Santa Fe Mourning

by Amanda Allen

  “Well, come on, the others will miss us,” Elizabeth said.

  Maddie nodded, still deep in concerned thought, and followed her out of the ladies’ room. As they stepped out the door, a sudden piercing scream broke the pleasant hum of the hotel corridors. Panic flashed cold through Maddie; she remembered all too well the sobs of her mother-in-law when the telegram came about Pete. She ran toward the sound, which was only growing louder into a steady wail, Elizabeth on her heels. A boy with bright-blond hair brushed past them as he ran by, but everyone else was at the end of the hall.

  Maddie followed the clamor past the first-floor rooms to a service hallway where a doorway led out to an alleyway behind the hotel. The door was open, and waiters and chambermaids, as well as a few guests, clustered around it, peering out at the night. Anton was also there, his arm around a sobbing chambermaid, his face grayish-white in the lamplight.

  “Anton, whatever is going on?” Maddie asked.

  “It’s horrible!” the maid wailed. “I’ll never forget it, never ever.”

  Maddie pushed her way through the crowd. “No, Mrs. Alwin, don’t go out there!” Anton shouted after her, but it was too late.

  In the narrow alleyway, piled with rubbish cans and faintly lit by the glow from the windows above, slumped a body. For an instant, Maddie thought it must be a discarded carcass from the hotel’s kitchen, it was so dark with blood. Shocked, her stomach tightening, she made herself peer closer and saw to her horror it was a person, a man. His clothes were torn beneath the dark stickiness of the blood, his head twisted at a strange angle on the dirt of the alley. His face was covered in an odd, bright-red froth of blood. A man, discarded like a bit of trash.

  A hot rush of bile surged in her throat, and she pressed her hand hard to her mouth to keep from being sick. “Oh, dear heavens,” she gasped. “It’s Tomas Anaya.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “I can’t bear it! It’s too gruesome, like something in a detective novel,” Elizabeth Grover sobbed. Her fashionable makeup had smeared, mascara and rouge making a positively Picassoesque pattern on her cheeks. Her blonde hair straggled from her beaded headband. Maddie feared they all looked quite so worse for wear, huddled like shocked refugees in the sitting room Anton had hastily arranged for them as they waited for the police to arrive.

  “How could someone get chilled off like that? Here, in our own hotel?” Elizabeth cried and blew her nose into a lace-trimmed hankie. She seemed to be coming down hard from whatever high she had achieved in the ladies’ room. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hands shaking.

  Maddie sighed as she gestured for one of the chambermaids to bring Elizabeth some coffee. That was the question, wasn’t it? Who on earth would “chill off” Tomas Anaya and then dump his body near the busiest spot in town in such a gruesome way? What could it mean?

  She felt that wave of bitter sickness rise up in her throat again and pressed her hand to her mouth. Gunther, who sat on her other side on the leather settee, seemed to sense that she felt all at sea and pressed a glass of water into her hand.

  She gave him a weak smile, as if to pretend it was all in an evening’s work, but even he looked solemn and worried. They all did, packed into that little sitting room to wait: Olive Rush and her artist friends, the sniffling maid who had been so unfortunate as to find the body, Gunther who now held her hand, and the bartender who Maddie had glimpsed hastily hiding the booze under the patio flagstones. They all looked pale and shocked and deeply, deeply nervous.

  Santa Fe was usually a peaceful enough town, at least compared to her old home in New York. Besides the bootlegging, there wasn’t much going on that would interest a crime novelist. Certainly not murder. Everyone knew everyone else, and if one person did indeed “chill off” another, in Elizabeth’s words, everyone would have suspicions of who it was right away.

  But now—now Maddie was stumped, and everyone else seemed to be too. In the silence, the seemingly endless waiting for who knew what, she wanted to scream. The walls seemed to be pressing in on them, and she longed for nothing more than to jump up and flee into the night.

  She knew she couldn’t. She owed it to Juanita, Eddie, and the girls to stay, to tell the police what little she knew, and to tell Juanita what happened when she got home. It was the least she could do for them now.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. Juanita and the children. How would they bear this? She remembered all too well how it felt when they told her Pete was dead, the horrible, blank, yawning emptiness. Yet she had known what happened to her husband, why he died. Who knew what had really happened to Tomas? What would she tell Juanita?

