Kneaded to Death

by Winnie Archer

  The last line of the essay echoed in my mind. “Was it worth it?”

  I could answer that quickly and honestly, because another piece of collateral damage to Jackie’s choice so long ago was that my mother had died. No, it was not worth it. And it was not fair.

  * * *

  I gasped, rolling over in my bed, my eyes flying open. My sleep had been fitful, one face flashing in my mind over and over. “There was a teacher—Mrs. Culpepper,” she’d said when I first met her. She was the right age, in her mid- to late twenties. A few years older than Jasmine Makers.

  Could she be the one?

  Could Jolie, from the Yeast of Eden baking classes, be Jackie’s other daughter?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I sat in the restaurant lobby of Baptista’s, waiting for Miguel. I didn’t know what to do with my dream and what I thought might be the truth about Jolie. I’d scoured my mother’s teaching boxes again, looking for some shred of proof that Jolie had been one of her students. I’d found a stack of photocopied essays with the same writing prompt as the one we’d found among Jackie’s cookbooks, but I’d seen nothing with Jolie’s name. Which indicated that the one in Jackie’s possession could well belong to her.

  My cell phone rang.

  “You got my message?” I said by way of answering. I had called Olaya to find out Jolie’s last name from her Yeast of Eden class registration—Jolie Flemming—then had passed it on to Emmaline.

  “Yep,” Em replied.

  “Are you going to question her?”

  “I don’t know, Ivy. It’s not much to go on. Let me dig around a little more.”

  “We have class at Yeast of Eden tomorrow,” I offered. “Four o’clock.”

  “I need more, Ivy. I need proof.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” I said, more determined than I’d been about anything in my life.

  Miguel walked through the dining room of the restaurant just as I hung up with Emmaline. “This is a surprise,” he said.

  “Sorry for just dropping by, but I had a question, and it couldn’t wait.” I had to speak over the din of the lunch crowd.

  “I’m not sorry,” he said, his strong jawline and grin revealing those two deep dimple-like crevices on either side of his mouth. “Want to walk?”

  We left Baptista’s and headed toward the pier. The restaurant’s location had to be the best in town. It was on the right side of the pier, with an expanse of windows facing the ocean. They boasted the freshest seafood dishes in town, all with a Latin American flare. I had had a few minutes to look at the menu while I waited and had noted the house specialties. The bacon and jalapeño-wrapped shrimp tacos, which I’d had and loved, had looked to be a crowd favorite. The crab- and shrimp-stuffed avocados had caught my eye. I’d have to bring Olaya and Mrs. Branford here for dinner one night. Girls’ night out, multigenerational-style.

  Miguel and I walked in companionable silence for a few minutes.

  “See the seals?” he said, breaking into my thoughts. “They sun themselves on those rocks every single day. Watching them is one of my favorite things to do.”

  I could see why. The salt air, the soft breeze, and the slick black water mammals would make a perfect afternoon for me, too.

  I wasn’t sure how much to tell him about what I’d learned. We weren’t exactly friends anymore, yet I still felt linked to him. Maybe more than I did with any of my other old connections in Santa Sofia, with the exception of Emmaline. I guessed history had a way of erasing the years we’d spent apart.

  We leaned against the railing of the pier, the breeze blowing gently, the bright blue sky dotted with puffs of white clouds. I could see why he loved being out here. It was the same reason I loved to walk with Agatha along the beachfront. Being so close to the surf brought me a sense of calm that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I’d missed it the years I’d been in Texas, but now that I was back, I didn’t think I could ever leave. I breathed in the fresh, damp salt air, and as I exhaled, the tension I’d been holding was released.

  Miguel turned to face me, one elbow propped on the railing. “What did you want to ask me?”

