Catered Catastrophe (A Willow Crossing Mystery Book 3)

by Leona Fox

  As she went through names, one after the other, Ru realized a baby really would change their lives. Now, instead of one wagon with Opal in it, they would have two little ones to tote around. She closed her eyes and imagined coming home from work and seeing Esteban on the porch, a little Delgado in his arms, pointing to a bird and teaching the little one what it was called. Then she pictured herself, dressing her little baby girl in pink lacy dresses, and then matching Opal’s dresses to the baby’s. That thought made her laugh out loud and she felt silly.

  The more Ru thought about the baby, the happier she became. She figured Esteban wanted the baby to be a boy and, as much as she would love a little girl, she, too, hoped there would be a little Esteban, Jr. running around the house. She knew Esteban would be a wonderful father; he was so patient and inviting. She only hoped that she would be as good a parent as her parents were.

  At around midnight Esteban came home and found Ru sleeping on the couch. Not wanting to wake her, he quietly went to the kitchen and warmed the meat in the microwave. Just as he was about to sit down to eat, Ru came in.

  “When did you get home?”

  “Just a few minutes ago. I didn’t want to wake you. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m famished.”

  As they ate their dinner, Esteban asked, “So, what did you find out on your walk?”

  “What do you mean?” Ru asked, trying to sound like she didn’t know what he really meant.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, looking at her slyly. “What did you find out when you went talking to people?”

  Realizing just how well Esteban knew her, she said, “Well, I found out that this Moe guy has been trying to convince small business owners in town that it would benefit them to have a large corporation move in.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Were they buying it?”

  “Kind of, but I think I put a stop to that. Oh, I also found out Moe has been spending a lot of time with Joanna Murphy lately.”

  “Eww, Joanna?” Esteban said, crinkling his nose.

  “Oh, stop, there’s nothing wrong with Joanna. She just likes to talk a lot.”

  “A lot? She’s like a walking gossip magazine.”

  “Well, maybe he’s using her to spread the word about what he wants to do here.”

  Esteban replied, “I think most people in town don’t really pay any attention to her, so I’m not going to stress over Joanna Murphy. Let’s change the subject.”

  “Okay, I was thinking about baby names.”

  Eyes wide, Esteban said, “Oh, yeah? What names do you like?”

  “Well, I like Maribel for a girl and Esteban for a boy.”

  “Oh, wow, I love those names. Especially the boy’s name!”

  Laughing, Ru said, “I figured you would. Anyway, we have plenty of time to come up with a girl’s name, but I really think if it’s a boy it should be Esteban, Jr.”

  “I think that sounds great. It would be nice to have a junior around here. You know, kind of even up the battle of the sexes in this house.”

  “Don’t let Opal hear you say that!”

  They both laughed and finished their dinner. It was late, so when they were done they went right to bed. Normally they don’t like to go to sleep so soon after eating, but Ru was exhausted and they both had work in the morning. Ru fell asleep thinking about the prospect of having a little Esteban running around the house. She didn’t know it, but Esteban fell asleep thinking about having a little Maribel running around the house.

  Chapter 4

  The following morning was rough for Ru; she was up early with a queasy stomach, and really didn’t feel like getting dressed and going to work. Esteban tried convincing her she should just stay home and rest, but, Ru being Ru, she insisted she needed to be there for her students. After a breakfast of toast and tea, she felt just good enough to throw on some clothes and drive to the school. She was a bit earlier than usual, so she decided to go to the teacher’s lounge and see if she could find a couple of Beck’s teachers. She hoped maybe she would be able to learn a little bit more about the guy who is sweet to the teachers and a bully to her students.

  There was a small group of teachers sitting at a table near the coffee pot, so Ru went over and pulled up a chair.

  “Do any of you have Beck Halburton in your class?”

  “As a matter of fact, three of us do,” an older woman replied.

  “He’s in my calculus class, why? Did he do something wrong?” a sweet, first year teacher asked.

  Ru replied, “Well, no, not exactly. He has been working for us for the past few months and I realized I don’t really know much about him. He seems like a great kid, but I’ve been informed that he tends to be a bully when it comes to his peers.”

  The older woman spoke up, “Well, he’s been in my gym class for three of his four years here, and I’ve been his Sunday School teacher since he moved here about seven years ago. He was always such a nice boy, but about two years ago his parents got divorced, and it kind of went downhill from there. He lost a lot of his friends, his grades started falling, and he started getting into trouble.”

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?” Ru asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know if I should be talking about him like this.”

