Sweet's Sweets: The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery ssm-2 Page 4

  He seemed to sense her irritation. “I know. Just a few days. Meanwhile, maybe I can get some information on the homeowners? Names, current place of residence?”

  “From my semi-experienced observation,” —she looked up and grinned at him—“it looks to me like there was a woman and three or four kids here.” She pointed to the crib and three smaller beds, along with the lack of male clothing and personal items, as her reasoning. “As for names, I wasn’t given any. Do you want to speak directly with my contracting officer, or shall I give him a call?”

  Truthfully, she didn’t expect a lot of cooperation from the crusty old bureaucrat and her instincts proved correct. But he did provide a number for someone else, which led to a series of call transfers until she got a person who would talk. That man furnished the name and past employer of Cheryl Adams. Her loan application stated that she’d moved to New Mexico from Nevada. Place of birth was Connecticut, and she’d held jobs in Washington state, Colorado, and Kansas. She had three children at the time she applied for her home loan, but that was four years ago and Sam guessed that the occupant of the crib came along during her stay in Taos. The USDA had no records of Cheryl Adams’s current whereabouts, and he somewhat snidely reminded Sam that they would probably be pursuing Adams for past-due payments if they had a clue where she was or a prayer of getting the money. They had no record of a male co-owner and her minor children, he said, were not the concern of his department. Whomever Adams might have chosen to co-habit with didn’t show up on their radar.

  Sam passed all this along to Beau, for whatever little help it might provide.

  Meanwhile, Troy and crew had nearly finished hauling out the smaller junk and the rooms felt much larger and more open with their minimal furnishings. Sam directed the men to remove a few more things then noted their hours so she would know how much to reimburse Darryl for their time, and sent them on their way.

  Until Beau gave the all-clear, she couldn’t really apply cleansers or vacuum up possible trace evidence or get a whole lot further along toward completing the cleanup. With work at a standstill, she updated her sign-in sheet, posted the required USDA notices out in the yard, secured the doors and windows, and placed the keys in a lockbox on the front doorknob.

  The small tasks kept her hands occupied, but she couldn’t clear her head of all the questions that ricocheted around in there. Was Cheryl Adams one of those sad cases—single mother, four kids with four different fathers? Was the blood on the coat hers? Maybe the man who’d once lived here, the owner of those battered boots, had been abusive toward Adams and she’d done something to him? Or, heaven forbid, maybe he’d injured one of her children and wrapped the little body in the old coat as he removed it from the house.

  No matter how much she puzzled over it, Sam found no answers and the questions only became more and more disturbing.

  Suddenly free of her newest break-in job, Sam reveled in the idea that a whole evening loomed ahead—time that she could spend on her shop. She left a voice mail message telling Kelly where she would be, stopped at the first fast-food place with a drive-up and came away with a bag of greasy, meaty goodness that she would call dinner.

  The alley behind her new shop was quiet and she parked the Silverado beside her new back door. Ivan Petrenko’s vehicle sat behind the bookstore. While it was comforting to know that there were others nearby, she hoped to avoid any interruptions to her evening’s work. She reached across the passenger seat for her fast-food sack and the mid-weight jacket she’d shed as the day warmed up. And under the jacket, her secret weapon.

  Sam wasn’t sure what possessed her to bring the magical wooden box with her today. Before this week she’d avoided taking advantage of its powers. Was it the vivid dream in which the old bruja, Bertha Martinez, had appeared and encouraged her to use the box to her advantage? Or was it the fact that the recent workload had left her feeling overwhelmed, in need of any little help she could get? Sam brushed aside her nagging doubts and grabbed it up.

  Indoors, she switched on the lights. The retail space echoed with a satisfying emptiness. Sam had made more headway yesterday than she’d thought. The front of the shop contained only the nicest of the display cases, the ones she planned to keep, and the back room needed just a bit more clearing before she would be able to start bringing in her own fixtures. She wiped off a space on an old table and set her dinner and the wooden box there.

