Sweet Masterpiece - The First Samantha Sweet Mystery (3 page)

She told him about her plans for Zoe’s,
clicked off the call and drove on. The Chartrain’s B&B was
right in the middle of Taos, a hundred-year-old house sitting on a
winding lane amid picturesque adobe neighbors. Maneuvering Sam’s
truck and trailer in there would be iffy, so she drove to her own
house on Elmwood Lane, two blocks away. A narrow drive led to the
back of the property, where she had a good, wide turnaround spot.
She parked there and walked over to the B&B. The rain shower,
which had drenched the county west of the Rio Grande, apparently
hadn’t touched this part of town at all.

Zoe was out front, knee deep in a bed of
wildflowers, rose bushes and zinnias. Hollyhocks in full pink and
burgundy bloom towered behind her and a graceful weeping willow
draped its slim branches over a pond on the northwest corner of the
lot. Zoe wiped a wisp of stray hair out of her eyes and tucked it
behind her ear.

“Hey,” she greeted in her soft voice. Wearing
a gauzy skirt and tank top, with leather sandals on not-quite-clean
feet, she looked every bit the child of the commune in which she’d
been raised. Her parents were some of the true free-love hippies of
the ’60s and Zoe never gave up her roots. It wasn’t until she met
Darryl ten years ago, that she settled into married life at thirty.
The B&B came about as a result of their love of people and the
fact that Darryl had inherited the six-bedroom house when his
father passed away. Sam had the feeling that Zoe would rather
simply tend the huge organic garden out back, but rave reviews on
both the accommodations and their bountiful table kept her
interested in the business.

“What’s going on?” Zoe said, dusting soil
from her hands. She gave Sam an intent look and her pale brows
pulled together. “Something’s happened, Sam. You look upset.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.” She picked up a watering can
and tipped it to rinse her left hand, switched and rinsed the
right, while Sam gave a quick recap of both of the day’s strange
events.

“The sheriff will check on the grave, but
they don’t want me out there right now. I was thinking . . .”

“. . . about a cup of tea.”

“Chai, if you have it.”

Zoe kicked a bunch of clippings into a little
pile and then led the way around the side of the low adobe, to the
kitchen door. Just inside, she kicked off the Birkenstocks, wiped
her bare feet on the mat, and headed toward the kitchen sink,
giving her hands a good scrubbing before reaching for the cookie
jar.

“Here—I still have a couple of your brownies
that the guests didn’t get.”

Sam stepped up to the sink and washed off the
dust, rust and weird feeling that she seemed to have picked up
during her morning labors. Zoe’s kitchen was a cheerful place,
painted in soft terra cotta with lots of bright Mexican tile, large
copper pots hanging from ceiling hooks, and a round table with
fuschia and yellow placemats and cloth napkins. It always smelled
of Mexican vanilla. Darryl remodeled it about two years ago,
bringing in the latest professional appliances and knocking out a
divider wall so there was plenty of room around the island counter
for guests to have their first cup of coffee as the muffins were
coming out of the oven. They loved that homey atmosphere.

Zoe brought chai mix out of the pantry and
put the kettle on to boil.

“It’s the first time I’ve found anything like
. . . death . . . at my properties, and now twice in one day.”

“You don’t find it kind of spooky going out
to those houses and sneaking in?” She pulled a colorfully painted
plate from the cabinet and put brownies on it. “I mean, there has
to be some strange energy in those abandoned places.” She set the
plate on the counter near the barstools.

“So far, in the months I’ve been doing this,
it’s been pretty tame,” Sam said. “Usually just a lot of junk that
has to be hauled off before the authorities can consider holding an
auction. I had one place where the trash filled a whole roll-off
Dumpster. Once the clutter is out, most places clean up pretty
well.” She didn’t mention the time she’d come across the earmarks
of a meth lab. That one had been in the middle of town and local
police came right in and handled it. Since it was only her second
property after taking the job, Delbert Crow had taken over and
she’d been out of the picture quickly.

The kettle whistled and Zoe poured, stirring
in the chai. She joined Sam at the counter and Sam was well into
her second brownie when her phone rang.

