by Ann Myers
“It tore,” she said with a pout. “I want perfect.”
“Practice will make perfect,” I said, resorting to platitudes to cover my distraction. Don was bent over, rummaging in his cart. When he emerged, he held a bag of buns. No cash or smoking gun. Was this a waste of time? No. If nothing else, maybe Brigitte could learn to make an acceptable crepe. The next crepe flipped perfectly, and we filled the golden shell with grated Gruyère cheese, paper-thin slices of smoked ham, creamy horseradish sauce, and a sprinkling of emerald chives.
Two hours later we’d served a lot of crepes, many of which our customers, and even Brigitte, labeled as perfect.
“Rita, this is fantastic,” she gushed. “Magnifique! You are the best of teachers and friends.”
I blushed at her heaping praise.
“But why do you keep admiring Don Busco?” she asked, punching me in the arm in a way she probably meant as girlfriendly. “Are you interested in him too? He is handsome in his cowboy outfit, but not as handsome as your Mr. Strong. And that mustache, it is no good.”
I covertly massaged my arm where her punch had landed on a patch of cactus-spine holes. “Oh, I’m just checking out your competition . . .” I said.
I’m a terrible liar. Some people would say that’s a good thing. Not Flori, who periodically threatens to send me to fibbing camp.
Brigitte narrowed her eyes, scanning from Crystal’s juice cart to Don’s hot dog stand. “Rita, you are investigating, yes? Is that why you work at Crepe Empire today? If so, you must let me help. I can tell you that the food cart operators are edgy, talking of murder and poisoning. Look at Crystal. She hides behind her juice and avoids us.” Brigitte leaned close to me, practically cheek-to-cheek. We both eyed Crystal, or rather the perfectly bouncy curls on the back of Crystal’s head.
“See?” Brigitte said. “She cannot look at us, and I think I know why.”
Obligingly, I asked, “Why?”
Brigitte tossed a crepe with such vigor that it flipped twice before landing. “Guilt,” she proclaimed.
I waited, sensing that Brigitte would go on.
She did. “Yesterday morning, guess who visited Crystal’s cart? The health inspector.”
“Jenkins Senior? Did he drink anything?”
Brigitte looked over both shoulders before answering in a triumphant whisper. “Yes! She gave him juice. I do not know what kind. It was brown.”
And poisonous? I supposed I could imagine Crystal—or anyone—acting under extreme emotion. I couldn’t see the perky mother of three undertaking premeditated poisoning in broad daylight.
Don’s booming laugh floated our way and sent a chill down my arms. “Hot dogs!” he yelled. “Red hot chili dogs straight off the flames! Come and get ’em if you dare!”
“Or there is him,” Brigitte said.
I made a decision and admitted what I was up to, starting with my jogging mishap.
“But you did not see the driver?” Brigitte interjected midway through the story.
“No. It happened too fast. I think the vehicle was red. Don owns a red truck. I want to keep an eye on him. That’s why I’m here.” I added quickly, “And I love crepes.”
“What do you see when you keep your eyes on him?” Brigitte asked.
So far I’d seen hot dogs, a lot of hot dogs.
Brigitte poured more crepe batter. “I understand your suspicion,” she said. “However, we must consider the numbers and the food inspector, Monsieur Jenkins. He says he received payments from Napoleon. But for what? What if he is a, how do you say, a black . . . ?”
“Blackmailer,” I said.
“Oui! Blackmail. He was carried away to the hospital yesterday, but what if he only pretends to be ill to throw off your suspicion? It is not so difficult, I imagine, to pretend?”
According to Addie’s cousin at the hospital, Jenkins’s poisoning had been real and potentially deadly. I told Brigitte so, adding, “Maybe he ate a bad mushroom by accident or the person preparing the dish messed up. My friend Flori has a saying, ‘There are bold mushroom hunters and old mushroom hunters, but no old and bold mushroom hunters.’”
“How foolish,” Brigitte said, presumably about mushroom mistakes. “I tell you, Rita, it is the finances that will reveal all. That inspector, he is the one. I am sure of it.”
He’d have to be pretty devious—and incredibly bold or stupid—to poison himself. I sneaked a glance at Don. “There’s more,” I said, and told her about seeing Junior pass the envelope of cash to Don.
