8 Sweet Payback (21 page)

Chapter
25

Lunch went by in a blur, as Beau
talked about how he’d been busy all morning in the office and still hadn’t gone
by to chat with his retired deputy, Roy Watson. Sam’s attention kept wandering
to the printout of Heather’s photo, trying to recall the dream. It wouldn’t
come to her. Maybe she needed a little time to let the details come back.

“You okay, darlin’?” Beau asked,
giving her an intent look.

His plate was empty and she had
only nibbled at her sandwich. She nodded in response to his question and took a
huge bite. Ten minutes later, she felt better and had eased his concerns.

“Okay, I’m off to see if I can
catch Roy Watson at home.” He handed cash to the server, and while they waited
for change Sam made a quick decision.

“Can I come along?” It wasn’t as
if she didn’t have plenty of other work pulling for her attention but since
he’d brought her this far into the case, she might as well learn some of the
answers firsthand.

Roy Watson answered the door in
his undershirt and an old pair of sweats. White hair, a lined face gone jowly,
a large gut and sloping shoulders. When he saw Beau in uniform he stood a
little straighter and invited them into his modest adobe home. He muted a game
show on the big-screen TV and excused himself, leaving the visitors to find
seats on furniture that hadn’t exactly been attractive when purchased, at least
thirty years ago. Sam perched at the edge of an overstuffed chair that
threatened to swallow her if she leaned back.

“Roy was widowed about a year
after he retired,” Beau said in a low tone.

The layer of dust on the coffee
table, the general clutter in the room, plus the two beer cans beside a sagging
vinyl recliner pretty well attested to his bachelorhood.

“Well, sorry, Sheriff,” Roy said
when he returned, wearing a pair of khakis and a fresh shirt, patting at his
hair. “If I’d known you were coming by . . .”

“It’s okay,” Beau said,
introducing Sam. “We were in the neighborhood.”

They turned down the offer of
something to drink and Roy settled back into his well-loved recliner.

“I suppose you’ve heard about the
recent situation up in Sembramos,” Beau said. He sat forward on the old couch,
his elbows resting on his knees.

“Yep, yep.” Watson nodded. “That
went back to the Angela Cayne murder, didn’t it?”

“It did. New evidence came out and
the verdict was overturned. The state freed both men.”

“Those two didn’t exactly get a
warm welcome back home though, did they?”

“It’s a mess,” Beau admitted. “I’m
having to go back and review the Cayne case, in addition to figuring out who’s
killed Starkey and Rodarte. Three murders in Taos County is a pretty rare
thing.”

“Well, seems clear that people up
there in Sembramos wouldn’t have been happy to see those two come back into
their midst, doesn’t it? Your problem in those two killings will be to narrow
it down—there must be dozens of possibilities.”

“The town’s been up in arms,
that’s for sure.”

Sam wondered when Beau was going
to get down to his questions, but figured maybe this was just two lawmen’s way
of breaking the ice, easing into the subject.

“I have to admit that I was still
pretty new with the department when the original murder happened. The sheriff
had me assigned to other things. You remember much about it?”

“Oh, yeah. I worked the case. I
mean, up to a point.”

From what Beau had said in the
past, Sam had a feeling he meant up to the point when the news cameras arrived
and the grandstanding sheriff moved to the forefront.

“I worked the crime scene. Sad
one, that young woman. She would have been real pretty. But out in the woods
like that, rope around her neck—it was bad. Out in the weather for a couple
days, animals . . . you know. I had to pull back the draping and ask the father
to identify the body, there on the gurney. You never forget a thing like that.”

“Jessie Starkey eventually
confessed and dragged Lee Rodarte in with him,” Beau said. “But do you remember
what led you to bring them in, in the first place?”

Roy Watson picked up one of the
beer cans, started to raise it, discovered it was empty. “Sheriff Padilla said
we’d received an anonymous tip. I remember they’d set up a special hotline,
wanted information from anybody who knew anything. As usual, there were a lot
of callers, not a lot of solid information. The duty officer took that
particular call, if I’m remembering this right, passed it on to the sheriff and
we picked up Starkey. In the beginning—the part I was there for—that punk
didn’t want to admit to anything. But then they brought in a length of rope
we’d found in his truck. I can still picture it—yellow nylon. They showed him a
picture of the girl with the same kind of rope around her neck. He started to
get all confused. I got called away for something else, but next thing I knew
everybody was pretty happy that Starkey had confessed. When he named an
accomplice, it was the icing on the cake.”

“The defense attorney told me the
rope was the evidence that got the conviction overturned.”

Watson shifted in his chair.

“Do you know something about
that?”

