by Lee, Carol
Just then, the doorbell rang and Sydney quickly pulled the floor-length curtain completely around herself. Am I really hiding behind a curtain? she thought. She felt like she was playing hide-and-go-seek with her nieces.
She heard a door open down the hall, a squeaky hinge giving itself away, and dared to peek around the corner of the curtain. She saw Maria stick her head out of the room where the light was on, check up and down the hallway, and then step out of the room, carefully and silently closing the door behind her.
Sydney stayed behind the curtain until she heard the front door open and Maria greet more guests. It sounded like a crowd, so she thought it would be safe to sneak into the same room Maria had just come out of, thinking Maria would be busy for a few minutes.
She peaked around the corner at the top of the stairs, and seeing no one at the front door anymore and no one coming up the stairs, she tip toed to the second door on the left. She was thankful it wasn’t locked, and she let herself in.
She didn’t dare turn the light on, but took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight. She checked the sound to make sure it was off. She didn’t want a warning text from Grace to give her away. She kept the vibration on so she’d at least have a heads up, though.
Sydney was in an office. Clearly it was a man’s, likely Marcus’. It smelled of man—stale cigars and body odor. He should open the windows, Sydney thought, taking shallow breaths to avoid the stench.
There were giant filing cabinets along opposite walls, an oak desk in the middle of the room and an executive leather chair with its back to the window. If you had this kind of space, why wouldn’t you want to face outside? Sydney thought to herself.
She didn’t immediately see anything out of place, but continued taking in her surroundings. If Maria had been sneaking in and out of this office, there must be something worth knowing about. It could be related to Julia’s murder, and if it was, Sydney needed to know about it too.
Then she saw it. A pair of skimpy red—something—was just about falling off of the top of one of the filing cabinets. She walked over to get a better look, but was too short to reach it. If it was Julia’s, she certainly hadn’t put it there. Julia had been shorter than Sydney.
She looked around for something to use to get it down, but before she could find anything, she felt her phone vibrate in her hand. Maria’s acting funny. Get back down here. Keeping her here so she doesn’t go back up. Grace was a life saver.
Sydney listened with her ear to the door but didn’t hear anyone in the hall. She cracked the door open and saw that she was safe to exit. Her heart pounded as she walked toward the back of the house, through the door leading to her room and made a quick stop in her room. She didn’t want to have to lie when she got back to the kitchen, so this way she could say she’d been in her room. After less than a minute in her room, she walked down the back staircase, looking as calm as she could muster.
Sydney was surprised to see at least two dozen people in the main room already. She walked through slowly, checking on the food set out for the guests, and trying to listen to any snippets of conversation. She heard lots of praise for Julia’s involvement in the community and guests offering their condolences to Marcus.
“She was volunteering on so many committees.”
“It’s a shame, she was such a vibrant member of Newhall.”
“Marcus, I can’t imagine the pain you’re experiencing. What a trooper to have this party tonight. To Julia,” one woman offered as those in the group raised their glasses and toasted Julia’s life.
“Where’s Maria?” Sydney asked Grace when she arrived back in the kitchen and found her pulling a tray of kale chips out of the oven. Kale chips! She would have failed her first catering job if Grace hadn’t been there.
“She went back upstairs. I couldn’t hold her off long enough. Did she see you?”
“No. I went to my room and down the back staircase. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Good thinking. Did you find anything?” Grace moved on from the chips that she’d put into a bowl and was refilling trays of mushrooms and quiches. Sydney hoped they had enough. Her instructions had been finger food. Julia hadn’t wanted to have a sit-down dinner.
“Yeah. Some skimpy article of clothing hiding on top of Marcus’ filing cabinet. It was too high for me to reach, so too high for Julia to have put it there. We have to find out how involved in the business she was to know if she even ever went in there. Or if it belonged to someone else and Marcus was having an affair.”
“Well then get out there with these trays while I fill more and work on the eggnog, because there’s a woman just about hanging off of Marcus. If you’re looking for a lover of his, you might just find her.”
Grace handed two trays of food to Sydney and nearly pushed her out of the kitchen.
***
“Sydney! This food is incredible!” a voice said behind her. She was on auto pilot and hadn’t even looked around yet. She turned and saw Ryan talking to her above the mumbled hum of all the guests talking at once, close to fifty now.
“Ryan! Thanks. It was quite the undertaking in the end.”
“I think you’ve outdone the previous caterer.”
Sydney gave a half-hearted smile. “I guess you’ve heard about Julia, then?” she asked.
