8 Sweet Payback (15 page)

“Hey, Sam,” greeted Julio.

“Can’t stay away, huh?” Becky
teased.

Sam rolled her eyes, getting off
with the explanation that after washing windows all morning she was ready for
something that tasted good. “I’ve got a couple hours before I have to get to an
appointment. Who needs my help?”

Becky held up a wedding cake sketch
on an order form. “I’ve got the flowers made for this one, but it calls for a
whole lot of traditional piping and you know how nervous I get doing the string
work.”

Piping parallel swags of thin
icing strings was a technique that took a lot of practice and an extremely
steady hand. Sam ran a few practice rows of them on a cardboard form, amazed
that her hands were a whole lot steadier than her gut felt. Then she tackled
the actual cake.

“Oh my gosh,” said Becky, an hour
later. “I am so glad you came in when you did.”

Sam stepped back. The four tiers
were gracefully draped with triple rows of perfect swags. She breathed a sigh
of satisfaction. This was her real calling, not going into strange houses and
encountering oddball, unexplainable things. Maybe she should drop the idea of
investigating anything magical.

Becky brought the flowers for the
cake from the fridge and Sam set them in place, forming cascades of peach and
ivory, adding a spritz of pearlescent powder with the airbrush. She compared it
with Jen’s sketch to be sure she hadn’t left out anything the bride wanted.

“Good to go?” she asked Becky.

“It is gorgeous. I’m supposed to
deliver it at three.”

Sam thanked Becky for taking the
initiative, then walked out to the sales area to check on the displays. Jen
reported a decent morning’s sales, which reminded Sam to review her supplies
and place an order with her wholesaler. That done, she realized it was time to
go meet Mary the witch.

Chapter
17

Whatever Sam expected of a
witch—somewhere along the spectrum between the curvy young creatures on
Charmed
and a black-clothed crone with
pointy hat and warts—Mary was none of those. The woman who approached Sam on
the sidewalk outside Java Joe’s Joint was nearing sixty and wore a soft cotton
pastel yellow skirt, blue top and earthy sandals. She carried a cloth
drawstring bag. Her all-gray hair hung in waves to her shoulders, with a strand
on either side pinned back from her face with glittery tiny clips. She looked
more earth-child than conjurer. Mary seemed a little more wary of Sam than Sam
was of her. They decided on a booth at the back of the room.

Java Joe didn’t seem the least bit
put out that both women ordered tea. He went behind the bar and came back with
a small pot for each of them.

“You’re the lady who owns that
adorable pastry shop near the plaza, aren’t you?” Mary said after they’d
established a little common ground. “I love that place, especially those
chocolates you sell around Christmas.”

Who knew a witch could also be a
chocolate fanatic? Sam wasn’t about to tell the woman that the chocolates,
first introduced to the shop by an odd Romanian chocolatier who had shown up to
offer his services, seemed to have an addictive effect on most everyone.

Once their tea arrived and Java
Joe had retreated to his own duties, Sam introduced the subject of the wooden
box.

“Ah, yes, the curious artifact you
wanted me to look at,” Mary said.

Sam unzipped her pack and took out
the box, careful to handle it minimally, lest it start to change color in the
presence of a stranger. She wanted to know if the box reacted the same way with
someone else.

“Well, it’s an interesting piece.”
Mary turned it over and looked at all sides of it. “Not exactly a piece of fine
craftsmanship.”

An understatement. At best, the
quilted pattern in the carved wood was fairly symmetrical. But the stain used
on it was an ugly yellowish-brown, which had settled into the grooves unevenly,
and the colored cabochon stones must have been mounted by an amateur as none of
the prongs were finely crafted. Sam made no comment on the dramatic changes
that came over the box when she handled it.

“The woman who gave it to me was
reputed to be a
bruja
. I may have
mentioned that on the phone. Someone else once asked me if she might have
actually been a
curandera
.”

“I didn’t recognize the name you
gave me—Bertha Martinez, wasn’t it?” Mary raised the hinged lid of the box and
examined all sides of it.

“That’s right. I’m trying to find
out something of the history of the box and wondered if there were friends or .
. . would you call them colleagues? . . . of Bertha’s in town.”

“I’m afraid most of this is out of
my league,” Mary said. “My beliefs are religious. We study the pagan gods and
goddesses that pre-date Christianity, a very nature-based belief system. While
that goes along somewhat with the Native American ideologies, they really are
two different areas of study and practice.”

