Chapter 4

Mrs. Branford could be a study in contradictions. It was something she worked at. In certain circumstances she played the little old biddy. She knew everything that went on in our neighborhood. She was like the quintessential nosy neighbor, only without being annoying. She genuinely cared about the people around her. Everyone sensed that about her and so they talked to her. They shared. Probably they over-shared. Mrs. Branford seemed to know everything about everybody in her galaxy. She was the sun, and the world rotated around her.

If her galaxy was our historic neighborhood, then the universe was Santa Sofia. She’d taught high school English forever and had had multiple generations of families in her classroom. Anytime I was with her out in public, someone made a point of saying hello to her. And I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t move away from calling her Mrs. Branford. She’d told me over and over to call her Penelope or Penny, but I just couldn’t do it. She’d forever be Mrs. Branford to me. All her former students felt the same.

Sometimes she played the part of the elderly woman in need of assistance. Her cane came in handy in these instances. It was, I’d witnessed as I came back in from talking with Candy, the act she’d put on in the boardroom. She was sitting on a folding chair talking to someone. When she saw me, she tried to stand, using her cane for balance. I saw her lips move and imagined her making a little squeaking sound. The woman she’d been sitting next to quickly stood and helped her up. Mrs. Branford made her way over to me, continuing to play the part of the doddering old woman, but when she reached me, she said, “Ivy dear, hold on to my arm.”

I scanned the room, looking for Captain York, but he was nowhere to be seen. Too bad. I wanted to find out what he thought of the suspect pool. I didn’t know anyone else in the room by face and it looked like Mrs. Branford needed to leave, so I guided her away from the district building with a hand on one of her elbows. She tottered along with her cane, clearly needing my help, the entire walk back to my car. I helped her into the passenger side and gently closed the door. I always worried that one of these times she wouldn’t be acting.

It seemed like that time had come . . . until I got in the car. The moment I shut the driver’s side door, she turned to me. No more hunched shoulders. No more clinging to her cane, which now lay easily on her lap. “I had to keep up the part until we were well out of sight. You never know who’s watching.”

I’d often thought that Mrs. Branford had missed her calling. She could have had a successful career in the theater if she’d gone that direction. “Well, what did you find out?” she asked.

I didn’t miss a beat. “A lot, actually. Candace was pretty forthcoming.” I recapped what Candace had told me, ending with, “That’s a healthy list of potential suspects.”

Mrs. Branford closed her eyes for a moment, processing what I’d said. She opened them again as I pulled out of the parking lot, and said, “It certainly is.”

“How about you? Any luck?”

She patted her bouncy white hair and gave me a look that clearly communicated the absurdity of that question. “I found out that our victim had plans to run for state senate. Like you, I also found out that she had no shortage of enemies. That being said, she seemed to be subscribed to the ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ mind-set.”

I directed the car back toward our street before turning to stare at her. She was truly amazing. “In what way?”

“As you discovered, no one seems to have liked her.”

“And yet she was reelected and thought she could win the senate seat?” It was a conundrum.

“That is not inexplicable. Manipulation seemed to be the name of her game. She was her own personal lobby, making deals with this person to satisfy that person, then turning around and changing the terms of the initial deal until she got something she wanted.”

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. “Mrs. Branford, what are you talking about?”

“Here is an example as told to me by Dr. Sharma, the school superintendent. Not a fan of Nessa Renchrik’s, I might add. There is, apparently, a large learning gap between the white student body population and the Hispanic population.”

I listened intently as I took another turn.

“Dr. Sharma says she was given the green light to do what was necessary to help the students being underserved. Not an easy task, to be sure. To have the school board’s support is crucial. Alas, the full support was not actually there.”

We arrived at Maple Street. I breathed easier as we drove down the tree-lined street with its canopy of newly budded leaves. Each house was different from the next. A Craftsman home sat next to a Tudor, which was next door to a Victorian. Next to that was an old farmhouse. The historic area was eclectic—and I loved every bit of it.

When I’d first seen it, I’d thought Mrs. Branford’s house was a small Victorian. Since then I’d learned more about the architecture of the old houses in the area and had learned that hers was a Craftsman style. It was ancient—like the owner herself—but she took good care of it. The creamy white window frames contrasted with the warm taupe of the exterior walls. The porch was lopsided and angled toward the street. A marble would roll right off of it. A crooked brick pathway led to the porch steps. It was a little uneven, but it was a bit of character Mrs. Branford didn’t want to replace.

“A house can be part of a person, Ivy,” she’d told me once. “The Tudor you so love is in your soul in the same way that my house is part of mine. There is history in these old places. It seeps into you in a way that can’t really be explained.” She’d clasped the railing of her porch and looked up at the thick door trim and the pillars holding up the porch ceiling. “I love this old place.”

