Kneaded to Death

by Winnie Archer

  “Miguel Baptista,” I muttered, sneaking another look at the boy—now the man—who’d broken my heart once upon a time. He looked the same, yet somehow completely different. A little bit weathered. Experienced. Intense. Six feet, dark hair, swarthy skin, end-of-the-day stubble, and elongated creases that ran from the side of his mouth to his chin, like exaggerated dimples. Miguel Baptista made my heart contract in my chest.

  Olaya paused, considering me once again. “You know him?”

  “We went to school together,” I said, leaving it at that. I already felt as if Olaya could see right through me; she didn’t need to know the heartbreak of my youth.

  “He knows how to handle himself, doesn’t he?” Jolie said, a smitten expression on her face, and I felt an unreasonable and wholly unwarranted stab of jealousy. Where had that come from? I had no claim on Miguel Baptista. Less than none.

  “Ten years in the military will do that for a man,” Olaya said. “So yes, he can handle himself quite well.” She patted her iron-gray hair and looked around, frowning, and I remembered that we’d come outside in the first place to look for Jackie.

  Olaya’s voice, this time full of concern, made me turn around. “That’s Jackie’s car,” she said to Consuelo and Martina. She took a step toward it. “Is she . . . ?”

  “Sitting in it?” Consuelo said, finishing the question. Instantly, the three sisters started across the parking lot, headed for the silver sedan parked smack in the middle. It was in one of the darker areas, away from the light of the street lamps.

  The police officers had Randy Russell handcuffed and in the back of their cruiser and were now talking to Miguel Baptista. He stood firmly rooted to the ground, his arms folded over his chest, hands pressed flat beneath his armpits. All that had changed about him was the fact that he’d grown from the attractive young man he’d been in high school into the ruggedly good-looking man who’d just single-handedly saved the day.

  My heart went from clenching to fluttering, and I kicked myself. Getting involved with Miguel Baptista again was not going to happen. And yet—

  A bloodcurdling scream broke through my thoughts.

  “Jackie!” Consuelo’s voice was raw and fragile.

  Even in the dark, I could see Olaya make the sign of the cross, touching her fingers to her forehead, the center of her chest, her left shoulder, and then her right. “Dios mio!”

  At the first scream, Miguel was running toward the women and Jackie’s car, the two police officers right behind him.

  Martina had backed away from the sedan. Consuelo had buckled over, looking like she was hyperventilating. Only Olaya seemed to have kept herself under control.

  “She’s dead,” I heard her say. “It’s Jackie. I think she’s . . . Yes . . . she’s dead.”

  Chapter Three

  The town of Santa Sofia would always be part of me, the memory of my mom firmly rooted in every part of the town, every corner I turned, every street I walked down. It was a curse and a blessing. Eventually, I hoped I’d be able to let go of the sadness and revel only in the memories.

  My dad and my brother, Billy, would do anything for me, and I felt the same about them. Family was everything, and they were mine. Then there was Agatha. About eighteen pounds and cute as a button, she was my little pug. I’d rescued her back in Texas just after my divorce, and she was my little shadow. We’d helped each other in our times of need, and now she was my greatest comfort.

  But in the years I’d been away from Santa Sofia, Emmaline Davis had been my other constant. Emmaline had graduated college with a degree in criminal justice and had become a deputy sheriff in Santa Sofia. When I’d first heard about her position, I’d wondered if Santa Sofia even needed a deputy sheriff. Did anything criminal ever happen here?

  I hadn’t thought so, but the night before I’d been proven dead wrong. Jackie Makers, the woman in the jean skirt and wedge heels, was dead. And according to the officers at the site, not only was she dead, but she also quite possibly had been killed.

  As in murdered.

  I’d met a woman, albeit briefly, whose life had been suddenly, and purposefully, ripped from her.

  And Emmaline Davis was going to be central to bringing the woman’s murderer to justice.