  I debated simply asking the question, but instead I opted for the full account of what I’d learned, beginning with Jackie Makers’s attempt to oust Buck Masterson from the historic district’s council, Nanette Masterson breaking into Jackie’s house, Gus Makers’s comment about secrets and lies, and Jasmine’s confession that Jackie had had another daughter. I ended with my belief that my mom had not died accidentally but had been murdered. “I’m sure they’re connected,” I said, gauging his reaction. So far, he’d schooled his face, keeping it noncommittal.

  “So tell me what you think.”

  I looked back at the seals, wishing for a moment that life could be as simple as lying on a rock and soaking in the sun. Then I remembered that there were sharks out there just waiting for their next meal, and usually that meant a poor unsuspecting seal. No creature was safe.

  “What I think is that my mom realized one of her students was Jackie’s daughter. I’m not sure how, but it has something to do with the essay that we found at Jackie’s house. I think she met with Jackie and gave her the essay. But somehow, someone found out and wanted to keep my mom quiet. That’s why she was killed.”

  “By someone, you mean the other daughter?”

  Did I? I wasn’t sure, because I didn’t understand that as a motive for murder. “Maybe?”

  Miguel’s brows pinched together slightly, creases appearing on his forehead. “Let me play devil’s advocate.”

  “Okay.” I braced myself for him to discount my theories completely and tell me to leave well enough alone. Why dredge up my mother’s death? She was gone, and I should hang on to the best memories I had of her.

  “If you’re right and this woman, Jolie, is Jackie’s daughter, and that’s a big if since it’s just a guess on your part, right?” I nodded, and he continued. “She wouldn’t have had a reason to kill your mom. That is, assuming she’s the one who sent the letter to Jasmine telling her about her existence. By the time your mom figured it out, Jasmine knew, Jackie knew Jolie was back, Gus and Jackie had got divorced. Jackie’s world had already fallen apart, right?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. On the one hand, Miguel hadn’t dismissed my effort to ferret out the truth, like I’d feared he might. But, on the other hand, he had put into words what I’d just thought, and I was back to square one. He was right; the time frame didn’t work. I went through what I knew in my head, making a mental list in the order that things had happened:

  • Jasmine gets an anonymous letter about the sister she didn’t know about.

  • Jasmine confronts her mom and presumably tells her dad.

  • Jasmine and Jackie have a huge falling-out that lasts until Jackie’s death.

  • Gus and Jackie get divorced.

  • My mom puts two and two together and realizes that Jolie is Jackie’s daughter.

  • Mom meets with Jackie, possibly gives her the essay Jolie wrote, and what? Warns her? But Jolie’s already made herself known, so she has nothing to hold over Jackie.

  • My mom dies.

  • Six months later, Jackie dies.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Miguel started walking again, heading toward the end of the pier. I fell into step beside him. We passed a bait-and-tackle shop; a surf-wear shop that sold swimsuits, touristy T-shirts, boogie boards, and miscellaneous knickknacks; and a glassblowing shop run by a local family of glass artists. The Glassblowing Shop, as it was so creatively named, had been on the pier for as long as I could remember and sold handblown glassware, as well as novelty items and unique gifts. I stopped to gaze in the window. Galileo thermometers were artfully arranged on a table, each cylindrical container filled with liquid and then smaller floating glass vessels, which rose or fell depending on the temperature. I’d always loved the colorful fluid in the small upside-down teardrops inside th
e thermometers.

  My gaze settled on the largest cylinder, and I watched as a blue glass teardrop inside rose to the top, displacing a yellow-filled one. This was how I needed to look at the situation, I realized. I might be wrong about what my mom had discovered and talked with Jackie about, but the fact was, she’d discovered something, and she’d met with Jackie. Nanette had seen her, and my mom had written about it in her journal. Those were the facts.

  Like the thermometer, I needed to displace the old theory, push it down, so I could allow a new idea to rise to the surface.

  Miguel seemed to read my mind. “You’ve been focusing on the theory that the big secret Jackie had was about the child she gave up for adoption, making your theory fit the facts rather than letting the facts guide the theory. It wasn’t widely known, but Jasmine and Gus knew about it. I don’t think anyone would have killed your mom over that in order to keep her quiet.”

