8 Sweet Payback (16 page)

Chapter
18

Sam sat in her truck after
watching Mary the witch drive away. Interesting meeting, although she was a
little disappointed that it hadn’t given her a solid lead to anyone who’d known
Bertha Martinez. Curious, though, that Mary had detected nothing unusual about
the wooden box, and clearly she’d gotten no reaction like the electric-jolt
feeling that had shot through Sam the first time she ever touched it.

All these questions about the box
were beginning to make Sam wonder why she was bothering with this. She’d gotten
no reaction when she handled the other box, the one at her uncle’s house, even
though it looked almost identical to hers. The thought had crossed her mind
more than once that Bertha’s words, saying that Sam was intended to own the
box, meant more than that the old woman was giving Sam a simple gift. There was
a relationship—although that sounded weird to her—between herself and this
particular item. Maybe there were dozens of these things out in the world, each
supposed to bond with a different person. But then, that was too much like
believing she’d been chosen for some higher purpose. Her head started to ache
whenever she got into the whole convoluted mess of thoughts.

She reached into her pack for her
keys and came across the scrap of paper where she’d written the name and
address of that man who owned the big white house. Now
there
was something she could do that had absolutely no woo-woo
factor at all.

Maybe she
would
have to get one of those phones with maps integrated into it,
Sam decided as she tried to follow the written directions in an area where half
the roads were named but didn’t happen to have signage. After a couple of
missed turns, she spotted someone’s hand-written sign that corresponded to a
name Kelly had given her. Apparently the residents were tired of having
visitors and deliveries lost along the way.

A curve in the road, another turn
where the sign was obscured by shrubbery and she finally came to a spread with
a long white fence surrounding at least forty acres of horse pasture, with a
rambling adobe house as the centerpiece. She rechecked the address. This was
where a man lived who was letting his other house go for back taxes?

You never know, she reminded
herself, pulling into the long driveway that led to a circular roundabout with
a bubbling granite fountain at its center. The house was laid out in two
symmetrical wings, one of which contained a five-car garage with rustic wooden
doors that faced perpendicular to the road. Outside one of the garages sat a
gleaming antique car—maybe a Rolls Royce or Duesenberg—Sam wasn’t sure. The residence’s
front door was eight feet wide, consisting of two elaborately carved Mexican-style
panels with curved wrought iron hardware. Now
that
was a lock that would not be easy to pick.

She pressed a button beside the
door and cringed as the notes of “La Cucaracha” echoed through the interior.
Uck
. Just when she believed the estate to have been done in
exquisite taste. Her second clue to her mistake came when the door was answered
by a man in surfer shorts and sandals, holding a margarita. He wore his faded blonde
hair longish and combed straight back from an extremely receded hairline.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “I thought
you’d be Val. Guess he’s running late.”

“I’m looking for Linden Gisner,”
Sam said.

“You got him. C’mon in. It’s happy
hour—or at least it’s five o’clock somewhere. Like, right
here
—in my salon.” He chuckled at his own hilarity as he turned his
back, assuming she would follow. She closed the door behind her and trailed
along through a wide foyer tiled in Saltillo so shiny it might have been
underwater. At the back of the house a room lined with windows faced south—what
was with this guy and windows anyway? Furnishings consisted of wicker pieces
with lots of turquoise, yellow and red cushions, and a long Mexican bar filled
one side of the room. Gisner had stepped over to it and was about to pour Sam a
margarita before asking whether she wanted one. She declined with a smile.

“Your loss. I make an amazing
margarita.”

She would have to take his word
for it.

“Rest of the gang should be along
soon. Julia said she’d try to make it today. Val’s definitely coming.”

It dawned on Sam that he was
talking about some of the Hollywood elite who loved to hang around Taos. If she
didn’t get her questions answered soon, she wouldn’t get the chance. She gave
the quick rundown on who she was and why she’d stopped by.

“Ah, Sembramos,” he said. “I named
the house Heathermoor, after my wife. Well, then the bitch ran off—I’m sure it
was with that jackass electrician who came around all the time—and I was left
to raise a child
and
try to finish
the house
and
handle my business,
which was keeping me going twenty-four-seven.” He stared out the windows where
four thoroughbred horses grazed on grass so brilliantly green that it had to be
sucking water out of the aquifer like crazy. “It all came to a stop when my
daughter died. I could not think, much less keep juggling all the balls at
once.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Two
awkward minutes passed while Sam tried to think of something comforting to say.

