The detective had brought his own car to the funeral, planning to head back to Albuquerque as soon as he’d had the chance to observe the crowd here. He already had men in Albuquerque talking to the staff at the Kingston Arms and reviewing security tapes and keycard usage to see if what the young woman said gelled with the facts. Sam didn’t see him around; he must have already taken a seat inside the chapel.
A slightly built teenage boy slouched across the room and came to stand beside the Robinets. They introduced him as Bentlee, Zack’s son. He had the look of entitlement that was probably de rigueur at exclusive boarding schools. Expensive suit, rebelliously unkempt light brown hair to go with the down-your-nose attitude with which he regarded Sam and Beau. Nancy reached out to take his hand but he sidestepped her before she actually touched him.
Sam knew Kent Taylor had questioned the teen back in Albuquerque, the day he’d been sent to inform the boy of his father’s death. Taylor’s impression was that this kid was no stranger to drugs—he’d practically bragged that kids in his school could get anything they wanted whenever they wanted it. But Bentlee had been genuinely surprised to learn that his father had died from a heroin overdose, Taylor was sure of that. So much for the possibility father and son had done drugs together. Provided Krystal’s version of the events of that day was substantiated by the hotel’s video records, it looked fairly certain Bentlee wasn’t a suspect.
“Oh, it’s exactly like her to skip out,” the teen was saying in response to someone else’s question about his mother. “If it was important to my dad, she hated it. She never supported anything he did, and it’s no wonder she can’t be bothered to come to his funeral.”
Sam wanted to wipe the sneer off his pugnacious little face, just on the principle that kids should be respectful toward the adults in their lives. She took a breath. Thankfully, he was not her problem. This could be evidence of one more crack in the Robinet marriage. It was sad how often bickering parents recruited the kids to take sides.
People continued to pour into the lobby and the Robinets became quickly distracted by friends and sympathizers. Beau moved off, probably to touch base with Kent Taylor, and Sam decided to sign the guest book.
“Hey, Sam. I didn’t expect to see you here.” She turned to see Darryl Chartrain, Zoë’s husband.
“Beau. Work.”
He nodded understanding.
“I didn’t know you knew the Robinet family, either,” she said.
“Me? I did a big remodeling job at their offices a couple years ago, became a huge fan of the game Zack and Chandler invented.”
Seriously? Sam always imagined online gaming as the domain of teenage boys and nerdy young men. Darryl, gray-haired contractor with a successful business and partner in the B&B with Zoë, did not at all seem the type. You just never knew.
“Well,” he continued, “that plus the fact that George and Nancy used to be neighbors before they moved to their new place. We knew Zack as a teen, before he and Jo married.”
“Is Zoë here?”
“She wanted to come but we had a houseful of guests last night and she needed to stay home to see them off. They’re heading toward Pike’s Peak this afternoon.”
Another of Darryl’s neighbors grabbed his attention and Sam turned to look for Beau. True to form, he was standing near the entrance to the chapel, smiling and nodding at those he recognized. Behind his pleasant demeanor she could tell he was processing information relentlessly, memorizing faces and making mental notes he and Kent could discuss. It couldn’t be easy to treat every occasion as a grab-bag of clues to be sorted and used in his job. Sam said hello to a few of her bakery customers as she edged toward her husband.
“I’ll find seats for us,” she said under her breath. “Near the back?”
“Thanks.” He shook hands with a man who approached just then.
Sam spotted Kent Taylor sitting alone at the end of a pew in the north corner of the big room. Assuming Beau would want to cover the opposite side the room, she found two spaces along the south wall and staked out spots there. Already, the chapel was nearly full. Popular guy, this Zack Robinet. Many familiar faces in the crowd. Sam marveled at how closely their lives may have touched upon each other and yet even in this small town the two families had never met.
She settled in for the ritual of the service, monotonously sad music setting the mood with the kind of tunes that brought back unhappy memories from other such occasions. She wondered how funeral directors handled it—avoided becoming depressed around so much grief and gloom every day of their lives. Maybe the same way Beau did it, approaching each day as a job to be done.
