If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion

by Paige Shelton

  “Good to see you again, Evan,” I said.

  “Good to see you. I heard about the trouble at your school this morning. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I saw a fire truck there.”

  “Yeah, we always send a crew in an emergency situation. I didn’t know about the body or I would have been there, too. We’re still working on some communication issues between the fire and police department.”

  “Jenny?”

  “Yes, Jenny.” Evan smiled.

  I’d never met the woman and didn’t even know who she was, which was hard to pull off in Broken Rope. Mostly, everyone knew who everyone was even if we didn’t know them personally. Except for Jenny. She was the mysterious emergency phone operator who didn’t quite get everything right all the time. I’d had my own problems with her, but I didn’t think Evan needed to hear the details.

  “Believe it or not, Evan, I have some fire-related questions. Can I buy you a cookie or an ice cream?” I gestured toward the end of the street where the cookie shop, Broken Crumbs, and the ice cream parlor, jokingly known as the “saloon” were located.

  “I’d love a cookie, but only if I can have some milk, too.” Evan smiled. “Can’t imagine a cookie without milk.”

  “Deal.”

  The walk to the shop was quick and without any tourist impediment. Once inside, we both greeted the owner, Mabel Randall, and ordered a tall glass of milk and two cookies each. Evan wouldn’t let me pay, which was awkward, but only momentarily.

  “What are your questions?” Evan asked when we were both seated and had each enjoyed one milk dunk and one bite of a peanut butter and white chocolate cookie.

  “Do you know anything about the bakery fire from way back in 1951?”

  “Absolutely,” he said around a mouthful of the cookie Mabel had named the Double Noose. “It was the first thing I studied when I got here. I was interested, I guess. We’ve got the records from the investigation in the firehouse files.”

  “Really? I bet Jake would love to have a copy for his archives if you ever think about it and if they’re in any condition to copy.”

  “For that secret room in the back of his building, the one he has more up to fire code than any other building in town?”

  I nodded. “That would be Jake.”

  “I’d be happy for him to have a copy. I can make one for him easily.”

  “Can you tell me what you saw in the papers? I mean, was the investigation thorough? I’m curious about it.”

  “Sure, in fact I’ve been thinking of talking to the police—I think your boyfriend’s one of them?” I nodded, and though I hoped I wasn’t one to flatter myself, I thought I might have seen a little disappointment cross his face. Surely, I’d misinterpreted. “Well, I don’t think the fire was investigated well at all. They claimed it was an electrical fire, but I see evidence right in the notes and in a couple old pictures that were taken that points toward an accelerant, like gasoline or something, being used.”

  “The fire was started on purpose?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I would like to look into it a little closer, have the photographs examined by some experts. I don’t think it would hurt, and I think there’s a town budget for these sorts of things.”

  I nodded and then took another bite of milk-soaked cookie. When I finished the bite, I said, “Evan . . . what about, well, could there have been more than the two people who died in the fire?”

  I thought he might laugh at my question, or think I was somewhat off my rocker, but he didn’t. Instead, he put down his cookie and his eyebrows came together as he looked off to the side.

  “I don’t know, Betts, why do you ask?”

  I shrugged and sighed. “Broken Rope is an unusual place.”

  Evan laughed. “Yes, it is.”

  I liked how his face lit with his laugh.

  “Anyway, stories sometimes become gossip and then gossip causes some stories to become real. I’ve heard things over the years, some recently, that make me wonder if there were more deaths. Can your pictures tell you that?”

  “Maybe. I sense there’s more to this than you’re sharing, but it’s okay. I’ll try to look at the pictures more closely, and see if I can get another expert opinion.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He chewed and thought some more as if he were debating whether or not to say something. I was glad when he continued. “You know, Betts, I woke up in the middle of the night last night and I couldn’t stop thinking about that fire. And then you ask me about it today. What’s up, was there a recent article or something?”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes things like that just happen, I guess.”

  “Especially in Broken Rope.”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Well, my questions all stem from the soot patterns on the floor of the bakery. Whoever took the pictures did a very thorough job even if they are poor quality and, of course, they’re only black-and-white. They’re from a long time ago and I think it’s a miracle we have them as it is.”

  “Jim might be able to approve something. I’ll get Jake involved, too. As much of a tragedy as it was, if it was an even bigger one than everyone thought, I expect it’ll garner some more morbid Broken Rope curiosity.”

  “I’ll talk to Jim,” Evan said.

  I realized that I’d never sat in the cookie shop and had cookies and milk before. I’d purchased plenty of cookies from Mabel and I’d eaten them on the run or taken them elsewhere. But the simple pleasure of sitting at one of the small tables and enjoying the moment was something I’d never done. I decided I’d do it more often.

  “This place has quite the history, and people sure love to visit and hear the old stories,” Evan said.

  I laughed. “It takes a little getting used to, doesn’t it?”

