by Celia Kinsey
I was glad she hadn’t been at Little Tombstone to see what I had seen.
“Officer Reyes told me that the autopsy concluded that she died from a single gunshot wound, but that the bullet that killed her couldn’t have possibly come from Uncle Ricky’s antique revolver. It came from a weapon of modern make.”
“I know,” Georgia said.
I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. Instead, she stopped drawing lines in the spilled sugar and put her hands in her lap.
“Is there anyone who might have wanted Freida dead?” I asked. It was a terrible question to ask, but there seemed no point in tiptoeing around the issue.
“Lots of people were probably pretty happy to hear that she’d died,” Georgia said. “I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s the truth. My sister had a special talent for making people hate her.”
“But you can’t think of anyone who hated her enough to kill her?”
“Look,” said Georgia, her voice rising. “Sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone.”
I’d never seen my cousin Georgia cry, not even when we were kids, but she was crying now.
“I know that you know who killed Freida,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say those words out loud, they just came tumbling out. “Why won’t you tell?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I accused Georgia of knowing who’d killed her twin, my cousin sprang to her feet so fast she knocked her metal chair over with a clatter. Other patrons were staring, and a barista came out to make sure everyone was all right.
When Georgia had righted her chair, the barista had gone away, and everyone else had stopped staring, my cousin and I sat down once more.
“Emma, you’ve got to let this one go,” Georgia pleaded.
“Why?”
“Freida wasn’t murdered.”
“She was shot point-blank, execution-style,” I protested. “How can that be categorized as anything but murder?”
“I can’t tell you anything more,” Georgia said. “But you have to trust me. The person who killed Freida only did it to prevent someone else from dying.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
“Why?”
“You already know too much.” Georgia stared down at the tabletop as if its shiny surface contained the secrets of the universe.
“How do you know what happened to Freida?” I demanded. “It’s almost as if you were there or something.”
“I was there,” said Georgia.
“I showed up within minutes of the shooting,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
“I was supposed to be meeting Freida, but I got there early, and she wasn’t expecting me. After the shooting, I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I made myself scarce,” Georgia said. “I didn’t want to have to answer any questions.”
“Are you willing to walk down to the Saint Francis Cathedral and swear in front of the altar that you had nothing to do with Freida getting shot?”
“Yes,” Georgia said. “Absolutely.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I believe you.”
I did believe Georgia. I just didn’t believe she was right about letting whoever shot her twin in the head walk away a free man.
When I got back to Little Tombstone, the police were there, going over room one again. They went away shortly after. Officer Reyes didn’t say anything to me before they went. I hoped that didn’t mean that I‘d somehow regained my status as a suspect.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Georgia had told me. Her insistence that Freida hadn’t been murdered made no sense.
I decided to try and confirm Georgia’s claim that she’d been at Little Tombstone when Freida was shot, but when I made the circuit of the residents, no one remembered seeing her.
I did gain a few other bits of interesting information, however.
Juanita reminded me that Marco had been throwing up near the dumpster shortly after the shooting. I made a mental note to go over that area with a fine-tooth comb.
Oliver also reported seeing Nancy Flynn’s pickup tearing past on the road to her ranch as he rounded the corner of the motel a minute or two after he’d heard gunfire, but there was nothing terribly unusual about that. Nancy Flynn always raised a cloud of dust when she went past, which was generally several times a day.
I also asked around to see if it seemed that Abigail, Freida, or Georgia might have been searching Little Tombstone for Aunt Geraldine’s hidden stashes of gold—not that I believed that much, if any, remained concealed around the place.
Still, I might know that my aunt had long since liquidated her treasure to cash, but I didn’t think my cousins had known there was no longer anything of value hidden on the premises.
When I quizzed them, Hank, Juanita, and Ledbetter could all recall instances of suspicious behavior on both Abigail and Freida’s part, but no one seemed to think Georgia had been intent on ransacking the place.
“What is it that you suspect they were looking for?” Juanita had asked me. It was a fair question, but not one I was willing to answer.
While pumping Hank for information, I realized right away that he knew exactly what I was getting at.
“I don’t think they knew about the gold,” Hank said, “but I wouldn’t put it past those women to have been sticking their noses in where they didn’t belong. There’s none of it left, you know. Not unless Geraldine decided to keep a piece or two as a souvenir. I have one. It was a gift from your aunt, so don’t think I’m going to give it to you.”
I told Hank I wouldn’t dream of laying claim to his gold piece, but that I’d like to see it. He grunted and shuffled back to his tiny living quarters. I heard a lot of scraping and thuds as if Hank were moving furniture around. Apparently, Hank kept his valuables well hidden.
“How did my aunt manage to unload that much gold without anybody finding out?” I asked when Hank returned.
He held out the coin to me, and I took it from him. I noticed Hank was keeping an eagle eye on me as if convinced I was planning to pocket the gold piece the moment he relaxed his vigilance.
