Kneaded to Death

by Winnie Archer

  What the hell. Em had abandoned me, so it wasn’t as if I had much choice. I didn’t have to sacrifice my dinner just to hurry up and be free of Miguel’s company.

  “The queso, too?” I asked.

  He laughed. “The queso, too.”

  A silence descended for an awkward minute before he spoke again. “I was really sorry about what happened to your mom.”

  The bite of shrimp in my mouth turned into a tasteless lump. “Thanks. I heard about your dad, too.”

  “Yeah. It was pretty sudden. My mom’s still having a rough time of it.”

  “My dad, too. He tries to be stoic and strong, but it’s hard.”

  Another awkward silence filled the space between us. I took the time to look more closely at the man Miguel Baptista had become. With his six feet, broad shoulders, and lean physique, courtesy of years of military training, no doubt, he was definitely someone you’d want on your side in a dark alley. His already normal olive skin was tanned from hours in the sun, his hair was shorn close to the scalp, and faint smile lines on either side of his mouth softened his hard jawline. But it was those massive dimples that weren’t exactly dimples curving around his mouth that clinched the deal. He was still the most attractive man this side of, well, anywhere. He was a cross between Mark Harmon and Enrique Iglesias. An odd combination, I knew, but there it was.

  And, damn it, I still found him sexy and appealing.

  As if he’d read my mind, he said, “You look good, Ivy.”

  I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Divorce and death will do that.”

  “Yeah, I heard about the divorce, too.”

  “Good news travels fast in Santa Sofia, eh?”

  He shrugged. “I run into Billy every now and then.”

  I silently cursed my brother for sharing my business with the man who was supposed to have been my soul mate. But I had to check myself. After all, I shared his business with his soul mate.

  “You never settled down?” I cringed at how the question sounded as it left my lips. It might as well have been Mrs. Branford asking, it had sounded so dull and middle-aged.

  The corner of his mouth rose in a half grin. “No, I never settled down. I still have a few good years in me.”

  I tried to play off my ineptitude at small talk. “Of course you do. Lots of time.”

  “You, however, had better hurry.” He tapped the face of his watch with his finger. “Tick tock.”

  I felt my eyes narrow, my glare piercing. “Tick tock? Seriously?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, Ivy. Seriously. You’re thirty-six,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Practically over the hill.”

  I breathed in, holding in the rash response hovering on my tongue. Clearly, I still harbored a good amount of anger at Miguel. I was ready to pounce and take him down, but the glint in his eyes and the tone of his voice helped me check myself. He was pushing my buttons, something he had always been good at and had done in flirtatious fun. It looked like he was channeling the old days. Once again, I spoke without thinking. “Since we’re both past our salad days, we might as well commit to each other right here, right now.”

  His grin morphed into something smoldering. “Done. We can meet at the top of the Transamerica Pyramid in the city on New Year’s Eve five years from now.”

  My jaw dropped, and words failed me. He knew about Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember? Or maybe he knew about Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. Whichever movie he’d connected with, the romantic gesture was unmistakable, and I didn’t know what had just happened. But before I could even begin to formulate a response, three women bounded up to the table. Jolie, Becky, and Sally from Yeast of Eden’s bread-making class stood there, all teeth and smiles.

  “Ivy!” Jolie clutched her cross-body purse, barely containing her excitement. “I thought that was you. I told the girls here that it was, and Sally was like, ‘No, that’s not her,’ but I swore it was, and, look, it is!”

  I blinked, switching gears from the cryptic conversation I’d been having with Miguel to Jolie’s “train of thought” speech. “Different setting, right? We’re not covered in flour—”

  “And Olaya isn’t on your back.” Sally’s grimace seemed to be in commiseration with Jolie, although I didn’t get the sense that Jolie herself was displeased with Olaya.

  “Sal, she wasn’t on my back,” Jolie said. “I forgot the yeast. She was helping me fix the conchas.”

  I’d already pegged Sally as whiny, but now I amended my earlier assessment. She was whiny by proxy. It didn’t have to be her own issue she complained about, and it also didn’t seem to matter whether the so-called wronged person was actually upset. Interesting. I filed the information away, thinking it might help me understand her even better at some point.

