Intermezzo: Spirit Matters

by Patrice Greenwood

  PATRICE GREENWOOD

  Evennight Books/Book View Café

  Cedar Crest, New Mexico

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  INTERMEZZO: SPIRIT MATTERS

  Copyright © 2017 by Patrice Greenwood

  All rights reserved

  An Evennight Book

  Published by Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624

  Cedar Crest, NM 87008

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Cover photo: Chris Krohn

  Piano courtesy of Darragh Nagle

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-688-2

  First Edition July 2017

  http://bookviewcafe.com

  Digital version: 20170706pgn

  for Sherwood

  who demanded it

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to the following wonderful people for their help with this book: Pari Noskin, Sherwood Smith, Darragh Nagle, and Chris Krohn; and to my colleagues in Book View Café.

  A Note from the Author

  Dear Readers,

  This book is a little different. I’d like to explain a few things so you’ll know what to expect.

  ~ This is not the next Wisteria Tearoom Mystery. That will be As Red as Any Blood, coming out in the fall of 2017.

  ~ This is not a novel, it’s a novella, about a third as long as the novels. Cheer up! You’ll still get a full-length novel later this year.

  ~ This is not a murder mystery. It’s material that I wanted to put into A Masquerade of Muertos, but if I had done so it would have slowed the main story too much.

  ~ Finally, if you have not encountered the Wisteria Tearoom books before, this is not the best one to start with. If you haven’t read book 5, it might not make a lot of sense to you. Any of the mysteries is a better choice. Since they’re sequential, I recom­mend starting with book 1, A Fatal Twist of Lemon.

  I hope you enjoy this little interlude. Meanwhile, I’m off to the writing chair to work on book 6.

  —Patrice Greenwood

  1

  Amessage popped up on my computer screen:

  Willow Lane’s on line one. Do you want to take it?

  Kris, my office manager, was at her desk in the adjacent office and could have called out to me, but I dislike shouting from room to room so we had developed the habit of sending internet messages. I winced as I read this latest one. At least she couldn’t see me.

  Yes, thanks.

  Not for the first time, I wished there was a physical door between our offices that I could close for privacy’s sake, instead of our shared doorway out into the upstairs hall. I was eager to talk to Willow – even more so than I’d been when we’d agreed to arrange a meeting – but I didn’t want Kris, whose boyfriend had been killed just a couple of days earlier, to overhear our discussion.

  The phone chirped and I picked up the handset. “Willow, hi,” I said. “Thanks for getting back to me.”

  “I heard about your employee finding a body in Hidalgo Plaza on Saturday night,” she said, her voice cool and collected as usual. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Yes, but not now,” I said, glancing toward the doorway. “Would tomorrow afternoon work for you?”

  “Sure. I assume you still want to discuss the lights you saw last week.”

  “Yes, yes! It’s all related.”

  “Ah. Well, do you want to meet at Hidalgo Plaza, or should I come to the tearoom?”

  “Let’s meet there. Two o’clock?”

  “Two-thirty would be better. I’m giving a tour at noon.”

  “Two-thirty it is. See you then.”

  I hung up with a small sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted was for Kris to hear what Willow and I would be talking about. Willow’s profession leading spirit tours in Santa Fe still bothered me a bit, though I couldn’t deny that the “Spirit Tour and Tea” events we’d held in October had been a boon to the tearoom’s bottom line. I’d gotten to know her a little better, and I was now convinced that she wasn’t hallucinating or a crackpot, but I still preferred to keep my request for her advice quiet.

  Because I wasn’t sure that I was not hallucinating.

  Kris came to the doorway with a handful of papers, and I was struck by how tired she looked. The black baggy tunic over jeans was far from her usual elegant style. Her hair—normally a glossy, black waterfall—was caught back in a peremptory ponytail, and her face was even more pale than usual. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, I realized. Normally she always looked perfect at work, even on a Monday, such as today, when the tearoom was closed.

  “Payroll’s ready for you to sign,” she said, gesturing with the papers.

  “Thanks.” I held out my hand and she came forward to give me the pages of printed checks. As she turned away I added,

  “Want to take a break and have a cup of tea?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’d rather keep busy. I’m working on the newsletter.”

  “OK.”

  I watched her vanish back into her office, wishing I could do something to lift her spirits, and knowing that sometimes that isn’t possible when someone is grieving. I’d been there, I knew how it felt. Both my parents were gone, and there were still days when I just had to focus on getting through one task at a time.

  I had offered Kris the day off, and she’d declined. I knew better than to press it; she probably needed the distraction of work to keep her mind off her loss.

  Kris hadn’t been romantically involved with Gabriel for very long, but she’d apparently known him for several years. His accidental death by hanging had sent a shock wave through her circle of Goth friends. Gabriel was charismatic and amazingly talented, and his artistic career had just begun to take off. Such a tragedy. I had only met him recently myself, yet I found my older grief all too easily awakened by his death.

  Shaking away the sadness, I picked up a pen and began signing checks. Lots of overtime this time, because of the Halloween party that Kris and her friends had thrown at the tearoom, which had ended so tragically. I looked closely at Kris’s hours to make sure she hadn’t shortchanged herself.

