Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (23 page)

Then the Hummer showed up with the sheriff and a real cop.

Her head ached; she couldn’t think. She couldn’t walk very far; she needed Angie’s car so she could go away. That’s all she wanted; to go away; to forget about all this.

Why didn’t everyone simply leave her alone?

Angie moved about on her seat and took a deep breath. She sprang out feet-first, hit the ground, caught her balance, took a step, and dived into the Hummer. As Paavo pulled her in, shots hit the open doors, causing them to swing shut.

Paavo and Joey pushed them open again, and Joey followed Angie’s lead.

Bullets slammed into the glass. Frostlike, webbed lines spread over the windshield, but it held.

Paavo faced Joey. “We can reach Merry Belle by going out the driver’s door. I’ll go first, then provide cover while you follow. Angie, you stay here and keep your head down.”

“That’s all?” she asked.

“That’s enough. You ready, Joey?”

He gulped and nodded.

Using the door for some cover, Paavo fired toward the hill as he and Joey scrambled out of the Hummer and ducked behind the pickup.

“Glad to see you all,” Merry Belle said. She was pale, and her trousers were heavily bloodstained. Her belt was wrapped as a makeshift tourniquet on her thigh. “Don’t sweat it, Paavo. I’ve got the bleeding under control,” she said, sweat glistening on her face. “I also watch
ER
on TV.”

“Can I do anything?” Angie called.

“No!” the others called back.

“Oh,” she murmured.

Facing Joey and Merry Belle, Paavo said, “The way we’re pinned down, we have to look up into the sun to keep track of Dolores, and it’s not going to work. I’ve got to get up there and get around behind her.”

“How?” Merry Belle asked. “We
are
pinned down,”

“I’ll draw her fire. We’ll do some play-acting. Angie can help. You know the drill, M.B.?”

She smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Got it.”

“Can’t we wait for help?” Joey mumbled.

“We don’t have the luxury,” Paavo said. “She’s
desperate and will probably make a move soon. If I’m up there with her, it should at least guarantee a standoff until help arrives.”

“He’s right, Joey,” Merry Belle said, handing him her revolver. “Follow my lead. I don’t think Dolores will shoot back right away—she’ll probably be ducking.”

Joey paled at the gun in his hand.

“Angie.” Paavo gave a loud whisper. “Merry Belle will cue you in.”

“Cue me?” Angie asked, confused.

Paavo helped Merry Belle position herself to lean against the truck. “Do your thing, San Francisco,” she said.

“On the count of three,” Paavo said, “start shooting.”

He tucked the Beretta in his waistband and positioned himself like a sprinter.

“One … two …
three
!”

With a groan, Merry Belle raised herself up. Joey rose with her and both opened fire as Paavo ran. The noise was deafening.

Paavo dashed toward the rocks as shots rained from above. He clutched at his chest and went down. His body rolled to the shelter of the rocks.

“Paavo!” Angie screamed, horrified. She couldn’t move for a moment, then began to scramble out of the Hummer.

“Stop!” Merry Belle commanded, then dropped her voice. “Your man’s acting,” she hissed.

Behind shelter, Paavo gave a thumbs-up. Angie gaped, feeling all but faint. His plan slowly sunk in, yet there was blood on his upper left arm. That
was no act. He pointed at his arm, and gave another thumbs-up.

“You can act, too,” Merry Belle said. “Start yelling and crying.”

It took Angie a moment to catch her breath. “Paavo, Paavo!”

His smile blinded her, and as relief coursed through her blood, she got into it even more. “Oh God! I’ll come to you, my darling!”

Merry Belle picked up her cue and yelled, “Stay down! He’s dead, dammit! Dead!”

“Noooo!” Angie let out a scream that might have had distant wolves howling.

Dolores opened fire again, peppering the hood and roof of the pickup. Merry Belle fired back. Joey tried to join her, but he was so pale and shaking so hard, he dropped the revolver.

“Go away!” Dolores shrieked. “I’ll kill you all if I have to!”

“Give up, Dolores,” Merry Belle yelled. “You can’t get away from us.”

“Oh, Paavo,” Angie wailed, really loud. “Oh, my love! My life! Dead!
Dead!
”

Merry Belle gaped at her with an expression that said her stomach was turning nauseous. Joey looked at her with something akin to revulsion.

