Santa Fe Mourning Page 17

  It was only once she was settled in the back seat of a cab, speeding toward Canyon Road, that she realized what bothered her. Rob said the strange contraption was from his father’s chemist shop. But surely he had told her his family had a grocery?

  She was still thinking about that when the car left her off near the end of the street, outside the new post office. She was so distracted, she nearly bumped into one of the postmen coming out with his heavy bag for the evening delivery.

  “Mrs. Alwin!” he said. “Glad I ran into you here. You’re the only one with a Canyon Road delivery this evening, and I don’t fancy facing the Bacas’ dog again.”

  “Glad to save you a trip then.” As he went off on his route, she sorted through the small pile of letters, praying one would not be from her mother. That would be the last thing she needed to top off her already straining day.

  There was a postcard from her cousin Gwen in California, an idyllic scene of sun, sandy beaches, and a white-washed hotel veranda in the background. Having a wizard time! it said in Gwen’s almost unreadable scrawl. There was also a bill from the dairy and an advertisement from a new milliner. And a letter from Olive Rush.

  Sorry it took me a while to write as promised, but I just made it back to San Ildefonso to find new pottery for the next show. There is a man here whose wife does the most exquisite black work you’ve ever seen! I’ve asked around your Anayas, but no one likes to talk about it very much. It seems they were married in the old Spanish church here some time ago, quite against their parents’ approval, but haven’t lived here for a while.

  Juanita Anaya is still quite respected; she always looked after all the pueblo children when their parents were in the fields, and the little ones adored her. But Tomas Anaya is said to have had a drink problem. Such a scourge that is around here! If it was really terrible, no wonder he had to leave. Juanita’s brothers still live here; Diego is a farmer and Refugio a rancher whose wife is a weaver. Diego is still a bachelor—quite handsome if I do say so myself. No trouble about either of them that I can see. Diego asked after his sister and her children but not about Tomas.

  I’ll be back in Santa Fe next week. Hopefully I will have winkled out a bit more by then. I’m not sure we should count on it, though. No white is completely trusted as it is! Do let me know what is happening.

  Your friend, Olive

  P.S. Finish more paintings soon!

  CHAPTER 16

  Juanita was working in the kitchen when Maddie arrived home, but she wasn’t alone. A man sat at the table, drinking coffee and talking to Juanita in Tewa in low, soft tones.

  Maddie paused in the doorway, momentarily surprised. There was never a stranger in her house, and Juanita only ever invited a few of her church friends for tea and cake on Sundays. Maddie had never seen this man before. He was obviously from San Ildefonso like Juanita, tall and lean, his face weathered by the sun but still handsome in a sharply sculpted way, with dark eyes and graying dark hair cut short. He wore a plain denim work shirt and dusty boots; a wide-brimmed felt hat hung beside the door.

  Maddie noticed a few suitcases, along with the box of Tomas’s belongings—minus the strange bottle.

  “Señora Maddie,” Juanita said, quickly putting the lid on the pot she was stirring. “There you are! I wondered where you had gone. I didn’t want to leave without talking to you.”

  “Leave?” Maddie asked. She tucked her injured leg behind her, not wanting to answer any worried questions yet.

  “Yes. Your nice doctor called, and he said the—that Tomas was ready to be released. He’s sending a van to take it to the pueblo to make the trip a bit faster.” The man rose to his feet, and Juanita gave him a nervous smile. “And this is my brother, Diego. The girls and I will ride home with him.”

  “Your brother?” Maddie said. She remembered Juanita said she was estranged from her family. Maybe now that the husband they disapproved of was gone she could mend fences? She smiled at him, unsure if she should shake his hand. Olive had certainly been right when she said he was a handsome one. “How lovely to meet you. Any family or friend of Juanita is always most welcome here, of course.”

  “And nice to meet you, Mrs. Alwin,” he said, studying her closely, quietly, with those dark eyes. “Juanita was just telling me how much she likes her work here.”

  “I do hope so. I could never do without her.”

