Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10) (9 page)

“I had a few other ideas for
cat-themed chocolates,” Jane said later, as they walked out of the store with
three shopping bags, “being that there isn’t a great variety of molds
available. How about if I form some from modeling chocolate and we use them to
sit on top of a platform, a slab or a cushion made of one of the exotic
flavors?”

“If you’re good at sculpting
delicate shapes, I will be forever grateful,” Sam said, her mind flashing again
to the image of Bobul the Romanian making his exquisite pine cones.

“It’s funny, Sam. I have these
little scenes go through my head. I can’t say where I am at the time but I
distinctly see myself handling chocolate, and there are images … Valentine
hearts … little kids getting Easter eggs … It’s the strangest feeling.”

“But nothing that tells you who
you are?”

“Once in awhile it feels very
close, but then the memory just slips away.”

Sam slid a glance toward her
guest, wishing again that she could discern whether this was the truth. Out on
Paseo, a truck in front of her hit the brakes and Sam had to do the same.
Better to concentrate on her driving and worry about quizzing Jane a bit
further tomorrow as they worked together. She wheeled into the parking lot of
the Wayside Inn and registered Jane into room 104. With her shopping bags for
luggage, Jane settled into the room and Sam left to phone Beau.

“Good timing,” he said. “I just
wrapped up a traffic stop and Dixie says that Rico is back on duty tonight. I’m
ready for dinner if you are. I’ll pick you up at your shop.”

Sam headed that direction, parked
in the alley, and he arrived about a minute later.

“I was thinking about a burger,”
he said, “but since it’s nearly five I wonder if we could make a stop first? I
want to talk to the folks at that dealership where Zack Robinet had the blowup
over his repair bill, and I’d like to catch them before closing time.”

“No problem. I have to admit that
I haven’t really thought much about food. I got Jane registered at the Wayside,
but I tell you, the woman puzzles me. She told me she slept in a parked car
last night, rather than going back to the shelter. Something about how the
women there really ‘got her down.’ And yet I talk to her about baking and
chocolate and it’s as if she hasn’t a care in the world.”

“I suppose it’s possible for
those two subjects to be entirely different, in her mind.”

“Yeah, but did I mention to you
Becky thinks she faking the amnesia?”

“No, I don’t think you did. Some
specific reason for that conclusion?”

Sam shook her head. “I really
don’t know what to think, myself.”

“It might be a good idea to keep
an eye on the situation,” he said. He radioed dispatch and Dixie put him
through to Rico.

“I know I told you to do traffic patrol
this evening but I’ve got something a little easier for your first day back,”
he told the deputy. “Park where you can see room 104 at the Wayside Inn. Watch
and report anyone coming or going. The guest is a woman who supposedly doesn’t
even remember her own name. I’d like to hear about it if you observe anything
that seems hinky about her story.”

Chapter
10

Friststone Auto sported rows of
cars which all appeared to be orange, red or bronze in the late sun blazing
through the clouds in the west. Overhead halogen beams tried to overcome this
but it didn’t seem to matter. No customers roamed the lot and the gaggle of
salesmen sat around in their shirtsleeves inside the brightly lit showroom. A
couple of them shifted noticeably when they spotted Beau’s official vehicle.

“Guy in the blue tie—DWI last
week. The one with the striped shirt beats his wife but she won’t file a
complaint, so all we can do is warn him on a regular basis.”

Both of the men in question
seemed to have urgent tasks elsewhere in the building when Beau and Sam walked
in.

“Hey, Ms. Sweet, good to see you
here again. About ready for a new truck?” Larry Friststone was the eldest son
of the Friststone family and apparently the one who caught the late Friday
night shift in the sales department.

“I’m good for now on vehicles,”
she told him. “Actually, I’m just here with my husband this time.”

Larry held a meaty hand out to
Beau. “Sheriff, congratulations on your marriage to a great gal.”

Sam smiled at the compliment.
Beau, meanwhile, had suggested Friststone take them somewhere they could talk
privately so the trio were headed to a glassed-in office.

“Do you know your customer, Zack
Robinet?” he asked, once the door closed behind them.

Friststone nodded vigorously.
“Sure do. I heard he died. Wow, kind of sudden wasn’t it?”

“He was murdered, it turns out.
We’re conducting some inquiries and we understand Mr. Robinet got into a fairly
serious altercation with someone here at the dealership just a few days before
his death.”

Friststone’s eyes widened but he
didn’t deny the incident.

“It was over a bill in the
service department, I believe.”

“Yes, yes, I’d heard about it.
Wasn’t involved, myself. Our service manager, Donny Vargas, handled it.”

Sam thought she remembered
someone saying the service manager was actually the one Zack had the fight
with, but she kept her mouth shut now.

“I’ll need to speak with him,”
Beau said.

“Certainly. I’ll have him paged.”
Friststone picked up a telephone.

