Kernel of Truth

by Kristi Abbott

  “And timing is everything.”

  Sixteen

  Amherst, Ohio, is about fifteen miles from Grand Lake. You pop down to Highway 2 and head east. The road is straight, and on a crisp fall day with the trees starting to turn, it’s kind of pretty. That still did not explain why on earth Coco would have chosen to take something to be copied all the way in Amherst when we have a perfectly good copy shop two blocks away from Coco’s Cocoas in Grand Lake. Especially since Coco liked driving less and less. She said she didn’t trust her reflexes the way she used to.

  The next day, I left Susanna in charge of the shop as soon as she’d gotten there after school—not that there was much happening. Garrett showed up to buy a breakfast bar, I think just out of pity. Janet Barry came in for her little bag of caramel cashew popcorn, but she acted even more like she was doing a drug deal than usual. She kept glancing over her shoulder and checking who might be on the sidewalk. She actually asked if she could go out the back. They had been my only customers all day. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep the shop open with that kind of slowdown, especially after depleting my bank accounts to pay Jessica all the money I had owed Coco.

  Sprocket and I got in the Jeep at around three thirty and headed off to Amherst to pick up whatever Coco had felt was important enough to take to another town to get copied. Sprocket had given me a look and sat down when I’d opened the car door. I’d dangled a treat in front of him to induce him to jump in. Hoisting fifty-plus pounds of standard poodle into a four-by-four with decent clearance was more of a workout than I’d wanted. He still hadn’t budged. Finally, I’d said, “No vet.” He’d jumped in, scarfed the Milk-Bone down in one gulp and settled in with a grin.

  “Dr. Ambrose is not the devil, you know,” I’d told him after I got in, but Sprocket had snorted his disdain. I knew better than to argue with him and instead I started the Jeep and we went off on our adventure.

  Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of the Kinko’s on Cleveland Avenue. I cracked the windows on the Jeep for Sprocket, went into the store and got in line. Now I really wondered why Coco had driven this far. There was never a line at Kendall’s Copies in Grand Lake.

  When it was my turn, I presented the ticket to the stout woman behind the counter and smiled.

  She did not smile back. She pushed the ticket back at me and said, “You’re not Ms. Bittles.”

  Surprised that she even knew, I pushed the ticket back to her. “No. I’m not. I’m picking this up for her.”

  She slid the ticket back toward me again. “Do you have some kind of note from Ms. Bittles saying she gave you permission? Or should I call her?” She leaned back like she’d won some sort of contest.

  Coco was one of those people who won people’s admiration and loyalty all the time, but I was still a little surprised that the FedEx counter girl was this protective. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Coco passed away.”

  I’d said it as gently as I could, but the counter girl reeled back as if I’d shoved her. “She what? What happened?”

  I didn’t feel like I could possibly go into the details. “The police aren’t sure. They’re investigating.”

  She glanced behind me at the growing line, then she called over her shoulder to one of her coworkers. “Paul, can you take over here for a minute?”

  A bright-eyed twentysomething kid with curly hair and a nice smile nodded and walked up next to her. “I can help who’s next.”

  She gestured with her head for me to meet her at the end of the counter. She leaned forward and whispered. “Are you saying Coco was murdered?”

  “It looks like it might be a burglary gone wrong, but yes.”

  She put her hand to her heart for a second and then took a deep breath. “And who exactly are you?”

  “I’m Rebecca Anderson. I had the shop next door to hers and . . .”

  “The popcorn lady. Got it.” She held up her index finger. “I’ll be right back.”

  While she went into the back, I leaned back to get a glimpse of Sprocket in the parking lot. He’d moved into the driver’s seat and had put both paws up on the steering wheel. Two little boys were pointing and a girl in jeans so skinny they looked like a second skin took a cell phone photo of him.

  The counter girl came back and dropped three three-ring binders down in front of me. “Here’s the plan.”

