A Foreboding Felony

by Constance Barker

  “That doesn’t matter. We are here now. We need to talk to you about Jake Ravenwing.”

  She glared at them. “What about that bastard? Did he tell you I put a hex on him or some stupid thing like that?”

  “No. He didn’t tell us anything. Mr. Ravenwing is dead.”

  The woman stared for a moment. It was hard to judge through the screen, but Charli thought she acted as if the news stunned her. Finally she swung the door open. “Come in. Get in here out of the sun. I’ll get us some iced tea.”

  It was still far too warm inside the mobile home, but out of the sun with three fans running at high speed it was definitely more comfortable. The tall glasses of premade iced tea were actually refreshing. When they were seated, Carmella Garcia looked at the police officer. “Tell me,” she said. “Was it his snake heart? I used to warn him about eating all that damn fatty food. The man would never listen to me and he loved his fast food.”

  Terri Johns shook her head. “No. I'm afraid he was shot.”

  Carmella looked shocked. “Shot? Who shot him? It wasn’t Paul, was it? After all this time, I can’t imagine...”

  Terri shook her head. “I’m afraid we don’t know yet. That’s why we are here.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t do it.”

  Terri smiled. “Okay. But why say that? I didn’t say you did.”

  She grimaced. “Well, since you came all the way out here, I figured you must think I did it.”

  “We came to tell you he was dead, see what you might know.”

  “I haven’t seen him in a long, long time. Not since he married Angela.”

  “Why would you think we suspected you?” Elle asked softly.

  “Maybe because of the land. And because of what he did?”

  Terri leaned close. “What land, Carmella?”

  “The ranch.” She folded her hands in her lap, watching Terri’s face. “You really don’t know anything do you?”

  Terri shook her head. “Nothing about his ranch, except that you used to live there.”

  Okay.” Carmella sat back, thinking. “It’s like this... we lived together for about ten years, me and Jake. We saved up and bought that property together. The man knew horses better than most and I always loved them too. We figured with some land we could raise horses. Real smart, we were, as if people like us could afford to do that. As it turned out, we barely made ends meet. Once Jake saw the truth of things, when reality dawned clear as the morning sun, he started getting angry. He was working his trade, shoeing horses, and the work was getting thin. I had my business...”

  “Witchcraft?” Elle blurted out.

  Carmella laughed. “Well, I was a cosmetologist at the time. But the money was in special facials. I was making my own lotions. You can't compete with all the fancy products, but I had clients who thought my stuff was magic.” She reached over to a table beside her and handed her a lotion jar. “So I studied with a witch to learn how to do things right and gave up being a cosmetologist.” She laughed. "Being a witch doesn't require a license from the State, either." She handed Terri a jar.

  Terri opened it and sniffed. "Sage? Oregano?"

  "Lots of secret ingredients. It's a magic skin cream I make. Thing is, it’s exactly what you can buy from a health food store, except I gather all my ingredients and combine them when the moon is right, saying the right words. Because of that, it does things that the store-bought products can’t.”

  “Like what?” Elle asked.

  “Depends on what I want it to do,” she said. She clucked her tongue. “But since you don’t believe one breath I’m uttering, it doesn’t matter. I have my regular customers who do feel the magic. They keep me busy.”

  “Do you believe in it, all that magic?” Elle asked her.

  Carmella gave her a dark look. “Think I’d waste my time on something like this to fool people? If I was just wanting to fool people, I’d do something that made me a lot more money, darling.”

  “Back to your story,” Charli suggested. “What happened?”

  “Well, Jake wasn’t so sweet no more and we weren’t getting along. Then he took up with Angela. I think she went after him. She knew we were fighting and saw her chance. Anyway, one day he tells me to get out. Now, normally I’m one who fights for what she wants, but the truth was that right then I didn’t want him all that much. I was as grumpy as him. So I packed up and left. I guess I figured he’d mess around the way men do, then come to his senses. But he didn’t. Right away Angela moved in with him. And they did okay. She got a divorce and he married her, which is more than he did for me. They stayed together until cancer took her.”