  “He’s my employee. If he has been in trouble in the past, I should know about it. Besides, his attitude has been affecting my other employees.”

  “He hasn’t been in any big trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s more subtle than that. He likes to say things that are shocking or false, just to get attention, and, yes, sometimes he likes to pick on the other kids. I’m definitely not condoning his behavior, but even with his troubles, I just heard he still was able to get into a good college just out of state. From what I understand, he planned on going there to play baseball and major in sports management.”

  “Wow,” Ru said. “That’s great for him.”

  “Yes, it is.” the gray haired teacher replied.

  The first bell of the day rang, and all of the women stood and scattered as if they would be the ones sent to the attendance office if they were tardy. As Ru walked to her classroom, she saw Beck across the hall picking on a much smaller boy. She shot him a look that told him to stop his behavior and he said, “Good morning Mrs. Delgado. You look lovely today. I enjoyed working this weekend.” He had a smile on his face that at one time would have registered as genuine but, after hearing what she had about him in the past couple of days, it registered more as the smile worn by Eddie Haskell on ‘Leave It to Beaver’.

  “You’d better get to class, Beck.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” He turned and hurried down the hall.

  ~~~

  After work, Ru hurried home, got herself comfortable and opened her laptop. She knew Esteban didn’t like her meddling in other people’s business, so she was happy he would be working late again. It gave her time to do what she needed to do to get to the bottom of the equipment fiasco. First she searched Moe Cranston online and found the address to his office. His business website was very basic and didn’t really offer any helpful information that she could arm herself with.

  Next, Ru did a search for Joanna Murphy. There weren’t many links to her name, so Ru clicked on the first link, which was to a major social media website. She was shocked when she found out Joanna Murphy once was married to Owen Halburton, Beck’s father. Never having been Beck’s teacher, she really didn’t know him, and definitely didn’t know that Joanna Murphy was his mother. Some things finally were starting to make a little sense to her … at least when it came to Beck and his attitude. Ru continued looking, but again, seemed to hit a dead-end.

  Esteban sent Ru a text letting her know he would be home around 9 p.m., so at around 7:00 she began preparing dinner so she could put it in the oven and it would be ready for her husband when he walked through the door. After making the potatoes au gratin from scratch, and putting the pork roast in the oven, she went upstairs and hopped in the shower
. When she was done, she wrote herself a note to call the doctor to make an appointment. She totally forgot to do that during the day, and she knew Esteban would hound her until she did so. His love for her made her smile and she went downstairs to check on the roast. She was just in time to put the potatoes in the second of the two side-by-side ovens.

  As planned, Ru was placing dinner on the table just as Esteban walked through the door. “Amazing how you do that!”

  “Do what?” Ru asked.

  “Not only did you make something I actually was craving, but it was ready just as I got home.”

  “I learned from the best, Papi.”

  “Yeah? And, just who is the best?” he asked, knowing by the silly grin on her face what her answer would be.

  “You!” she said like a little girl and then went to her husband and hugged him tight.

  As they began eating their delicious dinner, Ru said, “Did you know that Joanna Murphy is Beck’s mom?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” he answered, seeming a bit preoccupied. He dropped his fork a couple of times and almost spilled his glass of milk.

  “What’s wrong, Papi? You seem anxious. Did something happen?”

  “I really didn’t want to bother you with this, but I guess you’ll hear about it anyway, so it might as well be from me.”

  “What is it? You’re making me nervous,” Ru said.

  “Well, Rosa came into the store today. She just walked in, went right to the new display of that new applesauce we have on sale, and knocked the whole thing to the floor. The jars broke and applesauce went everywhere.”

  “That’s nuts!” Ru couldn’t believe that woman.

  “Then, without apologizing or paying for anything, she just glared at me, turned around, and left the store.”

  “That psycho little …” Ru stopped herself, took a breath and then said, “You know, it was probably her who messed with the cart and the smoothie maker.”

  “I don’t know, Mama.”

  “If she can come into a place of business, destroy an entire display, and then walk out like nothing happened, then I wouldn’t put it past her to mess with our equipment. She was there early and then slipped out for a while.”

  “Even so, I just don’t get the feeling it was her. She never has been mechanically inclined, so I don’t think she’d be able to rig the smoothie machine to do what it did.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t count that nut out just yet. I can’t believe she did that!”

  “Mama, please, don’t get so upset. Sure, it was crazy, but it isn’t the end of the world. I don’t want you stressing out. It’s fine. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  Smiling, Ru replied, “Okay, Papi.”

