“If you have anything more to tell us, now would be the time,” Officer Williams said in a gentle tone. “These are just kids, remember.”
Emilio shook his head again as he turned away from them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Penelope.
“Are you okay?” Arlena asked, rubbing the red spots on Penelope’s arm.
“I guess,” Penelope said, still a bit stunned.
Max excused himself and went to Sackler’s to pick up some groceries before they headed back to the boat.
“I know he’s your former teacher and everything, but he seems like a jerk, Pen,” Arlena said with concern after Max left.
Penelope put her hand on her hips and looked at the sidewalk, going back over their conversation in her mind.
“What were you talking about, the thing at school?” Arlena asked.
Penelope looked up and said, “He left his position teaching at culinary school because two students came forward and said he was inappropriate with them in the kitchen and after hours. One of them said they had a sexual relationship, at least that’s what I heard.”
“Those are serious accusations,” Arlena said sharply.
“I know, it was bad,” Penelope said quickly. “But eventually both girls withdrew their complaints. He had already resigned as part of a settlement with the school and the students involved.”
“Were these underage girls?” Arlena asked.
Penelope shook her head. “No, culinary school is like college, students are all ages. Some of the students are young, like I was, right out of high school. Both of the girls involved were in my track, and roughly my age, so maybe twenty at the time.”
“What was the issue, then?” Arlena asked.
“The school has a policy against chef instructors fraternizing with students. Which is funny, in a way. I went out to dinner all the time with my teachers, usually in a group, and we talked about the food and wine, like an extension of what we were learning in the kitchens. I think the line is easy to cross, you know? The nature of the craft is social.”
“You said it was two female students. Maybe he has a thing for young girls,” Arlena said.
“Maybe,” Penelope said, holding her palms up weakly and shrugging. “He was exonerated back then. I hate to think the same kind of thing is happening to him again, or worse, all of it is true.”
Arlena’s face set in a stern frown. “You have to wonder about someone getting into similar trouble more than once. He’s the common factor in both situations.”
Penelope nodded, worry twisting her stomach. “I always thought it was odd, thinking back about what happened at school. One day he was there and the next day he was gone. And the two students who accused him weren’t anything alike, weren’t friends, not that I remember. I wondered about them plotting against him with each other, but it didn’t seem realistic at the time.”
“Why do you say that?” Arlena asked.
“I don’t know. I just could never work it out in my mind. After Emilio left, I tried to put the rumors about him out of my mind and just focus on graduating. Things were different at the school; the other instructors kept their distance, the atmosphere had changed.”
Max walked back over to them, a grocery bag dangling from his hand.
“Come on, let’s head back to the boat,” Arlena said.
“You guys go ahead,” Penelope said. She straightened her shoulders and adjusted her backpack straps. “I want to see if I can find Sabena’s mom, try and think of a way to help.”
“Are you sure?” Arlena asked, concern pinching her face. “The police are doing everything they can to find the girls, Pen.”
“I know. I just need to do something to help, or I’m going to go nuts. I feel like part of this is my fault. I left them at the party. I should have kept better watch over them, offered them a ride home. I didn’t do enough to protect them.”
“Pen, you’re their boss, not their mother,” Max said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Penelope hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I won’t be able to stop thinking about it if I don’t try and help. I’ll catch up with you guys in a little while.”
Penelope watched Max and Arlena walk back towards the docks, then saw Henny Sackler outside her grocery store, bending over to refill the crates of fruit on the front porch. When she saw Penelope’s shadow approaching from behind her, she stood up and turned around quickly.
“Penelope, nice to see you,” Henny said warmly. She dropped her voice a notch and said, “I saw you talking with those detectives, and that new fellow.” She looked over Penelope’s shoulder at the sidewalk where Emilio and the detectives had been. Penelope looked too, and noticed many of the neighbors had remained on their porches, a few of them still gazing at the Craw Daddy’s truck.
“Have the police talked to you yet?” Penelope asked.
“Oh, yes. You know, I think they’re questioning everyone. I’m sorry to say I have no idea where those girls might be. When I heard they went missing late Friday night…well, I’m in bed by nine. Early hours at the store, you know. I’m afraid I’m no help with anything that happens later than that around here.”
“Do you know the girls?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been on the island my whole life. It’s safe to say I know just about everyone.”
An older man in faded swimming trunks walked toward them from the parking lot. He removed his straw hat and bowed slightly to Henny. “How you doing, Henny? I’m here for my weekly order,” he said through gapped teeth. Henny said goodbye to Penelope quickly and ushered him inside.
Penelope stood still for a moment, deciding her next move. She selected a few oranges and grapefruits from the crates, and placed them in a sun-bleached shopping basket.
Chapter 7
Penelope walked up Ocean Avenue, a paper shopping bag from Sackler’s swinging from her hand. The sun beat down on the top of her head and she thought about the hat on the counter in her bathroom back on the yacht.
