“Yes.” I called Agatha in from the yard. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Branford was back across the street safely tucked into her Craftsman-style house dog-sitting the pug, and I was next to Miguel in his truck, heading for Beach Street, which would take us to the pier and Baptista’s Cantina and Grill. Luke’s presence in my house was a pink elephant sitting squarely on the seat between us. We ignored it for a few minutes before Miguel stopped at a traffic light. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, drawing in a deep breath as if he were calming himself. He turned to me. “Do you need to tell me something?”
I could have pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about, but we were no longer twenty-somethings who were still figuring things out; we’d been around our respective blocks, and I knew full well what he was talking about.
Luke Holden.
“No, Miguel,” I said. “He just showed up. I was as surprised as you.”
“If he wants you back—”
“Whether he does or doesn’t isn’t important. I don’t want him back,” I interrupted.
The light turned green and he stepped on the gas, propelling the truck forward and giving him a moment to process what I’d said. “You sure about that?” he asked at last.
I turned in my seat, angling my body toward him. He’d told me, in no uncertain terms, that a relationship with me was what he wanted, and that he was in it to stay. After two major misunderstandings, and the resulting years apart, I didn’t want any miscommunication or ambiguity. “I am one thousand percent sure about that. My marriage to Luke helped me move on. But he never was you, and you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted or needed.”
The Pacific was on our left as we drove along the ocean road. He kept one hand on the wheel, taking my hand in his other. The palm trees lining the road zipped past. “You’re sure about that?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said, squeezing his hand. I was never more sure about anything in my life, in fact. If his truck had had a bench seat, I would have scooted over, butting my thigh against his. As it was, safely apart in our bucket seats, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Never more sure about anything in my life.”
Chapter 12
Lisette and Emmaline were already waiting in the lobby of Baptista’s when we walked in. I met Em’s eyes, hoping she’d give me a sign about Johnny Morales and whether or not she’d contacted him and heard Marisol’s message to him. She wasn’t giving anything away, though.
“The break room is upstairs,” Miguel said, leading the way through the bustling dining room and into the kitchen. Lisette followed him, with Em and me bringing up the rear.
“What do you have there?” I asked her.
“Bolt cutter,” she said, holding up a tool she carried at her side so I could get a better look. The red steel handles had black grips at the ends and the steel jaws looked sharp enough to cut through more than a simple drugstore lock.
Miguel’s kitchen hosted a small but skilled kitchen brigade to execute the complex and varied dishes on the menu. During the remodel, he’d established stations for streamlined meal preparation. We passed the sauce station, where the most experienced chef worked in front of a multiple-burner gas range. He held tongs, scraped a sauté pan on the black iron grate, and made sauces, sautés, and pan-fried entrées.
There was a grill station with a char broiler, which I knew David usually manned. He’d been off since Marisol’s death. An older man whom I recognized as Miguel’s uncle, Tío Tomas, was filling in for him. The fryer was next to the flat-top grill, which Tío Tomas was also handling. We passed the salad and dessert stations last, which were side by side. There one person created salads, cold appetizers, and plated the desserts. Between the cooking stations and the kitchen line, where the plates were readied for delivery to the tables, was a stainless steel counter that held the garnishes, extra plates, a spindle for the orders, and heat lamps to keep the food warm. Miguel worked the line, if he was needed, but normally he left the cooking to the chefs while he acted as floor manager and the expediter—making sure every dish met his expectations before it left the kitchen.
I could see him taking it all in as we passed, not missing a single detail of the well-oiled machine he’d created. Looking satisfied, he gave an approving wave and kept walking, leading us up the staircase. “What’s in there?” Emmaline asked, pointing to a closed door.
“My office,” he said. “Unless I’m in there working, it’s locked.”
