Santa Fe Mourning Page 7

  But maybe now she just wanted to keep them safe?

  “And what would Alexandra wear to meet her namesake?” Maddie asked, drawing the soft line of their hair, the two dark heads bent close together.

  “She would need a tiara,” Pearl said. “And feathers. I would wear pink. Pink’s my favorite.” She went quiet, studying her doll’s blonde curls. “But Mama says we have to wear black for a while now, since we won’t see Pa again.”

  Maddie put down her pencil and studied the girls’ faces in concern. They looked solemn, but their eyes were dry. Mostly they just seemed rather puzzled. “I know how sad you must be, my dears. I’ve had to wear black for people I loved too, and I felt terribly lonely and worried. But I promise you’re never really alone.”

  “Was it for your husband, Señora Maddie?” Ruby asked. “The one who died in the war?”

  Maddie swallowed hard before answering. “Yes, among others. And I still miss him, but being here with you has helped me.”

  The girls glanced at each other, talking to each other without words as they so often did. “Was it because Pa yelled at Mama and Eddie that he was struck down?” Pearl asked. “Sister Angelica at church says mal—mal . . .”

  “Malice,” Ruby supplied.

  “Malice in our hearts means we don’t trust God to make things right, and we’ll be struck down,” Pearl said. “Is that what happened?”

  “I bet it was the way Pa smelled like drink and smoke whenever he came home that did it,” Ruby said, solemn beyond her years. “That’s when he argued with Mama.”

  Maddie wiped her hands on a rag, feeling the slight, cold touch of panic. She was surely the last person equipped to tell seven-year-olds about mortality and sin! She barely ever went to church. “I am sure that was not it. I think . . .”

  She was saved from answering by a frantic knock at the studio door. It swung open to reveal Juanita standing on the steps, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Señora Maddie, you must come at once!” she cried. “That man named Inspector Sadler is here. He says they’re looking for Eddie!”

  * * *

  Maddie quickly tidied her hair and removed her paint-stained work apron, smoothing her sailor-style pale-blue day dress. She had to admit her stomach fluttered a bit nervously at the thought of facing the inspector again, and she wished she had some sense of her mother’s imperious hauteur to carry her through. Her mother’s daily armor of Edwardian satins, corsets, and pearls wouldn’t hurt either.

  But there was no time to change into more formal clothes or do anything at all. The fear in Juanita’s eyes, the way the girls instinctively ran to cling to their mother, told her she had to stay calm.

  “Did he say why they were looking for Eddie?” she asked as she pushed the pins tighter into her twist of hair.

  Juanita shook her head. “But he has a policeman in uniform with him. That can’t be so good.”

  Maddie had to agree, remembering the young man hovering with the inspector last night. He was polite enough with the ladies at the hotel, but the police weren’t always noted for their fair treatment of the Indians. “And you still haven’t seen or heard from Eddie yet?”

  “Not a word. It’s not like him.” Juanita’s lips tightened, and she clutched at her girls as she whispered in Maddie’s ear, “Do you think he could have been with Tomas last night?”

  With him and shared his fate? Maddie shuddered at the thought. “I am sure he wasn’t. Didn’t you say Eddie had been avoiding his father lately? I didn’t see anything at all that would indicate Eddie was there last night.”

  She had only glimpsed the body in the alleyway and that blond boy darting away. Suddenly, she realized where she had seen him before. Talking to Eddie on the train platform the day she came home. And then he was walking with the sobbing maid later at La Fonda, a cap pulled over his hair. Who was he? One of Eddie’s recent “bad” friends?

  “I know he wasn’t there,” she murmured, but a bit unsure now. “I don’t think he would be strong enough to beat up a large man like Tomas.” Alone, yes. But with friends?

  Juanita nodded, yet Maddie could tell she wasn’t convinced, that she was still out of her mind with worry. Was this how her own mother had felt when she saw Maddie grieving? Was this why she worried about her being so far away? Not control, but—concern?

  It was a dizzying thought, and one she didn’t have time for yet. She watched as Juanita knelt down to quickly kiss the girls.