  Maddie buried her face in her hands, trying to black out the terrible glimpse she’d had of the—the thing that had once been a man. Tomas Anaya. He had been at her house only hours ago, arguing with his wife, larger than life. And now he had become nothing in some horrible way she didn’t understand.

  She took a gulp of the water Gunther had given her and made herself take a deep breath. She couldn’t think about that part of it now, couldn’t let it invade her nightmares, as Pete had for so long. She had to find a way to help Juanita now. But where to start? It all seemed so senseless.

  Gunther patted her hand, and she glanced up to see him smiling at her gently. She smiled back and clutched at his hand, glad of its warm solidity. Whatever had just happened, she was still there among friends, and it gave her strength.

  She remembered what Gunther told her earlier, about Tomas Anaya being seen in some rather disreputable places around town lately. He had also been arguing with his family, worrying his wife and making Eddie angry. But over what? Did it have to do with whatever activities he was involved with at those clubs?

  And what had really happened to drive the Anayas away from the pueblo in the first place? To estrange them from their families? Maddie felt foolish for not asking them more about such things earlier, maybe even when Juanita first came seeking employment. But the Anayas, like almost all pueblo people, were deeply private about family matters. Maddie herself had come to New Mexico hoping to forget, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to pry into other people’s business. She wasn’t her mother, who ruled her New York and Newport staffs with an iron fist.

  But now she wished she did know more. It was obvious Tomas had been carrying some dark secrets. Dark enough to get him killed, and perhaps even to put the rest of his family in danger. And Maddie had only questions, no answers at all.

  “Why can’t we just go home now?” Elizabeth cried. “We don’t know anything. It’s so unfair to keep us here. Such a bore.” Her foot in its high-heeled silver shoe was tapping frantically on the tile floor, and Maddie worried she would soon crash hard from the cocaine.

  “A man has been killed, rest his soul,” Olive said calmly. She was a Quaker, and Maddie had never seen her lose her composure at anything—except when she thought a painting had been badly hung at the museum. “I’m sure the police will just take our names and send us on our way, but if we can be of help we need to try.”

  “But I don’t want to be involved at all!” Elizabeth wailed. “None of us should be. He wasn’t even one of us, was he? What does it matter?”

  Not one of us—just some Indian. Maddie’s hand curled into a fist, and Gunther took it tightly between his fingers.

  “A vicious murder in our town affects us all,” Gunther said, his voice slow and serious, as if he tried to talk down a toddler having a tantrum. “We can’t let such a scandal happen.”

  “What if a murdering maniac is on the loose?” someone said. “Something like Jack the Ripper? None of us are safe!”

  “Jack the Ripper was over fifty years ago, and in England,” Olive said with a sigh.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Elizabeth said. “He’s right. There are always fiends out there, just waiting to copy such things. I remember reading about it. They happen all the time!”

  “Perhaps Anton could send in some sandwiches,” Gunther suggested in a most reasonable tone. “None of
us can think on an empty stomach.”

  “I’d rather have an orange blossom,” someone muttered.

  In any event, there was no time for either food or cocktails. The door opened, and Anton, who looked rather paler and more flustered than Maddie had ever seen him, led in a tall, portly man in a slightly worn suit and a uniformed policeman. Everyone went perfectly silent and still at the sight of them—even though Maddie was sure she had seen the young policeman before, out of uniform and enjoying an orange blossom or two himself.

  “Everyone, this is Inspector Sadler,” Anton said, discreetly wiping at his damp brow. “He is newly arrived from El Paso, appointed by Mayor Winter himself, and will be looking into this—this most unfortunate matter. I am sure he will have it cleared up very shortly.”

  The inspector scowled as he studied their little gathering. “I’ll take as long as I need to, er, clear things up, Mr., hm, Anton. I always do my job thoroughly. Considering who this was, he was probably only drunk and had a fight with some bootlegger. That’s usually the way of it, both here and in El Paso.”