“Mmm . . . that is interesting. This Junior man is the son of the food inspector? Is he clever? Good with knives or numbers?”
All I knew was that he liked music, archeology, and Addie. I wanted to know more. On the other hand, there were only so many suspects we could juggle. “We have to focus on the main suspects,” I told Brigitte. “We’re under the gun.”
Brigitte’s chin snapped up. “Gun? There is a gun too?”
“Just an expression. Not an actual gun. We’re under time pressure, is what I mean. The prosecutor will be back in his office next week, and he’ll push Linda’s case forward. Then, for all practical purposes, the police will stop investigating other suspects. Even if she’s not convicted, the trail will go cold. We must find something that convinces the police of her innocence.” Saying this out loud brought home the urgency. My eye began to tic, especially after Brigitte repeated my earlier mantra about Linda being beyond reproach.
Brigitte sounded so hopeful, so sure. I decided to tell her. “Linda has an arrest record for a felony assault. A very old one, nearly forty years ago, probably, but it adds to the police’s case.”
Brigitte shook her head. “That many years ago? How incredible that the record remains. The American justice system is very strange to me. Your Mr. Strong will see that she is set free.”
My eye tic picked up tempo as I explained that even Jake Strong was worried.
“Then, as you say, you must identify the guilty party,” Brigitte said. “Why do you wait and hesitate? Why do we not search Don’s home and find the truth?”
Because it was illegal? Because Flori had scoped out his house and reported that he had digital door locks that her amateur lock-picking set couldn’t touch? I was starting to explain our inability to get in when a flash of purple caught my eye. I looked up and straight into the reptilian smile of Georgio Andre. An idea struck me. I acted on it before I could think rationally and chicken out.
“Georgio,” I said, batting my eyelids as Flori always instructed. I hoped the move came off as flirty rather than a nervous twitch. In either case, it seemed to work.
Georgio sidled up to the counter. “Ah, Ms. Lafitte, my lovely finder of fine art, can I be of help?”
Chapter 25
That night, the sun was setting in a kaleidoscope of tangerine orange and purple flashes when I stopped by Cass’s studio. Fire glowed in her studio too, a tight blue flame roaring from her torch. I waited until she turned off the gas and the flame sputtered out.
Pushing back her goggles, she assessed my outfit. “I rarely see you wear all black. Are you going out for cocktails with Jake to make up for that missed date, or . . . ?” Her or implied that she could guess my nonromantic intentions.
“I shouldn’t say,” I said.
Cass cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “So not a date with a handsome man?”
A handsome, albeit slimy man was involved. Georgio Andre had met Brigitte and me in the parking lot behind OhLaLa, where he’d handed off a lock-picking device while flirting unabashedly. Luckily, Brigitte had handled the flirting.
“Hypothetically,” I said to Cass, “if I went to prison, would you help Manny take care of Celia? She’d need a noncriminal maternal figure.”
“Rita,” my friend said, waving her torch in my direction. “What are you hypothetically up to?”
“Best you don’t know.” I felt rude, but truly rude would be involving my friend in a crime. I had told Flori, who’d informed
Addie, as they were both involved. Addie was following Don to downtown bars, and Flori was keeping her ear to the gossip lines. At Addie’s last text-message check-in, Don was watching football at a sports bar with more large-screen TVs than menu items. It was, Addie summarized, beyond boring, and the barkeeper refused to switch even one of the many TVs to BBC America.
Cass grumbled that she didn’t like this—whatever “this” was—one bit. “But of course. Celia can spend time with me and Sky. He’ll be thrilled. He’s been trying to catch up with her lately, but they keep missing each other.”
Sky, Cass’s son, is a combination big brother and best friend to Celia. They share a love of art and are usually as close as twins. I vowed, yet again, to sit down my daughter and force a conversation on her new crowd and activities.
“Friendships are always in flux, I told Sky,” Cass was saying.
Not ours. I hoped.
Cass grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll come visit you in jail if it comes to that. I’ll bring you some of Ida Green’s tortillas so you can break out. We’ll go Thelma and Louise, except no driving over cliffs.”
