My question exactly.
* * *
During a break from baking, I called Mrs. Branford and asked her to convene the Blackbird Ladies at Yeast of Eden. I knew they were well ensconced in Santa Sofia’s gossip and I wanted to ask them what they might know about Mustache Hank’s love life.
If I had read things right, then Alice Ryder had had some sort of relationship with Hank. I suspected she might have kept tabs on whatever Hank had been up to. And if she did, I intended to find out what she knew.
Olaya and I kept baking, finishing the last of the baguettes for an Italian restaurant in town just before 4:00. We readied them in a box for the Palermo’s driver to pick up on his way to the restaurant. I’d come to know the baking schedule for the local eateries that contracted with Olaya. Daily for Palermo’s. Fridays and Saturdays for the Fish Market, a seafood favorite, and Turtle Dove, a local California-cuisine spot. Olaya also baked scones, croissants, morning bread, a few varieties of muffins, and a sweet stromboli for a breakfast- and lunch-only diner.
The Blackbird Ladies had impeccable timing. As the last baguette was bagged, they came through the door of the bread shop one by one. Mabel Peabody came first, followed by Janice Thompson, Alice Ryder, and finally Mrs. Branford. “Here we are,” Janice said. “As requested.”
Alice pursed her lips. “You summoned us?” It sounded like an accusation rather than a question.
“Oh, come on,” Mabel said. “Let’s let her tell us why before you jump down her throat, Alice.”
Alice primped, patting the flipped curls of her hair. “I do not jump down people’s throats. I resent that.”
Mrs. Branford laughed. “Come now, Alice. You love to jump down people’s throats. It’s your favorite pastime.”
“But we love you anyway,” Mabel said.
Alice harrumphed, turning her back on us and sitting at one of the bistro tables. She looked at me with piercing blue eyes. “Why, exactly, did you call us here?”
There were four chairs at the table, including the one Alice had sat in. I pulled up another and swept my arm out so they’d all take a seat. “I called you here because you all seem to have the pulse on all things Santa Sofia,” I began.
Mrs. Branford preened, Alice rolled her eyes, Janice nodded, as if there had never been a doubt, and Mabel said, “You know it.”
“Hank Rivera is officially missing.” I paused, letting that bit of information sink in, and then I continued by filling them in on what Mrs. Branford, Janice, and I had discovered about him leaving the boarding house—potentially with a duffel bag—and Emmaline’s discovery of Hank’s truck just outside of town.
They all sat dumbstruck for a few seconds, and then Janice broke the silence. “Did anyone see anything?”
“Not as far as I know. Emmaline—er, the deputy sheriff—said they are talking with possible witnesses, but so far no one seems to know anything.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Alice asked, her Southern drawl making her words sound extra-snippy.
“You all know him,” I said.
They all nodded at that. “Go on,” Janice said.
“Could Hank have a girlfriend? Does he have other family? A friend he might have met up with? I’m trying to figure out why he would leave his truck behind. It only makes sense if someone met him there and he left with that person in his or her car.”
Mabel angled her head and looked at me. “Why do you want to figure it out, Ivy?”
The answer to that question was complicated. “I feel like I’m invested in finding him at this point, so I want to figure out what happened.”
I didn’t mention that Miguel had asked for my help, based on how I had recently helped solve the mystery of Jackie Makers’s death. I wanted to come through for him. Our history bound us, and there was still a thread of something between us that made me want to stay connected—despite his sister’s demand that I stay away from him.
But that was only part of my motive. During the past few months, I had also made a discovery about myself. Looking into my mother’s death had unleashed an insatiable curiosity from deep within myself. Emmaline had recently told me that I’d missed my calling; I could have been a detective. She was right. When something was wrong, I wanted to right it. I tried to encapsulate those feelings into something the Blackbird Ladies would understand, but it proved difficult. “I can’t really explain it. Miguel asked for my help—”
“Well, enough said!” Janice gave a knowing smile. “What we do for the men in our lives.”
