Sweets Galore: The Sixth Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (20 page)

Fine. I wanted to talk to you anyway.

She made a right turn and pulled
into the wide parking lot of a consignment shop. The Beemer came alongside and Tustin
jumped out before she’d even powered down her window. The young flunky with the
cell phone waited in the car, chatting away with someone.

“Samantha, I’m glad I saw you back
there,” Tustin said, flashing that people-charmer smile. “I was planning to stop
by your shop.”

His gelled hair stood up and in
the sunlight she saw that he had tiny freckles on his forehead. It gave him a
farm kid look, like he could be Tom Sawyer’s crony.

“I guess I owe you a debt of
thanks,” she said. “For not pointing me out in the crowd yesterday at the news
conference.”

“No problem.” He glanced off to
the west for a second. “Look, the real reason I wanted to chat with you was to
see if I couldn’t change your mind about investing with us. Could we do lunch?
Pick a nice place.”

“I’ve really got a full day,” she
said, although she wouldn’t mind asking him a few more questions about Evie.
Although he hadn’t been in town at the time he might know how the young woman
had spent last Friday afternoon. The turn-off was the idea of spending an hour
with someone whose only goal was to talk her out of money—kind of like those
way-too-friendly timeshare presentations.

He rested a forearm on the edge of
her window. “Jake thought very highly of you, Sam. This isn’t about the size of
the investment, is it? Because Jake said you’d done really well for yourself,
selling that
Cantone
sketchbook for—well, I have no
idea but I heard rumor that it was six or seven figures.”

“I can’t invest with you, Tustin.”

“But Jake said—”

“Even if I had the money, which I
don’t, I wouldn’t. It seems like a very speculative investment.”

His eyes narrowed, his face
hardening. “That could prove to be a very bad decision.”

“Is that a threat?” She edged her
hand toward the window buttons.

His smile reappeared. “Not at all.
I just think when the show hits number one in the ratings you’ll wish you’d
gotten in on it. It’ll be an excellent return on your money.”

Chapter
17

She watched Deor saunter back to
the BMW and climb in, acting like he owned the world. She wondered how many
thousands were still due on the car, let alone his other massive debts. It was
amazing how people began to believe their own images.

He started the car and roared out
of the parking lot, narrowly missing a UPS truck. She held her breath as the
driver slammed on his brakes and glared at the red car.

Her phone rang and she picked it
up. Beau.

“Hey,
darlin
’,
how’s the search going?”

“Well, I just blew a chance to ask
some more questions about
Evie’s
whereabouts on
Friday,” she said, telling him about the encounter with Tustin. “Why? Do you
have any news?”

“I contacted my friend in the
police department and asked him to check on the note that was with the cupcake
bag. Haven’t heard anything yet. Kelly called your mother and said she would
come out to the house and take them out for the day.”

“I know. Thank goodness for
everybody who’s pitching in this week. I’m feeling a little let down that we
haven’t been able to get more information.”

“Would it help if I went by the
hotel and talked to Evie?” he asked. “She might feel like she has to answer
questions if they come from someone in uniform. She won’t know that this isn’t
my case.”

“Good idea. You might be able to
get more out of the hotel staff too. In the meantime, what can I be working on?
I really feel at loose ends.”

“Hang in there. We’ll start
getting answers soon. I’ll call you when I come up with something.”

She hoped those answers came
very
soon. Waiting to hear from her
attorney, waiting for Beau’s contact in the police department and waiting to
see what Evie had to say—all this spare energy with no outlet for it was
driving her crazy. She started her truck and rolled out of the lot, covering
the few blocks to Sweet’s Sweets.

“What are you doing here?” Becky
asked, looking up from a child’s birthday cake with a brown sugar stretch of
beach and a gray candy shark roaring up out of blue-gel icing.

“I can’t stand sitting around and
hoping the police or my attorney come up with answers. I have to be doing
something.” Sam pulled on a baker’s jacket and turned to Julio. “Do you have
any cookies I can decorate or something?”

