Tres Leches Cupcakes

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Ouch,” he said, still not looking defensive. “You don’t have much faith in us, do you?”

  “It’s not that. I’m just worried about Margo,” Sadie said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Sometimes honesty was awkward. “That’s all. Not doing what I can do is hard for me, especially since I’m the one who started all this.”

  “You feel responsible for what happened to Margo?”

  “Of course I do,” Sadie said, suppressing the rising guilt. “I’m the reason we went to the bar that night.” She waited for him to throw out platitudes about how Margo was the one who actually set up the meeting and chose to follow Langley afterward. Sadie could acknowledge those things were true, but it didn’t change the fact that if Sadie hadn’t gone to Margo’s on Monday, Margo wouldn’t be involved in this at all.

  “And what if you weren’t the reason she went to the bar?”

  “I was the reason, though.”

  “What if you weren’t?”

  “But I was.” Did he know how painful it was for her to say this out loud? Let alone to say it twice?

  Marcus leaned forward slightly and tapped the stack of papers on the desk between them while holding her eyes. “What if I told you I already knew all of this?”

  Sadie looked at the papers and felt instantly sheepish for assuming the police weren’t investigating Margo too. It was hard to have faith in law enforcement sometimes, but had her distrust set her up to have wasted her time and make a fool of herself too? “Why would you knowing about Margo’s daughter mean it wasn’t my fault she went to the bar?”

  He held her eyes for a moment, and then let out a breath. “I can’t tell you everything, and I didn’t know about Ethan being connected to Mr. Carlisle,” Marcus said, his voice low and surprisingly trusting. “And the text messages worry me a great deal. You’ve already gotten dangerous attention, and now that you know this”—he tapped the papers again—“you’ve become even more vulnerable. I need you to stay out of this for your own safety.”

  Sadie stared at him. Her automatic response was to assume he was saying this simply to get her to back off, but there was an intensity in his eyes that spoke of something more.

  “If you learn anything else after leaving here,” Marcus continued, “I need you to bring it to me as soon as possible. And I need your word not to discuss this with anyone at all from here on out.”

  Sadie opened her mouth, but then closed it. She didn’t know what to say—challenge what he’d just told her? Ask questions he’d already said he couldn’t answer? But her mind was spinning, connecting dots she didn’t know were connected until now.

  Marcus must have seen the difficulty she was having. He took a breath. “You said that you think there may have been other people with interests in the site, and that Sheldon Carlisle had kept digging after being told not to—that’s one other group besides the BLM, right?”

  “And Langley, if he’s involved somehow,” Sadie said.

  “There may be at least one other group involved, and we think Margo was part of it.”

  Sadie straightened and leaned forward. “What?”

  “Because of your involvement with the BLM, we’ve collaborated with them on some matters involved in this case, and through them, we discovered some details about her history that weren’t readily available to us before.”

  “The BLM has a history on Margo?”

  Marcus nodded. “Margo used to be connected to an anti-antiquities trade group, a kind of straight-edge gang of heritage advocates who feel the federal government doesn’t act fast enough to really curtail the black market trade. This group, Tribal Preserve, goes after pothunters and dealers themselves—burning down trailers, even destroying artifacts to keep them from the market if they have to. They send threats, scout out newly discovered sites, and gather evidence they then anonymously share with the government. They also draw a lot of attention from the dealers they work hard to stop. Margo testified against a relatively large dealer in the Northeast about ten years ago, which might be what led to her daughter’s death.”

  Sadie gasped. She hadn’t read anything about that. “They would kill a child over antiquities?”

  “It was never proven one way or another, and the media kept it quiet because they’ve learned to be cautious about what they report—they get threats too. In fact, a few years ago, I talked to a journalist in Utah who said that the only time he’d personally received death threats was while he was working on a story about a black market ring he broke up.”

  Sadie had to repress a shudder.

  “After her daughter’s death, Margo left the States for awhile and worked some international projects. It seemed as though she’d broken ties with Tribal Preserve—they are primarily concerned with Native American artifacts. Then she suddenly reappeared here in Santa Fe a couple of years ago. The BLM came across her name when she hired up for D&E, and they watched her closely for a while, but she appears to be unattached to the group. Suddenly she’s smack-dab in the middle of our crosshairs on this, and we’re scrambling to put all this information together as quickly as we can in order to come up with the right plan on how to proceed from here on out. We fear there are some big guns involved in this situation.”

  “And yet you didn’t care about the text messages she sent me last night.”

  “They had already been forwarded to our database. We got a court order to monitor her phone yesterday afternoon. We were tracing them as they happened, and I didn’t have time to deal with you at the same time.”

  “I was scared to death,” Sadie said, her chest hot with anger.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said, inclining his head slightly. “But we have a procedure to follow, and from everything we’ve been able to find, no one knows who you are. They all think your name is Sarah and the address on your application leads to an empty rental house. If you hadn’t called me, I’d have followed up with you today.”

  Sadie’s heart hammered in her chest. “Do you know who sent the text messages?”

