8 Sweet Payback (5 page)

“I’d better come in,” Beau said. He
checked his sidearm and got out of the cruiser.

One of the men spotted the
sheriff’s vehicle and started toward him. The man stood at least a head taller
than Joe Starkey, much closer to Beau’s height, but otherwise Joe and this one came
from the same mold. Thin limbs, lined faces, generous gray in the dark hair.

“Them Rodartes done this,” the man
said through clenched teeth that had a tan cast to them. “If not that Lee
Rodarte
hisself
, then one of them others.” Even the
gnarled finger that shook when he spoke reminded Beau of Joe Starkey.

“Do you have some evidence of
that, Mr. . . .?” Beau kept his voice quiet.

“This’s my little brother. Bobby.”
Joe Starkey had watched the exchange.

Beau took in Bobby’s size and
nearly smiled at the description.

“Do you have evidence that he
didn’t
?” Bobby said, his eyes flashing.

Beau wanted to glance around the
crowd, judge the mood, but didn’t dare break eye contact with Bobby. Finally
the other man looked away first.

“We are just beginning our
investigation, sir. Every bit of information is helpful. What can you tell me?”
He relaxed his pose, took a minute to survey the gathering. Inquiring minds
wanted to know what was going on, but so far no one else had stepped forward to
challenge him.

“I can tell you that that Lee
Rodarte showed up here in town. This
mornin
’ early.”
A blonde woman stepped toward them, aligning herself near Bobby Starkey. The
ragged ends of her hair hadn’t seen a beautician’s shears in a long time, and
Beau guessed that her weathered face was as much the result of cigarettes—she
dropped one to the ground as she approached—as from working some patch of
nearby farmland.

“JoNell? You saw him?” Joe asked,
his jaw clenching.

That didn’t sound good. Beau
glanced between the two men.

“I can tell you his
fam’ly
was real mad six years ago,” Bobby said. “
They’da
done most anything to get back at Jessie for what
he told them lawmen and that judge.”

By this time another man and two
women had openly begun to listen. Beau looked at them.

“Does anyone else have anything to
add? Have any of you seen or spoken to Lee Rodarte since he came back?”

Heads shook. No one stepped
forward.

Beau straightened his shoulders.
“I’ll be interviewing the Rodarte family, as well as Lee.” He gave Joe and
Bobby Starkey firm stares. “Do not take this into your own hands, gentlemen.
You don’t want to end up in even more trouble than Jessie’s killer.”

Bobby started to say something but
Joe laid a hand on his arm and he backed down. Maybe older brother did have
some influence.

Beau started for the cruiser and
Joe caught up, asking about his shotguns.

“Later,” Beau said. “If they check
out clean, I’ll get them back to you.” Last thing he needed at this moment was
to put weapons into the hands of this bunch.

Chapter
5

Beau sat in his cruiser in front
of the Starkey home, staying visible while he radioed the department. It took a
couple of minutes but he got Lee Rodarte’s parents’ address and brought up the
map of Sembramos on his GPS. It was only one road over and four or five houses
down so he drove over there, despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon and he
really wanted to be home with Sam right now. They hadn’t planned on work taking
over their day off together, but then they never did and it seemed to be
routinely a part of life.

He rolled to a stop at the edge of
the dirt road, in front of another square little flat-roofed house. At least
this one showed some signs of TLC, including flower beds out front and tilled
rows of a side garden with a haze of green sprigs already sprouting. A
thirty-something woman with long dark hair that trailed down her back in a
braid was directing a garden hose at a bed of brilliant yellow daffodils. She
straightened when she saw him, smiling as he approached. Not typical for
someone who has had a lot of unpleasantness with the law.

“Ms. Rodarte?” he said, removing
his Stetson.

“Um, sorry, no. I’m Gina Staples.”
She realized that water from the hose was running across her narrow sidewalk so
she stepped to the spigot and turned it off. “The Rodartes used to own this
house but they moved away some time ago. My husband and I bought it five years
ago.”

Beau bit back a remark; the
Starkeys might have mentioned that little fact.

“Do you know where they moved? Are
they still in town?”

“No. After the thing with Lee they
left. Went to Albuquerque, I’m pretty sure. My mother lives three doors down.
She and Lee’s mother were close. She might have a number for them or
something.”

“So you’ve lived here in Sembramos
your whole life?”

“Yep, every bit. I was born in the
hospital in Taos and grew up here, farming organic produce alongside my dad.”

Beau glanced at the large garden.
“Looks like it’s still going well.”

Gina gazed at her neat rows and
smiled. “I’m taking a chance, even putting lettuce out this early but it’s
Butterheads
and Romaine, hardy varieties.”

“I wonder, have you seen Lee
Rodarte back in town in the last day or so?”

“You mean, did he come back here
after he got out. I don’t know. I heard about Jessie Starkey this morning
though. Too bad. But, you know, not all that surprising.”

“How so?”

“This town’s wound may look like
it healed over. After Angela Cayne died and all the ugliness that followed. But
it’s like a cancer that’s still there, under the surface. Doesn’t take much at
all to get the two camps at odds again. Starkeys and Rodartes. At one time they
were all pretty friendly. There weren’t really any bitter feuds in this town. But
that’ll never happen again. It wouldn’t be a good idea for either of those guys
to come back to town and get the whole mess fired up again.”

