“Sure,” I said, but I had no intention of calling him to join our next investigative adventure.
He gave me a backward glance, as if he were trying to decipher some hidden meaning in my single-word response. Then, coming up empty, he gave Mrs. Branford a wave, got into his truck, and sped away.
“Well, well, well,” Mrs. Branford said. I braced myself for the onslaught of her commentary, but she surprised me. “That young girl was quite helpful, don’t you think?”
“Quite,” I agreed, blinking away my relief. I didn’t want to talk about anything but Hank Rivera.
“You sure you have to go to Yeast of Eden?” She was clearly disappointed. I didn’t blame her. If I could, I’d head straight over to Crenshaw Company and hunt down Daniel Sanchez. But Olaya had come to count on me as much as I counted on her.
Our meeting with Hank’s former right-hand man would have to wait.
Chapter 15
There were a million things I loved about Santa Sofia. My father and brother were here, my mother was buried here. I had memory after memory after memory, from elementary-school plays to high-school homecoming and prom, to days laying out at the beach with Emmaline and my brief attempts at surfing. And, of course, Olaya and Mrs. Branford.
But the view of the coastline as I drove along Beach Road came in a close second to most of my favorite things in town. Beach Road wasn’t an original name for a coastal highway—if you could even call it that—but it was accurate. It ran alongside the sandy expanses of public beaches at the ocean side, but at times it worked its way inland and ran alongside parts of our own special forest. La Mujer wasn’t as renowned as Los Padres National Forest, but all Santa Sofians loved it. Our beach town was located northwest of San Luis Obispo, which sat inland. We didn’t have Los Padres, but we had a large variety of vegetation and our trees were spectacular. Coastal redwoods, a variety of pine trees, oaks, and a fair number of willows, cottonwoods, alders, and sycamores made up the green space.
I stayed on Beach Road as I headed back to town from Daniel Sanchez’s more inland residence, my thoughts on Hank Rivera and the end of his marriage. I felt for the man. My marriage had ended after only a fraction of time compared to the length of Hank and Brenda’s marriage. The betrayal of a cheating spouse after more than half your life together had to feel like an earthquake at a fragile fault line.
“You’re taking the scenic route,” Mrs. Branford commented.
I blinked, my thoughts retreating. “Oh, yeah. Distracted, I guess.”
“Thinking about Hank?”
The more time we spent together, the more Mrs. Branford seemed to know just what was on my mind. I told her my thoughts on divorce and what Hank might be feeling, but followed it up with my reservations. “I just . . . I wonder if that was enough to make him vanish from his life.”
“Divorce is like a loss,” she said, “and people deal with loss in a lot of different ways.”
I knew she spoke from her own experiences. She’d almost lost Jimmy, the love of her life, to another woman, namely Olaya—hence their strained friendship—and then she had lost him when he’d died a little more than ten years ago. Mrs. Branford knew what it was like to have a broken heart, of that I had no doubt. She hadn’t run away from her life like Hank did, however. She’d stayed the course and eventually, both times, her heart had healed.
I cracked my window for a moment, letting in the brisk ocean air. I breathed deeply, letting the air filter through me. “I don’t know if it’s intuition or skepticism or something else,” I said, “but I feel as if there is more to this story. Something else that made him run away. Do you think that’s possible, or am I trying to make things more complicated than they probably are?”
She adjusted the sleeves on her turquoise velour lounge suit as she considered my question. “In my experience, Ivy, human nature is unpredictable at best. I think anything is possible.”
I did, too. But no matter what the situation was with Hank, the problem was trying to actually figuring it out. We had so little to go on.
Mrs. Branford reached over and patted my arm. “Don’t ignore your intuition. You have it for a reason.”
I tossed that over in my mind. She was right. Intuition didn’t need reason or logic to back it up. It was a sixth sense that was indefinable. At the moment that felt like all I had to go on. I had a hunch that there was more to Hank’s disappearance than betrayal and a broken marriage. I tossed around the other possibilities in my mind, throwing them out for her to chew on “What could motivate someone to pick up and simply leave their life? Money troubles? We know Hank had that. Betrayal? He had that, too. Love? Blackmail?”
