Cinco de Mayhem (26 page)

I was glad Jake wasn't around to hear my tires squeal.

Flori praised my driving. “Well done,” she said as we peeled down side streets. Once I was sure we were safe, I drove her home so she could change her burglar wear for church clothes. “We're closer than ever,” she said.

I thought about this as I drove home. We were closer only because one of our main suspects was dead. I let myself in the casita, expecting Celia to still be asleep. She stood in the living room, wearing skull-printed pajamas. Hugo, perched on her shoulder, attacked a piece of her already spiky hair.

“Dad just called,” she said, her words stretched out with a yawn. “He says there're some reporters who want to talk to you.”

L
ater that morning I tried to take my mind off dead bodies by heading over to Victor's place. I assessed the array of colorful sticky notes and hoped I was making the right choices . . . about everything. Three times in the last hour an unidentified caller had tried to reach my cell phone. Had Manny given Milan Lujan or her cameraman my number? Someone had. When I checked the messages, Milan, in perfect newscaster enunciation, asked to interview me. Off the record, she said. Or on the record, if I wanted some publicity for Linda's cause. I silenced the ringer the fourth time she called and was ready to turn the phone off completely the next time it lit up. Then I noticed Linda's name and number.

She started with an apology for calling and interrupting me. “Mama told me how you found poor Mr. Busco. He was such a nice man. Kind. We helped each other out, and he believed in my
tamales. I'm so sorry he's dead and that you found him, Rita. I hope you don't get in any trouble. You have Celia to think of. You and Mama should be more careful.”

I reminded Linda that she also had children and grandchildren who needed her. “Don's death is terrible, awful, so please don't take this wrong, but maybe it'll help you, Linda. The police will investigate new leads, which will hopefully take them away from you. They'll find who
really
killed Napoleon, and the same person likely killed Don too.”

Linda murmured a prayer in Spanish. “I still feel sorry I got in that fight with Napoleon,” she said again.

“No one who truly knows you can think you had anything to do with his death,” I said. Except half the people who showed up for Flori's free pancake breakfast, as well as Crystal, although was she pointing blame toward Linda to take suspicion off herself?

Linda, for once, was thinking of the positive. “People
are
being so nice to me. Brigitte Voll invited me to an event on the Plaza this afternoon. The food cart operators are holding a rally to show they're standing together and not afraid.” Silence filled the air waves. Then Linda said, “That's why I called. I know you're busy, but could you go with me? I don't want to go on my own, and I'm afraid if I invite Mama, she'll make trouble.”

I told Linda I'd pick her up. Celia surprised me by wanting to come along. Although I tried to keep a neutral expression, I must have raised an eyebrow or widened an eyelid or exhibited some other hint of maternal amazement.

My daughter shrugged. “Yeah, whatever, I want to support Tía Linda.”

Linda was delighted to see Celia. “This is so nice of both of you!” she reiterated as I maneuvered into a parking spot a few blocks from the Plaza. “Brigitte told me that the rally will be small and quiet, but you never know. Look at that pancake breakfast Mama held. The one side of the room was pretty rowdy.”

Flori's pancake breakfast, however, was no match for the crowd we found on the Plaza.

“Whoa,” Celia said as we rounded the corner and took in the throngs of people and carts. “Look at all the ‘Free Linda' demonstrators over there and the food carts. Awesome!”

“Oh dear,” Linda said, scraping back her bangs nervously.

“It's like a festival,” said Celia. She led the way. Linda and I followed, awed by the food-cart takeover of the Plaza. The carts encircled the veterans' memorial and were offering up goodies from gourmet popcorn to tacos, fajitas, and hand pies. There was even a lady selling tamales.

“This way,” I said, hoping that Linda didn't notice the tamales.

She already had. “Tamales,” she said wistfully. “How nice. Do you think we should try them? Look, she has a sweet one with dates and brown sugar like I make for Christmas.”

“Maybe later,” I said. “Look.”

I pointed toward the raised bandstand, where Crystal, poured into a strawberry-red dress, tested a microphone. Behind her an all-female mariachi band tuned their instruments. The musicians'
long black skirts skimmed the floor of the bandstand, weighted down with the signature silver buttons up their sides. Flori, when setting up her creepy mariachi mannequins, had explained that the traditional cropped jackets and silver- and embroidery-embellished costumes originated in the
charro
cowboy tradition in Mexico.

