Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis

by Maria Grazia Swan

  Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis

  Maria Grazia Swan

  Copyright © 2021 Maria Grazia Swan

  An Echo Canyon Press Publication

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the US Copyright Law.

  Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

  * * *

  Sally J. Smith, Fiction Editor

  Cover Design by Mariah Sinclair

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Monica’s French Toast

  Brenda’s French Toast with Baked Apple Topping

  A note from the author

  More books by Maria Grazia Swan

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to a very special friend who left us way too soon.

  R.I.P Michael B.

  ONE

  THE CHIMING OF the doorbell sent me to the ceiling—as if being alone in the Dumonts’ home didn’t get me messed up enough.

  Who could it be? The Dumonts had to have some door camera/answering thingy somewhere. But where? On my toes, I stretched, hoping to peek at the visitor through the beveled glass inserts. Fat chance. I sighed and opened the massive front door.

  A thin, gray-haired woman stood there, avoiding my eyes while fidgeting with the strap of her black, worn purse.

  “I’m here to see Tristan Dumont.” Her lips stretched in a brief, forced smile. Our eyes met for a nanosecond, and hers reminded me of dark wells. You know, like in the westerns, dug too deep and left dry.

  What was I thinking? Why all that poetic dumping about this woman, when I seemed the edgier one?

  “Huh, I’m sorry he isn’t here,” I said, while thinking, I wish he was, lady. I wish he was.

  The strap fidgeting came to an abrupt stop, and she moved back a bit, or maybe it only felt that way. We were still facing each other with me inside the door and one step up, yet she was still taller. Not a hard accomplishment, especially since I was wearing low heels.

  She stretched her neck and lifted her head a little, trying to see inside the house? I detected... stress? No, not stress. A sad acceptance maybe. Acceptance of what, Sherlock?

  “Is his wife here?” Good English with a slight accent I couldn’t place.

  Her question had me now fidgeting with my cell phone. I wasn’t going to tell her I was alone. What if she were here to case the place? Really, Monica?

  “Excuse me, Ms...” My mouth open, I waited.

  She didn’t take the bait but instead asked, “Are you Mrs. Dumont’s assistant?”

  Huh? Me? “Look, ma’am, the Dumonts are not home at the moment. If you have a message, I will be happy to pass it on. Otherwise, I’m expecting clients to tour the property,” I lied, stepped back, and pushed on the front door to make a point, my sense of cautious empathy quickly vanishing.

  “Wait, wait.” She swallowed hard and grabbed the door handle. “Clients? The Dumonts’ house?” A quiver in her voice.

  Darn, she called my bluff. But hey, “I’m a Realtor,” I announced proudly, hurrying my fingers through my jeans pocket to pluck out a business card with my name on it. “Here.” I handed it to her hoping she would take it and go away. Instead she read the card out loud, slowly. “Monica Baker, Realtor, Desert Homes Realty.” She nodded while reading, like one of those bobble head dolls. “Why is he selling the house?” Her eyes met mine then looked away.

  “Excuse me? I never said the house was for sale, and if you have questions you can ask Tris—I mean, Mr. Dumont, yourself.” I didn’t like the brief flash I caught in her eyes when I almost let his first name slip out. Maybe she was better acquainted with the Dumonts than I assumed. She nodded with more determination, fought the tarnished silver clasp of her purse, got it open and fished out a ballpoint pen. I watched in horror as she folded my business card in two, ripped it with slow precision, scribbled something on the back of one half and handed it back to me.

  “Please, give this to Tristan Dumont.” That thing in her eyes again. “Ask him to call me. It’s about” —she bit her lower lip— “his father.” She turned, still holding the other half of the card, and left.

  Mouth open as if gasping for air, I watched the gray-haired woman hurry down the paved driveway toward the main gate, which I had carelessly left wide open. Was she limping? Maybe, maybe not. The pavers could be hard on the ankles and feet. How did she get here in the first place? Uber? The afternoon February sun shone on the only visible vehicle, my rented carriage.