Beau nodded. His sentiments
exactly. Something he would have told either of the men if he’d had the chance
to talk to them before they left prison.

“So, Lee’s parents. I wonder if
they know where he is now. Maybe your mother would give me their number?”

“I’m sure she would,” Gina said.
“But there’s someone else who might be a more direct line. Lee had a girlfriend
before he, uh, went away. They have a child together. Sophie didn’t want
anything to do with Lee after he went on trial, but he really loved that little
boy. They say that Lee was calling out to little Nathan when they took him away
in handcuffs.”

Beau thanked her and accepted her
offer to call her mother for the phone number he needed. With that in hand, he
got back into his vehicle.

Sophie Garcia lived in unit A of a
little six-
plex
string of apartments near the
elementary school. The places were bare-bones, possibly subsidized, definitely
minimum-wage-worker dwellings. They all had dingy white stucco and blue front
doors, and even from the dirt parking pad out front the place smelled of onions
and hopelessness.

From inside the apartment Beau
could hear the lively jangle of a kids’ TV show, with an undertone of adult
conversation. When he tapped at the peeling blue paint, the voices stopped; the
television hummed along. No one answered.

“Ms. Garcia? It’s the sheriff. I
need to speak with you.”

The door opened about three inches
and a pretty, young woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair and pouty lips peered
around the edge of it. She wore bright pink jeans and a fluffy white pullover.

“Sophie Garcia?”

Her deep brown eyes blinked.

“Could I ask you a couple of quick
questions?”

Something shuffled behind the door
and Beau’s right hand dropped to his holster.

“There’s no problem, Sheriff,”
Sophie said quickly. “My little boy and me, we’re just watching some TV.”

“Have you seen Lee Rodarte in the
last couple days?”

Her eyes shifted and she shook her
head.

“Because if you have, I’d like to
get a message to him.” He watched her face closely. “And if he’s here right
now, I’d like to deliver that message in person. He’s not in any trouble, at
least not with my department. But I’m worried about his safety here in
Sembramos.”

Sophie’s eyes flicked to her
right.

“Could I just come in and talk to
him?” Beau’s voice was quiet but firm.

A brown hand touched Sophie’s
shoulder. “Let him in,” said a male voice.

She stepped back and allowed Beau
to open the door just enough to get into the apartment. Beau took in the room at
a glance, beginning with Lee Rodarte standing with his back to the wall, hands
visible. The man had apparently acquired even more tattoos in prison, in
addition to the ones Beau remembered from the department photos, which ran all
the way down his arms and across his back. Now he had some up the sides of his
neck and shaved head. Sophie stepped over to the brown tweed couch and her arm
circled a wide-eyed boy of about eight. The kid took in Beau’s uniform and gun,
but the minute Rodarte spoke the child’s eyes were on his father.

“I only came to see my son,” Lee
said. “Had
nothin
’ to do with Jessie.”

“Did you come straight here from
Santa Fe? The minute you got out?”

“Pretty much. Sophie and me . . .
I want to work things out together.” A blanket and pillow on the sofa attested
to the fact that he’d spent the night, but apparently not in Sophie’s bed.

“Were you here, in this apartment,
the whole time?”

Lee nodded. Beau looked at Sophie.
She nodded too.

“I brought food, got an Easter
basket for Nathan. We sat up a long time, talking.”

“You didn’t go out early this
morning?”

“No, man, I swear I didn’t.”

“Can you verify that, ma’am?” Beau
turned to Sophie.

She glanced back and forth between
him and Lee. Whatever answer she gave would be the one her boyfriend wanted her
to say. Unsurprisingly, she agreed with him.

Beau sighed. “Okay, then. All I
can do is caution you. I’d strongly suggest that you not stick around town.
There’s an angry group over at the Starkey’s house and more than one of them is
tossing out the idea that you tracked Jessie out to the woods and shot him.”

Rodarte’s teeth clenched; a muscle
worked in his jaw. “Jessie Starkey cost me almost seven years of my life. My
dad sold the house to pay for those lawyers to keep trying to get me out. My
little sister gave up her chance at college ’cause they had no money for her.
All because Jessie lied!”

“So you—”

“I did
nothin
’!
Nothin
’, man! Am I sorry he’s dead?” Rodarte took a
step forward, his teeth clenched.

Sophie Garcia cradled her son’s
head against herself, her eyes never leaving Lee’s face. The cartoon on TV
became a ridiculous jangle of noise.

“No, I’m not sorry. But I didn’t
kill him.” Lee’s shoulders slumped momentarily. “I don’t know how he died and I
don’t care. I’ll leave town, Sheriff, but I don’t want to go without them,” he
said with a nod toward the others.

“Just saying. Be careful.” Beau
opened the door and walked out. He would, of course, try to check Rodarte’s
alibi, but it was unlikely that someone had snapped a photo of him asleep on
the couch in the early morning hours so if he’d left the apartment it would be
up to Sophie to come forward with that information. Sometimes the frustration
levels of this job just sucked.

He got into his vehicle and
cruised up and down the narrow roads of the small town once more. Didn’t see
anyone out in front of the Starkey house anymore, so that was good. And the
fire station was closed up tight. As long as things stayed quiet there wasn’t
much he could do about his investigation until he got the autopsy results. He came
to the edge of town and radioed that he was 10-7, going off-duty.

* *
*

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.”