Kernel of Truth (15 page)

Annie glanced down and then put her hand to her chest. “Oh, my God. A business owner had copies made. Contact the authorities immediately.”

“Sarcasm is not welcome,” I said, snatching the ticket back from her.

She pointed at me with a spoon she'd picked up. “Not true. You love my sarcasm. It's one of the reason we're friends.”

She had me on that one. I did love her sarcasm. “Fine. Be sarcastic. Just be ready for a surprise.”

Annie sighed. “After your last surprise for me, which I believe involved bonking my boyfriend over the head with a clay pot, I feel like I'm ready for anything.”

*   *   *

The shop was
especially quiet that afternoon, which was a good thing. I kept looking at the recipes I'd printed out at Coco's. They were good. I felt proud of them. More important, the two of us had had a blast when we'd worked on them. The reality that Coco and I would never get another opportunity to spend time in the kitchen together hit me. No more good-natured teasing about the fact that she thought I liked things too spicy and I thought she liked things too salty. No more tasting back and forth. No more laughing together with spoons in our hands.

Then I started to get mad. Someone had taken that from me. Someone had shoved Coco hard enough to have her stumble backward and hit her head on that credenza. Someone had stolen something truly precious to me.

At six thirty, Sprocket and I stomped home. Not even a trip to the lighthouse managed to calm me, especially since I ran into, of all people, Jessica. She was struggling with the door to the lighthouse with her left hand because her right arm was in a sling.

I jogged up to her, Sprocket on my heels. “Let me help you.”

She whirled. “I think you've helped me enough today, don't you think, Rebecca?” She didn't look so hot.

“I'm sorry, Jessica. I really thought the car could catch fire. If you hadn't been so drunk that you couldn't get out of the car on your own, you would have been fine.” I backed away. Sprocket growled. I looped his leash a little tighter around my hand. He'd never bitten anyone. It would be my luck if he decided to take a chunk out of Jessica as his first biting offense.

“I wasn't drunk.” Her voice sounded thick and a little shaky. “I wasn't. I . . . I had taken some cough medicine. It must have made me sleepy.”

The old cough medicine excuse. I'd heard that one before. It was possible I'd even used it before. “Whatever. I thought you were in danger. You could at least let me help with the lighthouse door to make up for it.”

“Oh, fine.” She handed over the keys.

I unlocked the door and handed them back. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

She breathed in through her nostrils loudly and then out in a sniff. “The historical preservation society meets here every Friday. It's my job to unlock the lighthouse and set up the snacks.” She motioned to two grocery bags by her feet.

“I can help with those, too.” I carried them in for her and set them on the folding tables along the edge of the room. “Can I put this stuff out for you?”

She nodded.

I pulled out some bakery trays of cookies and some little sandwiches, and then put out the drinks. As I was finishing, Brandy Johnson and Olive Hicks walked in. They both froze when they saw me.

“Hello, Rebecca,” Brandy said in a tone that was decidedly chilly. “What are you doing here?”

“I was walking by and saw Jessica trying to set up. I thought I'd help her.”

“We would have thought you'd helped her enough today.” Olive sniffed.

“That's funny. That's what Jessica . . .” My words trailed off. It had been what Jessica had said. It was probably what everybody was saying.

I said good night and went
home.

As Sprocket and
I walked up the driveway, Evan raced toward us, arms stretched out like an airplane, with his Batman cape streaming behind him. He stopped a few feet before he reached us, jumped into what I thought was supposed to be a karate pose and yelled, “Hiya!”

“Hiya, yourself,” I replied. Sprocket licked his face and he giggled.

“Mama won't let me play on the slide in my Batman cape,” Evan informed me, falling into step beside me as I walked toward the house. “She says I'll dangle and hurted myself.”

“Your mama's pretty smart.” And read a lot of parenting magazines as well.

“But I wanna wear my Batman cape and I wanna go down the slide.” His sweet face crumpled.

“Life's full of hard choices, little man.” I patted him on the head between his Batman ears.

He looked up at me as if suddenly remembering something. “Why'd you hurt Miss Jessica, Auntie Becca?”

Unbelievable. My three-year-old nephew was in on the Jessica gossip. This town sucked. “I did not hurt Miss Jessica. I saved Miss Jessica. Miss Jessica crashed her car because she was dr—”

“You're here.” Haley lumbered down the porch, cutting me off. She looked at me through narrowed eyes and mimed locking her mouth and throwing away the key. Evan took off on another airplane swoop around the yard.

“How does Evan know about Jessica and me? Who gossips with three-year-olds?” I demanded.

“No one gossips with three-year-olds, but they notice when their preschool teacher doesn't show up and a bunch of the moms have to step in.” Haley sat down on the porch step. “The moms then gossip. Some three-year-olds listen too closely.”

I sat down next to her and looked over to where Evan zoomed around making motor noises. “He doesn't look like the eavesdropping type.”

“All kids are the eavesdropping type.” She nudged me with her elbow. “You were the worst.”