  Becky, the quiet one of the group, cleared her throat.

  Jolie instantly picked up on the cue, shot a glance at Miguel, and raised her eyebrows suggestively. “Who’s this?”

  Inside I cringed. My mother’s death had sealed my heart. Introducing Miguel to the Yeast of Eden baking group felt too intimate somehow, as if I was opening up some part of my past to this bevy of strangers.

  Miguel saved the day. “Miguel Baptista,” he said, nodding at them collectively.

  Jolie tucked a loose strand of her jet-black hair behind her ear and tilted her head coyly. “Hold the phone. Baptista? As in this restaurant, Baptista’s?”

  He smiled, and if I’d had to qualify it, I’d have said his smile was almost modest. “Family owned,” he confirmed. Modesty. It was a side of Miguel that I hadn’t seen, one he had developed in his adult years.

  Jolie had a slew of questions, some about the restaurant and others that skirted around flirtation. She didn’t come right out and ask about it, but she was fishing for information about Miguel’s availability. “And Mrs. Baptista,” she finally said when Miguel didn’t take the bait. “Does she work here, too?”

  This time Miguel’s smile lifted on one side. It was a flirtatious look I knew too well, and the fact that it was directed toward Jolie sent a tiny sliver of jealousy through me. Irrational, I knew, but there it was.

  “She does, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Occasionally.”

  I did a double take. “She does?” Inside I formulated a different question. There was a Mrs. Baptista?

  His brow furrowed, his head tilted to one side, and I got the sense he was trying to communicate something to me.

  “Ah, oh, yes, she does. Of course she does!” I said, the truth of his statement hitting me like a ton of bricks. The only Mrs. Baptista in Miguel’s life was his mother.

  Before Jolie could inquire more about Señora Baptista, Sally swatted Jolie with the back of her hand, and this was followed quickly by the same knock against Becky’s arm. “Isn’t that the crazy guy from the antique store? The guy with the stick from that night that lady Jackie died?”

  We all turned to follow her gaze. Sure enough, Randy Russell had sauntered into Baptista’s. At that moment he looked around and spotted Miguel.

  The three women seemed to stiffen in unison, their spines practically crackling with instant nerves.

  “What’s he doing here?” Sally asked under her breath, her voice thready with anxiety. She drew in a sharp breath. “Oh my God, he’s coming over here. Why is he coming over here?”

  It was true. Randy Russell was heading right toward us.

  “Be cool, girls.” Jolie seemed to have taken on the role of queen bee in this little group, and like any leader, she knew what to say to calm her followers. “He’s not here to see us.”

  They stepped aside, making space for Randy Russell as he sauntered right up to the table. He glanced at the three of them, one at a time, glared at Jolie for an extra beat, gave me a cursory look, and then directed his attention to Miguel. “We need to talk.”

  The softness that had been in Miguel’s expression a minute ago had been replaced with hard edges and lines, but he nodded. “W
hat’s up, Randy?”

  Randy looked at us again, his eyes clouded with doubt. “Privately.”

  Jolie read between the lines and cleared her throat. “We’ll just go now. Good to see you, Ivy. Nice to meet you, Miguel.” She turned to her friends, gestured with a quick nod of her head, and off they went. Randy watched them go, waiting. Sally sent a nervous backward glance over her shoulder, but as the young women left the restaurant, Randy turned back to Miguel.

  Miguel folded his hands on the table. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Ivy. She’s one of my oldest friends.”

  Randy hesitated, seemed to consider this, then finally drew in a deep breath through his flared nostrils. Up close he was more weathered than I’d realized.

  “That night . . . in the parking lot?” Randy began. “At Yeast of Eden?”

  “What about it?” Miguel asked.

  “I’d gone to the Broken Horse before I headed to the bread shop.”

  Miguel grimaced. “Yeah, I smelled the booze on you.”

