8 Sweet Payback

by Connie Shelton

  It was midafternoon when she pulled into the driveway at home. Beau’s vehicle wasn’t there—not surprising—although she’d hoped he might get back early from Albuquerque. She gave each of the dogs an absentminded pat on the head as she went inside and hooked her laptop to the printer on Beau’s small desk.

  While everything booted up she wandered to the kitchen and stirred the beef stew, turning the pot down to keep-warm mode. Back in the living room, she hit a few keys to open the email from Delbert and five minutes later she was out the door again, the two-page form in hand. Going by Gisner’s “it’s five o’clock somewhere” mantra, she figured she could catch him at home this time of day.

  The wind was picking up as she reached the south end of Taos and began the series of twisty roads to her destination. The blonde with the long, tan legs answered the doorbell.

  “Amber, where the hell are the limes?” Linden Gisner’s voice echoed from somewhere deep in the interior of the house just as the door opened.

  The young woman flinched, glanced over her shoulder.

  “Um, can you wait a second?” she said to Sam. She disappeared, leaving the door open and Sam standing on the tiled veranda.

  Voices drifted toward her, the female sounding conciliatory and pleading, the male coarse and demanding. After an exchange or two Amber must have reminded him that someone was waiting at the door. Gisner approached Sam with his smile in place, except that this time it seemed forced.

  “Ms . . . sorry, I don’t remember your name. Anyway, what can I do for you?” He didn’t exactly look as if he wanted to do anything for her.

  She held out the pages. “My supervisor said these need to be signed.”

  Linden snatched up the papers. “I’ll see about it.” He started to close the door.

  “I’m supposed to get them signed now and put them in the mail myself. Apparently it’s something that’s needed right away. It looks like a simple release form of some kind.” She stepped forward. “I’ll be happy to wait while you read through it.”

  His mouth opened, but apparently he thought better of what he was about to say. He grumbled a little and opened the door wider.

  She trailed him into the salon where she’d been before. A blender full of pale green liquid waited beside a pair of salt-rimmed glasses. Linden held the pages in his left hand and poured himself a drink with the right, this time not offering one to Sam. She perched on the edge of one of the wicker chairs while he leaned against the bar, reading.

  Amber came in with a small plate heaped high with lime quarters, gingerly setting it near the blender. Gisner gave her a glare that seemed to say that their earlier discussion wasn’t finished. He flipped to the second page of Sam’s form.

  “Get me a damn pen,” he growled at Amber.

  The girl scampered away and came back a few seconds later. He scrawled a signature and thrust the pages back at Sam. She almost followed Amber’s lead, wanting to slink out of the room, but why did she think she had to fear this guy? He was the one behind on his taxes, in trouble with money or for whatever reason.

  “I suppose you might be happy to see the last of Sembramos,” she said as she reached the foyer. “There’s been some trouble up there recently. Too bad, because it’s a cute little town.”

  He gave Sam a strange look, then turned on Amber. “Get those drinks finished!” he shouted.

  “She didn’t deserve that,” Sam said quietly, facing him squarely.

  “It’s none of your damn business what I say to her.” His face was suddenly fused with red, his voice reaching a manic pitch.

  “Okay, you’re right. It isn’t. She must be willing to stick around for some reason.”

  He strode ahead and yanked open the front door.

  Sam was happy to comply. She scooted past him and got into her truck, keeping an eye on Gisner as he stepped to the edge of the veranda. She reached the property boundary and pulled out to the county road before she let out her breath. So weird. What was this guy’s story anyway?

  Chapter 20

  Dark clouds roiled over the top of Taos Mountain and the first drops of rain splatted against her windshield as Sam turned east, off the highway. Beau’s cruiser sat in the drive, and her mood lifted. Dealing with angry people wasn’t her strong suit and although she’d steamed over Gisner’s treatment of his girlfriend, he was right—it wasn’t her business. If Amber put up with him, it was her choice. Meanwhile, Sam looked forward to a quiet evening at home. Done with her caretaking job, she didn’t intend to go back to Sembramos for a good long time.

