Flour in the Attic

by Winnie Archer

  “Most assuredly. We’ll meet to discuss all the details. I’ll need to get your stepfather’s approval, as well, as next of kin.”

  Lisette finished initialing, signed in the final spot Mr. Alcott indicated, and slid the contract back to him. He rose, coming out from behind his desk and extending his hand to Ruben, Sergio, and finally, to Lisette. “Again, I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks. We appreciate it,” Ruben said.

  “Of course. I understand from the authorities that we will be in possession of your mother’s remains shortly. We can plan the service for Thursday. I can phone you later this afternoon to confirm.”

  “Call me,” Lisette said.

  Ruben looked at his sister with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. Was he irritated at her inserting herself as the go-to person? Or was he grateful that she was willing to take on that role? Or was he just happy that she was calm?

  Miguel and I had been standing by the door. We scooted out without handshakes, and I wondered if Mr. Alcott’s hand was cold or warm, clammy or sweaty, dry or soft. Lisette’s ringing cell phone wiped the questions away. She answered as Mr. Alcott saw us all out. He’d just gone back inside, leaving us to ponder Marisol’s eternal rest, when Lisette cried out. “What are you saying?” Her voice was panic-stricken. She dropped her hand, the phone dangling from her loose grip.

  Sergio grabbed it before it fell, holding it to his ear and talking with whoever was on the other end. We all stared, but I had a pretty good idea about what had upset Lisette.

  Sergio confirmed it thirty seconds later. “That was the sheriff.” He raked his hands through his short hair, his fingers curving, pressing into his scalp like a metal claw. “She needs to meet with us. About Mom’s death.”

  A mournful silence fell over them. It was as if they knew that Em was going to tell them the unthinkable—that their mother hadn’t drowned, she’d been murdered.

  Chapter 7

  The Morales children scattered and Miguel and I drove down Pacific Coast Highway. A breeze blew in from the ocean, but the day was warm and sunny. Tufts of white, cottony clouds dotted the bright periwinkle sky. Bristol State Beach had public access and was brimming with sunbathers. Kids built sand castles, small groups played volleyball in the sand pits, and a few surfers paddled out to the breaking waves. I sometimes walked along the pathway parallel to the sand, people-watched, and took photographs, but generally, I preferred the secluded areas near the pier at Baptista’s and in the rocky inlets hidden away from the tourists.

  When we were kids, Billy, Emmaline, and I had spent countless hours burying each other in the sand, building castles with moats that the tide would fill, and running back and forth, chasing the waves at the shoreline as they ebbed and flowed. Billy was two years younger than we were, but at that point, the difference in age didn’t matter.

  As we got older, though, we moved from sand toys to boogie boards and body surfing, and once we all became teenagers, everything changed. Miguel entered the picture. We flirted endlessly until finally, when I was sixteen and a junior, and he was a senior, we started dating for real. Em and Billy had always crushed on each other, but the age difference back then had been too much. As they’d gotten older, even through their twenties, they’d tried to get together, but when one was single, the other wasn’t. They were always at different places at different times.

  Their friendship had started with our time at the beach as kids. Emmaline had intended to bring it full circle with her marriage proposal . . . until Marisol’s body had washed up.

  “We should check on David,” I said suddenly, knowing that no one else was going to. Whatever suspicions he’d had about his wife’s death were now confirmed and I worried about his state of mind.

  Miguel called the restaurant and spoke briefly to his mother to check on things, then turned the truck in the direction of the house Marisol and David had shared. The neighborhood was farther north along PCH and was a mixture of old and new, of houses and apartments. It was reminiscent of Venice Beach with its hip, grungy vibe featuring homes with million-dollar-plus price tags.

  “This is where Marisol lived?” I asked, shocked. Any home that came on the market was snapped up by the highest bid from multiple offers. No matter what the California economy did, this part of Santa Sofia would always be a seller’s market.

