Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10)

by Connie Shelton

  Beau ushered their visitor to the guest room where he hung his garment bag in the closet and dropped a small ditty bag on the bed.

  “Dinner can be ready any time from thirty minutes onward,” Sam told the men.

  “We can wait a while. I’ll bet Kent could go for a little something to wet the whistle first,” Beau suggested.

  It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to get the guys settled on the back deck with glasses of Scotch. Sam opened the wine Taylor had brought, poured herself a glass and joined them, coming in partway through a conversation about the Robinet case.

  “I’ll email them to you,” Kent was saying. He touched some buttons on his phone.

  “Kent says they finally identified the DNA of a prostitute from the hotel room where Zack Robinet died.”

  “She has to be the one who was with him. We got prints from the bathroom faucets and some used glassware in the room. Name’s Krystal Cordova. Age twenty-six. She grew up in Taos but moved to Albuquerque three years ago. Still gets back here quite a bit to visit family and old friends. Apparently got her start as an exotic dancer at some little dive here, then moved on. She’s got that combination of good looks and flirtatious innocence that pulls guys in. According to APD’s records, she’s never worked on the streets there. Connected with an experienced girl who helps her get the high-dollar jobs in the city.”

  “Yeah, I doubt Taos has room for a whole lot of high-dollar girls,” Beau said.

  Sam remembered that it had surprised her that Taos had prostitutes at all. You think your own small town is a haven of innocence.

  Taylor passed his phone over to Beau, who took a look at the photo.

  “I’ve seen her,” he said. He held up the picture to Sam. “Just the other night.”

  “Yeah, at The Scoreboard. The night we went to try the burgers.”

  “Yep, that group in the corner.” He looked at Taylor. “There were three girls, a group of businessmen. Krystal was one of them. Big, fluffy hair and loads of makeup. Do you think she’s still here in town?”

  “The drive is only around two and a half hours so she probably runs back and forth from Albuquerque fairly often. So far in this investigation my men haven’t managed to find her at home or any of her usual city hangouts.”

  “If she’s here in town I’ll find her and bring her in for questioning tomorrow, either before or after the funeral.”

  “About that—do you think Robinet will draw a crowd?”

  “No idea. As far as I know, he’s not exactly a celebrity but his partner just got back from a trade show where they introduced a new version of the game that made them a fortune. For all I know, there could be millions of nerdy groupies out there who worship the man.”

  “Maybe it would be smart to have extra men milling among the crowd,” Kent suggested. “I’m still a big fan of the idea that a killer often shows up to witness his handiwork. We might learn something useful. I have to say, I’m hoping for a break real soon. Too many days have gone by already.”

  Beau sighed and Sam knew he was trying to figure out where these extra men would come from, since half his force was still calling in sick.

  Against her better judgment she spoke up. “I could go. What time will it be?”

  Beau leaped at the suggestion, while Taylor seemed a little skeptical.

  “Sam’s been my right hand on more than one case,” he told the detective. “She’s got uncanny senses about people.”

  Yeah, uncanny whenever she’d handled the wooden box. There actually had been a couple of instances where she’d seen auras around people who had turned out to be valid suspects. She shook off the thought of using it this time, though. She had vowed to leave it tucked away in the safe, plus, when would there be an opportunity to get it out and handle it with the cop staying right here in their house? She discarded the idea.

  “So, how about we cook those steaks now, and then maybe the three of us go out and hit a couple of bars to see if we can run across our little Krystal?” Beau said, getting up to light the grill.

  “In that case,” Taylor said, downing the last of his Scotch, “I’d better switch to a soft drink with dinner.”

  Sam microwaved the potatoes and put the finishing touches on the salad while Beau monitored the steaks. Ready for a glass of wine and quiet evening at home, she found herself hoping the men would change their minds about going out.

  However, no such luck. Two hours later they had put together their meager notes. Sam begged off, making the case (with a wink) that if Beau hoped to have a conversation with a hooker his wife’s presence would only put a damper on it.

  * * *

  Beau directed Taylor to The Scoreboard, finding the parking lot even more packed than it had been on his previous visit. Once again, the muscular Ray Belatoni was behind the bar, keeping close tabs on his crew—another bartender and four of those waitresses in short shorts and tight tops. The same three young women hovered at the back booth, although he was fairly sure the men were different ones. Under questioning, he would have to admit that he’d noticed a lot more about the girls than the men.

  Taylor surveyed the room with a practiced eye. A few conversations waned but as soon as the civilian-dressed lawmen headed for the back corner most of them picked up again. As before, the television screens blared with football commentary.

  “Krystal Cordova?” Beau looked her in the eye and there was no denying who she was. He and Taylor showed their badges. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  At the mention of her name, Krystal squirmed in her seat. If not for the fact that she was wedged between two of the men on the curved banquette seat, she might have bolted.

  “There’s nothing going on,” one of the other women said.

