Sadie hated the bikes, but the Latin American dance class was kind of fun. She didn’t have Caro’s moves, but the other people in the class didn’t seem to mind that she flopped around like a drunken monkey in the back of the room. She’d lost five pounds of the weight she’d gained back. Though she felt arrogant to say so, even to herself, she looked good in the top Margo had picked out for her. In addition, Margo had chosen a pair of Sadie’s straight leg jeans and folded them up into too-wide cuffs. A pair of silver ballet flats out of Sadie’s closet and a chunky turquoise necklace of Caro’s that Sadie hadn’t returned yet completed the outfit to Margo’s standards.
While Sadie changed her clothes, Margo had gone out to her car to get her purse—for finishing touches she said. She was already back by the time Sadie stepped out of the bathroom to reveal her new, dirtied-up-barfly look.
“Still a little dressy,” Margo said, slapping Sadie’s hands away when she folded her arms over her stomach. “But better.”
Dressy? Jeans and a T-shirt? “Can I wear some footsy socks with these shoes? Otherwise my feet will sweat.”
Margo laughed, then started rummaging in her purse.
Sadie took that as permission and found a pair of black booties. Once her feet were back in the shoes, Margo handed her a tube of lipstick. Apparently her barely-there lip gloss wasn’t bar-worthy either. The glossy red wasn’t totally wrong for her complexion, but the darker color meant she had to take a minute to darken her eye makeup and blush so that it all coordinated.
Margo used some aerosol hairspray to make Sadie’s chin-length, salt-and-pepper hair a little bigger before pronouncing her ready for the bar scene.
Sadie looked one last time at her semi-trashy reflection before grabbing her purse, again, and turning off the lights of the apartment, again. Thank goodness she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing anyone she knew while she was out tonight. Well, other than the members of the dig crew.
It was harder to sneak past Caro this time. She’d looked up when Sadie and Margo had come back inside, and was therefore alert when the two of them headed for the front door. She lifted her eyebrows, but Sadie just smiled and waved without stopping. Caro would be waiting up when Sadie came in tonight. Guaranteed.
It was a quarter after nine when they got into Margo’s Land Cruiser, but when Sadie shared her worry about being late, Margo just laughed.
“I can see I’ll need to be the leader for this expedition,” she said once they were on the road. The inside of Margo’s Cruiser was as cluttered as her house, and suddenly Sadie was glad she hadn’t worn her nicer clothes.
“I can live with being your wingman,” Sadie said, relieved. She was relearning her investigative skills but was already intimidated by this situation. Plus, Margo knew Shel and Langley better than she did.
Margo drove through a part of town Sadie was familiar with, but then turned on a road Sadie hadn’t been down before and drove for a few miles into an area that looked nothing like the Santa Fe Sadie had seen so far. Instead of the Pueblo Deco building designs and meticulous xeriscaped lots, the businesses here were square and squat, with bright paint jobs, and flashing neon signs in blackened windows. The other side of Santa Fe it seemed.
At a stop sign, Margo lit up a cigarette, rolling down her window as if that would keep the smoke from bothering Sadie. Her plan did not work, but Sadie appreciated the gesture.
After passing half a dozen bars, a tire store, and two auto body shops, Margo pulled into the parking lot for a bar called The Conquistador. The building consisted of whitewashed cinderblock, too-orange trim, and a neon Bud Light sign in the window. Hitching rails were up against the front, making them completely useless if someone were actually to arrive by horse.
Once out of the Land Cruiser, Sadie stood up straight, eyeing the building and trying to convince herself that she was comfortable and confident. Such positive affirmations were helpful to her in coping with her anxiety, and her anxiety was knocking on the door . . . hard.
Margo finished off her cigarette, a perfect ring of red lipstick around the filter, then dropped it in a large ashtray by the door that looked like it was full of gray sand . . . and a few dozen cigarette butts. Sadie hurried to keep up with Margo’s long-legged strides, determined not to let her out of her sight for the rest of the evening. Ninja skills aside, Sadie didn’t want to fly solo on this mission.