“Any of the above,” Mrs. Branford said.
I went with the financial angle first. “If he isn’t getting paid by people who owe him, then he can’t pay the people he owes. That could have put him in a never-ending downward spiral that he couldn’t control. But,” I said, playing devil’s advocate, “wouldn’t Brenda have known that things were that bad?”
Mrs. Branford sighed. “Ivy, people tell you what they want you to know, or they spin it so they control the message. Rhetorical fallacy one-oh-one.”
She always came back to her years of teaching English. “Okay. So maybe Brenda knows how bad things are for Hank and she’s trying to mislead us. But why? Why would she do that?”
“I just explained human nature, my dear. I don’t actually have the answer.”
I pondered the possibility of Brenda knowing just how bad Hank’s financial situation was. The problem might have been real, but did it explain Hank’s response? People trying to escape their life—if that’s what was happening with Hank—did it for some very serious reasons. Were his finances that bad? And if Brenda knew, then why keep it a secret? I came back to one of the questions I’d asked Phil and his response. Hank had life insurance. Was Brenda hoping Hank didn’t come back so she could collect on that insurance? Was she the beneficiary? I made a mental note to share this theory with Em. She could find out the details of Hank’s policy easier than I could.
“So one scenario is that Hank ran away to—what—think things through? Come up with a solution to his problems? Or does he not plan on ever coming back?”
“There’s no way we can know that,” Mrs. Branford said. The soft curls of her white hair bobbed slightly with the movement of the car. “If he didn’t leave a clue that we’re somehow missing, and if this Daniel Sanchez fellow doesn’t know anything, I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to find him.”
I didn’t, either, but I wasn’t about to give up. I wanted to know the truth if only to satiate my own curiosity.
I went back to my list of reasons Hank might have disappeared. “Nothing in the blackmail or the love columns,” I said.
Mrs. Branford tapped my hand on the steering wheel. “That we know about.”
“Good point.” I continued my thought process. “What if he actually fell in love with someone else? I mean, he and Brenda were already split, she had an affair with his brother—” I had trouble saying those words without getting a bad taste in my mouth—“so why wouldn’t he move on?”
“It isn’t always easy to find love, Ivy.”
That was an understatement. My eyes strayed from the road to her. “Did you try to date after Mr. Branford passed away?” He’d been gone a decade, which meant she would have been a spritely seventy-six-year-old when he’d passed. I knew love was hard to find at any age, but I imagined even more so during your third act.
Her hand fluttered. “No, no. Me? No. Jimmy was my one and only. But Hank is young—”
“He’s in his sixties, right?”
She looked at me, hitting me with a clear-eyed gaze. “Which, relative to my age, makes him a spring chicken.”
I smiled. “Point taken.”
“He has plenty of time to find someone new. With Internet dating as rampant as it is, the possibilities seem nearly limitless.”
Internet dating. But Brenda had said Hank
didn’t do computers. Still . . . “Oh my God,” I said, a new idea surfacing. I shot a furtive glance at her, my hands tight on the steering wheel. “What if he got over the technology phobia? What if he’s been catfished?”
She looked at me, the expression on her face showing that she wasn’t familiar with that particular urban idiom. “It means to be lured in,” I explained. “Like you hook a catfish by the mouth, pulling it in? You trick someone online into thinking you’re someone you’re actually not. They believe you, and so they’ve been catfished.”
“Ah, hoodwinked,” she said, but then her eyes narrowed and one corner of her lip rose in distaste. “People just don’t court each other anymore?”
I shook my head. “Not so much.” Setting dates, full conversations, breaking up with people—it all happened over text these days.
“Catfished,” she repeated, shaking her head. “It’s a crazy world.”
A crazy world, indeed. I continued with my hypothesis: “What if he met someone on one of those Internet dating sites?”
“By that you mean someone who wasn’t actually who they said they were,” she clarified.