  He smiled. “A little.” His eyes were curious as they stayed locked on mine a beat longer. “You were supposed to be . . . I mean, you were going to school to be an attorney when you decided to come back to town and work with your grandmother?”

  “I dropped out of law school. It wasn’t for me.” It hadn’t been for me, but no matter how certain I was of that decision, it still left me with a sense of failure. Dropping out is dropping out, or quitting or leaving. None of the verbs that went with what I did made it sound honorable or even just okay.

  “You are so suited to what you do that I can’t even imagine you as an attorney,” Evan said so sincerely that I blushed.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded and quickly changed the subject. “Tell me about the man who died at the school. The one that was found this morning, not the one from a few months ago.”

  “He was a student. Roger Riggins. I only knew him for two days but he seemed like a smart, likeable guy.” I regretted not knowing him better.

  “Do the police suspect murder?”

  “I think they think he had a seizure, but there’s something about the way they were acting. I don’t know, maybe the police always act suspicious.”

  “Dying from a seizure is pretty rare. There must be some underlying condition that needs to be considered.”

  “Morris is doing an autopsy. We should know more this afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry for you and Miz and your other students. That has to be tough.”

  I nodded and my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Gram.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Evan. “Gram?”

  “Betts, have I caught you in the middle . . . Oh, dadnabit, I’m fit to be tied. I don’t care if I did get you in the middle of something. Can you hightail it back to the school?”

  I looked at Evan. “Sure, but what’s up?”

  “I’ll show you when you get here. We don’t have another body, at least that’s the good news.”

  “I’ll be there shortly.”

  My departure was probably rude and awkward, but Evan understood that Gram and the cooking school were my first priorities. We exchanged p
hone numbers and he said he’d call soon with any more fire details. I hurried back to the Nova with the thought that Cliff, Jake, and I should all get to know our fire marshal better.

  Chapter 8

  Though there wasn’t another body at the school, Gram was inching closer to adding one to the count.

  “You try,” she said as she handed me the piece of paper.

  I glanced at the list. It was Freddie’s references. They were scribbled unevenly down the page, something he’d put together quickly as he sat in the school’s classroom two days earlier and were supposedly based upon the official list we’d never received.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “There are six references. Four of them go to disconnected numbers and the other two are just voice mails. And the voices on those two sound the same. You try the numbers, too. Tell me what you get.”

  Just as Gram reached for the phone to nudge it toward me, it rang. Or, rather, it jingled.

  We looked at each other and then she picked up the handset and gave it to me.

  “You take it,” she whispered.

  “Country Cooking School,” I said.

  “Hello? Hello? Yes, this is Miriam McCalaster. Someone named . . . well, I believe they said their name was Missouri just called. Do I have the correct number?” The voice was so thick with a strange accent that it took me a second to interpret the words. I couldn’t place the accent but it was something nasally and slow, and forced, I thought.

  “Yes, I’m Betts Winston, Missouri’s granddaughter. We run the cooking school.” I looked at the list. Miriam McCalaster was the second reference listed. Following her name were the words restaurant owner. “We were calling to check references for one of our students.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Freddie O’Bannon has listed you as a former employer. Do you remember Freddie?”

  “Of course I remember Freddie. He was by far one of the best workers I’ve ever employed,” Miriam said.

  “Where’s your restaurant?”

  “I’m in Connecticut.”

  “What kind of restaurant is it?”

  “Doesn’t matter because Freddie was a server not a cook, but if you must know, we’re a diner.”

  “I love diners,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What years did Freddie work for you?”

  “Oh. Oh, well, it was a number of years ago. I believe he was just out of high school.”

  Over the past couple days, Freddie had mentioned that he was twenty-six and had attended a junior college in New York state, so the diner experience would have occurred about eight years ago.

  “So about four years ago?” I said.

  “Yes, that’s about right.”

  I wasn’t very good at calculating passing time, but the difference between four years and eight years earlier would have been something I think I would have been able to recognize.

  “How long did he work for you?”

  “I’m not really sure . . . Oh, I must go. Duty calls. Know that Freddie’s the best, but I’m happy to talk to you again if you need more information. Call me in a couple days.” The unusual accent had changed by the time Miriam clicked off the call; it had transformed into no real accent at all.

  “Hello?” I said to the distinct and hollow quiet that switched to a dial tone a second later. I handed Gram the handset and said, “Miriam’s accent was gone by the end of the call. I have no idea what she was attempting to sound like at the beginning, but she was one of the worst actresses I’ve ever seen . . . I mean, heard.”

  “These aren’t real references, are they?” Gram said.

  “That’s just the one, but I don’t think it’s valid. We could be wrong, though,” I said.

  “We gave these to the police, didn’t we?”

  “Yep, I made a copy and gave it to Cliff.”

  “They might not be checking them right away. I think they need to. We need to call Jim,” Gram said.

