Alice, Janice, and Mabel, to a lesser degree, continued to argue over what constituted gossip. They went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Alice fell in the camp of: If you didn’t get information firsthand from a primary source, it wasn’t valid. Janice believed that information from a valid source, even if that information had traveled through several people, was still reliable. And Mabel erred on the side of caution. She said that no matter what, you needed to make your own decisions based on your personal knowledge and experiences.
Mrs. Branford cleared her throat before speaking, the voice of reason. “If we want answers, we should go to the source.”
“What source?” Mabel asked.
I’d been silent, but now I piped up. “The seniors. Let’s talk to Ryan; to your son, Janice,” I said, directing my suggestion to her. “Let’s go to the source so that, as Alice said, we can be sure.”
But Alice wasn’t so quick to jump on the suggestion. She leaned her head back, laughing to herself. After a beat, she looked at us. “Why is everyone so concerned about Hank?” she demanded. “Why? A lot of people go away for a few days and no one says or does a thing about it. So why is everyone up in arms about Hank?”
“Because it’s out of character for him,” Mrs. Branford said. “He was in my class once upon a time—”
“Everyone was in your class once upon a time,” Janice said with a throaty laugh.
“—That’s what happens when you’re eighty-six years old and have been a teacher for more than two-thirds of your life. Anyway,” she said, redirecting her conversation back, “I’ve known Hank a long time. There are kids who are diligent about everything, turning every assignment in on time, taking responsibility for every action. But there are plenty who aren’t. Hank was not just one of the kids who was responsible: He went above and beyond. It’s hard to forget a person like that. There are only a handful of kids every school year. With Hank it was like he couldn’t live with himself if he turned something in late, or didn’t give his best. He was one of the most conscientious students I ever had, and he grew up to be the same kind of man.”
“He is a good guy,” Alice said, and for the first time I realized that she had to be quite a bit younger than the other Blackbird Ladies. How I hadn’t noticed it before, I’m not sure. Mrs. Branford had her snowy white hair and wrinkles to match. Janice Thompson had to be in her seventies, but she was put together and had a sophistication to her that the others didn’t. Mabel was the free spirit and I guessed her age to be midsixties: Long, dark hair and a vibe that made me think she’d had fun in the 1960s.
And then there was Alice. Late fifties, or maybe early sixties. Hank’s son Jason was a grown man. His wife was probably in her fifties. Michael had said that Hank, Alice, Brenda, and he had all gone to school together, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Alice and Hank had been having an affair. It had certainly seemed that way to me when Miguel and I had stood on her porch earlier today, and from her behavior now, it was all the more likely. “How old is Hank Rivera?” I asked.
“Fifty-five,” Alice said without even a beat. She drew in a sharp breath, as if she realized that she’d spoken too quickly.
But the others didn’t bat an eye. “That’s sounds about right,” Mrs. Branford said, gazing at the ceiling as if she were counting back the years.
“How many students do you think you’ve had over the years, Penny?” Mabel asked.
That question sent Mrs. Branford’s gaze back up to the ceiling. “Oh, Lord, too many to count. Nine thousand? Maybe ten?”
My eyebrows rose. Either way, the number was staggering.
Janice chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you taught nearly everyone in town.” She looked at me with a knowing grin. “She was Ryan’s favorite teacher.”
Mrs. Branford looked like the Cheshire cat, all knowing and mischievous. “I have had many generations from the same family. Hank and Brenda Rivera and Jason. Alice, I had your kids. Ryan, which, of course, you already said, Janice.”
“My kids went to private school,” Mabel said, “so they never had the pleasure of being in your class.”
“You call that commune one-room schoolhouse private school ?” Janice said, scoffing.
Mabel didn’t say anything for a second and I wondered if Janice had offended her, but then Mabel started nodding, slowly at first, then her head went up and down more rapidly. “Right,” she said and she laughed. “In retrospect, that wasn’t the best school choice. They learned a lot about, shall we say, herbs?”