  I didn’t know why I lied to the sad woman or what to make of the whole thing. No clients were coming to the Dumonts’ home, and I wasn’t there to show anything. No, I came because Angelique Dumont, Tristan’s wife, had asked me to please stop by to pick up the mail before the mailbox got too full and the mailman stopped delivering. She and my Aunt Brenda were business partners in a catering business they hoped to get off the ground. That and some other stuff going on at the Dumont ranch down in Tucson.

  Aunt Brenda was really my ex-spouse’s aunt by blood, mine in name only. But in truth, she was a whole lot more than that to me—we lived on the same property, shared life experiences and family history. Brenda had told me where to find the spare key at the Dumonts’ residence in north Phoenix before joining Angelique and Lois Thomas, Angelique’s personal assistant, in Tucson.

  Everyone from the household seemed to be down at the ranch, even Dior, Brenda’s blue Great Dane, and Tache, Tristan’s appaloosa—everyone but Tristan Dumont, Angelique’s husband and the love of my life. He was out of the country on business.

  I had driven to their house all pumped up, full of romanticized antics, ready to snoop around in every room, plus a special in-depth tour of Tristan’s quarters. Thankfully, the alarm was off. Apparently, Angelique controlled that thing remotely. Modern-day magic. But I had barely set my car keys and my folder on the glass top of the console in the spacious vestibule when the gray-haired nuisance had shown up and messed all my plans.

  Now I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Plus, what if there were surveillance cameras in the house? Just because the security system wasn’t there when they bought the home, there had been plenty of time to add cameras when they upgraded.

  Nah, I would have known about it. Right?

  With the mail neatly stacked on the table in the den, I let myself out, making sure to lock up, then headed down the same paved path as the strange visitor had. Before getting into my car I turned to take a last look. I couldn’t quite see the fenced area where Tristan kept his horse, but it felt sort of lonely and abandoned.

  There was hardly any traffic on 40th Street this time of the day. I hated, hated
the stupid rented SUV. About everyone had tried to convince me it should be my next vehicle. No way. I still missed my Fiat 500. It was the perfect size. No need to adjust and readjust the seat, mirrors, and above all, my attitude. It was a small car for a small driver—ME. And the color, hot pink, was unique. It was thanks to my now-wrecked Italian car that Tristan Dumont had nicknamed me Fiat. Tristan. I sighed as I drove into the parking lot of Desert Homes Realty.

  The black Maserati was hard to miss. What was Double Wide, oops, I meant Dale Wolf, doing there? Visiting Kay Lewis, my mentor and Realtor extraordinaire? Nah, the two of them were old friends, he wouldn’t come to a competitor’s office for a chat, would he? The usual suspects’ vehicles were all sitting in plain sight. Kassandra’s beat up Kia, Sunny’s (my boss) Cadillac, and a few four-door sedans I wasn’t familiar with. Before I locked the rental vehicle, I found myself staring at the ripped business card with gray-hair’s scribbling on the back. The only thing the woman had written was a phone number and two words: Tristan’s father.

  Reading his name slammed me with a tsunami of emotion. How I missed him. I left the card on the dashboard, locked the SUV, and headed toward the office thinking that the nameless woman had lovely handwriting—the old-fashioned kind, like you see on those Masterpiece Theater British shows with servants and fabulous staircases in all the homes and secret messages written in elegant cursive on rich paper with yellowed edges. Cursive—what a strange word.

  What was it she wanted from Tristan? His father had been dead for... what? Two years? Three? Maybe more? I had never met the man. He died before the Dumonts had moved to Phoenix. That part I knew for sure. The poor soul had died in Mexico, supposedly of a heart attack. Tristan said his dad had never gotten over losing his wife, Tristan’s mom, so the heart attack seemed like a natural consequence.