Vargas entered the owner’s office
a few minutes later. He walked with the strut of a small man who is accustomed
to standing up for himself against guys who tried to belittle either his job or
his short stature. His shaved head had a five o’clock shadow outlining a
forehead-clinging hairline, and his uniform smelled of grease and tires. He
shot a defiant look at Beau but answered respectfully when his boss told him to
answer the sheriff’s questions. Friststone excused himself, leaving the other
three alone.

“I hear you and Zack Robinet kind
of got into it earlier in the week,” Beau said, lounging casually with one hip
against the office’s massive desk.

Donny Vargas’s eyes flashed. “He
started it, man. We done the work, everything he wanted, and then he shit a
brick over the cost. Hey, we bill according to the published rates on our wall.
Nothin’ extra. I swear it.”

“When was the last time you saw
him?”

“Next morning, after we worked on
his car. He raised a stink over the bill when he picked up the vehicle but he
paid it anyway. We can’t release a car until the invoice is paid. So he did.
Then he comes back the next morning ready to tie into me. Guess he fumed over
it all night or somethin’.”

“Did he actually touch you?”

“Nah. He’s one of those all-mouth
guys. He comes at me, all screaming and acting like he’ll punch me? But I show
him my fist and then he’s all backing away. Growls like some old tomcat. Stupid
pussy, that’s what he is.”

“Was. He’s dead.”

Vargas paused only a fraction.
“Doesn’t surprise me, man. He had that kind of mouth on him, always spoutin’
off.”

“So he treated you badly more
than once?”

“Me an’ everbody else. Look, I
got no love for the jerk. But I’m not the only one feels that way. He’s got
enemies all over this town.”

“Names?”

“I don’t know, man. Ask anybody
who ever dealt with him.”

“What happened after the
confrontation that morning? When did you see him again?”

“Never! He backs out of my
office, shaking his fist and screaming. But he never came back.”

“And you didn’t conveniently meet
up with him later, sometime after work, maybe another day?”

Vargas poo-pooed the idea but Sam
noticed he wouldn’t meet Beau’s eye.

Beau called Larry Friststone back
to the office and asked that he have Vargas write and sign a statement. What he
really wanted, Sam discovered, was to keep the service manager occupied while
she and Beau walked through the building to the service department.

“Let’s just see if the mechanics
remember the story the same way, without their manager hovering around.”

The crew, at this time on a
Friday night, consisted of a senior man who might be a young-looking fifty,
plus two young guys who’d probably been out of high school just long enough to
take the required training for their jobs.

The older man stepped up to the
service desk, asked if he could help them and introduced himself as Scott
Montaño.

“Just a few questions,” Beau
said. “If everyone can come over here I can ask all of you at once.”

The others set down their tools
and walked over to the service desk, one of them lagging behind and sending
nervous glances toward Beau.

“We’re looking into the argument
which took place here earlier in the week, with a customer named Zack Robinet.
What can any of you tell me about it?”

The young guys shook their heads.
“I heard voices is all,” said the tall, skinny one whose most notable feature
was that his orange freckles managed to stand out behind the layer of garage
grease which coated his face. “I was back there in bay six, an oil change.”

“Rudy? What about you?” Scott
asked when it became apparent the shyer boy wasn’t going to speak up.

Rudy shook his head again. “The
same. I was in the back. Just heard someone yelling.”

“Mr. Montaño? Did you catch any
of it—what it was about, how it ended?”

Scott glanced toward the door
leading into the showroom, making sure Donny Vargas wasn’t coming back. “It was
about the charges for Mr. Robinet’s car. He was furious over something, but I’m
not sure what. He wasn’t overcharged. A calm explanation of the charges might
have settled him down but it had been a long day and Mr. Vargas wasn’t in the
best mood. He dished it right back. I felt bad. It wasn’t professional of him.”

“He said Robinet came back the
next morning.”

“That’s true. He caught Mr.
Vargas at a bad time then. He’s not a man you want to say good morning to until
you judge his mood. Things got a little loud then, too, I’m afraid. The
customer had marched right into Mr. Vargas’s office.” He pointed toward a
glass-fronted cubicle a few feet away. “That’s one thing you don’t ever want to
do, cross that doorway unless you’re invited.”

“Sounds like Mr. Vargas has a
pretty good temper, huh?” Sam said.

All three men found other things
in the room to look at, primarily their shoes or their fingernails.

“That’s okay. I think I’m getting
the picture,” Beau said. “One more thing: Did anyone see Mr. Vargas confront
Mr. Robinet any time afterward? Maybe later in the day, maybe someplace away
from the dealership?”

“Not me,” said the skinny,
freckled kid.

“Nope.”

“Afraid not,” added Scott
Montaño.

Sam took a side door out to the
parking lot, while Beau made a show of going back to Larry Friststone’s office
to pick up whatever passed for Donny Vargas’s written statement. He would most
likely have to bring the man down to the station to formally go through the
same procedure. Too bad one of the other mechanics hadn’t witnessed something a
little more definitive. Beau had the distinct feeling that one or more of them
was stonewalling.

