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

by Connie Shelton

  “Where is my treasure?” she murmured with a sibilant undertone.

  Sam edged away from Bunny, unfortunately, also away from the room’s only exit.

  “William, I want that box. I know the old woman gave it away. You have it and I want it.”

  Bunny reached into the oversized bag whose strap crossed her chest. If she’d pulled out a magic wand and sent Montague flying across the room, Sam would not have been surprised. Bunny’s short orange hair seemed electrified, standing out in spikes. Everything about her—the hair, the voice, even her clothing—seemed charged with power.

  What she actually pulled out of the bag, however, was a little more real—and a lot more frightening.

  The black pistol looked huge in Bunny’s small hand, but she didn’t seem at all uncomfortable with it. She held it in front of her in a two-handed grip, demanding that Montague pay attention, daring him not to.

  “Bunny, just slow down,” he said.

  Sam was amazed that his words came out clearly and calmly. As for herself, she felt about ready to wet her pants.

  “I’ve got some paperwork right here,” he said. “Just let me . . .”

  He ran his palm over the surface of the papers on the desk then, so quickly that Sam didn’t see it happen, grabbed up his own pistol, aimed it right at Bunny’s heart, and fired.

  Sam’s ears rang and she dimly registered that Bunny folded like a puppet whose strings had been cut. There was blood. The black pistol slid a short distance on the oriental rug.

  Bunny’s arm twitched toward it and Sam backed farther away. Her shoulder bumped the edge of the bookcase, which she’d not noticed was standing open a tiny bit. Without thinking, she yanked the bookcase-door open and ducked inside.

  A second shot sounded and Sam felt a tiny whimper escape her.

  She looked up to find herself face to face with the ugly green Nazi robe. Her vision blurred and she grabbed for the inside handle on the door.

  “Ms Sweet—it’s okay. You can come out.” Montague’s voice sounded pretty shaky.

  Bunny lay on the carpet with a widening circle of blood under her body. Sam took an unsteady breath and raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  “I had to be sure,” Will said. “Couldn’t take the chance of her having any strength left to come after me with.”

  Sam lowered her gaze, but only to the level of the desk. Montague was unplugging wires from his computer and gathering his paperwork.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “The sheriff isn’t going to want anything in this room moved.”

  “Honey, that is not my immediate concern.”

  “You’re not going to report this?”

  “I don’t need to. I know you will. That’s fine. But I won’t be here when they come.”

  “Will, you have to be. You have to tell them it was self defense. She pulled her gun first.”

  “Yes, she did. And you’ll tell them that.”

  “But you’re a witness. You can’t leave.”

  “You’re the witness. I’m the killer. I’m not staying.” He grabbed up the stack of files and the computer, hugging them to his body, and headed out the door.

  “But—” Sam discovered that she’d dropped her pack near the bookcase. She picked it up and scrabbled with shaking hands to unzip the compartment with her phone in it. She pressed the speed dial for Beau’s number and waited while at least an hour passed for each of the three rings before he picked up.

  “B-b-b-eau, there’s a—”

  “Sam? What on earth is wrong, darlin’?”

  “Wait.” She forced herself to breathe in and out three times. While she did that she walked out to the hall, where she could hear sounds of motion from the master bedroom. “There’s been a killing at Montague’s house.”

  “He’s dead? Oh, god, he was right about being in danger.”

  “Well, yes and no.” She outlined the basics, and could hear him flip on his siren when she got to the part about Will refusing to stay and answer questions.

  “I’m five minutes away. Get out of that house,” he said. Before he clicked off the call, she heard him call radio dispatch and start rattling off code numbers.

  She stood in the hall, wondering in a daze which door to head for, when Montague appeared at his bedroom door. He’d shed the bathrobe and donned several layers of warm clothing. A large backpack appeared to be stuffed to the gills. He slung it over one shoulder.

  “Your sheriff buddy can call me if he wants. But I’m not sitting around here waiting for more trouble. Bunny was the main one, but Lissano’s goons may still try for me. I don’t know how much Bunny told Tiffany, but I’m not waiting around to find out.”

  With that, he ducked back into the bedroom and she heard the French door open and close a few seconds later. By the time she’d made it to the door, she only caught sight of a tiny flicker of his coat disappearing into the trees. She gripped her cell phone in her hand and let out a huge pent-up breath.

  Three very long minutes passed before she heard Beau’s siren. By the time he screeched to a stop in front of the house, her breathing had almost calmed down. Just a little.

  She let Beau in the front door. “He’s gone,” she said.

  He pulled her against his solid chest and she was content to simply lean there for awhile. But finally, Beau had to let her go and start doing his job.

  Sam waited in the hall while he stepped into the study and checked the body. When he came back she told him every millisecond of the confrontation and shooting, in exacting detail. She had to close her eyes for a lot of it.

  “Oh, baby, how awful for you,” he said, pulling her close once again. He gave her a few minutes before he stepped back. “I hate to do this, but you’ll need to repeat that whole story again, down at the station.”

  “I know. I figured as much.”

  “Right now, I need to radio my deputies and get them out looking for Montague.”