  Besides, her shoulders ached and she was ready for a hot shower.

  “Rough day, darlin’?” Beau took her jacket and pack and hung them on the coat rack, then pulled her close.

  “Tiring. I had hoped to be home an hour ago.” She tilted her head up for his kiss. “But I am now. And as soon as I get out of the shower, dinner’s ready.”

  “I was going to say, something in that kitchen smells really good.”

  Over dinner, Sam told him about her encounters with Linden Gisner. “I’m not surprised his wife ran off with another man. The guy runs hot and cold, and today he was all over the case of the girlfriend.” She pointed her fork at him. “You ever start that, I’d be out of here so fast.”

  “What about the part that included ‘for better or worse’?” At least he said it with a smile on his face.

  “That applies to external forces, not to one partner abusing the other. Plus, I never said that—we wrote our own vows.” She broke off a piece of the cornbread she’d made to go with the stew. “Your turn—was the trip to Albuquerque productive?”

  “Well, Matthew Cayne had a solid alibi. He was out on a training mission more than three-hundred miles from here, with fifty other guys.”

  “Sorry to hear that all the leads are turning out to be dead ends.”

  “At least Matt did tell me a bit more about the night of his sister’s death. Unfortunately, even though he was in the house he didn’t hear or see anything. He delivered a bit of a shocker—told me that Jessie Starkey had a romantic interest in Angela.”

  Sam felt her mouth open.

  “She didn’t reciprocate, according to her brother, but I plan to re-read those interviews carefully. I still think that somewhere among Angela’s circle is where we’ll find her killer. Murders by strangers are far more rare than you would think. Statistically, you have a ninety-five percent chance of being murdered by someone you know and love rather than a stranger.”

  Her spoon clattered against the side of her bowl.

  “I’m not saying there aren’t weirdos, predators and psycho stalkers out there. Just that most of us never encounter them or don’t become their targets. Most killings are done for the basic reasons—love, money, jealousy . . .”

  What a cheery thought. Sam cleared the empty bowls and put on a kettle for tea. When she walked back into the great room, Beau was sifting through the pages of Angela Cayne’s file again.

  “The answer has to be here somewhere, doesn’t it?” she said softly.

  “Matt said that his sister didn’t have a lot of friends, mainly one girl named Molly Gisner. Said the two of them—”

  “Gisner?” Sam stood still.

  He held out his small notepad where he’d written the name.

  “That’s the name of the man who owns the house I’ve been tending. Just outside Sembramos. It’s an odd enough name that there has to be a connec—” She paced the length of the room. “Okay, somebody mentioned that this guy’s daughter had died.”

  “Has to be the same one. Matt said Angela’s friend died. His sister was very withdrawn after that.”

  “So, Linden Gisner’s daughter died, his wife ran off. Now I see why he wouldn’t want to move into that house and spend time in Sembramos after that. It’s a little easier to feel sympathy and understand the prickly attitude.”

  “I wonder where the wife went.” Beau studied the witness list. “I’m sure she was never intervie
wed during all this. If we could locate her, she might have some idea of who might have come after Angela Cayne.”

  “I’m curious about the whole time frame,” Sam said, musing aloud. “Did Mrs. Gisner leave before or after Angela died? Maybe it was before her own daughter died . . . in fact, I think Linden said . . . how did he phrase it? I think he said that his wife abandoned both of them.”

  “I think I need to talk to Sally Cayne again.”

  “Good idea. A grandmother is going to know more about a granddaughter’s set of friends than probably anyone else around here.”

  The tea kettle whistled and Sam ran to tend to it while Beau started a list of people to talk to. She carried a mug of tea to him, noticing that rain had begun to lash at the windows. Lightning flashed a few miles away, illuminating the deck and barn.

  “The storm’s here,” he commented.

