Sweet Masterpiece - The First Samantha Sweet Mystery (23 page)

Sam agreed and wished him luck, already
preoccupied with her own duties for the day. By the time she’d
dressed and grabbed a piece of toast for breakfast, she was feeling
the pressure to get the cake done. She quickly iced it with milk
chocolate buttercream, piped borders around the edges, then wrote
the words “It was a dark and stormy night . . .” in dark chocolate
script on the right-hand ‘page’ of the book shape. For the left
side, roses seemed too traditional so she made mounds of tiny
flowers in white chocolate that became clusters of hydrangeas. She
added dark chocolate stems and leaves, and strategically sprinkled
dragées and edible chocolate glitter to catch the light. That final
step made the entire cake practically glow.

Sam looked at it with satisfaction. She felt
almost the same radiance, herself.

She popped the cake into the fridge to set
while she cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. A tuna sandwich and
baggie full of potato chips would serve as lunch, sometime between
delivering the cake and mowing Cantone’s yard. The room darkened
slightly, a cloud passing across the face of the sun, heralding a
shift away from their warm Indian Summer days.

A subtle chill sneaked down her spine when
she thought of Cantone. Beau’s words came back. He would be
questioning Bart Killington today. Why did that suddenly bother
her?

Sam shook off the feeling and changed to work
clothes. As she put her good gold hoop earrings into the wooden
box, it sent its familiar warmth into her hands. She hadn’t
realized that they were cold as ice.

She held the box an extra minute, her hands
absorbing the heat they needed. When she set it down again she felt
her energy return. She paused a moment to let it surge through her,
welcoming the power she would put to good use in accomplishing her
tasks.

The white van waited in the driveway beside
the Silverado. Soon, she told herself. Soon she would get signs
made and Sweet’s Sweets would become a presence as she drove around
town. Briefly debating which vehicle to take, she couldn’t resist
driving the new one. She set the cake carefully in the back,
hitched up the trailer with her lawn equipment and started
rolling.

As always, Ivan Petrenko was effusive in his
praise of the new dessert for the Chocoholics.

“Is reading a gothic mystery this week, for
the group,” he said. He showed her the book. “See? ‘Dark and stormy
night’ is perfect motif. How do you know?”

How, indeed? Sam shrugged it off and wished
him well.

By the time she reached Cantone’s property
heavy clouds had begun to build over the mountains. She stared
upward and gave a nervous chuckle. The changing weather must be the
real reason for her ‘dark and stormy’ inspiration.

Beyond Cantone’s property the house belonging
to Leonard Trujillo, the property boundary complainer, looked empty
with no vehicles in the driveway. Betty McDonald’s place looked
similarly unoccupied. Later, Sam thought, she could catch them and
ask questions after she finished her work.

She lowered the short ramp on the trailer and
pulled the mower to the ground as the dark cloud moved closer. Wet
grass wouldn’t cut well; she should get it done before trying to
question the neighbors anyway. The machine started right up and she
made quick work of the areas in front of the house. A patch of the
scary deathcamas grew near the steps to the porch and she cut it
down without a second thought. Zoe’s description of its effects,
the violent convulsing death, haunted her. As the shredded stems
flew away from the mower Sam felt an almost physical ache for poor
Pierre Cantone.

Dark gray clouds covered most of the sky
now.

She steered the mower to the backyard, making
a perimeter where the lawn’s edge touched the wild grasses and sage
beyond. As she passed the dark hole in the earth, where the
sheriff’s men had dug up the artist’s body, she again felt that
slice of fear up her spine. What had the old man gone through as he
ingested the poison, day after day, slowly dying. Did he know he
would end up in this corner, covered by the heaps of soil that now
lay in dark piles?

She turned her back, aiming the mower in the
opposite direction.

Calm down, Sam, she told herself. What’s the
matter with you?

A flash of lightning in the distance caught
her attention. Great. She pushed the mower a little faster.
Doubling back, she concentrated on the work, on making neat rows
and refusing to think about Cantone or his death.

The first drops of rain began to smack the
earth. From the depth of the black clouds overhead, Sam knew her
work was coming to a halt. She cut the mower’s engine and steered
toward the covered carport.

