Balloons Can Be Murder: The Ninth Charlie Parker Mystery Read online

  “I can’t believe Gray would do this to me!” she shouted. “Why? Because of my dad, because Gray never did believe my story and now it’s payback time?” She twisted in the seat to face me. “Could Dad have . . .” She slumped back, obviously awhirl with myriad thoughts.

  I negotiated traffic on Interstate 25 while my mind did the same thing. It seemed unlikely to think that her father, just out of prison, could have managed to plant a news story—that was much more likely to have been Grayson. But the notes themselves, where had they come from?

  No clear answers came to me. I once again squeezed through the traffic at Balloon Fiesta Park and found a parking spot. We made our way through the masses at the concessions, where the smells of bacon and chile made my knees weak. I’d had nothing but coffee and one donut since sometime last night.

  We found Sam and the crew at Rachael’s launch spot and I took Sam aside. “We need to get her away from the crowd,” I told him with a quick explanation about the newspaper headline. “Take her home as quickly as you can reasonably get away. I’ll make contact with Ron and we’ll come up with a plan.” I left her in his capable hands.

  Announcements blared from speakers, letting us know about the amazing array of fabulously tasty junk food available and the rest of the day’s entertainment, including an after-dark balloon inflation scheduled for the evening hours. I pulled a crumpled twenty from my jeans pocket and headed for the breakfast burrito booth.

  Three bites into the best burrito on earth, Ron and his kids found me.

  “How’d it go?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

  “You mean the part about Rachael leaving in an ambulance?” I bit into the burrito again. I turned sideways to avoid being bowled over by two kids who thought they needed to race at top speed through the thick crowd. “Or the part about her picture being on the front page of this morning’s newspaper.”

  His face went white. “What!” he sputtered.

  “Chill, Ron, she’s fine.” I swallowed and gestured toward the middle of the grassy field. “Let’s move out of the line of traffic,” I suggested. I quickly recapped the morning’s events and explained why Rachael had gone to the hospital. He visibly relaxed.

  “The newspaper thing bothers me more,” I said. I posited some of my rambling thoughts on it. He looked concerned at the development but didn’t have any other ideas to offer at the moment.

  “Look, I gotta get these kids home. Joey’s got a tummy ache,” he said.

  No surprise there.

  “How many cinnamon rolls, caramel apples, funnel cakes, and cotton candies did he eat?” I couldn’t resist the dig. Ron’s a great dad, but getting the kids only a couple of weekends a month tends to make him guide with a light hand. Face it, he just can’t say no.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “I just gotta get him well before Bernadette gets them back at six tonight or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Good luck. Look, I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. Maybe we can get some of our suspects interviewed.”

  “I think it would be a good idea for you to spend the night at Rachael’s tonight,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off.

  “She’s got her mind on a hundred other things right now. I just don’t like her being all alone.”

  I grumbled but agreed to do it.

  He looked down, where Joey stood with a chubby arm wrapped around his dad’s leg. His face was pretty green. Ron patted my shoulder and gathered his little brood. I watched them head for the parking lot, making a silent bet as to whether Joey would throw up before or after they reached the car. If it happened after, Ron would not be a happy man.

  I strolled the field for another hour, polishing off my burrito and adding a chunk of funnel cake, as much as I could handle of it, on top. Vendor booths rimmed the edges of the large field and the crowd was loading up on T-shirts, pins, funny looking hats and tons of junk food. An announcer with a sense of humor kept them entertained as they waited for the next airshow entry to arrive. I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket and tried Drake. No answer and I left a message to let him know that I’d be at Rachael’s tonight and that I hoped we would have a chance to talk before then.

  Feeling somewhat at loose ends, I decided I might catch a decent nap at home so I’d be somewhat awake for my evening duties. I headed for the parking lot.

  The morning paper on the backseat caught my eye and I remembered that the Journal offices were just a few blocks from the balloon field. Reaching for the paper, I noted the byline. Tom Smithson. It was worth a shot.