“No, but that’s—”
“No need to explain any further, dear,” Mrs. Branford said. “I told you, you and young Mr. Baptista are fated to be together.”
“Por supuesta.” Olaya emerged from behind the bread counter. “I believe that is written.”
“Written? Fated?” I laughed, but it came out more like a chortle. I didn’t believe my fate was already determined, nor did I believe that Miguel and I were destined to be together. If that happened, then it would be because we fell in love again, something that might or might not happen. My fate didn’t rest in the stars any more than Hank Rivera’s did. “I’m more of the ‘we make our own destiny’ viewpoint. But thanks for your input.”
Alice gave her head the tiniest shake, rolling those eyes again, something that had become her standard action when she was with me. “Let’s get back to it, shall we? Hank does not have a girlfriend.”
Mabel turned to her. “And how do you know that, Alice?”
“I just do.” Alice’s annoyance was palpable and I had to wonder again what was driving her irritation.
I took a moment to really consider Alice. She sat stick-straight, her arms folded over her chest as if she were protecting herself. Her lips were drawn tightly together and she looked like she’d rather be anyplace other than here. Given that she had gone to school with Hank and had an actual connection to him, why wasn’t she more concerned about him?
Or maybe she was and she didn’t want to show it for some reason. Like Emmaline, I was trying to keep an open mind and consider all possibilities.
Mabel dug in her purse, her hand emerging a few seconds later with a tube of lip balm. “Have you talked to his brother?” she said as she coated her lips.
We all swung our heads to stare at her, each of our expressions slightly different. Janice’s eyebrows pinched together as if she were puzzled by the question. Alice’s eyes went wide with surprise. Olaya, who was still standing nearby, gave an exaggerated frown. Mrs. Branford’s open mouth formed an O, as if she were shocked at the suggestion. I went with the straightforward response. “He has a brother?”
Chapter 11
I couldn’t figure out how nobody had mentioned that Hank Rivera had a brother before now.
“I don’t think they’re very close,” Mabel said.
“They’re ten years apart,” Alice added.
Mrs. Branford swiped her hands against each other in a moving clap. “Of course. I completely forgot!”
“Mrs. Branford!” I chastised. She was my sidekick in this investigation. How could she forget such an important bit of information?
“Philip, right?” Janice said. “He’s got an appliance-repair shop, if I’m remembering correctly.”
Alice’s face dawned with remembrance. “That’s right. Coastal Appliance Repair. I’ve used him before, but it’s been years.”
“Could Hank be staying with him?” I asked. Being with family would be far better than staying in a boarding house, at least in my opinion.
Alice shook her head again. “Doubtful. I don’t think they see each other much.”
Once again, I wondered about Alice’s relationship with Hank. Was it as innocuous as she implied, or was my intuition correct that there was something she wasn’t telling us?
None of the Blackbird Ladies were able to offer any more information about Philip Rivera, so the subject was dropped—but not forgotten by me. I had committed the information to memory so I coul
d call Philip Rivera the second I got home.
As soon as I was able, I left Olaya and the Blackbird Ladies to their bread, saying I needed to get home to check on Agatha. That part was true. I went straight home to the old Tudor house I cherished, let Agatha into the backyard to take care of business, and played with her for a few minutes. Back inside, I called Coastal Appliance to see if Philip Rivera was in the office. He wasn’t. There was only one logical plan of action. I couldn’t easily go to Philip, so Philip needed to come to me.
Jackie Makers, the woman who’d recently been killed outside Yeast of Eden and whose murder I helped solve, had owned this house. I’d felt connected to it from the beginning and I’d been saving my money for a decade in hopes of finding a place to call home. When the house became available, I jumped at the chance to buy it. When it came down to it, I felt as if it was meant to be—as if Jackie had offered me her house because I’d brought her killer to justice.
She’d had expensive taste when it came to her kitchen. She’d remodeled and put in a cream-colored AGA range, a farm sink, and a stainless-steel built-in refrigerator. There was a brick arch over the range. A cream-colored exhaust hood hung above the window, but the view to the yard beyond illuminated the space with warm light.
