The Baker's Wife (29 page)

“Few people are blessed to enjoy the work they must do.”

“I don't know. I like it here. At least I did before today.” He wasn't sure if Jack had heard him. And he wasn't sure if it was the truth, either. Working in a bakery for one's parents wasn't exactly ambitious.
Be happy, aim low
, one of his friends had liked to say.

“Did Miri work in the back?” Ed asked. “Where she could avoid all the high-and-mighty religious folks?”

“Of course not. She's got a better head on her than that. She assisted the accountant.”

“She handled the money?”

“Every aspect. Payroll, payables, the day's receipts.”

A bridge formed in his mind between his father, a pastor-patron of the Christian bookstore, and Miralee Mansfield, junior accountant.

Geoff turned to Jack. “I'm sorry Miralee treats you that way,” his dad said. “That must cause you a lot of pain.”

“You wouldn't know pain if it impaled you on a stake!”

The word
pain
came out of his mouth on spit.

“Did you know the French word for
bread
is
pain
?” Leslie said.

All three men glanced at her. She blinked, as if she'd come into the conversation without realizing it.

“It's not pronounced that way,” she said. “It's like saying
pan
with a really stuffy nose, but I always thought the spelling was interesting.” After a few seconds of silence she said, “With us being in a bakery and all . . . I just thought . . .”

She stared at her paper.

“You wrote checks when you bought books at The Word,” Ed said to his father.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Miralee had access to my dad's checks.” In an era of electronic transactions in which Ed sometimes wondered if real money actually existed, his dad continued to write checks because he believed that filling in all those blanks longhand made it just a little harder to spend money foolishly.

Geoff's eyebrows made a tent shape over his nose. “That's a hefty accusation, son.”

“I haven't heard any accusation yet,” said Jack.

“Miralee forged my dad's check. For the abortion. It's not hard to do these days, is it?”

“Why would she do that?” both men asked together.

Were they serious? “Uh, because she needed the money, and someone to blame, and a story to tell you.” Ed pointed at Jack. “A story to protect your perception of her. Either that or something that would prove her right about what a bunch of hypocrites we all are. That's her thing, you know, cleaning up the world one hypocrite at a time.”

“You just can't accept responsibility for anything, can you, boy?”

Ed wasn't sure who was angrier now, Jack or him. Jack didn't care about the truth, Ed thought. Jack's only aim was to make sure no one could prove him wrong.

“I've never said anything like that. I own my stuff, all of it, which is more than I can say for your daughter.”

“Miralee would never do what you've suggested,” Jack said.

“Maybe you didn't have as much control over your women as you thought you did. Miralee made a clown of you in front of all of us just a few minutes ago, or didn't you notice?”

“Disrespect isn't criminal,” Jack said. “Miralee is only in a phase. She isn't capable of a felony.”

“You just said she's too smart for what you think is a menial job!”

His father interrupted. “Ed, that's enough.”

“He's the worst double-talker I've ever heard! He's accusing Mom of murder, but thinks his little girl is an angel? That scooter was parked in Mom's lane, head-on! I'm starting to believe
he
set us up! What for? Because kicking us out of your church club wasn't satisfying enough,
Jack
?”

“That's not what's happening,” Geoff said. “The truth always comes out, Ed. Be patient.”

“I've had it with patience. Sometimes the truth only comes out because we force it to!”

Jack chuckled at that. “A kid after my own heart.”

Ed took a swing at him then, hurling his own arm down at the man's head from above as if it were a basketball in his opponent's hands. Ed's height might have been his only advantage. The detective leaned sideways, evading, in full control of his firearm and his wits. Ed's knuckles scraped the cinder-block wall as momentum carried his body through the punch, tipping him off balance. Pain shot up through his wrist, and then his shoulder struck the bricks too. Ed came around, having enough time and sharp reflexes to aim a back kick at Jack's pathetic bucket. He'd knock it over and take the man on the ground.

But his father had moved to intervene, had placed his body between Ed and Jack. Instead of finding the bucket, Ed's foot struck his father square in the kneecap.

Geoff stumbled, and then Jack rose above him, standing over Ed's dad with the gun aimed down at his head.

CHAPTER 28

The fog was still thick when Audrey drove out of town in Geoff's truck at eight twenty. Diane sat on the passenger side with Miralee tucked away behind them. They headed east on the highway as fast as if there was no fog at all, toward the mountains, toward hope.

No one had said much since Geoff's phone call and the exchange between Miralee and Jack. Audrey had placed another call to Captain Wilson as they passed through the city limits. As far as Diane could tell, Wilson wasn't full of encouragement.

Audrey got off the phone and sighed. “Cornucopia doesn't have any helicopters to send ahead. He thinks he can find one down in the next county, but the weather . . . It could be awhile. They'll send a car up, but we're already ahead of them.”

Diane looked out at the thick air. Not good visibility for flying in, and who knew how far a car or copter would have to climb to get out of it.

“It should be better visibility in the mountains,” she offered.

“Might be snow,” Audrey said. “But I hope not.” They'd borrowed jackets from the Mansfields' coat closet when Audrey announced her intentions. Miralee had brought her father's gun. One of many he had, she said. Audrey thought one would be plenty.

The gray moisture surrounding them messed with Diane's perception of their progress. Instead of mile markers clicking by the window, or rows of groves and fields fanning by in a mesmerizing rhythm, all she could see was the dashed white line slipping under the hood, the same broken paint repeating itself.

