Our knock on the front door was answered by a tall, big-boned woman. Her hair was short, a nondescript brown, and parted in the middle. A thin strip of glistening gray ran like a stripe down the part. She was attractive, but in need of some hair coloring and an updated style, but I suspected her divorce had derailed her too much to deal with those things. “Yes?” she said, but before we could say anything, her expression changed from curiously cautious to recognition. “Oh, Miguel! What in the world? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Much too long,” he agreed, and then he introduced me. “Brenda Rivera. Ivy Culpepper.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. I would have held my hand out to shake, but that seemed so formal. A nod seemed the better choice.
“Come in, come in!” she said, flinging the door open and ushering us in.
I followed Mrs. Rivera in, Miguel following behind. She brought up the rear and closed the door. We waited and she led us to the small living room right off the entryway. I looked around, taking in the details of the house. It was clean, but on the dingy side. Once upon a time, the walls had been white, but now they were dull and grayish. A yellow stain marked the wall on the left of the entry hallway where a piece of furniture had once been.
A series of photos hung on the wall, evenly spaced and lined up like soldiers marching down the hallway. I looked at them as we passed. They were school photos of a boy, presumably Jason, through the years. My study of photography had taught me to look for the uncommon details, so my eyes kept scanning the house: A stack of bills on the edge of the hall table. A half-burned three-wick candle. A stack of well-worn paperback novels.
I tried to form a picture of Brenda Rivera from her environment. All I came away with was that she seemed lonely. She spent her time reading, and maybe rereading, her favorite books. They were comfort for her. And she loved her son. There were no other family photos. No other mementos. Nothing of Hank. Just a chronicling of Jason Rivera’s childhood.
I smiled my thanks as she led us to the living room on the right. Miguel and I sat side by side on the faded plaid upholstered couch. Magazines were strewn across the worn coffee table. A side table held a lamp with a battered lampshade. It looked to me like Mrs. Rivera had not won the furniture lottery in the divorce. I wondered if Mustache Hank had, either. Divorce was like that; it took its toll on both parties. All parties, if there were children involved.
“Thank you for inviting us in, Mrs. Rivera,” I said.
She nodded and gave me a slight smile. “Baptista’s has been one of Hank’s clients forever. Maybe one of the first. Any friend of Miguel’s is a friend of mine. The Baptistas have been good to us.”
She didn’t say her ex-husband’s name with animosity, which struck me as unusual. To my knowledge, amicable divorces were rare. Maybe Mrs. Rivera had no hard feelings over the divorce. But then again, I knew better than to take everything at face value. People let you see what they want you to see. I took her sincerity with a grain of salt.
She offered us something to drink. “Water or soda,” she said. “I’m afraid that’s all I have.” After we both declined, she straightened in her chair. “What brings you here, Miguel?”
He didn’t mince words. “We’re here about Hank,” he said.
I had wondered what approach Miguel might take with Mrs. Rivera. I knew he didn’t want to alarm her, but on the other hand, we needed to find out if she’d seen her ex-husband. I needn’t have worried, because she seemed to know right off what our concern was. “You talked to Jason, didn’t you?”
Miguel nodded. “He came to the restaurant looking for Hank. Said he hasn’t been able to get ahold of him.”
She absently scratched her head. “I know Jason’s been worried.”
“You’re not?” Miguel asked.
She tilted her head a fraction of an inch. “I’ve tried to let go of the worry since the divorce.”
Miguel gave his head a single, skeptical shake. “I don’t believe that.” I stared at him, shocked at his bluntness. I tended to be direct, but I also had a little more tact than he was currently exhibiting. He kept on. “You were married for a lot of years, Mrs. Rivera, and now Hank is missing. You can’t tell me you’re not a little bit concerned.”
“Missing is too strong a word, Miguel,” she said, but her lower lip quivered slightly and her shoulders sagged a tiny bit. Her veneer was cracking. “He hasn’t been himself since we finalized everything. He’s just off somewhere. Probably drinking himself into a numb stupor.”
