Sweet Holidays: The Third Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  “Wow, Mom, this smells so good!” She handed over a zippered bank bag that felt pleasantly fat. “Great day at the store,” she said, washing her hands at the sink and turning to help Sam carry bowls to the table.

  They ate and cleared the kitchen, watched some TV, and Sam wrote out a bank deposit slip. By the time she got ready for bed, Sam had forgotten about the bruja stories and the box, and she let herself slip into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  “Ms Sweet, glad to meet you.” The young woman who greeted Sam at the door to Room 147 held out her hand. She was definitely a city transplant, wearing a fitted black dress, a bright yellow wool jacket, and yellow pumps to match. With her chic haircut and accessories that screamed Neiman-Marcus, Sam guessed stock broker, banker or real estate agent.

  “Well, I was glad to finally have contact from a relative of Mr. Montague’s. You said you’re his niece?”

  “Yes. Could I offer you some coffee before we go out to the house?” Tiffany gestured with an elegantly manicured hand toward the tiny in-room coffee service.

  Considering that she’d downed three cups since arriving at the bakery at five this morning, Sam declined. Besides, the shop’s signature blend far outshone anything a motel could offer.

  “You’re probably smart to pass,” Tiffany said, as if she’d read Sam’s mind. “It’s not all that great.”

  They took seats in a pair of uncomfortably straight chairs, on either side of a small round table.

  “So, how is it that you and Mr. Montague are related?”

  “I’m his—oh, I see what you mean. His sister was my mother. We stayed in Chicago when he moved out west. Mom always thought it strange that he chose such a small town, after being raised with all the conveniences of a big city.”

  “Do they stay in touch?”

  “Oh, my mother passed away five years ago. Breast cancer. It was a tough time, and since then I just haven’t been as good about contacting him.”

  “When was the last time you heard from him?”

  “Oh, gosh . . .” Her eyes rolled upward, staring at a spot on the ceiling. “I can’t exactly remember. Months, at least. Maybe sometime last spring. He always called on my birthday. So, that would have been April.”

  “Are there other relatives who might have heard from him more recently than that? Someone he might ask to handle his finances if he were unavailable?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I can take over those things once I get the key to the house and have access to his records. It did rather surprise me when a sheriff’s deputy from Taos called to say that the house was about to go into foreclosure. I mean, letting his payments fall behind would not be at all like Uncle William.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to hand over the keys and let you remove anything from the house,” Sam said. “It’s a matter of first finding out if Mr. Montague is dead or alive.”

  Tiffany blanched a little at that.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so blunt.” Sam reached her hand across the table. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It—it’s all right. I just assumed that a sheriff’s phone call to next of kin meant that he’d died. I had no idea—”

  Sam watched the young woman’s face. Odd that she seemed more shocked by the idea that her uncle might still be alive, than the possibility of his death.

  Tiffany seemed to realize that Sam was watching her rather intently. She excused herself and got a tissue from the dispenser in the bathroom vanity and came back rubbing at her nose. She stood near the room’s one bed, sniffing at the tissue with her back turned to Sam.

  “Well, I suppose I should still go out there—to the house, I mean. To check on his things, make sure everything is all right.”

  “Actually, that’s what my job is,” Sam told her. “I’ve been out there several times since the first of the month. The house is safely winterized and secure.”

  Tiffany turned toward Sam, her face completely dry.

  “Ms Wright, I’m only authorized to talk to you about a payment plan, if you’re interested in stepping in on your uncle’s behalf to get the mortgage up to date. In arrears, the next step is for the department to sell or auction the house and contents, I believe. Of course, my supervisor in the USDA office would actually handle the paperwork.”

  “He had some things that belong to me. I need to retrieve them.” Her voice had taken on a desperate edge.

  “Fine,” Sam said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. “I’ll arrange for the sheriff to meet us there.”

