by Amanda Allen
Maddie glanced at the glow of the shining black pottery. “It actually has something to do with San Ildefonso. The family who works for me, the Anayas, they’re from the pueblo, and—well . . .”
“Oh, yes,” Olive said with a frown. “That nasty business at La Fonda. It sounds quite complicated. Let’s go have a chat over tea, shall we? I can’t think at all with all this hammering and shouting.”
Maddie and Olive left the chaos of the museum and made their way to Mrs. Nussbaum’s tearoom on the east side of the plaza in a two-story, balconied building with the bank on one side, the grocer on the other, and offices upstairs. Tucked between the bustle of the bank and the grocery, it was a little oasis of wicker chairs and potted plants, smelling of sugar and cinnamon and the yeasty goodness of fresh bread. It was usually quite popular, but like the plaza outside the windows, it was quiet at that hour. They found a table tucked away in the corner and ordered cinnamon toast and tea. As with anywhere else in town, gin or rum could be had in a teapot, but that day Maddie just needed plain old Darjeeling.
“So tell me what’s amiss,” Olive said, biting into the buttery toast once they’d been served.
Maddie quickly told her of Eddie’s arrest and Juanita’s fears for him and their search for a good lawyer.
“I see,” Olive said briskly. “Yes, indeed, it is all about who one knows around here. I do know a lawyer, one who does some work for Governor Mechem’s office. A Mr. Springer. He fancies himself a bit of an artist and archaeologist too. I’m sure between us we can persuade him to look into things for this poor child. Especially if it gives him a chance to help the governor look all law and order. It’s almost election time, of course.” She took out a sketchbook from her capacious handbag and jotted down a name and address. “I’ll give him a phone later and hint there might be a blank space in the gallery for some of his drawings soon.”
Maddie took the paper with some relief. She did still have a lot to learn about her new home, a lot of people to meet. “Thanks, Olive. I certainly owe you.”
“Just paint faster to sell more for the museum!” Olive poured out more tea. “Now tell me more about the Anayas. Have they been living in town long?”
“Longer than I’ve been here,” Maddie answered. “Juanita is quite wonderful. I couldn’t do without her. She helped me so much when I got here and missed my husband so much I couldn’t stand it. Her children are lovely too. Tomas—I just don’t know much about him, except that he was quarreling with his family lately, especially Eddie. But Eddie swears he didn’t even see his father that night, and I believe him. He’s not the sort to be a killer.”
Olive shook her head. “Madeline, we could all be killers, given the right circumstances.” She took another thoughtful sip of tea. “I do remember there being some gossip at San Ildefonso a few years ago, some families that had broken away for some reason, but I was so new there then and not trusted. I know they were hit hard by the flu in 1918, and there was a lot of upheaval and division in its wake. I’ll see what I hear next time I’m out there.”
Maddie nodded. She knew if anyone could find out anything, it was Olive. She was well known for finding the best native artists and bringing their work to the attention of the art world, as well as helping anyone who ever needed it, despite her own straitened finances.
“For now, let’s just join forces and get Mr. Springer to help,” Olive said. “And send me more paintings! But I must get back to the museum; things always go wrong when I’m not there to supervise every second.”
They left the tearoom, Olive to go back to the museum and Maddie toward home. The sun was starting to set, turning the adobe walls of La Fonda a pale gold and streaking the sky a rosy pink. She could hear the slow tolling of the bells from the cathedral, and a few people were emerging to stroll through the plaza. She dodged past kids with hoops and nodded to the elderly men gossiping on the benches.
On the corner, she glimpsed Inspector Sadler taking a brown paper package that seemed to contain sandwiches from one of the uniformed officers. Maddie thought of Eddie all alone in that cold jail, of the note she had received telling her to stay home and mind her own business, and she marched across the grass to confront the man.
“Inspector Sadler,” she called. “Hard at work catching a murderer, I see.”