  My thoughts went back to Miguel and the scene I’d witnessed the night before. Even if he held a long petrified place in my heart, I didn’t pine for him. If I’d never seen him again, I’d have been fine with that. I’d moved on. So seeing him right here in the back parking lot of Yeast of Eden, facing down a man on the proverbial ledge, had sent my blood pressure skyrocketing and now sent me straight to the phone to call Emmaline.

  “Miguel Baptista lives in Santa Sofia,” I said, clutching the phone between my ear and shoulder as I whipped off my ball cap, tucked my hair back behind my ears, and jammed the cap back on my head.

  I heard the tap-tap-tap of Emmaline’s fingers on her computer keyboard. She was a pro at multitasking. I imagined her digging into the murder of Jackie Makers. Maybe they’d already charged Randy Russell. He’d been in the right place at the right time, after all, and he might not have had a gun, but he’d had a few screws loose in his head. He seemed to be the perfect suspect.

  “Why is he back here?” I asked, back to Miguel.

  “His dad passed away about a year ago. He came back to take over the restaurant. His mom was in no shape,” Emmaline said, distracted.

  “I can’t believe you never told me he was back,” I said, feeling irrationally hurt.

  “You and Miguel are such old news. I didn’t think you’d care.”

  “We are,” I said. “And you’re right, I don’t.” Did I?

  The death of Mr. Baptista explained it all. Miguel might have had some wild oats to sow way back when, but he came from good stock, and he knew that family was at the heart of everything good and dear. His mama had needed him, and it didn’t take much to deduce that he’d done the right thing by her, coming home to save the restaurant named after the family. And none of it had even the remotest thing to do with me.

  I told myself that, but Emmaline read between the lines. “Ivy Culpepper, you should just march on over there to Baptista’s and say your hellos. You know you want to.”

  I mustered up a good dose of indignant dismay. “I most certainly do not. . . .”

  The typing stopped abruptly. “You most certainly do, and don’t you deny it. That man has been a thorn in your side ever since he left you, hasn’t he? He probably ruined your marriage to what’s-his-name—”

  “My marriage was ruined by what’s-his-name’s lack of backbone and immature infidelity,” I interrupted.

  She didn’t miss a beat. “And it’s been forever. Get him out of your system once and for all so some other worthy man can steal your heart.”

  “Been there, done that. I’m destined to be single. Which I’m fine with.”

  “You’re still pining for Miguel,” she said.

  “Ha! No. I’m not. And don’t even talk to me about pining for someone, Em. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You don’t have a leg to stand on.” She and my brother, Billy, had been on and off again for years, had been flirting for even more years, and had each been in long-term relationships with other people but had never gotten to the commitment stage of their own affair.

  “I’m black, he’s white, and—” she began, as if the simple statement was meant to explain why she would have an unrequited love for the rest of her life.

  “And this is California, and it’s the twenty-first century, not nineteen fifty Mississippi. If you and Billy love each other, you should be together. Period.”

  “I know,” she said from her end of the phone line, but she sounded dejected. “But you know how hard it is to cross a huge ravine without a bridge.”

  “You’re making a ravine where there is none, Em,” I said, “and even if there was some uncrossable canyon between you two, Billy would be the bridge. He loves you. He always has.”

  M
y brother hadn’t ever confided in me about how he felt about Emmaline, but I’d seen the way he looked at her, the lovesick expression in his eyes whenever she entered the room, and their star-crossed lover thing had been going on for years. I was 100 percent sure that he’d lay down his life for her, so why they both felt circumstances had conspired against them and their love was baffling.

  “So, about Miguel,” Emmaline said in a not so subtle change of subject. Maybe this was why she and Billy had never really got together and stayed together. Neither one of them could stand to get serious and have the hard conversation.

  “There’s nothing to say. I’m back. He’s here. That’s all I wanted to tell you. You could have mentioned it, is all.”

  “You just stay away from him, then,” she said, playing devil’s advocate. If only her staying away from Billy, or Billy from her, made a bit of difference in how they actually felt, I might have taken her seriously. As it was, I let the pink elephant in the room quietly slip out.

