Kernel of Truth

by Kristi Abbott

  “Well, how am I supposed to know that?” I demanded.

  He made a noise in his throat. “Jessica is talking about pressing charges, Rebecca. You dislocated her shoulder.”

  I had thought I heard a pop as we’d gone sailing out of the car. I cringed. That probably really hurt. Good thing she had probably been too drunk to really feel it. “It wasn’t on purpose. I was trying to save her from a fiery death.” I pulled out my phone, scrolled through to the favorites list and hit Garrett’s number.

  “Who are you calling?” Dan asked.

  I held up the phone to show him. “Garrett. I guess he’s my lawyer these days.”

  “Maybe you should put him on speed dial.” Dan got up and left. He didn’t even finish his coffee.

  Maybe I already had.

  * * *

  I walked into Garrett’s office and found Pearl Bartikowski behind the reception desk. “Pearl, I didn’t know you worked here.” Pearl, like her sister Ruby, had been a legal secretary for as long as I could remember. In fact, she’d worked for Mr. Crowner, the attorney who Haley had hired to get me off on the boat joyriding charges that Mr. No Sense of Humor Winthrop had refused to drop.

  “I started a month ago.” She smoothed her plump hands over her pristine desk. “Mr. Crowner was making noises about retiring and then young Garrett here opened his office. I’m afraid I didn’t give him a chance to even advertise the position. I marched right in, sat down, and started answering the phone.”

  “That’s . . . enterprising of you.” I wondered how Mr. Big City Attorney had responded to that. Or I guess I didn’t have to wonder since Pearl was sitting right here in front of me.

  “The commute is so much better and Ruby and I can have lunch together every day.” Pearl’s sister Ruby worked for Phillip Meyer. Pearl leaned forward to whisper, “It’s driving her nuts that I’m working here, especially since so many of Meyer’s clients are coming to Mr. Garrett now.”

  “They are?” That was interesting.

  “Oh, yes. I couldn’t resist giving her a hard time about Miss Coco making that appointment to redo her will.” She wiggled with the pleasure of the memory.

  I guess someone else besides me did know. “You knew that Coco was going to redo her will?”

  “That’s what she said on the telephone when she made her appointment,” Pearl said.

  “Garrett said he didn’t know why she’d made the appointment.” At least, that’s what I thought he’d said.

  Pearl pursed her lips. “Oh, I might have neglected to write that part down, but I’m pretty sure that’s what she told me. She wanted to update her will. You should have seen Ruby’s face turn red when I told her that!”

  “When did that happen?” I asked.

  Pearl’s face fell a little. “It was the day she died. Such a shame.”

  “Did Coco say why she didn’t want to stay with Meyer?” I asked.

  Pearl nodded her head. “She sure did. Said she had concerns about her privacy.”

  Poor Coco. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized that Pearl would immediately hold that over Ruby’s head and thus make sure Coco had no privacy whatsoever.

  Garrett came out of his office, shirtsleeves rolled up and tie a little askew. “Rebecca, come on in.” He gestured me into his office and then shut the door behind me.

  “I hear today we’re talking about assault charges. You’re certainly keeping me on my toes.” He settled down behind his desk.

  I sat down in one of the wingback chairs across from him. “I like to diversify.”

  “May I suggest that you stop?” he asked. “I’m afraid that one of the charges is going to stick or that Dan is going to have a stroke. Neither seems like a good option.”

  “I can’t promise anything.” I couldn’t because I knew what I had planned as soon as I left here. If I didn’t get caught, it would be great. Since it seemed like I got busted for every little thing—even good deeds like pulling drunk women from potentially fiery balls of vehicular death—I figured there was a good chance of us all ending up at the police station again. “Although I have definitely learned my lesson.”

  His eyes narrowed and then he held up his hand. “Don’t tell me anything. I really need to be able to swear total ignorance of any plans you have to break the law if I’m going to continue to practice.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll treat you like a mushroom. You know how they grow mushrooms, right?”

