by Ann Myers
He turned the conversation to architecture, showing me a glorious tiled bathroom and art deco light fixtures. “You know a lot about local architecture,” I said, impressed.
“I dabble in all sorts of history,” he said with a flare of his dimples. “We archeologists are always digging up the past.”
I peeked down a hallway decorated in carved wooden beams. “The master suite is at the end of the hall,” Barton said. “Of interest?”
The man was like Manny, I decided. He simply couldn’t turn off the flirtations. “Nice nicho,” I said, deadpan, admiring an inset niche in the plaster wall. A wooden St. Francis figurine stood inside, gazing down adoringly at carved animals, including a donkey.
He grinned and said, “Feel free to continue the tour on your own. I need to find the shipping slips I came for.”
I wandered down the hallway, looking in a small room that smelled dusty and appeared unused, except as suitcase and box storage. Touring the consultant’s bedroom seemed wrong. I glanced in, though, taking in a four-poster bed frame and a view on to the back garden. The room was bachelor messy, with clothes draped on the wooden chest at the foot of the bed and towels hanging from the doorknobs. I was moving on when something registered in my brain. A flash of red silk and lace amid the jeans and button-down men’s clothes. At least the handsome outsider wasn’t lonely.
I was admiring the small kitchen and an adorable antique stove when a woman’s raised voice startled me. “Calm down? Do you see this?”
I stood still, cocking my head but unable to make out Barton’s low, masculine tones.
Feeling bad for lurking in the dark, listening in, I went to see if I could help. When I arrived in the living room, I saw Shasta in the doorway. Her red hair was coming loose from its bun, her glasses tilted at forty-five degrees, and she was dangling something at arm’s length, held in two fingers. She glanced over Barton’s shoulder and noticed me. “Rita! Look at this! This was stuffed in the mailbox. I touched it! Would your boss tell you to relax?”
“This” was a cloth doll shaped like a devil. It was impaled by a paring knife and coated in what I hoped was only red paint or food coloring. What would my boss do? Flori would probably set up a sting operation. Or take a Senior Center class in forensics or voodoo-doll revenge. Barton’s stay-calm response sounded pretty reasonable in comparison, though I’d be creeped out too if I’d touched the doll.
“It’s disturbing,” I said sympathetically.
“Yeah,” Shasta said with a shudder. “It was sticky. It freaked me out.”
Barton held up his palms in a calming gesture. “Ladies, it’s a prank. At worst, a childish threat. Miss Moon, if you hadn’t slept in, you’d know I found a threatening note at the Crundall house too. I think someone is trying to scare us off.” His eyes drifted in the direction of Bums. “But you’ll remember that Ms. Crundall is the one paying us and paying quite well for our urgency.”
Shasta, cheeks as red as her hair, mumbled, “I remember.”
Barton took a card out of his jacket pocket. I glimpsed the logo of the Santa Fe police and Manny’s name. He thrust the card at Shasta, along with the bag of bizcochitos. “Have a cookie. They’re that New Mexican kind you like. Then call the police. Tell them what you found and if you can manage it, get to work. We had a break-in at the archives too. Judith wants an inventory of what’s been taken and so do I.”
“Break-in?” Shasta said, rubbing her brow. She glanced at the doll and shuddered. Then she snatched the card and the bag of cookies and stomped outside to call. “Yeah, I want to report a stupid childish prank,” she said, through a mouthful of bizcochito.
Barton turned back to a file box on the small kitchen table. With a strained laugh, he said to me, “No wonder I have trouble finding good help. I apologize, Rita, but we really must get back to work. There have been way too many distractions lately.”
I’d say! As I was leaving, I made sure to step around the cloth devil. A childish threat, Barton had said. I’d caught his thinly veiled hint. Even if I hadn’t, I knew an angry guy who hadn’t grown up. Had Trey planted the devil doll to make it look like he was a target too? I headed next door to chat with him.
Stepping into Trey’s shop, my suspicion waned. The man simply didn’t seem sufficiently ambitious or creative to craft vile threats. He acknowledged my presence with a languid tip of his chin and didn’t appear to recognize that we’d met before, if you could call him nearly running over my mother a meeting.
