Cinco De Murder

by Rebecca Adler

  He smiled. “That was the first time the senora called me an Indian.”

  “I’m still embarrassed when I think about it.”

  “Lenna. Her name was Lenna.”

  “What happened?” I asked softly.

  “She preferred New Mexico, and her career there.” The light changed again, and this time we continued toward the gazebo and the band.

  “I’m sorry.” And I was. Couldn’t anyone stay together? Was it too much to ask for a betrothed to stay the course?

  Suddenly he smiled, showing all his teeth, and the effect was amazing. “I’m not. Sometimes life gives you lemons, and other times it gives you tamales.”

  Chapter 10

  Senora Mari’s Dream

  I woke with a start, the smell of chili and cheddar wafting through my brain.

  Senora Mari placed her child-sized hand over my mouth. “Don’t scream. It’s me.”

  My pulse raced until my sleep-fogged brain recognized my abuela, who had once again invaded my privacy in my own home. “Too late,” I said in a muffled voice.

  I sat up against the carved mesquite wood headboard and her hand fell away.

  She tossed Lenny lightly to the floor and perched in his place on the edge of the bed. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Yip, yip, yip.”

  I groaned. “You said it, Lenster.”

  “Shh!” She reached down and stroked his head.

  In spite of my abuela’s proclaimed animosity toward my Chi friend, I’d received reports she was coming around. I reached around her and placed him in my lap. “He doesn’t like to be supplanted.” I kissed his pointy head.

  She gestured toward his doggie bed that both looked and smelled like a week-old crunchy beef taco. “That is his home. Plant him there. I have something important.”

  I was stalling because I could guess what her big news would turn out to be. “You’re a regular dream factory these days, Abuela.” I softened my sarcasm by adding my version of a Spanish accent to the endearment.

  She pursed her lips. “You have been home for a year now and your accent is still insuficiente.”

  “True.” My comprehension of Spanish was much better than my ability to speak it. “Tell me your dream. Did you see someone die in this one?” I didn’t know how Lucky Straw met his maker, but inquiring minds needed to know.

  “Do not make fun.” She lifted her chin.

  “I’m not. I need a lead and you’re the closest thing I’ve got.” Lenny turned around in my lap to face her, and began licking her skirt. She was already dressed for the parade and wore the bright multi-tiered skirt with lace trim. Lenny seemed to think the lace was meant to be a doggie treat—if he could only work it off the skirt with this tongue.

  “I was in a field of flowers.”

  “Yip.”

  “Shh.” Senora Mari gave his nose a tap.

  “We want to know what kind of flowers.”

  “Flowers from the moon.” She raised her brows, daring me to contradict.

  I bit the inside of my cheek instead.

  “Yip.”

  “Shh, dog. Shh.” This time she gave him three quick taps to the nose.

  “He’s just asking what kind of flowers grow on the moon.” I slipped down beneath the covers. If she was going to string us along from detail to detail, I was going to rest while she did it.

  With a shake of her head, she continued. “Don’t look at me as if I am loco. I know flowers do not grow on the moon. But in my dream, there were bluebonnets.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  Lenny yawned.

  “I also saw a lightning bolt.”

  I bolted upright in bed. “On the surface, on a bluebonnet, where?”

  “Yip.” Lenny jumped into Senora Mari’s lap.

  Instead of handing him back, she ran a hand slowly from his head to his tail as she considered her answer. “It was electric blue, and it hung in the sky.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  Again she slowly drew her hand down Lenny’s back. “He’s gained weight.”

  “Someone’s feeding him scraps?”

  She shrugged. “I feed him nothing.”

  “Forget I mentioned it.” She might pretend he was the biggest nuisance on earth, but Carlos told me he’d caught her on more than one occasion feeding him steak bones. “What do you think the blue flowers and lightning bolt represent?”

  Lenny sensed she was in a giving mood and rolled over to expose his white belly.