  “Not yet, but we know where the calls came from.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  Sadie almost swore, but then took a breath, knowing that he’d already told her more than he’d expected to, and she didn’t want to appear ungrateful. Instead, she focused on what she’d learned. “Oh my gosh,” she said, sitting back in her chair as she realigned every exchange she’d had with Margo. “Was Margo on the dig to find the same thieves the BLM was looking for, do you think? Same as me?” Was that what she was apologizing for? Had she been planning to take Sadie into her confidence with that call Monday night?

  “Possibly,” Marcus said. “We are filtering and following the leads as quickly as we can, but doing so quietly is essential. Pete has told me I can trust you, regardless of some of your history that does not reflect that very well, and I am choosing to do so. But I need your word that you will step back and let us do our job—for Margo’s safety as well as your own. Going to Albuquerque is a good idea. Going sooner rather than later is even better.” He took a breath and then added in nearly a pleading tone, “Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

  Sadie nodded, then paused, suddenly remembering something. “Margo called Shel ‘Crossbones’ at the bar on Monday,” she said. “Shel didn’t seem to know what it meant, but what if Langley did? What if that was Langley’s code name or something for his artifact dealings? He’d have known then that Margo knew something she shouldn’t know. It could be his motive for having her follow him out of the bar.”

  Marcus scribbled a note on top of the papers Sadie had given him. “I’ll look into that.”

  “Does Pete know what you just told me?”

  Marcus sat back, allowing distance back into their discussion. “No, but let me be the one to bring him up to speed. In the meantime, make sure you don’t discuss this with anyone. You’re already more involved than we would like you to be.”

  “Okay,”
Sadie said, sufficiently convinced to do things his way. “I can’t believe Margo’s daughter may have been killed for this.”

  “The antiquities market can be as bloodthirsty as drug cartels. There are very deep feelings involved from many different sectors, and when they cross one another, it’s like lighting a stick of dynamite. We are quickly trying to cut this fuse, but we need as much cooperation as possible in order for that to work.”

  “I understand.”

  Marcus let out a breath and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “We’ll also need your phone.”

  Sadie automatically tightened her grip on the handle of her purse, but not in surprise. Pete had checked in with her this morning and told her something like this might happen, so she’d already downloaded her contact list, text messages, and copies of her photos to her computer. “I thought you had all the text messages forwarded to your computer.”

  “I need to verify it, as well as check for photographs and other communications. It’s how I prove that you aren’t a part of this. It’s how you get cleared of any suspicion.”

  Being cleared of any suspicion sounded good to Sadie. “Will I get it back?”

  “Eventually, yes,” he said. His demeanor seemed to harden back into that of police detective. “Because it was the method used to make the threat, we need to clear it through our technical forensics department before we can return it to you.”

  She took her phone from her purse and handed it to Marcus. “Do you know when I’ll get it back?”

  “I’ll try to put a rush on it, but I can’t make any guarantees,” Marcus said. “Where will you be staying?”

  “Here’s the number I can be reached at until late this afternoon,” she said, writing down Rex and Caro’s phone number on the back of a business card he had on his desk. She’d already planned to pack up and be gone before either of them got home from work; now she simply had more reason to do so. She added her e-mail address too, just in case. “Then I’ll go to Albuquerque.”

  “It won’t be done today,” he said. “But we could possibly have it sent to the Albuquerque station when we finish.”

  “Or I can come get it. I won’t have much in my schedule, and I don’t mind making the drive.” Maybe not having her phone would also make it easier for her to stay away from everything. “I’ll call you with the number to my hotel as soon as I get checked in. Or you can e-mail me anytime; I check my e-mail a few times a day.”

  “That would be good. Thank you for all your help,” Marcus said sincerely. “Be assured that we are giving this priority attention.”

  The house was empty when Sadie returned, and it felt isolating to be in a home where she was no longer welcome without her phone connecting her to the world where she didn’t feel all that welcome either.

  She’d picked up some U-Haul boxes on her way home but put them aside as soon as she entered the house. Using Rex and Caro’s phone, she called Pete and left him a message that she no longer had her phone but could be reached here until about three o’clock, at which time she planned to go to Albuquerque. She took a few minutes to put together some green chile stew, another favorite meal of Rex’s, as a bit of a peace offering. She diced the potatoes that would need to be added later into a bowl of salted water and left it next to the Crock-Pot. Caro would know what to do with it.

  Then there was nothing left to do but pack.

  It was an affront to her organized ways not to make lists and charts that explained the contents of these boxes from bottom to top, but she didn’t have time for the planning process. She hoped Rex and Caro wouldn’t mind storing most of her stuff until she knew where she would be going after the Balloon Fiesta and her court date were over.

  Bathroom supplies went in one box, nonessential clothing in another. The plush blanket she had fallen in love with went in with her jackets and shoes. Caro had helped her pick out that blanket on their very first shopping trip. She’d assured Sadie she’d love it, and she’d been right.