  “Exactly. Keep me in the dark. Then, as for this latest debacle.” He shuffled a file folder onto the top of the stack in front of him.

  “It wasn’t a debacle. I saved Jessica’s life when she was too drunk to help herself.” Why did everyone keep forgetting that? I was the hero of this story, not the villain.

  “Okay. As for your latest lifesaving activities, I’m pretty sure you’re protected under the Good Samaritan law.” He looked up at me sharply. “Your actions weren’t willful or wanton, were they?”

  “I wasn’t aware I could be wanton while pulling someone out of a vehicle.” I hadn’t been wanton in a very long time. I wasn’t even sure I remembered what wanton felt like.

  “I’ll take that as a no, then.” He marked something down on his legal pad while muttering, “Not wanton.”

  I leaned back in the chair, feeling a little relieved. “So I’m okay, then? Jessica can’t press assault charges against me?”

  “I’ll check on a few things and we can talk about them.” He looked up at me and smiled. It made his eyes crinkle.

  “Great. When?” I asked.

  He hesitated, then said, “How about tonight? At dinner?”

  I blinked. “Like a date?”

  “Not exactly. More like dinner with your sister and brother-in-law. It’s Friday.” He turned an interesting shade of pink. “Not that a date would be awful or anything . . .”

  I held up my hand as I stood. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  I suspected Garrett hadn’t been wanton in some time, either.

  * * *

  I had definitely learned my lesson about sneaking around at night. It was way too easy to get caught when people saw lights on where they shouldn’t be. It was much smarter to let oneself into one’s friend’s shop during daylight hours. I went up to the back of Coco’s store, took out my keys, and let myself in.

  The light was dim, but there was plenty to see by, at least for my purposes. I went through the kitchen to Coco’s office and froze.

  Everything was the same as it had been the day Coco died. Everything. Right down to the blood smeared on the credenza behind her desk.

  I was not a squeamish person. I have skinned rabbits and cut up turkeys into pieces. This was different. The blood was Coco’s. It was supposed to be inside the person who had been my beacon for so many years.

  Coco had spent all of her seventy-two years doing what needed to be done. I would not let her down now. I marched over to her desk, hoping the thudding of my heart would get a little quieter.

  I looked around, not really sure what it was I wanted to find. This had been the last place Coco had sat, though. This had been where she’d done all of her lasts: her last thoughts, her last notes, her last breaths.

  I saw a little corner of paper sticking out from under the desk blotter. I wiggled it out. It was a ticket, the kind you hand over to someone behind a desk when you’re picking something up. It was for the FedEx Office in Amherst. I was willing to bet all the popcorn in the Buckeye State that it was for our business plan.

  The printer’s “ready” light blinked on and off. I remembered that Coco had been having trouble with it. Sometimes all it needed was to be turned off and then back on again. I switched it off, sang the alphabet song, then turned it back on. Papers started spitting out.

  I picked up the top one and nearly squealed. It was the popcorn fudge recipe Coco and I had been w
orking on. The next one was the salted-caramel popcorn fudge. I held them to my chest. I waited until the printer was done and grabbed the sheaf of papers and the FedEx ticket. Leaving everything else untouched, I returned to the back door of Coco’s shop and let myself out.

  “What on earth are you doing now?” a voice said from behind me.

  I let my head drop. Busted again. I really was not cut out for a life of crime.

  * * *

  Annie shook her head. “What on earth are you doing, Rebecca?” She continued over to the Dumpster with the armful of trimmings she had to throw out.

  “It’s kind of a long story,” I said, trying to figure out how to summarize everything that had happened up until then.

  “Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.” She brushed off her hands. “I do want some coffee and a snack, though.”

  Relieved she wasn’t still mad at me for assaulting her boyfriend, I threaded my arm through hers and started to walk back to POPS. “I have just the place.”

