by Diana Stone
He steps into a doorway just as the lady turns around to look at the police car pulling to the curb. The officer steps out almost while his patrol car is still moving. I used to be that fast out of the patrol car. For officer safety, I needed to be.
I’m watching the deputy as he approaches them. When I look back at them, Pickett has gone! My eyes scan the sidewalk and the crowd… I don’t see him anywhere.
No freaking way! The deputy is now speaking with the woman. It looks very casual. People aren’t even stopping to look, or give them a wide berth as they pass. The lady opens her purse and hands the deputy her ID. He writes the information on his field interview card. A few minutes later he’s saying something like, “Thank you for your cooperation, have a good day.” Then heads back to his car.
He calls me on my cell, then we meet around the corner. “I can’t tell you her name. I can’t tell anything personal, except that the lady is a local woman and well known.”
She told him that Pickett is a good friend. I’d have to be blind not to see he’s more than a friend, and I tell him so. He says he’ll give the info to the detectives in charge of the investigation.
“Pickett saw you drive up and must have ducked into the store. I was watching you, and he was standing in the doorway. The next time I looked he was gone.” Damn it, he’s cagey. “What reason did you give for stopping her?”
“I told her the detectives needed information for an investigation. The lady went along with the program. She’s one of the local elite, so I know of her. He’ll have some explaining to do when she sees him again. I was very careful about it. You have to be PR conscious these days.”
“I see that hasn’t changed,” I laugh.
I head back to my truck. I don’t really want to do the brewpub now. I have adrenaline running through me and I need to unwind. I’ll just sit here in my parking space in the shade.
I get a brilliant idea—this will give me a good reason to call Jack. I left his business card at home. I’ll have to see what I can do with the winery phone number.
I look up that number from the brochure and ask for him. “I’m sorry he’s unavailable.” I explain the matter, and I’m asked if I can wait a moment.
Like magic, Jack answers. “Jessica, what are you getting into now?” I can almost see him shaking his head and chuckling.
“Hey, I’m Solvang doing police work for you. I was minding my own business eating pastries, and there he was.” I give him a run-down of the events. “I bet he’s going after this ‘Solvang elite’ woman. Do you know who she might be?”
“Based on your description, I think so. I’ll call the detective first, then I’ll call her.”
“Do you think you can set up a sting operation?”
“I’ll run it past the detective and the woman.” He pauses, “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve been getting to know the town. I took a wine tasting class. I met Monica from Monica’s bakery. In fact, I’ll be house sitting her cat for a couple of days. Right now I’m hanging out in Solvang taste testing apple strudel.”
“Why are you tasting apple strudel when Monica makes the best?” he sounds confused.
“I thought I could scope out the competition. Then I got into this mess with that Pickett guy. I was minding my own business and there he was, coming out of a restaurant. I was going to the pub for a beer tasting. Now I don’t really feel like going.”
“I’ll treat you to a tasting later,” he offers.
“Oh, thanks. I’d like that.” I wonder if that was an offhand invitation.
“Perhaps next week?” he asks.
Should I act busy and hard to get? No, I don’t play those games. If I’m too hard to get he might move on. That may be the coward in me, speaking.
“Great, how about next Wednesday so I can make this up to you?” He’s pinning down a day!
“That works,” I casually reply.
“I’ll pick you up at 7:00?”
“I’ll be ready.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up. Wow, this turned out to be a great day. I have a date!
13
Monica’s House
Monica lives in a cute bungalow just north of the main road. Her neighborhood is quiet and the homes are cared for. Lamp-style streetlights give it a small town, safe feeling. An older couple is walking their dog. It’s so Anywhere, USA.
She greets me at the door still wearing her work clothes, which means she’s wearing her light green Monica’s apron covering her black slacks and silver blouse. “Hi, come on in.”
“Thanks. Wow, your house is gorgeous! Are you a decorator too?” She has dark hardwood floors. White shelves are filled with glass vases and accents in blue and green. I glance around with curiosity and admire her vista out the back patio. The mountains are in view out the sliding door, past the patio and rooflines. The last flash of sunset leaves the sky aglow in pink and purple.
“Come help me decide what to eat. Would you like something?”
“I’m fine for now, thanks.” Right, I’ve had plenty of apple strudels.
There’s Nicki the cat, on the couch. She’s an adorable little black and white. I take a seat next to her and introduce myself. She unfolds her little cat-body from the cushion and steps over to say hello. She actually makes little meow-peep sounds. “She’s adorable, and she speaks!”
“She always has something to say.” Monica pulls an oven-safe container out of the fridge, organizes the casserole onto a plate, and then places it in the microwave.
“Microwave? I’d have thought you were old school.”
Nicki is on my lap, I don’t want to move and have her leave. I’m honored to have her sit on me.
“I need to eat before midnight. I’m quite modern,” she laughs. “Let me get out of these clothes then we can chat. Feel free to look around,” as she heads down the hall, she calls to the little cat who jumps down and follows at a trot.