  Juanita arranged some food on platters and put them in the icebox. “There should be plenty here for you to eat, Señora Maddie, until I get back. The milk’s been delivered for the day, and Kaune’s will bring eggs and vegetables tomorrow. I don’t want to find out you were too busy working in the studio and only ate sandwiches.”

  Maddie laughed. “I’ll eat proper meals, I promise. I need to keep my energy up.” Especially if it meant that helping Eddie sent her running through tunnels and knocking on brothel doors. She wondered if she should tell Juanita now about Mavis or wait until after the trouble of the funeral rites were over and Eddie was safely back home.

  “Juanita says you work as an artist,” Diego said.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Just amateur, though. I hope to work up to more soon. Olive Rush is having an exhibit at the museum, and she’s taken a couple of my small pieces.”

  “The portrait of the girls?” Juanita asked with a hopeful smile.

  “That one isn’t quite finished yet,” Maddie said, “and I’m not sure I could sell it, anyway. I’m sure I’ll want it for myself.”

  “Miss Rush has been a friend to us,” Diego said. “Visiting the pueblo, buying pottery. She even gets some of our artists their own shows and makes sure they’re paid.”

  “She’s a good friend to everyone, I think,” Maddie said, shifting on her aching leg.

  Juanita turned away from the stove and gasped when she saw the dusty, messy shape Maddie was in. “Señora Maddie! What happened?”

  “I just took a little spill, that’s all,” Maddie said. “So clumsy of me!”

  “Sit down, right now, and let me look at that,” Juanita said, taking Maddie’s arm and practically pushing her into a chair. She clucked disapprovingly as she examined the swollen ankle and bandaged scrapes.

  “It’s all right,” Maddie said. “Already on the mend. I ran into a friend who helped me out.”

  “It looks bandaged well enough. But you’ll need some of my lavender salve for those cuts,” Juanita said. She hurried out the back door, and Maddie saw her crossing the garden to her own guesthouse. The girls and Buttercup ran up to her, clamoring in curiosity, and she shooed them away.

  “She hasn’t changed,” Diego said quietly. “Always taking care of everyone.”

  Maddie glanced at him, and his stone-sculptured face looked wistful. “She’s the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

  “It gets her in trouble sometimes, that soft heart. Always has.”

  “She does try to help everyone, but it’s almost impossible to get her to take help in return.”

  “But she’s letting you help her now. She told me about the lawyer and the English doctor you found.”

  “That’s for Eddie. She’ll do anything for her children, even accept a little help. It’s only a small step to repay her for her friendship.” She studied Diego. He seemed only barely younger than Juanita and as quiet and stoic as she was. “I’m glad you’re here to help her too. She doesn’t talk much about her family.”

  Diego shrugged. “Not much to tell. Our father didn’t have faith in her as he should have, and our mother died a long time ago.”

  Juanita came back, a jar of lavender-scented salve in her hand. She examined the scrapes again, shaking her head. “I hope you’re not talking Señora Maddie’s ear off, Diego.”

  Maddie laughed. “He and you barely say five words in a row, Juanita. My ear is still firmly in place. I was just telling Señor Diego that I’m glad he’s here to help you with the funeral.”

  Juanita glanced at her brother. “Diego was always my best brother. I used to tak
e care of him a lot when he was a baby and our mother was ill. He was so pretty, I would carry him around to show him off to all the sa yas, the old aunties. And he started using the outhouse with no training at all, no diapers.”

  “Juanita,” Diego said, a dull-red flush spreading on his cheeks. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to know about that.”

  Juanita giggled. “It’s the truth. You should get your Dr. Cole to look at that ankle tomorrow, Señora Maddie. And use some of this salve every day.”

  “I will, thank you.” Maddie glanced between Juanita and her brother and realized she should tell them about Mavis. The woman was family, after all, and in some trouble. “I met someone today who says she knows you, or once did anyway.”

  Juanita was taking a loaf of bread out of the oven. “Oh?”

  “She says her name is Mavis and that she was Tomas’s cousin. She’s afraid to come and give her condolences in person.”

