8 Sweet Payback (9 page)

Chapter
9

A deep rumble vibrated the
apartment’s windows. Beau looked out and saw the familiar Harley roll to a stop.
Lee swung his leg over. Sophie’s son, Nathan, sat on his bicycle at the edge of
the roadway, watching the man and machine with fascination.

“Like father, like son.” Resignation
in Sophie’s voice.

Beau waited inside. Lee took a
long look at the sheriff’s SUV, glanced toward the apartment, came up to the
door anyway. Sophie let him in, standing at the open door a few extra seconds
and sending some kind of non-verbal mom signal to her son.

“Sheriff,” Lee said, slapping dust
from his jeans.

Beau asked what his plans were.

“I told you, I want to be near my
son. I have as much right to be here as anybody.”

“You do. And legally I can’t make
you leave. But, think about it. Is it smart to be here? Jessie’s dead already.
I don’t think you or Sophie want you to be next on someone’s hit list. The mood
around town is getting uglier all the time.”

Sophie spoke up. “I won’t have you
putting Nathan in danger. You can’t stay here in the apartment.”

Rodarte looked as if he wanted to
say something, but he glanced at Beau and closed his mouth.

“Look, how about if you got
yourself a place in Taos? Close enough to get together with Nathan, but maybe
it would be far enough to keep you safe.”

“I’m not—”

Beau raised a hand. “We don’t know
that you’re in danger. But we don’t know that you aren’t. And if somebody comes
after you, here in this apartment, you
will
be putting Sophie and your boy in danger.”

“How can I clear my name if I
can’t even be here in town?” Lee’s arms crossed over his chest.

“That’s what I’m here for, to try
to get to the bottom of all this and find out the truth once and for all.”

Rodarte made a derisive sound.

“Look, I didn’t want to mention
this,” Beau said. “But someone’s already been here.” He told them about the burned
doll on the front sidewalk.

Sophie’s face went two shades
whiter. “That does it. Go! I don’t care where, at this moment, but you can’t be
here.” She stepped toward the front door but Lee didn’t budge.

Beau really didn’t want to see
this degenerate further. “Lee, take my advice. Please. Leave this town for
awhile. Jessie’s funeral is tomorrow and things will surely settle down after
that. And my department will keep working on this. We’ll do our best to get it
settled. Meanwhile, I’m afraid I have to insist that you leave the apartment.
The lady wants you out and it is within my authority to make that happen.”

Rodarte’s belligerent stance
wilted. “Sophie . . . come with me? I don’t want to lose you.”

Her dark eyes became liquid pools.
“Not now. For Nathan—”

Beau moved to the door and opened
it. “Get your stuff. I’ll keep an eye on Sophie and Nathan for awhile. You two
can make your plans, but let’s not aggravate the whole situation right now.”

Lee picked up a ratty backpack
from behind the armchair, hugged it to his chest and walked outside. Beau
followed, cautioning Sophie to keep her son near and to lock all her doors and
windows.

“Take a minute with your boy if
you want,” Beau offered.

But when Lee approached, the child
backed away slightly. Lee gave him a rueful smile and a little knuckle-tap to
the handlebar of the bicycle before walking away to stash his pack on the
Harley. Beau followed the biker to the edge of town and watched him roar down
the highway. Three broken hearts and not a thing he could do to reassure them
it would soon get any better.

He cruised back by Sophie’s
apartment. The bicycle was chained to a porch railing and the place seemed
buttoned up tight. At least one of them was taking his warnings seriously.

Now for the Starkeys.

At the small food market, a raised
pickup truck with huge tires sat near the door with two rough-looking men in
it. One of the men looked a lot like Joe Starkey. A woman with a cartful of
bags rushed to her car and began to toss her purchases inside. Beau slowed,
making sure they noticed him, waiting until he saw the woman get safely into
her vehicle. Another Starkey male came out of the store with a twelve-pack of
Bud and waved at Beau as he joined the others in the truck.