I had to think quickly. “I have a fancy range,” I said to the woman on the other end of the line. “The oven-door latch is broken, so the door doesn’t close.” It was true. It suddenly stopped working, which was a problem, because baking bread had quickly become one of my favorite pastimes. Not having a working oven meant I couldn’t do what I’d come to love. Getting it repaired had been on my list of things to do, but since learning that Philip Rivera fixed appliances, it had moved to the top of my list.
She took down the necessary information and consulted her schedule. “He’ll have to order whatever parts are needed. He has a cancellation this afternoon. Can he come by in an hour to see what parts he needs?”
I sat on a stool at the olive-colored island, my forearms resting on the pristine dark-wood countertop. Above it, the wrought-iron light fixture glowed warmly. I’d adorned the open shelves on either end of the island with my sparse collection of cookbooks and a few knickknacks. The only things I collected were antique cameras. Over the years I’d garnered a fair number, all of which were displayed on a built-in bookshelf in the living room. The kitchen, in contrast, held antiques I’d found and loved, a few holy-water founts I’d found in different stores across the country, and the antique galvanized metal conveyor contraption I’d bought at the Winter Wonderland Festival. I’d hung it on a narrow wall next to the refrigerator and had put a sprinkling of dried flowers in each container.
I loved every inch of my house, but with the peaked ceiling and exposed dark beams, the kitchen was my favorite space. The island was covered in beadboard and was painted a warm olive green, but the rest of the cabinetry was a buttery white and had wrought-iron hardware. The old leaded windows were framed in honey-colored wood. The kitchen felt like it was created in the 1920s or 1930s. It was vintage at its very best.
I had one problem: A strange man, the brother of a missing man, alone with me in my house, was probably not a good idea. I was plenty self-reliant and had no qualms about being able to take care of myself under normal circumstances, but this wasn’t what I’d consider normal. I couldn’t put myself in a potentially dangerous situation by choice and without precautions.
So I called Billy. My brother and I had been best friends growing up—and we still were. He’d come over to be my backup in a heartbeat. He answered and I told him what I needed.
“Sorry, Ivy, no can do,” he said. “I’m in the City today. Needed some hardware for a job.”
Billy was a contractor. He specialized in taking a house from foundation to finish, complete with custom trims and finishings. Sometimes, like today, that meant he had to go as far as San Francisco to hunt for something obscure or one of a kind.
After we hung up, I went to plan B: my dad. But he didn’t answer, which meant he was probably in a meeting.
Emmaline was next. She was deputy sheriff, so she’d be perfect as backup. “I can’t, Ivy. We’re processing Hank’s truck. There’s no way I can leave.”
The good news there was that, if we were lucky, some clue as to Hank’s whereabouts would surface. The bad news was that without Billy, my dad, or Em, I was still without a wingman for Philip’s visit.
Which left me with just one option. Even as I made the call, Laura Baptista’s words echoed in my head: Leave him alone, Ivy. I pushed her admonition aside, half hoping Miguel wouldn’t answer the phone so I wouldn’t have to deal with whatever Laura had been referring to.
But he did answer.
After a quick greeting, I filled him in on the latest news about Hank, including the discovery of his truck.
“That doesn’t sound good,” he said, his voice dropping low.
I was still holding out hope that he’d turn up, but the more I thought about it, the more my optimism waned. “He’s officially a missing person now,” I said. After giving him a minute to process where we were, I told him about Hank’s brother, Philip, and how he was coming over within the hour. “I thought it would be a good idea to have someone else here. Billy’s in the city, my dad’s busy, and Emmaline is doing sheriffing stuff, so I was hoping you could come over,” I said.
“Fourth choice, huh?”
I couldn’t tell if he was hurt, offended, or simply stating a fact. I thought about defending my choice by telling him about his sister’s warning, but thought better of it. Whatever that was about, I didn’t want to get into it right now. “Yeah, well . . .”
