Bitter Sweet (20 page)

“Old? I’ll have you know I
graduated about that same time!” Sam gave her a gentle nudge.

Jen’s mouth made a little twist.
“Sorry.”

She picked up the book and turned
to a page in the freshman section.

“Look, there’s my mom. Shirley
Benevides
.”

Kelly leaned in for a look and
the two young women exchanged a knowing glance that said,
Totally old-school
.

“There’s another one of her when
she was in the drama club,” Jen said. She flipped to another section, knowing
exactly where the photo would be. “Look at that!”

Sam looked at the group shot of
young thespians mugging an over-dramatized scene from a play, but the face that
caught her eye wasn’t of Jennifer’s mother.

The caption read: “Members of the
drama club during rehearsals for
The Man and the Gypsy
. Cast members
include Shirley
Benevides
as Mrs. Chapman, Ron Daniels
as Rory Chapman, and Candy Butler as Zora the Gypsy.”

Zora. Even with the passage of
time, Sam recognized Candy Butler. The long hair was dark then, white now, but
the heart-shape of her face and space between her front teeth hadn’t changed a
bit. She’d obviously liked the name Zora well enough that she’d kept it.

Candy Butler.

James Butler.

Who’d recently married Renata.
Sam felt her pulse quicken.

“Jen, would your mother remember
these other cast members now?”

Jen shrugged. “I don’t know. But
she used to talk a lot about how that class was her very favorite. She loved
being involved in the productions.”

“Could we call her?” Sam asked.
How
to explain this?

Jen gave her a questioning look
but pulled her cell phone from her pocket and speed dialed a number. After a
minute’s worth of odd explanations, Sam got to the questions.

“Oh, I remember Candy very well,”
Shirley said. “She always wanted to play the exotic one in the school plays.
She would be the gypsy or the flamenco dancer. Everyone else got roles like the
school teacher or the mom.”

“Did you stay in touch with her
after graduation?”

“No. I think I remember hearing
that she moved away, probably to New York or somewhere.” She said it as if New
York were on another continent.

“I’m actually trying to find out
if she had a brother. I’m guessing he was a few years younger.”

There was a long moment as
Shirley mulled that over. “You know, I think she did. I can picture this kid
who might have been ten or twelve. She had to drag him along to our Saturday rehearsals
sometimes. He seemed young but we were only fourteen, ourselves.”

“Do you remember his name? Could
it have been James?”

“Jimmy. That’s it. Candy used to
be in the middle of a line on stage and she would stop to yell out, ‘Jimmy!
Don’t go outside!’ I remember we all laughed because it was like he was trying
to escape from the auditorium.”

Sam thanked her for the
information and was about to hang up when Shirley thought of something else.

“You know, I remember someone at
our twentieth class reunion—we were reminiscing about those silly plays we
did—and somebody mentioned Candy Butler. Now what was it they said . . .? Oh.
That she’d moved to Las Vegas. I remember that because I thought there was no
one less like a showgirl than Candy Butler.”

That Nevada connection again. Sam
pondered that as she thanked Shirley once again and handed the phone back to
Jen.

“Sounds like a link to me,” Kelly
commented as they cleaned up the remains of their dinner and saw Jen on her
way.

“She didn’t stay in contact after
their school days, though,” Sam said. “Not surprising, I suppose. I know how
many of my high school friends I’ve stayed in touch with—exactly zero. Of
course, I didn’t need to. I get all the hometown gossip through Mother.”

Kelly started to ask something
but their kitchen phone rang and she reached for it instead.

“Beau,” she said, handing it to
Sam after a minute of exchanging pleasantries.

“Hey,
darlin
’,
you guys having a quiet evening?”

She started to fill him in on the
phone call about Candy Butler but realized she could hear radio static in the
background. “Are you still at work?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. I’m a man
short this evening and ended up getting called out to a traffic accident. It’s
cleared now, but I thought this might be my best chance to reach you before
your bedtime.”

Waking at 4:30 six days a week
wasn’t exactly conducive to much of a social life; both of them were still
getting used to the schedule.

