Sunset Bridge (21 page)

“That man introduced me to everybody. I never heard so many compliments. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he helped make the pies. That’s what it’s all about. Everybody loves Deke. That’s what I’m supposed to call him. Everybody wants to go along with anything the man says or does.”

“How much help was he?” Tracy asked.

“He does know his way around a kitchen. He cooks to relax. But he’s not much of a baker. He chops fruit pretty good, and he whips cream like he knows what he’s doing.”

“You made Derek Forbes do the dirty work?”

Wanda lifted a brow. “Was there someone else in that kitchen who should have done it?”

“Next you’ll get out the dominatrix outfit and brandish the whip.”

Wanda put her hand on her chest. “Be still my heart!”

“What does Ken think about all this?”

“I stuck it out with Ken when times were tough. He says he can stick it out with me when times are plush. Besides, the man knows he’s king. I just wish he could be here to see this. Closest I ever thought I’d get to a party like this one was delivering pies through the back door.”

Tracy felt better. She was happy to witness Wanda basking in her own success.

The man in charge of who basked and who didn’t approached. Tonight Derek Forbes was wearing a flowered silk shirt that Tracy could tell had been hand tailored for a perfect fit. She was always suspicious of actors, since assuming the personalities of others was what they did best, but she thought it was possible Derek Forbes was exactly the man he seemed. Larger than life, audacious, kind.

“Good, you found your friend,” he told Wanda. “I wanted her to hear this, too. Wanda, I’m getting deluged with raves about our pies from all my film friends. Everybody’s asking if you’ve got shops in other towns.”

“Me?” She gave a delighted laugh. “I’ve got enough problems paying what little staff I have and my suppliers. What would I open another shop with? Flour and graham crackers?”

“You’re not thinking big. You’ve got a great product. Pie could be the next cupcake. One minute nobody even thinks cupcake, the next every main street of every small town in America has a shop. And we know how much better pie is, right? Pie like you make, anyway, not that sacrilege from the grocery store. Did anybody’s grandmother make cupcakes?
No, that’s something a harried mother makes with a mix and takes to her kid’s school on his birthday, so little John and Jill Classmate don’t fight over the size of their pieces. But pie? That’s America, that’s our heritage, that’s our grandmother in the kitchen with a checkered apron and a rolling pin!” As if he realized he’d said enough for the moment, he stopped. “I know this is a little overwhelming.”

Wanda was staring blankly at him. “You think I ought to open more shops?
Me?
”

He glanced at Tracy. “She doesn’t really think like this, does she? That she’s just ordinary, that she can’t be a star.”

“I think I’m just going to get her home,” Tracy said, watching her friend growing paler. “She’s had a big night and a long day.”

“More Wanda’s Wonderful Pies?” Wanda asked again.

“You could start small. Open a shop in Naples or Miami. I have contacts. You could talk to my business manager.”

When Wanda didn’t speak, Tracy repeated herself. “I think I’m going to get her home.”

Derek gave Wanda a spontaneous hug, then stepped back. “I had a great time with you this afternoon. We’ll do it again.” He smiled at Tracy and left.

“Do it again?” Wanda said. “And he thinks I’ll live to tell about it?”

“Let’s get you home. You’re ready, right?”

“I was never here. I’m going to wake up any second.”

Tracy put her arm around her friend’s shoulders and led her toward the house. “Well, let’s make sure you do it in your own bed, okay?”

“I figured all this was too good to be true. I’m going to wake up with Chase slobbering all over my pillow and Ken snoring beside me.”

“I was ready to go anyway. I don’t think I’m a party girl anymore.”

“It was a good one, though, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“You remember all the details so you can tell me in case I wake up.”

T
racy missed Marsh’s cooking. Okay, she missed more than his cooking, but she was trying to keep everything else in perspective, or better yet, deeply buried, where it was less disturbing. But the cooking? Every meal was a reminder of what she could be eating if she just moved in with him. So, regularly, three times a day, she was reminded of the relationship she’d ended, as well as Marsh’s fried catfish, his sautéed greens, his peach cobbler. From the man, and from Wanda, she had learned to love food. Having them cook for her when she dieted had been no real gift. But now that she was pregnant? Now that she should catch back up on the calories morning sickness had heartlessly stolen? Now that her obstetrician had told her to eat everything healthy that appealed to her?

