The Walking Bread

by Winnie Archer

  One side of his taut mouth curved up, not in a real smile, but in an indulgent gesture, as if he were telling a child to go ahead and explain the tax code. “By all means.”

  I was surprisingly calm, given how much I wanted him to take what I had to say and run with it. “I know Em—er—Detective Davis shared the investment fraud with the condo deal with you. There are a lot of people who each lost a lot of money thanks to Max.”

  He nodded, again, just once, but it wasn’t an affirmation. With the raised eyebrows, it was more of a “Is that all you’ve got?” expression. “Max being dead wouldn’t help them retrieve their money, though, would it?”

  I had to concede that point. “But at this point, is there any hope of recouping it?” I asked. The sheriff chose not to reply, as if it had been rhetorical, so I forged ahead. “He had a spiritual advisor. Or a life coach.” I pointed to Vanessa Rose across the room. She stood at one of the mounted cars, completely motionless.

  The sheriff dropped his arms to his side. “Is that right?” He turned to his deputy. “How did we not know about this?”

  The deputy’s brown eyes grew wide. “You said to, er, we’ve been focusing on—”

  His words broke off when the sheriff raised his hand, palm out, but I’d heard enough to know that the deputy had simply been following orders. He’d investigated what he’d been told to investigate, nothing more, nothing less.

  “Is there anything else, Ms. Culpepper?” he asked.

  I nodded. I hated to think that it could be true, but Mr. Zavila, high school art teacher and Billy’s former art car consultant, had a motive. “Cristopher Zavila. He helped Max cheat with his art cars. His wins were not legitimate, you know. Mr. Zavila was a spy. He was paid well, but then Max fired him.”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes before shaking his head. “There again, you can’t get blood from a stone. With Max alive, there would have been a chance for other work. With him dead, that pipeline is closed up. Not a sound motive.”

  “I see your point,” I said. He was a tiny bit smarter than I’d given him credit for. Max’s death meant that the mysterious investors—mysterious with the exception of Johnny Wellborn and Vicente Villanueva—Vanessa Rose, and Cristopher Zavila had no more chance of regaining or, in the case of Vanessa, earning any more money from Max. And if Vanessa and Max had been in a real relationship, then her motive weakened. “People have killed for a lot of stupid reasons,” I said, playing devil’s advocate. I’d watched Law & Order, after all. I’d seen stories ripped from the headlines. I’d read about murders committed for no reason at all. Anger and revenge for perceived wrongs was not that much of a stretch. It was the same motive the sheriff was attaching to Billy.

  But the sheriff wasn’t willing to concede that point. “This isn’t a TV show, or a make-believe crime novel, Ms. Culpepper. It’s real life. I’m looking for real things that lead to real motives.”

  No, I thought, you’re looking for anything that will corroborate your opinion that Billy is guilty. For a fleeting moment, I’d hoped that maybe I’d mischaracterized the sheriff. I’d hoped that maybe he was open to seeing what happened at the event tonight that might connect back to Max. I’d believed for the briefest second that maybe, just maybe, Sheriff Lane hadn’t bet his entire hand on Billy.

  But then I remembered what Emmaline had said so often about Lane’s skill and, to use his made-up word, detectiving. He’d never see it my way.

  Chapter 28

  I hadn’t come to the ball with any sort of an orchestrated plan. The music pulsing and the people circulating didn’t give me any other bright ideas. The art cars Max Litman had painstakingly arranged to install for the event hadn’t told me anything. Maybe the photos he’d displayed with each installment would.

  I told Miguel my thoughts. “Let’s take one more look at them. You game?”

  Of course, he was. My ankle ached a little less, but we took it slowly, skirting past the people gathered around each creation. I looked for Vanessa, but she’d vanished into the crowd. I’d caught a glimpse of Dixie, flipping her hair and sashaying around like Marilyn Monroe. That woman was one of a kind. The one person I hadn’t seen was Mr. Zavila. I wasn’t sure how much I considered him a true suspect, but he stayed in the back of my mind.

