Smothered In Lies (A Mexican Cafe Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) Read online

  “Thanks, Bubba,” Mari responded. She glanced at the line behind Bubba that was rapidly growing restless and impatient. “But don’t you have your own business to run? Shouldn’t you be over there right now?”

  “Ah, there’s nobody over there,” Bubba replied. “And there probably won’t be for another hour. I put up the closed sign and decided to come over here.”

  “Well,” Mari said, “we appreciate your business. Chrissy will show you to your table.”

  Bubba sat at a table by himself but continued to talk about the curse to anyone in the immediate area who was willing to listen.

  “Personally,” Bubba Jones continued, between bites of his Spanish rice, “I think the curse has something to do with the Ramirez's food truck. I bet it was parked on an ancient burial ground or something.”

  There was much excited whispering at this spooky declaration.

  “Mari, are you cursed?” asked an old woman wearing a teal sun hat.

  “Is it true that you and the murder victim were secretly dating?” asked another man with a walrus mustache and uneven sideburns.

  “No, we weren’t dating,” Mari said through her teeth. “I never even met the guy, okay.”

  “I heard you two were dating,” said a younger customer who was eavesdropping.

  “So did I,” said the woman the young girl was with. “Every time you go out with someone, they end up dead within a week. That's what they're saying across the street at the Lucky Noodle.”

  “Don't believe what you hear from the Chuns," Mari stated. "None of that is true." Mari rubbed her head. It was starting to spin with all of the ridiculous questions that were shooting at her left and right.

  “I heard Steve Wilson begged you to go out with him,” the same woman continued, referring to the late meat-delivery driver who had been found dead in their dining hall not too long ago, “and you put him off for years and years, and then finally out of pity you agreed to go on a date with him and he died three days later.”

  “Does anyone actually want to eat or did you all come here to ask me bogus questions?" Mari shouted to the group. “I never dated Steve Wilson. I never wanted to date Steve Wilson. And I certainly never dated Vance Gorden. I never even knew him."

  “You mean you didn’t date him?” said the old woman, her teal sun hat bobbing.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, ma'am,” Mari replied. “The only thing I know about the man who died is that he was an archeologist and he ate a tremendous number of smothered burritos just before he died."

  There was a pronounced silence in the dining room following this declaration. Then the old man with the walrus mustache raised his hand to Chrissy and said, “Waiter, can I make another order? I would like two smothered burritos…”

  “I’d like two as well,” Bubba Jones shouted at Chrissy.

  Within ten minutes so many customers had ordered smothered burritos that the kitchen had trouble keeping up. The restaurant eventually ran out of ingredients to satisfy customer demand. Mari’s Abuela was enlisted to come in and make more of her homemade tortillas. Mari knew how to make them, but her grandmother was the only one who could get them exactly right. Plus, Mari was busy helping Chrissy wait tables.

  After Mari's shift was over, she discussed the night’s events with her mother as she sat with her feet in a foot bath in the kitchen of her parents’ house. Tabasco sniffed the machine cautiously before settling at Mari's feet.

  “I have never seen anything like it,” Mari commented to her mother. “Our smothered burritos have always been big sellers, but we’ve never run out like we did today.”

  “This is going to be good for business,” Mrs. Ramirez said. “Think of how many burritos we were already selling, and then multiply that by ten. That’s the kind of day your brothers are going to have with the food truck tomorrow.”

  “Now if we could only get them a couple of girlfriends,” Mari joked, “they’d be set for life. Maybe Alex would even shower more often.”

  “Speaking of which,” Mrs. Ramirez responded, her fingers curling around the handle of her coffee mug, “when are you going to start dating yourself again?”

  “Mom, haven’t you heard the rumor?” Mari said. “Everyone I date ends up dead.”

  “I’m serious, Mari,” her mother insisted. “I know you’ve been on a few dates, but you haven’t dated anyone seriously since you moved back into town. You’re not getting any younger, you know. I think it might be time.”

  “Thanks for that,” Mari muttered. “Anyway, who am I going to date around here? My apartment manager?”

  “Let me find someone,” Mrs. Ramirez replied with a hint of cunning in her dark eyes. “You don’t have to go out with somebody local. It’s a big county. I think it’s time we set you up on a blind date. I think a break might do your soul some good.”

  “I’ll think about it—” Mari answered, but just then a loud knock on the door startled both of them. Tabasco jumped up.

  Mrs. Ramirez peered through the peephole on the front door before unlocking it. It was David and Alex, and both of them both looked pale as they struggled to catch their breaths.

  “We need your help like now, Mari,” Alex managed to muster. "Someone is trying to kill us and this time I'm serious!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  While Mrs. Ramirez brewed tea for the two boys, Alex and David sat at the kitchen table shakily trying to explain what had just happened to them.

  “We were driving home from work, right?” Alex said, sweat dripping down his brows. “And we were just turning onto our street when the brakes jammed.”

  “It was the scariest thing,” David added. “I yelled at Alex to stop the car, but he said he couldn't. The brakes had stopped working.”

  “I thought we were both going to bite the dust right then and there,” Alex went on. “We were headed straight for the back of a parked van, and I thought I was going to have to unbuckle myself and jump out. Luckily, the car stopped just inches away from hitting the van’s bumper.”