  “Pearl, Ruby, I want you to stay here in Señora Maddie’s studio until I come for you, just for a little while.”

  The girls stared at each other. “Alone?” they chorused. Usually they were forbidden to sneak into the studio.

  “Yes,” Maddie said as she took a box down from the shelf. “In fact, why don’t you use my colored pencils and this sketchbook to draw some scenes for your dolls? Your mother and I will be back very soon.”

  Maddie and Juanita left the girls to their new task and hurried into the house. Inspector Sadler was in the main drawing room, and he looked even larger and more intimidating in the light of day, his girth and old tweed suit strange against her delicate furniture and colorful paintings and cushions. He was examining her shelf crowded with books, his hands behind his back as they clutched at his bowler hat. The dark-haired policeman—Tony?—still so young he had spots on his chin, shifted on his feet nervously in the corner.

  Maddie could understand his nervousness. The police force in town was a small one, close-knit, mostly related to each other, and acquainted with all the usual troublemakers in the little streets. Bribes were common for the run-of-the-mill stuff like bootlegging, but brutal murders were few. Now here was a new, tough inspector from the outside and a murder right on the doorstep of the most crowded social spot in town.

  But Maddie refused to be intimidated in her own home. She had already had enough of that with her parents and her in-laws. This was her house, and Juanita stood solidly at her side.

  “Inspector Sadler, how delightful to see you again,” Maddie said with a determined smile. “Have you come about the inquest?”

  “Mrs. Alwin. No, the inquest has not yet been set. A few matters to tidy up first. I see you like Keats,” he said, gesturing to her bookshelf. “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”

  “I’m impressed, Inspector,” she said in surprise, not sure if his love of poetry made him more or less scary. “Yes, Keats is one of my favorites. I often think of his imagery when I’m painting. Can I offer you some tea?”

  He scowled, as if angry that poetry had distracted him. “I’m sure your housekeeper told you this isn’t a social call,” he said.

  Maddie reached for Juanita’s arm. “She did. I understand you’re looking for Eddie Anaya.”

  “So we are. We have a few questions about what happened to his father last night. I’m sure you remember that, Mrs. Alwin.”

  As if she could ever forget. The memory of the scene in that alley would haunt her nightmares forever. “Of course. But Eddie had nothing to do with that.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Inspector Sadler said. “We have someone who says the boy was seen on the plaza with his father earlier that evening and the two were arguing. Quite loudly.”

  “That’s not true,” Juanita interjected fiercely. “Eddie couldn’t have been with Tomas at all.”

  “Oh?” Inspector Sadler said, raising his eyebrows. “So he was here all night, was he?”

  “Eddie is a young man, Inspector,” Maddie said. “I’m sure you remember what that was like.” Back when Victoria was queen of England, she thought, but bit her tongue. “He doesn’t like to hang about the house with a bunch of women. He probably was with his young friends, looking at pretty girls on the plaza or something.”

  “It’s one of those young friends who told us they say the boy with his father,” the inspector said.

  Maddie thought again of the boy with the blond hair at the station. �
�Who is this friend?”

  “My cousin Harry,” the young policeman said, speaking for the first time. “He works as a busboy at La Fonda sometimes. He was there when the body—err, when Mr. Anaya was discovered and thought he should tell me what he saw.”

  Maddie nodded, thinking of the glimpse she had of the boy in the alley, the way he walked with the sobbing maid. Why would the kid cheese on Eddie now?

  “I take it your son isn’t at home, Mrs. Anaya?” the inspector said.

  “Not at the moment,” Juanita said, all quiet dignity, though Maddie could see the fear in her eyes.

  “He often runs errands for me, Inspector,” Maddie added.

  “Well then, I would appreciate it if he came in to talk to us when his ‘errands’ are finished,” Inspector Sadler said. “I take it you’re on the telephone?”

  Maddie nodded, and the inspector and the policeman turned toward the door. “Wait!” Juanita suddenly cried.

  Inspector Sadler stopped, his bowler halfway to his head. “Yes?”