  “I agree, but I’ll do some research, too. Check the Internet for more information on Freddie. Let’s see what Jim says. I . . . Well, the reference thing is an issue, of course, but if Roger hadn’t died, I don’t know that we’d be all that upset or suspicious about it. We’d want them clarified, of course. I do think Freddie’s here under some sort of false pretenses, but even though we might be tying it to killing Roger, we could just be jumping to a conclusion based on circumstance and fear. Besides . . .” If I’d made it all the way to a full-fledged attorney, I’d have to chastise myself over what I wanted to say next.

  “What?”

  “Well, we like him, Gram.”

  Gram harrumphed as she thought about what I’d said. The lines around her mouth softened and her shoulders relaxed.

  The phone rang again, causing me to jump slightly.

  “You were goosed,” Gram said as she picked it up this time. “Cooking School.”

  Her face fell quickly. “I see. Thank you for letting us know, Morris. Uh-huh, yes, I’ll let her know, too.” She hung up the phone without saying good-bye.

  “What?”

  “We won’t need to call Jim. Morris said he will be here shortly to talk to us both. Morris has determined that Roger was poisoned, and he and the police suspect murder. They’ll want to search the school and the grounds from top to bottom.”

  “Oh no.” My breath shallowed immediately. I knew murder was a possibility, but hearing it become more real shook me. “What kind of poison?”

  “Something he ingested, something he ate. Morris says he knows what it is, but he couldn’t tell me.”

  “Something at the school or from somewhere else? An allergy?”

  “He was clear about it not being an allergy but a poison. I don’t know what specifically it was or when he ingested it, but I’m sure we’ll all be under close scrutiny even if he wasn’t poisoned by something in the school. He was here when he died—unless the body was moved here . . . Oh, I don’t like any of this.” Gram’s voice quieted as though she’d forgotten I was in the room.

  I stood up. “Gram, let’s look around, you and me. We might be able to find something before they get here. I’m too curious not to.” I was, but I also thought it would be good to keep her busy.

  “You think that’s okay?”

  I shrugged. “I’d like to check. We won’t disrupt anything. We don’t even have to touch anything.”

  “Your time in law school might be paying off a little today?” Gram asked.

  “Nope, got all this from Law and Order. Television show,” I said, trying to alleviate at least a little of her stress, but it didn’t work.

  “Got it,” she said seriously before she led the way into the kitchen.

  The long and continually transforming space was difficult to examine closely. Utensils, small dust layers (though we cleaned obsessively, flour was still flour), chair locations, pots and pans; things moved and changed all the time. There was an organization to the space but a loose one that allowed for some flexibility when it came to storing.

  There seemed to be nothing strange or out of place in the kitchen. The only real recent addition to the room was the shelf full of sourdough starters, and they wouldn’t get the timely attention they needed to thrive so we assumed they’d all fail. We left the containers where they were, though. We’d throw them away after the school was thoroughly searched. The food inside the refrigerators and freezers also seemed undisturbed.

  “But, let’s not touch any of it, either,” I said. “If someone messed with the food, we might not be able to see it. Jim might want to test things.”

  “I don’t think Roger ate anything from in here. There was no sign of a break-in, so the poison must have been ingested outside the building. They can look around all they want, but I don’t think they’ll find anything suspicious in here.”

  “Probably not,” I said. I hoped not.

  Our inspection of the rest of the building left us with nothing more. We were hesitant to open the
door to the supply room since we’d found Everett Morningside’s body in there only a few months earlier, but we were met with no surprises there, either. In fact, the supply room seemed more organized than it had ever been.

  “Neither hide nor hair of something wrong,” Gram said as she plopped her hands on her hips, a small tone of distress still in her voice.

  My dad, her son, had recently called Gram “tough as a Mack truck.” The description had made me smile. Though she’d been detained during Everett’s murder, it hadn’t even occurred to me that she—or I, for that matter—would ever again be accused or suspected of a crime. But the idea was there, floating in the air with the stronger concern: who poisoned Roger? If it wasn’t one of us, and it wasn’t something he did to himself, accidentally or not, it was likely another student. Of course, we’d been focused on Freddie’s seemingly fraudulent references so he was at the top of both of our minds. But there were fourteen other potential suspects, and we didn’t know any of them well enough to make an educated guess as to who might be homicidal.

  “It’ll be okay. They’ll solve it quickly,” I said.

  She straightened her back and twisted her mouth funny. “I hope so.”

  I nodded as the buzzer announced that someone had come into the front of the school.

  “Bet it’s Jim,” Gram said before we hurried to greet our visitor.

  She was close; it wasn’t Jim but Cliff who pushed through the front swinging doors and into the kitchen as we swung through the back ones.

  “Betts, Miz, the two of you need to head on out of here for the day,” Cliff said. “I assume you’ve heard from Morris?”

  “Yes. Roger was poisoned, maybe on purpose. Murder,” Gram said.

  “Yes, on purpose for sure. At this point, we have no doubt it was murder.” Cliff’s words didn’t leave the same room for uncertainty that Morris’s apparently had. “Jim’s got a crime scene unit coming over right away.”