I slowed to a stop at a stop sign, used my finger to push the turn signal down, and went left into Santa Sofia’s quaint downtown. “That’s exactly what I mean,” I said.
Mrs. Branford breathed out heavily. “I am not a shrinking violet, my dear, but sometimes I just do not understand.”
I sighed, feeling as dismayed as she did. There were a lot of great things about social media, but it also brought out the dregs of society, and within those dregs, it brought out the worst of the worst. “I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just suggesting it as a possibility, that’s all.”
She pursed her lips, a map of fine wrinkles framing her mouth. “Like I said earlier, I believe anything is possible.” She didn’t say it in a hopeful way, though. Her voice, just like my thoughts, was edged with dismay.
Parking at this time of day right in front of Yeast of Eden was always a challenge. Even the back lot was usually full. But as I pulled up to the bread shop, there was a spot open right in front, and, as if it was a sign, I knew Mrs. Branford was right. Anything was possible.
As usual, as I stepped inside the bread shop, a warmth as comforting as a heated blanket on a freezing evening settled over me. Olaya worked behind the counter, placing six chocolate and six almond croissants into a white pastry box for a customer. Jamie, a high-school girl with raven hair, fair skin, and dark fingernail polish worked alongside Olaya helping another customer.
I caught Olaya’s eye and waved.
“Hola, mi’ja,” she said with a smile. She tallied the bill for the customer on her order pad, talking to me at the same time. She looked over my shoulder at Mrs. Branford. “The bird girls are here,” she said, pointing to a corner table.
The bird gir—? I turned around and spotted Mabel Peabody, her vibrant red hair pulled back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, sitting with her back to the bread shop. Her gauzy black culottes floated around her legs and the chair, her raglan-sleeved taupe jacket baggy on her thin frame. Janice Thompson, brown hair perfectly coiffed, as usual, sat on one side of Mabel while Alice, with her red-lipped tight smile, sat on the other side of her. They each had on their hats, looking as if they were ready for a tea party.
The Blackbird Ladies.
Mrs. Branford saw her friends and made a beeline for them. She came to a stop next to the open chair, her back to the window. “Who among you,” she blurted, “has ever heard the term catfishing ?”
“Mrs. Branford!” I hurried up to the table, putting my hand on her shoulder. She was an entire head shorter than me, so with my scolding tone and towering height, I felt more like a reproachful parent than a surrogate granddaughter. “You can’t . . . you shouldn’t . . .” I trailed off, not sure what I was trying to say. Should she not say anything about my hypothesis? If not, why? What harm would it do to share the idea that Hank had been duped into a friendship—or a relationship—with someone who was not, in fact, on the up and up?
Mrs. Branford reached across her body to pat my hand atop her shoulder. “It’s a legitimate question, Ivy,” she said. She turned back to her friends. “I, for one, have never heard that term. Ivy and I are fearful—”
“Fearful might be a little strong,” I interjected, wanting to keep this as just a theory, not a foregone conclusion.
“Ivy and I are fearful,” Mrs. Branford reiterated, ignoring me, “that this may be what has happened to Hank.”
The three women stared at Mrs. Branford, each of them wearing their own version of a flummoxed expression. Alice Ryder cocked her head to one side, those lips of hers pursed tightly. “Hank has never, to my knowledge, gone catfishing.”
“I don’t have much knowledge of Hank and his fishing habits,” Janice said, “so I’ll defer to you on that one.”
Only Mabel’s expression cleared as understanding replaced confusion. “I’ve heard of it,” she said. “There was a middle-school girl last year. Right here in Santa Sofia.” She looked at her friends. “She was on Instagram, I think. Or that Snapchat, maybe? One of the social-media things kids use. She thought she was talking to an eighth- , or maybe ninth-grader from Santa Barbara, but it wasn’t.”
Janice’s eyes opened wide. “I remember that! She was missing for a week, at least, wasn’t she?”
I swallowed, a lump in my throat. I hadn’t heard this story. “Was she okay?”