The crowd moved toward the bandstand. Linda, Celia, and I hung back, listening as Crystal tapped the microphone. With each “Test, test, test,” she increased the volume, until her voice boomed across the Plaza. A man with a video camera clambered up onto the stage. I recognized him as the News 6 camera guy. Milan Lujan had to be nearby. “Can I borrow your sunglasses?” I asked Celia, who was standing just in front of me. She handed them back without question.

Onstage, Crystal waved and yelled,
“Hola,”
her voice echoing off the buildings to the south. “We are here to remember our friend and colleague, Don Busco, brutally murdered.” She patted the black band on her right arm. “We remember him and call for the police to find his killer!” The mariachi band stepped up behind her and struck somber discordant chords.

The crowd applauded and Crystal continued, raising her voice even louder. “A killer is after us. A poisoner, too, targeting our food family.” She paused, looking out across the crowd. “That person, he—or
she
—could be here among us now.”

A few people looked our way, and I heard Linda's name murmured. She edged closer to me. Celia's shoulders stiffened.

The mariachi band strummed a few stanzas in the minor key. Mariachi bands often give me chills, in a good way. I have similar responses to bagpipers and really amazing orchestras. Now I had goose bumps on top of creepy chills. The killer
would
be here. I was almost sure of it. He—or she, as Crystal said—was bold.

Crystal stepped up to the microphone again. “One of our own, Linda Santiago, has been accused of the murder of Napoleon, a man who made many of us mad enough to kill.” She looked out over the crowd and then waved our way. “Hello, Linda!” Linda ducked behind me, and Celia scooted back to help buffer her from staring eyes.

Raising her fist in the air, Crystal declared, “Don Busco believed in Linda, and now so do I! Linda had reason to kill Napoleon, but never Don. Now I know that Don was right. The police have made a mistake to focus on a good woman.”

One of the mariachi singers held up a sign.
FREE LINDA
!

Supporters in the crowd called out Linda's name. I felt a nudge behind me and figured it was my chagrined friend. When I turned, however, I saw Brigitte.

“This is amazing,” she said. “Linda, you have so much support.”

Linda seemed to be shriveling before my eyes. “It's okay, Linda,” I said comfortingly. “Crystal's getting off the stage. Just nice mariachi music now.”

Except Crystal hadn't relinquished her microphone yet. She was sticking it in front of the person I least wanted to hear from: Manny.

“Officer,” Crystal cooed. “We asked you here because we food carters are scared. Two of our own are dead. The food inspector has been poisoned. Is there a psychopath after us, like Don said? What can you tell us? Can you comfort us?”

I imagined that Manny would be more than happy to comfort pretty Crystal. He bestowed his sympathetic look on her and stepped up onto the stage, where he greeted the cute cello player by name.

“Citizens and food carters of Santa Fe,” Manny said, in a voice worthy of soap-opera drama. “We are narrowing in on our suspect right now. The vicious and cowardly perpetrator will be punished.” He repeated this in Spanish.

The Spanish was a nice touch, I gave him that. It seemed to impress the crowd, including Celia, who gazed at her dad with rapt attention.

“Hear that, Tía Linda?” Celia said, nudging Linda.

Linda, who had been staring at her feet, looked up long enough to smile at Celia.

Manny was going on about processing evidence, about the important role citizens had in reporting any evidence and in letting the police do their work. “Amateurs should not try to gather evidence or jump to faulty conclusions,” he said pointedly.

“Pah,”
Brigitte said. She whispered to me, “You and me, Rita, we discovered the money trail that the police will say they found. The killer will be the food inspector Jenkins,
n'est-ce pas
?” She pointed to a far corner of the Plaza. Jenkins stood off by himself. Even from this distance, he looked
unhealthy. I wished we could yell to Manny,
There he is! There's your man!
Manny would love to make a dramatic arrest in front of Milan and her action news camera. He wouldn't love that it was my idea, though.

“Patience,” Brigitte said, as if guessing my thoughts. “All in good time.” She wished Linda good luck and hurried back to her crepe cart to get ready for the hungry crowd.

Manny was fielding questions now and deflecting most of them. He couldn't comment, he said, on whether the two murders and poisoning were related. He wouldn't comment on wild theories, including those involving a scary traveling clown and marijuana cookie smugglers from Colorado. I could tell that Manny was getting testy. “I can't comment anymore,” he said, thrusting the microphone at the lead mariachi singer.