How fair was that?

“Clearly you’re on the road to a healthy pregnancy,” Maggie said as Tracy helped herself to another serving of Janya’s basmati rice.

“Making up for lost time,” Wanda said, pushing a dish
of potatoes and spinach fragrant with ginger and turmeric in Tracy’s direction. “You sure all this spicy food’s a good idea?”

“Nothing here’s on the list of things I need to watch out for.”

“I remember when I was pregnant,” Alice said dreamily. She paused to form the next sentence. “I ate potato salad with every meal…for a month.”

Tracy had noted a change in Alice. She was pausing less, talking more. The color had returned to her cheeks since she’d begun teaching at the rec center. Her snowflake class was popular, and she’d agreed to teach shawl making after the holidays. Meantime, she was at the core of a regular group of women at the center who were working on an afghan for a fundraising raffle. Alice had turned Olivia’s difficult schedule into a plus by spending the hours she had to wait in town for her granddaughter into activities at the center and a new set of friends. She had even joined the shuffleboard team, and, from all reports, they were glad to have her.

Tracy had to say, she was proud, as well as worried. Now when Olivia was at the center waiting for her grandmother to finish an activity, she camped in Tracy’s office to do homework. Tracy loved having her there, but Olivia’s revelations about school, sports and friends worried her just a little. What was Alice missing, and was that Tracy’s own fault for enjoying Olivia so much?

“I wanted chocolate,” Wanda said. “Didn’t matter how I got it. IV hookup would have been fine by me.”

“I’m just craving food in general.” Tracy took just a bit more of the potatoes. Once the baby came, she would probably want to regain her figure, although at the moment, the reason why evaded her. What man would be looking for
a single mother with a time-consuming job and a massive amount of debt? Who besides Marsh? And even
his
interest was questionable. She reached for another spoonful of potatoes, a larger one this time.

“I am eating more, too,” Janya said. “I run after the children all day, and in the evening, when Rishi comes home, I work on the mural at the yacht club. It is small, and they are patient, but it must be finished. The work makes me hungry.”

“You should have let me host dinner at my house,” Maggie said. “You have so much on your plate right now, and it’s past time I did it.”

Janya looked puzzled, and she glanced down at her place setting. “I have very little on my plate. I seem to have eaten it all.”

“It’s an expression,” Tracy said. “Means you’re busy. Your schedule is too full.”

Janya smiled. “Oh, no, this was a pleasure. And Vijay helped me make the aloo palak. He helped me measure and stir. He is a wonder in the kitchen, and understands numbers and even, I think, fractions.” She smiled in the direction of the little boy, who was entertaining his sister by rolling a ball for her to catch and roll back.

Tracy had noticed that Vijay seemed marginally more at home now than he had the week before. He was interacting with his sister, and so far there had been no sign of a tantrum, even after Lily knocked down a block city he had built to entertain her. The little boy didn’t smile, and his conversation had been limited to a “hello” without eye contact, but she thought Janya and Rishi were making progress.

“Well, I got news to share,” Wanda said, “and it’s not about my weight, which suits me just fine even if I am closing in on
a size sixteen. Ms. Deloche and I went to a party at Derek’s house, as you all know, but what you don’t know is that he thinks I ought to open more pie shops. He thinks I’m that good. I like to have dropped my teeth, even if they are still attached to my jaw, the way teeth are meant to be.”

Everybody made all the appropriate noises. Maggie was the first to move beyond them. “But you’re not going to,” she said, clearly in the know. “Because even one shop’s a lot to handle.”

“She’s right,” Wanda told the others. “But it’s a kick, somebody like Deke thinking I’m that good. You know how many years I had to live to hear something like that?”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Maggie said. “The family heaps praise on her at every turn. Where do you think this ego comes from?”

