Kernel of Doubt: A Neela Durante Mystery

by Hillary Avis

  “Not anymore.” Orinda stormed off, having inflicted sufficient damage on the room, just as Dottie showed up from the kitchen to see what the yelling was about.

  Mama sighed. “She’s just tired. We all are. Teo says—”

  “I don’t care what Teo says. He’s not part of this family and he doesn’t know us, not enough to offer his opinion on anything.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know you, Neela,” Dottie said quietly, “but he knows us.”

  Chapter Ten

  Neela didn’t sleep well that night. Papa visited her in her dreams, but he only offered stern looks of disapproval. No advice, no comfort. The breakfast table was chilly despite Dottie’s pan of magnificently fluffy scrambled eggs. Orinda stabbed at her plate as though the eggs had insulted her, and Wendy fussed over Mama like she was the only one who missed Papa.

  Neela tried to start some conversation to thaw the room. “So what is there to do today? Weeding the fields, I guess?”

  Wendy stared at her. “Have you looked out the window? With Papa sick, nothing got planted this year. All we have is berries, because they’re perennial. And eggs.”

  “And goat milk,” Orinda said sulkily. “Ask me how I know.”

  “Don’t be a martyr,” Dottie admonished her. “We all do our part.”

  Orinda scraped back her chair, flounced to the door, and swung her backpack onto her shoulder.

  Mama spoke for the first time that morning. “You don’t have to go to school today, Rindy. They’ll understand.”

  Orinda yanked the door open. “I want to go. I can’t stand this place,” she said, and stormed out to the bus stop. Mama started sniffling, and Wendy fetched her a paper towel to blow her nose in.

  Dottie sighed and cleared the dishes to the sink. “Can’t win with her.”

  Neela sat at the table watching Wendy rub Mama’s shoulders and Dot do the dishes, both so calm and methodical about their tasks. She felt useless, paralyzed by her own helplessness. Finally she broke the silence. “So what am I supposed to do today?”

  “It’s not about you!” Wendy snapped. “For once it’s not about your super important job and your super handsome husband and your super smart brain! It’s about picking up the pieces without Papa. If you can’t occupy yourself, then leave so we can get on with life.” She rushed out of the kitchen, leaving Mama still at the table with her head bent, tracing the pattern on the tablecloth.

  Dot took off her rubber dish gloves and fixed her hair in the reflection on the window glass. “She’s just upset, Neels. Don’t take it to heart.”

  Neela chewed her lip pensively, and then the words came out in a rush. “Nah, she’s right. You aren’t responsible for giving me something to do just because I’m lost in my own life. I’m frustrated because I want to escape into work like I always do, and I can’t.”

  Dottie put an arm around her and squeezed. “Might have to feel the feels this time.”

  “Might have to get a new job to distract me,” Neela said, only half-joking. “I’m gonna go sit in the truck and job hunt on my phone. Reception is better out there.”

  She left Mama and Dot and went outside. The reception was better in the driveway, but still not good enough to stream music, so she started up the truck to listen to the radio. She felt her shoulders relax as she leaned back in the seat and the carefree sound of Top 40 pop washed over her. But the instant she turned on her phone, it blew up with notifications. Texts, voicemails, instant messages. All from Chalk.

  Chalk: Call me ASAP.

  Chalk: Call me.

  Chalk: Call me.

  Chalk: OK, text me.

  Chalk: Where are you? Art said you’re on leave.

  Chalk: I need to talk to you. Call me.

  Chalk: OK, I’ll tell you. DALE arrested Demetrius this morning.

  Chalk: Whatever is going on for you, you can’t just disappear right now.

  No job hunting for me this morning, Neela thought as she called Chalk back. The call went to voicemail, and she didn’t leave a message. Must be in a meeting. Who else would know what was going on? She couldn’t call Cassie. And she certainly couldn’t call Art, because it’d remind him that she still had her company phone. Teo. He’d have the scoop from the DALE office. He might have even made the arrest himself.

  She sighed and reluctantly found his number in her contacts.

  “Teo?”

