Sweet's Sweets: The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery ssm-2

by Connie Shelton

  “Hey there,” she said, tapping on the door and opening it at the same time.

  “How did you know I was just thinking about you?” he asked, looking up with a warm smile.

  “Maybe because I was just thinking about you too?” She walked in and allowed herself to enjoy his embrace. “Want some help?”

  “You have the energy to dig through dusty old files after putting in a long day at the bakery?”

  “Sure.” Amazingly, she did. “What needs to be done?”

  He gestured around the small room, obviously a one-man operation. There was a desk with a swivel chair behind it and two client chairs in front. A credenza behind the desk held a fax machine. Fenton’s framed license hung on the wall above it, along with a dated photo of a suited man presenting some kind of award to a tall, slim police officer.

  “Fenton?” she asked, indicating the photo.

  Beau nodded. “I think that was the governor of Arizona back in the seventies. Fenton served on the Flagstaff PD.”

  Two four-drawer locking file cabinets stood to one side, with a coffee maker and the usual setup with creamer and sugar packets nearby. Everything was clean and well organized.

  “His files are the same way,” Beau said, commenting on the neatness of it all. “I’ve just started looking through them. The warrant only allows me to gather information pertaining to Cheryl Adams, since that’s where his coat was located, or to a direct threat on his life. We can’t sit here reading about other people’s dirty little secrets, for our own enjoyment.”

  “Well, dang. That would have been the fun part.” She squeezed his hand.

  “Take a drawer, any drawer.” He handed her a pair of latex gloves.

  “I assume you’ve already looked under ‘Adams’ and would have mentioned if you’d found anything with her name on it.”

  “Right. Didn’t find anything.”

  “Cheryl’s maiden name was Tercel. She might have used that if she hired Fenton for something.” Sam reached for the file drawer labeled T-Z.

  “Check it out while I finish going through the desk.” He sat in the swivel chair and continued to pull items out, mostly pens and notepads and other office supplies.

  Sam riffled her fingers through the manila folders. Each was labeled with a name, neatly printed by hand in block letters. Although the files varied in thickness, all were crisp and neat, as if he made up a new folder if one should become battered or began to slump down in its prescribed position.

  Taos, Tafoya, Tapia, Tewa . . . “I’m not finding a Tercel in here,” Sam told him.

  But Tafoya grabbed her attention. Carlos Tafoya, the label said. The gubernatorial candidate. What would he have hired Fenton for? Her fingers twitched at the edge of the folder.

  “Sam?”

  She jerked back.

  “You weren’t about to pull a folder out of there, were you?”

  “Nope.” She pushed the drawer closed, just to prove it.

  “Anyway, look at this.” He was holding up a leather-bound book, about the size of a small ledger. “The whole thing is written in code.”

  Chapter 12

  Sam looked at the ledger’s pages. Beau was right. The columns were filled with letters and numbers. But they weren’t words and they weren’t dollar amounts, at least not in the normal two-decimal-place format.

  “What do you suppose they mean?” she asked.

  “No idea. I’m no cryptographer.” He thumbed through a few more pages. Each one seemed to represent one account, or maybe one transaction—hard to tell. “The State crime lab has one—a cryptographer. But like every other thing they have one of, I’d bet he or she is backed up with work for a year.”

  “Look at the first column on each page. The numbers are written as decimals but they could easily be dates. See? 7.6, 8.29, 1.31. None of the first digits are higher than twelve and none of the second sets are more than thirty-one.”

  “Good catch. And it makes sense that he would start each entry with a date.”

  “Each date is followed by sets of letters that must be a sort of shorthand. Client names, billing codes or something?”

  Sam took the book and turned to the last page that contained writing. “If this is the most recent entry, and if those numbers are dates, he last wrote in this book on October 19th.”

  “Less than a week before his body was found.”

  “More than a month after Cheryl Adams moved away. So, his coat being in her closet still makes no sense at all.”