  I waited, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “Well, do you want them or not?” she finally asked. “I’m pretty sure Ms. Bittles meant one of the copies for you.”

  I looked at the front cover. It read: Bittles/Anderson Merger Plan: Coco Pop Fudge Empire.

  The Holy Grail. The business plan no one believed me about. The one Coco had been working on. I ran my finger over the lettering. They’d have to believe me now.

  “I’ll take them.” I followed Counter Girl over to the payment area.

  “What day did you say Coco died?” she asked.

  “Two weeks ago Thursday,” I said.

  She checked a tag on the top binder. “That was the day after I called her to tell her the order was ready.” She shook her head. “She said she’d come by the next afternoon before it got dark.” She shivered. “Wow. Creepy.”

  And another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Coco had closed the shop early to come to Amherst to pick up the business plan copies.

  Except she hadn’t picked them up. And she hadn’t left the shop. And she hadn’t turned on the lights. And she didn’t have glass on her shoes.

  I hugged the binders to my chest as I left the shop. I had a lot more questions, but at least I had proof that I wasn’t a liar and that Coco hadn’t planned on retiring.

  * * *

  On the way home, I called Garrett and asked him to meet me at Dan and Haley’s. They were all there together when I got back from Amherst. I plunked the binders down on the dining room table in front of them and said, “See? I told you so.”

  “What are we looking at?” Garrett took the top binder and pulled it over to himself.

  “The business plan Coco was making for us.” I drew myself up taller.

  “Where did you get these, Rebecca?” Dan’s voice was unexpectedly sharp.

  “From the FedEx in Amherst. Coco took them there to be copied and put in the binders.” It was so like her to have the plan organized into sections with tabs and dividers and everything. I’d glanced through. There were even charts and graphs. Charts and graphs were serious stuff.

  “She told you that?” Dan asked.

  “No.” I was starting to feel like I’d missed something. There was something in his tone.

  “Then how did you know to get them there?” His tone was even sharper than it had been before.

  “I found the little ticket thing they give you when you drop something off. You know, like the thingie for the dry cleaner.” I realized now what extremely thin ice I was treading on.

  “Where did you find it?” Dan’s shoulders were tense, and I could see the muscles in his jaw as he clenched his teeth.

  I stared at him. The clock in the hallway ticked each second as we sat there, eyes locked. Light glinted on his badge. Finally, I said, “You can’t possibly believe that I had anything to do with Coco’s death. You just can’t.”

  “You’re not giving me a lot of choice, Rebecca.” He started ticking items off on his fingers. “You were the last one to leave the shops that night. You’ve been caught rifling through her papers in her house and in her shop. You have a long-standing feud with her heir. Go ahead and stop me anytime.”

  “Fine. I will. I have keys—keys that Coco gave me—to both her shop and her house. Why on earth would I have bashed in the back window of her shop when I could just let myself in with the key?” I leaned forward, glaring.

  “I don’t know.” He leaned forward, too. “Maybe to make it look
like someone had broken in, to cover your tracks. That would explain why there was glass on the bottom of Coco’s cane, but none on the bottom of her shoes. Whoever staged that scene used the cane to bash in the window. Plus, the only fingerprints on that damn cane were yours. There weren’t even any of Coco’s prints on it.”

  “So you’re drinking the Jessica Kool-Aid, too? You think I had something to do with Coco’s death?” I could not believe this. I could not believe Dan would take Jessica’s side over mine. “The cane had my fingerprints because I moved it aside to get to Coco!”

  “There is no Kool-Aid, and I’m investigating this case. Everyone is a suspect until I say they’re not, and you’re not helping by going into people’s houses and offices and removing evidence.” Dan threw his hands up in the air.

  I leaned over the table to look at him eye-to-eye. “Well, somebody has to look at the evidence.”

  Dan’s face flushed and I realized I’d gone too far. If I could have grabbed those words and stuffed them back in my mouth, I would have. Being a chef has taught me to eat just about anything, but rarely my own words. I dropped my head. “I’m sorry, Dan. I didn’t mean that.”

