by Ann Myers
Some people butt dial. I arm-dialed while diving into cactus. I closed my eyes again as Jake worked acupuncturist’s magic with tweezers. “Just one more . . .” he murmured. “There.” A spine left my forehead, followed by a gentle kiss.
“All better?” he asked.
“Much,” I managed to say. He lowered his face to mine. I leaned in and was nearly barreled over. Not from romance but from fifty pounds of speeding bulldog.
“Hey!” Jake protested as man’s best friend thundered through the kitchen, chased by a blur of buff-colored fur. Jake sighed and scooted his chair back, the moment broken.
“Rita, why did someone try to run you over?” he asked in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.
“Flori, Addie, and I followed Don Busco last night,” I admitted. “He caught us at it and got kind of angry.” Since no more kissing seemed in the works, I stood and searched the cupboards. For someone who works in food, I had shamefully slim pickings, other than the half-eaten flan. “Homemade granola?” I offered. “It’s a bit old, but it’s peanut butter.”
Jake had a better idea. “How about I take you out for breakfast? Clafoutis or Tune-Up or do you have a new favorite? It won’t make up for that fine, home-cooked meal I missed, but . . .”
The man knew my breakfast favorites and my weaknesses. Clafoutis was the domain of buttery French croissants made by bona fide French pastry chefs. Tune-Up offered New Mexican fare with an El Salvadoran twist. Rationalizing that the fat and calories of flaky, buttery pastry don’t count after a near-death experience, I chose Clafoutis and hurried to change into something that was not torn spandex.
Okay,” Jake said, after we’d ordered coffee and pastries. “You were about to tell me why you all were out tailing Don.”
I tore a flaky corner from my ham and cheese croissant. “We think he was involved in Napoleon’s death. A guy Flori knows saw Don by the bandstand around the time of the murder. Don might be the killer, or know who is. Plus, yesterday on the Plaza, I saw the health inspector’s son pass Don an envelope stuffed with cash. Fishy!”
“The health inspector that got poisoned?” Jake asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, that one,” I said glumly. “He’s up to something. The other day, when I was at OhLaLa, Brigitte and I discovered him searching Napoleon’s office. First he claimed he was inspecting. When we put pressure on him, he said he was looking for cash that Napoleon owed him.” I raised the remains of my croissant for emphasis. “We think either Napoleon was paying Jenkins for a good inspection or so that someone else—say a rival food cart operator—would fail theirs.”
Jake’s steel-blue eyes had a mischievous twinkle. “I’m still imagining you and Brigitte putting pressure on that inspector. Did I understand correctly that pink handcuffs were involved?”
I blushed and tried to hide behind my coffee, which was unfortunately a tiny double espresso cup, not a giant bowl of cappuccino. “Those were Flori’s cuffs. Anyway, Brigitte’s been searching through Napoleon’s financial records. She thinks she’s found irregularities. It’s all about the numbers, she says. That’s the key.” I felt my blush rise again, this time for another reason. “She’s . . .” I struggled to find words that wouldn’t reveal my jealousy. “She’s very persistent.”
Jake snorted. “You can say that again.”
I took note of his tone. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I thought I saw a blush rise on his chiseled cheeks. “You may have noticed, Brigitte Voll has been calling me an awful lot since I met her at that art benefit.” He fiddled with his cup.
Was I imagining it, or did the tough defense attorney seem anxious?
He sighed. “I had to come out and tell her that I’m seeing you, so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. I hope you won’t think that’s too forward.”
I tried not to beam. Cool and collected, that’s how Brigitte would react. On the other hand, Jake Strong was sitting here with me, not Brigitte. “Not at all,” I told the slightly pink-cheeked lawyer.
He grinned bashfully and changed the subject back to crime. “So if Don’s the killer, why’d he do it?”
“Napoleon blacklisted Don from his beloved bartending jobs,” I said.
Jake wasn’t impressed. “Hardly seems like something you’d kill a guy over long after the fact. Besides, Don seems pretty happy with that hot dog business of his.”