  “Where is my husband’s body?” Juanita asked.

  “At the morgue, of course,” Inspector Sadler said. “At St. Vincent’s Hospital. In cases like this, there has to be an autopsy. The coroner, Dr. McKee, is on a case in Las Cruces right now, so we’ll have to wait until he gets back. Then it will be released to you.”

  “But that can’t be,” Juanita insisted. “Tomas has to be buried quickly as possible, and with all the rites! I have to take him home or his spirit will wander.”

  The young policeman looked sympathetic, but the inspector had a face of stone. “Regulations are regulations. Things have been too lax around here until now. But I’m going to set them right. And if you want us to find who did this to your husband, Mrs. Anaya, you won’t make a fuss.”

  The two men left, and Maddie slammed the door behind them. Juanita collapsed onto one of the chairs.

  “How can he move on if I can’t do what’s proper?” she whispered. “I owe him that, at least.”

  Maddie knelt down beside her and took her hands. They were trembling. “Juanita, are you sure you have no idea where Eddie could be? Or who this Harry is? This is terribly important. I have the feeling Inspector Sadler is a man who would never let any detail go.” And he was obviously set on making an example of his new “law and order.”

  Juanita shook her head and blinked hard, as if to clear her mind. “I do know some of his friends, though I’ve never heard of one called Harry. Eddie also likes to help out at the livery stable sometimes; he’s so good with the horses. I can get the girls at the dairy down the street to look after the twins while I go look there for him. But Tomas—his spirit . . .”

  Maddie nodded. She knew a little of what they believed at the pueblo. A body had to be buried quickly, facing north since that was the direction of origin for all people, and with their belongings. Then there would be a vigil and a releasing rite. She hadn’t been able to properly bury Pete. Surely Tomas deserved that now.

  She suddenly remembered the handsome English doctor from the train, Dr. Cole. He’d said he was going to work at Sunmount and also that he had a friend who was a coroner and was going to help him out. “Juanita, you go look for Eddie. I think I might know someone who can help us with Tomas.”

  Now if she could only persuade Gunther to let her borrow his wonderful little Duesenberg . . .

  CHAPTER 8

  “Whee!” Maddie cried, quite unable to help her burst of exuberance as the car flew down the winding road at the top of Canyon Road and up again, turning toward the foothills. Despite the seriousness of her mission, she had to admit she did love it when Gunther loaned her his car, which wasn’t very often.

  Not that she could blame him. The Duesenberg Model A was a thing of beauty, cream-colored with gold trim and a wine-red upholstery, low and trim and fast, even on Santa Fe’s questionable roads. It seemed to skim along even when the pavement ran out and she was driving on dusty trails. The scarf she had tied around her hair threatened to blow away, and her gloved hands clutched the padded steering wheel as she swerved around a pothole.

  It was a glorious day, one she relished even more after the dark events of the night. Even through her tinted glasses, the sky was a cloudless, pure turquoise blue, stretching endlessly overhead, so close she was sure she could reach up and touch it. The air had a particularly crisp, dry bite to it as the sun warmed the breeze around her, bringing with it the green smell of pine that overtook the smoky scent of the car and the new leather of the seat. Summer was coming; she could feel its softness all around her.

  Sunmount was outside of town, built in the foothills where the patients could receive maximum advantage of the fresh air and sunshine and take pleasure in the sublime beauty of the views. Maddie remembered reading that the doctors there believed having a positive outlook on life, that patients enjoying their time and absorbing all the peace and beauty of the mountains, helped with their recovery.

  Maddie had to agree with them. This place had raised her spirits, her hopes, when she had been sure she would never enjoy anything again. After Pete died, she’d felt like an old woman—worn-out, numb. Now she felt alive.

  But Tomas Anaya was not, and his family, her dear friends, were suffering for that, just as she had once suffered. She had to help them if she could.

  She slowed down to turn along the paved track that led to the sanatorium. Sunmount had been built in the early part of the century and had only grown in popularity due to its success rate at curing patients, so the road leading to its enlarged campus was well-kept. The Duesy planed along as if on silk as the hills rose around her, purple in the shadows, smelling ever stronger of pine and juniper.

