Sweet's Sweets: The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  “Good man. I’m glad to have him in the department.” Padilla continued speaking around a tortilla chip. “With the election and everything, life has been pretty busy these last few months.”

  She mumbled something in acknowledgment but couldn’t concentrate on his words. A dark blue haze began to form around his head, snaking around him until it engulfed his shoulders and sent tendrils toward his feet.

  “Are you feeling okay, Ms. Sweet?”

  The blue deepened, turned muddy gray, became more solid-looking.

  Sam’s mouth opened, then closed again. Padilla’s face was nearly obscured now.

  “Sam? Ms. Sweet?”

  The colored haze vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Sam blinked hard. What on earth?

  “Hey you,” Beau said, slipping an arm around Sam’s waist. “I thought you’d gone missing.”

  She sent a vague smile his direction.

  “What’s up?” Beau asked, trying to keep it casual.

  “I . . .”

  Margaret Padilla called out from the doorway to let her husband know that they would be late if they didn’t get going. She smiled apologetically. “Another day, another speech,” she said.

  Orlando Padilla gave Sam a long, hard stare. She squirmed just a little. Then he drew a deep breath and walked toward the house.

  “What was that all about?” Beau asked.

  “I had . . .” She wanted to tell him about the nearly-painful sound that had pierced her ears earlier and the bizarre colors that had appeared around Padilla, but something held her back. Until she had some clue what all the weird signals were about it was better to keep it to herself. “Nothing really. Maybe it’s a migraine coming on.”

  Two women stepped outside, an older lady that Sam thought had been introduced as someone’s aunt and a middle-aged woman in a deep burgundy dress with a delicate lace collar. Beau stood a little straighter and sent a polite nod their direction.

  “Do you want to go home?” he asked.

  She waved off the suggestion. “I’ll be fine.”

  Another group had discovered the patio by now, Carlos Tafoya among them. Someone snagged Beau with a question and Sam let her attention wander. As her gaze drifted toward Tafoya, she felt her breath catch. Obscuring his handsome face and ready political smile was a blue haze.

  Oh god, not another one.

  She blinked hard and looked away, out to the open land beyond the adobe house. When she looked back at Tafoya the aura was gone.

  Chapter 18

  “I can’t help it, Beau. I got the weirdest feelings around both Carlos Tafoya and Orlando Padilla. I felt such tension in the room.” It was the only explanation she could offer when he quizzed her about her reaction at the wake. They were in his SUV on their way downtown. Sam had asked Beau to drop her off at her shop so she could see how the girls had done without her there all afternoon.

  “Did you get the feeling that Tafoya might have guessed about his wife’s affair?”

  “Maybe. But if he did, I don’t think he confronted Elena. She would have told me.”

  She rubbed her temples, although she felt no pain. The whole thing was just so confusing.

  “Dinner later?” he asked. “I put some stew in the cooker this morning. It’ll be real easy.”

  “Would it be okay if I beg off? It was an early morning.”

  He looked disappointed. “Tomorrow then? Stew is even better the next night.”

  She didn’t have the heart to turn him down for the second invitation.

  At Sweet’s Sweets, Jen was in the process of closing out the register and Becky had gone home for the day, leaving a supply of tea cookies and cakes ready for sale the next day. Sam would come in early and get the breakfast pastries done in time for the early coffee crowd and Halloween cookies baked for the trick-or-treat promotion they’d been advertising. Two new custom orders had come in—a wedding cake for the end of the month (at least some customers planned ahead!) and a baby shower cake which reminded Sam that new life always came along to offer comfort over the loss of another.

  She made up a quick sketch for a three-dimensional cake, a baby carriage surrounded by large toy blocks, all frosted in pastel buttercream, with a set of life-size yellow booties made of sugar. She could do the basics in the morning and put it all together the next day. She rechecked the window displays and left the night lights on before going out to her van, parked behind the shop.

  Kelly’s car sat in the driveway at home when Sam arrived.

  “Beau came straight home after the funeral,” Kelly said, “so I started dinner early. Hope that’s okay.”

  “I’m not very hungry,” Sam said. She had to admit, though, that when Kelly lifted the lid on a simmering skillet of chicken and mushrooms in some kind of savory sauce she might rethink that. “Okay, maybe just a little.”

  Kelly chatted while they ate, but Sam found her mind wandering to Elena, specifically their last conversation. Granted, they’d consumed a fair amount of wine but Sam found herself racking her brain to remember anything at all that might have been her clue as to what Elena would do later that evening.

  On the surface perhaps Elena did have reason to end her life. Her unhappy marriage, the disappointment of the affair, and the crime she’d committed—accidentally or not—all of it had eaten at her until she obviously could not bear it.

  “I’m going to bed early,” Sam told Kelly as they put the dishes into the dishwasher. The energy boost that she normally got from the wooden box seemed to have vanished after her experiences with the oddly colored auras and the piercing buzz in her head.

  She summoned up enough energy to brush her teeth and slip into her nightshirt before crashing. Elena’s final words to Sam echoed through her head: “Telling Deputy Cardwell won’t solve anything.” She fell asleep.