  “So why would he take out an insurance policy and name you as beneficiary?”

  She laughed. “My idea. We both owned the land and I coulda made him sell it and give me half the money, but he wanted to stay on it. So he agreed to buy the policy to give me the money to buy his half from Angela if he died. I'd let her stay there, but I'd own it. The three of us even signed a contract.”

  As Elle and Charli chewed on that, Terri pursued her line of questioning. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill Jake?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, I haven't seen him since the breakup, except passing by in town. The guy I knew wasn’t the kind to make enemies.”

  They waited a moment, but she didn’t finish the thought.

  “So who is this Paul you mentioned. You wanted to know if he did it?”

  Carmella stared off into the distance. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Oh, my first reaction. That’s Jake’s brother.” Carmella sat up suddenly, almost as if she’d come out of a trance. She looked at them and then blinked. “Oh, yeah, you don’t know. Sorry. Angela, the bitch Jake dumped me for, was Paul’s wife. She dumped him for Jake. That drove a real spike in his heart. He sulked around for a time, drunk most of it, then went over and challenged Jake to fight him for her.”

  Charli’s heart pounded. It had been in her damn dream. The dead man and the fight over a woman. And a bruja. Elle was looking at her, remembering too.

  Terri was taking notes. “Did they actually fight?”

  “You could call it that. Paul was out of shape and from what I heard, Jake punched him in the face a couple of times and knocked him off the porch and into the dirt. I heard he got knocked down twice and got up once. Then Jake went back inside. The next time Paul got up he got in his car and left.”

  “But he nursed a grudge.”

  “You could say that. I know whenever I saw him, he’d snarl at me.”

  “He blamed you?”

  “He said that if I’d treated my man right, he’d still have his woman. He blamed Jake for stealing her and me for making Jake unhappy enough to notice Angela.”

  “Did that blame translate into the kind of anger that might’ve led to him shooting Jake?”

  Carmella laughed and shook her head. “Not likely. Thinking about it, I doubt Paul could shoot a rabbit.”

  “No one else?”

  “No. Although when Harrison came around...”

  “Who?” Terri asked.

  “Harrison Sloane. The bank manager at Ruidoso Rancher Bank.”

  “Why did he come out here?”

  She looked up at the ceiling before answering. “He told me that Jake had fallen behind on the loan he'd taken out on the property. He was about to default. Harrison wanted to let me know and give me a chance to make the payments so the bank didn’t have to foreclose.”

  “So Jake needed money?” Terri asked.

  “I guess so. He wouldn't have fallen behind on the payments if he could help it. He was careful that way.”

  Terri sighed. “Maybe there is something to Eknar's gambling theory after all.”

  “Did you agree to make the payments?” Elle asked.

  “Of course. I was the cosigner on the loan. I didn't want to lose the land.”

  “So you gave him the money to catch up on the loan?”

  “Of course.”

/>   “So Harrison Sloane was helpful?”

  “Well, I'm sure he was relieved to not have to foreclose. But I think bankers always look constipated so it's hard to say.”

  “I get what you mean,” Terri told her. “Like high-school principals.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Carmella said. She looked at Elle. “Did he keep up the payments on the policy? Is still in effect?”

  “Apparently so. As soon as things are cleared up you’ll be able to pay off that loan.”

  “I still have to pay something to Angela’s estate, but the loan was only twenty thousand, so it will work out.”

  Terri tapped her notebook. “Listen, just because my boss will ask, do you have an alibi?”

  “For Jake’s death?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll have to give me a hint,” Carmella said.

  “A hint?”

  “About when it happened. Or did you want alibis for the past week?”

  “Oh. Two days ago. We think in the early morning.”

  “Ah.” Carmella thought. “I was right here.” She grinned. “Course, that’d be my answer for almost the whole of last week.