  “Nothing wrong with a drink,” Randy said, a defensive tone seeping in. I wasn’t sure if he actually believed what he was saying, or if it was just what he told himself to get by.

  “Nothing wrong with it,” Miguel agreed.

  I melted into the shadow of the booth, wishing I could be invisible so maybe Randy would get to his point a little sooner.

  He must have read my mind, because the next second, he blurted out, “Someone else was there.”

  Instead of hiding under the invisibility cloak I’d wished for a split second before, I sat bolt upright, leaning eagerly over the table. Maybe he was talking about Jackie’s murderer. “When? You saw someone in the parking lot?”

  I really think Randy had forgotten that I was there. He took a wobbly step backward, and I wondered if he’d stopped by the Broken Horse for a shot of courage before coming to Baptista’s tonight. But he gave a deep nod and said, “Yes. With Jackie.”

  I waved my hands, trying to process what he was saying. “Back up a second,” I said. “You got to the parking lot of Yeast of Eden. Kind of belligerent, I might add. You were heading to what? Have it out with Olaya Solis for some reason?”

  Randy dipped his head in a solitary nod. “She’s screwing with my livelihood.”

  I didn’t want to touch that can of worms. Whatever issues he had with Olaya had to be dealt with by her. As long as she wasn’t in imminent danger from Randy Russell, I was more than happy to let her handle him herself. I redirected the conversation. “So you got there and what happened? What did you see?”

  “I didn’t know what I saw,” he said. “Not then, anyway.”

  Talking to Randy felt like pulling teeth. “But now you do?” I asked.

  He hesitated again, as if he were weighing his options. Should he tell us, or should he not? Finally, he made up his mind. “Jackie was in her car . . . with a man.”

  I stared. “Wait. What?”

  “You’re saying someone was in the car with her?” Miguel asked.

  “I saw him, sure as you two are sitting here. He was right beside her. I musta blinked or turned around, ’cause when I looked back, he was gone.”

  “When did you get there? To the parking lot?” Miguel demanded.

  Randy drew back, thinking. “I didn’t check the time, dude. I’m just telling you, she was with someone.”

  That niggle of doubt about Miguel being involved in Jackie’s murder taunted me again. Surely he’d had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t imagine him involved in anything criminal. But he was a man, and suddenly he’d been there to fend off Randy and his billy club.

  I turned to Miguel, and for my own peace of mind, I asked the question that had been in the back of my mind since I saw him in that parking lot. “Why were you there?”

  His eyebrows angled together, and I got the distinct impression that he knew why I was asking. He answered, anyway. “I was dropping off my weekend order. Nobody makes pan dulce and tres leches cake like Olaya.”

  “Tres leches cake? But she bakes bread.”

  “She makes it special just for Baptista’s,” he said patiently, as if explaining himself to an old girlfriend and giving his alibi for the time of a murder were second nature. “I was hoping she had a leftover sourdough from the day,” he added, “but I never did get the chance to ask.”

  Randy slapped his hand against the tabletop, bringing our attention back to him. “As I was saying. Someone was in her car. I couldn’t see clearly, but someone was there.”

  “You didn’t tell the police?” I asked. Telling Emmaline what Randy saw was the first thing I was going to do. She needed to know there was a suspect who had been right there and had slipped away. My mind went straight to Buck Masterson.

  “With the chaos and the fight, and then hearing that Jackie was dead . . . I just . . . I don’t know. Forgot? That doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t sound possible.” He sucked in a bolstering breath. “But it’s the truth, man. Someone was there with her.”

  He got the implausible part right. How could you forget you’d seen a man in the car in which your best friend’s ex-wife was just found dead?

  “Maybe I had more than one drink at the Broken Horse,” he said reluctantly.

  Miguel and I shared a knowing look. Like three or four or five drinks, maybe. That many might blur the senses enough.

  “And you just remembered?” I prompted. I didn’t want to alienate him, but I also wanted to get as much information as he was able to give.

  “He was on the tall side,” Randy said by way of answering. “Brown hair. A jacket. Maybe blue. Or black. Hard to say.” His voice cracked, the first sign of emotion I’d seen from him, his anger notwithstanding. Truthfully, I was glad for it. He had to have known Jackie for years and years. A little sorrow at her death seemed in order.

