by R. L. Syme
The lilac bushes between Malcolm Dean’s property and mine had turned spindly and emaciated. I crunched across the crust of snow that hadn’t quite melted yet, watching the bars on my phone for any sign of life as I paced next to the bushes, sticking as close to my own property line as possible.
Unfortunately, the mountain hadn’t moved in the night, and I still couldn’t get any reception. It wasn’t until I walked all the way into the street and around the hedge that I got my first bars.
Peter’s stark warning still rang in my ears. Malcolm had called the parish council, which meant it was an official complaint to my superiors. He could, of course, arrest me for trespassing. But I could be super quiet on the phone. He had to be asleep. He’d never even know I was out there.
I made a mental note to call the phone company about that landline.
There was a bite to the morning air, like there was snow coming. I wouldn’t be out for very long. Cilla would just be finishing her Miracle Morning—the program that made her get up at ungodly-o-clock—sitting down with her coffee and her success journal. My sister and I used to share a bungalow in Raleigh, North Carolina, and our morning routine had been the same every day.
Priscilla was so unlike me, with her goals and her vision board and her desire to rule the world. She’d been doing this morning visualization and alignment practice ever since I could remember, and it was the most Cilla-esque thing I could imagine. I used to wake up near the end of her hour-long focus session, and make her another cup of coffee in the Keurig, and we’d sit at the kitchen counter and talk about our plans.
There were days when I missed her so much, my heart actually ached, but this was my life. I’d made my own choices, and it was time for me to do my penance. Maybe, at the end of all this very cold, very painful absolution, I’d get to go home and be the prodigal daughter.
One could hope.
I checked Malcolm’s windows for signs of life. I was still a good half an acre away from his house. The lots up against the mountain tended to be a little wider than they were long, and the houses were farther apart. Small favors. There’s no way he would hear me.
Everything was dark in the Dean house, and I took my life into my hands, pulling off one glove and bringing up my sister’s number. On the days when I was already at the bakery at three a.m., I could put her on speakerphone while I did my work. The reception over there was only slightly better. But I wasn’t due at work for another hour, and I needed to unburden myself now.
“Hello?” Cilla’s voice immediately eased the tension building in my chest. I kept one eye on Malcolm’s windows—thankfully, his bedroom was on the other side of the house—and hugged as close to the bushes as I could get. I’d done this enough to know where the hot spots were.
“Hi,” I whispered, going for a little noise as possible.
“Hello?” my sister said, louder.
“Shhhhh. I have to be as quiet as I can.”
“Vange? I can barely hear you. Are you out at that stupid bush again?” She was already frustrated, and it was barely five in the morning back there. Not a good sign.
I raised my voice half a click, still speaking in a whisper. “I’m in a little bit of trouble.”
“There we go,” she said, her tone easing a bit. “I had to turn off my audio book.”
More tension ebbed away. I could imagine the scene as easily as if it were right in front of me. Priscilla—whom I have called Cilla and Silly interchangeably since she was born—would be stretched out on the slate gray tufted chaise lounge in her home office, white porcelain mug of coffee on the side table, iPad on her stomach, eyes closed, listening to some self-help book on Audible. She had likely just returned from jogging around the Boylan Heights neighborhood, which I could still do in my sleep.
“What was it today?” I asked, smiling. “Tony Robbins? Or Tony Robbins?”
“Oh, stop.” Cilla laughed, and I cringed, wondering how far the sound traveled. I should have brought my headphones, but they often made me talk louder, and I couldn’t risk that.
A rush of emotion caught me by the throat. “I’m in trouble, Sil.”
“Van. What did you do?”
“I went on a sort-of-a-date with a guy, and he…may…or may not…have…murdered someone.” Halting the sentence to search for the right words did not make the content any less awkward, and my sister squealed.
“What!?”
“I know. I know. I just…I didn’t see this coming.”
“Evangeline Susanna Vale.” A healthy dose of scolding saturated her voice, and she was right to be mad. I would have scolded myself—in fact, I’d spent most of the night wondering how I could have been so blind. The sheriff’s revelation about Claire’s place of death had changed my thinking. There was a chance Henry was guilty. I just didn’t want to see it.
“Look, I’m not calling to vent. I’ll do that later from work. I need to know what your schedule is like today in case I need you to go in to head office, and I know you don’t check your email until you get to work.”
She took a long breath. My sister was not a religious person, and she really only tolerated my first profession, but she did it like a champ. While she did not personally attend a church, she had, on several occasions, been to the denominational offices with me. She’d struck up a rapport with one of the secretaries that had proven useful when I was going through my…relocation. I couldn’t risk calling anyone directly, but I knew that if Priscilla went in with her designer handbag and had a casual conversation with the fashion-conscious-but-budget-constrained secretary, there was a good chance she could get me the information I needed without the request coming directly from me.
In other words, there would be no record of my inquiry.
“I have to teach at ten,” she said on a sigh. “And I have office hours after that, until four, and then a client meeting, but I can go in before ten. I swear, Vangie, I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but you are sabotaging yourself at every turn.”