“Nothing definite. I do remember
there being something about chain of custody on the rope. The length of it
found in Starkey’s truck was supposed to be tested at the lab and matched to
the murder rope, but something . . . I don’t remember all the details. Something
about it didn’t quite jell. I felt like we didn’t ask enough questions before
sending the evidence off to the prosecutor. Remember old Guy Robertson?
Prosecutor for a hundred years? He was the one who tried this case. I recollect
there being long meetings over it in Padilla’s office, the two of them going
over the evidence until they were happy with it.”

Beau wondered aloud whether
Robertson might remember details and share them.

“Nah. He retired right after this
case. Guess it was his chance to go out in a blaze of glory or something.
Anyway, he retired, moved to Florida to play golf, died a year later. I tell
you, golf is hazardous to your health.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Beau asked whether there was
anything else Watson might remember about the case, anything that would lead
them to find Angela’s real killer, but the old deputy shook his head.

“Be glad to call you if I come up
with something,” he said as they stood up.

Sam thought he looked eager to be
somehow back in the game, if he could.

Beau thanked him and they walked
out to the cruiser parked at the curb. Sam gulped fresh air; the image of
Angela Cayne out in the woods had been a little too vivid.

“So, how could the ropes have
gotten mixed up?” she asked as they drove away.

“Hard to say. A lot of mess-ups
could
have happened. What actually
did
happen, we’ll probably never know. If
you have a minute, let’s stop by and talk to Bill Gravitz, the lawyer.”

Sam glanced at her watch. She
could do this and still get back in time to help Becky figure out the
strawberry cupcakes if her assistant hadn’t worked it out on her own.

The offices of Tanner, Gravitz &
Ortiz seemed fairly quiet and the receptionist got Bill Gravitz on the intercom
right away.

“Sheriff.” He held out his hand
when they entered his private office.

Beau did quick introductions and
got right to the point. “Just a little follow-up on the evidence you told me
about in the Cayne case. One of the deputies who worked that case said there
were some issues with custody of the murder rope, and I remembered you saying
the rope was the piece of evidence that got the conviction overturned.”

“Yeah, it was. I don’t know what
all happened within the sheriff’s department. But the forensic work on that
rope was pathetic. Either no one tested both pieces—the one found on the body
and the one found in the suspect’s vehicle—or somebody covered up the findings.
We contended that the ropes might even have been switched.”

Sam gave the lawyer a puzzled look
and he turned to her.

“The two ropes didn’t come from
the same source. They weren’t even the same brand. I was shocked to learn that.
When Guy Robertson held up that hank of yellow rope in court, then showed the
photos of the victim with yellow rope around her neck, he deliberately steered
the jury into believing that they were the same.”

“But—” Beau nearly spluttered.

“Both ropes were in evidence bags,
signed and sealed. We didn’t question that, but we should have. I firmly
believe that someone tampered with those ropes, making the evidence fit the
case they wanted to build. I don’t know if it happened within the sheriff’s
department or at the prosecution level.”

It was a serious accusation. But
the prosecutor was dead now and the former sheriff serving time.

“At least we were able to have our
own tests run and we did prove the innocence of our clients. I’m just sad that
it took so many years to work it through the system.”

So, if evidence had been tampered
with and both men likely to have been responsible were out of the picture, who
stood to gain by getting rid of Starkey and Rodarte now? Sam let the thought
nag at her until they’d left the lawyer’s office. Then she posed it to Beau.

“I’m guessing it would be the
person who really killed Angela,” she said.

“Unless that person did the smart
thing and moved far away from here. Then we’ve just got a regrettable situation
where tempers and hotheads took over.”

“One person in this whole scenario
who did move far away is Heather Gisner, or Heather Brooks, or whatever she
might be calling herself. Do you think she could have been involved?”

He debated the possibility as he
pulled into his parking slot at the department offices. “I can’t think why.
She’d moved away to get out of a bad marriage, not because of a beef with any
of our victims—that we know of.”

“I can’t help but think that she
might know something about all this.” Sam opened her door. “I don’t know . . . I
can’t think of a real reason she would come back to Sembramos, once Molly was
gone. It was just a thought.”

Her phone rang just then and she
gave him a quick kiss before answering it. Beau walked into the building and
Sam started toward her van.

“I haven’t received your invoice
yet, Ms. Sweet,” came the voice of Delbert Crow. Damn. She’d intended to do
that two days ago. “And be sure to take down the signage, and you can pick up
the sign-in sheets. Leave the lockbox. That will be returned to us after the
auction.”

Okay, okay.
She added another trip to the big white house to her
crowded mental list of to-dos.