  “Marisol’s parents bought their place as a fixer-upper way back before it was the place to live,” Miguel said. “Right place, right time. Her father quick-deeded it to her when his health started failing.”

  He edged his truck into the narrow alley driveway next to a turquoise and lavender bungalow. Anywhere else, the vibrant colors of the home would have been gaudy, but two blocks from the beach in this trendy, gentrified neighborhood, it fit right in. The house was quaint and charming—and had to be worth a couple million.

  “Marisol moved back in to take care of her dad when he couldn’t manage on his own anymore.”

  “David too?”

  “Yeah, after they got married. She always said he was really helpful to her. Took her dad to doctor’s appointments, chased him down when he’d skipped off in the middle of the night—”

  “Skipped off?”

  “Alzheimer’s. He didn’t know her in the end. It was rough. There were a lot of days she came to work looking like she hadn’t slept at all. I don’t think she would have gotten through it in one piece without David.”

  Poor Marisol. She had not just seen her father die, she’d seen him deteriorate to a shell of his former self.

  There were no sidewalks on the block, and very little yard to go with the small houses. It didn’t matter, though. It was a trade-off for the palm trees dotting the landscape and the sound of crashing waves carrying on the breeze. We made our way across what yard there was and up to the front stoop. The door was open, a flimsy screen door the only thing separating the inside of the house from the outside. I rang the doorbell as Miguel peered through the dark screen and called, “David, you in there?”

  We stood back and waited, but David did not appear. We looked at each other, contemplating what do. “That’s his car,” Miguel said, pointing to a black sedan, “and the door is open. He’s gotta be here.”

  “Maybe he went for a walk,” I suggested. Strolling along the water’s edge was one of my favorite things to do, and it always cleared my head. Given what David was going through, it wouldn’t surprise me if he needed a change of scenery.

  But Miguel shook his head. “Santa Sofia is a nice small town, but that doesn’t mean you leave your house wide open if you’re not there.”

  He knocked again, calling David’s name louder this time.

  Finally, we heard stirrings inside. First a grumble. Then heavy footsteps lumbering down a back hallway. At last, we caught sight of David heading toward us. I’d only met him a few times, but he looked like a different man from the one I’d photographed. His gunmetal-gray hair looked oily and uncombed. He looked unkempt. Rumpled. Unshaven. My gaze traveled down his arm to the longneck bottle of beer dangling from his loose fingers. He hadn’t been in good shape the night before at Baptista’s, but now it looked to me as if David Ruiz had come undone.

  He took one look at us through the screen door, shook his head, and turned back around. He held up his free hand as he started back in the direction from which he’d come. “I can’t talk,” he said, his words mashing together. I’d say the bottle of beer he currently held was not his first.

  “Have you talked to the sheriff?” Miguel asked. No pleasantries. No beating around the bush. There was no point. Anything else would have been forced, and, frankly, disrespectful to David.

  He stopped in his tracks, slowly turning around to face us again. “I did.”

  Which explained the drastic change in his demeanor.

  “I didn’t wanna be right.” He tilted his head back as if he were suddenly considering something on the ceiling, but I knew he wasn’t actually focusing on anything. He jerked, a
nd his left arm shot out, his fist smashing against the wall, leaving a crumpled hole behind. “She shouldn’ta been out there swimming—”

  Miguel flung the screen door open and rushed inside, grabbing hold of David’s arm before he was able to punch the wall again. “She wasn’t. She didn’t drown, man,” Miguel said, trying to assuage the man’s guilt. “That’s not how she died. It’s not your fault.”

  David turned his head to look at Miguel before his knees gave out. His shoulders slumped and he collapsed like a rag doll in Miguel’s arms. I surged forward, catching the base of the beer bottle before it crashed to the ground.

  “She was such a good person,” he said, his words slurring. “Such a good person. Why would anyone hurt her?”

  My eyes pooled with tears. David’s grief was so palpable. So raw. “The police are going to find out,” I said. “I know Sheriff Davis, and she won’t rest until Marisol’s killer is brought to justice.”