  “You know, you’re lucky it was me who saw you coming out of Coco’s,” she said as we walked up the back steps to POPS.

  I really should have looked around before I opened the door. I was not cut out for espionage, apparently. “You mean, instead of Dan or Huerta?”

  “Or Allen. Or Jessica. Or any of the other people around here who think you’ve gone off your rocker.” She sat down at the kitchen table.

  It was precisely because they all thought I was off my rocker that I had to do what I was doing. I had to show them I wasn’t crazy or a loser. “I found this in Coco’s office.” I pushed the FedEx receipt across to her.

  Annie glanced down and then put her hand to her chest. “Oh, my God. A business owner had copies made. Contact the authorities immediately.”

  “Sarcasm is not welcome,” I said, snatching the ticket back from her.

  She pointed at me with a spoon she’d picked up. “Not true. You love my sarcasm. It’s one of the reason we’re friends.”

  She had me on that one. I did love her sarcasm. “Fine. Be sarcastic. Just be ready for a surprise.”

  Annie sighed. “After your last surprise for me, which I believe involved bonking my boyfriend over the head with a clay pot, I feel like I’m ready for anything.”

  * * *

  The shop was especially quiet that afternoon, which was a good thing. I kept looking at the recipes I’d printed out at Coco’s. They were good. I felt proud of them. More important, the two of us had had a blast when we’d worked on them. The reality that Coco and I would never get another opportunity to spend time in the kitchen together hit me. No more good-natured teasing about the fact that she thought I liked things too spicy and I thought she liked things too salty. No more tasting back and forth. No more laughing together with spoons in our hands.

  Then I started to get mad. Someone had taken that from me. Someone had shoved Coco hard enough to have her stumble backward and hit her head on that credenza. Someone had stolen something truly precious to me.

  At six thirty, Sprocket and I stomped home. Not even a trip to the lighthouse managed to calm me, especially since I ran into, of all people, Jessica. She was struggling with the door to the lighthouse with her left hand because her right arm was in a sling.

  I jogged up to her, Sprocket on my heels. “Let me help you.”

  She whirled. “I think you’ve helped me enough today, don’t you think, Rebecca?” She didn’t look so hot.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica. I really thought the car could catch fire. If you hadn’t been so drunk that you couldn’t get out of the car on your own, you would have been fine.” I backed away. Sprocket growled. I looped his leash a little tighter around my hand. He’d never bitten anyone. It would be my luck if he decided to take a chunk out of Jessica as his first biting offense.

  “I wasn’t drunk.” Her voice sounded thick and a little shaky. “I wasn’t. I . . . I had taken some cough medicine. It must have made me sleepy.”

  The old cough medicine excuse. I’d heard that one before. It was possible I’d even used it before. “Whatever. I thought you were in danger. You could at least let me help with the lighthouse door to make up for it.”

  “Oh, fine.” She handed over the keys.

  I unlocked the door and handed them back. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

  She breathed in through her nostrils loudly and then out in a sniff. “The historical preservation society meets here every Friday. It’s my job to unlock the lighthouse and set up the snacks.” She motioned to two grocery bags by her feet.

  “I can help with those, too.” I carried them in for her and set them on the folding tables along the edge of the room. “Can I put this stuff out for you?”

  She nodded.

  I pulled out some bakery trays of cookies and some little sandwiches, and then put out the drinks. As I was finishing, Brandy Johnson and Olive Hicks walked in. They both froze when they saw me.

  “Hello, Rebecca,” Brandy said in a tone that was decidedly chilly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was walking by and saw Jessica trying to set up. I thought I’d help her.”

  “We would have thought you’d helped her enough today.” Olive sniffed.

  “That’s funny. That’s what Jessica . . .” My words trailed off. It had been what Jessica had said. It was probably what everybody was saying.

  I said good night and went home.

  Fifteen

  As Sprocket and I walked up the driveway, Evan raced toward us, arms stretched out like an airplane, with his Batman cape streaming behind him. He stopped a few feet before he reached us, jumped into what I thought was supposed to be a karate pose and yelled, “Hiya!”

