Kneaded to Death

by Winnie Archer

  She offered me a cup of tea in a dainty floral cup. Mrs. Branford was a tough bird, but she had a soft side underneath it all. She sat down at the kitchen table, and her usually bright smile tempered. “Ivy, I want to talk about something with you.”

  Worry instantly coursed through me. I took a close look at her. She didn’t appear sick. Her cheeks were rosy, and the jovial twinkle was still in her eyes, despite her serious expression.

  I sat down across from her. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think so.” She looked around, as if someone might be listening. “Remember the envelope in the freezer?”

  “I remember.” It had been only a week ago that she’d brought it across the street to Olaya and me.

  “I found another one.”

  “Another envelope in the freezer?”

  “An envelope, yes, but not in the freezer. This one was under the cushion of the couch.”

  Curious. “That’s, um, an interesting place to keep an envelope. What’s in it?”

  “Pictures.”

  “Pictures?” I realized that I was repeating everything she was saying, but I was stymied by her confession. Mrs. Branford had found an envelope filled with pictures under the couch cushion. It felt like a game of Clue. Professor Plum in the library with a candlestick.

  She stretched her hand behind the fruit bowl and slid out a five-by-seven manila envelope. Just as she’d said, inside was a stack of photographs.

  I slipped them out and quickly scanned them, then slowed my pace to take a closer look at each one. The first was a picture of Buck Masterson in his front yard, hose in hand. He stared across the street, his bad comb-over thready on his forehead. It felt like he was looking right at Penny Branford’s house.

  “Did you take this picture?” I asked.

  “You’d think I did, wouldn’t you? But no. You’ve seen my shaky hands. I couldn’t take a good picture to save my life.”

  “Then who?”

  She looked pointedly at me. “That’s the winning question, dear.”

  The next photo was of Nanette Masterson, hand on a door handle, her head turned to the side, as if she were looking over her shoulder.

  “Whose house is that?”

  “Jackie’s. ”With a bony finger, she pointed to the flowerpot on the front porch, to the left of where Nanette stood. “I helped her plant that pot not two months ago. See how the impatiens have grown? They started as single-stalk flowers.”

  In the photo, the flowers were full and colorful. The picture, then, had to have been taken fairly recently.

  “You think Jackie took these?”

  Mrs. Branford threw up her hands, clearly exasperated. “I don’t know. Why would she hide in my yard and take a picture of Buck? And how would she be outside, across the street and hidden, in order to take that one of Nanette?” She rubbed her temples. “My dear, my head hurts.”

  I looked at that picture again, noticing the almost menacing look on Buck’s face. It was as if he was staring straight at the camera. “What if she—Jackie, I guess—was in your yard to take a picture of Buck?”

  Mrs. Branford looked at me like I was short a few marbles. “It’s puzzling, but at the same time it seems fairly obvious, dear.”

  “No, no. I mean what if she wasn’t hiding? What if she stood there, plain as day, and was snapping pictures?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  I looked at the next photo in the stack. Buck had dropped the hose and was on the edge of his yard, still looking at the camera. His hand was raised, as if he were scolding an errant child, and his mouth was open. I could almost hear the vitriolic words spewing from him. “Leverage?”

  “Explain that to me, Ivy.”

  “We know Jackie was trying to oust Buck from the historic district’s council. She gathered all those letters against him, and the petition to remove him from his position.”

  She nodded. “Correct.”

  “What if she was trying to intimidate him? Play at his own game?” I slapped my hand on my thigh. “What if she discovered that Buck and Nanette had broken into her house, looking for something? The letters, probably, which is why she’d hidden them in your freezer.”

  “But why would she stake out her own house and photograph someone trying to break in? Why not confront Nanette? Jackie was not a shrinking violet.”

  I smiled to myself. Such an old-fashioned expression. “What if she wanted to catch them in the act of breaking in so she could prove it? Hold it over them or show the council?”

  “Okay, but why would she put the pictures under my couch cushion?”

