Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club)

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  “I told Lisa Leann she could leave Kyle here,” Vonnie said. “But she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  I nodded. “I imagine not,” I said. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to have the organizational meeting another time.”

  Vonnie’s phone rang, and she answered it, carried on a quiet conversation for a minute or two, then hung up the phone. “That was Dora Watkins,” she said. “She’s the person who calls me on the prayer chain.”

  “Who do you call?” I asked.

  “Me,” Lizzie supplied as she walked past me and toward the kitchen door. Then she stopped and looked at Evie. “And I call Evangeline.”

  “Who calls me,” I said. My call was to Sarah Brim, a woman who played the organ for the church. “I’ll call Sarah as soon as I get in the car.”

  Forty minutes later we had Vonnie’s house back in order, dishes put away, and leftovers covered and either in the refrigerator or in our hands. We said our good-byes and headed for our individual cars.

  As soon as I settled into mine—and before I turned on the car—I placed three calls. The first was to Sarah, who wasn’t home, so I left a message on her answering machine. The second was to Olivia, who was bathing the baby.

  “I’d like to come by this evening,” I said to her. “I’d like to talk to you about something.”

  “It sounds serious,” she said with a forced lilt to her voice.

  “It is. But I’d rather come when the kids have been put to bed. Tony should be there too.”

  There was a long pause before she said, “Okay. Sure. I’m getting the kids ready for bed now. So . . . in about an hour?”

  “Make it two.”

  “Mom, it’s 7:30 now.”

  “I know, Olivia. I’ve been able to tell time since I was a child.” I felt my shoulders drop. I hadn’t meant to snap. “I’m sorry, honey. I have one other thing I need to do before I get there.”

  “Well, okay, then. We’ll be waiting up for you. But, Mom. Don’t keep me waiting too long, okay?”

  Honestly, sometimes I wondered who the mother was and who the child was within our relationship.

  After I hung up with Olivia, I called Andrew Morrow’s cell phone number, the one he’d given me if I “ever needed anything.”

  “Can you meet me at the house?” I asked him.

  “Sure, in say . . . about an hour?”

  “Can you make it a half hour?”

  “I guess I can. I was just walking in the door of my apartment. I’ll grab a quick bite and be right there.”

  “I appreciate it.” With those words I started the car.

  “Is there anything wrong?”

  “No,” I said. “But you said if I ever needed anything . . .”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He sounded genuinely interested in whatever help he could be. Now, I thought, if I could just figure out exactly what I was going to do next.

  ———

  I’d only been home a few minutes when the front doorbell rang. I opened the door to see Andrew standing on my front porch, sporting a suit and looking remarkably like Jack. For a split second I wondered how it could have been that I’d never noticed—that no one had noticed before.

  I forced a smile. “My goodness, that was fast.”

  He stepped into the living room as I stepped back to allow him entrance. “I was worried something was wrong. I figured I could eat dinner later.”

  “Do you want me to fix you something?” I said. “I’ve got some ham, some leftover green field peas . . .”

  He chuckled. “You always seem to be offering me ham.”

  “Well, it’s delicious. And this time it’s my own. I made a wonderful raisin sauce.”

  “Maybe later.” He took a deep breath then blew it out the way men do. “I was thinking on the way over . . .” He paused and pointed to the sofa. “Can we sit down?”

  I felt myself blush. Offering to seat your guest was the job of the hostess, and here he was taking over as if he owned the house. “I’m sorry. Yes.”

  I went immediately to the sofa. Andrew sat in Jack’s favorite recliner. He unbuttoned his suit coat as he did, then flexed his broad shoulders and allowed his elbows to rest on his knees. “I was thinking on the way over here . . .” he began again, then hung his head. He looked like one of those bobbing head dogs my father used to have sitting on the front dashboard of our old family Buick. Only Andrew appeared that his spring had sprung.

  “You said that.”