  Miguel and I peered more closely at the photos. As we stood in front of the first one, Miguel leaned in next to me, hands in his pockets. “What are you looking for?”

  I didn’t have anything explicit on my mind, but sometimes things came to light when you weren’t even looking. “What if one of the women pictured with Max could give us some sort of clue?”

  “We already have a pretty healthy list of potential suspects,” he said. “Do we need more?”

  “We have ten investors, all dismissed as suspects by the sheriff. We have a spiritual advisor with no ascertainable motive. We have the art teacher who gets out from under Max’s thumb with his death, but also has no more chance to earn extra money. We have my brother, who we know is innocent. A picture speaks a thousand words, they say. What if one of these can tell us something?”

  We made our way around the perimeter of the room, stopping at each car to study the pictures. It didn’t take long to ascertain that what we needed to focus on was the women. I had to give it to Max. He kept it interesting. Some had black wavy hair; blond locks; auburn curls; even strawberry ginger. Pale skin, coffee-colored, freckled, and olive. It seemed that Max Litman had liked his women in every flavor.

  “Maybe Vanessa does have a motive,” I said slowly, thinking as I talked. I swept my hand wide to encompass the room as a whole.

  Miguel, however, knew what I meant. “You think she was jealous?”

  She hadn’t struck me as the green-eyed type, but I’d been surprised before. People played against type all the time. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Anything is.”

  One by one, we looked more closely at the pictures. After we’d studied a few, something struck me about one of the women. Her head angled toward the camera, the crystal blue of her eyes boring into me. Her hair was distinctly red, her lips painted crimson, but it was the eyes that I came back to. I backtracked to the previous photo. “That’s the same woman,” I said.

  “No, it can’t be.” He was skeptical, but peered closer. “Can it?”

  “The hair is different”—I pointed to the first photo—“but they have the same jawline. The same skin tone.”

  Miguel leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Okay, but what if it is the same woman? That doesn’t make her a murderer.”

  I ignored his logic, instead hurrying to the next picture. It didn’t matter why, but I wanted it to be the same woman.

  “Look at the eyes.”

  As he considered, I went on to the next car and photograph. The same vibrant blue eyes stared at me. She was in three of the pictures. I held my breath as I turned to face the room, scanning each face. Searching each corner of the room, I considered each woman.

  “Three of them seem to be the same,” Miguel said as he came up beside me.

  I nodded, but exhaled slowly, disappointed. “She’s not here.” Which, truthfully, shouldn’t have surprised me. Nothing about absolving Billy of Max’s murder was easy.

  Miguel, however, wasn’t so willing to throw in the towel. I knew he was keeping his eyes peeled as we walked. I was, too, but the women’s faces had blurred together, their murky features filling my head until it swam. The nausea that had taken root in my gut churned to life. I wanted to end the evening by identifying a murderer.

  Miguel and I had come full circle, ending at the buffet table. Olaya and Walter had their crews, dressed in crisp black and white, working the room, platters in hand. They navigated through the clusters of people with the ease of runway models, passing each other, pivoting, and returning, all with effortless ease. Two others kept the buffet table stocked, blending into the background as they disappeared into the kitchen, returning to refill platter after platter.
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  Miguel held a small plate out to me full of a sampling of hors d’oeuvres. The aroma. The colors. Everything on it looked delectable and I could have eaten every bit of it if it weren’t for the hole in the pit of my stomach.

  I shook my head, pushing it away with the pads of my fingertips. “I can’t.”

  “You need to eat, Ivy.”

  He was right, of course, but I was afraid that after it went down, it would come right back up. “Maybe just a piece of bread,” I said, reaching for one of Olaya’s boules. The outer crust crumbled as I broke off a piece, the sourdough scent wafting up from the warm, soft center. If there was anything I could stomach, it was freshly baked bread from Yeast of Eden. I pulled a tuft from the center, but hesitated before eating it. It was just a simple rustic sourdough; would it work its magic, easing my unrest and anxiety over the dark cloud hanging above Billy? I took a bite, hoping against hope that it would.

  Miguel was clearly relieved that I was eating. “Wine?”