Georgio’s lock-pick device, although light and slender, felt like a crowbar weighing down my pocket. I checked my watch, realizing I was about to be late. “I’ve got to go,” I said, suddenly feeling dizzy, either from the scent of acetylene in the air or my impending criminal activity. I wobbled to my feet.
Cass eyed me with concern. “Will you at least tell me where you’re going? You know, so I can call in Officer Bunny if you go missing?”
Calling in Bunny was the last thing I wanted. She’d arrest me, while Manny chastised me, or maybe vice versa.
“I’ll be fine. I have my phone.” I gave Cass a quick hug and stepped outside. I’d have to rush across the street to the Cathedral steps, where I’d arranged to meet Brigitte. At the curb, I bounced anxiously on the balls of my feet as I waited for a car to pass. The black sedan slowed, the side window descended, and Brigitte waved.
“Parfait,” she said. “Perfect timing. You are ready?”
As ready as I’d ever be. I got in just as Cass came to her front door, waving for us to wait.
“Do you need help? I’ll come too,” she called out.
Part of me wanted to yell Yes! but I knew I shouldn’t. My hurried thanks were shut down as Brigitte rolled up the tinted windows with her master controls.
“We need no one else,” she said briskly. “You and me. We are an investigative team, Rita.”
In the side mirror I saw Cass wave, then drop her hand and go inside. We sped off, my heart heavy and beating hard.
Brigitte drove in silence and just above the speed limit. Like me, she wore all black. Unlike me, she could wear her cat-burglar attire straight out to cocktails and dancing. My outfit included black slacks from my Midwest French café days, topped with a stretchy black top I’d bought as long underwear for a snowshoe trip. The shirt was warm but built up shocking amounts of static. I’d already electrified several doorknobs and a tree.
“This is his block,” Brigitte announced, slowing the car to a crawl. I knew this neighborhood pretty well. Manny’s house was a few blocks south. He’d inherited it from his grandparents, and we’d all lived together there for about three years. I’d walked here many times and hauled casseroles to a nearby cousin-in-law’s house for family meals. I missed the cousins and wished we’d kept better in touch. If I didn’t end up in jail, I vowed to reach out to them again.
“New Mexico architecture all looks the same,” Brigitte complained.
I smiled, thinking of my mother, who said the same thing. Mom also worried that adobe would dissolve in rain and that the presence of so many walls encouraged misbehavior. Given that I was about to burgle, I couldn’t argue with the latter. I did love the nuances in Santa Fe’s amazing earthen buildings, though. And, thanks to Flori, I could distinguish a few architectural types, like the straight-lined territorial style and the more fanciful curves of Pueblo revival. I could even sniff out real, solid adobe from the spray-on coating that Flori disdained as “faux’dobe,” although I thought both could be beautiful.
“Flori said that Don’s house is a territorial-style cottage,” I told Brigitte, who snorted as if this information was of no help.
“Numbers,” she said again. “That is the key. Look for house numbers.”
We spotted Don’s number on a stucco-coated mailbox. His home sat on a corner, enclosed by a high wall. My heart sank. What good was Georgio’s lock-picking equipment if we couldn’t get over the wall? Past snooping endeavors with Flori have proven that I am no good at hoisting myself over walls. Such experience has also taught me that interior gardens can contain hazards ranging from guard dogs and drug labs to trippy burglar alarms. However, when Brigitte turned the corner, my wall excuse vanished. The gate to Don’s driveway stood wide open, as if inviting us in.
I checked my phone for any updates. Addie said she’d text if Don left the bar. There was no message. No excuse there either. Reminding myself that this was for Linda, I followed Brigitte down the dark driveway to Don’s back door.
“It is easy, non? That is what Georgio says?” Brigitte whispered.
Easy for a professional art thief and cat burglar, perhaps. The lock-pick looked too simple, like a thin, miniature pry bar. If it turned up in my drawer of kitchen tools, I might mistake it for a spatula missing its silicon end or a device to free stubborn cakes from their pans. Simply insert behind the side of the lock, yank down, and pull, Georgio had said. He’d even brought a dummy lock to demonstrate on and a cell-phone video of himself using the device at an international lock-picking-aficionados convention. Amateur enthusiasts, he’d said with a wink. All on the up and up.
