Dough or Die

by Winnie Archer

  Tammy waved back, speeding up. The little guy dragged his feet. “She has cookies for you, Kev,” I heard her say as they drew closer. If I’d hoped that cookies would make the boy happy, I was so wrong. He was the unhappiest looking nine-year-old I’d ever seen.

  I greeted them and held the door open. Once the boy set eyes on the plate of cookies though, his face broke into a grin. He looked up at his grandmother. She patted his head, moving her hand to the back of his head and nudging him forward. “Help yourself.”

  Kevin bent over the table, examining each of the intricately decorated cookies. He looked up at both of us again. He was a cutie. Blond hair. Gray-blue eyes that came alive when he smiled. He looked small for his age, but puberty would catch him up. After Tammy and I both nodded at him, he chose a cookie, sat down, and started munching.

  Now that I had them both here, I wasn’t sure how to bring up the little boy’s mother. I pulled Tammy aside. “Would you like something to drink?” I smiled. “Or a cookie?”

  “They look good.” She dipped her chin, her gaze softening as she looked at her grandson. “I haven’t seen him smile like that since his granddad went into the hospital.”

  “How is Ben doing?”

  Now her face lit up. “So much better. It’s going to be slow, but he’s on the road to recovery, no question now.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it.” I leaned back against the empty display case. “Mrs. Nader, I wonder if I could ask you a question.”

  She let her gaze leave her grandson. “Sure.”

  My voice dropped to somewhere just above a whisper. “Where’s Kevin’s mom?”

  She eyed me, suddenly wary. “I told you before, Meg was in the accident with our son—”

  “Meg, for Margaret?”

  “That’s right.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I was just . . . wondering. I know your son died, but not his fiancée—”

  She’d been relaxed, but now she stood up straight, her arms folded over her chest like a barricade. “You looked up my son’s accident?”

  When she said it aloud, it sounded kind of on the creepy side. Before I could offer up an explanation, though, she snapped at me. “Is that why you asked us here? To interrogate me about my family?”

  “It’s not an interr—”

  I broke off when her glare intensified. It wasn’t an interrogation, I finished in my head. It was one question.

  She strode to Kevin, grabbed him by the arm and yanked him up. “We have to go now,” she told him, somehow managing to soften her voice for him.

  “Where is she?” I asked again, but she surged out the door, dragging her grandson with her.

  Chapter 27

  Maybe I’d been wrong. I’d had a suspicion that Esmé had been Grant Nader’s fiancée. The one who hadn’t actually died in the car accident, but who also didn’t have custody of her child. It would give a motive for the hit-and-run Ben was the victim of. Esmé didn’t have a firm alibi. She’d gone her own separate way from the other Bread for Life women, returning after the accident. She could have had her car stashed, run him down, stashed the car again, and then gotten rid of it. It was possible.

  But maybe not very probable. It wouldn’t have been premeditated, and relied too much on being at the so-called right place at the right time to run him down. There was the fact that little Kevin looked nothing like Esmé. And finally there was Sandra Mays. What would the motive be?

  Blackmail. I thought about the falling-out Sandra and Tammy Nader had. The timing corresponded with the death of the Naders’ son. But what was at the core of their detonated friendship? That was the unknown.

  I had a thought. I went to Olaya’s office, pulled up her contacts, and looked up Mack Hebron’s number, hoping he’d simmered down since I’d seen him last. Pulling out my cell phone, I dialed him. He was still a suspect in my mind, but if I stuck with my current train of thought, I had to figure out how to connect Sandra and Ben through a motive. He answered right away with a breezy, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Hebron, it’s Ivy. Culpepper.”

  “Mack,” he said. “We’re way beyond Mr. Hebron—if we were ever there.”

  “Right. Mack. Listen, I have a quick question for you.”

  “Another one?”

  He sounded normal, so maybe he was over the so-called interrogation. Maybe I needed to soften my methods, I thought, since I’d gotten the interrogation accusation twice now. I’d considered how to phrase my question delicately, but I decided to just forge ahead, sticking with the direct approach. “Do you know anything about the type of relationship Ben Nader had with Sandra Mays?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Do you mean were they intimate?”

  That’s not what I meant because I was pretty sure they had never crossed that line. “No, not that. I know they’d been friends for a long time. Their kids were in a playgroup together when they were little.”

  “That’s more than I knew.”

  Ah. Too bad. If he didn’t know that, he wouldn’t know about their falling-out. I asked anyway. “Something happened between Ben’s wife and Sandra years ago, but I’m not sure what. Do you have any idea?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Can’t help you.”

  I sighed. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I said goodbye and started to hang up when his voice came at me again. “Wait. There is one thing,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I overheard them talking the morning of the accident. It was before we got to Yeast of Eden.”

  I was all ears. “Talking about what?”

  He was silent on the other end of the line. For a second, I wondered if he was still there, but then he cleared his throat. “I didn’t catch it all. She said he wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet, and he said he didn’t want to anymore. Something like that.”

  “Keep what quiet?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned this before.

  “I just remembered,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “I tend to tune out other people’s chatter.”

