Caught Bread Handed (23 page)

“It's true.”

“Obviously. I feel bad for Jose, though.”

Mom glanced out the window. Carlos patted Jose on the back. “I wouldn't worry too much, honey. Jose can take care of himself. And everyone in town knows that Richard is all bark.”

“Yeah, but his bark is pretty loud.”

Mom ran hot water in the sink. “Don't let it get to you. I've known Jose long enough to know that he's not going to let Richard get under his skin.”

“What do you think Richard meant about selling out?”

Mom shrugged. “Who knows? Richard likes to think that he owns this town.”

Carlos came back inside. He looked worried. “Is everything okay in here now? The customers, they are not upset?”

“They're fine,” Mom replied. “They're all used to Richard's antics. It's not the first time he's caused a scene around here and it probably won't be the last.”

“This is not okay,” Carlos said. “He cannot treat people like this. I will have a talk with him.”

“Don't!” Mom and I both shouted in unison.

Carlos frowned. “But this is not the way of Ashland.”

“I know, but talking to Richard will just make things worse. Trust us.”

“I do not like this man.” He looked to Mom for help.

She grimaced. “I'm with Juliet on this one. I appreciate your help, but Richard likes to hear the sound of his own voice. You'll only give him fuel if you try to get in the middle. Jose is a professional. He'll handle it.”

“But I think Richard is treating Jose this way because he is of Mexican descent, no?”

“Richard treats everyone that way,” Mom said. She shut the water off. “Let's get back to baking, shall we?”

Carlos agreed, but he didn't look thrilled about it. I hoped he would listen to our advice. The last thing I needed was for Carlos to have a confrontation with Richard Lord.

 

Chapter Twenty-four

Mom must have had the same thought about keeping Carlos occupied and away from Richard Lord. Once everyone had returned to their lunches, she pulled Carlos into the kitchen. “I could really use your help.” She flipped through the notebook with our sketches for the Chocolate Fest. “Can you look this over and give us some feedback? We want to wow everyone who comes past our booth.”

I mouthed, “Thank you.”

She winked.

Carlos studied our plans. “This is original, yes. Chocolate pasta, how do you do this?”

Mom looked to me. “I was wondering that too.”

I shared my vision with them. My idea for the chocolate pasta was to make thin chocolate crepes that we could slice with a pizza cutter into long pasta-like strips. Then we would cover them with a dark chocolate sauce and white chocolate shavings to replicate cheese.

“That sounds amazing,” Mom said when I finished. “How will we serve it to so many attendees?”

“Good question. I was thinking about that this morning. What if we purchase red-and-white-checkered paper food boxes? You know, the kind that Alan used to serve his corn dogs in at the farmers' market?”

Mom nodded.

“We can get a case of a thousand of them for under twenty dollars. My thought was that we could serve the chocolate pasta cold and drizzle the sauce on as people come to the booth. It'll be like an Italian dessert to go.”

“I love it!” Mom clapped her hands together. “We could even have extra toppings like cherries and chopped nuts to go along with the pasta.”

Carlos didn't look as enthusiastic. “You will have to make this for me. Chocolate pasta, I cannot understand.”

“Let's try it now,” I said. “Why not? The lunch rush is done. We have time, let's experiment a little.” There was nothing better than cooking to distract Carlos. And if I was being honest with myself, I knew that I needed something to focus on as well.

Mom interlaced her fingers. “Put me to work.”

I had her start on the chocolate crepe batter. Carlos took on the dark chocolate sauce. Stephanie had to get to an afternoon class. “Do you want me early again tomorrow?” she asked as she showed me where she had left off on the afternoon's specialty orders. We had two birthday cakes and four pies to finish.

“Are you going to hate me if I say yes?”

She snarled her lip. “Nah. I'll be here.”

“Don't sound so excited about it,” I called after her as she sauntered to the front.

Sterling stopped organizing the order tickets and held the door open for her. He asked her something, which she responded to with a happy head nod. I wondered if he was finally asking her out. They obviously liked each other, but neither of them would make the first move. I had to resist the urge to play matchmaker.

