by Ann Myers
“Because I have a reputation built up,” he growled. “And the old ladies love me.”
Shasta writhed beside me. “I’m through with your games,” she said again. To me, she said, “Did you see how he had me playing a nerdy vegetarian grad student? Lucky for me, Trey thought my glasses were hot. So did that hunky policeman.”
I realized another clue I’d missed. “Wait . . . you ate bizcochitos without asking if they had lard in them!” I exclaimed. “Barton said they were your favorite too!”
“Lard? What?” Shasta said, perplexed, proving she was definitely not New Mexican.
Mom said, “Even I learned that pretty quick.”
“Clever,” Barton said, turning the car in the direction of Fort Marcy overlook. I’d watched many an incredible sunset from this ridge perched above town. It would likely be deserted now. However, I knew the area well. If Mom and I could make a break for it, we could hide among the stubby pines or run for a nearby house. Except Barton kept driving, turning on a road leading to the ski resort high in the mountains and, before that, witchy Josephina’s borrowed condo.
Mom was saying in an apologetic voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t dig into your father’s death, Rita. I was busy trying to keep a stable home for you girls. I’m not a sleuth like you.”
“Healthier that way,” Shasta said.
Barton agreed. “You’re right about that. We wouldn’t be in this particular mess if it wasn’t for you, Ms. Lafitte.”
I started to protest. “I wasn’t—”
He cut in with a list of all I’d done wrong. “I heard about you. And I saw you snooping around the night Judith landed in the hospital.”
“Dalia sent me down to check on Trey!” I protested. “I thought I disrupted the burglar. How was that you? You called me when I was chasing the guy.”
“I called after I was far enough away, to cover my tracks,” he said. “I sent you those nice homemade death threats too. Which you disregarded. And sending your kid and her buddy to babysit?”
I stopped breathing. What if he suspected Celia and Sky? Would he go after them next?
He continued with a sneer. “Like I believed that. I saw through that ruse. You using those kids for an excuse to come by and snoop.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding, relieved but only momentarily. This was my fault. I had to make the situation right. Slowly, I unzipped my coat and loosened my belt. The belt was tight from too many Christmas goodies, but comfort wasn’t my aim. I planned to loop it around Barton’s neck. And then what? Strangle him? Could I actually do that? And what about the gun and the car possibly spinning on the snow-slick road?
“I love you, Rita,” Mom said. “I only wanted the best for you and your sister.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, and started inching out my belt.
Chapter 31
“Where are we going?” I asked Barton, keeping my tone light.
“Where do you want to go?” he replied.
Anywhere without him. I’d happily go to the Japanese-style hot spring for some steaming ramen, cool sushi, and a hot soak. I imagined Mom’s reaction to raw fish and nude bathing, but then even Mom would choose those over Christmas Eve with a madman.
The headlights lit a tunnel of windswept snow edged by jutting junipers. On a tight curve, I felt the tires skitter and Mom’s knee pressing on her air brakes. Barton and Shasta had resumed their argument.
“All you had to do was ship out the good stuff,” he said. “No one looks twice at the hired help. Easy.”
Shasta sputtered. “Easy? You try dealing with your sicko clients.” She turned to me. “The ones who want the bones are the worst.”
I nodded. I could certainly imagine that.
She kept going, addressing me. “I didn’t even know he was going to kill that gardener. He wrote those letters too and put the creepy doll in the mailbox.” She turned back toward the front. “You jerk! You could have told me!”
Barton said, “Calm down. You should be grateful I killed that guy. He was poking around. He knew! I daresay, I handled it pretty well too. You never did fully appreciate the long con, darling.”
“Yeah?” Shasta sputtered. “Is that what you think? I had my con with Trey going fine until you dragged me away. He said I was perfect. He’d have married me.”
Barton snorted. “You’re already married. Anyway, old Mother Crundall might not kick it for years. What were you going to do? Play housewife daughter-in-law for a decade? You’re not the type.”
“Mama Crundall was going quicker than you think,” Shasta said. “I made sure of that.”
“With the arsenic?” I blurted out.
Shasta scowled at me. “You know?”
