by Ann Myers
He leaned back in his chair, eyes twinkling. “Well, let’s see. Maybe an example will suffice. Flori, you’ll be pleased to know that last week I negotiated an out-of-court settlement involving Gloria Hendrix’s poodle. Not my usual type of client, mind you, but Gloria offered to pay double my usual rate if I’d make an exception.”
“You evil man!” Flori said, slapping her hand on the table. “What was the charge?”
Jake grinned devilishly. “Twinkle Belle the Third was charged with menacing and ankle biting. All unprovable, I’m happy to report.”
I frowned, not comprehending.
Flori shook her index finger in my direction. “There you have it, Rita. You want to know his specialty? He’s Santa Fe’s best criminal defense attorney. A defender of the guilty! Thieves, dirty politicians, murderers, and now a cheater’s own poodle . . . he gets them off, free as the wind.”
“ ‘A strong defense,’ ” Jake said, quoting an ad I now remembered. “I defend the presumed innocent.” His wry smile implied that he knew otherwise.
My thoughts were stuck on Jake’s job. Setting the guilty free was not part of the noble cowboy/lawyer image I’d constructed. Still, surely some people and pooches were wrongfully accused and needed his help. That was pretty noble. No, incredibly noble. I’d reassured my fantasies when the full implications of the conversation hit me.
The coffee-desperate man across the room let out a whistle. Another table made gestures for their bills.
“Fiddles,” Flori muttered. “Okay, Rita, let’s go tend to the masses.” She filled Jake’s mug again and added, “You’ve been very helpful. If you have room after that adovada, I’ll give you a chocolate chip muffin on the house. Gluten, sugar, and whipped cream included.” Then she leaned over and kissed him on his cheek.
I was too distracted to envy her boldness. I was thinking of Victor and why he sought out a lawyer known for saving the guilty. I’d said I wouldn’t investigate, but I had to find out.
Chapter 7
Jake collected his muffin, tipped his hat, and headed back to his office. Moments later, a moment I’d been dreading became reality. The chatter in the dining room fell to a hum. Heads turned. Even the visiting lover of whipped cream halted her cell phone conversation to follow the gaze of the locals.
Gabriel stood in the door. His mouth sunk downward, taking the rest of his big facial features with it. Red rimmed his eyes and emblazoned his nose. For once, he wasn’t rushing anywhere. A few regulars got up to offer condolences.
“Oh that poor man,” Linda whispered, wringing a dish towel in her hands.
We stood behind the counter. My hand hung frozen over the cash machine. I yearned to apologize and console, yet how would I start? Linda sensed my anguish.
“Let me talk to him first,” she said, patting my hand. “We’ve known each other since we were kids. He was two years ahead of me in school.”
She squeezed through other well-wishers and gave Gabriel a long hug. Then she took him by the elbow and led him to a cozy table by the window. They sat, and as they talked, Linda reached out and placed a hand over his.
A tsk-tsk alerted me to Flori’s presence. I looked down, noticing the whipped cream canister strapped to her hip by apron ties, six-shooter style.
“Makes you wonder . . .” she said.
“Wonder?” I punched the button to open the cash register. The drawer remained firmly shut. I jabbed some more buttons, prompting the drawer to slam into my stomach and receipt tape to erupt.
“You charged those tourist ladies $33,920,” Flori chuckled. “Tell them it’s extra for all that whipped cream.” She patted the loaded cream canister on her hip.
I hit the button labeled V, supposedly for void.
“Ha! Now you’ve doubled it.” Flori nudged me aside and with a few clicks had the machine working again. Cash registers may rank lower on my professional skill set than serving.
Handing me the corrected bill, Flori completed her thought. “I mean, all that reminiscing and seeing Gabe now. I wonder what things would have been like if Linda had stuck with him.”
“Stuck with him? They dated?” Linda was a widow. Her husband, Santos, died from a heart attack a few years ago. Flori, however, can barely mumble out the requisite “rest in peace” when his name is mentioned. By all accounts, Santos was no saint. He was a mean bully, especially to Linda. For her part, Linda rarely speaks of Santos or her love life, except to insist to her matchmaking mother that she’ll never date again.