Within fifteen minutes Sam had
decorated six dozen butter cookies. Normally after handling the wooden box her
energy level went a little ballistic and she could accomplish an amazing amount
of work in a short time. But she always did this little feat at night when the
employees weren’t around to witness. She told herself to slow down.

She carried the tray of cookies
out front for the display, took a deep breath and went back to see what else
awaited. She was nearly finished with the three dozen fancy cupcakes they would
need for the afternoon crowd when Beau called.

“I’m at the La Fonda,” he said,
“and I got access to the room where Jake stayed. No other guests have used it
yet and it hasn’t been cleaned. I thought you and I might conduct a little
investigation of our own.”

“Is this going to get you in
trouble?”

“The police released the crime
scene, so it’s up to the hotel manager how soon he wants to put it back in use.
I just asked him to hold off a little longer.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She washed her hands, switched the
baker’s jacket for her regular shirt again, and headed out the front door. It
would be simpler to walk the two blocks than to find parking on the plaza in
the middle of a busy morning. She found Beau in Room 301, where he’d told her
to come.

“Put these on,” he said, handing
over a pair of latex gloves. “Even though they released the room, the police could
always come back and it wouldn’t be good for our prints to be here.”

She scanned the room—typical setup
with king-sized bed, two nightstands, a pine desk with a cute-but-uncomfortable
looking iron-backed chair, and a pine armoire. Indian blanket motif bedding
added to the Southwestern feel, and a kiva fireplace in one corner gave a touch
of coziness. Three windows overlooked the plaza and a door led to a balcony.

“This one adjoins room 302,” Beau
said with a tilt of his head, “and they share the balcony, but someone else was
staying in that one and all the connecting doors were locked the whole time,
according to the manager.”

Chocolate crumbs littered a corner
of the desk; no one had bothered to brush them into the trash basket below and
the receptacle was completely empty.

“Look around for the note that the
desk clerk said was attached to the bakery bag,” she said, lifting the skirting
around the bed. “Just in case.”

“Bathroom’s empty,” he called out.
“I guess the police took what they wanted and tossed any personal possessions
into the suitcase that Tom Calendar took home with him.”

The bed was one of those built on
a solid wooden base and there was little chance that an item would end up
between it and the bed skirt but Sam crawled on hands and knees all the way
around, making sure. No sign of the note. When she stood up her vision blurred
and she squeezed her eyes shut. Opening them, she saw a vague grayish form near
the desk, almost human in shape. It bent over the corner where the cupcake
crumbs were scattered. She strained to recognize it but the vision dissipated
and vanished.

“B—” she started to call out. But
what was there to say?

Her hands tingled faintly,
reminding her that she’d handled the wooden box this morning. Similar things
had happened before—colored auras, glowing fingerprints invisible to the naked
eye. It was downright spooky and she knew from experience that other people
couldn’t see them. She walked to the desk and stared hard but no prints
appeared to her, no trace of the ghostly figure.

“Sam? What’s the matter?” Beau had
come out of the bathroom and was staring at her face. “You’re awfully pale.”

She blinked again. “Really? I
guess I stood up too fast. I thought I saw some—” She shook her head. “Never
mind. It probably wasn’t anything.”

Nothing but an overactive
imagination, she told herself. She crossed over to the small rounded fireplace
and looked at the arrangement of ceramic logs stacked to look like a pile of
wood. Beneath them, the crumbly fake ashes looked normal enough. She stooped
down and poked her gloved finger through them—no burned scraps of paper. Where
was that note?

Beau had walked out to the balcony
and when Sam stood and turned toward the center of the room it happened again.
A grey figure near the desk, but this one was slightly different from the
first—taller, broader in the shoulders.

“Beau, can you come here?” she
said without taking her eyes off the faint shape.

She heard his tread crossing the
balcony, stepping through the doorway.

“Do you see anything over by the
desk?”

“On the floor? Or on the desk
itself?”