  Several of the artists Maddie had made friends with had started out as patients at Sunmount and stayed on after the cure, caught by the land just as she was. The poet Alice Henderson and her painter-architect husband, William, the de facto leaders of the local art group, had come when Alice was ill, and they sometimes returned to Sunmount to give salon talks. Maddie had last been there to hear them speak, but that was months ago, before she went back to New York.

  She’d forgotten how pretty it was until she shifted down into the shallow valley. Far from a place of illness and fear, it looked like a cozy mountain village, nestled in the beautiful rolling hills. Maddie drove past rows of little bungalows, painted white with steeply shingled roofs and screened-in porches where the patients could take the air.

  She rolled around a lawn where a croquet game was in progress and waved at the players. At the end of the path was the main hospital and administration building, a two-story structure also painted white, with gleaming windows thrown open to the fine day. It looked more like an old Spanish mission church, all soft-edged walls and dark wood trim, than a medical facility.

  She parked the car in the graveled drive and suddenly realized she was about to see Dr. Cole again. The ridiculously handsome Dr. Cole, of the sky-blue eyes and yummy English accent. And she had been driving through the wind and dust.

  She reached for her handbag and dug out her silver Cartier compact, quickly powdering her nose and checking her lipstick. She looked presentable enough, and her blue-and-white-striped driving dress and dark-blue coat weren’t creased. She took off her headscarf and put on her blue-and-white cloche hat.

  She was on a serious mission, true, but her mother had always said it was easier to get a “yes” answer when a lady looked presentable. It always worked for her mother and her charities, so there must be something to it.

  But Maddie didn’t want to think too much about any other reason she might be concerned about her appearance. She slid out of the car and made her way up the steps to the heavily carved front doors.

  Inside it was shadowed and cool, smelling of fresh air and a faint medicinal tang. The beauty of the outside was reflected in the carved handrails of the staircase, the murals on the whitewashed walls depicting the sky and the mountains. Maddie was sure they must be new, as she hadn’t se
en them before, but there was no time to indulge her curiosity about them. She nodded to strolling patients in their white robes and slippers and hurried past a billiards room, where a noisy game was in progress, and the elegant salon where the lectures and plays were held, past bright Navajo textiles and pottery on shelves to the main desk.

  The receptionist glanced up at her with a smile. “I’m afraid visiting hours aren’t until later this afternoon, Miss . . .”

  “Mrs. Alwin.”

  “Oh, yes, I do remember you! You were here for Mr. Henderson’s excellent talk on local architecture a few months ago.”

  “And you have an excellent memory! I was here; it was quite fascinating. But I’m not here to visit a patient. I’m looking for a Dr. Cole.”

  She frowned. “Are you ill, Mrs. Alwin?”

  “Oh, no. I met Dr. Cole on the train, and I was hoping he could help me with a—a small problem.” “Small problem” felt like a silly thing to call it all, but Maddie didn’t want too much gossip to spread, not yet.

  The receptionist looked rather curious, but she was too professional to say anything. She just smiled and rose from the desk. “I think Dr. Cole is on rounds in the ward, but I’ll just go check. If you’d care to wait a moment?”

  “Thank you,” Maddie answered. “Please tell him I won’t take up much of his time.”

  As the receptionist hurried up the stairs, Maddie strolled over to examine the murals. The background was a wide blue sky with flat, pueblo-style rooftops standing out in pale-tans and whites—not complicated, but very alluring. It made her want to look closer, to be in that place.

  “They’re quite nice, aren’t they?” an English-accented voice said behind her. “They were done by a former patient here, an architect named Meem.”

  Maddie spun around to find Dr. Cole smiling at her. Oh, hotsy-totsy, she thought. He was as handsome as she remembered, maybe even more now that he was smiling. Those shadows of sadness in his eyes that she thought she saw on the train seemed gone now, and his eyes were as clear as the turquoise sky outside.