Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10) Read online

  “Sorry, I just got here ten minutes ago,” said an effeminate man who bustled about with an air of busyness. Clearly, the sheriff had not come in the door to buy anything and was, therefore, an unwanted distraction.

  Beau went on, getting the same result at a fine jeweler, a pottery shop and an upscale clothing store. The art crowd didn’t get out early and no one had been around an hour ago. At the drugstore, which actually still had an old-fashioned soda fountain, the clerk was the bored sort who rang up trinkets such as keychains and shot glasses that proclaimed to be from Taos although they were manufactured in China. Beau’s inquiry met with, “You gotta be kidding me, man. A thousand people a day come through here.”

  “I’m asking about the last hour or so. At least look at the photo. She has scratches and dirt on her face—you would have noticed that.” He held up the digital screen.

  The eye-roll told Beau this guy probably never even looked at faces. The man shook his head.

  Out on the sidewalk, he took stock. On the opposite side of the plaza the hotel might provide a lead. He should have thought of it first. He edged between parked cars and crossed the street. In the shady square he circled wrought iron benches and scanned the ground. How much simpler this morning would become if he spotted a scuff on the pathway and a purse with “Jane’s” ID lying on the ground. He checked the area carefully but had no such luck.

  On the south side of the plaza he crossed the street and entered the hotel’s lobby. Four people stood in line to check out, with one busy young clerk trying to handle it all. As he was deciding whether to push ahead and piss them all off, his radio squawked. He stepped outside; maybe Dixie had news.

  “Sheriff, we have a next-of-kin notification. APD needs you to get right on it.”

  Notifying a family of a death was higher priority than a woman who, although she had problems, was happily eating her way through the pastries at Sam’s shop.

  “Who do I need to see?” he asked.

  “We don’t have a name. You’ll need to speak with the detective in charge.”

  “I’m nearby so I’ll come in. Anything on the missing person I had you checking?”

  “Not yet but it’s been a little crazy here. I’m still looking.”

  “Thanks, Dixie.” He quick-walked to his cruiser and edged out of the congested plaza. Less than five minutes later he was pulling into his assigned spot at the department.

  * * *

  Jane Doe emerged from the restroom looking much better. Aside from a bright red scrape on one cheek, her face was clean. She’d put Band-Aids over the abrasions on her palms and the shoulder seam of her blouse was no longer gaping open.

  “I found a safety pin in your medicine cabinet,” she explained. “I hope it was okay to borrow it.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Sam said, turning away from the pan of half-melted chocolate on the stove. A few more minutes to reach the magical one hundred eighteen degrees and she could take it off the heat and seed it for tempering. She responded to the bing of a timer and pulled a tray of fragrant mint-chocolate chip cookies from the oven then carried them to the cooling stand.

  Julio, whose concentration was focused on measuring flour into the big Hobart mixer across the room, sent her a look of gratitude. Sam scanned the kitchen out of habit, making sure no one needed an immediate hand with something.

  Together, Becky and Jen had sorted out the mix-up on the cake orders. The tiers covered in white fondant now waited at one end of the table, ready to be turned into a fiftieth anniversary cake, while the drawing of the bright pink purse with gold beading and black fondant handles was meant to be a triple chocolate Kahlua cake, all along. Once Becky knew that there were two customers named Perdida Sanchez—who would have guessed?—and found the other cake in the walk-in fridge, she got everything under control.

  “I haven’t heard anything from Beau—uh, the sheriff,” Sam told Jane, although she noticed that Jane hadn’t asked. “I know he’s hoping to find out where you belong so you can go home.”

  Jane nodded, a wistful expression crossing her face. She turned to the worktable where Becky had the fashion purse cake nearly finished.

  “That’s so clever,” Jane said.

  Her eyes seemed to take in all the decorating tools and the black gum-paste flowers Becky was tucking beside the purse. She smiled fondly at the scene, although many people would have found the table and the several works-in-progress pretty chaotic.