  Terri wrote it down. “Can anyone verify that?”

  “Not exactly. But while I can’t prove I was here, I can prove I didn’t have any way to get to wherever Jake was killed.”

  “I was wondering,” Charli said. “I hadn’t seen a car.”

  “It’s in town being fixed. At Joe's Repairs, if you want to check. Since I pay him with barter it’s been in the process of being fixed for a long time now. Joe insists that he needs to eat too, for some reason and he doesn’t need cases of magic creams.”

  “So what did you barter?” Charli asked.

  “A few charms. His sister needs something to give her boyfriend a little push toward the altar.”

  “One of those situational additions to a cream?”

  “Exactly. Muscle ointment for his back, in this case.”

  “With no car, how do you get food, anything?” Elle asked. “For that matter, how did you get here after dropping off the car.”

  “Joe brought me home. On Friday I caught a ride into town with a neighbor and came back with her that evening. Otherwise I’ve been stuck right here for a week and a half.”

  Elle laughed. “A neighbor? You are pretty isolated here.”

  “It’s a relative term,” Carmello said. She took Terri’s notebook and wrote in it. “Call Ruby and she’ll confirm that much. She lives another four miles up the road. Sometimes she even has cell service.”

  Terri took the notebook back and closed it. “Okay, that’s all then. We might have more questions later.”

  “Fine, but if you do decide to come out here again, do me a favor and call ahead. Call Ruby.”

  “Do you have a busy social calendar?”

  “No, but I’d like to give you a list of some things to pick up at the store on your way. Every trip has to be used efficiently.”

  “I’ll do that,” Terri told her.

  “Strange woman,” Elle said on the way back to town.

  “Pragmatic though,” Terri said. “I kind of like her. Unfortunately, not having a car isn’t the kind of alibi that holds up well.”

  “And she has a motive. Given that she stood to inherit money from the insurance,” Elle pointed out.

  “If I were her, I'd be worried about losing the land,” Charli said. “It seems that means something to her even though she isn't living there.”

  “She could now, though,” Terri said. “And knowing that Jake wasn't able to make the payments had to be a concern. Even stuck out here, she could have offered someone a cut for doing the dirty work. Maybe even this Joe, or Ruby.”

  “I think she still cared about Jake,” Charli said. “She is still hurting.”

  Terri laughed. “That could very well be. Hope springs eternal.”

  “But that doesn't mean she wouldn't kill him over the land,” Elle said.

  “Well, now we know another person to talk to,” Charli said. “The brother is definitely suspicious.”

  “And Harrison Sloane,” Terri said. “That loan could have something to do with this, whether Eknar's gambling scenario is right or not.”

  The rest of the way back, they were quiet. Charli was thinking about the landscape, her dreams, and the murder, in that order. Elle said nothing, but Charli guessed she was still trying to imagine why anyone would be living out here.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brotherly Love

  The next day, Elle and Charli met Terri. “Paul Ravenwing is a butcher,” she said. And he works in town. She glanced at her watch. “He should be at work now.”

  So they went. They found him at the market engrossed in chopping up the carcass of a pig, wielding an evil-looking cleaver with an astonishing expertise. His once-white apron was bloodstained and his expression grim.

  “If Jake had been cut to pieces...” Elle began.

  “We’d be looking at a prime suspect,” Terri said. “No pun intended.”

  “Pun?”

  “Prime suspect?”

  Elle groaned. Charli let it go.

  “Mr. Ravenwing,” Terri called out.

  Paul Ravenwing frowned and buried his cleaver in the wood chopping block. He looked at them and smiled. “Hey there officer, I got a special deal for you on ribs. It's a police special.” He laughed.

  “Apparently it’s bad comedy hour here in beautiful Ruidoso Downs,” Elle murmured.

  Charli punched her shoulder. “Lighten up.”

  Terri smiled at the butcher. “No thanks, Mr. Ravenwing. Maybe later, but right now I’m here on official business. Can we talk privately?”