  He couldn’t give me any more information, but what little he did give felt like a thread between Ben and Sandra. There was something.

  We hung up and I went back to my thoughts about Esmé. I didn’t want her to be involved, but something she said came back to me. Everyone has a story. Everyone has heartache. In a split second, my entire thought process shifted. When I’d spoken to Ben Nader in the hospital, the color had drained from his face after I mentioned that I’d volunteered at Crosby House . . . but not because of Esmé.

  I reorganized the information in my head. The baby blanket and picture book in the bottom drawer of Esmé’s dresser. The baby blanket and sketchbook had to be very personal to the owner. I’d assumed they’d been hers, but what if—

  Esmé had just moved into that room. Meg had been surprised that it had happened without her knowledge. Her words came back to me. They—presumably organized by Vivian Cantrell—moved Mickey. They’d put her in a different room. Esmé had been moved in, but she didn’t like the tree. Meg had said she’d offered to switch and they’d moved her there. They’d moved her. Meg and Esmé hadn’t moved their own things, they’d been moved for them. And the contents of the bottom drawer had been left behind.

  Another image of Meg came to me. When I’d first seen her, she’d been watching me work on the keyhole garden. Vivian Cantrell had come to talk to her about a therapy appointment, but she’d also given her a set of keys and said something about her car being ready.

  Her car.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed Crosby House. Vivian Cantrell picked up on the second ring. “What can I do for you, Ivy?” she asked after the pleasantries were over.

  “I have a random question for you, actually,” I said.

  “I’ll help you if I can.”

  That was the best I could hope for. Vivian Cantrell’s job, after all, was
to protect the women in her charge. She wouldn’t throw one of them under the bus just because someone asked for some information. “The first day I met Meg, you gave her some keys and said something about her car?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “That’s right. Her car had been in for repairs. I know the shop owner and he returned it here for her. Why?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Had it gone in the shop before or after the attempt on Ben Nader’s life? “When did she take it in for repair?”

  Now Vivian Cantrell did hesitate. “What’s this about?”

  I’d thought about how to answer this question. I didn’t have a good response . . . or at least one that wouldn’t raise suspicion. I went with something as close to the truth as I could. “I’m going to be honest with you. I’m afraid that Meg may have had something to do with the accident that put Ben Nader in the hospital.”

  The sentence hung there between us like a spider web blocking a doorway to freedom. Finally, she spoke. “That’s not possible. Meg, she’s a good girl. She’s been through so much.”

  I hadn’t asked about Meg’s story, and she’d never offered, but she was at Crosby House for a reason—just like every other woman there. Everyone here was a victim, but cycles repeated. Victims often became abusers. Maybe murderers in this case. “When did she take the car in?” I repeated.

  “She took it in a week ago Monday,” Vivian said after a moment.

  So before the hit-and-run, I thought. But that didn’t coincide with my new theory. I still didn’t have a motive, but I was beginning to think that maybe Meg had been behind the wheel of the car that mowed down Ben Nader. How could that be, if she hadn’t had her car at that time? “What repair shop was it in?” I asked.

  Another hesitation. Just when I thought Vivian Cantrell wasn’t going to give me the information I’d asked for, she exhaled. “Bishop’s. Ask for Ethan.”

  My mind circled through the things I knew . . . or thought I knew. “What’s Meg’s story?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge the private information of our clients.”

  Of course she couldn’t.

  I couldn’t even begin to fathom the depths of the holes any of these women had had to climb out of. But that didn’t give a person a pass for murder.

  Vivian Cantrell exhaled a heavy breath out. “It often happens that after a tragedy, women put themselves into risky situations. They cease to care about what happens to them. Unfortunately, we see a lot of that. Meg’s been fighting against that very thing. She’s doing well, though.”

  Not so well if she killed Sandra and tried to kill Ben. I thought about calling Emmaline, but I had no motive, only a sketchy idea with zero proof. I thanked Mrs. Cantrell, hung up, and looked up the address for Bishop’s Auto Body Repair. I plugged it into my GPS and ten minutes later, I’d parked and was inside the lobby of the shop. Ethan Bishop was a small, thin man. I wore sneakers and stood slightly taller than him. He had piercing dark eyes and a pronounced jawline, and a chin that angled to a point. To me, he looked like he should be running a moody basement club in San Francisco rather than a car repair shop, but then I probably looked like I should be a librarian or bookstore clerk. And yet here we both were.

  I cut to the chase. “I understand you recently did some work on Meg McGinnis’s car.”

  His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned as he seemed to consider whether or not he should be talking to me.

  “It’s important,” I said.

  He tapped on the computer keyboard, bringing up the repair records. “Blue Hyundai Elantra. Needed some front body work.”

  I felt a rush of electricity zing through my body. “Was there anything . . . unusual . . . about the repair?”

  “Mmm. Not really.” He paused. “Except . . .”

  He stopped, as if he needed prodding to divulge just what was so unusual. “What was it?”

  “It came in with some front-end damage. I told her it was going to need a new front bumper. I had to order that, and with the painting, it’d take a good week. She left it here.”

  “Is that unusual?” I asked.

