Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (21 page)

Was it his fault that Clarissa had loved someone else and was all but forced into marriage with him by parents who prized Hal’s money more than their daughter’s feelings? Or that the young woman he’d turned to in his unhappiness simply wanted a way out of a dreary life?

The twists and turns life takes, Angie realized as she gazed at the poster, were completely unpredictable. Despite all the planning and care one might do, surprises could still turn up and bite you.

Beyond the two tents and near the far corner of the hacienda, a barbecue pit had been dug. Smoke rose from the glowing embers beneath the turning spits on which huge sides of beef and three pigs slowly rotated. An enormous, florid, and toothless man with the filthiest apron Angie had ever seen danced around with a bucket and hand mop slopping a cooking sauce onto the meat. On a large table near the pit were rows of skewered chicken parts and plump sausages.

The whole scene was a vegetarian’s worst nightmare.

Angie saw that Doc had arrived and was in animated conversation with Paavo. She was glad to see Doc looking much better than when she last saw him. The man had gone through a terrible ordeal but was holding up remarkably well. She walked up and gave him a hug. “I’m so glad you decided to come here today,” she said with a smile.

“I never was one to stay in bed, my head under the covers, lamenting things that can’t be undone.” Doc gave her a stern look. “I was just telling Paavo that something’s got me on edge today. He says he’s feeling the same way.”

“I know.” A shiver went down her back. “I hope it has nothing to do with the cookout, though. Everyone here has worked hard on it. Even LaVerne.”

“Uh-oh,” both Doc and Paavo said at the same time. After a momentary chuckle, Doc asked, “Is the chuck wagon ready to roll?”

“Not yet,” Angie replied. “Lionel has to hitch up the horses. The meat is still cooking, so we’ve got plenty of time. Have you seen him or Clarissa?” She looked around the plaza.

“No,” Paavo said. “I haven’t seen Joey either.”

“If we’re lucky, neither of them will show up today,” Doc said. “They’d do nothing but ruin a good party.”

“Are Lupe and Teresa coming?”

Doc shook his head and a worried frown passed over his face. “They’re staying near the hospital.”

“I see,” Angie said. She was sorry that, the way things stood, nothing could develop between Doc and Lupe. In her opinion, that was wrong—they deserved happiness together. At the same time, she understood Lupe’s position. Life wasn’t always fair.

“Even though not much food is out here yet,” she added in a forcibly jovial tone, “they’ve put out the beer. I’ll bet you could go for some, right Doc?”

The faraway look in his eyes had Angie considering that he, too, had been thinking about Lupe. But then he gave her a sudden smile. “Music to my ears.”

The black truck skidded to a stop in front of Junior’s old and battered truck and RV trailer.

“Thanks for coming so fast,” Junior said, climbing out of the trailer onto the dirt road.

“So Merry Belle’s a problem.” The driver got out of the truck.

“Yeah, but we can handle her.” Junior swaggered closer. “I think we should go now to see Teresa. I’ll talk to her. Tell her it’s all up to me, like we planned.”

“No.” The voice was firm. Something about it made Junior’s blood run cold.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Get inside your truck, behind the wheel.”

Junior’s eyes grew wide and round at the gun pointed at him. “Inside? I don’t get it.” Junior hesitated only a second, then climbed onto the driver’s seat. “What’s this about? You and me are together in this.”

“Are we?”

Junior held his hands out, pleading. “What are you doing? I’ve got all the proof of Teresa’s marriage—the church and civil records—just like we need. I’m her father. If she wants to inherit Hal’s property, she has to agree to give me half or I keep the proof and she gets nothing! You’ll get your share. That’s our deal. You and me—partners, right? In everything. I’ll give you a bigger percentage if that’s what you want. Or … or maybe we could split it three ways with Teresa. What does she know about money? She’s just a kid, happy to work with her mother. You and me—we appreciate the fine things in life. We’ll each take a third, right? Without me—and you—Teresa gets nothing. She has no proof, right?”

“Junior, you make me sick.”

His face fell, and he stared as if he couldn’t believe his own ears. “What are you saying? It’s our plan. It’s a good plan. We’re going to be rich.”

“Wrong.”

Fear and uncertainty made Junior’s voice crack as realization flashed across his bloodshot eyes. He gripped the steering wheel, looking for the truck’s keys, but they were deep in the pocket of his Wranglers. “What do you want?”

Silence.

“You used me, didn’t you?”

More silence.

“You set people up! You killed Hal and Ned! And Teresa … my God! I understand now. Everything. I understand everything.” Junior’s face paled, his voice turned quiet, as if figuring it all out was slightly miraculous to him.

“Congratulations.”

A gunshot sounded, and Junior would never figure out anything again.

With a woeful Buster beside her, Merry Belle drove along the narrow road where Junior Whitney had parked his trailer. She could hardly wait to get her hands on him.

The sheriff came close to achieving warp speed as she held her foot steady on the accelerator.
I’m going to kill myself driving like this,
she warned herself again. Despite the high speed, she felt like she had driven for hours before spotting her objective. Merry Belle slammed on the brakes, kicking up dust and fishtailing to a stop. She jumped from the Hummer shouting for Junior to come out and face her like a man.