“Anyhow,” he continued, “I wanted
to let you know that the lab finally got fingerprint results from that plastic
cup you gave me. The guy’s name really
is
Ridley Redfearn, believe it or
not. He came through as a ‘person of interest’ in a couple of Texas cases years
ago, but since there are no current wants or warrants out on him I’m guessing
those were cleared without his involvement.”

“What’s a person of interest?”

“Well, sometimes it’s an actual
suspect but a lot of times it’s just somebody who was near a crime scene, might
have been a material witness or something. I don’t know the nature of these
particular cases and didn’t want to get too bogged down in old details unless
it turns out to be somehow related.”

“Okay.”

“Anyhow, the thing I thought you
would find interesting is that he does actually hold a doctor of divinity
degree. The catch is that it looks like it came from some online place. I’m
having one of the clerks do a little further research. It might be an actual
school.”

Or it might be a website where
you answer a dozen simple questions, get a passing grade and they mail you a
certificate that looks really good on your wall.

“I searched his name in the New
Mexico records too, and he’s not wanted for anything here. Since we know his
whereabouts, all I can really do is keep an eye on him, see if he starts doing
anything suspicious.”

“Like performing marriage
ceremonies for elderly women who mysteriously meet their soul mates after
seventy?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not
illegal, but something like that.”

They ended the call and Sam
realized that it really was getting close to her bedtime. Her stay at Beau’s
last night hadn’t exactly given her a full eight hours rest. She pondered all
the new information she’d gained in the past forty-eight hours. There seemed to
be connections all over the place but she still couldn’t figure out where it
was all heading.

Sleep came quickly but she woke
with a start. A voice filled her head. Bertha Martinez, the old
bruja
who had
practically died in her arms.

Use the box to find your
answers
, the voice said.
Use the box. Use the box.
Over and over.

Sam rolled to her back, stared at
the ceiling, rolled to her other side. The clock’s red numerals showed 1:27.

At some point she must have
fallen back to sleep because the alarm’s insistent buzz startled her. Within
the hour she’d showered and dressed, driven through the quiet streets, the sky
only beginning to lighten in the east, and now she stood in the open doorway of
the walk-in refrigerator. More than four dozen cake tiers stared back at her,
awaiting assembly, decoration and delivery. She pushed the door shut and walked
to the front for coffee.

At her desk, steaming mug at
hand, she sorted through her stack of orders knowing there must be some way to
computerize the mass of information and sketches, also knowing there was no way
she had time to change her system now. With the weekend fast approaching and
more than a dozen weddings in town, she had no choice but to get busy.

She made quick work of the
sorting: Simple birthday and shower cakes would go to Becky, assembly of
multi-tiered wedding cakes for herself, and Julio could bake the layers that
hadn’t been made yet. On the storage racks sat batches of sugar flowers and
trim. Sam saw that Becky had neatly labeled each section with a customer’s name
that matched Sam’s order forms. Inside the fridge, the buttercream flowers were
similarly organized. She really better give that girl a bonus.

Checking the delivery times, she
pulled the elements together for the two cakes that would have to go out this
morning. By the time she heard Julio’s Harley rumble to a stop by the back
door, the first cake was finished and she’d stacked tiers for the second.

He’d barely said good morning
before she asked him to make up more white buttercream. Bless him, he didn’t
take offense but got right to it. When Becky walked in a few minutes later, she
immediately sensed the urgency in the air and started on the orders Sam had
left at her end of the worktable.

“Is it getting hot out there?”
Sam asked, without taking her eyes off the shell border she was piping.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Becky said.

Sam sighed, making a mental note
to pre-cool the van before taking the cakes outside. As if balancing the
schedule weren’t hard enough, dealing with a product that wilted so easily
wasn’t making the summer wedding season any easier.

Jen came through right before
seven, picking up a heavy tray of stock pastries on her way to open the shop
and greet the day’s first customers. Soon, the tinkle of the front door bells
sounded every few minutes. The reassuring sound of money coming into the till.
At least Sam couldn’t complain that she wasn’t making a decent living from the
business. And when she thought of that, plus the fact that her wares
contributed to people’s happiness, her mood brightened.