  “It won’t do any good, Beau. He managed to stay hidden for three months the last time. He’s good at it. And this time he packed clothes and probably some cash and some food. I don’t know . . . it just doesn’t seem very hopeful.”

  He lowered the hand that had reached toward his shoulder mike. “You’re right.”

  “He isn’t a murderer, Beau. It was self defense. I know I’ll end up having to say that in court, but the story won’t change. She drew on him first. If you’d seen her— She was wild.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I’ll need to get her taken to the morgue.” He keyed the mike and went into police code again.

  Sam wandered to the kitchen, found a clean glass and filled it.. She felt tempted to start opening cabinets and break into the booze. But the day was young.

  “My guess is that Montague will stay away long enough to be sure the law isn’t after him, then he’ll come back home,” Beau said, coming to look for her once he’d summoned the medical investigator and ambulance.

  Sam wasn’t so sure, given Will’s fear of Larry Lissano and his belief that others were still after him. But she didn’t say it. Anything could happen.

  Chapter 30

  There were so many loose ends. Sam felt like she was in the way as the medical investigator bustled in and Beau began the process that included trying to reach Robert Montague, locate next of kin for Bunny, and figure out how all the pieces of the complicated puzzle fit together. She finally asked if she could leave, knowing that getting back to business as usual wouldn’t be easy. Her mind felt like a jumble of horrific images and sounds and thoughts.

  “You okay?” Beau asked as she said goodbye at the door. “I could get the doc in there to give you something.”

  “I can drive,” she said. “And I really can’t afford to go home and collapse. I’ll go to your office and give my statement and after that I’ll be fine if I just get back to work.”

  But she wasn’t fine at work, and when Kelly caught her weeping over a bowl of ganache that didn’t turn out quite right, she drew the
line and insisted that Sam go home. She found a bottle of Xanax in the medicine cabinet that she didn’t remember—it must have been there for years, but she took one and slept for the rest of the afternoon.

  When Kelly came home a little after six, Sam was sitting at the table in her robe and slippers, trying to coax herself into taking a shower and figuring out what to make for dinner.

  “Okay, Mom, something happened and it must have been something awful. You do not fall apart at work.” Kelly plopped a decently plump bank bag on the table in front of Sam.

  Sam took a deep breath and outlined the basics, leaving out the real reason Bunny Fitzhugh had threatened Montague—the box. No sense it letting Kelly know her mother possessed an item that it seemed some really mean people wanted to get their hands on. She would either pressure Sam to get rid of it—which would entail revealing that she’d already tried—or, worse, might innocently let it slip to someone else that the box was in their home.

  Kelly reached out and touched Sam’s hand when she’d finished telling the story. “Feel like eating?”

  “Something light, maybe. I can’t seem to get motivated for much.”

  “You’re not used to that Xanax,” Kelly teased, opening a can of soup and putting the pan on the stove to heat.

  I’m not used to any of this, Sam thought. She went into her bedroom and put on sweats and fuzzy socks. They set up trays in the living room and ate their soup to a background of some raucous game show. Sam felt her heart lightening a little by the time Beau called around eight.

  “Sorry I didn’t call earlier,” he began. “We moved Mama to the rehab facility today, and by the time I’d finished at Montague’s house and then got her taken care of, there was a ton of paperwork . . . Thanks, by the way, for giving Joe your statement already.”

  “I wouldn’t have known it if you did call,” Sam said, explaining how she’d come home from the bakery and fallen right into bed. “Anything new on Will’s whereabouts?”

  “Not a thing. The guy is good at disappearing. We’ve got a full-scale investigation going on Bunny, her connections to Global Imports, and whether it truly was Larry Lissano’s men who made the first attempt on Montague’s life. So far, it looks like Lissano himself isn’t involved. He’s been in Dallas all along. Global Imports has a small office in Albuquerque with, guess who, Tiffany Wright as the office manager. The company incorporated in New Mexico because it’s so easy and cheap to form a corporation here, but their real operations are elsewhere.”

  “But you’d told me that Bunny’s name was associated with the company?”

  “She was added as a board member when she and Larry were still married. But she never had an active role in his business. He probably just forgot to take her name off the records when they divorced.”

  “But the two big men who got into Montague’s house—they actually work for Lissano?”

  “They do. We haven’t been able to question them yet, but we have Tiffany Wright in custody. She’s the one who said Bunny sometimes hired some of Larry’s men for little extra-curricular jobs.”

  “You have Tiffany here in Taos?”

  “Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department picked her up in Albuquerque for the breaking and entering at Montague’s and transported her to us. We’d issued that warrant well before today’s events. It seems that Bunny talked Tiffany into going to Will’s house with her. Tiffany says Bunny wanted some kind of collectible box and told her that if Tiffany could get Will’s art consignment records and destroy them, there would be no way the owners of all that art could prove anything. The two women would take everything of value and split it, then sell it on the shady-gray market.”

  “It’s amazing how candid she’s being about all this,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, well, she didn’t start out that way. She thought she could bluff her way through until Bunny could come by with a lawyer for her. When she found out Bunny was dead, she broke down and started talking. Of course the spin is that everything Tiffany did was Bunny’s idea.”

