8 Sweet Payback

by Connie Shelton

  Java Joe didn’t seem the least bit put out that both women ordered tea. He went behind the bar and came back with a small pot for each of them.

  “You’re the lady who owns that adorable pastry shop near the plaza, aren’t you?” Mary said after they’d established a little common ground. “I love that place, especially those chocolates you sell around Christmas.”

  Who knew a witch could also be a chocolate fanatic? Sam wasn’t about to tell the woman that the chocolates, first introduced to the shop by an odd Romanian chocolatier who had shown up to offer his services, seemed to have an addictive effect on most everyone.

  Once their tea arrived and Java Joe had retreated to his own duties, Sam introduced the subject of the wooden box.

  “Ah, yes, the curious artifact you wanted me to look at,” Mary said.

  Sam unzipped her pack and took out the box, careful to handle it minimally, lest it start to change color in the presence of a stranger. She wanted to know if the box reacted the same way with someone else.

  “Well, it’s an interesting piece.” Mary turned it over and looked at all sides of it. “Not exactly a piece of fine craftsmanship.”

  An understatement. At best, the quilted pattern in the carved wood was fairly symmetrical. But the stain used on it was an ugly yellowish-brown, which had settled into the grooves unevenly, and the colored cabochon stones must have been mounted by an amateur as none of the prongs were finely crafted. Sam made no comment on the dramatic changes that came over the box when she handled it.

  “The woman who gave it to me was reputed to be a bruja. I may have mentioned that on the phone. Someone else once asked me if she might have actually been a curandera.”

  “I didn’t recognize the name you gave me—Bertha Martinez, wasn’t it?” Mary raised the hinged lid of the box and examined all sides of it.

  “That’s right. I’m trying to find out something of the history of the box and wondered if there were friends or . . . would you call them colleagues? . . . of Bertha’s in town.”

  “I’m afraid most of this is out of my league,” Mary said. “My beliefs are religious. We study the pagan gods and goddesses that pre-date Christianity, a very nature-based belief system. While that goes along somewhat with the Native American ideologies, they really are two different areas of study and practice.”

  “So, Bertha wasn’t affiliated with any group that you know of?”

  Mary set the box down and shook her head. Sam watched carefully over the rim of her tea mug. The witch showed no sign that the box had energized her or warmed to her touch.

  “There’s something else I’ve been wondering about. Just recently I’ve been assigned as caretaker for a house that seems to have a sort of . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . Well, I’ve observed hot and cold places in the house.” How much to reveal? “And colors . . . something I can best describe as an aura, except I thought only people had auras surrounding them.”

  Mary regarded Sam, mouth pursed slightly, head tilted.

  “Where could I find out more? I mean, I’m wondering if the place is haunted or . . .” Sam couldn’t think of a better way to describe it.

  “You wonder if a house can be spiritually active, maybe inhabited by forces from another world?”

  Sam shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Many things are possible, and it’s unwise to discount any of them entirely,” Mary said with a soothing voice.

  “A neighbor near this particular place says there have been odd lights at night, like perhaps someone has been holding candlelight ceremonies or something there.”

  Mary smiled indulgently. “Maybe the neighbor just watches too much television. I’m afraid TV and movies have really distorted what our practices are truly about.”

  She started to pick up her bag. “Nothing in my own practice relates to what you are asking me, Sam. I’m sorry. But I will keep my senses tuned to your request. If I come across anyone who might have known your Bertha Martinez, may I have them contact you?”

  “Certainly.” Sam waved off Mary’s cash. “The tea is my treat. I appreciate your time.” You have no idea how much your handling the box has told me.

  “Blessings on your day,” Mary said as she stood up.

  Sam stowed the box back inside her pack. Should she have mentioned to Mary that there were two boxes? The information probably wouldn’t matter. Something told her that the witch’s answers were true; she really didn’t know anything of use to Sam’s search.

