Bread of the Dead: A Santa Fe Cafe Mystery (16 page)

They agreed and slipped back into a conversation about cash flow. Their problems of cash flow were definitely not the same as mine. I listened with a mix of envy and awe, sneaking peeks at Jake as I did. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking under his mask. I was thinking that I should make my move back to the kitchen. When a waiter glided in and distracted the chefs with crab legs, I saw my opportunity to escape.

Jake did too, following me a few feet away to the buffet table. “Good move,” he said. “All that talk of accounting makes law briefs sound like thrillers. Hope you don't mind that I talked up your empanadas.” He'd lifted his mask, revealing a chiseled face better than any disguise. “I didn't know that you were friends with Gloria.”

I explained my invitation via Cass and tried to find her. Partygoers crammed the room. I scanned, wondering if she'd already bolted outside and was waiting by my car. Then I saw her. She was backed into a corner by a figure in a gold body suit with familiar lemon-­yellow hair: Jay-­Jay Jantrell. Cass, her eyes flashing like those of a lassoed wild horse, spotted me and mouthed
Cupcake
.

 

Chapter 18

S
he said ‘cupcake'!” I cried to Jake. “I'm going in!”

“Cupcake?” He looked around, rightfully confused, before his eyes and hands gravitated to a nearby cupcake tower.

“Cupcake. It's our rescue word for bad social situations. I'll be right back.” I made it two steps before he grabbed my elbow.

“That's Jay-­Jay Jantrell over there. You think you're going to make any kind of graceful exit from that woman? You'll get stuck too and then I'll have to go rescue you and we'll all be trapped. Here, try a cupcake. They're really good.”

I didn't admit that I'd already had one. I took the cupcake. I couldn't eat it, though, not with Cass suffering and trapped. Another yellow-­haired skeleton had joined Jay-­Jay. Both were gesticulating excitedly with their hands.

“Who's that with her?” I asked Jake.

“Her assistant and mini-­me look-­alike, Angelica. The name does not match the personality, trust me.”

Cass shot me another desperate look, but when I mimed that I was coming over, she gave a quick negative head shake and glanced pointedly at the stage. A skeletal crew in mariachi attire had begun playing old-­fashioned country music, and Gloria was on the microphone, inviting her guests to dance. Cass knew I couldn't dance. I steeled myself. I'd do it for her.

“I'm going to do it,” I said. “I'm going to go over there and pretend that I need Cass as my dance partner. It's the only way.”
And then we'd glide away.
Right. I'd stomp on her feet and we might trip over a waiter, but Cass wouldn't complain, not to escape Jay-­Jay.

I was about to hand over my cupcake to Jake when he stepped forward. “I've got this,” he said, and strode toward the yellow-­haired skeletons.

I
ate the second cupcake and considered having a third as I watched Cass and Jake spin expertly around the dance floor. I had to admit that I was slightly jealous. Okay, more than slightly. They made a gorgeous ­couple, she lithe and blond, he rugged and smooth. Not only that, they danced like pros. She dipped and twirled and two-­stepped without any foot-­stomping involved. He expertly glided them through the crowded dance space.

When the band switched over to a slow Mexican ballad, they parted. Jake tipped an imaginary cowboy hat to Cass and sauntered off to mingle with a well-­heeled group. Cass, flushed, joined me.

“Thank you!” she said, grabbing one of the last cupcakes.

“Don't thank me. It's Jake who saved you.” I hoped that I didn't sound bitter. I forced a smile. “You two looked great dancing together.”

“That man is a fabulous dancer,” Cass acknowledged. “But you know who we talked about the whole time?”

“Jay-­Jay?”

“Heavens no. That woman is horrible. She was practically threatening me, wanting information on your ‘relationship' with Victor.”

“Relationship?” The way Cass said the word made it sound unseemly.

“Yep. She thought you must have been living in Victor's casita to seduce him and get at his art. When I shot that down, she suspected the same thing of you and Broomer.”

I made a gagging sound.

