A Reference to Murder

by Kym Roberts

  “It’s up to you, Scarlet. It’s only a couple close-ups of the buckles.” Mateo looked at me like I was really doing him a disservice thinking he’d show Scarlet the gruesome images I couldn’t wipe from my brain. I guess I was.

  Scarlet took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “I’ll help, if I can.”

  He pulled out his phone and held it for Scarlet to view, but her eyes were closed. Scrunched so tight, it had to hurt.

  “If you’re uncomfortable—”

  “No.” Her eyes flew open. “I want to do this.” She stared at the image and her head began to nod. “I’m pretty sure that’s Dalton’s.”

  Mateo pulled his hand back and swiped to the next picture. This buckle was older and dirtier; the rope design along the edge was crusted and the color had tarnished. The bull in the middle was still visible, though, along with the words, “World Champion,” with the year before Wyatt disappeared imprinted below.

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “It’s okay.” Mateo put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “It’s okay. You’ve helped tremendously.”

  Scarlet’s chin quivered. “I’ve got a picture of his buckle…and Dalton’s.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Scarlet pulled the iPad away from her chest for the first time since we’d found the graves and started to tap in the password.

  “Wait. Is that Dalton’s iPad?”

  “Yes, sir. Why?”

  “Don’t open it. I’ll need to get a warrant. Why don’t you just give it to me and I’ll put it in evidence.”

  Scarlet hesitated. “But the pictures are right here.”

  “I don’t want to taint this case. Just give me the tablet and I’ll get a warrant to access all of the content.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, this is ridiculous.” I grabbed the iPad before either one could argue and tapped in the password.

  “Charli, dam—” Mateo reached for the tablet but the braces for the protective shield between the driver and the rear seat occupants blocked his path as I slunk back in the corner of the seat.

  I held up the picture of Wyatt riding the bull. In plain view was the belt buckle he’d won the previous year. The same belt buckle that marked grave number two.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It’d been almost two hours since Mateo had said two words in my direction. After I’d shown him Wyatt’s buckle his jaw had clamped shut and he’d snatched the iPad out of my hand.

  Somehow Scarlet was oblivious to the tension, which was the only good thing I could say about the whole day.

  Mateo talked to his two detectives on the scene, Youngblood and Wilson, whom I’d met on a previous investigation. Detective Youngblood had shared some of his wife’s cookies with me and later brought his kids into The Barn to check out our new kid’s section. He wasn’t quite a friend, but I suspected he and his wife would become friends as long as I stayed on the good side of the law.

  Which seemed to be a problem for me only when I was in Hazel Rock.

  Mateo came back to the car and wiped the sweat off his brow with his arm. I had no doubt his deep brown uniform was scorching almost as much as his anger was toward me.

  “Scarlet, you said you had a backpack of clothing that belongs to Dalton at your trailer. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to search it.”

  “Her trailer or the backpack?”

  Mateo’s nostrils flared. He really didn’t like me much when he was investigating a case. “Both, if that’s okay.” He held his palm up in my face in the universal signal of stop, but was probably telling me to talk to his hand. “I’m not looking for evidence against you. I’m looking for clues as to how Dalton could have ended up out here.”

  “Could have? You don’t think that’s him?” Hope glistened in her eyes, but Mateo dashed it immediately.

  “He’s been missing for a couple days… It’s a fresh grave and it has his belt buckle on it and even though we don’t have his phone yet, you followed the signal straight to the grave. We won’t, however, be able to officially identify who’s buried out there until the ME gets the dental records. Will you give me permission to search your trailer and take the backpack?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Yes.” Scarlet overrode my response.

  “Scarlet—”

  “I’ve made my decision, Charli. This is the best I can do to help Dalton. And I’m going to help him.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Charli. Let’s go, Mateo.”

  He nodded and met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “You better buckle up, Charli. That’s the law.”