  “Hiya, yourself,” I replied. Sprocket licked his face and he giggled.

  “Mama won’t let me play on the slide in my Batman cape,” Evan informed me, falling into step beside me as I walked toward the house. “She says I’ll dangle and hurted myself.”

  “Your mama’s pretty smart.” And read a lot of parenting magazines as well.

  “But I wanna wear my Batman cape and I wanna go down the slide.” His sweet face crumpled.

  “Life’s full of hard choices, little man.” I patted him on the head between his Batman ears.

  He looked up at me as if suddenly remembering something. “Why’d you hurt Miss Jessica, Auntie Becca?”

  Unbelievable. My three-year-old nephew was in on the Jessica gossip. This town sucked. “I did not hurt Miss Jessica. I saved Miss Jessica. Miss Jessica crashed her car because she was dr—”

  “You’re here.” Haley lumbered down the porch, cutting me off. She looked at me through narrowed eyes and mimed locking her mouth and throwing away the key. Evan took off on another airplane swoop around the yard.

  “How does Evan know about Jessica and me? Who gossips with three-year-olds?” I demanded.

  “No one gossips with three-year-olds, but they notice when their preschool teacher doesn’t show up and a bunch of the moms have to step in.” Haley sat down on the porch step. “The moms then gossip. Some three-year-olds listen too closely.”

  I sat down next to her and looked over to where Evan zoomed around making motor noises. “He doesn’t look like the eavesdropping type.”

  “All kids are the eavesdropping type.” She nudged me with her elbow. “You were the worst.”

  I had been, too. I had been all about knowing what the grown-ups were talking about until I became one of the favorite topics of conversation, as in, “What are we going to do about Rebecca?” Then I’d lost interest.

  “Plus, it was a big deal. Everyone was upset. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had heard something slightly different from someone else they felt was an unassailable source,” Haley said.

  I put my head down on my knees. “I really thought I was helping. I really though
t I might be saving her life. I don’t suppose anybody mentioned that.”

  Haley patted my back. “Not so much. Maybe that’ll be part of the conversation next week.”

  “Do you need help with dinner?” I asked. That was one thing I was pretty sure I could help with that I wouldn’t screw up.

  “Yes, please.” She sighed. “My feet are killing me.”

  I looked down. She had on slippers instead of shoes and her feet looked swollen. “Sit here and watch Evan. I’ll take over.”

  I made my way to the kitchen and surveyed what I had before me. It looked like roasted chicken with potatoes and green beans. Solid choices except that I didn’t want to be the one to get Evan to try green beans again. I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

  I loosened the skin on the chickens and pushed butter mashed with rosemary, sage and thyme between the meat and the skin. I rubbed the inside with kosher salt and the outside with olive oil and kosher salt. I slipped some sliced onion into the chickens then trussed those birds up and got them in the oven.

  Next up were the potatoes. I washed them, diced them, tossed them with more olive oil, rosemary and kosher salt and then popped them in the oven as well. Easy peasy.

  Now I had to face the green beans. I cleaned them while I considered my options. Then I dug in the refrigerator for bacon. I was fairly certain that the addition of bacon could make almost anything better. I chopped the bacon and tossed it in a sauté pan with onions. Once that was done, I removed the bacon with a slotted spoon and sautéed the green beans in the bacon grease.

  As always, at some point, I got lost. The smell of the herbs and the butter and the bacon and the chicken and the potatoes. The rhythm of the dicing and the slicing and the chopping. The dance between the stove and the counters and the sink and the fridge. It soothed me. I vaguely heard Haley coming in with Evan at one point.

  Then Dan and Garrett were coming in the front door. “It smells amazing in here,” Dan said as he made his way into the kitchen with two grocery bags.

  “I hope you have wine and appetizers in there,” I said, coming out of my reverie.