The harshness of her statement took me by surprise. Miguel had known her, through Hank, for a long time. Obviously being with Mrs. Rivera was the way to go; he knew she’d be direct right back at him.
“Jason said he thinks Hank might be depressed?” Miguel’s voice lifted slightly, leaving it as an open-ended question that he wanted Mrs. Rivera to either confirm or deny.
But this time, the bluntness didn’t come. Without warning, her brown eyes teared up. She squeezed them shut for several seconds, her nostrils flared, and she drew in a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice quavered. “I spent too many years worrying about him, Miguel. Do you understand, that’s why I left him? I had twenty-six years of anxiety. Would there be enough crops to supply his clients? Would he be able to keep up with the work? Would he collect the debts that were owed to him? What would he do if he couldn’t pay his workers? Would he even come home each night? He worked his fingers to the bone and still, we barely scraped by most months. Every second of every day felt more stressful than the last. I couldn’t take it anymore.” She dropped her head, chin to her chest. A sob escaped as she repeated, “I couldn’t take it.”
I reached out and put my hand on hers, but I didn’t have any comforting words. I’d been through divorce and I’d lost my mother. Nothing anyone said would have made that better. It was true what they said: Time would heal. I knew it was true, but me saying so wouldn’t make Mrs. Rivera believe it. It had been months, but she still felt a loss. The loss of her marriage. The loss of twenty-six years together. The loss of the life she’d known and the man she’d loved. And now the man himself was incommunicado. I could see she’d been trying to act unaffected, but her emotions told a different story. She was hurting.
Miguel comforted her and then gave her a minute to compose herself. When she seemed under control again, he asked another question, more softly this time. “Is there any place we can look for him?”
She pulled her lower lip in, creating a tight line and wiping away the quiver that had been there moments before. “A few years ago I’d have said the Broken Horse, but he gave up drinking and took up bowling. But since the divorce? I have no idea. No idea where he’s living. Nothing. He cut me off completely.” She gave a hurt smile. “I guess I can’t blame him, though, can I? I left him.” She pressed her open palm against her chest. “I pulled the plug on our marriage, so of course he doesn’t keep me informed about his comings and goings. I even asked him: ‘Where are you staying?’ I said, but he wouldn’t tell me. Said I gave up the right to keep tabs on him. And you know what?” This time she gave a harsh laugh. “He’s right. He doesn’t have to tell me anything. But Jason? That’s a different story. Jason is his son. He deserves to know, right?”
Miguel leaned forward and clasped his hands, propping his elbows on the table and folding his hands under his chin. “He’s never missed a delivery, Mrs. Rivera. Never. I’m worried about him.”
Her spine stiffened and she ran the backs of her hands over her eyes. “He’s around,” she said. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“I saw him a few days ago,” I said. Not knowing the man, I didn’t have any insight. All I could do is report what I saw. “But your son says no one has seen him since.”
Her head snapped toward me and I thought for a second that she was going to bite my head off. But her expression softened. “Where was that?”
“At Yeast of Eden. The bread shop in town.”
“I know it.” She fell silent for a
moment, and then asked, “Why was he there?”
The only answer I had for that was the obvious one. “For some bread, I suppose?”
Her control vanished. The look she gave me could have withered a rose. “Who was he with, I mean. Was he alone?”
I ignored her tone and agitation. Despite the divorce and everything she’d said about not being able to handle her husband anymore, she clearly still had emotions tied to him. I couldn’t say if it was love, but it was hard to let go of your feelings after twenty-six years. I had only been married for a handful of years and there’d been plenty of pent-up emotions that still surfaced, and we’d long ago signed the divorce papers.
I thought back to the morning I’d seen Hank. “He came in alone, as far as I remember. He sat with a few friends.”
She angled her head toward me. “If there’s one thing I know about Hank, after so many years together, it’s that he doesn’t have friends. He’s too busy to have friends.”