I love investigating to see how she makes her house so warm. She has photos of herself with a man… her husband? I can tell he’s important by the look of love that seems to flow out of the picture.
The back patio sliding door is open. The cool evening air sweeps into the house. I step outside for a self-guided tour of her small, well-maintained garden. At the edge of the patio are four wine barrel pots. They’re spilling over with gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. Each tomato is vibrant. One is a striped yellow and green, another is purple and there’s even a pink one. I’m tempted to have a taste, but I won’t. When I was about 8, my mother and I lived in an apartment. I had a tomato plant in a pot on the patio. The little girl next door picked my only cherry tomato. Obviously, I was so upset I still remember it twenty-three years later.
The garden has several picked-over fruit trees with only a few remaining lemons, plums and apricots. I stop beside the lemon tree to see if I can get a lungful of blossom-scent. I get some, but less than the orchard at Citronelle. Lemon trees are nearly always in bloom. They keep producing lemons and are commercially picked three or four times a year.
There is an herb garden in the raised bed to the right. Little signs identify each plant. Bending over, I look at one marker. I’ve never heard of this one before. This may be one of her secret spices.
Stepping-stones and gravel are keeping the yard tidy, but a grapevine is allowed to grow with abandon. It obscures the white pergola in the corner. I step closer and see a wood-slat bench hidden beneath the canopy of vines. It looks like a small secret-garden. One that hasn’t been pruned or manicured, she has allowed it to run wild. I’d love to sit on the bench and think, but somehow it feels too private for a visitor. A closer look at the vines reveals bunches of grapes, hanging invitingly. I pick just one of the hundreds—so I won’t be like that tomato thief.
I chew it and move it around my mouth. I still can’t identify any violet or rose flavors. So much for my wine tasting class.
“Would you like to sit out here or in the house?” she’s standing in the
doorway with a plate in her hand.
I move away from the pergola feeling a little guilty. “I haven’t sat indoors for a few weeks and your couch looks so soft.”
“Oh yes, that’s right, you’ve been roughing it with your horses,” she ribs me.
We go back inside and make ourselves comfortable on the deep cushions. Monica balances the plate in her left hand as she curls up her legs beside her. Her little cat is sitting between us, washing her ears. It’s such a sweet vignette. I don’t want to get emotional now, so I launch into my pastry reconnaissance story. I have to tell her about my visit to the three bakeries.
“I tasted the three, and yours is absolutely the best,” I announce with pride.
“Thanks, but I already know that,” she laughs. “I guess you do too.”
“So you already know about your competition?”
“Yes, but there is enough to go around. I have my specialties, and they have theirs.”
“Oh, well then. Let me tell you about the psychotic man from Jack’s party.” I tell her the entire story starting at the party to where we are now.
“Wow!” she breathes out, “You got the adventure you wanted. Is this normal for you?”
“On the police department, they reverently called me a shit magnet.”
“Reverently?”
“Yeah, a police officer working hard and bringing in bad-guys gets into things. If nothing happens to you, it may mean that you’re not working much.” It might also mean that you control your ego and don’t piss people off.
“My life is rather tame.” A while later, Monica unfolds herself from her end of the couch. “Let me get you something I’m sure you’ll like—I’ll be right back,” she has an eager look.
She heads for the kitchen. I hear a tin rattling and something that sounds like crinkly wrapping paper. She returns holding up two plates with small squares of a jam covered mini pastry. “This is my latest experiment,” she nods to the squares.
I think I’ll treat it like wine tasting. First, I sniff and identify the scents of berry and Chambord liqueur. Of course, it’s made with liqueur. I think Monica’s niche is liqueur. I take my first small bite and the flavor of berries, liqueur and a subtle spice bursts in my mouth. I can’t place the spice, it’s good. I’ll go with that, just like the way I do my wine tasting. The little pastry is so small it would fit in a child’s tea party. This is another of her unique styles.
“This is delicious. You must have used a gallon of Chambord,” I exaggerate a little.
“It isn’t Chambord, I make the liqueur myself. I infuse my secret spices with the berries and grain alcohol. It changes everything,” she smiles her little smile.
“Your baking is amazing. Are you sure you want to be stuck in this small town when you could be world renowned?”
She looks down at her hands, digs deep into her soul, and tells me the romantic story of how she and Alex met in Switzerland:
“I grew up in a town of about twenty-four thousand people, Marshall Missouri. I doubt you’ve heard of it. I planned on working my way through college. But I found all I wanted to do was bake and I was good at it. So I got a job at a bakery in town. Little by little, word got out, and the bakery kind of,” she searches for the right words. “The bakery became crazy-popular,” she gives a small smile, “The owner made me half owner because I did a good job marketing it and designing our catalogs. It put us on the map. I stayed there for twelve years, but needed a change, so I went to Kansas City.”
“What was your major in college?”
“Marketing. It worked out well for me, it taught me how to build a business.”
“What happened in Kansas City?”
