Kernel of Truth (5 page)

I didn't take it.

“Besides,” Haley said. “You never did have any proof that Jessica did it.”

Garrett thumped the table. “What did Jessica do? Or not do?”

I rolled my eyes. I couldn't believe I had to tell this story again. “I was making chocolate mousse for the French club in the home ec kitchen. Jessica was making a Gâteau Breton at the same time.”

“And you threw down over who got to use the electric mixer?” Garrett leaned forward. “Girl fight over gâteau?”

“No. Someone put salt in the sugar container so my mousse came out like something only a deer would like. You've never seen so many kids spit chocolate out that fast.” I cringed, remembering the horrified looks on everyone's faces and how everyone raved over Jessica's gâteau.

“Why do you think Jessica did it?” Garrett's eyes had narrowed a bit.

“Because somehow she magically put sugar in her cake despite the fact that the container was mislabeled.” I sat back, arms crossed over my chest. “And who got detention?”

“You wouldn't have gotten detention if you hadn't slapped her, although that was totally epic.” Dan gave up on me taking his hand and leaned back in his chair. “The yearbook committee was going to put it in as the most mismatched girl fight in Grand Lake High history, but Mr. Danforth took it out.”

Jessica is five foot nothing. I am five foot ten. I'd had to stoop to slap her. “She bit my knee,” I pointed out. “I could have gotten blood poisoning from her dirty little mouth. Or rabies.”

Garrett's eyes went wide. “She bit you?”

“Yeah. And, like always, didn't get into trouble for it. Principal Pittman said she was just defending herself from a larger attacker.”

“She bit you and she couldn't get any higher than your knee?” Garrett was clearly fighting the urge to laugh and wasn't winning the fight.

“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, poor Jessica. Mean Rebecca slapped her in front of the whole school.' It was as if nobody could even see how she manipulated the situation.” I was not going to laugh. It still pissed me off. You could call me names and make me write bad checks, but mess with my mousse and you will be in for a world of hurt.

“Why? Why would she do that?” Garrett asked.

“Well, first and foremost, I suspect she's a sociopath and that's how she gets her jollies. Secondly, Luke Reed was supposedly going to ask me to Homecoming and Jessica wanted him to ask her.” Luke had had a Mustang convertible. I had really wanted to go to the dance in that pony.

“Did he ask her?” Garrett leaned forward.

“He did. Rumor had it that he wasn't interested in going
on a date with an Amazon who picked on Munchkins.” I nodded. “I went to Homecoming with Dan.”

“You don't have to sound so disgusted. We had a good time.” Dan stretched in his chair.

We had. We'd gotten drunk before we even walked in the door and danced like crazy people, but it wasn't a date. Pity dates don't count.

“I think Jessica was more jealous of your relationship with Coco than she was of your relationship with Luke.” Haley stood and stretched. “That's part of why she wanted to sabotage you in the kitchen.”

I got up and took the stack of plates from her. “I know.”

Coco had offered me a job at Coco's Cocoas as charity. She'd seen it as a way to try to tame me a bit. It was there that I discovered how much I liked to cook and Coco discovered how much I understood about food on an intuitive level.

Jessica was fine in a kitchen, but she wasn't great. She could follow a recipe, but she couldn't make it her own. To Jessica, ingredients were things you mixed together to make something. To Coco and me, ingredients had personalities that needed to be managed, and you didn't just throw them together any more than you'd dump a bunch of strangers into a room with booze and call it a cocktail party. Jessica didn't understand that she wasn't great in a kitchen, either. That made it about a bazillion times worse. She truly didn't understand what Coco and I were talking about half the time.

As Coco's heir, Jessica felt she should be the one who Coco talked to about plans for new chocolates, truffles and fudge. She wasn't. Coco talked to me. Even after I left, Coco would still talk to me. She'd call or e-mail. We'd talk for hours. Now that I was back home, we had been talking even more. I knew Jessica didn't like it, and frankly I didn't care. Everyone else always thought Jessica was such a sweet thing.
It must have been the clouds of blond hair and the big blue eyes and teensy tiny petite frame. I knew better, though. I knew what kind of a selfish brat she was even if no one else seemed to recognize it.