“What if Jack doesn't give us enough time?” she said.

“Dad's not going to kill anyone, if that's what you're worried about,” said Miralee.

“You said he's done it before.”

“That he has. Between us, I think if anyone really killed my mom, he did.”

“So will he or won't he?”

“Never in a situation where he'd be found out.”

“You mean this is all an act?” Diane twisted in her seat to look at Miralee. “The hostage thing is to cover up what he did himself? Oh, Audrey, he's insane. Some kind of mental. Is it possible he can't remember what he did?”

“I didn't mean literally, Diane. He kills the soul of a person, you know? With that better-respect-the-badge attitude. My mom started dying years before the cancer reared its head. Why do you think I had to leave? Yea, there is no one more righteous than Jack Mansfield, not even one.”

Audrey said, “Geoff told me he shot Coach Henderson again.”

Miralee leaned forward. “No.”

“Is he dead?” Diane asked.

Audrey shook her head.

Miralee leaned back and said, “That man's never discharged his weapon anywhere but at a range. Maybe he is going insane.”

“It could happen to any of us.” Audrey's tone held censure.

“Us. You mean me. Because he and I are genetically connected, is that it?”

“I mean anyone. Your dad is suffering, Miri, can't you see it? Do you know what suffering can do to a person?”

“My father doesn't know the definition of the word. In his universe there's only reward and punishment.”

“I bet he thinks he's going to be rewarded for this stunt,” Diane said.

Audrey said, “I was asking whether
you
understand what it is to suffer, Miralee.”

“Insofar as it's related to living with a father who is never wrong about anything, yes.”

Diane stared out at the cloak of fog. “I thought I'd be rewarded for killing my sister.”

Miralee's neck swiveled to Diane. “You killed your sister? I thought Dad was exaggerating.”

Diane nodded.

“No way!” The protest sounded almost like admiration. “Why'd you do that?”

“It's none of our business,” Audrey said.

“Donna stole an heirloom from my grandmother, a necklace. She planned to sell it for . . . for something worthless. A prom dress, a limo, something like that. So I stole the necklace back and planned to return it, which I should have done immediately—that very day. That very hour. But I waited. I'm not sure why I waited. No. Yes, I do. I waited because I thought that maybe I would buy something worthless for myself, just to spite my sister. I even thought about paying Jason Moyer to be my date, but I was too scared that he might turn down me
and
the money.”

She laughed because she was embarrassed. Jason Moyer had a wide jaw and sweeping golden hair that hid his eyes, and three girlfriends at a time. The highway narrowed from four lanes to two, and the truck began its slow rise into the mountains.

“The next day Mom sent me on an errand. When Donna couldn't find where I'd hidden the jewelry, she went to my parents and accused me of having stolen it. Within fifteen minutes, before I was even back, they told Grammie and she confirmed the piece was gone. So I played clueless, which was my role back then anyway, and the only reason I didn't get in trouble was because it was her word against mine. No diamond, no proof.”

“It was a
diamond
. You didn't mention that small detail,” Miralee said.

“It's not an important one.”

“How much was it worth?”

“Then? I don't know. I was a kid. It wasn't even cut. I don't know if it was ever appraised.”

“So for all you know it was worthless.”

Diane didn't understand what Miralee was getting at.

Audrey said, “The value of a thing rarely ever lies in its sale price, Miralee.”

“But even I'd know to—”

“Miri. Zip it.”

The girl was too excited to pout. She was sitting behind a convicted murderer who might be mistaken for a Cabbage Patch doll. “So your sister pointed the finger at you, and—?”

“And nothing, for a while. I sat on it. My grandmother made her insurance claim. She got her money. Then I was even more confused about what to do with the pendant. But Donna . . . We never got along well to begin with. After that, you can imagine.

“So one night after the drugstore was closed and our parents went out—this was back before the Rx was open 24-7—Donna and some of her friends got plastered in the alley behind the store. They were completely drunk, and loud, and more stupid than usual. Donna started talking about breaking into the safe where Dad kept the day's deposits.

“What was I supposed to do? She was out of control, her friends hated me as much as she did. I thought if she'd just pass out, she'd forget about it. We both knew where Dad kept his keys. I got to them first. I went into the pharmacy. I slipped a few morphine tablets into a shot of vodka and gave it to her after they dissolved. She threw it straight back, didn't even notice them.”

“Wow. You are stupid, aren't you?”

“It would have been better for me if the jury believed that.”

“They thought you premeditated it?”

“Donna didn't . . . pass out right away. She led her friends into the store and they ransacked it while she tried to remember the combination to the safe. When I wouldn't give it to her she started screaming at me. She said I was trying to ruin her life. I was bigger than she was; I dragged her out of the office and shoved her into the store. She said, ‘What are you trying to do, kill me?'—that's what her friends remembered most when it was their turn on the stand.”

Geoff's truck followed the weaving road. The air didn't thin but turned slowly from dim gray to veil white.

“I just wanted her to have a chance to get sober so she could think about what she was really doing.”

“Girl like that doesn't think much different sober or sloshed,” Miralee said.

“I can't believe they sentenced you to twenty-five years,” Audrey said. “You were a minor.”

“Tried me as an adult.”

“They charged you with first-degree murder?”

“If you were on that jury and heard my best friend and parents testifying against me, what would you have thought?”