He scowled at her. “The police here have their proper procedures now that I’m in charge, Mrs. Alwin, and it’s safer not to share their activities with civilians,” he said, tucking his parcel under his arm with an impatient grimace. “The killer has already been safely locked up. I know it’s hard for you to accept that it was a mere domestic matter, you being friends with the boy like that . . .”
“Because it’s not true,” she insisted, wishing she could just punch the man and be done with it. “Which you would know if you looked past the end of your nose.”
His face turned red. “I told you before, Mrs. Alwin. It’s safer here to mind your own business. Have you received any more notes?”
Maddie remembered that terrible little message, the way it had made her feel as if a hundred eyes were watching her every move, and she shifted her handbag on her arm as she tried not to feel that way again. She wouldn’t let anyone keep her from doing what she had to do. “No.”
“Surely that’s because the writer is locked away. You should be careful who you hire in your own house. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a lot of work to be done to keep this town safe.”
He tipped his hat and strolled away, and Maddie watched him go in anger. She reminded herself that Eddie would have a lawyer soon and the boy would be out of that wretched place. She turned toward home and tried not to feel like everyone on the plaza was watching her, wishing she would stay home and mind her own business. A curtain twitched in an upstairs office above the grocery store, a pale face peering out, making that feeling even stronger.
She pushed those feelings away and marched on. There was no time for stuff like that yet, not with so many things to worry about.
Her thoughts on finding a lawyer for Eddie, Maddie turned the corner at Kaune’s Grocery to start the walk home and suddenly stopped as she glimpsed a familiar face. It was the boy she’d seen that night at La Fonda, the one with bright-blond hair, Eddie’s so-called friend.
He seemed to be in a hurry, ducking through the gathering crowds on the sidewalk, and Maddie impulsively decided to follow him. Glad she’d worn flat shoes, she dashed after him down San Francisco Street, past shops, keeping his blond head in sight. He seemed to be wary, glancing behind him, stopping sometimes in doorways, and Maddie was careful to stay out of his sight.
He turned down a narrow lane called Burro Alley, and she plunged in after him. The walls of the buildings were close on either side, mostly windowless as they were the backs of shops. At the end of the alley, he turned right onto Palace Street. Maddie followed, until he stopped at one of the windowless buildings. He gave a strange knock at the door, two long raps and one short, and the door opened. He slipped inside, and she heard a bolt shoot into place behind him.
She studied the building carefully. Once, long ago, it had been a saloon, but it had been empty for years, used for storage by other businesses. But she remembered what Gunther had said about some new club on Palace, one where both Gunther and Elizabeth Grover said you could get anything you might want in the way of booze or snow. Was this it?
She only knew she couldn’t get in now by herself, no matter what kind of joint it was. Surely neither the boy, Harry, or anyone else would tell her anything.
She noticed the sunset was deepening, turning purple and magenta overhead. She had to get home before dark. As she skirted her way back around the plaza, she saw that the evening crowd was out in full, young men and ladies eyeing each other and giggling under the stern gaze of their parents seated on the iron benches, enjoying the warm spring evening.
She didn’t go straight home, though. Instead she went to knock on Gunther’s door. She was assured by the lights glowin
g in his windows that it was still too early for him to be out.
He opened the door, his eyes widening with surprise at seeing her. He still wore his velvet smoking jacket, a cravat in his hands, his hair curly and unruly without its pomade. “Maddie, my darling, it’s utterly peachy to see you, but if you’re asking to borrow my car again, I must ungallantly say no. You are much too reckless, my love, and the chassis was nearly snapped in two.”
“No car tonight, Gunther dear, I promise,” she said. “I need you to escort me out someplace. Someplace I can’t go alone.”
“Oh, that does sound intriguing! You know I’ve been trying to lure you to the darker fun side for ages. Now where do you want to go?”
“That new club on Palace. The one where you said you once saw Tomas Anaya.”
Gunther pursed his lips. “Your wish is my command, dearest. As long as you don’t wear that dreadful black satin again. I’ve warned you against it too many times.”
Maddie laughed and kissed his cheek. “I promise, no black. I told you, I brought back oodles of things from New York.”
“I’ll call for you in a couple of hours then. I have to finish my toilette.”