Miguel stepped in. “Everybody has friends,” he said.
“Female friends?” she asked, a hint of bitterness in her tone. I nodded, and she shook her head. “I knew it. He didn’t have friends, but let me tell you something. For a while, I thought he was unfaithful. I really thought he was. But he swore—” She drew out the word, and then repeated it. “He swore it was in my head. Who was he with? Just tell me.”
Miguel looked at me and I answered the question. “Mabel Peabody, Penny Branford, Alice Ryder, and Janice Thom—”
She slapped her palm against the table.
Miguel and I both jumped. “Mrs. Rivera,” Miguel said, “are you okay?”
Her eyes grew as round as quarters and suddenly she looked a little bit unhinged. “Alice? He was with Alice?”
Mrs. Rivera seemed to have become a different person from the time we entered her house to now. The change sent a shiver down my spine. “And the others,” I said, hoping to placate her.
She turned on me. “Don’t fool yourself. It’s always a woman. Hank and Alice, they were high-school sweethearts. Can you believe that? I wondered, you know. I walked in on him once when he was on the phone with her. He said it was nothing. A business deal. I should have known better. He was so distracted. I thought it was the business, but it was her. It had to be. Whenever he shows his face again, I’m going to . . .” She trailed off, clamping her mouth shut as if she remembered that they weren’t married anymore and she couldn’t do a thing about it. Instead, she muttered under her breath, “Unbelievable.”
“Mrs. Rivera,” I said, wanting to calm her down. “I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions. It wasn’t as if he was sitting only with Alice. In fact, I don’t even know if they spoke to one another. Truthfully, he seemed kind of withdrawn.”
She looked at me as I spoke, and she even dipped her head in a faint nod, but I got the distinct impression that she didn’t really register what I’d said.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked, still wanting to calm her down. “Some water?”
She shook her head and I let it drop, but I secretly wished I had a loaf of Olaya’s rosemary brioche, the bread that I always turned to when I felt nervous or on edge. I was convinced Olaya’s bread had magical powers. She claimed it did, so who was I to question it? And Mrs. Rivera, from what I was seeing, could use a healthy slice of magic. Or two.
“Can you think of any place he might be?” Miguel asked tentatively. We’d come here to try to get information—something that could help us track down Mustache Hank. I could tell Miguel didn’t want to upset her more, but he also wanted to get back to some semblance of a productive conversation.
“If he’s anywhere,” Mrs. Rivera said with a grimace, “I bet it’s with Alice.”
Chapter 4
Miguel and I walked shoulder to shoulder down the path to the sidewalk. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mrs. Rivera still standing in the doorway. I lifted my hand in a little wave. She returned it, albeit a tad less enthusiastically. “I feel bad for her,” I said to Miguel. “After so many years, it’s got to be hard to be where she is.”
Miguel nodded, but he was distracted and only offered an innocuous, “Yeah.” He held the door to the truck open for me. “I’ll take you back to the restaurant.”
“Then what are you going to do?” I asked as he slid into the driver’s side. He turned the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
He kept his eyes on the road, one hand on the steering wheel, the other elbow on the window frame, his fingers pressed to his forehead. “Go see Alice Ryder.”
I spun toward him. “You are not.”
Still, he looked straight ahead, his expression turning grim. “I am. If Brenda Rivera is right, she might know where Hank is.”
I turned back to face front, crossed my legs, and folded my hands in my lap. “You’ll just have to take me with you, then.”
“It’s okay. Don’t you have to check on your dog, or something?”
I eyed him, trying to decide what his motive was. Was he giving me an out, or did he really want to do this alone? “Miguel,” I snapped. “If you think you’re just going to drop me off at Baptista’s while you gallivant all over Santa Sofia—”
He turned to me, one eyebrow cocked. “Gallivant?”
“Yes, gallivant. You said it yourself: I solved that murder at Yeast of Eden. You run a restaurant. Who has the better track record?” He slowed the truck, flicking on the turn signal to head toward the beach.