  I did as I was told, but stuck my tongue out at the back of Mateo’s head. I felt like one of my belligerent five-year-old students, but I couldn’t help it. Scarlet needed a lawyer. There were two bodies sitting over there in the woods and she’d already been questioned in regard to the disappearance of one of the men possibly buried there. On top of that, we’d led the police to the other grave—and that victim had last been seen outside the front of her salon. The cards were stacking up against her.

  We made it to Hazel Rock in almost complete silence. The town was fairly quiet, except for the quilt shop, which had quite a few cars parked out front. Through the front window, we could see a crowd of people squeezed into every nook and cranny. Mateo parked by the salon and I had to wait for him to open the back door for me. The look he gave me as he bent down and peered through the window said if I didn’t behave, he was going to put me right back inside. But then his gaze traveled down the street from where we’d just been.

  “Grab that roll of crime scene tape,” he ordered.

  I heard the traffic before I saw it. A slew of media trucks had followed us from the crime scene. Those vehicles were the only reason I didn’t ask questions about what Mateo was going to do with that tape.

  “Fuzz buckets.”

  Mateo’s left brow rose in question to my cuss word that was anything but scandalous. He turned toward Scarlet and began sheltering her from the camera lenses that were undoubtedly already recording as the reporters raced down Main Street, creating a fog of dust behind them. I was pretty sure the last car in the string couldn’t see squat but the brake lights in front of it.

  “Let’s hurry up and get in the trailer before they figure out where we’re going.”

  We dashed into the salon. Mateo locked the door behind us and turned the Open sign to Closed.

  “The salon is closed for the time being,” he said to the handful of women who were getting their nails done and their hair highlighted. Scarlet’s sister looked up from the job she was doing on Sugar’s nails.

  “What’s going on?” Joellen asked.

  Those three words opened the floodgates. Scarlet’s face crumbled and everyone was out of their chairs faster than Mateo could roll his eyes. I shrugged. It’s what women did in Hazel Rock. If one cried, a huddle formed.

  It took about thirty seconds for everyone to get the gist of the story and more tears to start flowing. Even I was having a hard time controlling the waterworks. So much misery deserved company.

  “Ladies, I have to take Scarlet to her trailer,” Mateo said when he returned from a brief trip out back. He put his arm around Scarlet’s shoulder to guide her to that back room.

  A knock on the glass made us turn around. Aubrey’s face was pressed against the tinted window, her hand cupping her eyes so she could see in. Her mom made a move to open the door.

  “Don’t you let her in!” I yelled. “She’s gone to the dark side!”

  “Charli Rae Warren, you best not be bad-mouthing my baby,” Mary growled.

  “Mateo you better take Scarlet out the back,” I said, but Mateo and Scarlet had already gone. The curtain to the back room was flapping like a set of saloon doors.

  I tried to reason with Mary to give them more time to escape. “Aubrey’s trying pretty darn hard to be like them.” I pointed to the reporte
rs who were ready to take the place of Mary’s teenage daughter at the first moment of weakness Aubrey showed. All for the chance at the story. My pointing out the overzealous shoving turned out to be a mistake. Mary didn’t take too kindly to her baby being pushed, and before I could do anything about it, her protective momma gene went into offensive mode. She opened the door to a pack of dogs after that proverbial bone, Aubrey leading the charge.

  Aubrey, however, was the only one who made it past her momma. Mary started threatening to break every living bone in the bodies of the rest of the reporters. Her anger was burning hotter than the hinges of hell.

  Recognizing her advantage, Aubrey scooted through the salon to the back door with me hot on her heels. She pulled up abruptly at the back door and asked, “Sheriff Espinoza, is this a crime scene?”

  Mateo didn’t answer. Instead, he gave her that commanding tone I hated when he used it on me. “Ms. Aubrey I need you to step back inside, and close the door.”

  “I know my rights, Sheriff, and the public has a right to know what’s going on in Hazel Rock. Is this related to the two graves found earlier today at Enchanted Rock?”

