Kernel of Doubt: A Neela Durante Mystery

by Hillary Avis

  While Cassie stirred the eggs into the bread, Dottie stood behind Mama and rubbed her shoulders until Mama closed her eyes and her head began to droop. Neela and Dot each took an arm and guided her gently to the bedroom, settling her under sheets that Dot had made special with a crocheted edging and embroidered pillowcases.

  “Good night,” Neela whispered, and kissed her mother on the cheek.

  Mama’s eyes fluttered open and she put her hands on Neela’s face. “I love you girls. Even though you forgot the apricots.”

  Back in the kitchen, the bread pudding went into the oven, and Dottie put the index card back in its file in a narrow drawer next to the sink that was too small for anything else. Orinda had cleared the table while they were in the other room and they all sat around it and chatted, watching Wendy stir the cajeta. Round and round. Round and round.

  “You’re good at that, Wen,” said Neela. “I don’t have the patience.”

  The bread pudding came out of the oven perfectly brown and gold, studded with the chopped dried apricots that Neela had not, in fact, forgotten.

  “Ahhh,” they all said at once, except Wendy who was still at work on the cajeta, straining it through a sieve to catch the cinnamon stick. None of them could wait, and pulled off bits of the piping hot dessert with their fingers, burning them in the process.

  “It’ll be sweeter if you hold off for five minutes,” Wendy said from behind, shaking her sticky spoon at them.

  “Oh, fruit!” said Orinda, and disappeared with a yellow crockery bowl. She returned it brimming with strawberries from the garden, so red and ripe they were almost purple. Neela jumped up to rinse and slice them.

  Dottie spooned hillocks of bread pudding into bowls, and Wendy drizzled cajeta over each until the bread pudding no longer resembled hills, but islands in tiny lakes of pale caramel. Orinda came behind, adding slices of strawberry scooped from Neela’s cutting board to the top of each. Gold crowned with red, red surrounded by gold, the bowls reminded Neela of the sacred hearts that hung over Mama’s headboard.

  The kitchen was silent except for the clicking of spoons. Orinda finished first and used her fingers to scrape the last bit of sweetness from her bowl.

  “We should have made ice cream, too,” she said.

  Cassie nodded. “Then this would be worth a million bucks.”

  Neela stopped mid-spoonful. A million dollars was exactly what they needed.

  “If you don’t want yours, I’ll finish it,” said Orinda hopefully.

  “I was just thinking—” Neela said, but Dottie cut her off.

  “That ice cream would be a good way to use up all the milk and eggs!”

  “That too,” said Neela. “Wen, can you make ice cream?”

  Wendy nodded.

  “She makes the best,” said Orinda, helping herself to more bread pudding from Neela’s bowl.

  “So let me ask you, would the Turners let you sell stuff over at their farm stand?”

  “They have their own eggs and milk so they don’t need any more of those,” Wendy said.

  “Well all these things we just made, do they sell any of those? Or goat milk ice cream?”

  Realization dawned on the room like a slow creeping fire, at first warming them and then burning them up with fervor.

  When Mama came out of the bedroom in her housecoat, cheerful as a bird in the morning light, Dottie, Wendy, and Neela were hard at work scrubbing caramelized milk from the yellow walls and floor of the kitchen. They’d robbed the canning jar stash, and twenty-four pints of cajeta were cooling on the window sills, waiting for their lids.

  “Did you girls sleep at all?” she asked.

  “Not a bit,” said Neela, on her knees. “Dot even ran out at two a.m. to buy more sugar at the Kwik-mart.”

  Dottie pushed the hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Gosh, I’m exhausted.”

  “Me too,” said Neela. She stood up and stretched out her stiff legs. “But look what we did!”

  They surveyed the landscape of mismatched jars on the table, the mouth of each glinting in the sun, a round O of hope.

  “Your father would eat it with a spoon,” Mama said.

  Orinda came clattering down the stairs just then, clutching a sheaf of paper. “I’m finished!”

  “With what, honeybun?” asked Dottie.

