Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery Read Free Page B

child he once was, came through as he said, “I guess I enjoyed it here more than I thought.”
    Even as she smiled at his words, he seemed to push away the memories, and the serious inspectorreturned. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight as the car bounced and rocked. They made a steep ascent. At the crest, they saw spread out below them an unexpected valley. Dotting it, much like toy houses from a train set, stood one large home circled by cottages and other small buildings. They were looking at what was once Hal Edwards’s personal estate, his “hacienda,” as LaVerne Merritt had called it. Once they began their descent, the buildings disappeared from view.
    Nearing an open gate in a barbed wire fence, Paavo slowed. As they crossed over the gate’s cattle guard, the car vibrated and clamored with a loud metallic rattle. On the fence, a weathered sign announced, GHOST HOLLOW GUEST RANCH .
    Determination filled Paavo’s face. “Relax,” Angie said. “They way you look right now, no one will talk with you. Even the coffee shop owner asked if you were with the FBI. Remember, you’re a tourist, not a cop.”
    “Right.” His expression didn’t ease one iota.
    The SUV stopped in front of a small building with a trailer behind it. The adobe brick-and-wood-trimmed building had a small sign that read RANCH OFFICE .
    Angie stepped from the car. The sun beat down and there was no breeze. Still, as she looked around, the size and elegance of what Hal Edwards had built surprised her.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I never would have imagined such a place way out here. The Spanish architecture, the wood and adobe, is gorgeous—and the plaza looks like one in a small Mexican town.”
    A fountain made of reddish clay with a tall center spire stood spewing water in the middle of the plaza, and beyond it was the sprawling white adobe home, two-stories tall with wooden balconies on the second floor and a red-tile roof. The hacienda, she thought.
    Beside it was a newer one-story building with similar architecture.
    “It’s like something out of a travel brochure.” Angie headed toward the fountain. Listening to the water splash, just looking at it, felt cool and refreshing in the hot sun.
    “Hal Edwards was a man of good taste,” Paavo said as he examined the area.
    “Definitely.” She turned back toward the office. She blinked once, then again, but the image before her didn’t change.
    Three of the biggest, ugliest birds she’d ever seen had stepped out from behind the trailer. They stopped and gawked, as if as surprised to see her as she was to see them.
    She’d seen pictures of such birds before, and maybe one or two in a zoo, but never out in the open. They must have stood seven feet tall, and Angie was only five-two. She pointed and when she found her voice cried, “Ostriches!”
    At her cry, Paavo turned. His jaw dropped. So this, at least, was different from the way he remembered it.
    “I was expecting cows and horses,” she said. “Not gigantic birds.”
    Just then, a grizzled man of medium height sprang from the trailer. “Goddamn!” He waved his arms, swatting the air in the direction of thebirds. “Get your mangy, ugly, smelly, soon-to-be-cowboy-boots hides out of my sight!”
    The beasts took several long-legged loping steps away from him but remained near.
    Ignoring them, the man approached Angie and Paavo. “Welcome to Ghost Hollow Guest Ranch.” He was thin and wiry, his gray hair long and uncombed, and his pockmarked face unshaven and bristled. Red, watery eyes observed them. “The name’s Lionel Edwards. I’m the manager here.”
    Angie and Paavo shook his hand and gave their names. Angie found the sour reek of whiskey on his breath overwhelming.
    One ostrich left the others and walked toward them. Its skin was blue, its feathers gray and brown, and its eyes were enormous shiny black balls. On the top of its head, a small tuft of feathers bent forward rather than back, almost