“Make sure you include the part where you killed Jeff Clark so your fiancé could take over as lead singer before the band hit the big time,” I muttered.
Her mouth fell open like a trout struggling to breathe, her eyes wide and fearful. Suddenly, she fought free of Barnes’s grasp. “I didn’t kill Jeff Clark,” she said in a voice as clear and cold as Barton Springs, “so Clay could become the lead singer of some second-rate band. One-hit wonders, the mess of them.” She stared down the crowd and lifted her chin. “I killed him because he’s the sorry son of a gun who got me pregnant.”
Everyone within earshot froze, as if her confession had turned us to pillars of disbelief. Why was she broadcasting her crime to the world? Had she gone over the edge for the last time?
Instead of anger, I felt only sorrow. I didn’t know where to look. “I’m sorry.”
“Huh. Sure you are.” She stepped forward and clenched her fists at her side. With another step, she was so close I could see the sweat droplets running off the end or her nose. She raised a finger and pointed it at me. “Just make sure you spell my name right in that small-town tabloid of yours.”
Chapter 23
On Monday morning, I parked once again in a metal chair, studying the mundane actions of those blessed to have the benefits of a government job. Their faces wore masks of smug boredom as they went from one task to another, never varying their speed: slow.
From the far side of the room, a dark-haired woman entered. She was tall and slim, her skin unusually pale, gleaming from the fluorescents overhead. She wore jeans, black combat boots, and a skintight black T-shirt.
“Patti,” I cried, and rushed to her. My eyes stung with tears and my throat tightened. I threw my arms around her and squeezed. She stood rock still, and then lifted her arms and hugged me back.
After a few seconds, she gave me a gentle push. “Hey, calm down. It’s not as if I was in Huntsville.” She lifted her arms at her sides and spun around. “No flesh wounds or puncture marks.”
I could feel my cheeks cramp from smiling so hard. “What now? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?”
“Is my jeep still outside?”
“No, we drove it back to Uncle Eddie’s. Didn’t want them to impound it or steal it for parts while you were gone.”
She clapped me on the back and started for the exit. “Good thinking. That would have really hacked me off.”
“Miss?” Gretchen Cruz’s cousin called from behind her counter. “She needs to sign for her property.”
Patti eyed the exit and the stack of papers on the counter. As she turned to me, I noticed her breathing was rapid. She swallowed two times.
“You can do this,” I said, giving her arm a squeeze. “You’re almost free.”
She shook her head and swallowed one last time. “No problem.” She spun toward the counter, picked up the pen, and began to scribble her name as if they’d lock her back inside if she didn’t finish in sixty seconds or less.
The clerk added Patti’s paperwork to a tower of files on her desk.
“Is that it?” Goth Girl demanded.
The other woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am. You’re free.”
“Woo hoo!” Patti shouted, to the surprise of everyone in the room. Several heads snapped around to watch her bolt for the door, with me hurrying along behind her like a friendly puppy. We hit the road like Thelma and Louise—at the beginning of the movie, before horrible things happened to them and they drove themselves off a cliff into the Grand Canyon.
“I need a shower,” she groaned.
“You’ll have to make it quick.”
She turned in her seat to glare. “There had better not be a crowd of people waiting to congratulate me.”
“Uh . . .”
“You take me home.” Her face fell. “Guess I can’t take a shower in my own bathroom or sleep in my own bed without remembering Jeff there.”
“Aunt Linda, Senora Mari, and I cleaned up after the cops. We hired someone to clean up the living room, who swore they’d make it better than new.”
“Which isn’t saying much. I need to go home, Jos. I’ll come over soon, but I’ve got to go home.” There was a quiet desperation in her voice.
I squeezed her hand and fought back tears. The family and friends from Milagro and Two Boots would wait. They were so excited to see her, there would be nothing to forgive.
A few minutes later, she stared at the house she’d lived in her entire life as if she were in a dream—as if counting every brick and windowpane.
“Do you want me to come in?” I asked as I turned off the engine.
She wet her lips. “No.”
She stepped out, slammed the door, and walked away. Seconds later, she knocked on my window. I rolled it down. “Thanks, Jos. I appreciate everything you did.” She screwed up her mouth as her face turned red. “I thought for sure I was next.”
I shook my head.
“Bad things come in threes—that’s what my Granny Roberts always said. “First Mommy and then Daddy. I just knew I’d be next.”
I blinked rapidly as my eyes welled with tears. “What sentimental, superstitious claptrap.”
She laughed.
“Now go get ready. You’d better be at Milagro in an hour, or we’re going to all come over here and drag you out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I drove away with a smile on my face.
True to her word, Patti appeared in the Milagro dining room within the hour. Her hair was wet and her face was powdered her usual ghostly shade. She’d applied her cat-eye liner, and all her earrings and facial piercings were in place.
