Dough or Die

by Winnie Archer

  Mickey dampened her index finger with her tongue before absently turning the page of her magazine. “So I won’t get them back.”

  She said it as a statement, not a question. “No, they’ll become part of the garden.”

  She didn’t move for a few seconds. I began to wonder if her parting with any of her copies of the Santa Sofia Daily was too much to ask. Just as I was about to move on to plan B, she rolled over, swung her legs off the bed, and bent over, taking ahold of something underneath her bed. She sat up with a stack of folded newspapers in her hand, Santa Sofia Daily emblazoned across the top paper on the stack. She held them out to Meg. “Take ’em. I don’t even want ’em anymore.”

  Meg gave Mickey an encouraging smile as she took them. “Good for you. He’s not worth it.”

  The who she was referring to had to be the guy Mickey’d been in a relationship with . . . the same one who’d given her those bruises. But what did he have to do with the Santa Sofia Daily?

  Meg seemed to anticipate my unasked question. “Mickey’s ex works for the paper,” she said once we were clear of the hallway. She kept her voice low as she continued. “She’s always rereading his articles like there’s going to be some coded apology in them or something.” She shook her head. “It’s sad, really, how she can’t quit the guy.”

  “Do you think she’ll go back to him?” I asked, stunned.

  Meg nodded solemnly. “Probably. It’s a struggle most of us deal with.”

  “With going back to . . . whoever you’re all running from?”

  “Yeah, definitely. It’s twisted as all—. It’s messed up, but it is what it is. If I could turn back the clock and do things differently, maybe I’d still have . . . the things I lost.”

  Her voice trembled with emotion and I didn’t want to push her beyond her comfort zone or make her shut down. Maybe in time she’d come to trust me and open up more. If I could help her, I would, but it had to be on her terms, not on mine.

  There was nothing more to say at the moment about Mickey and what her future held. Meg led me into the kitchen. Crosby House did not have any sort of open concept floor plan. The kitchen was completely separate from the living space in the center of the house. Cabinets and counters ran around the perimeter of the room. A long rectangular table and ten chairs took up one side of the room while a portable butcher-block island on casters filled another space, looking disproportionately small for the space. The stainless steel sink and appliances were old, but looked to be in good shape. The kitchen was spotless. Not a single crumb dotted the counters. No cereal boxes, bags of bread, or dirty dishes were left out. Looking around, I didn’t hold out much hope for finding a lot of compostable material ready to go, but Meg had a determined look on her face. She marched right over to the garbage can and stepped on the foot pedal. The lid sprang open, banging against the wall behind it. She stared into it, plunged her hand into the cavernous space, then pulled it out again, clutching a handful of trash.

  “I . . . um . . . is there a bag I can get for you?” I asked, stunned by Meg’s determination. When she decided to help, she went for it 100 percent.

  She notched her head toward a door that I took to be the pantry. “In there on the right.”

  I fetched a plastic grocery bag from a wad in the corner of the pantry, holding it out to her as she dropped in fistfuls of banana and orange peels, damp paper towels, the remains of a head of lettuce, and discarded eggshells. I stifled a grimace as she dug further into the garbage. Who knew what else was in there? Nothing I’d want to be rummaging through, that was for sure.

  Meg kept digging, so I set down the first bag and grabbed another, holding it open for her until it, too, was filled. We headed back out to the makeshift keyhole gardens, each of us holding a bag of the kitchen scraps. We tore up the Santa Sofia Daily newspapers, adding the pieces to the chicken-wire containers, then divvied up the produce and paper scraps between the three garden compost cylinders. “We’ll need to add soil to the boxes to get them ready for planting,” I said, wishing I’d thought to ask Miguel to bring some bags when he’d brought the crates. I took my phone from my back pocket and pressed the HOME button to power it on to find the nearest garden center, but clicked on a text from Miguel instead. Soil delivered.

  I looked around the yard, wondering what in the world he meant. I texted him back. What?