  “I’m honestly scared to leave the house.” David sighed. “And you know I don’t scare easily.”

  This was true. When the three Ramirez children were kids, David had once stared down a wild boar that had shown up in their backyard. Mari had thought that they were all going to die, but the wild boar turned around and went home. Mari's grandmother had called it a miracle.

  “This is all happening so fast,” Alex pointed out. “I mean, if it were spread out over a year I wouldn't be so freaked out. But I swear someone is after us.”

  “I'm sure there's a logical explanation, boys," Mrs. Ramirez responded. She tended to be more level-headed like her daughter.

  “I'm trying to figure one out.” Alex shook his head. “All I can come up with is the curse of Red Arrow.”

  David shook his head. “Or it could be that someone is trying to murder us because we saw something we shouldn't have. Is that more likely, mom?”

  "Well, uh…" Mari's mother was speechless.

  “You're no help, David," Alex said. “If only there was some way we could figure out what those archeologists are hiding. They know more than they're telling people.”

  “That's possible,” Mari responded. “But what are the odds that Vance and his pals dug up some mystical artifact without anyone noticing? Their driver would've at least known that something was up."

  “Do you have any better ideas because this is the only explanation I've got right now?” Alex asked.

  “I’m just saying, if Vance and his friends woke up a spirit from centuries past, there’s no reason it would come after you guys. It would be more likely to go after Kristi and Benny.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Alex said, sounding a little disappointed. “But we’re talking about a magical warrior here. I'm sure he would curse anyone who got in his way, not just those archeologists.”

  “Just roaming around, cursing people at will?” said Mari commented. “If that were the case, why are you guys not
lying in ditch somewhere?"

  Alex looked confused as he thought about this. Mari felt pleased with herself. She had successfully argued that David and Alex couldn’t be cursed because, unlike Vance Gorden, they were still alive.

  “How did y’all get here?” Mari asked. “You said your brakes went out."

  “The car is fine now," David answered. “I took a look at it right after we almost died, and it turns out the brake line had been punctured. Which means someone had obviously tampered with it—”

  "Or,” Mari interrupted, “it’s a really old car, and you two push it to its limits every day. You’ve had that Honda for years. I remember you driving it all throughout high school.”

  “I’m not crazy, Mari,” David responded.

  “Yeah, we’re not crazy,” Alex chimed in. “A Native American ghost is definitely after us.”

  “Okay, first of all,” Mari explained, “you two are like the poster boys of a little thing called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alex, you’re convinced you’ve been cursed, so now you see negativity everywhere. David, you think someone’s trying to kill you, so every accident, breakin—”

  “Murder,” David cut in.

  “Yes, everything becomes grist for your conspiracy theory.” Mari took a deep breath, pleased with herself. She also hoped that what she had explained to her brothers was indeed true.

  “I guess only time will tell, sis,” David said. “But I still think someone is trying to kill us.”

  “The question you’ve got to answer is why," Mari responded. “Why would anyone want the two of you dead?”

  Neither of the boys had a good answer. Mari pondered the conversation as she drove home that night, against the advice of both of her brothers. She ascended the gum-splotched steps to the second floor of her apartment complex, unlocked her front door, and entered the living room of where Tabasco trotted happily to his usual spot on the couch.

  Mari rubbed Tabasco behind the ears as he barked. “I don’t know what’s going on, boy,” Mari said in reply. “This has definitely been the weirdest thing that has ever happened around here. And now my brothers are going mad.”

  She brewed herself a pot of tea and turned on the television, hoping to catch one of her favorite shows. This was one of those nights where Mari needed a good mystery to get her mind off of the mysteries going on around her.

  “The thing I don’t understand,” Mari said to Tabasco, “is how one person could be responsible for all this destruction. Killing someone in the food lot, breaking into the restaurant, messing with the brakes on David’s car…if that's even true. That's a huge amount of work for one person.”

  What was more likely, Mari realized, was that this was a series of incidents that had all happened in a short time span. Maybe there really was no connection. Maybe the breakin at the restaurant was just the work of some local hoodlums. And maybe David and Alex just had overactive imaginations. It wouldn’t have been the first time that had been true.

  Mari was jolted out of her thoughts by Tabasco’s barking. He jumped off of the couch and ran toward the window. Mari set down her tea on the coffee table, hair rising on the back of her neck. Tabasco only acted this way when something was wrong.

  Tabasco barked furiously, unable to stop. Her heart thudded madly as Mari tiptoed toward the window. A shadow ran across the lawn. Every nerve in Mari's body tingled as she realized that the lecture she had given her brothers early insisting that her family wasn't cursed and that no one was out to get them might have been pointless. Mari hoped she wouldn't have to eat her words, but her heart pounded so loudly that she didn't care if her brothers laughed at her in the morning. She reached for her cell phone and called 9-1-1 as she watched the shadowy figure creep closer and closer to her front door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mari ran to the kitchen and turned on the lights. She sat at the table waiting for the police to knock on her front door. She was on edge, her senses attuned to every noise. Her eyes darted rapidly back and forth between the window front room and the window in her kitchen. She remembered how scared her brothers had been and now she experienced the same uncertainty.

