Vince put a hand on her shoulder. “Asia, stop talking, please,” he said.
She turned and looked up at him. “What’s the point, Dad? Sarah knows what I did. There’s no point in lying about it.”
“There’s no point in going on about it, either,” he said.
“Just for the record, I didn’t kill her,” Asia said.
Vince swore softly and raked his hand back through his hair.
“Well, I didn’t,” she said, giving him that aggrieved-teenager look again.
“I didn’t think you did,” I said. “But thank you for telling me.”
Asia shrugged. “She caught me.” She hung her head, shame-faced.
“She caught you?” Vince said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Asia gave him an incredulous look. “Right, Dad. There’s a good idea. I should have said, ‘By the way, Daddy, I’ve been breaking into Lily’s Bakery to harass her, and the night she got killed she caught me.’”
Vince blew out a breath.
“What did she do?” I asked.
Asia looked away for a moment.
I waited.
“She yelled at me,” Asia said. “She said she should call the police on me.”
“But she didn’t.”
She shook her head. “She asked me why I’d done all those things to her, and I told her about Gramps. She said she was sorry, but her reasons for not selling were just as important. I asked her what they were, but she said she couldn’t tell me. She said she had family to look after, too.” She shrugged. “I asked her why she couldn’t just move the bakery someplace else, but she said it was complicated. I said that’s what adults always say when they want things their way and they don’t want to explain why. Then I left.”
“What time was that?” I asked.
“I dunno,” she said. “Sometime after midnight.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
She twisted her mouth to one side. “No. Lily was in the kitchen at the back, feeding her starter.”
“Feeding her what?” I asked.
“Her starter. For sourdough bread. You have to feed it regularly or it won’t work right.” She smiled. “My gram used to make that kind of bread, and she’d let me help her feed the starter. It’s basically fermented flour and water. You can keep it going forever if you do it right.” She shrugged sadly. “I guess it’s like Lily now. Dead.”
“I guess it is,” I said.
I picked up Elvis and set him in my gym bag. Then I stood up. “As far as I’m concerned, this conversation stays between us,” I said. I was looking at Asia, but I was really talking to Vince. “You know what you did was really stupid.”
She nodded.
“I’ll walk you out,” Vince said.
I nodded.
He looked at Asia. “Don’t bother listening at the door,” he said.
Her face flooded with color again.
“You satisfied?” he asked once we were back in the hallway.
“I meant what I said in there,” I said.
“So you’re not going to tell Detective Andrews I lied?”
I shook my head. “I’m not even going to tell Sam you lied, but I’m betting he’ll figure it out. As far as I’m concerned, this is done.”
I turned and started for the front door.
“Sarah,” Vince called after me.
I turned.
“Thank you,” he said. I nodded and started for the door again.
Sam was behind the bar. He walked over to me. “Did you get what you needed?” he asked.
I nodded. “I did.” I stretched up and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for supper.”
He smiled. “Anytime.” Then his expression changed. “I don’t know if I need to say this or not, but I’m going to. Whatever else Vince did or didn’t do, he didn’t kill Lily. The night she died, we were all at Eric’s after I closed up. He had a new guitar. We played half the night.”
“I know Vince wouldn’t hurt anyone,” I said. “But thanks for telling me. He’s lucky to have you for a friend.”
Mac tapped on my door at exactly eight o’clock the next morning. “Hi,” he said when I opened the door. “Are you ready?”
“Do you mean ready to go get the truck or ready to be living in the same building as Rose?”
“Both, I guess,” he said with a smile.
I laughed. “I’m ready to get the truck as soon as I grab my jacket, and I don’t think I’m ever going to be completely ready to live with Rose.”
“She’s a great cook,” he said. His mouth twitched. “Maybe on Sunday morning Alfred will come out in his bathrobe and bring you a plate of Rose’s waffles.”
“Not listening,” I said. I put my fingers in my ears and started humming.
Mac just laughed, and when I looked at Elvis, perched on one of the stools at the counter, it seemed to me that he was laughing, too. I made a face at Mac and took my fingers out of my ears. “Now how am I going to look Mr. P. in the eye when I see him?”
Mac folded one arm over his chest and pressed the other hand over his mouth.
“What?” I said. “You want to say something, so you may as well go ahead and do it.”
“You want to know how you’re going to look Alfred in the eye?” he asked. “How about just lean down the way you usually do?”
“You’re so not funny,” I said, but I was laughing, which pretty much negated what I’d just said.
We picked up the truck at McNamara’s and then I drove over and picked up Charlotte. She was carrying two thermoses and a quilted tote bag. She climbed in the cab of the truck and set the bag carefully on the floor mat before she fastened her seat belt.
“I smell cinnamon,” I said.
“That’s because I made cinnamon rolls.”
“You’re my favorite person in the entire world,” I said as I pulled away from the curb.
“Funny how you always remember to tell me that when I have cinnamon rolls,” she said with a smile.
“Just a happy coincidence,” I said, working hard to keep a straight face.
Liz and Avery were just arriving as we pulled up in front of Legacy Place.
“I’m here,” Liz said as I joined them on the sidewalk. “And I ate scrambled tofu, which I do not intend to ever eat again.”
“It’s good for you, Nonna,” Avery said.
“At my age I don’t want good for me,” Liz groused. “I just want good.”
“Eating a healthy diet can add years to your life,” Avery retorted, a tad self-righteously.
“It doesn’t really add years to your life,” Liz retorted. “It just feels like that because it takes years to chew the darn stuff.”
I laid my head on her shoulder. “Charlotte has cinnamon rolls,” I whispered in her ear.
Liz smiled and rubbed her hands together. “Let’s go, people,” she said. “Rose is waiting. Charlotte, let me help you carry something.”
Rose and Mr. P. were waiting in Rose’s third-floor apartment. There were boxes in every room labeled in Alfred’s angular printing.
“Good morning, everyone,” Rose said when she answered the door. “Alfred was just going to take my bed apart, and that’s the last thing to do.”
Mac shot me a look. “I’ll go see if he needs any help,” he said.
Glenn had loaned me a small wheeled platform, about four feet by three feet. I rolled it into the kitchen.
“Do you want to start in here?” I asked Rose.
She nodded. “Wherever you think, dear,” she said.
“Okay. Furniture goes in the truck and boxes in the SUV.” I handed Liz the loop of rope that acted as a handle for the makeshift dolly. “Let Avery do the heavy lifting.”
“Rose and I could carry down the towels and the bedding,” Charlotte said. “Shall we use the backseat of the SUV?”
I nodded. “I’m going to see how Mac and Alfred are doing.”
Mac was just taking off the second side rail on Rose’s iron bed frame. “I’ll help you carry this down,” Mr. P. said.
“I was kind of hoping you’d supervise Avery putting boxes in my SUV,” I said. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I don’t want her to break anything.”