  He didn’t seem to notice the brittleness in her voice. “Oh, hey. My condolences about Papa. He was like my father, tambien. I share your sadness.”

  “I doubt that. I can’t believe you are even talking about him, after what you did.” Neela was suddenly furious, and she got out of the truck to pace up and down the driveway. “You’re such a jerk, thinking you could leave before the funeral to keep it from me. You must have really loved my father, to miss the funeral.”

  “Wendy said you’d be angry either way, whether I stayed or went.”

  “Kinda hard to be happy about you sitting there at Papa’s deathbed, holding his hand and pretending to be his family, bribing Rindy with art supplies instead of telling her to go to college and learn something useful. At least if you’d stayed, I could have yelled at you about it, but you’re too much of a coward.” Tears burned in Neela’s eyes, and she scrubbed them away with her fist.

  “Is that why you called? I thought that—no importa. I guess you have a lot of reasons to be angry at me.”

  “Why, what else did you do? Is Molly okay? Did you get rid of her or something? If you gave her away, I will kill you, I swear to god.”

  “No, no, Molly is fine, she’s right here with her head in my lap.” Teo spoke in the soothing voice reserved for a toddler having a tantrum. “I thought maybe you were upset about your friend being arrested. I warned you it could happen.”

  In her anger, she’d forgotten about her original reason for the call—but he didn’t have to be so patronizing about it. She hung up the phone, hard. Held her breath. One, two, three.

  The phone buzzed, and she answered it before it even finished the first ring.

  “You jerk!”

  “Whoa, maybe I should call back later,” Chalk said.

  “Chalk,” Neela croaked out, and started crying for the first time since Papa died, not just quiet, whimpering tears but wrenching animal sobs.

  Chalk cleared his throat. “I thought you were dead.”

  “No, my father is. I came home for the funeral.” Neela felt like an automaton, moving her lips, hearing the words come out, not quite believing them.

  “Did you listen to your messages?” he asked. “I’m sorry about your dad, but you have to drive back to Sunflower Springs now. There’s a crisis in progress.”

  HER LITTLE COTTAGE felt dark and cool inside, like the inside of a snail shell.

  Neela picked up the phone to dial her sisters to tell them that she’d made it home safely, but was surprised by a loud knock at the door. When she opened it, Chalk was standing under the bare-bulb porch light, his hair silhouetted like a halo.

  “I made you some peanut butter cookies,” he said, and handed her a plate of them, each cookie dented by a man-size thumb and filled with jam.

  “Thanks. That makes everything better. Who needs a father or a job when you have PB&J cookies?”

  “You’re welcome, I think.”

  Neela attempted a smile. “I appreciate it, I do. And while I would like to harbor resentment about losing my job when you still have yours, there’s no point in you going down with the ship. You didn’t get in Cassie’s face about it.”

  Chalk stood awkwardly in the doorway until she invited him in and then immediately went to the kitchen and rolled up his sleeves, scrubbing the counters while he talked. Neela lay down on the little sofa while she munched on the cookies.

  “So you already know the bad news. Demetrius was arrested for corporate espionage. But An-Yi wasn’t,” Chalk said.

  “That’s weird.” Neela frowned. “I thought they were a package deal. I mean,
Demetrius has no motive without his loyalty to An-Yi!”

  “That’s what I thought! But it gets weirder. So you know how Art was going to turn the flash drive over to DALE? Well, he didn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When I was looking for you, I may have called your ex to see if he knew where you were.” Chalk shrugged apologetically and moved on to washing the fingerprints off the refrigerator door. “While I had him on the phone, I asked him what he thought about 375 and 13X—you know, why someone would steal the files that they couldn’t use anyway because of the toxin. He had no idea what I was talking about!”

  Neela swore under her breath. “Figures. I’m sure Art tried, but Broad Earth wouldn’t want it getting out. They’ll just quietly pull it from the production pipeline like it never happened. I mean, who cares that Miles was murdered as long as they don’t get bad PR, right?”

  Chalk nodded. “Exactly my thinking. We should tell Teo I made a copy of the files so he can see the tox reports on that protein.”