  “With a label design. I’ve been working on it all night!”

  “We thought you were sleeping,” said Neela. “We would have brought you a snack if we knew you were up.”

  “Too busy to eat anyway,” said Orinda. “Look!”

  Neela cried when she saw the design. It was a simple label, an oval with hand lettering reading “Five Daughters Cajeta.” The ingredients were listed, along with instructions to “pour on anything you want to taste good.” And it had a little cartoon of five women with wooden spoons. Neela could spot herself, the short one with the wavy ponytail.

  “I put Robin on it anyway, even though she wasn’t here.”

  “It’s amazing, Rindy. Perfect. Papa would be so proud of you,” said Neela. Wendy wrapped Orinda in a hug and ruffled her hair.

  Cassie leaned around the door frame. “Morning. What did I miss?”

  “A lot of work,” Dottie said. “You hungry?”

  Cassie came all the way into the kitchen. She was in workout gear, and it was obvious from her flushed cheeks that she’d already been out for a run. “Starving,” she said. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Orinda rolled her eyes. “Eggs.”

  Cassie giggled. “I should have known! What can I do to help?”

  Dottie delegated tasks to everyone, and breakfast was on the table in mere minutes.

  “When are you leaving?” Mama asked Neela. “Dot said you weren’t going to stick around.”

  Neela nodded. “I have some work to do—Cassie’s going to stay for another day or two, though.”

  “That’s OK, we like her better anyway,” Orinda said, munching her toast. Dottie swatted her with a dish towel.

  “Clean up, and then you and Wendy should go pester the Turners about stocking the cajeta in their stand. Catch them before they go to church and see what they want for selling it.”

  Neela bit her lip. She didn’t want to ruin their happiness, but she didn’t want them to get in trouble, either. “You might need to wait on that. Probably need an inspection before you can make things in this kitchen to sell.”

  Dottie’s face fell, and Neela was instantly sorry that she’d said anything.

  “I don’t know if you need to wait,” Cassie broke in. “I was thinking last night, out in the RV...that kitchen out there has already been certified by the health department for the goat cheese, right? And it’s portable. Maybe you don’t need to have anyone sell your stuff for you. You could have a food truck.”

  “Oh my god,” Orinda said, her mouth still full of toast. “You are a freaking genius.”

  “Language, Rindy,” Mama murmured, but nobody paid attention to her. They were caught up in a rush of chatter and ideas. Neela stood up to clear dishes and wash the breakfast pans, and Cassie joined her at the sink.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For letting me stay here.”

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you. I think you might have just saved the farm. Or at least given them hope.”

  Cassie gave a quick nod. “Now let me finish these dishes. Go catch Miles’s killer. I know I can’t get him back, but justice is the next best thing.”

  Neela took a deep breath. It was time.

  NEELA PULLED IN BEHIND the Sawyer farmhouse and got out of her truck. Molly bounded toward her and leaped into her arms.

  “Hey, bonehead.” Neela buried her face in Molly’s fur. “What’re you doing here?” Molly licked her face. Neela set her down on the ground and patted her wiggling rear end.

  “It’d make me feel better if you had her around,” Teo said, walking toward her. “I mean, while you’re busy baiting a killer.”

  Neela
stared at him. “So you believe me that it wasn’t suicide?”

  He nodded. “I took a look at those files. Stayed up all night working through all the evidence again. Nothing else makes sense. There’s not enough to arrest anybody, but at least we can do some more interviews and see what shakes out.”

  “Demetrius get out?”

  “I put in the paperwork—he should be released tomorrow.”

  Neela nodded. “Thanks, Teo.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “No, thanks for everything. You know, being there when my family needed someone. I know you helped out a lot at the farm when I—couldn’t. Putting the kitchen in the RV and everything,” she added lamely. “You didn’t have to do all that stuff, but you did, even after you decided things were over between us. I’m sorry I haven’t sent back the papers yet. I guess I didn’t realize how far I was from meeting you halfway until I saw all the things you did for my family.”