She made a left on Seafoam Avenue and slowed her pace, squinting at the numbers on the weathered mailboxes as she walked. At the end of the cul-de-sac, she knocked on the door of number twelve, grateful for the shade the small porch provided. The house was faded green with beech-wood shutters, and the front window rattled slightly when Mrs. Lambert pulled the door open. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, her expression a mix of fear and hopefulness. She squinted at Penelope through the dirty screen door and her mouth fell open, but she said nothing.
“Mrs. Lambert,” Penelope said, “I…” Penelope suddenly forgot what she had practiced saying on the walk over.
Mrs. Lambert continued to stare at her through the screen.
Penelope hoisted up the bag, offering it to the stunned woman. “I brought some groceries. I wasn’t sure what—”
“Penelope,” Mrs. Lambert said, as if waking up from a dream. She swung the door outward, the squeaking hinges sounding loudly in the damp air. “Come in.”
Penelope stepped inside, momentarily blinded by the dark interior of the living room. Mrs. Lambert shuffled behind her, picking up a remote and muting the large flat screen television that teetered on a too-small cabinet in the corner of the room. A doorway next to it led to the kitchen and Penelope went through, placing the grocery bag on the counter, pushing aside a stack of bills and junk mail. She looked back through the doorway and saw Mrs. Lambert was sitting on the couch, staring at the television, a cordless phone lying in her lap.
“I picked up a few things for you,” Penelope said tentatively. “Some fruit and a rotisserie chicken from Sackler’s.”
Mrs. Lambert looked away from the television and at Penelope standing in the kitchen doorway. “I’m not supposed to leave the house, in case Bean calls.” She looked down at the ding
y white phone in her lap, willing it to ring. Her eyes slid back to the television, focusing on a twenty-four-hour news channel. Tickers sped across the bottom of the screen, announcing news from places in the world far away from Andrea Island.
Penelope paused a moment, concerned that whatever she might say would be the wrong thing. “Can I do anything for you?” she finally asked.
Mrs. Lambert shook her head slowly at the television. “Bean is a good girl. She always calls when she’s going to be out late. Never any problems.”
“Is there anyone who can come and be with you while you wait?” Penelope asked.
“I do everything on my own,” Mrs. Lambert said dreamily. Penelope’s eyes flicked to a prescription bottle next to a box of tissues on the end table beside her.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call someone from your family? Maybe Sabena is with—”
Mrs. Lambert let out a quick laugh, the first time she seemed not in a daze. “I already called her dad. He’s in Vermont. He was no good to us when he was around, but he’s decent enough to let me know if she’d turned up there. He can’t be bothered with us.” She sighed and sank back against the couch.
Penelope glanced down the hallway off the living room. “Can I use your bathroom?”
Mrs. Lambert nodded and waved lazily behind her, un-muting the television. News of a natural disaster somewhere far away echoed off the bare walls of the living room.
Penelope closed the door behind her and washed her hands in the pink porcelain sink, dabbing a few drops of water on her forehead. The noise from the television increased, and she could hear the news report clearly through the door. She looked at the faded pink, bleach-stained towels hanging behind her and decided to air dry her hands, since they looked like they hadn’t been washed recently. She pulled aside the shower curtain, exposing the vintage pink porcelain tub. The grout was wearing away in a few spots, but it was relatively clean. She popped open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and poked through a few pill vials, recognizing the names of a few anti-anxiety medicines, their names familiar from commercials she’d seen.
The phone rang on the other side of the door and Penelope jumped, closing the medicine cabinet with a snap. She stepped out into the hallway and looked at the back of Mrs. Lambert’s head over the couch as she spoke on the phone.
“No, nothing yet,” Mrs. Lambert said, her voice breaking at the end. She began to nod as she listened to someone on the phone, and then she started to cry, grabbing a handful of tissues from the box next to her. “I am…I will…” she said wetly, answering the tinny voice on the other end.
Penelope looked back down the hallway at two bedroom doors, slightly ajar and facing each other. The one on the left was decorated with sparkly blue and white letters, spelling out Sabena’s name. Mrs. Lambert continued to talk on the phone while Penelope slipped down the hall and into the girl’s bedroom.
Sabena’s bed was made, the thin comforter pulled tight and tucked under her pillow. The walls were covered in posters, a collage of familiar musicians and athletes. A collection of trophies and a pink jewelry box with a ballerina dancing across the lid sat on top of a small bookcase next to the desk. Penelope eased open the jewelry box, which held a few imitation gold necklaces, several sets of stud earrings and Sabena’s class ring, a thick silver band with a blue gem in the middle.
Penelope slid open the folding closet doors. Sabena’s clothes hung on matching white hangers and two rows of shoes were lined up on the floor. A collection of stuffed bears stared down from a shelf above the hangers next to a short pile of sweatshirts, folded and stacked neatly in the center. Penelope stepped up on her toes and looked further back on the shelf, noticing a box with a small gold latch on it that had been pushed against the wall.