A light flickered on in Malcolm’s house and my heart almost stopped. Case and point.
I ducked down, but there was nothing to hide behind. I was in front of the hedge, so that wasn’t going to cover me. Crap on a cracker.
“I’ll call you when I get to the bakery,” I said. “Gotta go.”
I scurried around the hedge and hid on my side of the property, watching as the light came on in another room, farther toward the back of the house. That was Malcolm’s room, I was pretty certain. I flat-out ran for my house, trying to make as little noise as possible. By the time I was safely inside, my heart was racing so fast, I had to stop in the hallway to calm myself before I went back to the window to see if Malcolm had come outside.
With all the lights off in my house, I went into the living room, which faced my one and only neighbor. I slipped along the wall, peering out into the yard from the very edge of my curtained picture window.
Both of the lit rooms in the other house had covered windows, so I couldn’t see what was going on inside, but at least Malcolm wasn’t out in the yard, looking for evidence that I’d been trespassing. And thank God there was a Chinook on, so the ground wasn’t covered in snow—which it had been just last week.
Suddenly, the curtains in the side room of his house flew open, and the sheriff stood there with his arms spread wide, staring out at me. I jerked back, holding my breath.
Like he could hear me breathing. Ugh.
When I peeked back out, he was still standing in the light, but he was looking around the whole yard. He had on a rumpled gray T-shirt, and his brown hair had some fly-aways. I smoothed my hand across my own head.
Only he couldn’t see me like I could see him. My lights were all off, but he was illuminated against the dark by the bath of yellow behind him. I could see the set of his jaw. Yup, he was mad. He knew it was me, too, probably.
At least he hadn’t caught me this time. He couldn’t prove it was me.
I collapsed onto my sl
ate gray, tufted love seat. The one that matched the chaise lounge my sister had back in North Carolina. They were supposed to be a set. Just like us.
I wanted to go home.
I closed my eyes and let the silence sink into me, thinking about what I’d done to earn my exile. It wasn’t something I’d shared with anyone else in Saint Agnes, and the only people who knew the reasons for my displacement were Priscilla, four people at the head office, and Peter Mayhew.
They’d promised me three years. Turn this little church around in three years, and I could go back home. Maybe even start moving up in the ranks again. Maybe get my classes back at Duke. Probably not. But maybe.
I certainly wasn’t going to get any reinstatement if I got arrested for trespassing. Or murder.
There had to be something I could do to help close this case. I felt too responsible to back away, now. I sent Scarlet and Henry to Rolo, and Claire had died. If there was something to be done to right my wrong, I was going to do it.
I’d come all the way to Montana to right one. I couldn’t let another hang in my balance.
I did half an hour of yoga, showered and dressed, and packed a black clerical shirt and my white collar in a duffle bag. I had to work at the bakery all day before I started making congregational and hospital visits, and I didn’t want to be the Pastor Baker. Being the Matchbaker was bad enough, as far as reputations went. I’d been informed on more than one occasion that the idea of the Matchbakery was uber-touristy, which didn’t always sit well with the locals.
The customary outfit I wore to work at the bakery was a robin’s egg blue T-shirt with the Matchbakery logo scripted across the front in royal blue. The irony of those juxtaposed colors was lost on the Montanans in a way people back home would raise hackles over. It was my sister’s alma mater jab, and the shirt always made me think of her.
I felt fresh-faced by the time I got to the bakery, and I called Cilla and put in my cordless headphones while I worked. I needed to vent about the situation, and it felt good to chat with her, like we were sitting at the breakfast nook in our old house.
The pastry dough had been chilling in the refrigerator overnight, and while I chatted, trying to clear my head, I started baking up the few sweet rolls that I would need to have fresh upon opening. By the time I could smell the pastry in the oven, my sister had to leave the house, and I reluctantly put my headphones away. She promised to stop by the denomination offices, and I tried to keep my thanks on the effusive side. We agreed that she’d keep it casual, but she was going to try to find out if Peter Mayhew had called the bishop.
I lost myself in the baking. Baking relaxed me, and as I did precise measurements and lost myself in the morning prep, the yuck I’d been feeling all the previous day just melted away. I felt in control again. Right.
Nadine Winters was already waiting in my parking lot in her silver sedan when I finally opened the doors at six a.m. She was my favorite of what I called the “coffee ladies,” and seemed to be the one in charge of organizing them.
The coffee ladies were a set of widowed older women who frequented the Matchbakery every morning. Nadine’s late husband, Norman, had been a pastor at Saint Agnes Community for almost forty years. It was so unusual to have a pastor in our denomination stay at a post for that long. I had immediately latched onto her when I came to town, wanting to learn more. She reminded me of my own grandmother, and I often imagined what Norman might have been like. His sermons were erudite and thoughtful, so I pictured him as a white-haired, spectacled, reedy man with a perpetual collar, nose always buried in a book.
So unlike the man who’d followed him.
Norman’s widow was the epitome of a small-town busybody, but she would have made a great pastor’s wife. As the other ladies started to arrive, she herded them to their customary table, bussing the coffee cups herself, pouring coffee, making orders. She was a marvel.
