Accessories to Die For

by Paula Paul

  Irene gestured toward the table. “Sit down. I’d offer you coffee, but it’s a little rancid.”

  “No coffee,” Harriet said. She took a deep breath. “I know Juanita Calabaza is your friend. I’ve always liked her, too, but I just want you to know, she’s not as innocent as you may want to believe.”

  “Why do you say that?” Irene asked. She was aware of Angel and Adelle moving closer to listen. She was also well aware of the distressed look on Harriet’s face.

  “I know this sounds like gossip, but, well, she’s been in touch with a man I happen to know is a hired killer.” Harriet’s face had grown pale.

  “Oy vey!” Adelle said, half under her breath. “Harriet Baumgarten knows killers for hire?”

  Irene stole a glance at Angel, who raised his eyebrows, whether knowingly or in surprise, Irene wasn’t sure. Her own heart was racing as she spoke to Harriet again. “How do you know this, Harriet? I mean, how could you possibly know any hired killers?”

  Harriet stiffened. “You spend twenty-five years teaching at Santa Fe Catholic High School, you learn a few things.”

  “Oh, sure!” Adelle said with a derisive snort. “Santa Fe Catholic, the center of sin in the city.”

  “I still see some of my old students from time to time. They keep me informed,” Harriet said defensively.

  “People like that kid who’s the new priest at Saint Anne’s? He was one of your students,” Adelle said, still sounding cynical and amused.

  “I’m not at liberty to say who told me, but it wasn’t Father Joey,” Harriet said.

  “I remember Joey,” Angel, who had also been one of Harriet’s students, said. “Nice kid. Not likely to know much about Santa Fe’s criminal underbelly, though.”

  “Oh, but Harriet does!” Adelle said sarcastically.

  “Stop it, Adelle,” Irene said turning to her mother. “Harriet’s not the first person to suggest Juanita may have hired someone to kill Armaud.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Adelle said. She was staring at Harriet in disbelief. “My God, Harriet, you’ve got to tell us who told you.”

  Before Harriet could respond, a knock sounded at the door. Angel and Irene looked at each other with surprised expressions.

  “Who’s there?” Irene asked. She wasn’t going to open the door to just anyone so late in the evening.

  The only answer was another knock, this time more rapid, more frantic.

  “Who’s there?” Irene asked again.

  “Please!” It was a female voice. Irene recognized it immediately and opened the door.

  “Juanita! What—”

  “I escaped,” Juanita said. “You have to help me.”

  Chapter 4

  There was a long silence as everyone looked at Juanita in disbelief and alarm. She was wearing a heavy gray blanket wrapped around her shoulders in spite of the summer heat. She dropped the blanket to the floor, revealing her jail-issued orange jumpsuit. “I’ll do all I can to help you,” Irene said when she could find her voice. “But you—”

  “Are you crazy?” Adelle said. “Help an escaped murderer? Don’t you know you can go to jail for that?” Adelle was frantic, turning from Irene to Harriet to Juanita and back to Irene again. “I shouldn’t have to be telling you this. You have a law degree. You were a district attorney! Get her out of here before we’re all charged with harboring a criminal!”

  “Calm down, Adelle,” Irene said, trying not to show her own edginess. “Go home. Let me handle this.”

  “You want me to go home? There are murderers everywhere!”

  Irene could only roll her eyes at her mother’s twisted logic. “Go home. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “She’s right,” Harriet said. “After all, the criminal is standing in front of us, and she hasn’t—”

  “I won’t hurt you,” Juanita said. “I…I should never have come here. I see that now, but I thought you could help me. I need someone to…” Her voice trailed off, and her hands trembled as she grabbed the back of a chair for support.

  “Sit down, Juanita. Angel, get her some water.”

  Angel went to the sink for water, and Irene reached for Juanita’s trembling hand. “How did you do it?” Irene asked. “How did you manage to escape?”

  “I walked out,” Juanita said.