At some point the doors closed and he took his seat beside her, reaching for her hand with a little smile, squeezing it when a burst of sobs erupted from the front section where Nancy Robinet sat next to her husband. Sam couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose her only child, especially the way these people had. If she allowed those thoughts into her head she would be a puddle of tears in no time. Instead, she let her mind wander back to the discussion of suspects that had kept Beau and Kent going last night. That quickly became a tangle of statements by people Sam didn’t know, and she turned her thoughts to things she could control—the order of fine chocolates which Jane was, even now, working on at the bakery.
Sam let herself envision the special ingredient she would add to a batch later, the thing that made her chocolates irresistible to her customers. A smile formed on her face until she realized how inappropriate that would seem to anyone who might look her direction. The final prayer began and she bowed her head, sneaking a peek at Beau who openly observed people in the crowd. She squeezed his hand once more.
Eventually, talk ended and movement began as the mourners began making their way to the front to offer condolences to the family. Sam hung back with Beau. Somehow, Kent Taylor had gotten past them and now hovered near the doorway at the front of the room where those in the receiving line had to exit.
“So, is that it for your part?” she asked Beau.
“I think Kent wants to go along to the cemetery. Some clue might emerge depending on who shows up there.” He watched her face. “I get the feeling you’re eager to get back to work?”
“Well, yeah. But I can go along with you. There’s nothing crucial right now.”
“Do whatever you want. I’m sure Kent and I can handle the crowd. Afterward, I’ll probably let the department treat him to lunch before he heads back to Albuquerque and I get on with my interrogations.”
Movement behind her caught Sam’s attention, someone else ducking out of the condolence line and heading for the rear door. The woman disappeared the moment Sam turned her head, the hem of a long plaid coat the only real look she got. Something seemed very familiar about the person, but Sam couldn’t think why. Earlier, she had spotted a number of people she knew but the clothing didn’t match with any of them. She shook off the feeling. It wasn’t as if it mattered anyway.
She realized Beau was looking at her, waiting for an answer about lunch, it seemed.
“It’s simpler if I stick with you,” she said, “since we rode together.”
They met up with Kent Taylor in the parking lot and decided to take a back way to the cemetery without becoming caught up in the long and slow funeral procession.
“You never know,” Taylor said. “Watching people come and go from things like this can be fairly enlightening.”
It took thirty minutes for the entire crowd to make the ten-minute drive, park and assemble again once Zack’s coffin had been carried from the hearse and set in place. Sam’s patience was showing severe strain and she really wished she’d asked Beau to detour by her shop and drop her off at work. She shifted from one foot to the other as the non-denominational minister uttered more of the same tired phrases he’d said back at the chapel. About the time she was thinking of a way to conceal a yawn she heard a ripple pass along the edge of the crowd.
There, not more than twenty feet away,
was the woman she’d noticed earlier. There could only be one of those plaid coats anywhere in the state.
“It’s her!” someone nearby said.
“Yes!” The stage-whisper attracted more attention than if the word had been uttered aloud.
Sam’s attention locked onto the bulky coat, the gray hair and lopsided felt hat. Someone plucked at the woman’s sleeve and the coat slipped off her shoulder. The stranger’s expression became instantly familiar.
“Jane!” The name slipped out before Sam realized she’d said it. “What are you doing—?”
“It’s Jo!” Others called out the name. “Jo Robinet!”
She spun, trying to slip out of the coat and run but her clunky shoes caught on tree roots hidden in the grass and she stumbled. The cheap gray wig went lopsided on her head as the hat fell to the ground. Beau was there in an instant, taking her arm and not letting go.
“Josephine Robinet?” he queried.
Sam rushed to his side and stared the woman in the face. Their Jane Doe could no longer hide her identity.
