Bread of the Dead: A Santa Fe Cafe Mystery (11 page)

Five missed calls, three messages, all from my daughter. I felt like the world's worst mother. “The police station!” I cried, realizing too late what happened. “I put the ringer on mute when I met with Bunny and Manny.”

“It's cool,” Ariel said, now sounding generous as she and her tottery shoes turned toward the antsy customer. “Cel's with the police too. I don't think she's actually locked up or anything. Anyway, she's a kid, so a little drunk driving won't stick to her record.”

Drunk driving?
I felt ill. I was certainly a moving hazard. I jumped up from the table, tipping cocoa and nearly toppling the potted plant. Every nerve in my body urged me to run to my daughter. Trouble was, I didn't know where to go.

 

Chapter 12

D
on't panic,” Jake said gently.

I was already beyond panic. “The police? She's with the police?” Tension froze through my shoulders, working its way into my arms and hands until I could barely punch in my voice-­mail code. Jake held out my chair and touched my arm. I sat back down, shakily. The phone took its sweet time describing how many messages it had collected. Three, its robotic voice declared, and again I heard judgment in the tone. The last message came in about thirty-­five minutes ago.

I rubbed my forehead, pushing throbbing stress from temple to temple as I listened to the first message.

“Hey, Mom? It's me. What's up?” Celia's voice sounded perky, which if you know Celia in her teen years is nothing like her typical bored-­yet-­surly affectation. However, under normal circumstances I might have interpreted this as Celia being nice, not a tip-­off to what came next. “Listen, Mom, this is totally messed up. I'm out with Sky over in Tesuque and I need you to call me, okay? Like, whenever, but right away. Call me.”

The news that she was with Sky calmed me somewhat. I looked over at Jake. He'd leaned back in his seat, possibly to give me privacy. From under an arching ficus branch, he raised an eyebrow. I shook my head, waiting for the phone to move to message two. “Nothing yet,” I reported, as my daughter's recorded voice started up again.

“Mom, did you get my message?” Celia had replaced perky with an angry whine. “Call me. Sky and I are with the
police
, the
tribal police
over in Tesuque. We're, like, driving around with them 'cause they won't let us go unless you come get us. It's stupid, so don't tell Dad or Sky's mom. It's 6:35 and you should be home.
Where are you?
”

Any reassurance I'd felt vanished.
The police?
My daughter and Cass's good, responsible son were in police custody? And where
had
I been at 6:35? Probably laughing and drinking wine with Cass, neither of us knowing that our children needed us. It made sense that Sky would call his dad, Walker, an influential member of Tesuque Pueblo, a Native American community about ten miles north of Santa Fe. Walker is also a well-­known artist, and he and Cass would make a gorgeous, artsy ­couple if they both weren't committed to being friends.

Message three started playing as I tried to understand the last message, especially the driving around part. “Mom, geez, where are you? Sky can go home whenever but says he won't until I can. Whatever! I'm calling Ariel.”

I took a deep breath and told myself to remain calm. Then I hit the speed dial number I'd programmed for Celia. She answered on the second ring.

“Mom! It's about time!”

I felt horrible. On the other hand, I was not in the custody of tribal police. Celia, not me, had a whole lot of explaining to do. I tried for a tone that would keep us both civil and calm.

“Celia, honey, I apologize. I forgot to turn my phone on. I'll come and get you right now, but I need to know what happened and where to find you.”

My daughter muttered about the whole situation being stupid. “And I don't know where you can get me,” she said in a pointedly loud voice. “We're sitting under the underpass at a speed trap. That's how they caught us! Here, talk to this guy.”

After some rustling and a muffled discussion, a male voice came on the line. Officer Day, as he introduced himself, was a sergeant in the Tesuque Pueblo police force. He was also a very disappointed man. “Disappointed,” he repeated to me. “Highly disappointed.”

I assured him that I too was disappointed, although for what I didn't know.

“I told these same youths once before when they were speeding,” he said, his words clipped and rising at the end. “I said, ‘one warning, that is all you get.' Tonight I caught them again, Sky Clearwater driving, your daughter as a verbally combative passenger. It is only out of courtesy for Walker Clearwater that I do not throw them in jail for the night.”

“Jail? For speeding?” I asked, hearing my voice go squeaky. Jake leaned in close. I held the phone out from my ear so he could hear.

“For an alcoholic beverage container open in the front seat. And speeding. Seven miles per hour over the speed limit on Pueblo lands. You may retrieve your daughter and pay her ticket, but be warned because now I have warned you too.”

I
've been warned,” I said to Jake, trying to laugh off the situation. My attempt at a cavalier chuckle came off as a verge-­of-­hysterical hiccup. Part of me felt drained from relief. Celia wasn't hurt. She wasn't in the hospital or a jail cell or abducted. In another part of me, anger fed off the relief. Celia and Sky should have known better. Or maybe I should have known better and kept a closer watch on her. I would now.

“I'm sorry,” I said to Jake, well aware that if this had been anything resembling a spontaneous date, it was now wrecked. “I have to go. The officer said that he's getting off his shift and will take the kids to Tesuque Village Market to wait for me.”

I got up again and pulled out my wallet.

Jake beat me to it, putting down cash to more than cover cocoas and a tip. “Aren't you forgetting something?” he asked.

“Sorry! Thanks for the cocoa.”

“You're very welcome. It was my pleasure. But what I meant was, aren't you forgetting that you're carless?”

I'm afraid I cursed, never the perfect ending to an evening of dancing and cocoa with a handsome man. Flori would be as disappointed as Officer Day.

“You're right,” I groaned, giving up any hope of a dignified exit. “I'll call a cab.”

“Oh no, you won't. I'm your driver today. Besides, you may need a lawyer.”

