Dough or Die

by Winnie Archer

  “Do you garden?” Vivian asked.

  I didn’t, not really, although I had a lemon tree and a pot of basil on the back patio. Still, I cleared my throat and nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “That’s good to hear. We have a garden here in terrible need of tending. After the orientation—you are planning on attending that?”

  “Yes—”

  “I’ll show you the garden and we’ll set up a schedule that works for you.”

  “That sounds great,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I spoke with too much enthusiasm, or not enough. Either way, Vivian Cantrell didn’t seem to notice. She thanked me for my interest in volunteering, told me to be prompt to the orientation, said goodbye, then hung up the phone.

  I looked at Agatha, who was sprawled out on the cool floor. “I guess I passed,” I said.

  She looked at me with her bulbous eyes, but didn’t bother to lift her chin. She snorted heavily as her eyelids fluttered closed again. She didn’t show it, but inside, I knew Agatha was super excited for me.

  Chapter 13

  “How long will it take to get used to getting up before five a.m.?” I asked Olaya the next morning. It was 4:49, and we were already hard at work. It had felt like the middle of the night when I’d awoken. To Agatha, too, who’d grumbled when I’d carried her sleepy body outside so she could take care of business. Back on the bed, she’d curled up and had fallen right back to sleep. I was jealous. I craved my bed and another two hours of z’s, too.

  Felix manned the heavy floor mixer and was making the day’s sourdough bread, which would be shaped into bâtards after the rise, then baked to a golden crusty brown. Olaya rolled out the buttery layers of croissant dough, shaping them into the traditional crescent shapes. She had chocolate paste in a bowl at her station, so I knew she’d be making chocolate croissants today, too. It wasn’t something she baked consistently, focusing mostly on the traditional breads rather than pastries, but I could see the bounce in her step and the color back in her cheeks. She was back after weathering the illness that had taken her out of commission and she was thrilled to be back in her kitchen. Baking chocolate croissants was her way of celebrating.

  “It depends,” Olaya said. “If you establish a routine of going to bed early enough, your body clock will adjust. Pero, if you keep your old routine and go to bed late, you will be always be tired.”

  “It’s an adjustment,” Felix said over the sound of the mixer. “If you’re like me and struggle with the going-to-bed-early thing, naps will be your best friend.”

  I stifled a yawn just thinking about the warmth and comfort of the bed I’d left in the dark this morning. A nap was already calling, but it wasn’t in my immediate future. When I was done here, I’d be heading to Crosby House.

  We worked silently, the strums of classical guitar music playing in the background. Olaya changed the music daily. Some days smooth jazz played through the speakers into the bread shop. Other days it was all Etta James. Sometimes it was opera. And sometimes it was Earth, Wind & Fire or the Doobie Brothers. You never knew what you were going to hear at Yeast of Eden.

  Today I could have used a little 70s disco pick-me-up, but I absorbed the soothing sounds of the guitar and kept working on the Hawaiian rolls currently in process. The secret ingredient was pineapple juice. They baked up soft and supple. The simple tactile act of pulling apart these rolls fresh from the oven was so satisfying. That promise was keeping me going at the moment.

  The three of us worked in companionable silence, ticking each item we baked off the day’s master list. The core offerings were always the same, but Olaya changed it up once in a while by adding specialty items that were not the normal fare. These we advertised on a chalkboard display sign on the sidewalk outside the bread shop, and on the blog. I’d done the intro post for the blog, but hadn’t gotten much further than putting up photographs and an accounting of the day’s special baked items each morning. It was enough for now.

  I helped man the front counter while Olaya, Felix, and the late-morning crew continued in the kitchen. The minute hand on the analog clock over the counter ticked over to the new hour. Nine o’clock. The bell on the door dinged and the America’s Best Bakeries team piled in. What the . . . ? I gave myself a mental head slap. I’d completely forgotten. Ben was still in a medically induced coma, but, according to Emmaline, the doctors were cautiously optimistic.

