Santa Fe Mourning

by Amanda Allen

  “My name is Madeline Alwin. I understand you can offer some help to those of who are suffering?”

  She smiled gently. “Indeed I do. It is my gift.”

  “I—I don’t know what your business procedure is. Should I have written for an appointment?”

  “Not at all. I am very informal. I never know when someone will need me or when the spirits might speak. Do come in.” She stepped back and opened the door wider. “I did sense I would have a visitor today, but not that I would meet someone new. How did you find me, mademoiselle? Or is it madame?”

  Maddie studied the room. It was small, but as dramatic as any New York stage set. A round table with a white cloth sat in the very center, holding a crystal globe on a brass stand and several boxes of brightly painted tarot cards. A sideboard held various bottles and potions in front of an array of silver-framed photos. The curtains were drawn close against the sunny day outside, and she couldn’t tell if any of the bottles matched Tomas’s and Mavis’s bottles. The light from two small lamps didn’t go far into the corners of the room, and there was the sweet, smoky scent of incense. An Asian silk screen stretched across the corner.

  Maddie took off her gloves and tucked them in her handbag so Madame Genet could see her wedding ring and easily guess she was a widow. There was a strange, oppressive, almost claustrophobic atmosphere in that room, and she didn’t want to stay any longer than she had to.

  “Either is fine—madame or mademoiselle,” she said. “I felt quite elderly when a waiter first called me ‘madame,’ but now I rather like it. It gives one a bit of dignity, I suppose.”

  Madame Genet smiled. “Indeed it does.”

  “And it wasn’t hard to find you. Word of a newcomer does get around in such a small place.”

  “Yes. I was just passing through on my way to Seattle when I sensed I should stop over for a time. That someone here needed help desperately. Perhaps it is you?”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Please, sit. Tell me about yourself. Tell me how I can help.” Madame Genet offered one of the chairs at the round table and took her own seat behind the crystal ball. “Some tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Maddie slowly lowered herself onto the hard wooden chair. As Madame Genet rang a bell, Maddie studied a painting on the wall, the only artwork in sight. It was a meadow with the sky gray beyond and a distant street of shops and Victorian clapboard houses.

  A maid hurried in, a slim figure in a black dress and white apron, pale hair straggling from her cap. Maddie was not really surprised to see it was June, Harry’s sister who also worked at La Fonda. Suddenly that group seemed to be everywhere.

  “Tea, please, June, and maybe some cake from that delicious tea shop downstairs,” Madame Genet said.

  June nodded and hurried off again, not even looking at Maddie.

  “I’ve found this such a delightful town,” Madame Genet said. “So pretty, and such nice shops, not at all what I expected when I came to the Wild West. I am such a city mouse myself.”

  “From Paris?” Maddie said, though she knew from the madame’s accent that she was no Parisian.

  Madame Genet waved her hand, the rings on her long fingers flashing in the lamplight. Maddie saw one was shaped like a snake, a twist of gold with tiny emerald eyes. Madame Genet noticed her looking and smiled. “An old family piece. I am never without it. And no, not Paris. I am a citizen of the world, as I sense are you, madame.”

  “I’ve traveled a bit,” Maddie said. The maid came back, putting down the tray and leaving again as fast as she came.

  “Travel is essential to a well-rounded life,” Madame Genet said, pouring out the tea into floral painted china cups. It smelled of jasmine, not the green earthiness of whatever was in those sculpted bottles. “I knew when I was a girl that I had a gift I had to share, but no way of knowing how to develop it, refine it. Only when I left home could I learn what it really meant.”

  “I often feel the same. Though my gift is painting, not mediumship.”

  Madame Genet nodded. “I can always tell when someone has that sensitivity. An artistic nature is often the first step to full awareness of the world around us. There is so much we mortals cannot see.”

  “So you must help them to see it?”

  “Of course. Shall we try it?”

