Sticky Sweet Page 3

  She maneuvered her truck, backing into the driveway of the property she’d visited the evening before. Warmed and energized from handling the box, she stashed it under the seat. The little temperature indicator on her mirror showed the outside temp at ten degrees above zero, a twenty degree change from this morning when she’d been outside with Beau. Things were looking up.

  Chapter 5

  Sam went to the warmest room first, where a large block of sunshine lay across the dining room floor. Packing boxes, left behind, served as trash receptacles as she started with broom and dustpan to gather dust bunnies, tidbits, and scraps from the expensive travertine floors. A camera would have caught a woman frantically sweeping at breakneck pace, but to Sam it felt like a leisurely activity. The Zen of sweeping, or some such thing.

  She covered the kitchen, dining, and living rooms, filling two boxes with the collected detritus. Fifteen minutes had passed.

  Beyond the kitchen, a small bedroom and bathroom she’d not noticed before must have been maid’s quarters. A twin-sized bed with bare mattress, an upright chest of drawers, and a small closet with wire hangers on the rail were the only items in the room. Apparently, the family had not felt a need to take the cheap furniture with them.

  A quick check of the closet shelf and the dresser drawers showed nothing at all. Thank goodness. Too often, it was the hidden crannies in a house that revealed deadly secrets and dragged both Sam and the sheriff’s department into a whole new mess.

  Sheriff’s department—Sam caught herself thinking about what Beau had told her last night about that traffic fatality. Was it truly a cut-and-dried case of drunk driving? Somehow she had a feeling Beau had other suspicions. A careful investigator, he would never draw a conclusion until he had all the facts. But he had good instincts and Sam had learned to read his moods—the things he said and the things he left unsaid. He’d been preoccupied this morning during breakfast, and she knew he was thinking about the accident.

  Pondering all this, she finished the floors in the maid’s area and had already worked her way back to the den. A third box of sweepings was already filled and she carried them out to her truck. Inside, the bedrooms were carpeted, requiring the vacuum cleaner. She took it from the back seat, then lowered the tailgate to reach the generator. With a press of the starter, it roared to life.

  She plugged in her fifty-foot extension cord and uncoiled it through the open front door. She’d vacuumed half the first bedroom when a shadow crossed the threshold.

  “Ma’am!” A surprisingly deep voice came from the diminutive, white-haired man who stood with both hands on the doorframe.

  Sam tapped the Hoover’s power switch and the machine whined to a stop.

  “Hi. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

  “That’s a horrible racket you’re making out there,” he said. “I was spreading seed for the ravens and they all took off when that thing started up.”

  Sam realized he was talking about the generator.

  “Yeah, sorry. There’s no power in the house and I have to vacuum the carpeted areas. Shouldn’t take more than another half-hour or so.”

  “Well, my wife likes to sleep late and I imagine I’ll catch hell for this.”

  “It’s not your fault. And, like I said, I won’t be here much longer.”

  “Can’t let you do it.” The man turned and headed for the front door.

  By the time Sam caught up with him, he’d hit the kill switch on the generator. Silence echoed through the neighborhood. He yanked the extension cord from its outlet.

  “You can borrow some electricity from my house,” he said, stomping across the dividing space between the two houses and jamming the cord’s plug into an outlet on the side of his garage.

  Sam trotted after him, about to protest, but what the heck. He was offering free, quiet power for her to finish her work. As long as the cord was long enough to stretch to the farthest of the bedrooms, it was an arrangement made in heaven.

  “Um, thanks,” she said when he stood and faced her again. “I’d be happy to pay for the power.”

  “Sure you will. Ten bucks an hour.”

  Okay, that was quite a bit more than she could possibly use, but well worth keeping the peace. She indicated she would get her wallet from the truck.

  “Pay me when you’re done. Don’t know how long it’ll take,” he said. “Anything’s better than that infernal machine running.”

  “Well, thank you so much. You must be Mr. Zuckerman?”

  “That’s right. Arnold Zuckerman. Do I know you? Maybe from my jewelry store—although that was awhile back.”