  Irene looked at her in disbelief. “You—”

  “No one saw me,” Juanita said, interrupting Irene. “The policeman who arrested me made me change into this orange suit and he gave me a blanket and a pillow. We had to walk by the chief’s office on the way to the jail, and when the chief called out to him to come sign some papers, he left me standing in the hall. I walked out then. I had to. I have to find Danny, and I want you to help me. Please.”

  Irene shook her head and gave her a troubled look. “I want to help you, but you must go back. Escaping from jail only makes things worse.” Angel moved away and pulled out his smartphone. Irene caught the disgusted look that crossed Harriet’s face as he moved his thumbs in a rapid blur across the small keyboard.

  “I can’t go back,” Juanita said. “My son is in danger, if he’s not already dead. I have to help him. No one else can.”

  Irene shook her head. “Don’t say that, Juanita. I saw Danny two days ago. He was alive Sunday!”

  “I know that now,” Juanita said. “Someone else saw him, but—”

  “I’m going to try to help,” Irene interrupted. “The truth will come out eventually, but for now, you must go back—”

  “You don’t understand,” Juanita interrupted. “Danny is in danger because someone thinks he killed the Frenchman.”

  “But you’re the one who’s been arrested for his murder!” Adelle blurted.

  “Wait a minute,” Irene said. “Who thinks Danny killed someone?”

  “The people who took him,” Juanita said. “Now he’s gone. If he’s alive, he’s somewhere on our pueblo land. He would want to be there. He would want to be at home.”

  “You don’t know that anyone took him,” Irene said. “He may have simply left on his own.”

  “No! He didn’t leave. Someone took him.”

  “I can understand that you are upset.” Irene placed her hand over Juanita’s as it rested on the table. “Anyone would be upset under the circumstances, but you must listen to me. This is not the way to handle it. If someone has told you something about Danny, then you must tell the police.”

  “They won’t believe me. They think I killed that man.”

  “Did you?” Adelle asked.

  “Adelle!” Irene said, appalled. She turned to Juanita and snapped, “You don’t have to answer that.”

  “Well, we have a right to know, don’t we?” Adelle asked.

  “I wish you’d go home,” Irene said. She turned back to Juanita. “I want to help you. I’ll do all I can to find Danny, but you must believe me, you’re only making things worse for yourself and Danny as well. You go back and turn yourself in.”

  “Oh, dear,” Harriet said. “This is not good. Even if she turns herself in, she’s in more trouble than she was. That’s true, isn’t it, Irene?”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Irene said. “First things first. I’ll drive you back to the station, and you can—”

  “Wait a minute,” Angel said as he glanced at his smartphone. “There’s a chance nobody knows yet that she’s escaped.”

  “You don’t know that,” Adelle said.

  “It would be on the news if she had. I mean, all those TV stations and the newspaper listen to police scanners. They’d know if she had, and they’d have it out on their Web pages.”

  “That is completely irrelevant, Angel,” Irene said.

  “Not if we can sneak her back in without anyone knowing about it.”

  Irene gave him a look of astonished disbelief. “I have never heard anything more ridiculous.”

  “It can be done,” Angel said. “I happen to know someone on the inside who can help us.”

 
“I would ask for details,” Irene said, “but I have a feeling it’s better for me not to know anything.”

  “Whatever,” Angel said. “Here’s what I’ll do, I’ll make a quick call and—”

  “Don’t bother,” Irene said, holding up a hand as if to fend off trouble. “We’ll do this completely on the up-and-up without any risk of more trouble.”

  “Don’t interrupt him,” Adelle said and turned to Angel. “You’re such an enterprising young man. I’d love to know the details of how you propose to do this.”

  “Is it legal?” Harriet asked. “I know breaking out is illegal, and one would think breaking in would be, too.” She turned to Juanita.

  “Of course it’s not illegal!” Adelle said with a disdainful look toward Harriet. “Now give us the details,” she said, turning back to Angel.

  “It would take some planning,” Angel said, “and I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you’d like to be involved in, Adelle.”

  Adelle sniffed. “Of course I wouldn’t like to do such a thing. I just want to know how it’s done. It all sounds so intriguing.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to do it, if it isn’t illegal?” Harriet asked.

