Chapter 5
Santa Sofia’s Bungalow Oasis neighborhood sat between Malibu and Riviera Streets and was part of the Upper Laguna District, so named by the early residents of the area who’d then formed a neighborhood association. Bungalows were in all the older areas of Santa Sofia, but Bungalow Oasis held the monopoly.
Miguel’s stucco-sided house was quaint and welcoming. It sat on a knoll, had a single-car garage down below, and red terra-cotta tiled steps running upstairs on the left side of the house that led to a wrought-iron gate, with the house itself raised and built into the hill. Along with his cooking abilities, Miguel had a green thumb. Bright leafy shrubs bordered the steps leading to the arched front door. Massive pots overflowing with draping flowers and greenery sat on pillars at the top of the steps. The courtyard to the right of the narrow driveway had a single tree and abundant flower beds, and Miguel had recently added a bench. Above the garage was a veranda, which was an extended outside room with a view of the Pacific.
I loved my historic house and I adored my neighborhood, but being at Miguel’s house was like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. He’d bought the place as a fixer-upper . . . and had fixed it up. If he ever quit the restaurant business, he could have his own HGTV home show. There was nothing the man couldn’t do.
Agatha and I headed to Bungalow Oasis around five o’clock. Miguel’s restaurant was closed on Mondays; while I was digging around in Nessa Renchrik’s life, he’d gotten his water heater fixed and had messed around in his kitchen, experimenting with new recipes. He had an efficient galley kitchen with a commercial-grade stainless-steel Wolf range. It was a monster with six open top burners, a grill/griddle, and two ovens.
“Indian street food,” he said when I walked in.
An array of dishes and ingredients was strewn across the kitchen counters in the kitchen. Whatever he’d conjured up, it had made my stomach growl and my mouth water. “It smells amazing.”
The long plank dining table sat outside the long galley kitchen, forming the top band of a letter T. He sat me down and went back to the kitchen, returning a minute later carrying a bowl and setting it on the woven place mat in front of me. It burst with color, shapes, and aromas. “Mexican Bhel,” he said. “I wanted to do a little fusion and play off the idea of Indian street food.”
I took the fork he offered me, scooped up a helping, and savored the bite. Sweet corn kernels and finely chopped bell peppers were mixed with a perfectly seasoned chipotle salsa, whole pinto beans, small chunks of jicama, and cilantro. He’d tossed it all together with homemade tortilla chips and topped it with a dusting of shredded cheese.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It may be a little too simple. Like a salad bowl without the lettuce.”
I couldn’t answer him with my mouth full of another bite. Whatever he wanted to call it or do with it, the freshness and combination of the ingredients made the dish sublime. I was about to tell him this when the doorbell rang.
He left me at the table eating the Mexican Bhel. I stopped chewing a moment later when I saw Captain Craig York following him through the living room and into the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?” Miguel asked him, but Captain York shook his head no. York nodded at me. “Ivy.”
The nerve of York to call me Ivy. He didn’t know me well enough for that. I gulped down the mouthful of bhel, wishing that I had a glass of water. Miguel must have read my mind. He slipped into the kitchen, filled a glass at the tap, and brought it to me. I waited for York to say something about seeing me at the district office earlier, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Sorry to drop by like this, but I have a few questions for you, Mr. Baptista.”
And Miguel was Mr. Baptista. Misogyny much?
Miguel gestured to the table, indicating Captain York should sit, then pulled out the chair next to me and took it. Captain York sat at the end of the table looking far too serious. “I’ll cut to the chase. Mr. Baptista, it’s come to our knowledge that you had a relationship with the deceased, Mrs. Nessa Renchrik.”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. I felt the color drain from my face. Next to me, Miguel balked. “What? Where did you hear that?”
But instead of answering Miguel’s question, Captain York went on. “I also understand you are sponsoring the Spring Fling event due to your relationship with the deceased.”
Miguel leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. “No, actually, I’m not, and I don’t have a relationship with the deceased.”
I noticed Miguel spoke in the present, as if the woman was still alive. Whether or not Captain York noticed was hard to tell. He continued as if Miguel hadn’t spoken. “I understand she contacted you recently.”
My mind shot back to Miguel’s comment the night before. He’d told me someone had reached out to him, then murmured that he needed to find that message. He hadn’t mentioned that it was Nessa Renchrik. My body suddenly felt hot and my eyes burned.
Miguel opened his mouth to say something—to respond?, to deny?—but closed it again. “Someone did contact me. I never called back, but I’m telling you I don’t know Nessa Renchrik.”
“Uh-huh.” The captain sat back, folding his arms across his chest as if he just made a move on the chessboard that put his opponent into check.
Miguel sat back, mirroring York.
“That’s not what I hear,” York said, his narrow gaze steady on Miguel.