  Sam remembered a Zuckerman Fine Jewelry in Taos. It had changed hands and was renamed sometime in the early ’90s. She smiled and extended her hand. “Actually, I met your daughter here last night when I came by to check the status of this house. I’m cleaning it up for sale through the USDA.”

  “Humph, Dolores. Yeah, she was here all right.”

  Something told Sam not to mention the daughter’s comments about her father’s competence. From what she could see, the old man could handle himself pretty well.

  “Damn youngsters think just because a guy’s almost ninety he can’t do a damn thing for himself. My wife fusses over me, my daughter nags me. I like my life and I’m just fine, thank you very much.”

  “I can see that,” Sam said, although the man was shivering in his flannel shirt and khaki trousers. “I’ll just head back to my work so you can get in out of the cold. I’ll bring you some money when I’m done.”

  “Eh, don’t worry about it. I did pretty good for myself. A few bucks’ worth of electricity won’t send me to the poorhouse.” He waved back at her as he headed toward his own front door.

  Sam turned back to her work, intent now on finishing with the vacuum cleaner quickly so the man wouldn’t think she was taking advantage. Creating smooth, clean swathes across the carpet relaxed Sam, as she felt her energy returning to normal levels. She’d made good progress and it wasn’t quite noon yet. A mop applied to the wood and tile floors, a diligent swipe over the bathroom surfaces, and the place would be in decent shape.

  Back at the truck, she exchanged the Hoover for her mop and bucket after unplugging the extension cord from Zuckerman’s place. She made a little show of rewinding the cord and putting it away, in case he was spying from behind the curtains. She glanced over, but saw no movement at the other house.

  Sadie Holmes and Delbert Crow would both be pleased when Sam reported she’d finished the cleanup job in a day, and she would still have the afternoon to catch up on her own work at the bakery. She carried the mop bucket into the utility room, hefted it to the spacious sink, and turned the tap. As she’d feared … no water.

  Evidently, the city had turned that particular utility off. Oh well, she thought. She could bring two or three five-gallon buckets from home tomorrow and finish the job quickly enough. She peeked at the screen on her phone and saw it was almost noon. Her stomach growled.

  “Guess I worked harder than I thought,” she said to the empty house as she locked the door.

  Before she could put her truck in gear, the phone vibrated on the seat beside her and Beau’s name showed.

  “Hey, darlin’ what’s up?” he said.

  “Reached a stopping place on the cleaning job and I’m ready for food and checking in at the bakery—in that order.”

  “Lunch at Maria’s? I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Hmm … yeah, that sounds great.” Only the very best posole in town. Who could resist?

  Sam was no more than six minutes away, so she said she would grab a table and place their orders. One thing about dining with a law enforcement man, she’d learned he often got called away mid-meal. It never hurt to have food on the table when he arrived.

  Beau walked in the door of the tiny eatery two blocks off the main drag, Paseo Pueblo del Sur, right on time. Sam had watched him get out of his cruiser and se
t his felt Stetson on his head before adjusting the heavy belt of lawman gear—radio, cuffs, baton, sidearm and more. Her heart picked up its pace and she remembered exactly how lucky she felt to have this man in her life.

  “Hey, you,” he said as he gave her a kiss. “I’m glad this worked out, us meeting for a quick bite. Afraid I’ll have to dash off soon.”

  “Me too. I haven’t touched base with Jen all morning, so who knows what awaits me there.” She picked up her spoon and stirred her steaming bowl. The hearty combination of pork, hominy, and red chile sent up a heavenly scent. “So, how was your morning?”

  He finished chewing the bite he’d taken. “Well, my accident case from yesterday seems to have turned a little more complicated. Got a call from the OMI’s office in Albuquerque, and the chief medical investigator wants me to drive down there to go over the autopsy results. Says he’ll be done in the morning.”

  “What do you think it means?” Sam glanced around the room to be sure no one else was paying attention to their conversation.

  “Usually, the only time law enforcement is asked to take a look is if there’s something suspicious in their findings.”