  “Oh, Harriet, will you stop it! Sometimes you don’t even make sense.”

  “I’m just being logical.” Harriet said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “To be honest,” Angel interrupted, “I’m not sure exactly how to go about it, but this guy I know—”

  In the midst of all the chatter, Irene’s mobile phone rang. She answered it, put her free hand over her other ear, and turned her back to the ruckus hoping to hear better.

  “Oh, hi, P.J. Yes, I’ve heard. No, not on the news, she’s…Of course she’s going to need a good lawyer. Are you thinking of volunteering your…? I don’t think that will be necessary. Why? Because she’s here at my store…No, I’m not kidding. Why would I joke about a thing like…The background noise? Oh, that’s Adelle and Angel discussing some cockamamie plan to sneak her back in jail. You’re right, and that’s exactly what I told them. How? I’m going to drive her to the police station. How else would I do it? Sure, you can meet us there if you want to…You want to do what? I can hardly hear you over the noise of the argument going on behind me. Oh, you want to talk to her. Hold on, I’ll ask her if she’s willing to…Oh, my God! Juanita! Juanita!”

  The argument ceased and the room grew quiet as Irene called Juanita’s name again and continued to call as she hurried through the now darkened front of the store. She forgot about the phone in her hand until she heard P.J.’s voice demanding to know what was going on.

  “She’s gone!” Irene said, bringing the phone up to speak into it. “Juanita has disappeared.”

  —

  P. J. Bailey clicked off his mobile phone and headed for his pickup—a 1979 Ford with more than a few dents and scratches that he called Miss Scarlet because it had once been scarlet in color before the high desert sun of New Mexico had bleached it to a strange shade of orange.

  Miss Scarlet responded reluctantly to his turn of the key, sputtered a few seconds, then started her familiar purr as P.J. eased out the clutch and headed toward the nearly five-hundred-year-old Plaza of Santa Fe, where Irene’s store was located.

  He felt a personal responsibility for what was happening to Juanita Calabaza. What he had told Irene earlier was true—he must have created suspicion about her when he’d started asking around as to what she might know concerning Louis Armaud. He’d even heard someone say that Juanita had said Armaud had to die. He’d had a hard time believing that Juanita would say that, or if she had said it, he couldn’t believe she’d meant it. But he’d repeated it to more than one person in the course of his questioning. Asked them if they knew why she might have said it, even if she didn’t mean it. What had Armaud done? Was he the kind of guy who was capable of killing Danny?

  Now, not only did P.J. blame himself for not using more finesse in his questioning, he blamed himself for getting Juanita arrested, just as Irene had accused him of doing.

  He blasted through a yellow light on Sandoval Street that had already turned red by the time he cleared the intersection. Ignoring the ear-piercing horn of an angry driver, he turned toward the plaza. It was growing dark, and many of the stores were closed, except for bars and restaurants. The plaza was still full of tourists enjoying a surprisingly cool and refreshing mountain breeze after a scorching day of relentless sunlight at seven-thousand-feet altitude. A mariachi band had positioned itself in the gazebo in the center of the plaza and was entertaining tourists and locals with its twanging sounds. On another corner of the plaza, a young woman in a long, colorful skirt was painting caricatures of anyone who would pay her. A man in a derby hat and cowboy boots walked through the crowd selling chili-flavored popcorn.

  P.J. left the plaza and the crowd as he turned Miss Scarlet into the alley that ran behind Irene’s Closet. Someone from the Governor’s Café next to Irene’s store was pouring gray-colored dishwater on the row of pine trees that separated the restaurant’s outdoor dining area from Irene’s parking lot.

  He got out of the pickup and ran toward the back door to the store, slamming into Irene as she was emerging. He caught her by her shoulders just before she was pushed backward into Harriet Baumgarten and Adelle Daniels—or whatever Adelle’s current last name was.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, knowing the answer. He was still holding her shoulders in his big hands.

  “To find Juanita before someone else does.”

  “Get in my pickup. We’ll go together.”