My eyes grew wide. Well, well, I was learning all sorts of things about the Blackbird Ladies. Mabel Peabody, the former hippie, sent her kids to school to learn to grow pot, and Mrs. Branford taught everyone else in town. Everyone knew everyone.
And yet no one, it seemed, knew where Hank Rivera was.
Chapter 6
The Blackbird Ladies stayed for another hour, the tension from their conversation about Hank Rivera dissolving into the playful banter of longtime friends. Either Penny Branford was a good hostess, or the three other women had nowhere else they needed to be. Probably both. They stayed, and I loved their company. We laughed, I told them about the tragedy of my unfaithful husband and our subsequent divorce, I learned about Mabel’s first marriage to a rodeo star and catching her children growing their own marijuana plants in one of their closets. And Mrs. Branford heated up a pot of soup for us. Pretty soon I was wishing for a blackbird-adorned hat of my own.
Agatha slept through the whole thing.
At about 7:30, Alice gathered her things to leave. Janice and Mabel followed suit. We all headed to the front door together, Agatha trotting excitedly by my side. As we approached the door, Mrs. Branford laced her arm through mine. The three departing Blackbird Ladies stepped out onto the porch, turning to say good night, but Mrs. Branford beat them to the punch. “Bye, girls!”
As I started to cross the threshold, she pulled me back in, slamming the door. The force of her movement caused me to stumble over Agatha’s leash, my feet tangling beneath me. Mrs. Branford still held me by the arm. “Let go!” I said, hoping she would before she crashed to the floor with me and broke a hip.
But I needn’t have worried. “Hold on, Ivy,” she said, and she gave my arm a mighty tug, practically lifting me up off the floor. Or maybe she did actually lift me up off the floor, because suddenly I felt my feet touch the floor again with a thud.
“Mrs. Branford!”
She chortled at the success of her subterfuge, facing me and rubbing my arms. “Penny, dear. One of these days, you’ll call me Penny.”
I’d caught my breath and calmed my rattled heart by then. “Never.” I just couldn’t see it happening. It just didn’t feel right.
“Say it.”
As I looked at her, I felt my left eye pinch. “Say what?”
“My name. Say Penny.”
She spoke slowly, as if I were an addle-minded child. Why did I suddenly feel as if I were being cornered? I steeled my resolve. “Mrs. Branford.”
I backed away, but she shuffled toward me, pointing her cane at me. “Penny.”
She was trying to coerce me with sheer will, but I just didn’t buy her brand of intimidation. “I’m not going to call you Penny—”
“Aha!”
I slapped my hand against my forehead. She’d tricked me. “You sly fox, you.”
She patted her tightly-wound silver hair. “That can be my code name when we start investigating.” She nodded. “Yes. Sly fox. I do believe it fits.”
“Okay,” I started to say, but then her words fully registered. “Until we what?”
“Sit down, Ivy.”
I did. She sat on one overstuffed floral couch and I perched on the edge of the other. “I’m sitting.” So was Agatha, right by my feet.
“I think we need to investigate.”
All I could do was shake my head. “Investigate what, Mrs. Branford?” I asked, although I knew what she was going to say.
“
Hank, of course, because I happen to think Jason is right.”
“Right about what?”
“Right to be concerned, because Hank is the most reliable person I’ve ever known. It is completely out of character for him to just vanish. Something is wrong.”
“Slow down there. We are not Cagney and Lacey.”
The corner of her mouth lifted in an amused half smile. “I doubt very much that anybody remembers Cagney and Lacey, Ivy. In fact, how on earth do you know that show?”
“Netflix,” I replied smugly. Matlock, Perry Mason, Rockford Files, Murder, She Wrote, and the aforementioned Cagney and Lacey. Vintage TV crime. It was my secret indulgence.
She chuckled. “Ah, yes, the new TV. You never have to watch in real time.”
“The point is valid. We are not TV detectives,” I said, circling back to her announcement that we investigate.