  “No, not that. But when the parts arrived and I brought the car into the bay to start the work, the damage was worse than I remembered.”

  And there it was. Maybe this whole thing had been premeditated. Bring the car to the shop and leave it, but sneak in to take it for a joyride. It had been a risk. What if the car hadn’t been accessible? But the fact was, it had been. I might not be able to prove my theory and it didn’t give me a motive, but it was enough to share with Emmaline.

  I thanked him and left, immediately calling Emmaline and filling her in on my theory. She’d take over and do her own legwork.

  “Nice deductions, Ivy.”

  I smiled at the compliment and gave myself a mental pat on the back. The next thing to do was figure out if Meg was behind Sandra Mays’s death . . . and why.

  Chapter 28

  I’d spent all day at the bread shop, pondering everything I’d learned about Ben Nader, Sandra Mays, Esmé Adriá, and Meg McGinnis. I felt like I had all the ingredients to make a killer loaf of rosemary bread . . . minus the rosemary. The answer would come to me.

  Miguel had taken the evening off from the restaurant. He’d been working himself ragged and needed a little reprieve. I planned to bake us a loaf of bread to go with the soup he’d brought home from Baptista’s. I drove, thinking about how much more I appreciated Santa Sofia as an adult versus when I’d been a teenager. Even with the tourist element, it was a quaint, comfortable coastal town that held my heart. It had an eclectic mix of neighborhoods, which was one of the things I loved best about it. My Tudor was part of the historic district. Queen Anne Victorians, Craftsman style homes, a few mid-century moderns, and homes like mine lived on the tree-lined streets there. Cute little cottages defined the Beach Road area. The closer you were to Pacific Coast Highway, the smaller, and more expensive, the cottage. High-end gated communities with massive properties dotted the mountains, and traditional suburban homes sprawled inland, stretching the boundaries of our little coastal town.

  One of the most desirable areas was Bungalow Oasis in what the locals called the Upper Laguna District. It was one of the town’s oldest neighborhoods and held the highest concentration of traditional bungalow architecture. The area was filled with single-story, low-rise houses with curving roads, verandas, and mature landscaping. Malibu Street sat to the east and Riviera to the south, and an architectural review board was an active part of the Santa Sofia Bungalow Oasis Neighborhood Association.

  Miguel had bought his house in Bungalow Oasis as a major fixer-upper. He’d worked painstakingly to restore it to its historical beauty, redoing the stucco siding, landscaping the knoll it sat on, painting the house, along with the single-car garage at the lowest point on the right, and resurfacing the red terra-cotta-tiled stairway on the left leading up to a wrought-iron gate. He’d planted green leafy shrubs on both sides of the railing that led up the front steps, and he constantly tended colorful flowers in the massive cement pots on the pillars at the top of the steps.

  I loved my house, but I also loved his house. What we’d do if we ever broached the subject of spending our lives together, who knew? I couldn’t see either of us willingly giving up our respective homes. Miguel’s Mediterranean-style house had a courtyard with a single tree, manicured shrubs, and bountiful flowerbeds. The veranda, which gave him a picturesque view of the Pacific, was draped with cascading flowers. The whole place sent a gentle breeze of relaxation through me.

  Miguel greeted and kissed me in the doorway, then ushered me in, taking the reusable shopping bag I had slung over my shoulder. I’d brought my preferred flour, a jar of yeast, my proofing bowl, and the rosemary and olives I’d need for the bread I’d be making.

  We walked through the entry to the living room. He had the sliding glass doors opened to the veranda, the cool ocean breeze billowing in. Miguel had made the outside a welcoming living area wi
th potted patio trees and more flowers. Miguel, former military man and current restaurateur, loved flowers.

  He’d created two distinct areas on the veranda. One had a small bistro table with two chairs on a round sisal rug. The other had a rattan loveseat, two matching chairs, and a small outdoor coffee table. The square sisal rug defined the seating space as separate from the dining space. I breathed in the salty air, feeling it spread through my body all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.

  Downtown Santa Sofia was to the south and was walkable from Bungalow Oasis. Miguel often rode his bike to the restaurant. That was a definite perk of living in this area, but the real gem was the view straight ahead. The Pacific lay vast and wide, a reminder of how small we all are in the scope of our world. I gazed out at the horizon, wishing I’d brought my camera. I wanted to capture every sunset so I could look back on each one and remember the moment.

  Miguel came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. The stubble on his face pricked and tickled my skin, sending a quiver through me. It was a sensation I never wanted to live without. How had we been lucky enough to find each other again?

  “I need to start the bread,” I said after I’d had my fill—at least for now—of him and the ocean.

  He led me through the living area, past his dining table, to the galley kitchen. It was smaller than mine, and shaped differently, but it was efficient. Everything was within reach and there was plenty of counter space. Miguel had spared no expense with his commercial-grade stainless steel appliances. They blew mine out of the water and I loved cooking with him here.

  I got to work as Miguel poured us each a glass of wine. He sat at the table, half watching me work, half mapping out the specials for the month ahead.

  I pounded down a mound of dough in his kitchen. He watched me with one eyebrow cocked. “Glad you’re taking that aggression of yours out on that dough.”