I knew I was too keyed up and too chilled to go back to sleep right away. I found a thick pair of socks and some of Drake’s felt boot liners for my frigid tootsies, then went around and turned on several more lights. I made some hot chocolate and unearthed a bag of fresh peanut butter cookies I’d bought in a moment of weakness. This felt like as good a time as any to indulge myself a bit. I poured a little of the warm milk in Rusty’s bowl and treated him to half of one of the chewy cookies. There. Much better.
Now that I’d done all the little comfort motions I could think of, I had to face the question of who might have been prowling around and why. Hope Montgomery drove a large, dark vehicle but I decided I could pretty much rule her out, since she was at this moment in Las Vegas gambling her little heart out with her friends. Couldn’t think of any reason she’d want to frighten me or anything she could hope to get from me. But hadn’t I just done the same thing? Entered her home and searched through her things and taken the photograph from her scrapbook? You’re not entirely innocent here, Charlie, I reminded myself.
And what about the other case? Had someone at the church figured out that Father Domingo’s diaries were missing? Had I left behind some scrap of evidence that pointed the finger at me? And, if so, how did they know we were staying in this isolated cabin miles from town?
For that matter, how did anyone? The only person who knew we were here was Eloy.
I didn’t like where my thoughts were leading because Eloy was our client and, above all, we were supposed to trust that he was being straight with us. Besides, the dark vehicle whose tail-end I’d seen leaving here certainly wasn’t Eloy’s old battered white pickup truck. Did that get him off the hook? I wanted to think so but couldn’t be entirely sure.
All this speculation hadn’t netted me any answers, I decided, setting my mug down and brushing the cookie crumbs off the front of my robe. I crossed the kitchen floor a couple of times, while Rusty watched with head cocked, waiting to see if I’d weaken and reach again for the cookie sack.
The only conclusion I reached was that there was a lot of my investigatory information stored nowhere but in my head. That wasn’t smart. If the intruders had gotten in or I were to disappear, all my work would be wasted if I didn’t have some backup. I fired up the laptop computer.
It was nearly three in the morning when I finished typing up the details. I saved the document twice, on two different floppy disks. One, I put with the diaries and the photo of actress Monica Francis into a large brown envelope that I planned to keep under my pillow at night. The other, I wanted to keep off the premises but hadn’t yet decided where—maybe Drake’s hangar or in the glove box of my car. As an extra safeguard I also attached a copy of the document to an e-mail which I sent to Ron in Albuquerque, along with a cover note telling him to print it and make a case file. Without too many other ways to protect the information, I double checked both outer and inner front doors and the back door, then picked up the Beretta and flashlight and called Rusty to come upstairs.
Finally, I thought, I could sleep.
Chapter 16
Nine o’clock found me groggy from lack of sleep and last night’s mental exertion, and I probably wouldn’t have awakened even then except for the insistent ringing of the telephone. I raised my head off the pillow and groaned.
On the fourth ring the answering machine downstairs picked up and I heard Eloy’s recorded message, which we’d never bothered to change, droning instructions to leave a message. When Drake’s voice came on, I rolled over and picked up the bedside phone.
“Guess you got an early start,” he was saying, “so I’ll just . . .”
“Hi,” I said breathlessly as I grabbed the instrument.
“Hey, sunshine. Just getting up?”
“Kinda. I had a sleepless stretch in the middle of the night.” No way was I going to worry him with the truth at this point. There was nothing he could do about it anyway.
“Well, I just had to call and tell you I love you,” he said.
“I miss you like crazy. When are you coming back?”
“Not sure yet. I haven’t talked to Hope or her group yet this morning, but they were still partying hardy last night at midnight. I walked through the casino on my way to call it a night and saw them all gathered around the craps table.”
So, Hope and her two burly friends had alibis.
“I imagine they’ll want to gamble as long as they can today, too,” he added. “We’ll have to be out of here by noon to be home before dark. I’ll call you and let you know what they decide.”
I pulled one curtain aside to check the weather. “It’s snowing here right now,” I told him. A half inch of new powder covered the surfaces of the steps and the cars.
“I’ll check the weather service,” he said. “That may be another factor in our getting home today.”
“Okay, hon, let me know.” I hung up.
Too awake now to get back to sleep, I opened the drapes to brighten the cabin. Rusty had trotted down the stairs and was standing at the front door expectantly. I opened it for him and watched as he followed his previous trail, now covered by the new snowfall, to the spot where the tire tracks had been. He re-marked the spot and scanned the rest of the area before coming inside.
I padded around listlessly, filling his food bowl and freshening his water supply, but not having the energy to do much else. Deciding that a hot shower would help, I stood under the spray twice as long as I normally would, washed and conditioned my hair, and did a mini-facial with some wonderful-smelling stuff Drake had given me for Christmas. Pampering myself is usually low on my priority list, so the special routine perked me up a bit.
I dressed in jeans and a fluffy sweater, a Christmas gift from Ron and his three sons. Made the bed and tidied the bedroom, stashing the brown envelope of evidence under the mattress. After blowing my hair dry and letting it fall plainly to my shoulders, I was in the mood for a decadent breakfast. Something like eggs Benedict. But that wasn’t going to happen so I settled for two frozen waffles, toasted golden and topped with blueberry syrup and chopped pecans.