Maddie went back to her house through the garden gate. But it wasn’t as quiet there as she expected. Juanita sat in the front sitting room talking with a man. He was older, tall, and elegant in a dark suit adorned with a gold watch chain, his silvering hair and impressive mustache reminding Maddie somewhat of her own father.
“Señora Maddie,” Juanita said with a hopeful smile. “This man says he is a lawyer, Mr. Frank Springer. He says he’s here to help Eduardo.”
Mr. Springer immediately rose to his feet and gave Maddie’s hand a firm shake. “Always happy to meet a friend of Olive’s!” he said. “You have to come to one of my wife’s parties soon; she does love to meet new people, especially artists. But what can I do to help you now?”
Oh, golly, Maddie thought. Olive certainly didn’t let any grass grow under her feet.
CHAPTER 11
Mr. Springer sat down on the portal with Maddie as Juanita hurried to make him some tea, and he brought out a very official-looking portmanteau of papers as she told him what she knew of Eddie’s case so far and the fact that the inspector wouldn’t allow her to post bail even to bring Eddie home while they waited.
“It sounds as if that Sadler fellow has no idea of procedure around here, which is no surprise,” Mr. Springer said with a disdainful frown. “This isn’t the Wild West anymore, and I should know. I’ve been out here for decades. Even a boy like young Mr. Anaya is subject to due process.”
“So what do we need to do next?” Maddie asked.
“He’ll have to have a preliminary hearing as soon as the circuit judge returns, and it must be within ten days,” he answered. “He should have been advised of his rights immediately and conditions imposed for his bail or release. He has no criminal history, I assume?”
“Just silly things boys do sometimes,” Maddie said. “No arrests or anything of the sort. And he is quite young.”
Mr. Springer shook his head. “Sadly, even young men can be sent to prison or a juvenile center away from his family. I will go the jail right away and see if I can arrange for bail or at least find a magistrate to hold a quick hearing. I will let you know as soon as I have some news.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Springer,” Maddie said, shaking his hand after he packed up his valise and stood to leave. “It means a great deal to me.”
“And to me,” Juanita said as she returned with the refreshments. She insisted he take a freshly made cake with him, which he accepted with alacrity.
He smiled, and she saw it quite transformed him from a fearsome old gentleman to an only somewhat intimidating one. “It is my pleasure to help, Mrs. Anaya. And I look forward to seeing some of your art, Mrs. Alwin. I’ll be in touch soon.”
After he left, Maddie sat down again on her wicker chair and stared up at the sky as it started to darken and turn sunset pink at the edges. She remembered her own childhood, the pranks she and her brother and cousins would sometimes play, the trouble they would get in with Nanny and, worst of all, their parents. How easy it was to ruin everything in one’s life, when a person was too young to know any better.
“Eddie will be home soon,” she whispered to herself. She had to believe that. And she had to make Juanita believe it too. She pushed herself up from her chair and went into the house to go over with Juanita what might happen next with her son.
* * *
When Gunther called on her to depart for the night’s adventure on the town, Maddie was very glad she had left her old black satin hanging forlornly at the back of her wardrobe. Gunther was dressed in one of his sharply tailored suits and the green-and-white polka-dotted cravat she’d brought him from New York, his red hair so slicked back with lemon-scented pomade, it looked dark.
“What do you think?” she said, giving a little spin. She had picked out one of her new dresses, a pink silk overlaid with paler-pink chiffon and embroidered with an intricate pattern of flowers and vines in silver beads. The flounced skirt below a beaded silver band was shorter than she had ever worn before, revealing more of her new sheer, French stockings and silver strapped shoes than she ever would have in her mother’s drawing room. Here, she felt light and free. As if she could run and twirl and do anything at all.
She could even help Eddie, if she gave it all she had. And she intended to. The memory of Juanita’s face as she listened to Mr. Springer, so hopeful and frightened all at once, drove Maddie onward.
“Darling, you are absolutely the elephant’s elbow,” Gunther said, helping her into her matching pink satin coat. “We’ll be just like Fred and Adele Astaire on the dance floor.”