  Miguel half carried, half dragged David to the small living area of the house, depositing him on a sofa covered with an off-white slipcover, thin piping rimming the cushions. I went to the kitchen, emptied the remaining beer into the sink, and came back with a glass of water. He managed to sit up, but I held the cup to his lips to help him. The liquid dribbled down his chin despite my best effort.

  He pushed the glass away. His head wobbled as he tried to focus on me. “You.”

  I placed my open palm on my chest. “Ivy.”

  “You’re still going to help me,” he said, his words slurring. It was a statement, not a question. He turned his glazed eyes to Miguel. “Mari loved you like one of her own children. You have to find out what happened to her. You owe her that.”

  Miguel met my gaze. The police were on it. I’d meant it when I’d said that Emmaline wouldn’t rest until she found out who had killed Marisol Ruiz and dumped her body in the ocean. But despite that, I nodded at Miguel, he dipped his chin back at me, and told David that we would get to the truth behind his wife’s death.

  * * *

  Talking to David in his heavily inebriated state was like chasing a rabbit through a field. We started with some basic questions, he’d start to answer, but then he’d slip away, following some jumbled thread of logic in his mind that wasn’t, in fact, logical at all. He was far too drunk to make much sense.

  I made a pot of coffee to try to help sober him up as Miguel pressed on, trying to get any little bit of information to help us. “David,” he said, circling around to the same question he’d already asked three times. “You must have some idea. Who would have wanted to hurt Marisol?”

  David spoke more clearly this time, but his head still lolled against the back of the couch and he still talked in circles, not answering the question, but going off on another rabbit trail. “The triathlon she was training for is coming up. Lisette thought she was too old to be competing. Ridiculous. She was the youngest fifty-seven-year-old in the world.” He pointed a crooked finger at Miguel, then trained it on me. “In the whole world. She ran circles around her training buddies. They didn’t have a chance of winning against her in their age group. She was good. Real good.”

  “David.” Miguel’s voice was sharp. “Come on, man. Was someone upset with her? Did she have any enemies?”

  “Pft. Enemies? She was a waitress, for chrissakes. What kind of enemies could she have? Everybody loved her.”

  I sat down next to him, taking his hand in mine. “You’re right. But David, someone killed her. That means there’s somebody who didn’t love her. It means there is somebody out there who wanted her dead. Do you have any ideas? We just need a place to start.”

  He tried to focus on me. “She wasn’t the same after her dad died, you know. She missed him, of course. Didn’t want to believe that he was gone. But it was more than that. She was afraid she’d get old-timer’s. She would forget where she’d put her keys and freak out like her mind was going. Or she’d completely blank on where her dad was. She’d actually say to me, He’s not here. And I’d say, He is. He’s with you, and I’d show her the urn. It’s right there.” He dragged his finger through the air, as if he were pulling it through a vat of pea soup. He stopped when he was pointing to a turquoise container accented with a gold band with embossed repeating leaves. The lid was trimmed in gold. It sat on a small occasional table against the wall, surrounded by family photos. “It’s like she didn’t remember that he’d died, or she thought we’d buried him instead.”

  “Stress can affect your memory,” I told him. I’d gone through bouts of forgetfulness after my divorce and after my mother’s death. My theory was that the mind ignored the trivial in order to devote itself to healing or coping.

  “I guess that was it.” He shook his head, angst-ridden. “Finally, she just shut down. Stopped talking to me about it altogether, like she was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  He shrugged helplessly. “That I’d judge her? That I’d leave her if she was losing her mind? I don’t know. I tried. I really tried to be there for her, but she shut me out. And now she’s gone and I just want her back.” His eyes drifted closed. I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then they jerked open. “Could she have done it to herself? Ended things before she got to the state her father did?”

  From the way he described her state of mind, it sounded possible, if not for the ME’s report. She couldn’t have strangled herself and then thrown herself into the water. Still, everyone needed someone to talk to. If David had stopped being that person for Marisol, who had she turned to? I paused for a moment to give Miguel time to explain why Marisol hadn’t killed herself, and to give David time to get his emotions in check, then I asked, “Do you think she might have confided in someone else? A best friend? Her daughter?”