  “So what’s the story with Jackie Makers?” I asked. This time I was the one who was not so subtly changing the subject. After discovering the body, Olaya had abruptly canceled the baking class. The police had come in, and the bread shop’s kitchen had become a crime scene. They’d taken pictures and, I presumed, collected evidence. After they’d gone, I’d stayed behind and helped Martina and Consuelo dump the conchas dough in the garbage. But since then I’d been on edge, wondering what had happened to Jackie. Who in the world could have killed her?

  The tap-tap-tapping on the other end of the line stopped, and suddenly I had Emmaline’s full attention. “You tell me. You saw her before she died, right?”

  “Yes,” I answered, wishing anything I could tell her would actually make a difference in her investigation. “But she got to Yeast of Eden late, and then we started baking right away.”

  “Since when do you bake bread?” she asked.

  “Since this big hole in my heart appeared.”

  Silence. I hadn’t meant to snap at her, but the death of my mother brought a constant array of different emotions out in me, and sometimes I couldn’t control them. “Yeah. Makes sense,” she said.

  “So, Jackie Makers?” I nudged her back to a subject I was more comfortable with. Anything not to think about how much I missed my mom.

  “Randy Russell is no longer a suspect,” she said. “We released him this morning.”

  I drew in a startled breath. “But the club in his hand, and his ranting—”

  “He knew the victim, but we have no evidence pointing to a motive. He was on a bender, and it’s common knowledge that he has a lot of pent-up resentment toward Jackie. She was the woman who hurt his best friend so badly,” she explained. “But she was definitely not beaten to death, and he didn’t seem to know she was there.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. “So do you have a different suspect? Surely not Miguel . . . ?”

  “No. Relax. As far as I can tell, Miguel didn’t even know the woman. Right now we’re sort of nowhere. We have a few people of possible interest. The bread shop owner. Her sisters. All the women in the class, in fact. Except you, of course.”

  My heart felt like it stopped cold in my chest. “You think one of the Solis sisters might have killed their friend? No way,” I said. “Impossible.”

  “How are you so sure?” she asked, and I imagined her eyebrows pulling together as she waited for my response.

  “I was with them all evening. We were baking bread. We listened to a talk about the history of bread in Mexico—” I broke off, drawing in another breath, but this time it was sharp and sudden.

  “What?” Emmaline prompted.

  “No, nothing,” I answered. “How did she die?” It certainly hadn’t been obvious to me as a bystander.

  “There’ll be an autopsy. There was no visible wound, so the logical assumption is poison of some sort. It’ll be a month, maybe more, before we know for sure.”

  A month or more? That seemed like forever. Real life certainly didn’t work like “life” did on TV. I went with Emmaline’s logic and thought about Jackie being poisoned. Could it have happened while she was at Yeast of Eden? Did poison act that quickly?

  I thought about the possibilities. Jackie hadn’t been at the bread shop for very long, but I had one distinct recollection. We’d each had a glass of water at our stations. Olaya had directed Jackie to her baking station, and Jackie had taken a good long drink. But I didn’t tell Emmaline this. I couldn’t. It might have been misguided, but I couldn’t stand the thought that I could have so drastically misjudged a person. Olaya Solis couldn’t have killed her friend Jackie.

  Could she?

  Chapter Four

  The Historic Society of Santa Sofia was a political hotbed on par with . . . with . . . with the worst of the presidential elections in the United States. Or at least that was how I saw things now that I was back in my hometown. My dad was the city manager and oversaw the historic society. It mostly seemed like this particular department was full of infighting and petty battles, but he loved it, and now I was walking alongside him as he took stock of a renovation project on Maple Street, in the historic district.

  My dad and I walked down the sidewalk, my fawn pug, Agatha, trotting beside me in her tiny harness. Her ears were back, and her tail was curled happily. She’d been the last dog surrendered by a backyard breeder. From sitting on the couch, trembling, to scampering about in joy, she’d come a long way.