  Closing her eyes, she placed her hands on the box. As the warm glow began to spread up her arms she breathed contentedly. Alone in her own space, secure with the doors locked against the rest of the world, Sam fixed the vision of her finished pastry shop in her head. What if the box’s powers went far beyond anything she could imagine, as the vision of Bertha Martinez had suggested? What if she were to open her eyes and the shop would be there, real and finished, ready to open for customers? What if . . .

  The tingle in Sam’s arms became intense. Her heart raced as if jolted by electricity. She yanked her hands away from the box.

  Her eyes popped open and she stared around the storeroom. Everything was as before. Thank god. What would she have done had her vision actually manifested itself? The very idea scared her. Thrilled her. She couldn’t be sure which.

  She stood up and shook her hands to relieve the prickling sensation.

  Delving into the sack she grabbed two fries and gobbled them. The cheeseburger disappeared in a few bites. She couldn’t remember having lunch and there’d been only a slice of pumpkin bread for breakfast. That explained it. No wonder she’d been lightheaded, allowing her imagination to go all vivid on her. Crazy.

  She wiped her hands on the napkin from the bag and tossed the wrappers into a trash bag. Furniture polish—that will make me feel better.

  She went to work on the display cases in the sales room. The wood immediately began to gleam with new luster and the glass shone brilliantly. She’d been half worried that the old furnishings would be too battered and worn to do her any good, but they were turning out beautifully. She pushed them into the positions where she’d envisioned them. Nice.

  The old hardwood floors didn’t seem nearly as scarred as she’d first thought. Just having the lights on made all the difference, she decided. She swept, mopped and applied a good coat of paste wax. The electric buffer that she’d left here yesterday made quick work of that task and when it was finished Sam stood back, gazing out at her showroom.

  Really, with the addition of tables and chairs, a cash register and a few more odds and ends, she could begin making sales right away. She smiled at her handiwork.

  Scarcely two hours had passed but Sam didn’t want to dwell upon the fact that she was obviously working under the influence of the box’s magic. She turned to the second room, the one that would be her kitchen. With the power of invincibility behind her she began shoving everything she didn’t plan to keep—every box, every old rickety shelf unit, every tacky bit of detritus that the old tenant had left behind—toward the back door. It made a good-sized stack but she piled it all up. Then she opened the back door and began heaving all the junk into the dumpster in the alley.

  One by one, the trashy items became history. Sam didn’t give herself the chance to think about how her joints were going to feel in the morning, or the luxury of saying that she ought to quit and tackle it again tomorrow. She simply worked like a robot—reach, lift, turn, throw. And soon the big stack became a small stack and quickly even the small stack was gone. She gave a sigh and took a deep breath of the crisp night air.

  Ivan’s vehicle was gone now. It must be after eight o’clock.

  Sam still felt like she had energy to spare. Secretly glad that no one had stopped by to interrupt, she went back inside and began cleaning the floors in the back room. These were sealed concrete and the cleanup went quickly, as she filled and refilled her mop bucket, washing all traces of the former dust and grime down the drain in the little porcelain sink in one corner. Soon, stainless fixtures would replace the old ones. She as
sembled bakery racks in her new storage area, readying it for the stores of supplies and tools she now kept crowded into her meager service porch at home.

  Stepping back, she surveyed the now-open work space. Last month when Sam first had the idea that this location would become hers, she’d come by with the landlord and measured the entire area. When the reality of having money in the bank finally sank in, she’d ordered custom fixtures from a commercial kitchen outfitter in Albuquerque and Darryl’s cabinetry man was making the rest of what she needed—a back counter for the sales area, window display shelves and special racks for cakes and other pastries.

  She laughed aloud. What fun this was turning out to be!

  Chapter 6

  The luxury of sleeping late would no longer be a regular thing, Sam was beginning to realize. She awoke to a gray dawn, knowing that a million tasks awaited, but she rolled over and tugged the comforter up over her shoulders. Dimly, from the rest of the house, came the sounds of Kelly rising and showering and making her way to the kitchen. Sam ignored it all, telling herself that just thirty more minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt anything.