When we were waiting in the principal's office the day of the Mousse Mess, she'd turned to me and said, “If you'd tasted your mousse while you were making it like Aunt Coco always says we should, you would have known before you served it. You're not as great in the kitchen as you think you are or as Aunt Coco thinks you are.”

That's when I knew she had definitely pulled the switcheroo on me. Somehow the principal didn't feel that was definitive proof. All he saw was the red outline of my hand on Jessica's porcelain-skinned cheek. He'd barely looked at the teeth marks on my knee. I spent the next two weeks serving time after school under the vice principal's watchful eye.

Garrett and I did the dishes together. I washed. He dried. Dan put stuff away, and Haley, after a lot of argument from all of us, sat down and put her feet up. Someone, I'm still not sure who, slipped Sprocket an awful lot of table scraps.

Haley's eyes looked heavy and she was doing that slow blink that people do when they're trying not to fall asleep. Apparently building entire human beings in your own body was tiring. Go figure. I announced that it was time for me to go home.

Garrett diplomatically said he'd be on his way, too. Haley made sure I got the half-and-half that Dan had picked up for me on his way home and then Garrett and I were on the front porch. The wind had whipped up, making the trees toss their branches around like wild dancers at a rave. The slightest scent of fall—moist soil and crisp leaves—edged the air.

“Can I walk you home?” Garrett offered as the front door
closed behind us. “It's probably not safe to walk around alone at night until Dan catches whoever did that to Coco.”

“I live over the garage, Garrett. I can see my door from here. I think I can make it there in one piece, especially with Sprocket next to me.” It was hard to feel in danger on my own front porch. It was hard to feel in danger of anything more than being a topic of gossip in Grand Lake even after having seen Coco's body this morning.

Garrett looked down at Sprocket. “You know that's a poodle, right?”

I looked at my beautiful dog and he looked back up at me with something that seemed an awful lot like a grin. It was the look that had melted my heart at the shelter when I'd first seen him. Like he'd seen who I really was and liked it. “I'm aware.”

Garrett leaned against the post that Haley had leaned on earlier and jammed his hands in his pockets. “You know the original Sprocket was a sheepdog, right?”

I knew what was coming. “So?”

“Well, it's kind of like naming a Chihuahua Lassie, don't you think?” He smiled and scratched Sprocket between the ears.

“I didn't name him after Sprocket because of his breed, I named him after Sprocket because he embodies the spirit of Sprocket. I think if you found a Chihuahua as noble and self-sacrificing as Lassie, you should name it Lassie. Good luck with that, by the way.” I might have been the slightest bit touchy about my dog's name. I found myself defending my choice on a fairly routine basis.

He crouched down to scratch Sprocket under the chin. “The spirit of Sprocket?” Sprocket licked his cheek.

“Yes. The spirit of Sprocket. You got a problem with that?”

He stood back up, wiping his cheek with his shirtsleeve. “It's hard to have a problem with something I don't understand.”

“I don't understand how you can know Sprocket from
Fraggle Rock
and not understand that.” I stepped down off the porch and walked toward the garage. He stayed next to me. “You're seriously walking me to my door?”

He nodded, then followed me up the stairs to the granny flat. I unlocked the door and turned to say good night. He was standing way closer than I expected, his face suddenly serious.

“Will you be okay?” He was close enough that I could smell the starched linen scent of his shirt.

I thought about it for a second. “Yes. I will. I'll miss Coco terribly, but I'll be okay.”

He leaned even closer to me. “Glad to hear it. She was my client, you know? Or she was going to be.”

“Really?” I hadn't known.

“Yeah. She called the office a couple of days ago and set an appointment up for next week.”

“Did she say why?”

He shook his head. “No. I was a little surprised. She's been Phillip Meyer's client for time immemorial.”

That was no news. Most of the town had been Phillip Meyer's client. He'd been the only lawyer here that I could remember until Garrett hung out his shingle a few months before.

The wind swirled the leaves in the yard and a wisp of a cloud scuddered over the moon. Then suddenly Garrett lurched forward, pinning me against the door with his body, his hands on either side of my head while making a sound that was awfully close to a squeak.

I put hands on his chest and pushed him back. “What the hell are you doing?”

He held his hands up in front of himself, backing away. “It wasn't me! It was Sprocket. He . . . uh . . . he . . .”

I glared. “He what?”