I protested, but only a smidgen, enough to be polite. I did need a ride there and back. I wanted someone on my side too, although I prayed I wouldn't need Jake's legal talents.

U
nder better circumstances, I adore the winding pre-­expressway route to the village of Tesuque, a rural oasis of heirloom apple orchards, historic ranches, and artists' enclaves. Tonight, however, the twists and turns heightened my anxiety. I involuntarily slammed on the air brakes as we neared a sharp, blind curve, made more hazardous by towering adobe walls crowding the pavement. Jake drove fast but not recklessly.

“Okay,” he said as we turned at one of the few stop signs in the village. “Here we are.” We parked on a gravel pull-­off across from a squat adobe. Looking at the modest structure, you'd never guess it sold gourmet foods in its country store and served up a menu ranging from fancy pastries to local delicacies. I stepped out of Jake's car and breathed in the scents of a wood fire. The market was known for its wood-­fired pizza. Inappropriate thoughts of a charred and cheesy pie popped into my head until maternal worries crowded them out.

Inside, the front-­of-­house manager greeted us with a bouncy, “Two for dinner?”

Didn't I wish
. “We're meeting someone,” I corrected, craning my neck. Several groups waited, squeezed between the bakery display, Day of the Dead décor, and the busy servers' route. Jake stood on cowboy-­booted tiptoes to survey the dining areas. I backed up for a wider view. Feeling a finger poke my shoulder, I said “Excuse me” before realizing it belonged to a painted skeleton.

“Over there.” Jake pointed to the other side of the room.

How did he recognize Celia? I supposed that he'd seen her at the café. Until recently, she'd been happy to hang out at Tres Amigas after school, scoring free meals and finishing her homework. That was before her black-­straw hair and cat-­eye makeup. I hardly recognized her some days.

I followed his pointing finger. There she was, at a back table by the general store room. Black bangs covered her eyes. She gripped a pencil and appeared to be drawing madly in her sketch notebook. Sky sat beside her, face stony. He wore his hair shoulder length, pulled back like his mother often did, except where hers was so blond it was almost white, his was shiny black. The teens were with Sky's father, Walker, and a tall, slender man in uniform. When the policeman saw us approaching, he stood, pointing at Jake and frowning deeply. My heart could have bounced off the old wooden floors. Great, here I'd thought that Jake could help, and this guy hated him. What cop didn't hate a snazzy defense attorney? I should have known better.

“Is everything okay?” I whispered to Jake.

“Absolutely,” he whispered back. Then in a louder voice, he said, “Danny Day's no problem. I can crush this man before breakfast.”

The tribal policeman's frown went full-­facial before breaking into laughter. “You wish, hombre. Wait until next weekend, Strong. You're going down.”

My heart returned to normal cadence as they hugged each other in a manly back-­slapping way.

“You brought this man along to help you?” Sergeant Day said to me. “He can't even dunk a basketball.”

“Yeah, but I can make more three-­pointers than you any day, Day.” Jake turned to me. “When Officer Day here isn't fighting crime, he and his basketball team are losing to the Legal Hoops. Team basketball, every other Saturday or whenever Day feels like losing.”

Day was chuckling happily now, promising that the Legal Hoops would eat their words.

Everybody sat down and I relaxed. Too soon. Day abruptly turned from basketball to teenage misbehavior.

“You're lucky this time,” he said, directing his words at me and Walker. Our teenagers stared at the table. “Driving with open alcohol containers is not taken lightly by the Pueblo. We're cracking down. It is only because of my uncle, Sky's godfather, that I don't charge these youths officially.”

Walker, throughout, bobbed his head in agreement. When the policeman was finished, Walker agreed with everything he said, except for letting Sky off easily. “His godfather and I will ensure that this never happens again,” he said.

I seconded his statement, adding my gratitude and saying that Celia and I were both very sorry.

“Why should I be sorry?” she muttered, scraping her pencil across a drawing of storm clouds looming over an angry fairy girl. “We didn't do anything. It's not like we were drunk or speeding that much.”

Sergeant Day took a notepad from his front pocket and flipped it open. “Two cans of Santa Fe Brewing Happy Camper IPA were found open in the front compartment of the vehicle, a 1981 Ford F-­series pickup truck, dark blue, driven by Sky Clearwater.”

“Yeah,” Celia protested, “but they were only open because we were doing a ceremony.”

Sky nudged her, probably hoping to shut her up. I wanted her to shut up too, but my telling her that would backfire for sure.

“It was
my
idea,” she persisted. “Sky was just helping out and driving 'cause I left our car at Dad's, like I said I would, Mom.” I nudged Jake's boot with my shoe. Wasn't he supposed to be advising us all to remain quiet? That's what the lawyers on
Law and Order
all did.

He recrossed his legs, looking serene.

“We were saying a prayer for Victor,” Celia explained, fixing me with watery eyes. “We went out and sat near Camel Rock, lit a candle, and ate some
frito
pie like Victor liked and opened his favorite beer. We took a sip and poured some on the earth,
that's all
! If we drank it, Officer Nosy here wouldn't have found any beer left in the cans. The rest of the six-­pack is in the truck.”

Officer Nosy looked ready to follow up on his threat to charge Celia. He had connections to Sky and Walker, but none to my daughter. I could imagine what he saw in her, an angry girl with bad hair and a worse attitude. I, however, could picture her and Sky visiting Camel Rock, a natural rock formation that resembles a flattened mushroom more than any animal. I could also picture them honoring Victor with one of his favorite naughty snacks: an individual bag of Fritos, opened and topped with canned chili, shredded cheese, and onions. If only they'd stopped at the snack. And where had they gotten the beer? Another serious talk with my daughter was needed.