Angie grimaced. No one appreciated her acting.

Meanwhile, Paavo had begun working his way up the rocks.

Dolores’s most recent shots had given away her position.

“I’m sorry, Angie!” Dolores called. She wondered what they were up to, and if the cop was really dead. “I didn’t want to do it, but it couldn’t be helped. Please—put your guns down and back away from the Hummer. All I want is to go away. I’ll never bother you again.”

“You’ll give us as much chance as you gave Junior,” Merry Belle snarled.

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” Dolores complained. “But I had no choice.”

“Like you had no choice about Ned … or Hal?”

“Ned figured it out. He asked questions of people I didn’t think he knew. He came to me, asking about Hal. Somehow, he figured it out.”

“How did you get him to go with you to the caves?”

“I didn’t force him there.” Dolores was crying. How she hated to think about any of that. “All I did was to tell him I had found Hal’s will, that it gave everything to Teresa. I said I’d hidden it near the caves, and would give it to him if he’d let me go. He believed me. He didn’t know …”

All was quiet for a moment, then Angie called out, “Didn’t know
what
? What do you mean?”

Dolores didn’t want to talk any more. Her head hurt, she was tired. If only she could leave …

“Tell me!” Angie demanded, until Dolores couldn’t stand to listen to her a moment longer.

“
He didn’t know me!
No one really saw me most of the time,” she cried. “Not even Hal. He used me, let me work for him, love him—and he never even saw me. I might live beneath the shadows because of the way I entered this country, but I still have feelings, hopes, dreams, just like everyone
else. I—and others like me—we come and go, through people’s homes, businesses, gardens—and no one really sees us. Am I invisible? I thought Hal could see me, with his heart as well as his eyes. Perhaps he did, once. But then he turned away, became blind. He married Teresa. It should have been me!”

Angie again glanced over at Merry Belle. She was sitting back against the truck, breathing hard. Loss of blood and pain had gotten to her, and for that reason, Angie had lowered the driver’s side window and took over distracting Dolores with questions. “If you really loved Hal, you wouldn’t have killed him!”

“I did love him,” she shrieked. “But he left me for that young nothing after I spent my life caring for him! How could he—what’s the word?—forsake me for her? How could he do it?”

Angie had no answer, but she knew she had to keep Dolores talking to help mask the sound of Paavo sneaking near.

But suddenly, she saw her ostrich friend walk up to the Hummer and begin to peck at the door. The foolish bird had followed her all the way up here! It was going to end up fricasseed if it didn’t watch out. “Go away!” she whispered.

The ostrich stuck its head against the passenger’s side window and one big black eye peered inside at Angie. “You’ll get yourself killed!” Angie hissed. “Now, go home! Run!”

The bird just stared at her.

Angie called to Dolores, “You wanted to kill Teresa, too, didn’t you?”

“No! I’m a good person, not a killer! Maybe at first I wished she was dead—I was angry, hurt. But it didn’t work, and then, I lost my desire. I felt bad, but after a time, everything went back to the way it had been when Hal was in Mexico. All I wanted to do was to go on with my life. Then, his body was found.”

“That made you try to kill Teresa again?” Merry Belle called, her voice weak.

“I still didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to see her as the owner of all Hal’s things—to profit from his death when she was the cause of it! That wouldn’t be fair! I got Junior to steal the proof of her marriage. That’s all. But then, Ned asked questions, and Junior wanted to give the proofs to Teresa, and everything went bad. It wasn’t my fault!”

“Why did you hurt Maritza?” Angie asked.

The ostrich went around to the back of the Hummer, apparently fascinated by the red taillights.

“I watched her walk to the restaurant alone. I followed, and asked her what she was doing. She just looked at me, and I could see it in her eyes. She knew. She got scared, then said, ‘You loved him.’ And I had to stop her!”

“Give up, Dolores!” Merry Belle called. “Come down here.”

At that, Dolores shot at Merry Belle again. The bullet bounced off the rocks.

The ostrich ran, but soon returned and began to peck at the side-view mirror on the rented Mercedes. “Go away!” Angie said, trying to shoo it from harm.