  I thought about this. If Jackie knew Nanette and Buck were regularly breaking into her house, she’d want them to be safe. “She didn’t give them to you to hold for her? Or to hide?”

  “If she did, I have absolutely no recollection of that. Maybe I’m losing my marbles. I’m no spring chicken anymore, so it’s possible, you know.”

  Once again, things didn’t quite add up. “Mrs. Branford, I think you’d remember if someone gave you an envelope. Two envelopes,” I corrected. The first, with the stack of letters against Buck Masterson, had ended up in her freezer somehow. Now she’d found these pictures. “It had to be Jackie, and she’s the one who had to have hidden them.”

  She seemed to breathe a little easier. Realizing you weren’t completely losing your faculties would be a relief, I imagined. “It makes sense for the letters. She was the one going after Buck. But these photos, I don’t understand them. There’s nothing in here worth hiding.”

  I had to agree. It didn’t make sense.

  “Would you keep them, dear?” Mrs. Branford said. “I don’t want to misplace them again.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Mrs. Branford, I don’t think you misplaced them in the first place.”

  Mrs. Branford’s hand trembled slightly, the tea in her cup sloshing from the movement. She braced her cup with her left hand, controlling the motion. “Will you keep them, anyway?”

  “Of course,” I said, and I slid the pictures back into the envelope and tucked the envelope in my purse. “For safekeeping.”

  I took our teacups, rinsed them, and placed them in the drying rack to the left of the sink. “Shall we go?”

  “No time like the present.”

  Mrs. Branford stood, took her cane, and together we crossed the street to the Masterson house. She shook her head as we walked up the crumbling brick pathway.

  “If I break a hip—”

  “You’re not going to break a hip,” I said, but I took her by the elbow just in case.

  As we climbed the porch steps, Mrs. Branford pulled free of my protective guidance and kept walking, bypassing the door. I hurried after her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Odd ducks, the Mastersons. You have to enter over here.”

  I looked back over my shoulder. The walkway led to the porch, which led to the front door. “They don’t use the main entrance? Why?”

  She stopped walking and leaned against her cane. “There’s no accounting for anything they do,” she said. “I used to try to make sense of them, but no more.”

  The side door was open. We stepped in, and I made the mistake of breathing. I nearly choked and covered my nose and mouth. I moved my hand to whisper, “Cats?”

  Mrs. Branford pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “About five million of them. And I think they pee wherever they want to.”

  I grimaced, trying hard not to breathe and hoping I didn’t step on one of the five million tabbies that surely must be lurking in the house. I looked around. We stood in the entryway to the side door. An overstuffed period chair sat in the left corner, and a small round table was in the middle of the space. Jars of jelly were lined up around a bowl of plums. A stack of printed notes was next to the bowl. I picked one up and read it.

  Our neighborhood is only as strong as the individual people in it. A weak link jeopardizes us all. Take this plum jam, homemade from o
ur trees, as a symbol of how committed we are to the Maple/Elm Historic District in Santa Sofia.

  I handed the note to Mrs. Branford. I’d lay money down that in the Mastersons’ world, Jackie had been the weak link.

  A low chatter came from a back room.

  “They’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. Branford said. She led the way, walking to the dining room. An embossed silver ceiling, heavy wood moldings and trim, and floral wallpaper made the room feel closed in and dark. Oppressive. It was as if they were trying to recapture every bit of life more than a hundred years ago. They seemed to have succeeded in capturing the look, but then they’d kept going, somehow choking the soul from it in the process.

  A few people sat at the rectangular dining table. Mrs. Branford stopped to chat and introduced me to a few of them. I smiled and waved.

  “Do you live in the neighborhood?” a middle-aged man asked me.

  “No, just friends with Mrs. Branford,” I said. “Tagging along.”

