“Well, if you don’t mind waiting, I guess tomorrow’s fine to face down Sanchez. Let me know if it comes to you. I’ll see you at home soon?”
“Yep, almost on my way.” It would only take a few minutes to place an order for the supplies that Becky had neatly written on a list.
Julio nearly had all the baking pans and utensils washed, she noticed, and Becky set a finished cake into the fridge and walked over to the desk. Sam showed her the website where she ordered specialty items—in case someone came in with a desire for an art deco bridal cake topper or something. Otherwise, she told her assistant, their supplies of flour, sugar and other staples should tide them over for the coming weeks.
“Sam?” Jen’s voice came over the intercom. “There’s somebody on line one that won’t talk to anyone but you. She sounds really upset.”
Great. Just what she needed at five minutes to closing, a customer who’d probably forgotten that her kid’s birthday party started in an hour. She gave a sigh and picked up the phone.
“Samantha Sweet here.”
“Sam? It’s Evie Madsen,” the tearful voice said. “I need help.”
Chapter 22
And I’m your mother? Sam almost cut Evie off but something in the girl’s voice sounded truly desperate.
“What’s happened? Where is Tustin?”
“He blew a gasket earlier—started screaming at me. He pulled off the street at this coffee place and left me there. I didn’t even get my purse.” Her voice rose, thin and reedy.
“Which coffee shop? Maybe you could ride the town trolley back to your hotel.”
“No! I can’t go back there. He might be there. I—I don’t know what to do, Sam. Can you come get me?” The girl choked back a sob.
Sam searched for any other answer, someone she could send to help Evie out of her situation. Social services, a battered women’s shelter, the police? Sam didn’t exactly have inroads with any of them. And she had to admit she was curious why the pair hadn’t left town already.
“I’ll come over. Which coffee shop is it?”
“They closed and the manager made me go. I went next door to a bridal shop and hid in the back room. When the girl who worked here left, that’s when I decided I could call you.”
Sam knew the place—Beautiful Bridals, right next to Java Joe’s Joint. “I can be there in about ten minutes and I’ll come to the back door.”
“Thank you, Sam, I’m so sorry, I—”
“It’s okay. Just sit tight.” She hung up and debated calling Beau. No point, really. She would drive Evie to the Greyhound lobby and buy her a ticket for Los Angeles. After that, the girl was on her own. She pictured the young woman, tall and proud as she stood on all those various red carpets, now riding the bus to the coast. Would she even go for such a plan? Well, Sam would deal with that when they met.
Outside, the sky had darkened ominously and fat raindrops began to smack her windshield as she turned onto Paseo del Pueblo Sur.
Beautiful Bridals had soft pink night lights in the front windows where long gowns were displayed on three impossibly thin, size zero mannequins. Sam held her stomach in and grumbled at them as she passed the shop and took a driveway that led to the service entrances of the few businesses in the little strip center.
The metal door she was looking for was painted pink. She parked the truck under the one-bulb light fixture above it, picked up her heavy flashlight, and stepped out into the rain. Wind whipped at her jacket as she rapped at the door.
“Evie? It’s Sam. Open up. I’m getting soaked out here.”
Locks rattled and the door opened a smidge.
“Evie, come on. Let’s go.”
No response.
“Evie.” Sam stepped into the darkness and pushed the heavy door shut with her butt. She went on hyper-alert and tightened her grip on her flashlight. Ahead of her she saw the outline of a doorway, similar to that in her own shop, separating the small stockroom from the larger sales area. She scanned the stockroom with her flashlight. The two areas were separated by a filmy curtain. The sales room glowed softly with the pinkish window display lights. “Evie, if you don’t show yourself I’m leaving. Right this minute.”
A loud sob sounded ahead of her and Evie’s silhouette emerged from the dark. “Sorry, Sam. I had to be sure you were alone.” She wiped at her nose with one hand.
Sam shone her light toward the voice. Evie squinted her tear-swollen eyes shut. Trails of mascara stained her face. A red knot stood out on one cheek.