  Maddie nodded, feeling a bit nervous. Madame Genet stretched out her hands, palms up, and Maddie laid hers lightly against them. Madame Genet closed her eyes and breathed deeply, slowly, for several long minutes. Maddie watched her very closely, but she saw nothing until a frown crossed the medium’s brow and her hands closed tighter on Maddie’s.

  “It is foggy today,” she said, her French accent gone, her voice low and rough. “The voices are not coming through clearly. But one is trying. Is he the one who looks for you? He sounds quite insistent. He has been parted from you for a long time.”

  Maddie glanced down at her gold and diamond wedding ring. Against her will, she found herself almost—almost—hoping. What if her instincts, her education, was all wrong? What if Mavis was right and Madame Genet could find their lost ones? Maddie felt a pang of the old loneliness, the old ache of missing Pete, of feeling not whole without him.

  “Is it my husband?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. His voice is so faint. But he calls out for you. He seems to have so much to tell you. He remembers a battle, I think. There’s the sound of machine gun fire, a sense of—of fear. Cold, inescapable. But you are there too, and he isn’t scared after that.”

  “I am there?” Maddie said, puzzled. It was an easy guess that her husband died on a battlefield; there were so many young war widows around.

  “Not you, but part of you. A memory? A photo? He is saying he couldn’t keep his promise, but he is with you still.”

  Maddie closed her eyes and pictured the train station where she last saw Pete, so tall and handsome in his khaki uniform as he kissed her. She had pressed a framed photo into his hand, a picture of their wedding day, and he had whispered he would come back to her. He’d promised.

  Yet he never did.

  “He can see my life now?” she said.

  “He is glad you’re working. He . . . he likes the people around you, your new friends. But he says you should be very careful.”

  “Careful?”

  “You are always too trusting. Not everyone is worthy of your friendship, your help.”

  “Who should I not trust?” Maddie asked, thinking of her friends—Juanita, Gunther, David.

  Madame Genet shook her head hard, making her earrings jingle. “I can’t tell. It’s all fading—fading . . .” She suddenly gasped and slumped over the table.

  Maddie hardly dared move. Her heart was pounding. “Madame?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

  The medium slowly sat up. She looked as pale as paper under her turban, her eyes bright with tears. “I am quite well. Just a bit faint. It’s always that way when I return.”

  Maddie refilled her teacup and pressed it into her hand. The woman’s fingers were ice cold.

  “Thank you,” Madame Genet murmured, taking a long sip. “Was it him?”

  “Him?”

  “Your husband, the one you seek. I could not see him clearly. There was such a fog today. But he did seem so anxious to reach you.”

  Maddie wanted so very much to believe, yet she couldn’t quite take that step and give in entirely. Was this how Tomas felt, as he looked for atonement for his lost child? There was so much about people that was an utter mystery. She thought she knew them, and so often she knew nothing at all. “I don’t know.”

  Madame Genet nodded. Her cheeks seemed a little pinker as she finished her tea. “It often takes more than one session for the spirit to truly come through.”

  Maddie wondered if this was why Mavis kept coming back, searching for her Billy, spending her scant money. Maddie suddenly had the strongest urge to flee that stuffy room, to get away from whatever sticky, clinging energy hung around there.
“Should I come back? Tomorrow, maybe?”

  “Perhaps next week. I have been tired lately, and it makes it harder for me to see what I must. But wait here for a moment. I have something that might help you.”

  Madame Genet rose from the table and made her way unsteadily to the door where the maid had vanished.

  Maddie waited for a moment, but she couldn’t sit still. Something about the session made her feel restless, uncomfortable. She carried the tea tray to the sideboard and studied the bottles arrayed there. Herbs floated in amber liquid, but none she recognized. A large silver vase sat on the corner, filled with branches of white and yellow flowers.

  Behind them were a few framed photos. A man and woman in white Edwardian summer clothes in a meadow much like the painting. A graduation group outside a schoolhouse. And one was a little girl in a ruffled dress and enormous hair bow holding a baby in a long gown on her lap. They seemed to be in a garden, a summerhouse behind them. The girl had Madame Genet’s large eyes.

