8 Sweet Payback

by Connie Shelton

  “Do you ever get strange feelings in this place, darlin’?” They had stepped into the wine cellar, where she’d pointed out the rows of specially built racks and the bricked walls that made the room feel like an underground vault, even though true cellars and basements were rarely included in New Mexico homes and this wine room was on the ground floor.

  “Strange feelings?” The hair on her neck rose a little, just because he’d said it.

  “Like a chill. I didn’t notice it in the other rooms, but this wine place . . . it’s got me wanting my jacket.” He shrugged off the feeling. “Probably just because there are no windows, like there are everywhere else.”

  He led the way out without another word about it and Sam chalked it up to exactly what he’d said. The wine cellar was chillier than the rest of the house.

  “So, even though I was supposed to log in my visit today, how about if I don’t say anything about it to Delbert and just pretend I never saw those dirty windows,” she said as they got back into the cruiser.

  “Hey, that’s the way I’d play it.” His grin reassured her that he hadn’t truly been spooked inside the house. “Look, if all is quiet in Sembramos this morning, I could get back to the office and start work on those searches we talked about. Want to come along? I could teach you how to do it.”

  One of these days Sam was going to have to get back to her bakery business. She trusted her employees implicitly, but she hadn’t even put in enough time this week to count the money or get it to the bank. On the other hand, she always loved being included in Beau’s work.

  “We can put in the preliminary search data and then will need to wait for answers. It doesn’t just pop up on the computer screen in five seconds like it does on TV.” He smiled at her. “That way, you can get to the bakery with the whole afternoon to do what you need to.”

  How did he read her mind like that? It was probably what made him a great lawman.

  Chapter 21

  Beau looped through Sembramos, pointing out the Starkey house where the back half of it still lay charred in the sunlight; no sign of cleanup or reconstruction yet. He showed Sam the old Rodarte place and where the Cayne family had once lived, and where Sophie Garcia lived now. Average, small homes, all of them. Everything in the little farming community was modest, middle class. She wondered again at Linden Gisner’s decision to build the mansion on the hill outside town. Rather than going to Albuquerque or Dallas or somewhere a house that size might fit in, he obviously preferred to be the big fish in the little pond. It fit with what Sally Cayne had said about him. Sam put the thoughts aside and directed her attention to the passing countryside, where the overnight rain had done wonders already in greening the native grasses.

  At the department, things were quiet in the squad room. Beau told her he’d let several deputies take a day off after working the night patrols in Sembramos. With Jessie’s funeral past them and Lee’s friends and family away in Albuquerque for that service, he hoped things would settle down permanently for the little town and for his men.

  Sam watched over Beau’s shoulder as he accessed the law enforcement databases and initiated searches for Heather Brooks and Heather Gisner. Some matches to the surname Brooks came up immediately but he explained there was no way to know which of them might be the lady they were looking for, not without further information. He entered the tidbits they did know—prior addresses in New Mexico, the marriage to Linden Gisner, known relatives that included Molly Gisner.

  “We’ll expand this to include motor vehicle records. We could potentially get hundreds of hits on driver licenses and car registrations, and that makes narrowing it down even more time consuming. We can also try for passport information through the State Department, but then we’re talking about needing a stronger official reason for the search.”

  Sam could see why he’d said they wouldn’t be getting quick answers. Her thoughts drifted to the bakery.

  “I’ll drive you over, if you want,” he said.

  “That’s okay. The walk will do me good.” It was only about six blocks and once there she could use her bakery van, which she’d left at the shop so Becky could make deliveries all week.

  She hiked the strap of her pack onto her shoulder and set off, following the sidewalk rather than cutting through the plaza and its maze of alleys and narrow side streets. When she walked in the front door of Sweet’s Sweets, Jen looked up in surprise.

  “Oh, hey, Sam. I didn’t see you drive up.”

