Buried Secrets Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mysteries, Book #14 (The Charlie Parker Mysteries) (4 page)

Chapter 3

Sunday morning I woke feeling a bit blimp-like after the two nights of holiday food. Linda was right—I had indeed found my way to the desserts at the Brewster’s house. I rolled over to discover that Drake’s side of the bed was empty. The clock said it was already after nine.

Sounds from the other side of the bedroom door assured me that he hadn’t gone somewhere, so I wrapped my thick terry robe around myself and ran my fingers through my hair before I went to search out my two sweethearts.

Freckles caught the click of the door latch and came bounding across the living room toward me. I had to laugh at the way her floppy ears flew outward, like big wings beside her wide doggy smile and lolling tongue. She tried to put on the brakes but went into a skid on the hardwood floor and plowed into my legs.

“Wow, girl, you’re getting some muscle on you,” I said, stooping to ruffle her fur and give the ears a rub.

Drake peeked through the kitchen doorway. Dazzled me with his smile and even more so with the mug of coffee that he held up. I managed not to trip over the dog as I made my way through the living room and joined him.

“Pancakes?” he asked after we’d exchanged a long hug and kiss.

“You’re too good to me.” I leaned against the doorjamb and sipped my coffee while he turned on the burner under the griddle.

“I know it.” He poured milk into a mixing bowl and gave the whole mixture a stir. “But you’re pretty good at rewarding me too.”

I knew by his lusty grin that he was referring to the fact that we’d both been feeling pretty uninhibited after the party last night. A tingle went through me at the memory. I covered by checking the kitchen table to see what I could do to help with breakfast. He’d already set the table, complete with a bowl of fresh fruit and plenty of butter and syrup for the cakes. How did I get so lucky as to find this guy?

The batter hit the griddle with a sizzle and Freckles turned her complete attention to him. I topped my mug and looked out to the back yard, a mental list running through my head of the final preparations for Christmas Eve, just two days away now.

We’d planned on our usual stay-at-home evening. Since we live on the route for the city’s extremely popular Holiday Lights tour, we either have to get out of the neighborhood by midafternoon and stay away until midnight, or just stay in and ignore the continual line of buses that trail through. There is no getting in and out of our own driveway, except on foot. The nice thing is that the tour route is barricaded at each intersection so, on the years when our street isn’t included, we have an amazingly quiet and peaceful setting. Beautifully decorated homes and yards where we can stroll as if it’s our private Disneyland. It’s a time to see neighbors that we rarely run into.

Elsa had already informed me that she was making her traditional posole and I knew from a lifetime’s experience what a treat that would be—far better than what we’d purchased for our office party.

“Don’t let ’em get cold,” Drake said.

I heard the hiss of more batter on the grill and looked over to see that a plate of perfectly browned hotcakes sat at my place. I didn’t have to be told twice.

He joined me in a minute with his own plate in hand, and the dog sat nearby giving both of us the stare-down.

“I guess I better run by the office at some point and check that the floor finish dried all right. The whole place may need airing. What’s your plan?”

He said he needed to clean the helicopter and see where he stood on the maintenance schedule. Keeping an aircraft up to the standards for government work meant certain inspections at certain times, and it seemed that an oil change or engine overhaul was nearly always coming due. He hinted that once he knew all was well with his business there could be a secret errand or two, and then he and Ron planned on whiling away the afternoon in front of a TV set filled with football.

He swabbed the last of the syrup from his plate and carried it to the sink. A maple-flavored kiss and he was out the door. Freckles and I finished the dishes and I gave a quick survey to the living room before heading to the shower. Nearly everything was ready—seven-foot tree in the corner, fully decorated, and a nice little stash of gifts accumulating beneath it. I’d been forced to put nearly everything for the puppy up on the mantle, though. She’d already discovered a box of treats and chewed right into it. I supposed kids of every species are the same—can’t understand why we want to wait until a certain day to open all those fun things. I remembered our big old red-brown Lab with a pang—he’d done the same thing, several times.

I stared out the front window. The bare limbs of our sycamore sketched dark lines across a brilliant blue sky. Lawns had gone brown weeks ago and I could still see frosty patches in the shady spots. But where the sun hit, it had melted to a dewy glimmer. The forecast showed temperatures in the high fifties and the only storms on the horizon should pass well to the north.

