Pecan Flan Murder Plan

by Nancy McGovern

  “Surely he’d by J, not G,” said Faith, forgetting their slang.

  Alizee rolled her eyes. “G for gangster. And, no, that doesn’t mean that we glorify violence or you’re going to come back and all the kitchen equipment will be on the back of a truck. It just means JoJo is my friend.”

  Faith had to laugh. “All right, my Gs, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Alizee buried her head in her hands in mock exasperation. “Seriously. Never say that again.”

  “Don’t burn the place down,” Faith said with a grin, stepping out into the Florida sunshine.

  Faith decided to take a walk and see how Nathan was doing. It felt so good to be able to stroll through Paradise Falls, knowing that Alizee and JoJo could take care of themselves in the kitchen. Just a couple of weeks ago she wouldn’t have dared leave them among her precious equipment and ingredients, let alone so much as touch the oven. Now, she barely gave it a second thought. They were capable.

  She walked past the parking lot to see Capability Moses hurrying by, today in a golden yellow linen suit with dark blue detailing. “I hope I’ll see you again someday, Faith,” he said, calling over his shoulder. “I’ve got to go.”

  Shane came out of the bushes at the side of the parking lot, clutching a piece of paper and panting. “Capability, don’t go!”

  “Sorry, son,” Capability said, swinging his bulk into his luxury SUV. “This is getting too weird for me. All the best for your future. You’re a good kid.”

  “Capability!” Shane’s heartbroken voice echoed around the parking lot as the SUV sped away. “Capability! Come back! It’s fine, I’m your bodyguard!”

  Faith’s heart just about broke watching him. She hurried over to him.

  Shane let out a huge grunt of frustration, and tossed the paper down to the floor. It fluttered on the breeze. He flopped down on a tree root, his face like thunder. “Why’d he have to go do that, huh?” Tears laced his voice, but then he hollered, “Stupid idiot! Just go! I don’t care! In fact, I’m glad you’re gone! Bye, Felicia!”

  Faith had been sitting quietly next to him, waiting for him to calm down. “Bye, Felicia?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t get it. You people don’t understand anything. Especially not that stupid Capability or Liability or whatever his name is. He’s a jerk.”

  In the past, Faith would have been offended. But since picking up Laura’s skills and Alizee’s insight, she knew Shane was just letting off steam. He was deeply upset. She could hear Alizee’s voice in her head as she sat there – “This is just a trigger, Shane. What’s really going on? Are you going through feelings of abandonment, like you’ve gone through in the past?”

  Faith looked at the tire tracks in the parking lot where Capability had made his quick escape. “So he’s gone for good? What happened?”

  “He got some stupid note and ran away,” Shane said. “Why’s he so scared of a stupid note? I’ve had a guy in school threaten to kill me and I still went into school. What’s the big deal?”

  Faith nodded to the piece of paper on the ground. “That note?”

  Shane looked at it as if it were the devil itself. “Yeah.”

  Faith picked it up and as she read it, her heartbeat began to race. Her fingers began to sweat and left the paper damp in places. “Oh my goodness, Shane. This is really serious.”

  It was typed and read: Give us the money we’ve asked for, or we’ll kill you, just like we did Robbie. The rock was just a warning.

  Shane shrugged. “Is it?”

  “Er, yes. We have to phone the police.”

  “Real men don’t squeal.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.”

  “No one thinks I can do anything,” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “Everyone just thinks I’m some stupid, messed up kid. I could have looked after Capability and made sure he was safe. I had his back. I’ve had all my friends’ backs in all kinds of fights. But everyone treats me like a kid. Some kid that can’t do anything.”

  Faith’s pulse was racing from the shock of the note. She wanted to run back to Eat With Faith to get her cell phone and call the police, but she was worried about leaving Shane there. He seemed to be teetering on the edge of control.

  “Come with me,” she said, planning to call Laura when they got back to the café. Some days Laura stayed at the unit, other days she stayed with the kids at Paradise Falls. Today she was at the unit.