She walked into the bakery, a
hundred things whirling through her mind, to find Becky struggling.

“These don’t look right at all,”
her assistant complained. In front of her on the worktable were a half-dozen
red blobs that didn’t nearly resemble strawberries. They were more like
flat-topped billiard balls. “I can’t seem to get them to do what I want.”

Sam picked one up and examined it.

“And the customer is supposed to
be here in thirty minutes.” Becky dropped the information with a large dollop
of misery in her voice.

Sam touched the frosting on top of
the cupcake that was supposed to be sitting in a nice, high mound. “Your icing
is way too soft. Let’s stiffen it up with more powdered sugar.”

She washed her hands and began to
scrape red icing out of the piping bag into a stainless steel mixing bowl.
“Grab the portable mixer and the color paste. It may turn too pale once it’s
got more sugar in it.”

She turned to the other side of
the room. “Julio, would you mind scraping the wilted frosting off these?
Gently.”

With the three of them on the job,
the new frosting began to take shape and held up well on the test-cupcake Sam
made.

“Okay, we only needed a dozen,
right? Becky frost, Julio roll the tops in the red sugar. I’ll stick on the
finishing touches.” No leaves or calyxes were in sight, so Sam pulled down a
tub of green fondant and began rolling out the flexible sugary dough. She’d
gotten one cut to a shape that pleased her when Jen walked into the kitchen.

“Sam?” she whispered. “That young
woman is back, the one dressed all in black. She insists on seeing
you
.”

Oh, goodie. Zenda, the oddball
witch of the west. Could the afternoon get any more complicated?

Evidently so. Her phone rang as
she was wiping her hands on a towel—her mother.

Chapter
26

Beau looked up from his desk when
he became aware of Rico fidgeting in the doorway.

“Sheriff, sorry. There’s trouble
in Sembramos again. We just got the call.”

“Did the caller say what’s going
on?” This paperwork backlog would never get finished.

“Not specifically. But they report
shots fired.”

Great. “Okay, you and Withers head
up there.
Please
tell me you have
your vests on, and grab extra boxes of ammo, just in case. I’m going to put
State Police on alert and I’ll be right behind you.”

Rico patted the bulky plate under
his shirt, then turned to leave.

Beau strode to the dispatcher’s
office. “The trouble in Sembramos—do you still have the caller on the line?”

“No, sir. The name was Sophie
Garcia. She said she was inside the bank. Here’s her number.”

Beau grabbed the message slip and
started dialing his phone as he walked to his SUV. “Sophie, it’s Sheriff
Cardwell. What’s going on there?”

“Lee’s cousin Bono and his friends.
They showed up again.” Her voice had a tremor.

“Someone said there were
gunshots.”

“Yes, I heard two. I’m at work so
I didn’t actually see anything, but a customer said there’s a bunch of people
at the park. I think that’s where the sounds came from.”

“Okay, thanks. Stay indoors and
tell anyone you see to do the same.”

“Nathan’s at school. I’m worried
about him. The kids will be getting out any minute now.”

“I’ll call and order the school to
lock down.” He wished he’d put his own vest on before he came out. He could be
on the road now. “Sophie? Don’t worry. We’ll get it under control. Just stay
inside.”

A young mother, worried for her
child at the school so close by. What were the odds she would obey the order
and not run right over there?

He keyed his radio as he reached
into the back of the SUV for his Kevlar vest. “Wanda, get hold of the Sembramos
Elementary School. Tell them to go into lockdown. If there are parents waiting
outside to pick up their kids, tell the principal to get them inside the building
too. There’s trouble in the park, and it’s only a half-block away. Without
putting them in a panic, try to let them know I want everyone off the streets.”

The strap on his vest snagged on
his shoulder mike and he cursed at the delay.

“Wanda, after the school, contact
State Police. I don’t know that we’ll need them but put them on alert. Any
officers already in the area, I’d like them to be around.” At this point,
probably the more official presence, the better.

He started his cruiser and sighed
as he whipped out of the parking slot. This was not how the rest of the day was
supposed to go. Hitting the switch for lights and siren, he cleared the town
limits in under five minutes. The rest of the normally thirty-minute drive took
about half that and he came upon Sembramos to find two state troopers at the
edge of town. He gave them a quick wave and headed toward the park at First and
Cottonwood.

Rico’s cruiser blocked the
intersection, preventing anyone from approaching the park from this direction.
When Beau angled his own vehicle in, blocking the side entrance to the school,
he saw that Deputy
Withers’s
SUV was parked across
Cottonwood Lane, near the space between Sophie Garcia’s apartment building and
the sad little park. At least a dozen people stood out in the open, mostly
male, mostly gathered in two camps that, at a glance, looked like bikers versus
plaid-shirted locals. A clump of women and small kids huddled under one of the
large cottonwood trees. Joe Starkey’s battered pickup truck appeared to have
knocked over a gleaming motorcycle. Had this been the trigger?