“Why don’t you tell me what you hear, then.” I could tell Miguel was trying to control the snarl that lurked underneath his words. “Because I have no idea what you are talking about.”
The Mexican Bhel suddenly felt like rocks in the pit of my stomach. The captain wouldn’t be here dropping this little emotional bomb unless he knew or suspected it to be true. How I wished Emmaline was back and in charge rather than soaking up the sun in Costa Rica.
Captain York kept his gaze focused on Miguel as he said, “Vanessa Arnold.”
Miguel blinked. Then blinked again. When he spoke, his voice suddenly sounded strained. “What?”
Alarm bells went off in my head. I’d told him Nessa’s full name was Vanessa, but he’d been in the shower. Had he not heard me?
“Vanessa Arnold,” Captain York repeated. “She goes by Nessa. Renchrik is her married name.”
Miguel muttered under his breath. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “You’re saying that Vanessa Arnold and Nessa Renchrik are the same person?”
York’s lips twisted into a subtle sneer. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Baptista. And I think you knew that.”
The veins on Miguel’s neck tightened. He worked to control himself. “I didn’t know that.”
York gave his head a little shake. He clearly didn’t believe Miguel. He’d weighed and measured him, and found him wanting.
“Look,” Miguel said, his voice low. Controlled. “I briefly dated a Vanessa Arnold. That was ten or eleven years ago.”
“And you haven’t seen her since, is that what you’re saying?”
Miguel’s Adam’s apple climbed up his throat, then dropped as he swallowed. “I saw her last week.”
My burning eyes turned blurry and my breath hitched.
York kept his gaze level, his lips a thin line, but his eyebrows lifted enough to show this was an interesting bit of news. “Is that right? After ten . . . or eleven . . . years, you saw her last week? That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t really a question.
Miguel’s complexion turned sallow, but he kept his gaze level with York’s. “I don’t know; is it?”
York didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “I think it is.”
I tried to school my expression, seeing Miguel’s chest rise and fall in my peripheral vision. “She showed up at the restaurant out of the blue,” he said.
“To have lunch? Dinner?”
“She’d placed a To Go order,” Miguel said. “She said she and her husband were going out to some party and she was picking up dinner for her kids.”
That meant the takeout order had probably been on Friday. The dinner fundraiser Candy had mentioned.
York spoke, sounding smug and patronizing at the same time. “Let me recap. You dated the victim briefly a decade ago. Then just last week, she suddenly shows up at your restaurant. And the next day she’s murdered.”
I felt the air in the room grow still. Miguel had known Nessa Renchrik. No, not known. Dated. And seen her the day before she died. Had York come here knowing that fact? Had he been trying to trap Miguel into lying? The obvious conclusion came to mind. He saw Miguel as a suspect. But why? Just because they’d dated ten years ago and she’d suddenly shown back up in his life didn’t give him a motive.
Still, I had questions. Had Miguel known Nessa was married when they’d dated? I knew he had a life in between our high school relationship and our rekindled romance. I had no qualms about that specifically, but I did over the fact that Captain York was here talking to Miguel about it and what that might mean.
York rolled his hand in the air. “So you dated ten or so years ago. Go on.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Miguel said. “I was home on leave—”
“Military?” York asked.
Miguel nodded. He didn’t elaborate, but I knew the truth. He’d joined when he and I had split up. He’d only recently come back to Santa Sofia to stay—after his father died. Our stories were similar and had brought us back to our hometown, where we’d reconnected.
“I was here for a few months and worked at my family’s restaurant. Vanessa used to come into the restaurant pretty frequently—”
“And then not at all in the intervening years?”
Miguel shrugged. “Nope.” He went on, ignoring York’s skeptical expression. “We got to talking. She said she’d been through a tough breakup. I bought her lunch one day and we kind of hit it off, so we went out a few times.”
“You went out a few times.” Captain York took out a little notepad. He jotted something down before looking up at Miguel again. “And your breakup with her. Any animosity?”
Miguel scoffed. “There was no breakup. We went on a few dates. That’s it.”
“Did you know she was married?”
At this, Miguel sat back and ran his hand over his face. “I didn’t know when we first started seeing each other.”
“But,” York prompted.
“I found out,” he said. “And I broke it off.” Miguel looked at me with a pained expression. “I broke it off.”
I believed him, and gave a single nod, encouraging him to keep going with his story.
“We went to Books and More—”
York raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
“The bookstore in town,” I said. The place had been around since I was a kid. It was as iconic in Santa Sofia as Yeast of Eden was.
“Right. We were just browsing. She started talking with someone.”
“Man or woman?”
“A man. It got a little heated, but they were in the travel section and I was in the fiction area. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. And then he left.”
“Did you ask her who it was?”
