The Case of the Smiling Baker

Lit by the stark winter sun, the peeling mural of a cheerful Mediterranean girl stretched from sidewalk to rooftop, some three stories. Faded by the passage of years, it still hinted at the treasure chest she held open, from which poured pallid sunlight and spotty loaves of bread with smiling faces that long ago had become ironic. Lettering once tumbled out of the chest with the loaves, but only a portion of the largest word remained legible: DORA’S.

“You think that’s her as a child?” Carter asked as they passed by.

“If it is, then she was a beautiful kid,” Espinoza replied. “Those have got to be twenty-foot dimples.”

“I was always too scared to ask,” Carter said. The shudder in his voice had nothing to do with the cold, and Espinoza glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was young enough to remember his high-school impressions of people around town. He hadn’t adapted yet to the badge, and right now he looked more like a nervous graduate than a man in his mid-twenties.

They turned the corner and stared past the bakery, along the doors of its neighbors. There were no signs except at the far end, where the McMillan Theater marquee hovered above the street, unlit and missing several bulbs. Marching closer from the McMillan came Burton’s sandwich shop, the music store, where students who joined the school band leased their instruments, and the empty socket everyone still called The Place That Used to Be the Five and Dime, even though most could not remember the day its lights had been shut off forever. Like the rest, Dora had never gotten around to putting a proper sign over the bakery. She probably never saw the need. Even faded, the old mural gave the best advertising in the county.

They stopped outside the door. At this hour they were alone on the sidewalk. Kids were in school, and most shops had not yet opened. The town was still enough to hear the buzz of the sign declaring the bakery open for business.

“She’ll need to turn that off,” Carter said.

Espinoza shrugged. “You want to check down the block? Mr. Clark lives above the music store. Maybe he heard something.”

Carter started away. Then he hesitated, reluctant to leave his partner despite his clear eagerness to avoid a confrontation with the town curmudgeon. Espinoza figured she shouldn’t smile at this, but she couldn’t help it.

“Go on,” she told him. “I’ll get Dora’s statement. If you get Mr. Clark and Todd Burton at the sandwich shop, I’ll bring you a warm bagel.”

He had needed to be told twice but not more than that. Carter hurried off, past the old Five and Dime, intent on the music store. He would be knocking a while to get the old man out of bed at this hour, but they needed a record of the fact that Mr. Clark had slept through the break-in at the bakery. Espinoza watched Carter hurry off, so eager to please, and felt her smile widen.

“Back on topic,” Espinoza told herself and tugged open the door to the sound of an old-fashioned bell clanking tonelessly overhead. Inside, long, fluorescents hummed and cast their unflattering light on the worn tile floor. Here, the chill abated, but the storefront was cold enough that Espinoza felt grateful for her heavy coat.

“I’d nearly given up,” said the woman behind the counter.

“My apologies,” Espinoza said. “We came as quickly as we could. You reported a robbery?”

Espinoza took in the storefront and also the woman she addressed. The foggy glass of the display case showed its age, but nothing had been broken. In fact, a few trays of the morning’s pastries sat in place, arranged in a way that was intended to mask the emptiness but only accentuated it. Coolers along the side walls stood undamaged, each half-occupied by cakes ready for a message and a sale. The old-fashioned cash register had not been maligned.

All this Espinoza saw before she finished apologizing. It was Dora who stole her attention. The first thought that came to mind was that Dora had fallen ill, and not the sort of ill that came from a flu bug or seasonal cold. Her skin clung tight against her bones, widening her sneer and lending her gaze an unpleasant, anxious quality. The hands she rested on the glass case were skeletal, an impression only enhanced by the moribund shade of polish on the nails.

“I watched the two of you standing out there,” Dora said. “I suppose you sent your partner to Burton’s to pick up breakfast before deciding to investigate the robbery?”

Espinoza put on her most respectful smile. “Not at all mam. My partner is talking to Mr. Clark.”

Dora dismissed this with a wave of one long-fingered hand. She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you’re done judging the condition of my tiles and glass, maybe I could show you what’s happened?”

“Of course,” Espinoza said, schooling her expression. “The robbery took place in the back, then? Or in your home?”

“Neither,” Dora replied. “Come around, but please don’t touch anything.”

Imagining how Carter would have reacted to this last almost put the smile back on Espinoza’s face. His every childhood fear of the town baker would have been confirmed in ten words or less. Dora led into the kitchen, where again nothing looked amiss. Though hard-used and showing the many dings and dents of wear, nothing sat askew, no windows were broken, and the chain lock neatly secured the back door.

Dora somehow stood on the far side of the kitchen. While Espinoza navigated the maze of tables and racks, Dora regarded her severely. “Do you have children, officer?”