Drake had hung the outdoor lights a week ago and we’d begun turning them on in the evenings right away. I’d become lazy about making my own traditional luminarias, though. After nearly missing the Christmas Eve deadline a few years ago, I’d started buying them from the neighborhood Boy Scout troop. We purchased enough for Elsa’s house too. The boys would deliver and set them up so all we had to do was to get all the candles lit without setting the paper bags on fire. If our clear weather held we would be in luck.

I saw Freckles sniffing around the gifts under the tree so I put her in her crate while I showered and dressed. Thirty minutes later we’d driven to the office, where I made her wait in the Jeep while I walked through and surveyed the newly finished floors. The job looked beautiful but I had to admit that I was as restless as the puppy and not especially wanting to hang around the office. With luck, maybe Drake would be free early and we could spend part of this lazy Sunday together. I locked up, went back to the Jeep and drove home. Drake’s truck sat in the driveway.

“Hey babe,” he said, emerging from the house with a duffle bag in hand. “Glad I caught you. There’s a job.”

“What’s this?” The duffle meant he expected to stay away overnight.

“I was about to call you. Up near Trinidad, bunch of stranded cattle on one of the big ranches.”

I eyed the bag, tamping down my disappointment.

“It’s for just in case,” he said. “Should be an hour up there, drop off a dozen hay bales or so, come back . . . but you know how things never go as fast as you think.”

How well I knew.

“I’ll call you when I take off and when I land.” Our standard procedure. Someone had to officially follow the flight to be sure he didn’t run into problems, and we’d found it easier to track it ourselves than to file every single flight plan with the FAA. “If I end up staying over, I’ll let you know.”

I grabbed his lapels and pulled him close. “You’d better.”

He kissed me, then added two more. “Goal is to finish by this afternoon. See
ya
later.” He touched Freckles’s nose through the glass and then climbed into his truck.

I stood there and gave a sad little wave as he backed out.

By this time the dog’s nose had generously smeared my side window. She wasn’t getting any more patient. I gave a sigh and decided we both needed exercise. My grabbing up her leash sent her into a frenzy of excitement and she danced around me in the driveway as I clipped it onto her collar.

“Park? You
wanna
go to the park?” I knew I was taunting her, but it was a fun kind of torment. She paid me back by practically dragging me the two blocks. We needed to get more serious about our leash training.

Our little private neighborhood park sits in an almost hidden spot, surrounded on three sides by the back walls of house lots. Two narrow alleys give gated access and one short side is open to a cul-de-sac. Once I had the dog safely within the confines of the walls, I unclipped her leash and sent her running with the throw of a tennis ball. I ambled along at a more leisurely pace, soaking up the abundant sunshine and marveling that this sunny day was what passed for winter here in New Mexico.

Freckles came racing back to me, proud to return the bright yellow ball. I tossed it again and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. At the southeast corner of the park, in the sandy bed filled with playground equipment, sat a lone figure on one of the swings. Dressed in black jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, the person sat absolutely still. I couldn’t get a look at the face and felt a momentary chill.

With one eye on my dog and the other on the stranger I motioned Freckles to return to me. She went down on her front forelegs, hind end in the air, bushy tail waving lazily as if to say, oh yeah, make me.

The person on the swing laughed and I realized it was a teenaged girl. I relaxed a bit.

Freckles stared at me, turned to look at the girl, back at me.

“Come on, baby!” I called in my best I-won’t-really-beat-you voice.

The girl laughed again and the dog stood up and trotted toward her.

“Freckles!” This time I tried to put some authority in it, but the puppy was having none of it.

The girl dropped her cigarette and ground it out with her toe. She put out her hands and my baby ran straight to her. When her hood flopped back I caught sight of pink and platinum streaks and realized who it was.

“Hi Katie,” I huffed as I trotted to catch up to my dog. “Sorry.”

“She’s pretty cute,” Katie said, reaching down to pick up the ball that Freckles had dropped at her feet. From her seat on the swing, she tossed it and gave me a direct look for the first time. “You were, like, at my dad’s party last night, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. Charlie Parker.”

In the light of day the girl was no less scary than she’d been last night. With the black hoodie and sloppy-big pants maybe a little more so. Silver rings pierced each eyebrow and I thought I’d glimpsed a ball sitting on her tongue when she spoke.