  Sam paused in the midst of ripping a tortilla in half. “Suspicious—so it’s not a case of drunk driving?”

  Beau held her gaze. “I don’t know, but that’s my guess.”

  Chapter 6

  Sam parked in the alley behind Sweet’s Sweets. The shady areas still contained frozen slush, but everywhere the sunshine touched was drying nicely. Julio’s Harley sat in one of the frozen areas, and Sam wondered how the man tolerated the cold and the iffy roads through the winter months. She walked into the kitchen to find him pouring brownie batter into a large pan.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  Julio, famous for being a man of few words, merely tilted his head toward the curtain that divided the kitchen from the showroom. Sam hadn’t noticed the cacophony of voices, but she heard them now.

  “Oh, gosh. Poor Jen.”

  She quickly switched her outdoor coat for her white bakery jacket. The customer area was jammed and Jen looked more than a little frazzled.

  “Who’s next?” Sam asked, stepping behind the counter beside her employee.

  “If you could talk with the lady in the orange jacket over there,” Jen said. “She wants to order a birthday cake and I haven’t had a spare second to get the details.”

  “What about here?” Customers were lined up three deep at the counter.

  “We have a little system going,” Jen whispered to Sam. “I’m giving everyone two free cookies to thank them for their patience. It seems to be working.”

  Sam gave Jen’s arm a squeeze. “Thanks. I’m so sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

  Jen had slid open the glass door and was placing cheesecake slices into a bakery box for a man in a business suit. “You know how it goes. It can be dead quiet for an hour then the room fills up in five minutes. Sort of bakery-radar, or something.”

  Sam picked up the order pad and hurried over to the bistro table and the woman who was browsing through a photo album of cake design ideas.

  “Thank you for waiting,” Sam said. “May I refill your coffee?”

  “No, I’d just like to get the cake ordered so I can get back to work.”

  Sam mentally tagged a discount onto the order because of the delay. She recognized the woman as a clerk at Walmart, a chatty type who could spread nice recommendations or nasty gossip. She put on her brightest smile and asked whether the lady had found an appealing design. Luckily, as far as time was concerned, the customer was happy with a doll cake. The birthday was her young daughter’s fifth, a great age for something inspired by the Disney princesses. Sam noted her preferred colors.

  The customer relaxed. By the time she left, they were on a first-name basis and Sam felt at ease about having the cake ready by the following afternoon.

  Jen had made headway at the counter—the crowd was down to five people, and no one else had walked in during the past few minutes. Sam helped fill the final few requests, noted the items that were running low, and took a deep breath.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said. “I’ll give Julio a list of what to bake before quitting time.”

  “Yeah, well … you’ll want to look at your In basket. I took four custom orders this morning, and one of them is a wedding cake due by next weekend.”

  Sam’s good mood slid a notch downward. A wedding cake on a few days’ notice? What were people thinking?

  “When does Becky get back from vacation?” she asked.

  “She would come in now if she was in town,” Jen said, “but I think they went—”

  The bells on the front door interrupted. It took Sam a minute to place the petite woman with curly blonde hair. Missy Malone—the one who may or may not have tried to trick Jen out of an extra twenty dollars yesterday.

  “Look at me—here twice in one day,” Missy said, eyeing Sam but turning her attention to Jen. “The box of truffles I got this morning … well, they went over so big, my husband just raved. The man does love his sweets. So I want to get some more—” She reached into one of her voluminous coat pockets and pulled out two small boxes. “—and I brought each of you a little present.”

  She held out the boxes toward Jen and Sam. “A small apology for the mix-up I caused.”

  “Oh, how cute!” Jen exclaimed when she opened hers. She pulled out a tiny unicorn carved of jade.

  Sam looked into the other box. A cupcake carved from a stone that resembled ivory, decorated with pink and red coral, sat on a bed of cotton. The item may have been mass-produced, but the craftsmanship was fairly good. The two gifts surely cost more than the twenty-dollar mistake, a mix-up that hadn’t actually cost the bakery any money. The gesture seemed a little over-the-top.