The phone rang as I was stuffing the last bite into my mouth.
“Charlie, it’s Eloy.”
“What’s up?” I listened for any hint of guilt in his voice, remembering that the thought had flitted through my mind that he might have been our visitor last night.
“I was wondering if you’d heard from Drake,” he said. “When’s he coming back?”
“It might be this afternoon,” I offered cautiously.
“I have a tentative ski charter lined up for him tomorrow. I’ll need to contact them if he’s not going to be available.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know,” I told him.
“Okay, leave a message on my machine at home,” he said. “Since I don’t have to be at the hangar this morning, I’m going skiing.”
I hung up, chiding myself for ever suspecting Eloy. His voice had held no trace of guilt. And anyway, if he wanted in the cabin he had a key. He could just find out if we were here and come in any time the coast was clear. I switched on my computer and set up a password to prevent anyone but myself from accessing any of the files. Then I took the envelope of evidence out from under the mattress and put it by my purse. I’d carry it with me wherever I went. Not that I didn’t trust Eloy, but I’ve learned that you never entirely trust anyone.
Deciding to see what else I could find out, I dialed the Holiday Inn and was put through to Fred Montgomery’s room.
“Hey, there Miss Charlie,” he said. “Meant to get back to you yesterday but then we never did see you leave. You get any evidence?”
“I’m not sure,” I hedged. “Have you ever heard of an actress named Monica Francis?”
He paused a few seconds. “I don’t believe I have. She in the movies?”
“Some. She’s also done some stage acting.”
“Well, I don’t rightly think I’ve ever been to a play on the stage,” he said. �
��Want me to ask Susie? She’s right here.” He turned away and repeated the name to her. “Nope, she ain’t never heard that name either.”
“Okay, I didn’t really think you would have. I get the feeling she was a minor player who never really made it big.”
We ended the call with my asking the two of them to keep me posted with any new information they might get. I told them Hope would likely be home this evening or tomorrow morning.
I hadn’t detected any hesitancy in Fred’s voice, which made me suspect that he and Susie had nothing to do with my nighttime caller. At loose ends, but feeling that something would break soon, I fidgeted around the kitchen for a few more minutes. Then I had an idea of someone who might answer some questions for me. I dialed Information for Santa Fe.
“Milagro Productions,” the male voice answered.
“David?”
“Speaking.”
David Santillanes had booked a charter flight with Drake about a month earlier, acting as go-between with a producer in Los Angeles. The flight was for a music video filmed in the open desert west of Albuquerque for a potentially hot new country music star. David’s company had been in charge of handling the myriad details from arranging a helicopter for the aerial shots to making sure lunch was catered on time. I introduced myself and he remembered me immediately.
“Sure!” he said. “How’s the helicopter business going?”
“Just great,” I told him. “David, I wonder if you might be able to answer a question for me?”
“I’ll try.”
“I’m trying to locate an actress who did a couple of minor film roles back in the ’80s. I wonder if she’s still working or is out of the business.”
“A wannabe star?” he joked.
“Maybe. She did some stage work too. But I don’t think she ever really made it big.”
“Well, if she’s still working she’ll have an agent. Are you on the net?”
I confirmed that I was and he gave me an internet address where I could search for available talent.
“Pictures?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. They’ll have publicity photos and bios online.”
“What about older stuff? This particular lady may not have worked in films for a long time. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t done anything in at least three or four years.”
“You may have to go to print if it’s been very long,” he said. “There are books with the same information, but if it’s been more than ten or fifteen years you may have a hard time finding anyone who has an old book. I only keep mine for a couple of years.”
I thanked him for the information and reminded him that we’d love to do business again on his next film shoot. I logged onto the internet as soon as I’d hung up and went to the address he’d given. It took a bit of navigating to learn the system, but I’d soon figured out that I could search for an actor by name or by the name of their previous jobs. I keyed in Monica Francis. After a few seconds of hard-drive chattering, a photograph began to appear, line by line. It showed a woman in her forties. She had neither the red hair of the photo in the scrapbook nor the blond of Hope Montgomery and her nose and lips were different, but I could see a resemblance around the eyes and in the jawline.
The biographical information listed her last film in 1989 and a few stage plays after that. I printed the page and wrote down the name of the film, then went to a search engine and keyed it in. Since the star was a major name, I thought there might be more details about the movie itself. I came up with four sites, a couple of them being fan clubs for the big star and one that appeared to be geared toward fans of this particular film. Clicking that link I got four pages of fan-type trivia, but nothing I didn’t already know about Monica. I logged off and retrieved the stolen photo from the brown envelope.
Holding the two pictures side by side, I could see that they were of the same woman. I got the pictures I had snapped of Hope Montgomery and held them next to the others. There were similarities, yes, but it would be hard to identify them as being the same person. A woman in her forties would not normally change this much with an extra fifteen years in age. If Monica had changed her looks, she’d had more help than just hair color and makeup.
