Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

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by Diana Saco


  That was my go-to line for explaining how my name should be pronounced. It seemed to irk some people that it was a short vowel sound but only one “c” in the name, and they actually argued with me about the spelling and pronunciation. My uninvited guest did, too.

  “But one ‘c,’ ” she said.

  “I know,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “It’s the Spanish spelling.”

  I had heard my father and his siblings say that all my life and parroted the explanation, even if it lacked the necessary context. It was meaningless unless one knew that single vowel sounds were always short in Spanish. It took a diphthong—two vowels together—to create a long vowel sound. So with a name like Bracco, the second “c” was superfluous. Nonno was never known to waste an effort on needless things, so he was the one who suggested that the family drop the extra letter.

  “Nina Taco,” Dottie said, getting my attention again.

  “Braco,” I corrected.

  She winked at me, and suddenly I felt I was being punked by a little old lady.

  “Where do you live, Dottie?”

  “Aunt Dottie,” she corrected, pointing at herself. “Rhymes, too,” she continued. “Want hottie.”

  I laughed. “Okay, Aunt Hottie, where do you live?” I asked again, taking a sip of wine.

  “Here,” she replied.

  I nearly choked at her answer. Either this lady was completely loony, or I really was being punked.

  *****

  After dinner—which, I admit, was wonderful—I rang Bruno to report the intruder. Actually, by then, I didn’t want him to arrest the woman. I just wanted his help evicting her since she showed no signs of leaving on her own. His reply left me baffled.

  “If Aunt Dottie’s moved in with you, it’s because you need her. She’ll move out when she thinks you’re ready.”

  “What are you talking about? Listen, Bruno, I’m ready now!”

  He just chuckled at me.

  “What’s her story?” I asked. “Did she have a stroke?”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “Old college job. I assisted a speech therapist working with aphasia patients.”

  “It was about three years ago,” he explained. “She’s still as sharp as a tack though.”

  “Well, doesn’t she have any family?”

  “None that I know of. Look, it’s late. Just let her spend the night, and I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  “What if she robs me? Or kills me in my sleep?”

  “Didn’t she cook you dinner?”

  “Yeah,” I said cautiously.

  “And didn’t you eat every bite?”

  “What’s your point, Bruno?” I asked, peeved that he guessed.

  “You’re safe, Nina. Otherwise, you’d be keeping company with Monica Munch by now. Speaking of which, I spoke with Chloe. She can see you tomorrow afternoon. I’ll email you the address.”

  “Okay, Sheriff,” I said, allowing the change in topic, but only for a moment. “I’ll go see Chloe Owens tomorrow, and you come and get Dottie.”

  “I’ll talk to her. And it’s Aunt Dottie.”

  “Yeah, I know. Rhymes with want hottie.” I heard him chuckling as I hung up.

  *****

  The following morning, I got up early and went for a swim. I had a membership at a nearby gym, but only occasionally used the machines. I hated anything that felt like exercise. Swimming was different. I liked the freedom and motion of being in water. It reminded me of long, hot summer days at the beach—my skin getting sun kissed, my nose tickled by the scents of salt spray and coconut oil. And I never minded all the inconvenient places where grits of sand could deposit themselves. I was a Florida girl. We tolerated sand the way Minnesotans scoffed at chunks of ice.

  Unfortunately, Peter Benchley ruined ocean swimming for me. Not that I had ever felt completely comfortable swimming at the beach. Even before Jaws came out, I had always felt uneasy not knowing what might be circling nearby. Alito, my Spanish grandfather, told me that when he was at the beach in Havana once, a shark swam between his legs. Obviously, it can’t have been very big, but it made an impression on him, and on me, too. I can think of a lot of things I never want between my legs—a shark would be at the top of that list!

  I couldn’t completely give up swimming, of course. Fortunately, chlorinated water didn’t bother me, and the pool was heated. The best part was that I could turn off the monkey brain and focus on my breathing. It was meditative by necessity. With my face in the water most of the time, I had to take in great big gulps of air, hold my breath, and count. I had to pay attention. Either that or risk drowning.