The inside of the bar was as dark and smoky as Sadie had expected it would be, with faded felt sombreros hanging from the ceiling and peanut shells on the floor that Sadie tried to avoid. Walking on them felt like she was stepping on cockroaches. Mexican rugs were tacked to the walls, but their once-bright colors were muted and yellowed from age and smoke. There were a couple of pool tables in the back, a long shiny bar to the right, and clusters of tables to the left. Sadie didn’t see a jukebox, but there was Mexican music playing from somewhere, barely loud enough to be heard over a few dozen voices talking and laughing. Were bars always this busy on Monday nights?
Margo scanned the room and then began moving toward a table on the far side. Sadie dutifully followed and recognized Shel, Langley, and another member of the dig crew named Garrett sitting around the table. Whereas Shel was broad-shouldered, but relatively short—five foot nine Sadie guessed—Langley was thinner, taller, with reddish hair. His pale blue eyes stood out against his fair complexion that was liberally sprinkled with faded freckles. He really shouldn’t have a job that required so much sun. The bright colors of his lizard tattoo stood out against his pale forearm.
Shel was talking with a waitress who wore a large men’s dress shirt that came to mid-thigh. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and the front was unbuttoned one button lower than it should have been. The only other thing she wore—that Sadie could see—were bright blue cowboy boots. The other waitresses wore the same attire, but with different colored boots. Sadie was embarrassed on behalf of all of them.
“Hey,” Margo said as she reached the table. She grabbed the back of Langley’s chair and gave it a shake. “Fancy meeting you guys here,” she said.
The waitress laughed at something and walked away. Shel watched her leave long enough that Sadie was embarrassed for him too.
Shel looked up at Margo and smiled. “What else is there to do in this town?” He flicked another look at the waitress leaning over the bar. Sadie pretended not to notice.
“No kidding,” Margo said, pulling out a chair and waving Sadie toward it before grabbing an empty chair from another table—without even asking the people seated around that table—and pulling it over for herself. Sadie sat down between Langley and Margo and worked hard to appear casual, which was hard to do since the effort it took to appear casual defeated the very purpose.
The table was disgusting, the stained varnish chipping off in places. Sadie kept her hands in her lap and considered passing around the travel-sized hand sanitizer she always carried in her purse in case anyone else at the table was as grossed out as she was. Then again, maybe she needed to save it for herself. Mingled with the smoke and the yeasty smell of beer was the scent of chicken and hot oil. She was not the least bit tempted by any of the food offered here.
“What are we drinking?” Margo asked, hooking one arm over the back of her chair and kicking out one leg; she looked right at home.
Shel lifted a hand, raising two fingers when the blue-booted waitress looked his way, then leaned back in his chair and took a swig from his bottle.
“So I got called back to the dig Thursday,” Margo said. “How about all y’all?”
Sadie glanced at Langley, but he didn’t give away that he and Margo had already had this discussion. Instead, Shel and Langley confirmed that they too had been called back. Garrett hung his head a little bit.
“How’d you make the cut?” Margo said, looking from Langley to Shel.
“Luck of the draw, I guess,” Shel said with a wink that made Margo’s jaw tighten, though Sadie hoped she was the only one who noticed it. The wait
ress returned with two beers, and Shel pointed at Sadie and Margo, indicating the drinks were for them.
“Could I just have a Coke?” Sadie asked. Everyone looked at her and she shrugged. “I’m the designated driver.” Never mind that it was Margo’s Land Cruiser.
Margo gave Sadie a tight look, but Sadie wasn’t about to drink a beer with people she didn’t know and didn’t trust.
“Ah, right,” Shel said, taking her beer for himself. His eyes were already glassy, and he had that too-relaxed look of a man already well saturated. He hadn’t come across as quite so arrogant at the dig site, which reminded Sadie why she didn’t enjoy keeping company with drunks. Why on earth had she come to a bar?