Miguel nodded.
“And?” York had his pen poised over his notepad ready to write down a name, but Miguel shook his head. “A work acquaintance. That’s all she said. I bought a book, we left, and she said she had a headache. Then she confessed that she was married. I didn’t see her after that.”
“Did you break it off, or did she?”
Miguel sighed. Ran his hand down his face. “She was married. I stopped calling. She stopped coming to the restaurant. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Until last Friday,” York corrected.
Miguel gave a single nod.
York cocked an eyebrow. “You live in the same town. She was a prominent member of the community. School board member for years, and current board president. You’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce. A businessman in Santa Sofia. You never put it together that Vanessa Arnold was also Nessa Renchrik?”
“I’d been on leave. I left Santa Sofia and didn’t come back until recently. I don’t have any kids. I have no reason to be involved or even aware of Santa Sofia school politics. There’s a Cliff Renchrik in the Chamber. Maybe that’s her husband, I don’t know. He’s in property management, or something, but since I knew her as Vanessa Arnold, no, I didn’t put it together.”
Miguel’s voice had grown terse. He did not like the line of questioning York had taken.
“And you haven’t looked at any news reports since the murder Saturday? Haven’t seen Nessa Renchrik’s photo plastered all over the media?”
Again, Miguel shook his head. “I went into the city yesterday—”
“San Francisco?”
“Right. I went on a bike ride with a friend.”
“Ah, an athlete.” York didn’t sound impressed.
“I cycle.”
“And you didn’t read any updates on the murder yesterday when you got back. And today?”
“The restaurant is closed on Mondays.” He gestured to the kitchen. “I’ve been testing out new recipes and waiting on a repairman. Hot-water heater.”
Miguel was not the type of person to be glued to his phone, especially when he had other things going on that kept him occupied. He preferred a print book to an e-reader. Real newsprint rather than an online version. It wasn’t that he was a late adopter. But he liked the feel of a book in his hand and the rustle of newsprint as he turned the pages.
The lift of York’s eyebrows showed just how skeptical he was about Miguel’s story. He wrote something else in his notebook. “Tell me about your encounter with Mrs. Renchrik on Friday evening.”
Miguel ran his hand over his face again and sighed. “It was brief. We’d just opened when she showed up. She’d placed the order earlier in the day.”
“Were you surprised to see her?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. I didn’t recognize her at first. Her hair is lighter now.”
Once again, he spoke of Nessa Renchrik in the present. He’d said “is,” not “was.” I hoped York took note of it this time around, if he hadn’t the first time.
York didn’t blink. “Did you talk?”
“Not really. I ran her credit card. Went to check the kitchen for her order. It wasn’t ready yet, so I got her a Diet Coke while she waited and I went back to my work.”
Once again, York wore his doubt on his face. “No conversation? After ten years, you had nothing to say to each other?”
“Captain,” Miguel said tersely, “we dated a long time ago. Briefly. She ordered food for pickup. There was nothing to say.”
York stayed silent for a moment, as if he was debating whether or not to let this line of questioning go. After an awkward silence, he said, “And was it Mrs. Renchrik who contacted you about sponsoring the Spring Fling?”
Instead of answering, Miguel stood and walked into the little sunroom in the back of the house. The windows looked out to the backyard. The house was built on a hill. He’d built a tiered garden system to make the hill usable. He didn’t do anything halfway. He’d already planted, and come summer the boxes would be bursting with tomatoes, artichokes, cucumbers, and whatever else he decided to grow.
He returned carrying a satchel. Setting it down on the table, he rifled through it, then submerged both hands into the case to remove a stack of paperwork. He flipped through it, finally landing on a slip of paper. “Someone called Baptista’s about a week ago. One of the hosts took the call and passed the message on to me.” He handed it to York.
“No name,” the captain commented.
“So you don’t know who called?” I asked Miguel.
Miguel said, “No idea. I never called back.”
“The message just says: ‘The Santa Sofia school board. Please call regarding sponsoring the Spring Fling.’ ” Captain York slid the message back too Miguel. “There’s a phone number.”
I peered over at the piece of paper. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe York, but it seemed so strange that I wanted to confirm it for myself.
York put his notepad and pen down, then looked pointedly at Miguel. “Why don’t you make that call.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present,” he said. Cliché, but I happened to agree with York. I wanted to know who had left that message for my boyfriend.
Miguel’s cell phone was on the table under a different stack of papers. I uncovered it for him and handed it over. He took it, meeting my eyes with a less than enthusiastic expression. He sighed, dialed by tapping the numbers onto the keypad, then pressed the Speaker button before setting the phone, face up, on the table. The moment he pressed the Enter button, the numbers vanished. My stomach plunged.
Vanessa Arnold’s name scrolled across the top of the screen.