  “I didn’t say there was.” He took his time scanning the rest of the table, memorizing faces, although all four of the men suddenly needed to check things in their pockets. “Just a few questions at this point. Krystal, you might want to come outside where we can speak in lower voices.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth but no escape route presented itself. She gave a ragged sigh, as though she were being inconvenienced, and scooted across the lap of a man who suddenly didn’t seem to know her anymore. Beau would bet money that the rest of the table’s occupants would be gone if he were to walk back inside five minutes from now.

  Krystal tottered on her six-inch platforms and tugged at the skirt that barely covered her butt, working hard to appear unconcerned as she preceded the two lawmen toward the front door. Behind the bar, Ray Belatoni gave her a hard stare, a warning of some sort. He was probably taking a cut of everything the girls made and didn’t like the disruption in business.

  Taylor put a hand on Krystal’s elbow, guiding her toward his car, but she shook it off. “We can talk right here, Mr. Cop. I don’t get in cars with strange men.”

  Taylor laughed. “Because going to their hotel rooms is safer? Come on, Krystal. We know your record and we have your prints in a room at the Kingston Arms Hotel where a man ended up dead. I hate to be brutal about it, but usually that’s what happens to the prostitute who goes along with strange men.”

  Krystal quieted down, her eyes showing a little less flash now.

  Beau took over. “Look, Krystal, could we just get to the bottom line here? There’s all kinds of proof you were there. We’d just like to know what happened.”

  She glanced nervously toward the door where a male voice came through loudly as two guys laughed their way to a small pickup truck.

  “Someone watching you?” Taylor asked. “Someone you’re afraid of? Cause we can go downtown and ask our questions in private.”

  She fidgeted another full minute. “Yeah, that might be better.”

  Okay, that’s a new one, Beau thought as he opened the back door to Taylor’s car and climbed in after her. Taylor put the car in gear.

  Krystal started talking the moment they were out of sight of The Scoreboard. “I swear to you, Sheriff, th
at guy was dead when I came back to the room. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Back to the room? You left and came back?”

  Kent pulled into a space in the Sunday-night emptiness of the department parking lot. “Let’s get inside and start from the beginning.”

  Their suspect went along willingly enough and Beau made sure the cameras and recording equipment were functional before they spoke to her again.

  “Okay,” said Taylor, “so you went to the Kingston Arms with Zack Robinet on the night of September fifteenth. You transacted a little business.”

  She took a deep breath and began as if she were talking to a child. “I don’t remember the date but it wasn’t the fifteenth. I was back in Taos by then ’cause that’s my mom’s birthday. It was a couple days before.”

  That meshed with the story as they knew it. Robinet had been dead in the room for at least a day before an insistent maid got the manager’s permission to enter the room where a privacy request had been phoned to the desk. It was part of what made it so difficult to establish an exact time of death.

  “Okay, let’s say the thirteenth. Did you go directly up to his room or meet somewhere else?”

  “I met him in the hotel bar. It’s this cushy place that’s supposed to look like some old English library or something. I was told to approach him, to dress down, be classy.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Um …”

  “We’ll contact Hilde Maya and ask her.”

  The name of her friend rattled Krystal a little. “No, don’t do that. She didn’t know about Zack.”

  “So, who set you up with him?”

  Krystal stalled, glancing around the room, shifting in her seat. “Okay, the deal was that I could never say who hired me.”

  “That deal’s off. Don’t you get it? You’re about this close to being arrested for murder. You got no deal with anybody now, honey.”

  Beau wondered if it was APD policy to refer to a suspect as ‘honey.’ He suspected not, but sometimes you broke a few little rules.

  She fidgeted a little more. “Okay, it was the wife.”

  “Robinet’s wife? A wife hired you to take her husband to bed.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at him frankly. “It’s not the weirdest request I ever got. She actually told me to get him to fall in love with me if I could.”

  Kent’s eyes met Beau’s above Krystal’s head, exchanging a what-the-hell look.

  “And you got to the hotel and thought this would happen in one encounter.”

  She shot him a don’t-be-stupid expression. “Okay, so I didn’t quite tell it all. I’d been seeing Zack for a few weeks. The plan was coming along and I was about to ask him if he would leave her and we go off somewhere really cool together. I was thinking the Virgin Islands or Bermuda or somewhere like that.”

  “So you didn’t meet him in the hotel bar,” Beau said.

  “Oh, yeah, the first time I did. Zack was pretty cool. He’d spend money on me and I really liked the Kingston Arms. It’s a classy place. He was going to Vegas last weekend and promised to take me along, but he would get me my own room. I couldn’t let his partner know I was there. He had some big business show to do but said I could hang around the pool or go shopping and put whatever I wanted on the room bill. I really, really thought he was all into me.” Her voice cracked a little at this last part, as if it was just now hitting her that Zack was truly gone.

  “Let’s get back to the night you were at the Kingston Arms. You and he were in a suite together,” Beau said, watching her nod along with the statements. “The sex play maybe got a little rough …”

  She tilted her head. “Well, sometimes he liked me to put my hands on his throat. Oh, god, were there fingerprints? Is that why I’m here? Cause I swear I never did it very hard. He didn’t stop breathing—I swear to that!”