“You call this a party?” she asked with her usual sarcasm.
Everyone whooped and clapped.
Senora Mari rushed up and pulled her by the hand to the place of honor in the center of the table, a version created from pushing all the tables together into the middle of the restaurant.
“She’s here,” Senora Mari cried, hurrying toward the kitchen.
In response, the kitchen doors swung open and my aunt and uncle entered, each carrying an aromatic platter of succulent grilled fajita chicken, steak, and shrimp.
The crowd at the table whooped in delight.
Patti’s eyes lit up, but dimmed when she spotted what each tray bore.
As they placed their trays in the center of the table, Senora Mari entered bearing a platter of her own. She placed it in front of our special guest.
Patti’s expression brightened. Before her lay the most gorgeous roasted peppers, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, and cobs of corn.
I followed with family-style helpings of charro beans, vegan black beans, and refrieds with mouth-watering cheese and onions on top.
Patti sighed. “There is a God,” she groaned with a reverence I’d yet to hear from her on Sundays.
Ryan laughed and slapped her on the back from his seat beside her. “You’re free to eat all the veggies you want. Just make sure you leave the meat for me.”
“You got it. Just stay away from me.”
He leaned in and gave her a one-armed squeeze. “I can’t do that. I’m so happy you’re free.”
“Well, make sure you breathe that stinky meat breath on someone else when you’re through.”
“Corn or flour?” Deputy Lightfoot asked from the end of the table, holding up a dish of tortillas in each hand.
“Neither,” Patti said as she stabbed a red pepper and onion onto her fork.
Everyone chuckled, including Wilhelmina and Heather from the tour bus, and a hardy Dustin Akers.
Anthony and Lily fussed over Patti, both racing to the bar to see who could place a drink in her hand first. As Lily set a pint of Revolver beer in front of my newly freed friend, I cornered Anthony.
“Where’s Lucinda?” By the time I r
emembered to talk to Senora Mari, Anthony’s would-be bride had arrived and gone straight to Casa Martinez.
“She is resting from her journey,” he said. His smile was beatific.
“What do you think of her?”
“I think,” he leaned close, so that no one—especially Senora Mari—could overhear, “that she is very beautiful.” And he blushed.
The cowbell over the front door rang.
“Back here,” I called.
With an unexpectedly shy smile, Gretchen Cruz gave a nod to the table. I found her a chair and squeezed it in between Ryan and Detective Lightfoot. From their appreciative glances, I knew my plan would work beautifully.
Call me masochistic if you want, but if I had to throw other women in the way of the two most eligible bachelors in Broken Boot, I would. You might call me pigheaded, but I didn’t want to think about men, dating, or anything else that reeked of romance for a good, long time.
There were no tamales at the table, but I chowed on the refrieds and fajitas. Awesome.
Ryan wiped his mouth. “What I don’t understand about this whole thing is why this Britney woman wanted to kill Jeff Clark.”
“It was all about wanting her husband to have the fame and fortune, right, Josie?” Uncle Eddie spread his arms wide as if to deliver a lawyerly argument.
“Yes and no. Turns out Britney had a secret she didn’t want her fiancé, Clay, to uncover.” I looked at Lightfoot, and he frowned.
“Which was?” Ryan leaned in.
I hesitated, hoping Lightfoot wouldn’t get his nose out of joint that I was hogging all the attention. “She was pregnant with Clark’s baby.”
“¡Ay, no!” Uncle Eddie cried.
“How awful,” Aunt Linda murmured.
“Did the poor guy know?” Ryan asked.
I exchanged glances with Patti. “Britney made sure to tell him right before she smashed him over the head with Patti’s guitar.”
“What I don’t understand,” Patti said, “is how she knew where to find him.”
“Don’t look at me.” I gestured to Lightfoot. “He’s the expert.”
The somber deputy took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Clark and Britney were texting back and forth all night. At one point, she demanded to know where he was.” He shot Patti an apologetic look. “Clark told her he was at your place.”
Patti nodded and quietly stabbed a roasted tomato with her fork.
“I don’t get it,” Aunt Linda said.
“Phone records?” I interrupted, before Lightfoot could respond.
“We found the second phone Britney used that night in the Dumpster at Two Boots, and, boy, was it ripe.” The deputy made a face.
We all laughed at his comical expression.
“Sad, sad. What will they do with the baby?” Senora Mari asked.
“Well, she said she was pregnant with Jeff Clark’s baby.” I caught Patti’s eye. “She’s lied about everything else. Why not lie about that too?”
“Hoping for a lighter sentence, if you ask me.” Lightfoot continued eating with a disgusted shake of his head.
We’d partaken of a couple of tortillas of savory wonderfulness when Patti lifted her glass. “To Josie.”