I slipped one of the Hope photos in an envelope with the web address where I’d found the more recent Monica photo. Wrote a note to Ron telling him to look up the picture on the internet, print out a laser copy, and see if he could find an expert who could compare the two and give a definitive answer. I’d mail it the next time I went into town. Tomorrow, maybe. I was restless from waiting around the cabin for word from Drake, but not restless enough to make the long drive into town again.
Strapping on the snowshoes and bundling into my parka helped me focus on something else. I hid my little cache of evidence in a kitchen cabinet and took care to lock all the doors, tucking the key into my pocket, something Drake and I had never bothered with when we’d previously left the cabin. Rusty bounded along beside me as I headed into the woods behind the cabin. We plowed our way uphill for a short distance then paralleled the road below the driveway for awhile. My heart was pumping by the time we reached an opening in the tall ponderosa pines at a tiny overlook.
Taking gulps of the thin mountain air, I stopped to look around. Below, the highway wound like a black serpent through the bottom of the valley. On my right I could see the blue roof of the metal building that was serving as Drake’s hangar. It looked tiny from this altitude, hard to imagine an aircraft fitting inside. The wind sock he’d erected was a miniscule orange triangle at the end of the building. Farther along the winding road, lodges and restaurants appeared sporadically. The village of Taos Ski Valley was out of sight beyond several more curves in the road, but I could picture the tiny alpine town with its Swiss style hotels and condos nested into the base of the mountain. Skiers would be riding the lifts, getting ready to tackle the steepest slopes in the state.
“Pretty cool, huh,” I said to Rusty.
He waved his tail slowly back and forth, eyes fixed on the panorama below us.
“Let’s check out a different way back,” I said. He followed me as I turned away from the overlook and followed the terrain downhill, back in the general direction of the cabin. We stayed to the left this time, since we had approached the overlook from the right. Fifty yards or so down the hill we came to a path that must have been cut purposely; it was much too open to be there by chance. I plodded my way to it and took the downhill lie. Rusty bounded onto the path, where the snow was again up to his chest since there weren’t as many trees to shelter it. My sense of direction made me think we were headed in the general direction of the Romero cabin, but would probably come out below it, somewhere along the driveway.
Another hundred yards along the path, Rusty’s attention diverted and he dashed across in front of me and headed to a small clearing. I started to call out to him but found my own attention captured.
A huge boulder sat at the edge of the clearing. Shaped like a bus and nearly as big, it was at least five feet high—I could barely see the top surface of it. I glanced uphill and could see the ragged edge of the overlook we’d just stood on. It probably fell from there, but this rock had been here a long time, at least a few hundred years, maybe a few millennia. Scrub oak flanked two sides of it, the sturdy branches firmly entwined in the cracks of the big rock. Its surface was pocked with places where smaller chunks had broken out of it and more than one set of young lovers had chipped their initials into its surface.
The boulder itself was interesting but what had caught Rusty’s attention was a squawking blue jay. It was sitting on the chimney of a small fireplace built of round gray river rock that sat at the base of the huge boulder. Cocking its head toward me, the bird fixed its sharp black eyes on the dog and squawked again. I wanted to speak but held back, fascinated by the interaction between the bird and the dog. Rusty glanced at me and I gave my head a little shake. His eyes darted once more to the bird, then he lost interest and began sniffing the snow a
t the base of the little fireplace. The bird watched him for a minute then flew to the high branches of a pine tree.
On closer examination I noticed the fireplace was really a barbeque grill, built here probably by the Romero family as a place for family picnics. I gazed around, picturing the area in summer, with pine needles instead of snow on the ground, a folding table laden with packages of hot dogs and buns set up in front of the grill, children in shorts and T-shirts chasing each other and screaming.
A breeze stirred the tall trees and shook loose a clump of snow that landed on the tip of my snowshoe, reminding me that I was getting cold.
“Let’s head back,” I said to Rusty.
He dashed back down the path, rounding a curve out of my sight, while I plodded slowly behind. He was waiting patiently when I reached the driveway, but raced toward the cabin as soon as I caught up with him.
“You’re a fun hiking partner,” I called out, “taking a nice break for yourself. Racing off right when I deserve a rest.”
My snide comments didn’t slow him down. He was sitting on the cabin’s front porch when I got there. I unbuckled the snowshoes and stowed them on the ski porch. Inside, there was a message from Drake on the machine.
“Hi, hon. Sorry it doesn’t look like I’ll be home tonight. Couldn’t get the group moving fast enough. We’ll leave here about mid-afternoon, but will plan on staying overnight in Farmington. I don’t want to fly into the mountains after dark with this heavy a load. I don’t think there will be much to lure them into staying long in Farmington, so we should be airborne early in the morning. I’ll call you.”
Okay. I knew these kinds of things would happen. And I wasn’t going to let myself consider the possibility of another unwanted visitor tonight. I’d simply leave a few lights on in the cabin and sleep with the gun under my pillow, that’s all.
Honeymoons Can Be Murder: The Sixth Charlie Parker Mystery (The Charlie Parker Mysteries) Page 13