  I wound my way through the quiet streets of Journal Center business park. Most of the parking lots were empty, the buildings looking quiet and echoing emptiness on this Saturday morning. The Journal itself seemed nearly the only exception. I pulled into a visitor space, entered the reception area and asked about Smithson. Yes, he was in, could she say what this was about? I mentioned the Rachael Fairfield story and she asked would I please wait?

  Like I had much choice.

  I took a chair at one side of the lobby and waited fifteen minutes. Tom Smithson seemed the antithesis of my idea of a hard-driving newsman. At five-five, with thinning sandy hair and thick glasses in invisible wire frames, he didn’t come across as the investigative reporter who put fear into the hearts of gigantic corporations. But that’s how the town saw him.

  “Can we talk privately?” I asked, handing him my business card.

  He ushered me into a small room that contained a bank of enclosed cabinets and a copy machine. A small table in the center of the space provided a spot for collating copies and dumping miscellaneous forgotten projects.

  “Sorry,” Smithson said, shoving a stack of papers aside. “The main conference room is outside security limits on weekends.”

  I started to ask what he meant by that but he’d already pulled a chair out for me and offered coffee, which I declined.

  He sat opposite me, forearms resting on the table, a notepad and pen at hand. “I understand this is something about the Rachael Fairfield story this morning?”

  “Our firm has been retained to investigate the threats against Ms. Fairfield,” I told him. “We’ve been trying to keep the whole thing quiet while we try to find out who’s behind them.”

  “And who is?” he asked. His right hand twitched toward the pen and pad at his side.

  I ignored the question. “Where’d you get that story, Mr. Smithson?” I leaned forward in my chair, taking a more aggressive posture. “Doesn’t the paper have some responsibility about putting something like this in print?”

  I shoved the headline page toward him. “Bringing this out seems extremely irresponsible to me.”

  The otherwise timid-looking face didn’t budge. He shrugged. “You know how we newspaper people are about our sources.”

  I chewed at the inner corner of my lip and remembered the old bit about flies and honey. “Okay, fair enough,” I said, expelling a breath of resignation. “Rachael thinks her brother probably sent out a news release to gain publicity for her upcoming record attempt.”

  His head tilted in a tiny gesture of acquiescence.

  I nodded an I-thought-so and a responding flicker from him let me know that we were on the same page with this.

  “But to treat it as a front-page headline?” I asked. “If you believed it was a publicity stunt, why would you do that?”

  He picked up the pen and began doodling a series of squiggles in the upper corner of the notepad. “Let’s just say that other sources confirmed the existence of the notes.”

  Other sources? Had Sam or one of the crew talked to him? Or maybe the sender had anonymously contacted Smithson himself?

  He saw the conflicting theories play across my face.

  “Not what you’re thinking, Ms. Parker,” he said. “And, no, I have no idea who sent them.”

  The police. It had to be.

  “Let’s just say I know someone who was working another case, we
got into a little conversation, this person confirmed the first note.”

  “And said they couldn’t do anything about it because no one had actually approached Rachael yet.”

  A tiny shrug.

  “My guess is that Grayson Fairfield sent a press kit with the announcement of the record attempt, complete with glossy photos, maybe a couple of weeks ago. Then, sometime in recent days, a second contact—something more subtle this time—with the juicy tidbit about the threats. You make a call to a buddy in the police department and the existence of the threat is confirmed. So, you’re free to go with the story. Hit the streets first day of Fiesta with this . . . this . . .”

  “Headline. It’s a lead story, that’s all.”

  “It brings out the very thing we’re trying to keep quiet.” I fought to keep my voice level and didn’t succeed very well.

  “C’mon, Ms. Parker. Be real. My editor loves a weekend headline with the word death in it. I’m just doing my job.” He leaned toward his notepad again. “So, let me in on who your suspects are?”