“Yes. This morning. It was such a shock.” Ryan’s eyes filled with tears and he dabbed at them with his napkin. “Sorry. I thought I’d be able to make it through this party without falling apart again. I know this was one of her favorite events of the year, so I’m happy Marcus decided to go through with it instead of canceling, but I wish he’d made it into a memorial of some sort.”
“Well, it was very last minute,” Sydney said, looking around to locate Marcus and see about this woman.
“Let me introduce you to my wife, she’s been raving about the food, too.” Ryan reached to take her elbow and guide her toward the bar while even more guests flooded into the main room.
“Let me just put these trays down first,” she said quickly before he could rope her into his plan.
“Of course, let me help you.” He went to take one of the trays from her.
“No, you’re here to enjoy. I’ll be back in thirty seconds,” she promised and headed toward the staircase to replace the empty trays.
She glanced up the stairs to see if Maria was in sight, but she couldn’t see the office door so didn’t know if she was back in that office. Disappointed, she walked back to where Ryan was waiting and sipping his wine.
This time he succeeded in taking her elbow and guiding her through the growing throng of guests. She could see that they were all enjoying their food and pride swelled in her chest. She was reminded again and again of why she baked for people—her joy in seeing their happiness.
“The decorations are incredible, did you do those as well?” Ryan asked.
This was the first time that Sydney had really taken the time to look around at anything besides her food. She’d been so focused on her own work that she hadn’t noticed all of the Christmas decorations. There was a giant tree in the corner, gifts beneath and ornaments all over. It gave off a strong smell of pine, inviting guests into the room with its natural scent. There were dozens of strands of white lights flowing around the tree and adorning the edges of the room. There were no overhead lights on, the Christmas lights lit the room perfectly.
Sydney was impressed with not only the Durans’ decorations, but the way Grace had set out the food. She chided herself for having it all work out by dumb luck, not her planning, but the presentation was key. Each bouquet, next to each tray, had plenty of babys breath and ferns mixed in with red roses. The colors were perfect for the season. And the babys breath even looked like snow sprinkled on the other flowers. The table cloths had been an impulse buy just days before the job had started. They’d been on sale and she’d had no idea if they’d use them or not. Now, they couldn’t be more perfect. They were dark red and green, letting the f
lowers accentuate their darkness and the silver of the trays shine brightly on top.
“No, that must have been Julia,” Sydney said, taking everything in. And Grace, she thought.
Ryan led her gently to the bar, Marcus and another woman were getting refills of their mixed drinks from Drew who was smiling away. He looked like he either belonged in this world of wealth or was hoping to work his way into it. Sydney couldn’t help but notice Marcus’ hand on the small of the woman’s back.
“Stacey, this is Sydney. She’s the one who made all of the food,” Ryan said, introducing her to the woman with Marcus. “Sydney, this is my wife Stacey.”
“Nice to meet you,” Stacey said, sticking her hand out to shake Sydney’s.
Sydney stashed the empty trays under one arm and shook Stacey’s offered hand. “Nice to meet you too. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the food.”
“It’s incredible. I hear you’re giving out business cards.”
“Sure.” Sydney fumbled in her apron to find another card. She might have to make another trip to her room to get more if this continued.
“We have a Super Bowl party every year, and I’d love to talk to you about you catering that.”
“Give me a call after the new year, and I’d love to setup a meeting!” Sydney couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. She knew she’d eventually have to hire another employee, but maybe it’d be sooner rather than later.
Ryan excused himself and Sydney was left with Marcus and Stacey, but nothing to talk about. Marcus’ hand hadn’t left Stacey’s back through the whole conversation.
“Stacey is also a member of our board,” Marcus said, continuing the conversation that Sydney didn’t really want to have. “She’s been a huge asset with her networking and connections.”
“That’s great. I really have to get back to the kitchen,” Sydney said by way of explanation for her quick departure. She turned and returned to her safe haven.
“Anything?” Grace whispered, making good progress on the eggnog.
“Something. The woman you saw, Stacey, was hanging onto Marcus and is the wife of Ryan, the man who showed up yesterday looking for Julia and bringing flowers. He actually introduced me to her! And he was the most grief stricken of anyone I’ve seen all evening.”
“Maybe they were both sleeping with the others’ spouses,” Grace hypothesized. “Ryan did show up yesterday with flowers and then asked you not to say anything.”
“But if they’d both known, or even if one of them had, they must have been okay with it. I’d think they’d just let it go, or get divorces and be with who they really wanted.”
“Maybe they didn’t know and Maria was planting clues. Maybe that’s what that lingerie was—just a clue from Maria about Marcus’ affair.”
“Why would she want to rat out her employers? She’s been with them so long. But she doesn’t seem to be too upset with all this.” Both women returned to their work, still thinking about what might have been going on.
