by Amanda Allen
“I see you’re interested in my father’s old business equipment,” he said, as friendly as if they were sipping drinks at the bar again. “It’s a bit of a clunker, sort of old fashioned, but it gets the job done. They don’t make such quality nowadays.”
Maddie swallowed hard past the dry lump in her throat. “The job of distilling nerve tonics?”
He laughed. “That’s more in my sister’s line of work these days. I’m more interested in being able to make a spot of gin when we run low.”
“Your sister?” Maddie whispered. Of course—it made sense. The baby in the photo, the chemist shop. The gray eyes.
His own pale-gray eyes narrowed. “Yes. I thought you knew. The fantastical Madame Genet. You visited her, yes? And were sort of nosy about the premises. Emeline is a big help sometimes and a bloody nuisance at others. Typical big sister.”
“And which is it when she’s poisoning people who give you trouble? A help or a nuisance?”
His laughter turned to a fierce frown. “That sounds like a long conversation, Mrs. Alwin. Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll have a little chat? You’ll have to give me that gun first, of course.”
“I don’t think I will,” Maddie said. She held the gun level in her hands, surprised it was so steady. She felt rather distant from the whole thing, like it was a movie reel. He gave a small nod, and she was suddenly seized from behind. Her breath was knocked from her lungs in a great whoosh, and her heart pounded.
“I’m sorry to have to treat a lady like this, but I don’t seem to have a choice,” Rob said sadly. “You really should have just stayed home and painted your pictures. Lots safer for a lady like you.”
“It was you,” she whispered. He had written that note telling her to mind her own business. Maddie was utterly furious with herself. G. K. Chesterton wouldn’t think much of her secret sleuthing skills at all.
CHAPTER 21
Maddie sat facing Rob Bennett on a chair in the quiet club, her hands tied as she watched him pacing. He still held the gun, but he kept shaking his head, as if he was arguing with himself. His henchman was gone, probably outside the kitchen door to make sure no one interrupted.
If he was going to kill her, surely she deserved to hear the whole story first. Maybe if she could keep him talking, like some reverse Scheherazade, she could figure a way out of the stupid mess she had gotten herself into. She surreptitiously worked at the ropes on her wrists.
An image popped into her head of David’s smile as they’d waltzed in her garden. She would definitely like to see him again. The thought made her work harder.
“Was Tomas really such a dire threat to your business?” she asked.
Rob shook his head. “You really don’t know? Even though the man and his family live in your own house?”
Maddie thought of her own mother, her haughtiness toward servants who got above themselves, and Maddie decided to try to imitate her. She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him, even though she was sitting and he was standing and continuing to pace. “The personal lives of the staff are none of my business.”
He laughed, and it sounded shaky. He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end, and she hoped it was a sign of indecision rather than desperation. “Only when they’re dead, huh? Then you go snooping into their business all over town.”
“Eddie is just a child. He needed my help.”
“A child! Where were excuses like that when my father died and I had to take care of Mother and Emeline? But I did it. Better than he ever could. Then some Indian came around causing problems for business, trying to get my contacts out at the pueblo in trouble. I needed that trade route. I couldn’t let that go. There’s too much income at stake.”
“Why not? Like you said, he was just one man. He had no power, especially to a man whose clients include senators and Grovers and people like that.”
“Some of my shipments have to cross pueblo land. I have a man there who facilitates business, someone high up who can make things invisible. He warned me about Anaya. It seems the man caused trouble years ago and was fixing to start up again now. He’d been to visit some relative of his, someone whose land we needed to cross. If more marshals were out there . . .”
Maddie remembered the story Juanita and Diego told about Tomas getting into trouble by exposing bootleggers at the pueblo. And Diego had said someone had seen Tomas at the pueblo recently, though Juanita had been shocked by that. “After all this time?”
“My mother said a leopard keeps its spots no matter what. Anaya interfered enough that some of my sources were taking notice. Some of them were thinking twice about letting us use their land for our crossings. I told you, I couldn’t have that.”
“So you got Madame—Emeline to poison him with her tonic? After he turned to her for help in his grief?”
“At first we thought he would be susceptible to her medium gig. Those pueblo sorts are superstitious, right? My contact told me about the man’s baby. Emeline said she could find out his secrets, and maybe we could blackmail him or something. That’s worked a treat before.”
Maddie’s fingers curled into fists as she remembered how, just for a moment, she had actually hoped Madame Genet was genuine. That her husband was really there. It had been hooey all along, and she should never have been fooled. She had been fooled about too many things lately. “But not this time?”
Rob slammed his fist down on a table, making her jump. She twisted harder at the ropes, feeling them loosen a bit. “He didn’t give up any useful dirt, and neither did his cousin, that whore. So we decided to make him sick, just a little. Get him out of the game for a while.”
Maddie wrapped her fingers around the rough rope, managing to slide her thumb under the knot. She tried to remember what she had learned about knots in the Girl Guides at Miss Spence’s. “That didn’t work either?”
