8 Sweet Payback Read online

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  Shadows grew long across the fields of alfalfa as Sam drove toward home. Meeting with Rupert had been fun, although she hadn’t exactly gotten the information she’d been after, a list of Bertha Martinez’s old friends. But what had she expected anyway? Rupert hung with the art and fashion crowd. Ninety-some-year-old Bertha hadn’t fit that mold. She was hoping he might have heard of some local coven or known someone in the mysticism crowd. But at least with the librarian’s name she had a starting place.

  She also had a new job to do, as of a few minutes ago; however, that would wait until tomorrow. It was too late in the day and Beau had called to say he was on the way home. With luck they might salvage a bit of time together before the weekend was over. Plus, she was eager to hear what was going on with the call that dragged him away during breakfast. She pulled into the long drive and backed her truck up to the tongue of her utility trailer.

  Beau’s cruiser came to a stop next to her. “Need some help with that, ma’am?” Without waiting for an answer he hopped out and stood behind the truck, guiding her to the right position and hitching the trailer to it before she’d shut off the engine.

  “Thank you, kind sir.” A kiss showed the rest of her gratitude. “Did you get any lunch, hon?”

  “Afraid not. I’m starving.”

  Sam felt a little stab of guilt for stuffing herself with tea and goodies. She admitted that she couldn’t really hold a thing right now, but offered to make anything he wanted. They walked into the house together.

  “I’ll just wash up and make myself a sandwich,” he said, pumping hand soap at the kitchen sink. “How about you get us a drink of some kind?”

  She settled on a glass of wine for herself and brought out a beer for Beau when she saw him piling both ham and roast beef slices onto a large slab of bread. He filled her in on the situation up north as he added cheese and lettuce and carried the sandwich to the living room.

  “You can’t just order Lee Rodarte to leave town?” she asked, taking her usual spot on the deep sofa. Beau was right about starving—he’d wolfed half his sandwich before he spoke again.

  “Not really,” he said. “He’s got as much right to be there as Jessie did, although I did warn him that it wasn’t safe.” He paused for a swig of his beer. “The guy’s not easy to like—I mean, same things that turned the jury against him, I suppose. Covered in tattoos, rough-looking, facial scars that probably came from knife fights, a record of minor drug charges, and an illegitimate child with a pretty girl who probably should have known better than to get involved with him.”

  Sam waited while he took another big bite of the sandwich.

  “But—in this particular case, it looks like he’s the innocent man caught up in forces beyond his control. According to the original court testimony, he and Jessie did a few drug deals together—misdemeanor stuff involving recreational quantities of pot. But then Jessie turns on Lee and accuses him of being in on killing Angela Cayne. Lee protests, swears he was somewhere else when it happened but can’t prove it, goes to prison. Six years there, the confession is thrown out and suddenly he’s free. Life should be good. He wants his girlfriend and little boy back but he gets to town just as Jessie dies and he can see himself getting dragged into court again. He’s got a lot of anger—toward both Jessie Starkey and the system.”

  “So, maybe he did kill Starkey—he sounds angry enough.”

  Beau shook his head slowly. “I don’t know . . . I’m not getting that kind of feeling. But I’ll definitely be trying to verify his story.”

  “If this were me . . . I’d be thinking of ways to get as far from New Mexico as possible.”

  “You’d think. But as of this moment his heart—or some other body part—is overriding his brain.” He set his plate aside. “If his alibi for this morning checks out, I’ll see if I can’t talk some sense to him. Who knows—another day or so and maybe the girlfriend will be ready to move away with him and there’ll be a happy ending to all this.”

  “So, if Lee Rodarte didn’t kill Jessie Starkey and you said it wasn’t a hunting accident, who did do it?”

  “That’s the big question,” he said leaning back in his chair. “The fact that it happened within hours after Jessie got home . . . sure sounds like revenge. Which only narrows it down to half the population of Sembramos.”

