Santa Fe Mourning Page 6

  Gunther nodded, frowning. “He was a chilly one, wasn’t he? I wonder why they brought him onto the police here. Seems too perceptive and suspicious by half.”

  Maddie bit her lip as she thought of Inspector Sadler and his Eastern accent, his stoic demeanor that gave away nothing but seemed to see everything. The police department in town was a small one, and rather notoriously lackadaisical. Bootlegging was widespread and seldom caused the purveyors any trouble unless they failed to grease the right palms, and public violence was rare. Why was the inspector there, and right as a murder happened too?

  Then again, she thought with a pang, the murder might not have attracted attention at all if it hadn’t happened at the social hub in town, the place where everyone with money and influence tended to congregate. It would just be thought of, like the inspector himself said, as a drunken fool getting into trouble. In his own words, he was there to “clean up the town” and make sure such things didn’t happen to other people. Important people.

  And that made Maddie very angry indeed. She could feel it in the pulsing of her heart in her ears, the tightening of her stomach. Juanita had said Tomas was involved in something mysterious lately, something that worried her. Surely whatever it was might have caused his murder? Juanita deserved some answers, and Maddie very much feared no one would really begin to search for them.

  She hated the helpless feeling that realization gave her, the same feeling she often had with her parents—that there was no way to make someone do what was right.

  But there was one thing she could do. Had to do.

  “At least let me come inside with you,” Gunther said. “I know I’m quite the silly flibbertigibbet, but I can help you with this.”

  Maddie reached out and squeezed his hand. “You are certainly not a flibbertigibbet.” And he wasn’t. He wanted people to think so, but she knew that he was very serious inside, thinking too much about everything, just as she did. It was one of the reasons they were such good friends. “But I have to do this myself. I owe it to Mrs. Anaya, for all she’s done for me.”

  Gunther nodded. “You do what you must, my darling. But do come over for lunch as soon as you can. Tomorrow, maybe. We can talk it all over.”

  “I will.” She watched as Gunther made his way through their connecting gate into his own garden. He lit a cigarette, and the tiny red flame was like a beacon in the night, quickly vanishing. And Maddie was alone.

  She glanced up at the stars, so bright and glittering, like silver sequins scattered across a rich black velvet gown. Before she came to New Mexico, she had never seen such stars. In New York, they were hidden by streetlights and skyscrapers. Here the sky seemed so close she could reach up and touch it or jump up and lose herself flying through the galaxy. Sometimes she even let herself fancy that one of those stars was Pete, that he beamed down at her and her new home.

  Tonight, though, that vastness made her feel very alone and deeply sad. How fast life could change, could shatter into a thousand shards, just like all those stars. How hard it was to put it all together again.

  She turned away from the impersonal glow of the stars and hurried into her house. Just as always, Juanita had left two of the lamps on in the sitting room. The soft glow undulated over the carpets and cushions and paintings she had collected so carefully and loved so much, but now it all looked strange. Almost like a place she had never even seen before. Shadows moved around the vigas of the ceiling, and all she could think of was ghosts.

  “Don’t be silly,” she told herself sternly. She had to be strong now. She knew she could do it. She’d done it when Pete died, when she volunteered at the hospital, when she moved alone to Santa Fe. She could dig deep now and do it again.

  The house was silent, but she could see a bar of light peeking under the kitchen door. She took off her dusty boots and tiptoed over to push the door open.

  Juanita usually went to bed after tucking in the girls, but she was still awake, almost as if she sensed it would be no ordinary evening. She sat at the table in her pink quilted dressing gown, her long braid of black hair snaking over her shoulder. A cup of tea was in front of her, the steam rising like a gray plume, and she just stared at it intently, as if her thoughts were far away.

  “Juanita,” Maddie said softly.

  Juanita visibly startled, her shoulders twitching as her head swiveled toward the door, her eyes wide. “Oh, Señora Maddie,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Maddie sat down across from her, trying to organize her thoughts, to know what to say. What had her mother-in-law told her when that telegram came? She couldn’t remember at all. “I’m sorry I startled you. I didn’t think anyone would still be awake.”