  We stopped in front of a sunny yellow clapboard house. Agatha instantly sat beside me, waiting as I took in the details of the house. The front porch was adorned with a hanging bench on one side, a ceramic planter draped with green ivy, and two red Adirondack chairs. “It’s so cute,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

  My dad pinched his thumb and index finger together, pressed them against the space above his upper lip, and stroked his mustache. “Stupidity. The problem, Ivy, is pure stupidity.”

  Every house on the street was at least fifty years old, and some, like the one under renovation, was closer to a hundred, at least.

  “How so?”

  “The Mastersons, over there,” he said, pointing to the pale and worn pink house next to the one being renovated, “pretty much want to destroy the Rabels.”

  “The Rabels own the yellow house?”

  My dad stroked his mustache again and nodded. “The house was falling apart when they bought it. Was literally falling apart right in front of our eyes. It was actually sinking. Only the fireplace in the center was holding it in place. They bought it and had to rebuild the foundation and lift everything up. It’s been years, and they’re still working on it. From what I can see and know of them, it’s been a labor of love for them.”

  I looked at the house while he continued, admiring the unassuming design. It was a simple square. The front door had a glass center, allowing for a clear view through to the back. A staircase on the left led upstairs, a hallway led straight back, and the main living space appeared to be on the right. “It’s beautiful.” I crouched down and scratched my dog’s head. “We could live in a place like this, couldn’t we, Agatha?”

  Agatha glanced up at me with her giant, bulbous eyes. Her upper lip was caught on her top teeth. It looked like a grimace, but I called it a smile. An old home full of history and charm was exactly the type of place I envisioned myself in. Someday. My years in Austin, Texas, and the derailment of my marriage had taken a mental and financial toll. I’d been saving, but I wasn’t quite there. Yet.

  For now I’d just have to dream.

  “So the Rabels fixed a house that was falling apart. I don’t get what the problem is.”

  “Meet the Mastersons,” he said, and he looked pointedly at the house next door to the Rabels’.

  “But why? The renovations have only made the Rabels’ house better, right? They’d rather have an eyesore?”

  My dad cupped one hand over his eyes to block the sun. “That’s logical, Ivy. Too bad the Mastersons aren’
t subject to using logic. They’re . . . How should I put this? They have a few screws loose. They cause a lot of trouble for the city, always complaining and issuing ultimatums.”

  We stood side by side for another minute, and then turned to head back to my Dad’s Silverado just as the door to the house behind us opened and an elderly woman stepped onto the porch. “Hallo!” she called. Her voice was surprisingly robust. Or maybe I was just expecting a halting, wavering sound, given the snow white of her hair and the map of wrinkles on her face.

  My dad lifted his hand in greeting. “Afternoon, Mrs. Branford. You’re looking lovely today.”

  She dismissed his comment with a wave of her hand, but she gave an embarrassed smile, and the thin skin of her cheeks tinged pink. “Oh, pshaw. Mr. Culpepper, how you do go on.”

  I had to agree with my dad. Mrs. Branford, in her lavender velour sweat suit, looked spritely and hip. She had to be eighty-five if she was a day, and although she held the handle of a cane in one hand, she wasn’t leaning on it, which made me wonder how much she really needed it.

  “Mrs. Branford, do you remember my daughter, Ivy?” He put his hand on my back and ushered Agatha and me forward.

  An equally good question was whether I remembered Mrs. Branford. Truthfully, I had a vague recollection of having met her once or twice, but my memories didn’t go any deeper than that.

  “Oh yes, of course, but you were a little girl. Or maybe a teenager last time I saw you.”

  I smiled, my mind pretty much blank. Santa Sofia was home to almost sixty-three thousand people, plus the barrage of tourists who descended throughout the year. The fact that Mrs. Branford and I had not crossed paths in the last twenty years or so wasn’t terribly surprising.

  Together my dad and I walked up the uneven brick pathway toward the elderly woman. Agatha brought up the rear. As we approached, I noticed the tilt of the porch. The slope was so pronounced that if I dropped a ball on one end, it would roll right to the other end, gathering speed as it went.