Bitter Sweet (6 page)

“
Grrr
.
. .” Sam broke away from his embrace and picked up the phone. The readout
showed an unknown number but she was already losing the mood.

“Samantha Sweet?” an unfamiliar
male voice said. “This is Marshall Gray returning your call.”

“Mr. Gray.” She glanced at Beau
and he gave her a there-you-go stare.

She turned her attention back to
the telephone and explained quickly to Gray why she’d been calling.

“It’s just that the auction date
will be set pretty quickly. You and your wife will lose the place if you don’t
act soon.”

“Oh, dear. Well, we certainly
don’t want that to happen. This downturn in my wife’s health has happened so
fast and it’s left me rushing every which direction to handle things. I guess
neither of us realized that the mortgage was falling behind.”

How many notices must they have
received, Sam wondered. But then she thought of the stack of mail on Sadie’s
dresser at the nursing home and how she thought she was taking care of business
when it was really more like a little girl playing secretary.

“Sadie has always been so
competent. I just didn’t think . . .”

“I understand. This must be very
difficult.”

“But I will get right on this,”
he said. “Give me the name of that USDA person and I will make the calls first
thing in the morning.”

Sam recited Delbert Crow’s number
from memory, saying that he could direct Marshall to the right people.
Following procedure was definitely one of her supervisor’s strong suits.

“He ignored my comment about
trying to reach him at work. But he did sound very sincere and says he’ll take
care of the payments,” she told Beau, clicking the phone shut.

“Good, because I had other plans
for the rest of this night.” His hand reached for the front of the kimono.

Sam awoke, for the first time in
days, completely relaxed. The sex must be part of it, but she had to give
credit for the fact that she wasn’t rising before dawn to get to the shop and
the reassurance that Marshall Gray would attend to the situation at the house.
She could drop by there sometime and pick up the paperwork she’d left behind,
send it all to Delbert Crow and close that particular case. Hallelujah and
amen, as her father would say.

She rolled over and tucked her head
against Beau’s chest. The next time she became conscious, the clock showed that
an hour had passed.

“Much as I would love to do this
all day long,” Beau said, “I haven’t been to my office in a week and haven’t
even checked in with anyone for twenty-four hours.”

“I knew it was too good to be
true,” she muttered, “but same for me. I better find out what’s happening at my
shop before some
bridezilla
goes
nutso
on Jen.”

She rolled over, enjoying the
view as Beau walked toward the bathroom.

“
Bridezillas
?
And to think, you chose this business fully aware of the pitfalls,” he said as
he turned the taps on the shower.

“I guess I did.” She left the
warm bed and joined him behind the steamy glass door.

An hour later when she stepped
into the sales room at Sweet’s Sweets, things seemed to be under control. Kelly
stood in front of the display case, holding a blueberry cream scone on a
napkin. She sent a mischievous look toward her mother.

“That problem you were having
yesterday?” she said. “Looks like Beau took care of it.”

Sam laughed aloud. “Looks like.”

In the kitchen Becky was humming
softly as she stacked layers for a birthday cake that would be covered in
lollipops and gumdrops for a little girl.

“I wasn’t sure how to approach
the dump truck for that customer with the six-year-old boy,” Becky told Sam.
“So I took the easy one and left that for you.”

“As long as the square layers
have been baked and the red and yellow fondant is already tinted, that one’s no
problem. I’ll get to it in a minute.” She wanted a cup of tea first.

Two women stood in front of the
display case, poring over the goodies and trying to decide whether brownies or
cheesecake would make a good midmorning snack. Sam’s gaze traveled
automatically to the beverages, where everything appeared to be neat and
well-stocked. Jen gave her a secretive smile, but before Sam could respond the
glare of a windshield caught their attention and she saw that her friend Zoë
had pulled up out front.

“You look nice this morning,” Jen
said, taking in Zoë’s deep brown broomstick skirt and pale aqua blouse.

Zoë sent a weak smile her way. “I
just came from a funeral.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” Jen said.