  “I was waiting for Eddie. He still hasn’t come home after that silly quarrel this afternoon. Foolish boy.” Juanita pushed her chair back from the table. “Let me get you some tea.”

  “No, thank you, Juanita. I . . .” Maddie swallowed hard past the sudden hard lump that formed in her throat and plunged ahead. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Juanita sat back down in her chair, heavy and fast, as if she could no longer stay upright. “About Eddie?”

  Maddie shook her head. “I haven’t seen Eddie since this afternoon either. No, it’s—it’s Tomas. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  Juanita’s face went ashen, and her hand froze as she was reaching for her teacup. Other than that, she didn’t move at all. Maddie remembered that feeling very well, as if time turned to ice. “How? How do you know this?”

  “His body was found at La Fonda, not long after I arrived there.”

  A frown flickered across Juanita’s face. “What was he doing there?”

  “It was in the alleyway behind the hotel,” Maddie said, dreading the explanation she had to make. She knew she had to say it fast. “He had been, well—killed. A maid found him. I—I’m so very sorry, Juanita.”

  Juanita blinked twice and shook her head. “That fool.”

  Maddie was surprised at the words, the sudden, sharp vehemence of them. She remembered that Juanita said her husband had been acting strangely lately. But foolish? “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing lately. He was so angry all the time, he . . .” At last, the ice cracked, and she let out a sob. She buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t think it would come to something like this! How could it? My poor babies. What will I tell them?”

  Maddie quickly got up to pour Juanita another cup of tea, adding plenty of sugar as they had for her at La Fonda. She pressed it into Juanita’s shaking hand and urged her to drink deeply. “I’ll help you any way I can. I’ll help you tell the children. It can wait until morning.”

  Juanita nodded and sipped at her tea in silence for a long moment. “Tell me what happened, Señora Maddie. What you saw there.”

  Maddie told her about the maid’s screams, the way the police came and the inspector asked questions of everyone who was there. She didn’t mention the state of the body or the way she saw it hauled away.

  “Inspector Sadler took my address, so he might call here with some questions,” she finished.

  Juanita’s eyes widened, and she clutched at the collar of her robe. “Ask questions here? Why would he do that? I won’t be able to tell him anything more than you did.”

  Maddie was surprised at Juanita’s sudden fear. “I’m sure it’s just routine when a murder is committed. Nothing to worry about. We’ll stay together the whole time.”

  “But—the children . . .”

  “I’m sure he won’t bother the children,” Maddie said, though she really didn’t know. She couldn’t read the inspector at all.

  “They won’t know anything, just like I don’t,” Juanita murmured. “Tomas didn’t talk to me at all anymore. He wouldn’t listen to anything.”

  “Juanita, you told me earlier that Tomas had been behaving—oddly lately. That he and Eddie were arguing about Eddie’s fr
iends . . .”

  “Eddie had nothing to do with all that!” Juanita cried. She slammed the teacup down on the table, sloshing liquid on the polished wood surface. Maddie was startled at the sudden movement from the usually gentle and mild Juanita. “Whatever Tomas was doing, it was nothing to do with them.”

  “I know.” Maddie reached out to press her hand. Juanita’s fingers were cold and shaking. “And that’s all you have to tell the inspector, if he even comes around here at all. I’m sure he has a lot to occupy his time.”

  But she had a sneaking suspicion Inspector Sadler would come around. Surely there was some reason a sleepy town like Santa Fe would bring in a man like that. She had the feeling he was some kind of Prohibition agent, sent from El Paso to “clean up.”

  Did Tomas figure into that somehow? And what did Juanita really know? For Maddie was quite sure her friend knew more than she was saying.

  Maddie feared she was too tired to try to fathom it all yet. The shock was fading away, drowning her energy until she felt quite boneless and worn-out. She couldn’t even imagine how Juanita was feeling.