Uh oh. Her expression suggested that Barton wasn’t the only one ready to do away with me.
“Ah, the police think that some of Judith’s collection was contaminated,” I said. “Arsenic was an old-fashioned preservative. No one’s to blame.” Unless Shasta had added some extra.
She turned a flirty voice and southern accent on Barton, and I knew I’d made a big mistake. Make that another big mistake.
“Sweetie doll,” she drawled, “I’ve got an idea. Once we get rid of these meddlers, let’s go on to California like we planned. There’s that awful mummy collection in Monterey. You’ll have that old couple eating out of your pretty hands.”
He wasn’t fooled or flattered. “So you can do me in later? Pack a little poison for the road? Call to the police as you hightail out of town? No, doll, I have a new plan. I’ve already written your suicide note. You’ll confess to skimming off the collection with Trey and killing the nosy gardener. Oh, and doing in Ms. Lafitte and her mother here. Don’t worry, you’ll say you’re sorry. I’ll express terrible shock.”
Shasta’s urgent pleas didn’t help my nerves. “We can split up! We’ll get a divorce. You’ll never see me again. I’ll go to—”
Barton cut in with a mean laugh, “I prefer to be a grieving widower. I’ll be fine. Look how well I’m recovering from my head wound.”
Shasta grumbled to me, “He did that himself. Probably didn’t even hurt. A little blood and moaning for the ladies. He drugged Trey too, you know. Framed him. Poor Trey . . .”
“It did hurt,” Barton said. “I whacked myself a good one. I had to make it look real. Know what inspired me? Imagining all the trouble I was about to inflict on your snooty boyfriend.”
“I suppose you also faked your migraine,” I said, since he was confessing.
“Sure,” Barton said. “I do get them and had a legit prescription. People around here are so kind and trusting, like that nice pharmacy tech who drove me home. All I had to do was wait a bit, then sneak over to that hotel and take care of Francisco.” He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Rita, did you notice the sulfur smell when you found the body? See my attention to detail? That was a sulfur bomb. Nice touch, don’t you think?”
I didn’t answer. We drove in silence for a few minutes until Mom said, “I grieved your father, Rita, even after he’d deserted us so callously. Then when he turned up all those years later, with a new life, he was still dead to us. My mother was right.”
“Amateur,” Barton said. “Never go back or get stupid and sentimental.”
I had my belt off. I gripped the ends, waiting for my moment. Barton had picked up speed. If he veered off the road, we’d crash into a rocky hill or tumble into an icy ravine. I stared ahead into the tunnel of snowy white, frozen with fear. I didn’t want to crash. I didn’t want to strangle anyone, even Barton Hunter.
“Where are we going?” I asked again.
“Ski Santa Fe,” Barton said pleasantly. “I have a car parked up there. Planning ahead. Like I said, no one does the long con better than me.”
I gripped the belt so hard my nails cut into my palms. I willed myself to act. I’d do it. I had to . . . on the next straight stretch.
I was steeling myself, when what had to be a mirage appeared. A figure in bla
ck jumped into the center of the road, waving a stick. Barton jabbed the brakes, sending the car into a tailspin. We skidded toward a pine. Metal scraped branches and the car hurtled down the ravine.
Mom’s arm and my lap belt stopped my forward lurch. Shasta’s scream mingled with the crunch of metal and the front airbags bursting. My knee slammed painfully into Barton’s seat. Except for my pounding heart, though, I felt okay. I checked on Mom. Her eyes were closed. My pounding heart seemed to stall. No . . .
I reached out to touch her just as she murmured, “Amen” and unbuckled her seat belt. Relief swept over me, but only momentarily. Barton was struggling to extract himself from the airbag.
The window beside Mom was shattered. “Quick, climb outside,” I urged Mom.
Beside me, Shasta was attempting her own escape by rubbing her wrist ties against the broken window. The glass was the safety kind and crumbling.
“Help me,” she begged as I guided Mom’s foot out the window. “Get these ties off, and I’ll deal with him. There’s a penknife in my purse.”
The old fable of the scorpion and frog crossing a river came to mind. Would she—like the scorpion—turn on me as soon as she was safe? Mom reached a hand in for me. Barton had slithered out from the airbag and was pushing open his door.