The front door opened, and Rishi walked in. Lily clapped her tiny hands when she caught sight of him, and Vijay stopped rolling the ball. He didn’t get up to go to Rishi, but he looked interested—another good sign, Tracy thought.

“I apologize for being late,” Rishi said after greeting them.

“I have explained that your secretary is sick,” Janya said. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes, at my desk, and now it is time for ice cream with my favorite children.” He approached them slowly, as if he knew that Vijay needed time to make this transition. Janya had told Tracy the little boy had problems moving from one thing to the other now, as if every change was a reminder of all the other changes in his life.

Rishi squatted on the floor beside Vijay. “I am thinking that an ice-cream cone would taste good now, and I wonder if you think so, too?”

Vijay seemed to consider. No one at the table spoke, aware
that leaving the house with Rishi, like so many things in the little boy’s life now, was something new and untried.

He finally gave a brief nod. Rishi smiled and got to his feet. “Is Lily ready?”

Tracy got up before Janya could. “Let me check her diaper while you put Vijay in the car. I need the practice. Janya, stay here and entertain your guests.”

Janya looked grateful, and Tracy scooped up the baby and took her into the children’s tiny room, where a foam pad on a low dresser served as a changing table. Tracy was becoming adept at this and accomplished the diaper change quickly, with the help of a musical mobile above the dresser. Then she straightened the little girl’s embroidered skirt and pulled on her socks and shoes, since the nights were finally cooler. She zipped up a hoodie and stood Lily on the table to look her over. Satisfied, she whisked her back into the living area.

“This okay?” She held the child out for inspection.

Everybody cooed. Tracy grabbed the diaper bag, a rag doll and a book for the ride, and met Rishi on the front doorstep as he came back for the little girl.

“She’s all yours.”

He smiled, and Tracy thought how nice he looked. Rishi wasn’t a handsome man, but he had made changes in his appearance, and he was definitely more attractive. He looked particularly nice tonight, in his dark jacket and white dress shirt.

She said as much when she joined the women at the table again. “And he’s awfully good with those kids, too. He was singing to Lily when he drove away.”

Janya smiled. “He is growing very attached to both of them. Vijay misses his father most of all, and Rishi is finding little ways to help.”

“What’s Rishi doing to his hair that’s so different?” Wanda asked. “It looks good.”

“A good cut and a little gel.” Janya moved her hands over her head in explanation. “Harit convinced him to try it that way. He had many talents.”

Everyone was silent as they worked on their dinners, until Wanda put her fork down. “Well, that’s as good a lead-in as any, I guess. Now that the children are gone for a while… Maggie, you got anything to tell Janya and the rest of us about the investigation?”

Tracy thought Maggie looked the way she must have throughout her adolescence whenever Wanda asked a question she didn’t want to answer. But she put down her fork, too. “I’ve been talking to everybody I can think of. I even went to the barbershop to see if they would trim my hair—”

“No way!” Tracy put a hand over her heart.

“Don’t worry, every strand’s safe. It’s a real male bastion. They didn’t even like me walking through the door. The only woman in there was watching her little boy get a Mohawk.”

“Did you find out anything anyway?” Wanda asked.

“I told them who I was, and that I was concerned Harit might be cast as a murderer before all the evidence was in. The owner said it was pretty clear what Harit did, and that nobody there wanted to talk about it anymore.”

“Did he say anything about the other customers?” Janya asked. “The ones Harit was seeing in their houses?”

Maggie explained that piece of information to the others. “Rishi thinks Harit was going to some of his customers’ homes to cut their hair. They paid extra and tipped well, and his family needed the money.”

“I can tell you no boss would like that,” Wanda said. “Be
like one of my employees going off to bake pies using my contacts and recipes.”

“Maybe not quite as bad, but you’re right, the owner didn’t like it,” Maggie said. “I asked about Harit’s regulars, and he just shrugged. Then I asked about the others, because I had to. I could tell it wasn’t a surprise to him. I would guess that’s why he doesn’t care if we clear Harit’s name. He’s angry Harit went out on his own. But he told
me
whatever I’d heard about private clients was wrong. And that was that.”