  Sam handed the book back to Beau. “So, what was he entering into this book, in code, right before he died?”

  “The answer to that would win you top prize on one of those game shows, wouldn’t it?” He sighed and stood up. “I don’t know the answers, but I’ve been on duty since seven this morning, I’m starving and I still have five hours to go before this shift is over.”

  “Fast food? Let’s take both of our cars and meet at Burger King.”

  He picked up the mysterious journal, stuck it into an evidence bag and carried it with him as they left the PI’s office.

  “Technically, that journal should be entered into evidence and turned over to the cryptographer at the state crime lab,” he said, between bites of hamburger. “But I can see that taking forever and then, even if it did lead us to some important clue, a defense attorney would get it disqualified in a New York minute because it isn’t written in English or some such thing.”

  Sam shrugged. He was probably right.

  “You did a good job of figuring out what the dates meant,” he said. “Would you want to give the rest of it a try?”

  She stared at him.

  “Seriously. If there’s anything in there that could lead to one of his cases, odds are good that there’s a file in that office corresponding to it. Maybe you’ll spot something we can use. The guy obviously kept thorough records. On the other hand, the book might just be his accounting system. Records of payments or some such.”

  Sam pondered that. It could be exactly that. They hadn’t come across any financial ledgers, no computer. It wasn’t unheard of for a guy to keep a coded ledger or a second set of books, pocketing cash payments here and there.

  She stared at the leather book in Beau’s hand. The idea of a secret code, mysterious entries, a guy who wanted to pull something over on the IRS . . . But doubts nagged at her when she thought of the straight-arrow Fenton in the photo, receiving the governor’s award.

  “I’ll give it a try but you take it out of the evidence bag,” she said. “I’m not being responsible for that.”

  He held it up. “I never sealed it.” The book slipped into his hand and he gave it to her.

  The house was dark and cold when she got home. A note from Kelly explained that she was spending the night at the Cardwell’s since Beau had to work a double shift. She’d left a stack of the flyers announcing the gala opening of Sweet’s Sweets. Sam placed them near the back door so she wouldn’t forget them in the morning, then went to her computer and composed an email announcing the Saturday gala to her whole list of friends, as if there were any who hadn’t had an earful about Sweet’s Sweets, right from the beginning.

  Twelve hours was about the limit of the box’s power, Sam had discovered, and it was quickly fading now. She glanced at the leather journal but couldn’t summon the energy to give it much thought. Five a.m. was going to come way too early. She stuck the book out of sight in her nightstand and prepared for bed.

  Elena Tafoya came into Sweet’s Sweets again on Wednesday, shortly after noon. Sam had started Becky with muffins—they were simple enough—and found that her new assistant had a flair for coming up with ideas, mixing new combinations of flavors. Sam left her at the stove, making an autumn fruit medley of red pears, kumquats and cranberries as a topping for their plain cheesecake. It smelled heavenly as Sam left the kitchen, answering Jen’s summons. She had two visitors.

  Sam offered Elena coffee and told her to take a table while she dealt with the other
, the crew who chose this moment to install the new awning and signage. Once Sam consulted with the lead guy, she left them to their drilling and joined Elena with a mug of coffee. She wasn’t sure why the politician’s wife had taken such a liking to her, but she felt that the woman was—something—lonely?

  At any rate, when they sampled Becky’s warm fruit compote over a shared slice of cheesecake, and when Elena raved over it, Sam knew she’d found a good friendship.

  “Are you eager for the election to be done?” Sam asked, during a lull when the store was empty.

  Elena sighed. “I guess it’s always going to be this way. I once dreamed we would have children and the family would be more important to him . . .” She bit at her lower lip. “But there were no kids, and this is what Carlos does. He’s a politician to the core.”

  Sam wanted to ask if his political charisma was what attracted Elena to her husband in the first place, but another customer walked in just then. Jen had gone to the back so Sam got up and filled the man’s order for a dozen Frangelica chocolate chip cookies. He was dressed in business attire and she guessed that he was going back to the office with an after-lunch treat for the staff.