Flori gave a little shrug. “Long ago. Gabe doted on her in high school, and she liked him well enough, until she met Davy Donaldson at a pig roast and liked him better. She fell flop-hearted in love with that man. He seemed like a good one too, at the time.” Then she muttered something under her breath that sounded like a curse.
I looked up, shocked. Flori never cursed. “What happened?” I asked.
Flori’s face darkened. “That Davy proposed. They were planning the wedding and then a few weeks before, he ran off. A postcard from El Paso, that’s all he sent, saying sorry, he’d moved on. Sorry wasn’t enough. He broke my poor baby’s heart. Made her easy prey for that devil Santos. I don’t attribute any of it to God’s will. No. It was bad chance, that’s all. If the Gonzalezes hadn’t had that pig roast . . .”
I was surprised that devout Flori would put so much on chance. She punched numbers into the cash register, which beeped angrily in protest. Figuring they both needed space, I volunteered to deliver checks to tables. My path took me close to Gabriel and Linda. I had to say something.
“Gabriel—”
Before my second word, I was enveloped in a bear hug of heavy cologne. “I’m so very grateful for your friendship with my brother,” he said. “You and your daughter, you both meant so much to him. You mustn’t ever blame yourselves for what happened. None of us should.”
“It’s true, Rita,” Linda said, her brow rippled. “Gabe and I have been talking about dear Victor. Inner demons can get anyone, including those of us with strong faith and love.”
“He never seemed depressed to me,” I said, tentatively. Who was I to say? Me, who hadn’t finished reading all the brochures from Celia’s school counselor. Me, the mom totally okay with mopey fairy drawings. I vowed to pay more attention to everyone I loved.
“He hid his depression well.” Gabe stared into his coffee cup. “I’m afraid that he rarely confided in anyone. I wish more than anything that he’d said something last night. With the fight, I was so edgy that I took a sleeping pill and went straight to bed. I didn’t remember to check my front door, as you know.” He managed a slight smile.
I blushed and apologized, which he waved off.
“You did the right thing,” he said, stirring a black abyss of coffee. “I do blame myself. I know I shouldn’t. But if I hadn’t let Broomer in last night and let the argument get heated, Vic might not have gotten so upset. I blame the dead too. All my brother did lately was talk about spirits. It’s not healthy.”
Murder wasn’t healthy either. Could I bring up Flori’s and my doubts to a freshly grieving relative? Manners would say that I shouldn’t say anything. As Flori says, however, good manners won’t dig out the truth.
I tried an indirect approach. “That Broomer guy, he scared me. Why is he so angry? Is it all about the fence line?”
Gabe frowned. “I don’t like to say bad things about people, but he’s trying to steal from me and Vic. Our fence has been there for decades. The exact date is right on the property records down at the assessor’s office. Broomer, he says he owns the land nearly four feet into our backyard. Says he has a new survey.”
Linda murmured about newcomers ruining Santa Fe. “The pushy kind, I mean,” she specified for my sake. “Not nice people like you, Rita.”
“Exactly,” Gabe said. “Broomer was pushy. And he has no respect for his
tory, what’s already here. He got all furious last night, but I told him, ‘I’m protecting that land. Victor has his garden there. You can’t bust that up.’ We were going to get another survey. I’ll have to get at that too. Victor’s garden is more precious than ever now.”
Linda sniffled into a napkin. Everything of Victor’s was precious now. I ached at the thought of Broomer and his bulldozer razing the pretty winding paths of pebble mosaics and cozy sitting areas watched over by Victor’s painted saints. I had a favorite bench there, one carved from huge cottonwood logs. It offered views of a busy hummingbird feeder and the burbling stream, and was the perfect place for an afternoon cup of tea.
“Has Broomer seen the garden?” I asked. Surely any reasonable person wouldn’t harm something so pretty. Or maybe not so surely. All sorts of gorgeous places fell to chain stores and parking lots, even in Santa Fe with its zealous historical protection groups.