  * * *

  Sophie Garcia had called the sheriff’s office when Lee’s parents got to town. Now she paced the floor of her apartment, meeting Beau’s eyes now and then.

  “I feel so . . . conflicted,” she said. “I’d given up on Lee and started my own life. It was part of the reason the Rodartes moved away, because I was never a hundred percent sure that Lee wasn’t guilty, because I didn’t fall apart when he went to prison. Things became very tense between us—me and his parents. And now they’re here.”

  “What caused your doubts?”

  She walked to the window, turned. “I wasn’t sure of his story—that he rode out to the gorge just to think. I mean . . . it wasn’t impossible, but it didn’t fit his nature, really. I don’t know. I’ve thought about this for years.”

  “And when he was released—did your feelings toward Lee change?”

  “When he came back, last week, and they said he was innocent after all. I—” her voice cracked.

  Beau gave her a moment.

  She wiped at her nose with a tissue grabbed from a box on the end table.

  “For a little while, when I saw him with Nathan. The joy Lee felt at seeing me again . . . Yeah, I really did consider giving it a second chance. Sheriff, I was so crazy in love with him before, when we’d just gotten out of school and had our whole lives ahead of us. But there was all the history—the way his parents feel about me. I couldn’t decide. And now he’s—”

  Beau waited while she got past a bout of sobbing. Surely she hadn’t specifically called him for a session of grief counseling, but it seemed rude to interrupt and ask what she’d wanted of him. She looked up at him with reddened eyes.

  “Sophie, has there been trouble with the parents? Or someone else?”

  She nodded. “It’s Nathan. Kids at school started pushing him around, saying his dad was a killer, really being cruel. Yesterday was bad. I kept him home today, but then the Rodartes showed up and wanted to spend some time with him. They’re completely broken up over Lee so I said they could take Nathan out for ice cream. Then I thought maybe if I talked to you . . . I don’t know . . . school problems aren’t probably your worry, but then you hear of such awful things happening to kids at school these days. Sorry I’m bothering you with all this.”

  “No, it’s okay. You were right to let me know. Did you talk to his teacher or the principal?”

  She nodded. “They said they would hold a session and talk to the kids about being sympathetic when someone loses a parent. I’m sure the kids are just repeating things they hear at home.”

  Sad. Down to the youngest ones, this town was still ripped into different camps.

  A vehicle slowed out front and Beau automatically stepped to the edge of the window. It was a late-model Chevy sedan. It stopped and Nathan Garcia got out, followed by the grandparents. Would this be yet another confrontation, people waiting to take out years of anger on the nearest symbol of the system that had put their son away? Beau braced himself.

  “We have funeral plans to make,” Sophie said, watching them come toward the apartment. “I told them I would help, even though they plan to take Lee to Albuquerque for burial.”

  Sophie introduced Kathy and Leroy Rodarte, and Beau’s concerns of hostility eased. These were people whose grieving had begun years ago according to the deeply etched lines on faces that looked at least a decade older than their true ages. Both wore simple clothing of the Wal-Mart variety. Kathy’s makeup was minimal and her short hair had probably b
een done in the same pixie style for thirty years and colored only when the gray began to show up. Leroy’s salt-and-pepper had many more strands of salt these days.

  Nathan grinned at his mother with a chocolate-rimmed mouth and Sophie hustled him off to the bathroom to wash up.

  “Sheriff, thank you for speaking with our son when he came back,” Kathy said. “He had called us. He said you were very kind to Sophie and Nathan.” She lowered her voice. “Lee had his rough spots. You know, young men. He got in with that group and the big motorcycles. I was afraid he might try drugs.”

  Leroy made a move to shush her but Kathy merely smiled sweetly at her husband.

  “I’m just saying,” Kathy continued. “it seemed like he was turning all of that around. When he met Sophie we were so happy, and then little Nathan—”

  Leroy nodded at that.

  “Well, we just thought it was going so much better until all the trouble started.”