“No, we’re better. Look how we figured out what happened with Janet,“ she said, referring to the murder that we’d helped solve recently. We’d done some digging, followed some clues, and discovered the truth behind the death of a local caterer and one of Olaya’s best friends.
“That was luck,” I said. “I’ve hung up my sleuthing shoes.”
She cocked one gray eyebrow at me. “Are there special sleuthing shoes of which I am unaware?” she asked, her teacher genes coming out with her exceptional grammar.
I lowered my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Actually, I don’t think there are. But again, my point is that we aren’t detectives, number one. And number two, we don’t actually have anything to investigate. Alice may very well be right.” I lifted my chin, adding emphasis to my point. “Hank may just be on a little sojourn that he didn’t bother to mention to anyone.”
“A sojourn. Pshaw. She’s always had a thing for Hank. Their short-lived dalliance in high school has burned like a low flame all these years.”
God, I loved Mrs. Branford’s vocabulary. It was of another generation, sometimes. “I knew it! When Miguel and I saw her this afternoon, I had this feeling that there was still something between them.”
She grimaced, more wrinkles than normal lining her face with the expression. “I have often wondered if they rekindled it at some point, unbeknownst to Brenda and Michael, of course.”
Agatha had stretched out on the floor by my feet, so I sat back on the couch, tucking one leg under me. A well-loved quilt with a log-cabin design, soft from years of being laundered, was tossed over the back of the sofa. I pulled it down over me, since it looked as if I’d be staying a while longer than I’d planned. “What makes you think so?”
She patted her chest and gave me a happy smirk. “Detectiving,” she said.
I rolled my eyes, but affectionately. I suspected it less about “detectiving” and more about intuition, but either way, Penelope Branford was downright adorable. “Well, Detective Branford, I’m not sure that Hank hasn’t just taken a few mental-health days, but I guess it won’t hurt to dig around a little bit.”
She clapped her hands, letting them fall away from each other dramatically. “Very good! We shall start tomorr—”
My spine stiffened and I fanned my hands in front of her. “No, no. Tomorrow is the festival. I’m there all day. There will be no detectiving tomorrow.”
“But of course there will. What better place to start poking the bear than at the Winter Wonderland Festival? Everyone in town will be there.”
I considered her point. The place was going to be teeming with Santa Sofia’s entire population, and then some. “Maybe, but Hank may just show up after his little vacation. That would be nice.”
Mrs. Branford shook her head. “It would be, but I don’t think so. I think we’re dealing with something sinister.”
“Something wicked this way comes?”
Mrs. Branford grimaced as she leaned forward and patted my knee. “Ah, sweet Ivy, how right you are. Something wicked, indeed.”
I couldn’t figure out why she felt there was something threatening or ominous going on with Hank, but she wasn’t able to explain it. “Just a feeling,” was all she said.
After a few more minutes, I roused myself, awakened Agatha, and gave Mrs. Branford a peck on the cheek. In a dramatic voice—and with a wink—I added, “Until tomorrow, ma cherie.”
“Oui, oui.”
At the door, I paused and looked at her in earnest. Her face was more drawn than it had been earlier. “Can I do anything for you before I go?”
“No, not at all. It’s time for my beauty sleep, that’s all.”
Agatha whimpered beside me. I placated her with a few soothing words. “Hers, too.”
“You know what they say about great minds. Now my dear, I would think that you need your rest, too. Early day for you tomorrow and a long one. If there’s one thing I know about Olaya Solis, it’s that when she is in for a penny, she’s in for a pound. You’ll be exhausted by the time the day is done. And we still have a mission to accomplish.”
I was getting exhausted just hearing about how exhausted I was going to be by the end of the next day. I said my good-bye and headed across the street, Agatha in tow, and wondered what was really going on with Hank Rivera.
Chapter 7
Santa Sofia had its fair share of town events. From the traditional Day of the Dead celebration to the spring Art Car Ball and Parade, we were always up for some merriment. But the Winter Wonderland Festival was nothing short of spectacular. I’d been coming since I was a little girl, minus my years in Austin, and it still struck me as wondrous. Take a little dollop of a vintage fair, an enormous barn that had been remodeled as a town gathering space, and everything wintry, and voilà! It was a unique experience unlike any other I’d ever seen.