“Well then, what if Napoleon was going after Don’s hot dog business, like he did with Linda’s cart? That could have set Don off. Maybe he snapped.”
Jake accepted a refill of coffee from our harried waitress. “I can see that. Don’s a big guy. Easy enough for him to stab Napoleon and pull Linda’s tamale cart over him, although why he’d get someone else’s cart involved is beyond me.”
We sat in silence for a few beats before I suggested possible answers. “Linda probably told you that she left a message for Don, asking him to check on her cart. Suppose Don spotted Napoleon messing with Linda’s cart and went mad with rage. He stabbed Napoleon and pulled the cart over him to make a point. That might explain why he keeps saying he’ll help Linda. Once he came to his senses, he felt bad for involving her.”
Jake sipped his coffee. “Possible. He’d help her more if he told the truth. You said someone saw Don out by the bandstand that night? Has this witness spoken to the police?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “According to Flori, this man won’t go near the police. He’s a chronic thief and somehow related to Don. What’s worse is that Don claims he has an alibi. It’s Manny, of all people. They were out at a bar that night.”
Jake appeared to mull over this information. “Okay. Good to know. However, none of this explains you getting run off the road this morning.”
I had a flashback of the silver grill barreling toward me. “I can’t be sure who it was, and I didn’t get a good look at the vehicle. I think it was a truck.” I shivered, involuntarily. “Red like the truck Don drives.”
For a man holding a custard-filled raisin bun, Jake did not look happy. “Rita,” he said. “You should—” He stopped. “I can’t tell you what you should do, but I sure hope you’ll be careful. Someone killed Napoleon. Got close enough to stick that knife of Linda’s in his back and right through to his heart.”
His words sent a chill through me. I clutched my now-empty coffee cup. “I know. But if Don’s the killer and getting worried—trying to scare me—maybe he’ll make a mistake. Or maybe we can convince that witness to come forward or talk to you. That would help Linda, wouldn’t it?”
Jake took his time before answering. “It might help muddy the waters in a jury’s mind. But suppositions aren’t evidence. Don won’t be the one on trial. Linda will be, assuming I can’t get the case thrown out.”
“Can you?” I asked.
Jake studied the packed dining room. A young waitress scurried among tables, refilling coffees, taking orders, and delivering food. I hoped Tres Amigas would be open and filled with customers again on Monday.
When Jake spoke, he seemed to choose his words carefully. “I don’t know, honestly. Usually I have a feeling about a case, one way or the other, but this one?” He gazed toward the ceiling with its pale, whitewashed beams. “It’s tricky. There’s the murder weapon, Linda’s knife, with her fingerprints all over it.”
“But anyone could have stolen her knife from her cart.”
Jake recrossed his legs and leaned back in his seat. “That’s what I’ll argue. The public fight with Napoleon doesn’t help her one bit. There’s something else too, for your ears only.” He leaned across the table. I leaned in too, recalling the earlier kiss. “Napoleon died eating his last meal, and you know what that was?”
I recalled the crime tech picking up chunks of tamale. “Oh no . . .”
Jake leaned back. “Yep, afraid so. Tamale. Found at the scene and in the mouth of the deceased. The lab has to confirm it, but it appears to be Linda’s tamale. Chicken mole, the kind she had on special.�
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Suddenly my croissant wasn’t sitting so well. “There could be lots of explanations for that,” I said, though I could hardly think of any good ones.
Jake agreed. “I try to think like the prosecutor. Know what he’ll most likely say? That it was Linda who was there that night. Napoleon tried her tamale and insulted her and that was that . . . she went wild with anger and killed him. In that case, at least it wouldn’t be first-degree murder. The crime wasn’t premeditated.”
As theories went, it was more straightforward. Unless you knew Linda. “And then rolled her cart over his dead body?” I said grouchily and too loudly. A young couple at the next table looked over at us. I tried to lower my voice and emotions a notch. “Linda would never do that.”
Jake reached out and took my hand. His firm grasp was calming, even if his words were not. “You and I think that. A jury may not. Rita, there’s something else too. Linda’s record.”