“Don't let it worry you,” Cass said. “She's a poisonous snake projecting her own nature. Oh no, speak of the viper.” She tugged me behind a group of distinguished skeletons. Across the room, two yellow heads were making their way toward us.

“We have to get out of here before they spot you,” Cass said. “Jay-­Jay's desperate to get into Victor's place. She's convinced you have a key. You know, because of all that romantic manipulation you've been doing.” My friend started toward the door.

“Wait!” I tugged her back. “We can't go yet.”

My party-­dreading friend grumbled about never understanding extroverts and pulled us behind a cupcake tower.

“It's not that,” I protested. “I have to get back in that kitchen and look for evidence of Armida baking the
pan de muerto
. I owe it to Flori.”

C
ass couldn't deny the glory of Gloria's kitchen.

“I expected gaudy,” she said. “This is pretty darned gorgeous—­if you want to live in a catalog, that is.”

There were days—­a lot of days—­when I yearned to live in an Ikea display or the Pottery Barn catalog. Residents of Pottery Barn land, I imagined, never stored their treasured Bundt cake pans in their ex's garage.

I looked around the kitchen, not sure what I was hoping to find. A recipe for award-­winning
pan de muerto
with Armida's signature and fingerprints on it? A home video of Armida kneading the forbidden dough? With Cass standing lookout at the doorway, I peeked in the fridge. Flori suspected that Armida let her dough rise slowly in the refrigerator to heighten its flavor. The double-­door fridge was the size of my closet and packed with everything but dough. Gloria, it seemed, was a lover of fancy salsas, gourmet condiments, and high-­priced cheeses. The fridge reeked of a Parisian
fromagerie
. In other words, it smelled absolutely divine. I breathed in the scent of ripe Camembert and stinky blue.

Cass cleared her throat, snapping me back to my senses. “Please hurry,” she said. “This is making me more nervous than the party.”

“This from a woman who wields a blowtorch,” I teased her.

“Fire is controllable,” she said darkly.

I reluctantly shut the refrigerator. What else would Armida need to make the bread? Flour, that's what. I spotted fine dustings of white on the mahogany floor and tracked them, stopping every few steps to check cupboards and windowsills.

“Hurry!” Cass urged. “This is the last song before the band takes a break. If Gloria stops dancing, she might come in here.”

Now that I was looking for flour, I saw it all over, in prints on doorknobs and smudges on canisters and drawers.

“I'm seeing a lot of flour,” I reported to Cass.

Her response was depressingly logical. “Well that's no surprise, right? Someone did make towers of cupcakes.”

She was correct, of course. Flour in a kitchen would not prove Armida guilty. I spotted footsteps in a dusting of flour by a closed door and went to investigate. My hand was on the doorknob when my phone vibrated. The caller ID said Celia. My heart jumped. Was she in trouble again?

“Honey, what's wrong?”

“Why? Does there have to be something wrong for me to call you?”

She had a point. “You're right, honey. How's the party at the Plaza? Fun?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Yeah,” Celia said, after a beat or two. “It's fun. Rosa and I were dancing with a bunch of ­people and, well . . . I think we kind of lost Flori. You told me to call if she gave us the slip, so whatever, I'm calling . . .”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Calling was nice. Celia was extending an olive branch, and losing Flori was no big deal, as I assured her. Flori was certainly an adult and could take care of herself. Still, it did confirm my suspicion that she was up to something.

“When did you last see her?” I asked. Celia consulted with Rosa. The girls were unclear but estimated that Flori loudly mentioned “finding the old girls' room” about an hour and a half ago. I thanked Celia for the update, and hearing Cass's anxious toe-­tapping, hung up to get back to my search.

“Rita,” Cass whispered, “they're coming this way!”

“Gloria?”

“No, worse!” Cass skidded around the island to my side. “We have to hide!”

“No one will care that we're here. We'll say we're looking for the restroom,” I said, thinking of a Florilike excuse.

“No, no! I mean, it's Jay-­Jay and Broomer!”