I’d woken up at 4:30 the next morning, wondered if I was completely crazy, talked myself out of going back to sleep, and crawled reluctantly out of bed. I’d bundled up, speed-walked a very sleepy Agatha around the block, got myself dressed and ready to go, and arrived at Yeast of Eden at exactly 5:15. Olaya and I spent a few hours doing our “morning of” baking, both for the shop and for the festival, before working steadily with the delivery team to deliver the bread and set up the Yeast of Eden booth. We’d draped cream linens and burlap runners on the tables, adorning the burlap with vases filled with sparkling white branches, white-flecked pinecones, and white twinkle lights. Olaya always brought elements of Mexican culture into everything she did, whether it was the colorful, doily-like garlands hung in the bread shop, her sugar-skull cookies, the occasional special offering of tres leche cake, or the sign above the door from the bread shop to the kitchen that read: BIENVENIDOS A TODOS. Today was no exception. The skull cookies were there, but today they were plated and for sale, with colorful garlands hanging behind us.
Today’s pan dulce sat on a tray under one large, clear plastic rectangular dome. Next to it and spread across the table were all the other offerings we’d prepared, each protected with its own transparent cover. The wintry decorations added a bit of elegance to the display, and on a smaller side table, we’d set up an insulated stainless-steel dispenser filled with Mexican hot chocolate—freshly made with whole milk—mi abuelita’s chocolate tablets, and cinnamon sticks.
Once we were ready, I reached under the table to retrieve my saddle-brown camera bag. It had been an extravagance, but it had been well worth the price.
I took out my camera, slung the strap over my shoulder, and took a walk around to see the other booths. It seemed as if every business in town was represented, from the mini-mall antique store catty-corner to the bread shop, to the custom glassblowing store on the pier, to the chocolatier a few storefronts down from Yeast of Eden. I spotted Baptista’s booth, but turned at the first row instead of heading straight toward it. I’d stop in later, if I had time.
From what I could tell at first glance, there were just as many food booths as there were stalls selling knickknacks. Most of the goods on display were original and unique. As I came across interesting obje
cts, color patterns, and groups of people, I adjusted my camera’s settings for the lighting, focused on the subject, and shot.
Everywhere I looked, I saw something attention-grabbing. One booth, in particular, drew my interest. It held curios I wanted to examine more closely. I was always open to something that would fit beautifully into my house and would make it feel even more like home. I admired a collection of antique vases, several ceramic and tin candlesticks, an assortment of ancient books, and a duo of pewter cups. Then I spotted a unique galvanized metal contraption. It had seven small receptacles, each positioned at a movable joint so that it could be formed into a circle. I envisioned it as a miniature conveyor, kind of like a waterwheel. It took every ounce of willpower I could muster to resist buying it. Did I really need it? I looked at it more closely, noticing that the rectangular vessels had been stamped with numbers. The whole thing was just so cool. And I had the perfect spot for it in my kitchen. It could hang vertically on a narrow section of wall in between the counter where I put the toaster oven and the hallway. I could picture it with a few sprigs of lavender in each small container.
I took a picture of it and then turned away. If I still wanted it at the end of the day, I could always come back for it.
The booth was from a unique little shop a block away from Yeast of Eden: Vintage Bleu. It had been there for a few years, from what I understood, but I’d never been inside. Now I knew what I’d been missing.
“See anything you like?”
The voice was vaguely familiar. I turned and my jaw dropped. I recognized the sleek, long, black hair and fair skin. With the slight blush of her cheeks, she reminded me a bit of Snow White. “Jolie? ”
From her expression, she was just as surprised to see me. “Ivy!” she exclaimed. I’d met Jolie Flemming at the bread shop during a series of baking classes we’d taken, but I hadn’t seen her in a few months. “What are you doing here?”
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