  You always read about the mate dying of a broken heart. Sort of romantic in a weird way. Not that it made the loss any easier on Tristan. He’d confided that to this day he couldn’t forgive himself for not being there for his dad through the difficult period of mourning. Instead, when his mom died, he dived into years of self-destructive behavior—his words—not mine. At the time of his father’s death, Tristan had been in Colorado, getting high on weed, throwing himself down dangerous ski slopes by day, and sleeping around with casual hook-ups by night. He hadn’t been back to Colorado since.

  “Oh, there you are.” Kassandra sat at her desk, stone-faced. The desk and her chair were on a raised platform that had been there when Sunny opened for business. It was a little unnerving for first-time visitors and had been an endless subject of jokes among us, the Realtors. Kassandra hardly needed help to look imposing. She was tall for a woman, had large breasts and lots of tarnished copper locks. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t have a boyfriend or two. She also read tarot cards, seriously.

  The lobby and the front part of the office were as quiet as a church on Monday morning, but I could see a few agents in the very back by Sunny’s office. They seemed to be just standing around chatting.

  “What’s going on?” I gestured toward the group by the back office.

  Kassandra nodded and tilted her head in the direction of the kitchen. Got it. Without a word I headed that way. Our small kitchen, also known as our Swiss place, was off limits if we had discussions or arguments. The kitchen was the no-fights zone. Neutral, like Switzerland, get it? And today it was empty.

  “Did you see it?” she asked me.

  I nodded. “Double Wide’s Maserati?”

  She nodded, her eyes studying my expression. What was going on? Kassandra was almost my best friend and certainly my ally at the office, which translated to gossip sharing.

  “We better start addressing him by his proper name, Dale Wolf, Associate Broker and co-owner of Desert Residential and Commercial Realty.”

  “Huh? What have you been drinking?”

  But by the look on her face I knew she wasn’t joking. I sat at the lunch table, trying to make sense of what she said.

  “It’s a merger,” Kassandra explained. “His business is mostly commercial, while ours is strictly residential. With the way the city of Phoenix and the population of Arizona are growing, and with Kay as the matchmaker, they figured they can expand on their existing business and stellar reputations without having to invest a ton of cash. Ok, the cash part is my assumption. On paper it looks brilliant. And as long as I don’t have to go work in the fishbowl that our new partner calls an office, I’ll be fine. Hell, I get to meet his flock. I hear they are mostly men.” She kept talking while I sat there staring straight in front of me, as if I looked away the walls would crumble and the roof would cave in.

  “Are you okay? You’re doing that thing with your mouth,” she said.

  I closed my mouth, still searching for something intelligent to say, but she went on. “Monica, it’s not a done deal yet. They are working out the details, and if you don’t like changes you can always take your license somewhere else.”

  “That’s stupid,” I mumbled. “If I don’t like changes, I should change companies?”

  Kassandra slapped my arm. “Exactly. Let’s go grab a glass of wine after work. I need to shuffle some cards.”

  “A card player. Good. Let me guess.” Dale Wolf stood in the doorway and seemed to assess Kassandra, not in a sexual way, more like—person-to-person. “Poker. You play poker. Am I right?”

  “I’ve been known to do that at times.” I knew she was lying.

  “Kassandra reads tarot cards, and she’s good at it,” I blurted out, garnering one of her looks.

  “She does?” He glanced at me, and I nodded. It was like I gave him a signal or something. He walked right into the kitchen making it seem suddenly smaller, pulled out a chair next to mine, and made himself at home. “How are you Monica?” He smiled. We were on first-name terms since we had that unfortunate car accident back in December, the one that ended my Fiat 500’s life.

  I smiled back and nodded.

  “We should do a Las Vegas Night,” he said to Kassandra, “so our staff from the two offices could meet. Yes. Monica, your Aunt Brenda could do the catering, and we could rent some game tables, and Kassandra would read cards then share the secrets she uncovers with me and Sunny. What say you?” He turned to Kassandra. “We would donate the money to a charity.” He stood, adjusted his expensive tailored shirt. “I like it. You young ladies were a great help. Let me run the idea by Kay and Sunny. Oh, yes, it will be fun...” He was still loudly congratulating himself when he left and headed to the back of the office where all the action seemed to be today.