  I smiled faintly as the crew lined up and we served them complimentary coffee and croissants, morning buns, and banana-walnut bread. My skin, sallow from lack of sleep, combined with the blackened-marshmallow bags under my eyes, made me look the worse for wear. Honestly, I’d forgotten about the filming today. The last thing I wanted to do was be in front of a camera.

  Mack Hebron strode in a few minutes later looking every bit the TV star. His skin glowed and his eyes were crystal clear. His messy hair was perfectly coiffed and his rolled-up shirtsleeves and open collar gave him an air of ease. He was tan, fit, and knowledgeable—the perfect trifecta for a reality-show host. He waited his turn in line, making sure the crew members had all gotten their fill before he stepped up. “Maggie, right?”

  Maggie nodded, her eyes wide and starstruck.

  “It’s great to see you again,” Mack said, meeting her gaze head-on. She blushed, the rosy afterglow of a television star knowing her name.

  Next he looked at me. “And Ivy. You’re looking lovely as always.” Liar, I thought—maybe a little ungraciously. “You ready for our last day of filming?” he asked.

  God, I was so ready. Being on camera was a worry I didn’t want to think about anymore. “I think we all are,” I said, handing him a disposable coffee cup, the top sealed with a lid made of recycled materials. Olaya did her part to minimize the bread shop’s carbon footprint.

  “Is Sandra in the kitchen?” he asked, coming around the counter, following the crew through the swinging doors.

  “I haven’t seen her yet. She may have come in the back door, though.”

  “We’ll be doing some filming in the front today.” I felt his gaze roam over my messy topknot and settle back on my face. My face, which was free of makeup. “I’ll have someone come help you, um, spruce up.”

  My eyes pinched involuntarily. I knew I looked like I’d been through eight rounds in a boxing ring, but I didn’t like that he’d felt the need to comment on it. “Great, thanks,” I said through a forced smile.

  After Mack disappeared into the kitchen, Maggie put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not that bad, Ivy,” she said, but I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the display case glass. It most definitely was that bad.

  I left Maggie to the short line of customers and went into the kitchen. The crew was already in action with Mack and Olaya both mic’d up. No one mentioned Ben Nader, but his absence was like a storm cloud hovering over the building.

  Mack looked around the kitchen, then once again asked about Sandra Mays. “She has not been in this morning,” Olaya said matter-of-factly.

  Mack pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “No answer,” he said a moment later. He opened the back door, peeking into the parking lot. A second later, he opened it wide, looking back over his shoulder at us. “Her car’s here. You sure she didn’t come in?”

  “I have been here since four thirty,” Felix said. “She has not come in.”

  I hadn’t thought there was any love lost between Mack Hebron and Sandra Mays, but a decided look of concern came over him as he went outside and let the door close behind him.

  “I’ll walk around the building,” I offered. “Maybe she took a walk to the beach or something.”

  Olaya nodded and continued her baking. Felix had gone into the walk-in refrigerator and the rest of the crew immediately drew out their phones, heads lowered, shoulders hunched in that familiar twenty-first-century posture. I grabbed my sweater from the hook by the door and slipped it on. April in a coastal town could be pretty chilly, and today it was particularly cool. Mack was walking back toward me, sh
aking his head. “She’s not in her car. Engine’s not warm, so it’s been here a while.”

  I pictured him laying the flat of his hand against the cold metal. Interesting that he thought to check that, I thought.

  He still held his phone and now dialed again. Even with the handheld device to his ear, I could hear the faint ringing on the other end.

  I did a double take. Or could I?

  I pointed to the curb on the edge of the parking lot. It overlooked a lower lot in the back of the collection of stores next door to the bread shop. “Go over there and dial again.”

  He looked at me like maybe my elevator didn’t go all the way to the top, but I insisted, jabbing my finger in the air in the direction I wanted him to go. Finally, he walked away from me. I watched him dial and once again hold the phone to his ear.