That’s when she spotted the plume of dust. A
dark vehicle roared along the road, kicking up dirt. Someone trying
to beat the storm to get home. But as she watched, the shape became
a green Jaguar and the car whipped into the driveway right behind
her van.

Chapter 28

They say you should never kick a wasp’s nest.
Sam knew that, from the time she was a little girl. From the moment
she watched the Jag roar to a halt in front of the house, she knew
that the kick had been sent and that the nest was blazing with
fury.

Bart Killington flung the door open, jumped
out and slammed it shut behind him.

“You bitch!” he screamed.

Sam kept the lawnmower between them. “Excuse
me?”

“You started this.
You
sent my life
straight to hell!” Thunder crashed, punctuating his statement.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He’d found out.
He’d figured out the Mrs. Knightly charade. Knew about her finding
the poisonous plants.

“You are connected to that deputy in some
way. He thought he’d haul me up here in handcuffs, didn’t he?
Thought he’d found his suspect. Well, listen, bitch. It’s not me! I
came up here of my own free will, to try to help. But all he wants
is to find somebody to blame. To take away my inheritance and make
me suffer.”

“Bart, calm down.”

She might as well have invited him to rant
on. He continued to scream, louder. She glanced around, hoping that
one of the absent neighbors might come by and stop to check it out.
Even if one of them were home the other houses were too far away
and the rolling thunder was almost constant now.

A bolt of lightning struck an open field
across the road, less than a quarter mile away. Every hair on her
body stood on end. She jumped away from the metal lawnmower,
standing near the walkway to the front porch. If she could just get
inside and lock the door . . .

Bart stood in the open, daring the lightning,
oblivious to the rain that now came down in sheets and pasted his
dark hair to his scalp. His eyes were wild.

Another crash—this time somewhere behind the
house.

Sam ran for the front door. Realized too late
that it was still locked.

By the time she pulled the key from her
pocket Bart was right beside her. The roof over the small porch
provided no protection and Sam felt the rain soak her cotton work
shirt. She dashed back to the cover of the carport, keeping an eye
on Bart as he followed her.

“Bart, calm down.” She reached out to touch
his arm. He recoiled as if she’d punched him and backed two steps
away from her.

“I’m not giving up the money from the
paintings,” he said. His voice took on a plaintive note. “My uncle
left them to me. I came here and stayed with him, took care of him
when he was sick.”

Sick from being poisoned. Sam watched his
face carefully as he spoke. Was he actually so deluded as to think
that he was doing his uncle a service as he slowly poisoned him to
death?

Movement on the road grabbed Sam’s attention.
A dark vehicle slithered sideways on the wet, muddy road then
corrected and picked up speed. Losing traction again, it came at
the driveway almost sideways and slid to a stop behind Bart’s
Jaguar. Carolyn Hildebrandt leaped out.

Her eyes were intense and ropes of dark hair
blew across her face. She grabbed at the strands, pushing them
aside, but the wind and blowing rain pasted the hair against her
cheeks again.

“Bart!” she shouted.

He turned, finally noticing.

“Bart! What are you doing?” Carolyn advanced
on them.

Bart glanced back at Sam. “I didn’t hurt him.
I swear I didn’t.”

Sam almost believed him, could see what Beau
meant about Bart’s convincing manner.

“Bart, you fool! I
knew
I couldn’t
trust you not to talk to the cops,” Carolyn shouted. “I
knew
I’d have to stop you!” She raised a pistol.

Sam froze.

Her mind went into overdrive. What did she
have for defense? A lawnmower? She desperately tried to come up
with a plan but her thoughts ricocheted about, refusing to
focus.

“Okay, I wanted the paintings,” Bart babbled.
“I wanted the money. I knew they were valuable and my uncle was
doing nothing with them but letting them hang in this pitiful
little dump. I tried to sneak one out of the house and sell it, but
he noticed it was gone.”

“Bart . . .” Carolyn stood at the edge of the
driveway, the pistol pointing right at them. “Shut up.”

“She told me we could make a lot of money,”
he whined.