Gisner raised his margarita glass.
“Well, here’s to times past. Luckily, times present are far happier.”

He looked toward the foyer, where
a young blonde woman with lots of tan skin crossed to another room, giving him
a flirty smile on the way. He smiled right back and the solemn moment vanished.

Sam cleared her throat. “Well, I
just wanted to let you know about the tax auction. If you want to get things
caught up, you could save the place.” She handed him one of the cards that the
USDA had issued her when she began her contract with the agency.

“Yeah, yeah, I suppose I should do
that.” But his eyes were on the doorway where the blonde had disappeared.

The whole time she was telling him
about tax payments she had to wonder—if he had this kind of money and
connections maybe the other house truly didn’t mean that much to him. He certainly
didn’t act like it. She thought of the rumors of big real estate deals, Jen’s
story of the man who’d breezed into the gallery to shop for expensive art, the
empty white mansion. A completely different world.

The “Cucaracha” door chimes went
off again, and Gisner happily floated off to answer. Shouts and enthusiastic
greetings attested to the likelihood that the guests had started happy hour
somewhere else. Sam didn’t want to get caught up in this odd, artificial place.
Being at home and seeing Beau had great appeal right now. She edged to the
doorway and when ten lively partiers drifted into the salon she slipped out,
pleased to see that their Jaguars and BMWs hadn’t blocked her truck.

The sun sat low in the sky when
Sam reached the other end of town and turned toward home. The sight of their
comfortable log house and the two dogs on the porch warmed her heart; she’d had
a full afternoon of oddball people and situations. Beau rose from the long
dining table and held her close.

“Rough day?” he asked.

“Strange day. But then, we’ve had
a lot of those recently, haven’t we?” Sam glanced at the pages from the Angela
Cayne file where he had been working. “Want some help with that?”

“Later. I’m starving.”

While they prepared a salad for
dinner Beau told her he’d met Lee Rodarte’s parents. “They’ve lived with grief
for so long; there’s just a permanent air of sadness around them. But not
hostility. I don’t ever like to discount the idea that anyone can commit
murder, but I just don’t see these as the people who would have taken a
high-power rifle out to the woods to get rid of Jessie Starkey.”

“Sure doesn’t sound like it.” Sam
set their plates on the kitchen table. “So. Do you feel any closer to figuring
this out?”

“Not really. Jessie Starkey was
only back in town a couple of days before his killer caught up with him.
Someone who harbored the old resentment might have heard the news of his
release and started to stalk him, but they would have had to be well organized.
I mean, it’s not easy to take a gun on an airplane, so for it to be Angela
Cayne’s father he would have had to drive from Houston, which is a day and a
half at least, or fly in and risk a paper trail or have someone ready to give
him a weapon. You can’t buy one that fast, with background checks and three-day
waits and all. So he would have almost needed advance word that Jesse was
getting out. I’ve got the Houston police checking his alibi for Easter Sunday
morning, but I’m thinking he’s less and less viable as a suspect. Not ruling
him out entirely though.”

“And Lee’s killer?”

“Well, we know Cayne couldn’t have
done that. We’d already started looking at him, and the Houston cops assure me
he hasn’t left the city in recent days.”

“And, from Mr. Cayne’s standpoint,
would there be any point to coming out here to get rid of one of his daughter’s
killers unless he stayed to get them both?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Beau said, absentmindedly
swabbing a lettuce leaf into salad dressing.

“So, if the Cayne family is
clear—”

“Wait a second . . . I’m thinking
all along about Alan and Tracy Cayne, the parents. But Angela had a brother
too. He was in his teens—” Beau dropped his fork and rushed into the living
room.

By the time Sam caught up with him
he was riffling through one of the paper stacks.

“Someone had mentioned . . . hang
on . . . Here it is.” He ran his finger down one of the newspaper article
copies Sam had brought home. He quickly read the piece and looked up at Sam.
“Matthew Cayne approached Lee Rodarte in the hallway at the courthouse, as the
trial was getting started. The brother was only fifteen at the time but he got
right in Rodarte’s face and threatened him. Words to the effect that he better
not think he could get away with this.”

“So, he may have harbored that anger
over the years and when he heard the two men got out of prison . . .”