Helen Starkey saw Beau get out of
his vehicle and she hurried over, keeping her hands visible, the mane of gray
hair waving, her house dress and sweater-jacket flapping in the stiffening
breeze.

“Helen, what happened here?” Beau
asked, never taking his eyes off the gathering of men.

“We came for a picnic. Some of my
Jessie’s friends from Albuquerque drove up and we were just going to use up the
leftover food people been bringing, get together for awhile and remember him.”

Beau saw a plastic tablecloth on
one of the concrete tables, a few six-pack-sized foam coolers sitting around.

“And?” he prompted.

“And these men on motorcycles came
roaring up. Starting shouting at us.”

Would he bet money that Joe and
Bobby Starkey had returned the shouts, insult for insult? Probably.

“Someone said shots were fired.”
He stared into Helen’s eyes.

She lowered hers. “Well, I suppose
Bobby let off with some bird shot, just to warn ’em off.”

Beau bit back a retort.
Apparently, taking Joe Starkey’s weapons after the hunting incident wasn’t the
same as disarming the whole clan.

“Then what?”

“One of them bikers, he pulled a
knife and then the rest of ’em got their knives and now it looks like a
standoff.”

Beau raised his chin toward the
motorcycle on the ground. “What about that?”

“Well, Joe, he’d gone home for another,
um, cooler, and when he come back this lot was here and he
musta
come up to a stop too fast.”

Beau hated this sort of thing. No
one was going to back down and no one would come out the winner.

“Sit over there, Helen, and don’t
move a muscle,” he said, indicating a concrete bench beside the school
building.

“But my
grandk
—”

“Let my men handle it, Helen. I’m
serious. You stay here.”

He kept his eyes on the two clusters
of glaring men while he reached into his SUV for the bullhorn. He caught Rico’s
eye and the deputy moved toward him. Radioing Withers to have his weapon ready,
he switched on the bullhorn and nearly jumped when his own voice came out
louder than expected. He adjusted the volume.

“Okay, guys, we don’t want any
trouble here,” he began. Neither side took an eye off the other. “I want the
women and kids safe. None of you guys better make a move. Ladies, get your
children, walk over to the edge of the park and get behind my deputy there.” He
tilted his head toward Withers and the patrol car.

Three women moved, two about Helen
Starkey’s age, the other barely out of her teens. They herded four kids. Two
other women stared at Beau and stepped closer to the men. Somebody always had
to make an issue out of everything, he thought. He keyed his mike and told
Withers to get the little band over to the schoolhouse, beside Helen. While
they moved, he addressed the crowd again.

“Bobby Starkey, let me see that gun.”

Bobby raised a .30-06 above his
head, but he kept both hands on it.

“Bobby, I need you to put the rifle
down. Just set it on the ground and step back.”

Bobby looked daggers toward the
biker group but didn’t move. Joe Starkey started to mouth off but Beau couldn’t
tell what he was saying.

“Rico,” Beau said quietly. “Get on
the radio. Tell the state troopers that we need everyone on site. Now.”

The park had streets on only two
sides; the south and west edges of it just drifted away into open meadowland. He
indicated with a few hand signals that the additional cars should secure as
much of that space as they could. Thirty seconds later three black-and-whites
arrived.

A ripple of nervous glances went
through the gathering, and Bobby Starkey laid the weapon on the ground.

“Thank you. Now I want—”

He never got the rest of it out.
Two of the bikers charged Joe Starkey, and Beau saw a flash of bright steel.
Warlike shouts punctuated the air. Beau gave the order and the officers
converged, weapons drawn. Rico ran straight for Bobby Starkey, who was about to
grab his rifle again, tackling the taller man and bringing him facedown on the
grass. Beau abandoned the bullhorn and covered his deputy until he had
handcuffs on Starkey.

When he looked up again, he saw
that the state officers had the two knife-wielding bikers down. The rest of the
group were backing away with their palms raised. Knives lay all over the
ground.

“Man, that bastard beat my
cousin—killed him! You can’t let him get away with it!” shouted the first of
the bikers, shaking his fists even though they were bound together.

“We’ll talk to everyone, get this
all sorted out, down at the station.”

Inwardly, he groaned. It could
take forever to get everyone’s stories. And he had an awful feeling it would
boil down to each side’s word against the other. Would they end up with any
actual proof?