Sweet's Sweets: The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery

got them through the front door and began setting them in place. The ways in which massive items were built and put into service had always mystified her.

“Oh, Samantha, it’s brilliant!”

Sam turned to see her neighbor Riki bustling over from her own shop. The petite Brit wore a plastic apron over bright pink capris and tank top, and she was in the process of wiping suds from her hands with a towel.

“I absolutely love it!” Her wild, dark curls sprung from a stretchy ponytail band and her green eyes sparkled.

Sam couldn’t deny the younger woman’s enthusiasm. “Thanks. They did a great job, didn’t they?”

“And your old pieces really fit with the new stuff, don’t they?”

It was the one part of the design that had Sam a little worried, blending old and new. How to do it without striving too hard to match the pieces or risk ending up with a hodge-podge. Somehow, though, it all came together and just worked.

“Well, back to the pooches,” Riki said. “I’ve got a sheepdog in the dryer and an unhappy spaniel who’s next up for the bath. Ta!”

She headed back to her shop with a perky step that Sam envied.

“Ms. Sweet?”

Sam turned to find Mack holding out an invoice. She gave a final appraisal of the arrangement of the cabinets and displays, making sure everything was as she wanted it before the muscle men got away. While she was writing the check, Ivan Petrenko wandered over from the bookshop.

“Is nice,” he commented as the panel truck pulled away. “I am liking your place, Samantha. I will to be sending customers to your way, I am certain.”

They’d talked about perhaps asking Victor Tafoya about the possibility of cutting a doorway to join their businesses, but hadn’t done so yet. Sam still felt a little intimidated by the crusty old landlord.

“I’ll return the favor,” she told Ivan. “But only when the customers don’t have sticky sugar on their hands.”

“Spaciba, this is being the best way, for sure.” He spotted a car pulling up in front of his shop and hurried off.

Sam smiled at his quirky thank-you. She stood in her doorway, staring into the shop, fixing the customers’ first impressions in her mind. Now she couldn’t wait to fill in the gaps and then see their reactions. In the weeks since she’d come into the money to open the shop she’d been buying and stashing away the smaller items. Her home, being an older one, had a small living room which was now crammed with all these extras. Aside from Kelly’s nightly addiction to the talk shows she’d recorded during the afternoons, the room wasn’t used all that much. Now, however, she could earnestly begin to move the business from her home to the shop. Finally.

Quickly locking up before anyone else might drop by, Sam hurried to her van and drove home. Her answering machine blinked furiously and she played the messages back, making notes, finding only a couple of calls that needed immediate attention.

She still had the order of scones to deliver, and she carefully placed them on the passenger seat of the vehicle. Then she began with the items portable enough to handle on her own—the coffee and tea equipment, trays for the smaller pastries on their display shelves, napkins, tissue paper, bags, boxes . . . it felt like there were a million things.

Soon the van was full enough. She delivered the scones, drove up to a nearby fast food window for some lunch, and headed back to the shop. By mid-afternoon she began questioning her decision not to harness some of the energy she invariably got from the wooden box. At five o’clock she admitted defeat and went home, tired and aching.

“Mom, are you okay?” Kelly asked, the minute she walked in the back door. “You look exhausted.”

“I am. But I’m hoping some of these yummy aspirin will help.”

“Don’t overdo it. How will the shop get going if you’ve killed yourself in the process?”

“I know.” Sam set down her water glass and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Do you mind if we just order a pizza for dinner tonight?”

Kelly placed the call and went out a few minutes later to pick it up. When she came back with a bottle of decent wine, Sam knew things were looking up. She filled her daughter in on the day’s activities.

“So, now that Jen works for you, get her to do some of this stuff.”

“I will. I will.” If I can ever get over this attitude that I have to do everything myself.

Kelly saw the crease in Sam’s forehead. “You won’t. So I’m calling her for you.”

It took all of two minutes and it was arranged that Jennifer would come to the house in the morning and spend the weekend with Sam, baking. They could surely produce enough cookies, muffins, eclairs and cheesecake to make a respectable showing in the bakery cases by Monday morning. Jen would man the register and work out the kinks in the system while Sam supervised installation of the commercial ovens and other equipment. They would consider this first week a soft opening, then plan a gala, a real full-fledged “introduce us to the world” opening the following weekend.

She told all of this to Beau over dinner the following night at a local place known for its hearty soups and generous sandwiches, after they’d stopped at the shop so he could see the progress.

“You’re amazing, you know,” he said. “I can’t believe the amount of work you’ve accomplished already.”

And I can’t really tell you how, she thought, knowing that much of the labor had happened under the influence of the box’s energy. She’d never mentioned to him that she thought Bertha Martinez was appearing in her dreams. It was just too woo-woo for this solid Southerner to believe.

“Thanks. Will you be able to come to our grand opening next Saturday night?”

“Absolutely. Nothing—” His phone interrupted with an insistent tone. He reached for it and shrugged. “Almost nothing . . . sorry, I have to take this.”

The downside of dating a deputy at a time when the department was short-handed and the sheriff was running for re-election, she supposed. She dunked a torn corner of her herb bread into her potato-leek soup and nibbled at it.

Beau’s side of the conversation consisted of yeses and no’s. At one point he pulled his small notebook from a pocket and began to scribble notes. Sam finished her soup and let the waiter take her bowl.

“Well,” he said, finally. “That was an interesting little piece of news.”

“Can you tell me?” She’d learned that while he usually didn’t mind discussing his cases, relying on her discretion, sometimes it was strictly off limits.

“No harm, I guess.” He stuffed the cell phone back in his pocket and spooned up some of his green chile stew. “The crime lab came back with an ID on that body, the one I told you about.”

“From the gorge?”

“Yeah.” He glanced around at the thinning dinner crowd and lowered his voice. “It was a local private investigator, Bram Fenton. He retired from police work in Arizona. I knew him. Not real well, but we’d consulted a few times over the years. Seemed like a straight arrow. Mostly insurance work, that kind of thing.”

“So, what do you think happened to him?”

“Don’t know. They’re faxing the full autopsy report. I should have it waiting for me at the office on Monday morning.”

Sam continued to tear little bits off the herb bread, eating some and dropping a few to the plate in front of her.

“This might sound really weird, but do you know the first thought that just came into my head?”

He looked straight at her.

“Private investigator. Trench coat.” She dropped the bread and dusted the crumbs off her hands. “I know, way too cliche, huh.”

“Could be. But it’s an interesting possibility.”

Chapter 8

Sunday morning Sam woke up with Beau’s conversation running through her head. What if the private investigator really was murdered? And what if the trench coat she’d found belonged to him? She rolled over in bed