  Shane stayed put. “Go where? What’s the point?”

  “Alizee and JoJo are making cupcakes. Come have some with us.”

  “Don’t want to,” he said, but didn’t sound entirely convincing.

  “Oh, come on. I know JoJo misses being around you. Come see him.”

  Shane got up and dusted himself off. “Suppose I could.”

  “Yeah.”

  Faith hurried to the café. Shane dragged behind at first, but soon let his enthusiasm at seeing his friends and eating cupcakes get the better of him, and soon he was running and overtaking her. He seemed to have all forgotten about Capability and the note.

  When they arrived, Alizee squealed. “Shane!”

  He gave a cocky smile. “Hey.” Then he turned to JoJo, and bumped fists with him. “My G,” he said.

  “My G,” JoJo said back.

  It was very understated, but Faith could see by the look in their eyes how much they meant to each other.

  “Where’s Capability?” Alizee asked.

  “Oh, that old loser? I don’t know. So what you making?”

  Faith watched with a smile from the back room through the open door. She put her hand in her drawstring bag, feeling around for her phone. Soon her fingers landed on something hard, but it didn’t feel like a phone. Frowning, she turned to the bag, and realized it was JoJo’s after all, not hers. They were hung up right next to each other.

  Curious, she lifted her hand out of the bag. She gasped when she saw what she was holding. A rock, with an unmistakeable blood stain on one side.

  *****

  Chapter 14

  Faith felt like the world was closing in. She hid the rock behind her back, and slowly left Eat With Faith. Shane and Alizee and JoJo were too wrapped up in their conversation to notice, at least for a while.

  She began to walk purposefully, but where to, she didn’t know. Soon her march turned into a meander. What dawned on her slowly was a terrible feeling for Laura. This would shake her to her very foundation. She lived for those kids, and all her new found zest for life was found in seeing them grow and progress and heal from their traumatic pasts.

  Faith looked down at the note quickly.

  Give us the money we’ve asked for, or we’ll kill you, just like we did Robbie. The rock was just a warning.

  Who was we, though? The obvious answer, in terms of friendship, was Shane. But if that was true, then all his emotional reaction to Capability leaving was a lie. A horrible thought jolted through her like a lightning bolt – maybe Shane was just frustrated because if Capability left, he wouldn’t give them the money they were blackmailing him for. Or what if JoJo’s accomplice was Alizee? After all, they’d have plenty of time to work together. That hit Faith right in the heart. How could she be so open and honest and transparent, and then go do something like that? Soon Faith was imagining that all the kids were psychopaths, putting on friendly and ‘authentic’ veneers, while under the surface being murderous monsters.

  Maybe Nathan had been right.

  Faith felt her belief in humanity crumble. It was as if her heart was hardening and drying out, and flaking off at the edges. Soon all that would be left would be a hard core that nothing and no one could penetrate.

  “Faith, what’s wrong?”

  Faith hadn’t even seen Janice tending to one of the beds at the edge of the path. She jumped, then, without even thinking, hid the rock behind her back. Somehow she still felt protective over the kids’ reputation. But then she realized how ridiculous that was. How could she defend them now?

&nb
sp; “I think we have a problem,” she said to Janice. “A real big problem.”

  Janice’s brow was furrowed, and she hurried to slip off her gloves. “Come sit down, Faith.” She put her arm around her. “Talk to me.”

  They sat down on one of the stone walls that demarcated the raised beds. Faith flopped her head down onto her knees, feeling like she knew nothing about life or the world. Nothing was certain. Nowhere was safe. No one could be trusted.

  “I don’t know,” Faith said. “I just don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what, honey? What’s that you have in your hand?”

  Faith hid the rock and the note in the folds of her summer dress, then looked Janice straight in the eye. “Do you honestly think people can change? You know, for the better? For real?”

  Janice let out a long sigh, then was silent for a while. When she said, “Yes, I do, Faith,” she had tears in her eyes.

  “I wished it was true but I don’t think they can.”

  “I know they can. Even the worst people. Can I tell you something about me that I’ve never told you, Faith?”