Miguel’s and my rekindled relationship was still new. I hadn’t yet been to his house, and while he’d cooked for me in a private section of the kitchen, this was my first time upstairs. I’d never really seen the businessman side of him. He had the lean, strong physique that came from his time in the marines—something he’d yet to share details about with me. He had the attention to detail needed to run a successful business, and he knew his way around a kitchen. I wondered if there was anything the man couldn’t do.
“This is the break room,” he said, turning the handle of the door, swinging it open, then stepping back to let us pass through. I was last and he put his hand on the small of my back as I entered. His touch, light as it was, sent a wave of warmth through me. We were connected and it felt good. It felt right.
Emmaline was in her head, observing what was around her, but keeping her thoughts to herself. One wall contained a row of lockers. A small round table with five chairs sat in the middle of the room. On another wall was a kitchenette area with cabinets, a sink, and a coffeemaker. Against the back wall was a dark brown couch. I couldn’t tell from here if it was real or faux leather, but either way, it looked like a comfortable place to sit and take a break.
“Everyone uses this space?” she asked.
“A few people keep their stuff downstairs, but most people come up here.”
“But Marisol?”
“Oh yeah. Probably more than anyone. She liked to come up here, make a cup of hot tea, and have a little time to herself before her shift started. Sometimes she’d just stop by.”
I took my gaze back to the lockers. There were ten of them lined up like soldiers. They were about six feet tall, had laminate natural woodgrain doors and sides, and had metal hasps that allowed for padlocks. Only two of them actually had locks. Both were the inexpensive drugstore variety. One was silver metal with a blue combination dial, while the other was gold colored, the combination mechanism at the base of the lock.
Em waited for Miguel to show them which locker had been Marisol’s. After he pointed to the one with the blue dial, Emmaline withdrew a pair of protective goggles from the small black backpack she had slung over one shoulder and slid them on. She dropped the backpack, then lifted the cutters to the lock. Miguel gave her a look that said he’d do it if she wanted him to, but she ignored him and held up the cutters. In her head, I knew she was telling Miguel that she didn’t need a man to do her work for her. “Step back,” she said. “In case any part of it goes flying.”
She positioned the jaws of the short blade on one side of the lock’s shackle, braced herself, and forced the handles together.
Nothing happened.
She regrouped, positioned the cutter blades against the shackle again, and, spreading her legs to brace herself, she tried again, her neck muscles straining with the effort.
There was a grating sound of metal against metal, but the lock didn’t break.
Emmaline was not one to give up. She planted her feet again, held the blades of the bolt cutter to the lock’s shackle, and forced the handles together. On the third try, the long handles and short blade with the hinge mechanism gave her the leverage she needed. The cutters snapped right through one side of the shackle.
She nodded, affirming the success, then positioned the cutters on the other side of the shackle. This time it took just two tries to break through the metal. She set the cutters down, took a pair of latex gloves and several evidence bags from her backpack, and in one bag she placed the parts of the lock.
Up until now, Lisette had been
silent, but now she spoke up. “What are you doing?”
“Another officer will be here any minute to dust the locker and what’s inside. We have your mother’s fingerprints. We’re looking to see if there are others.”
Lisette scoffed. “Why, you think whoever killed my mother brought her here first, then to the pier? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Emmaline turned to her. “We don’t know what happened to your mother, so we have to look at all possibilities. We don’t know what or whom she may have been involved with, Lisette.”
Miguel’s phone pinged with an incoming text. He glanced at it, excused himself, left the room while Emmaline carefully opened the locker she’d just freed of a lock. A hanger with a change of clothes hung on the rail spanning the top of the space. On the shelf above was a small box and a cluster of things I couldn’t identify from where I stood. On the floor of the locker were two pairs of shoes, both black flats, and a pair of flimsy gray flip-flops. Finally, hanging from another hook was a blue and black backpack.
“I was wondering where that was,” Lisette said, pointing to the swim bag. “I got it for her for Christmas a few years ago.” She started toward the locker, reaching for it, but Emmaline stopped her. “Please don’t touch anything.”