Mom and I couldn’t outrun him, especially not in the snow. I made a decision and reached for Shasta’s purse. As I hacked at the tough bands, I told her, “Listen, I don’t care about what you did. Leave town. Go. No one knows who you are.”
“He does,” Shasta said darkly. I scrambled out the window and clamored up a small embankment with Mom. Frigid gusts howled down through the canyon, and when I managed to press on my key-chain flashlight, all I could see was a blizzard whiteout. Turning in the direction I hoped was toward home, Mom and I made our way down the road.
We were panting hard, neither of us daring to say a word, when a shot rang out. The sharp crack echoed, seeming to come from all directions. A scream followed but quickly disappeared into the howling wind. Was it male? Female? I craned my head backward, terrified of who might appear behind us.
“Look,” Mom exclaimed, and my heart flip-flopped. But Mom was pointing ahead, toward headlights dimly shining through the snow.
I ran as fast as I could up the slick road, waving my arms and my flashlight. An old truck with a sputtering motor slid to a stop.
Shielding my eyes, I approached the driver’s side. Angel Ortiz cranked down the window. His witchy grandmother Josephina, dressed in black robes and gripping a crooked stick, sat on the bench seat beside him.
“Nana thought someone needed a ride,” Angel said, over Josephina’s cackle.
On Christmas Day, we didn’t eat at noon, as Mom’s tradition demanded. We didn’t have Aunt Sue’s gelatin surprise or marshmallows on the sweet potatoes, and the gravy came spiked with red chile.
Flori, the gravy spiker, raised a toast. “To all those we love, near and far, here and beyond,” she said.
Bernard kissed her, glasses clinked, and the friends and family squeezed around Flori’s massive dining table sang out, “Feliz Navidad.”
Mom and I touched glasses, hers sparkling water, mine wine. Celia stretched her cranberry juice across a centerpiece mound of tamales.
Celia had sounded the alarm last night when she saw Barton drive by. There was something in his eyes, she’d said. A bad feeling that made her shrink back into the crowd as he passed. When she couldn’t reach me or her grandmother, she and Sky rushed through the revelers searching for us. She then called Manny and Jake, who, together with Flori and her pals, launched a wider search of Judith’s properties and the main roads leading out of town. It was Deputy Davis who found us first. Or, rather, we found her. Her patrol car was creeping down the snowy road with its lights flashing, when Angel stopped and beeped. The deputy had been overjoyed.
“Looks like I won the betting pool,” she’d said.
I was too relieved to care that I was still the subject of a police betting pool. “For finding us, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Unless you found another dead guy out there, in which case Jean-Marie on dispatch wins.”
I’d since learned that there was no dead guy. Only a wounded Barton Hunter, or whatever his real name was. The would-be widower had been shot in the gut by his wife, real name also unknown. She’d disappeared into the blizzard. Deputy Davis predicted that they’d find her body by Three Kings Day, January 6. I bet she’d get away and transform into someone else.
A warm hand drew me out of my dark thoughts. Sitting beside me at the table, Jake sneaked a peck on my cheek and asked me to pass the mashed potatoes.
“You make fine mashed potatoes, Ms. Lafitte,” he said, leaning forward to compliment my mom. “And that monkey bread is absolutely delicious. Even better than my mother’s sage dinner rolls, although I won’t admit to that in front of her.” His parents were due back from their trip around New Year’s and he’d invited me to go meet them.
“We’ll stay one night, tops,” he’d promised. “Otherwise, they’ll grill you forever. You think your mother is an interrogator. Wait until you meet mine.” On the way back, we planned to stop at his cabin on the Pecos River. Our long-awaited weekend getaway finally seemed like a reality. And a priority.
I leaned my head on his shoulder for a moment and then praised Mom for her green bean casserole.
Mom blushed under the compliments, or maybe it was the spicy gravy. Our brush with death had emboldened her. She’d tasted a little bit of everything on the table. Flori’s Christmas enchiladas with cheese and onion, the red posole stew, tamales filled with carne adovada and green chiles, and a traditional New Mexican Christmas salad made with crunchy jicama, juicy orange slices, and ruby red pomegranate seeds. Mom had declared some dishes dubiously “interesting,” taken second helpings of tamales, and was surprisingly hooked on the salad.