  By the time I got home, I’d pretty much forgotten about my uninvited houseguest. I dumped my gym bag by the door, started blasting my singalong playlist and headed for the shower. This was my routine. And it didn’t matter that I was a little tone deaf because usually no one was around to hear. When I emerged from my bedroom and smelled bacon cooking, I remembered I wasn’t alone. I considered calling Bruno to have him make good on his promise, but my traitorous stomach double-crossed me again. I headed for the kitchen.

  “What’s for breakfast?” I asked.

  “Noisy,” Dottie said.

  “Huh?”

  “You. Noisy,” she repeated as she plopped a plate of buckwheat pancakes, bacon, and a wedge of cantaloupe on the counter in front of me.

  “So?” I said.

  “Attention. Attention. Must pay,” she said, waving her hands in the air.

  Figuring she was trying to do more than reenact a scene from Death of a Salesman, I decoded her comment. “Are you saying I make noise because I want to be noticed?”

  She shrugged her shoulders as if to say maybe.

  I hated perpetuating a stereotype, but I was on the defensive. “How do you know it’s not my cultural upbringing? As a rule, Cubans and Italians are pretty loud.”

  “In crowd,” she said.

  I was about to respond with a witty retort but was interrupted by the phone. I checked the caller ID and saw it was the sheriff’s office. “It’s Bruno, for you,” I said, trying to hand the phone to her.

  “No, you,” she replied.

  Afraid Bruno would hang up, I answered the call. “Hey, Bruno. Did you want to talk to Aunt Dottie?” I asked coyly.

  “No, you.” The fact that his words exactly matched Dottie’s made me suspect collusion.

  I walked into the next room to continue the conversation. “What’s going on, Bruno? Why is Aunt Dottie still here?”

  “She needs a place to stay, Nina,” he said.

  “But I didn’t invite her.”

  “Look, she usually only stays a few months in any one place before she moves on to somebody else’s house.”

  “What are you saying? She’s a nomadic busy-body?”

  He laughed. “Something like that. The way it works is Aunt Dottie moves in with a person she thinks needs her help and leaves when she decides she’s done the job.”

  His comment irked me. “And just what is supposed to be my problem?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Is anything bothering you?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I have this woman in my kitchen who won’t leave. And I have client privileges to protect.”

  “Aunt Dottie is very discreet. She doesn’t gossip, and she never tells secrets.”

  I assumed he was referring to being gay. Since it was no secret, I called him on it.

  “Bruno, the whole town knows your sexual orientation, and nobody cares.”

  “I was referring to my political orientation. I’m Republican.”

  “Big deal. So’s most of my Cuban-Italian-American family,” I countered. I admit that for a town as progressive as Millsferry, being Republican wasn’t normal, but I was feeling argumentative.

  “My point is that Aunt Dottie isn’t going to hurt your business, Nina.”

  I was about to try a different approach when he got really nasty. He appealed to my humanity.
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  “Nina, Aunt Dottie is a sweet little old lady with no place to go. She’s homeless. She’ll more than earn her keep by cooking and cleaning for you. Why don’t you give her a chance?” he asked.

  “Did you give her a chance? Is that why you know so much about her?”

  “Not me. Chloe Owens, the woman you’re interviewing today. Aunt Dottie lived with her for a while.”

  “No kidding,” I said, suddenly very interested in the conversation.

  “Yup,” he chuckled. “And at first, she was just as pissed off as you. Only meaner. She accused Aunt Dottie of being ‘a psychopathic mother hen looking for victims to peck.’ ”

  I fixated on the psychopath and victim parts. “How did she mean that exactly?” I asked.

  “Nothing dangerous, Nina. She just meant that Aunt Dottie tells it like it is.”

  I had no trouble reconciling that description with the woman who had just accused me of being noisy because I have existential issues.

  “So best case scenario—my home has been invaded by a kooky old lady who thinks I’m defective and plans to stay and henpeck me until she decides I’m fixed.”

