Cinco De Murder

by Rebecca Adler

  Stepping over a toppled copper planter with a plastic rubber plant still inside, I discovered shelves and their contents scattered as if a twister had blown through on its way to Oklahoma.

  A white blur caught my eye through the gated front window. A white Lincoln darted into a parking spot followed by a loud, metallic screech as the fender ground into the curb.

  “I thought she lost her license when she took out Bubba’s picture window.” Barnes hurried outside to help the elderly woman from her car.

  Lightfoot gave me a stern look. “Who told you about the break-in?”

  My neck stiffened at his tone, so I took my time. “Let’s see.”

  “Knock it off or you’ll be wailing to that editor of yours about not getting your story.” He caught my reaction. “Sumter Majors did this? What’d he do, give you one of his police scanners?” He threw back his head and groaned, then his gaze became hard as flint. “He did, didn’t he?”

  “Maybe.”

  Bubba’s mama marched through the door on Barnes’s arm, hissing and spitting like an alley cat on garbage day. “What in tarnation’s going on?” She dropped the deputy’s arm and straightened up as far as her rounded back would allow. Behind her glasses, I observed the shine of tears. With a purse of her lips, her head snapped in my direction. “What’d they do? Call for a dinner break?” She might be bent over from osteoporosis, but the bite in her voice demanded she be taken seriously.

  “No, ma’am.” I inched back toward the wall, hoping to disappear into the woodwork.

  Lightfoot removed his hat and stepped between us. “Mrs. McAllen, do you keep an inventory of your goods?”

  “I’m waiting on you to answer, girl.”

  Lightfoot lifted a brow and crossed his arms across his chest. “This ought to be good.”

  I gave him a look that would have frozen pond water. “Well, I’m an investigator.”

  Lightfoot’s brow lowered, a bull ready to charge.

  “Of sorts.” I licked suddenly dry lips. “I’m investigating local crime for the Bugle.”

  She stepped closer and gave me a slow look from my boots to my braid. “The Bugle could use a good toot of young blood, if I do say so myself.” After a glance at the notebook in my hand, she tottered off toward her office.

  After Barnes and Lightfoot followed in her wake, I breathed a sigh. I was alone at last. I stood perfectly still, searching the floor and the room for a pattern to the clutter. Wasn’t that what they did on television? Looked for clues, a pattern to things that would reveal something about the criminal’s psyche? I opened my notebook and began to note the items on the floor, the ones left untouched, and those utterly destroyed. My heart sickened at the hours of work it would take to put Pinyon Pawn back together. How many employees did she have? I caught myself just as I started to kneel down and begin picking up the scattered items. It was a crime scene after all, no touching allowed. I did permit my gaze to land on first one thing and then another, and then I walked back to the open front door to view the place from a slightly different perspective.

  “What do you see?”

  I jumped again. “How do you always do that?”

  Lightfoot watched me from the doorway to Mrs. McAllen’s office. “Practice.” A smile played at his mouth.

  “Is that your superpower? Walking on light feet?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a Native American thing. Your name is Lightfoot.” Sometimes I say stupid things.

  His eyes narrowed, searching my face for signs of ridicule. He must have decided I was sincere—in my own ditzy way. “Lightfoot is English Welsh.”

  “Shut. Up.” Other times I’m just dumber than a doornail. “You’re Native American and . . . you walk lightly.”

  Glancing around the room, he removed his own notepad from his breast pocket and his usual stub of a pencil. “Look it up. Lightfoots immigrated. No Native blood.”

  I moved closer, hoping to sneak a peek at his writing. I’d expected a list of items, but instead I spied a list of adjectives. “You can’t deny you have Native American blood.”

  “Are you so sure I’m not Mexican?”

  “Yes.” I studied his sharp cheekbones and crossed my fingers. “Why else would you permit Senora Mari to call you Indian?”