Sam gave Zoë an intent look. “You
look like you could use a cup of tea.” Without waiting for a response, she
chose Zoë’s favorite passionflower tea and brewed a cup for each of them. A
glance told her that her friend was pretty upset so she steered her through the
curtain to the kitchen.

“Sit,” she ordered, pulling an
extra chair up to the desk.

Zoë parked herself long enough to
take a sip from her cup but Sam could tell she was restless.

“Who was it? What happened?”

Zoë’s eyes welled up again. “I
just can’t believe it. I only saw the announcement in the paper last night.
Lila was not that old, and certainly not that sick. I can’t believe she’s
gone.”

“Lila? Did I know—”

“I don’t remember if you had met
her. Lila Coffey.”

Sam shook her head.

Zoë stood up and began pacing.
“Such a talented potter—it was a lifelong dream for her, moving to Taos and
working full-time at her art. She created such
beautiful
pieces—and they
sold well, too. Several prizes, a big following. She’d received commissions
from the governor’s office and just delivered a very special piece to the White
House, for a collection representing the art of each of the fifty states.”

She switched directions and
glanced toward Becky, who was working on the lollipop cake and not paying
attention to the conversation.

“Darryl and I met her about three
years ago—she stayed with us while she was looking for a house to buy. Found a
beautiful place out on the ski valley road—just gorgeous, with a separate
little studio. It was perfect for her. ”

“So . . . what happened?”

“That’s the part I just don’t
get. She was perfectly healthy and well. Then last Monday she stepped awkwardly
off the porch or something and broke her ankle. I went to see her in the
hospital and she acted like it was no big deal. They planned to keep her a
couple of days, then she would spend a week or two in a rehab facility until
she could navigate around a bit, then she would go home. There was truly
nothing life-threatening about it at all. And now she’s dead.” Zoë’s voice
cracked. “I’m still in shock.”

Sam felt a shiver go through her.

“Sixty-four years old, just at
the top of her career, and now she’s gone.” Zoë sank back into the chair.

“My gosh, how did she die?” Sam
asked.

“I don’t know. No one has really
said, just something about her heart.”

“Maybe a hidden condition, one of
those things . . .”

Zoë shook her head. “I really
don’t . . .” She stared out into the middle of the room. “Maybe so. I don’t
know.” She drained her tea cup. “Sorry to bring all this to you. Life is so
busy for you right now, and you didn’t even know her. I really just came in for
a gigantic brownie to drown my sorrows.”

Sam smiled gently. “Well, that
you shall have. On the house.”

Sending Zoë on her way with two
brownies (Darryl should have one too, she’d insisted) brightened the mood only
slightly. It was hard on Sam to see her friend in such pain.

She spent the afternoon lost in
the intricacies of forming a construction vehicle from cake and fondant, using
a little trick she’d developed where fondant wheels actually concealed the real
support for the five heavy pieces of pound cake. The cab was covered in red
fondant, the bed in bright yellow, with gray for the grill and bumpers and
black for the tires. The piece had a hundred tiny details but filling the bed
of the truck with candy and small fondant packages made it a sure hit for the
two dozen little boys who would gobble it up.

When Beau stopped in at six,
offering to take her out for Mexican food she was more than ready to eat
something that contained no sugar.

“I had a visit from Zoë this
afternoon,” Sam said as they took a corner table at their favorite little
restaurant. “She was really upset. This friend went in with a broken ankle and
was dead a couple days later.” She filled him in about Lila Coffey while he
perused the menu.

“And Zoë thinks there was
something suspicious about the death, and I suppose you want me to look into it?”

“You read my mind.”

“
Darlin
’,
I’m getting to where I can always read your mind.” He closed his menu.

“Oh yeah? So what am I thinking
now?”

“That if I don’t do this favor
for you, there won’t be any sex for a week.”

“Well, that just shows how little
you know,” she said, dropping her voice as their waitress approached. “It would
only be three days. Things have been a little desperate recently.”