  Tiffany’s face went two shades paler. “Um, you know, I better check my itinerary. Make sure we can find a mutually agreeable time.”

  Sam held the phone up. “We can ask him now.”

  The younger woman stepped over to the nightstand and picked up her own cell phone. “Sorry. It just vibrated.” She opened it and held it up to her ear, nodding.

  Sam kept her seat until Tiffany turned to her. “I’m really sorry. This is business. It’s going to take awhile. I’ll get back to you.”

  With a condescending smile, she walked Sam to the door and held it open. It clicked firmly shut behind Sam’s back.

  “This is business,” Sam sing-songed. “Hah—this is b.s. That phone didn’t ring.”

  She’d parked the bakery van right outside the room so there was no unobtrusive way to stake out Ms Wright. She cranked the ignition and backed out. At the end of the row of rooms, she pulled around the corner of the building, turned the van to face the direction she’d come from, and dialed Beau’s number.

  “Montague’s niece is quite a pushy little thing,” she said before he’d barely said hello.

  “You think it’s one of those middle aged man/younger woman relationships? That kind of niece?”

  Sam thought about that. “I doubt it. She didn’t seem at all genuinely concerned for him. She’d arrived here assuming he was dead and wanting me to just hand over the keys to his house.”

  “Well, it is a pretty nice house,” he said, with a hint of humor.

  “I can just see Ms Wright waltzing in there and cleaning the place out.”

  “Well, it’s a little more difficult than that, Sam. If Montague is dead, there must be a will, probate, the whole court system getting into it. She would have to be named as his heir.”

  “If it’s done by the book,” she reminded him. “You’ve never heard of someone just clearing out a house, whether they had the right to or not?”

  “Let me do a little more checking before we jump to conclusions,” he said. “I’ll call you—”

  “Wait, Beau!” Sam caught movement down the row of rooms. A bright yellow jacket moved toward a red sedan. “She’s getting into a car. What shall I do? I can’t very well follow her in the bakery van. She’s already seen it.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Sam watched Tiffany back out of her parking spot. She put the van in gear, just to be ready.

  “Stick with her, maybe a block or so back, until one of my guys can pick up the tail. She may be heading for Montague’s house.”

  “My thought exactly. I could get there ahead of her. There’s a back way that bypasses all the traffic.”

  “Sam, let us handle this. Just stay on the phone, keep her in sight and let me know where she is.”

  “For starters, she’s taking a left, southbound onto Paseo. I’ll get myself out there.”

  She edged the van around the motel, paused near the portico where incoming guests came, then headed toward the driveway. She spotted two red sedans about two blocks away already, and she couldn’t tell which was Tiffany’s. She whipped out into traffic, narrowly missing a garbage truck.

  “Beau, I see her up ahead, but there are two similar cars. I’m not sure if she’s the first one or the second.” No response. “Beau?”

  Something clicked in her ear and he was back. “Sorry, I got on the radio. If she passes the intersection at Cervantes, Joe will pick her up. He’s just pulling out of the high school and
can be there in under a minute.”

  “Tell him she’s wearing a bright yellow jacket. That’ll help him know which of the red cars is hers.” Sam accelerated and got within four car lengths of her target when the traffic slowed down. Craning her neck, she made out Tiffany’s distinctively shaped hairstyle. The logo on the car was Nissan. She passed that information along to Beau.

  Two more blocks and she saw the deputy’s car pull out. When the road widened he stayed with the one in the right hand lane. No lights, no siren, just a steady tail, and it didn’t take long for Tiffany to become rattled. When she pulled off into the Walmart parking lot, Sam knew she’d given up on the idea of driving straight to Montague’s house.

  “She won’t give up forever, though,” she told Beau. “If she came all the way out here from Chicago—assuming that part of the story wasn’t a total lie—she’s not leaving this easily.”

  He huffed out a breath. “I guess I ought to post someone out at the house. But I sure don’t have the extra manpower to put a guy on long-term guard duty. About all we can do is patrol past it a few times a day.”