  Sam gave the quick explanation, taking in the sales room with a glance. “Things look good here. No emergencies?”

  “All under control,” Jen said with a smile. “I’ve been putting the daily receipts in your desk drawer.”

  “Thanks.” Sam walked into the kitchen, surprising Julio and Becky too, and after a few minutes to catch up on the status of the orders, she sat down at her desk.

  Not surprisingly, every question the gang couldn’t answer had ended up as a sticky note on the glass of Sam’s computer monitor. She pulled them off and sorted them by duties: phone calls to return, cake design questions, and miscellaneous things such as bills to be paid. Surely she hadn’t actually thought she could be away for days at a time without accumulating a backlog of sorts. She quickly handled the phone calls and stacked the bills into a pile to deal with later. She’d just reached for the zippered bank bag where Jen had been stashing cash, checks and register tapes when the intercom rang.

  “Sam? A lady on line one. She says it’s not bakery business.”

  “Ms. Sweet, hi. I’m a friend of Mary Raintree. She gave me your name and said you had an interesting magical implement. She, um, thought I might be of help in identifying it for you.”

  It took Sam a moment to make the connection that Mary Raintree must be the witch she’d met at Java Joe’s. She stuttered a response to the female voice on the phone.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Oh. I’m Zenda. I’m a friend of Mary Raintree.”

  Yeah, you said that.

  “Anyway, I’d love to take a look at that box.”

  Sam’s inner antennae went on alert. Had she used the word magic with Mary? She was pretty sure she hadn’t told the witch about any of the box’s powers. And hadn’t she asked Mary to call her and pass along names of anyone who might have known Bertha Martinez, not to simply give out her name randomly. So, how had this Zenda found her, if not through Mary?

  “I can come by your shop,” Zenda said. “I know where it is.”

  Sam had a flash memory of how easily Kelly had found addresses and locations by using her phone. Another memory, of the chocolatier who’d worked in her shop, the odd man who’d warned her of the box’s power and that there could be dark forces in the world, other people who would want to take the box from her. A frisson of fear raced up her spine.

  Zenda repeated her offer to come by and the silence while she waited for an answer hung in the air. Something told Sam this wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “This week isn’t good for me,” she said. “And I don’t have the box with me anyway.”

  Zenda seemed a little put out. She said she would check back and hung up before Sam could tell her not to bother.

  Damn. She should have been firmer, told the woman she wasn’t interested in meeting. This Zenda was far too pushy and the whole conversation had left Sam feeling uneasy.

  “Becky, do we have any deliveries this afternoon?” Sam asked, stuffing all the receipts and money back into the bank bag.

  “Nothing until day after tomorrow,” Becky said, not taking her eyes off the flowers she was piping onto a white layer cake for the sales case up front.

  “I’m going to take the van then.” Suddenly, Sam felt the need to get out of there.

  She grabbed her pack and the bank bag, headed out the back door and got into the van. Her eyes wouldn’t stay still, glancing behind her and checking her mirrors as she drove down the alley and watched for traffic.

  I can come b
y your shop. I know where it is.

  Sam turned right, opting to go out of her way in hopes of spotting someone who might be following her. She merged into the traffic on Paseo del Pueblo Sur, passing the fast food places and the turnoff to the high school, pulling into the Wal-Mart parking lot and circling it before getting out in traffic again, this time northbound toward home. As far as she could tell there wasn’t a single car that had made the whole trek with her.

  By the time she reached the north end of town and got out into open country she was certain that she wasn’t being tailed. She also felt a little foolish for her concerns. This Zenda was probably just an over-eager newbie witch who wanted to get hold of a magical artifact.

  But, I swear I never mentioned to Mary that the box had magical properties. She tried to remember the whole conversation with the witch at Java Joe’s. She had only described the box to Mary as an artifact and that she was interested in learning about its history—she felt sure of it. Other than telling the woman that she’d heard Bertha Martinez was a bruja, she didn’t think she’d brought up magic at all. And now this Zenda comes forward, saying she wanted to see the ‘magical’ box. She didn’t get that information from Mary.