  Irene wrested herself free of his grip. “Too old. It won’t run as fast as my car.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “My Mustang!” Angel said. He was already opening the door. “I souped her with high-compression heads, and she’s been bored and stroked.” Adelle and Harriet were already heading toward Angel’s Mustang.

  P.J. pulled Irene toward his pickup. “Not enough room for all of us,” he called over his shoulder to Angel. “Get in, Irene. Miss Scarlet can keep up with the best of ’em.”

  Angel revved the motor of the Mustang and sped out of the parking lot with a screech of tires and a cloud of dust.

  P.J. turned the key, and the pickup responded immediately this time, but he eased her forward gently. “Where are we going?”

  “Kewa Pueblo,” Irene said. “Hurry.”

  The pickup bounded forward with a lurch and quickly caught up with the speeding Mustang.

  “How do you know Juanita went back to her pueblo?” P.J. asked. He was driving too fast as he tried to keep up with Angel’s car. He had no doubt that Miss Scarlet would do what she had to do, even if it put a strain on her aging engine. His biggest concern was a speeding ticket. As a lawyer and an officer of the court, he was supposed to try to avoid things like that.

  “I don’t know for certain,” Irene said, “but it’s my best guess. She told me she believes Danny may be somewhere on land that belongs to the pueblo, or at least close to it. She’s desperate to find him. She thinks that if she finds him soon enough, she can save his life.”

  “That’s a gamble,” P.J. said. “One person who’s mixed up in this stolen artifacts business is already dead. If Danny is involved like Juanita thinks he is, chances are it’s already too late.”

  Irene gave P.J. a sideways glance. “Oh, God, don’t say that. Don’t even think that way.”

  “Sorry, but you and she both should be prepared.”

  “I just wish I knew more about this,” Irene said.

  P.J. sighed before he spoke. “It’s all about greed. Somebody is stealing artifacts to be auctioned in Europe. Someone else felt cheated and killed Armaud. Danny got mixed up in it someway and now they’re after him.”

  “You make it sound so simple.” Irene grabbed the armrest to steady herself as P.J. made a sharp turn exiting the freeway to head for Kewa Pueblo. The armrest felt loose, making her fear it might fall off. “I can’t help b
ut feel there’s something we don’t know,” she added. “Is there something else you should tell me about the Fairchild case?”

  “Well…” Before he could say more, something shattered Miss Scarlet’s left window and blood spurted from Irene’s body.

  Chapter 5

  The woody sweet aroma of marijuana filled the inside of the beat-up Volkswagen that Juanita rode in on her way to Kewa Pueblo. The young man driving was somewhere between twenty and thirty years old. He had dirty blond hair that fell to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. She’d been walking along the back roads that led to the pueblo in order to avoid the freeway. She was well aware that it would be a long walk, but she had no intention of hitchhiking. Yet when the car stopped beside her, and the young man leaned over to roll down the window to ask her if she needed a ride, she’d nodded her acceptance and opened the door to sit next to him in the Volkswagen. The young man made no comment about her orange jail uniform.

  Once inside the car, it took only a few seconds for her to question her own sanity, especially when she saw the blurry, bloodshot eyes of the driver. How many times had she warned Danny about hitchhiking? Now she wasn’t certain whether it was her aching feet and legs that made her relent and accept the ride, or her urgent need to locate Danny. Tony Tonorio, the medicine man, had said he wasn’t dead. Now Irene Seligman said she had seen him in the park. The only words the young man driving the car had spoken were “Where you headed?”

  “Kewa,” she said, then added, “Santo Domingo,” giving him the name by which the pueblo was most widely known, the name Spanish conquistadores had given the settlement in the late sixteenth century. The tribe had changed the name back to the ancient original early in the twenty-first century.

  The young man nodded and slipped the Volkswagen into gear to drive forward. He didn’t speak again but kept his eyes on the worn pavement of the back road into the pueblo. Juanita was pleased with his silence, although she was also surprised. Most whites liked to fill the silence with chatter.

  His next words as they approached the pueblo were “Want me to let you off at the church?”