  He looked up sharply. Even from my place on the sofa I saw his Adam’s apple slip up and down behind the tanned skin of his throat. “You know, don’t you?” he asked.

  I was momentarily caught off guard. Then I said, “I’m supposed to be asking you that question.”

  He buried his face in his hands and then used them as though they were a washcloth and his forehead needed to be scrubbed. “Oh, man . . .” Then he stopped and looked at me again. “I never wanted this . . . for you to find out . . . I was hoping . . .”

  “What were you hoping?”

  “That somehow I could get close enough to you to get to Jack’s papers . . . to make sure he hadn’t done anything stupid like leave any damaging evidence behind. Anything that might make you think . . .”

  The room around me grew thick with emotion. I felt myself split in two somehow: there was the emotional Goldie, who knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was sitting across the room from her dead husband’s illegitimate adult son, and the detached Goldie, who was only viewing the scene as though watching it unfold on a movie screen. “Think what?” I finally mustered.

  “Think bad of . . .”

  He didn’t finish, so I finished for him. “Your father?”

  His eyes closed. He squeezed them, then relaxed, then reopened them. “Yes.”

  And then I laughed. “Oh, Andrew,” I said, dabbing at my eyes with my fingertips. “I’ve lived three decades knowing the worst about my husband.” Then I sobered. “And the best. Finding out about you is more or less the icing on the cake. Or, maybe the straw that breaks the camel’s back, if you can stand two clichés at once.”

  “I don’t think I follow you.”

  I stood and started out of the room. With a crook of my finger I said, “Follow me.”

  He did, straight to my bedroom and the jewelry armoire, where no less than two dozen pieces of stunning jewelry shimmered on top of velvet-lined drawers. I picked up the pieces, one at a time, and told him the story behind each one. “Your grandfather—Jack’s father—was a womanizer,” I began. “Jack’s mother told me about him the first year Jack and I were married. When each affair ended, he gave her a beautiful piece of jewelry to make up for it.” I rolled my eyes. “As though it could.”

  “Are these hers?” Andrew asked. With a thick finger he touched a topaz brooch.

  “No,” I said. “These are mine.”

  I watched as recognition fell across his face. “Jack?”

  “Your mother wasn’t the first. She wasn’t the last.” When I saw the hurt on his face, I placed a hand on his arm. “I’m not saying that to hurt you. I just want you to know that you have no worries when it comes to protecting me.”

  He blushed then.

  I shut the individual drawers and said, “I called you here to ask you what you wanted from me. I guess now I know.”

  He crossed his arms across his thick chest. “If you mean do I want money or anything like that? No. To be honest with you, Jack set up a small fund for me years ago. It wasn’t a lot, but when I got old enough I invested it wisely. I’ve got a good job and I’m doing all right.”

  I had to take a moment to process what he was saying to me before I replied, “Have you always known?”

  “Not always, no. My mother told me when I was in high school. I came home one day and asked her if my biological father had relatives around here because every time I looked at Coach Dippel I couldn’t help but think I kinda looked like him.”

  “You look very much like the Jack I knew many yea
rs ago.” I spoke softly.

  His arms uncrossed and his hands went to his hips. “My mother told me that Jack was my father . . . that they’d had a fling that hadn’t meant anything really, except for the fact that it had given me to her and for that she would be forever grateful.” He blushed appropriately again. “I’m not trying to defend my mother here, you understand, but she’s not a horrible person. I want you to know that.”

  I could only nod.

  “Anyway, she said that he’d given her a lump sum of money to help raise me. It wasn’t much, on his salary, but it helped. Of course when she married Dad . . . and she had her own job, so . . .”

  This raised another question, one I couldn’t help but ask. “Did Jack know that you knew?”

  He was still for a moment before answering. “He never knew that I knew he was my father, no. Mom told him that she would tell the same story to everyone, including me. That my biological father had died in a car accident.” He grimaced. “So, no. He didn’t know. Or, if he did, he never let on to me.”