“Exactly.” Beau tapped his fingers
against his thumb, counting. “He’s twenty-two now. I better see what he’s doing
these days.”

He dropped the page, picked up his
phone and within a minute was in conversation with the detective he’d been
working with in Houston. Sam went back to the kitchen, realized that the remaining
salad on their plates would never be touched, so she dumped the scraps and put
the dishes into the dishwasher. She was measuring coffee into the filter basket
when Beau walked in.

“Bits and pieces,” he said,
picking up a cookie from the bakery box she’d set out. “Alan Cayne’s alibi for
the weekend checks out. He never left Houston. I asked if the son, Matthew,
still lived at home. Detective Barnes didn’t recall, but he will check on that.
He says he’ll get back—”

His phone rang and he made a dash
back to the living room. By the time Sam was pouring from their little two-cup
carafe, he’d come back, a gleam in his eye.

“Well, this could get
interesting,” he said. “Matthew Cayne no longer lives in Houston. He joined the
Air Force. And he’s stationed at Kirtland Base, in Albuquerque. Less than three
hours away. He has firearms training and access to the local news. I’d say it’s
worth a bit of my time to drive down there in the morning.”

Chapter
19

The miles peeled away, dry desert
becoming drier as Beau went south. Without some rain soon, the whole state
might be in for a bad fire season again. And typically, if that rain didn’t
fall this month, it probably wouldn’t come until after the searing heat of June
and July had baked the landscape even crisper. At the outskirts of Albuquerque
he adjusted his thinking and his driving to cope with the packed traffic on the
corridor of Interstate 25 that ran through the center of the state’s largest
city.

Kirtland Air Force Base, which
actually housed soldiers from several branches of service, was simple to get
to. Stay on the freeway all the way through Albuquerque. Exit at Gibson, near
the airport, which shared its runways with the base. He’d called ahead and
gotten the name of Matthew Cayne’s commanding officer who, by the time Beau got
there, should have arranged a meeting. Two soldiers who looked as if they
shouldn’t even be shaving yet stopped him at the gate, asked for ID, checked
his name against a list, and made a phone call before issuing him a guest pass.

His own military stint was
twenty-five years in the past but the layout and procedures still felt familiar
to Beau. Some things were indelibly imprinted on your mind, he supposed. Either
that, or some things never changed. There were more women walking around and
the base housing looked nicer; those were about the only differences Beau
noticed. He followed the set of turns described by the guard and pulled up in
front of a two-story generic tan, concrete block building. A young man with a
shaved head, wearing fatigues and staff sergeant stripes, met him and eyed
Beau’s uniform. After no-nonsense introductions, SSgt Lopez showed Beau into a
depressing square room with shiny beige paint, a rectangular table and four
metal chairs. Beau stared at posters touting equal opportunity and warning
what-all constituted sexual harassment these days. Five minutes later the staff
sergeant was back, leading a young man with two stripes and a spine made of
rebar.

Matthew Cayne addressed him as Sir
and stood at attention until Beau suggested they sit at the table that ran the
length of the small room.

“I’m looking into a couple of
recent incidents in your home town,” Beau began.

Cayne’s eyes scanned the insignia
on Beau’s uniform, apparently thinking he meant Houston.

“Taos County. I need to know if
you’ve left the base here in the last week.”

“Yes, sir. We were on maneuvers.”

“Where was that?”

“In the desert near Holloman,
sir.” The other military base was near the southern end of the state, at least
a six-hour drive from Taos, each way.

“Were you ever away from your unit?”

“No, sir.”

Beau made eye contact with Lopez.
“Can we verify that?”

The man gave a curt nod and left
the room. In the silence behind him, Cayne waited without a word, hands clasped
on the table top. Beau leaned back in his chair, hoping Matthew would relax a
little.

“Have you been back to Sembramos
at all since your family moved away?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, sir.”

Had the young man been briefed to
only provide yes and no answers? Beau felt as if he were up against a brick
wall.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard
about the problems up north, but we think these incidents go back to your
sister’s death, seven years ago.”

“I’ve heard the news reports, sir.
I don’t know anything beyond that.”

The staff sergeant returned.
“Sheriff Cardwell, it looks like Corporal Cayne’s statement is true. His unit
was on a training mission—ten days under desert conditions, reporting to and
from Holloman.”