  From what I’d gathered, Randy had lived in Santa Sofia for a long time. So had Buck Masterson. Surely they’d crossed paths at one point or another. The description was a little vague and generic, but it could fit the man from Maple Street. I’d seen him only from a distance, and he didn’t seem inordinately tall to me, but then again, Randy looked to be about my height. So to a man who stood five feet eight inches, someone five-eleven might seem tall.

  “Have you ever seen this man around town?” I asked.

  Randy shrugged heavily. “Nah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “You need to tell the police,” Miguel said.

  Randy lifted his upper lip revealing an expanse of pink gums. “I reckoned if you saw the guy, too, then it wouldn’t look so bad that I didn’t say nothin’,” he said.

  Miguel shook his head. “Sorry, man. I saw you talking to yourself, walking in circles, and then heading toward the back door of Yeast of Eden. If there was someone else in the parking lot, he was gone before I got there.”

  Randy nodded, looking resigned. “I’ll call the deputy in the morning. That man—maybe he killed Jackie.”

  Maybe. Except that from what Emmaline had said, the theory was that Jackie had been poisoned. It seemed improbable to me that she could have met up with someone in her car and been poisoned with something that killed almost instantaneously. But what did I know? Anything was possible.

  * * *

  A little while later, I sat in Miguel’s truck in the parking lot of the police station, where I’d left my car. I was still processing what Randy Russell had said, wondering if he really would call Emmaline Davis in the morning. There was no sign of her cruiser, and the light in her office was off. Either she was still at the crime scene that had pulled her away from our dinner or she had wrapped it all up and had gone home for the night.

  “It was good to see you tonight, Ivy.” Miguel’s voice was low and sincere, and it hung there between us like a warm blanket.

  I had my hand on the door handle. Being here with him felt like old times, and I had a fleeting thought that he might lean over and kiss me.

  He didn’t.

  I w
aited, maybe a second too long, and an awkward silence replaced the warmth I’d thought I felt. Finally, I opened the door. “Yeah,” I said, going for nonchalant but sounding impetuous. “You too, Miguel.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Randy Russell’s confession the night before at Baptista’s had stuck with me. Who had the mysterious person in Jackie Makers’s car been, and did he have anything to do with her murder? I couldn’t shake the feeling that he did.

  But more than that, I had a niggling thought about something else. When I’d gone through my mother’s boxes in the garage, she’d had photocopied essays—just like the one I’d found in Jackie’s kitchen. Clearly, they’d known each other, at least on a cursory level. I also thought about my conversation with Olaya about Jackie’s cooking school and the classes my mother and father had taken. I finally put into words the thought that had been circling my mind. Could my mother’s death be connected to Jackie’s? It didn’t make a single bit of sense to me, but then again, nothing seemed to these days.

  After walking Agatha along the beachfront, I headed straight to Yeast of Eden. I’d asked Penny Branford to meet me there, and I summoned Olaya outside. The three of us sat at one of the bistro tables under the awning. The morning sun was just beginning to peak over the mountains to the east, the dappled light softening the morning. It was too early for the street to be busy with tourists, but a few locals strolled along the sidewalk. Agatha was not a barker. She stared at passersby but stuck close to me. Her tail curled when she was happy, but she was a skittish thing, and the activity on the street had her on edge. Her tail was currently hanging down stick straight. Something was making her nervous.

  “Shhh, shhh, shhh, perrita.” Olaya ran her hand over Agatha’s shiny hair, calming her. To me, she said, “She is a wary one.”

  “Being wary can get a person far in this world,” Mrs. Branford said. “Leaping in headfirst and without a plan can mean disaster.”

  I definitely agreed with that. Agatha would never run away from me or go willingly with a stranger. She stuck to me like glue, and I was absolutely fine with that. “I rescued her. She was the last dog surrendered from a backyard breeder in Texas. I never could find out the full story, but I was pretty sure she was abused.”