  “Ms. Aubrey, unless you’d like to find yourself in jail for criminal trespass, I suggest you back up, and close the door.”

  I heard the warning in his voice, but Aubrey shrugged her shoulders and bolstered her confidence just a bit too much. I would have been proud of her, if she wasn’t being such a pain in my backside.

  “I know my rights, Sheriff. I’m behind your crime scene tape—”

  “And you’re on private property. I have a request from the owner of that property to arrest anyone who refuses to leave,” Mateo warned. It was his very last warning.

  I knew it. I just hoped Aubrey knew it.

  She looked at me and I shook my head, trying to get her to listen to that little voice of common sense. But on her other shoulder was the voice of her mentor, Liza Twaine, demanding she get the story, no matter what.

  “I’ll close the door, Sheriff,” Aubrey said. Which showed she had more sense than me. I slipped past her before she could close the door and ducked under the tape. When the door clicked, it was my signal to lose it. And lose it big.

  “What do you think you’re doing putting bright yellow tape across the door that says Crime Scene Do No Cross?” My chin waivered with my anger. My frustration with the whole scene becoming a huge knot in my gut. “Are you trying to get them to nail Scarlet to the wall in the headlines?”

  “Charli—”

  “Oh, I can see the caption now.” My hands raised to put the title in quotes. “Black Widow of Hazel Rock Buries Rodeo Champs.”

  “Charli—”

  “Or better yet, Brothers plagued with Scarlet Fever and Die.”

  “Charli—” His voice was getting louder, sterner, but I was on a roll and there was no stopping my ire.

  “What about, For Whom the Southern belle Tolls? You’ve made her the number one suspect in a double homicide without saying a word!” I stomped my boot on a paving stone leading to Scarlet’s trailer; the whimsical flip flop shape seeming to mock my anger.

  “That’s enough, Princess!” Mateo took several steps forward and stopped within inches of my face. He was so close I could see the fire burning in his black eyes. The sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip in the sweltering afternoon heat. His irritation ticked in his jaw. And despite it all, he was still one of the best-looking men I’d ever seen in my life.

  Drat the man.

  “Someone broke into Scarlet’s trailer.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you find it a bit odd that the day you and Scarlet find two graves in the ground at Enchanted Rock her trailer gets broken into?”

  “I—I—”

  “So, yes, ma’am.” His emphasis on ma’am was a little offensive. “This”—he waved around at the area behind the building he’d already taped off—“is a crime scene. And you’re standing in the middle of my crime scene.”

  I wouldn’t have been worried if my mind wasn’t completely focused on my best friend. “Where’s Scarlet?”

  He sighed and stepped past me, wiping his forehead with his sleeve before pulling out a pair of rubber gloves from his back pocket. “Bobby Ray came and got her and drove her to his house.”

  “Daddy was here? How’d he get here so fast?”

  “He saw us arrive with the media on our tails. He said you had a propensity to run out the back door without saying good-bye, so he figured he’d get in his car and be your getaway. I told him I wouldn’t let you escape.”

  “Oh.” My daddy was right of course. At seventeen I’d run out the back door of The Barn and packed my bags while my dad worked in the store. By the time he closed for the night, I was long gone. I teepeed several houses, then came back and teepeed The Barn before hightailing it out of town to the bus station. It was my aunt Violet who’d told him where I was when I arrived on her doorstep in Denver. Despite his attempts to get me to come back, it was decided I would stay with her. We hadn’t spoken in over a dozen years until I came home a few months ago and we began to mend the tears in our hearts. But obviously, some of the damage was still there. From daddy’s response, I supposed the fear of me up and leaving still resounded in his heart.

  “Is there something I should be doing?” I asked.