She swallowed a hunk of the brownie and saw
the caller was Deputy Cardwell.

“Sam? Are you still at that property where
you found the grave?”

“No. I left after the rain shower.”

“Things are pretty well stacked up this
afternoon and I can’t get there until tomorrow. But I’d like to
have you meet us there—say eight in the morning?”

Sam wasn’t eager to visit the grave again.
There had been such an eerie feeling around it. But she had to
finish cleaning the house and tending the yard, and it would be
easier to approach it for the second time with the authorities
there.

“If you get there first, don’t touch
anything,” he said. “It’s potentially a crime scene.”

Chapter 4

Sam left Zoe’s place with a brief sugar high
but it quickly faded when she got home. Too much excitement. She
briefly considered sitting in on the mystery book discussion at
Mysterious Happenings that evening but it seemed like an effort.
The peace and quiet of her own home, enjoyed in solitude, were much
more appealing.

As she got out of the truck she spotted
Bertha Martinez’s little wooden box on the back seat. Why had the
woman insisted that Sam, a total stranger, was meant to have it?
Maybe she was just a lonely old woman with no friends or family.
The box might have been her only prized possession. Maybe she just
wanted to hand it over to someone, rather than letting it get
shucked off to the thrift shop. Her final words, though, hovered in
Sam’s head.

She set the box on her kitchen table and
dumped her pack and keys beside it. A chunk of cheddar, an apple
and a few plain saltines were going to suffice for dinner. The box
pulled her attention as she nibbled at them.

In the late-afternoon light of her kitchen,
Sam noticed details that had escaped her in the flurried moments at
Bertha Martinez’s house as she grabbed the box from the dresser,
rushed to place it in the safety of the truck, and then dashed back
inside to try to summon help for the dying woman.

The piece was made of wood, carved with deep
criss-crossed grooves, like something thickly quilted. At each X
where the lines crossed, a small cabochon stone was mounted, held
in place by tiny metal prongs. Sam flipped on overhead track lights
to get a better look. The stones appeared to be malachite, lapis
and coral. The greens, blues and reds winked with unexpected
brightness under the lights. A metal hasp with a simple twist
mechanism held the lid closed.

It might have been an attractive piece but
for the fact that it was crudely done. The cuts were uneven and the
puffed areas not uniform in size or depth. Not childish, exactly,
but not the work of a craftsman either. The finish was garish, the
stain too yellow, the recesses too dark. Maybe she could take some
polish to it.

She pushed her plate aside and sat down again
with the box before her. It was heavy for its size, maybe eight
inches by six and no more than four inches deep. She twisted the
clasp and tried to raise the lid but it seemed stuck.

The knife she’d used to slice the cheese
worked. Something old and sticky crackled and the lid creaked
upward, hinged at the back.

A wisp of smoke rose out of it—a thin curl of
red, green and blue. It dissipated so quickly that within three
seconds Sam swore she must have imagined it.

But she didn’t. The box suddenly felt warm to
the touch and she set it down with a clatter.

It sat there on the woven placemat on the
table. Staring at her.

She reached out a tentative finger and
touched it. Cool again. Not a scrap of warmth there.

Was this what Bertha Martinez meant? Maybe it
was made of some particular wood that warmed to a human touch.

Sam grasped the edges of the lid and rocked
it closed and open again, twice more, feeling the old hinges
loosen. The surface still felt cool to the touch. Pulling the box a
little closer, she peered inside. Empty. The wood inside was plain,
stained the same sour yellow as the outside, not finely sanded or
varnished. She ran her index finger around the inner edges, feeling
for any little clue—something carved, anything. The moment her
finger completed the circuit of the fourth side, a jolt—nearly
electrical—zapped up her arm, clear to the shoulder.

She fell out of her chair, hit with a wave of
dizziness that nearly blinded her.

Chapter 5

Sam awoke in her bed, with no recollection of
getting there. Bright sunlight came through the east-facing
windows. She started—was she late to meet the sheriff’s people at
eight? She rolled toward her bedside clock and found that it was
only six-thirty. Normally with that kind of time to spare she would
roll over and let herself drift off again. But she felt curiously
wide awake.