  Neela sat up. “Chalk, don’t you realize that having a copy of those files makes it look like you were the one who was stealing data?”

  Chalk smirked. “Well, I’ll say I got it from you.”

  “Ugh! We’ll all be charged with agricultural espionage and shipped off to some secret DALE facility for interrogation.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, though.” Chalk scrubbed the sink out with conviction.

  “We did a few things wrong. Illegal surveillance, breaking and entering, et cetera. You can stop with the cleaning. It’s making me feel like a terrible housekeeper.”

  “But we didn’t put a toxic protein into a plant that feeds millions of people and animals! Someone else did that. Anyway, I can’t stop cleaning until it’s done. That’s just how I work.”

  “I don’t know if we can escape blame unless we find the real culprit,” Neela said. “Broad Earth will want to sew this up as quickly as possible and sweep it under the rug. I can’t even think about the scale of cleanup on this one.”

  “I’ll take the day off tomorrow, and we can sit in the Waffle Nook and logic this out,” Chalk said. “We’ll probably need to get someone else to help us with this. Cassie, Art, somebody.”

  “An-Yi, maybe.” The one with the most to lose if we don’t figure this thing out.

  Chalk rinsed out the kitchen sponge, dried his hands, and hung up the dish towel with a flourish. “Alternative scenario: Demetrius and An-Yi really did steal the data and maybe even killed Miles. Ever think about that?”

  Neela felt sick to her stomach. “I can’t imagine it.”

  The little cottage seemed to hold its breath until Chalk broke the silence. “We need to understand the killer’s motivation to do something so drastic, no matter who it is. We need to really dissect it.”

  “Tomorrow,” Neela said. “Today has exceeded its capacity for intrigue.”

  CHALK WAS WAITING FOR her in the corner booth at the Waffle Nook, his skin pink and freshly scrubbed, his hair damp from the shower. Neela’s eyes felt like they were still glued shut with sleep. She rustled her hair into a quick ponytail when she saw him so she didn’t come off like a total slob.

  “You look like you’re dressed for church,” she said as she plopped down next to him.

  “I got you coffee.” He slid the mug across the table to her.

  She put up her hands and pretended to be receiving blessings from above. “Ahhh! This is church!” She downed the coffee gratefully while she perused the menu.

  “You folks about ready?” the red-haired waitress asked.

  “I’ll have—”

  “We’ve got one more coming. We’ll all order together.”

  The waitress shrugged and blew a bubble with her gum. “Suit yourself, hon.”

  Neela dropped her menu on the table. “Who else besides us?”

  “You’re kidding, right? It was your idea,” Chalk said, squinting at her like she was speaking another language.

  The bells on the door of the Waffle Nook jangled as a new customer entered. Chalk motioned with his head, and Neela looked over her shoulder to see who it was. An-Yi. Of course. She wore dark sunglasses and had a scarf tied over her hair, but enough people in Sunflower Springs had heard about Demetrius being arrested that half the restaurant turned to watch her find the table. She slid into the booth, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.

  “I guess going incognito isn’t working for me,” An-Yi whispered, and took off the sunglasses. Her eyes were swollen and red; it looked like she’d been crying all night.

  Neela knew just how she felt. She reached out and put a hand on An-Yi’s before she remembered that An-Yi was the reason Demetrius was in jail to begin with. She pulled her hand back, and An-Yi’s eyes welled up again.

  Chalk cleared his throat. “I’m glad you could make it. Um...we were hoping you could help us.”

  An-Yi’s chin quivered. “I’m kind of a wreck, so I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

  “Well, first off, you can explain why Demetrius is in jail and you’re not,” Neela blurted out. Chalk elbowed her and she elbowed him right back. “What? We need to know!”

  “It’s a fair question. I should be. But this way is his idea. I’ll testify against him and plead to a lesser charge—that way I’ll only get probation. No jail time.”

  “He’s protecting you—even though you’re the reason he’s in this mess?” Neela could feel her cheeks turning as red as An-Yi’s.

  An-Yi didn’t even bother to defend herself, just nodded.

  “And you’re letting him throw away his life?”