  Bruno laughed. “You’ll be fine. Let me know how things go with Chloe later.” And just like that, he hung up.

  I returned to the kitchen and tucked back into my breakfast.

  “Job?” Aunt Dottie asked.

  “Yes,” I lied. “The sheriff just wanted to talk to me about the Munch case.”

  Dottie had apparently heard about the death and made tsk-tsk sounds while pouring me a cup of coffee.

  “Shame,” she said, as she handed me the cup.

  “Did you know her, Aunt Dottie?”

  “Who?”

  I rolled my eyes, suddenly wondering whether she really had heard about the case. “The woman who died yesterday at the Millsferry Bake-Off,” I explained.

  “Yes. Munch,” she scrunched up her face in a distasteful way as she said the name.

  “If you didn’t like her, why do you think it’s a shame that she died?”

  “No. Shame. About Chloe.”

  “What about her?”

  “Prime suspect,” she said.

  I’ve never been hit between the eyes with a fast-moving cue ball, but I knew at that moment how it would feel. I thought Aunt Dottie was behind the eight ball on the Munch case. Instead, she had sunk the eight and was already racking the balls for the next break.

  “Aunt Dottie, I don’t know where you get your information. Things may play out that way, or maybe you just have a crystal ball somewhere. But for right now, we don’t know if this is even a homicide. Or whether this Owens woman is involved.”

  I decided to pump her for information about the woman I was going to be meeting shortly. “The sheriff mentioned that you know Chloe Owens. Is that right?”

  “Yes. My kid. Like you.”

  “So Chloe was one of your projects,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What was wrong with her?” I asked.

  “Not tell.”

  Bruno was right. Aunt Dottie was discreet.

  “Well, what can you tell me about her?”

  She considered for a moment and apparently decided I could be trusted with some information.

  “Orphan. Foster homes.”

  That small bit of information spoke volumes. If she grew up in the foster care system, Chloe Owens probably had a tough time with personal relationships. Growing up feeling abandoned makes you believe that if it happened once, it can happen again. That makes it harder to trust people. Bruno said that Chloe dated his friend. I wondered how long the relationship lasted and if she was involved with anyone now.

  “What else can you tell me about her?” I asked.

  “Likes food. Art. Friends.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Loyalty.”

  That made sense. Given her background, she would appreciate the things she perceived she hadn’t had growing up.

  “Okay. What about the things she doesn’t like?” I asked.

  “Hypocrites. Rules. Crowds,” Dottie said.

  “Aunt Dottie, why did you think we’d be looking at Chloe Owens as a suspect?”

  “Enemies.”

  “Chloe and Monica were enemies?”

  “Yes. More pancakes?”

  And with that, the conversation about Chloe Owens was over. But my interest in her was just beginning.

  5. The Art of Baking

  Chloe Owens’ nemesis was Monica Munch. That didn’t make her a prime suspect, despite Aunt Dottie’s comment. However, it did make her a person of interest in the investigation into Munch’s death. Ms. Owens certainly didn’t hide her animosity toward the deceased. After greeting me at the door and inviting me into the living room, she got to the point without preamble.

  “You’re wondering if I killed that self-styled ‘Monica Munch of Meadow Lane, Maker of the Medal-Winning Marzipan Covered Marshmallow-Mint Mousse Cake.’ Well, I would have settled for her moving to another continent. But I can’t pretend that I’m not glad to be rid of that alliterating albatross.”

  I couldn’t help chuckling at Ms. Owens’ witty parody, but the trope she chose was significant. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the albatross becomes a symbol of the captain’s guilt over killing it. I wondered if she was admitting her own guilt.

  “ ‘Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung’?” I recited questioningly.

  “Not quite,” she said. “I just thought you’d appreciate the play on words. You’re a writer, aren’t you?”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I’ve read some of your blogs on the Creepy Corner site. I also seem to recall a terrific short story in Millsferry Monthly?”