By the time I brought out the first tray of steaming pastries, they had all arrived and taken up residence in the corner table—the perfect place for inconspicuously spying on the patrons who entered, but thankfully, not in the direct path of the kitchen, so they couldn’t spy on me. The table was nestled against the packaged goods case, which held the breads, buns, rolls, and cookies that I kept stocked for customers—some fresh that day, some not. That corner rarely got traffic during the morning breakfast time, which was mostly farmers and ranchers on their way to the field or range, the coffee ladies, and the occasional couple who’d come in for a treat.
The coffee ladies’ normal routine was to include me in the gossip of the day, which I usually tried my best to avoid. This morning, however, it was obvious they were talking about me—when I approached with their food, they all quickly zipped their lips.
I set down a plate in front of each of them, trying to maintain my distance, knowing they wanted to get back to their gossip, but something struck me. Between the five of them, they probably represented the full history of Saint Agnes. They had certainly been around long enough to know a thing or two about Claire Hobson.
With my best, brightest smile, I asked about the coffee. I got very little response—they weren’t coffee connoisseurs, not like Scarlet had been—but it at least got them talking. Still, not one of them had made eye contact.
I put the serving tray under my arm and shook my head. “Okay, ladies. You’ve obviously heard some gossip about me. I want you to spill it right now.”
All their eyes went wide, like white rims around little colored saucers. Nadine finally smiled, setting down her coffee cup, and gave me a direct look.
“There was a murder over in Rolo yesterday, and I’ve heard—that is to say, we’ve heard—that you were involved, somehow.”
I released a low sigh, keeping my smile. “Well, not directly involved.”
“Oh, no,” giggled one of the ladies—I still hadn’t memorized all of their names. “You didn’t commit the murder, of course.”
“We just meant, your name came up in the investigation,” said another, over a sip from her mug.
“Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” I said, soldiering on past their insinuations.
“Ask away, dear.” Nadine offered me a polite smile, and they all gave me their attention.
“Did any of you know Claire Hobson?”
“I did,” Nadine answered, looking around at the others. No one else spoke up. “I taught over at the elementary school for a couple of years after my kids left the house. I had been subbing for Miss What’s-Her-Name who had the baby and then quit before her maternity leave was over.”
“Colter,” offered one of the women. “Bethanne Colter.”
“Right. Missus Colter.” A heavy accent on the married part. Nadine waved her hand. “Anyway. I had Claire in my music class.”
“What was she like?” I asked, leaning on the sturdy side of the open shelves.
“Sullen.” Nadine made a face like she’d swallowed a lemon. “She was always scowling. Fighting with her family. Eventually, her mother got so tired of dealing with her trouble-maker ways, she sent her off to live with her aunt in Minnesota.”
“I heard she went to a school for troubled kids out there,” said a woman in a purple hat with pinned flowers.
“Well, I don’t know where she went, exactly, because she left in the summer, so I went from having her one year to not having her the next. I think she would have been up in the high school by then, anyway, so maybe that’s why I didn’t think anything of it.” She raised her hands, palms up, around her shoulders. “I don’t know. Bad family situations tend to breed bad kids, so I just chalked it up to teenagers needing to make their own way. I know my girls both had their rebellious phases, but I never had to send them off to another state to get them to behave.”
That set off a round of conversation about other rebellious teens—their children, most of whom were no doubt full-grown adults, and kids in town—which was a topic I couldn’t stomach. Some of the most dangerous decisions any of
us ever make happen in our teen years. I loved working with kids in that age group. I missed my job back in Raleigh.
I was about to go back into the kitchen when the bell over the door rang. I turned with a big smile, ready to welcome whatever green-capped farmer had decided to darken my doorstep, when my breath caught in my throat.
Derek Hobson stood in front of the muraled window, leather jacket hanging open, long hair in a man bun, dark eyes round with shock. His hands moved to his hips and he choked out a caustic laugh, shaking his head.
The coffee ladies gasped, like a murder mystery play audience, and I imagined their hands fluttering over their mouths—one lady’s actually did. They clearly knew Derek Hobson, and his relationship to Claire Barnett Hobson.
He swore and advanced on me. “I should have known.”
Before any lasting damage could be done to my already floundering reputation, I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen, away from the nosy busybodies outside.
I had no idea what he was doing in my bakery, but I had a feeling he’d heard about the white box his wife had been holding when her body was found. Either that, or word about my macarons was really getting around in this town.
I closed my eyes and prayed for the latter.
Chapter Twelve
“Is this why you gave me the third degree last night?” Derek asked, stalking toward the back of my kitchen. He raised his arms wide. “Because you or someone at your bakery was involved in Claire’s death?”
I shushed him—which got me a caustic laugh—and tried to gather my thoughts. “I was actually there to see…” I came to a quick stop with that one, too. Man, I was striking out again. Impulse told me to lie and say I’d come to see Irma, but I didn’t want to do that. I blew out a long gust of air. “I was there to see Henry.”
Derek rounded on me. “Who’s Henry?”
“Henry Savage. He’s the one that the sheriff is questioning in your wife’s…case.”