  “Do you know anything about decorating cakes?” Becky asked.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t recall,” Jane said. She looked a little lost again.

  Not surprising, since you can’t remember anything. Sam stopped herself. That line of thinking was petty and unkind. It wasn’t as if Jane was in the way or disrupting the work. After all, didn’t most of Sam’s life consist of one distraction coming along to override another?

  She thought of her brief contact with the mysterious wooden box in the wall safe at home this morning. If only she had handled it longer, more thoroughly. The box had led to visions in the past—seeing auras around people, spotting fingerprints that were otherwise invisible. It might have assisted her in observing some unseen fact about Jane this morning, something that would help identify the woman.

  “Sam!” Jane’s voice held a new, sharp edge. “I think your chocolate is about to burn!”

  The stranger was sniffing the air, facing toward the stove with the now-bubbling pot. Sam sprinted across the room and lifted the pan off the double boiler. The chocolate looked fine but there was a tiny whiff on the steam rising above it. Another few seconds and the batch would have been too far gone to save.

  Sam turned off the burner and rapidly stirred the chocolate to cool it. A few pieces of solid chocolate helped bring the temperature down.

  “Wow, good catch,” she said, turning to Jane. “How could you tell?”

  Jane blinked three or four times and bit at her upper lip. “I really don’t know.”

  Sam retrieved the pan, dipped a clean spoon into the chocolate and tasted it. Thank goodness, the flavor hadn’t been compromised. Now if it would just temper properly, she could finish the chocolate magnifying glasses for the Sherlock bunch and get on with the day. Except that the day had gone off track the minute this strange woman had walked in the door.

  Chapter 3

  Beau walked into the empty squad room. Every deputy not sick at home with the flu was out on patrol and, judging by the radio chatter, the department was stretched pretty thin. In the dispatch office Dixie was speaking into her headset, typing at her keyboard and looking as unflappable as always.

  She caught sight of him from the corner of her eye and held up a handwritten message while tapping computer keys with her left hand. Her eyes rolled slightly as she said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m going to put you on hold for just one moment.”

  “Sorry I haven’t had much time to work on your missing person search,” Dixie said, handing Beau the pink slip of paper.

  “I can see you have your hands full.” For all he knew, the woman at Sam’s might not be missing at all. She could have had some small mishap where she struck her head and walked away without her ID. Those things happened.

  “This,” said the dispatcher, pointing at the message, “is the info on the death in Albuquerque. The caller was an APD detective. His name and number are there.”

  The phone console beeped, reminding her of the woman still on hold.

  “I’d better …”

  “Yeah, fine. I got this.” Beau read the note as he walked toward his office. The detective’s name was Kent Taylor. Beau decided to call him before contacting the local family. According to the brief note, the victim had been found in a hotel room. People always asked questions when they received word of a loved one’s death, and knowing something of the circumstances would help him know what to tell them. A death that took place in a hotel was fraught with unknowns. People died in hospitals, in cars, in their own bathtubs—they generally d
idn’t go to a hotel to die, and families were always a little freaked out by the news.

  Kent Taylor answered his cell phone on the first ring and Beau introduced himself.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what will be helpful to you up there,” Taylor said. “I can copy you all the ID we found in the guy’s wallet. I tried directory assistance and came up with only one Robinet in Taos. First name George.”

  He read off an address and Beau wrote it down.

  “Cause of death?” Beau asked. The families always asked.

  “Undetermined—yet. You should know we saw evidence of rough sex play in the room. This was at the Kingston Arms—not the kind of place to attract typical lowlifes. Victim has strangulation marks on his neck, but the OMI will have to say for sure if that killed him.” He went into a few more details, things Beau definitely would not tell the relatives.

  “So, do you think it was accidental or are we looking at a murder?”

  “I’m homicide division,” Taylor said. “But you know, things aren’t always what they seem.”

