8 Sweet Payback (3 page)

She still didn’t know what was
behind the power that the box conveyed, or why she had fallen heir to it.
Bertha Martinez, the old woman who’d insisted that Sam was meant to own the
box, hadn’t lived long enough to tell her anything. And there was the startling
fact that Sam’s uncle had owned the twin to this box—but then he, too, had died
before telling her about its history. The questions continued to nag as she
went back into the kitchen and started putting cute little chick faces on
cupcakes.

Perhaps she could locate some of
Bertha’s old friends here in Taos, see if any of them could tell her anything
about the box and its origins. Later. For now, there were Easter egg cookies
and more of those delectable petit fours to make. She turned her attention back
to the work.

Beau called, midafternoon, to ask
how things were going.

“I spent half the morning up in
Sembramos,” he said, after Sam had stepped out the back door because the
clatter of pans in the kitchen, competing with the laughter and voices from the
sales room, made conversation impossible. The outside air had warmed by twenty
degrees.

“Problems?” she asked, turning her
face to the sun.

“Not that I could see. I went to
the Starkey house and talked to Jessie. Kept it friendly, let him know that I
don’t approach law enforcement in the same way that Orlando Padilla did, and
that he could call on me if needed.”

“And how did that go?”

“Jessie’s older and wiser than
when he went on trial. Prison toughened him but I think it also matured him. He
doesn’t say a lot, just seems glad to be out. Jessie’s father, Joe, sat there
in an old T-shirt, taking slow sips from a beer, staring at the TV set with
this scowl on his face. Helen, Jessie’s mother, now that’s where I got an
earful. She’s still very resentful of how the system treated her son.”

“Aren’t all mothers like that?”

“Well, sure. I expected it. I
guess all my talk about how I’m different from Padilla was more for her benefit
than Jessie’s anyway. It’s an awkward position for me. I can’t admit that the
department made mistakes, but I certainly can’t condone the work that was done
on the case or the tactics Orlando used to get that confession out of Jessie.
It’s touchy. I’ll just have to play it cool and hope that the Starkey family
will, too.”

A cloud obscured the sun, driving
a chilly breeze down the alley; Sam hoped the spring weather wasn’t about to
take a turn. She wished Beau luck and told him that she would do her best to
close up shop precisely at six and be home twenty minutes or so after that.

 
Back inside, the kitchen had quieted somewhat.
The steady stream of new pastries went to the sales room all morning and early
afternoon; by this time of day they simply needed to sell it all. Whatever
didn’t sell, Becky had offered to drop off at the battered women’s shelter on
her way home. Sam had held back a couple of boxes of cupcakes for that purpose
anyway, something to brighten the lives of the frightened women and children
who resided there.

Now, the bakeware was mostly
washed. Julio was mixing dry ingredients for Monday’s standard breakfast items,
and the helper was drying pans and putting them away. Becky had taken the
initiative to see what orders were due on Monday and Tuesday, and she was
making sugar flowers for two birthday cakes. Sam gave herself a leisurely
moment to take it in and make sure they hadn’t overlooked some vital detail
before she headed toward the noisy sales room.

Jen’s normally unflustered face
had a sheen of perspiration as she rushed back and forth to box up items the
customers pointed out. When Sam stepped up to help, she gave a grateful smile.
Together, they took care of those who’d made their decisions and rang up sales
for the last of the large basket cakes. Sam checked with two ladies who were
having cheesecake at one of the bistro tables to see if they needed refills on
their coffee. It was five minutes to six when the last person walked out the
door.

They’d judged their quantities
pretty well. Only a couple dozen cookies remained in the case, five petit
fours, and one of their stock layer cakes decorated in pastel flowers. Jen
turned over the Closed sign and dimmed the lights while Becky came out to box
up the leftover goodies and head out with them. Sam didn’t even bother to count
the register receipts—she could tell it had been a profitable day—she just
jammed it all into a bank bag to take home with her.

She drove home, pulled her van to
the side of the house, and walked in to find Beau pacing the living room floor
with his cell phone at his ear.