I had been, too. I had been all about knowing what the grown-ups were talking about until I became one of the favorite topics of conversation, as in, “What are we going to do about Rebecca?” Then I'd lost interest.

“Plus, it was a big deal. Everyone was upset. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had heard something slightly different from someone else they felt was an unassailable source,” Haley said.

I put my head down on my knees. “I really thought I was helping. I really thought I might be saving her life. I don't suppose anybody mentioned that.”

Haley patted my back. “Not so much. Maybe that'll be part of the conversation next week.”

“Do you need help with dinner?” I asked. That was one thing I was pretty sure I could help with that I wouldn't screw up.

“Yes, please.” She sighed. “My feet are killing me.”

I looked down. She had on slippers instead of shoes and her feet looked swollen. “Sit here and watch Evan. I'll take over.”

I made my way to the kitchen and surveyed what I had before me. It looked like roasted chicken with potatoes and green beans. Solid choices except that I didn't want to be the one to get Evan to try green beans again. I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

I loosened the skin on the chickens and pushed butter mashed with rosemary, sage and thyme between the meat and the skin. I rubbed the inside with kosher salt and the outside with olive oil and kosher salt. I slipped some sliced onion into the chickens then trussed those birds up and got them in the oven.

Next up were the potatoes. I washed them, diced them, tossed them with more olive oil, rosemary and kosher salt and then popped them in the oven as well. Easy peasy.

Now I had to face the green beans. I cleaned them while I considered my options. Then I dug in the refrigerator for bacon. I was fairly certain that the addition of bacon could make almost anything better. I chopped the bacon and tossed it in a sauté pan with onions. Once that was done, I removed the bacon with a slotted spoon and sautéed the green beans in the bacon grease.

As always, at some point, I got lost. The smell of the herbs and the butter and the bacon and the chicken and the potatoes. The rhythm of the dicing and the slicing and the chopping. The dance between the stove and the counters and the sink and the fridge. It soothed me. I vaguely heard Haley coming in with Evan at one point.

Then Dan and Garrett were coming in the front door. “It smells amazing in here,” Dan said as he made his way into the kitchen with two grocery bags.

“I hope you have wine and appetizers in there,” I said, coming out of my reverie.

“Will chips and beer do?” Garrett asked, pulling items from the bags.

I snagged a beer out of the six-pack and toasted him with it. “Any port in a storm, baby, and it's been raining cats and dogs out there.”

*   *   *

Dinner was a
slightly quieter affair than it had been the week before, but I decided to bask in the glory of having gotten Evan to eat his green beans with minimal fuss rather than worry about the fact that Dan didn't seem to want to look me in the eye. Garrett walked me home afterward. It was the first time I'd let him past the front door. “This is . . . colorful,” Garrett said as he stepped inside.

It was possible I'd gone overboard with the color scheme. If I had, though, I didn't care. I'd moved from my crappy student apartment that I'd shared with three other cooking school students in Yountville to Antoine's house in Calistoga. It had felt like a fairy tale to move into his beautiful home up in the hills with its gorgeous artwork and cushy furniture and eight-hundred-thread-count organic pima cotton sheets. I'd practically burned all my own stuff as I'd danced up the driveway into what felt like a mansion for me. I mean why bring my dresser with the drawer that stuck or even my half-burnt hot pads into that palace of perfection?

I knew the answer now. Because then some of the stuff in that house would have been mine. I don't know if that
would have made our marriage last longer or not, but I know it would have helped if I had felt like Antoine's house was as much mine as his, and maybe I wouldn't have always felt like a guest in what was ostensibly my own house. Maybe I would have felt like my own person and, well, what might have happened then?

Maybe I wouldn't be back in my hometown with everyone thinking I'd tried to maim the local preschool teacher. “Hot chocolate?” I offered.

Garrett nodded. According to him, somehow all anybody in the town was talking about was the fact that I'd dislocated Jessica's shoulder. The fact that she smelled like a brewery on her way to teach preschool at the church? Not so much. The EMTs pumped her full of painkillers so by the time anyone thought to see whether she was drunk, it was too late to test her. There was only my word that she'd been drunk driving and nobody was putting too much stock in that since I was facing assault charges. I'd told Dan at the scene that she was drunk, but according to him that wasn't enough.

“You really thought the car was going to burst into flames?” Garrett asked. He sat at the breakfast bar in my kitchen.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” I handed him a mug of hot chocolate. “And why doesn't anybody care that Jessica was drunk driving to school?”

“Because there's no proof of that and there's plenty of proof you wrenched her arm out of its socket.” He took a sip of the hot chocolate, stared at the mug for a second and then took a second sip.

I sat down next to him with my own mug. “It sounds so ugly when you say it like that.”

He cocked his head to look at me. “How else would you like me to say it?”

“I would like you to say I was trying to save her life.” I sat up straight, as befitted a hero like myself.

“By wrenching her arm out of its socket,” he pointed out.

I took the hot chocolate back from him.

“Hey, give that back. It's really good.”

I held the cup up and out of his reach. “Not until you say it right.”

