Lisa scooted out from under the car and began snapping photos of the interior with the hatch open, getting shots of the suitcases inside.
“Let’s have this towed to the department garage,” Beau suggested. “I’ll get you some extra help and you can go through it inch by inch.”
Lisa sent him a grateful look and began packing her kit. Sam realized she hadn’t checked in with the bakery in awhile, so she plucked her phone from her pack. It had been on silent mode during the funeral and wake and she discovered she had messages from both Kelly and Zoë.
Kelly didn’t answer her phone. Zoë suggested a glass of wine together if Sam happened to be out and about.
“I’m with Beau on a forensic scene right now,” Sam said. She glanced at the time and asked Beau when he thought he would be free.
“Not until late,” he told her. “If I can’t round up another forensic person to help Lisa I should go along to process this car. I’ll drop you at home first.”
“How about the bakery instead?” It was closer and she could pick up her van. She gave Zoë an estimate of an hour before she could be there.
“Stay for dinner then,” Zoë suggested. “I heard Beau say he would be busy and I’ve got a pot of my green chile stew on the stove.”
No one in her right mind would turn down Zoë’s green chile stew. Sam agreed without hesitation.
* * *
The tow truck driver couldn’t possibly be any slower, Beau thought as he waited in his cruiser at the department’s inadequate impound garage. With no luck at finding someone with more than minimal forensics training to assist Lisa in processing the Lexus, he’d been forced to take that task himself. After dropping Sam at her vehicle he’d come here, expecting the truck and Lisa’s department Suburban to already be here. No matter—he could use the time to return Kent Taylor’s call, which he’d missed.
“Just got back to Albuquerque,” Kent said, “and I’ve been reviewing the security tapes from the Kingston Arms. Our guys narrowed down the hours of the day for me. Now we’re trying to figure out exactly what we’re seeing.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Well, not Josephine Robinet, if that’s what you mean. I’m looking at the footage for the entire afternoon and evening.” He murmured something as he apparently forwarded the tape. “Here’s Zack and Krystal walking down the hall together and going into a room. Unfortunately, his room was at the far end of the hall away from the camera. There are these little alcoves up and down the hall and each one leads to two rooms. So it’s impossible to know if, say, a person stepping out of our sight went into room 933 or room 935.”
Beau tried to fix an image in his head that fit Taylor’s description.
“The ninth floor has the pricier, deluxe rooms and a couple of small suites, so there wasn’t a lot of traffic. I’ve got a couple of businessmen arriving and never leaving their own rooms. Another one who comes and goes. Krystal is pretty identifiable—the only female with that fluffy hairdo. She leaves and comes back at pretty much the intervals she described to us. Even has the pizza box when she comes back. And it’s not but a couple minutes before she bolts from the room and runs to the elevator with a wad of clothing bunched up in her arms.”
“That fits with her story, all right.”
“Okay, let’s see here … I’ve got an unknown male who took the elevator to the ninth floor then walked toward Zack’s room. Again, can’t say for sure if he went into 933 or 935 but he didn’t stay long and he never returned all night. Not exactly the movements a guest would make.”
“Can you tell if he used a keycard or did Zack let him into the room?”
“Can’t tell. It’s those damn little alcoves.”
“I assume you don’t recognize him?”
“No, dammit. He’s wearing a hat with a fairly wide brim. I think he’s aware of the camera because he keeps his head down so there’s never a clear look at his face.”
“What about stature, gait? Anything familiar there?”
“I’m gonna have our film technician copy and send you this short clip. You know these people better than I do. Maybe you can tell.”
The lead seemed skimpy—after all, a guy walking down the hall in a hotel could be anybody in the world—but Beau agreed to take a look.
The tow truck hauling Jo Robinet’s Lexus arrived just then, followed by Lisa in her Suburban. By the time the luxury car was offloaded, Beau had received a message from Taylor with thirty seconds of video attached. He watched it while Lisa pulled a stack of evidence envelopes from her kit and began earnestly gathering bits and pieces from the interior of Jo’s car. She would use sticky tape to pluck up hairs, fabric fibers, skin cells—anything that could later be used to tie the occupant(s) of the car to the case.
On the video, Beau understood Taylor’s frustration at not being able to see what went on within those little alcoves. They were no more than twenty-four inches deep, but a person and his actions disappeared from camera view the instant he stepped toward any of the guestroom doors. The man in the hat was no exception. There was no way to say positively that he even entered the room. He could have been standing in the alcove, although it was unlikely, for the full five minutes he vanished from view. Instead, Beau gave his attention to watching the man walk down the corridor and back, memorizing the way he carried himself. Something about him seemed familiar.
Chapter 17
Sam handed bowls to Zoë who ladled them full of her hearty stew, so fragrant with onions and meat that it nearly made Sam’s knees buckle.
“It’s just the two of us? Where’s Darryl?” she asked, carrying one of the hot bowls to Zoë’s large round kitchen table.
“Bowling.”
“Seriously? Darryl?” Sam had a hard time picturing the tall, white-bearded contractor in a bowling alley. He was much more mountain-man than beer-and-fries and bowling shirts.