  She forced an embarrassed smile and turned to go into the cottage, but he caught her wrist and pulled her toward him. “Wait! I didn’t decide anything. I just thought it was what you wanted. I had no idea that you were working on something with such high stakes—I just felt like you weren’t interested in our life together anymore.”

  She sighed and put her hand on his cheek, an old habit. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you otherwise. I really am.” She dropped her hand and closed her eyes, regret filling her chest and tears leaking down her cheeks.

  “Hey,” he said, and brushed away her tears with his thumb. “Hey. Let’s take Molly out to the lake. For old time’s sake.”

  She still couldn’t look at him. “I want to, I really do. But there’s just this one thing I have to do first.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Neela took a deep breath and strode into the Broad Earth building. She moved quickly to the elevator and jammed the “up” button.

  “Hey! Hey! You gotta show your badge,” the security officer called, and then jumped to his feet when he realized she wasn’t stopping. The doors closed before he could even make it out of the booth.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket with an incoming text.

  Chalk: Everything good?

  Neela texted back a thumbs-up. She got off the elevator on the third floor and walked to the conference room. She sat at the head of the table and used her feet to spin the chair. Four minutes passed. Five.

  Chalk: Head’s up.

  Vince Crawford barreled into the conference room out of breath, his face beet red. Neela rested her chin on her hands and smiled sweetly at him. “You’re not supposed to be in the building,” he said gruffly. “Unless you have a badge, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “No thanks,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

  Vince sputtered in disbelief and reached for his walkie-talkie.

  “No need, no need,” Art said gently, as he pushed open the door of the conference room. He patted Vince on the shoulder. “Dr. Durante is just leaving, isn’t she?”

  Neela sat back in her chair and put her feet up on the table. “Not just yet. Maybe Vince will be interested in hearing why I came.”

  Art grinned at her, but his eyes were steely. “I doubt that. Mr. Crawford deals with security issues; I deal with personnel questions. If you’ll just come to my office, we can spare Mr. Crawford a scene.”

  Neela swung her feet down to the floor. “Fine.”

  Vince frowned at her. “Radio me if she needs an escort out. I’ll be in the booth.”

  “I assume this is about how you were harassing Cassie this weekend,” Art said as he closed the door to his office behind them. “I got the DALE report. You’ve really dug yourself a hole on this one. Did you know she’s missing?”

  Neela shrugged.

  “Do you know where she is? If she doesn’t show up for work tomorrow, it doesn’t look good for you.” Art tugged on his mustache. “I can’t protect you from professional consequences any longer if you won’t help yourself, Neela.”

  Neela sat down in front of his desk. “You can stop the charade. You’re not concerned about my career—you just want me to be quiet and go away. But I won’t. I know everything. I know you secretly added a plant toxin gene to 375 and 13X, probably by pollinating the test plants in the greenhouse with tainted pollen. I know you pushed the lines through to production by falsifying data. I know you killed Miles when he figured it out. You want to know where Cassie is so you can threaten her or kill her, just like you did to Miles.”

  Art smiled kindly at her, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a handgun. “I don’t really want to do this, but I will if I have to,” he said, flicking off the safety and pointing it at her.

  A burst of adrenaline rushed through Neela’s body, and she gripped the arms of the chair. She did her best to keep her voice steady. “Oh, please. You’re not going to shoot me in your office; then everyone will know it was you.”

  Art waved the gun at her. “Why don’t we move to the R&D lab, then?”

  Neela gripped the chair even harder and shook her head. “Nope. If you’re going to kill me, you’ll have to do it here. You’ll be arrested for murder and corporate sabotage, traits 375 and 13X will get pulled from production, and your whole plan will fail.”

  Art threw back his head and laughed. He put the gun back in the drawer and shut it, and Neela felt like she might fall out of the chair with relief. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he said. “I don’t need a gun to get rid of you. HR is going to terminate you, anyway, after your shenanigans with Cassie, and who will believe the wild accusations of an embittered ex-employee?”