  She knew he was thinking how useless that would be. Tiffany could completely ransack the place—assuming she wasn’t afraid of breaking a nail—well before the understaffed sheriff’s department could catch her.

  Chapter 20

  Sam fidgeted while she spent the remainder of the morning decorating cakes with Christmas bows, snowflakes, Stars of David. With a week to go before Christmas customers were cleaning out the displays as fast as she could fill them but Sam’s mind was on the odd conversation she’d had with Montague’s niece Tiffany. It bothered her that the woman had pushed so hard to get into his house. She sighed. At least she’d reported it to Beau and he seemed concerned enough to keep tabs on things.

  Becky continued to bring a steady supply of cake layers from the oven, cooling them in the walk-in fridge where Sam retrieved them to decorate. On her next trip, she spotted the elaborate art cake for the Woodwind Gallery party and remembered that she had to deliver it sometime this afternoon. The day was simply getting too busy.

  When Kelly walked into the kitchen to restock the cupcake supply in the displays, Sam asked for a hand. The two of them carried the large sheet with its edible easels out to the van where it would stay cool.

  “Thanks, Kel,” she said, closing the doors. “I’ll deliver this before I meet with Beau.”

  While Sam added piped borders onto the last two cakes on the work table, Becky was dotting eyes and noses on a tray of Santa cookies, and Bobul as usual was in his own little world, shaping truffles and dipping them in white chocolate.

  Sam caught herself thinking again of William Montague as she drove the three blocks to the gallery on the plaza. She parked next to a red curb and hoped that she could plead mistaking it for a delivery zone if she were questioned. Parking spaces on the plaza were always at a premium, more so this time of year, and there was no way to wrestle the huge cake any distance of more than a few yards.

  She poked her head into the Woodwind and called out. The owner, a thin man of about thirty-five, with a perpetually bored expression, raised his head.

  “I need assistance with the cake,” she said. “At least one person?”

  He lifted his chin and snapped his fingers toward the back of the room. A young woman appeared, brushing dust from her hands. She spotted the bakery van and guessed what the mission was, so she pulled one of those moist towelettes from a plastic canister and wiped the residual grime off. The man made no move to join them.

  “Take this end, please,” Sam said, tugging the length of the cake toward the open doors. Together, they got it balanced and managed to stop traffic as they crossed back to the gallery.

  “Oh, this is marvelous,” the owner gushed as he handed Sam the check for the balance. “Our guests will be so impressed.”

  Sam smiled and tucked the check into her pocket.

  “Is William Montague one of the guests?” she asked, wondering why that had popped out, the minute she said it.

  “Montague? Hardly.”

  “I thought he was well regarded in art circles here.”

  “That internet purveyor?” The man’s nose seemed to get longer as he stared down it. “The man has handled some nice pieces, I’ll grant you that. But no one would actually legitimize him as a true art dealer.”

  Uh-huh. “You haven’t seen him around town recently, have you?”

  “Ms Sweet, please tell me you aren’t actually going to buy from him. You know that I’d offer you the private discount that we reserve for our best clients. I mean, after you’ve provided this masterpiece.” He gestured toward the cake. “But to answer your question, no. I’ve not seen Mr. Montague in weeks.”

  She bit her lip, trying to think of a way to ask just how many weeks, but then she spotted a meter maid out by her van.

  “Thanks. Gotta run.”

  By the time Sam dashed into the café where she’d agreed to meet Beau, after talking the officer out of a ticket, she had a slight sheen of sweat along her hairline, despite the fact that the temperature hadn’t yet hit forty.

  “You look a little bitty bit flustered,” Beau said, holding her chair out for her.

  She fanned her face with the menu, sending her hair outward in short spikes. “You might say that. I just came from another delivery. Can’t complain though. For our first holiday season in business, it’s good that we’re swamped with orders.”