  Taylor switched topics. “Were there drugs involved in your little party?”

  “No. I don’t do that shit and Zack said he didn’t either. Well, okay, there were a few times we smoked a little pot. That’s not really a drug, is it? I mean it’s legal for a doctor to give it to you, right?”

  “All doctors do is give out drugs,” Taylor pointed out. “It counts. But we’re talking about something else. Was there heroin in that room?”

  “I never saw any.” Her eyes were wide now, as if the possibility of a drug charge was more dangerous to her than a murder charge.

  Taylor slammed his hands down on the table. Krystal nearly jumped out of her chair and Beau even flinched.

  “Zack Robinet died from a heroin overdose. You were in the room with him. Did you give it to him or did he shoot it himself?” The mild-mannered, middle aged cop was gone now, replaced by a man who looked like he might burst a vessel in his head.

  Krystal started to cry. “No, no, I never saw no drugs in the suite. If Zack did it himself it was while I was gone.” Her mascara had run nearly to her chin now and her face quickly became a wet mess.

  Beau seized the new lead and made his voice gentle—playing good cop to Taylor’s bad one. He handed her a box of tissues. “You left the room and came back? Maybe you better tell us about that.”

  She snuffled into the tissue for a couple of minutes. Elaborately swabbing her lower eyelids she finally got her voice under control again.

  “We’d spent all day in the bedroom—you know. And then about five o’clock we were getting hungry. Zack suggested room service but I was really in the mood for pizza and they didn’t have it. So I said I would run out and get one. There’s a Dion’s near there and that’s my favorite. I got dressed and took my car.” She breathed deeply, calming herself and getting the events in sequence.

  “I picked up a large pepperoni and came up the elevator. When I walked into the room, I told him ‘dinner is served’ all elegant-like, you know. He—he didn’t answer me. I put the pizza on the table in the living room area and went into the bedroom—” Her voice broke again.

  “He was in bed, still with no clothes on, but he looked weird. Not like himself. I said his name again and his face was just so … blank. I told him to quit kidding around and I shook him. He was warm but he was dead.” A fresh flood of tears.

  Beau wondered if this was the first time in days she had acknowledged to herself what had happened.

  “What did you do then?” he asked gently.

  “I … I got so scared. I thought he had a heart attack or something and I knew paramedics or somebody would be coming and I just couldn’t stick around. I mean, if I wasn’t going to get Vegas or the Virgin Islands or anything at all … Well, I figured let the wife deal with all of it. She’s the one who got me into this whole thing anyways.”

  “Describe your actions,” Taylor said, his tone far softer than five minutes ago.

  “I thought of CSI and I got real scared they could figure out I was there. I ran around the room and picked up the lacy little teddy I’d worn earlier and grabbed my makeup bag. And then when I went through the living room I knew my fingerprints would be on the pizza box so I took it with me. I guess that’s about it. I drove away and threw my room key in the trash. And the pizza. I couldn’t even think about eating it after that.”

  “Did you check all the rooms and closets in the suite? Could someone else have been there?”

  “Oh my god!” Her eyes were huge. “I never even thought of that. Somebody killed him. And they could have saw me.”

  She began to look a little frantic.

  “You’re safe here. But if you can think of anyone who had a reason to kill Zack you need to tell us and do it now. We can’t protect you from the killer if we don’t know who it is.”

  She swore there was no one she could think of and finally they had to let her go. Back in Kent Taylor’s car, they took her to her own vehicle in the parking lot at The Scoreboard, then followed her home to be sure she made it safely.

  “Well, now it makes sense why Josephine Robinet decided to disappear,” Taylor said on the way bac
k out to Beau’s place. “I’d say she’s our number one suspect now. Who else knew exactly where Zack would be and could stage it to implicate the girl she, herself, had paid to go there with him?”

  Chapter 13

  Chandler Lane met Beau and Sam at the door of the funeral home, apparently taking the role of host. He seemed haggard compared to their previous meeting at the offices of ChanZack Innovations the day after Zack’s death. The shock, combined with the rigors of a three-day trade show without the advantage of the business partner’s help. His loss would continue to show up in a hundred ways, Beau imagined, as the days went on.

  “So glad you could make it, Sheriff,” he said. “Are there any developments in your investigation?”

  “We’ve got some leads. We’re working the case systematically,” Beau replied.

  He spotted George and Nancy Robinet near a huge floral arrangement with a guestbook nearby. Solemn music drifted through the doors leading to a chapel where people were already taking seats on long pews. Beau steered Sam toward the parents to say hello. They asked the same question and got the same answer.

  “It’s hard to believe Josephine hasn’t come back to town,” Nancy said.

  George grumbled a little, Sam catching something about ‘her type.’ Last night Beau and Kent had stayed up fairly late discussing the case and going over details, especially the bombshell news that Jo Robinet had hired Krystal to seduce and possibly steal her husband. None of them could quite piece together any logical reason behind such a plan. Of course, as Kent Taylor pointed out, Krystal’s whole story could be pure b.s. too. Surely, the elder Robinets knew nothing of this.