  “My gosh.” If Jack had known he would have brought Andrew into our family; that much I knew for sure.

  We stood silent until Andrew said, “Well, then. I guess my work here is done. I’ll leave you alone from now on. Oh, and you don’t have to worry about anyone knowing. About me, I mean. My mother taught me well to keep private things private.”

  I linked my arm into his and guided him back out of the bedroom and toward the hallway door. “Actually, I’m leaving in a few minutes to go see Olivia,” I said. “To tell her.”

  He stopped short. “Why? Not on my account, I hope.”

  “No. Mostly for her own good. Olivia needs a lesson in just how strong her mother really is. And she needs to come off her high horse a little. Realize the world doesn’t always come out in black and white. There are not always right or wrong answers. Sometimes we have to take life as it comes and make decisions based on the moment.” I tossed my hair a little. “And hope for the best in the end.”

  We started back down the hall again. “What do you think she’ll say to all this?”

  “Oh, her first reaction will be to defend her father. Then she’ll want to make sure you’re not going to try to take advantage of me.” We reached the living room again. “But in the end, she’ll want to know more about the brother she never knew she had. And, I imagine, she’ll want you to know your father from her point of view. Bottom line is, she’ll live.”

  A hint of pink rushed across his high cheekbones. “I admit I always wanted to get to know her better.”

  “Well,” I said, “I think after tonight, you’ll have your chance.”

  Lizzie

  32

  Dishing Drama

  First thing Friday morning, I sent a message via my assistant to the homeroom teachers of Barrie, Jocelyn, Daniel, and Carter, asking that they be excused for a brief meeting with me in the media center. Within a matter of minutes, four excited-looking teenagers burst through the door of my private office amid a flurry of “What’s going on?” and “Hey, Mrs. Prattle, what’s up?”

  I had brought four chairs into my office and placed them so that they faced my desk, where I was now sitting. “Everyone sit,” I said. When they had, I pulled open a side drawer of my desk, removed my purse, and then slipped a piece of paper from between its satiny lining. “This is to be kept in complete confidence,” I said.

  “Sure,” Barrie said.

  “Does this have to do with what we were looking into the other night? The hidden gold?” Carter asked.

  I gave the students a weak smile, not wanting to give too much away. “It may.” I placed the paper on the desk before me, then leaned over, resting my forearms on either side. “I don’t want you to get too excited. But I seriously think we might have something here.”

  I unfolded the paper before I went on.

  “Yesterday the Potluck Catering Club had a meeting to talk about the Founders Day celebration and what we need to do to get ready. Before we could get into that, Lisa Leann—Mrs. Lambert—pulled out an old leather pouch she found hidden in the boutique.” I paused, wondering if I should tell them about the gold and the gun, then decided against it. “There were several items inside the pouch, all from over a hundred years ago. Well over a hundred years ago. Gold rush days.” I raised my brow for effect, which worked because the four students sitting before me were barely able to keep to their seats. “Mrs. Lambert had handed it to me when a phone call came in, she had to leave, and—shortly after that—I realized I was still holding the note. At first I was just going to return it, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided we’ve come this far in our investigation, why not go all the way?”

  “Well, it would help if we knew what it said,” Daniel remarked.

  I turned the note around, and the four leaned over.

  “What in the world?” Jocelyn said. “What’s that first word?”

  “I’m going to see if you can figure this out,” I answered. “Come on, now. You are all honor roll students.”

  “Padre,” Carter said. “Like, ‘father’ in Spanish.”

  “So, this was written to Zeke Hannah’s father?” Barrie asked him.

  “I guess,” he answered with a shrug.

  “Zeke Hannah . . . wasn’t that the Crazy Old Zeke we were talking about the other day?” Jocelyn asked. “Didn’t you read about it, Carter?”

  “Good, Jocelyn,” I said. “What do you remember about him?”