  “You should go to bed,” Maddie said. “I can give you some of the sleeping powder the doctor in New York gave me, if you like.”

  “No, thank you, Señora Maddie,” Juanita said. She sat up straighter, visibly gathering her tattered strength. “I’ll just look in on the girls first. It will be time to start breakfast in a few hours.”

  “Oh, never mind about breakfast! In fact, if you want to take some time off, take the children to visit your family . . .”

  Juanita shook her head. “I’d rather just keep on with my work for now. Thank you for telling me, Señora Maddie. I’m glad it was you, and not some strange policeman.”

  “Of course.” Maddie watched Juanita make her way out the kitchen door, toward the guesthouse.

  Maddie tiptoed to her own bedroom at the end of the house. She went through the motions of changing into her nightgown, rubbing cold cream on her cheeks, brushing her hair, hardly realizing what she was doing.

  She fell into her bed and pulled the fluffy silk blankets close around her, as if they could be a protective cocoon. She was so achingly exhausted, she was sure she would fall right asleep. Yet oblivion wouldn’t come. Her mind insisted on running back and forth over every second of the evening, like a film reel endlessly unspooling.

  She heard the maid’s screams, saw Elizabeth leaning over the counter with her white powder, smelled the sourness of the alley. Remembered the sight of Tomas’s gray hand flopping from under the sheet. Surely that meant he had not been dead long, if rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in? She knew that much from the detective novels she liked to read. And the dark color under his nails. It was strange, and she tried to remember if she had seen anything like that in her hospital volunteer days.

  Finally, she gave up and turned on her bedside lamp. She reached for the sketchbook and charcoal pencils she kept in the nightstand drawer and started to draw everything she remembered. The way the body was left in the alley, who was there. The pale hand.

  Only once she had recorded it all on paper did she take one of her sleeping powders and fall into blessedly dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  Something bright and insistent pierced through Maddie’s gritty eyelids, and she groaned and rolled over in her bed. She reluctantly opened her eyes to see that she had forgotten to close the shutters before she fell asleep, and now the bedroom was flooded with the pure white-yellow morning sunlight. She blinked, still half-caught in the darkness that had enveloped her all night.

  Then she remembered everything that happened. Tomas dead. The inspector’s questions. The horrible, horrible night.

  She bolted straight up off her pillows, and pain shattered her brain. She felt as if she had drunk far too much, but there hadn’t been time for even one cocktail last night, and she had turned down Gunther’s divine Pink Ladies. She shook off the fuzzy feeling in her head. There was no time for that today if she was going to be of any help to Juanita, no matter how much she really wanted to pull the covers back over her head.

  She climbed out of bed and padded into the bathroom to bathe and find some lipstick. The chalky-gray visage and tangled hair that greeted her in the mirror was sure to scare anyone who took one look at her.

  When she made her way to the kitchen, she found a covered breakfast tray on the table and a kettle of tea on the stove. The back door to the garden was open, letting in the cool morning breeze, and she glimpsed the twins sitting there on the steps with their new dolls. Buttercup lay at their feet. Juanita was nowhere to be seen, but Maddie could smell the acrid tinge of dye coming from the small laundry room off the kitchen.

  She poured herself a strong cup of tea, snatched a piece of toast off the tray, and peeked into the laundry room. It was filled with tubs and drying racks, the air steamy, and Juanita was stirring a tangle of dresses in a vat of inky dye, making mourning clothes.

  Maddie remembered all too well how her maid did that as soon as the telegram about Pete came to the door, and the toast turned to ashes in her mouth.

  Juanita’s eyes were red-rimmed but dry, her cheeks pink from the work, her hair straggling from its usually tidy braided bun. She went about her work in silence, her face expressionless.

  “How are you this morning, Juanita?” Maddie asked softly.