  While Beau waited for the scan of the victim’s identification to come through, he looked up George Robinet the old-fashioned way, in the phone directory. The address seemed familiar. When he checked it on the map he remembered why. Greenlee Manor was an assisted living retirement complex, one of those places where, depending on the abilities of the resident, they might be fairly independent or under nursing care. He’d better check a little further before showing up at the door.

  He opened his email and saw Taylor’s message. Attached were scans of a New Mexico driver’s license in the name of Zachary J. Robinet and a business card that showed his name as Zack and his position as partner in a company called ChanZack Innovations, Inc. Beau wondered who Chan was, since the rest of the company name was obviously a play on Zack’s name. According to the license, Zack was forty-five years old, six foot one, and two hundred twenty pounds. He printed a copy of the scans, then cropped the driver’s license photo of Robinet, enlarged it and printed the face.

  The residential address on the license didn’t sound immediately familiar. Beau looked it up and found it to be on a winding road on the south end of town, the same direction as Greenlee Manor. With luck, he might find a wife at the home address and she could be the one to inform the elderly parents. No matter who he spoke to, these things were never fun. How do you tell either a wife or a guy’s parents that he was messed up in something unsavory in an out-of-town hotel? He grabbed a file folder and stuck the printed pages inside, stopped by Dixie’s desk to let her know he was leaving, and went outside to his cruiser.

  Goldenrod Lane was a short, narrow road that jutted off one of the through streets, about a half mile from Paseo del Pueblo. The neighborhood was like many in Taos, lots of old-time adobes patched together and added onto for generations, mixed with the new upper middle class ones where money had allowed the owners to build big the first time. The Robinet address was one of the latter. A long driveway showcased a portico of thick logs and a heavy front door with a stylized Zia symbol carved into it. Fall asters and chrysanthemums bloomed in neatly groomed patches of red, gold and purple. A three-car garage at the west end of the house was closed up tight and if any cars were present they were inside it.

  Beau picked up the photo of Zack, took a deep breath and walked up to the front door. A doorbell sent rich tones chiming through the house, a hollow sound. He had a feeling right away no one was home. If there was a Mrs. Robinet she was probably at work. He gave the bell one more push but the result was the same, so he turned back to his vehicle and headed toward the next address on his list: Greenlee Manor.

  * * *

  Sam wondered when she would hear from Beau as she smoothed the melted chocolate with her spatula, cooling it to the proper consistency before it could be poured into the special molds she had purchased for the mystery book group next door.

  She sent a sideways glance toward Jane who seemed content to sit on a stool and merely watch the normal hustle-bustle in the kitchen.

  Okay, she hasn’t really taken over the day. It’s just weird having a stranger sitting here staring at me.

  Becky had stored the fashion purse cake in the large walk-in fridge and was now piping trim onto the anniversary cake. It was a simple, traditional one that would have a golden 50 on top. As cakes went, it was a relatively easy one. The real work would come later in the week with a six-tier extravaganza of a wedding cake. Cascades of autumn flowers must be made—Sam and Becky had estimated nearly two hundred of them. Those would be fashioned out of gum paste and set to firm up until Thursday, when the massive job of creating ruffles and swags would commence.

  Why isn’t this lady worried? Sam mused. I’d be frantic to figure out where I lived, who might be missing me. What if she has kids and they don’t have a clue that mommy can’t get to them? She edged a glance toward Jane and smiled half-heartedly when that blue-eyed gaze met hers.

  A scream erupted from the sales room, a crash, and Jen’s voice. “Sam!”

  Sam dropped her spatula on the table and rushed through the curtained opening. Jen was at the beverage bar, holding onto the midsection of the coffee maker, the top precariously balanced and spilled coffee grounds scattered in a swath around her.

  “Help—grab that carafe,” she panted. “I can barely hold this thing.”

  Sam rushed to her side, feet sliding on coffee grounds. She moved two carafes out of harm’s way and helped to right the machine.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Jen said, wiping her brow with the back her hand. “One minute I was opening the lid to make a fresh batch and the next minute it was coming down on me. Maybe when I cleaned the machine yesterday I didn’t put things back right—I don’t know.”