  She slipped one of the Frangelica cookies to Elena, who took a bite and rolled her eyes. “Pure magic, Sam.”

  “You can be my permanent taste-tester,” she joked.

  “Absolutely. Call me anytime you’ve got something this good.” Elena’s mood had brightened in the past few minutes.

  “You’ll come to our gala party Saturday, won’t you?” Sam asked Elena as the blond gathered her coat and purse to go.

  “I’d love to, but Carlos always has such a full schedule. We will at least make an appearance and I’ll be sure he knows you are the one making the cake for his own victory party.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take all the help I can get from high places.” Sam bagged a couple of decorated butter cookies for her new friend. “Be careful of those ladders as you go out.”

  The workmen had nearly finished hanging her large sign and Sam had to go outside and take a look. The Sweet’s Sweets logo stood out, purple against a white background with touches of gold. With the new purple awning across the front of the shop, the effect would be stunning.

  “Bob will be here himself tomorrow,” the lead guy told her. “Get the hand lettering done on the windows.”

  “Perfect.” Sam smiled at the way the storefront was coming together. She still needed to make up a few dummy cakes for the front windows. Real cake and buttercream would wilt in a few hours with the sunshine, but foam bases worked well and she would make up decorations in hardier royal icing.

  She went back inside, deciding to get started on the displays right away. As she pulled the fake forms from the latest shipment from her supplier, she got the idea for the gala cake. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She would do a large sheet cake base and then recreate the shop itself on top of it. The building would consist of stacked square cakes, coated in fondant with the brick pattern pressed into it. She could sculpt the awning and pipe images of the display cakes and the signs. The street outside would be represented in black fondant and a few evergreens and shrubs would be easy to create with sugar cones and frosting.

  Quickly, she sketched out the new idea, roughing in measurements and making sure she had enough fondant and sugar. Made herself a note to cut a board large enough to hold the whole thing, from her stash of wood in the garage.

  By three o’clock Sam had finished two wedding cakes. It made a huge difference when you didn’t actually have to bake or handle real cake. Jen and Becky helped her carry them to the front and place them in the windows on either side of the door. All three women stood outside to admire the finished picture.

  Sam had decorated one in autumn colors—garlands of fall leaves trailed from one tier down to the next, while piles of chrysanthemums in yellow and burnt orange covered the top and lay in small clusters between tiers. The other cake was a confection of white on white—actually ivory on ivory, as it was easier on the eyes. She’d created draperies of same-color fondant so it appeared that wide ribbons of fabric flowed down the sides of the cake. She’d applied a quilted look to the center tier, with tiny pearls dotting the criss-crossed lines. Pearls also draped from the edges of the tiers, and a huge fondant bow topped the upper layer.

  “They’re gorgeous!” Becky exclaimed. “I wish I’d had you make my wedding cake.”

  Sam gave her a quick hug. “I would have, if I’d known. I’ll bet you were a beautiful bride.”

  Although Becky had put on a bit of weight since the childhood days Sam remembered, she had the kind of flawless skin and glowing smile that made any woman lovely.

  “You’ll do my cake, won’t you?” Jen asked. “Well, if I ever find the guy I want to marry.”

  Becky left to pick her kids up from school, and the phone was ringing when Sam and Jen went back inside the shop. Jen answered and then handed it off to Sam.

  “Hey there,” Beau said.

  “Did you get any rest last night?” she asked.

  “Finally. Got off at eleven, and I’m back on duty now.” He dropped his voice a notch. “Did you get a chance to look at that book?”

  “Oh, sorry. Not yet. I was fading fast last night. And the shop has really been busy today. I’ll be leaving here soon and I’ll get right on it.”

  “That’s fine. Look, don’t say anything about it.”

  “I wouldn’t. You know that.”

  “I mean, within the department. If, say, Padilla was to be in your shop or anything.”

