned was from an evening wedding I’d been in five years ago. The fabric was textured crepe with watercolor flowers, cap sleeves, a back slit, and a satin sash. The background was neutral and the flowers were muted, yet vibrant enough to stand out. The bride had told us this was the bridesmaid dress we’d wear again, but I’d had my doubts. I’d never had an occasion—until now. It was looser than it had been when I’d first worn it. The evils of divorce and death, I guess.

  I messed with my hair for a solid fifteen minutes, but my spiral locks were looking particularly carroty and were untamable at the moment. In the end, I pulled the mass back, twisting it into a messy bun. I pulled a few loose strands out to frame my face and called it done. A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of Mrs. Branford’s house. She was waiting for me on the sidewalk in a powder-blue gown with a chiffon skirt and tiny silver beads that sparkled in the moonlight. This was a far cry from her daily velour sweat suits. I liked making connections between things and I’d often thought that the Sex and the City women were the Golden Girls in
their early years. Looking now at Mrs. Branford, she was clearly Elsa, from Frozen, all grown up and ready for the ball.

  “Ooh la la, Mrs. Branford!” I said as I came around to the passenger side of the car to help her in. “Stunning!”

  She waved me away, but blushed, clearly pleased. “The last time I wore this dress was at Jimmy and my fiftieth wedding anniversary. We treated ourselves to a cruise—with a balcony, no less—and you know the ships, they have their black tie night. All I can say is that James Bond has nothing on Jimmy in a tux.”

  Her husband had been gone for ten years. She didn’t talk about him much, but I knew she missed him every single day. Wearing her blue chiffon dress had given her a short stroll down memory lane. “I imagine it looks just as great on you now as it did then,” I said as I tucked the folds of the skirt’s fabric into the car.

  She looked up at me from where she sat. I had one hand on the open door and the other on the frame. “Well, of course it does, dear.”

  “He was a lucky man, Mrs. Branford. A very lucky man.”

  She looked like she might say something sentimental, but after giving her head a little shake, the moment was gone. “Enough of this,” she said as she grabbed the handle and yanked the door shut. She spun her finger in an air circle and spoke to me through the glass. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Which is just what we did. Door to door, it was a fifteen-minute drive to the Santa Sofia’s convention center. We’d arrived early so I could take pictures and Mrs. Branford could meet with the committee and troubleshoot any last-minute issues. Other than the art car entries circling the outside edge, just a few cars peppered the parking lot. I found a space close to the entrance, then helped Mrs. Branford out of the car. Manipulating the flowing fabric folds of her dress would be very different than her normal track suits, and I was afraid her cane might get tangled up in the yards of chiffon. “Please be careful,” I cautioned. “I don’t want you to trip.”