Little signs of trouble continued
as Beau drove through town—spray paint on a wall where none had been before, with
the words ‘get Jessie’s killer’; two motorcycles lying on their sides, not yet
discovered by their owners. He circled the block to the Starkey house where the
high pickup truck sat among a cluster of vehicles that had all seen better
days. Beer cans littered the space around a large barrel. Clearly, no
basketball players in this crowd. Beau parked, radioed his location and stepped
out.

“Not too happy to see you
takin
’ care of that Rodarte scum,” Joe Starkey said,
swaggering his way over to Beau.

“It’s my job to take care of
everyone in this county,” Beau said. “I just stopped by to see how you all are
doing.”

Helen Starkey appeared from beside
the house, her face contorted in anger. “Take care of us?” she shouted. “You
did a helluva job taking care of us so far.”

Beau took a deep breath. “Helen. I
know this hurts. Eventually it’ll get better.”

“Better? My boy is dead and you
think this will ever get
better
?”

Beau started to apologize for his
poor choice of words but Helen interrupted.

“My life hit its best point seven
years ago. It’s been
nothin
’ but downhill since then.
And
your
department’s done
diddly
-shit to make it
better
.
Get out of my sight, Sheriff!”

A younger woman wearing skin-tight
jeans and a baggy man’s shirt stepped forward and touched Helen’s shoulder.
“Come on inside, Helen. Let’s get you
somethin
’ to
eat.”

Beau surveyed the faces in the
crowd of a dozen or more, spotting Bobby’s wife JoNell, who placed restraining
hands on the arms of two long-haired teenage boys. This could get real dicey,
real fast. He raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture.

“Listen, all of you,” he said,
working to stay in command. “We’re doing what we can. I got Lee Rodarte out of
town. I’m putting my whole department to work on solving Jessie’s murder.
Nobody in town wants trouble and I’m asking all of you to remember Jessie with
dignity, not to let this thing get out of hand where somebody else ends up hurt
and a lot of folks end up with regrets.” He met the patriarch’s stare, straight
on. “Joe? You keep ’em in line?”

Joe Starkey nodded slowly but the
sneer on his face didn’t reassure Beau in the least.

“Okay, then. I’ll put some of my
men around town, make sure Rodarte doesn’t come cruising for trouble. After the
funeral tomorrow I’ll expect everyone to get back to business as usual and do
your best to put this behind you and just let us do our jobs.”

A couple of the men shuffled
slightly, scuffing toes in the dirt like young bulls, testing. Beau wanted to
give a warning about the amount of alcohol at the gathering, but this didn’t
look like the time to press his luck. Hopefully the message about extra law
enforcement would get through. He touched the brim of his hat and turned toward
his vehicle, making a show of getting on the radio before he drove away.

With the order in for teams of
deputies to take turns patrolling Sembramos overnight, he made another run past
Rodarte’s parents’ old house, Sally Cayne’s, and the few others he knew to be
connected. All quiet. So far.

Pulling over in the parking lot of
the now-empty elementary school, he used his cell phone to call home. No
answer.

He dialed Sam’s cell. “I called
the house and you weren’t there. I thought we’d agreed on that.” He realized
that, technically, he’d issued orders which she hadn’t exactly said she would
follow.

“Sweet shop emergency. I’m on my
way home now,” she said.

“We’ll talk about this when I get
there.” He hung up without waiting for a response and pulled out onto the
two-lane road.

Twenty minutes later he arrived at
the ranch. Sam’s red pickup truck sat in its usual place but her bakery van was
gone. He fumed, getting out of his cruiser. He’d said he didn’t want anyone on
the highway to recognize her truck and give her trouble. Did she have to take
his words so literally?

He greeted the border collie and
Lab with pats on their heads and went inside. This whole day was really
beginning to wear on him. Pouring a short Scotch into his favorite crystal
glass, he carried it upstairs and started the shower. When he emerged, in a
mellower frame of mind, he heard sounds downstairs. He also smelled pizza.

“I brought it from Giuseppe’s,”
Sam said, pointing to the box with the fantastic smell.