  Dan didn’t answer for a second. Finally, he said, “I think you better go, Bec. Try to stay out of trouble, will you?”

  I left, but with a backward look over my shoulder at Dan and Haley. Dan gripped the edge of the dining room table so hard his knuckles were turning almost as white as Haley’s face had gone. I waved and went out the door.

  * * *

  I trudged up the stairs to the apartment with Sprocket on my heels. We went in and I looked around at my apartment. It didn’t feel fun and colorful anymore. It looked stupid. Like a child with a too-big box of Crayolas had gone wild in it.

  I’d found the business plan, the one that was supposed to prove that I wasn’t a loser, and it hadn’t proved anything. Even my sister and my best friend didn’t think it proved anything. And now, to make matters worse, I’d insulted them.

  Maybe I should give up. I’d tried. I’d tried super hard. I’d worked long hours. I’d made plans. I’d tried new things. Where had it gotten me?

  Back where I’d been in high school. Feeling like the whole town was against me. Feeling completely alone. Feeling like a total failure.

  Antoine wanted me back. It’s not like life with him was so miserable. I’d lived in a beautiful home in one of the most gorgeous areas of the country. I was constantly being given fabulous food and amazing wine. I didn’t even have to work if I didn’t want to and if I did want to, I would have connections everywhere. People would bend over backward to be nice to me so they could get close to Antoine. So what if I’d been abandoned in Minneapolis in January? It’s not like he didn’t get me on the next plane to Miami. Everybody forgets his wife in a frozen tundra once in a while, right?

  All it would take would be one phone call. One word from me. That life could be mine again. I started to reach for my cell phone, but Sprocket chose that moment to bound up into my lap and lick the tears from my face. Stupid dog. Salt water just makes you more thirsty. I’d barely gotten him back down on the floor when there was a knock at the door.

  “Rebecca? You in there?” It was Garrett.

  “What do you want?” I asked, not getting up to answer the door.

  “You forgot the business plans. I, uh, thought you might want them, so I brought them up.”

  I should probably have told him to go burn them, but then I remembered all the work Coco had put into them. Maybe I should keep them if only as a memento of her sharp brain. I walked over and opened the door.

  “Nice of you to carry my books for me,” I said, standing back to let him in.

  “I try to be chivalrous to my clients even when they’re going out of their way to incriminate themselves. You got that ticket out of Coco’s house the night you broke in there, didn’t you?” He handed me the binders.

  “I didn’t break in! I had keys!” Why couldn’t anyone understand that? “And I didn’t find the ticket there. I found her to-do list there.”

  “Stop splitting hairs, Rebecca.” Garrett sounded almost as weary as Dan had.

  “They’re not hairs. They’re facts. I didn’t break in any more than I broke into her office where I found that FedEx ticket.” If you can’t come clean to your lawyer, who can you come clean to?

  Garrett groaned. “Seriously? Her office, too?”

  “Yes. Her office, too.” Why not let it all hang out?

  “Did anyone see you?” he asked.

  “Only Annie.” She wouldn’t rat me out. At least, she wouldn’t unless she got on the “I hate Rebecca” bandwagon everyone else was riding.

  “Not a good idea, Rebecca.” He shook his head.

  “Says who?” I flopped down on the couch.

  “Grand Lake’s preeminent defense attorney.” He made a bow before sitting down next to me.

  I snorted. “Preeminent defense attorney? How’d you get that title?”

  “Well, I am currently representing one hundred percent of the murder suspects in Grand Lake. That is if you still count Jasper as a murder suspect since the judge let him off with time served for his assault on Huerta with the frying pan.” He stretched his long arm out over the back of the couch.

  “There are two of us. I think your statistics are spurious. Or maybe they’re specious. I can never keep those two straight.” Plus, my head hurt. Maybe my heart hurt a little, too.

  “The important thing about both of them is that they both mean I’m at least right on the surface.” Damn, he looked smug when he smiled.