  Three flashing dots appeared on the screen. A message gray box showed up a few seconds later. Threw it over the gate.

  I laughed. Miguel Baptista, you sly fox, I thought. He’d assumed I’d need soil and had taken it upon himself to make sure I had everything necessary to finish the garden boxes. You didn’t!

  The dots flashed again, then his response came. Anything for you, Ivy.

  I sent back a heart emoji before putting my phone back in my pocket and heading to the gate with the wheelbarrow. I’d expected a few bags of soil, but the pile was thigh high. Miguel had filled up the bed of his truck and one by one, he’d tossed them over the gate. It took three trips with the wheelbarrow to haul them over to the keyhole gardens. With Meg’s help, we filled each crate, using every last crumb of the soil. All the while, I tried to figure out an organic way to bring up Ben Nader. So far, there wasn’t one.

  “Last thing to do is plant them,” I said, pointing to the seedlings in their thin black plastic containers.

  Meg arranged them by kind, with all the tomatoes in one box, the zucchini and yellow squash in another, and the peppers and eggplants together in the third. “If these do well, we can add more boxes,” she said, smiling for the first time since I’d met her. There was something powerful and rewarding about growing your own food and I could see that she felt the same sense of accomplishment that I did. “We depend on volunteers like you. Thank you.”

  And suddenly, there it was. An opening. “Are there very many others who help out here?”

  “There are a few steady ones, but most come and go.”

  “Yesterday, when we were watching the news, it seemed you all knew of the guy who was hit by the car the other day.”

  She stood up straighter, as if she had a depleted battery inside her that had suddenly been recharged. “He’s one of the good ones.”

  I wanted to pump my arm in victory. “So you know him?”

  “If you tell me what to do for the gardens when you’re not here, I’ll take care of them.” It was an abrupt shift back to our original subject.

  “That’s great. Just pull any weeds, make sure the compost goes in, and water.”

  We bent to gather up the discarded bags of soil, taking them to the garbage can. “What do some of the other volunteers do?” I asked, circling back around to my snooping.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes people bring groceries, or they clean the windows. One guy did a lot of painting recently. There’s a woman who likes to knit. She’s made a few blankets and baby hats. Things like that. Oh, and there’s a woman who does a story time for the kids. All different stuff, I guess.”

  We gathered up the crushed black containers that had held the vegetable seedlings and dumped them in the garbage cans. As we worked, I wondered what type of tasks Ben Nader would have taken on. “Did Ben do the painting?”

  She met my gaze, her eyes flat and sad. “Yes.”

  “He seems like a good guy,” I said, keeping the brakes pumped on my questioning. I had to take it slowly.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty shocking when someone you know was fine one second, then gone the next.” Her eyes turned glassy. In this place, emotions were raw and on the surface.

  “Did you see him recently?”

  She looked to the sky, her lips moving slightly as she thought. “He came every week, so yeah.”

  Strands of my hair had slipped from the hairband I’d used to hold my ponytail. I pulled it off, gathered up all the loose strands of hair, and wound it up again, this time into a topknot. “How much longer do you think you’ll stay here?” I asked.

  She stared off over my shoulder for
a long moment before answering. “I don’t know. Till everything’s right again, I guess.”

  I supposed one person’s “right” was different from another’s. “You’ll get there,” I said. “It just takes time.”

  We worked in silence as we finished cleaning up. Finally, I broached another question. “Meg, why did Ben Nader volunteer here?”

  She looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “Do you know him or something?”

  “A little bit,” I said. I couldn’t very well tell her that the sheriff had asked me to keep my eyes and ears open about a potential attempted murder that had happened right outside of the local bread shop. “I worked with him briefly.”

  “But he’s a cameraman,” she said, trying to make the connection.

  “I work at Yeast of Eden. The accident happened right outside.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “And that’s where the other woman was found, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is that why you’re here? Because of Ben?”

  I debated how directly to answer her question. “It’s how I found out about Crosby House and once I learned about it, I really wanted to volunteer like he did.”

