8 Sweet Payback (7 page)

“Are things better for them now?”

Sally shrugged. “A little, I
think. We’d almost lost Angie once, in a car accident, then only three years
later she was really gone. At first you can’t believe it. Then things are never
the same.”

Beau nodded. He couldn’t really
imagine. He let a moment pass. “You heard that Jessie Starkey and Lee Rodarte
got out of prison, that the evidence which originally put them away was
overturned.”

Anger flashed through the old
woman’s eyes. “I heard it. Couldn’t believe it. They confessed! And now they
want to take it back? I’ll let ’em take it back when I get to have my granddaughter
back.” She begun stroking Bitsy so hard that the tiny dog yipped. Sally eased
off.

“I imagine a lot of folks feel
that way, Mrs. Cayne. I can understand. I wonder if you’ve heard any talk about
revenge. If there’s somebody in town that would want to get rid of them, would
you give me that information?”

“I could hand you the telephone
book,” she said, lifting her chin higher. “Everybody wants rid of those two.”

Except everyone who was related to
one of them. He didn’t say it.

“Looks like somebody got half the
job done right away, didn’t they?” A tiny smile touched her lips.

Beau didn’t want to get into
details about Jessie’s shooting, not the way news flew around this town. Better
to keep the fact of the high-power bullet to himself. He couldn’t see Sally
Cayne limping into the forest on a cold spring morning to stalk and kill
Starkey, but he still had to ask questions.

“Do you own a gun, Sally?”

She gave him a hard stare.

“I have to ask everyone. Rule out
the innocent.” He met her gaze and didn’t back down.

“I’ve got one. An old .22 rifle my
husband used to use when coyotes would come around our livestock. Back in the
day, we had chickens, a few goats, sometimes a few lambs. It’s a person’s right
to protect their property.”

“Yes, ma’am, it is.” No point in
asking to see the gun. Wrong caliber. “Be sure you keep that gun safely stored
now,” he said, rising. “Wouldn’t want some bad person getting his hands on it.”

Sally looked as if she would love
the chance to face off with someone who tried to disarm her. Truthfully, Beau
didn’t blame her for that attitude; he just didn’t want to see this situation
escalate further. He warned her again about being careful.

He felt her watching him as he got
into the cruiser and drove away, wishing he had a simple fix for the little
town that had been hurt so deeply.

That wish turned into anxiety when
he passed Sophie Garcia’s apartment on his way to the Starkey’s house. He’d
decided to ask Joe Starkey the same question about what else they owned besides
the shotguns he and Jessie had taken hunting. Sophie’s car was gone, but now he
saw that something was burning on the front sidewalk. He whipped to the side of
the street and got out.

A hunk of plastic and cloth had
melted into a puddle about ten feet from Sophie’s front door. The flames were
gone but the rest was smoldering vigorously. When Beau stomped out the fire it
appeared to be the remains of a baby doll. It might have been an attempt at
sick humor, but Beau got a real feeling that it was a personal warning. Someone
threatening to harm her child because of the harm done to theirs?

He scanned the area. No activity
on the street, maybe a curtain falling into place at that house across the
street . . . At least no one stood nearby, taunting him. He circled the strip
of apartments, making sure no one lurked outside Sophie’s back windows. All
seemed quiet.

He returned to his cruiser and
grabbed an evidence bag from the cargo space, bagged the crispy remains and
tossed the bag into the vehicle. It wasn’t really evidence of any crime that he
knew of, but before all this was over who knew what part it might play in the
whole picture?

He decided to cruise by the
Starkey place, get a feel for things there, see if someone holding a can of
lighter fluid opened the door. He’d just put his SUV in gear when his cell
phone rang.

Sam’s name showed on the readout.

Chapter
7

Sam’s first hitch in her cleaning
project came when she plugged in her vacuum cleaner and discovered the huge
house had no electricity. She uttered a little curse, mostly at herself for not
thinking of that. Obviously, if no one had ever lived in the place and if the
taxes were in arrears . . . well, she should have planned better.