  When I’d signed the checks, I took them into Kris’s office and laid them in her “IN” box. She nodded without looking away from her monitor. Not wanting to break her concentration, I collected the empty teapot from my credenza and went downstairs to brew a fresh pot. Kris might not want tea, but I did, and the kind I wanted was downstairs in the butler’s pantry.

  It was almost four, and the downstairs was empty. Julio had been in the kitchen that morning, but had gone home when his prep for the week was done. The house was quiet except for the wind blustering around outside. I shivered, regretting the absence of fires in the fireplaces, and went into the pantry.

  While the kettle rumbled, I set up the teapot with pu-erh, a rather exotic, fermented tea that was something of an acquired taste. I adored it, and Kris was warming to it although her favorite was still Lapsang Souchong.

  The lace curtains were pulled back from the pantry’s window. Through the glass I watched the cottonwood branches dancing in the wind, leaves flying. November now, and there were more leaves on the ground than left in the trees. November the 2nd, I realized. All Souls Day, Julio had told me. In the Dias de los Muertos tradition, it was a day to visit the cemetery and decorate the graves of one’s ancestors. Watching the gusts of wind in the garden, I decided another year would be better for exploring that tradition.

  With a couple of minutes left on the timer, I went into the kitchen to forage for something to nibble with my tea. Ther
e was leftover pan de muerto in the fridge. I took out one of the sugared buns, added some butter to the plate, and put it on a tray with a violet chintz teacup and saucer. The timer went off and I collected the tea, then carried the tray to the Violet alcove.

  All the draperies from the party had been removed, and all the furniture restored to its proper place. On the mantel, an array of sugar skulls—tribute to Vi Benning—lay beneath her portrait. A votive candle burned in a glass holder in the center of the mantel, on a stone coaster I’d put beneath the glass for safety reasons. To one side, another votive stood, also on a coaster. Leaning against the wall behind this candle was a photograph of Gabriel Rhodes, dressed in black, smiling. My throat tightened. Had Kris added this little memorial to what had become an undeniable ofrenda?

  I looked from Gabriel to the portrait that Julio had painted of Vi. They had never met, as far as I knew.

  I really should not let this alcove become a permanent shrine to the dead. Gabriel’s picture could stay until tomorrow morning, but then it would have to come down, along with all the skulls.

  I picked up the sugar skull I had decorated for Vi and set it on the low table before the two wing chairs, where it could watch me pour my tea. With a sigh I settled into my chair and sipped the pu-erh, enjoying its rich, complex flavor.

  A spatter of rain made me look toward the window. The garden was getting dark, though it was barely past four. I glanced at the fireplace, wishing again for a fire. I could build one. It was my house, after all. A fire would warm up the chimney, which would warm up my bedroom upstairs.

  Unwilling to leave my cozy wing chair, I settled for a second cup of tea and a bit of pan slathered with butter. As I savored the soft, orange-flavored bread, my gaze drifted to Gabriel’s photo again, and my thoughts to the flashes of light I had seen in Hidalgo Plaza, just days before he had died there.

  If I had been able to meet with Willow before the Halloween party, could I have prevented his death?

  I would never know. I closed my eyes, admonishing myself. Gabriel’s death was not my fault. It was a tragic accident.

  “Ellen?” Kris called from a distance.

  I stood and went out to the hallway. Kris was by the back door, putting on her black leather gloves. She already had on her wool coat.

  “I’m going home,” she said, looking up as I joined her. “The newsletter draft is done. It’s in your mailbox.”

  “Thanks. Sure you don’t want to stay for a cup of tea?”

  She shook her head, momentarily focused on straightening her sleeve. “No, thanks. Got a lot to do.”

  “All right. Stay warm.”

  She flashed a fleeting smile at me, then headed out into the chill. I locked the door behind her and returned to Violet.

  Two days ago, Kris had been confident, strong, flushed with the excitement of a new love. Now she seemed ... flattened. I’d never seen her so subdued.

  Not to be wondered at. Still, I wished I could do something to make her feel even a little bit better.

  I poured the last of the tea into my cup and savored it slowly. The flickering of the candles drew my attention to the mantel, where Gabriel’s photo smiled into the gathering darkness. It was a lovely photo, without evoking any of the challenging points of his personality. Like many artists, he’d been fascinating, brilliant, and a bit difficult.

  Dusk had fallen now, outside. I put my empty cup on the tea tray, then added Gabriel’s portrait and the votive candle. I didn’t want to extinguish the flame that had been lit in his honor. Instead I carried it carefully upstairs, and placed it in the center of the low table by the front window. With the candle flickering before it, and all the sugar skulls I had decorated for my own remembrances around it, you couldn’t be blamed for calling it a shrine.

  Tuesday marked the start of our work week at the tearoom. Roused from hibernation by the smell of baking scones, I set about my daily routine with more determination than enthusiasm. I would have liked to stay snuggled under my comforter—for, say, a week—but duty called.