  Maddie felt her cheeks turn hot with anger all over again. Gunther’s hand tightened on hers, and he leaned close to whisper, “My darling, who could ever trust a man with a mustache like that? It’s positively Victorian. Prince Albert come among us again. I’m sure the inspector is under the delusion that it’s 1860.”

  Maddie bit her lip to keep from giggling hysterically. It was indeed a very un–au courant bit of facial hair, swooping walrus-like in the middle of the inspector’s round, red face. When he took off his hat, it appeared all his hair had quite migrated to that mustache. But it was his eyes she didn’t much like. Narrow, dark, beady-bright—and far shrewder than his dismissive words made him seem. Those eyes swept over all of them, seeming to miss nothing and disapprove of everything.

  He rather reminded Maddie of her mother, and she automatically sat up straighter.

  It seemed her caution was entirely warranted. Inspector Sadler glanced down at a notebook in his hand, scowling. “Now which of you would be Mrs. Alwin?”

  Maddie slowly raised her hand. “That would be me, Inspector Sadler.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “And you knew the deceased? You called out his name when he was found.”

  She straightened her back even further and folded her hands in her lap, smiling at him calmly as she remembered her old etiquette lessons. Her nanny had once said manners were a protection in uncomfortable situations, and she was right. “Yes. He is—was married to my housekeeper.”

  “Perhaps we could have a quick word then, Mrs. Alwin? It shouldn’t take too long. Tony here will take statements from the rest of you.” The inspector gestured to the uniformed policeman, who looked rather young and quite disgruntled to be given such a dull task.

  “You can use my office, Mrs. Alwin,” Anton said. “I will have some tea sent in.”

  “Thank you, Anton.” Maddie rose slowly to her feet, smoothing the skirt of her now rather crumpled red-and-gold gown. It had seemed so pretty and cheerful earlier. Now it just seemed terribly frivolous.

  Gunther gave her hand one last squeeze, one more reassuring smile, and she followed the inspector down the hallway to Anton’s office off the lobby. Usually no one was allowed in there at all; Anton was the ruler of La Fonda, and this was his inner sanctum. Maddie was a bit disappointed to find it was just an office, with a desk cluttered with paperwork, filing cabinets, and a couple of chairs.

  But she had no time to indulge any curiosity. The inspector waved her to one of the straight-backed chairs and took a seat behind the desk. After a maid left a tea tray and closed the door behind her, Inspector Sadler leaned closer and gave Maddie a wide smile. She didn’t trust it at all.

  She was an artist, she reminded herself. Her job was to be observant, to remember things so they could be brought back to life later. She had to do that now; it seemed more important than ever. She couldn’t let herself be intimidated.

  “Mrs. Alwin,” he said slowly, as if she was a child. Just like Gunther had spoken to Elizabeth earlier. His accent was flat, the vowels bit off, as if he was from somewhere in the East. Maine, maybe? “I’m very sorry a lady like yourself should be in such an unpleasant situation.”

  Maddie took a sip of the tea. It was dark and strong and sugary, just what she needed to fortify her wits. “My husband died in the war, Inspector, so I’m not totally unacquainted with—unpleasantness. Not usually quite so close up, though.”

  “I would imagine not. You say the victim worked for you?”

  “His wife is my housekeeper.”

  “And would you know of anyone who disliked the man? Enemies?”

  Maddie remembered the way Tomas quarreled with Juanita and Eddie and the bruise on Eddie’s cheek. Gunther’s gossip about the unsavory nightclubs. But she couldn’t prove the cause of any of those things. “I am from New York, Inspector. My mother taught me how to make servants do their tasks correctly, but I know nothing of their private lives. Nor do I want to.” That was not entirely true. She and Juanita often sat up late laughing over movie mags or talking about what their dreams had been when they were young, hopes for the girls, plans for the house. But she didn’t know much about their private lives before they came to Santa Fe. That was their business.

  Until now.

  “The Anayas are good workers,” she said. “I seldom saw Tomas. He took care of the garden.”