Someone cheered from the direction of the pool tables, and the waitress left. Margo asked Shel and Langley if they knew what was going on with the dig.
“We went up there this morning for a bit,” Shel said.
“You did?” Margo said, tensing slightly. Sadie knew exactly how she felt—left out.
“To catalogue the bigger stuff the feds pulled up before they razed everything,” Shel continued with a shrug. “They had two bulldozers there today. All the fill is in dump trucks, and the crew will be sifting through it.”
“You’re kidding!” Margo said, sounding horrified. She seemed to catch herself quickly, though, and took a breath. When she spoke, she tried to keep her tone casual. “It’s a lot harder to do it that way. Makes a mess of the cataloging process.”
“But it’s faster,” Shel pointed out. “The developer wants Bill to stick to the original time line as much as possible.”
Never mind there were two men found dead there, Sadie thought to herself. Why was it so easy for people to discount that? A second later, she thought about the other hundred or so bodies buried there originally and what Margo had said about there not being as much difference as people seemed to believe.
The waitress returned and put a glass bottle of Coke in front of Sadie. The cap had already been removed.
“Thanks,” Sadie said to her, loving the nostalgic bottle. Her grandparents had had cases of pop in glass bottles at their house. Sadie and her brother and sister would take the empties back to the neighborhood grocer and earn five cents per bottle. They felt rich walking out with a dollar apiece.
“Is the sifting being done on site?” Margo asked.
Shel shrugged. “Yeah—a few hundred yards away from the original dig. They’re getting screens and metal detectors to help it go faster.”
Sadie thought about the pothunters who blew up burial sites—would this result be much different? “How much longer do they think the job will last?” she asked.
“Four or five more days is all,” Shel said, grabbing a few peanuts out of the bowl in the middle of the table. He cracked off one end and sucked out the peanut. Sadie hated peanuts in the shell. So messy. He dropped the shells on the floor, which she liked even less. Wasn’t it a safety hazard to have peanut shells on the floor where inebriated people were trying to keep their balance?
“Bill says there’s another job starting out by Chapelle at the end of next week,” Langley added. “It’ll be full crew, and we ought to be done with the Ranchette job by then.”
Would Sadie work the new dig? Did she want to?
“That’s good,” Margo said with a weighted tone. “So, Sarah and I were talking about when we found those fresh bodies.”
The men looked at her expectantly. She got right to the point, staring hard at Shel. “Why did you keep digging?”
Chapter 7
All three men seemed startled by Margo’s question. It was all Sadie could do to contain her own surprise. She had expected they would ease into things rather than get to the point so quickly.
When none of the men answered, Margo continued, “Bill had told everyone to stop digging for the day before you found that second body, Shel. So why were you still digging?”
“I didn’t hear Bill tell us to stop,” Shel said, but there was tension behind his forced casualness.
“No, you heard him,” Margo said with a quick shake of her head. “I was there when he announced it—everyone stopped digging.” She leaned forward to stare at Shel before turning the pointed look to Langley.
Sadie took a drink of her Coke, trying to hide her unease, and scratched at some of the flaking varnish on the table. When she realized it might not be varnish at all, but petrified crud instead, she put her hands in her lap.
“Didn’t everyone else stop digging, Langley?” Margo pressed.
“Um, yeah,” Langley said, looking at the bottle he was turning in his hands.
“Shut up, Langley,” Shel said.
Margo turned to Shel again. “Bill had told everyone to load up in the vans, the first one had even left, but you kept digging. Why?”
Shel took a drink from his bottle and said nothing. He looked between the two women with narrowed eyes.
Margo turned to Langley again. “Why was he digging?”
Langley continued to stare into his bottle. “I don’t—”
“Why, Langley?” she demanded. “Why was he digging in that exact place after being told to stop?” She dropped her voice, but held him with her gaze. “You owe me.”
“Owe her?” Shel repeated, looking at Langley. “What’s she talking about?”