Chapter 14
Well, this day just got a whole lot more interesting, Sam thought as she followed Beau to the interrogation room where they had stashed Jane—now Jo—when they arrived at the station. She had come along without argument after the final minutes of the funeral erupted in near chaos. The scene flashed through Sam’s mind: Nancy Robinet swooning against her husband’s side, Bentlee Robinet’s open-mouthed astonishment, the long-winded preacher silent for the first time all morning. Chandler Lane and his employees seemed shaken.
Once it became clear that Jo was leaving with the sheriff, the cacophony of voices dampened to a hush. Sam felt sorry for the woman she’d worked with for several days now, watching the downcast eyes and trembling mouth. It took a few minutes for it to sink in that Jane had deceived her all that time, obviously knowing.
“May I speak to her first?” Sam asked outside the department’s interrogation room.
She’d caught up with Beau as he was about to open the door. Kent Taylor stood behind.
“I know what you want to ask, Sam. Whether she really had amnesia at all. We’ll get to that, but I want to concentrate on the stuff Krystal told us yesterday, too.”
Sam fidgeted as Taylor seconded Beau. “Why don’t you wait in the observation room while we talk to her? You’ll get a chance for personal conversation before it’s all over.”
Beau seemed taken aback at the glare Sam sent his direction but the responding tightness around his mouth told her that this was, first and foremost, a law enforcement matter. She spun around and walked into the mirrored room that allowed visual and audio observation. Plopping herself into a chair she stewed. Beau entered the interrogation room first, alone. Kent Taylor had slipped into the observation room and stood now beside Sam’s chair.
“Mrs. Robinet,” Beau said. He offered coffee or a soft drink. Jo declined both.
He began with soft questions: When did she first learn of her husband’s death? Where was she when she heard it?
“This morning. The bakery employees said Sam had gone to Zack Robinet’s funeral.” There were tears in her voice. “I had no memory until last night, but the mention of his name brought it all back.”
Beau looked skeptical. “Okay, we’ll return to that. You have memories from the past, so let’s explore how far back those memories go. Do you remember talking to a prostitute named Krystal?”
Jo said she didn’t, but she couldn’t meet his eyes as she said it.
Taylor sputtered. “That’s bull.” He left Sam’s side and pushed into the interrogation room, none too quietly. Earlier, he’d been in a hurry to get back to Albuquerque; Beau’s slow and easy style wasn’t going to suit him.
“Krystal Cordova says you hired her to seduce your husband,” Taylor said, not bothering to soften his voice. “She says you knew when and where she would be with him. When she left the room you had ample opportunity to go in there and kill him. I’ll be blunt here. To us, it looks like that’s exactly what you did.”
“What!” Jo’s timidity vanished and her eyes flashed. “I absolutely did not kill Zack. That’s crazy!”
“Is it? You showed up at the bakery with bruises and scrapes. Looks to us like you confronted him over his infidelity, he got rough with you, you killed him. You figured back in your hometown you could pretend you didn’t know anything about it and would find sympathy.”
Sam sucked in her breath. That accusation didn’t at all fit with the facts. If Jo wanted sympathy, she would have showed up among friends or family. Plus, injecting someone with a lethal drug dose took a lot more planning. His version required that Jo first hire a hooker then—illogically—get angry over the fact that her husband had sex with the woman and show up at their hotel with a syringe already loaded with heroin.
Beau left Taylor in charge and came into the observation room where Sam was trying to process what she’d heard. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Sorry I got a little short with you earlier,” he said.
“What’s he doing in there?” Sam asked, nodding toward the mirrored window.
“Taylor is just trying to rattle Mrs. Robinet, either to get a true confession of the events or to find out how real her amnesia was.”
“I spent a lot of time with that woman,” Sam said. “I can’t believe she would resort to heroin to kill the man. Beaning him over the head with a heavy ashtray—maybe. But hard drugs? I just don’t see it.”
“At risk of ticking you off again, honey, you didn’t spot her as a woman who would hire a hooker either.”