  I followed Mrs. Branford into the kitchen and stopped to take it all in. Cluttered was an understatement. There were pots and pans hanging from a makeshift pot rack made from an old pulley system. Flowerpots, some with dying plants, lined the back of the counter, intermixed with container after container of cooking utensils. In one corner, a stack of papers, magazines, and books teetered precariously. It was an odd kitchen space, and despite the food offerings on the island and the cooking paraphernalia all around, I wondered if any cooking actually happened here. My gut was telling me that it didn’t.

  “Penelope. Good of you to come,” Buck Masterson said, hand extended. He had what I could describe only as a smarmy smile on his face. There was something untrustworthy about him, and although his words said otherwise, he seemed absolutely less than happy to actually see Mrs. Branford.

  “Wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” she replied, a saccharine smile on her lips. “You remember Ivy Culpepper. Owen’s daughter.”

  His nostrils flared, but he kept up his facade. “Of course. Are you here as Penelope’s home health nurse? Getting older is a terrible thing, isn’t it, Penny?”

  I did a double take. Was he intentionally trying to get Mrs. Branford’s goat, or was he inordinately socially awkward? Mrs. Branford rallied, bless her heart.

  “It is indeed, Buck, as you know firsthand, but Ivy is not here as my nurse. In fact, she knew Jackie and has been helping finish up a few things the poor woman started.”

  The color drained from Buck’s face. He whipped his head around to look at me more closely. “Is that so? What sort of things, exactly?”

  “Oh, Mr. Masterson, I don’t want to bore you with city business,” I said as coyly as I could.

  “Actually, city business fascinates me. I’m the representative of the Maple/Elm Historic District, which I believe you know. Any city business involving our historic designation must go through me.”

  Mrs. Branford cocked her head. She looked like the perfect grandmother, with her fluffy white hair, her velour sweat suit, which was powder blue today, and her sweet face, but underneath, I knew, she was tough as nails and would do whatever it took to bring down Buck Masterson. “Must it? Everything?” she said, quite innocently, but I knew and he knew that she would never answer to Buck.

  “You know that, Penny. I’m your representative. I know the ins and outs of the district, the zoning, the city officials and how they are always trying to screw us. No one else is watching out for us. It’s me. I take care of everyone in our district.”

  “Don’t forget me,” Nanette said, sidling up to her husband. Her dyed red hair hung in two stringy sheets on either side of her head. It was a nice cut, but with her heavy jowls and chin, the straight hair looked plastered to her head in a particularly unflattering way. “There’s always a good woman behind a successful man.”

  I did believe that old expression to be true, but I liked to think more progressively than that. Behind every successful woman was a smart man. That was my belief, and I needed a man who believed it, too. I phrased my response carefully. Specific enough to make them worry, but vague enough not to give anything away. “I’m sure you both do everything you can for your neighbors. I’ll let you know if I have any questions as I go through Jackie’s papers.” I patted my purse for good measure. “Now that I know you’re the go-to people.”

  The skin around Buck’s neck reddened and the flush spread upward, coloring his cheeks first and then the entire flat surface of his face. He managed to remain expressionless, despite the fact that he was the color of a tomato. “You have some of her papers?”

  I turned to survey the other people in the small kitchen, trying to be nonchalant. Buck’s feathers were clearly ruffled. Outside of Mrs. Branford’s tales and our surveillance, I didn’t know Buck Masterson at all. Despite that, I was pretty sure that playing coy about what I knew or didn’t know was going to drive him nuts. “Papers, some notes, and some letters, I think. Is that right, Mrs. Branford?”

  My elderly friend puffed her cheeks and nodded innocently. “And pictures,” she said. “Don’t forget the pictures.”

  “Right!” I looked him in the eyes and tilted my head, as if I were puzzled. “I’m surprised you didn’t work together on some of your district projects. She was pretty involved in the neighborhood, too, from what I’ve seen so far.”

  Nanette choked, then broke into a cough. She patted her chest with her palm. “Sorry. Something caught in my throat.” She and Buck shared a look that I couldn’t decipher; then she turned to me. “Will you be at the baking class tomorrow? I sure did enjoy my time there the other day.” The fake saccharine in her voice revealed the truth behind her innocent words.