  “Couldn’t it go back to the original case? When that young woman was killed? Someone thought the real killers had gone to prison, sees them get out and thinks the system has failed, decides they’ll take over where the lawyers and courts let them down?”

  Beau gave her a serious look. “The mood in that town right now? Yeah, I could easily see one side or the other taking matters into their own hands.”

  “So, we just have to think through the list of who that might be.”

  “We?” He grinned at her. “You want your deputy status back?”

  “Well, it sounds more appealing than breaking into a house and spending the rest of the week cleaning.” She told him about the call from Delbert Crow. “Which reminds me, this one’s out in the country somewhere and I need to look it up on the map.”

  She pulled the note from her pack and stepped to the map on the wall.

  “Looks like I have to drive through Sembramos to get there,” she said, running her finger along the highway that Crow had named.

  Beau sat up straight, then stood up and came to see her notes.

  “See, it’s about another five miles past town, then Delbert said there would be a driveway with a mailbox. He gave me a number but it’s all rural addressing out there.”

  “I don’t like this, Sam.” He chewed at his lip.

  “You said it was quiet when you left. The people who’d gathered at the Starkey place weren’t roaming the streets or anything, right?”

  “Well, true.” His hesitation made her look up at his face. Worry etched the space between his eyebrows. “Just drive straight through town. Don’t stop and don’t talk to anyone, and you should be okay.”

  “What—I’ve lost my deputy status already?” She kept her tone light, teasing, reaching toward his ticklish ribs.

  He tussled with her a moment and tickled right back, but the worry lines were still there.

  Chapter 6

  Habits—even the ones you don’t like—are hard to break, Sam discovered, when she automatically awoke before daylight. She rolled over and snuggled against Beau’s back, the warm quilt around her shoulders, and managed to remain in a state of half-drowse until his alarm went off and he turned toward her. A quick kiss; she could tell he was preoccupied already.

  Over his breakfast of Cheerios he cautioned her again not to get involved if she saw signs of trouble as she drove northward to the new job she’d been assigned yesterday. She chafed a little at his overprotectiveness but kept a smile on her face as she assured him she would be watchful.

  Saturday’s weather front had blown through quickly, leaving a clear sky and the promise of warmer temperatures but Sam knew from experience that April could bring nearly anything. She took a spare flannel shirt and tossed her all-weather jacket into the back seat of her truck.

  Acres of farmland rolled by, interspersed with wooded patches where trees hugged the streams that flowed out of the mountains. Sam consulted her notes and made the turns Delbert Crow had described. The town of Sembramos appeared, noted by the fact that the speed limit dropped from fifty-five to thirty-five and a rectangular, green highway sign demarcated the town limit. She slowed accordingly and found herself paying attention to little details.

  The highway bisected the town lengthwise. On her left stood a one-story school of red brick with a dozen cars in the parking lot. A small bank sat a little farther on. To the right, a variety store and ice cream parlor. A paved cross street led to residential areas of unimposing little houses; the intersection was marked with brilliant yellow signs warning motorists to stop for pedestrians and showing black silhouettes of children.

  Beyo
nd the initial cluster of businesses she spotted a small café and two boarded-up retail shops. All had graveled parking lots and no curbs or sidewalks. A block over, in the spaces between buildings, she could tell there were a few more shopping choices and a small park. The entire trip took less than three minutes and she didn’t see a living soul the entire time. Eerie for a Monday morning.

  It’s still early in the day, she reminded herself. The cars parked at the elementary school and the bank gave proof that the town wasn’t deserted. But still . . . weird.

  She consulted her notes and glanced at her odometer. Crow had said that 5.1 miles beyond the town was a turnoff and that’s where her newest break-in project awaited. Sam resumed her highway speed, zipping past fields of alfalfa and apple orchards in full bloom, the trees resembling rows of little old ladies with fluffy white hairdos. Beyond the irrigated areas native sage and piñon dotted the foothills which rose to a climax at Wheeler Peak in the distance. Snow still topped the state’s highest mountain; patches of it would probably remain until July.