  Juanita and Diego exchanged a long glance before Juanita looked away, straightening the pots and pans on the rack even though they were already perfectly organized. “She can come see us whenever she likes.”

  “Juanita,” Diego said quietly. “There would be gossip. You know she ran off with a cowboy. Who knows what she’s doing now?”

  “There’s always gossip. Even though we left home long ago, it’s still talk, talk, talk, and no one knows what they’re talking about. No one knows the truth.”

  “Juanita . . .” Diego said quietly.

  “No. She deserves the truth. We all do.” She turned to Maddie, her lips drawn tight. “At our home, for many centuries, we’ve been divided into two clans: the summer people from the squash kiva and the winter people from the turquoise kiva. They each have always had their own cacique, their leader, and also war chiefs. My family is from the summer people, and Tomas was from the winter people. Some of our families didn’t like it when we decided to court.”

  “So you left because Tomas was from a different clan?” Maddie asked. It all sounded so sadly Romeo and Juliet–ish.

  “No. That wasn’t so good, but it was all right for a while,” Juanita said. “They needed as many people to work the land as possible. Lots of us grew sick and died in those days, especially when the ’flu came. But Tomas never could leave well enough alone. He had to follow his own ideas, no matter how harmful they might be.”

  Maddie glanced at Diego, who was sitting quietly, watching his sister. “You mean things like Madame Genet?” she asked.

  “Maybe not her in particular. Father Malone says she’s new here,” Juanita said. “But even back then, Tomas said he didn’t really believe in the old ways or in the church.” She wrapped her fingers around the silver cross at her neck.

  “It was just dangerous talk,” Diego said.

  Maddie was puzzled. “So his interest in spiritualism got him evicted?”

  Juanita shook her head. “That was just an excuse.” She glanced again at her brother. “She should know, Diego. She’s trying to help Eddie. She’s no gossiper.”

  “Girl Guide’s honor,” Maddie said. She thought of her mother whispering with her friends over silver tea trays, clucking their tongues about the latest Fifth Avenue scandal, turning other people’s lives inside out. She never wanted to become that.

  Though she had to admit Juanita’s tragically romantic tale was fascinating.

  Diego sat back in his chair, his arms folded, and Juanita went on. “It was bootlegging.”

  “Tomas was bootlegging on pueblo land?” Maddie said. Maybe he did get roughed up for being in a rival gang after all, and it went too far, like Rob Bennett said? Did he know what was going with Harry’s deliveries?

  “Not him. But he knew who was,” Juanita said.

  “Juanita, please,” Diego said quietly.

  “Everyone knew it. They just wouldn’t say it. Tomas wouldn’t say it either, but he was trying to stop it. He would sometimes have a drink when we first married, you see, and he had been doing just that on the night our first baby died. Tomas hated what strong drink could do to people, but he knew going to the council would only get him thrown out sooner. No one liked him anyway.”

  “Then who was it?” Maddie asked. “Who got him tossed out?”

  “A relative of one of the war chiefs. He was letting the smugglers cross his land, tribal land, for a fee. That’s why Tomas could only work in secret, or so he told me. But they got to him first, accused him of being the one smuggling.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t really him, Juanita?” Diego said. “He never had proof, and now he’s gotten himself killed in an alleyway!”

  Maddie remembered how angry Juanita had been when she heard about the rum-running and Tomas’s possible part in it. She had even called him a hypocrite.

  “I don’t think he would have,” Juanita said, but her eyes looked doubtful. “He hated it so much. But he hated living in town too. Maybe he wanted to catch the true culprits at last . . .”

  “You can’t believe that,” Diego said. He reached across the table to touch his sister’s arm. “He was always a difficult man. Father didn’t want you to marry him for good reasons.”

  “He had his faults, plenty of them,” Juanita said, “but he surely wouldn’t have dragged Eddie into trouble. He was always so strict with him. He’d already lost one son, and neither of us wanted to lose another.”