She launched into “El Rey,” a song so famous that even a non-native southwesterner like me could recognize it. Flori had helped me translate the lyrics once. “El Rey” told of a man who thought himself a king. Rich or poor, he could do what he wanted, his word was law. I listened, trying to pick out phrases I knew. Napoleon definitely had a king complex. Only one line didn't fit.
You'll weep when I die
. Except for Brigitte's sniffles, I'd seen no weeping. People were scared, though.

Linda, Celia, and I strolled along the line of food vendors, and I overheard the popcorn and fajita cart owners arguing about who was to blame.

“A psychopath,” the popcorn lady contended. “I've read they're everywhere. In boardrooms and lurking where you least think they'll be. He's
probably here right now, watching us from the bushes.”

“What bushes?” the fajita guy countered. He pushed back the bandanna wound around his forehead and waved across the shrubbery-free Plaza.

“You know what I mean. Behind a tree, then. Or over in that van. Or just walking around, or anywhere . . .” Popcorn lady shuddered. The fajita guy looked up, saw us, and his eyes widened.

“Hi, Xavier,” Linda said timidly. The stout man backed away and pretended to attend to an empty cooler. The popcorn lady offered us a bag of caramel corn, whispering to Linda, “Don't let Xavier upset you. I don't think you did it. Most of us don't, and we want you back. Xavier believes all the craziest stories, like UFOs and Bigfoot and
chupacabras
. Seriously, ask him about Bigfoot. You'll never hear the end of it.”

At the end of the row of carts, Celia was holding free popcorn, hand pies, lemonade, and a tamale, all from Linda's supporters. Others in the food cart line had given us dirty looks or avoided eye contact.

When we reached Crepe Empire, Brigitte shook her head. “You have your hands full. You must be hungry.”

“All from Linda's supporters,” I said, emphasizing the positive.

“The others think I did it,” Linda added quietly. “They think I killed those men. I can never come back to work. I'm a pariah. A black sheep.” Her voice faltered. “No one will miss my tamales anyhow. Look, there's already another tamale
cart. A modern cart. Napoleon said my cart was old. He was right.”

“Never!” Brigitte said with French gusto. “Napoleon, he would never tell you, but he declared your
mole
tamale delectable, Linda. A huge compliment.”

Celia jumped in. “She's right, Tía Linda. Your tamales are the best! And this one, it's no good.” She covered the remains of the free rival tamale with a napkin. A few moments earlier I'd seen her eating it with relish. “It's, ah . . . it's too sweet, and who wants chocolate chips and banana in a tamale anyway?”

Me? Celia? Melted chocolate, banana, and brown sugar in a tender tamale sounded delicious.

Instead, I said, “They're right. People miss you. Didn't you hear the popcorn lady? And Xavier's own mother begged you to come back in time for Fourth of July and summer picnics.”

Linda smiled weakly. “I do hope I'll be back.”

“You will be!” Celia said. “Fight for yourself, isn't that what you say, Mom?”

“Oui, oui,”
Brigitte said. “You must fight. Your own self is all that matters.”

Inspiring words. I wanted to gather us all in for a group hug, although that would have mortified Celia and spilled her popcorn. “Soon it'll all be over,” I assured Linda. “It's like Manny said up on the stage. The police are narrowing in.”

“We sure are.” Manny's voice made me jump.

“Dad!” Celia said. “Want some popcorn? It's chile lime. The lady sells cheese and caramel too, like we used to get back in Chicago.”

Manny accepted a handful. There was some
thing in his expression I didn't like. He looked a little too pleased, and not simply because Chicago-style popcorn was one of the few things he loved about the Midwest. Had he just snagged a date with Milan Lujan? She was weaving our way, her cameraman in tow. Bunny and the young, wide-eyed policeman I met at the Cathedral were pushing through the crowd as well.

Adrenaline surged through me. Manny knew. He figured out that I broke into Don's, and he was here to arrest me in front of our daughter, News 6, and a mariachi band. No, he couldn't be that mean. Our divorce had been contentious and we still argued, but he wouldn't publicly shame me. Would he?

“Sorry, Rita,” my ex had the decency—or gall—to say. He squeezed Celia's arm supportively. “Sorry, kid. This has to be done.”

Bunny stepped up. I took my hands out of my pockets, prepared to hold out my wrists. At least these handcuffs wouldn't be pink, fluffy embarrassments. Bunny didn't touch me, but her words nearly bowled me over. “Linda Santiago, I am arresting you for the murder of Don Busco.”