“He did that?” Sam said, moving the light out of her eyes. The young woman nodded.
There went the idea of simply putting her on a bus. No way would Evie want to be seen until she’d had time to work on the damage.
“Come here, blow your nose.” Sam handed Evie a tissue and searched the room for a chair or desk but the space was pretty well filled with large cardboard cartons.
A flimsy metal shelf against one wall held rhinestone tiaras and some generic white silk bouquets. She peeked into the other room where a sales desk at least afforded a chair.
“Sit down out there. If we don’t turn on any lights, no one will notice us. We can talk a minute and make a plan for you.” She went into the tiny restroom and wet three paper towels with water, carrying them out to Evie.
“I assumed you two had left town yesterday, after I refused to give Tustin any money,” she said, cupping Evie’s chin and dabbing at the red welt on her cheek.
“He wouldn’t give up on the idea. Of the money.” Evie blinked a couple of times. “Said we had to get it before we left.”
A vision of her slashed mattress popped into Sam’s head. She remembered Beau’s findings on the producer’s financial state. It was a wonder the hotel had accepted one of his maxed out credit cards. No point in asking Evie about it though.
“With everything coming together for the show, I guess there were even more people wanting payments for things, huh? The audition venues, the judges, contracts to be satisfied . . .”
Evie snorted. “The show was a sham. Right from the start, there was no show.”
Sam stood up and leaned back against the desk. “What? But the auditions . . .”
“Never happened.”
“The celebrity judges . . .?”
“I was the biggest celebrity who ever spoke to Tustin. I watched him make call after call. Nobody in Hollywood would talk to him.”
Sam let that information tumble around in her mind.
“How did Jake Calendar come into this?”
Evie took the paper towels from Sam and pulled a small cheval-style mirror across the desk so she could look into it. In the dim light she began working on the mascara smudges with a fingertip.
“Jake and Tustin were made for each other. Two of the biggest bullshit artists on the scene.” She stared up at Sam. “In Hollywood, that’s saying a lot.”
Sam glanced toward the front windows where traffic flowed normally out on Paseo. Lights reflected crazily off the wet pavement. No one had noticed them.
“Jake had convinced Tustin that his band was on the verge of a huge hit, that they had a major recording contract and were about to release an album. He said that Tustin could feature them on You’re The Star and see to it that they made it to the finals to help launch this album into, like, major sales. Plus, Jake wrote up this contract making himself artistic director of the show and it said he would get, like, this major percentage of the profits.”
“Why would Tustin go along with that?”
“Because, Jake said he could get all this money.”
“From me.”
“Well, yeah.” She finished with her right eye, doubled the paper towel over and started on the left. “The joke was on both of them.”
The picture became clear. Tustin would get nonexistent money and Jake would get a nonexistent contract from a nonexistent television hit show. They say you can’t con a completely honest person, that there’s always an element of greed in the picture so
mewhere, the lure of something for nothing. Tustin and Jake both had that mentality and the two had conned each other.
Evie stared into the mirror, rechecking her makeup repair job.
“So things went bad and Tustin wanted to be rid of Jake?”
Evie’s gaze went to her lap.
“Evie? What happened to Jake?”
She started to stand up and push past, but Sam laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sit. Tell me. Now.”
“Jake figured out the show was bogus when he told Tustin that he couldn’t get you to give him the money. They had this huge, screaming fight at the hotel the day before the press conference. Tustin told me he was scared that Jake would tell everything to the press and blow his whole plan apart. I guess he thought he could still get the money from somewhere.”
“Wait a minute—you said the fight was at the hotel? I thought Tustin didn’t arrive in Taos until the day of the press conference.”
Evie’s perfect little eyebrows pulled together in the middle. “No . . . he was here before.”
“How badly did Tustin want Jake out of the picture? Did he threaten to kill him?”
Evie’s eyes darted back and forth as she tried to come up with a story.