“I didn’t know we were keeping score,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking upward, the long dimples in his cheeks materializing.
I didn’t, either, but I was invested now and that was my ace. “Miguel, I mean it. I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have anything better to do today?”
Did I? I could go back to Yeast of Eden, but Olaya didn’t need me for another few hours. The Winter Wonderland Festival was just two days away, but we’d already prepped the ingredients for the bread shop’s booth. We couldn’t actually bake until the morning of the festival, so until then, nothing was pressing.
I could go home and plant the winter flowers I’d bought. The pots on my porch needed sprucing up. I could go visit with Mrs. Branford. That, in all honesty, was my favorite way to spend an afternoon. But right now, in this moment, I wanted to stay put in Miguel Baptista’s truck. My motivation in my thirties was different than it had been when we were in high school. Now, more than anything, I wanted to find out what was happening with Hank. After talking to his ex-wife, hearing Jason describe him as depressed, and knowing about all the struggles he’d been through with his business, I understood why I’d sensed a sadness in him. Had he simply just run away from it all?
“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
Miguel hesitated, but finally nodded, put on his turn signal, and headed south. He pushed a button on his steering wheel and said aloud, “Call Alice Ryder.”
The automated voice replied: “Calling Alice Ryder.”
“You have her number?” I asked as the car’s phone system dialed.
“I’ve done catering for her.”
Made sense. Baptista’s was one of the most popular restaurants in Santa Sofia. A high-end Mexican seafood restaurant on the water. There was a lot to love. I imagined the restaurant’s catering business was just as popular as the in-house dining.
A woman’s voice came on the line. “Hello?”
Miguel greeted her, saying he was sorry to bother her. “I wanted to ask you something. Mind if I stop by?”
“What would you need to ask me?”
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. “I’m looking for Hank Rivera. I thought you might have seen him around.”
On the other end of the line, Alice Ryder sighed, but I couldn’t quite place the context. Aggravation? A love-torn breath? Nervousness? I couldn’t be sure. “Why would I know where Hank Rivera is? Did you call his cell phone?”
“I have. No answer. I was just wonderin
g if you’ve talked to him lately?”
She answered quickly. “No, not at all. Why would I?” she said again. She seemed a little too indignant, if you asked me.
“I haven’t, either. I’m a little worried about him,” he said. I noticed that his approach with Alice Ryder was different than the tack he’d taken with Brenda Rivera. He was more tentative with Alice, feeling her out so as not to spook her, I imagine. He paused for a second before speaking again, looking at me and putting his index finger against his lips. “Ms. Ryder, do you have a few minutes? I’m not far from your place.”
The request clearly took her by surprise. “Oh. You mean right now?”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
She hesitated. I think she wanted to refuse, but couldn’t think of a valid reason to. “Of course,” she finally said. “Come on over.”
Miguel ended the phone call and continued driving. A few minutes later we pulled into a suburban community. The streets were wide, the yards big, the flowers bright. It was nicer than Brenda Rivera’s neighborhood, but at the same time it felt a little sterile. The houses were all similar, with stone facades and stucco. There were different elevations, the stucco on each house was painted a different color, and the roofs alternated between two different types of material. I could understand why it was an appealing place to live, but there was nothing unique about any of the houses and being here made me appreciate life on Maple Street and my Tudor house even more.
We traveled through the neighborhood, turning left, then right, then right again. The neighborhood kept going and going. It was much larger than it looked.
Finally, Miguel pulled up in front of a modest house. Interestingly, the neighborhood did not have traditional sidewalks. Instead, a stone runoff ditch circled the entire community, river rock lining it and giving the entire area less of a tract-home feel and more of an upscale sensibility.
The stucco of Alice Ryder’s house was painted neutral beige. The rock facade and the roof were equally neutral, but darker. The front yard was a good size. Not so big that it would be daunting to care for, but not miniscule, either. I gazed at the big-leaf maple tree. The branches were bare, but in the summer, it would shade the house.
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