“Custody of my niece. Brenda.” Espinoza marveled at how long it took her to cross the room. Carter would never believe it! Either she had taken the worst possible route through the kitchen, or Dora had jumped ahead using black magic. “She’ll graduate high school in the spring. We’re just waiting on college acceptances.”

“You must be very proud,” Dora said, sounding insincere.

Perhaps it was the other woman’s tone, but Espinoza found that she could only shrug. The truth was, she couldn’t be prouder of the girl she had watched rise from a bad situation to reach for a good school and bright future. Financial aid would be a challenge, but families dealt with that every year. And Espinoza would deal with it later. Currently, she had to figure out how a bakery had been robbed with all of its doors and windows unopened.

“Here,” Dora said as Espinoza came near. She pulled open a sturdy door that overlooked a dozen steps to a cinderblock basement.

“The basement was robbed?” Espinoza asked.

“It would seem,” Dora replied.

“What was taken?”

Dora hesitated. For the first time she gave no snide response. Further, while Dora considered, Espinoza realized that Dora was not nearly as lean as she had appeared beneath the unforgiving storefront fluorescents. She’d missed a couple meals, yes, but in the softer light of the kitchen her appearance matched with that of a woman who spent her days operating the town bakery with minimal assistance.

“I woke this morning,” Dora said, “to find one thing missing. This will sound dramatic, but it is the secret ingredient that my family has used since I was a child. We have never spoken of it or mentioned that such a thing exists, but…the entire supply is gone. Without it…”

She let her words trail off, her expression swollen with grief. Espinoza frowned. Her heart went out to Dora, but she needed more. “Mam, I can’t put in my report that a secret ingredient was stolen. You will need to be more specific.”

“Then I will,” Dora replied, eyes flashing. “But please, could you at least finish looking around before grilling me as if I am a suspect in my own home?”

“Of course,” Espinosa said, but her smile did not return. For a moment she considered asking Dora to enter the basement ahead of her, “as if she were a suspect in her own home.” But why? Dora wasn’t wrong; Espinoza was concerned.

Below lay a maze of old catering equipment that had not been touched in a decade. Fluorescents like the ones in the storefront hummed along the ceiling, lending the place a mortuary feel. She began her descent.

“You’ve been an officer in town for quite a few years, haven’t you?” Dora asked.

“It’ll be twelve next month,” Espinoza said, noting so many concealed spaces.      

“You must be in line for a promotion by now?” Dora said. “Do we have detectives in town?”

Espinoza shrugged. “We might soon.” She hesitated three steps from the bottom, troubled. She had taken the test. The results would be back any day. Everyone expected good news, but she’d been sleepless from anxiety for two weeks. Now, standing here, she could not muster more than a shrug. She looked up to frown at Dora and found her wearing a faint smile.

“Did you identify the entrance the thieves use to enter the bakery?”

“I have,” Dora said. She gestured to the far side of the room. “In the corner.”

Espinoza’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a basement entrance?”

Dora gave a short, almost wistful laugh. “There is now.”

They stood there a moment longer, staring at one another, Dora now smiling openly, Espinoza not trusting the change in the woman’s demeaner. Stranger yet, in the basement fluorescents, the old woman seemed to have put on ten pounds. She looked younger.

Espinoza silently cursed Carter for taking the easy out when she offered. She’d give him hell for this, especially when she got detective. If she got detective. Nothing could be assumed, and small towns did not like their girls to take seats that men traditionally occupied.

An abrupt wave of vertigo washed over Espinoza. In its wake she leaned against the cold, rough wall. What the hell was that? And was she actually mad at her partner? For taking her suggestion? Something crazy was happening; her mood swung like a pendulum.

Dora cleared her throat, appearing quite patient now. She gestured to the far corner, beyond the racks of trays and stacks of chafing dishes.

Espinoza focused. This was the basement of the bakery, not a meth lab. She drew her flashlight, clicked it on, and made her way into the shadows. Dust hung in the air. She rubbed her nose to head off a sneeze.

“I don’t get down here very often,” Dora said, almost pleasantly. “Maybe sometime in the near future I’ll find the energy to polish all of this.”

“All of this, huh?” Espinoza asked before she could tamp down the question. She knew it had been rude. She didn’t want to alienate Dora now that they seemed to be getting some sort of rapport. That was all she needed. Spoil a relationship and have the town baker file a complaint just as the results for her big promotion came in. What was wrong with her? Upstairs, outside, this had been a great morning. Now that she was here, everything seemed so…dark.

“There,” Dora said, unfazed. “Just up ahead.”

Espinoza drew back. There was a hole in the cinderblock wall, but there was more to it than that. All at once she saw that no debris cluttered the floor. The smooth opening followed the mortar lines of the blocks. There were no scrapes on the floor or walls.

The hole was not new. Not only had the debris been cleared away, but the opening itself had been neatened to remove jagged edges.

“Officer,” said Dora from behind, a smile in her voice, “what are your dreams for retirement?”