“So, Bertha wasn’t affiliated with
any group that you know of?”

Mary set the box down and shook
her head. Sam watched carefully over the rim of her tea mug. The witch showed
no sign that the box had energized her or warmed to her touch.

“There’s something else I’ve been
wondering about. Just recently I’ve been assigned as caretaker for a house that
seems to have a sort of . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . Well, I’ve
observed hot and cold places in the house.” How much to reveal? “And colors . .
. something I can best describe as an aura, except I thought only people had
auras surrounding them.”

Mary regarded Sam, mouth pursed
slightly, head tilted.

“Where could I find out more? I
mean, I’m wondering if the place is haunted or . . .” Sam couldn’t think of a
better way to describe it.

“You wonder if a house can be
spiritually active, maybe inhabited by forces from another world?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess.”

“Many things are possible, and
it’s unwise to discount any of them entirely,” Mary said with a soothing voice.

“A neighbor near this particular
place says there have been odd lights at night, like perhaps someone has been
holding candlelight ceremonies or something there.”

Mary smiled indulgently. “Maybe
the neighbor just watches too much television. I’m afraid TV and movies have
really distorted what our practices are truly about.”

She started to pick up her bag.
“Nothing in my own practice relates to what you are asking me, Sam. I’m sorry.
But I will keep my senses tuned to your request. If I come across anyone who
might have known your Bertha Martinez, may I have them contact you?”

“Certainly.” Sam waved off Mary’s
cash. “The tea is my treat. I appreciate your time.”
You have no idea how much your handling the box has told me.

“Blessings on your day,” Mary said
as she stood up.

Sam stowed the box back inside her
pack. Should she have mentioned to Mary that there were two boxes? The
information probably wouldn’t matter. Something told her that the witch’s
answers were true; she really didn’t know anything of use to Sam’s search.

* *
*

Sophie Garcia had called the
sheriff’s office when Lee’s parents got to town. Now she paced the floor of her
apartment, meeting Beau’s eyes now and then.

“I feel so . . . conflicted,” she
said. “I’d given up on Lee and started my own life. It was part of the reason
the Rodartes moved away, because I was never a hundred percent sure that Lee
wasn’t guilty, because I didn’t fall apart when he went to prison. Things
became very tense between us—me and his parents. And now they’re here.”

“What caused your doubts?”

She walked to the window, turned.
“I wasn’t sure of his story—that he rode out to the gorge just to think. I mean
. . . it wasn’t impossible, but it didn’t fit his nature, really. I don’t know.
I’ve thought about this for years.”

“And when he was released—did your
feelings toward Lee change?”

“When he came back, last week, and
they said he was innocent after all. I—” her voice cracked.

Beau gave her a moment.

She wiped at her nose with a
tissue grabbed from a box on the end table.

“For a little while, when I saw
him with Nathan. The joy Lee felt at seeing me again . . . Yeah, I really did
consider giving it a second chance. Sheriff, I was so crazy in love with him
before, when we’d just gotten out of school and had our whole lives ahead of
us. But there was all the history—the way his parents feel about me. I couldn’t
decide. And now he’s—”

Beau waited while she got past a
bout of sobbing. Surely she hadn’t specifically called him for a session of
grief counseling, but it seemed rude to interrupt and ask what she’d wanted of
him. She looked up at him with reddened eyes.

“Sophie, has there been trouble
with the parents? Or someone else?”

She nodded. “It’s Nathan. Kids at
school started pushing him around, saying his dad was a killer, really being
cruel. Yesterday was bad. I kept him home today, but then the Rodartes showed
up and wanted to spend some time with him. They’re completely broken up over
Lee so I said they could take Nathan out for ice cream. Then I thought maybe if
I talked to you . . . I don’t know . . . school problems aren’t probably your
worry, but then you hear of such awful things happening to kids at school these
days. Sorry I’m bothering you with all this.”

“No, it’s okay. You were right to
let me know. Did you talk to his teacher or the principal?”

She nodded. “They said they would
hold a session and talk to the kids about being sympathetic when someone loses
a parent. I’m sure the kids are just repeating things they hear at home.”

Sad. Down to the youngest ones,
this town was still ripped into different camps.

A vehicle slowed out front and
Beau automatically stepped to the edge of the window. It was a late-model Chevy
sedan. It stopped and Nathan Garcia got out, followed by the grandparents.
Would this be yet another confrontation, people waiting to take out years of
anger on the nearest symbol of the system that had put their son away? Beau
braced himself.