Merry Belle returned fire, but as she felt in her
pockets for rifle bullets, she found she’d used the last one.

Joey handed her back her service revolver.

She just stared at it.

“Shoot!” he cried.

Dolores shouted again. “The sun is behind me. You’ll never see me coming. I need the Hummer! Give up.”

“Your story is horrible!” Angie yelled, needing to make noise, hoping Paavo had time to climb up behind Dolores by now. “You make excuses, but you’re just a hateful, jealous woman. No wonder Hal dumped you!”

“I thought you were my friend!” Dolores shrieked. “You’re going to make it easy for me to kill you!”

“Why are you just sitting there?” Joey said to Merry Belle, nearly in tears. “Paavo needs you to shoot!”

“It only has blanks,” Merry Belle wailed. “I didn’t want to carry live bullets around Jackpot with me! What if someone got hurt?”

“Blanks?” he repeated.

“Blanks,” she said morosely. “Until today, with this rifle, I’ve never shot a gun with real bullets anywhere except a shooting range.”

“Oh … my … God!”

He took the gun from her. “If I have to, I’ll use it. At least it makes a lot of noise.”

“She could kill you!” Merry Belle said.

As Joey and Merry Belle quivered with dismay, Angie knew that if Dolores wasn’t distracted, she might notice Paavo.

Desperate to find a stray bullet or two—maybe even a little gun—Angie rummaged through the backseat of the Hummer, then the glove compartment. It was stuffed tight with papers, junk food wrappers, and heaven only knew what else. Merry Belle seemed pretty careless about everything else, why would she be any different with guns and ammo?

She pulled everything out of the glove compartment. Something had to be there to help.

In the very back, under everything else, was a black strip of some kind. She pulled it out. It was a lace garter.

What in the world? She held it up. It was big—so big it probably could have fit around both her thighs at once. So big it probably fit Merry Belle …

Merry Belle and a black lace garter? She pushed away the torturous image from her mind.

The ostrich continued to peck at the mirror.

Angie looked from the ostrich, up to where Dolores was hiding. And as she did, a plan formed.

Glancing at the ostrich, she reached up to remove an earring.

She wasn’t wearing any! She hadn’t put any on that morning, mostly because she didn’t want to be bothered by the birds while she worked on the cookout.

Her heart sank. So much for her great idea.

But then, another thought came to her.

A horrifying, ghastly, appalling thought …

Still, she needed to create a distraction, and that should do it.

The only bright, shiny thing the ostriches loved
that Angie absolutely had refused to remove was—her heart nearly stopped at the thought and she clasped her fingers over it—her engagement ring.

How could she even think …? But Paavo was up there …

She tested the garter belt. It had a lot of stretch left in it. It should work.

Practically holding her breath at the all-but sacrilegious act, she took off her engagement ring and waggled it so that the sun caught the facets of the beautiful Siberian diamond. The diamond she loved more than any she’d ever seen anywhere, anytime …

Intrigued, the ostrich did an about-face and headed toward her.

As the ostrich watched, Angie stretched the garter belt between her thumb and forefinger, then placed the ring against it and pulled back like a slingshot.

Quickly moving her hands through the Hummer’s open window, she aimed upward, in the direction where Dolores hid, pulled back as hard as she could on the elastic, and let go.

The ring flew high in the air, up, up, she watched her most precious possession fly, sparkling in the sunlight, until it landed on rocks just behind Dolores. Angie cringed as it bounced and scraped against the rough ground.

The ostrich let out a raucous squawk and clambered up the hill, its little useless wings flapping, its heavy legs pumping.

“What the hell!” Dolores stood up as the bird neared, aiming her rifle at the beast.

Before she fired, Paavo stood up behind her,
shouted her name, and told her to drop the gun. Instead of obeying, Dolores spun around, facing him.

The ostrich didn’t stop, but ran right into her. Dolores flipped head over heels in one direction, her rifle in the other.

Then, as Angie watched, the worst possible thing happened.

The ostrich found her ring.

And ate it.

Angie sat in Jackpot’s medical clinic waiting room, Joey beside her. Paavo had gone into an office with Doc, who had insisted on personally cleaning and dressing the gunshot wound.