  Juanita glanced back over her shoulder. She didn’t look surprised to see Maddie there. She didn’t look like anything at all. Maddie remembered that numb feeling too. It had been a blessing of sorts, for a while. Better than the sharp, stabbing pain that came after.

  Juanita tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m well enough. There’s eggs and oatmeal on the table too, if you want them, Señora Maddie.”

  “I’ll heat it up later. Did you and the girls eat? Have you told them what happened?”

  Juanita shrugged. “I told them, but they don’t seem to have understood quite what it means yet, poor things. I got them to take some toast by letting them have some of that marmalade of yours they love so much. I’m afraid they ate a whole jar. They’ll have bellyaches later.”

  “They can eat all the marmalade I can find down at Kaune’s Grocery later, if they like. Did you eat? You’ll need your strength.” Maddie thought she should say that, since everyone said it after a death. Her own mother had insisted on plying Maddie with steak and chops after Pete died, declaring she needed the iron, but Maddie doubted it had helped much.

  “A bit. But . . .” Juanita frowned, and Maddie could tell she was debating whether to say something. Finally, she nodded. “I’m afraid Eddie hasn’t come home.”

  “Not at all?” Maddie cried.

  “His bed hasn’t been slept in. I—” Juanita’s voice cracked, and she stirred harder at the clothes. “That boy will give me the ague! I haven’t seen him since yesterday. He doesn’t even know about his pa, and I have no idea where he could be. He could—he could be dead too!”

  She suddenly dropped the wooden paddle and buried her face in her hands. Maddie hurriedly put down her half-empty cup and went to put her arm around Juanita’s shoulders. She didn’t, couldn’t, say the words that hovered all around them, that Eddie had been fighting with his father, had been furious with him. What if—what if something terrible happened between them?

  “I’m sure he will be home at any moment,” Maddie said. “You said he’s been running with some new friends. They were probably just out and about being silly boys. Should I go look for him?”

  Juanita swiped at her eyes. “I wouldn’t know where to start. I’m sure you’re right, Señora Maddie. He’ll be home soon; he never stays gone too long. He always comes back to help with the day’s work. He’s a good boy, really.”

  Maddie could hear the strain in her voice, the desperation to believe. “Of course he is.”

  “I just wish—wish . . .” Juanita’s voice broke on a sob.

  “Mama?” a tiny voice whispered from the doorway. “What’s wron
g?”

  Maddie glanced back to find little Pearl standing there, clutching at her doll. The girl’s dark eyes were wide and frightened.

  “The dye is making my eyes water, that’s all,” Juanita said. She turned away as if to hide her tears, her own fears, from her daughters. “You must go and play with your sister.”

  “Maybe I could persuade the girls to help me in my studio,” Maddie said, giving Pearl a bright smile. “I’m terribly behind on the portrait, and it would be lovely to have it in the next museum exhibition.”

  Juanita nodded, and Maddie took Pearl’s hand to lead her outside. The girls always loved to be in the studio, to look at the colorful paints and pastels, and to help Maddie prepare canvases and mix new pigments. The challenge was usually to get them to sit still long enough to get some work done on their portrait.

  Not today, though. Today they were quiet and subdued, holding hands as they took their poses on the draped dais. Maddie busied herself organizing her supplies, making a note that she needed to order some more new tubes of paint, and adjusted their chairs so the light from the window was just right. She asked the girls questions about their new dolls, what their names were and where they came from, the parties where they would wear their pretty clothes, and gradually the girls started talking again. They even smiled a bit.

  “Mine is named Phoebe,” Ruby said, holding up the doll with blonde braids. Phoebe wore a filmy pale-green chiffon tea dress, much too early in the day, but like an eccentric duchess, Phoebe didn’t seem to care. “And Pearl’s is Alexandra, like that pretty English queen in your book.”

  Maddie smiled. The girls loved the books about British royalty she had brought back from her own European tour so long ago and always begged to look at them, to hear about her court presentation all over again. A more different world than their Santa Fe life was hard to imagine. Yet Juanita seemed sure school would widen that world for them.