  “I have thought about that very thing all morning while you lay in this bed.” She did not deny him his pleasure. As his leg begin to jump in response, the corners of her mouth turned up into a rare smile. “Dead people turn blue, sí?”

  “I guess.” I swallowed, envisioning a room full of dead people, lying on metal gurneys, naked and blue.

  “I believe this to be true.” She lifted her palms to the ceiling. “Blue is death and lightning is power.”

  “So Lucky experienced death by power . . . electricity?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Perhaps it means a misuse of power, like that of a tyrant or dictator.” She patted Lenny’s stomach and withdrew her hand.

  “No, no. Let’s go back to misuse of electrical power.”

  She stood and heaved a sigh. “I cannot change the signs in my dream to fit your ideas. It is death by dictator.” Brushing down her skirt, she moved to the door. “Get up or we’ll be late.”

  “Yip, yip.” Lenny jumped lightly to the floor.

  “You see, your little friend agrees with me. We will be on time.” She raised her index finger into the air dramatically. “The future of ballet folklórico in Broken Boot and all of Big Bend County depends on us.” She lowered her finger and aimed it at me. “Don’t forget his costume.”

  As she marched for the door, I made up the bed. “She didn’t mention Lucky, did she?”

  “Yip.”

  “But if blue is dead, and Lucky’s dead, I still think her dream means death.” I took my skirt and blouse out of the closet. I rolled my eyes. “Or power?”

  “Yip,” Lenny said in agreement.

  “Right. Lucky’s dead to begin with. We can all agree that’s true.”

  With his tail wagging a million times a minute, Lenny ran to the dresser and placed his front paws on the drawer that held his folklórico costume.

  “Wait a minute, senor.” I wriggled out of my pajamas and tossed them into the hamper. “One thing is clear.” I stepped into my skirt and buttoned my blouse. “You and I need a home of our own that’s harder to get to.”

  “Yip, yip.”

  “Or a new lock. How’s a girl to have any privacy?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Thirty minutes later, we were all up early having our usual cup of coffee and morning chat—only it was two hours earlier, due to the parade. “You’re telling me that woman pretended to have three children in order to win, but she didn’t win?” Uncle Eddie was reading his paper and gathering only the smallest threads of the conversation.

  “No, hon,” Aunt Linda said. “Those were actually her kids. She just said that to be ornery.”

  “How did you ferret that out of her?” My aunt had a way about her that brooked no nonsense.

  She gave me a knowing smile. “The little girl told me.”

  I laughed, which caused Uncle Eddie to look up in bemusement at the two of us.

  Senora Mari entered from the kitchen, marched over to her son, and slid a plate of huevos rancheros in front of him. “Three children is a blessing.”

  I watched my abuela carefully, but she didn’t glance at my Aunt Linda after her pronouncement. Though often salty, she would never insult my aunt’s inability to have children. In my abuela’s own life, she had known the
sting of having only one child in a culture that applauded big families.

  “Yes, Mamá.” The sunny-side egg smiled at Uncle Eddie from the small cast-iron skillet. The aroma of fresh salsa, leftover refrieds, cheese, and onions woke my sleepy brain and had my taste buds calling, Me, me, me.

  “And what about your favorite reporter? May I too have some, Abuela? Por favor?”

  “No.” She gave me the onceover. “You must fit in your skirt in one hour. If you eat breakfast, you’ll pop out of it.”

  “She’s right.” Aunt Linda stole a bit of crumbled bacon from her husband’s savory mixture. “The salt in the bacon will make your stomach swell. If you’d lost that fifteen pounds you’ve been going on about, you wouldn’t have to worry about a few eggs and beans this morning.”

  I paused until Senora Mari had all but disappeared through the swinging kitchen door. “I could eat a smaller and healthier portion, the way you fix them.” Aunt Linda enjoyed playing with the healthy side of Tex-Mex: black beans, baked eggs, fresh pico de gallo, and avocado.

  “I heard that.” Senora Mari swung around like a bull about to charge. “You cannot eat the healthy ones either, missy. You don’t know when to stop.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Since when?”