It stayed bright until the
intercom buzzed and Jen announced that Nina Rae was on the line. Sam balanced
the receiver on her shoulder and continued piping trim on the fourtier cake in
front of her.

“Mother, hi, how are you?”

“I tried
callin
’
your cell phone all evening and
again
this morning, Samantha. Don’t you
ever
check your messages?”

Sam pictured her mother pacing
the length of her bedroom.

“Things have been pretty busy,
Mother. I just haven’t had a moment—”

“Well, if you
didn’t
hear
the messages, then you probably don’t
know
that I’m still
won
derin
’ about your colors for the
wedding
.”

For a full thirty seconds Sam
couldn’t think what wedding she was talking about. There were so many.

“Samantha, please don’t tell me
you’ve changed the date again. Please don’t. It’s still on for September
twenty-first, isn’t it?”

“Sure. I guess so.”

“You
guess
so?”

Sam almost bit her tongue. That
had been the totally wrong thing to say. “Yes, Mother, it’s still on for the
twenty-first, as long as I can confirm it with Zoë. She’s still planning on
hosting us for the ceremony and reception at the B and B, but I just haven’t
had a minute to make sure that date works for her.”

She thought of the several times
she’d seen Zoë recently, but the subject of the wedding had never come up. Of
all the wedding plans that must be handled soon, that was foremost. She piped a
frosting note on the stainless steel worktable: Ask Zoë—Sept 21?

“. . . colors would be so nice,”
Nina Rae was saying.

“Sorry, I stopped for a second to
write myself a note. What was that last part?”

“
Autumn colors,
I said.
Wouldn’t autumn colors be
so
beautiful in September?”

Sam had a comforting flash of
cool air, yellow cottonwood trees, vivid orange chrysanthemums. Compared to the
hot dusty days of June . . . “That does sound nice,” she said.

“Oh, yes! I can see it now.
You’ll carry yellow roses and the chairs can be decorated in reds and yellows
and oranges.
Rayleen
looks so good in yellow, with
her dark hair and I’ll look for something dramatic for myself. Bronze, I
think.” A high giggle came over the line. “Oh, Samantha, you’ll make such a
beautiful bride. Have you lost any weight, dear?”

White buttercream squirted out of
the pastry bag. Luckily, Sam jerked it away from the cake, averting disaster.

She gritted her teeth. “Mother—”
Oh,
never mind
. “You and
Rayleen
have fun shopping
for your outfits. I really need to get back to—”

“Oh, heavens yes. You’ve got a
million plans to make. I’ll let you go.” The line went dead.

Like I have time to plan
anything.
Her breath hissed out through her teeth. She slapped the portable
phone down on her desk and returned to the worktable to clean up the shot of
white frosting that had nearly ruined a whole tray of burgundy roses. Becky and
Julio were diligently minding their own projects.

Sam blew out a breath. “It’s
okay. I’m not going to bite anyone’s head off.”

Julio sent her a timid glance.
Becky caught it. “It’s okay, Julio. She really won’t.”

Sam paused with a paper towel
coated in buttercream in her hand. For a split second she thought of how
de-stressing it would be to relieve the tension with a good old fashioned food
fight. But she didn’t have the time it would take to clean up afterward. She
settled for pretending to aim the towel at Becky before turning to throw it in
the trash.

“You’re right. I really won’t.”
She sent them a smile. “The completely weird thing is that I just stood there
and let my mother choose my wedding colors for me. Would someone slap me and
remind me that I’m over fifty? That I can make my own decisions?”

“Call her back and tell her what
your
decision is,” Becky suggested.

Sam rolled her eyes. “You know,
the thing is that it really doesn’t matter to me. How important can it be if I
didn’t have a ready picture in my mind when she asked the question? And she
really is kind of right about the fall colors. September is such a beautiful
month here and Zoë’s garden will be lovely.”