Honeymoons Can Be Murder: The Sixth Charlie Parker Mystery (The Charlie Parker Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  We relinquished our coats to a young girl who said she was putting them in the back bedroom, then found Eloy in the dining room. A lavish array of food was spread out—everything from pots of pinto beans to casseroles and salads.

  “Here,” he said. “have something to eat.”

  We protested that we’d just eaten a huge breakfast, but I had to admit everything smelled wonderful.

  “Your sister has great taste in furnishings,” I said.

  His mouth did a little twitch. “A little ahead of Mike’s earning power, I think,” he said. “But it’s none of my business if they want to live off credit cards.”

  We had moved into a corner of the breakfast room, away from the others, Eloy with a fully loaded plate and Drake and I, amazingly, each taking a small bowl of green chile stew.

  “I’m not going to stick around for too much of this family stuff,” Eloy said. “You guys still want to come to my place?”

  “If Drake’s leg holds out we will,” I told him between mouthfuls of the delicious stew.

  I filled him in briefly on our adventure the previous day. “So our cabin was full of stolen treasure?” he said incredulously. He shook his head in amazement. “I wonder how long it had been there. And who built those hidden compartments behind the bookshelves? My father built the cabin, probably forty years ago, but I sure don’t remember ever hearing about any secret hiding places.”

  “What hiding places?” Mike Ortiz had come through the kitchen and stood beside Eloy.

  “At the cabin,” Eloy told him. “Remember when we were kids and went up there in the summer for picnics all the time? Did Dad ever tell you he’d built hidden compartments behind the bookshelves?”

  “No. I never knew that. What about them?”

  “Charlie and Drake found a bunch of stolen artifacts from the church in there. The police caught two men who were involved in a major theft ring.”

  “Unfortunately, Ramon was involved in it too . . .,” I began. Suddenly I knew exactly what had happened. I craned my neck to find Steve Romero but didn’t see him.

  “Excuse me,” I said. I left the men chatting and hoped I looked like I was heading for the powder room.

  I didn’t find Steve in the living room or dining room. I didn’t remember seeing him since the cemetery and decided he probably hadn’t come. I couldn’t very well make a phone call from here, but if we left we might just pop in at the police station before going to Eloy’s. I followed a hall past a bathroom and a study and came to the bedroom with coats piled over the bed. I was rummaging through them, looking for ours when I heard the door click shut behind me.

  Chapter 30

  “When did you figure it out, Charlie?”

  I spun to find Mike Ortiz pointing a gun at me. I clutched my coat to my chest, my heart beating furiously.

  “The clues have been there all along, Mike. You surely don’t believe that I’m the only one who suspected you.” I sure hoped someone else did, anyway.

  He chuckled. “There’s nothing to connect me. I’ve been very careful. For years.”

  “You don’t think you left a single fingerprint when you built those hidden compartments?”

  “My prints are all over that cabin, I’m sure. It’s a family place. I’ve been there many times.”

  “It was pretty smart of you to insert yourself as a middleman, ready to take a cut of all the stolen artifacts, Mike.”

  His face became scornful. “Ramon was such a dupe. I guess he thought his saintly image would remain intact if he didn’t deal directly with Palais and his bunch,” he smirked. “He came to me for legal advice on the whole thing. He just didn’t figure out that, with him out of the way, I’d end up with all his mother’s property and all the artifacts.”

  “So, why didn’t you retrieve the stuff and sell it long before now? After you shot Ramon, no one else knew where it was.”

  “Well, I have to admit I was a bit intimidated by Leon. He stayed in regular touch over the years and let me know he was keeping tabs on my moves through a series of people he put in place here in town.”

  “Like the fine, upstanding Father Ralph.”

  “Him, and others. I was hoping Leon would disappear, or at least stop watching long enough for me to make a move. I owe you a debt of thanks on that. You got him out of the way for me. Unfortunately, most of the treasure went along with him.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Enough to take care of me for awhile,” he said smugly. “And now I’ve got to take care of you because I’m not going to have the authorities chasing me down. A month from now I’ll be on a beach in Mexico, blending into the population. It doesn’t take much to live in Mexico.”

  “I can figure out how you got Eloy’s gun from the closet and used it to kill Ramon, but how does the pawn ticket come into it?” I asked.

  “That part nearly tripped things up,” he admitted. “Ramon and Eloy’d had a big fight a few days before Ramon died. I thought it was a sure thing that the cops would suspect Eloy. I’d already returned the damn gun to his closet and I was just waiting for them to come get him. But it didn’t happen.”

  “And?” I said, diverting his attention away from a noise in the hall.

  “So I took the gun again and pawned it in Albuquerque, using Eloy’s name. A couple of days later I retrieved it but kept the ticket, which I left at the church in Albuquerque. The cops were really working the murder case right then—I just knew they’d find the ticket and make the connection. Eloy would get blamed for the murder, but no way could they tie it to me.”