Then Sydney’s phone rang with a number she didn’t recognize.
***
“This is Sydney,” she said, picking up after the third ring. She’d considered letting it go to voicemail.
“Sydney, this is Detective Joe Moore.”
“Detective, how can I help you?” she asked, turning to make eye contact with Grace.
“I was calling to let you know that the stab wounds are consistent with knives commonly used in commercial kitchens. We did some background checks and found that the most likely blade to have killed Julia is the same as the knife you insured three years ago. Is there anything you’d like to tell us?” His tone was much less friendly than this morning.
“It sounds like you think I did this, Detective.”
“We don’t have the knife in our hands, so we can’t make that statement, but we got a call from a Detective Austin Massey letting us know about your history with another murder investigation where you were fingered as a suspect, and we thought we’d lay it all out on the table for you. I’ll ask you again, is there anything you’d like to tell us, Sydney?”
“Well,” she started hesitantly, “one of my knives is missing—the one that’s insured. The last time I saw it was yesterday when I washed it. Then I left all the dishes out to dry over night and it wasn’t until later this morning that I noticed it was missing.”
“Thank you, we’ll take that into consideration as we continue our investigation.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you. Have a nice evening.”
Have a nice evening, she thought to herself after she hung up. Fat chance.
“Did they find the knife?” Grace asked, her attention completely on Sydney.
Sydney shook her head, no. “But they have reasonable evidence to believe that it was my knife that killed Julia. We need to get to the bottom of this. Where’s Maria?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
Just then, Ryan poked his head through the kitchen doorway and motioned for Sydney to join him. She made sure that Grace saw where she was going and slipped into the adjacent room.
“I wanted to explain my visit yesterday afternoon,” he whispered to her on the periphery of the room so no other guests could hear him. He was nearly yelling, but with all the noise of the guests, it felt like an intimate conversation in hushed tones.
The party was now in full swing and there were nearly 100 guests, just as Julia had planned. Many of them were long time employees of the Durans, including their gardener, who had replaced Maria’s late husband, and his family and many individuals who worked at the manufacturing plant. Sydney looked around and took it all in again, this world she knew she didn’t belong in but had suddenly been thrust into—the extravagant decorations, the food that was being enjoyed in every small group of people, the barely audible Christmas music that had sounded so loud with just a few guests, the fireplace blazing but putting out little heat, the stockings hung from the mantle for no one in particular, and the over the top outfits that she wouldn’t have even known where to shop to find them. She wished she’d known the dress code beforehand and had dressed up a little more.
“Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Julia’s first husband. He and their daughter died in a horrific car accident nine years ago. I’ve known her since before they were even together, and I know she struggles with their death every year. I saw the shock on your face and didn’t want you to have the wrong impression of our relationship.”
Sydney nodded. She was trying to process what he’d just told her and how it could fit into everything she and Grace had discussed. If Ryan was telling the truth, then he and Julia were not having an affair. But that didn’t release Marcus and Stacey from Sydney’s suspicion.
“I think Marcus must have taken her somewhere nice yesterday to keep her mind off of her pain,” he continued.
Sydney had nearly forgotten that she was still talking to Ryan. “I didn’t think anything of your visit,” she tried to lie, but knew it was futile.
“Well, I just wanted you to know the true nature of my visit. I better get back to Stacey.”
Back in the kitchen, Sydney told Grace about her conversation with Ryan.
“So if he and Julia weren’t having an affair, but Marcus and Stacey are, that gives even more motive for either of them to get rid of her,” Grace said, slicing another loaf of bread.
“But why not get a divorce?”
“Maybe he just doesn’t believe in divorce. Some people don’t.”
“But murder? How is that better?” Sydney asked.
“You’re asking the wrong person. Here, take this bread out there.” Grace handed her the finished loaf and Sydney walked back into the main room just in time to see Maria coming back down the stairs.
Just as Sydney placed the bread on the empty tray she was sent to refill, Maria screamed and fell down the last few steps, sending Cocoa and Mocha scattering in opposite directions as she tumbled toward them. They
’d chosen Maria as their new person to tail. Everyone stopped their conversations immediately and turned to see what the commotion had been. Sydney took this chance to get closer to Maria, under cover of looking like she was going to help her.
But she wasn’t the first person to reach her. A man Sydney hadn’t noticed before made it to Maria’s side and helped her to a sitting position at the bottom of the stairs. She had only fallen a few steps, but she looked like she was completely out of it.
“Maria, Maria,” the man started saying. He gently tapped her face to try to get her attention. “Can you hear me?”
She slowly opened her eyes and took control of her own movements again. Recognition flashed across her face as she said, “Eduardo? What happened?”
