On the surface perhaps Elena did have reason to end her life. Her unhappy marriage, the disappointment of the affair, and the crime she’d committed—accidentally or not—all of it had eaten at her until she obviously could not bear it.
“I’m going to bed early,” Sam told Kelly as they put the dishes into the dishwasher. The energy boost that she normally got from the wooden box seemed to have vanished after her experiences with the oddly colored auras and the piercing buzz in her head.
She summoned up enough energy to brush her teeth and slip into her nightshirt before crashing. Elena’s final words to Sam echoed through her head: “Telling Deputy Cardwell won’t solve anything.” She fell asleep.
Uneasy dreams filled the night. Elena arriving at Sam’s gala opening party, looking chic as ever in the turquoise that set off her blond hair so beautifully, draping the cashmere scarf over her chair, responding to someone’s inquiry about how it was made. The scene shifted to the Tafoya home as Sam dropped Elena off, worried about how much wine her friend had consumed. Elena wrapping the warm scarf around her neck as she got out of Sam’s car. The scene shifting rapidly, the scarf tightening around the slender throat, Elena’s frantic attempts to scream for help. Sam stretching, reaching to save her, unable to quite do it.
She awoke in a tangle of sheets and blankets, panting.
“Wha—” Her breath came in gasps.
She sat up in bed and hugged her knees. The dream was clearly telling her that Elena needed her help. Her friend was reaching out and it was up to Sam to do something.
She switched on the lamp on her nightstand and picked up the phone. “Answer, answer,” she pleaded, noticing for the first time that the readout on her clock said it was 1:47 in the morning.
Beau’s mumbled hello was full of sleep.
“Elena Tafoya didn’t kill herself,” Sam blurted out. How could she convey the urgency of the dream?
“Sam?” He yawned hugely. “What’s this about Elena? How would you know—?”
“Don’t ask me
“Darlin, you do realize it’s the middle of the night, don’t you?”
“Sorry.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I just had this feeling that it couldn’t wait. Do funeral directors work at night?”
“What?”
“You told me yesterday afternoon that Elena’s body probably hadn’t been cremated yet. But what if they work at night? What if they’re doing it right now?”
She heard rustling in the background, the heavy comforter on his bed, perhaps. His hands running over a stubbly face.
“I don’t know, Sam. They might be working tonight.”
“Can you stop them? If they’re about to cremate her? Please, Beau?”
“Let me make a call. I’ll find out.”
“Call me right back.”
“Obviously, you’re awake.”
“I won’t sleep until I hear from you.”
“I’ll let you know, no matter what’s happening.”
The dial tone hummed for nearly a full minute before Sam set the receiver down. She got up, wrapped her warmest robe around herself and found her sheepskin slippers. Pacing the floor seemed so cliche, but it was all she could do with sleep impossible and being completely at a loss for whom to call, other than Beau. She hovered within two strides of the phone until it rang. Eight minutes had passed as if they were eight hours.
“Okay,” Beau said. “I had to call my office and find out which funeral home had her body. Turned out to be one in Albuquerque. I did reach someone there and I did get them to stop . . . working . . . on this until I get back to them. Now you want to tell me why the big panic?”
She took a deep breath and sat on the edge of her bed. If she were wrong about this, she was about to look like a huge fool.
“The scarf that Elena supposedly hung herself with—it was the same one she’d worn to the party at my shop, wasn’t it?”
“Um . . . yeah, I believe so. It’s in an evidence bag at the office. I could actually describe it to you if this call were taking place during my shift.”
Oops, he sounded just a little ticked. “That’s okay.” She reminded him that he’d already told her it was the same scarf. “I just remembered something Elena told me about it, about how much she loved the scarf.”
“She loved the scarf.”
“Right. Don’t you see? A woman wouldn’t use one of her most prized possessions to kill herself.”
“And why not? Maybe she wanted it to be the last thing that touched her skin.”
Sam hadn’t thought of that. “But—” In a dream Elena had called out to her . . . That wasn’t going to fly, not in a murder investigation.
“How carefully did the medical investigator examine her body and the scarf?” she asked.
“Well, he would have examined the body pretty thoroughly. As far as I know, though, he didn’t have the scarf. We bagged it and kept it here.”
“But mainly, he just wanted to be sure she really died by strangling, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
“But I’m just not convinced. Elena was upset that night, yes, but I will never believe that she was so upset that she went right home and killed herself, Beau, especially not with her favorite scarf. I just—”
“Sam, with anyone else, I’d suggest that they get some counseling and work through the grieving process. Denial is always the first stage.”
She started to sputter but he interrupted.
“But—listen for a second—you have good instincts. You’ve already proven that to me, and it’s the only reason we’re having this conversation.” He paused for a moment. “I will get the wheels in motion for a revisit to the autopsy. I have to be specific in the request, based on some kind of evidence. I’ll send the scarf to Albuquerque and ask the crime lab to do strength tests and . . . well, you don’t need all the details.”
She felt a tightening in her throat. “Thanks, Beau. Thanks for believing me.”
“I’m also stepping up the pace on the Bram Fenton investigation,” he said. “And I can’t promise that Elena’s name won’t suffer in the process. You have to be ready for that, hon. And you have to be ready, just in case it’s proven that she did kill herself. Remorse is a powerful thing, Sam. It could be that she either felt guilty over the investigator’s death or she might have panicked at the thought of being caught.”
“I know.” Sam felt the earlier burst of adrenaline drain out of her. Despite wanting to save her friend’s reputation and memory, she might just be opening a whole new can of worms. She hung up the phone wondering if she shouldn’t have left well-enough alone.
She switched out the light and crawled back under the covers but realized the futility of trying to sleep when she rolled over for the fourth time, only to stare at the red numerals on the clock that told her it was after three.
She pulled herself out of bed and moved quietly, dressing and leaving for her shop. She’d told Jen she would come in early but three o’clock was ridiculous. But, no matter. There was work to be done and lying in bed staring at the ceiling was pointless.
Yesterday’s unseasonably mild weather had taken a complete turn sometime during the night. A frigid wind blew down Sam’s lane, whipping tiny granules of sleet across her windshield. She tried to remember whether there was snow in the forecast. She pressed the button for the local station on the van’s radio but they weren’t on the air at this hour. No point, anyway. The weather would do whatever it would, no matter what some forecaster said about it.
By the time Jen and Becky arrived at six, Sam had finished eight dozen orange-frosted pumpkin shaped cookies, a crumb cake, two cinnamon streusel coffee cakes and a batch of blueberry muffins. Becky took over with more muffins and some apple tarts, while Sam started creating the baby shower cake she’d sketched out yesterday. Soon she was lost in the decorating.
When Beau walked in the front door, Jen went into a fluster, as always happened when that six and a half feet of lean, hunky guy in uniform spoke to her. Sam couldn’t believe it was already after ten; it seemed almost