  The photo next to it was of the same girl, alone this time, standing in front of a shop window of some sort, the camera’s flash bouncing off the plate glass. Maddie could faintly see some kind of contraption inside the building and the last few painted white letters of a name: IST & CA. The girl looked very serious, almost as if she disliked having her photo taken. Maddie could sympathize.

  Next to the table was a wastepaper basket, half-full. Maddie took a quick glance through it, wondering if she would find anything that looked like the dark, block letters of the threatening note she had received telling her to stay inside and paint pictures. It was only a couple of bills and an envelope with madame’s address on the outside. She stuffed it into her purse to look at it later and compare the handwriting.

  Madame Genet came back in a swirl of spangled robe. She seemed a bit startled to find Maddie not at the table, but she quickly smiled. “I see you are admiring my younger self.”

  “I do miss those hair bows. They made getting ready in the morning so much faster.”

  “No pins, no combs, just the tie of a ribbon,” Madame Genet agreed. “Yet when we’re young, we can’t wait to be older, to steer our own course.”

  Maddie remembered her nursery, high up in the Fifth Avenue house, and how she would spend hours staring out the window at the real life of the street below. “Yes.”

  “That was my father’s business,” Madame Genet said, gesturing to the photo of her by the window.

  “And this one?”

  Her lips pursed. “My brother. Long before he was—lost to us. He was the one who first showed me my gift.”

  “I am sorry. I have one brother, but I always wished I had more siblings myself.”

  “It was long ago. I have hopes of leading him to the light again.” She held out a bottle. “This is for you, madame. To help build your strength. The stronger we are, the more we are able to see our lost ones and the hidden world around us.”

  “Thank you,” Maddie said. She took the glass cautiously. It was plain and round, not like those Tomas and Mavis had, and the liquid was paler than theirs.

  “Take a small dose every evening and come back to see me next week. I am sure your husband will come through then.”

  Maddie tucked the bottle into her handbag and hurried out of the stuffy room. It seemed to press closer and closer around her. The bright day outside, the people on their ordinary errands, seemed very far away even as she walked the familiar streets toward her house.

  Reentering her home, the rooms seemed very silent and empty without Juanita and the twins. Maddie took off her hat and gloves and left them on a side table. She felt quite tired, as if she had indeed been wandering around on the Other Side. The real world was so bright and strange. She turned toward her bedroom, intending to take a long, hot bath, but a clatter from the kitchen made her freeze.

  “Who is there?” she called, her heart pounding.

  Eddie appeared in the doorway, a half-empty milk bottle in his hands. He looked rumpled and pale, shadows beneath his eyes, his hair tangled. “It’s just me, Miss Maddie.”

  “Eddie!” In her relief, Maddie rushed forward to hug him tightly. Usually he would have pulled away with teenage disdain, but now he hugged her back. “Oh, Eddie, I’m so happy to see you.”

  “And I’m happy to see you. But where is everyone?”

  Maddie smoothed his dark hair, her heart aching at all he had gone through, all that he still had to get through. Surely he was too young for all this. “I’m afraid they’ve gone to the funeral. Dr. Cole got your father’s body released.”

  Eddie pulled back with a scowl. “Without me? But I should be there! There are things I have to do. I’m the son.”

  “And you can do them very soon. The important thing is you’re not in jail. Here, let’s get out some of the copious food your mother left, and you can tell me what’s happened . . .”

  * * *

  It turned out Mr. Springer had gotten Eddie out on bail. As he ate some of Juanita’s lamb stew and a large hunk of buttered bread, he told Maddie what had happened, the way the inspector and his deputies let him out right away when Mr. Springer mentioned his senatorial connections. He would have to go before the judge in a few days, but at least he was home for the moment.

  Maddie took a bite of one of the bizcochitos and let the cinnamon and sugar melt deliciously away before she said, “So we have only a few days to find out who the killer is.”

  Eddie made a scoffing sound through a mouthful of bread. “It’ll take longer than that. Lots of people didn’t like my dad, you know.”