“We have funeral plans to make,”
Sophie said, watching them come toward the apartment. “I told them I would
help, even though they plan to take Lee to Albuquerque for burial.”

Sophie introduced Kathy and Leroy
Rodarte, and Beau’s concerns of hostility eased. These were people whose
grieving had begun years ago according to the deeply etched lines on faces that
looked at least a decade older than their true ages. Both wore simple clothing
of the Wal-Mart variety. Kathy’s makeup was minimal and her short hair had
probably been done in the same pixie style for thirty years and colored only
when the gray began to show up. Leroy’s salt-and-pepper had many more strands
of salt these days.

Nathan grinned at his mother with
a chocolate-rimmed mouth and Sophie hustled him off to the bathroom to wash up.

“Sheriff, thank you for speaking
with our son when he came back,” Kathy said. “He had called us. He said you
were very kind to Sophie and Nathan.” She lowered her voice. “Lee had his rough
spots. You know, young men. He got in with that group and the big motorcycles.
I was afraid he might try drugs.”

Leroy made a move to shush her but
Kathy merely smiled sweetly at her husband.

“I’m just saying,” Kathy
continued. “it seemed like he was turning all of that around. When he met
Sophie we were so happy, and then little Nathan—”

Leroy nodded at that.

“Well, we just thought it was
going so much better until all the trouble started.”

“It was hard, leaving our
hometown,” said Leroy. “We both grew up here. But then the girls went to
college in Albuquerque. It seemed better for us to be near our daughters after
Lee was sent away.”

The sadness in Kathy’s eyes came
back, full force. “I never dreamed it would end like this.”

Beau nodded sympathetically. A lot
of what they said was probably true, much of it was obviously parental
blindness.

“We did our best to make a new
life.” Leroy forced optimism into his voice, for his wife’s sake.

Sophie and Nathan came back into
the room. “Are we ready? Our appointment’s in thirty minutes so we better move
along.” She glanced at Beau. “Funeral home.”

He said goodbye and repeated that
they could call him if they needed to. They followed him out the door and the
family got into the Chevy. Beau crossed the street to his cruiser and checked
in with his dispatcher before putting it in gear. No new calls. He decided to
make the rounds—it wouldn’t take long to cruise the streets of Sembramos and
make sure things had stayed quiet all day.

He turned from Cottonwood Lane
back to the paved highway. The businesses along the main drag looked normal for
this time of day, quiet. At Third Street he made a right and went by the
Starkey place. The battered white pickup sat out front. Helen should be back at
work at the grocery store now, but maybe she walked the three blocks to get
there. Scary, Beau thought, how quickly this little burg had begun to feel
familiar to him, how he was already recognizing patterns.

He stayed on Pine parallel to the
highway, cut over on Fifth Street, the last named one in town, and made his way
over to Cottonwood again where he saw Gina Staples watering her garden at the
Rodarte’s old house. He briefly wondered whether the Rodartes had come by here
on their earlier trip for ice cream. Gina waved at him but otherwise didn’t
divert her attention from her work.

Next to the old Rodarte place was
the former Cayne house. Seeing it reminded him that he hadn’t heard back about
Alan Cayne’s alibis for the times of either of the recent killings. He would
have to call Houston PD back if he didn’t get something soon. He stared at the
house. Alan Cayne wasn’t the only one who’d been furious with Jessie and Lee.
What was it someone had said about Lee Rodarte and Angela’s brother getting
into it? Another mental note: check the testimony from the witnesses back in
the murder file at home.

Three killings, all related. Tied
together, unfortunately, by nearly everyone in this town. So difficult to pin
all the events back to any one person. He shook away the cobwebs. Even though it
felt as if one person could have been responsible, it was far more likely that
Angela’s death was one thing; Lee and Jessie’s killings were most likely the
result of the current flare of hot tempers, accusations and years of pent-up
anger. What a tangled mess.

Beau completed his circle of town,
again passing in front of Sophie’s apartment. He pulled over beside the
adjacent park and took a few minutes to check in with dispatch. No word from
Houston PD yet, and no new calls for Beau. Two deputies were on duty, handling
routine things in Taos, the others were home catching up on sleep in case Beau
wanted them back in Sembramos again tonight. He told his desk clerk to have
everyone meet at the station at five o’clock and he would give out assignments.
So far, things in Sembramos were quiet.

Even as he said it, though, he
looked up and scanned the area. Perhaps things were too quiet.