He sputtered a little but
recovered well enough to order the beef burrito, smothered in green chile
sauce.

“I’ll ask some questions,” he
said after the girl walked away. “But I can’t promise much. If the death was
attended by medical staff, the doctor’s statement on the death certificate is
probably going to stand.”

They finished their dinners and
Beau dropped her off at Sweet’s Sweets, warning that he had a late night ahead,
making his way through a backlog of cases at his office. She decided to go back
to her own house and get a good night’s sleep.

The next morning at nine, she was
well into a tiered cupcake display for a bridal shower, where silver streaks of
royal icing rained down over three dozen white cupcakes decorated with golden
stars and about a million crystalline sparkles, all meant to look as if they
were trailing from the edge of the bridal veil on the small figurine at the
very top. Now that the air inside the kitchen was reasonably cool again, she
was having fits getting the sparkles to adhere before the buttercream frosting
dried with a light crust on it. The intercom buzzed and Jen’s voice came through:
“Beau is—”

“—here and on the way back to the
kitchen.” He finished the sentence as he strode across the room. “Hey there.
How about a late breakfast out somewhere?”

“I’m kind of—”

“Covered in glittery stuff?”

“Well, yeah.” She stepped back
from the creation and realized it was about as good as she could make it. “Does
this have enough . . . bling?”

Beau looked at the three tiers of
cupcakes, back at Sam, and mouthed the word
bling?
with about three
question marks after it.

Becky looked up from the cinnamon
rolls she was spreading with maple glaze. “It’s perfect, Sam. Stop stressing
over it.”

“I’ve got some information on
that other matter,” Beau said, arching his eyebrows.

No sex for three days?
She
almost giggled but saw that his face was serious. He meant the death of Zoë’s
friend Lila Coffey. It must be a lot of news if he needed an entire meal to
explain it.

“I can spare a half hour,” she
said, picking up the stack of orders that had to be finished before day’s end.

“That’ll do.” He waited while she
rinsed a few hundred sparkles down the drain and picked up her shoulder pack.

She shed the baker’s jacket and
they walked out into the warm morning. His cruiser waited at the curb in front
of the shop and he backed out before speaking again.

“According to the death
certificate, Lila Coffey died of heart failure—no further explanation. She was
staying at Life Therapy at the time. It does seem unusual for a woman in
otherwise good health who only had a broken ankle. You hear stories about
people who work in those places. Those angels of death or whatever they’re
called who think they’re doing old people a favor. Putting them out of their
misery or something.”

Sam struggled to make the
connection.

“It’s the same place Mama was
when she died.” His voice was unusually tight. “Granted, she was older and she
had other problems.”

“What are you saying, Beau? You
don’t think—”

“I don’t know. But I get an
uneasy feeling about this.” He waited for a clear spot in traffic. “Do you
remember anything at all from January, any nurses who hung around Mama more
than normal, anything like that?”

Sam searched, thinking back. “Not
really. Things were so crazy for me around the holidays. I’m so sorry I wasn’t
able to visit her more often, to be there for her. The whole season was such a
blur for me.”

Beau found an opening and made a
right turn.

“But Zoë’s friend wasn’t exactly
elderly, she said. ”
Twelve years older than I am—yikes!

“I just want to check things
out,” he said tersely. “But I promised you breakfast . . .”

“No, this is more important.” She
could see him staying in this tense mood all through the meal if he didn’t get
some answers.

Life Therapy was located only a
half mile or so from the town’s other nursing facility, and from the outside
didn’t appear much different. He whipped into the parking lot and brought the
cruiser to a quick stop within view of the office windows. If the sight of a
six-foot lawman didn’t bring quick answers maybe the fact that his cruiser
waited outside would get someone talking.

Sam followed, trotting along
after him. Inside, she noted, this place had the feel of a corporate
chain—precisely matched generic furniture and staff in uniforms.

A young receptionist sat at the desk and Beau
asked for the manager.