Gabe clutched his coffee cup, his knuckles whitening. “Yeah. He’s seen it. He says he’s putting in a Zen pagoda in his garden and needs those extra few feet to get the proper dimensions.”
My mouth fell open. I imagined Zen as peaceful and, well, Zenlike, not bulldozing and threatening.
Linda patted Gabe’s hand, seemingly also at a loss for words.
“We’ll get through it,” Gabe said sadly, then corrected himself. “I’ll get through it.”
An hour later I finally sat down for breakfast. “I need a drink,” I groaned, slumping before remembering that Flori’s chairs have been handcrafted to punish poor posture. The wooden swallows carved into the seat back pecked me in the neck. I reluctantly sat up straight and settled for a sip of tepid coffee.
My best friend Cass sat across from me and smiled sympathetically. “My Swedish grandmother always carried a flask of vodka. Medication, she called it. She liked a well-medicated coffee.”
“I could use that kind of medication,” I said. After a shot of vodka, though, I’d be out cold. As it was, I was setting myself up for a food coma. It was 9:45 and I could have taken down the entire breakfast menu. In lieu of total gluttony, I’d made myself a plate of chiles rellenos with sides of beans and rice. It wasn’t exactly a light snack but it wasn’t the worst I could do. I’d forgone topping it with an egg or guacamole or steak and waffles.
Cass retied her long platinum blond hair back in a ponytail, looping the band around to approximate a bun. The bun came out looking elegant. So did Cass, despite her workday outfit of faded jeans and a slightly singed wool sweater.
“I’m glad you could sit for a bit,” she said. “What a horrible thing. I miss Victor already. He was supposed to have the booth next to mine at the Christmas market.” She shook her head sadly.
Outside the window, gray clouds rolled in from the north. Cottonwood leaves, big as brown paper lunch sacks, danced with mini dust devils in the street. Customers had reported that a storm was broiling and might powder Mount Baldy in snow by evening. Usually, I thrill at the first snow, taking it as an excuse to bake cookies and roast pretty much anything. Today, my mood was as dark as the sky.
Cass sipped hot chai and nibbled a chocolate muffin studded with chocolate chips. Like me, she buys into Flori’s claim that the sweet chocolate treat is a health food because it’s made with olive oil.
“You should come over to the shop and we can fire off some bad feelings,” she offered.
She meant the firing part literally. Cass is a silversmith with a studio near the Plaza. I’m envious of her skill, although a nervous, jumpy mess around her tools. Recently she’s been teaching me to solder using the one fiery device I can handle: a common kitchen crème brûlée torch. I’ve been reciprocating, showing her how to turn sugar into glassy caramel.
“I’d love to,” I said, after savoring a gooey bite of pepper, “but I have to help with lunch and then go give a statement to Detective Bunny. I hope it’s her, not Manny.”
“I could call in a fake alarm at a sleazy bar,” Cass offered. “I bet he’d take that call.”
I bet he would too. “He’s probably already there,” I said. “No, scratch that. He’s not on shift yet. Maybe he’s lounging around at home with his new girlfriend.” I told her about my surprise meeting with Ariel.
“Poor girl,” Cass said. “I almost feel sorry for her.” Cass can be counted on to take the anti-Manny side in any situation, although as a supportive friend, she held off telling me so until I announced my divorce intentions. She always credits Manny with one good thing, though. Inadvertently, he was the reason she and I met.
It was a few months after Manny, Celia, and I moved to Santa Fe. I’d worried about Celia adjusting to not only high school, but also a school in a new place with all new people. Would she fall in with a bad crowd? Feel isolated or out of her element? Nope. Celia quickly found friends in the art crowd, including a boy named Sky whom she talked about a lot. Sky knew how to weld, Celia reported with awe. He made steel statues and won art competitions and wanted to take her to Bandelier to see cliff dwellings and petroglyphs. He wanted to show her the “real” New Mexico.
My daughter was happy. Manny was not. The boy had long hair, Manny informed me sourly. He was a grade older than Celia. Moreover, he sounded like a pyromaniac and had a funny name and his parents had never married. This boy, Manny concluded, should not be taking our daughter to caves or exposing her to the unladylike craft of welding. Manny wanted to frighten Sky off. He proposed tailing him in a police vehicle or citing him for violating fire codes.