  Faith nodded. “Please.”

  “Max’s father, my husband, was murdered when Max was seven.”

  Faith gasped. “Oh my goodness.”

  Janice nodded sadly. “His car broke down in the wrong part of town. What he didn’t know was that he was right in the middle of some kind of gang warfare. He got caught in the crossfire, and died at the scene. One bullet to the head.”

  “Oh. Oh. I never knew.” Faith was shocked.

  Janice smiled wryly. “Well, it’s not exactly a great small talk subject, is it? But, in any case, the reason I tell you is because of the young man who shot him. His name is Lim. He’s a second-generation Vietnamese American.”

  “Okay,” Faith said, not knowing where the conversation was going.

  “Because of my Christian faith, I made every effort to forgive him. It was almost impossible at first. I was filled with so much rage at the injustice of it all. Jonas – that was my husband – would have never hurt a fly. He was the gentlest man. And then some gun toting thugs decide to have a shootout and he gets hurt? That was my first reaction.”

  “Understandable.”

  “But my rage began to eat me inside. And worse, I saw Max was picking up on it. He was becoming a little boy full of fury, and I just hated it. I wanted my innocent boy back. I knew I had to let go and try to forgive, but I just had too many questions. So I requested to visit the young man in prison.”

  “That’s brave.”

  Janice gave her a sad smile. “Not really. I just had to ask him some questions. We got to talking. When I broke down crying, I just couldn’t stop. I was screaming in the jail at one point. And it seemed to unlock something in Lim. He started crying, too, and soon he was on his knees, begging me for forgiveness. And I gave it to him.”

  Faith let out a long sigh. “Wow.”

  “Then all of a sudden I didn’t see a monstrous killer in front of me. I saw a very confused and damaged young man with no future. So we started writing letters, and sometimes I went to see him. And soon I learned all about his life. He had an emotionally detached childhood, no real bond with his parents, so always felt alone. Then he was force-initiated into a gang in his neighborhood at 11. To survive, he accepted the gang as family. A member of another gang had shot his friend, and that night they were out for revenge, for their ‘brother’. He was only 16.”

  Faith cupped her face with her hand. “Gosh, what a mess.”

  “I know. Not to say any of that excuses what he did. And he accepts that. He’s coming out next year a new man, let me tell you. He earned a degree in engineering, and mentored hundreds of young prisoners over the years, trying to get them involved in education, too. He is one of the most inspirational people you could ever meet now. Nothing is too dark for him. Nothing too scary. Nothing is impossible. I think of him as that young, wild boy with the eyes so full of pain, and the gangster attitude. It seems like a totally different person. So yes, Faith, I do believe people can change.”

  Faith nodded slowly. “And you don’t think there’s any badness lurking underneath? Like he’s hiding anything?”

  “Oh no, not at all. He always talks about owning all parts of ourselves, integrating ourselves, stuff like that. He did a lot of self-development work in jail, even got a certificate in counseling others.”

  Faith nodded, then, surprising herself, burst into tears. “Look at these,” she said, unfolding the folded pocket she’d made to hide them. “A note, and a rock I found in JoJo’s bag.”

  Janice read the note over and over, her brow creased.

  “So it’s either JoJo and Shane. Or JoJo and Alizee. Those are my guesses. I can’t believe it,” Faith said, shaking her head and feeling like all her limbs were leaden.

  “I don’t believe it,” Janice said. “Not for a minute.”

  “Huh?”

  “Give us the money we’ve asked for,” Janice read. “That doesn’t really sound like the vernacular of these kids does it. Thinking about it, I’ve never heard any of them say ‘we’ve’. They would just say ‘we’. Give us the money we asked for. I’m sure about that.”

  Faith dared to hope – it didn’t feel like it was just the kids’ innocence that was hanging on this, it was her faith in humanity in general.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Faith said. Then her heart sank. “Unless because it’s on a computer, the computer automatically corrected it. You know, how these grammar things do sometimes.” Then she had an idea. “Ooh, let me check it on my phone.” She went onto a blank text message and typed in: Give us the money we asked for. “No correction,” she said. “So you think… the kids are being framed?”