“
That
is never
that
with you,” Wanda said.

Maggie didn’t dispute it. “I parked across the street and talked to everybody who came and went for the rest of the afternoon. The guy who gave that kid the Mohawk came out about an hour before they closed, and I talked to him. He said after Harit disappeared, the owner discovered what he’d been doing because some guy called and said Harit had missed a private appointment. I told him I wanted to talk to Harit’s personal customers, but he said he didn’t know who they were, only that Harit attracted the pickiest ones. He said Harit got the guys who thought they were too good for the old-fashioned stuff.”

“I can get them for you,” Wanda said. “Those names. Could have days ago, if you’d just told me.”

Maggie looked skeptical. “I don’t think anybody knows who they were, Mom.”

“I can get them.” Wanda stood up. “Mind if I use the phone in your kitchen?” she asked Janya, who nodded. “I’ll need something to write on, since ol’ Vijay still has my notepad.”

The two women went into the other room, but Janya returned in a minute. Wanda’s voice was low and unintelligible in the background. “Vijay is writing a book in Wanda’s note
pad,” Janya explained. “About bad parents who leave their children and never come back. We work on it together.”

Everybody was silent.

“I think it might be helping,” Janya said. “His therapist is encouraged. He is talking more, and his story grows more complicated. Yesterday the little boy went in search of his father and encountered a bear. But the bear was kind. I think the bear is Rishi.”

“I’m glad a therapist is working with him, but what’s going on with their social worker?” Tracy asked.

“She keeps the facts to herself, and right now she is on vacation,” Janya said, and Tracy detected frustration in her friend’s voice. “But she has made arrangements for us to get into the Duttas’ apartment next week to collect the children’s things. For that I am grateful.”

“I’d like to go with you,” Maggie said.

“I thought you might. I asked if I could bring a neighbor to help sort and carry, and she said yes, but she will need to be with us while we are there, which is why we can’t go sooner.”

“Bummer,” Tracy said.

“Maybe I can still look around a little,” Maggie said.

Wanda returned at that moment. “Got it.”

“Got what?” Maggie asked.

“That list of customers Harit was visiting on the sly. Now, ask me how I did it.”

“How did you do it?” they chorused.

“One of my best customers manages the shop, you know, answers the phone, keeps the appointment book, gets equipment fixed, assigns the walk-ins to operators. The owner’s hardly ever there, so he was probably being honest when he
said he doesn’t know anything that would help. Seymour pretty much runs the place.”

“Wow,” Maggie said. “Seymour. Now I’m embarrassed. As the barber I talked to was leaving, he called something over his shoulder like ‘see more next week.’ I couldn’t figure out what he thought I ought to see, so I was planning to go back and talk to him again.”

“Well, Seymour just got back from a cruise. Could have saved you some trouble.”

“Stop gloating. Seymour gave you a list?”

“I promised him a whole Charleston pie if he did. That’s his favorite, and you’ll be making it tomorrow.” Wanda handed the paper to Maggie. “And here’s how he knows who Harit was seeing on the sly. Turns out Harit figured what the shop should be paid for each customer he saw and turned money over to Seymour to add to the till. Honest to a fault, it sounds like. That way he figured he wasn’t hurting anybody by working on his own time and keeping the bigger tips for himself. He and Seymour kinda kept the arrangement to themselves, just in case the owner didn’t like it. Harit had begun to see eight men in private, at least those were the ones Seymour knew about or remembers. Harit settled with him at the end of the month.”

Tracy thought Harit’s honesty was another sign he was an unlikely murderer. “Eight haircuts a month doesn’t sound like a lot of extra money.”

“Rishi did say that Harit was encouraged by the money he was saving,” Janya said.

“Let’s say he charged seventy-five dollars to go to somebody’s house and cut their hair on
their
time,” Wanda guessed. “Sound right?”

“So much?” Janya asked.