  Sadie didn’t think she’d collected too many things, other than clothes, during her stay, but she ended up with two whole boxes full of souvenir-type things she’d bought since arriving in Santa Fe. Each item reminded her of the good times with Caro, and she allowed herself to feel downright sorry for herself as she wrapped the more fragile pieces in newspaper. She reached for a sheet of newsprint to wrap up a beautiful ceramic bell they’d bought in Taos, when Ethan Standage’s picture caught her eye.

  She smoothed the paper out on the bed and read a recap of the previous night’s exhibit—she hadn’t realized she’d grabbed today’s paper out of the recycle bin; Rex must have already read it. The article spoke of the ten-year anniversary and the basic process Ethan went through for his prints and anthologies, but toward the end there was a quote from Ethan that Sadie found surprising.

  “I’ll be cutting back on my photography for the next little while, but I still plan to have an exhibit next fall.” Ethan Standage is widely known as the heir to the Cold River Ranch, which has been owned by his family for generations. When asked the reason for the change, Standage said, “I spoke tonight of the three facets of life I try to pattern my choices around: temporal reverence, spiritual acuity, and creative expression. I’ve worked hard to accomplish all of those things within my preservation and my art, but I’ve only been able to pursue those things because of the support and the legacy of my family, and my place, ultimately, is with them. I’ve been raised since my childhood to take over the ranch and I am eager to approach a new challenge. I am not leaving my art behind, but rather making room for more things in my future.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder if this change could be connected to Shel having been told there were bodies at the site, or to Margo having gone to the ranch. Ethan’s sudden devotion to the ranch felt a little bit like circling the wagons, pulling into the ranch in order to protect it or himself or something. But, Sadie reminded herself, she wasn’t investigating. All those questions were for the police, and she would do well to leave them alone.

  She placed the ceramic bell in the center of Ethan Standage’s picture in the paper and proceeded to wrap it up tightly before putting it into the box and moving on to her next keepsake, and then the next, and the next. Each of them had a story connected to their purchase, most of them directly tied to Caro. Sadie looked forward to the day when she could think about her friend and the good times they’d had without feeling such heavy regret.

  One of her favorite purchases was a woven table runner she’d bought from a Navajo woman who sold her pieces at a roadside shop. She ran her fingers over the tight stitches. Sadie had bought it with the expectation of putting it across the sofa table behind her couch at home. She hoped that all this drama was at least getting her closer to that goal.

  She realized while putting the table runner in the box that she’d almost forgotten about the rope hammock chair she’d also purchased in Taos. It had a long piece of wood from which the hammock chair portion hung, making it awkward to store. She’d put it under the bed. She got on her hands and knees in order to retrieve it, glad to have remembered it at all. When she was pulling it out, she noticed a box she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t very big—a large shoe box for hiking boots, probably, but it was pushed up against the wall at the head of the bed.

  Sadie had helped Caro move out the girls’ leftover items when she’d moved in, putting them into the smaller guest room further down the hall. They must have missed this box; it was hard to see. She pulled the box out and raised her eyebrows at the layers of packing tape wrapped around it.

  The box wasn’t heavy enough to contain the hiking boots it was made to hold, and nothing shifted inside when she shook it slightly, which meant whatever was in there was likely packed pretty tight. Since it wasn’t hers, she knew she couldn’t cut the box open without feeling guilty about it, so she simply put it on top of the stack of boxes she’d just packed up, then retrieved a Post-it note from the kitchen and wrote “This isn’t mine. I found it unde
r the bed.” She stuck the note to the green shoe box, then set it next to the hammock chair on the top of the stacked boxes.

  She did a final check of the room. She’d gotten everything it seemed—nearly two months of living all packed up and ready to move to wherever she went next. Please help me get home, she said in a silent prayer as she retrieved the cleaning supplies from beneath the bathroom sink and set about leaving the rooms cleaner than she’d found them when she’d moved in.

  At two o’clock, the bedding and towels were in the dryer, and the walls, baseboards, windows, and bathroom were spotless. No one would even guess she’d been there, which made her sad, but she didn’t dwell on it. She turned off the lights and closed the door on this chapter of her life.

  She hadn’t heard from Pete or Marcus, but she was surprisingly okay with that. Her desire to be in the middle of things was sufficiently tempered by what she’d learned that morning. Margo had been part of a vigilante group. Did that mean she’d used Sadie in pursuit of her own agenda? Not that Sadie could be offended by it, since she’d done the same thing in a sense, but it was an interesting shift nonetheless.

  She wrote a note to Caro and Rex, thanking them again for having allowed her to stay and explaining the situation with her phone in case Marcus called. Then she cleaned the kitchen. She thought about backing out of helping Lois at the Fiesta, but she would be in Albuquerque anyway, and she really liked Lois. Besides, maybe working together would be the tender clay on which she and Caro could build a new foundation.

  With nothing else to do, Sadie took a final walk through the house that had felt like home until just a few days ago. She would miss it here. She would miss Caro, and yet even with this lackluster ending, she was so grateful to have been here. She’d grown and become stronger, learned to trust herself again and regrow her faith in her individual purpose. Santa Fe had been a good place for her to be, and she would never regret having come.