  I stood abruptly, tipping the chair which refused to slide on the carpeted floor. “Forget it.” I stomped out of the room and past the receptionist.

  In the parking lot I fumbled through my purse for my keys.

  “Look.” Tom Smithson had followed me out. “I don’t wish Rachael Fairfield any harm,” he said. “Maybe I could help uncover more information if you’d tell me who you’re looking at.”

  Standing, I had nearly two inches height advantage over him. I gave him a long, hard stare and he actually had the grace to look uncomfortable. Without a word I climbed into the Jeep and started it. He stood there among the fallen sycamore leaves until I’d driven out of the lot.

  I joined the traffic flow on Paseo del Norte and found myself on I-25 southbound within minutes. Now what? Clearly, Smithson hadn’t instigated the threats. That had been a dumb idea from the beginning. Grayson Fairfield, for a man of supposed high position and discretion, had certainly pulled a stupid move. Or had he? Bringing the situation to light could either cause the stalker to make a bad move and reveal himself, or to retreat and leave Rachael alone. Or it could simply escalate the whole thing.

  Chapter 9

  The famous World War II generals got street names in Albuquerque, in what was probably the newest part of town around that era. I merged into the eastbound lanes of I-40 at the last possible second, remembering that Ryan Tamsin’s address was somewhere on one of these General streets—Bradley, Arnold, Marshall—I couldn’t remember which.

  Traffic was heavy but moving and I stayed with it for another fifteen minutes or so until I was able to exit at Wyoming Boulevard. East on Copper and I found a spot where I could pull over and rummage for my notebook. Deep in the recesses of my shoulder bag I came up with my notes and the address. I wound my way through a neighborhood of small houses, some well kept and others obviously given over to rentals, mixed with boxy low-income apartment buildings and the occasional trailer park.

  Drug transactions took place in more than one parking lot here. The area of town known as the war zone, where graffiti held more square footage than business signs did, was just the other side of Central Avenue, less than four blocks away. I found the right general and located Tamsin’s address, a 1950s-era bungalow with chipped tan stucco and a dirt front yard. Clearly a rental. Next door to it stood a pale gray version of the same floor plan, this one surrounded by a short picket fence enclosing a neat patch of lawn and pots of vivid purple chrysanthemums beside the front door. I felt sorry for the owner, probably some little old lady who was struggling to hold the trashy neighborhood at bay.

  Tamsin’s place looked closed up tight. Mismatched curtains covered the windows and the door to the single car garage had a large padlock through the crude hasp that held it down. No vehicle seemed to be associated with the place.

  I pressed a doorbell but heard no corresponding sound on the inside, so I pulled open the rickety screen and knocked firmly on the front door. Twice. Nothing. A side yard cluttered with dried tumbleweeds from previous seasons led to a high wooden gate and presumably a walled back yard. I picked my way through the weeds and fiddled with the gate latch, only to be greeted with ferocious barking from something that sounded huge and mean.

  Tamsin clearly wasn’t home but probably would be later, at least to tend to the dog. Any animal with that much energy was being fed regularly. I walked back to the front sidewalk and took a moment to give the house a puzzled stare. As I’d hoped, the woman next door had, by this time, become curious and stood in her doorway.

  “Is at work, that guy,” she said.

  I took this scrap of conversation as an invitation to approach her gate. She took my approach as her one chance this week to have some company. She walked down the porch steps, drying her hands on a flowered apron. Tiny, Hispanic, probably old enough to be my great-grandmother, she smiled at me from a face creased with years of outdoor work.

  “Do you know what time he comes home?” I asked.

  Her eyes crinkled in concentration. “He is not a friend of yours, no?”

  “Well, no. I’m supposed to ask him some questions. For my job.”

  “You a bill collector?” Again, that sharp scrutiny.