  With a mouthful of bread, I nodded my assent.

  “Red or white?”

  I considered as I finished my next bite. “White,” I said, but then I hesitated. “Er, no red.” I took another bite and shook my head. “No, yes. Red.”

  He notched one side of his mouth up in amusement, but waited a beat to be sure I wasn’t going to change my mind again. “Red it is,” he said when he was sure I wouldn’t, and in a matter of seconds, he was sucked into the crowd, disappearing from my line of sight. I turned back to the buffet table and weighed pros and cons of eating something else. Miraculously, the knots in my stomach had loosened. Olaya’s bread had been known to work in a split second, relieving mind-numbing depression or alleviating a heartache that ran deeper than the earth’s core. It wouldn’t surprise me if my newfound calm was due to her.

  Still, not wanting to rile anything up, I decided to wait until the wine came. I turned back to face the dance floor, searching the crowd for Miguel. I didn’t see him, so I shifted my attention to the revelers and let my mind drift to Billy. With Max gone, he was a shoe-in for first place. But actually winning would only serve to underscore the motive I knew people had in the forefront of their minds—that, as ridiculous as it sounded, my brother was actually capable of killing in order to win a car contest. It would solidify the motive that the sheriff already had him pegged for.

  I scanned the crowd, but there was no sign of Billy. No sign of Emmaline, either. Where had they disappeared to?

  There were plenty of familiar faces, though. People I’d seen at the bread shop, or wandering through the antique mini mall, or at Baptista’s. People who’d been at the Winter Wonderland Festival. There were people, people everywhere. And then, like the Red Sea parting, one face came into startling focus. I started. I was staring straight into the piercing eyes of the woman featured in several of Max Litman’s photos.

  * * *

  Miguel materialized by my side, but I stayed focused on the woman. Slowly, I lifted my hand, pointing. “Look,” I whispered, hardly able to believe it. “That’s her.”

  He put the two wineglasses he held down and followed me across the dance floor, heading straight to her. In the photographs, she’d had shoulder-length auburn hair, a short shaggy blond do, and long strawberry-blond locks. The woman I saw in front of me had the jawline and the blue eyes, but her hair was jet black.

  She saw us coming. Watched, twisting her small gold clutch in her hands, looking puzzled.

  I smiled, hoping to diffuse any tension as I approached. “Hey,” I said, keeping my voice light.

  She took a step backward. “Yes?”

  “You’re in some of the pictures,” I said, letting my smile widen.

  She frowned. “I—how do you—?”

  I tapped my temple. “The eyes. They’re stunning. Truly.”

  She blinked, five or six times in quick succession, but didn’t respond.

  “You and Max must have been close,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she said, evading responding to my statement.

  “I grew up in Santa Sofia. Ivy,” I said, extending my hand.

  She took it, albeit with some trepidation. Her grip was loose. Nervous. “Isabel.”

  “This is Miguel,” I said. He’d been hanging back, but I twisted slightly to put my hand on his arm and nudge him forward.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “Did you know Max?” she asked, her sparkling blue eyes hooded.

  How did I answer that? Sure! He screwed my brother so he’d never win the Art Car Show award. He spied on him. Every. Single. Year. I went with the safe answer, though. “Not exactly.”

  She looked at Miguel, who shrugged. “He came into my restaurant sometimes. Baptista’s.”

  She swallowed, looking a little too guilty, if you asked me. “Do you know it? Best restaurant in town,” I said.

  Miguel cocked his head. “You look familiar.”

  She swallowed again, shaking her head. “I don’t, um, no. Baptista’s? No, never.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Last week, right?”

  I looked at him, my mind racing. I didn’t know if he was serious or if he was playing at something. And then it dawned on me. I remembered what his mother had told him. Four people at the restaurant. Max’s name mentioned. A man who spoke Spanish. Someone who said they were better off with Max dead. One of them had to have been Johnny Wellborn. And a woman with dark hair and bright eyes.

  This woman. This Isabel. “You’re one of the investors,” I said. My heart raced. I’d gone back and forth between the idea of jealousy and revenge. I didn’t know if IDing the investors meant anything, if it would lead to solving Max’s murder, but it felt like a victory.