  He was completely right. I picked up the thread, thinking aloud. “So my mom must have discovered some other secret about someone, and she was killed to keep her quiet. Secrets and lies.” I remembered a line in her journal. But what about Gus? Did she find out something inflammatory about him? Could he have killed her?

  Deep down I hoped not. Jasmine had already lost her mom. I couldn’t imagine the pain she’d experience if her dad turned out to be a murderer.

  A horrible thought crossed my mind. “What if . . .”

  I trailed off, not wanting to say it aloud, but Miguel pressed. “What if . . . ?”

  I walked to the edge of the pier, stared out at a barge anchored offshore. The new idea that had surfaced in my mind was not one I wanted to put into words. It was not one I wanted even to think about. But I had no choice. I turned to face Miguel, drew in a breath, and shared the theory.

  “What if my mom discovered something about Jackie that Jackie wanted to keep quiet? I’ve been thinking all along that she discovered this long-lost daughter and that maybe the daughter was up to no good, blackmailing Jackie or something.”

  Miguel was six feet tall and stood four inches over me. I looked up at him, meeting his gaze, wishing I were wrong. But deep down I knew I wasn’t. I’d been swayed by Olaya’s friendship with Jackie, and by the fact that she was a victim, too. But before Jackie was killed, what if she’d done the killing?

  “I guess I didn’t want to think that Jackie could be the bad guy here.” I blinked away the moisture gathering in my eyes. “But what if she was?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  After Miguel and I walked back to Baptista’s, I did the logical thing. I sat in a corner booth, ate chips and queso, ordered the crab- and shrimp-stuffed avocado, and called Emmaline again.

  “It’s a good theory, Ivy,” she said when I was done filling her in on my thought process, “but I think you should talk to your dad. He may know something and not even realize it.”

  “Billy too,” I said, thinking aloud. “My mom might have mentioned something to him. Who knows?”

  “Um, yeah. Good idea.” Emmaline’s voice sounded strange. Even the mere mention of Billy sent her reeling. God, love was just ridiculous sometimes. It was unspoken, but I was relieved that Miguel and I had somehow come to the point where we could be friends.

  I paused long enough to take a few bites of the avocado, my eyes rolling back in my head at the sublime combination of tastes. Once I’d recovered, I called my dad, told him that I wanted a family meeting.

  “What’s going on, Ivy?” He sounded tired.

  “It’s important, Dad. Please?”

  He agreed, and we arranged to meet at the house at seven that night. I called Billy next.

  “You have something you want to talk about?” he asked me before I could pose the question.

  My intuition flared. His response was almost too quick. Red flag. I’d told Emmaline I wanted to talk to Billy, as well as to my dad. Maybe her strained voice wasn’t so much about her angst over not having Billy. Maybe it was because she was keeping her own secret from me, namely, that she and Billy had something going on. “How’d you know?”

  “Brotherly intuition.”

  “Uh-huh.” I remembered the other night, when she’d hightailed it out of Baptista’s, leaving me to catch a ride back to my car with Miguel. What if it hadn’t been a case she’d had to rush off to? What if it had been Billy? It would certainly explain her caginess and the fact that she never called me back that night.

  I filed my theory away to a back corner of my mind. I had more pressing matters to think about. Billy and Emmaline could wait.

  “Hey, I’m perceptive,” he said, his tone playful, but I wasn’t buying it.

  “If you say so,” I said, letting it go. I had bigger fish to fry. Emmaline and Billy were adults. If they chose to pussyfoot around a relationship—or whatever they called it—that was their business, not mine. “Family meeting, Billy. Tonight, okay?”

  He nodded and we went our separate ways.