“He kind of goosed me.” It was a little hard to tell in the porch light, but I was pretty sure that Garrett was blushing.

I looked around Garrett. Sprocket sat behind him, his nose pretty much level with Garrett's tush. I swear that dog winked at me. “Sprocket! Bad dog!” Seriously?

Sprocket lay down and put his paws over his eyes, but he wasn't fooling me. He wasn't the least bit sorry. I could see his doggy grin. I shook my head, turned around and finished opening the door.

Garrett stared at Sprocket for a second and then turned back to me. “The spirit of Sprocket. I think I get it.”

Great. It took a nose up his butt to get him to understand me. “Thanks for the escort, Garrett. I'll take it from here.”

“Do you want me to check inside?” He looked suddenly serious again.

“I'm fine,” I said firmly. I gave Sprocket's leash a tug. “Come on, nosey.”

I went inside with Sprocket on my heels and shut the
door.

Sprocket and I
got to POPS at about seven thirty Saturday morning. Saturdays can be busy, especially if the weather is good, and I don't like to still be in the kitchen when it's time to open the store. Susanna would be in by noon, after her game, and I'd be able to take a break. Right now I needed to get cracking.

I don't have a big breakfast bar crowd on weekends. My biggest sellers on Saturday are my caramel cashew popcorn and my chili cheese popcorn, so I started with those. Here's the thing about corn poppers. They're noisy. Not so noisy that I have to wear earplugs, but noisy enough that I can miss stuff. It was a lucky break that I was dumping my first batch into bowls for mixing when I heard the thump behind the store.

My heart pulsed a skittering rhythm like the first few kernels popping in the pan. I froze. Maybe it had been my imagination. Then I heard it again. It sounded like a door being shut.

Was whoever killed Coco back in our alley again? Wasn't
returning to the scene of the crime a thing? I swallowed back the fear that was rising in my throat and slunk to the back door, trying to peer out its glass panes without being seen. Back against the wall, I peered around the door. As soon as I was sure it wasn't a raccoon, I'd call 911.

Then I swore. Allen freaking Thompson. Make that Mayor Allen freaking Thompson. He was prowling around in my back alley. He'd parked his car in the spot behind Coco's and was sneaking around the back of our shops.

Her corpse wasn't even cold yet and here he was. I didn't have to ask what he was after. I knew. He already owned most of the block—my shop included—and he'd been after Coco's for years. Years! She'd always refused to sell. She felt strongly about owning property. She was forever trotting out Virginia Woolf's quote about a woman needing money and a room of her own to work independently and without interruption. Coco's Cocoas was most definitely Coco's room of her own, a room that Thompson had coveted for years.

I threw open the door of POPS. “What the hell are you doing here?” I marched out onto the back porch into the early morning chill with Sprocket beside me. Sprocket growled. I put my hand on his head and said, “Steady, Sprocket.”

As if Sprocket would ever attack anyone or anything. I'm pretty sure he's more likely to lick a burglar to death than bite him, but I liked that he had made an attempt to sound menacing. I made a mental note to give him a treat when we got back inside.

“Whoa!” Thompson raised his hands in front of himself. “I'm a friendly.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. Friendly, my ass. “Why are you poking around behind Coco's shop?”

“Just checking things out.” He took a few steps toward me and put one foot up on the steps leading to my back porch.

I planted my feet right in the middle of the top step. I wasn't budging. Thompson had been mayor of Grand Lake since before I left town at eighteen. At the time, I thought he was ancient. I realize now that he'd taken office in his early thirties. He wasn't even fifty yet and he was a town institution. An institution who was also a property owner. And a member of the preservation committee. And perpetual president of the Grand Lake Downtown Business Association.

“Coco's not even in the ground yet, Allen. Don't you think you should at least wait until after the funeral to start picking over her corpse?” My voice broke a little at the end and I felt tears build up in my eyes. Damn it. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be the line that would not be crossed, the immovable object, not a sniveling little girl.

He smiled up at me with his ridiculously white teeth. It pained me to say it, but Thompson was a handsome man if you went for that silver fox kind of thing, which I did not. At least, not anymore. I was so over my Daddy issues. I had Antoine to thank for that. Thompson was tan from sailing all summer, which made his white teeth and graying hair look that much more distinguished, along with the crinkles next to his startlingly blue eyes. He had that athlete's build, too. The square broad shoulders and narrow hips. The long legs and arms. The loose-limbed easy grace. He looked like he was born to wear the suit he had on, even if it was a little bit rumpled.