  The orchards gave way to flat fields where in a couple more months tufts of green would begin to show in straight lines along the hundreds of neat rows. Sam began to watch for her turnoff.

  Crow hadn’t mentioned that the terrain rose fairly steeply to the ten-acre property or that the house was massive, dominating the rocky hill upon which it sat. She steered up a long gravel driveway, topped the rise and pulled into a circular drive overgrown with last winter’s dead weeds and the promise of this year’s new batch. She killed the engine and stepped out of her truck into the vast silence of open country.

  “Wow.” Her voice echoed off brilliant white stucco. The mansion reminded Sam of architecture she’d seen in photos of Greece. High walls rose above her, capped by a domed roof and tiled cupola. A pair of matching stairways with concrete balusters curved from the second floor down to the ground, like graceful arms offering a hug to the building. Above an impressive, arched front door, a balcony stretched across the second story, with two sets of double doors opening to it. She pictured the owner—a minor lord or very successful drug kingpin—stepping out to stare down and see who was standing outside his estate.

  But that was not going to happen. The whole place resonated with an air of abandoned desolation. The glass doors and windows were blank and dark; not a tire track marred the driveway or parking area. As she studied it more closely she saw that planting beds had been built but never filled and that the central part of the courtyard, where normally there would be a lawn or at least some decorative rock, had never been landscaped. Only weedy earth extended to the footing of the enormous house.

  Sam set out to make her customary initial check of the perimeter. An empty swimming pool and round hot tub—marred by a crust of dirt and heaps of dead plant debris—waited behind the house to be filled with water and enjoyed. An elaborate built-in barbeque with tile backsplash and more counter space than Sam had in her kitchen sat coated in dust. The stainless steel grill still had new-item stickers affixed. The house’s glass double doors faced the pool and Sam had a momentary vision of what the place would be like in full glory, a party with a few dozen people milling about, the smell of steaks on the grill, the splashes of children playing in clear blue water. A lone cottontail rabbit hopped across the walled courtyard, emphasizing that no such gatherings had ever happened here.

  She stepped to the doors and tried the knob. Locked. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she saw that the huge great room, which could have accommodated three or four seating areas or a presidential inaugural ball, was empty. At the far end she saw a kitchen full of appliances; a massive stone fireplace filled the west wall; stairs on the east wall led to a mezzanine that overlooked the ballroom-sized living area, with doors that probably led to bedrooms above.

  Whatever the story behind it, her job now was to get inside. It seemed a shame to drill the expensive lock on the front door, but after circling the entire place and trying each door she came to, it seemed the only way. She retrieved her tools from the truck and had broken in within a few minutes.

  She stepped into a wide foyer, her sneakers making swishy sounds in the light layer of grit on the tile floor leading to the big room she had viewed from the other side. Her breathing echoed faintly from blank walls to the two-and-a-half story dome overhead. A quick survey of the room showed the fireplace was as sterile and clean as the day it was built; the high-end stainless steel appliances in the kitchen had plastic bags with the operating instructions hanging by their handles; a layer of construction dust powdered the beautifully laid custom tile, and every other surface in the place. Was this a case where the owner had spent every cent to build the structure but ran out of funds before he could furnish it? Perhaps it had been a spec house that a builder had started in more prosperous times and the perfect buyer had never come along. The space suddenly felt extremely chilly.

  She walked slowly up the stairs, finding a massive master suite with two bathrooms and dressing rooms bigger than their master bedroom at home. Her earlier chill vanished as she walked into a bathroom where the temperature felt almost sauna-like. Despite a search for a heat source Sam found no reason for the discrepancies between the rooms. Odd. But she’d long ago learned that every house had its quirks.