  “Naturally.”

  “It’s probably close to the truth. I don’t get the impression that Tiffany is smart enough to have thought of this all on her own.”

  “She may surprise you,” Sam said. “She was certainly insistent on getting into Will’s house the day I talked to her at the motel. Her whole focus was on getting that art and she’s a pretty convincing little actress. But, like you said, without Bunny as the mastermind, she may just quietly slink away.”

  “Let’s hope. My department can only question her for so long, then we have to let her go unless Will Montague wants to press charges on the B&E.”

  And they both knew how hopeless that was. The art dealer only wanted to stay out of sight.

  Sam went to sleep with that thought on her mind and it bothered her half the night. If she could just convince Montague that Bunny was no longer a threat and that Tiffany deserved punishment for her own involvement. Even a short jail term might convince the younger woman that a life of crime was a stupid choice.

  She woke and made her usual pre-dawn trek to Sweet’s Sweets, where she found Bobul waiting in the alley, patient as an oak tree. He said good morning and without further comment went right to his work. He’d begun creating fantasy Christmas trees—dark and milk chocolate boughs with tiny garlands of finely spun sugar and intricate ornaments in white chocolate tinted a variety of shades. The work was amazing and Sam had put an even more amazing price tag on them, but the customers still snapped them up as quickly as he could turn them out.

  Even though Sam had made no comment about the wooden box or the fate of Bunny—was she truly a new Lorena, come searching for what she’d believed to be hers?—Bobul seemed to regard her differently since yesterday. As if he somehow knew that the fate of the box, for now, was resolved. She watched him out of the corner of her eye and caught him doing the same a couple of times.

  It wasn’t long before the girls began to arrive for work and Bobul simply blended into the background, working steadily and quietly at his trees.

  Sam gave a little pep talk about with this being Christmas Eve, everyone should convey positive attitudes and a joyful spirit to their customers. They wouldn’t be baking a lot today, except to finish the cake for the wedding that was their last big order of the year, and get it delivered to the reception ballroom by two o’clock. The layers had been baked and stacked the previous day, so she set Becky to work making flowers.

  “I have a little errand to run this morning,” she said. “When I get back I’ll finish the piping on this baby and we’ll get her delivered.”

  She wasn’t sure what she was thinking as she drove toward Talpa. The odds of Will Montague having come back to his home during the night or early morning hours were slim. But she couldn’t let go of the feeling that she needed to talk to him one more time, that she might relay some of the information she’d learned from Beau last night and that the art dealer might be able to come back to the community he loved and take up his place once again. Knowing that her friend Rupert would probably come to her little bakeshop soiree this afternoon was another reason—maybe the real one. Sam wanted a positive conclusion to the art connoisseur’s fate. She spent the better part of the drive sending out optimistic mental vibes on the subject.

  There were no outward signs of life at the large adobe house, although she hadn’t expected to see any. Montague was pretty adamant about staying out of sight. Still, it would be a lot more comfortable for him to hide out here than camping in the snowy woods or bunking in cheap, cash-only motels with thin walls and doors that gapped with cold air rushing in around the edges. She worked out this logic as she approached the front door and rapped sharply on it.

  No sound whatsoever. Her taps even seemed to echo back hollowly. She gave it two more tries and then walked around to the back. The drapes were still drawn over the French doors to the living room, the way he’d left them yesterday. At the master bedroom doors, one drape was pulled halfway back, as
she remembered it being in Will’s flight toward the forested land behind. She rapped at the glass before pressing her face close to see past the reflected outdoor glare.

  Clothes lay strewn on the bed. A couple of dresser drawers stood open, Will’s hasty packing job still in evidence. It didn’t appear that he’d come home.

  Then she noticed something else out of place. Above the king-sized bed there’d been a painting by Peña. She remembered because Rupert claimed it was an original and fairly valuable. It was gone.

  Her eyes darted about, taking in the other walls and the slice of hallway she could see from this angle. At least two other items were missing. She fiddled with her key ring, trying to remember if she’d given Will both keys to the new lock she’d installed. No. Sure enough, one of them was still on her ring. She dashed to the door to Will’s living room and unlocked it.

  The room itself was neat enough. But every piece of art—the paintings and the sculptures—were gone.

  Chapter 31

  Sam walked slowly through the rooms, verifying, not quite believing. But it was true. The million-dollar art collection was missing. In the study, the bookcase door was securely closed. When she located the hidden catch in the desk drawer and activated it, she found that the hidden room still contained its cache of odd memorabilia. If Will took the art and planned to leave permanently, he surely would have taken this little trove as well.

  Tiffany.

  Sam knew she was in town, but Beau had said last night that she would be held for questioning as long as possible. It didn’t seem likely that she’d had time to get out here and completely clear out the place. Sam tapped her foot, thinking.

  Whoever took the art . . . how did they get it out? Will’s vehicles. She hurried through the house to the connected garage. The Escalade, that large SUV, was gone. It wouldn’t have been the safest way to transport valuable art, but she supposed if the thief weren’t concerned about scratched frames and such, he or she might have managed to get it all into the cargo compartment with the seats folded down.