  When her bedside phone rang at eight o’clock, she sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Clearing her throat she picked up the receiver.

  “Samantha Sweet,” she answered, hoping she didn’t sound as sleepy as she felt.

  “I’m at my wits end,” the female voice said. “My niece’s birthday party is at four o’clock and I completely forgot that I was the one who volunteered to bring the cake.”

  Groping for pen and paper, Sam privately wondered why the lady didn’t simply grab a generic cake at the grocery store.

  “. . . princess theme and the cake has to be shaped like a castle.”

  “A castle?” On less than a day’s notice?

  “Pink. With lavender flowers and a pony in front of it.”

  Sam opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t just happen to have a pony waiting around to grace this particular cake. But the woman uttered the magic words: “I’ll pay extra.”

  Damn straight, you will.

  “Give me just a second here,” Sam said, jotting instructions as fast as she could, taking information about how many guests there would be and trying to wrap her head around the logistics of putting this thing together on such short notice. As she calculated the number of layers and the amount of trimming she’d have to do, her call waiting signal came through. She excused herself to the distraught woman and clicked over to the other call.

  “Ms. Sweet, it’s Maria at Signs R Us. Just wanted to let you know that your van will be ready to pick up anytime after noon today.”

  Sam jotted a note on her hand. By noon it looked like she would be up to her elbows in pink frosting and cake crumbs.

  Back to the lady with the emergency castle order. Sam thought of the most she’d ever charged for a special-shape cake and doubled it, half hoping the woman would call her crazy and hang up. But, no. She accepted without a second’s hesitation and gave the address where she wanted this miracle cake delivered.

  “Be sure to be there by three-thirty,” she said.

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am.” Sam bit back what she really wanted to say, glad she had doubled the price.

  All this before I’ve even been to the bathroom, she thought, grabbing up some jeans and a clean work shirt. Thirty minutes later the first two cake pans were in the oven and she’d gathered ingredients for sponge cupcakes. Stacking them was the easiest way she could think of to create turrets. Rummaging through an upper cabinet in search of pink lace to line the cake board, she’d come across a plastic unicorn that she’d once ordered from her supplier, thinking it was cute.

  The oven timer pinged, the layers came out, cupcakes went in. And Sam began piping a host of lavender and pink roses, setting them aside in the fridge to firm up before they could be placed on the cake. She stuck the cakes into the fridge, as well, pushing desperately to cool them a little faster.

  Her cell phone vibrated on the kitchen table and then chirped out a couple of final tones. Beau. She picked it up and balanced it against her cheek while she scooped colored icing into a pastry bag.

  “Hey there,” he said. “How’s things going?”

  “No time whatsoever for conversation. Sorry, that was rude. I didn’t mean . . . ”

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t have much time either. Thought you might want to know that the preliminary blood test from that coat shows it to be male. So, it’s not your lady homeowner. But it’ll take awhile longer to get specific DNA.”

  Sam felt a degree of relief that Cheryl Adams wasn’t the victim of whatever had happened. Still, Sam wondered . . . maybe one of the men in Cheryl’s life had pushed her too far.

  “I’m working on a few leads that might tell us where Ms. Adams went when she left Taos,” Beau was saying. “She has relatives in Colorado, but I haven’t been able to make contact yet. And I won’t get to it today. Just got a call that Search and Rescue is recovering a body from the bottom of the gorge. Probably some bridge-jumper but I’m going to have to investigate. I was hoping to see you tonight, but . . .”

  “It’s all right, really. Things are stacking up on me too. The shop—”

  He was already saying goodbye and she let it go at that.

  Thinking of her store reminded her that she intended to call the fixture manufacturer in Albuquerque very first thing this morning and had become sidetracked. She set aside the filled pastry bag and looked up their number.