“There’s a new guy on his crew for this house they’re building now who invited him. Darryl likes him and agreed to this before he really thought it through. He’ll have a backache in the morning.” Zoë brought spoons and napkins to the table and topped up their wine glasses.
Sam blew the steam that was wafting off the stew and scooped up a spoonful of the combination of pork, tomatoes, chile and potato.
“I suppose you heard about the big surprise at Zack Robinet’s funeral today,” Sam said, waiting a moment for the stew to cool.
“Um, no … But I’m guessing there’s a story. Funerals and surprises don’t generally go together.”
“Remember Jane, who’s been doing chocolates for me at the shop?”
Zoë turned her palms up, a tad impatient at the switch in topics. Sam laughed and told her about the ugly plaid coat and wig. “I tell you, I was completely shocked when someone called her Jo Robinet.”
“No! Wow.” Zoë had set her spoon down. “So, this Jane who’s been in your shop all week … Did she really have amnesia at all?”
“She says she did. Says she only began to remember things in detail the night before the funeral.”
“Do you believe her? I guess I should ask, does Beau believe her?”
Sam shifted a little in her chair.
“Come on, you guys didn’t fight about this, did you?”
“Oh, no. It got a little tense but no fight.” Not really.
“So where on earth did Jane, uh, Jo learn so much about chocolate? I gather that Zack Robinet’s wife wasn’t a candy shop owner here in town or you would have already known about her.”
“That goes back to her childhood. Her father was a chocolatier somewhere back east.”
“So she’s still working for you?”
“Yeah. I mean, she’s fantastic with the chocolates and has some really creative ideas for a special order we’re doing right now.”
“And Beau doesn’t see her as a suspect in her husband’s death? The papers are full of the story of sex and drugs and all kinds of creepy stuff.” Zoë looked a little sideways at Sam, q
uestioning the sanity of her keeping Jo on at the shop.
“He’s ruled her out completely.” Well, Sam hoped by now it was completely.
“If you say so.” Zoë passed a basket of tortillas and turned back to eating her stew.
Sam’s phone rang and the readout said it was Kelly. Perfect timing for a change of subject. She apologized to Zoë and took the call.
“Hey, sorry I missed you earlier,” Sam said. “What’s up?”
“Not much. I wanted to let you know that Jen dropped off your bank deposit with me when she left the bakery this evening. I’m going out, so I can either leave it here at my house for you to pick up or bring it to work in the morning.”
“That’s okay,” Sam said. “Just bring it when you come to work. I’ll break away sometime in the morning and get the money to the bank.”
She clicked off the call and looked up to see Zoë watching from the corners of her eyes.
“What?”
“You said ‘that’s okay’ but it didn’t really sound so nonchalant as you wanted it to. Kelly’s still being coy about the new guy?”
“She is, and I have a sneaking suspicion … something I don’t want to admit even to myself.”
Zoë gave a long stare. “What on earth would that be?”
The barrier broke. “I think the new boyfriend is Julio Ortiz, my baker. And I keep having these creepy thoughts about his past trouble with the law and the tattoos and the loud motorcycle. Am I horrible, or what?”
Zoë smiled indulgently. “Okay, for one thing, Kelly hasn’t even indicated that she’s very serious about this new guy. But with you it’s something more—are you talking about prejudice? You think you’re prejudiced against Julio? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I’ve known you twenty years, Samantha Sweet, and I’ve never seen a scrap of prejudice in anything you do. You hired the man, you trust your business to him. Is he the picture you had in your mind for a future son-in-law? Probably not. But as you’ve told me yourself, he’s a nice guy who has been nothing but hardworking and honest. There are clean-cut guys out there who don’t have that going for them.”
Sam immediately thought of everything Jo Robinet had told her about the horrible secrets within her marriage. Yes, Kelly could do a lot worse than Julio.
* * *
Beau handed Lisa the final envelope, which contained a numbered sample of human hair taken from the headrest of the Lexus. He hated forensics. Well, he loved it when a DNA sample or distinctive carpet thread connected the impossible dots in a case and allowed him to make an arrest that would stand up in court. He hated the part where a team had to spend hours collecting, bagging, and labeling those samples. Revise that: he hated the part where he was on that team. He thanked heaven for people like Lisa who thrived on the details. For himself, he’d rather be out in the field, putting clues together and tracking down bad guys.
Since viewing the video from the Albuquerque hotel it was all he could think about. Although Ray Belatoni might be too stocky, both Belatoni and Donny Vargas fit the general height and build of the man in the hat. And he knew of one place where he could go to observe both of them: The Scoreboard.
He saw Lisa to her vehicle and felt pleased that she was excited to get back to her small lab and start running tests. Of course, most of their evidence would have to be sent to the state crime lab in Santa Fe and would fall into a system that was way overloaded. Contrary to what people wanted to believe from television, lab tests rarely led directly to a quick arrest. They could, however, be invaluable in verifying whether Beau’s own footwork in finding and bringing in the right suspect had paid off.
Lisa drove away and Beau got into his cruiser. He was halfway to the sports bar when he remembered he was still wearing the suit he’d worn to Zack Robinet’s funeral this morning. Maybe that was a good thing. Being out of uniform would allow him to walk a little more unobtrusively into the bar.