  Sam couldn’t imagine that Beau’s boss would question her about evidence in a case, but she agreed.

  “I can’t say for sure,” Beau said, “but I get the feeling that Padilla is wanting to brush this case under the rug.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do I think that, or why would he do it?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, I think it because today he specifically told me to wrap the case up. It was probably a gang thing and will never be solved, according to him. Why he would say that?—anybody’s guess. My theory is that the election is coming up very soon and he doesn’t want there to be an unsolved murder hanging over him. He wants the electorate to think that Taos County is crime-free.”

  “And chalking this death up to gang activity would do that? Pardon my skepticism.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t get it either.” He paused a moment. “Sorry, another deputy just walked past my car and I thought he was going to stop. Look, between you and me, I’ll stick with this until I get the answers. We probably won’t have an arrest, and definitely won’t have a prosecution, before the election so Padilla can rest easy. He’ll be re-elected—it’s a given in this county. I don’t know why he’s concerned. But I plan to do my investigation quietly, and I need for you to do the same.”

  Sam wondered about the politics of it all as she drove home. Once again, Kelly was staying over with Iris Cardwell, and Sam had the house to herself. It felt good. Even though she and her daughter got along really well, she liked having time alone. And since Jen and Becky had offered to open the shop, giving Sam a morning to sleep in, well that was just the icing on the cake—so to speak.

  She made a sandwich for dinner and brought out the little coded journal. Now that she’d figured out Fenton’s method of writing dates, those were easy to figure out. She noticed that each page began with a set of letters, perhaps the initials of a client or the person Fenton was checking out. Columns contained sets of letters and numbers, a shorthand system of sorts.

  Assuming that each page represented a different client, it appeared that the records belonged to about two dozen different people. Remembering back to the manila files in Fenton’s office, there had been a lot more than that. Maybe the folders contained cases dating back for years, while the ledger contained only the business he’d done this year. It was a theory but again she had no way to prove it without comparing the files. And Beau’s warrant
didn’t allow them to take anything that wasn’t related directly to the PI’s connection to Cheryl Adams. As she scanned through she found nothing in the book with Adams’s initials or her address or anything Sam could definitely tie to her. The answers were probably here somewhere but Sam’s exhausted brain wasn’t grasping them.

  She carried the journal to bed with her but drifted off without breaking the code.

  “Listen to your instincts . . .”

  Sam felt as if she were swimming up through the darkness.

  “The blood will tell the story. The lady is very worried.”

  Sam recognized the frail voice of Bertha Martinez, the old woman who’d given her the wooden box. She turned toward the voice. “Bertha?” Silence. “Bertha, is the lady Cheryl Adams? Why is she worried? How can we find her?”

  “The lady will come to you. Listen to her.”

  “Where is Cheryl Adams?” Sam asked. “Is she all right?”

  The dream ended and Sam woke with a start, her own whispers echoing in the dark room.

  “Bertha?” Her voice came out loudly, startling her.

  She sat up in bed, fully awake now. What the heck? She rubbed at her eyes, but aside from a faint light at the windows from faraway street lamps, Sam could see nothing. There was certainly no ghost or apparition or phantom spirit of Bertha Martinez.

  She struggled to remember the exact words from the dream. Something about a lady and some blood and being worried. Had Bertha given Sam a clue to finding Cheryl Adams? She just couldn’t remember.

  She looked at her bedside clock. Nearly midnight. If Beau had worked the evening shift he might still be awake. She got out of bed and put the tea kettle on as she dialed his cell number.

  “Did I wake you?” she asked.

  “No, I’ve only been home for a half hour or so. Just unwinding with some TV. Kelly’s asleep in the guest room and Mama’s probably been in bed for hours. What’s up?”

  “This is going to sound ridiculous,” she said, reaching for a mug and teabag. She told him as much as she could remember about the dream, without mentioning that she suspected the ghost of Bertha Martinez was speaking to her. That part of it was still way too hinky.