  Sam sat in one of the chairs at the table but between her day of physical labor and the soothing tea she couldn’t concentrate on reading. A glance at Beau showed him propping his head up with one hand.

  “Honey, you’re just as tired as I am. C’mon, let’s go up.”

  He didn’t argue. While he let the dogs in, she picked up their empty cups and deposited them in the kitchen. Up in the bathroom she massaged one shoulder and then the other. The hot shower had temporarily eased the aches but now they were plaguing her again. She opened her jewelry box to put away the earrings she’d left lying on the counter and when she closed it the wood was already beginning to glow.

  Just for a minute, she thought. She cradled the box for maximum exposure to her arms but as it began to warm she set it down again. This was one night she didn’t want energy to stay awake for hours. By the time she crawled under the covers, her aches were gone and when Beau snuggled in beside her, she fell asleep to the sound of thunder in the distance and rain on the roof.

  The solid sleep didn’t last. Wind howled outside, tree branches slapping against the bedroom window, the thunder and lightning moving nearer once more. Sam rolled over, mumbling against the intrusion, reminding herself it was only a storm. The dogs were inside, secure in their crates, and she was safe against Beau.

  Light and crash came at the same instant, quaking the house. Sam sat up in bed, staring toward the window. A ghostly woman’s figure appeared—slender, wearing a floral print dress, dark hair plastered to her head by the rain. Her arms came up, defending herself as she backed away. She spun and ran into the woods.

  “Darlin’, darlin’ . . . wake up. You’re having a doozy of a dream.”

  Beau’s gentle hand on her shoulder woke Sam. She was half-sitting, the quilt twisted around her legs.

  “Lightning.” Sam felt her heart pound; her breath was coming fast.

  “Yeah, there was a strike, really close,” he said. “I’m going to walk around and make sure it didn’t hit the barn or one of our trees. Could start a fire. You going to be okay?”

  She scrubbed her hands across her face. “Yeah. Fine.”

  With Beau out of the room and the storm continuing to rage around them, there was no way she would fall asleep right away. What was that vision about? Sam would have sworn that the thunder woke her and the frightened woman was standing right here, near the window. But that idea was silly; she’d run off into the woods, clearly not out of a second-story room. It was only a dream. A vivid one. Sam pulled the quilt all the way up to her neck. Shouldn’t have handled the box right before bedtime. Dumb.

  Fifteen minutes dragged by, then Beau came back, batting at the legs of his pajamas. “Whew! I put on my slicker—still got wet.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. Couldn’t see any damage on our property.”

  “Property. Hm. I suppose I better go by the Gisner place tomorrow and make sure no tree came crashing through one of those monster plate glass windows or anything.”

  “You can ride along with me,” Beau said as he changed to dry pajamas. “I want to talk to some people in Sembramos and I could take you on up to the house.”

  Sam almost protested that he needn’t drive the extra distance, but in fact it might be interesting to talk with Angela Cayne’s grandmother. She nodded and they settled in and turned out the lamps.

  * * *

  “Our Angie and Molly Gisner, they were quite the pair,” Sally Cayne said as she bustled about her small kitchen, brewing tea and offering cookies, apologizing because all she had in the house was store-bought. Beau smiled when she brought out the blue package of Oreos. In a man’s opinion, store-bought was perfect.

  “Those girls made friends in the first grade.” Sally set mugs of tea at each place. “And they were like this,” holding up two fingers, pressed together, “always. I can see them in their little tutus when they took ballet classes . . . oh, and that time they showed up for trick-or-treat as princesses.” Her faded eyes misted over. “Until that accident tore them apart.”

  Sam remembered that Molly had died in an accident.

  “Angie was busted up in more ways than one. Broken arm, those cuts on her sweet face, but worst of it was losing Molly. Our Angie swore, all the rest of her days, that she’d not had a drink that night. But the cops tested her. Took her license away. I don’t know as it mattered. Sixteen years old but she didn’t want to drive again for a long time.”

  “It must have been hard on everyone in town, especially Molly’s parents.”