He parked his cruiser at the edge of the crowded parking lot, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and did a quick job of brushing off the dust his pants had acquired during the inspection of the Lexus. Running his fingers through his hair he decided he fit the part of a guy having a beer after work well enough.
Ray Belatoni was behind the bar again. He recognized Beau and remembered his preference for a Dos Equis. Beau took a stool near the end and made sure he could see most of the room in the mirror. Krystal and two other overly made-up girls were again at the corner table, this time with some locals who were most likely friends rather than clients. Donny Vargas was one of them. They had been watching one of the big screens across the room but once Vargas made eye contact with Beau, the laughter at the table grew a little more raucous.
Showing me how unconcerned you are? He sipped his Dos Equis, realizing Sam would tease him about being as cool as the suave guy from the commercials. The idea put a little smile on his face.
Belatoni seemed in constant motion, checking on his patrons or clearing empty glasses. Beau thought of the video again but couldn’t place the bar owner as the man in the hat. His way of moving behind the bar was entirely different from a guy walking down the corridor in a hotel and there wasn’t an easy way to compare. As for Vargas, he was sipping some type of amber liquid from a heavy glass, a beverage that probably wouldn’t send him to the men’s room for a long time, so Beau was unlikely to observe the way he walked for awhile yet. He memorized each of the men’s facial features as he finished his beer.
It was nearing ten p.m. by the time he paid his tab and walked out to the cruiser. Sam was probably home in bed by now so he didn’t follow his first impulse to call her. Most of the televised games would be over soon, so odds were The Scoreboard would empty out and he could be home at a reasonable time. He got in his vehicle and moved it across the street where the shadow of a big cottonwood might help conceal the fact that he was watching the bar.
His luck held. Donny Vargas, Krystal and one of the other girls came out about fifteen minutes later. Beau had used the time to review the hotel video on his phone but it wasn’t a lot of help. He could not definitively say that Vargas was the man in the hat.
An hour later, six cars remained in the lot at The Scoreboard and Beau had a feeling Ray Belatoni would not leave until the last customer had spent his money. He decided to pack it in for tonight.
At home, Sam was fast asleep. He brushed his teeth and undressed as quietly as possible and snuggled in beside her. When daylight brightened the north-facing window, he discovered Sam gone and a slip of paper propped against his alarm clock.
You worked late, so I bought you some extra sleep, her note said. Although he normally would have been up before dawn to tend to the ranch chores and get to his office well before the day shift began, he appreciated her thoughtfulness. Obviously, he’d needed the rest.
While he showered, dressed in his uniform and went to the barn to scoop oats for the horses, he thought again about his little surveillance mission last night. Still no answers. He would check with Lisa to be sure she’d obtained all the evidence she needed, then he supposed he could release Jo Robinet’s vehicle.
* * *
Sam counted the pieces of chocolate for Stan Bookman’s unconventional order. Allowing for a little breakage in handling and those that were not quite perfect, she and Jane had completed about half of what they would need. She sat back against the edge of the worktable, holding her first mug of coffee between her palms and contemplating the candy. What more could they do to make the assortment unique?
Her eyes drifted to the shelf above the stove. In a small tin box were three little cloth pouches, each containing granules of a special powder. Sam had no idea what they were; the chocolatier, Bobul, had given them to her. The magical ingredients gave Sweet’s Sweets something no other chocolate shop could duplicate. Whatever they were, they made her candies irresistible. Sam was half afraid to put the enchanted powder into a full box of candy. She supposed a person might overdose on the stuff somehow. But if a few of t
he pieces contained Bobul’s secret ingredients … there was no way Mr. Bookman’s wife wouldn’t flip out for them.
She quickly set her mug aside. She would have to work fast to perform the act before anyone else arrived. Julio was due in ten minutes. She pulled a container from the storage shelf, a now-cold block of chocolate Jo had cooked and tempered on Saturday. They’d run out of time before she could pour it into molds, but since chocolate could be re-melted and tempered it was no problem. Sam tipped the block into a pan with a low flame and reached for the tin above.
The mixture had just begun to melt nicely when she heard Julio’s motorcycle in the alley. Quickly, she took a pinch from the red cloth pouch. Then the green. Then the blue. The chocolate foamed upward for a millisecond, then settled into gentle bubbles. She replaced the tin on the shelf as the back doorknob turned.
“Good morning, Sam,” Julio said, removing his leather jacket and rubbing his hands together.
She thought again of her conversation last night with Zoë and felt a rush of warmth toward him. He smiled, washed his hands and began pulling ingredients from the fridge for the early morning breakfast pastries. Not a trace of secrecy in his demeanor. Sam, herself, felt more guilty for sneaking special ingredients into the chocolate than Julio exhibited right now. She pushed the thought aside and checked her candy thermometer.
By the time Jo arrived, Sam had divided the dark chocolate into a couple of smaller batches and was adding cream to one.
“Oh, I do love milk chocolates,” Jo said. “I know the trend these days is toward dark, but if it’s done right milk chocolate just takes me right back to childhood.”
Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10) Page 15