Half the town, it seemed, was milling about. Word had spread quickly about Junior’s murder, Dolores’s shocking confessions, and the shootout. Sheriff Merry Belle Hermann, who was also in the clinic being treated, was lauded as a hero, her reelection guaranteed for many years to come.

Angie rubbed the empty spot on her ring finger.

“We’ll get it back,” Joey promised, seeing her forlorn expression.

She turned to Joey. “You can give the ostrich ipecac or something to make her throw up, right?”

He looked abashed. “I’m afraid that won’t work. Ostriches swallow sand and stones to help them digest food since they have no teeth. Their stomachs are tough. Your ring is staying at the guest ranch a while longer.”

“Oh, no! What am I going to do?” Angie wailed.

“Don’t worry,” Joey had said with a wide grin. “Everything will come out all right in the end.”

The worst day of her life had just gotten a whole lot worse.

“We’ll clean it up real good for you,” Joey continued, “sterilize it and everything. No one will ever know.”

“I’ll know,” Angie said mournfully.

Just then, Lupe and Teresa found her and Joey. “My mother woke up this afternoon,” Lupe said to them both, “right after Doc contacted me at the hospital and told me about Dolores. First he called and told me about Junior, then later, about Dolores. I could hardly believe either call, and yet, it’s almost as if some evil that had dwelt in this town has been lifted. My mother’s going to be all right. Her mind, everything about her is much better than the doctors expected.”

“Thank goodness,” Angie said.

“We heard you helped as well, Joey,” Lupe said, facing him without her usual hatred. “Thank you.”

“I did nothing,” Joey replied, looking abashed by Lupe’s words. He also appeared surprisingly composed, even likable. Angie wondered if being away from Clarissa was what did it.

“I’m sorry I ever suspected you,” Angie confessed to him.

“I’m sorry, too, that you could have thought so poorly of me,” he said quietly. “I can understand it, though. Murder does terrible things, and not only to the victim. Ned was a friend, and frankly, I suspected him of killing my father.”

“You did?” Teresa asked.

“I’m sorry.” He scooted over to give the Flores
women room on the bench. Teresa sat beside him. “Did you suspect me as well?” he asked.

“I never did, Joey.”

He looked at her, swallowed hard a couple of times, then simply whispered, “Thank you.”

“I should have known it was Dolores,” LaVerne announced, joining them and wiping the dust from her bifocals. She was slightly breathless from dashing over to the clinic to get all the latest information, and zeroed in on the little group. “That woman would never talk much at all to me. There was definitely something wrong with her.”

“Was the cookout ruined?” Angie asked.

“Ruined?” LaVerne gave her a big smile. “It was bigger and better than ever! Only a small portion of what Dolores and I cooked was on the chuck wagon you practically destroyed. Later, the entire town showed up to find out all they could about the shootout. They especially liked my macaroni and cheese.” LaVerne’s eyebrows arched. “Too bad all
your
food was ruined.”

Angie had had it with her. “Just why did you come here, LaVerne?” she snapped.

LaVerne squared her shoulders. “Actually, I came to show you something. Those old letters got me thinking. The recipe journal—maybe it wasn’t written by one of my ancestors, after all. In fact, my great grandfather’s name was Jim—the name of the man who received the letters.” She handed Angie an ancient leather-bound volume. “Will you look at it? Is it worth a lot of money? Am I going to be rich?”

“Oh, my God!” Angie whispered as she looked at the book in her hands. Could it be? LaVerne had
put plastic wrap on the cover to protect it. Angie’s heart began to beat a little faster. The book’s pages were brown with age, but it opened easily. She turned to the frontispiece.

It read “Recipes Developed on My Travels West” and was signed Willem van Beerstraeden. “This is it!” she cried. “The missing journal!”

She turned the page. The first recipe was for “Gila Monster Egg Surprise.”

Her face fell, and she knew she didn’t want to learn what the surprise might be. Actually, the surprise would be that anyone would think—ever—of eating Gila monster eggs.

She quickly turned more pages, her heart dropping more and more as she read. “Fried Porcupine Quill Crunchies,” “Kangaroo Rat Bisque,” and at least thirty ways to fry, sauté, broil, stew, boil, or grill rattlesnakes and its varieties, such as sidewinders and diamondbacks.