  “So I’m finding out. But he had a few friends too.” She thought of Mavis, who had cried for him. But it was undeniable that he had interfered in matters some very dangerous people had thought he shouldn’t. Why? How? “Speaking of friends, I ran into your old pal Harry. He seems to make deliveries all over town.”

  Eddie frowned. “He’s not my friend. I used to run around with him and his gang, but that was one thing my dad was right about in the end. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “I’m glad you found that out then. Harry said you turned down a job he offered.”

  “I knew there was something shady about that. I’d done some delivery jobs before, just kid’s stuff for pocket money, but this one didn’t sound right.”

  “How so?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Harry didn’t tell me much about it, and the money was too good for just a little pickup and drop-off like the usual. I thought about it. Ma could use the money if the girls are going to school. But I didn’t want to get into trouble.” He poked at the remains of his dinner and frowned. “Of course, I got in trouble anyway, didn’t I? Might as well have done the job.”

  “Of course you shouldn’t have. If some intuition was holding you back, you were absolutely right not to do it. And this trouble will soon be over.”

  “I hope so. That jail was crackers.”

  “I know you and Tomas quarreled. What was it really about? Your mother says he didn’t like you running with the wrong crowd, but was that all?”

  Eddie snorted. “He didn’t like my friends, and that was really ripe of him. I saw him, y’know. With that fancy woman, and then on the corner with that bootlegger. He got mad at us all the time, but he was never any saint.”

  “Maybe not. But that one particular lady was nothing to be angry about. She is your father’s cousin. I just met her myself.”

  “Cousin?” Eddie said doubtfully.

  “Yes. It seems she got into some trouble years ago and ran away. Tomas was trying to help her.”

  “But what about the booze? I heard he was smuggling it, same as anyone else.”

  Maddie thought of what Rob had said, that Tomas had worked for a rival bootlegging gang, and then the arguments that he had been a teetotaler and that was what had got him into trouble on the pueblo. “Now that I can’t say. Hopefully we’ll be able to find out a lot more tomorrow. You should go to bed now, get some sleep. You look
ed exhausted.”

  He nodded. “That’ll be nice. My own pillow and blankets. That jail is no place for quiet. They shine lights every hour, and the guy next door liked to scream his wife’s name all the time. Ugh.”

  “I would imagine it was no fun at all. But you’re home now.” And if Maddie had anything to say about it, he would stay there. But it felt like time was running out, faster and faster, like a silk scarf slipping through her fingers.

  She sent Eddie off to bed with some lemon drops and more milk, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while herself. She fed Buttercup the scraps and went to rinse the dishes in the sink, going over everything she had learned in the last few days.

  As she put away the dishes, she noticed a slip of paper tucked up by the phone. Dr. Cole called, she read in Eddie’s messy, penciled scrawl. Dinner tomorrow at La Fonda, lots to tell.

  She felt her cheeks turn warm, and she had to smile a bit despite everything that was going on, the worries swirling in her head, the tiredness that pulled her down. She was going to see David again—tomorrow! She took down the note and folded it carefully before she made her way to her room, Buttercup at her heels. She had a feeling she might sleep well after all.

  CHAPTER 18

  The New Mexican Restaurant at La Fonda wasn’t too crowded when Maddie made her way to her own little table in the corner, beneath the bright murals of Spanish dancers and colorful bullfights. Most diners were still sipping their aperitifs in the bar or gossiping in the lobby.

  She was a little early, so luckily she had time to settle herself before the handsome doctor arrived. She patted her hair into place, smoothed the skirt of her bronze satin cocktail dress, and went over all the places she had been that day, trying to retrace Tomas’s steps on that fateful night. She hadn’t had much luck, and there had been no sign of Harry, his sister, or his pals at all. Probably they were all laying low after the trouble.

  She took a quick peek in her compact mirror and adjusted her lipstick. She just wanted to get David’s advice on what she had found so far, surely that was all. There was no reason to be nervous. But she still couldn’t quit fidgeting with her long necklace of jet beads, trying to make them fall just right.