The pie orders were for Parchment and Quill, a bookshop on the plaza. They were hosting a reading and the shop owner liked to offer readers pie and coffee. Mom worked on the birthday cakes and chocolate crepes while I filled our flaky pie crusts with lemon curd, chocolate crème, coconut cream, and vanilla cream. I boxed each pie individually in pie boxes with our Torte logo stamped on the top.

“I'm going to run these to the bookshop,” I said to Mom and Carlos. “When I get back let's try and see if we can get this chocolate pasta to work.”

Like the other shops on the plaza, Parchment and Quill was designed like an Elizabethan manor house. Inside, the bookshop was warm and cozy with benches and pillows tucked into corners for customers to curl up and read. It smelled like old books. When I was on the ship, I used to sneak away to the library when I had a free moment. Not many passengers frequented the library. They were more focused on their tans and soaking up the sun's rays on the pool deck.

I usually had the library to myself. I would pull a stack of old cookbooks and travelogues from the shelves and spend my break thumbing through their pages.

The bookshop had a similar welcoming vibe. “Juliet, thank you for bringing these over,” the owner said as she made space on a card table she had covered with an emerald-green tablecloth near the cash register. There were fresh-cut yellow and white flower arrangements on either side of the table. A stack of paper plates, plastic forks, and napkins had been set out. “Can you put those right there?” the owner said, pointing to the empty space in the middle of the table.

I set the pie boxes down. “When does the reading start?”

She glanced at a watch with dangly book charms on her wrist. “In twenty minutes. People should be arriving any second.” She pointed to a podium and rows of folding chairs.

“That should be fine. The cream pies need to be refrigerated, but they can be out for thirty to forty-five minutes.”

“I'm sure they won't last that long. Our guest author is getting ready in the back. When she saw how many chairs I had set out, she was worried that we wouldn't fill them. I told her not to worry. People come for the pie!”

“Oh, no, don't say that. I'm sure they come for the books too.”

She smiled. “This is a debut author. It's my little secret. I get them in with pie and they walk out the door with a new book.”

“Glad to help.” I made sure she didn't need anything else before leaving.

On my way back to Torte I passed ShakesBurgers. Reggie was hanging out by the shrine on the sidewalk. He was bending over, about to pick up a stuffed teddy bear.

“Hey!” I called.

He dropped the bear and whipped around to face me.

I stopped in midstride. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

“What do you want?” Reggie said, rubbing his bald head. Now that I knew his background, he really did look like a criminal. His dark hair was shaved in a tight crop. Tattoos covered both of his forearms. Not tattoos like Sterling's hummingbird, but a skull and a dagger.

“Did you know that the police are looking for you?” What was wrong with me?

“Why do you think I'm here?”

“What?”

“That's why I'm here. I'm waiting for that cop, he hasn't showed.” He kicked a plush pig that had fallen over.

“Thomas?”

Reggie rolled his eyes. “What's it to you?”

I scanned the plaza. People were milling around and thanks to the warm January sun many shop doors were propped open. I decided it was as safe a time as any to talk to Reggie. Plus, Thomas was meeting him and should be there any minute. “It's nothing, but there are a lot of rumors going around town right now. I don't know if you're familiar with Ashland or other small towns but news has a way of spreading and getting out of hand.”

“So?”

“I thought you might want to know that people are talking about you.”

“About what?” He twisted a black-and-white bandana in his hand.

“That you did jail time.”

Reggie nodded. “That's out, huh?”

He didn't seem very fazed. “Is it true?”

“Yeah. It's not my proudest moment but what are you going to do?”

“What happened?”

He had twisted the bandana so tight that it looked like he had cut off circulation to his wrist. His wrist was turning bright red and starting to swell. “It was a stupid mistake. I got in a bar fight.”

I waited for him to continue.