  Mari had a hard time remaining calm even though her apartment was quiet, minus Tabasco's deep breathing. She wondered if she was succumbing to the same hysteria she had just scolded David and Alex for indulging in. Surely it wasn’t that uncommon for people to walk across the lawn of an apartment building at 3 AM? Mari had done it several times when coming home late from work, and no one had ever called the police on her. But Mari's neighbors knew her, and they also knew that she worked late at the family restaurant. Mari did not recognize the person she'd seen creeping around by her window.

  Mari's stomach leaped when there was a knock on the front door. A minute later, Detective Price and Officer Penny stood in the living room looking out the window onto the lawn.

  “We’ve already combed the premises,” Detective Price said, “and we’ve found a fresh set of footprints.”

  “We’re positive that they belong to the intruder you saw,” Officer Penny confirmed. "They were deep as if the person had jumped off of something close to your window."

  “But the only place they could’ve jumped from—” Mari said.

  “Is your balcony, yes,” Officer Penny finished.

  “It is possible that this person might have been in your home just before you arrive,” the detective suggested. "Do you notice anything missing?"

  “I haven't been home for very long.” Mari shivered at the prospect that someone might have been inside her apartment just moments ago. “And do many people jump from second story balconies and get away with it? Are you sure the culprit isn't limping his way down the street right now?"

  Officer Penny and Detective Price chuckled.

  “I wish it were that easy,” the detective commented.

  The detective looked around once more before he finally left. Mari didn’t like being left alone in her apartment after it had just been broken into. She called her brother Alex, who was still awake researching ancient Native American curses on the internet.

  “I think someone just broke into my apartment,” Mari admitted, interrupting Alex's story about three boys who had gone missing at a state park.

  “What? Say that again.” Alex was silent.

  "I came home, and Tabasco started barking like crazy," Mari replied. "I looked out the window, and I saw someone running across the lawn, so I called the cops. Detective Price showed up and said that he found a set of footprints that made it seem like the intruder might have jumped from my balcony when I got home." Mari stopped to take a breath.

  "The curse of Red Arrow," Alex whispered.

  “Maybe, but maybe not,” Mari responded. “At least part of what you've been saying might be true. Someone is targeting us for some reason. I think it's about time we figured out why.”

  “I would say I told you so but…” Alex cleared his throat. "I'm just glad you're okay.”

  “Thanks,” Mari replied. “This person, whoever they are, is ruthless. We need to come up with a plan to find answers.”

  “A man is killed, our van is vandalized, our brakes are tampered with, your apartment is broken into…” Alex sighed.

  “So, we need to be especially careful the next couple of days,” Mari said. “None of us should go anywhere alone.”

  “That’s not a problem for any of us except you,” Alex commented.

  “Right." Mari was the only child to have moved out of her parent's house. "Speaking of which, I need you or David to cover my shift tomorrow morning. I’m going to be doing some investigating.”

  “By yourself, I’m guessing?” Alex said.

  Mari sighed. “You and David can’t both go with me. Dad would have a fit if all three of us didn't turn up for work. The restaurant is going to be busy tomorrow.”

  “I seem to remember someone once telling me none of us should be wandering around alone,” Alex commented. “I guess your rules apply to everyone but
you?”

  Mari was silent.

  “I know what I said, but this can’t be helped,” Mari responded. “Besides, I was mostly talking about you and David.”

  “What makes you so sure another creeper won't come knocking?” Alex eagerly awaited his sister's reply. “You're going to need more than Tabasco's help if Vance's killer is after you too.”

  “Nothing will happen in the middle of the day,” Mari rationalized. "And like you said, Tabasco will be with me to ward off ghosts."

  "That fella Vance Gorden was killed in the middle of the day," Alex reminded her.

  "This is different," Mari assured him, though she saw the reason for his concern.

  “Where are you going?” Alex asked. "At least tell me where to go looking for your body if you never come home."

  “Haha.” Mari took a deep breath. “If I told you then you would try and stop me. Don't worry I will be in a crowded place. I'm going to the Lone Star Hotel.”

  “Fine,” Alex replied stiffly. “Just don't check into a room by yourself.”

  “I won't.” Mari chuckled, trying to break the tension with a bit of humor. "I don't think they allow dogs." Mari cleared her throat. "Well, thanks for covering for me."

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Alex said. “If you end up getting killed, Dad is going to blame me forever. I'm in the more dangerous position here.”

  “Good night, Alex.” Mari smiled as she hung up the phone.

  Mari’s tea had already gone cold. She made a cup of her grandmother’s hot chocolate and spent half an hour watching one of her mystery shows. Conveniently, one of Mari's favorite episodes was on. One with a fairly handsome protagonist who happens to find love during an important case. Mari wondered why all murder mysteries couldn't be like T.V.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mari remembered Lester saying that Vance Gorden's girlfriend Kristi was staying at the Lone Star Hotel. As soon as Mari had finished getting ready the next morning, she drove there. She brought along a plate of churros as a bride. After much practice, she had finally gotten the recipe exactly right.