“Do
not
tell them that,” he said in a very firm voice. “Just say that
we expect everyone to stay level-headed and that we will be keeping an eye on
things. They’d better behave or arrests will be made. Then get two patrol cars
up there to cruise the streets.”

He clicked off the call and seemed
startled when he saw Sam.

“Damn,” he said. “It’s always
something. Lee Rodarte showed up in Sembramos this evening.”

Chapter
3

“Is everything under control?” Sam
asked. Beau’s face seemed flushed and she could tell he was agitated.

He blew out a breath. “Yeah. For
now. It’s just—” He paced the length of the room one more time. “Why did
Rodarte think it was a great idea to go back to that town? Why did either of
them?”

“Family ties?”

“Yeah, but now that both of them
are in town we’re getting calls. ‘Jessie had words with a guy in the bar.’
‘Rodarte walked past my house.’ ‘I don’t like them being here,’ ” he mimicked. Beau
ran his hands down the sides of his face. “I feel like the recess monitor at
the elementary school, dealing with a lot of petty stuff. Jessie Starkey’s
family doesn’t want Rodarte in town; Rodarte’s friends are furious with Jessie
for framing their buddy. It’s like a bunch of five-year-olds squawking things
like ‘he looked at me.’ ”

“It goes a little deeper than
that,” she said.

“I know. I don’t mean to be
insensitive about their emotions. I just don’t know what they expect that we
can
do
about it.”

“And there’s no way to keep them
apart.” Sam had dropped her bank bag on an end table and headed now toward the
kitchen. Beau followed.

“Exactly. We’re talking a town of two
hundred people. It’s a one-gas station kind of place. The citizens mingle all
the time.” One of several little towns from which people drove to Taos for
their major shopping, to get health care or attend high school.

Sam pulled a container of Beau’s
homemade chile from the fridge, poured it into a pan and turned on a burner.

He kept talking while he picked
spoons out of the drawer. “Town government in Sembramos consists of a mayor and
three-member council. Their law enforcement is me and my department. At least
half of them are farmers—have been for generations—pretty gentle souls. They grow
their corn and peppers and tomatoes and stuff and they drive down to Taos every
weekend in the summer and fall to the farmer’s market and chat amongst
themselves while they make an outing of it. Half the families have intermarried
over the decades, so everyone knows everyone and are related to most of the
others. After the trial it was all we could do to prevent a war in the streets.
Now, I’m afraid we may be facing the same thing all over again.”

The hearty stew began to bubble so
they carried steaming bowls and the conversation to the table.

“The two of them, Starkey and
Rodarte, didn’t work this out between them while they were in prison?” Sam
asked.

“No way. They were kept in
separate cell blocks and released on different days. Knowing that one man’s
confession put the other behind bars, the system did its best to keep them
apart.” Beau shook his head sadly. “I thought these two were friends, back
before all this.”

The murder of one innocent young woman
had forever changed the lives of so many people, Sam thought.

They cleared the dishes and Beau
loaded everything into the dishwasher while Sam located her calculator and
carried her bank bag to the table. While she separated cash from credit card
receipts and began adding it up, Beau settled into his recliner with the thick
brown murder file on his lap. By the time they headed upstairs, both felt
mentally spent.

Although they’d fallen into an
exhausted sleep, Sam awoke to the pleasant sensation of Beau’s kisses trailing
across her shoulder and neck. Maybe their Easter Sunday would go the way they’d
planned after all. She turned toward him, tucking her fingers into the
waistband of his pajamas. It didn’t take but a minute for all other thoughts to
leave the room.

* *
*

Beau pulled the first golden brown
waffle off the iron. Sam stood beside him at the counter, de-stemming
strawberries and slicing them into a bowl, occasionally taking a seductive bite
from one, keeping with the morning’s mood. Then his cell phone rang.

He poured the next ladle of batter
onto the hot waffle iron and reached for the phone. Sam took the plate with the
finished waffle and stuck it into the preheated oven to keep warm. Two seconds
after Beau said hello, she could tell this wasn’t good news.