  He nodded, then wiped his hands on the apron. “Sure. Come on in back,” he said, grinning. “We can’t risk having my customers thinking you are interrogating the hamburger in an attempt to find out the last time it saw a horse. I already get teased about running a butcher shop so close to the track.”

  “I can well imagine,” Elle said.

  He led them into a utilitarian back room that seemed to serve as both an office and storage area, with the emphasis on storage. It held a cheap metal desk and a few wooden chairs, surrounded by cardboard boxes of plastic wrap and various sizes of plastic trays that were the kind you saw the steaks and roasts sitting on in the meat case. “So what can I do for you? Are you here about my brother?”

  “That’s right,” Terri said. “I take it you know he is dead?”

  He grinned. “The first clue was when the very uptight people at the mortuary, whom we've known for years, called to ask who the hell would pay for the funeral. Then customers came in offering their condolences, or congratulations, depending on what they knew about us. Then I went home and saw it on the news. When the announcer said Jake Ravenwing was dead, that was the tipoff.”

  “That was a big oops on our part,” Terri said, sounding sincere. “I apologize. The truth is that we didn’t know Jake had a brother until recently.”

  He nodded. “Sorry. The sarcasm just slipped out. You didn’t screw up. I understand why there was confusion. The way things were between us, it isn’t like he would have put my name on his forms as next of kin. Although, I guess with Angela gone, the truth is that I am it. The end of the line.” He looked up, then sighed. “I’m curious. How did you finally learn about me?”

  “From Carmello Garcia.”

  He made a sour face. “I see. I guess people told you the story. She’d be the one they talked about, her being a bruja and all.”

  “Actually we didn’t hear any gossip,” Charli said.

  “Until we talked to Carmello, that is,” Elle said.

  “If you spent any time with her, then it’s likely that you know the whole slimy story.”

  “We heard her version of it. One reason we are here is that we need to hear your side of things.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “Because Jake was murdered. We are trying to find out why
someone would kill him.”

  He snapped his fingers. “And our feud, old as it is, gives me a motive for murdering him.”

  Terri looked at him. “Possibly. You tell me.”

  “Nope. No matter what Carmello thinks, it wasn't me. Now if he’d turned up dead back when it all happened even I would’ve suspected me. He took Angela away from me and I truly hated him with one of those blinding rages you read about. I hated Carmella too. It was easy to blame her for having a role and I couldn’t hate Angela, even though she was probably the one who caused it all. In retrospect, she was a selfish and vain person.” He grinned. “Not that knowing that would have changed my feelings for her.”

  “Love is blind,” Terri said. “So you admit hating Jake?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Fact is, right then I hated almost everybody. Anyone you found dead back then, take a look at me. I found it all too easy to throw the blame around, willy nilly. I even went over to fight him, as if beating him up might change things in some way. Sort of like Carmello trying her spells to get him back. Neither of us had much luck. I got my butt kicked by my brother, as usual, and Carmello seemed to strike out with her love potions. That cost her some business.”

  “So what happened after that?”

  “I took the high road. I went on a binge and stayed drunk for a long time.” He chuckled. “I was quick to tell Carmello that she should’ve been better to Jake. I even told her that being nicer to him might have prevented the problem.” He laughed. “I didn’t see that the same logic could be applied to me. If I’d been a better husband to Angela, she might have never thought about leaving me.”

  “And now?”

  “When I got sober again, I asked myself what I was doing. Then I got back to work. How stupid can a person be to ruin their lives because someone else let them down? That part wasn’t on Angela or Jake. That was me wallowing in my own misery.”

  Terry was jotting this in her notebook. “So you are saying you are over that anger?”

  He shrugged. “I’m still sad and disappointed... in them and in me. But I haven’t thought much about that situation in a long time, to be honest. Look, if I was ever going to kill Jake, it would have been then. After he beat me up and before I went on a drunk. Even to me, waiting until after her death to kill him doesn’t make much sense. How would that get her back?”