“Your mom was showing me around upstairs.”

“Felina is
not
my mom.” Her face went hard, the narrowed eyes glaring at me.

“Sorry. I knew that. Stepmom.”

Katie stiffened her legs and walked the swing backward. “I don’t need a stepmom. My dad and I, you know, we can do fine on our own.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Clearly the girl had been devastated by the loss of her mother and not at all ready for another woman in the household. And now there was another child. I stayed quiet as she pushed off and the swing swooped by me. When she reached the back end of the arc she straightened her legs and jolted to a halt. Freckles had retrieved the ball once more and carried it to Katie. She made some baby-talk and tossed the ball again.

“I’d be out of there so fast,” Katie said to me, “if it wasn’t for my little brother.”

“He’s really cute. How old is he?”

“Three. I feel sorry for him.” Katie jumped out of the swing and scuffed at the sand, making a little trench with her toe while she watched Freckles grab up the ball.

“Why is that?”

“He’s never going to survive this.”

Survive what? I tried to come up with a response, but Katie threw the ball again for Freckles and then dashed away and disappeared through one of the narrow alleyways.

I grabbed the puppy’s collar to keep her from following and watched as the black-clad wraith vanished behind a fence. Kids. Anything for shock value, I supposed, including dressing Punk and showing her sophistication by smoking. Hadn’t Felina told me Katie was only twelve? Sheesh.

I picked up the half length of cigarette and dropped it in a nearby barrel. Clipped the dog’s leash to her collar and together we headed home. I had more things to do this week than wonder how this rebellious pre-teen was going to turn out.

Chapter 4

With Drake away, I would be happier catching up on my office work than hanging around the empty house. I grabbed my purse and let the puppy back into the Jeep. When we arrived at the office, Ron’s car was parked out back. The kitchen looked like a used furniture store and smelled like a fast-food breakfast sandwich.

“I’m not having much luck finding any info on Rosa Flores,” Ron said peeking in at my office door. “I spoke to a lieutenant with San Diego PD. They never investigated because she was over eighteen and they were sure she left voluntarily. Her brother pretty much confirmed that when he told me about the guy Chaco. Now all I’ve really got to go on is her social security number.”

“So, you better get right on it. You’re running out of time before Christmas.”

“Drake’s gone. You’re not all that busy, are you?”

I patted the stack of papers in front of me, but he didn’t have a clue how many actual hours those entries entailed. The end of the tax year had a zillion deadlines.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll keep making calls. But if I need some extra hands . . .”

“Sure. Just give me something concrete to do. You know that I’m not very patient when it comes to wading through bureaucracies with phone calls.”

He disappeared and I heard the reassuring musical beeps of his phone being dialed. I went back to my debits and credits.

By noon I was feeling the distinct desire for a burger so I informed Ron that I would bring one back for him too. We met in the cluttered kitchen for food and a pow-wow.

“Rosa Flores’s name doesn’t come up on any police blotters in New Mexico,” he said. “But that only means
she
hasn’t been in trouble with the law. As for Chaco, who knows? The number of men with that as part of their name or nickname . . .”

Tracking all of them would be impossible.

“I’ve got somebody in the Department of Labor checking to see if her social security number is active.”

“That could be a long road to travel. Employers only have to report wages quarterly and then it’s not uncommon for the figures not to be available until a year later.” I tossed a French fry to Freckles, who was drooling on my shoe. “And we don’t actually know that she came to New Mexico or whether she’s worked here. Nothing like Mel Flores waiting until the trail is cold and the deadline is near.”

Ron took a huge bite of his cheeseburger, without comment.

“So, what kind of work did she do back home?” I asked. Wherever they move, people tend to follow their professions and hobbies.

“Retail cashier,” he said glumly. Hard to get retailers to answer the phones this time of year, much less take the time for questions. Not to mention that it would entail hundreds of calls. Albuquerque isn’t a huge city but it’s far too big to do this kind of search by legwork alone. We needed something to go on.

“Let me see her picture again.”

He pushed the fax across the table at me. “There’s a better one Mel sent in my email. I should print out a few copies.”

Rosa was pretty, smiling, with large eyes and abundant dark curls that went to her shoulders. It would be nice if I had a flash of recognition and knew that I’d seen her somewhere, but I didn’t.