  “It was hard, leaving our hometown,” said Leroy. “We both grew up here. But then the girls went to college in Albuquerque. It seemed better for us to be near our daughters after Lee was sent away.”

  The sadness in Kathy’s eyes came back, full force. “I never dreamed it would end like this.”

  Beau nodded sympathetically. A lot of what they said was probably true, much of it was obviously parental blindness.

  “We did our best to make a new life.” Leroy forced optimism into his voice, for his wife’s sake.

  Sophie and Nathan came back into the room. “Are we ready? Our appointment’s in thirty minutes so we better move along.” She glanced at Beau. “Funeral home.”

  He said goodbye and repeated that they could call him if they needed to. They followed him out the door and the family got into the Chevy. Beau crossed the street to his cruiser and checked in with his dispatcher before putting it in gear. No new calls. He decided to make the rounds—it wouldn’t take long to cruise the streets of Sembramos and make sure things had stayed quiet all day.

  He turned from Cottonwood Lane back to the paved highway. The businesses along the main drag looked normal for this time of day, quiet. At Third Street he made a right and went by the Starkey place. The battered white pickup sat out front. Helen should be back at work at the grocery store now, but maybe she walked the three blocks to get there. Scary, Beau thought, how quickly this little burg had begun to feel familiar to him, how he was already recognizing patterns.

  He stayed on Pine parallel to the highway, cut over on Fifth Street, the last named one in town, and made his way over to Cottonwood again where he saw Gina Staples watering her garden at the Rodarte’s old house. He briefly wondered whether the Rodartes had come by here on their earlier trip for ice cream. Gina waved at him but otherwise didn’t divert her attention from her work.

  Next to the old Rodarte place was the former Cayne house. Seeing it reminded him that he hadn’t heard back about Alan Cayne’s alibis for the times of either of the recent killings. He would have to call Houston PD back if he didn’t get something soon. He stared at the house. Alan Cayne wasn’t the only one who’d been furious with Jessie and Lee. What was it someone had said about Lee Rodarte and Angela’s brother getting into it? Another mental note: check the testimony from the witnesses back in the murder file at home.

  Three killings, all related. Tied together, unfortunately, by nearly everyone in this town. So difficult to pin all the events back to any one person. He shook away the cobwebs. Even though it felt as if one person could have been responsible, it was far more likely that Angela’s death was one thing; Lee and Jessie’s killings were most likely the result of the current flare of hot tempers, accusations and years of pent-up anger. What a tangled mess.

  Beau completed his circle of town, again passing in front of Sophie’s apartment. He pulled over beside the adjacent park and took a few minutes to check in with dispatch. No word from Houston PD yet, and no new calls for Beau. Two deputies were on duty, handling routine things in Taos, the others were home catching up on sleep in case Beau wanted them back in Sembramos again tonight. He told his desk clerk to have everyone meet at the station at five o’clock and he would give out assignments. So far, things in Sembramos were quiet.

  Even as he said it, though, he looked up and scanned the area. Perhaps things were too quiet.

  Chapter 18

  Sam sat in her truck after watching Mary the witch drive away. Interesting meeting, although she was a little disappointed that it hadn’t given her a solid lead to anyone who’d known Bertha Martinez. Curious, though, that Mary had detected nothing unusual about the wooden box, and clearly she’d gotten no reaction like the electric-jolt feeling that had shot through Sam the first time she ever touched it.

  All these questions about the box were beginning to make Sam wonder why she was bothering with this. She’d gotten no reaction when she handled the other box, the one at her uncle’s house, even though it looked almost identical to hers. The thought had crossed her mind more than once that Bertha’s words, saying that Sam was intended to own the box, meant more than that the old woman was giving Sam a simple gift. There was a relationship—although that sounded weird to her—between herself and this particular item. Maybe there were dozens of these things out in the world, each supposed to bond with a different person. But then, that was too much like believing she’d been chosen for some higher purpose. Her head started to ache whenever she got into the whole convoluted mess of thoughts.