  Sam parked beside the log house, went inside and immediately locked the door behind her. Upstairs, she picked up the box from the bathroom vanity and carried it to the bedroom, burying it under a pile of sweaters on the closet shelf. It wasn’t a secure hiding place but at least the box was out of sight until she got a chance to think of something better.

  The chocolatier, Bobul, had warned her, and his words came back now. Miss Sam, be careful. Bad people will do anything to take box away.

  She stopped abruptly in the middle of the bedroom. If someone wanted this box badly enough, and if they went to the trouble to look up Sam and come for it, they wouldn’t be coming here. This house, the phone and all the utilities were listed in Beau’s name. She’d only lived here six months. The place they would track Sam would be to her old house, where Kelly lived alone now.

  She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and hit her daughter’s number. Okay, don’t scare her. Stay calm.

  She managed to make it sound as if she’d received a persistent sales call and was concerned that the woman would come by the house as she warned Kelly to keep her doors locked and her valuables hidden away.

  “Mom. Seriously? Don’t you think I do that already? I lived in California before I came back home, remember?”

  “I know, I know. I just . . . I got a creepy feeling from this caller. Please do your old mom a favor and don’t answer the door to anyone you don’t know. It’ll make me feel better.”

  Kelly chuckled over the ‘old mom’ reference but agreed to be watchful. By the time Beau got home, around six, Sam had calmed down by adding up her bakery receipts and putting a chicken casserole in the oven for dinner.

  “Got something for you,” Beau said, planting a kiss on top of her head as she stood at the kitchen sink, washing vegetables. He held out a slip of paper with a name and phone number on it.

  “Althea Brooks?”

  “Heather Brooks’s sister.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  “Well, while the database searches were returning bunches of names it would take me months to track down, I used the old noodle. Remembered that Heather Brooks grew up in Sembramos, checked through school records. Although she’s in her forties now, they actually do keep stuff that far back, at least in this school. I looked up her registration information and came up with the fact that she had a sister, just a couple years older. So, that put me on a search for Althea Brooks. She still lives in New Mexico.”

  Sure enough, the area code was familiar.

  “Farmington. She’s been there ever since she left here. Which is part of what made it easier to locate her. If she’d moved around a lot, it could have gotten a whole lot more complicated.”

  “So, did you call her?”

  “Tried to. No answer. That’s why I brought this home.” He stuck the little yellow tab to the front of a cupboard door and sneaked a carrot out of the bunch Sam was about to chop for the salad.

  After dinner, Beau suggested they try Althea Brooks again. Sure enough, this time she answered.

  “This is Sheriff Cardwell in Taos County. I wonder if I might take a few minutes to ask you a couple of questions.”

  To Sam, Althea sounded hesitant over the speaker. “Is this about what I saw on the news earlier in the week? The problems in Sembramos?”

  “Indirectly, yes.” He gave the quick rundown about why he had reopened the Angela Cayne murder case. “In talking to Sally Cayne she mentioned that your niece, Molly, was Angela’s best friend. We’re trying to locate your sister to see if we can get some additional background.”

  “I don’t know what I can tell you, Sheriff. Heather’s done a good job of hiding. I even hired a private investigator once but he didn’t come up with anything.”

  “Tell me about when she left. What was going on at the time?”

  “You need more background before it will make much sense,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’ve got somewhere to be this evening so I need to go.”

  “Would it be possible for us to meet?” Beau said. “Can you come to Taos?”

  There was some hesitation at the other end. “I work all week, teaching special needs kids at a charter school. It would be a day-long trip to drive out there . . .”

  Beau and Sam waited, sensing there was more.