She owned a generator that she’d
used on more than one occasion in these situations, but it was in the barn at
home right now, not on her utility trailer where it might have done her some
good. She stood at the open front door, staring toward her vehicle and
estimating the distance across the long front courtyard to the driveway. With
her longest extension cord she might—
might
—be
able to reach the outlet nearest the door. There was no way she could piece
together enough of them to cover all areas of the ten-thousand-plus square feet
inside. It would have to be manual labor.

She groaned at the thought and
strode out to the truck to retrieve her brooms and dustpan. Giving the house a
critical eye as she returned, her idea of finishing this off in a few hours
disappeared. Every doorjamb and window frame was filled with an accumulation of
years’ worth of dirt and she now noticed that the windows themselves were a
grimy mess. She sighed and attacked the first of the window sills with her
whisk broom. An hour into it she’d finished the master suite’s numerous windows
and doors, deciding on a change of scene downstairs before tackling the acres
of tile floors.

Humming helped fill the silence
and when she discovered that the great room had the acoustics of a concert
hall, well, she couldn’t resist breaking into a medley of Patsy Cline tunes. She’d
finished ‘walking after midnight’ and ‘falling to pieces’ and was about to
think she was going ‘crazy’ when she caught a flicker of movement outside. Down
on the highway, far below the house, a white vehicle cruised slowly past. For
an instant she thought it might be Beau’s department SUV. But it didn’t have
the brown logo and lettering as far as she could tell at this distance, and it
definitely didn’t have the light bar on top. She turned back to her work but
found herself really wishing that Beau had come by. Her back was aching and his
company would have provided a welcome break.

Once the idea of taking a break entered
her mind she couldn’t let go of it. Lunch would be a good idea. There was a
café in Sembramos. It would probably be open now and she could order a sandwich
to go. She leaned her broom against the wall and locked the house, dropping the
shiny new key into her pocket. There would be paperwork to do later, signage to
install, and a lockbox for the key—but for now she just wanted food.

She guided her truck carefully around
the looping circular drive; despite the ample space, a crew cab truck with a
utility trailer was too large a rig for some places. Since she wouldn’t need
the lawn mower or garden tools for this job maybe she would just take the
trailer home and leave it before she came back this afternoon.

At the highway she paused to look
back up at the large white house, a mansion by any standard and unique in
design compared to everything else in this county. Hard to believe she’d never
known the place was here. She looked both directions but there wasn’t a single
car in sight as she made the left turn and headed toward town.

The acres of cultivated fields ran
from the edge of the roadway all the way to the forested foothills of the Sangre
de Cristo range. Somewhere in those woods was the spot where Beau said the
suspicious hunting accident had happened. Ahead, she came to the north end of
the little community, marked by another set of speed limit warnings and a few
little businesses.

Two men stood outside a taxidermy
shop, their conversation punctuated by gestures; one of them pointed toward
something, which drew Sam’s attention. The front window of the shop was broken
out, with violent-looking shards of glass hanging menacingly from the frame.
Looked as if a brick had gone right through the middle of it. Below the broken
glass, something had been painted in vivid red.

She couldn’t read it, if indeed
the red lines were words, and she realized she’d nearly steered off the
roadway. She corrected and drove on. In the next block a white-coated man stood
outside his barber shop, arms crossed, eyes darting nervously. Across the road,
Sam caught sight of three figures ducking between two buildings. What was going
on here?

She spotted the café ahead and
edged off the road, looking for a large enough place for her truck and trailer.
Picking up her phone she hit Beau’s cell number. He’d mentioned coming up here
today to ask more questions. If he was in town maybe he would meet her for
lunch. If not, she would definitely order something to go and take it back to
her job. Things in town felt a little too edgy for her taste.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said. Was there
a tightness to his voice? “How’s your job going?”