  She reached into her pack for her keys and came across the scrap of paper where she’d written the name and address of that man who owned the big white house. Now there was something she could do that had absolutely no woo-woo factor at all.

  Maybe she would have to get one of those phones with maps integrated into it, Sam decided as she tried to follow the written directions in an area where half the roads were named but didn’t happen to have signage. After a couple of missed turns, she spotted someone’s hand-written sign that corresponded to a name Kelly had given her. Apparently the residents were tired of having visitors and deliveries lost along the way.

  A curve in the road, another turn where the sign was obscured by shrubbery and she finally came to a spread with a long white fence surrounding at least forty acres of horse pasture, with a rambling adobe house as the centerpiece. She rechecked the address. This was where a man lived who was letting his other house go for back taxes?

  You never know, she reminded herself, pulling into the long driveway that led to a circular roundabout with a bubbling granite fountain at its center. The house was laid out in two symmetrical wings, one of which contained a five-car garage with rustic wooden doors that faced perpendicular to the road. Outside one of the garages sat a gleaming antique car—maybe a Rolls Royce or Duesenberg—Sam wasn’t sure. The residence’s front door was eight feet wide, consisting of two elaborately carved Mexican-style panels with curved wrought iron hardware. Now that was a lock that would not be easy to pick.

  She pressed a button beside the door and cringed as the notes of “La Cucaracha” echoed through the interior. Uck. Just when she believed the estate to have been done in exquisite taste. Her second clue to her mistake came when the door was answered by a man in surfer shorts and sandals, holding a margarita. He wore his faded blonde hair longish and combed straight back from an extremely receded hairline.

  “Oh, hey,” he said. “I thought you’d be Val. Guess he’s running late.”

  “I’m looking for Linden Gisner,” Sam said.

  “You got him. C’mon in. It’s happy hour—or at least it’s five o’clock somewhere. Like, right here—in my salon.” He chuckled at his own hilarity as he turned his back, assuming she would follow. She closed the door behind her and trailed along through a wide foyer tiled in Saltillo so shiny it might have been underwater. At the back of the house a room lined with windows faced south—what was with this guy and windows anyway? Furnishings consisted of wicker pieces with lots of turquoise, yellow and red cushions, and
a long Mexican bar filled one side of the room. Gisner had stepped over to it and was about to pour Sam a margarita before asking whether she wanted one. She declined with a smile.

  “Your loss. I make an amazing margarita.”

  She would have to take his word for it.

  “Rest of the gang should be along soon. Julia said she’d try to make it today. Val’s definitely coming.”

  It dawned on Sam that he was talking about some of the Hollywood elite who loved to hang around Taos. If she didn’t get her questions answered soon, she wouldn’t get the chance. She gave the quick rundown on who she was and why she’d stopped by.

  “Ah, Sembramos,” he said. “I named the house Heathermoor, after my wife. Well, then the bitch ran off—I’m sure it was with that jackass electrician who came around all the time—and I was left to raise a child and try to finish the house and handle my business, which was keeping me going twenty-four-seven.” He stared out the windows where four thoroughbred horses grazed on grass so brilliantly green that it had to be sucking water out of the aquifer like crazy. “It all came to a stop when my daughter died. I could not think, much less keep juggling all the balls at once.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.” Two awkward minutes passed while Sam tried to think of something comforting to say.

  Gisner raised his margarita glass. “Well, here’s to times past. Luckily, times present are far happier.”

  He looked toward the foyer, where a young blonde woman with lots of tan skin crossed to another room, giving him a flirty smile on the way. He smiled right back and the solemn moment vanished.

  Sam cleared her throat. “Well, I just wanted to let you know about the tax auction. If you want to get things caught up, you could save the place.” She handed him one of the cards that the USDA had issued her when she began her contract with the agency.