“Tell me the truth.” Sam put all the force of motherhood into her voice. “This minute.”
“He only wanted to make Jake sick. So he couldn’t leave the room and do the press conference. Tustin could tell the story like he wanted to, without Jake contradicting him. I didn’t mean to put so much—” Her mouth slammed shut.
“So much what, Evie?” Sam stepped closer. “Did you put the poison in the cupcake?”
“Just a little, I swear.”
“My god, Evie, it doesn’t take very much of that stuff. You killed him.”
“I didn’t! Let me tell it all.” She began to twist the paper towels to shreds. “Tustin came in and asked me how I planned to make Jake sick. I showed him how I’d made a small hole in the cupcake and then smoothed the frosting back over to cover it up. He kept looking at the box of Ratzout, there on the desk in Jake’s room.”
Two smoky grey figures. She saw them again with clarity. One at a time, both Evie and Tustin had added poison to the cupcake.
“He didn’t think Jake would get sick enough, I guess.” Evie’s lower lip began to tremble.
“You need to tell all of this to the police,” Sam said, covering her anger with as much gentleness as she could force into her voice. “I’ll take you to the station to talk to them.”
Evie squirmed in her chair, glancing toward the gowns on display. At that moment a flash of light threw the room into brilliant clarity. A split second later the storefront windows exploded.
Chapter 23
Mannequins flew. Racks of white dresses billowed like sea foam over the hood of the car that sent the place into pandemonium. One headlight shattered and the other shone awkwardly at the intersection of wall and ceiling, highlighting a row of plastic heads wearing veils that had been knocked cockeyed. The engine sputtered and died.
A burst of vile curses, mostly beginning with F, reverberated through the chaotic room as Tustin Deor emerged from the car. Apparently, he’d come alone. His hair stuck out at wilder angles than normal and the black jacket hung off one shoulder. His face was a mask of fury.
“Evie, you stupid c—”
He hadn’t finished the thought when he noticed that Sam had her phone in hand.
“Drop it!” he shouted.
She stared at him, trying to think what to say to calm him down.
“I said drop it!” His lips straightened into a narrow line of determination and he raised a gun.
She dropped the phone onto a pile of white satin.
“I drove around Java Joe’s, baby, looking for you. Saw that red pickup truck out back here.” His attention was on Evie, the red mark on her cheek making a stark slash of color against the white of her skin in the glaring light. He aimed the gun at her, holding it sideways in that ridiculous posture Hollywood had adopted as cool. Evie’s face went another shade lighter.
“Tustin, you don’t want to do this,” Sam said, working the tremble out of her voice.
“Really. Evie, what did you tell her?” His eyes bored like hot embers. He took a step closer. “Evie. What did you tell her?”
Sam stole a sideways glance at Evie, who looked about ready to keel over. Think, Sam. Stay cool.
He took two more steps.
From twenty feet away he might actually hit one of them, despite his awkward hold on the gun and complete inability to sight down the barrel. Sam thought to her days as a kid in Texas, where Uncle Chub had taken her to the shooting range many times, and to the times in Alaska where everyone carried a sidearm as protection against bears. Tustin clearly didn’t know what he was doing. But even an idiot could get lucky, especially at this range. She still didn’t want to miss her own wedding.
Beside her, Evie whimpered.
“All of it,” Sam said. “She told me everything.”
She kept her eyes on the gun. If he squeezes any tighter, start moving. Make it difficult. She wanted to tell Evie what to do but there was no way.
“You conned Jake into thinking he would get famous from the show. But he couldn’t come up with the money. You broke into my house looking for it, then you decided to . . .”
The gun lowered just a little.
“Your house?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
She saw her chance and ducked, racing low, right at him. She grabbed the small mirror and smacked it against his forearm. The gun went flying. She barreled into his legs and he landed on his back, the air whooshing from his lungs. Before he could react, Sam straddled him and sat hard on his stomach.
“Evie! Grab my phone—speed dial number one on it. Now!”