Sadie knew Margo was referring to the skull Langley crushed in the digging fury that followed Bill’s instructions to check all the graves, but Langley continued to stare at the bottle in his hands. Garrett looked confused, glancing between Margo and Langley as the interrogation continued. Sadie counted to three before Langley spoke. “He said the hill looked different.”
“Shut up, Langley!” Shel snapped again.
Margo’s eyes whipped to Shel, a triumphant look on her face. “So you did hear Bill say to stop.”
“So what if I did?” Shel said, leaning back in his chair as though wanting to appear casual. He failed, though, due to the tension still radiating from him. “I’d noticed that hill earlier in the day, and then after the first body came up, I thought we ought to check. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Actually it was a really big deal,” Margo said. Her words were calm, but intense. “If you’d have left it alone, Bill wouldn’t have told us to open up every grave like that.”
“So what?” Shel said, shrugging. “We dug ’em up faster.”
“Except we didn’t dig them up,” Margo snapped, losing her cool. “We opened them up, which is totally different. We completely compromised the cataloging, and now they’re sifting the bones instead of letting us do it right. You really screwed it up, Shel.”
“Those bones are worth less than the dirt they’re covered in.” Shel’s words lacked the bravado Sadie expected though, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. If he didn’t believe it, why did he say it?
Sadie looked away from Shel’s duplicitous expression and took another sip of her Coke while trying to think of something—anything—to say. She wasn’t much of a wingman so far.
“We are hired to preserve them,” Margo said, her eyes as focused as a laser beam on Shel. “That means treating them with the same care and respect we’d give our own family.”
Shel looked down at his beer bottle, his jaw tight with anger.
When Margo spoke again, Sadie could tell it was taking all she had to keep her voice calm. “And then you were hired back on the dig. That seems a little strange too, doesn’t it?”
Sadie considered excusing herself to the restrooms. The tension was getting to her, and she had half a Xanax in her purse which would keep the rising anxiety from getting the best of her. Yet the confrontation was a tiny bit exciting too.
“It’s all about who you know, isn’t it, Shel?” Langley muttered.
“Shut up, Langley.”
“What does that mean?” Margo demanded, looking between the two men.
Neither of them answered, though Sadie noticed that Shel tried to strike an even more casual pose. She wasn’t
buying it, and she doubted anyone else was either. Rather than hiding whatever it was he wanted to hide, he was making it even more obvious that he had something to hide in the first place.
“I’ve been with D&E for years,” Langley said. “I don’t think there’s any question as to why I got called back.” The implication that there was a reason other than seniority that got Shel back on the job sat in the center of the crud-encrusted table. “Maybe you ought to tell them why you kept digging. Maybe you ought to tell them who told you to dig in the first place.”
“Langley,” Shel said between his teeth. “Shut. Up.”
Margo pounced on this new information, leaning further toward Shel. “So you went against a direct order from Bill because someone else told you to dig? Did you know there were fresh bodies at the site, Crossbones?”
Crossbones? What did that mean?
Sadie saw Shel clench his fist on the table. She felt her heart pounding from the growing tension, and her hand tensed around the Coke bottle in response. She watched him closely. Garrett shifted in his seat and glanced around the bar as though considering the other occupants and wishing he were at their table instead of this one.
“He sure did,” Langley said, fast and crisp, suddenly confident. There was a challenge in his eyes. A pushing. A threat?
Sadie watched as his words registered on Shel’s face, triggering a new level of anger and . . . fear?
Shel suddenly lunged across the table toward Langley, but Sadie had been watching the coil of anger behind his eyes. With a flick of her wrist, Sadie turned the Coke bottle in her hand sideways, jumped forward, and bashed it onto the bridge of Shel’s nose.
Coke spilled all over the table, and Shel went careening backward so fast that it wasn’t until his chair, and perhaps his head, cracked against the concrete floor that Sadie fully realized what she’d done. Everyone at the table screamed or cursed, jumping up and back as the quick change of mood and circumstance caught everyone off guard.
Tres Leches Cupcakes Page 6