  “At least it’s under control now. Don’t worry about it.” Sam checked the base of the machine to be sure it seemed steady.

  “I’ll get the broom.” Jen headed toward the kitchen but a customer walked through the door and sidetracked her.

  “Maybe I can put Jane to work sweeping it up,” Sam said as Jen attended to the man who’d headed straight for the bear claws and ordered two.

  But in the kitchen, Jane was standing over the chocolate Sam had abandoned. She’d scooped up the tempered liquid and was now injecting it into the molds through the tip of a pastry bag.

  “Jane? What are you doing?”

  “Oh, sorry. It had cooled and I was worried it would set up too quickly. You would have had to reheat and temper it again, and since it nearly became overheated earlier, I was worried about the flavor.”

  Sam eyed the perfectly filled molds. “Okay, that’s the second time you’ve saved this order. You know something about chocolate, Jane. Quite a lot, I’d say.”

  Jane went very still. “I guess I do. I have no idea how I would have known to do that.”

  Becky and Julio had both stopped working and were listening in.

  “It could be a clue to your identity. If Beau doesn’t immediately come up with your name, maybe we need to start calling candy companies around the state.”

  “It was as if I didn’t even have to think about it. I just knew what to do.” She stared toward the middle of the room. “I don’t know what—”

  The back door opened and all attention went that direction. Sam’s daughter, Kelly, stopped in mid-stride.

  “Um, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” Her brown curls bobbed a little and a flush rose to her cheeks.

  Julio cleared his throat and turned back to his task, pouring red velvet cake batter into the pan for a half-sheet cake. Becky greeted Kelly as she placed the cake topper on the finished anniversary cake.

  Kelly looked at Jane, standing frozen in place with a pastry bag in hand and chocolate on her fingers, with frank curiosity.

  Sam skipped introducing them—explaining everything would have taken way too long. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I know I said I would get pizza and come out to your place for dinner tonight, Mo
m. But something else has come up.”

  “Okay, no sweat. Something special?”

  “A date. I have a date.” The twinkle in her eye belied her casual tone.

  Sam carried the chocolate molds to the cooling rack. “Oh yeah? Anyone I know?”

  “Um, I really can’t say.”

  “Ah … can’t say or won’t say? C’mon, who’s the mystery guy?”

  “Yeah, well, I better get back to work. I’ll talk to you later.” She was out the door before Sam could respond.

  “Okay, that was weird. Becky, has she said anything to you?” All young people kept secrets from parents but Kelly was usually fairly candid about her friends and her love life.

  Becky shrugged. “No idea at all.”

  Sam turned her attention to the devil’s food cupcakes Julio had baked first thing this morning. They were to be the basis for the Sherlock-themed dessert for the book club. Devil’s food lava cakes, mocha cream frosting, molded chocolate toppers—these folks never seemed to OD on chocolate. They even called themselves Chocoholics Unanimous.

  While Sam iced cupcakes, Becky began kneading food color into sugary gum paste to make the assortment of fall flowers on their biggest project of the week. After an hour she had almost two dozen orange lilies and yellow nasturtiums done. The time-consuming work on the individual petals of chrysanthemums hadn’t even begun and she needed to make pansies and asters as well.

  “Jane, you were really good with those chocolate molds,” Becky said. “Want to pitch in on these flowers?”

  Jane looked a little unsure but said she would give it a try. She washed her hands and stood beside Becky as the experienced decorator showed the simple technique for a pansy.

  “The secret is to roll the sugar dough really thin. Then you cut each petal shape individually. Once you have five of them, you gently roll the edges with this tool to give them a pretty little shape, then pinch the five petals together at the center to form the flower. We’ll add the shading and details with food color later.” She handed Jane the tool and a sheet of the thinly rolled dough, moving her own work to a new spot at the table.