  “He was a miner.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “He went to dances on Friday nights,” Daniel supplied. “And he was always claiming to have found a mother lode.”

  “But no gold was ever found,” Barrie said. “Most people just thought he was crazy.” She paused. “Oh, except Father Dyer.”

  “Padre!” Carter said with a jump.

  “Hey, man, you think the note is to Father Dyer?” Daniel asked him.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Four expectant sets of eyes looked to me for affirmation.

  “That’s exactly what I think. Now, let’s look at the rest of the note. Barrie, what would you say it says?”

  Barrie read the note silently then answered out loud, “You might not here . . . no, hear . . . from me no more but know the plus is my treasure.” She gave a funny look then added, “Zeke Hannah.”

  “What does that mean, Mrs. Prattle?” Jocelyn asked. “The plus is my treasure?”

  I rested my elbow on the top of my desk, then my chin in the palm of my hand. “Well, I have to say that part had me pretty stumped too. Until I realized”—I pointed to the plus sign—“that the plus is a cross.”

  “Ohhhhh,” they all said.

  Then they were silent until Daniel said, “But what does that mean? The cross is my treasure?”

  I frowned. “That’s the part we have to figure out.”

  The four blinked at me, wordless.

  Just then the first period class bell rang. It was time for them to go.

  ———

  I called Donna’s cell phone number as soon as the students had left my office. “Hey, Liz,” she said in answer.

  “Donna,” I said. “What’s the latest on Lisa Leann?”

  “Nothing that I know of,” she said. “I took her back to her house so she could get some paperwork on Mandy . . . you know, birth certificate, social security card copy, and the latest photographs. Then I took her back to Vonnie’s.”

  “Have you called and talked to either one of them?”

  “No, not yet. I was just sort of waking up, to be honest with you. I’m pulling a night shift tonight.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Donna. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “You didn’t. I was just lying here reading a little before I got up. No biggie.”

  I thought for a moment before continuing. “Donna, what were the final plans for your mother?”

  “Velvet has taken complete charge of everything and left me out ent
irely. Mom was cremated. She has the ashes. Says she’ll scatter them anywhere but here, but that she wants to wait until after Evie’s trial.”

  I sighed. “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry, Donna.”

  “It’s okay. At least I got to know Mom a little bit before she . . . you know . . . died.”

  “But Donna, you really don’t think Evangeline did this, do you? I mean, Evie can be a bit to take at times, but she is not a murderer. Even an accidental one.”

  “I agree. And I’m doing everything I know to do to try to put another theory on the table.”

  “Well, if anyone can figure this out, you can.”

  “Thanks, Liz. Listen, if you hear anything more about Mandy or Lisa Leann, let me know, okay?”

  “I will. You do the same.”

  We disconnected our call. I sat back in my chair and allowed myself time to think about how Lisa Leann must be feeling. I wondered if I should call her, then decided to wait and just drive to Vonnie’s after work. I figured that any time the phone rang would be difficult for her, especially when the person she wanted to hear from wasn’t on the other side.

  I then thought about my own daughters, especially Michelle. Since the day we’d seen Vernon and Donna at Higher Grounds—the day Doreen’s body had been discovered—she and I had not spoken again about her concerns over starting a family. This was really important to her, I thought, and I’d basically cast it aside. Then I thought of my own mother struggling to keep up with the moments of the day and the memories of the years. I wondered how much time I had left before she simply didn’t know me at all.

  I pulled my cell phone from my purse and called Michelle at her office in Breckenridge, using the TDD operator to tell Michelle that I loved her and wanted her and Adam to come over for dinner the following night. “I thought I’d have everyone come,” I said. “The whole family or as much as we can get together. Go ahead,” I said, using the code that allowed the deaf listener to know it was okay to speak.

  “Adam told me he’s had a yen for your black bottom pie,” she said, using the TDD operator as her voice. “If you promise you’ll make it, I can assure you we’ll be there.” She giggled, then said, “Go ahead.”