  “A tall glass of iced tea would be a welcome sight. I’ve got no one to process this scene so I’ll be doing it myself. Then the two of us will get Scarlet and head for the station for your statements.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was irritated with me, or if his tone was due to his day going to hell in a handbasket. Mateo gently opened the trailer and disappeared inside. And I made myself useful without running away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A long night at the police department meant a long day at The Barn the next day. Scarlet and I had given our statements and Joellen had cleaned Scarlet’s trailer after Mateo was done processing it. Only one thing had been taken by the thief: Dalton’s backpack.

  The media, however, was lead in a different direction, since they didn’t have the full story. The morning, noon, and evening news pointed the finger at Scarlet. They focused on Scarlet’s descent down the steps like she was Miss Kitty on that old Western series my dad watched on cable reruns. They were able to make Scarlet’s three steps look like an entire staircase while the sound bite focused on her comment about Beaus and Beauties being a full-service salon. It was horrible—unless of course, Scarlet was planning to rent rooms by the hour. Which I seriously doubted.

  Guilt racked my brain and tugged at my heart all day. Scarlet hadn’t been able to show her face at the salon with the media parked outside and that’s exactly the support system she needed. Yet we’d had to hide her, even from her employees to ensure Mary didn’t let anything slip to her daughter, Aubrey. To keep Scarlet occupied, my dad had taken the day off and he and Scarlet were at his house creating book art in his garage. It was the only way to make sure the media didn’t hound her while keeping Scarlet busy at the same time.

  Her wardrobe was limited to the plaid shirts of a man pushing sixty, her shorts, and tennis shoes from one of the reporters currently searching for her since none of my clothes came close to fitting her curves.

  Princess squeaked at my feet and I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes until closing time.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  Squeak, snuff, snuff.

  “I take it that’s a ‘Yes’?”

  Princess turned and walked to the side door next to the tearoom, where she stopped and looked at me. Then her head bobbed up toward the door handle. If I believed an armadillo could communicate, then I’d know she was telling me to close up shop.

  The view out the front of the store showed no movement on Main Street. If anything, it looked like a ghost town. Even the media had abandoned their perches outside the salon. They’d completed their evening broadcasts and left to
cover the candlelight vigil at The Ranch for the presumed loss of two of the best professional bull riders in history.

  Dalton hadn’t made it quite as far as his older brother, but everyone had expected him to surpass Wyatt. And the assumption was that both had been killed way before their prime and buried right next to each other.

  Princess scratched at the door, demanding we leave for the day.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said. I’d already done the pre-closing rituals; locking the doors was last on the list. Princess and I went out the side door and up the exterior steps to the apartment and I looked up at the vacant iron bracket that should have been holding my mom’s sign. “Eve’s Gate” still needed to be rehung. Princess made her way to the top of the steps, hopping one at a time, her arched back making her look like a cat bouncing from one step to the next.

  We walked into the apartment, I dropped my keys on a shelf next to the door, and looked around my childhood home. My bedroom was in the back overlooking the river, while my parent’s old bedroom was toward the front with a secret panel in the bookcase that lead to The Barn’s loft. The apartment was decorated the same as when I’d left at seventeen, which was left over from before my mom died when I was ten. Dad hadn’t had the heart to change it, and so far, neither had I.

  Princess took three steps toward her bowl before I stopped her. “You have to have a bath first.”

  She looked up at me and snorted.

  I shrugged. “That’s the rule, babe.” Armadillos have an odor that is very distinctive. Luckily, they also like water, so Princess’s daily baths didn’t put her out too much. I filled her tubs, one scented with lilac soap and the other to rinse. Then, while she rolled on her back and slopped water over the rug, I prepared her can of cat food with a few vegetables added to the mix.

  I toweled her off and put her bedazzled dog bowl down on the floor. I’d learned not to put the food down first; otherwise, she’d make a beeline for her dish while leaving a stream of water from the front door to the kitchen. And whether either of us wanted to admit it, we both enjoyed the process of me toweling her off. Princess enjoyed having her belly tickled and I liked having a pet for the first time in my life. I dumped her tubs of water over the railing of the steps and then went to clean myself up for the candlelight vigil.