Tustin was having a hard time breathing. Take that, you scrawny little fool, she thought. She lifted her weight just enough to allow him one deep inhalation.
“Hand it to me, Evie, and come stand by his car.” Without taking her eyes off Tustin’s face she took the phone.
“Beau, I’ve got him.” She told him where they were and within three minutes sirens began to approach.
Beau’s cruiser was soon joined by two from the Taos PD. Tustin started to protest about brutality but the facts were evident—his car through the window and his gun lying on the floor hardly made him look like an innocent victim. The police slapped cuffs on Tustin and dragged him to his feet. Sam hastily explained that they needed to take Evie along in the second car, for which she earned a glare.
“Sorry,” she told the girl, “but these guys have to sort it all out.” Evie would get some kind of accessory charge but only a court could say how firm a sentence either of them would end up with.
“Afraid you’re in for more questioning,” Beau said. The two of them stood off to the side of the chaotic scene. “I doubt either of those two will tell the same story at the station that they told you. And I don’t care what Sanchez says, I’m going to be there with you.”
“I’ve got some questions of my own,” she said, describing Tustin’s look of uncertainty when she mentioned the break-in at her house.
“I may have the answer for you on that one. Kozark’s men. Apparently, Thursday night Jake blabbed about you being his source for money—I got the sense that someone was aiming the nail gun at his hand at the moment. Kozark must have gotten on that flight to establish his alibi, while his goons stayed behind to look for the money.”
The owner of Beautiful Bridals arrived as the first police cruiser was pulling away, a middle aged woman who immediately went hysterical when she saw the damage to her shop. Beau offered to call a deputy to provide security until her insurance adjuster could take a look. While he made that call, Sam phoned Mark Nelson and told him she would be talking to the police. He didn’t sound happy to be dragged out at nine p.m. after a long day in court, but he told her to wait for him.
Both hands were straight up on the clock in the
police station when Sam walked out. She’d related the whole story, and Evie managed to fill in a few of the blanks. One of Tustin’s flunkies had purchased the cupcake but it was Evie’s idea to leave it as a gift at the hotel desk, so Jake wouldn’t know who to blame after he became ill.
Mark Nelson had to get a little pushy with Pete Sanchez, but finally the charges against Sam were dropped. The energy from the box had faded long ago and she wanted nothing more than to fall into bed.
Even so, a little tune ran persistently through her head. “I’m getting married in the morning . . .”
Chapter 24
Actually, the morning became filled with a mad scramble to get the wedding back on track. Dress, cake, flowers and a hasty plan to come up with food. Phone calls to friends that required too much explanation, but everyone quickly changed plans and agreed to be at Zoë’s place at six o’clock that night.
Zoë and Darryl went all-out with the garden. Golden fairy lights twinkled in the twin blue spruce trees and across the top of the pergola. The storm had passed during the night, leaving everything fresh and scented with pine. Candles flickered in the cool evening air, casting faces in a soft glow.
On the flagstone patio, vines of brilliant red crape myrtle intertwined with short oak boughs; clusters of autumn-toned asters, daisies and chrysanthemums topped a long white-clothed table. Tiny candles interspersed the floral arrangements with constellations of light. Gold-trimmed china settings for twelve lined the table and a caterer’s helpers waited discreetly in the kitchen. A side table held Sam’s elaborate cake, none the worse for being saved an extra few days.
Kelly adjusted folds in Sam’s veil. “Mom, you are the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”
Sam’s eyelids prickled. “Don’t get me started. I don’t have the faintest idea how to repair smudged eye makeup.” She pressed her lips together and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The champagne silk, the lace, the pearls . . . and the fit was perfect. At last.
“Everyone’s out there, waiting for the star of the show. Beau looks so good in that tux,” Kelly said, peering through the drapes in Zoë’s sitting room. “Gramma’s turned around in her seat, staring toward the house.” She glanced back at Sam. “All I have to do is open this door.”
Sweets Galore: The Sixth Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries) Page 19