  Uneasy dreams filled the night. Elena arriving at Sam’s gala opening party, looking chic as ever in the turquoise that set off her blond hair so beautifully, draping the cashmere scarf over her chair, responding to someone’s inquiry about how it was made. The scene shifted to the Tafoya home as Sam dropped Elena off, worried about how much wine her friend had consumed. Elena wrapping the warm scarf around her neck as she got out of Sam’s car. The scene shifting rapidly, the scarf tightening around the slender throat, Elena’s frantic attempts to scream for help. Sam stretching, reaching to save her, unable to quite do it.

  She awoke in a tangle of sheets and blankets, panting.

  “Wha—” Her breath came in gasps.

  She sat up in bed and hugged her knees. The dream was clearly telling her that Elena needed her help. Her friend was reaching out and it was up to Sam to do something.

  She switched on the lamp on her nightstand and picked up the phone. “Answer, answer,” she pleaded, noticing for the first time that the readout on her clock said it was 1:47 in the morning.

  Beau’s mumbled hello was full of sleep.

  “Elena Tafoya didn’t kill herself,” Sam blurted out. How could she convey the urgency of the dream?

  “Sam?” He yawned hugely. “What’s this about Elena? How would you know—?”

  “Don’t ask me how I know, please. Just trust me on this.”

  “Darlin, you do realize it’s the middle of the night, don’t you?”

  “Sorry.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I just had this feeling that it couldn’t wait. Do funeral directors work at night?”

  “What?”

  “You told me yesterday afternoon that Elena’s body probably hadn’t been cremated yet. But what if they work at night? What if they’re doing it right now?”

  She heard rustling in the background, the heavy comforter on his bed, perhaps. His hands running over a stubbly face.

  “I don’t know, Sam. They might be working tonight.”

  “Can you stop them? If they’re about to cremate her? Please, Beau?”

  “Let me make a call. I’ll find out.”

  “Call me right back.”r />
  “Obviously, you’re awake.”

  “I won’t sleep until I hear from you.” I probably won’t sleep anyway.

  “I’ll let you know, no matter what’s happening.”

  The dial tone hummed for nearly a full minute before Sam set the receiver down. She got up, wrapped her warmest robe around herself and found her sheepskin slippers. Pacing the floor seemed so cliché, but it was all she could do with sleep impossible and being completely at a loss for whom to call, other than Beau. She hovered within two strides of the phone until it rang. Eight minutes had passed as if they were eight hours.

  “Okay,” Beau said. “I had to call my office and find out which funeral home had her body. Turned out to be one in Albuquerque. I did reach someone there and I did get them to stop . . . working . . . on this until I get back to them. Now you want to tell me why the big panic?”

  She took a deep breath and sat on the edge of her bed. If she were wrong about this, she was about to look like a huge fool.

  “The scarf that Elena supposedly hung herself with—it was the same one she’d worn to the party at my shop, wasn’t it?”

  “Um . . . yeah, I believe so. It’s in an evidence bag at the office. I could actually describe it to you if this call were taking place during my shift.”

  Oops, he sounded just a little ticked. “That’s okay.” She reminded him that he’d already told her it was the same scarf. “I just remembered something Elena told me about it, about how much she loved the scarf.”

  “She loved the scarf.”

  “Right. Don’t you see? A woman wouldn’t use one of her most prized possessions to kill herself.”

  “And why not? Maybe she wanted it to be the last thing that touched her skin.”

  Sam hadn’t thought of that. “But—” In a dream Elena had called out to her . . . That wasn’t going to fly, not in a murder investigation.

  “How carefully did the medical investigator examine her body and the scarf?” she asked.

  “Well, he would have examined the body pretty thoroughly. As far as I know, though, he didn’t have the scarf. We bagged it and kept it here.”

  “But mainly, he just wanted to be sure she really died by strangling, right?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “But I’m just not convinced. Elena was upset that night, yes, but I will never believe that she was so upset that she went right home and killed herself, Beau, especially not with her favorite scarf. I just—”

  “Sam, with anyone else, I’d suggest that they get some counseling and work through the grieving process. Denial is always the first stage.”

  She started to sputter but he interrupted.

  “But—listen for a second—you have good instincts. You’ve already proven that to me, and it’s the only reason we’re having this conversation.” He paused for a moment. “I will get the wheels in motion for a revisit to the autopsy. I have to be specific in the request, based on some kind of evidence. I’ll send the scarf to Albuquerque and ask the crime lab to do strength tests and . . . well, you don’t need all the details.”

  She felt a tightening in her throat. “Thanks, Beau. Thanks for believing me.”

  “I’m also stepping up the pace on the Bram Fenton investigation,” he said. “And I can’t promise that Elena’s name won’t suffer in the process. You have to be ready for that, hon. And you have to be ready, just in case it’s proven that she did kill herself. Remorse is a powerful thing, Sam. It could be that she either felt guilty over the investigator’s death or she might have panicked at the thought of being caught.”

  “I know.” Sam felt the earlier burst of adrenaline drain out of her. Despite wanting to save her friend’s reputation and memory, she might just be opening a whole new can of worms. She hung up the phone wondering if she shouldn’t have left well-enough alone.

