Daisy nodded. “My mom will be there.”
She didn’t look any too happy about what was going to happen, but Beau got the phone number and called. Once he knew Daisy’s mother was on the way, he released her from the interrogation room and told Dixie to entertain the girl until her mother arrived.
“Sheriff?” the desk officer called out. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”
It was Robert Nieto from the pawnshop. Beau invited him into the room just vacated by Daisy Ruiz. He debated making the shop owner wait while he questioned Missy Malone, but the man wasn’t a suspect and was only doing his duty as a citizen. The woman could wait.
“Quite a day, Mr. Nieto,” Beau said as they took seats.
“No kidding. Well, anyway, you wanted me to make a statement about the robbery and my brother came in to watch the shop for me, so this was a good time.”
Beau thanked him and took notes. Nieto’s details matched Daisy’s story, and Beau felt relieved that the young girl had been telling the truth.
“Did she actually get away with any items from your shop?” Beau asked.
Nieto shook his head. “My glass display case has a big crack in it where she lunged with all her weight. A velveteen ring display went flying, with rings all over the place, but I crawled around and found them all, including the emerald in the guitar. Even the diamond she brought in to show me, which turned out not to be a diamond at all. It’s a decent cubic zirconia, but not worth more than fifty bucks or so. The setting’s cheap silver plate is all.”
“Since she didn’t actually take anything, all we can call this is attempted robbery and she’ll probably come up with a story about how she tripped and fell into the jewelry case. It’ll amount to your word against hers, although you do have a teenage witness on your side. You can press charges for the property damage and a judge might award you enough to replace the broken display case.”
“Truthfully, I’d just as soon be done with all this, Sheriff. My insurance will cover the broken glass and my brother’s a decent enough cabinet maker to replace it in the case for me.”
He thanked Nieto for coming by and they shook hands at the door.
Beau repressed a sigh. He didn’t blame the guy a bit, and he had no charge serious enough to get Missy Malone locked away. If what Sam said proved true, the woman was a habitual thief and liar, but there was simply not enough evidence—nothing she wouldn’t deny every which way—to arrest her. He had no choice but to release her. However, she didn’t need to know that, not quite yet.
Through the one-way glass in the room where Missy sat, Beau observed her for a couple minutes. She sat in the chair with her back to the mirror, a sign she knew he would be watching. Walters had evidently offered her a soda—the can sat on the otherwise empty table. Well, he couldn’t arrest her for the diamond ring incident, but he might be able to shake her up enough she would take his warning seriously when he advised her to leave town and conduct her activities elsewhere.
Chapter 27
Stan Bookman reveled in his breakfast burrito, exclaiming over the green chile sauce, which the Taoseño tended to make on the hot side.
“You know, one of the things about traveling a lot is sometimes it becomes confusing which meal you’re supposed to be eating. The thing I find about breakfast is that it grounds me, makes me feel like I’m home, no matter what time of day I eat it,” he said, digging into another bite of the egg, bacon, potato and cheese combination in its tortilla covering. “That’s why I love local restaurants, where I can order breakfast anytime.”
Sam smiled over her own carne adovada burrito. She couldn’t disagree.
“So, tell me, on this new world tour you’ll be doing, which is your favorite destination?”
He paused for only a moment. “Machu Picchu, in Peru. No doubt. It’s not quick to get there, but when you’re standing among those ruins you feel such a sense of peace, and the silence is … sublime. I guess that’s the only way to describe it. Especially when the clouds are misty over the surrounding mountains. I can imagine myself as one of the ancient people who lived there.”
“I get that feeling when I step out our back door at the ranch,” Sam said. “I love to look up at the stars and realize the sky goes on infinitely.”
He nodded and she felt as if he had gone back to that faraway place for a minute. They’d certainly left the realm of burritos.
“Tell me, what’s the flavor of the place?” she asked.
“Hmm …” His sharp eyes focused back on Sam again. “I know what you’re asking. What flavor will remind our passengers of their trip, right?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“Can green be captured as a flavor? It’s dewy and moist … mossy. What about that—moss? Is it a flavor?”
Sam laughed. “I don’t think so. But you’ve given me some ideas to think about.”
Stan scraped the last of his chile sauce from his plate, pushed it back, and excused himself to go to the restroom. He asked Sam to order him a cup of coffee when the waitress came around.
Moss. How will I capture something so ordinary yet so exotic and make it a chocolate flavor? And what about the many other locations on his travel itinerary? She opened the folder she’d brought with her and jotted notes about the clouds and mist.
Down in her pocket, her phone buzzed. She pulled it out and looked, hoping Beau was thinking of joining them. No such luck—it was Delbert Crow.
Her old supervisor was never in a good mood at the end of the day. Face it, she thought, he’s never really in a good mood. He’d be nagging about the status of that house she’d offered to help Sadie Holmes with, and she didn’t have any news for Delbert. The plumber wasn’t due to fix the broken pipe for another week, although Sam had to admit, in the old days when this was her job she would have at least checked on the place a time or two more, making sure no additional damage had occurred. When she spotted Stan Bookman headed back to the table, she let Delbert’s call go to voicemail.
