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 . . .”
“But—Carolyn?”
“I never saw her. Got hung up with a fender-bender in town, had to radio Taos police to handle it.” He pulled Sam into his embrace. “I was pretty worried that I’d gotten too far behind him.”
Sam leaned against his chest. His timing couldn’t have been better.
“I’m going to have about a week’s worth of paperwork to do,” Beau murmured, keeping an eye on his prisoner. “But I want to see you this evening. If you’re up to some kind of take-out dinner and a few drinks.”
She was more than up for it. A quiet evening at home seemed like nirvana at that moment. She watched as Beau led Killington to the cruiser and secured him in the back seat. The backup officer continued to photograph the places where Carolyn’s bullets left their mark, and to bag the gun and the smashed bullet from the carport post.
The late-afternoon sun was already doing its work at drying the road and droplets of water clinging to the newly clipped grass provided only a small reminder of the ferocity of the storm. In the flowerbeds beside the house a few late roses shed beaten petals, their final act before winter. The head of one deathcamas, however, bloomed as heartily as ever, protected by an overhanging rosebush.
Sam locked the front door and watched Beau drive away. A few minutes later, the other officer finished and went on his way. Sam surveyed the property that had been under her care for the past two weeks. It seemed lonelier than ever.
Chapter 30
Nine messages waited on Sam’s machine when she got home, with another five on her cell phone, which she’d left in the van all afternoon. Among them were Rupert (twice), Zoe, Ivan Petrenko, and a couple other friends. Even Kelly and Iris had heard the story on the news before Beau got the chance to call home and reassure his mother. Some zealous reporter had caught the police call on the scanner and was waiting with cameras rolling when Beau led Bart Killington into the county jail for booking.
Exterior shots of the hospital at which “an unknown woman with a gunshot wound” was admitted were what prompted all the calls to Sam. Apparently Rupert, the only one who knew enough of the story to put it together, had gone a little off the deep end with worry and had begun calling around to see if Sam were with friends. When she wasn’t, they all assumed the worst. Zoe and Darryl had actually driven to the hospital, only to learn that the injured woman was someone else.
Sam spent two hours returning calls and explaining before she finally decided enough was enough. She wanted a hot shower and a cup of tea.
Beau showed up an hour later, bringing Kelly and Iris, and they sat down for pizza and beer. He told them that Carolyn’s injury was only serious enough to warrant one night’s hospital stay at county expense. She would be taken to jail the next day and booked for first degree murder, grand theft and a bunch more things.
Bart had apparently jabbered away all afternoon, telling how Carolyn had begun gathering this plant that she told Bart was an herbal remedy for insomnia, which the older man had suffered for years. One of them would make him a cup of tea with it each evening. Bart claimed that he never made the connection between the plant and his uncle’s increasing illness.
Sam remembered seeing books on botany on the shelves in Carolyn’s gallery, during her first visit in Mrs. Knightly mode. The woman knew exactly what she was doing.
“We’ll see what the jury believes,” Beau said. “I have a feeling Carolyn is going to put a whole different spin on the story.”
Chapter 31
Sam gave herself the luxury of doing absolutely nothing the next day. She slept through Kelly’s leaving for Beau’s house that morning, drank tea and read a book until Zoe stopped by to see if she wanted to go out for lunch. They ate quiche and salads at a little cafe on Bent Street, lingering at the table until mid-afternoon. By four o’clock Sam began to feel impatient with the unaccustomed leisure so she went home and sat at the kitchen table, making a to-do list.
The quinceanera cake was the only large order on the horizon, so she had some spare time for fall housecleaning and smaller projects. She wrote down everything she wished to accomplish, knowing that she’d be doing well to get half of it done. Closets, drawers and pantry could all use cleanout and organization. Bedding should be laundered. Windows washed. Garden trimmed and mulched. Garage—she almost didn’t even want to go there.
As she toured the house, remembering each little task, her gaze fell on the wooden box. Would it hurt to call upon its power? The extra energy she drew from it could be used to her advantage . . . No. She stopped herself. Somehow it didn’t seem wise to count on the box for every little thing. Starting to use its power for mundane chores like housework didn’t feel right. She turned her back on it.
Thursday morning Sam awoke full of vigor, without the need for help from the wooden box. After a quick breakfast she baked the tiers for the quinceanera cake and set them to cool. While the cakes were in the oven she whipped up buttercream frosting and tinted it in batches. Those set aside, she went into her room, stripped the bedding and started a load of laundry.
While I’m at it I might as well turn the mattress, she decided. She’d upended the queen-size piece when she realized there was something under it.
Cantone’s sketchbook. She’d forgotten all about placing it there for safe keeping.
She took it out, rearranged the mattress and sat down. The crisp pages contained small vignettes that she recognized from some of his work. A gazebo that he’d rendered in gray and white; a wicker chair, done in green and dappled with sunlight in another painting. Sam flipped through the sketches, admiring them with a new perspective. Who owned all this? she wondered. Now that Carolyn had admitted to faking the will Sam found at Bart’s house, and if Bart went to prison for his role . . .
The answer fell, literally, into her lap.
The sheaf of legal-sized sheets were stapled at the top with a blue cover sheet. Atop that, a business card. A New York telephone number. She glanced at it quickly then lifted the cover sheet.
Sam read quickly, scanning back over occasional passages couched in legalese. It was all here—legal and airtight—dated ten years ago. Cantone had set up a trust, leaving all his possessions to the Etheridge, a small New York museum. His stated reason for the choice was that he felt his work would receive the attention it deserved with the personal care of the museum director, rather than being entrusted to one of the larger places that vied for the works of great numbers of artists.
Sam remembered Rupert telling her that Cantone’s reputation had been hard-won. Too many of the large museums and the critics of his early years had been harsh with him. Perhaps that was the real reason he shunned them at the end of his life.
How close they’d come to never knowing this will existed. Cantone must have hidden the sketchbook inside the wall when he began to suspect that Bart was trying to raid the estate. He could have simply called his attorney and made the contents public in order to thwart his nephew, but who knew how muddled his thinking might have become as he got sicker and sicker.