  Back downstairs, she followed a passageway to two more suites, perfect places to entertain guests or spoil your children in spacious accommodation. Beyond the foyer in the other direction were a wine cellar and a series of other, unspecified rooms that could have been intended as study, hobby room, library or maid’s quarters; maybe in this league houses simply had places that no one knew what they were for. Sam made her way back to the massive room (she had a hard time thinking of it as merely ‘great’) and stood there with the sound of her footsteps echoing back at her.

  The nice thing about cleaning an empty house was that she had no furniture to work around, no clutter to clean up. The fans near the top of that domed ceiling would be tricky to dust, but since that was a little beyond her obligation to make the place presentable enough for sale she could see maybe two or three days to dust and vacuum, at most. Not such a bad assignment, and she could still probably work in time to visit that librarian Rupert had told her about in her quest to get answers about the two odd wooden boxes.

  She placed one of her standard sign-in sheets on the dark granite countertop and went out to her truck for her cleaning gear.

  * * *

  Beau got off the phone with the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque and sat at his desk, drumming his pen against the file he’d started on the death of Jessie Starkey. He’d only learned one new thing: the bullet that killed Jessie Starkey was a .357 caliber. One shot to the heart. Yes, they’d retrieved the bullet and it was in good enough shape for matching—if he found the weapon to compare to it.

  That was the kicker. In a county where half the people hunted and even those who didn’t probably owned guns, it wasn’t going to be easy to find the right one. The pen tapped and he debated.

  As he’d told Sam last night, the most likely motive was revenge by one of Angela Cayne’s friends or relatives, someone who believed the guilty men had been wrongly let go. He tried to remember if she’d had a boyfriend when she died. He didn’t recall one being interrogated during the investigation of her death. She’d lived at home with her parents. He turned to the credenza in his office, pulled one of their basic information files and flipped through it. Jotted her address on a scrap of paper. It was a start.

  Making his way through the traffic in the center of Taos and heading north on open road, he daydreamed of the possibility that talking with Angela’s father would simply get the man to turn over the weapon and tearfully admit that he’d taken it upon himself to rid society of Jessie Starkey. The likelihood was practically nil. He knew that. With a sigh, he drove on.

  It was midmorning when he slowed to the speed limit at the edge of Sembramos. Outside the bank, a man getting into a pickup truck p
aused to stare at the Sheriff’s Department cruiser, giving Beau the eye. Beau gave a smile and a nod. The man turned away.

  Better take the temperature of the town, he decided, cruising the length of the main drag and turning to travel back along the dirt road parallel to it. A few faces turned at the sight of his vehicle, a couple abruptly changed direction. Sophie Garcia’s place looked the same as yesterday, her compact Ford and Jessie’s motorcycle out front. A woman coming out of one of the other apartments glanced up, stepped back inside and closed her door.

  People were nervous. Had something more happened overnight? If so, no one had reported it.

  He decided to make the rounds of the few places he knew. A few cars were parked outside Joe and Helen Starkey’s house, but he didn’t see anyone in the dirt yard or peering out the windows. The Rodarte’s old house was similarly quiet, no vehicle in sight. Gina Staples and her husband didn’t appear to be home but the garden had been watered this morning, he could tell by the damp trenches between the rows. He consulted his note and realized the Cayne family had lived right next door. Had Gina mentioned that? He didn’t think so, and wondered if she was hiding something. Somehow he hadn’t quite gotten to that part of the old case file in his brief scan of it, and now he was feeling even more out of the loop.

  No wonder it was easy for everyone to make the connection between Lee Rodarte and Angela Cayne—they’d been next-door neighbors.

  He pulled over to the edge of the road, got out and walked up to the place that looked like a modified double-wide with its white siding and aluminum screen door. It seemed neatly kept, but there were no vehicles or other signs of life at the moment. He was about to tap on the front door anyway when he spotted a little placard, something done by a craft painter. “The Smiths Live Here!” it proclaimed. His knock went unanswered.