“I helped Geraldine out a little,” Hank said. “That’s why I get my rent at a discount.”
It was more like he got his rent free, but I didn’t think pointing that out would go over well.
“I can’t tell you the details,” Hank added.
“Oh? Why not?” I asked.
My aunt must have technically cheated the taxman; it was clear she’d never declared her treasure trove. However, it also appeared that she’d run practically every penny’s worth through Little Tombstone’s books, which meant that Uncle Sam had eventually ended up with his cut, one way or another.
It surprised me that my aunt had bothered to make an illegal act ethical. Then again, perhaps she’d had some other motivation for laundering her treasure trove that I was yet to discover.
“I can’t tell you how I helped her,” Hank said, “because it would implicate a third party.”
“Oh,” I said and left it at that.
“When am I going to get to meet this lady friend of yours?” I asked Hank. I was terribly curious to find out what kind of woman would link her lot to the likes of Hank Edwards. “Does she live around here?”
“Phyllis lives in Santa Fe,” Hank said stiffly.
“Is she retired?” I asked.
“Semi,” said Hank.
“Oh, what does she do?”
“She owns a small business.”
“Is she also in the souvenir trade?”
That was the nicest way of putting it I could think of, but it didn’t seem to mollify Hank.
“You know, you’re an awfully nosy woman,” Hank said.
I wondered what my gender had to do with it, but I decided not to pursue the subject further. Hank was clearly uncomfortable with talking about his lady friend’s line of work.
“What’s Phyllis’s last name?” I asked.
> I left without an answer because Hank picked up a probably-made-in-China-kachina doll, which he looked ready to hurl at my head.
The next morning I returned to the Museum of the Unexplained to try again. I had lots of other unanswered questions, ones far more pressing than the nature of Phyllis’s business ventures.
This time, I came bearing gifts: powdered sugar-dusted donuts I’d bought from the truck stop five miles north.
“I prefer the kind with jelly inside,” Hank said, but he ate three anyway.
After that, I let Hank have his head on the topic of chupacabras. It wasn’t until I’d been thoroughly educated on the feeding and breeding habits of the mythical species that I introduced a more sensitive subject.
“You’re the only one around Little Tombstone who knows about the gold, right?” I asked.
“Far as I know, but like I said, my lips is sealed.”
“There’s something else you might be the only one who knows about,” I said.
“Oh?” Hank looked wary. I handed him another donut and shot another pointedly admiring glance in the direction of his stuffed chupacabra collection.
“It’s about those bodies buried under the trailer court,” I said, trying not to shudder as I tore my attention away from the taxidermied leer of Papa Chupacabra and the oddly haughty glass-eyed stare of Mama Chupacabra.
“I’m sure it’s going to turn out those bones belong to the Halversons,” I told Hank. “What do you know about how they disappeared?”
“I don’t know nothin’,” Hank insisted.
“Morticia and I took an interesting little excursion the other day,” I said. “We went out to where the Halversons’ car was dumped. It’s remarkably well preserved, considering it’s been sitting there in the elements for over fifty years.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hank maintained a stony silence when I told him Morticia and I had been out to take a looked at the Halversons’ wrecked car.
“I took some pictures of the car,” I told Hank. “Would you like to see them?”
Hank didn’t say no, so I pulled up the photos of the wrecked car on my phone, shoved it under his nose and started scrolling through them.
When I got to the picture of the hood ornament I’d found next to the car, I paused.
“I found it very odd,” I said, “that there’d be a hood ornament for a Cutlass Supreme sitting next to the wreck of the Halversons’ car.”
Hank grunted, but he didn’t offer any other verbal input.
“The only thing I can figure,” I said, “was that the Cutlass was used to nudge the Halversons’ vehicle down over the edge of the arroyo, and, in the process, the hood ornament of the Cutlass got broken off. What do you think?”
“Look,” said Hank, pushing my phone away with his hand. “You are a very stupid woman to go around asking questions after all these years. What good do you think it’s going to do for anyone to find out what really happened to the Halversons?”
“Don’t you think their family deserves to know?”
“The Halversons don’t have no family.”
“Are you sure?”
“No children? No parents? No siblings?”
“They didn’t have no kids. If their parents were still living, which I doubt, they’d be over a hundred by now. Greg was an only child, and I heard Stacy has a sister, but Phyllis says the sister’s got Alzheimer’s and don’t even know her own name.”
I kept my mouth shut and hoped Hank would keep talking.
He did.
“Look,” said Hank. “If you’re just trying to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll tell you this much: I did see that Plymouth of the Halversons’ getting towed off by your Uncle Ricky with that old Blue Cutlass that’s still parked out back of the motel. The whole thing probably did happen more or less like you said, but I wish you’d get it through your head that it’s better to leave sleeping dogs lie. Otherwise, you’re likely to be the one that gets bit.”
Letting sleeping dogs lie seemed to be a real favorite with Hank. I let the subject go.
“Seen any more lights at night?” I asked Hank.