All in all, Angie thought, the recipes LaVerne had chosen to cook weren’t half bad compared to what else was in there. She gave a deep sigh. “I think I now know what Oscar Tschirky meant when he said he didn’t want the recipes to fall into the wrong hands, and that he wanted to retrieve it for the family’s name and honor.”

LaVerne’s eyes widened. “He meant we’re going to be rich, didn’t he?”

Angie shook her head. “I think he wanted it so no one else would see it.”

“What?” LaVerne shrieked. “No!”

“These recipes are horrible! No one should eat this stuff. Half the animals are poisonous, the other half endangered. You shouldn’t even be
cooking from this book. No wonder van Beerstraeden gave away his recipes. If he learned anything at all from Oscar, he knew how bad a cook he was.”

“These recipes are awful?” LaVerne asked glumly. “I thought gourmet food was supposed to taste that way. Damn! I surely would have liked to become rich.”

Angie stared, equally doleful, at the book. “And I surely would have liked to have been the one to discover how Oscar of the Waldorf came up with his famous recipes. Maybe he really did develop them himself.”

“It’s too bad,” LaVerne said with a heavy sigh.

“Yes, it is.” Angie tried to give the book back to LaVerne, who refused to take it, and promptly left.

Angie felt Paavo’s hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see him standing behind her. He’d heard everything and now seemed to be struggling not to crack even the tiniest of smiles.

“It’s not so bad, Angie,” he said, patting her.

“Not bad at all, except that my engagement ring is somewhere I don’t want to think about, my fiancé has been shot, I spent hours and hours chasing a recipe book by a chef who has no idea about good food, and the worst cook on the planet had more people liking her food than mine! Sometimes I feel I must live under a very black cloud.”

Maritza was still groggy when Paavo and Doc walked into her hospital room. Doc had asked Paavo to take her statement about what happened
that day at the restaurant. Merry Belle wanted to take it, Doc said, but she was crankier and more obnoxious than ever with that leg wound.

Maritza spoke slowly, and explained that something had made her go to the restaurant. Once she was there, though, she couldn’t remember what it was. To her surprise, Dolores entered, and that was the last she knew.

It was good enough. Paavo and Doc were ready to leave when Maritza said, “When I sleep, though, then it come to me.”

They stopped.

“I see Mr. Edwards—Hal. I know it’s a dream, but it seem so real. He come and remind me of the day he see me at the restaurant. I’m in my chair. He give me an envelope and say to hold it for him. That I will keep it safe. He trust me. I put it in a drawer of the chest under the picture of Our Lady. I know she will not let anything happen to it until Mr. Edwards want it back.”

“What was in the envelope?” Paavo asked.

“Mr. Edwards doesn’t tell me. But I think it’s important. If not, why does he come into my dream?”

Lupe easily found the sealed envelope Maritza had spoken of. She handed it to Doc.

Teresa, Angie, Paavo, and Joey were also there to watch as Doc took out the papers and read through them.

“Although I suspect it’ll be challenged”—Doc glanced at Joey—“this appears to be a properly executed, witnessed, sealed, and notarized copy
of the last will and testament of Hal Edwards, dated January of this year in Bisbee, Arizona.”

“What does it say?” Angie asked eagerly.

Doc read the will aloud. In it, Hal requested that his cattle ranch be sold. Of the proceeds, half would go to Jackpot’s medical clinic and half to the library.

To Dolores Huerta, who had been loyal to him for years and stayed with him through his stroke and rehabilitation, he gave the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

“She won’t be collecting that,” Angie said.

Doc continued. “To my cousin, Lionel, his trailer and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. To my ex-wife, Clarissa Edwards, the knowledge that if only you’d loved me the way I loved you, I would have given you the world. To our son Joseph Edwards”—Doc cleared his throat and eyed Joey before going on—“the recognition that I failed you as a father, but, Joey, you failed me as a son.”

Joey’s face fell, then he nodded and bowed his head.

“And finally, to my wife, Teresa Flores, a.k.a. Teresa Flores Edwards, I bequeath the remainder of all my worldly goods, including the Ghost Hollow Guest Ranch, stocks, bonds, and bank accounts. See list attached.”

Doc held out the long list, then placed the will on Maritza’s chair.

Everyone stared at it in silence.