I didn't care. There was only one reason for him to be nosing around in the alley behind our shops. It had to be something to do with Coco's shop. He probably was trying to find something wrong with Coco's so he could get Jessica to knock some money off the price so he could gobble it up like he'd gobbled up most of the rest of downtown Grand Lake.

“Rebecca, why do you always think the worst of me?” Thompson said, his hands spread in a gesture of supplication.

“Because you've never given her any reason to think otherwise.” And then there was Annie, striding down from Blooms toward us. Gray hair streaming behind her. Peasant skirt like a sail in the breeze. Annie hated Thompson as much as I did. Maybe even a little more since she'd been running a business in this town for longer than I had and had had to deal with him that much more. She brushed past him and walked up the steps to stand beside me. I made room for her on the top step.

“Well, I can see I'm outnumbered here,” Thompson said, starting to back away.

Neither of us said a word. Annie crossed her arms over her chest, too.

“I guess I'll be on my way,” he said, still smiling as he turned and headed back to his car.

“Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out,” Annie muttered under her breath.

I fist-bumped her. “The nerve. Can you imagine? Sneaking around back here like some kind of vulture?”

Annie shook her head. “Some people have no sense of propriety.”

I looked over at her, trying to figure out what was different. “Are you wearing lipstick?” I looked closer. “And mascara?”

“A little,” she admitted, sounding sheepish. She tilted her head. “What do you think?”

“Nice,” I said. “Enhancing without looking like clown makeup. Why, though?” I didn't think I'd ever seen Annie wearing makeup before.

She shrugged. “Thought I'd try making an effort for a change.”

It seemed reasonable. She was a beautiful woman without anything on her face at all. The makeup made her eyes even
more vivid and her lips look plumper. She even had a little blush on her cheeks. “Coffee?” I offered.

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.” She followed me into the kitchen off the porch. It's not that Annie's shop—which, like Coco's and mine, is in what used to be a house—doesn't have a kitchen in which she could make her own coffee. It does. She uses it for things like starting cuttings, soaking greenery and other nonfood-related activities. Plus, she's a terrible cook. I mean, really terrible. Like “never accept a dinner invitation from her unless it's accompanied by a restaurant reservation” terrible.

“Do you think Thompson could have been here for another reason?” It was possible I'd misjudged the man. Maybe Annie would have a different take.

“No, I heard Jessica has already reached out to him about buying Coco's Cocoas. She's not wasting any time. It's probably a matter of days before she puts everything inside up for sale, too. Any news from Dan about Coco's case?” Annie asked, taking up her usual spot at the table.

I poured two mugs of coffee, then pulled the cream from the refrigerator. “No. He has some theories, but as of last night, theories were all he had.” I poured the cream into a pitcher and set it on the table with the sugar bowl and then put one cup of coffee in front of Annie and one at my place.

“You didn't have to make a fuss,” she said, pointing at the pitcher. “I can pour milk from the carton.”

“It tastes better if it's served well.” I shrugged. My phone chirped. I glanced at it. Antoine. Again. I shook my head. “He has paid more attention to me in the last six months than he did in the last six years of our marriage.”

“He wants you back.” Annie smiled at me. “As any intelligent man would.”

I sipped my coffee. “No. He doesn't like to have failed at something. It irks him.” It didn't happen often to Antoine. Pretty much everything he touched turned to gold. Except me. I turned into something else all together, something I hadn't particularly liked.

The phone buzzed again. “Is he going to keep texting until you answer?” Annie asked.

“Possibly.” I picked up the phone, ready to tell him to leave me alone—as if that had worked at all the last twenty times I'd done it. But the second message wasn't from Antoine. It was from Dan.

It read:

Heads up. We made an arrest in Coco's case. Jasper in custody.

*   *   *

Dan came by
the shop at about noon. “Want to have lunch?”

I looked over at Susanna, her long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and still damp from her postgame shower. She smiled at me. “I've got it. It's kind of slow anyway.”