  She did her rapid eye blinking again, rubbed the back of her neck, and swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Just then, an involuntary squeaking sound came from the base of her throat. Her bright blue eyes bugged and she turned her body slightly just as we were joined by two people. Martina Solis, looking sleek and sophisticated in a pale-green beaded dress, her dark hair slicked back into a tight bun, came up next to me. “I have been looking for you, Ivy. I want to introduce you to mi novio. This is Vicente.”

  I nearly dropped my camera. “Vicente Villanueva?”

  He extended his hand to me. “Mucho gusto,” he said.

  The next few seconds were a blur. I know I took his hand. My handshake had to be as limp as Isabel’s had been.

  Vicente Villanueva drew his head back, clearly perplexed by my reaction to him, but he was a gentleman. Miguel looked just as baffled, but he returned the handshake and responded with his own, “Mucho gusto.”

  Four things hit me all at once. The first was that Miguel’s mother had told him that one of the men she’d seen at Baptista’s spoke Spanish. The second was our belief that Isabel had also been at Baptista’s, and therefore was one of the investors. And then there was Johnny Wellborn.

  It was the fourth realization that hit me like a ten-pound bag of King Arthur Flour to the head. This man, Martina’s boyfriend, was the man I’d just seen talking with Sheriff Lane.

  Chapter 29

  My head spun. It had to mean something, but what? How did Martina’s boyfriend know the sheriff? I kept an eye on Vicente Villanueva and his brief—and awkward—greeting to Isabel, at the same time angling my head toward Miguel. “Take a picture of Isabel and Vicente,” I whispered. “And the sheriff.”

  One eyebrow arched up. But then his eyes narrowed as he processed what I had said. He gave the briefest of nods, taking his cell phone from his pocket. “Con permiso,” he said, and held up his phone. “My mother.”

  Isabel gave a forced laugh. Vicente and Martina both nodded as if they understood. The three of them had a shared culture, so Vicente and Martina understood the importance of family and the matriarch of a Mexican family.

  Miguel brushed my cheek with his lip, quickly whispering, “I’ll
find out.”

  We were in tune, thank God. We might not finish each other’s sentences like Laura and her husband, but we were on our way. I felt my face heat with anxiety. Was I right? Did Max’s death have nothing to do with jealousy and Vanessa Rose, and everything to do with the condo deal Johnny Wellborn had told us about, and the investors losing their nest eggs?

  Something Emmaline had told me came jetting to the forefront of my thoughts. The sheriff had stopped being involved in the field when he’d inherited some sum of money. That meant he’d have had enough to invest—and lose—in Max’s condo deal.

  We made idle small talk, my heart racing the whole time. What was taking Miguel so long? Surely he’d managed to unobtrusively snap pictures of the suspects and text them to his mom. But, it occurred to me, his mother wasn’t terribly tech savvy. Miguel had gotten her the latest smartphone, but she used it to call people and play games. She hadn’t mastered the finger dexterity needed to text.

  I scanned the room for him, spotting him back by the food, his phone pressed to his ear. So he’d called her instead. Brilliant.

  I turned back to find our little conversation circle had grown. Emmaline and Billy had joined us, along with Mrs. Branford and another octogenarian, Mason Caldwell. She had her hand on his arm, a smile on her face, and a blush on her cheeks. They’d taught together at Santa Sofia High School and from the looks of it, they had reconnected. “Time to announce the Art Car winners!” Mrs. Branford said.

  A man’s voice came through the speakers. From the orientation of the crowd, whoever it was stood in front of one of Max’s cars directly opposite from the food tables. He started by regaling the room with the background of the Art Car Show, launching into descriptions of some of the most memorable cars over the years. Naturally, this led to a retrospective of Max Litman and the exhibition of his cars around the room.

  The conversation of our little group stopped as we all listened. Only Em started to say something, but her words cut off the second she looked at my face. “Ivy, are you okay?” she asked, taking my hand. Do you need to sit down?”