“Thanks.” Beau tamped down his
frustration. It felt like every lead was coming to a dead end in this case.
“Matthew—could we chat informally for a minute? I have to admit that we’re looking
for ideas now. Do you remember, back when Angela died, anyone who had reason to
kidnap her? Just tell me anything you remember from that time.”

Now that his own alibi had checked
out, Cayne’s shoulders relaxed. “My parents worried that question constantly,
sir. They talked about it, over and over. Myself, being fifteen and more
concerned with what my buddies and I were doing, I started to tune them out
after awhile.” His spine finally touched the back of his chair and the tight
jaw became less rigid. “It was scary when it happened, sir. I was in my room, headphones
on, music mix blasting away. Grandma Sally was staying with us. I don’t
remember if she was recovering from some kind of surgery or just hadn’t been
feeling well. Mom was taking care of her, but Grandma went to bed early so Mom
and Dad went to something at church. They wanted me and Angie to go along, but
then they decided it would be smart for someone to be home in case Grandma
needed something. We both talked our way out of doing the church thing, so we
were both there with Grandma.”

He picked at a shredded cuticle now.
“So, I’m in my room with the door closed—what can I say? You know teenagers, I
wanted my privacy. Next thing I know Mom’s coming in, all freaked out, asking
where Angie went. And I have no clue. I’ve been in my own zone the whole time.
But then I go out to the living room and it’s a mess. There’s a glass of Coke
tipped over on the table by the couch and Angie’s fashion magazines are all
scattered on the floor. The couch is kind of crooked and the coffee table is
tipped over.”

“And you never heard this
happening?”

He looked a little embarrassed. “I
used to turn the music up to where my brain would vibrate. Stupid, I know.
Between that and working here, around turbine engines and loud machines, the
doc says I already have pretty bad hearing loss. I’ll probably be one of those
deaf old men you laugh at, except that I’ll be thirty when it happens.”

“What about Angie’s friends? I
suppose your parents checked with all of them?”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t have a
lot. Her very best friend was always Molly Gisner, but she got killed in that
accident. Her dad went all weird over it, so our two families really weren’t
friends afterward. Angie, she was, you know, popular in school but she was also
kind of distant. She wanted to wear cool clothes and all, but she mostly read
books and kept to herself. And she’d graduated a couple years before all this
happened. Most of her classmates had scattered.”

Beau gave an understanding nod.
“Were you or Angie friends with either Jessie Starkey or Lee Rodarte?”

“The Rodartes lived next door—you
probably already know that. I looked up to Lee because he was older, a cool guy
with a motorcycle. You know. At fourteen, fifteen, all that seemed important to
me. My dad wouldn’t let me hang out with him though. Later, when I heard that
Lee was doing some drugs, I guess I could see my dad’s viewpoint.” He gave a
little shrug. “The whole Starkey family was sort of intimidating. We were this
conservative, church-going family and they always seemed on the wild side. I
think Jessie had a crush on my sister when she was in high school. He’d be over
at Lee’s and I’d see him really giving her the eye.”

“Did she show an interest in him?”

“Angie? No way. She used to
wrinkle her nose when she’d see him down the street, like she could smell him
from far away. She dated a few guys in high school, but nobody like Jessie
Starkey.”

Beau’s antennae rose. “Did Jessie
ever push it? Come on strong to her?”

Matt shook his head. “Not that I
ever saw. Seriously, I doubt he ever even asked her out. He was enough older
that he’d have probably gone for girls his own age anyway. I really don’t
know.”

Beau could see that Matthew Cayne
had run out of information; how much could he expect a younger brother to
remember anyway? He pulled out a business card. “If you can think of any names,
friends of Angie’s who might remember something from that time, could you give
me a call?”

He walked out to his cruiser,
feeling the buzz of electricity from the new revelation. Jessie Starkey,
interested in Angela Cayne? Not one of his other witnesses had mentioned that. He
needed to get back into that case file at home; maybe someone had been named
and questioned at the time, someone who might have made the same connection
that Matt had noticed. He left the base and found a McDonald’s a block away
where he indulged in the rare treat of fast food.

A half-hour later he was on the
road northbound, mulling over everything since he’d received the call about
Rodarte and Starkey being released from prison. Less than a week, and yet so
much had happened. He barely remembered driving through Santa Fe or Espanola
and, shortly, he was arriving at the outskirts of Taos.