  The weather was cold, with a brisk breeze blowing. I found great satisfaction in asking Rosa and Iz to build fires in the parlor fireplaces, and used the excuse of clearing away the sugar skulls to snatch a few moments enjoying the fire in Violet before we opened for the day. I left the votive before Vi’s portrait, and made a mental note to get a quote for having better lighting for the painting installed.

  Kris showed up on time, looking professional if still rather subdued. Her all-black ensemble was nothing unusual for her, but she wore no jewelry except for a pair of small, onyx stud earrings.

  “You brought Gabriel’s picture up,” she said, standing in the doorway of my office.

  I took a calming breath and rose, heading for the tea tray on the credenza. “Yes, and the sugar skulls for Vi, too. I put the ones you and Gabriel made on your desk. Would you like tea?”

  She stared at me for the space of three breaths, looking a little hurt, a little angry. Then she swallowed.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  I poured her a cup of Assam. “Business marches on,” I said gently as I handed it to her. “I’m sorry if it seems too soon.”

  She shook her head and took a sip of tea. “I know. You’re right.”

  “Gabriel’s picture can stay up here as long as you like.”

  “Actually . . . could I put it in my office?”

  “Of course.” She gave a fleeting smile and set down her cup, then fetched Gabriel’s photo and the candle and placed them on her desk. She sat staring at the photo as I slid her teacup onto the desktop.

  “I have a meeting in town this afternoon. Should I ask Nat to come in?”

  Kris gave me an uncomprehending stare, then shook herself. “No. I’m OK. Tuesdays are slow.”

  They were. I spent the morning returning sugar skulls to those of my employees who had made them for Vi, and talking with them about the weekend’s events. Rosa had not been present at the party, but her brother Ramon had been there, and she’d heard about it from him. She made no comment, but I got the distinct impression that her opinion of Goths had not improved.

  Julio accepted his skull with a nod of resignation. His mind was elsewhere—the pumpkin fritters for the November menu were misbehaving—and I left him to his work.

  Dee came in at noon, and would work until closing. I caught up with her in the back hallway, where she was donning her apron.

  “I cleared away the skulls from Violet,” I explained, handing her a storage bag containing the one she had decorated.

  “Oh. Thanks,” she said, tucking it into her cubby beside her purse. “How’s Kris doing?”

  “As well as one might expect.”

  Dee nodded, a slight crease between her brows. Then she squared her shoulders and smiled, ready to greet the customers. Other than Kris, Dee had been the best acquainted with Gabriel of any of my staff. In the two weeks before his death, she had modeled for him as he painted the costume she would wear at the Halloween party.

  She’d also found his body. She seemed to be holding up, so far, but I planned to keep an eye on her.

  At two o’clock, I shut down my computer and looked in on Kris. “I’m off to that meeting, now.”

  She nodded and kept typing. I fetched my coat and hat, added a scarf for good measure, then left by the back door and headed for Hidalgo Plaza.

  The air was chilly, and the breeze sharp enough to make me glad I’d dressed warmly. Leaves lay in restless drifts beside my driveway and swirled in the gutters of the streets. Autumn had turned gray, and winter was on its way in.

  I was disappointed (but not surprised) to see electric “luminarias” already adorning the roofs of several buildings near the plaza. The Wisteria Tearoom, I had decided, would not put up holiday decorations until after Thanksgiving. Both Kris and my friend Gina had been trying to wheedle me into relenting on this edict, but I intended to stand firm.

  The plaza was fairly quiet, with only a few dozen tourists
and one busker: an accordion player. This was a slow time of year. Fiesta was long over and skiing wouldn’t get underway until closer to Thanksgiving. Santa Fe didn’t really have an off-season any more, but autumn and spring were less hectic than summer and winter.

  As I reached the zaguan passage that gave onto Hidalgo Plaza from Palace Avenue, I hesitated, remembering the awful scene on Saturday night. Poor Dee, in her costume and skull face paint, had sheltered from the cold with me in that zaguan while she answered Tony Aragón’s questions. All the while, cops were busy removing Gabriel’s body from the iron hook where Dee had found him hanging over the garden. I’d had to identify him; he was also in costume, and his ID was back at the tearoom.

  I shook off the memory and strode through the zaguan. The plazuela was quiet, the garden sad and fading. All the patio tables and chairs were stowed. It was too cold to sit outside.

  A woman in a long, black coat and gray scarf stood staring at the second story on the west side of the plazuela. Pale blond hair spilled from beneath a black hat, and I knew before seeing her face that she was Willow.

  She heard me coming up the path and turned. “Hello, Ellen.”

  I summoned a smile. “Hi. Thanks for taking the time.”

  “Glad to. There are some interesting energies here.”

  I’ll bet there are.

  “Shall we look for some coffee?” I asked. “My treat.”

  “Yes, in a minute, but first please tell me about the lights.”

  I squared my shoulders, shoving my hands deeper into my coat pockets. “They looked like a flash of light from a crystal chandelier drop. I couldn’t find a source for any of them.”

  Willow tilted her head. “Where did you see them?”

  “The first one was out on the walkway, right by the entrance.” I gestured, not wanting to go back through the zaguan, then tucked my hand back in my pocket. Willow nodded her understanding.