Drake wasn’t home yet when I got there—no surprise really. I’d put the kettle on for a cup of hot chocolate when I heard a tap at my back door. Freckles went into her automatic barking frenzy until she realized it was Elsa. I motioned my neighbor inside while I grabbed the dog’s collar and led her to her crate in the living room. We couldn’t afford a tragic accident between an exuberant puppy and an increasingly fragile ninety-year-old.

“Why is your tea kettle whistling, dear?” Elsa said. “We need to leave in five minutes.”

Leave? My mind went blank until it hit me that I’d promised to take Elsa to the food bank, where a bunch of women were assembling boxes to distribute to the needy. In a rash of poor planning, I’d committed to drive her and stay to help with the meals myself. I was also supposed to be baking cookies with Victoria later this afternoon for the cookie swap. Something had to give.

“Can you turn off the burner?” I called out to Elsa. “I’ll be right there.”

I stepped into Drake’s office and used his phone to call Victoria and explain why I had to beg out of the cookie job, although it was with a lot of reluctance. Sneaking bits of cookie dough is one of my favorite holiday traditions.

“All set,” I said to Elsa when I walked back into the kitchen with my jacket in hand.

The downtown warehouse where the food bank was set up buzzed like a hive. Our assignments put Elsa at a table where she would stick address labels on the filled boxes and bags and tuck a few candy canes in at the top. Burly guys would carry them to waiting vehicles. I got to relieve a lady who’d been placing a frozen turkey into each box. She handed me a pair of gloves and gratefully headed toward the refreshment station for a cup of anything warm.

We had a little assembly line going, I discovered. A volunteer would pull an empty box from the mountain of them that seemed to be appearing from thin air at one end of the building. She put some reinforcing tape across the bottom and pushed the box toward me. A small bottomless pit of a freezer stood near me and I was to pick up a turkey and put it into the box, then push it to the next lady who added a few cans of various foods—yams here, green beans there. Along the way there was rice and cranberry sauce and other things. In the distance somebody added a shopping bag with dinner rolls. I didn’t have much chance to really analyze the nutritional content. Just keeping up with the box-train had me hopping.

“Phoebe, take over for Carolyn, would you?” said the same woman who’d given me the turkey assignment. The honchos seemed to have a good handle on who might be reaching their endurance limit, and the woman who’d been adding the green beans stepped aside for the newcomer.

“Hi,” Phoebe said quickly. “Oh, you’re Charlie Parker, aren’t you? We met last night at the Brewster’s.”

Five sets of ears perked up. “I hear that’s quite a house,” someone else said.

“Oh, it is,” Phoebe said.

A small blond woman in her fifties looked at me, as if for verification.

“It really is,” I said.

“That poor man was devastated over losing Kathie Jo. We all were.”

“Kathie Jo used to be here at the food bank every single year,” Phoebe explained to me. “Working right here alongside all of us.”

“That new one doesn’t pitch in with anything. Just wrote a big check but she sure won’t get her hands dirty.”

“It was a
very big
check. And it came from the dealerships. Really generous of them.”

“And we are truly thankful for that,” said the blond woman who seemed to want a positive spin on everything.

There were nods all around.

“They have a very cute little boy,” the redhead added.

“Well, all I know is that she’s young and pretty.”

“Some say a little younger each year,” said the first woman, who had greeted Phoebe. “I’m just saying. Not a wrinkle in Felina’s forehead, and that jawline is pretty tight. She’s had a little work done.”

There were a couple of titters nearby.

“She adores her husband and I wish them well,” Phoebe said, putting an end to the gossip.

I silently picked up icy turkeys for another thirty minutes, until the freezer bin was empty. When a man brought another one, the coordinator assigned a new person to my spot. As my predecessor had, I headed out to find a way to warm my hands.

Elsa met me at the coffee urn. I held out the foam cup I’d just drawn but she declined.

“I’d be awake until Friday if I had that,” she said. “It’s hard enough to sleep more than two hours at my age anyway.”

I doctored the coffee with heaps of sugar and creamer and gave it a taste. She was probably right—the brew had sat far too long and become bitter and strong enough to lift a bin of frozen turkeys. Two sips into it I found a trash can for the rest.