“Board wax is half off,” he said. “We have some wicked-sick lady boots on sale.”
I pretended to show interest in two hundred-dollar “wicked-sick lady boots,” while formulating a plan of approach. I decided I might as well go with the truth, in a way.
“Hey,” I said. “You probably don’t remember me. I’m friends with your aunt.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed. “Daffy Dalia? Wait, you’re her neighbor, aren’t you? Did she send you? What does she want me to do now? Send flowers for my mother?”
What an overgrown brat. Still, I smiled. “Moms always love flowers. No, I’m here to, ah, look for Christmas gifts.” No one on my gift list skied. My family came from country where gentle bumps were considered hills. Celia viewed skiing as a jock activity and thus a waste of her time. For my part, I’d much rather sit in a warm lodge with a cup of hot cocoa than careen down a slippery slope.
I drifted toward a table with better gift possibilities. There were water bottles large and small, sunblock concocted from alpine minerals, and hats blaring logos. Mom wouldn’t like the words big air embroidered across her headgear. She would, however, like actual air. I picked up a canister of compressed oxygen complete with a small face mask.
“That’s awesome air,” Trey said, becoming more alert. Perhaps he did have a sales streak in him. “It’s portable, like for your purse. You can take a hit whenever you want. I keep some behind the desk for a boost.”
Despite my initial doubts, I’d actually found a good gift. And I wouldn’t wait for Christmas to let Mom open it. “It’s perfect,” I said. I surveyed the shelves some more and casually added, “So, I saw that the police were at your place again.”
His face snapped up from the computer screen. “What’d they want?”
I pretended to study the hats. “Don’t worry about your mother. She’s okay. It was something else.” I tried on a knit cap with floppy ear flaps complete with tassels. Definitely not my look.
“What kind of something?” Trey said after a few moments of hat styling on my part. “What’d the cops want?”
I took my time putting back the hat and formulating my fib. “I’m not sure. I was only delivering cookies to your mother, but the officer in charge, he says they’re close to nabbing the person writing those nasty threat letters. When they do, they’ll throw the book at him. Murder, menacing, mail fraud, you name it.”
“Mail fraud?” Trey said, frowning. He scraped a hand through his already messy hair.
“Yeah, some notes came in the mail,” I said. “And just now Barton and Shasta found a stabbed devil doll in the mailbox outside. The police should be here soon, but if someone’s messing with the mail system, that’s a federal crime.” I wasn’t entirely sure that stuffing creepy dolls in mailboxes was a federal offense, but Trey seemed to believe me.
“In the mailbox out there? Dude, I’m the victim.” He shuffled some papers into further disorder and muttered that he bet his mother didn’t even care.
I pushed on. “It looks like items have been stolen from your mother’s collection too. The feds will get involved in that as well, since there are Native American artifacts. Big-time jail time.”
His cheeks burned red, although I couldn’t say it was from guilt. He sounded more angry than scared when he spoke again. He also dropped his ski bum lingo and adopted the tone of an entitled heir. “The Crundall collection has already been stolen, by my own dear mother. It’s my heritage, to be passed on through men of the family. Grandfather didn’
t leave it for her to give away.”
What a sexist little jerk! I resisted the urge to chastise him and tried another tactic. “You don’t have a theory about who’s sending those letters, do you?”
Trey frowned. His ski bum attitude returned. “Dude, beats me. If she had it in her, I’d say Mother was sending them herself, trying to teach me some kind of lesson about caring.” He picked up and dropped a stack of papers on the counter, seemingly for the sole purpose of slamming them. “Like I care.”
Chapter 21
I stopped by Tres Amigas to report on my nonspying spy expedition. Flori sat by the fireplace in the dining area. Her socked feet rested on the hearth and her hands were busy knitting something red and green. She looked cozy and grandmotherly. Looks, I knew all too well, could be deceiving.
In the center of the room, happy chaos ensued as Addie and the British visitors hooted and laughed, egged on by Hazel and whatever she kept in her flask. The other Knit and Snitchers had left for an unspecified “practice run” at the capitol building.