  Chapter 5

  Before school started the next morning, Ru found Beck in the hallway and said, “I’d like for you to come to my classroom after school.”

  “What for, Mrs. Delgado?” Beck didn’t smile.

  “I just have a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Can we do it some other time? I’ve got plans after school.”

  “I need to talk to you, Beck. It won’t take long, I promise.”

  “Fine, but I can’t stay long.” His attitude was very different from his usual smiley, fake attitude.

  “That’s fine, Beck.”

  Beck turned and walked away without saying another word. Ru could tell he was annoyed to have to stay after school. During the day, she carefully planned out the questions she would ask him, making sure to sound curious and not accusatory. She figured the premise for the conversation would be her wondering if he would stop working for her to go to college, or if he would be sticking around town.

  About five minutes after the day’s final bell, Beck walked into Ru’s classroom. He hung his head, and his arms hung limp at his sides.

  Ru laughed and said, “Is coming to see me that much of a drag?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Delgado, I just would rather be home playing video games than staying after school. You know how it is.”

  “Well, I promise I won’t keep you long.” Ru motioned for Beck to sit, and then she sat on the front edge of her desk.

  “Since this is your last year here, I was wondering what your plans were. We don’t really get that much time catering to really chat. Do you plan to go to college, or will you stay here and work?”

  Instantly his demeanor changed, and his eyes brightened. “I got accepted to a college about seven hours from here. It’s awesome. I’m gonna be playing college ball!”

  “That’s great, Beck! Your parents must be excited for you!”

  “Well, my mom doesn’t really want me going that far from home, but she’s gonna have to get over it. I am so happy to be getting out of this town. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s okay here, but it’s so small.”

  “That makes sense. What about your father? What does he think about it?”

  Without much thought about it, Beck’s face instantly turned dark and he said, “He doesn’t give a crap one way or the other. He doesn’t care where I wind up.”

  “Beck, I doubt that’s true. He’s your father. I’m sure he’s proud.”

  “To be honest, Mrs. Delgado, my mom’s boyfriend cares more about me than my father does.”

  Trying not to sound like she’s prying, Ru asks, “Oh, yeah? Wow, who’s that? It’s great that he is showing an interest. It doesn’t always work out that way.”

  “I know. I was surprised, too, but Mr. Cranston … Moe … is so great.”

  His attitude perked up again and Beck continued, “Originally I was going to study sports management, but Moe is so business savvy. He told me that if I major in business management, when I come back I can work for him.”

  “That sounds great, Beck. It seems like you really have your life planned.”

  “Why are you asking all of this, Mrs. Delgado?” Beck asked, curiosity washing over his face.

  “Well, if you are going away to school that means you won’t be able to work for us anymore. I just wanted to see what your plans were so we also could plan.”

  “I gotcha. Well, I still want to work for you and Mr. Delgado until school is over. Is that cool?”

  Ru chuckled and said, “Yes, Beck, that’s cool. Go ahead, get out of here.” Ru motioned for Beck to go.

  “Okay, thanks. See ya in the halls!”

  “Bye.”

  Ru sat back down at her desk and pulled her purse out of the larger bottom drawer. Inside the front pocket was the note card she had written Moe Cranston’s office address down on. She debated whether it would be a good idea to go over there. On one hand, she really wanted to find out who sabotaged their equipment, but on the other hand, she really had no desire to sit and talk to someone as pushy and willing to embellish the truth as Moe. Finally, she decided that if she wanted to get a feeling for whether he was the saboteur, she needed to go to his office. She locked her classroom and went to her car.

  On the way over to Moe’s office, she thought about what she would say. She knew she couldn’t give her last name, or he would be able to connect her to Esteban, and then he wouldn’t want to talk about anything. Instead, she decided to mention a business opportunity. Feeling confident in her ability to talk to just about anyone, she parked her car and went into the office building. After locating Moe Cranston’s office in the directory, she took the stairs up to the second floor.

  “Can I help you?” the young woman at the reception desk asked.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Cranston.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Actually, no, but if you could tell him I have a lead on a business opportunity, that would be great.”

  “Your name?” The receptionist asked, exuding almost no personality.

  “Ruby.”

  “No last name?”

  “No, Ruby is fine.”

  The receptionist picked up the phone and said, “Mr. Cranston, there is a Ruby here to see you.”

/>   She then looked at Ru and said, “Have a seat. He’ll be right with you.”

  “Thank you,” Ru replied.

  She was slightly amused there was a receptionist desk for an office space consisting of only one office. She hid her amusement and waited patiently. Within five minutes, the only office door opened.

  “Ruby?” Moe asked.