For a moment, Espinoza heard “What were your dreams,” and that was all it took. She rounded on Dora, hand resting on the butt of her holstered weapon. The flashlight shone in Dora’s eyes, forcing her to squint but failing to diminish her smile.

“What is going on?” Espinoza demanded, increasingly certain that she would never see retirement.

“Please answer the question,” Dora said. “It’s more important than you know.”

Espinoza shook her head. What use was there in arguing? The more they quarreled, the more likely it became that they would alert whoever was waiting in the dark. “I don’t know. A house on the beach. If I get detective, I might be able to move someplace nice when this is all over.”

Except she wouldn’t. Just like Brenda would not be able to afford college. Just like the detective’s shield would go to a member of the boy’s club. Espinoza saw her future play out from this room, whether or not the strangely chipper baker chose to file a complaint. The future looked like today, repeated till the words “end of watch” were chiseled into a granite headstone bearing her name.

“Thank you,” Dora said. She sounded not just satisfied. She sounded relieved.

“You may go, now. I will speak highly of you to your partner when he comes along.”

Tears stung Espinoza’s eyes. She turned to shine her light into the abyss beyond the bakery wall. She saw nothing beyond the weird opening. It should have led into the basement of the old Five and Dime, but there was no hint of walls, ceiling, even a floor. She mustered her will, asked in a small, fearful voice that she hated, “Who are you?”

“Someone with a great responsibility,” Dora replied. “And you, my dear, have given the world what it needs to keep from tearing itself apart. I hate forcing anyone to pay the cost, but I cannot pay it myself. I’m not allowed. And I fear that this time I nearly waited too long. The world has become a darksome place, even considering all the things I’ve seen.”

The way she spoke gave the impression of a very long time indeed.

“Go on, now,” Dora said. She waved a hand again. It was plump.

Espinoza found that she could see no reason not to obey. What reason could there be? She had let down her niece with empty dreams of a bright future. She had let herself down with false aspirations of a promotion and retirement under the setting sun. Whoever, whatever, lurked in the darkness, she would face it the way she had faced everything else in her life. She had never backed down, and she would not start here, at the end. Taking a second to unholster her service weapon, Espinoza stepped forward, crossing the threshold into the infinite dark.

-------------------------------------------------

Every sacrifice saw something different, but to Dora it always looked the same. The officer stepped forward, towards the plain-looking chest sitting open in the corner. With each step, she grew smaller, until, finally, she stepped into the chest, and very nearly disappeared. What did not shrink was the glow. She had divested herself of her ambitions, her desires, everything for which she still yearned. Those things coalesced around her in a golden nimbus, which, impossibly, followed her into the box and filled it to bursting.

Dutifully, reverently, Dora closed the lid, trapping the officer and her radiance inside.

Long ago the box had been full of terrors, but as a young woman, Dora had released them. In her fear, she had closed it on the last thing the gods had placed within, hope. At first, this had seemed a terrible mistake, but over the millennia since, she came to understand that hope grows powerful when kept inside. It is evil that reaches its potential when unleashed.

As punishment for opening the box, Dora became its steward. With it, she traveled the world, eventually settling in this little town that pleased her more than most.

She tapped the lid, watching her now gaily lacquered nails drum across the surface of the old wood. Refilling the box always had a restorative effect on her, too, replacing the deepening ennui of recent years with the prospect of brighter tomorrows. She hummed a very old tune as she climbed the steps two at a time and sped through the polished, gleaming kitchen.

The storefront rested under a warm, ambient glow. The display case shone, clear glass proudly presenting the morning’s bagels and croissants. Not a cracked or weathered tile remained on the floor. Her reflection as she hurried through the front door was eager, hale, young…her again.

She nearly ran to the end of the block, where she gazed up at the mural of herself, smiling, opening the treasure chest that—in this depiction—released myriad, gleeful baked goods upon the world. Her smile was restored above as below, her dimples once again child-like effigies of joy. Also restored were the cursive letters, painted decades ago, when the store had been fresh and the box newly filled: PANDORA’S BAKERY We Hope You Love It!

People who saw the mural would be inspired. This was where it would begin. In a couple weeks the theater marquee would be bright again. By spring the town would shine the way it had when she first arrived. In a few years, the state. Eventually the nation, the world.

With a content sigh, Dora rounded the corner to return to the bakery. A young officer approached.

“Mam?” he asked, glancing past Dora and also back the way he had come.

“Yes, officer?”

“Did you speak to my partner? Officer Espinoza?”

“Espinoza,” Dora said. Police were supposed to identify themselves at the beginning of a conversation. Dora had almost gone without knowing the name of this generation’s savior.

“Right,” said the officer. “Did you see her?”

“I did,” Dora said. “She seemed very kind. She spoke with my grandmother, and then they left together. To be honest, she gave me the sense that everything would turn out all right.”