“What’s in that flask, anyway?” I asked, pulling up a chair beside Flori. The flask was the size of Mom’s water bottles and seemingly endless.
Flori peered over her bifocals and ball of fluffy green yarn. “Hazel makes homemade moonshine. She distills it from elderberries or dandelions or whatever else she finds. She tried to sell it at the Farmers’ Market one year, arguing it was all homemade and home-grown, like the market rules require. The organizers kicked her out, although she was quite popular for the day she sold. Now she has an underground online network. She sells all over to, what are they called? Hippers? Hip . . . ?”
“Hipsters?” I said, unable to suppress a grin. I could imagine Hazel, doted upon from afar by trendy young bearded men in skinny jeans and tattoos.
“That’s them,” Flori said. “It’s illegal, shipping New Mexican moonshine across state lines, and there’s Hazel, a pastor’s wife.” Flori, a self-professed rogue knitter, had the gall to make a disapproving tsk-tsk.
I politely inquired about her knitting. “What are you making?”
Her eyes twinkled with devious glee. “Something big,” she said. “You’ll see soon enough.”
I was afraid of that. Kicking off my shoes, I warmed my toes by the fire and told her about the theft and threat at Judith’s house and the devil doll in the mailbox.
“Interesting,” my elderly friend said, pausing her knitting. “Judith did always want Trey to show some get-up-and-go . . . not that kind, I’d bet.” She resumed her mystery project. Still in my sock feet, I padded over to greet the British visitors. They hailed me with whoops of delight.
“What a delightful tradition,” declared the woman responsible for letting Mr. Peppers escape. They wielded cookie cutters shaped like corgis—the queen’s favorite dog—as well as diamonds, snowflakes, and chile peppers.
“You earned compliments on your cookies,” I told Addie. “Judith Crundall ate two and she hasn’t had any appetite lately.”
Addie beamed. “They’re coming out right nice, aren’t they? I think I’ve finally hit my groove as a vegan chef.”
Over by the fireplace, Flori coughed and fanned herself.
The ladies, fortified with spiked tea, agreed that the vegan cookies were lovely. “We’ve never been so merry with our baking, have we, gals?” one of them said, with a titillated emphasis on “merry.” The others raised their teacups in salute and Hazel passed around the flask.
Addie buzzed among them, removing filled cookie trays and gathering up the remaining dough to roll out again. I volunteered to pop the trays in the oven.
When I returned, oven timer ticking in my hand, Addie was schooling the ladies. “The name comes from bizcocho, meaning a cake or cookie. The ‘chito’ part makes it ‘little.’” Addie upped her British accent and said, “Just like digestive biscuits, only spicier.”
“And better!” one of the ladies crowed. “Beats a dry old McVitie’s Digestive any day.”
Eight minutes of baking and five minutes of cooling later, I brought their finished product to the table, earning applause all around. While they were jolly—and tipsy—I asked them about the night of the devil’s death.
“So thrilling to be witnesses,” said the lady to my left, introduced as Mrs. Abbott of Leicestershire.
The inadvertent releaser of Mr. Peppers, whom I learned was Mrs. Baxter, agreed it was. “An utter delight. Like we’re starring in an American police drama. That handsome lawyer says we might be officially ‘deposed’ before we depart. We can’t wait to tell our friends. What a place they will think this is. The Wild West. Cowboys, wild broncos.”
“A donkey, dear,” Mrs. Abbott corrected. “It was a small, chubby burro, with an overweight goat companion.” As if on cue, Mr. Peppers brayed in the back garden.
I was glad they were having a fun adventure. If only Mom felt the same way. Maybe the portable oxygen would cheer her up. Or remind her of altitude threats.
“So . . .” I said, guiding the ladies back to the crime. “You were in the hotel the night of the murder.”
“Lost,” Mrs. Abbott said, touching her chest, implying they barely made it out of the boutique hotel with their lives. “For such a small establishment, it’s very confusing. We went down the wrong hallway and the nicest Santa helped us find our way.”
I asked exactly when and where they’d encountered the helpful Santa.
Mrs. Baxter waved her teacup, sloshing the suspiciously clear liquid. “Seven-thirty sharp, wasn’t it? We were remarking that the performance was right at the dinner hour, although you Americans do eat early.”