Penelope glanced at the bedroom door, still hearing the loud television and one side of Mrs. Lambert’s conversation from the other room. She reached up and pulled the box towards her, almost toppling the sweatshirts onto the floor in the process. Penelope propped the box in the crook of her arm and eased open the top, two silky ribbons in the corners stretching tautly between the box and the lid. An envelope was on top, torn open at the seam. Penelope plucked it out, then walked over to Sabena’s desk and placed the box on it to get a better look. She peered inside and saw it was a form letter from the University of Florida, thanking Sabena for her interest in the school and directing her to different websites to get more information about enrolling. Penelope tucked the letter back inside the envelope and looked through the other contents of the box.
Several photographs were stacked together, the first one of two girls around six years old, one with dark hair and one white blond in matching bikinis, fingers linked in front of a plastic wading pool. Penelope smiled when she recognized Sabena and Rebekkah squinting into the camera, the sun shining brightly on their little faces. Rebekkah was missing a front tooth and Sabena had hooked a finger in the side of her mouth, pulling a face at the photographer. Penelope recognized Mrs. Lambert in the next photo sitting next to a man, who she assumed was Sabena’s father, on what looked like the same beige couch that was out in the living room. They appeared to be close to Sabena’s age now in the photograph, two kids looking uncomfortable and stiff with small smiles on their faces.
As Penelope looked through the photos, an odd smell rose up, a sharp tinge of something burnt. Penelope crinkled her nose and pushed aside a stack of school achievement certificates, finding a plastic bag at the bottom, the top zipped closed. Penelope picked up the bag, looking through the plastic at a charred piece of material and some ripped photographs. She glanced again at the door and opened the bag, the smell of charred fabric hitting her nose immediately. She pulled out the scrap of material, seeing that it was burned the whole way around, as if it had been rescued at the last minute before disappearing into ash. It was thick polyester, dingy white with blue stripes. There were torn threads sticking up from the material, as if something had been ripped from it, in the shape of two letters: A and C.
Penelope looked at the material a few more seconds, then focused on the photographs inside the bag. There were about half a dozen, all of them ripped or burned, with only Sabena left in the remnants. Penelope plucked one of the halves from the bag, a picture of Sabena coyly eyeing the camera to the right of a jagged rip. She was on the beach at night, the dark ocean water visible behind her. Penelope shook the plastic bag gently to shuffle the pieces of photos but could tell the other half wasn’t inside. A man’s arm lay lightly across her back, his index finger slipped under the strap of the bathing suit strap on her left shoulder. Penelope held the picture closer, looking for any rings or other distinguishing features.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Lambert said from the doorway.
Penelope jumped and dropped the photo and plastic bag on the floor. Mrs. Lambert eyed her wearily, bringing a wad of tissues up to her nose.
“Nothing, just looking for something that might help us find the girls,” Penelope said, quickly snatching up the bag and replacing all the items in the box.
“Did you find anything?” Mrs. Lambert asked curiously as she wandered over to the desk.
“Maybe. Does Sabena have a boyfriend?” Penelope asked.
“No,” Mrs. Lambert answered quickly. “She’s not allowed. School comes first, she knows that.”
“She’s not allowed to date?”
“Not until senior year,” Mrs. Lambert said, clearing her throat. “And even then…there’s plenty of time for all of that, but for now she’s way too young. Why?”
Penelope plucked the plastic bag from the box and showed her the ripped pictures. “Looks like she was trying to cut someone out of her life. Who is this?” Penelope asked, pointing to the picture with the man’s hand.
“Sabena’s got a lot of friends, boys and girls, always has. She’s very well-liked, a student athlete.” Mrs. L
ambert laughed weakly and rolled her eyes. “I asked her about these, caught her looking through them one night after she was supposed to be in bed. She got into a beef with another girl on her volleyball team at school. The girl graduated and went off to college last year. I told the detectives about it when they found these.” She tucked the picture back in the bag and closed the box. “You know how kids are, best friends one minute, mortal enemies the next. Luckily she and Rebekkah have always been like sisters. That was her mom on the phone, checking in.”
Penelope looked at the box, and folded her arms across her chest.
“I appreciate you stopping by. That was real nice of you. I’m going to lie down for a while,” Mrs. Lambert said, swaying slightly on her feet.
“Of course. If there’s anything—”
“I know. That’s what everyone says,” Mrs. Lambert said, a sharp edge in her voice. “Everyone wants to help. But that’s not bringing my baby back to me, is it?”
Chapter 8
Penelope walked back down Ocean Avenue, the thick wet air making it hard to pull in a breath. She kept thinking about that hand on Sabena’s shoulder, the familiarity of the touch beneath her strap, the look on Sabena’s face, trying to act so grown up when she had yet to shake all of the childlike features from the photo when she was just a little girl, playing in the yard with her best friend.
As she got closer to the docks she saw Detectives Torres and Williams again, in the same spot she had left them earlier, outside the vacant building next to Sackler’s market. She quickened her step when she saw Emilio also.
“Okay, Mr. Babineau, open it up,” Detective Torres ordered, nodding at the frosted glass on the front doors of the vacant building. They were secured with a thick chain and a large padlock.
Murder on the Half Shell (A Red Carpet Catering Mystery Book 2) Page 6