Mabel nodded. “She was. It was a miracle, really. She took a bus to Santa Barbara and met the guy near the university. If I’m remembering right, he was a student, but he was from the area. I think his family had a house, or he had a place of his own? I can’t quite remember. I don’t recall the details, but she managed to escape.”
“She got herself to a garden center, didn’t she?” Janice asked.
“That’s right,” Mabel said. “Wherever the man took her, it was away from the main drag, but she stumbled upon a nursery.”
Alice waved her hands in front of her. “I’m confused. What does this have to do with fishing?”
I explained the term to all of them. Alice’s upper lip curled. “That’s a real term? Catfishing?”
“Yes. That girl? She was catfished.”
Alice closed her eyes for a second before continuing. “And you think this may have happened to Hank? That he was catfished?” She said the last word with utter disdain, snarling into it. “He’s a grown man. How could that even be possible?”
Mrs. Branford sat down in the last chair at the table, propping her cane against the window behind her. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since Ivy brought it up.”
Alice glowered at me as if Hank being catfished was my fault. I ignored her, keeping my attention focused on Mrs. Branford. She hadn’t shared her theory with me yet, so I was all ears.
With everyone’s attention on her, Mrs. Branford went into teacher mode. She cleared her throat and sat up as tall as she could, placing both hands flat on the table. “He was desperate.”
We all waited. I leaned forward, ready for the next part of her explanation, but nothing came.
Janice rolled her eyes. “He was desperate? That’s your great revelation?”
Mrs. Branford gave a single, succinct nod. “That is my revelation. How does this catfishing work? I asked myself that and what I came up with is this: It can only work if people are vulnerable. What makes people vulnerable and therefore open to new friendships? New relationships?”
“A broken heart,” I said, once again nodding with approval. Mrs. Branford was good.
She tapped the tip of her nose with her index finger. “That’s right. Whether it be broken, bruised, or torn apart altogether, that’s what a catfisher would need in order to hook in a victim.”
I didn’t know if catfisher was actually a term, but her logic made perfect sense. A person who was in a good emotional place wouldn’t succumb to a catfisher. At least I didn’t think so. If y
ou were mentally healthy, emotionally stable, and/or emotionally mature, I couldn’t imagine you’d be susceptible to that sort of duplicity.
“His divorce wasn’t yesterday. Was Hank that brokenhearted?” I asked, my gaze naturally straying to Alice. If anyone would know Hank’s recent state of mind regarding his love life, I suspected it would be Alice.
“I don’t think he was catfished,” she blurted. Instead of the typical snobbery in her voice, this time she sounded resigned. She drew in a breath, and then she let loose. “Goddammit,” she muttered, looking at each of her bird girls in turn, but completely avoiding my gaze. She shook her head, biting her lower lip. “Goddammit,” she said again. “I have something to tell you.”
Chapter 16
The sounds of the bread shop faded away. We all stared at Alice, mouths agape, eyes wide. Mabel leaned forward, concerned. She patted Alice’s hand. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
Mrs. Branford looked up and caught my eye, silent communication transpiring between us. She raised one steel-colored eyebrow and I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was: Alice had been having an affair with Hank. I’d suspected it since the first time I’d met Alice at her house with her husband, but getting ready to have her confess it to us, validating my suspicions, didn’t make me feel any better.
“Goddammit,” Alice said again, louder this time.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Janice rolled her hand in the air in an effort to keep Alice talking. “What is it?”
Mabel’s eyes suddenly went wide and she inhaled sharply. “Oh, Alice, no.”
Mrs. Branford and I looked at each other again. It seemed that Mabel had come to the same conclusion we had.
Alice had pinched her eyes closed, her lips pressed together in a hard line, but they flew open with Mabel’s inhalation. “Oh my God! How long have you known me, Mabel?”
“Practically our whole lives,” Mabel said, leaning forward. “So spill it, sister. What is going on?”
“I did not sleep with Hank, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Her voice was emphatic; I wanted to believe her.
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