“Precisely,” Mrs. Abbot said. “We were trying to get outside and see the play and we took a wrong turn. That’s when the kind man came to our aid.”
“Santa,” Mrs. Baxter said, cutting in. “I do wish we’d had some of these cookies for him. He was very chivalrous.”
Addie beamed. “Santa loves bizcochitos,” she said. “In my family, we leave a plate out by the fireplace on Noche Buena. We kids used to wonder how Santa squeezed down our chimney. He must have, though. The cookies were always gone.”
Mrs. Baxter laughed. “This Santa could have gotten down your chimney, love.”
Addie helped herself to a cookie and listened wistfully as the ladies described their holiday traditions back home. I feared that steamed puddings, including those steeped in whiskey and buried in the back garden to “ripen,” were in our future. Addie scribbled copious notes on her order pad.
I half listened to the culinary intricacies of black bun, a Scottish fruitcake trotted around to neighbors for New Year’s Eve. Hogmanay, the holiday was called, and it sounded right up Addie’s alley. She asked for the spelling and recipe details.
“Wait,” I said, interrupting Mrs. Baxter’s timeline of black-bun creation, which included a stunning three hours in the oven, weeks of “settling,” and a dram of whiskey when serving.
“Dram of whiskey . . .” Addie murmured, taking more notes. “Righto. We’ll figure that one out when the time comes.”
No one had reacted to my “wait.” I tried again. “Mrs. Baxter, why would your Santa friend have gotten down the chimney?”
The ladies gave me quizzical looks. “He was a slight wee man,” Mrs. Baxter said. “We didn’t mean that Addie should actually worry about a suited bloke slipping down her stovepipes. Although strange things do happen around here, don’t they?”
Mrs. Abbot chimed in. “He was on the small side for a Santa. Slender and rather short, with a lovely olive complexion. We were saying, he reminded us of a diminutive version of the Swedish Santa, Sinterklaas. He’s said to winter in Spain. Lucy—Mrs. Baxter—got to use her Spanish with him.”
“Un poquito,” Mrs. Baxter said modestly.
“Your Santa spoke Spanish?” I asked.
They clarified that he did speak English but with an accent. Mrs. Baxter wanted to practice her español. “Mr. Baxter and I are buying a winter cottage in And
alusia,” she said, and the ladies turned to the subject of future Christmases on the Mediterranean, filling Addie’s head with dreams of tapas and sangria by the sea.
I thought about Wyatt Cortez. He had a Spanish surname, and most locals spoke at least a smattering of the language. He didn’t have a noticeable accent, though, and no one would call him slender or short. I glanced at Flori to see if she’d heard.
She had. She’d stopped knitting and beckoned me over.
“We have to talk to that housekeeper who provided Wyatt’s other alibi,” she said. Scowl lines knitted across her brow. “Rita, we may have been tricked by Santa and bought off with pie.”
I was about to do more pie bribery. Flori fluffed my hair as I delayed at the back door. I held an extra-large piece of Lorena’s luscious caramel apple pie. Lorena had brought the pie by earlier, Flori said. More grateful payment for our efforts to help Wyatt and her friend Francisco.
“I feel kind of bad,” I said.
“No, no, you’re fine. Your hair’s a little staticky, that’s all.” Flori said, fussing and frowning at my hair, which was getting more electrified by the moment. “I could spritz it with water and it would freeze in place.”
The temperature hovered in the upper thirties, too warm for freeze-styling hair. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling bad about my style or lack of it.
“We’re re-gifting questionable payoff pie,” I said. “Worse, I’m presenting Jake with a moral conundrum. What if his client’s alibi is a fake? Will he have to tell the police? What if Wyatt goes to trial? What if he doesn’t go to trial?”
“Jake is a big, strong lawyer. He’s used to problems like this. Best he knows now.” Flori stuffed something in my coat pocket.
I looked down to see the red cap of a canister of spray-on whipped cream.
“To sweeten the news,” Flori said, giving me an off-you-go pat that verged on a shove.
I shuffled down the street, wondering how to break the news and get by Jake’s territorial secretary, Becky.