  At the same time, I cocked my head to one side, listening intently. There it was! A faint ringing sound coming from . . . from where?

  “I hear her phone ringing!” I said.

  Mack jogged back over to me. “What?”

  “When you dialed, I thought you had your volume way up because I could hear the ringing, but it wasn’t coming from you. I hear her phone. She’s—or at least it—is around here somewhere.”

  He looked skeptical, as if I had spun a tale and he couldn’t figure out why. “It probably was just her phone ringing from mine—”

  He stopped as I shook my head. “No. That’s why I had you go over there. I couldn’t have heard it from here. Call her number,” I said, all traces of sleep pushed aside. I loved a good puzzle, and tracking down Sandra by her ringing phone was like a step in a scavenger hunt. Maybe she was in some clandestine embrace in someone else’s car. Or maybe she was playing games, trying to irritate Mack.

  Mack did as I asked, dialing, but this time he held the phone down by his side, moving his head this way and that while he listened. I heard it. It sounded far off, but I heard it nonetheless. I walked away from Mack. A moment later, the ringing stopped. I turned back to him with raised eyebrows.

  “It went to voicemail.”

  “Call again,” I said. Sandra wasn’t declining the call if it rang a number of times before it clicked over to her mailbox message. We wouldn’t hear it ringing if she was talking to someone else and just wasn’t clicking over. Another scenario came to mind. Maybe she’d dropped it and hadn’t realized it yet.

  Mack dialed again. I walked, following the sound, with him right behind me. Over and over, he dialed. I turned left, wandering through the nearly empty parking lot, but the ringing grew fainter. I turned right, heading to the bread shop planter beds that ran along the perimeter of the building and the sound grew louder. “This way,” I said, walking along the side of the building and turning right at the corner. “Dial again.”

  Mack did, and we both listened. We kept walking. The ringing stopped, but Mack hit redial and it started up again, this time loud enough to know we were right on top of it. I had a moment of déjà vu as I stepped into the foliage. I’d done this a few days prior when I’d been out here with Ben Nader. Instead of looking up toward the hidden ladder as I’d done with him, I crouched down and pushed away the leaves and flowers until I found it. Sandra’s phone was under the wide leaves of a hydrangea next to the bricks that created a barrier for the bedding plants.

  I started to pick it up, but stopped myself just in time. Something didn’t feel right. The phone was face-side up and the screen was a splintered roadmap of cracks. Like it had fallen from a great height.

  My heartbeat slowed. No, it definitely didn’t feel right. I stood and backed away from the building. Like it had fallen from a great height, I thought again. Slowly, I looked up, my gaze following the ladder Ben Nader had shown me. All the breath went out of me at the same moment that Mack spotted what I’d already seen. A limp hand hung over the edge of the top of the building.

  A limp hand that had let the phone it had been holding drop.

  A limp hand that presumably belonged to Sandra Mays.

  Chapter 14

  O wen Culpepper was Santa Sofia’s city manager and my father. He’d come a long way in his grieving process since my mother had passed unexpectedly, and for the first time, I felt like I could go to him for some comfort without adding too much of an extra burden to his already loaded shoulders. I wouldn’t call my meeting him midafternoon on a Thursday a father-daughter date. That conjured up memories of roller skating, a special dinner out with just the two of us, a trip to the library, and the annual Father-Daughter Valentine’s Day Dance.

  Today? This was me needing a shoulder to lean on. His shoulder specifically.

  I turned up at his office unannounced, hoping he’d be available and not tied up in meetings or even out in the field. The city offices were flat-roofed, boring buildings on the west side of Santa Sofia. During the summer months, the town was overrun with tourists, and even in the off months, places like Yeast of Eden kept people coming. But over in this area of town there were no souvenir shops or trinkets stamped with Santa Sofia: A Beach Town with Style; or Live, Laugh, Love in Santa Sofia.