  “You mean like he does,” she corrected.

  “Right. I hope he’ll recover and be back here soon.”

  “Do you know anything more about what happened to him?” she asked.

  I swallowed, a sudden bundle of nerves climbing my throat. If Ben’s accident was connected to Sandra Mays like I thought it must be, then by digging around I was potentially exposing myself to a killer. Meg would surely tell others about our conversation. If there was a connection between Ben’s accident and Crosby House, I was drawing a pretty direct line between the two.

  I hesitated before answering her question, finally saying, “The authorities aren’t quite sure. They’re investigating.”

  “The news hasn’t said much. What does that mean?”

  Even as I exposed myself as being somewhat in the know, I decided to be evasive. “It happened outside Yeast of Eden, the bread shop over on Cambria Street. He was part of the crew doing a piece on the bread shop’s Bread for Life program—”

  “Right.”

  “We were taking a break and he was crossing the street. The car came out of nowhere, but it was like it was gunning for him.”

  The color drained from her face and she muttered to herself inaudibly. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Esmé,” she murmured. “Does Esmé know?”

  I was sure the surprise I felt clearly registered on my face. “Do you mean Esmé Adriá? Is she . . . does she stay here?” I asked. After all, how many Esmés could there be?

  Meg drew back, but nodded. Her brows pinched together with suspicion. “Do you know her?”

  “I know Esmé Adriá,” I answered. “She’s part of the Bread for Life program at Yeast of Eden.” I couldn’t wait to tell my posse—which consisted of Olaya, Mrs. Branford, Miguel, and Emmaline—that I’d established a link between Ben Nader and someone I knew. I was experiencing the equivalent of a runner’s high. They’d known each other through Crosby House. Why hadn’t either one said anything?

  My thoughts immediately went to the moment of the accident. Esmé had said she’d gone down to the beach during the break we’d taken, the same break during which Ben Nader was mowed down. Could she have lied about where she’d gone? Could she have been behind the wheel of the car instead?

  But why?

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  This time Meg shook her head. “I haven’t seen her today.”

  My brows pinched together. I couldn’t help the immediate suspicion surfacing in my mind. “When did you see her last?”

  At this question, Meg paused. “Day before yesterday, maybe?” She thought for a second then gave a single nod. “Yeah, yeah, it was after dinner. Her room is across from mine. I passed her in the hall when she came in. She went straight to her room. I guess . . . no, I haven’t seen her since.”

  Suspicion mounted. Could Esmé have skipped town after attempting to murder Ben? I followed that thought by playing devil’s advocate. Did Esmé know Sandra Mays, too? If she was connected to Ben’s accident, could she also be involved in Sandra’s death? “What time was that, do you remember?”

  She looked to the ceiling as she thought. “Around six fifteen, I think. Maybe six twenty.”

  That was well after Ben Nader had been hit. Where had Esmé gone after the accident? I had such a bad feeling about this. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I’d programmed the phone numbers for the women in the Bread for Life program into my cell. I took out my phone now, looked up Esmé’s contact, and dialed. It rang four times before her accented voice said, “This is Esmé Adriá. Leave a message to me and I will call you back.”

  “Esmé, this is Ivy. Culpepper. From Yeast of Eden? Would you give me a call when you get this? Thanks.” I turned back to Meg. “You’re sure you haven’t seen her since night before last?”

  “Positive.” Her brow furrowed. “I hope she’s okay.”

  Me too. “Could she have been here, but you just didn’t see her?”

  She didn’t even hesitate a second before saying, “No. I haven’t gone anywhere, and yesterday I spent the whole day in the game room.”

  “The game room—”

  She pointed in the general direction of the main living area where the TV was and the women and kids gathered. Anyone hanging out in that room would have a clear view of the front door, which was the main entrance to the house. If Meg had been there all day, she definitely would have seen Esmé come or go. But, she had to have gone to the kitchen to eat, or used the restroom. I doubted all day actually meant all day.