  I’d found that baking was becoming a way to clear my mind, so I spent the rest of the afternoon baking bread. I didn’t try anything as ambitious as baguettes, not on my own. Instead, I tried dinner rolls to go with the chicken salad and French onion soup I’d decided to make for my dad and Billy. We hadn’t had a family meal since my mom died. If I was going to broach a difficult subject tonight, I wanted to offer them a good meal, complete with home-baked bread. It was the least I could do as I tore their worlds apart for the second time in a year.

  * * *

  They arrived at the house at the same time, Billy coming through the front door and Dad coming in through the garage. Billy came straight to the kitchen and leaned down to kiss my cheek.

  “Turning into Betty Crocker, huh?”

  I swatted him away.

  “She’s brought some pretty good stuff home to her old man,” my dad said. Once again, he was trying to engage, but it was only on the surface.

  While our dad went into the backyard to water his garden, Billy stayed with me, stirring the pot of soup I had simmering on the stove. “He’s not any better,” he commented, stooping to slurp a spoonful of the oniony beef broth. “Mmm, good.”

  “Wait till I top it with the day-old baguette and broil it to melt the Gruyère.”

  He reached for a ladle and started to spoon the broth into a bowl. “You could have made boxed mac and cheese and I’d have been happy. I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in forever.”

  I took the ladle and bowl from him and poured the soup back into the pot. “You really should learn your way around a kitchen, you know. Women like a man who can cook. Bobby Flay. Michael Simon. Emeril Lagasse. Ever heard of them?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Miguel Baptista.”

  “It is romantic when a man cooks for a woman—”

  “Even if it’s his job?”

  “Miguel doesn’t cook for me.”

  “But if he did—”

  “If he did, I’d enjoy every bite, I’m sure. But that is not the point. You’re thirty-three, Billy. You should learn to make something besides scrambled eggs.”

  “I can. I do. Ask E—”

  He stopped, but I filled in the blank. Ask Emmaline. So my intuition was right on the money. He and my best friend had finally gotten over whatever hang-ups they had and were seeing each other.

  “Aha! I knew it!” I said with a grin. “I’ll get the scoop from Em, you know.”

  “Not all of it,” he said with a wink.

  I resisted throwing a precious dinner roll at him and instead grinned stupidly. “It’s about time. That’s all I have to say.”

  Billy just shrugged. I’d already set the table. He tossed the freshly baked dinner rolls into a basket, and I ladled the soup, finishing just as Dad came back in. I placed the chicken salad in the center of the table, and without any fanfare, we began our first meal together since my mom’s funeral.

  “So what’s the occasion, Ivy?” Billy finally asked after we’d exhausted all our small talk.

  T
he thrumming of my heart in my chest echoed in my ears. This was not a conversation I wanted to have, yet I had no choice. I released a shaky breath and plunged right into it. “I think Mom was killed.”

  They stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “Uh, yeah, Ivy. We know that.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I closed my eyes and regrouped. “I mean, I think someone killed her on purpose. She was a target. What I mean is, Mom was murdered.”

  It took an hour to explain my thought process, field questions, and offer explanations. Finally, disbelief gave way to acceptance.

  “Knowing mom, she was probably trying to help someone,” Billy said with a frustrated shake of his head.

  Dad pushed his dinner dishes away and placed his palms flat on the table, but he kept silent.

  Billy cupped his hand over his forehead. “You think she discovered something about the woman who was just killed? What was her name?”

  “Jackie Makers,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ears. “And yeah, I think it’s possible.”

  My dad leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. It was his typical stance. He was closed off, protecting himself. After a minute, he finally spoke. “It doesn’t matter, Ivy. She’s gone.”

  I stared at him. “It does matter, Dad. Someone murdered her.”

  “And you think Jackie may have done it? Mom discovered something, and she was killed over it, and now that same woman, Jackie, is dead, too. Where will it stop, Ivy? You’re going to dig around and try to vindicate your mom, try to make sense of what happened, but why? You’ll end up dead, too, if you’re not careful. And no matter what you find, it’s not going to bring her back.”