  “It’ll only be five years. As little as three, if we’re lucky.”

  Neela tipped her head against the back of the seat and stared at the ceiling in disbelief. “He must really love you.”

  “Ready now?” The waitress was back, her pen poised on the order pad.

  “I’ll just have chamomile tea,” An-Yi said. “My stomach can’t handle anything else right now.”

  “Waffles,” Neela said.

  “Waffles,” echoed Chalk. “And more coffee.”

  The waitress nodded. “Good choice.” She slouched off to put in their order.

  An-Yi leaned forward over the table. “He does love me, but we decided this together. For the baby.”

  Chalk’s ears perked up. “You’re pregnant?”

  “What?” Neela asked. “How? You just got engaged.”

  An-Yi pulled the scarf off her head to dab her eyes and shook out her curls. “Late-breaking news, but that’s why we decided to finally get married. If we both go to jail, we won’t be able to raise our child. Demetrius is taking the blame so I can go have the baby in China where my family can take care of us.” She rubbed her belly, barely visible even now that Neela knew about it. “It’s a girl. We found out last week.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before you stole data from Broad Earth!” Neela said. “What did you have on Miles, anyway? How did you get him to help you?”

  “I didn’t even know him except by name,” An-Yi said, her chin beginning to tremble again. “I mean, I saw him in meetings, that’s it.”

  “Why’d he give you the data, then? Did you pay him for it?”

  An-Yi put her hands over her face and rocked back and forth. “Please—just talk to my lawyer. He has my statement.”

  Neela’s heart sank. Maybe she’d misjudged everything. She hadn’t only misinterpreted her friendship with Demetrius, but also Miles’s death. It was Demetrius and An-Yi who stole the data. It was espionage. It was suicide, just like Teo said. The toxic mystery protein in 375 and 13X was just a coincidence. An accident.

  She looked over at Chalk and could see the uncertainty in his face, too.

  “I’m not used to being wrong,” he murmured. “Maybe—maybe Miles put the emails from Cassie on the drive so that whoever used the data would know that the lines were flawed. That they weren’
t safe to produce.”

  “Maybe,” Neela said. She stared at An-Yi. “Why’d you say we should talk to your lawyer instead of just telling us how you convinced a principled scientist to do something so distasteful that he killed himself immediately afterward?”

  An-Yi shook her head silently, staring at the shiny wood tabletop.

  “Too ashamed to say the words out loud?” Neela asked bitterly.

  “Neela.” Chalk held up his hand to signal her to stop.

  “I won’t stop! She stole the lives of two people, Chalk! Two good people. Miles is dead, and Demetrius will be locked up for years.”

  An-Yi banged her fist down on the table. “I didn’t. I didn’t! I can’t stand this. Whatever my lawyer says is the official statement, but I said what I had to say to keep my baby and myself out of jail. I had nothing to do with stealing data or Miles’s death or any of it, and neither did Demetrius. We are backed in a corner and this breaks my heart, but the lawyer said DALE’s case against us is solid. It’s one of us going to jail or both of us, so we’re choosing one. But that doesn’t mean we did any of those things. And I won’t recite lies at a table in the Waffle Nook just to make you happy no matter how much you insult me.”

  “Waffles up!” the waitress announced in a sing-songy voice, slinging their plates onto the table. She set down An-Yi’s cup of fragrant tea in front of her. “And for you, little bit. You let me know if you work up an appetite.”

  Neela had lost her own appetite. The more she looked at An-Yi’s devastated face, the more she believed her, and the more she realized what a terrible decision it must have been for An-Yi and Demetrius when DALE came to arrest them. Maybe they should have made a run for it after all.

  “We have to do something, Chalk,” she said.

  He nodded. “We have to call Teo.”

  “Who’s that?” An-Yi asked.

  “Neela’s ex. He’s a DALE agent working the case,” Chalk explained.

  An-Yi looked horrified. “No, you can’t! If you tell him I didn’t do it, my whole deal could be void, and my baby will end up in foster care! Please, don’t. I’ve made peace with this and so has Demetrius. This is what we want.”