He sighed. “Fine. Rebecca Anderson saved Jessica James's life by pulling her from a car that could have burst into flames at any moment. She should probably be given a medal.”

“Better.” I handed the hot chocolate back and gave him a chocolate chip cookie to go with it. Sometimes I bake when I'm angry. Of course, I also bake when I'm sad, when I'm happy, when it's raining, and sometimes just because.

“You're going to make me fat.” But he took a bite of the cookie anyway.

“Run an extra mile tomorrow. You'll be fine. I'd like to know why no one cares why Jessica plowed into Mrs. Calvin's oak tree.” I slumped over my own chocolate. It wasn't cheering me up.

Garrett swallowed his bite of cookie. “Everyone cares. That's why no one's asking.”

I shook my head. “You are not making sense. Perhaps you've had too much chocolate and it's gone to your head.”

“I'm making perfect sense.” He set the mug down. “Jessica is grieving, Rebecca. People do all kinds of things when they're grieving. I would have thought you of all people would know that.”

Heat rose up my face. “That's kind of a low blow.”

“I didn't mean it that way. Although I do think you'd be cutting pretty much anyone else more slack than you're cutting Jessica.” He gestured at me with the cookie. “This is really good, too.”

I chewed on that along with my cookie for a second. “I didn't cut her slack because I didn't believe it at first. I didn't think Jessica cared that much about anybody except Jessica.” Except she clearly did. She'd been completely distraught since Coco died.

“Do you think maybe there are other things about Jessica that you don't see clearly?” Garrett asked.

I chewed even longer on that and then said, “Nope.”

*   *   *

Monday morning, I
got into POPS early, made the breakfast bars, brewed the coffee and opened the doors to find absolutely no one waiting on the sidewalk.

I looked down at Sprocket. “Where'd everyone go?”

He looked up and down the street and then went back inside and lay down on his bed.

“Maybe it's the zombie apocalypse and we don't know about it yet,” I suggested. Or maybe it was some kind of holiday. I checked the calendar, but no. No holiday today. I looked down the street. No zombies.

I finally went next door to talk to Annie. I should have known it was going to be bad when she refused to come out from behind the counter.

“There's a rumor going around that you're the one who killed Coco.” Annie shrank back like I might explode.

It was a good move. “That I did what?” I shouted. “Who would say such a thing? Who would believe it?”

Annie's face crumpled a little bit. “I think you can guess
who might say such a thing if you thought about it for a second.”

I plopped down in one of the chairs Annie had set up for consultations. “Jessica. Jessica is telling people I killed Coco.”

Annie came out from behind the counter and sat down next to me. “Not exactly, but she is stacking up evidence against you, Rebecca. You need to be careful.”

“What evidence? I had nothing to do with it. What possible evidence can there be?” Surely, if you were innocent there would be no evidence. Then again, there were constant stories on the news about people being released from prison after years and years because DNA testing proved they were innocent. I didn't think DNA was going to help me.

“I guess you would call it circumstantial.” Annie tapped a pen on the table. “You were the last one out of here that night. You were the one who left the popcorn for Jasper that would lure him here to be set up. You didn't want Coco to retire and maybe she was going to anyway. You were caught going through her papers at her house like maybe you were looking for the fudge recipe, and you're a suspect in the attack on Barbara because there were fibers from your sweater in the broken window and you showed up at the crime scene like a lunatic. Then there's dislocating Jessica's shoulder.”

I laid my head down on my pillowed arms. “When am I going to learn?”

“Learn what?” Annie said, patting my head.

“To not let Jessica get me to make myself look bad all on my own. That woman should have gone into the diplomatic corps. She could have probably manipulated everyone to making peace in the Middle East if she wanted to. But no, instead she has to turn her superpowers on me.” I really had
no one to blame but myself. And Jessica, of course. I could always blame Jessica. That, at least, was comforting.

“Rebecca, are you listening to yourself?” Annie asked.

I flattened myself even farther down onto the table. “I am.”

“You do know that Jessica is mourning Coco just like the rest of us, don't you?” Annie's voice was soft but firm.

That was true. Not only had Jessica manipulated me into making myself into a murder suspect, she was also making me look like a selfish twit. I'd seen Jessica's red-rimmed eyes, her uncharacteristic drinking, her shock at finding Coco's body. Whatever else Jessica felt, she had loved Coco and was grieving. Maybe it was natural for her to try to pin the responsibility for that grief on someone she disliked as much as she disliked me.

Nasty and passive-aggressive and sneaky, but still natural.

“Remember, no one can make you do anything, Rebecca. You choose your own course,” Annie said.

My head shot up. “What?”

“I said you choose your own course.” She straightened some of the catalogs on the table.

That did not sound like Annie. “Have you been reading self-help books?”

Annie blushed. “Just one that Allen gave me. It's got some good stuff in it.”

Annie was reading Allen's self-help books. I felt almost as alone as I felt when Antoine had abandoned me in Minneapolis. I stood up. “Well, I think I better go donate my breakfast bars to the homeless shelter and figure out what to do to make the town realize I didn't kill Coco.”