  She started to give the boxed gift back. “It’s really not necessary.”

  Missy stepped back and put her hands behind her back. “No, no—you keep it. I sincerely feel badly about the little scene. I got so confused there for a minute. I just—” Her eyes began to water up, and Sam lowered her hand with the small box in it.

  “Okay, if you insist. I’m just glad we caught the error.”

  Missy gave a grateful smile and turned toward Jen, reaching to squeeze her hand. “Enjoy your little unicorn,” she said.

  “Thank you for the thoughtful gift,” Sam said. “Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me now. I’ve got a ton of work stacking up in the kitchen.”

  Missy insisted on giving Sam a hug the minute she was no longer behind the sales counter. The instant familiarity seemed a bit much, but Jen had clearly done a good job of establishing rapport with the customer. After all, that’s what any business wanted.

  The two younger women continued to chat as Sam made her way to her desk. As Jen said, four new orders lay on top of the basket—five, with the doll cake order Sam had brought with her. The wedding cake was the most complex. Three tiers and a lot of piping.

  The other orders included three dozen cupcakes, decorated with monster themes for a kid’s birthday at school. Those were due Friday. A flower bouquet atop a sheet cake—normally Sam and Becky would take the time to create a mixed bouquet with sugar paste flowers, but there was no time now. Piped roses would have to do.

  The final order was for a beach and surf design. What was with people this January week—? Everyone seemed in the mood for sunny days and outdoor activities. Flowers, fishermen, beaches … Sam quickly sorted the orders by difficulty and due dates, and told Julio the sizes and flavors of cakes to bake.

  While he measured ingredients for lemon-poppyseed batter for the wedding cake, Sam checked her supplies of sugar paste, fondant, and icing sugar. A quick phone order to her wholesaler included the bride-and-groom cake topper selected by the client with the last-minute wedding order. She felt a tiny spark of residual energy from the carved box, so she set to work making a surfboard of fondant for
the beach cake.

  By five-thirty, her energy was definitely flagging. Julio had baked most of the cakes, which were now cooling in the big walk-in fridge. He would do the three dozen cupcakes tomorrow, if Sam didn’t mind; he wanted to get home before the roads became icy again. She nodded and looked at the work she had accomplished. If no new orders came in tomorrow or the next day, she could deliver the existing ones easily enough.

  Yeah, and if wishes were horses …

  Two alternatives presented themselves. She could handle the box again and stay at the bakery to work all night, knowing she would be physically wiped out later. Or, she could go home and get a good night’s rest and start fresh in the morning. Beau’s offer to pick up pizza for dinner took one item off her agenda, but didn’t exactly answer the question of whether to work or go home.

  She dusted powdered sugar off her hands, noticing for the first time she was dressed in jeans and flannel shirt under her bakery jacket. She’d completely forgotten about going back to the abandoned house to mop the floors. She washed her hands and picked up her phone.

  “Take the pizza home,” she told Beau. “I’ll be along soon.”

  She spent an uneasy night. Pizza on top of worry was never a great combination. Thoughts kept charging through her head—finish the cleanup job first or tend to her bakery orders and let Delbert Crow have a tizzy if he wanted to. When Beau switched on the lamp at two a.m. to ask what on earth was making her so restless, she dumped the decision on him.

  “Go to the bakery first,” he said. “Your customers are more important than the old grump.”

  “Thank you. I needed to hear your common sense advice.” She smiled and he rolled toward her.

  “I know something else that’ll make you sleep real good,” he said. A gleam came into his blue eyes as he reached for the top button on her pajamas.

  He was right—so right.

  Chapter 7

  Sam woke at five with a residual feeling of euphoria from their middle-of-night lovemaking. The glowing feeling lasted only until her mind switched back to the worries of the previous evening. She shoved them back, intending to join Beau in the shower, but by the time she tossed the covers aside and entered the steamy bathroom, he was already wiping moisture off the mirror and picking up his razor. He managed to plant a shaving-cream kiss on her cheek before she could duck out of his way.