  “But somehow the ticket got lost in the other priest’s things and was only found recently,” I finished.

  “And of course I’d wiped the gun clean and put it back long before then,” he gloated.

  “A perfect frame,” I said. “With both Eloy and Ramon out of the way, Maria would inherit everything. You’d get rid of her and end up with the whole inheritance, plus a fortune in artifacts.” I gripped the cloth of my coat. “What about Maria now?”

  “Let her hard working brother support her. I’ve recently liquidated a lot of the real estate Consuelo owned, put the money in a separate bank account. Which, by this time tomorrow, will be empty. Maria knew I wasn’t making it as a lawyer, but she insisted on nice furniture, fine art, hanging out with the upper crust of this town. Her credit cards are all maxed out. Let her figure out what to do next. When they read that will, they’re both going to discover that their inheritance won’t cover the bills for more than a few months.” His perfect white teeth gleamed in a grin that showed no hint of humor. His eyes showed not a trace of compassion.

  “So, like I said,” he continued, “now it’s time to get rid of you.”

  He grabbed an overcoat from the pile on the bed and slipped his arms into it, keeping the gun trained on me all the time.

  “Put your coat on, Charlie. We’re going to pretend we both just decided to step outside at the same moment.” He opened the bedroom door and stood aside. “Just remember that I’ll have the gun in my pocket.”

  Experience does teach us things and one thing I knew was that I had no intention of being led away to my death twice in as many days. I lunged toward Mike and threw my coat over his head. Grabbing the door knob I dashed into the hall and pulled the door shut behind me. Unfortunately, he was quick and his gun hand made it to the edge of the door before it closed. The door caught him at the wrist and I spun to see the gun in his hand. His index finger still in the trigger guard, the gun wafted about, pointing at the floor, then the opposite wall. I still had a grip on the knob so I gave it a hard yank, hoping to dislodge the gun.

  Instead, his fingers contracted and the pistol went off.

  Chapter 31

  For a second the percussion rang against the walls and the tile floor. Then I went deaf. I kicked his hand and knocked the gun to the floor where it slid the remaining length of the hall and came to rest under a small table. My hearing gradually returned.

  M
ike pulled his hand back inside and slammed the door. The lock clicked.

  “What the hell!” Voices from other parts of the house clamored in surprise.

  “Charlie, what’s happened?” Eloy appeared at my side, with Drake limping right behind him.

  “It’s Mike. He’s the killer.”

  Skeptical faces appeared, crowding into the narrow space. A crash from behind the closed door startled them all.

  “Quick, he’ll get away,” I shouted. “He’s going out the window.”

  Eloy threw himself against the locked door, splintering the frame, then dashed into the bedroom. Although Mike hadn’t made lots of money as an attorney, he’d eaten well over the years and was a tad on the slow side trying to heft himself out the open window. Eloy the outdoorsman had no trouble grabbing him before he’d made any progress. Drake rushed past me and by the time I looked into the room Mike was face down on the floor with Eloy straddling his back and pinning his hands. Drake had his foot on Mike’s neck for good measure.

  “Is Steve in the house?” I called out to the crowd in the hall. “If not, call him. If you can’t get him, get the police over here.”

  I left Drake and Eloy in charge of the prisoner and went to find Maria. Eloy’s petite sister was standing in the kitchen, her face white with shock.

  “Maria?”

  Her eyes welled over and she turned to stare out the window.

  “Did you know?” I asked gently.

  She shook her head negatively, then gradually rolled the motion over into a nod. “I suspected.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No. I don’t know.” She reached for a box of tissues on the countertop. “He always talked about how we’d really be set for life one day. Every time I’d see something in the store I liked, he say, ‘Buy it. We’re going to have plenty of money soon.’ It worried me.” She hung her head. “I guess it didn’t worry me enough. I kept buying things.

  “I really thought he meant he would start making more money in his law practice. Maybe he had a big case going or something. I don’t know. He never gave me details. After Ramon died, he told Mama she should redo her will. He got kind of pushy with her. When it was done, I sneaked a peek. He kept it in his study here at home.

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t understand a lot of that legal language, but it looked like it included money for him, whether he stayed married to me or not. Like he’d get part of Mama’s property even if he wasn’t in the family any more. He’d never said anything about us splitting up, but I started to wonder. I started to pay attention to little things, little comments.”

  She balled up one tissue and aimed it at the trash can. It missed but she ignored it. She reached for a fresh one.

  “I started to think that he was planning to leave me.”

  “He told me he’d secretly sold a lot of your mother’s property and he planned to be carefree on a beach somewhere within a month.” I got the feeling my statement didn’t come as a surprise.

  A commotion from the front of the house told me that the police had arrived.

  “Did you think Mike might have killed Ramon?” I tried to be gentle with the question but it wasn’t the kind of thing you can phrase delicately.