Hank’s face lit up.
“No!” he said. “You and that Australian kid must’ve really scared some sense into those extraterrestrials.”
Oliver and I had scared sense into somebody, but I was pretty sure those somebodies weren’t alien life forms.
That afternoon, my cousin Abigail finally texted me back. She was free that afternoon, and, if I wanted, I was welcome to stop by her house.
My cousin never married. I suspect she couldn’t find a man prepared to take on Georgia and, especially, Freida.
Abigail lived in a historic high-rent district in Santa Fe. Abigail was in real estate, and she’d done very well for herself. I couldn’t figure out why she’d been so eager to get her paws on Aunt Geraldine’s money. Abigail had plenty of her own, or at least that’s how it looked. Perhaps, Abigail, was one of the people who are never satisfied, no matter how much they amass.
Parking was a problem. The streets are super narrow in Abigail’s neighborhood, and she’d specifically warned me not to block the alley, so I left my rental car six blocks away at a convenience store and walked the rest of the way.
It was sunny but chilly, and I pulled the collar of my jacket up and wished I had worn a scarf.
I rang the bell on the outside of the adobe-walled courtyard. It took a while for Abigail to come out of the house and let me in.
Georgia, Georgia’s son, Maxwell, and Freida had all been living with Abigail for the past several years. I wondered how Abigail was coping with her daughter’s death.
Not well, judging by her swollen eyes when she finally came out, opened the wooden gate, and ushered me across the tiled patio.
“I’m very sorry about what happened to Freida,” I said, after Abigail had bustled around and brought me a mineral water, opened the curtains a little wider, and removed some invisible dust from the row of business awards she kept on the mantle of the fireplace in the living room.
Abigail finally sat down, but she remained fidgety.
“I don’t know why people keep saying how sorry they are,” Abigail said. “Why are you apologizing for something that isn’t your fault?”
Abigail said it like she wasn’t totally convinced that Freida’s death wasn’t at least a little bit my fault. I wondered if the police had let on that I was briefly considered a suspect, or maybe Georgia had told Abigail that I’d fallen under suspicion.
“I think people are just trying to express their sadness,” I said.
“But they aren’t sad,” Abigail persisted. “Hardly anybody is sad that Freida is gone. Probably Georgia misses her, and I certainly do, but the truth is that Freida wasn’t the sort of person who inspired fondness.”
Abigail was right about that, but it seemed cruel to agree with her, so I took a long awkward swing of mineral water and waited for my cousin to keep talking.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “You pass on your bad traits to your children, even if you don’t want to.”
At this point, Abigail noticed more invisible dust, this time on the bookcase. She got up and ran her fingers over the exposed shelf.
“I’ve done things I deeply regret,” she told me, “and now I guess I’m paying for it.”
I wanted to ask what those deeply regretful actions were, but you can’t ask a grieving mother a question like that.
“You probably have no idea,” Abigail said without prompting. “No one in the family ever speaks of it, but when I was very young, I killed someone. Two people actually.”
I’ve been told I have a sympathetic face, but normally people don’t break down and admit to killing anyone.
Half of me wanted my cousin Abigail to bare her soul, and half of me was regretting having come in the first place.
I’d had my suspicions, but now that it appeared they were about to be confirmed, I wasn’t so sure I shouldn’t have taken Hank Edwards
’ advice to keep my “nose out of other people’s business.”
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Abigail continued. “I’d had a few drinks, but I thought I was fine to drive. I was only sixteen. So clueless—”
Abigail had to be talking about the Halversons.
“I shouldn’t have left them there like that,” she said. “I’m almost certain they were already dead, but still, I shouldn’t have—”
Abigail was crying now. I hoped she wasn’t going to get hysterical.
“We’ve all done things we regret,” I said. “We were all once young and stu—naive.”
“You don’t understand,” Abigail said. “I was horrible to my mother.”
I wondered if she was talking about back when she was sixteen or more recent events.
Then, quite abruptly, I was dismissed. Abigail thanked me for coming, subjected me to the world’s most awkward one-armed hug, and walked me back out to the gate.
When I got back to the convenience store, I went inside and bought the biggest bag of chocolate candy they had, then headed over to the care center where Juanita’s mother was living.
I buzzed myself in at the locked entrance and went to Grandma Flo’s room. Grandma Flo was dozing when I came in, but she woke up enough for me to feed her a couple of chocolates. By chocolate number three, she still didn’t remember who I was, and without the aid of pictures, it was difficult to jog her memory of who Abigail was, either.
I finally resorted to leading questions, something I was trying to avoid.
“Did you ever know anyone who killed another person?” I asked Grandma Flo.
She stopped gumming her chocolate and looked up at me with her faded watery eyes.
“It’s bad to kill somebody,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Did you know any bad people like that when you were younger?” I asked Grandma Flo.
“That bad girl—” she answered. “I knew a bad girl—”
Flo appeared to be falling asleep again.
“Did it have to do with a car?” I asked.