  “And the surface is where it stops. Neither Jasper nor I killed Coco, and you know it. So does Dan.” I pulled the afghan over my lap.

  “I know it. You know it. Dan knows it. At this rate, though, I’m not one hundred percent sure the district attorney knows it, and I’m really not one hundred percent sure that the people of Grand Lake, at least some of whom would be in your jury pool, know it,” he said.

  “Jury pool?” I squeaked. “I’m going to be tried?”

  He held up his hands to stop me. “Not yet, but you’ve got to try to lie low, Rebecca. You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

  No. I’d been too busy doing favors for little old ladies in the hospital and drunk women in crashed Honda Civics, and look where that had gotten me. “How am I supposed to lie any lower than I’ve been lying?”

  “You could start by not snooping around in old ladies’ houses at night and getting yourself arrested for breaking and entering.” He brushed the hair off my forehead. He held up his hands. “I know you had keys. It doesn’t make it look any better.”

  I sighed.

  “You could also turn evidence over to Dan instead of running off to snoop into things yourself,” Garrett said.

  “Like what evidence?”

  “Like the FedEx ticket and the to-do list. Actually, give them to me now and I’ll take them to Dan. I’m not sure he wants to see you right now.” I got up and fished the ticket out of my purse and then went and got Coco’s to-do-list notepad from my desk and handed them over.

  “Did you seriously do the pencil rubbing thing to see her to-do list?” Garrett looked at the notepad and shook his head.

  I blushed. It had seemed totally logical to me. “I had to if I wanted to see what was on it.”

  Garrett stopped shaking his head. In fact, he sat very still. “But the actual to-do list wasn’t in her office?”

  “Not that I saw and clearly not that Dan saw.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. Then it dawned on me. “You think the killer took her to-do list?”

  He shrugged. “I know it sounds pretty far-fetched. It was just a thought.” He stood up and headed for the door.

  I followed him, and then suddenly we were there somehow standing too close to each other again.

 
He leaned forward and his lips touched mine. Time ground to a halt. There was me. There was him. There were our mouths joined together. Then I pushed him away and looked behind him.

  “Are you looking for something?”

  “Sprocket,” I said. “I thought maybe he pushed you again.”

  He laughed and shook his head. Then he looped his arm around my waist and pulled me against him. “No, Rebecca. This is all me.”

  * * *

  After Garrett left, which I made him do before any of our clothing got seriously disarranged despite the fact that the kisses had been darn nice, I pulled Coco’s business plan binder onto my lap. It started with an executive summary then moved on to a business concept description. I felt I was following pretty well until I hit the financial features and requirements section. There were a lot of charts and graphs and a lot of numbers. Like piles of numbers.

  My relationship with numbers was somewhat troubled. Somehow I was fine with them in the kitchen. Cups and ounces, doubling and halving, converting to metric. No big deal as long as it was in a recipe. Put a dollar sign in front of something? It stopped me in my tracks like a deer preparing to become venison in front of a set of headlights.

  Here’s the thing about recipes. They don’t really mean much. They are, in the end, only as good as the person making the dish. You have to be a little like Kenny Rogers’s gambler. You have to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. You have to know when to follow the directions to the letter and when to let your own creativity shine. You have to be able to feel them in your bones. Your blood has to bubble and froth with your soups. Your heart has to beat with the rhythm of your whisk. Otherwise a recipe is nothing more than a set of words on a piece of paper.

  I highly suspected a business plan was much the same. It would only be as good as the person who was following the plan.

  I equally highly suspected I was not the person who would know how to make a business plan sing. I knew my way around a kitchen. I could make food that would make people feel. I could make a mac and cheese that would make you think you were being held on your grandmother’s lap and a Prosecco sorbet that would make you think you had just fallen in love. I wasn’t sure I could make a popcorn and chocolate wonderland that would have people driving from all over northern Ohio to experience it without bankrupting my already-broke self.