Lisette’s hand froze in midair and her face paled. Emmaline had let us all be here as a courtesy; she wanted Lisette’s input on whatever she found. But there was no doubt about the seriousness of every step of the investigation and she certainly wasn’t going to let it be compromised.
Emmaline moved in front of Lisette. She took the bag from the hook and set it on the table in the middle of the room. It looked like a normal backpack, but upon closer examination, I saw that a good portion of it was mesh, and the solid material was waterproof. It had shoulder straps, two side pockets for water bottles, one of which held a disposable plastic bottle, and a small mesh zipper pouch in front.
Lisette and I stood back, watching, as Emmaline activated a micro voice recorder. She stated the date, time, and location before setting it on the table and beginning her sorting of the bag’s contents. She started with the main section. “Two swimsuits, both blue, both one piece,” she said as she removed them, setting them off to the side. “One beach towel.” She shook it out, then set it aside. “One pair of black workout shorts.” She felt the fabric, looking for anything in the hidden interior pocket, then set it with the other items. She withdrew a navy sweatshirt, then dug out a bottle of energy chews from the interior pocket.
Satisfied that the inside of the bag was empty, she moved on to the small front pocket, removing two pairs of goggles, a small yellow digital device that looked like a timer, two silicon swim caps—one white, one blue—and an inhaler.
“Did your mom have asthma?” I asked Lisette.
Lisette nodded, but she was distracted, her attention on the things Emmaline had taken from the bag. “That’s her tempo trainer,” she said, pointing to what I’d thought was a timer. “She wouldn’t train without it.”
“Okay, but we know she was killed first, then put into the water,” Emmaline said, stating what we’d already been told.
“I know, but she was . . . she was in her swimsuit, right?”
“Right,” Em confirmed.
“But her swimsuits are here.”
“The one she was wearing when she was found was red,” Emmaline said.
Lisette gave a little shake of her head. “She doesn’t have a red one.”
Emmaline considered this. “Surely she had more than these two. Is it possible she had one you didn’t know about?”
Once again, and without a bit of hesitation, Lisette shook her head. “No. No way. My mom was superstitious. Blue was her color. She’s been wearing it since she was on the high school swim team.” She indicated the things on the table. “Blue bag. Blue cap. Blue goggles. Blue towel. Blue swimsuit. She wouldn’t have worn red.”
Interesting. We knew Marisol had been killed, because of the autopsy findings. I was sure Em had entertained the idea that the murder was a killing of happenstance. That she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the fact that Marisol had been killed on land but found in the water meant that whoever killed her had known enough about her habits to try to make it look like a drowning. It also meant that whoever killed her hadn’t known about the physiological response from drowning and had tried to make it look as if she’d been out there training, thinking or hoping that evidence of strangulation would not show up after the fact.
“She also never swam without her tempo trainer.”
Emmaline studied the little digital device, looking up at Lisette for explanation.
“You set the tempo to keep your pace. She wore it hooked to her goggles. She swore by it.”
So, more proof that she hadn’t actually been out training, but that someone had wanted it to look that way. None of this, however, helped us get any closer to answering why.
Emmaline replaced the items in the bag, putting the entire thing into a large clear plastic bag she pulled from her own backpack. “Someone wanted us to believe that she drowned while she was training, which we know didn’t happen. It was clearly premeditated if she was put into a swimsuit to add to that narrative.” She turned to Lisette. “Anyone close to your mother, would they have known about her superstition about blue?”
Lisette’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as she thought. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think so. Maybe they’d think she really liked blue because those were her swimming colors, but I don’t think she talked about why that was. I mean, my dad knows, of course. And my brothers. Probably her training buddies.”
“David?” I asked, noting how she’d left his name off her list.
“Well, yeah. I mean, probably.”
If her killer had known her well, he or she wouldn’t have put Marisol in a red swimsuit, that was the takeaway. Unless, of course, it was a diversion technique.