  “What about after you went to bed? Could she have come in or left then?” I asked.

  But Meg shook her head. “I watched a movie last night till after hours. If any one of us goes out, we have to be back here by seven o’clock.”

  “Do you think I could see her room?”

  I hadn’t expected Meg to jump at the request, but she hesitated a bit longer than I’d hoped. “We should ask Mrs. Cantrell about that, I think. Right?”

  I wasn’t opposed to breaking the rules every now and then, now being one of the optimal times when I’d gladly jump over the line. There were two reasons I’d hoped not to bring Vivian Cantrell into it at all. One, I didn’t want to jeopardize my volunteer status by making her question my motives, and two, I didn’t want to give her the option of saying that, no, we could not have a look in Esmé’s room. But now that Meg had brought it up, we probably had to. “Good idea,” I said.

  I followed her inside. She walked right through the game room and turned left at the hallway, going straight to the Crosby House director’s office. The door was closed. Meg knocked and waited. There was no answer.

  A scratchy female voice came from behind us. “Mrs. Cantrell is off at a meeting.”

  We turned as the woman approached us. She was similar in height to Meg, but where Meg was petite and pixie-like, this woman was round like a McIntosh apple. “Thanks, Maxine,” Meg said.

  Meg and I moved out of the way to let Maxine pass us by. Maxine lingered, as if she wanted to see what we were going to do next, but I bided my time and waited until we were alone again before turning to Meg. “Can I just take a peek?”

  She frowned and kicked her foot under her like a petulant child. I thought for sure she was going to say no, but then she sighed and gestured for me to follow her. We headed back the way we’d come, once again passing through the living area into the bedroom hallway. Meg stopped at the room just past Mickey’s. She knocked softly, glancing around to make sure no one, like Maxine, was lurking. I didn’t know what the rules actually were, but I felt pretty sure that going into someone else’s room without their knowledge wasn’t allowed. Meg was being bold, bless her heart.

  There was no answer from inside the room and the coast was clear. Meg slowly turn
ed the knob and gently pushed the door in. She poked her head inside, making sure Esmé wasn’t sleeping or simply ignoring us. “Esmé?” she called, her voice soft.

  She glanced back at me before stepping in and holding the door open for me to follow, but she stopped short. I bumped into her, and she lurched a step farther into the room.

  I hadn’t been nervous about looking in Esmé’s room when I’d suggested it, but Meg’s tentative actions had made my heartbeat skitter and I was having second thoughts. Was the knowledge that she and Ben Nader were connected through Crosby House enough of a reason to look for a deeper connection?

  I debated with myself. We could turn around right now and leave the room before we’d invaded Esmé’s privacy any more. Or we could take a look and see if anything in the room raised any suspicions, because, after all, a man was in a coma—and Sandra Mays was dead.

  The fact that Esmé may have known Ben Nader was enough for me to push aside the anxiety I had at being in her room without her knowledge. I reminded myself that Emmaline had asked me to keep my eyes and ears open.

  Several boxes sat on the bed. The bedside lamp was on and one of the dresser drawers was open. The window overlooked a long-limbed tree and the keyhole gardens we’d been working on. “Oh wow,” she said.

  “What?”

  Meg turned herself in a circle, looking around, her expression strained. “Esmé didn’t want to have a window to the backyard. She says the shadow of that tree freaks her out. I told her I’d switch with her. I didn’t realize they’d be moving my stuff for me.”

  “So this was Esmé’s room, but now it’s yours?”

  She peeked in the closet, then looked through the dresser drawers before nodding.

  “So her stuff is in your old room? Can we go see it?”

  “It’s across the hall,” she said. I followed her out and we repeated the same cautious entry process into the room across the hall. Once we were inside, she quickly closed the door behind us. “What are we looking for?” she whispered.

  If only it were that easy. “I don’t know. Anything to show us where she might be, I guess. I’m worried about her.” It was a true statement. I was very worried—especially if she was on the run.