I was curious about Celia’s new friend too, but suggested that we take the more reasonable approach of getting to know him and his parents. That’s how Celia and I ended up meeting Sky and his mother, Cass, in her soldering studio. Our kids had fun pounding metal and we had a great time talking, so much so that I eventually revealed Manny’s concerns about teenage romance. Sitting amidst torches and tanks of gas, I didn’t dare bring up the welding.
I still remember Cass’s wink. “I don’t think Sky’s interested in girls in that way,” she’d said. “But he says he can tell Celia everything. I think your daughter’s really good for him.”
And he was good for her. I told Manny that Cass and I would chaperone. What we were really doing was having fun too. We took the teens to fascinating archeological sites at Bandelier and Chaco Canyon. We hiked picnics up mountains and visited art studios, including the painting studio of Sky’s Native American dad. Along the way, I gained a friend and a Santa Fe insider connection unconnected to Manny.
“We should go out tonight,” Cass proposed, plucking up a stray chocolate chip from the health muffin. “I made a big sale this morning. A new client nearly bought me out of earrings and ordered a bunch of matching necklaces and bangles.”
And I had a Mason jar full of tips, which combined wouldn’t buy one of Cass’s rings.
“My treat,” she said, encouragingly. “Drinks tonight at Small Plates? Their happy hour is super cheap and it’ll do you good to get out.”
I loved Small Plates, a tapas bar tucked away in a courtyard off the beaten tourist path. I thought of my evening plans. Make that my nonplans, like sitting around an empty house flipping through cookbooks or mindless TV. Celia had called earlier, buoying my motherly hopes until she said that she’d stay a few more nights with her dad. I couldn’t argue with that. To tell the truth, I wasn’t eager to return to our place either.
“Okay,” I told Cass, “but I’m buying the first plate of croquettes.” I couldn’t go to Small Plates without ordering the wonder that was cream, ham, and cheese, fried into crispy rounds.
Cass beamed. “Mmmm . . . then I’m getting the artichoke dip. Oh, or maybe that fabulous grilled Catalan sausage they do.”
“And wine,” I said, anticipating my post-police mood. “Lots of wine.”
Chapter 8
I suspected that something was up when I returned from a late lunch delive
ry to the courthouse and found Addie in the kitchen. Addie’s presence itself wasn’t unusual. Flori has a soft spot for the twenty-something singer/waitress and lets her work flexible hours. I suspect that Flori is drawn to Addie’s fanciful dreaming, namely that she’s a New Mexican double of the British songstress Adele. Addie’s real name is Adelina. Other people might brush that off as mere similarity. Not Addie, especially since there’s more. She also shares a birthday with the Grammy-winning Adele, as well as a love of belting out soul songs. To further reinforce her Adeleness, she has been working to acquire a British accent and a curvy figure. I can’t decide which attempt is going worse. What I do know is that the world isn’t fair when Addie can eat mounds of New Mexican delicacies and remain a stick-skinny size four.
Addie stood by the stove munching on an entire head of pan de muerto. The first clue that something was amiss was that it was Friday, Addie has singing gigs on Friday evening and thus spends the daylight hours “lying in,” communing with her Adele collection, and pampering her vocal cords. Second, and more important, Addie’s a champion waitress, a meticulous cleaner, and an all-around nice person. But as a cook? She’s mediocre at best. At worst, she’s burned soup and set her Adele wig on fire. Flori, although certain that Addie’s culinary skills will someday blossom, doesn’t usually leave her unsupervised.
Now, Addie stood at the stove, her faux blond beehive wrapped in a Union Jack tea towel. She tentatively sprinkled red chile powder into a pot.
“More chile, Addie. Pour it in!” Flori’s coaching was muffled by the turtleneck sweater stuck midway over her face. She tugged and rolled the fluffy mass down to neck level.
“Are you cold?” I asked, suspicious. The café felt like a summer afternoon in the desert, thanks to our ovens and the glowing embers in the little dining room fireplace.