They feasted on sopapillas drenched in honey for dessert while they talked about ideas for the new line of chocolates.
“Our world travel itinerary initially won’t have a lot of passengers,” Bookman said over coffee, “but we want the chocolate designs and flavors—even the boxes themselves—specific for each country. We’ve configured two of our larger jets so eighty passengers will ride in spacious comfort. Eighty pax, that’s forty couples. Each couple will receive a box of candy when the flight departs for the next destination, an introduction to the tastes and themes of the upcoming country on the itinerary.”
“How many chocolate pieces would you like per box?”
“Not an overabundance, since it’s the flavor and shape that will really speak to them. Maybe a dozen pieces. What do you think?”
Sam looked at the schedule he had emailed. Nine countries. Quick math told her she would be making more than four thousand pieces of chocolate each time one of his worldwide tours kicked off. Not to mention finding boxes to represent each of the nine countries. Forty of each wouldn’t be enough to commission mass production of each theme box, but stumbling across enough of them in a standard retail store would be impossible. Challenges abounded.
“We haven’t talked price yet,” Stan said, signaling the waitress for their check. “Can you do it for two hundred a box?”
Two hundred dollars—each? Sam felt her eyes widen. “I want to be fair with you …”
“Sam, you’ve always been fair. This isn’t about the money. The amenities are built into the price we charge the client, and these people can afford anything. With them, quality is everything, Sam, and I know you won’t let me down.”
He picked up the check and headed for the cash register while Sam gathered her papers.
It was a two-edged sword—with such generous money came extremely high expectations. Would she be able to prove herself this time?
She arrived home, after dropping Mr
. Bookman at his hotel, to find Beau taking a carton of ice cream from the freezer.
“Want some?” he asked, holding up Caramel Ribbon Delight.
“No thanks, I’m stuffed.”
“Good meeting?”
“Challenging. How was your day?”
“The same. Didn’t have firm enough charges to hold your Missy Malone, but I let her know we were aware of the shoplifting and would be keeping an eye on her.”
“I wonder if she’ll be popping in at my shop again.”
“Let me know if she does.” He eyed the heap of ice cream he had scooped into his bowl and put one of the mounds back into the carton.
Sam carried her folder to the living room and tried to come up with ideas for Bookman’s project, but it had been a long day and her mind refused to do any more work. A glance showed Beau dozing in his recliner in a haze of ice-cream overload, so she suggested they go to bed.
Her dreams were filled with images of foreign cities with market tables laden with unfamiliar foods and spices. By five in the morning, she’d been at the kitchen table for an hour, making lists, and thirty minutes later she was at Sweet’s Sweets, where she spent some time online looking at images of the world-tour destinations.
Out of curiosity, she went to Book It Travel’s website and found the description of the trip. A person could feed a third-world village for a year for the amount of money these rich folks would spend on their month-long trip. They must truly have unlimited funds. Maybe they were all lottery winners. She shook off the notion when she heard Jen’s voice out front. Lost in the online world, she’d barely registered the arrival of her employees.
“Sam, could we talk a minute?” Jen was standing beside her, fidgeting.
“Sure.” They walked to the sales room, where the nighttime lighting was still on and the coffee hadn’t been started yet.
“Was Missy arrested yesterday?” Jen asked. “Mrs. Chaves came by to pick up her cake and said she’d just driven down Gallegos Road and recognized one of our customers being put into a Sheriff’s Department vehicle. The description sounded a lot like Missy, especially when Mrs. C said it was the lady who always bought a truffle.”
“Yeah, it was Missy.” Sam told the little she knew about the situation, ending with the fact Beau had not been able to hold her. “Just be careful, if she comes around again. We don’t know that she stole the little gifts she brought us, but it kind of fits with the rest of what happened.”
“Ohmygod, I can’t believe it. I was completely taken in by her.” Jen reached behind her neck and unhooked her pendant chain. “I want to take this back to the shop. And the jade unicorn, too.”
Sam thought of the carved cupcake Missy had given her. “Good idea. I know the place. I’ll take these and show them to the owner. If they’re the pieces she was missing, I’ll let her know she can contact Beau.”
“I feel so stupid, Sam. She completely fooled me, with all that talk about how rich she was, how she and her husband know so many important people, that they own two homes and have traveled all over the world. She must have seen me as a dumb little small-town girl.” Jen’s voice became husky and her nose turned pink.
Sam handed her a tissue. “Don’t cry over it, sweetie. She’s not worth the effort. People like that … well, I guess they have a way of spotting those of us who would trust them.”
“But you didn’t trust her, Sam. You saw what she was like.”
“I noticed a few little clues, that’s all. I had no idea she was anything beyond a shoplifter, and I had no proof of that.” Sam had moved to the beverage bar where she measured coffee, started the machine, and put water on to boil for the tea.
“Well, if she comes here again, I won’t let her in the door.”
Sam was stacking cups and paused. “Actually, it might be interesting to see how it would play out if she did come in. I’m curious whether she would act as if nothing’s happened.”