  “So maybe Tomas was trying to catch the culprits for Eddie?” Maddie said. “Because he thought Eddie was running into trouble?”

  Juanita rubbed her hand wearily over her face. “He was really angry when he thought Eddie had taken with the wrong crowd. A long plan like that doesn’t seem like him, though. Tomas was more likely to fight outright, especially after working quietly at the pueblo just turned around on him like that in the end.”

  “He was no martyr like your priests say, Juanita,” Diego said.

  “Probably not. And he blamed me for what happened, of course.”

  “None of that was your fault,” Diego said. “They would have let you stay.”

  Juanita shook her head. “I couldn’t have, not without him. We were married, for better or worse. Even if it meant I had to leave home, find a new way.”

  Diego snorted. “But he didn’t always stay away.”

  Juanita looked at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone said they saw him a few weeks back, down by the river. He was talking to someone, but they couldn’t see who it was, and then he ran off. But it was definitely Tomas on the pueblo.”

  “Why would he be there again?” Juanita cried. “When he was in such trouble!”

  Diego shrugged. “I don’t suppose we’ll know now. But I can help you ask around after the funeral. I won’t let you down again, Juanita.”

  “Oh, the funeral.” Juanita pushed herself back from the table. “We should be going if we’re to have any daylight left.”

  “You should wait and go tomorrow,” Maddie said. “It would be safer.”

  Juanita shook her head. “We have to finish the rites as soon as we can. Dr. Cole says we can ride in the van, and it should be here by now. It’s not a long way home, really.”

  “Not long.” Maddie remembered the happier trip she had made to the pueblo a few months ago with Olive and a couple of other artists, touring the homes and shops, walking in the fields with the beautiful dark mountains in the distance. Maybe being there again would bring Juanita some peace, or at least more answers. And she had to find what answers she could there in town. “Take some food for the trip. You’ve cooked far too much for me to eat here!”

  Juanita squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the tale before, Señora Maddie. It’s hard to talk about.”

  Maddie gave her a smile. “Of course. You can tell me anything you like, Juanita, but also you don’t have to tell me anything. I know we’re always here for each other.”

  After Juanita, her brother, and the girls loaded up their suitcases and left, the house was very quiet
indeed. Maddie took a cup of tea and some of Juanita’s bizcochitos into the garden and sat on her back portal as the sun slid lower in the sky, turning the evening golden and still. She thought about what she had learned, about Tomas and his reasons for getting into trouble at San Ildefonso, and being forced to leave. Had he been smuggling alcohol, having changed his mind about it all, or was he still trying to stop it?

  She suddenly knew what she should do next. She should meet the mysterious Madame Genet and find out what she and her spirits might know about Tomas Anaya.

  CHAPTER 17

  As Maddie climbed the wooden steps at the back of the building toward Madame Genet’s office, she thought that at least the whole misadventure had shown her places in town she hadn’t seen before. She’d never even realized this place was here, tucked above the grocery on the corner of the plaza, even though she walked past it all the time. The sounds of everyday business were muffled here, the light shadowed.

  At the top of the stairs, she found what she was looking for. A small brass plate on the door read, “Madame Genet, Confidential Inquiries.” There was even a doorbell.

  Maddie patted her hair into place beneath her hat and smoothed her skirt. She’d worn the fine green suit again and her grandmother’s pearls. Surely if she looked like a wealthy, respectable new client, she would learn more from the medium. Maybe even purchase a bit of the “tonic” to be tested.

  The door opened, and a tiny, birdlike woman stood there. She wore what Maddie imagined a ghost medium should: a long, silver-spangled dark-blue tunic over a slim black silk skirt. A few wisps of dark hair peeked out from under a feathered turban, and she had dangling, sparkling earrings in the shape of stars and crescent moons. She looked almost Maddie’s mother’s age, her pale skin creased around smoky-gray eyes, and Maddie was sure she was quite as observant and judgmental as an Astor could ever be.

  The woman’s gaze flickered over Maddie, and she smiled. “How can I help you, mademoiselle?” she asked in a faintly accented, musical voice.