“Neither did you.”
“True. That’s why we can’t assume things about a suspect. We have to ask the questions and gather the evidence.”
Okay. She got that.
Taylor’s voice grew louder, his quiet-cop persona well hidden now. When he slammed a hand down on the tabletop, Beau moved toward the door.
“Time for good cop to show up again. This time, why don’t you come? Now that he’s scared her a bit maybe we’ll make more progress.”
Sam followed willingly.
Jo stood when they entered and Taylor left. She came straight to Sam and hugged her.
“Oh, Sam. I didn’t want it to come out like this. It’s not at all like I planned. When I heard about the funeral I knew my son would be there. I only wanted to get a look at him, to see if he was all right. The disguise was stupid—things I grabbed out of a charity bin. I only wanted to see my little boy—” Jo sobbed, leaning into Sam’s arms.
Beau stood by and let Sam make some there-there noises to calm their suspect.
“Let’s sit down and maybe you can tell us more about what you planned,” Sam said. She suggested Beau get them some bottled water.
When he was gone she turned to Jo. “I have a hard time not thinking of you as Jane, the chocolate maker. Having amnesia must be a very weird feeling. Did your memory come back all at once or a little at a time?”
“A little at a time.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.
So Becky wasn’t entirely wrong about Jane.
“When?”
“Day before yesterday, as I was working with the chocolate I had a vision of making chocolate rabbits for my son’s Easter basket. Seeing the chocolate molds at your shop triggered a lot of things for me.”
“I want to know more about that—really, all about it. Where you learned so much and who trained you … but right now we need to concentrate on what the police need to know. About what happened to Zack. You don’t really want to be locked up and go through the whole legal system, do you?”
Jo shook her head and another tear slid down her left cheek.
“So, anything you can tell us that could be backed up with facts … that would be helpful.”
“I did hire Krystal. That part is true. I don’t know how to explain this, especially to anyone who’s happily married like you, Sam.” She stared at a spot in the middle of the lami
nated table top. “Zack was so charming and thoughtful in the beginning. He sent flowers after every date along with these beautiful notes saying what a memorable time he’d had. Such a gentleman. And our wedding—he completely understood my dream of a big wedding and a dream honeymoon to Hawaii. He bought me jewelry and clothes and we always stayed in the best hotels. This was even before the business became as successful as it is now. We weren’t rich in those early years but I had the feeling he would spend every last dime, if that’s what it took, to make me happy and comfortable.”
Sam knew her expression must look doubtful; she couldn’t figure out how this connected to recent events.
“Then Zack changed. At first, the abuse was verbal—little digs about what I’d chosen to wear that day or how dinner turned out. I didn’t even realize my self-esteem was crumbling away until the first time he hit me. We’d been married nearly two years by then and I was seven months pregnant with Bentlee.” Jo’s voice became steadier as she related the events.
“My gosh, Jo.”
“I couldn’t believe it happened. He was so happy about the baby and I really—stupidly—believed he’d tripped and accidentally struck me. I actually apologized to him! It happened the second time when Bentlee was about a month old. Zack and I were both worn out from waking up during the night, and one evening I complained, saying I really needed to go to bed early. Zack struck out and punched me in the stomach. I fell, and I think I slept right there on the couch, numb and shocked.”
Her voice had become almost a monotone, reciting facts without emotion. “Increasingly, I felt stuck. By the time five years went by, I knew he would never stand for me taking Bentlee away. The only thing that saved my sanity was when Zack went out of town on business. He and Chandler were all wrapped up in developing Infinite Star Fighter so there was a lot of travel. I savored those nights alone when he wouldn’t force himself on me in bed. If I didn’t pretend to enjoy the sex he would just get violent and keep me awake half the night screaming obscenities and punching me in the ribs or stomach. And then it would end, suddenly. After the attacks he would be completely sweet and solicitous, as if nothing had happened. The next day I would get a new fur coat or diamond bracelet or something.”
Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10) Page 12