I knew exactly what she meant. I’d loved my house from the first moment I’d laid eyes on it. It was like it had called to me, and then it had become mine and I couldn’t see leaving it. That simple fact would pose quite a problem if and when Miguel and I got to the point in our relationship where we wanted to share a living space. His house with its view of the Pacific was like a retreat. My house with its brick exterior, dormers, and arches fed my soul.

Now I parked in front of her house and turned in my seat to face her. “Let me guess. Nessa Renchrik wasn’t on the superintendent’s side.”

Mrs. Branford touched the tip of her nose with her index finger. Like in charades, it meant that I’d hit the nail on the head.

“Dr. Sharma crafted a plan with her team,” Mrs. Branford went on. “They presented to the board. Each member gave their approval. However, when the plan began to be implemented and there was pushback from some of the school leaders—You know people are reluctant to make change, especially when they don’t believe the change is necessary—”

“They didn’t think change was needed when so many students were failing?”

At that, Mrs. Branford shrugged. “It is not surprising, Ivy. School politics are just as ruthless as the state and federal brand. When it comes to the success or failure of students, the bottom line is that if the students who look like you are doing okay, that is all that matters.”

“So since the white kids who look like Nessa Renchrik are successful, she didn’t care about the ones who didn’t look like her and who weren’t successful?”

“In a nutshell,” Mrs. Branford said. She frowned. “A sad reality, but the truth nonetheless.”

“Okay. Then some people—like Nessa Renchrik—objected to the superintendent’s plan. What happened?”

Mrs. Branford gave a quick and audible exhalation through her nose. “What happened was that—and this is according the superintendent—Nessa did a complete reversal of her stance, withdrawing her support and pulling the rug out from under Dr. Sharma.”

My brain started spinning. With Nessa gone, did Dr. Sharma have her green light from all the other school board members to continue with her plan? Combined with Candy Coffey’s theory that Nessa Renchrik was a thorn in Dr. Sharma’s side because of the former’s constant bid for power, the superintendent’s motive seemed to grow stronger. I’d barely started looking into what had happened and already Dr. Sharma was rising to the top of my list.

I walked Mrs. Branford to her door, not needing to hold her elbow this time, even on the uneven brick walkway. “I’ll be at the ready for when you need me,” she said.

“I’ll keep you posted,” I said with a little laugh and shake of my head. The woman was a master.

Back at home, I let Agatha outside, grabbed my notes from the night before, went to the spare bedroom I’d designated as my study, and found a brand-new journal, then took it all out to the patio table in the backyard. Since I was starting late and didn’t have notebooks for each of the crimes I’d helped solve, I made a list of them on the first pages, briefly summarizing who had died and who had done the deed. Once that was complete, I turned a few pages in and wrote “NESSA RENCHRIK” at the center top. Even this small action made me feel more centered and organized.

Agatha had nosed around in the bushes for a few minutes, emerging from a secret spot where she took care of business. She dug into the ground with her front and back paws, like a bull ready to charge, as I started by transcribing my initial notes onto the page. I added all the new information I had next. It took a good forty minutes to get it all down.

I started with a list of names down the left side of the page, beginning with the deceased’s husband, Cliff Renchrik. Next, I added Dr. Sharma, the superintendent; and the four remaining school board members: Jerry Zenmark, Margaret Jenkins-Roe, Katherine Candelli, and Candace Coffey. Then I added Lulu Sanchez-Patrick, aka@Marisas Mama. I didn’t think she had something to do with the murder, but she was a name and had been the first person to communicate how little Nessa Renchrik was liked by people.

Before I left her, Mrs. Branford had told me that there were eleven school principals. I added them to my list as a single group since I didn’t know any names, but wrote down “Principal Davies, Chavez Elementary School” on its own line, as well as “Parents” with a question mark, and “Nessa’s hairdresser.” There was no shortage of people who seemed to have had a grudge against the late school board president.

On the other side of the page, I drew a box and added Cliff’s name, as well as Nessa’s children, Rachel and Tate. When I was done, I set my pen down and sat back to think. Agatha looked unworried and blissful lying in a slice of sunlight.

I, on the other hand, felt the opposite of unworried and blissful. There were a lot of people on the suspect list. I didn’t know Nessa and I didn’t have the excuse of being a police detective to give me a legitimate reason to talk to any of them, yet Emmaline had asked me to see what I could find out. “What to do, what to do,” I mused aloud.

Agatha lifted her head to peer at me, then laid her head back down and sighed contentedly.

She was absolutely no help.