She sat up and took stock. She was fully
dressed in yesterday’s clothes. The last time that happened was
twenty years ago after a bad encounter with several shots of
tequila. She was not obsessive about routines, but she did at least
brush her teeth, wash her face, and put on a nightshirt before
falling into bed. Always.

Wandering into the living room she noticed
that she’d not locked her front deadbolt; two lamps were burning;
and on the kitchen table sat that wooden box.

It has special powers. The box holds many
truths.

Bertha Martinez’s final words buzzed in her
head.

Too weird. Sam shook off the feeling. She’d
just been overtired, loaded with sugar from her stopover at Zoe’s,
and she had some kind of strange . . . episode. She didn’t know
what. She’d probably just dozed off at the kitchen table and then
automatically wandered off to bed. That made the most sense.

A shower and fresh clothes were the answer.
She bustled into the bathroom and rushed through her routine,
feeling an eagerness to get on with the day. Normally a slow riser
and groggy morning person, she knew this energy was proof positive
that all was right with the world. Grooming consisted of
finger-combing her shaggy, graying hair and touching on a little
lip gloss. She donned a pair of jeans and one of her work shirts,
ready to face the cleanup job at the county property once Beau
Cardwell got whatever formalities out of the way.

She didn’t want to waste any time. As it was,
her arrival would probably coincide with the deputy’s. She packed a
little cooler with a peanut butter sandwich, two apples and a
half-empty bag of corn chips, plus a granola bar that she was going
to call breakfast. Two diet Cokes rounded out her stash of lunch
and snack food to last the day.

By the time she pulled up in front of the
property, still known to her as #23 County Road 4, a cruiser and
another county vehicle were already there. Beau Cardwell stood at
the open door of the cruiser in his crisp dark uniform and Stetson,
speaking into the mike on his shoulder. Sam approached, pocketing
the key to her truck. He made some kind of over-and-out remark to
the microphone. When he turned, he sent a smile her way—impersonal
at first but then it became a long, assessing look.

For the first time she noticed that he had
incredible shoulders and Sam guessed him to be a bit younger than
herself, probably in his late forties. Dark hair with sprinkles of
gray and sideburns nearly white. Blue eyes, the color of deep
ocean, distracted her as he pulled out a clipboard with some forms
on it.

Stop it,
she admonished herself,
you are
not
interested
. She tugged her shirttails
down and turned her attention away from Beau.

Two men, both in uniform, were approaching.
The one in charge was about her height, maybe five-five or –six,
Hispanic, forty-ish, with a solid paunch. Cardwell quickly
introduced him as Sheriff Orlando Padilla.

“There’s no permit on record for that grave,”
Padilla said to Sam. “We also checked county death records for the
past six months and cross referenced them with burial records. We
don’t have any death certificates without records of where burial
took place. That’s why we’re treating this as a potential crime
scene. We’ll need to take a look inside the house.”

“The grave is actually out at the back edge
of the lawn,” Sam said.

Cardwell sent her a wry grin. “Let’s take a
look out there first, then you can unlock the house.” He gestured
toward the backyard. “Show us what you found.”

She led the way, noticing how she’d cut the
grass yesterday. Nice clean rows near the house, one trail toward
the back, an abrupt stop. The mound of dirt was still mainly
surrounded by tall grass but she stood aside and pointed toward it.
While the three men poked around in the tall grass Sam went back
and unlocked the front door, crossed through the living room and
kitchen and came out the back.

Padilla stood with hands on hips, glanced at
the ground, looked at Beau. Sam stood by, wishing she could just
get on with her job.

“Do you know when Anderson vacated the
place?” It took Sam a second to realize Beau was talking to
her.

“I think our records indicated that the owner
left sometime in March or April.”

Padilla turned to him. “Well, no permit, we
have to dig.” He stared at the younger deputy, a stout kid in his
twenties, who grimaced and headed for his patrol car. He came back
a minute later with a shovel. Sam got the feeling the pudgy young
guy would rather that the more physically fit Beau do the digging
but he didn’t say anything.