The shape melted away. Clearly, he
hadn’t seen it.

“No, it’s gone now. I just thought
I saw something.” Was this another aura-like vision, or did she want answers so
badly that she was fooling herself into seeing them?

“Well, I don’t see anything useful
here,” Beau said, closing the balcony door and locking it. “Looks like the
police took everything that might have helped us.”

Sam stripped off her gloves and
handed them over to him, disappointed.

“Well, there’s still hope that the
police do have the note and that Mark Nelson can get a copy of it.”

They stepped out into the corridor
and Beau locked the room. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they walked
toward the stairs.

“There’s also a chance that the
killer got hold of the note and destroyed it after Jake got the package,” he
said. “You need to be prepared for the idea that it may never turn up.”

“So, who had access to Jake’s room
other than Evie? You’re not suggesting the hotel personnel?”

“Mr. Deor, the fancy-
schmancy
producer?”

“No. He arrived in town after Jake
died so he could take over the press conference. That, and pestering me for
money.”

“Well, there are lots of ways to
get into hotel rooms. We really can’t rule out anyone.”

A picture of Vic Valentino, the
unfortunate singer who’d failed so miserably at his audition attempt, came into
her head. She thought about him as she and Beau walked through the lobby.
Valentino, aka Victor Garcia, was slightly built. So was the first of the two
smoke-like apparitions she’d seen in the room. Valentino also had a reason to
hate Jake Calendar. Perhaps he’d thought with Jake out of the way that he could
get to someone higher up with
You’re The
Star
and manage to get a more successful audition with somebody else—he’d
almost admitted that to Sam when she’d visited his home. Maybe they should talk
to him again. She said as much to Beau when they reached the sidewalk.

“Could you question him this
time?” she suggested. “I didn’t get much out of him. Meanwhile, I want to run
by Mark Nelson’s office and see what he may have found out about the note.”

They parted ways outside the
hotel. As she walked back toward her shop Sam found herself thinking about the
two visions she’d had in Jake’s room. They weren’t well defined, not clearly
human beings, but they certainly didn’t look animal or ghostly in the Casper
sense. They were almost more like energy fields. Still, she had to wonder, had
she just witnessed the figure of the person who poisoned the cupcake?

She retrieved her truck from the
alley where she’d parked it, cranked the engine and headed out to see her
attorney.

The law offices looked moderately
busy from the outside. Five vehicles, including the Escalade Mark Nelson drove.
She went inside, hoping she wouldn’t get the runaround or have to wait through
someone else’s long consultation. Luckily, he was standing at the reception
desk and there was no graceful way for him to escape. He invited her into the
conference room and closed the door.

“No luck, Sam. I’m sorry. The note
didn’t show up in any of the photos or on the evidence list, so I went by the
police station. They swear they never found a note at the scene.”

Her mood plummeted. Life would
have become a whole lot simpler with that bit of evidence. Nelson didn’t have
anything to help lighten her spirit so she left, wondering just how helpful he
really wanted to be. He would certainly bill a lot more hours if this thing
went all the way to trial. She and Beau needed to find answers, quickly.

Her phone rang as she was getting
into her truck.

“Another lead,” Beau said.

At this point almost any news had
to be positive.

“I got a callback from Tom
Calendar and he gave me the names of Jake’s former wives. Did you know there
were three? So, anyway, I made a call to Vital Statistics in Sacramento. No
info on the first one—Tom said it was twenty-five years ago and they divorced a
year later in Nevada—but the other two took place in California. Wife number
two was Glenda
Tronto
. That lasted seven years—maybe
someone got the itch.”

“All that sounds like way old
history,” Sam said, wondering where this was going.

“It’s the last one that gets
interesting. Six years ago he married Doralee Wickham. Tom said they had their
problems but wasn’t sure whether they’d officially split. The court records
show that Jake filed for divorce in May of this year. The records don’t show
whether it became final. I requested information on the couple’s finances but
haven’t gotten anything back on that.”