  “I suspected it at the time, but then I started to think I was crazy,” she sobbed. “Right before Ramon died, he and Mike had several bad arguments. He’d come over here and they would lock themselves in Mike’s study. I could hear voices through the door, angry voices. Once I caught the word ‘stealing’ when they were shouting at each other. Ramon would leave and Mike would stay in a foul mood for hours.”

  “Was Mike here the night Ramon was shot?” I asked.

  “That’s just the thing. No, he wasn’t. He said he’d had a late dinner meeting with a client in Santa Fe and he’d just stay over. At first I thought there might be another woman. I was so obsessed with that idea that I didn’t put two and two together. When Ramon died so violently it shook us all. Eloy and Ramon had never been close—they were just too different. Mama and I only had each other to grieve with and I spent a lot of time at her house.

  “It was only after Mike made her rewrite her will and a few other things came to my attention that I remembered he wasn’t home the night Ramon was killed. The thoughts that came into my mind were just too terrible to think about.”

  A couple of other women came into the kitchen and I slipped out to find out what was happening down the hall. I arrived in the foyer to see Mike being hauled out in cuffs. He gave me a hateful stare. I’d wrecked years worth of his planning.

  “Charlie, we’ll need to come out to the cabin and see what other evidence we might find,” Steve said, coming up beside me.

  “Sure. I can fill you in on everything he told me. As a lawyer, I’m sure he’ll know better than to give you guys a confession, but maybe some of the stuff he said to me will help you get the hard evidence you need.”

  He nodded and set a time to come out in the afternoon. “Glad to see your cold is better.” He winked.

  “Talk to Maria,” I suggested. “Something tells me she might be willing to waive the right not to testify against her husband.”

  Chapter 32

  Drake and I have settled nicely back into honeymoon mode. With his leg injury he can’t do much flying, although it hasn’t prevented him from doing anything really important. I’ve taken a couple of his short charters and am becoming a halfway decent pilot. We finally made it to Taos where we visited the jeweler and chose beautiful matching bands of gold and turquoise.

  Eloy offered us the use of the cabin for as long as we want, rent free. He said he couldn’t thank me enough for saving his life and catching Ramon’s real killer, and a bunch of other embarrassing stuff. Drake and I talked about it and decided that prolonging the honeymoon an extra month, until our house was finished, wouldn’t be half bad.

  Rusty is well on the road to recovery, joining us at the cabin again four days after our hurried trip to the vet. He’s occasionally shaky on his feet, but I caught him barking at another treed squirrel, so I’d have to say he’s quickly returning to his old self.

  After Steve and his crew had finished searching the cabin, there were enough stolen artifacts, along with the now-verified pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls, to put Mike away on that count alone. With the addition of the murder charge, the illegal sale of his mother-in-law’s property without her knowledge, and the fraudulent changing of her will, Mike Ortiz will be spending a lot of time in Santa Fe, courtesy of the New Mexico Corrections Department.

  Fred and Susie Montgomery sent Ron a check for the cost of the investigation of Monica Francis, plus a little extra they said was to be a wedding gift to Drake and me. They included a picture of themselves in lounge chairs by the pool of a southern California mansion, palm trees and tons of flowering bougainvillea in the background, toasting the camera with full champagne glasses. The inscription “Come visit anytime” was hand written on the back of the photo.

  Ron and I had a nice long conversation. It seems Anton and Ralph are each facing their own sets of problems. Anton’s include grand theft and flight to avoid prosecution. Ralph has a number of aiding and abetting charges. His jail time might not be burdensome, but I have the feeling the church’s higher connections will deal with him.

  Ron told me I’d received a letter from Rome, which he forwarded to Eloy’s mailbox and I picked up yesterday. It was a letter on Vatican stationery, commending me for my dedication to the Catholic church and service to the Lord in returning priceless church property. And to think, I’d never even set foot in a Catholic church until a month ago. Included with the official typed letter was a thick, cream colored notecard, embossed in gold, with a personal thanks from you-know-who, himself.

  Books

  by Connie Shelton

  The Charlie Parker Series

  Deadly Gamble

  Vacations Can Be Murder

  Partnerships Can Be Murder

  Small Towns Can Be Mu
rder

  Memories Can Be Murder

  Honeymoons Can Be Murder

  Reunions Can Be Murder

  Competition Can Be Murder

  Balloons Can Be Murder

  Obsessions Can Be Murder

  Gossip Can Be Murder

  Stardom Can Be Murder

  Holidays Can Be Murder - a Christmas novella

  The Samantha Sweet Series

  Sweet Masterpiece

  Sweet’s Sweets

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  Honeymoons Can Be Murder

  Published by Secret Staircase Books, an imprint of

  Columbine Publishing Group

  PO Box 416, Angel Fire, NM 87710

  Copyright © 2001 Connie Shelton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places or organizations are unintentional.