  Janice nodded. “I’d say it’s a real possibility, yes.”

  *****

  Chapter 15

  Faith couldn’t wait to get out of Paradise Falls that day, but she didn’t want to let on to any of the kids that anything was going on. If they were guilty, which she thought was extremely unlikely, she didn’t want to tip them off that she knew. And if they were innocent, she didn’t want them to go through the trauma of knowing they were being framed. Surely that wouldn’t have been good for them.

  She shot off a quick text to Laura, who was back at the unit, and Nathan, who was who-knew-where in the gardens, suggesting a Paradise Point beach meeting for that evening. They both texted back quickly to agree.

  Faith boxed up a couple of Alizee and JoJo’s cupcake creations to take with her, which had turned out wonderfully. Alizee had made cherry cola cupcakes, which were unusual and tasted good, but JoJo had taken it to a whole new level. He’d baked little chocolate cupcakes, but had put an intact piece of Milky Way bar inside each one. These had melted deliciously in the oven, so biting into the center of the cupcake, you got a glorious mix of melted chocolate, melted caramel, and melted nougat. He’d also melted more Milky Way bars totally, until they were soup, and had mixed that with cream and piped it on the tops of the cupcakes. He didn’t yet have an expert hand with the piping, but Faith marveled at his creativity.

  Just before the kids ran off to the parking lot to get in the bus sent for them, she decided to put Janice’s theory to the test. “You’ve all done great today. What are you going to tell Miss Laura you’ve done?”

  “We made the best cupcakes ever,” Alizee beamed. “And Faith loves them.”

  “And you’ve not even been making cupcakes long. How long have you been making cupcakes, do you think?”

  Alizee nudged JoJo. “You know?”

  JoJo shrugged.

  Shane said, “About seven months,” unhelpfully, because it was nothing like that long.

  “I think we been making cupcakes about three weeks,” Alizee said with a shrug.

  Faith frowned. “Say that again.”

  “Three weeks!” said Alizee, exasperated.

  “The whole sentence.”

  “What is this, English class? We been making
cupcakes for three weeks. Happy now?”

  The bus driver beeped the horn, and Alizee, JoJo and Shane hurried out, boxes of cupcakes under their arms.

  “Bye, Faith!” they called out.

  Faith sank down on a stool, feeling victorious. Alizee didn’t use ‘we’ve’ where it was supposed to be used. So why would she ever use it where it was optional, like in the case in the letter? That didn’t make sense. They must have been framed. But why whom? Presumably the real killer.

  She got the bus into Paradise instead of waiting for Nathan and going in the van – she wanted a bit of time to mill around the town by herself and ease the pressure – and the question went round and round in her mind – who is the real killer?

  By the time she and Nathan and Laura met up, by Josiah’s smoothie shack, she had twisted her mind into a thousand knots and felt further away from the truth than ever.

  Sipping on her frozen mango drink, she relayed all the information she had, and showed them the rock and the note.

  “I wondered where Capability had gone all afternoon,” Nathan said. “I’m not surprised he got out of there with a note like this.”

  “You know who it is, don’t you?” Laura said, reading the note over and over again. Her grip on it was so tight that the color was draining from her fingers. “It’s Max, of course. Who else could it be? Think about it. He made it very clear from the beginning that he hated the kids being there. He killed Robbie, hurt Capability, and framed the kids. I just know it.”

  “You know, Janice told me something I never knew before.” She explained about Max’s father being murdered.

  “Well, there you go, then,” said Laura. “With that kind of past? You never know what’s lurking underneath the surface.”

  Nathan and Faith both gave her pointed looks.

  “You can’t have one rule for your kids and one for Max,” said Faith. “A traumatic past doesn’t necessarily mean someone will do bad things.”

  Laura huffed, knowing she was being a bit of a hypocrite. She sipped her cookies-and-cream milkshake, looking sulky. “Well, who else is it then?”