For my part, I was still shocked by Mom’s secret. She’d revealed more when she, Celia, and I were safely back at home last night. Celia had taken the news a lot more calmly than me.
“The jerk walked out on you, Gran,” she’d said. “He tricked you and ran off with dirty money and started another family and made you think he was dead. Of course you didn’t want to have anything to do with him. We get that, right, Mom?”
Did I get that? After a night of tossing and turning, I supposed I did. When my father had appeared at Mom’s door years ago, begging to contact my sister and me, Mom had said she’d think about it. By the time she had, he’d disappeared again. He’d been drawn to adventure and the Southwest, she said. Like me. That was one of the reasons she’d worried when I moved here. Would I, like my father, disappear from her life?
Dad had contacted her again a few months ago. He’d sent a postcard with a scene and postmark from New Mexico. That’s what compelled Mom to break the news. She didn’t want me to be shocked by a stranger, or upset at her, if he found his way to my door.
Flori passed a plate of savory empanadas down the long table. I wanted another, but I had to save room. The dessert table was practically sagging, laden with Jake’s yummy mincemeat empanadas, a half-dozen versions of bizcochitos, Mom’s soft gingerbread cookies, and two pies from Lorena Cortez: chocolate cream dusted with red chile and her holiday special, pumpkin pie in a wonderful gingersnap crust.
I’d called Lorena early Christmas morning and told her about Barton’s confession, as grudgingly shared by Manny. The so-called consultant had actually repatriated some items, enough to make himself seem legitimate and build a reputation. The best pieces, he’d been selling to shady contacts.
Francisco, with his background in archeology and history, had figured out what was going on but made the mistake of trying to gather more evidence. He’d quizzed Shasta, who’d guessed his suspicions and told her con-man husband. Barton couldn’t resist bragging to the police about his elaborate murder scheme. He’d planned ahead for several weeks, sending the death threat letters. He’
d then faked the migraine, knowing that Francisco would be around to fill in as the devil. As extra flair, he snagged Trey’s UNM Lobos coat from the ski shop, in case he was seen. He would have been happy to have Wyatt, the panicked Santa, take the fall. However, when Wyatt’s alibis came forward, Barton resumed his original plan of framing Trey by planting incriminating evidence in Trey’s garage and workspace.
Barton had also easily figured out Shasta’s scheme to double-cross him by romancing Trey, who had been pilfering the collection for years. Little Eddie had blabbed about kissing. Barton had also heard the couple through the thin door between his rooms and the ski shop. Shasta’s ultimate plan, he claimed, was to knock him off and set herself up as future heiress, after getting rid of Judith Crundall.
I’d called Lorena to tell her the news. She’d been grateful to confirm her husband’s innocence and her friend’s good nature. Francisco, she reported, had bequeathed all his assets to Angel, supporting the young baker in death as he had in life. Angel and Josephina had come to the Inn of the Pajarito for the will reading the day before. “Francisco didn’t have much,” Lorena said, “But I’ll try to help out in his memory.” She’d offered Angel a job at Pie in the Sky. “I need a good assistant baker,” she said. “It’ll free up time for all the dates Wyatt wants to take me on. I swear, it’s like someone put a romance spell on that man.” Maybe someone had.
Dalia was horrified that she’d inadvertently pushed poison on her half sister. On their own, the contaminated pieces wouldn’t have caused illness. Shasta, however, had doused them in extra arsenic. A search of Judith’s kitchen also revealed arsenic in the teas Dalia had hoped would cure her sister. Dalia planned to purge the house and hire a local expert to repatriate the collection properly.
Judith took the news in her usual crusty stride. According to her, she never fully trusted the flirty Mr. Hunter, calling him way too pretty. Trey, meanwhile, was stunned by Shasta’s deception and his mother’s reaction to his thefts. Judith was evicting her son from the house until he could prove that he was capable of making an honest living. Tough love, Judith called it. Just deserts, I said.