“Well, it looks like things are winding down,” I told Elsa. More people were standing idle and the supplies appeared to have been pretty well distributed. “Do you have any other errands to do before we go home?”

Although Elsa claims she can still drive herself around town, I’ve noticed that she has started to accept transportation offers more frequently. About a month ago she commented that she couldn’t believe the rudeness of other drivers, honking their horns and speeding like crazy. While that’s true enough in this city, I suspect she has slowed down to the point where she’s becoming a bit of a hazard. Ron and I have tried to start checking in with her often enough that she’s not tempted to get out in her own car. One day soon, we would need to have “the talk” and try to convince her to quit. I didn’t relish it.

She mentioned a few grocery items, while I helped tuck her scarf around her neck. Buckled into my Jeep, we headed out.

“That group you were working with seemed to be in a pretty lively conversation,” Elsa said as I steered toward Lomas Boulevard.

“A couple of us were at a party at Jerry Brewster’s home last night. His house was the subject of the conversation.”

“He’s that car guy, isn’t he? Always had his family with him in the TV ads. His wife and the little girl always made me think of you and your mama with your long brown hair.”

“Well, he’s got a different wife now. The mother of the little girl died a few years ago. The new wife is a blond. Felina’s her name. They have a son.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Elsa’s eyebrows pulled together as she made the connections.

I spotted our turn for the market. The place looked packed. Elsa pulled out her shopping list and I yanked a stubborn cart from the batch of them just inside the store. She began reciting items such as milk and lettuce, so I gave the cart over to Elsa the second my phone rang.

“I’m here,” Drake said, “and I can already tell that I won’t be home tonight. Nothing’s organized and we’ll probably be lucky to start dropping hay in the morning.”

Picturing a herd of cattle, huddled and bawling out in the snow, I felt for the critters but I would miss Drake. He hung up with a promise to call later if he got the chance. I looked up to discover that Elsa had vanished so I started the grocery aisle trek, hoping she was nearly done with her list. I had just passed the tortilla chips when a cart nearly rammed me.

“Oh! Sorry.” The woman’s blond hair was arranged to stick every which direction out of the clip that held it up. “Charlie?”

It was Felina Brewster. Again, her makeup was perfect. I caught myself looking at her jawline. She wore skin-tight jeans, a silky shirt and leather jacket with a furry scarf wound expertly across her shoulders.

I complimented her again on the party and thanked her for inviting us.

Her cart was filled with pre-made frozen snack foods and several large bunches of flowers. She caught me noticing.

“Ah. Things for another little gathering. Decorate once, entertain a lot, I say. Works great around the holidays.”

I nodded. Not being much of a hostess I was still recovering from the preparations we’d made for our office open house. And Victoria and Sally had done most of the work for that.

A few notes of rock music blasted and her slender fingers plucked a phone from her purse. I turned to see Elsa at the opposite end of the store, near the bakery.

“Well, tell her to get home
now
,” Felina was saying as I walked away. “Darling, can’t you just . . .”

I met Elsa at the checkout stand and resisted tossing a candy bar into her basket, as I’d done so very many times during my teen years when she most certainly met her life’s challenge in raising me to adulthood. She smiled up at me—when had she gotten so much shorter?—and plucked one of my favorite Milky Way bars from the display and added it to her order.

The evening and next morning dragged by. Without Drake at home the Christmas tree just seemed like so much colorful noise in the corner of the living room. I walked the dog and took her with me to the office, where I finished billing our hours for the past two weeks and printed out invoices for the clients. Merry Christmas.

Ron came in and he and I got all the conference room furniture back in place and I checked the answering machine to discover that there were actually a few messages. Two of them mentioned new cases and I wrote down the info and passed it along, reminding him that one was from the Seattle man who’d left a message over the weekend and that this time he sounded more urgent.

Ten minutes later Ron was standing in my doorway. I looked up from the journal entries I’d been trying to make.

“I got a hit on Rosa Flores’s social security number,” he said.

“That’s great!”

“Only semi-great. She was employed here in Albuquerque as of the last calendar quarter that has been entered into the records.”

“September?”

“No, last March.”

“So the information is basically nine months old. Where did she work? Maybe she’s still there.”

“D.O.L. wouldn’t give me that information. I had a hell of a time getting them to tell me as much as they did.”

“So, how can you get that information? Would they release it to her brother?”