  “I’ve got four orders bigger than yours, lady,” the guy told her.

  “My stuff was promised for this week, and it’s already Thursday.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes we just don’t get what we wish for. I’ll try for Monday.”

  Sam felt her blood pressure rising and bit back a sharp retort. She hung up abruptly. No sense in pissing the guy off further; he already had enough issues and she certainly wouldn’t get her equipment faster by making him mad. She tossed the cell phone back onto the table and blew out a sharp breath.

  The kitchen phone rang before she’d had the chance to turn around, and the timer on the cupcakes went off at the same instant. Sam reached for the phone with one hand, saying, “Please hold one moment” as she grabbed an oven mitt and pulled the door open with the other hand.

  “Thank you for holding,” she said in the most businesslike tone she could muster.

  “Mom? Busy day?”

  “I can’t even describe—” The call-waiting beep came through again. “Can I put you on hold a second, Kelly?”

  “I’ll let you go. Just wanted to say that I won’t be home for dinner. Fill you in later. Bye.”

  I have to get some help with this, Sam thought as she clicked through to the other call.

  “Is this the Sweet’s Sweets bakery?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it certainly is.” Cool—the new call-forwarding is working and word is getting out!

  “Can you handle a rather large order?”

  Oh, god, not today. “What can we do for you?”

  “My name is Elena Tafoya and my husband is running for governor. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, Carlos Tafoya?”

  Son of the crotchety landlord, Victor Tafoya. Oh yeah, she’d heard of him.

  The woman went on. “We’ll be needing a large victory cake. Maybe several. I don’t know how to figure out that kind of thing.”

  Sam sat down with her order pad and took a deep breath. Hand-holding was something she did all the time. “How many guests do you expect at the, uh, victory party?”

  Elena Tafoya chuckled lightly. “Oh, you mean, what if Carlos doesn’t win? What if it’s not a victory after all?”

  “I didn’t want to say that, but I guess one never knows really.”

  “Well, that’s true. But there will be a party, either way. Something to thank the volunteers and everyone.”

  Sam went into an explanation about how many people could be served from a tiered cake, a sheet cake, a half-sheet and so forth
. “If you think the amount you order isn’t quite enough, I can always bake a second cake that day, as long as it’s a simple design.”

  “Oh, I like that idea. Maybe we could do a main cake that’s two or three tiers high. And if we need more, just some regular sheet cakes to feed the extra people?”

  Sam assured her that would work easily and proceeded to take the information about colors and style. “Thanks” seemed to be an appropriate message to put on the cake, win or lose. She was beginning to enjoy the conversation with Elena Tafoya when the clock in the living room chimed noon, reminding her that she had to figure out how to retrieve her van from the paint shop and finish the complicated castle cake in the next three hours.

  She put on her most cordial voice as she said goodbye and assured the politician’s wife that she could meet their requirements. As she was quickly learning from Beau, politics in this county carried a lot of weight, and her fledgling business could use all the connections she could muster.

  Sam looked at the mess all over her kitchen—dirty mixing bowls in the sink, pastry bags filled with white, pink and lavender icing, cupcakes cooling in the pans. She tipped them out onto a rack, then made a quick dash through the rest of it to clear some of the clutter—thinking all the while about how she would get to the paint shop.

  Zoë. Sam dialed her friend, who would hopefully be finished checking out her guests at the B&B and perhaps able to break away for a few minutes.

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll buy lunch if you want to do it now,” Zoë said.

  “Lunch would be wonderful, but there’s no way I can manage it today.” Sam explained about the sudden push with her bakery business.

  Zoë’s Subaru pulled into Sam’s driveway ten minutes later. “I’ll bet you can hardly wait to get your shop open. But won’t you be just as busy? And tied down to the hours of a retail shop?”

  “Employees,” Sam said. “I’m so much looking forwarding to getting someone in to help with a lot of the workload. I’d hire somebody now but there is barely room for two bodies in my kitchen. Want a job?”