Miguel returned, standing aside to let a man carrying a black attaché case enter before him. “Great. Glad you’re here,” Emmaline said, and I got the impression she’d called in an expert from a neighboring municipality. She didn’t bother to introduce him to us, instead giving him directions to examine the locker for evidence and fingerprints.
“Already took prints of the employees for cross-reference,” he told her as he set his case down.
Emmaline nodded in acknowledgment, then asked us to step out to the hallway while he worked. Miguel was lost in thought. I imagined the myriad conflicts going through his mind: His employee was not only dead, but had been killed; not only that, but the victim was his sister’s mother-in-law; the police were in the break room of his restaurant searching for evidence; the people who worked for him—and whom he trusted—had been fingerprinted.
Oh, and his girlfriend’s ex-husband had shown up unexpectedly.
I felt for him. I put my hand on his arm. There wasn’t anything else to be done here. “Shall we go?” I suggested.
“Yeah. I have to get back to work,” Miguel said.
The sounds of a busy kitchen traveled up the stairs to us: pots clanging against stove burners, chefs and waitstaff talking to one another, a timer going off. I knew he planned to drive me home, but the dinner shift was in full swing and he was needed.
I turned to Lisette. “Would you mind giving me a ride back to my house?”
She nodded absently. “Sure.”
Miguel threw me a grateful smile. He led us back downstairs and out to the bustling dining room. “I’ll call you later,” he said, giving me a quick kiss before disappearing back into the depths of the kitchen.
A few minutes later, I sat in the passenger seat of Lisette’s silver sedan as she wound through Santa Sofia, following my directions to the historic area of town and Maple Street. It was a short drive, but I took her the long way to give me a few extra minutes alone with her. “You were telling me about your mom and David,” I said.
She glanced at me. “Was I?”
“You said he would have known about your mom’s superstition about the color blue. Do you think they had a good marriage?”
Even from where I sat next to her, I could see her eyes roll up. “I guess. I don’t know.”
“Don’t you like him?” I asked, wanting to get to the bottom of her feelings about her stepfather.
She shrugged noncommittally. “He’s fine, I guess. I didn’t have to be married to him.”
That hadn’t really answered the question. “Were they happy together?” I asked, my mind returning to the fact that Marisol had called Johnny, requesting to see him. Why had she needed to talk to her ex-husband? Why not talk to David about whatever was bothering her? I would never call Luke over Miguel. It just wouldn’t happen. Then again, Miguel was my Johnny. He was the one I’d known forever.
“Is anyone?” she retorted, pulling up to a stoplight.
So she was a cynic. “I think so,” I said. My parents had been. My brother and Emmaline, whenever they tied the knot, would be. Mrs. Branford and her husband, despite a few bumps in the road, had been. It was true that marriage could be challenging and wasn’t always easy. There were ups and downs in every single one of them. It was also true that sometimes, despite one’s best efforts and intentions, it didn’t work.
Lisette gave a small sigh before clarifying her words. “I guess you never really know about other people’s relationships. We—me and my brothers—we always thought our parents had a good marriage. I know the idea that they might get divorced never crossed my mind. But then you learn about something and it’s like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. I’ve read plenty of articles that talk about intimacy, you know, but I never thought about my parents like that—as sexual people, you know? But my dad . . . and then my mom and David . . .” A shudder wove visibly through her body. The light turned green and we lurched forward as she stepped on the gas. “My parents, they were supposed to grow old together, you know?”
I did know. Exactly. I’d had the very same thoughts about my own parents. My dad was still adjusting to not having my mother there by his side. It took time to find a new normal and move forward when the life you’d planned suddenly and inexplicably changed. Johnny and Marisol may not still have been married, but the history they’d shared meant that her death had permanently changed his world, just as my mother’s had changed my father’s.
Flour in the Attic Page 9