As the swirling dust cloud settled, she saw an outline slumped over the steering wheel of the truck.

She raced over and pushed Junior back against the seat. His chest was covered with blood, his eyes opened but sightless, his expression both frightened and bewildered. She touched his neck, hoping against hope to find a pulse. There was none.

Merry Belle gently closed his eyes.

Buster stumbled into the brush and threw up.

Angie watched as Lionel led a couple of horses toward the chuck wagon. For some reason, the process began making her more and more nervous.

Paavo’s cell phone rang. Angie and Doc listened in shock to Paavo’s side of the conversation. He was grim when he disconnected.

“Junior’s dead,” he said flatly. “Shot. I’m meeting the sheriff.”

“It’s all coming to a head,” Doc said in a barely audible voice, “just as I thought it would.”

“I’m coming with you,” Angie said.

“No.” Paavo answered with a finality that left no room for argument.

“Let’s take my car,” Doc said. “I’ve got all my gear in it. I am the assistant coroner, after all. I’ll … I’ll do the certification, then call Lupe.”

They walked across the plaza to the parking lot. Doc got behind the wheel of his car.

Paavo paused by the passenger door and looked apologetically at Angie. “I’m sorry I’ll miss your big entry on the chuck wagon.”

“I’m sure it’ll be quite boring,” she said, her heart heavy that death had once again come to this town.

“Be careful,” he warned.

“It’s a chuck wagon—what could go wrong?” She tried to smile, but failed. “You’re the one who’d better be careful. There’s a killer out there, Paavo.”

They kissed and Paavo got in the car.

As Doc’s Cadillac pulled away, Angie felt afraid. Not only for Paavo, but for all of them.

She walked back to the plaza and the lively celebration.
I’ll keep this to myself,
she thought.
Let the living have their fun.

Lionel was waving at her like a demented maestro. “Where you been?” he called. “It’s time.” He ushered her to the chuck wagon.

Angie looked at the two horses hitched to it. One, Chloe, looked sweet and gentle. The other was Bucky. She didn’t dare go near him. His teeth looked awfully big, her fingers awfully small, and she didn’t like the way he stared at her as if she offended him.

“All right, Miss Angie. Time to set yourselves up front and ride the wagon over,” Lionel said with a grand flourish of his battered Stetson.

“Let LaVerne and Dolores get up there first,” Angie said.

Dolores laughed, nudging her forward. “LaVerne doesn’t do stuff like this, and I’m just a hired hand.”

“I can’t do it alone!” Angie stared up at the chuck wagon’s seat. It was high above the ground. Her legs didn’t want to move.

“Get up there, girl,” Dolores said. “You’re our guest of honor. Go on, before the food gets cold!”

“But I don’t know how to drive a chuck wagon!” Angie said, her voice tiny.

“You just pull back on the reins to slow them down, and say
‘whoa’
when you want them to stop,” Lionel said.

Dolores leaned forward and whispered to her,
“Don’t worry—me and Lionel lead the horses, but no one’s supposed to know that.”

“But still—”

Propelled by Dolores, Angie found herself sitting on the bench seat with the reins in her hands. Bucky turned his head back toward her with another nasty look. “I don’t know about this,” Angie murmured, trying to hide her unease.

Dolores chuckled. Angie looked for Lionel and saw him near his trailer. So much for counting on his help! Bucky turned once again and cast a malevolent stare at her. What was with that darn horse? You’d think she’d taken away his feed bucket.

“Time to roll!” Dolores said, taking the reins and walking Bucky forward. The chuck wagon lurched and swayed. Angie almost let out a shriek as she felt the ancient wood strain and creak. Eventually, the contraption began to roll forward.

Although her imagination saw it as something akin to a chariot race, the chuck wagon moved slowly. They reached the corner of the hacienda, and to her surprise and utter relief, Dolores led the horses so that they turned smoothly onto the plaza. A cheer went up from the crowd, Bucky’s ears stretched flat. He snorted and tried to surge forward. Angie pulled back on the reins, holding them so tight her fingers cramped, but he settled down before Angie went into cardiac arrest.

Cheering and applauding, the crowd watched the chuck wagon approach the tents. Angie knew she had to get the look of utter terror off her face and scanned the crowd for support. Clarissa and Joey were on the veranda looking glum and bored.

She found Doc’s old friend Joaquin nodding at her. Angie almost managed to smile back.

As they reached the tent where she was supposed to stop, she looked for Dolores and Lionel to help her.

Neither was nearby. Nearly spinning like a top in the wagon seat, she searched the crowd trying to find them. Where were they? What had happened to them?

Suddenly, the tent was right beside her. Bucky continued on, almost past it. She had to do something.

“Whoa,”
she cried, and pulled back on the reins. Nothing happened. The horses continued forward.

“Whoa, whoa,”
she yelled louder, half standing as she pulled back hard on the reins. “Please! Please stop!”