Chapter 24
The couple next to us glanced up warily from their eggs Florentines. Okay, I’d yelled, “Linda has a record?” louder than I intended. Now I prayed that our table neighbors weren’t gossipy locals or potential jurors or news reporters. A group walking past gaped at me. Too late, I recognized one of the women as a member of Linda’s choir group.
Jake outlined the bare details, basically all he knew. “You can do me a favor, actually,” he said as I considered stress-ordering, and consuming on the spot, a dozen chocolate madeleines. “I have the records, the official paperwork, but Linda says she doesn’t want to talk about the past. I need to know the full story in case those convictions are brought up in court proceedings. Typically, they couldn’t be, but a crafty prosecutor might worm them in.”
I could imagine Linda’s refusal to speak. She’d happily reminisce about friends and relatives and past holiday feasts, but when it came to talking about herself or her now-deceased husband, she clammed up.
“I need to know if I should be a little or a whole mess of worried,” Jake said. “Flori will tell you, won’t she?”
I hoped so. My mind was still whirling, and this time it wasn’t from my tumble in the cactus. I couldn’t believe that Linda had a record. And not just a record. Jake was saying that she had multiple arrests and was named in a handful of domestic disturbance reports. I knew that her deceased husband, Santos, had been no saint. Far from it. Santos was a bully and a mean drunk. The domestic disturbances made me both sad and mad. Mostly mad. But the arrests? I repeated my bafflement several times on the drive back to my casita.
We stepped inside to find Winston flopped on the cool tiles, tongue out and panting. Hugo purred contentedly on the back of the sofa.
“Did Hugo wear you out, sweetie?” I asked, patting the bulldog’s hot, wrinkled brow.
Still, Winston whined when Jake put on his leash. “Gotta catch up on work, buddy,” Jake said to the dog. Jake paused on the porch. He reached out and gently touched my scuffed forehead before cupping my chin and drawing me in for a kiss.
My knees wobbled. “Oops, too much running,” I said, trying to cover.
He smiled down at me. “Too much jumping into cacti. Promise me something?”
I crossed my fingers, prepared to fib and say I’d give up investigating.
“No more early morning jogging, okay? At least until we find out who did this.”
That I could promise.
Jake left me in a jumble of emotions. Selfishly, I was still aglow over the romantic French breakfast and kiss. On the other hand, I had nearly been run over and Linda had a record?
I called Flori before driving over to her house.
She met me at the door. “Linda just left. On her way to church again.” Flori narrowed her eyes at my scuffs and bandages. “She told me what happened to you. It’s darkest before the storm, I told her, although that’s hardly a pick-you-up, is it?”
It was about to get darker. I suggested to Flori that we sit on her lovely back sunporch with her cat Zozo. Once the portly orange feline had jumped on her lap and started kneading, I brought up the subject of Linda’s arrests.
“Yes,” Flori said simply. “My eldest daughter has a record, but it’s not what you might think.”
I wasn’t thinking anything. My mind still couldn’t wrap itself around even the idea. “For what?” I asked, wishing I had a chubby cat to cuddle.
My elderly friend screwed up the side of her mouth. “A misdemeanor for disorderly conduct,” she said. “She and a dozen others got kicked out of a city council meeting years ago for protesting a nuclear waste dump.”
Okay, this wasn’t bad. I relaxed and enjoyed the view of tiny yellow finches flitting among similarly bright forsythia flowers. Flori explained young Linda’s noble efforts to secure clean drinking water and keep us all safe from radioactivity and cancer. I felt better. If the prosecutor brought this up, Linda would look like the saint she was.
Relieved, I’m afraid I drifted off in thoughts of breakfast and kissing.
Flori’s next words, however, snapped me back to reality. “Then there’s the battery of a police officer charge. That’s probably what has Jake worried.”
I gaped at Flori. Outside, the finches flew away in a cacophony of high-pitched chirps.
Flori petted a purring Zozo. “The assault was a load of . . . well . . . rotten eggs. So long ago too. My dear girl was only in her early twenties then and passionate about civil rights and environmental issues. She was at a big protest in Albuquerque that got out of hand. You know how Albuquerque can be. You know young people too. So headstrong and stubborn.”