“It’s fine, Ivy. Of course I’ll come. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
He was true to his word, arriving fifteen minutes later. His six-foot frame filled the arched doorway, the dimples, like long commas on either side of his mouth, framed his smile. Olive skin, dark hair, and green eyes were only part of his appeal. His years of military training had given him broad shoulders, a lean body, and a confident bearing that he hadn’t had as a senior in high school. He’d been attractive and fit then, but now he was alluring in the way a teenager could never be. I’d been in love with him as only an adolescent girl can be, but as an adult, he had charisma and countenance that was magnetic. He’d liked me back in high school. Maybe he’d even loved me in his way. But Laura’s face as she’d told me to stay away came back to me. Something had driven him away, and whatever it was had been monumental enough that it was still an issue for Miguel’s sister, twenty years later.
I was nonchalant with my greeting. “Hey.”
His smile faded slightly. “Hey yourself.”
I opened the door wider and he stepped in, his gaze immediately falling to the Galileo’s thermometer, the housewarming gift he’d gotten me. “Looks good.”
It did and I nodded in agreement. Agatha had been sound asleep on her little dog bed in the kitchen, but at the sound of a male voice, she’d jerked awake and bounded into the front room, launching into a barking frenzy as if Miguel was an intruder. She was in full protective mode.
He took an instinctual step back, but chuckled. “I’m not going to hurt her, Agatha,” he said, crouching down and holding out one hand. Agatha edged forward and sniffed. She scooted back, then inched forward again, crinkling her shiny black nose as she smelled his hand for the second time.
He stood and Agatha yelped again, in a final halfhearted effort. She spun around, but as I led Miguel to the kitchen, the little fawn pug trotted along beside him. It hadn’t taken much for him to win her over. He had that special gift, apparently.
A little thread of nerves wound itself around my insides. It felt strange having Miguel here. Awkward, almost. Although we’d reconnected and he’d called me about Hank, I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were friends who hung out together. I didn’t know how to make small talk with him. I didn’t know if I wanted to. Weren’t we past that?
I went back to the stoo
l I’d been perching on earlier, skipped the chitchat, and stayed on topic. “Did you know Hank had a brother?”
He leaned back against one of the counters, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I had no idea. All we ever talk about is produce.”
“Is it odd that Mrs. Rivera or her son didn’t mention it?” I wasn’t sure if it was or wasn’t. On the one hand, Brenda and Hank were divorced, but on the other hand, Hank was the father of her son, so you’d think she’d want to give whatever information was needed to help find him.
Miguel stroked his chin. “I was wondering the same thing. I don’t know. We didn’t actually ask, and Mrs. Rivera didn’t seem to think he was actually missing.”
“But what about Jason? He came to you, looking for his dad.”
“Looking, yes, but at that point he didn’t necessarily think anything was specifically wrong. He was just a little bit worried. If Hank and his brother aren’t close, then I can see Jason not mentioning it.”
I guess he was right. I was probably reading too much into it. I didn’t have any more time to think about it, though, because the doorbell rang. Agatha jumped up and immediately started barking again. She raced to the door, raising her little smashed head up as she yelped with such passion that it sounded hoarse and strained. She only backed away when I opened the door, but she kept up the barking.
I scolded her. “Agatha, enough.” She stopped, but kept up a low growl.
The man at the door had a name tag on, but I didn’t need it to identify him as Phil Rivera. He was most definitely Hank’s brother. Phil didn’t have the handlebar mustache, but he did have the same gray eyes, olive skin, broad shoulders, narrow hips, and lanky limbs. He nodded his greeting. “Coastal Appliance. I hear you have a problem with your AGA door?”
“Yes, right. Thanks for coming so quickly.” I ushered him in and Agatha took up her barking again. I gave her a stern look and held up a finger. “Hush!”
She did, but her tail was still unfurled, a clear sign that she was on alert. I led Phil into the kitchen where Miguel was waiting. The two men lifted their chins up in a silent, male-oriented greeting. Phil added an additional, “Hey, man.”
Crust No One Page 12