  After a pregnant pause, he gave a quick nod. “My father is three-quarters because his father’s father was a Lightfoot.” He held up a hand to stall my interruption. “And he was three-quarters as well.”

  Something familiar stirred in my memory. “Your parents live in Albuquerque, right?”

  “Yes, but closer to the Mescalero Apache Res.”

  In the other room, I could hear Bubba’s mama giving an account to Deputy Barnes of what was missing and where things should be.

  “Crowbar, right?” I pointed to the gouge in the front door.

  “Close enough.” Pencil poised above his notepad, he turned. “What’s missing, to your eyes?”

  Little butterflies of happiness started to soar in my belly. Unless I had lost all my senses at the fairgrounds, Detective Lightfoot was asking for my opinion. “There’s not a lot of stereo equipment out here.” He didn’t write that down.

  What had I missed?

  “Lightfoot.” Barnes’s voice held urgency.

  “Guns and jewelry.” The words exploded from my mouth before the freckle-faced deputy could steal my thunder.

  “Bingo.”

  “She says the gun safe is missing.”

  With a slight nod in my direction, Lightfoot pocketed his notepad and pencil. “What about her jewelry?”

  “We’re headed that way. Want to come?”

  We followed Barnes and Mrs. Bubba to a back room that held a microwave, fridge, and metal cabinet. The older woman grabbed ahold of the small black fridge and started to pull. She was surprisingly strong and had inched the thing across the faux wood linoleum before Lightfoot and Barnes jumped in to help. “No need,” she insisted. She pushed Barnes out of the way, walked to the space behind the fridge, and opened a panel in the wall. Made of plywood, the hard outer surface appeared to be the same color as the bisque drywall, but on closer inspection, it was plywood painted the same color. She pried open a small door with her fingernail and removed a metal cashier’s box from the recess.

  Barnes and Lightfoot exchanged glances above her head.

  Slowly she placed the box on a nearby Formica table. From inside the neckline of her blouse, she withdrew a slender gold chain that bore a minuscule key. Inside the unassuming container were pearls, topaz, jade, gold chains, and diamond wedding rings. Before she closed and locked the box once again, I could’ve sworn I spotted what appeared to be a championship ring, glittering with diamonds.

  “Is anything missing?” Lightfoot’s voice was firm and steady.

  “No.” She grabbed the fingers of her other hand. “But you gotta get my weapons back. They’re my bread and butter.”

  Only in Texas.

  “What was in the gun safe besides guns?” Barnes placed his hand on his holster.

  Her mouth turned down like a horseshoe. “Not just guns. Weapons, son. High-caliber, military-grade, police-issue weapons. Every kind.”

  “Show me your license to sell firearms.”

  With a grunt, she removed the support stocking on her right foot and handed Lightfoot a worn and folded bit of paper. “Here you go.”

  “Why do you keep it in your stocking?” Barnes asked.

  “‘Cause it falls out of my shoe otherwise.”

  Gingerly, Lightfoot attempted to unfold the license using only his fingertips.

  “Mrs. McAllen?” I chuckled at her dry sense of humor.

  “Yes, dear?” Her eyes were filled with mirth.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be missing a stun gun from your gun safe, would yo
u?”

  She knit her brow for a moment. “Why, honey, I think you’re right. I knew there was something else missing, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”

  “How many stun guns did you own?”

  She tilted her head to stare at the ceiling. “I want to say there were three, but I could be wrong.” With a frown, she turned to Lightfoot and stared pointedly at his notepad. “Four. I’m missing four stun guns.”

  “Not any chance you placed them somewhere else?” I asked as Barnes and Lightfoot exchanged a glance.

  “No.” She raised her chin. “I don’t keep those out for the public to see. If someone asks me . . .” She bit her lip. “Uh, well. Someone did ask about a Taser earlier this week, but it wasn’t a stun gun.”

  “Who was it?” I asked softly.