  Althea seemed to come to a decision. “I have to drive to Dulce tomorrow. We’re required to make a home visit to each student’s parents, and I’ve got one whose home is way out there. It’s Highway 64 the whole way. I suppose I could drive on over to Taos. I would get there around noon. I really would like to find my sister and you’re the first lawman to show much interest in helping.”

  “I’d really appreciate that, Ms. Brooks.” Beau clicked off the call, after repeating his thanks and reiterating the time and place they would meet.

  “Since she’s already tried to find her sister, years ago, I wonder whether we’ll have much luck,” Sam said as they settled on the couch with their after-dinner coffees.

  “I don’t know. But maybe she can fill in some gaps in the time leading up to Angela’s death. As she said, there’s a lot of background we don’t know.”

  Sam pondered that. “But the big gaps still come down to the night Angela disappeared. Who would have reason to kill a twenty-year-old girl who, by all accounts was pretty popular? And, other than revenge from someone who believed Jessie Starkey and Lee Rodarte were unfairly released from prison, who would have come after them all these years later?”

  “Revenge fits so well with both men—one shot in the woods, the other struck in the head and kicked. That’s anger, pure and simple. One of these days I’ll manage to break the alibi of someone in the Starkey clan and probably someone else close to Lee Rodarte, and I think those two deaths will be solved. Somebody up there knows who did it and one day that person will drink a little too much or they’ll be unable to keep quiet.

  “That still doesn’t tell us whether Starkey and Rodarte really were unfairly released, or whether Angela’s killer is still running around free. Gut feeling tells me it’s the latter.”

  “So . . . let’s take another look at the file.” Sam carried their cups to the kitchen for refills and they spent the next two hours reviewing their previous timeline and adding to it from the bits and scraps of interrogation questions.

  This time Beau was the one yawning before ten p.m. although Sam was getting tired too. Had they already become old, married people? When he suggested they take a break, Sam agreeably set her lists aside.

  Brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink she eyed the empty spot where her jewelry box normally sat. Which brought back her earlier skittishness over the phone call from the unknown Zenda and the probing questions about the box.

  “Hon, where’s a good spot to hide something in the ho
use? A place where a robber probably wouldn’t think to look?”

  He finished swishing his mouthwash and spat it out. “Why? You got a big stack of cash you never told me about?”

  She laughed. “Fat chance about that. No, it’s my jewelry box. I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

  Although she’d told Beau about the odd powers of the box, she’d glossed over the possibility that someone else might want to get it. He wasn’t the kind of guy who probed when it came to personal matters and he probably assumed that her simple costume jewelry was worth more than it actually was.

  “You can put it in my gun safe,” he said.

  At her raised eyebrows he paused. “I never showed you the gun safe?”

  See, Sam, you aren’t the only one in this house with a few secrets. She pulled the box from the upper closet shelf and followed him downstairs. He went straight to the coat closet under the stairs and shoved the coats to one side. Behind them, a small door revealed itself, one Sam had never noticed when she added her own few items to the clothing there. With the wooden panel open, she could see a heavy metal safe, about three feet wide and five feet tall. A black box on the front had a keypad. Below it, a heavy metal handle.

  “Combination is our anniversary,” he said. “I reprogrammed it when we got married so I could never slip up and forget it. I never told you this?”

  “I’ve never seen this safe. But you might have mentioned having it. Things were pretty crazy last September, if you’ll recall.”

  He pressed the correct series of buttons on the keypad, making sure she watched so she could do it on her own. She knew Beau had a hunting rifle and a smaller one for predator control—every rancher in the West probably did. Shelves above held two cases for handguns—one probably went with his service pistol—and a few boxes of ammunition.

  “There’s plenty of space here,” he said, moving one of the handgun cases to leave a clear shelf. Put anything you want in here.”

  She handed him the carved wooden box. He showed her the process for locking up, closing the concealment door, and sliding the coats back to their positions. “Just be sure you always close it up like this. No point in having a safe if anybody who walks in the house can get to it.”