“I decided to take a break for
lunch. Forgot to bring anything from home this morning and my aching back was
screaming for a break. This one is all manual labor. I’m near that little café
in Sembramos—I thought I’d grab a bite. So, where are you right now?”

“I’m in Sembramos too,
interviewing witnesses. Ran across something real strange awhile ago.”

He said something else but suddenly
her driver’s side door flew open and a hand grabbed her sleeve, jerking her
sideways.

“What!” she shrieked and her phone
went flying.

A tall man in a dirty flannel shirt
and jeans held a fistful of her jacket. “Tracy, what the hell are you doing in
town?” he demanded.

“I’m not Tracy! Let go.” Sam
yanked her arm out of his grasp, grabbing the steering wheel to keep from
falling out. “What do you want?”

He seemed momentarily at a loss—clearly
he’d thought she was someone else—but his bravado returned. “I asked what
you’re doing here.” He leaned toward her.

She sat up straight. Whoever this
was, he wasn’t going to intimidate her. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else. I
simply want some lunch. This is a restaurant, isn’t it?” She nodded toward the
wood-sided building.

A flash of red, then Beau’s
cruiser bounced off the edge of the pavement and skidded to a stop on the dirt.
He was out of the SUV, hand at his holster, in one smooth move.

“Bobby Starkey—you just simmer
down. What’s going on here?” Beau demanded.

The grizzled man dropped his hands
to his sides, not quite meeting Beau’s stare.

“I asked you a question,” Beau
said.

“Uh,
nothin
’
really. Thought I recognized this—”

“He grabbed me and called me by
someone else’s name.” Sam tugged her jacket straight. “Someone named Tracy.”

“Are you all right?” He looked her
up and down for verification.

“I think so. Just surprised.”

Beau gave her another long look.
“Okay, then. Move along, Starkey. I better not hear about any more trouble from
you.”

He stood firm until Bobby Starkey
shuffled away, sending malicious glances back at Beau. When the man turned the
corner at the end of the block, Beau turned to Sam.

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It was just so
weird. I’m talking to you and all at once my door flies open. I never saw him
approach.”

“I warned you about being in
town—remember? I don’t know how this will go down but things are really tense.”

Confirming that, Sam caught
someone staring out a window at the small motel across the road.

“What
is
going on, Beau? Who was that man who grabbed me?”

“I don’t have time to go into the
whole thing now, and I don’t want you out on the street. That was Jessie
Starkey’s uncle. Some in that family are blazing mad and more than a few pints
of whiskey have now begun to figure into the equation.” He glanced around
inside her truck. “Get your phone—I want you to have it on you at all times.
I’ll escort you to the edge of town so no one else starts something, then I
want you to go home and stay there. Don’t come back up here.”

“But—my work—”

“It’ll keep. And if that USDA guy
of yours gives you any trouble, I’ll speak to him personally.”

“Beau—?”

“Not a good time. This town’s a
powder keg right now and I can’t have you in the middle of it.”

Sam clenched her teeth. “I only
wanted to say that I don’t like you being in the middle of it either. Do you
have backup?”

His expression told her that up to
this moment he hadn’t believed he would need it. Now that Sam had been
accosted, he wasn’t so sure. “I’m a radio call away from my deputies. If it
gets out of control, State Police will assist.”

He stepped in close enough for a
quick hug.

“Beau, you smell like something
burnt. Has there—”

“Nothing major. I was just on my
way to have a little chat with the Starkeys. Now, I think I’d better find Lee
Rodarte instead. I’ll fill you in when I get home this evening.” He opened the
door of her truck and waited until she got behind the wheel.

“Do you think we’re in danger in
Taos, too?” she asked as she clipped her seatbelt in place.

“I doubt it, but please don’t take
chances. If Bobby Starkey mistook you, then so could someone else. Can you just
sit this one out at home? Jessie’s funeral is tomorrow—after that things should
calm down.”