  “It didn’t register right away because they’re not the same—even though most people think so.” Mrs. McAllen worried her wedding rings for a spell.

  “Who asked?”

  “I don’t know who it was.” She swallowed again. “Someone called and spoke to my son.”

  “Can’t see how he has time to work over here and manage Bubba’s BBQ,” Barnes said.

  “I wasn’t feeling too chipper on Monday so I stayed home.” She glanced at me for support. “When that happens I forward the phone here over to the BBQ so he can handle it.”

  “You get many calls, Mrs. McAllen?” Lightfoot asked.

  “Once or twice a day, but one is always Bubba, checking in on me.”

  “Someone called about a stun gun on Monday?” I prompted.

  “Yes.” She nodded, eager to pick up the thread. “Bubba called to see if I had a Taser in stock. I told him no.”

  Lightfoot tapped his pencil against his notepad. “Man or woman, who called?”

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask Bubba. He’d remember.” She smiled proudly.

  “I’ll give him a call, Detective.” Barnes unclipped his phone from his belt.

  “Start dusting for prints. I’ll call him.”

  “Oh, do you really have to get that dust all over everything?” The older woman’s lips pursed.

  “We had a suspicious death at the fairgrounds today.” Lightfoot cleared his phone screen. “What’s Bubba’s number?”

  “Oh no. You would ask me that.”

  Mrs. McAllen joined the majority of cell phone users by pulling out her cell phone to search for her own son’s phone number. After an excruciating number of minutes, trying in vain to find Bubba’s number without her glasses, she eventually found the rest of her personal contacts—with the help of her dollar store readers—and rattled off the digits.

  With a nod at me, Lightfoot stepped out to place his call.

  I found a folding chair and helped her into it. “What is the difference between a Taser and a stun gun, Mrs. McAllen?”

  “You know those weapons you see the police using on that reality show?”

  I nodded, but I was clueless.

  “Those are Tasers. They shoot probes twenty-two feet, and the civilian ones are good for fifteen feet.”

  “Wow.” I suddenly had a vivid image of Lucky being shot by a Taser from the opening of his tent.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her eyes grew wide. “Poor criminals flop around like fish.”

  I could picture the dead chili cook’s upper torso. “Do they leave marks?”

  She leaned forward, a storyteller sharing a ghastly tale in the night. “They do. Two marks close together like a snake.” She held up her fingers. “One to two inches long.”

  Had Ellis found marks on Lucky at the lab? “And a stun gun?”

  “Well, you have to be in close range to use one, for starters. Up close and personal.”

  “It doesn’t shoot these . . . probes?”

  “No. You have to hold it against an attacker’s body.” She reached into the mini fridge and pulled out an orange Fanta. “Would you like a cold beverage, hon?”

  I was tempted by the cool, neon orange color, but I was wired enough. “No, thank you. I can’t imagine holding a stun gun against a violent attacker. Sounds dicey.”

  “Right.” Attached to the side of the fridge was an antique-looking bottle opener. With a surprisingly strong motion, she whipped the bottle top off and sent it flying. “You would need to be strong and agile.” She waved an arm down her body. “Which I am not.”

  “Does a stun gun leave marks?”

  “According to an article in the Austin Gazette, a stun gun doesn’t always leave marks, and it won’t knock someone unconscious.”

  “No?” I digested her remark slowly. Part of my brain insisted the stun gun was an essential element in the death of Lucky Straw.

  “It definitely leaves marks sometimes because I saw a young man with marks on his arm that he said were caused by a stun gun.”

  “Where was this?”

  “On that reality show with the cops and the fugitives.”

  “Fugitives?”

  “Mostly they’re drunk folks who are driving under the influence. Those shows are just a ploy to raise money for police pensions, if you ask me.”

  “More likely the money goes to operating budgets.” It wasn’t hard to remember Lucky’s freckled chest covered with white curly hair. If there had been any marks, I was too rattled to see them.