She was right. It had been a quiet day, which was a good thing. I'd been all thumbs in the kitchen the entire day. I'd pushed a wooden spoon down too far in the food processor and ended up with splinters in my sauce. I'd dropped a glass measuring cup and shattered it into about a bazillion pieces. I'd burned my thumb by trying to pick up a saucepan without a pot holder. I seriously was a menace to myself and others. “Let's go.”

In another month we'd start to need jackets. It wouldn't get seriously cold until January, though. I wasn't looking forward to that. California living hadn't exactly kept me weatherproof for winter in the Midwest, one of the lessons I'd learned accompanying Antoine to an appearance in
Minneapolis in January. Today, however, was perfect. The sun was shining. In the distance, I could see the lighthouse, stark white against blue sky.

And Coco's murderer was in jail.

Dan and I didn't talk until we'd gotten a booth at Bob's Diner. We slid into the orange vinyl bench seats and then all I had to say was, “Tell me.”

He watched while apple-cheeked Megan Templeton poured us each a cup of coffee, gave her a smile and a nod and then said, “I wanted to ask him a few questions, see if he'd seen anything when he picked up the popcorn you'd left him.”

“Makes sense.” I'd wondered the same thing. “So what happened?”

Dan pressed his lips together and shook his head. “He acted strange from the second we got there. Too friendly at first. Inviting us in. Asking us if we wanted anything. As if either Huerta or I would be willing to get even a glass of water in that dump he calls a house.”

“Dan, you don't arrest people—even crazy people like Jasper—for being too friendly.” I sipped my coffee and sighed. It was weak and tasted a little like it had been boiled. I set it down and pushed it away.

“No. I don't arrest people for being too friendly. I do arrest them for having a large wad of cash that appears to be about the same amount that would have been taken from Coco's register and several trays of truffles hidden in their home.” He placed both hands palms down on the table and took a deep breath.

I sat back. That was a lot of reasons to arrest Jasper. I'd always thought of Jasper as addled, but harmless. Sure, he was a big guy, but I'd never felt threatened by him. I shivered thinking of how I'd encouraged him to come by my shop
after hours to pick up the leftover popcorn. “Did he say why he did it? Why he hurt Coco?”

“Nope. In fact, he says he didn't do it.” Dan took a sip of his coffee and didn't grimace at all. Did the man have no taste buds?

“Did he say why he had all that stuff, then?” I asked.

“Of course he did. He said that someone had left the money and candy on his doorstep during the night. He said Coco's place was fine when he went into the alley. He walked up onto her porch because sometimes she leaves treats for him, too.”

We all did. Jasper was sort of a town responsibility we all shared, like snow removal and lighthouse upkeep. “What time did he come through?”

“He said it was around nine thirty. We're checking to see if anybody saw him.” Dan drank some more coffee as if it were a totally acceptable beverage.

I thought about it for a second. “Could he be telling the truth?”

Dan ran his hands back through his hair. “If he was telling the truth, I'm not sure why he felt compelled to smack Huerta in the back of the head with a frying pan and make a run for it.”

“He did WHAT?” I squawked.

Megan picked that moment to come back over and take our orders. I somehow doubted it was coincidental. I ordered the grilled cheese and curly fries. Dan got a burger. Megan lingered long enough that I realized she wanted to hear about Jasper's arrest as much as I did. News travels fast in a small town. When she finally left, I whispered, “He hit Huerta in the head with a frying pan? Is Huerta okay?”

Dan snorted. “Huerta's head must be made out of granite. He did one of those cartoon
doing-doing-doing
faces for
about three seconds, shook his head and took off after Jasper like he was still playing nose tackle for the Grand Lake Otters. Jasper did not stand a chance.”

Jasper wouldn't. Jasper shambled. He did not run or even walk with purpose and determination. He stooped over with his long matted gray hair around his face like he was hiding inside his tent of dirty, baggy clothes. I didn't think I'd ever seen him in anything that wasn't mud colored. “And what was Jasper doing in the kitchen while you were questioning him?”

Dan looked confused for a second. “Oh. You think we were in the kitchen because he had a frying pan. Nope. He pulled that sucker out from underneath the couch. I'm telling you, we should have gotten shots before we went into that shack.”

Our food came and I stared at it. Why had I thought I'd be able to eat? Dan was already tearing into his burger. I picked at a fry. “Why would he have let you and Huerta into his house with the money and the chocolate lying around?”