His face lost a shade of color and
he stared into the middle of the room as he listened. His responses consisted
of “okay” “yeah” and ended with “great, just great.” He concluded the call and
his mouth pulled into a tight line.

“Trouble.” Sam didn’t exactly
phrase it as a question.

“Jessie Starkey’s been shot.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yeah. I need to call the OMI.” He
scrolled through the numbers on the phone and picked one.

Sam realized that the waffle iron
was smoking and she grabbed the handle. This second waffle was a very dark
brown and she pried it out with a fork.

Someone at the Office of the
Medical Investigator picked up right away and Beau couldn’t stand still as he
talked. He outlined the situation in Sembramos. The incident had been reported
as a hunting accident and the body moved. He gave an address and said he would
be there to meet the investigator in an hour. Then he called his own office and
told the dispatcher to get two men up to secure the scene.

So much for a full Sunday off.

They ate their waffles in silence,
both of their minds whirling.

“Can I come with you?” Sam asked
as she cleared the half-eaten breakfasts.

“Better not. I have no idea what
we’ll find up there.” He’d gone upstairs and come back in uniform, complete
with his holstered pistol and handcuffs and more—ten pounds of stuff around his
waist. “If it truly was a hunting accident, things could be all right. But
until I have the OMI’s report I’m not ruling anything out. That town could be a
tinderbox. I can’t put you in danger, darlin’.”

But what about yourself?
Sam thought as she wrapped her arms around
him and pressed her cheek against the badge on his chest. It never got easier,
watching your lawman husband walk out of the house, not knowing what might
happen.

* *
*

Had he been on horseback, Beau
would have felt like the sheriff in an old Western, riding into an eerily quiet
town while atonal music played in his ear. A tumbleweed actually blew across
the road, borne on the spring wind that had come up yesterday. He passed numbered
cross-streets, the elementary school on his left, the gas station on the right.
Both places seemed buttoned up tight. Same with the variety store and market.
He cruised the entire mile-long stretch of two-lane highway, to where the farm
supply store marked the end of town, without seeing a soul.

Yes, it was a holiday. That
explained the closed businesses—but still . . . He U-turned, cut over on Third
Street, the only other paved one in town, and cruised back down Cottonwood Lane.
Four cars sat outside the church on the left, where closed double doors didn’t
especially make the place look all that welcoming. He powered his window down
and barely caught the sound of organ music before it wafted away on the
shifting wind. In the next block, the volunteer fire department showed where
the action was. Both of the station’s tall garage doors stood open, the town’s
very dated ambulance backed up to one of them. The local medical investigator’s
black vehicle had pulled up next to it, and two of Beau’s deputies had strung
yellow tape to keep out the dozen or so people who were milling around.

Leaving an exit path for the MI’s
vehicle, Beau pulled in and got out of his cruiser. All eyes of the townsfolk
seemed to follow him as he ducked under the tape and approached the back of the
ambulance.

“Hi Ben.” He greeted the older man
who’d served as Taos County’s field deputy medical investigator, under the main
office in Albuquerque, for as long as Beau could remember.

“Sheriff.” Always a man of few
words, Ben Alison went about his work quickly and efficiently. He climbed into
the back of the ambulance, where Beau could see a pair of booted feet on a
gurney.

He stepped over, took a quick look
and saw that it was, indeed, Jessie Starkey. The stringy yellow hair and
stubbled
face were unmistakable; he was wearing the same
clothes Beau remembered from his visit to their home yesterday. A commotion out
at the driveway caught his attention. His deputy, Rico, was attempting to
restrain a very agitated woman. Helen Starkey.

She had apparently recognized Beau
when he drove up and now she wanted his attention. He walked over and started
to speak but she overrode his words.

“This is your fault, the lot of
you!” she shouted, the lines in her face fixed in anger and a deep furrow
pinching her brows together. Her chin-length gray hair had probably been
brushed this morning, but now it flew out in wild tangles and her flowered
rayon dress wasn’t nearly adequate in the chill air. She didn’t seem to notice
being cold.