“I was drunk, I'll give you that, but I didn't mean to hurt the guy. He took a swing at my girlfriend. I protected her. Who tries to punch a woman? That's not cool. The guy was a total wimp. He couldn't handle one punch. It knocked him out. He hit his head on the bar. Idiot. If you swing at my girl, I'm going to knock you down.”

He had a point, but I didn't tell him that.

“The guy pressed charges. He came after my girl and I'm the one who does time. The system is messed up.”

“How long were you in jail?” I couldn't take my eyes off of his wrist. The bandana was still cinched tight and his hand was purple. It had to hurt.

“Two years.”

“That's a long time.”

“Tell me about it.” He motioned to ShakesBurgers. “I was glad that Mindy gave me this gig. Not a lot of people want to hire a convict.”

“Were you a cook before?”

“No. I guess that's the one good thing that came out of my time in prison. I learned to cook. A lot guys do their time, get out, repeat, land back in the cell. Not me. If I was stuck in there I figured I might as well make the best of it. Learned how to cook. Cooked for the inmates. Got a skill I can use now.” He seemed to notice the bandana for the first time and unwound it.

“That's great.”

He gave me a hard look. “Prison isn't great, lady.”

“I mean that you learned a skill.”

“Yeah. It's good. Except now the boss is dead.”

“How did Mindy find you in the first place?”

“She knew the chef at the prison. Guess they went way back. He put in a word for me when he heard she was opening up this place. She told me she was willing to give me a shot, but that she didn't think it was a good idea to tell people about my past. I didn't care. She worked up a story about me training at some Portland restaurant.”

Mindy had been friends with a prison chef. Was that a coincidence, or could she have had friends in prison? Did that mean anything? I wasn't sure. But knowing people in prison could have put her in with a dangerous crowd.

“So it was Mindy's idea to tell everyone that you were from Portland?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I didn't care. I wanted to cook. My girl left me. Some thanks. I defend her, do jail time for her, and she takes off with some other dude. Cooking is my way out, you know?”

I did know. Reggie had surprised me. He wasn't what I'd expected him to be. He seemed sincere, serious about wanting a career as a cook.

Thomas strolled up at that moment. He gave me a funny look. “Jules, what are you doing here?”

“Just talking to Reggie.” I could tell that Thomas didn't believe that for one minute.

“Glad you made it here, Reggie,” Thomas said. “Let's go talk inside.”

Reggie nodded. I grabbed Thomas before he went inside with Reggie. “He seems like he's trying to turn his life around.”

Thomas shook his head. “Will you never stop, Jules? Have you been pumping my suspect for information?”

“No. I bumped into Reggie and we got to talking, that's all.”

“That's all?” Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I might have asked him a few questions about his past. Have you talked him?”

“That's what I'm here to do, but someone keeps meddling with my case.”

“I'm not meddling. I am kind of surprised about Reggie and his attitude though.”

“Thanks for letting me know. I'll make a note that Juliet Montague Capshaw likes my suspect's attitude.” He pretended to write in the air.

I punched his arm.

“Ouch.” He rubbed his arm. “Should I also make note that Ms. Capshaw is assaulting an officer of the law while I'm at it?”

“Be serious, Thomas. I'm simply telling you that Reggie seems like a decent guy.”

“Jules, just because someone likes to cook as much as you doesn't clear him. But thank you for your input. I'll be asking Reggie about his past and I promise I'll keep an open mind. I always do.”

“Fair enough.” I walked back to Torte. I was more confused than ever. Reggie had a motive and a past, but after talking to him I wasn't sure. But I was also running out of suspects. Why was it that everyone in town seemed to have a reason to want Mindy dead?

 

Chapter Twenty-five

Mom was slicing beautifully browned chocolate crepes into thin strips the size of fettuccini noodles when I returned to the bakeshop.

Carlos greeted me with a wooden spoonful of his chocolate sauce. I took a taste and savored it for a moment. The creamy sauce was rich with flavor and had just a hint of bitterness from the dark chocolate.

“Did you add salt?” I asked.

“Of course.” Carlos grinned as he watched me take another taste.