Gloria's distinctive hyenalike laughter sounded near the doorway. I acted on instinct and pulled Cass into what I assumed was Gloria's pantry.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry, Cass,” I whispered. Leave it to me to tromp on feet.

“Sorry for what?” she whispered. “Did I bump you?”

“Shush you two! You'll give us away!”

Luckily, Gloria's hyena hooting drowned out my yelp and Cass's gasp.

“Flori!” we both exclaimed in whispers.

“Great minds think alike,” she chuckled in the darkness. “Now hush. I need to record what they're saying. I have to get this tape recorder out of my bra or it won't pick up anything.”

I rolled my eyes in the darkness as Flori whispered about the recording detriments of wired, padded undergarments.

Outside, Jay-­Jay's cackle had subsided, replaced by more disturbing sounds. Moans and loud lip-­smacking sounds. Jay-­Jay and Broomer either really liked cupcakes or they liked each other a lot more than he'd let on previously.

Cass nudged me and groaned in my ear.

“Laurence . . .” Jay-­Jay's voice was right outside the pantry door and piercingly high. “You fox. No more of this, you bad boy, until you give me what I want.”

“I told you. I can't get into Victor's place any more than you can. What do you think, they're going to let me walk in and haul out all his folk junk?”

Jay-­Jay's response was breathless. “I don't need you to haul out anything, darling. Not yet. I need to get inside, that's all. Vic surely has a spare key hidden outside. You go and find it for me. He was a ninny about those things so it'll be obvious. Look under the doormat or a potted plant or behind those infernal saints.”

Behind the pantry door, we endured another round of lip smacking before Broomer spoke again.

“And what will you do with that key?”

“Insurance,” Jay-­Jay cackled. “Ensuring my grieving widow's rights, let's say. And if you're good, you'll get some sugar too. Now let's go get ourselves some oysters. They're aphrodisiacs, you know.”

Jay-­Jay's cackle receded. Flori pushed by me, opened the door a crack and peeked out. I blinked against the brightness of the kitchen.

“All clear,” she declared.

As my eyes adjusted, I fixed on Flori. She wore a black robe and cloak that would fit right in at a Hobbit or Harry Potter convention. In fact, the robe looked a lot like the Harry Potter wizard's outfit she'd made for her great-­grandson last Halloween.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Did you follow me?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she said, rather righ­teously for someone found skulking in a pantry. “I saw you out there flirting with your handsome lawyer. Good job.”

“Hardly flirting,” I grumbled, feeling petty because of my feelings. “Cass is the one who danced with him.”

“That was a rescue dance,” Cass protested. “And anyway, I never told you who Jake talked about the entire dance. You, Rita! Flori's right. That man sure is interested. You can thank me later.”

“Thank you for what?” Early after my divorce, Cass dragged me out on a double date that turned into a singular disaster for me. I didn't want any more well-­meaning setups.

She winked, smiled, and followed Flori toward the kitchen door. We were almost out when an arm blocked our path.

“You again. Where did you come from?” Broomer's voice was mean and hard, like I'd heard that night at Gabriel's.

“Looking for the ladies' loo!” Flori crowed, sounding like Addie in full faux British.

Broomer snarled. “No you weren't. I've been standing right here and didn't see you come in. What did you hear?” He stepped closer, backing us into the kitchen island.

“Nothing,” I sputtered, praying that someone else would come looking for the loo in the kitchen.

“And what's that in your hand, old lady.” He reached to grab Flori's tape recorder.

“Old lady!”

I could have warned him. Flori landed a solid kick on his shin. He buckled, cursing, as we rushed by him and across the expanse of the great room.

“Coat closet!” I commanded as we jogged past a group of cocktail sippers that included Jake. We needed my coat to get the valet ticket. I glanced over my shoulder to see Broomer recover and stride after us, his face stormy. As I waited anxiously for our coats, I anticipated a punch, a kick, a curse. When none came, I dared look again. Broomer was with the cocktail drinkers. Jake had his arm draped around the red-­faced man's shoulder and was laughing heartily, as if they were old buddies. He caught my eye, his own eyes twinkling.