To her shock, Bucky and Chloe stopped in perfect position.
Amazing,
Angie thought, nearly numb with relief.
Maybe I am a real cowgirl after all.
Her grin was a mixture of euphoria and stunned incredulity.

As people applauded, she stood and waved at the crowd, feeling very good about herself. Why had she been scared? How silly of her. Too bad Paavo had missed her grand entrance.

Suddenly, there was a ruckus from the far side of the hacienda. Startled, she looked over her shoulder to see a cloud of dust billowing into the sky. At the same time she heard a strange and ominous pounding.

“What—”

The word wasn’t out of her mouth when her voice choked. She let out a shriek.

Of horror.

The entire flock of ostriches was running toward the plaza like a seven-foot-tall tidal wave. “Oh, oh!” she cried, unable to even form words. People began screaming and running, while she tried to decide if she was better off leaping from the chuck wagon and running as well, or staying on it and hoping the ostriches went around her.

She didn’t need to make the decision.

“I always said he should rot in hell for the way he treated Lupe and Teresa,” Doc muttered as he looked at Junior’s body. “Maybe now he is.”

As Doc proceeded with the examination for his coroner’s report, Paavo walked over to the sheriff and Buster. There was worry and upset on Buster’s face, anger on the sheriff’s, but also a deep weariness.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“He wasn’t much, Paavo,” Merry Belle said in a low voice, “but I knew him my whole life. He was pretty nice sometimes when he was a boy, but it all went to hell in a bottle of Jim Beam. What a waste. The town failed him.”

“People fail themselves,” Paavo said.

“Perhaps.”

They took one last look at the body. “Buster,” Merry Belle said, “you going to tell us about it?”

“I don’t know, I told you!” Buster was near tears. “Junior gave me money to borrow my uniform. That’s all. If you paid more than minimum wage, I wouldn’t have to do such things!”

“If you worked more than the minimum, I might think about it!” she yelled.

Paavo had them both calm down and tell him what was going on.

Spooked by the charging birds and the shaking of the earth, Bucky reared up and rocketed forward with Chloe sharing the sudden panic. The reins flew from Angie’s hands and she somersaulted backward over the bench seat to land on the wagon flatbed.

While ostriches bounced like pinballs off tents and tables they ran into and knocked over, the two horses plowed straight through the crowd, pulling the chuck wagon—and Angie—with them.

Angie held on to whatever part of the wagon she could as she crawled forward trying to reach the seat and retake the reins. She watched townspeople scatter as pots, plates, dishes, and trays flew from the chuck wagon, spraying everyone and everything in its path. Her carefully prepared scrolled disks of salmon spun from the wagon like flying fish Frisbees, landing on people’s hair and clothes. And sticking.

One of Dolores’s pork roasts jettisoned from a plate with such force it knocked a man over; macaroni and cheese speckled others from head to foot.

Deviled eggs shot out over the plaza like Ping-Pong balls from a toy bazooka.

Even the ostriches were showered with corn, chili, and Angie’s fancy dal. A banana cream pie hit the cowlicked bird smack in the face. She halted, momentarily stunned.

The chuck wagon lurched and swayed, knocking Angie back onto its bed. Punch washed over
her, followed by bread and rolls. An entire tuna-noodle casserole splattered over her, the ingredients all but gluing themselves to her hair and clothes like giant leeches. The bean pot, which fortunately had been secured, spewed red beans like a volcano, turning the bed of the chuck wagon into a gooey, slithery swamp.

Everything, including Angie, went airborne as the wagon bounced over bumps and ruts. As it swayed and shimmied, she tried to scramble to her feet, but slipped and slid, and didn’t get anywhere.

To her amazement, she spotted Joaquin on horseback, racing through zigzagging ostriches toward her. Miraculously, he soon reached the thundering Bucky and Chloe and used his skill as a horseman to somehow make them turn back toward the plaza. Angie skittered sideways as the circling wagon tilted on two wheels. She covered her head, sure the cart was going to flip over. In an endless flash of time, more varieties of salad rained down on her. Corn bread bounced off her head, ham hocks pelted her, and another violent tilt of the wagon caused her to land facedown in a puddle of salsa. Sputtering, she somehow managed to sit up again.

The wagon righted itself, and next thing Angie knew, Joaquin had grabbed the horse’s bridle and was shouting,
“Whoa.”

What a blessed word!
she thought, her heart pounding with relief.

The two frightened horses came to a sudden halt in a cloud of dust. Equally abruptly, the wagon stopped. Angie and everything she was sit
ting in lurched and sloshed forward, then—in demonstration that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—momentum tossed her and the food like a whiplash toward the back of the wagon.

“Noooooo,” she cried, scrambling to grab hold of something, anything, to save herself. Her fingers could find nothing solid. Feet-first, she smacked into the chuck box. It hit the tailboard, causing the old wood to split like tissue paper.

The chuck box flew off the rear of the wagon onto the plaza.

And, riding atop a tidal wave of churned food like a kid on a water slide, Angie shot out after it.