  “If the victim is squirming or trying to get away, it would leave multiple marks.”

  I studied her sweet, motherly face. “Why are you interested in those cop shows, Mrs. McAllen?”

  She glanced at the walls and the floor, searching for an answer. “I sell weapons here, but I don’t know anything about them. Makes me curious as to why folks buy them and why they’re in such an all-fired hurry to get rid of them.”

  “There must be all kinds of laws you have to follow.” I didn’t have any doubt Mrs. McAllen knew more about the weapons she sold than she was letting on. What was interesting was why she didn’t want us to know.

  “Sure. But if someone tells me they want to buy or sell a gun, they have to deal with Bubba.”

  “He comes over here just for that?” Then I remembered the sign. “Only on Thursdays.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Folks have to plan ahead if they expect us to deal with something that could endanger us or our customers.”

  I wanted to laugh at her phraseology, but it wasn’t exactly humorous. The word endanger stuck out like lips on a chicken. Someone had stolen the weapons from Pinyon Pawn without her knowledge. Were they still in the area, preparing to wreak havoc on our community? Had they killed Lucky, though his body had shown no sign of struggle? Or moved on to another county to lie in wait for law enforcement or to attack another innocent victim?

  I stepped outside and found Lightfoot disconnecting his call. He flicked me a look as he made a note. “Either a man with a high voice or a woman with a low voice on steroids. Bubba’s words, not mine.”

  “How often do you see a break-in like this one?” I asked.

  He paused to remove his cowboy hat and smooth his hair back into his ponytail. “Goes in spurts until you catch the perpetrator.”

  “Once a month? Once a year? Every six months?”

  He watched me with amusement. “You need a ride?”

  I debated. If I rode with him, I could continue to pick his brain. However, if I drove my own car he might be called away or his usual reserve might slam back into place.

  “Sure.” Anthony or Uncle Eddie would readily give me a ride back to my car.

  “How often do break-ins occur in our county?” I asked as he held open the passenger door of the SUV.

  He waited to reply until he sat behind the wheel. “I’d say,” with a practiced motion, he started the SUV and threw it in reverse, “every three months on average.”

  I managed to pull the passenger door shut by
throwing my entire body weight into it. “What’s the next step when this happens?”

  With a wave to Barnes, he continued, “Check the wire for similar robberies, first in the neighboring counties—”

  “And then throughout the state?” I asked.

  “Yes. We run the prints and the MO. Usually we find a connection.”

  I studied him while he studied the road. In losing his uniform, he’d lost a good portion of his stodginess. “Almost immediately?” I asked just to keep the conversation going.

  He threw me an exasperated look. “What did I tell you about TV detectives?” We were blocks away from Main Street, but the traffic had slowed to a crawl.

  “They’re more handsome and intelligent than real detectives?” I smiled sweetly.

  We turned onto Main Street, driving under a street-wide banner declaring BROKEN BOOT’S CINCO DE MAYO, THE FUN FIESTA!

  “So you’re basically saying criminals are stupid?” I teased.

  His brow furrowed. “Stupid’s not the word I would use.” With deep consideration, he searched for the perfect word.

  “Too harsh?”

  We’d stopped at a light. An elderly couple as similar as twins with brown skin and dark hair threaded with silver crossed the street in front of us. Lightfoot’s gaze followed them until they made it safely to the other side.

  “Do your parents ever come to see you?”

  He glanced at the light, but though the light turned green, the traffic was backed up into the intersection. “Here?”

  I shook my head in mock frustration. “Where else?”

  He hesitated for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Once. I usually go to see them during my vacation.”

  “When was that?” I asked softly, yearning to coax more information out of him.

  “A couple of years ago.” Something in his face changed with the admission. He gave me a suspicious look as if I already knew the answer. “When I was serious about someone I was dating.”

  “Right. You mentioned her to Senora Mari when we rode to the station together that time when Anthony was in jail.”