  “What I want to know is, why didn’t Whip’s chili win if he and Lucky were such a dynamic duo?” Uncle Eddie flipped to page two. He always did his best to end the familiar argument between his health-conscious wife and his traditional mother.

  “That’s the answer, isn’t it?” I said. “He couldn’t muster the know-how without Lucky. And imagine, he’d suffered a terrible trauma.” I hadn’t actually tried Whip’s entry. Maybe my uncle was right.

  The cowbell clanged and Lightfoot and Ryan walked in together. The two men were roughly the same height, with Ryan edging out the older man by a couple of inches. Lightfoot wore his now-familiar detective’s uniform of blazer, pressed jeans, button-down shirt, bolo tie, and a tan Stetson over his ebony hair and short ponytail. Ryan, though, had dressed for the football field: khaki shorts, West Texas University coach’s golf shirt, and a baseball cap over his short, brown, wavy hair. Both familiar faces wore their typical smile of greeting, Ryan’s a wide schoolboy grin and Lightfoot’s a small lift at the corners of his mouth.

  “Yip.” Lenny spun around, showing off his folklórico costume of white satin pants and jacket. The white embroidered sombrero would be added at the last minute.

  “Hey, Lenster. Love the costume.” Ryan picked up my canine sidekick and rubbed him behind the ears.

  “Morning, Detective.” Uncle Eddie stood and tossed his paper onto the bar. “What’s the news on your investigation?”

  Ryan rounded on Senora Mari and gave her a hug. He was the only one who could get away with it outside of our family. “What is that fantastic smell?” Ryan asked with a grin.

  “Would you like huevos rancheros, Coach Ryan?” She gave him an inviting smile.

  “You betcha.”

  She eyed the detective’s somber face for a moment. “I could make you some Texas Eggs, if you want.”

  “What’s that?” Lightfoot asked politely.

  “Don’t mind her,” I said. “It’s sort of the same thing, but more cheese and fewer jalapeños.”

  He chuckled. “No, thank you, though I’m sure either one would be delicious.”

  “Can I get you some coffee?” Uncle Eddie asked.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Lightfoot said with a smile.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Black,” Lightfoot and I said in unison.

  You could have heard a pin drop in the next room. Everyone was staring at the two of us as if we’d suddenly sprouted corn husks out of our ears.

  “We appreciate you stopping by to give us an update.” Aunt Linda gave Lightfoot a big smile. “Have you figured out whether or not Lucky Straw was murdered?”

  “The JP’s sending the body off today to the state lab. He’s not ready to say it’s a murder, but he did state Lucky died under suspicious circumstances.”

  With a glance at Lightfoot, Ryan walked over to my barstool. “Just stopped by to wish you good luck on your dancing today. Though you’re so talented, you won’t need it.”

  I opened my mouth to deflect the intimacy of his comment with something witty, but he interrupted.

  “Uh-uh.” He placed a finger on my lips. “Accept a compliment for a change. It won’t hurt you.” Gooseflesh immediately chased any comeback right out of my head and into the next county. Not to mention, my cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “What’s going on this morning besides the big debut at the parade?” He ran a hand down Lenny’s back.

  “I was just about to ask Eddie if he had heard whether or not the town council was pleased with his chili extravaganza,” Aunt Linda said.

  Uncle Eddie handed Lightfoot a cup of coffee and climbed back onto his barstool. “Another dead body is all anyone’s talking about.” With a sigh, he dropped his gaze to his food.

  “That may be true of the locals, but I met some folks from Arlington at Two Boots last night.” Ryan clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “They were extremely pleased with your decision to restart after a short delay. You scored some points, Eddie.”

  “I hope the town council agrees, my friend.”

  “These huevos will make you big and strong.” Senora Mari delivered Ryan’s breakfast to the bar. If anyone could cheer up my uncle, it was his fellow coach.

  When I looked up, Lightfoot caught my eye and gave a slight nod of his head in the direction of the front door. I followed him outside.