  Kassandra had not moved from where she stood when Dale showed up. If looks could kill, as they say in America, I would have died five minutes earlier. Just to confirm my suspicions, she said, “I’m going to kill you, blabbermouth.”

  I took off running on Dale Wolf’s trail.

  TWO

  WITH MY HEAD still wrapped around what I was now thinking of as The Merger, I had a hard time concentrating on my driving.

  How did that happen? And apparently everyone knew about it except me. ME! For months I had slaved as Sunny’s personal assistant. Okay, slaving may be a bit of an overstatement, but even now I occasionally processed some of her paperwork when needed. Not complaining mind you, sort of liked it—well, until now. And Kay, she mentored me through my first big home sale and—and nothing. Brenda had to know, being Sunny’s best friend and all that.

  By the time I turned into the driveway I shared with dear Aunt Brenda I wanted to scream, except there wasn’t anyone there to hear me. So why waste my breath? Damn. This was like a big conspiracy. What if sending me to collect the mail at the Dumonts’ had just been an excuse to get me away from the office while they worked out the merger details? Nah, that didn’t make sense. Dale Wolf didn’t strike me as the kind of person who hides behind schemes. Then again, with my stellar record on reading people’s character... Oh, forget about it.

  I would call Brenda and ask her.
There. My stomach growled. Mind association?

  Normally, I would be heading over to Brenda’s back door to see what was on the menu. Except she was down at the ranch probably busy feeding a half-dozen or so live-in retired ranch workers and horse lovers who took care of the stables and the rescued animals in exchange for free rent.

  Why didn’t I run through the In-N-Out Burger place? Nah, too late now, might as well park in the garage and call it a day.

  The stillness of the place exuded a weird sense of abandonment. Not the extreme kind like the forsaken mansions in horror movies, no, more like a vacation home during off-season. I missed Dior’s welcoming bark. Heck, I even missed seeing Brenda’s just friend Officer Clarke and his sedan parked at the curb. He often killed time over at the widow’s across the street while waiting to join us for dinner. Or so he said, even as I noticed his “killing time” over there growing longer and longer. Perhaps the widow was learning how to cook?

  The garage door had barely hit the ground when my cell chimed. Tristan. Yes. I hurried to unlock my front door, wanting to sit comfortably while talking to him. The best part of my day.

  I dropped my purse and folder, kicked off my shoes, and plopped myself on the soft couch pillows as he said my name in the special way that melted my heart. “Fiat, how are you?”

  My lips said, “Terrific, listening to your voice tends to make me feel that way.” I love you; I love you. Could he hear the thumping of my heart? “Are you still in France?” I need you here.

  Long pause. “Yes. South, way south of Paris. Had to rent a car. It’s raining all the time, and the roads are narrow, and... let’s not talk about it...”

  “Tristan, I like to know about your days. You sound preoccupied. Problems?”

  He chuckled softly. “Oh, Fiat, same old stuff—greedy relatives, Dad’s relatives, some I’m now meeting for the first time. I had hoped to avoid getting lawyers involved due to the complication of international law. I figured we could sit around, share a cup of French coffee, and come to an agreement everyone would be happy with. Handshakes and warm embraces all around and then I’d be flying back. It didn’t turn out that way. The younger generation doesn’t feel Angelique is entitled to the Dumonts’ money. They think she’s already coming out ahead with the legal help and soon being able to be a permanent resident of the U.S. After all no one had heard of Angelique until I stepped in to make good on my father’s promises. Of course, if I want to give her what they consider to be my inheritance, I only need their blessings, which they are generously offering since it doesn’t entail anything from them but lip service. Fiat, why are we talking about this? I want to hear your voice.”