  A server with blond hair ponytailed back and a generous scattering of pimples across her jawline stepped over to take their orders.

  “I had a few minutes in the office,” Beau said. “Flipped through Montague’s address book, and I think you’ll find this interesting. There’s no Tiffany Wright listed.”

  “His favorite niece, the one he calls every year on her birthday?”

  “In fact, no one with the last name of Wright.”

  “Not a strong family lineage, then?” Sam couldn’t resist the slight sarcasm.

  “My deputy never called her. Looks like you were right about her being a fake.”

  “So, how did she find out that he’s missing?”

  “Now that, I can’t tell you. No idea. But, it sure is interesting don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.” She told him about the gallery owner’s opinion of Montague. “I find it odd, the discrepancies in the man’s image. Rupert talked about him like he was the true collector’s collector—a man who knew everything about art. Now this gallery guy speaks like Montague is the scum of used-art salesmen.”

  “Professional jealousy?”

  “Could be.” Sam puzzled over it while their waitress set plates in front of them.

  “I’ll tell you what I am going to do,” Beau said as he picked up his sandwich. “I’m running a full background check on Montague. Whatever family ties we can dig up, whatever his history is—we will find it.”

  Sam bit into her sandwich—turkey with Swiss cheese and green chile—and closed her eyes. While the flavors blended in her mouth she let the puzzle of William Montague fade for a few moments.

  Twenty minutes later they stood at the sidewalk, discreetly holding hands within the folds of Sam’s coat. It wasn’t as if the whole town hadn’t figured out that the sheriff was dating the baker, but some old-fashioned sense of decorum prevailed at times.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Sam asked. “Today and tomorrow are probably my last relatively sane days at the shop, maybe until after the new year, unless Becky gets her babysitter problems resolved so she can work.”

  Beau started to say something, then flinched at the vibration of his phone down inside a pocket. He let go of her hand and raised an index finger while he reached for it. After about a minute of listening, interspersed with uh-huhs and rogers, he hung up.

  “They’re coming out of the woodwork now,” he said in a low voice.

  Sam felt her eyebrows rise.

  “Relatives of William Montague. Now,
there’s a brother. My deputy reached him from a number in the address book and he wants to come up here and find out what’s going on. He’s flying in from San Diego and should be here this afternoon.”

  At least this one might actually be legit.

  “Joe also ran the plates on the red car Tiffany Wright was driving. Not a rental. It’s registered to a Global Imports Company in, believe it or not, Albuquerque. I’ll see what background I can get on Tiffany and the company while I’m digging up info on Montague.”

  “The offer of help still stands,” Sam said.

  “Well, since you have the keys to his place, it would be helpful if I had his business files. Can you box up those that were in the drawer and bring them by so I can take a look?”

  She nodded.

  “On second thought, take them to your place. Without warrants and such I’ll be walking on thin ice with the department.”

  Gladly, Sam thought, as she walked to her van. Going back to Montague’s place alone gave her a weird feeling now, knowing what was behind the bookcases. Not to mention that sitting in the chilly house for hours looking through files had little appeal. Packing them up to take home was preferable.

  She wove through the congested plaza streets, fidgeting at the stop-and-go on the town’s two-lane main road. She’d almost passed the Cottonwood Inn when it occurred to her that she might still learn something more about Tiffany Wright.

  Not surprisingly, the red sedan was nowhere to be seen near room 147. Sam whipped around to the front of the building and stopped under the portico, without a clue what her story would be when she got inside. Luckily, that part of it worked out when she recognized the desk clerk on duty as a friend of Kelly’s from her school days.

  “Larry Montoya, I didn’t know you worked here.”

  He struggled to place her until she reminded him.

  “I talked to one of your hotel guests this morning, a Tiffany Wright. I need to give her something and didn’t see her car outside her room.”

  Larry clicked a few computer keys. “Sorry, Ms Sweet, she checked out right before noon.”