  “You have something.”

  He nodded with a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure no one else had followed. “Pacemaker data shows an interruption around the time of Lucky’s death.”

  “I hate to burst your bubble, but wouldn’t it be interrupted if he died?”

  He narrowed his eyes in disapproval. “No. Death is recorded in the data as termination. This was something in the programming of the pacemaker itself.”

  “No. Way. You’re saying someone killed him by hacking his pacemaker?”

  “Hold on.” He raised a hand. “That would only happen in the movies.”

  “Is that where the stun gun comes in?”

  “Not sure, but the serial number proves it was stolen from Pinyon Pawn.”

  “Could it have interrupted the pacemaker?”

  “There’s a one-in-one-thousand chance it could happen. The odd thing is that the data report from the pacemaker shows a programmed interruption.”

  “As in planned?” My heart beat faster.

  He nodded. “I need to find another expert at the manufacturer who can tell me without getting all defensive what the report means by a ‘programmed interruption’ and if the stun gun could have caused the pacemaker to fail.”

  “What about electrocution?” I asked.

  “You lost me.”

  “Remember the extension cords in his tent?”

  He shook his head. “Forget it. There were no signs of electrical shock on his body.”

  The door opened and Ryan poked his head out.

  “Hey, you, taking off?” I pasted on a smile and shot a glance at Lightfoot, who suddenly found the need to check his phone.

  “Just enough time to do a couple of miles before the parade starts.”

  “You better get to it. You don’t want to miss Lenny’s big debut.”

  As Lightfoot continued to scroll through his messages, Ryan lifted my braid in his hand and let it fall. “Seems to me it’s your big debut as well.” Without warning, he gave me a brief hug. “Everyone’s gonna shine, you included,” he whispered in my ear. He stepped back, closed one eye, and aimed an imaginary pistol at Lightfoot. “Later, Lawman.” With a satisfied grin, he took off.

  I w
anted to kick him. “What about the stun gun?” I asked.

  Lightfoot waited until Ryan’s Dodge Ram pulled onto Main Street and turned right at the light, headed in the direction of the university. “Ellis says there’s no marks on the body consistent with a stun gun.”

  “Go figure,” I muttered. “But Mrs. McAllen claims a stun gun doesn’t always leave marks.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “No. You can’t always see them if a body has freckles or lots of hair, but it always leaves marks.”

  “Let’s say the perp surprises Lucky and zaps him with the stun gun, knowing in advance that Lucky’s pacemaker’s kaput.”

  Lightfoot studied the horizon, which meant he was actually considering my theory. “What about the blow to the head?”

  “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  He gave me a half smile. “Let me know when you do.”

  For Lightfoot to welcome my sleuthing, even in a backhanded way, was a bit of a surprise and a boost to my ego. “Sure thing. I’m going to have to scramble to write my article by tomorrow’s deadline.”

  He frowned. “Keep your theories to a minimum. Don’t want the killer to get spooked.”

  “When can I let my investigative journalism flag fly?” I kicked a nearby column and dust flew. “I’m still trying to prove myself to Majors, in case you forgot.”

  With a shake of his head, he turned to go. “Not sure what to say, Josie. Sheriff Wallace expects me to be an officer of the law first.”

  I watched him go, wishing I was a different sort—the kind who could walk the tightrope between following rules and bending them just enough to further my own career.

  Chapter 11

  The Cinco de Mayo Parade

  That Saturday morning the sun shone bright as fool’s gold on the rooftops along Main Street while Barnum and Hailey’s and the other businesses on the east side of the street, remained in shadow. The cool morning air warmed as the glowing orb rose higher in the lavender blue sky. The old-fashioned lamps that the town council had installed, along with the cobbled stones of Main itself, added a homey, relaxing atmosphere. Flooded with tourists and locals from the three surrounding counties, Broken Boot’s main drag resembled a Western-themed amusement park with a name like Durango or Winchester.