“To Josie,” the table of friends agreed, lifting their glasses.
“She’s the best darn detective in Big Bend County.” Patti tried to smile as she blinked away tears.
“The best darn detective in Big Bend County,” my friends and family echoed as one.
“Uh-hum,” Senora Mari said, clinking her fork against her glass.
“Yip, yip,” Lenny said from beneath my chair.
“Don’t insult the Indian.” She raised her water glass in Lightfoot’s direction.
“Speaking of insulting,” I interrupted, careful not to offend my proud abuela. “The term is Native American.”
She gave me a look of disapproval and then turned back to him. “I was going to say, He’s the detective and she’s the writer, just like on TV.”
His gaze narrowed, piercing the elderly woman at the opposite end of the table. “I’m not a detective tonight,” he said in his rich baritone, “but I will be one next week.”
“You applying for a promotion?” Ryan joked.
“Sheriff Wallace put me up for it. I found out this morning I was approved.”
The table whooped in approval and raised their glasses. “To Detective Lightfoot.”
He lifted his glass and flashed the table one of his rare but brilliant smiles. My heart fluttered in surprise.
“Yip,” Lenny said.
“To Lenny,” I cheered.
The room rang in response. “To Lenny.”
“Yip, yip, yip,” he said, jumping into the air.
Everyone laughed, including Aunt Linda.
“I had a dream,” Senora Mari began.
“I can’t wait to hear this one.”
I glanced around the table and found smiles of anticipation on everyone’s face.
“In my dream, you met a man here at Milagro.” She glanced around the table, enjoying the rapt attention. “You married him and had lots of babies.”
Everyone hooted, including Gretchen Cruz. Her laugh was a surprise, light and flirtatious as fairy wings.
Lightfoot glanced at Gretchen and Ryan did the same. When I turned to see if Patti had noticed, I caught her studying the unaware deputy with a wistful look of her own.
Detective Quint Lightfoot. It made sense. He had a knack for playing his cards close to his chest and placating the local political powers around him.
With a smile, I scooped Lenny up from the floor and placed him on my lap. I missed Austin, but I no longer missed the Gazette. I was finding more exciting news stories here in little old Broken Boot. Go figure.
Recipes
Simple Guacamole
Be careful handling jalapeños. Wash your hands thoroughly after handling and do not touch your eyes or the area near your eyes with your hands for several hours.
2 ripe avocados
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice or lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt (optional)
¼ cup of diced red onion
2 jalapeño peppers, seeds removed, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
dash of black pepper
½ ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, diced (optional)
tortilla chips
Cut the avocados in half. Remove the seeds. Carefully score the inside of the avocado with a blunt knife and scoop out the flesh. Place in a bowl.
Mash the avocado with a fork. (Guacamole should be chunky.)
Sprinkle with the lime (or lemon) juice and salt.
Add the diced onion, jalapeños, cilantro, and black pepper. Peppers vary individually in their hotness. Start with half of one pepper and add more to your desired degree of hotness.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Tip: Refrigerating tomatoes can hurt their flavor. If you want to add chopped tomato to your guacamole, add it immediately before serving.
Serve with tortilla chips.
Variation
For a quick guacamole take ¼ cup salsa and mix it in with your mashed avocados.
Milagro’s Sopa de Lima (Mexican Lime Soup)
Makes 8 servings
Prep time: 20 minutes. Cook time: 45 minutes
9 cups chicken broth
5 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 large red onion, quartered
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme or 2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 green onions, chopped
1 large green chile pepper, seede
d and diced
2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup fresh lime juice
½ lime
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
tortilla chips or tortilla chip strips, for topping
In a large pot, combine the chicken broth, chicken breasts, red onion, garlic, black pepper, and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken breasts are no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear. Remove the cooked chicken and shred, and then return it to the simmering pot.
Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Cook the green onions and chile pepper in the oil until tender. Add the tomatoes and continue cooking until soft. Add the mixture to the pot with the chicken soup.
Season with the salt. Return the soup to a simmer.
Add the lime juice and ½ lime. Cook 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and remove the lime half. Add the cilantro.
Serve with tortilla chips.
Carlos’s Cheese Enchiladas
Chili Gravy
Makes 2 cups
Prep time: 20 minutes
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 cups beef broth, chicken broth, or water
In a skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil. Stir in the flour and continue stirring for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it makes a light brown roux.
Add the black pepper, salt, garlic powder, cumin, oregano, and chili powder and continue to cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the broth or water, stirring until the sauce thickens. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add water as needed to the desired thickness.
Cheese Enchiladas
Makes 4 servings
Prep time: 20 minutes. Cook time: 10 minutes
½ cup vegetable oil
8 corn tortillas
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
The Good, the Bad and the Guacamole Page 27