“I worked there and went to lots of functions and networked like crazy. I met lots of people who appreciated my baking. One of them told me about a competition in Switzerland. The criteria were strict. They were looking for people who already had skills. The hard part was that one of their alumni had to nominate you,” she reaches out to stroke her cat, “I got lucky because my client was a former student of the university, and she loved my baking,” she gathers her thoughts.
“And then?” I eagerly ask.
“They accepted me into the competition. The way it worked was that it was set up like school; every week we had an exam. The winner of the final exam would receive enough money to open their own bakery. It was a very competitive class because the weekly scores were cumulative toward the final. Some students were cutthroat, I had my ingredients tampered with several times. Someone added something else to my main go-to favorite spices. I knew enough about spices to balance it, and I actually enhanced the flavor! Whoever did that accidentally helped me, it changed a basically good flavor into a new, exotic one. The teacher and judges were so impressed, it elevated me in their eyes.”
“Did you find out who messed with your spices?”
“No, and it isn’t always the person you think it is.”
“Right, it can be the nice girl sitting at the other table, not the nasty one next to you.” I agree.
“Fortunately, there was one student who was really nice, he was also one of the best in the class. He was generous with his time and helped everyone else. Coincidentally, we both roomed in the same apartment building. One night, to be gentlemanly, he offered to walk me home. Then we started comparing notes and stories. It took several weeks, but then we felt more toward each other than just classmates.” She reminisces for a moment, then begins again, “I’d pack a picnic basket for a weekend lunch in a grassy meadow under a ten thousand foot mountain in the Alps. It felt like we were in The Sound of Music. During the week we’d eat at little cafes, looking for unique culinary ideas. We’d walk hand-in-hand through Lucerne by moonlight,” she looks at me and can see I don’t know Lucerne by moonlight, “The full moon over the lake, with the grand city in the background, it’s something I’ll always remember,” she smiles, “And we always sipped liqueur, debating how to make everything better by adding it to our baking. We’d also make our own, after class, in my apartment.
“I see why you are so fond of liqueur.”
“We helped each other whenever we could and we were each willing to let the other one win. It was clear one of us was going to win since we usually placed first and second in each exam.”
“That’s fantastic,” I murmur with a smile.
She smiles, “I won the competition,” and still smiling, “I also got the man. Alex and I were married in Santa Barbara where he grew up. He’d spent a lot of time with his family here in the Santa Ynez Valley. He wanted to return to this area to work and raise a family, and I wanted a change of scenery from the Midwest. We found this old general store on the corner in Los Olivos.”
“So that’s why you’re here,” I quietly say.
“Right and I’m staying. Anyway, the cabinets and woodwork in the shop looked worn, but they had character. I shipped in china cabinets from my hometown where everything is antique, and no one thinks anything of it. We got to work scraping off old paint and refinished wood, and everything became beautiful once again. Life was perfect until Alex started feeling weak. He went for a checkup and had a slew of tests—they found out he had advanced pancreatic cancer.”
“How awful.”
“We did everything we could do. Then we started grasping at straws. I baked marijuana brownies and chocolates for pain relief. We even went to the vortex,” she points north, toward Jack’s place. “Nothing worked, it was too advanced.”
“Wow.” I murmur. “What a wonderful and sad story. I see why you don’t want to move, this was your dream with Alex,” tears are in both of our eyes.
“Everything I bake is in honor of him, that’s why it’s tastes so good. It has his spirit and love in it.”
Silence. I’m running my fingers through Nicki’s glossy coat as she purrs. I just sit here—what can I say?
“So, tell me about yourself,” she quietly encourages.
“Good heavens, you have an epic love
story, and I have a 4-year disaster I can condense into a few lines,” I sputter.
“We’re not comparing, we’re sharing,” she points out.
So begin my story. It isn’t set under the Alps in Lucerne, comparing desserts; but on the streets of Hollywood, chasing criminals.
“We met while I was on the police department. I always worked night-watch patrol. I met Steve on a call because his car had been broken into. He was outgoing and friendly, and not stressed-out by his smashed car window. We talked for two hours as I collected the evidence and wrote the report. At the time he was interested in police work,” I stop talking to consider what became of that interest. “Somehow he changed my mood and got me laughing. I wasn’t a light-hearted kind of girl. Dealing with life and death on a daily basis made me a little walled off emotionally.” Yes, very walled off. “He was really attracted to me, and my self-esteem needed a boost. So when he asked if I’d like to meet for coffee I said yes.” What a mistake. “That led to more dates and it evolved into a relationship, then marriage. He had an insurance business and I started working with him. He wanted me to help make it bigger with more clients, so I quit the police department,” another mistake. “The business grew so much that we were tied to it 12 hours a day. I had my horses and I spent a lot of time with them. He had the business and it consumed him. It went along fine for 4 years, then he hired a new girl to help with the secretarial work.” Hire no one but an old lady. “She was cute and perky and wore low cut shirts and high cut skirts, you can guess the type of girl she is. She hung on every word he said and she acted so excited about everything he did. Yup, she became his new wife.”