I’d practiced a few times, and it had seemed simple. In the practice sessions, however, my hands weren’t shaking, and I wasn’t standing in the dark, about to undertake an actual crime. I fumbled to insert the device, fearing the blare of alarms at any moment. Don’t be silly, I told myself. Home alarms were often silent. The first thing I’d hear would be Manny, ordering me to freeze.
“Ease it down . . .” Brigitte whispered over my shoulder.
I eased and something clicked.
Brigitte reached across and opened the door.
“Wow!” I said, momentarily thrilled. Then reality sank in, and I imagined Milan Lujan describing me on the six o’clock news. Single mom and former policeman’s wife in a dramatic fall from grace tonight, breaking into a culinary competitor’s home.
Brigitte was already inside and flipping on light switches. An array of ceiling lamps illuminated a bachelor pad of bulky leather furniture, an oversized TV, and a jumble of pizza boxes and electronics, all under lovely Santa Fe architectural details. The ceiling was crossed by tree-trunk beams. The floor was Saltillo tile interspersed with small tiles of brilliant blue. Take away the single-male clutter and the house was a gem, but I didn’t come to gawk at real estate. In fact I didn’t want to see any details if that meant we could be seen too.
“Ack! Brigitte, turn off the lights!” I reached to flip the switch.
My co-burglar batted my hand away. “But how will we see? No, this way we look less guilty.”
There was no way of looking less guilty. We had a lock-picking device, acquired from a well-known yet nonconvicted criminal/international lock-picking champ, who would disavow giving it to us. We were dressed in black and were rifling through a man’s private papers. Or, rather, Brigitte was rifling through the magazines and mail on his coffee table. I was pretty much frozen. What had seemed like a bold move to secure Linda’s freedom now seemed a futile if not foolish endeavor.
“Rita, where are you?”
Brigitte’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. She wasn’t in the living room anymore. I turned off the lights and followed the sounds of rustling down a hall to a small room overlooking Don’s driveway and side yard.
“Voilà,” Brigitte said. She waved her hands to encompass a room decorated in m
ovie star photos and piles of paper and electronics.
I didn’t see anything voilà worthy. I saw a home office that needed a good dusting and thorough decluttering, although the photos were cool. I recognized Santa Fe residents George R.R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones, and Robert Redford, whom I’d once literally bumped into with my shopping cart at Whole Foods. As usual in the presence of a hunky man, I’d stammered the first nonsensical thing that came to mind. I told him that I wished he’d make salad dressing like Paul Newman. Then I’d blushed furiously and run for the cover of the cheese display.
I tore my eyes from the walls and studied the shelves of stuff. Old sound equipment, I guessed, along with cameras and other electronics. Remembrances from Don’s glory days. I felt a smidgen sorry for the presumed murderer. There was nothing wrong with a hot dog cart, but Don used to rub shoulders with Hollywood royalty. Now what did he have? Hot dogs and stacks of old cameras and recorders and stuff.
“Oui. We hit the jackpot of financial papers,” Brigitte said in the same pleased tone. “Figures. Numbers. Bank statements. Now we will find the truth.”
I left the spreadsheets to her and thought about what Flori would be interested in. She’d snoop in the refrigerator to get a sense of his character. Or his medicine cabinet or nightstand. I decided to get the nightstand over with first. It seemed most personal and thus most wrong. Leaving Brigitte to her numbers, I found a room filled with boxes across the hall, reminding me of my own moving boxes, still languishing in Manny’s garage. Next door was Don’s bedroom.
The bed was unmade and more clothes lay on an armchair, the floor, and the bed than hung in the cramped closet. Don was a messy bachelor, which was not a crime, although it must be a put-off to dates. I hadn’t seen Jake’s bedroom or his closet. I imagined, however, they were smooth and put-together, like the handsome lawyer himself. Thinking of Jake made my heart race and not entirely from a romantic thrill. What did it matter if I whipped up a perfect Cinco de Mayo soufflé? If Jake got wind that I was breaking and entering with his client’s lock-pick, I wouldn’t have to worry about dinner dates.