Celia was headstrong and stubborn. My mind reeled through a horror flick of Celia building a rap sheet.
“But Linda?” I asked. “Assault?”
Flori had her eyes on the garden and a puffy gray cat stalking through a patch of ornamental grass. The feline prowled across the patio, then looked our way. I held its wide-eyed gaze for a moment before it crouched and slunk back under the forsythia.
“Mrs. Baca’s cat, Sir Dennis,” Flori said with a smile. “He’s all bluster. Dennis never catches anything. About Linda, there was a lot of shoving. An officer claimed that protesters shoved him, when really the police were backing them into a corner. It was a trumped-up charge and everybody knew it. Linda did some community service. I told Linda, there are ways to get that off your record, but she said she didn’t care. Said it doesn’t matter, she was proud of her efforts.” Flori turned to me. “It matters now, doesn’t it?”
I tried to summon Linda’s calm confidence in the face of another’s pain. “We’ll clear her. I’m not scared of Don Busco.” I lied. I was scared of the big man, but I feared more for Linda.
“Good,” Flori said. “Because I know how we can spy on him.”
Flori’s idea was a good one, except for my guilt. Later that morning, I stepped up to Crepe Empire, ready to infiltrate the food carters. I was a mole, a deceiver, a false friend, and I’d have felt a lot better if Brigitte hadn’t been so delighted to see me.
“But what has happened to you?” she asked, frowning at my many bandages and scrapes. “You were in an accident?”
No accident, I thought, glancing toward Don’s hot dog cart. He was busy ladling chili over hot dogs and chatting to customers. Was he regaling them with cowboy folksiness or a story from his time in the film industry? I remembered liking Don’s tales during his bartending days. He’d always seemed so friendly. Not now.
“I had a run-in with a vehicle while jogging,” I told Brigitte, my hand reaching for my forehead. “I look worse than I feel, and it’s probably good if I keep up and moving. I’ll understand if you don’t want me around, though. I might scare away your customers.” I halfway hoped she would shoo me off. I’d called her earlier, saying that I had the day off and would love to help her with her crepes. Salvage her crepes would be the more accurate term, but I already felt too much like a false friend to say that.
“Non, non, I am delighted! You give me hope. Together, we wi
ll conquer the crepe.” She came around the front of the sleek cart and gave me a painful squeeze. Lowering her voice, she said, “I will tell you and only you, Rita. I do not know what the problem is. My crepes, they flop when they flip and they splatter and people give them back and want a return of their money. I was starting to think that Napoleon may have been correct about my poor cooking abilities. But with you here, Crepe Empire will again be the best on the Plaza.”
And I could spy on Don without being accused of snooping. Tying an apron around my waist, I stepped behind the round griddle and surveyed the setup. The little cart was better equipped than some kitchens. Brigitte turned on the sound system to soft French café tunes. I stirred a speckled buckwheat batter, my mood perking up as I anticipated crepe delicacies.
I started feeling better about my outdoor spying too. It was a sunny Saturday. Petunias and pansies bloomed in planter baskets, robins prowled the grass, and the Cathedral bells rang out, announcing a quarter to eleven. We still had time for some crepe instruction before the main lunchtime rush.
“Okay, first thing, your batter is a little thick,” I said. I stirred the batter, which fell in clumpy globs when I raised the spoon. “This is more like an American pancake batter. You want a thinner consistency for crepes.” Under my instruction, Brigitte whisked in more water.
“Now, a nice coating of oil on the griddle.”
Brigitte added oil and reached for her ladle.
“Wait.” I held out a hand. “You want the oil almost smoking, otherwise the crepes might stick and they’ll be hard to turn. Now, when the grill’s ready, spread the batter quickly but evenly and monitor the bubbles and edges. The batter will turn from glossy to firm and set on the sides. That’s when you flip.”
I demonstrated how to spread out the batter using a T-shaped wooden tool designed for just that purpose. We waited a minute, and then Brigitte attempted to flip the lacy circle.