  She switched out the light and crawled back under the covers but realized the futility of trying to sleep when she rolled over for the fourth time, only to stare at the red numerals on the clock that told her it was after three.

  She pulled herself out of bed and moved quietly, dressing and leaving for her shop. She’d told Jen she would come in early but three o’clock was ridiculous. But, no matter. There was work to be done and lying in bed staring at the ceiling was pointless.

  Yesterday’s unseasonably mild weather had taken a complete turn sometime during the night. A frigid wind blew down Sam’s lane, whipping tiny granules of sleet across her windshield. She tried to remember whether there was snow in the forecast. She pressed the button for the local station on the van’s radio but they weren’t on the air at this hour. No point, anyway. The weather would do whatever it would, no matter what some forecaster said about it.

  By the time Jen and Becky arrived at six, Sam had finished eight dozen orange-frosted pumpkin shaped cookies, a crumb cake, two cinnamon streusel coffee cakes and a batch of blueberry muffins. Becky took over with more muffins and some apple tarts, while Sam started creating the baby shower cake she’d sketched out yesterday. Soon she was lost in the decorating.

  When Beau walked in the front door, Jen went into a fluster, as always happened when that six and a half feet of lean, hunky guy in uniform spoke to her. Sam couldn’t believe it was already after ten; it seemed almost impossible that she’d awakened him after dreaming about Elena. Most of the coffee-and-croissant crowd had already come and gone.

  “Maybe we should talk somewhere else?” Beau suggested.

  For the first time in hours Sam looked out the front windows. The breeze still bent the bare tree limbs but the sleet had vanished. “A short walk might keep me alert,” she said. She grabbed her jacket from its hook near the back door.

  The thirty degree air nearly took her breath away after the warmth of the kitchen but she picked up her pace and kept up with Beau easily enough.

  “So, is there any news?” she asked, almost the moment the shop door closed behind them.

  “Actually, yes. I guess an early morning call, even from a county sheriff’s deputy, carries some weight. The funeral home put the cremation on hold immediately. Then the MI’s office got my message and collected the remains shortly after their office opened at eight.”

  It felt awful to hear Elena referred to as ‘the remains’ but Sam bit back a reply and tamped down her emotions.

  “I don’t know whether it’s because of Carlos Tafoya’s political prominence or if they just felt pushed to clear the case, but the medical investigator got right on it.”

  “And . . .?”

  “And I sent one of our other deputies down to Albuquerque with the scarf. The guy wasn’t especially happy to make the trip right at the end of his shift. But he left here about four a.m. and will probably be happy for the overtime.”

  “Beau! Get on with it. What did they find?”

  “I quote: ‘Upon closer examination of the ligature marks on the victim’s neck, it appears that there are signs of strangulation aside from any marks made by the wool scarf.’”

  Sam stopped in a crosswalk, ignoring the squeal of brakes from a car that almost didn’t stop. Beau took her elbow and steered her toward the safety of the sidewalk before he spoke again.

  “Yes, you heard that right. In the report they faxed to me, it seems that there were some bruising patterns. There was also a thin line, perhaps a cord of some kind. Overlying all that were the wider, softer marks made by the wool scarf. It was most likely grabbed up as an afterthought, a way to disguise the previous markings and to make it look like a suicide.”

  Sam stopped and looked up at him.

  “So, you were right,” Beau said. “She didn’t choose her favorite scarf to, uh, do this.”

  Sam stifled her fleeting feeling of triumph. She didn’t need to be right about this. She’d have given anything to have Elena back, alive and well.

  “So, does this mean that the investigation will continue?”

  “You bet. Now that we know that someone else killed her, we have to purs
ue it as a murder.”

  They had reached the plaza now. The sidewalks were nearly deserted, in sharp contrast to the summer months when crowds of tourists packed the quaint shops and fought over parking spaces. Beau instinctively steered Sam toward the side that would keep them out of the harsh wind.

  “Beau, I hate to think this but I have to say it. I think you’ll have to look at our possible new governor as a suspect.”

  Chapter 19

  His mouth formed a tight line. “How sure are you about . . . well, about the affair?”

  “Elena told me. She wouldn’t confess if she hadn’t done anything.” Sam pulled her coat tighter around herself. “I think Carlos found out. Maybe he grabbed her in a rage.”

  “There’s just one big, giant hitch with that. Carlos Tafoya had an airtight alibi. Remember, he was giving a speech in Albuquerque. I’m pretty sure it ran late and he planned to stay over. I’ll check it out, but when he’s out campaigning he’s got a whole slew of people around him. I will question them all but it’s not likely that he could just leave without someone knowing it.”

  “Hm.” Sam chewed at her lip. “Who else would have easy access to their house? Maids, gardeners, that sort of person?”

  “Yeah, but what motive does a maid or gardener have to kill the person who’s writing their paychecks?”

  She gave him a look that basically said get real. Employees always hate their bosses. But he was right. Nothing had been reported stolen. And the crime just didn’t have the feel of an angry person who was lashing out. Another reason to discount either the husband or the lover.

  “Maybe they had a houseguest?” she suggested halfheartedly.