I lowered my voice. “The police are looking into whether someone might have killed him. That maybe he didn’t just drop down dead.”
His mouth pulled down in a horrified expression. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
I shook my head.
Hector narrowed his eyes. “If so, it had to have been Katherine’s dad, the Agrosafe guy. He’s gotta be furious about the group trying to pull his product from the market.”
“I had the same thought.”
He stood abruptly. “I need to make a call. I might know something. Catch ya later, Robbie.”
I stared after him. What would he know? Who was he calling? I didn’t even have his contact info to follow up, but I could get it from Carmen. Who somehow materialized next to me with my breakfast. I shook off thoughts of Paul’s death and stared at the beckoning dish in front of me. Two mounds of English muffin, Canadian bacon, and fried egg, topped with avocado slices and dripping with parsley-flecked Hollandaise sauce over all of it. Two thin slices of orange on the plate were the perfect local garnish. I snapped a photo of the laden plate.
“Am I in heaven, Carmen?” I glanced up at her, spying her mother behind her. “Oh, Luisa, buenos dias. I didn’t see you.”
Luisa smiled, but it was a faint one. She rattled off some Spanish.
“She says her sister, my tia Nelinda, cleans house for Walter’s ex-wife,” Carmen translated.
I nodded to myself. Katherine’s former stepmother.
Carmen kept her voice low. “Mamá says Nelinda overheard the lady talking about Mr. Russom’s habit. She said he spends a lot of money on it.” She rubbed her fingers together in the sign for plentiful cash.
“Habit like an addiction to drugs?” I asked, my gaze on Luisa. Maybe those women at the chamber event were right.
“No. Like in gambling. Apparently, it was one of the reasons she divorced him.”
Gambling. “Gracias, Luisa.” I smiled at her.
Luisa shook her head and said something to her daughter.
Carmen laughed. “She says to call her Mamá.”
“Gracias, Mamá.”
Luisa nodded and squeezed my hand in both of hers, then she pointed to my plate and made a fork-to-mouth gesture. “Cómelo, mientras esté caliente.”
“Eat it while it’s hot,” Carmen translated before she and Luisa headed back inside.
Walter Russom was losing money gambling. I didn’t think there was a casino nearby. At least, there hadn’t been one when I was growing up. Or had there? I hadn’t known about one. Maybe Walter gambled online. I assumed one could do so these days. I’d read about people who kept on betting even while losing huge amounts of money, sure the next game, the next card would reverse everything.
Did Walter try to eliminate anyone who threatened his company’s profits—as Paul had—because he was desperate for money? Or was something else going on? And what about what the woman at Walter’s talk had mentioned, that he was at the beach exchanging money for something? I blinked, thinking. Maybe he had borrowed cash and was being forced to pay it back with interest. Was there a California mafia?
My fingers itched to go online. I’d seen a few days ago that Agrosafe wasn’t a publicly traded company. Still, I bet I could dig up something about their finances. Everything was findable online if you looked hard enough.
Chapter 34
Liz and I putt-putted into the foothills two hours later on our way to Ceci’s farm. The road was the old stagecoach route over San Marcos Pass. It became super twisting with hairpin turns farther up, but down here modest homes were mixed with animal farms and undeveloped hillsides. She’d put the top down on the VW, and the air rushed past my face. I’d threaded my ponytail through the Nacho Average Café cap I’d gotten from Carmen, a souvenir I was going to treasure. I’d given her my Pans ’N Pancakes hat in exchange, which had delighted her.
“How do you keep this car in such good running order?” I asked. “It’s really old.”
“I take it down to JJ’s Vintage Automotive in Las Fincas. The woman who owns it, Jamie Jullien, only works on cars made before they started putting computers into them.”
“I love it. She must have a lot of business.”
“She does. She’s good at coaxing years out of treasures like mine.” She patted the dashboard.
I sniffed the air. “The fires seem better today, don’t they?”
“The air does seem more clear,” Liz agreed. “I think they might have gotten the worst of the burns contained overnight.”
“The wildfire got pretty bad there for a day or two.”
“I know.”
I waited a beat. “Liz, I have something to tell you.”
“This sounds bad.” She glanced over at me. “It’s not about Zoe, is it?”
“Not at all.”
“So tell.”
“I spoke to the pathologist yesterday,” I said. “She found Mom’s death report. She definitely died of a ruptured brain aneurysm. The kicker is, they didn’t test for a toxin that might have caused an aneurysm because nobody suspected homicide at the time. And she was cremated. We’ll never know the answer.”
Liz reached over and patted my knee. “It doesn’t matter, Robbie. She loved you until her last breath. You hang on to that. Because it’s true.”
I gazed out at the hillside. “I know.” I took a deep breath and swiped at the corners of my eyes. She was right. Mom’s love was all that counted.
Liz cleared her throat. “Are we—I mean, you—trying to accomplish something at this farm, or is this simply a fun vacation field trip?”
Good question. “A little of both. At the farmers’ market Ceci expressed quite strong feelings against Katherine Russom, and she publicly challenged Walter Russom at that Chamber of Commerce function last night, the talk you told me about.”
“So you went to that? How was it?”
“I did. He didn’t say anything very interesting. Anyway, I want to dig a little deeper into what Ceci said, if I can. Plus, she invited me up to her farm. And who doesn’t love