  The parking lot was filled with cars. I found a spot in front of one of the annexes, backtracking to the front entrance of the main building. I’d spent a good amount of time at my dad’s office throughout my childhood. It was as familiar to me as Baptista’s and the schools I’d attended or Santa Sofia High School where my mother had taught. Sally O’Brien, the office manager, sat at her desk, her fingers flying over the keyboard. She stopped only so she could move a hand to her mouse, navigate somewhere, then start typing again. She’d worked with my father for almost the entirety of both their careers and were friends as well as colleagues. She’d been there for Billy and me after our mother died, and she’d been an anchor for my dad throughout the years.

  She looked up from her computer. As she laid eyes on me and recognition hit, her smile lit up her face. She was ten years older than my dad, a little shorter than me, and was probably stronger than any American Gladiator—physically and emotionally. She would always be our rock. “Ivy. Darlin’, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  I felt the same about her. I caught her up on my new hours at the bread shop, my photography freelancing, and my romance with Miguel before giving her a hug and heading down the hallway to my dad’s office. I knew he’d be willing to drop everything to find out what was on my mind.

  I wasn’t wrong. He canceled a meeting he’d had on his schedule and shepherded me out to his car. Minutes later, we stood side by side ordering at Two Scoops, our favorite ice cream parlor. The classic striped awnings, the long malt shop bar inside, the checkerboard floors, and the long case of homemade ice cream. This place took me back to my childhood and brought up good memories and warm feelings. Coming here had been a good decision.

  My usual go-to was a scoop of strawberry in a cup, but today felt like a hot fudge kind of day. I went for the cappuccino chip with extra hot fudge while my dad had two scoops of vanilla bean. We sat across from each other on old-fashioned bistro chairs at a slightly sticky table. It was all part of the experience.

  “What’s going on, Ivy?” my dad asked after we’d both taken our first spoonful. He’d aged after my mother’s death, his salt-and-pepper hair turning solid gray. He’d taken up running as a way of exorcising his demons. The result was that he was lean and fit in a way I don’t remember him ever being. People dealt with grief differently. He handled his ongoing loss by moving his body. The more he ran, the less he had to think. At least that was my theory about it.

  There was no need to beat around the bush with my dad, so I cut to the chase. “You’ve heard of Sandra Mays?”

  He put his pink plastic spoon in his mouth, pulling it out again, half the vanilla ice cream left behind. “From TV?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I know who she is,” he said, finishing the ice cream that remained on his spoon.

  “You know the reality show I told you about? The one doing th
e feature on Yeast of Eden?”

  “America’s Best Bakeries, right?”

  Owen Culpepper absorbed a lot of information in that vast brain of his. If I’d told him about it, he remembered every last detail. “Right. She and Mack Hebron, the celebrity chef, are the co-hosts.” Were, I corrected myself. They were the co-hosts.

  My dad’s eyes grew wide. “That’s impressive. Good for her.”

  Only not. “She’s dead, Dad.”

  He’d been about to take another spoonful of his vanilla, but froze, the spoon stopping midway to his mouth. He dropped it back into the cup, interlaced his fingers on the table, and waited for me to go on.

  “She didn’t show up this morning. Mack and I went out to the back parking lot to look for her. Her car was there, but she wasn’t. When he dialed her number, we heard her phone ringing. And then we found her. She was on the roof of the building.” The image of her hand casually flung over the edge was emblazoned in my mind. “It appears that she met someone up there, had an argument, was knocked down, and her head slammed against the roof.”

  He ran his palm down over his face as he took in everything I’d said. “How did she get on the roof?”

  “There’s a ladder. It’s kind of hidden behind the vines. I just learned about it the other day from Ben Nader—”

  “The man who was hit outside the bread shop?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know who else could know about the ladder, Dad. Olaya didn’t even know about it.”

  “Okay, here’s another question. Why did she climb the ladder to go up to the roof?”

  That was the first question I’d asked myself when I’d seen the dangling hand. I felt pretty sure that if we were able to figure out the why, we’d learn what had happened and who was responsible. Because someone was definitely responsible. Sandra Mays had been murdered.