It was, of course, his favorite
combo and when Sam launched into the whole story of the crazy lady at the
bakery who was about to drive all her employees off the cliff, he held back on
the list of warnings he’d been planning. And when, after pizza and a couple
glasses of wine, they found themselves in the bedroom, he forgot the lecture
altogether.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Sam
said afterward, running a finger down the middle of his sweaty chest. “I didn’t
intend that.”

He started to say something about
wanting to keep her safe, but the sex had been great and he was in a much more
expansive mood now. There was no point in prolonging the discussion and letting
it degenerate.

“I could make us a special
coffee,” she offered. “Or hot chocolate?”

Sam put on a robe and Beau slipped
into his jeans and an old, soft shirt before following her downstairs. He
scooped food for the dogs, filling her in on the latest in Sembramos.

 
“So, do you think Lee Rodarte will stay away?”
She located some cookies she’d brought home a few days ago, to go along with
the coffee.

Beau shook his head. “No idea. I
doubt it. I’ve got deputies assigned to the funeral tomorrow and I’ll try to be
there too but, realistically, I think the only way this thing is going to calm
down is if I can find out who really did kill Angela Cayne seven years ago.
Basically, everyone in that town has taken a side—some on Lee’s, more on the
Starkeys, a lot who feel for Sally Cayne and that family’s loss. Everyone wants
justice. If I can catch whoever set the whole mess in motion, maybe we can give
them that.”

Sam poured coffee and carried mugs
to the living room.

“I just wish I had the manpower to
devote to a cold case. I don’t know where we’re going to find the evidence
we’ll need. And we’ve got new cases all the time. With budget cutbacks, it’s
all I can do to serve warrants and handle traffic.”

“So, what if you and I started
going through the file, reviewing it? We might come up with something that was
missed the first time around. You said Sheriff Padilla didn’t seem to work this
one very hard.”

“Yeah, well that was my perception
at the time, as a new deputy in the department. It did seem like he raced
through it. And I was always uneasy about that confession.”

Sam reached for a notepad and pen.
“The file’s here. Let’s do it.”

Beau brought the thick folder to
the coffee table and unfastened the metal brads holding it together. “This
thing’s impossible to hold on your lap and even more impossible for two people
to read at once. Let’s divide it up. The pages are numbered—we’ll just put it
back together when we’re done. Besides, maybe looking at it in some other order
than the way it is now will give us a few new ideas.”

He handed Sam a half-inch thick
chunk of pages and took one for himself.

Sam read two pages and immediately
decided she would have to take notes. A half hour later they paused to compare.

“I’m reading Lee Rodarte’s
statement after he was picked up,” Sam said. “After Jessie implicated him
during the confession. Lee says he had ridden his motorcycle out toward the gorge
bridge that night, wanting a little time alone. He said no one was with him, no
alibi, but we should find out if anyone was even asked whether they could give
him one.”

“Make a note about that—a list of
unanswered questions. We may come across the answers as we read, and we could check
them off, but I want to be sure everything fits together before this is all
over with.”

Beau thumbed through his set of
pages. “This section basically describes the crime scene. Angela Cayne was
found in a ravine near the creek. She’d been badly beaten and strangled. She’d
been there nearly three days before she was found.

“From my interviews in town, she
was reported missing within two hours after she was taken, and that seems to
fit with the timeline in the initial report. The parents had gone to Taos and
she had stayed home. Her grandmother was staying with them at the time but
she’d not been feeling well and went to bed early. I met Sally Cayne and can
attest to the fact that without her hearing aids she wouldn’t have necessarily
heard a scuffle in another room.”

“Lee swears he’s innocent, every
time they talk to him, in all the pages I’ve read,” Sam said. “Yet no one
seemed to be listening to him. Every question from Padilla comes back at Lee
with the fact that Jessie Starkey told them Lee was guilty.”

“Are Jessie’s statements there?
With your pages?”

She shook her head. “Haven’t come
across them.”

An hour later, Sam’s eyelids felt
like they had lead weights attached. “I’m not making sense of this anymore,”
she said. “Nothing seems to be filed here in sequential order and my brain
isn’t working. It’s been a long day.”

Beau smiled up from his set of
pages. “I know, darlin’. Go ahead upstairs—I’m right behind you.”