Sam muttered under her breath. “Maybe you
better quit talking, Bart.” She couldn’t take her eyes off
Carolyn.

“Bart, I’m warning you.” Carolyn walked a
little closer.

“Sweetheart, don’t do anything,” Bart said.
“Let’s just leave. Go back to my place.”

Movement on the road caught Sam’s attention
for a second.

“You dumb fool,” Carolyn hissed. “I can’t
believe how stupid you are.”

Bart’s eyes hardened. “Wait a minute—you
didn’t think I was so stupid when I led you right to a valuable
collection of Cantone’s work. You didn’t think I was stupid when I
let you start selling them. Carolyn—we
love
each other.”

Sam held her breath. The vehicle approaching
on the road was Beau’s cruiser. She willed herself not to look that
direction as he coasted up to the driveway, blocking Carolyn’s
vehicle.

“You’re more idiotic than you’ll ever know,”
Carolyn said. “You actually thought I
loved
you? You didn’t
have a clue that the only reason I stayed with you in this . . .
this
shack
was because I saw that you’d never take what was
yours. You would wait
years
for your uncle to die. And even
then you didn’t
know
that he’d leave his work to you. I had
to make up that will and forge his signature. You would have never
taken any real action. You’re the kind who sits around and hopes
life will turn out the way he wants it to. I—
I’m
the one who
makes things happen.”

The green fingerprints
, Sam realized.
Carolyn’s.

Beau was out of his vehicle now and Sam saw
him slowly approach. She was the only one who could see him, and it
took a force of will not to stare, not to let her relief show on
her face.

Sam’s attention went back to Carolyn. The art
dealer’s expression was pure rage. The woman clearly had gone over
the edge and Sam suddenly realized that she had no intention of
letting Bart or Sam out of here alive. Again, she raised the
pistol, her finger firmly on the trigger. The only minuscule bit of
hesitation seemed to come from the decision about which of them to
shoot first. Her eyes darted from one to the other.

Make an impossible target, Sam told herself.
She spun toward Bart and shoved him to the left, while she dove for
the ground in the opposite direction. She hit, rolled, and came up
at the edge of the carport as the shot reverberated.

Bart lay huddled in a ball against the wall
of the house but Sam couldn’t see any blood. Carolyn’s shot had
gone wild, the bullet smacking into one of the carport’s wooden
supports.

The woman had a wild look in her eyes as she
spun toward Bart, taking aim once more.

“Freeze!” Beau shouted. His own pistol was
out now, his two-handed grip looking very firm.

Carolyn fired again. Sam heard the ricochet
and chips of concrete sprayed near Bart. Then Carolyn turned on
Beau.

His shot went unhesitatingly, right into her
shoulder. She dropped her own gun and slumped to the ground. He
kicked her gun aside and kept his aimed at her.

“Stay right there,” he said. He keyed his
shoulder mike and called for backup and an ambulance.

Sam felt relief rush through her body. She
met Beau’s gaze and sent him a tentative smile. He winked. It was
going to be okay.

Chapter 29

The thunderstorm cleared as quickly as it had
come on, typical of early autumn storms near the mountains. Beau’s
backup officer arrived about ten minutes later. As the ambulance
made its way back toward town with Carolyn Hildebrandt strapped to
a gurney inside, Sam went into Cantone’s house and found some old
towels. Blotting much of the residual wetness from her own hair and
clothing, she offered another towel to Beau.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” she
asked.

He pulled a blanket from his cruiser and
draped it over Bart Killington’s shoulders. Handcuffs bound Bart’s
hands. He sat with his back to the wall of the house, white-faced
and shaking, unmoving since Beau had read him his rights and placed
him under arrest for grand theft, conspiracy to commit murder, and
fraud.

Beau stared hard at the prisoner. “I didn’t.
I just happened to look out the window after I’d questioned this
jerk. Saw him rush out to his car. Something about the look on his
face. During the interview he’d begun raging about how much trouble
all this had caused him. I got a bad feeling. I planned on
following him to the south end of Taos, just to make sure he left
town, but when he headed this direction and I knew you were here .
. .”