“If I had only paid more attention in cotillion,” Maddie said with a sigh.
“They never taught us anything useful in cotillion anyway,” Gunther said. “No Charleston, no shimmy.”
“True.” Maddie had learned all of the most important things only after her life turned upside down, once she lost Pete and found a new home. She had learned to look out for herself. To sometimes leap before she looked and sometimes to be cautious. Speaking of which, she tucked Pete’s old service revolver and some ammunition into her handbag before they left the house.
Instead of walking as they usually did, they took the Duesy. As they jolted over the narrow roads, Maddie told Gunther about the lawyer Olive had sent and what he’d told them about Eddie’s situation.
Gunther frowned. “And you think you can find something to help the kid? Are you sleuthing tonight?”
“Like Father Brown?” She and Gunther were both quite devoted to Chesterton’s detective priest. She thought about it for a moment. “Maybe. I just need to learn to be observant and clever like the good padre.”
“Darling, you are clever. You went to Spence, didn’t you? And that art school. Artists often see details other people don’t. That’s your job.”
She supposed it was. When she looked at people, she saw not just their appearance, their clothes, their faces, but the expression in their eyes, the way they watched the world around them. “It’s the job of a writer too.”
“So you think I can help?” he said eagerly, downshifting as they bounced through a pothole. “Do tell. I’ve been so hideously bored lately.”
Maddie told him about the boy, Harry, who she had seen at La Fonda and then again that afternoon, how he had been Eddie’s supposed friend, the one who peached him to the police.
“You think we’ll find him there tonight?” Gunther asked.
“It’s a long shot, I know. But if he’s working at La Fonda and at this place too, maybe rum-running or even getting snow for people, surely he must work other places. Know how it’s all connected.”
Gunther looked intrigued, as she’d known he would. He liked a good detective story as much as she did. But he shook his head. “No one knows how it’s all connected, Maddie, you know that. We all know our own sc
enes, and we don’t ask too many questions.”
Maddie nodded. She did know that. Yet she also knew she had to prove that Eddie had nothing to do with the bootlegging operation, at least not on that night, and he certainly hadn’t done in his father. But how was Tomas involved in it all? He certainly seemed like a man who angered easily and drove others to anger too. If he was the one doing the rum-running, anyone could have killed him.
Gunther parked along the street next to the museum where Maddie had met Olive, and they hurried up the walkway arm in arm. She could hear guitar music from the plaza, the hum of laughter, but just a block away all was silent. The building looked just as nondescript and deserted as it had been in the afternoon.
Gunther gave three quick knocks at the door, waited, then two more. Not the same pattern as the boy earlier but just as strange. The door slid open an inch and a man peered out. Obviously Gunther was familiar, for the door opened and they were quickly ushered past. The door shut and locked behind them.
Inside, it was a completely different world. The walls were papered in dark red, lined with leather banquettes and small tables that surrounded a mirrored dance floor. Along the other end was a polished bar manned by bartenders in crisp white dinner jackets, shelves of bottles glittering like jewels. There was the red of grenadine, the acid green of absinthe, the diamond clearness of vodka. No cheap bathtub gin there. There were even waiters hurrying past with trays of food: fine steaks, caviar, chocolate mousse parfaits.
At the far end of the room, there was a small stage where a band played “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise.” A few couples circled the dance floor, flowing in and out of the rhythm as the people at the tables watched. Everyone wore suits and stylish dresses, beads flashing, skirts swirling. Maddie was even gladder she had worn one of her new frocks and patted at her grandmother’s pearl-tipped combs tucked into her chignon.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she recognized a few people, artists she had met at parties and the museum and Elizabeth Grover dancing with an older gentleman Maddie knew was a state senator with ambitions to be governor. Elizabeth wore another expensive gown, dark purple with lavender and blue beads, a blue bandeau binding her blonde bob. She was laughing, her pupils dark and large in her blue eyes, so Maddie thought she must have already taken the little packet from her satin handbag in the ladies’ necessary again.