  He looked up suddenly. “Martina Solis.”

  I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise. I knew from Olaya that Martina and Marisol had been friends and running partners, but it had left my brain somehow.

  “They ran a couple times per week,” he continued. “If she talked to anyone about anything, it would be Martina. They’ve been friends a long time.”

  We had a place to start.

  David didn’t have much more to offer, but Miguel had one more important question for him. “Did Marisol have an advance directive? A will? Anything that could tell us what she wanted, um, after she died?” Clearly the discussion about burial versus cremation was still weighing on his mind, even though Marisol’s children had made the decision.

  David nodded. “After her father died, we saw an attorney and set up wills. But we didn’t make, you know, any other plans.”

  “The funeral director thinks Marisol would have wanted to be cremated like her dad.”

  “I don’t know if it’s what he would have wanted. Before his mind started to go, he still went to church. I think he would have wanted a Mass and burial, but it made sense to go with cremation. Mari agreed with it, so I think she would want the same.”

  It was hard second-guessing yourself on something as big as this, but it seemed that Marisol’s kids had made the right decision. I hadn’t realized that had been weighing on my mind. David’s blessing lifted the weight.

  After a few more minutes, we left David to sleep off his lingering alcohol haze and drove back to town. Miguel planned to drop me at Yeast of Eden before heading back to the restaurant. “I’ll let Lisette know what David thinks about”—he paused, closing his eyes for a few seconds, thinking—“about laying Marisol to rest. I think it’ll make her feel better about it.”

  “I’m not sure Emmaline will actually want our help, but I’ll reach out to Martina. Maybe she can tell us something.”

  He pulled into a curbside parking space just past the bread shop, rolled down the windows, and cut the engine. He stretched his arm across the space between our seats, his fingers playing with the spiral curls of my hair.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, although I knew there wasn’t a simple answer to the question.

  M
iguel and I had history, but we’d spent so many years apart, leading separate lives. Despite the passage of time, I knew him, and I knew he was struggling to deal with losing Marisol. Just as he had been like a son to her, she had been like a second mother to him. I met his gaze as he leaned toward me. I met him halfway, our lips brushing, and then his hand splayed through my hair, pulling me closer as he kissed me more deeply. After a moment, he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. “I will be,” he said. Then again, “Yeah, I will be.”

  Chapter 8

  Olaya, Consuelo, and Martina Solis were as opposite as three sisters could be. Olaya was the oldest and somewhere in her early sixties, although she never spoke her age aloud. Her almond-shaped green eyes were flecked with gold and her hollow cheeks defined her face with elegance, but she was a free spirit through and through. Consuelo stood a few inches taller than Olaya and had a booming voice and much more boisterous personality than both her sisters. Although she and Olaya resembled one another, the middle Solis sister tended to wear jeans and blouses rather than the caftans, maxi dresses, shawls, and clogs Olaya favored.

  Martina was the youngest of the three by a good ten years. Unlike her fairer sisters, she had a darker complexion. Like her sisters, she had flecks of gold in her big, round eyes, but her base color was brown rather than green. And while Olaya had embraced her hair’s natural iron-gray shade and Consuelo dyed hers a deep brown, Martina kept hers almost jet black.

  The biggest difference between the three of them, though, was how Martina presented herself to the world. She was quiet. Shy, even. Even though she was probably in her late fifties, she looked much younger than that. Hair and on-trend clothing could shave ten years off a person’s age, and it definitely did that for Martina. If I had to pick one, I’d classify her as the edgiest of the three sisters.

  The Solis sisters had each followed their own distinct paths. Consuelo was a real estate agent in Santa Sofia and Martina did administrative work in a doctor’s office, but they all knew the art of artisan bread-making and were pinch hitters for Olaya whenever she needed their help.