  “Her father, yes. The man sank into a long bout of drinking—or so I heard. I never knew him all that well. Heather was long gone before the accident. Heather Brooks was her name before she married—she’d grown up here but her own parents had passed. Gisner was a newcomer—showed up to impress us all with his success. He might have impressed some of ’em, I don’t know. Not me. But it sure was a shocker, Heather just up and leaving without a word to anyone. He spread the talk that she’d run off with some man, but I knew some of her friends. Nobody had a clue. She’d never said a word, not even to her closest friends, about being interested in anyone else. And she never got in touch with those old friends after she left. I didn’t know Heather that well, but doesn’t that seem odd, a woman cutting all ties like that?”

  “I met Linden Gisner,” Sam said. “He owns that big white house the other side of town. He said his wife had deserted him and his daughter. Was Molly very young when this happened?”

  Sally’s eyes traveled toward the ceiling and back. “Not that young. I’d say the girls were just starting high school. That would make them maybe fourteen or fifteen when she left. I lose track of the years.”

  Hmm, Sam thought. Gisner had made it sound as if he’d raised his daughter from childhood virtually on his own. A sympathy play? Maybe just part of the bluster he used to hide the pain. From her own observations, she could see why a woman would want to get away from him and not say where she was going. A thought began to form as Beau asked questions about Sally’s grandson Matthew. What if Heather Gisner had cut ties so completely that she’d never gotten word about her daughter’s death, or Angela’s?

  She said as much to Beau as they got into his cruiser after Sally had insisted they take some of the early Romaine lettuce from her greenhouse and walked them to the door.

  “Maybe Mrs. Gisner knows something about what was going on in Angela’s life. It’s not uncommon for a girl to confide in her best friend’s mother.”

  “Heather left a year before her daughter died in the accident, four or five years before Angela’s death,” Beau said. “What could she possibly know?”

  “Well, at least I think it’s worth finding her and asking. We’re not even sure if she ever got the news about the girls’ deaths. Even her own daughter—no one has mentioned Heather coming back for Molly’s funeral or anything. If she didn’t come, surely it’s because she didn’t hear about it.” Unless she was scared to death of her ex-husband.

  Beau looked over at her as they passed the edge of town. “This idea isn’t going away, is it?”

  “W
ell . . . would it be that hard to do a search? We have no idea what her circumstances are now. She deserves to know.”

  His grin went a little crooked. “Okay. When I get some time in the office, I’ll initiate some basic inquiries.”

  “Try Heather Gisner and Heather Brooks. She could have taken back her maiden name.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”

  He squeezed her fingers. “It’s fine. After all, you’re my right-hand man.”

  Sam glowed a little inside. She really had been of help to him in several cases; she only hoped she wasn’t wasting his time by checking up on Heather, a woman who quite likely just wanted to stay away. Ahead, the big white house stood bright white on its hill. She pointed out the turn and they followed the long drive to it. The graveled roadway had deeper ruts, signs that last night’s rain had run down it in channels. As soon as they stepped inside she could tell that the storm had wreaked havoc with her clean windows too. Her heart sank.

  “I wouldn’t do them all over again,” Beau said as she walked him through the rooms and showed him the spotted glass. “As crazy as our April weather is, they’ll just be dirty again in another week.”

  “I wish you’d said that to me last week.” She tried to see the lighthearted side of it. At least she wasn’t a real estate agent, trying to show off the best aspects of the place. Someone would buy it at the tax auction and expect to do some cleanup, surely.

  “Linden Gisner told me he’d originally named this house Heathermoor, after his wife. From the bitterness of his tone, I guess he changed that. Still, I wonder when the construction was actually finished.”

  “Is that another search you want me to do?”

  She looked at him and couldn’t tell if he was being serious.

  “I’m teasing you!” he said. “That is, unless you really need to know.”

  She gave his arm a tiny jab. “You don’t have to take everything I say so seriously. Besides, I doubt it’s relevant.”