Clouds had begun to build, heavy
and dark over Taos Mountain. Maybe that rain would come after all.

* *
*

Sam had awakened, feeling half
tempted to ride along with Beau to Albuquerque and the interview with Matthew
Cayne, but her own duties nagged at her. She’d been stalling—she knew
this—about going back to the big white house, leery of a repeat of the weird
auras she’d encountered last time. The place was beginning to give her the
creeps, especially since she’d met its owner face to face and didn’t exactly
get warm vibes from him either. However, until she finished, the responsibility
would continue to hang over her. Eventually, she had to face up to it and just
go there. She sighed and began cutting carrots and potatoes into stew-sized
chunks.

Looking at the situation with an analytical
eye, she reminded herself that she’d never encountered the strange colors except
the one time she went there with the wooden box in her possession—had, in fact,
used its power to get through her work more quickly. Today, she would leave it
home and simply wash windows under her own steam. Tired arms, yes.
Unexplainable happenings, no. Tired seemed like the better answer. She dumped the
vegetables into the slow-cooker. At least dinner would be ready when she got
home.

She cruised through Sembramos, the
way becoming more familiar with each trip. Patterns had begun to emerge. The
blue Explorer at the bank meant that its owner worked there. Same with the
white sedan at the variety store and the Moped at the ice cream shop. Depending
on the time of day, kids might be at the crosswalk aiming their attention
toward those afternoon treats. School buses from Taos would be delivering the
high-
schoolers
home later in the day.

The police presence, too, was
beginning to feel normal. Sam waved at Rico when she passed his cruiser.

Linden
Gisner’s
house—it felt odd to attach a name and image of the man to it—stood majestic as
ever on its hill. Now that she’d witnessed the man’s lifestyle, his casual
party-mode attitude, she puzzled more than ever why he’d never moved in. The
kitchen and great room and the large suites were perfect for that sort of entertaining.
Maybe this location was a little too remote, too far north for the Taos crowd.
And maybe Sembramos held too many painful memories; reminders of losing both
his wife and his daughter would be right in his face every time he drove down
the hill for a gallon of milk. She gave up trying to guess, parked her truck
and went inside.

A little tentatively, she peered
from the foyer into the great room. The air was clear and bright through her
freshly washed windows. The earthy tans of the flooring and the deep browns of
the fireplace and granite counters—all looked absolutely normal. No weird
colors. She let out her pent-up breath and carried her window-washing supplies
down the hall toward the guest suite and library where she’d left off.

The hours passed—guest suites
done, library done, sewing room and nursery (although since learning his story
and meeting Mr. Gisner in person she would have to rename those last two). She
emptied her water bucket a few times and refilled from the supply she’d
brought. When she came to the wine cellar she was happy to skip it—no windows
in there. Finally, she declared the job finished. She was rechecking the rooms,
making sure she’d left no dirty rags behind, when her phone rang. What did
Delbert Crow want now? She took the call.

“I’ve emailed you a document,” he
said without preamble. “Did you get it?”

“I’m on the job right now.” She
felt a testy attitude creep into her tone and she tamped it down. “I’ll be sure
to check for it when I get home.”

“You said you’d located the owner
of that property out by Sembramos, right? Well this is something he needs to
sign. Since he doesn’t answer mail, I need you to take it in person. Get him to
sign it and then put it in the mail to me.”

Sam gritted her teeth. Once in
awhile a ‘please’ would be nice. She’d hoped that doing the windows was the
last of this commitment for awhile, but she agreed to get the document and the
signature.
Then
she could be done.

It was midafternoon when she
pulled into the driveway at home. Beau’s vehicle wasn’t there—not surprising—although
she’d hoped he might get back early from Albuquerque. She gave each of the dogs
an absentminded pat on the head as she went inside and hooked her laptop to the
printer on Beau’s small desk.

While everything booted up she
wandered to the kitchen and stirred the beef stew, turning the pot down to
keep-warm mode. Back in the living room, she hit a few keys to open the email
from Delbert and five minutes later she was out the door again, the two-page
form in hand. Going by
Gisner’s
“it’s five o’clock
somewhere” mantra, she figured she could catch him at home this time of day.

The wind was picking up as she
reached the south end of Taos and began the series of twisty roads to her
destination. The blonde with the long, tan legs answered the doorbell.