Missy knew Beau was connected with the shop, though—odds were she’d never show up again.
Chapter 28
“I feel like we’re spinning our wheels. We’ve made no progress at all toward solving Percy Lukinger’s murder,” Beau said. “All this effort to locate his wife—and why? We need to be reconstructing his last few days. See who he was in contact with, who might have had motive to go after him.”
Rico sighed. “Doing the best I can, boss, but watching these videos is a drag.”
“I know. Didn’t mean to point fingers. Ninety percent of police work is a drag.”
Travis spoke up. “I’ve got something over here. The prints on those brochures match Ramona Lukinger, for what it’s worth.”
“Well, it proves she was in on the home repair scams with her husband. So we now have reason to go after her. At least one of their victims can place the pair together, and she would be willing to sign a statement and press charges.” His mood plummeted almost as quickly as it had risen. They still had no address or vehicle description for Ramona.
“Whoa! Wait, wait, wait … Look what just came up.” Travis was practically bouncing in his chair.
Beau crossed the room and looked over the deputy’s shoulder. On the computer screen was a line of data about Ramona Lukinger.
“What—?”
“Woo—I knew that hunch would pay off,” Travis said. “I just had no idea—”
“What hunch are we talking about?”
“When it turned out we couldn’t hold Missy Malone last night, I just couldn’t let her get away without so much as a photo or a fingerprint. So, I took the can from the Coke she drank, dusted it, and ran the prints. This is what came back,” Travis said, triumphantly pointing at his screen. “Missy Malone is Ramona Lukinger.”
“No—” Beau was about to say ‘no way’ but something held him back.
Crap. He had not only let her go but had as much as ordered her to leave town.
How had he not recognized her, after carrying Ramona’s license photo around with him for days? He dashed to his desk and retrieved Ramona’s picture. The dark hair, fuller face, eye color … nothing about the photo would have immediately told him this was petite, blonde Missy Malone. He took the picture to the squad room and asked Rico, Travis, and two other deputies to look at it.
Tell me I’m not crazy, he thought.
Travis was the first to speak. “You’re saying this is the same woman we had in custody yesterday? I don’t see it.”
“We’ve had witnesses who’ve described Ramona Lukinger with black hair, with blonde hair, and now I’m beginning to think the redhead in the casino video—the one who approaches Percy while keeping her face hidden from the camera—I’m thinking that could be her as well.”
Rico took the picture and studied it. “The height and weight don’t seem right. Missy Malone was no 150 pounds. I’d guess her at 110, max.”
Beau smiled at the image of his young deputy as a weight-guesser.
Rico squared his shoulders. “Hey—it’s a well-known fact that men will lie about their height, women lie about their weight.”
“Never saw one who lied with a higher number—they always want to be thinner than they are,” Travis observed.
“Unless they have a reason not to have their license photo actually look like them.” Beau studied the picture again.
In Ramona’s California photo, she wore almost no makeup, had her dark hair hanging in front of her face a bit, and must have been wearing dark brown contact lenses. No smile, and a little air puffed into her cheeks—yeah, she could have passed for heavier. Missy, on the other hand, had a very animated face—both when she was screaming in the pawn shop, and later when she’d turned friendly in the car.
Shit. The car. Her flirty manner and offer to ‘work something out’ had come right after he had ushered her into the back seat on the right-hand side. She must have spotted the religious pamphlets in their plastic bag on the front seat. She knew he was close to identifying Ram
ona.
Again, he kicked himself for having sent her packing.
Travis was back at his computer screen. “Boss, I’ve got something more. Electric company has a service address for a Missy Malone.”
Beau could almost bet money on how this would turn out, but he had to check it out.
“Walters, come with me. Travis, keep up the background check in California where Ramona got her driver’s license. Rico, sorry to say this, but keep watching those videos and this time be extra vigilant for Missy Malone sighted anywhere near Percy.”
Beau worked at piecing it together as he drove toward the address Travis provided. He wished it was Sam riding along in the seat beside him. She was observant and sharp, and a hell of a lot more fun as a deputy than Walters. He’d never had the chance to ask more about her big chocolate contract. It seemed business and work were keeping them apart more and more these days. Would they ever again have spare time to spend together?
The apartment was located in a tan-stuccoed two-story building with dark brown trim, ten apartments on the ground level, ten above. The place was so ordinary it could be any of a dozen around town. Which might have been exactly the reason the Lukingers chose it. Few cars were parked out front, and he didn’t hold very high hopes for actually running into Missy, er, Ramona. He pulled up to the on-site office and rapped at the manager’s door.
“I’m not sure I can let you inside if the tenant isn’t there,” the timid twenty-ish woman told him. Her television set blared with the cast of some talk show where all five hosts talked at once. A baby screamed in the background.
“I can come back with a warrant,” he said. This was where Sam would have an idea that would get him much quicker answers.
The young woman sent an annoyed glance toward the middle of the room and told Beau to hang on a moment. She came back with a key to apartment eight.
“Are these places rented furnished or unfurnished?” he asked.
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