  I smiled as naturally as I could, although I knew she was fishing. “Oh, I’ll be there. Of course! I’m Olaya Solis’s apprentice.”

  “Doesn’t your dad work long hours these days, Ivy?” Mrs. Branford was getting in on the game, trying to give the Mastersons an opportunity to do some snooping while I was gone at Yeast of Eden.

  “He’s hardly ever home. It’s easier for him to keep his mind busy at work.”

  “Poor fellow,” Buck said.

  I rolled my eyes. As if he actually cared.

  Nanette squeezed my arm. “And that’s where you’re living right now? With your father?”

  I had to give her credit. Her attempt at subtly gathering intel about my situation wasn’t half bad. If I didn’t know that was what she was doing, I might have been snowed.

  “Me and Agatha.”

  She cocked a faded red eyebrow.

  “My pug,” I explained. “She’s my little shadow.”

  “Ah. We’re cat people.” Her tone said she thought cat people were far superior to dog people. I’d read the studies. Cat people were smarter, blah, blah, blah. Maybe so, but I’d take Agatha any day of the week. She was loyal, loving, and as warm as a basket full of freshly baked dinner rolls.

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Branford said with an exaggerated sniff.

  Nanette’s face flamed red, and I stifled a laugh.

  Nanette scowled, then turned her body so she had her back partially to Mrs. Branford. “I’m sure it’s terribly difficult for your dad to be home alone.”

  I took the bait. “Oh, it is, Nanette. So tough. I usually call him when I’m on my way home from the bread shop, or wherever I’m at, so we get home about the same time.”

  She shot her husband a look, and I met Mrs. Branford’s eyes. Nanette was like a fly caught in a spider’s web, and I was the spider. I knew right then and there that they’d be coming up with some plan to search my dad’s house for Jackie’s “papers” while I was at Yeast of Eden. All we had to do was set a trap to catch them in the act of breaking and entering. They certainly wanted whatever Jackie had had her hands in. There was no question about that. What I still didn’t know, however, was if they’d killed her over it.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Early the next morning, Olaya phoned and asked me to help her at the f
ront counter at Yeast of Eden. “One of my regular girls called in sick, so we’re shorthanded.”

  I hightailed it over just as soon as I walked Agatha and got her situated with a bowl of food, water, and a chew toy. The weather had taken a turn. The beautiful spring days we were having had become cold and windy. I grabbed a jacket before I left the house, and gave my dad a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “I also have baking class,” I said, feeling a little like I was back in high school, accounting for my time and outings. “I’ll come back to check on Agatha, though.”

  “You’re allowed to have a life, Ivy,” he said. “I can take care of myself. I’m going to have to, you know.”

  I sighed. He was right. We were both going to have to cut the ties and figure out how to move forward, and that meant I’d have to find a place of my own and he’d have to figure out what his life looked like without my mom. “I know, Dad.”

  “Stay out late. Go on a date. I don’t want to be the one holding you back.”

  “You’re not holding me back from anything. I don’t want to be doing anything else right now.”

  “Not while you’re playing detective,” he said with a frown.

  “I’m trying,” I said, leaving it at that. I didn’t want him to get upset again over the digging I was doing.

  The line for bread was ten people deep when I walked in the door of Yeast of Eden.

  “Here,” Olaya said, calling me over. She handed me a bakery apron and a small order pad. “Write down the orders here, give a receipt if the customer wants one, and put the original here,” she said, pointing to a metal base with a long, pointed spike. A stack of order sheets had been speared onto it. “I track everything that we sell at the end of the day. It helps me know how we do with each item and how much I need to bake. I compare the inventory to the receipts. It is how I balance the books, so to speak.”

  It sounded like a lot of paperwork, but aside from the phenomenal bread, this was definitely why Olaya and her business were so successful. We worked for an hour and a half before the line finally died down and we could breathe again.