He told Sam as much during the
drive to The Scoreboard, the sports bar where he’d heard the atmosphere wasn’t
the greatest but the burgers were. His source—one of the deputies—was right on
the first count.

The noise of five big-screens
tuned to football hit full force right inside the door. How a person could
follow any one of the games was a mystery, since they all seemed to be running
at equal volume. Sam would have left immediately, opting for a quiet spot
somewhere, but the tantalizing smells of grilled beef, bacon, onions, chile and
cheese filled the air along with what could only be termed eau de French fry.

The Scoreboard’s reputation had
spread; only one small table remained open.

“Happy hour ends in thirty
minutes,” said the perky girl in tight shorts who plopped tiny napkins on their
table. She practically winked at Beau as she said it. “I’d sneak you an extra
half-price beer but Ray’s real strict about it.”

She tilted her head toward the
bar where a thick-chested man with muscles that screamed steroids threatened to
rip the stretchy band around the sleeve of his polo shirt.

“That’s okay, I’m on duty
anyway,” Beau said.

He ordered a Coke and Sam
requested the same as she looked over the menu which claimed to serve “101
Delicious Burger Combos.” She settled on the Ol’ Hickory, something with
grilled onions and spicy barbeque sauce. Beau’s choice went to the traditional,
a mountain of lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles atop a thick burger with
cheese.

The waitress turned in their
order and brought their drinks before joining a noisy group in the corner who
seemed focused on some college game. The fans consisted of a half dozen
businessmen who had shed their ties and jackets but bore the mark of white
shirts and Cole Haans. With them were three young women who looked way too
made-up and too young to be wives. Not to mention that each of the women was
paying equal attention to more than one man.

“Do we actually have hookers here
in Taos?” Sam whispered to Beau.

He laughed. “Darlin’ there are
hookers everywhere. If you mean that group, yes. Chief has arrested at least
two of those ladies. As long as they don’t stray outside the town limits to
find business, they’re under police jurisdiction and at least I don’t have to
deal with them. These tend to stick to a middle class clientele and I haven’t
heard of them getting caught up in anything violent, so I leave them alone. The
real skanks hang around outside the Pony after ten p.m. and get themselves
tangled up with equally skanky men.”

None of the three here seemed at
all concerned about a uniformed lawman in their midst, although the laughter
from the men had dimmed a little since Sam had looked their direction. She
turned her attention back to Beau.

“So, what did you think about the
interviews at the dealership just now? Would the service manager have followed
Zack Robinet and harmed him?”

“Harm, I can see. The kind of
murderer who got Zack, not so much. Setting it up so it appeared he’d been
involved in rough sex play but injecting him with heroin instead … that takes
some fairly sophisticated planning.”

Sam’s eyes automatically went to
the hookers in the corner, but she chided herself for making assumptions about
the type of person who would have gone with Zack to his hotel in Albuquerque.
Not someone from here, surely.

Their burgers arrived just then,
brought over by the weightlifter-bartender since their server seemed busy at
another table. He introduced himself as Ray Belatoni, the owner, as he
delivered condiments and assured them they could call upon him or Tina if they
needed anything. His words were genuine but his manner seemed perfunctory to
Sam, as if he said the same tired phrases to everyone who came in and was
secretly wishing the night was over and he could count the till. She turned to
the enticing hunk of grilled deliciousness in front of her.

“So, who are your best suspects
at this point?” she finally asked Beau, dipping an onion ring into the puddle
of ketchup on her plate.

“I think Kent Taylor would pin it
on the wife. Have to admit, they’re known for loud fights, she disappears the
same day Zack left town and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Even if she was traveling
wouldn’t she have heard about his death on the news or something?”

“We’ve asked the media not to
release his name since she’s his closest kin and we haven’t been able to reach
her. So, no, there’s no news story that gives his or her names. On the other
hand, not a lot of Taos men die in Albuquerque, so I suppose she could easily
put it together if she heard or read the basics of the story.”

“Surely there’s a trail of her
movements, right? I mean, that’s what happens on TV—you can track her credit
cards, bank accounts and such, can’t you?”

He smiled a little indulgently.
“We can and we have, but there’s been no activity. Taylor thinks she’s probably
gone off with another man, which would explain it. He’s paying for everything.”

“But airline tickets? She has to
show identification.”

“They travel by car ... maybe by
train.”

The latter seemed a little
far-fetched to Sam. Train travel was not at all the common way to go in New
Mexico. But a car—that was surely feasible.

Movement near the door caught her
attention. “Beau, look,” she said.

Donny Vargas walked in and went
straight to the bar. Ray Belatoni greeted him like best of friends and set a
shot of golden liquid in front of him, along with a salt shaker and small dish
of lime wedges. The auto mechanic slugged back the tequila and Belatoni filled
it again.

“Interesting.”

Unfortunately, the noise level in
the bar prevented them from hearing any of the chummy conversation.