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  She grinned, showing perfectly even, white dentures. “I keep many secrets,” she said, pointing to her head. “I know many things.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute.” I chuckled and she did the same. I pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “I really don’t want Mr. Tamsin knowing that an investigator is looking for him. Not just yet.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “I need to ask him some questions but I’d rather he didn’t know ahead of time.”

  “Catch him off guard, you mean. Like those guys on Law and Order.”

  “Uh, something like that, I guess. So, do you know what time he usually gets home?”

  “Usually . . . today is Saturday. Usually a little after six.”

  My guess was that she could tell me it was exactly 6:14 every night.

  “Tonight, I don’t know.” She leaned closer to me and lowered her voice. “Last night, Friday, he come back from work six-fifteen, six-thirty. Come out a half-hour later, all dressed and cleaned up. Going out with that girl. Rode away on that motorbike.”

  “Bike?”

  “One those loud things. What do they call it? Rumble, they rumble through the neighborhood.”

  “Like a Harley?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so. He works at that place they sell them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I can catch him there.”

  “Would you like some lunch? I made beans.” The look on her face was so hopeful, I almost said yes. Little old ladies, grasping for company. But I already had one of those next to my own house.

  “I really can’t,” I said. “I have to be out on the west side pretty soon.”

  She glanced again at the card I’d given her. Why did I have the feeling she’d put it away with the stack of old birthday cards she undoubtedly kept in a shoebox somewhere.

  “Remember not to say anything to him?” I tilted my head toward the house on the north.

  “Oh, no, nothing.” She reached out to shake my hand and seal the bargain. “Maybe when you come again, after you talk with him . . .”

  “I’ll stop in and say hello.”

  She seemed happy enough with that as she stood watching me get into my car. I pulled away from the curb feeling guilty somehow. My notebook on the passenger seat caught my eye and reminded me that the other person I wanted to interview, Chuck Bukovsky, lived only about fifteen minutes away. But somehow I just didn’t want to do it right now. My early morning was catching up with me and suddenly I desperately wanted a nap.

  There were a couple of stops I had to make—a short grocery list including dog food was a must. I headed toward my own neighborhood. My cell phone rang just as I pulled into the parki
ng lot of my local market.

  “Hey, where are you?” Ron asked. I told him my plan to stop at home first then head out to Rachael’s.

  “Good. I’m there now. Decided to turn the kids in early so we wouldn’t have to leave her unguarded. That newspaper headline this morning left her kind of shaky.”

  “Where’re Sam and the other guys?”

  “Sam’s taken Rachael’s truck and the balloon over to Justin’s house. Didn’t want it parked out front here overnight. In case someone tried to vandalize it.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I’ve got a bit more information on some of our suspects and we can go over that when you get here. Soon, I hope?” So much for that nap.

  I assured him I’d be there before dark, but felt myself bristling at what felt like having to account for my every move.

  An hour later I was pulling into my driveway at home. Rusty bounded out from the yard next door, which told me that my neighbor Elsa had been watching. Sure enough, she stood on her back porch when I walked around to that side of the yard. I roughed up Rusty’s ears and he bounced and twirled with joy.

  “How’s everything going?” I called out to Elsa. My neighbor, now in her late eighties, still keeps her own house, plants a garden every year, and generally treats me like the grandchild she never had.

  “Fine, Charlie, just fine. Rusty’s been a good boy. Good company for me.” She pulled a tissue from her apron pocket and dabbed at her nose. “Can you stay for dinner?”

  I worked up a smile. “I wish I could. But Ron ordered me to get out to the west side for the night. And you know how the traffic is this time of day.”

  Actually, I felt a hankering for a Big Mac and would willingly pick up fast food on the way to Rachael’s, but Ron had assured me that Rachael had made a big pot of green chile stew that had been simmering all afternoon. Dinner would be ready when I got there.

  Turning to Elsa, I said, “Walk over to the house with me. I need to look through my mail and check messages. We can visit for a minute.”