  “Shall we find out? Go ahead and fire me, and I’ll walk straight to the DALE office and see if they believe me.”

  “Aw.” Art gave her a sympathetic look. “You’re very smart, Neela. I knew you’d figure it out—actually, it was just bad luck that Miles downloaded the files first. I expected it would be you. And that’s why I made sure that all the evidence points to you, darling. Your approval is on those traits. You’re the one who was constantly at odds with Miles—and Cassie, now that I think about it. That’s very convenient for me now that I have to kill her, too. And when you point the finger at me, I’ll just point it right back at you.”

  Neela leaned forward in her chair and strived to make her tone as admiring as possible. “I should have given you more credit, Art—that’s ingenious. The only thing I don’t understand is why. Why sabotage Broad Earth? Why potentially contaminate the global food supply?”

  Art turned the framed photo on his desk around to face Neela. It was a picture of Art and his family. Lisa and their two teenage children beamed out of the frame.

  “Your family? I don’t understand.”

  He nodded. “Lisa took everything from me—the house, the kids, my career at headquarters. She convinced them to transfer me out here to the middle of Nowhere, California, after the divorce. Who got VP and a five percent share of the company? She did. That was mine.”

  Neela sighed. “Ruining Broad Earth and killing innocent people and livestock won’t bring your family back. Some things just end.”

  Art leaped to his feet, and Neela flinched, but he didn’t notice. He paced in front of the window, gesticulating as he talked. “Exactly. Exactly. See, I knew you’d understand now that you’re going through the same kind of ugliness. When there’s no possibility of repair, no possibility of getting back what you’ve lost, the only option is revenge.”

  “What? How will this hurt Lisa?” Neela eyed the door and wondered if she could edge toward it. Her question made him turn toward her, though, and she mentally cursed herself for drawing his attention.

  “Oh, that’s the beauty. When people and animals start getting sick, the corn will be blamed. The company will flounder after the scandal, and headquarters will look for someone to scapegoat. They’ll look here first, of course. They’ll want to blame the scientists for the disaster, but I’ll show them the pages of emails from her
pushing me to approve traits, nagging about QA taking too long, complaining about red tape, encouraging me to cut corners. I’ll do an investigation and attribute the toxin to an accident of genetic engineering. I’ll say pressure from Lisa to produce traits led to a too-hasty approval, and she’ll be fired. Stripped of her shares. Maybe even jailed. She’ll have nothing—less than nothing, because no one in the industry will hire her after the media coverage she’s going to receive.”

  “You’ll get the kids, and Broad Earth will recover eventually,” Neela said, nodding. “You lose nothing. Clever.”

  “I might even get her job,” Art said gleefully, his mustache quivering. “Wouldn’t that be ironic?”

  Neela nodded.

  Art let out a huge sigh and stretched his arms out toward her. “You are one of a kind, dear. It’s a relief to talk with someone who understands. Think of it—you could even end up in my role when this all plays out! Head of the Sunflower Springs Research Center. It would suit you.”

  “Cassie would certainly be dismayed to have me as a boss again.” Neela forced a chuckle, doing her best to play along.

  Art waved his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about Cassie. She’ll be dead by then, anyway.”

  Neela’s stomach lurched. He was so casual about it. Stay calm, stay focused.

  “I was thinking—”

  “Yes?” Art raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you really have to kill Cassie?”

  “Of course!” Art threw up his hands. “Neela! She knows about the toxin! She has the trait files on disk somewhere!”

  “Exactly,” Neela said, nodding. “She had the motive to kill—Miles broke up with her—and now she has the files. Couldn’t you pin this all on her, claiming she sabotaged the traits in order to get the job she wanted, and then blame Lisa for forcing traits into the production pipeline prematurely? She’d still get fired, and you’d be the hero.”

  Art tugged his mustache, considering her idea. “Interesting. It would be ideal to avoid any more deaths—death is so messy. And of course Broad Earth would recover from the scandal much more quickly if the corn didn’t actually poison any cows.”