“Mrs. Starkey, I—”

“I mean it! If you all hadn’t let
him out—”

“Ma’am! Hold on. Let’s just talk a
minute.” It was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. She’d been
furious when her son went to prison, now she was furious because something
happened right after he got out.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” Beau
said quietly. “I truly am. No one could have foreseen this. We were told it was
a hunting accident.”

Helen Starkey settled down only
marginally. She stared at Beau with flashing blue eyes.

He met her gaze evenly. “I need to
know what happened, Mrs. Starkey. Did Jessie go hunting this morning?”

Joe Starkey had stepped up. He was
dressed in camouflage pants, heavy boots and a flannel shirt. Beau made eye
contact. “Mr. Starkey, maybe you can tell me what you know.”

“I told ’em I didn’t want ’em
huntin
’ today,” Helen said, pushing her way into Beau’s
line of sight once more. “I just wanted
ever’body
to
stay home, have a nice day together . . . I made a roast.”

Beau made eye contact with Rico
and suggested that he take Mrs. Starkey home. She walked a few steps away but
refused to get in the deputy’s cruiser.

Beau turned again to Joe Starkey.
“So, you and Jessie went hunting?”

Joe’s eyes shifted left and right.
Turkey season didn’t open for another week, and he knew he was in trouble.

“I got me a permit,” he said, a
bit defensively. “Jessie and me used to go every spring. The boy had such a
good time. Well, he just got home and we wanted to go. He was so eager. I
didn’t figure it’d do no harm. What’s the difference I shoot the bird today or
a week from today?”

“The difference is the law and you
know that, Joe. But I’m not here to bust you for hunting out of season, even
though I probably should. I need to know what chain of events put your son into
that ambulance.”

It sounded harsh, Beau realized,
but he had a feeling he would get a huge runaround unless he kept the guy
focused.

Starkey’s gaze shifted again, as
if he was having trouble concentrating, and Beau wondered whether he’d been
into the liquor already this morning.

“You and Jessie got up early, I
suppose?”

“Yeah, well, you gotta be out
before daylight to find turkeys. So we did. We got up, dressed, headed out. Got
out to the woods about six.”

Beau looked toward the mountain,
wondering if any of the forest near here was within the legal hunt area. He
knew the Wild Rivers area and Taos Valley Overlook were not, but wasn’t sure
about others. Again, beside the point right now. He waited for Starkey to start
talking again.

“So, anyways, we’re walking around
out there in the dark, decide on a place to sit, and then we just wait for
sunrise. Figured we had about fifteen minutes before we could, uh, legally
shoot.”

Again, Beau had the feeling that
legally
didn’t much factor into this
man’s way of doing things. Again, he stayed quiet.

“Anyways, Jessie says he gotta
take a leak, so he lays his gun down beside me and he goes off around the
bushes somewhere. I can hear him walking over there.” He squeezed his eyes
shut. “That’s when I hear a shot.”

He drew a deep breath. “I’m
thinking somebody’s starting at them turkeys a little too early, but then I
hear a crash in the dry leaves on the ground. I give a shout and I hear Jessie
groaning. With the flashlight I spot him lying on the ground. I run over there
but, Sheriff, my boy’s gone before I even get to his side.” Starkey’s voice broke.

Beau gave him a moment, then the
medical investigator’s wave caught his attention.

“Excuse me just a second,” Beau
told Starkey. “Wait right here.”

Ben Alison had stepped down from
the ambulance and now he pulled Beau into the fire station, out of sight of the
crowd outside.

“If this was a hunting accident,
it wasn’t someone hunting turkeys,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t tell you
caliber—Albuquerque will have to dig the bullet out and determine that.”

“Bullet. Not bird shot.”

“Exactly. By the size and shape of
the wound, I would venture a guess that it was a high power rifle. It suggests
someone followed them and was waiting to take his shot.”

 
“A sniper did this?”

“That’s what it looks like.” His
expression looked grim.