  “Oh, thanks!” I replied, remembering my one successful print publication. It was a fictional account of a boy obsessed with traveling to Pluto because it’s the farthest planet in the solar system. But his dreams are crushed when Pluto gets demoted to dwarf planet status. I meant it as a kind of allegory for the power of language to construct reality—both to define our sense of purpose and to destroy it. The story was published in the town’s literary arts magazine and earned me my first official byline plus a $50 electronic gift card to Amazon.com. I was stoked by that small success. More so now that I discovered I had a fan.

  “It fits, you know?” she continued.

  “What does?” I asked.

  “You being a detective and a writer.”

  “How so?”

  She shrugged as if stating the obvious. “Detectives and writers both observe, research, take notes, and ultimately try to provide an account of related events. It’s all about narrative—either one you uncover through interviews or one you construct through plot and character. You’re a storyteller.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was being played. I was supposed to be interviewing this woman. At the moment, however, she seemed to know a lot more about me than I knew about her. I needed to get back to the case.

  “Well, too bad all the really great stories have already been told,” I said, trying to dismiss her observation with an offhand comment. But the complaint revealed a bit more truth than I intended.

  “Do you truly believe that?” she asked with a frown.

  I sighed. “Yes,” I said. “I guess I do feel that way sometimes.”

  Ms. Owens smiled at me and patted my hand sympathetically. “You sound like someone who needs chocolate,” she said.

  “Chocolate?” I asked interestedly. Yup, she was definitely trying to win me over.

  She laughed. “Come with me.”

  I followed her into the kitchen and settled onto a stool at the counter. The kitchen was spacious and well-appointed—obviously a cook’s domain. I mulled over our conversation so far as I idly watched her place a cake on the counter and start brewing some coffee. The woman understood the writing process and the clever use of literary devices, so I couldn’t help wondering if she was a writer a
s well as an artist.

  “What do you do for a living, Ms. Owens?”

  “Call me ‘Chloe,’ please. I hate formalities.”

  “And I prefer ‘Nina,’ ” I added sincerely, thinking how grateful I was when I could skip the whole Braco-rhymes-with-taco shtick.

  “I’m a freelance children’s book illustrator,” Chloe said. “I also edit copy occasionally for a publisher friend in New York.”

  I won the bet I had with myself. My person of interest did work in the literary trade, which made her suddenly more interesting. “So you don’t bake professionally?”

  “No, I prefer the role of talented amateur. For me, baking is another art form. Money would take some of the joy out of it.”

  “And you don’t feel that way about your illustrations?”

  “No,” she answered simply. Then her elegant brow tilted curiously. “Why do you ask?”

  “Drawing is artistic, too. I just wondered how it’s different for you from baking so that you can accept a paycheck for one but not the other.”

  “My drawings can be viewed again and again. But once you eat my cake, it’s gone forever. It takes a genuine artist in the kitchen to create an ephemeral epicurean delight that leaves a lasting impression. True artistry makes the taste linger in the pate long after it has left the palate.”

  Chloe’s turns of phrase were making my head spin. Was she toying with my poetic sensibilities? Flirting with me by indulging my fondness for literary forms? I glanced to the side to compose my thoughts and noticed the drawings on her kitchen wall.

  “Are these illustrations yours?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I indulged my curiosity and took a closer look at one of the drawings. The medium was black ink on white paper. Simple ingredients, but the results were so much more complex. I was impressed by the amount of depth and detail Chloe created with such a limited palette. The scene showed the interior of a dilapidated cabin with a giant troll stirring something in a large cauldron. Two children were locked inside a small cage in the corner. They looked on in horror.

  I could tell that the setting was informed by Chloe’s love for cooking. I chuckled to myself at the grisly idea that this was more the product of her experiences than her imagination. Hunks of some kind of meat dangled from hooks in the ceiling. The cupboards were open and laden with grimy jars, half filled with all manner of pickled items and dried fruits, herbs, and spices. Broken spoons and forks littered the floor next to eggshells, rotting vegetables, and torn clothing here and there. And under the troll’s enormous wooden dining table was one tiny boot, lying on its side gathering dust—the only remnant left of its young owner. The tableau was grotesque in its implications.

 

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