  Inspector Sadler scribbled something in his notebook. Maddie tilted her head to try to catch a glimpse, but the man’s handwriting was atrocious. “So you don’t know what he did in his off hours?”

  “I have no idea.” That, at least, was totally true. Maddie wasn’t sure at all what Tomas did in places like the new speakeasy on Palace Street.

  “No family problems?”

  “Like I said, Inspector Sadler, such things are not my affair. They do their work well.”

  “But they don’t live wherever it was they came from?”

  Maddie took another sip of tea. “I believe they are from the pueblo at San Ildefonso. But no, they live here in Santa Fe, in a guesthouse on my property. It would be a rather long drive for work every day, don’t you think?”

  Inspector Sadler studied her for a long moment, but Maddie had enough practice in not giving away all her thoughts, thanks to her mother. She merely looked back with a calm smile.

  Inspector Sadler shuffled his papers. “There will probably be an inquest, Mrs. Alwin, and you might be called to testify.”

  “I’m happy to assist in any way I can, Inspector. Mrs. Anaya is a most excellent housekeeper.”

  “Be that as it may . . .” He snapped the notebook shut. “Seems a waste of time, if you ask me. Probably just some drunken brawl. You know what people can be like when they drink. I’m here to help clean up this town, and that will serve to make sure this doesn’t spill over to others as well.”

  Maddie pressed her lips together hard. “Quite,” she said shortly. “If that’s all . . .”

  “For now, Mrs. Alwin. I’ll have to send Tony to tell the widow what happened.”

  Maddie shuddered to think of Juanita hearing what happened from a policeman. “I can tell her myself, if that is quite up to protocol.”

  The inspector waved it away as if it was no matter to him how Juanita found out her husband was dead. “Sure, whatever you’d like.”

  Maddie escaped the office as quickly as she could. She saw that the uniformed policeman was still talking to the others, and she decided to wait for Gunther before she left. As much as she wanted to be safe at home by her own fire, she also dreaded telling Juanita what happened. And she didn’t relish the thought of being by herself in the darkened, narrow streets either. Jack the Ripper, indeed.

  She went back to the ladies’ room, thinking she could at least tidy her hair and fix her lipstick, small actions she had some control over. But as she turned down the corridor, she saw she had made a mistake, for two more policemen were in the proce
ss of removing the body.

  It was on a stretcher, covered with a stained blanket. Maddie pressed herself tight against the wall. She didn’t want to look; everything in her urged her to turn away. But she remembered what she had decided about observation and made herself watch as they went past her.

  Tomas’s hand had escaped the cover, flopping and so pale it looked blue-white. Old scratches stood out dark red against the paper-whiteness. Yet the fingernails were the oddest color, almost blood purple, stark next to the old sheet. Then one of the policemen yanked the cover up, and they were gone. Maddie could hear the maidservant who found the body sobbing softly, and she was led past by a tall, thin boy with a hat pulled low over his brow, muttering softly to her. The boy looked strangely familiar, but they were gone before she could get a second look.

  Maddie spun around and raced to the ladies’ room before she could finally let herself be sick.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me for a while, Maddie dearest? I could mix us up some Pink Ladies, help you gather your thoughts,” Gunther said as they drew near Maddie’s house.

  Light gleamed in the windows, amber gold and welcoming. Juanita would have kept them burning for when Maddie got home, even as Juanita herself tucked the twins up in their bed and retired to read her evening prayers. Juanita always worried about Maddie when she went out at night, which made Maddie feel even worse now, knowing Juanita would welcome her home without knowing the terrible news Maddie carried.

  She shivered at the thought of what she had to do and at the exhaustion that seemed to pull her down and down until she was sure she would sink into the dusty earth. Her eyes itched with tiredness and she rubbed at them hard, but she couldn’t erase the images of what she had seen that night.

  But surely her Pete had seen even worse in France, and he had faced it. She could too. Juanita was going to need her help.

  “No, Gunther darling, but you are a love for asking,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “If I drank one of your concoctions, I would go straight to sleep. While that would be lovely, I have to tell Juanita what happened. She can’t hear it from that inspector.” She shivered again, remembering that man’s all-seeing little eyes.