Another quick kiss and Sam started
the truck and steered onto the highway, glancing back in the direction of the
big white house she was supposed to be tending. But Beau was in his cruiser
now, only a few feet from her bumper. No way was she going anyplace other than
home. For the time being. She chafed but drove, slowly and carefully, with him
behind her. In her rearview she saw that he pulled over at the edge of town,
then made a U-turn after she was a mile or so down the highway.

* *
*

Beau let Sam’s truck get nearly
out of sight before he turned around to face the rest of his day. He would have
loved to go home with her, settle in with a game on TV and let this whole mess
in Sembramos work itself out. But he couldn’t do that. It’s what his
predecessor would have done. Padilla’s lack of attention to detail might have
been what led to the sloppy police work that created today’s situation in the
first place. Beau drove back toward Sophie Garcia’s apartment, hoping she would
tell him that Lee had followed advice and left town.

Even if that were the case, Beau
knew he needed to verify Lee’s alibi. Until it could be corroborated that he’d
spent the night at Sophie’s, he was still number one on the suspect list for
Jessie’s death. Arresting Lee would probably calm the Starkeys, but it would
surely inflame the half of the population who believed in his innocence. This
was getting stickier all the time. Maybe he should put the State Police on
alert, just in case.

He zigzagged a couple of streets
and stopped across the street from Sophie’s apartment. Her car was in the drive
now and a bicycle rested against the wall near it. No sign of Lee’s motorcycle.
This could be the news he wanted.

As Beau was getting out of the
cruiser a white Volkswagen passed him slowly and turned in at the drive of the
single-family home where he was parked. The driver—a woman with blonde hair up
in a bun, wearing dark blue scrubs—walked toward him, looking concerned.

“Is there a problem, Sheriff?” she
asked. “My son—”

He asked her name—Claudia
MacNeill
. “No, it’s nothing to do with your son. I’m
looking into the death of Jessie Starkey.”

She nodded, weary lines settling
over her features. “Sorry,” she said, yawning widely. “I just finished a double
shift. It’s been a crazy week.”

“You work at Holy Cross?” he
asked.

“Yeah. Night nurse in the ER.
Usually
nights—twice I’ve had to pull
the seven-to-three as well. And then a couple days ago the whole schedule got
messed up when Kathy went home sick and now I’m doing a half shift on what was
supposed to be my day off.” She smiled and shifted the purse strap that hung on
her shoulder. “But you don’t care about all that, do you?”

“I’m checking with neighbors of
Sophie Garcia’s,” he said. “I know her boyfriend has been around recently. I’m
wondering if you saw his bike coming or going over the weekend—Easter Sunday
morning?”

She stared skyward for a moment. “I
did. That was the day I got called in for an extra shift. They woke me up. I
went in around two in the morning. Once we took care of a rollover carload,
things weren’t so busy so I was able to get out of there around five. Thought
maybe if I rushed home I could get my husband and son up in time to go to the
sunrise service in Taos. But they were so sound asleep that I didn’t have the
heart to wake them,
and
to drive back
where I’d just come from.” She realized she was rattling on. “Anyway, yeah. The
bike was parked in the driveway, in front of Sophie’s car, both when I left and
when I came back. The apartment was dark except for the outdoor lighting that’s
on all night, all the time. They might have left for awhile, but in the middle
of the night? Why would they?”

Beau could think of one reason but
to have shot Jessie Starkey, Lee would have had to leave and tail the hunters
out to the woods. And he’d have needed to make record time getting back here
before Claudia
MacNeill
came home. Besides, neither
Sophie’s little car nor Lee’s Harley was exactly suited to quiet travel over
mountain terrain. It wasn’t proof positive that Lee was innocent, but it went a
long way toward backing up the story the ex-con had told him. Beau thanked
Claudia for her time and she gratefully headed toward her front door.

Voices across the street caught
Beau’s attention and he saw Nathan Garcia come out of the apartment and mount
his bicycle.