“Worse luck. But we’d just started. Emeline said not to give him too much, to be patient. She’d used it before, see, to cause a few hallucinations in her séances. Just a tiny amount. If you use too much, they can bleed out.”
“You couldn’t afford to be patient, though, could you? Not if shipments were being held up and costing you money. People like Elizabeth Grover need their fix. Did you send your men to beat him up then?”
“I told you! I didn’t mean to kill him. No one did. Not unless it was necessary. Mike and the boys decided to give him a sample of justice, that’s all. They did it because sometimes we have to get tough with people, and I told them to do it. Justice has to be rough sometimes, you know.”
Maddie doubted people like that would be shocked at any amount of blood. “But you’re the one who pays them. You told them to do it.”
He ran his hand through his hair again. “They’re hot-headed kids. They get bored when not much is happening. A little fighting never hurts. It gets people off our backs, sends them a message.”
“Unless someone was being dosed with blood thinners first.” Maddie forced herself to give him a gentle smile as she worked harder at the knot. “I do understand. Sometimes things get out of hand in a Western town like this. I can see you’re a good man, just trying to run a business, to take care of your sister.”
His eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “That’s true. It doesn’t help me when people get themselves killed. Bad for business to get attention like that.”
“Of course not.” She smiled again. “I can help you. I’m an Astor, remember? And I know what it takes to make a living too. I could never run a club like this. You’re very good at it. But I can’t help you if I’m dead like Tomas.”
“I did try to warn you to mind your own business,” he said, his voice softer. “On that note. You should’ve listened.”
“Yes,” she said. So it had been him who’d written that note after all. The jerk. “I should have. But that’s all in the past now.”
He reached down and loosened the knot, almost as if he moved in a dream, his eyes cloudy. She didn’t have an i
nstant to hesitate. She suddenly remembered things she’d thought long forgotten, fighting techniques some of the soldiers recovering in the hospital had once taught her. She had only been trying to distract them then, but it was very useful now.
She twisted in Rob’s grasp, simultaneously kicking back with her boot and bending her head to bite his hand. He howled and let her go, and she started running. She didn’t know where she was trying to go or where his henchman was lurking; she only knew she had to get away, to hide.
She saw her torch lying on the floor and swept it up. She heard Rob shout at her, and she tipped the still over in his path to block him. It clattered apart, a loud metallic clash on the tile floor. He cursed and shouted out for Mike.
Maddie managed to get the back door open and plunged out into the night. She didn’t have much of a head start, and she glanced around frantically for a hiding place. There were only trash cans and a few vegetable crates. Then she remembered—the tunnels.
She found the empty storage space where she’d chased Harry and ran down the steps into the stone passageway. Just like the first time she saw it, she was in too much of a hurry to notice where she was headed in that subterranean world. She just kept running, praying that Rob hadn’t seen her go that way and that her torch would hold up.
The weak light wavered on the rough stone walls, and the air smelled dank and stale. She turned and turned again until she had no clue where she was in relation to the streets above. But she couldn’t hear anything behind her, so hopefully she had lost her pursuers.
She dared to take a moment to catch her breath, leaning against the wall. She couldn’t let herself get overwhelmed, couldn’t let herself think about how close she had been to the murderers. How close she had come to losing her life just when she had found it again.
She sucked in a deep breath to keep from crying—and smelled a faint sugary yeastiness in the chilly air. The tea room! Of course. That was where she and Harry had sat talking, under the tea room, near the bank. Surely she was close to an exit.
She plunged ahead, only to freeze at a clattering sound in the darkness behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a shadow flicker on the wall, coming closer around the corner. She broke into a flat out run again.
“Madeline!” Rob shouted, and she realized she hadn’t lost him after all. She ran faster, her legs aching and her lungs about to burst. She found another flight of stone stairs and tumbled up them.
She found herself in one of the shops behind the tea room, just as her torch flickered and went out. Rob managed to catch up to her, reaching out to grab her sleeve, so close she could feel his breath on her neck. She punched him in the face, aiming for his eyes with her manicured nails, and as he howled, she managed to break open the shop door and rush out toward the plaza.
“You witch,” he yelled. He grabbed for her arm again, and that time he caught her. She tripped and fell into the road, the breath knocked out of her. He loomed over her, his face nightmarish in the moonlight.
“That’s not very ladylike behavior, is it? Not very Astor-like,” he said with a hoarse laugh. His fist came up, but he never had a chance to land the blow. A pale blur shot out of the night and fell on Rob with a ferocious growl. As he screamed, Maddie scampered away and pushed herself to her feet.
“Buttercup!” she cried when she saw, to her astonishment, that it was her sweet little dog on the attack.
“Buttercup, no!” she heard someone shout. Eddie ran over to grab the dog by her collar and pull her away. Behind him was David, his shirt pale in the night, his face twisted in anger.
“Sorry about that, Miss Maddie,” Eddie panted as he held onto the struggling dog. “I thought maybe Buttercup could help track you down.”
“But what are you doing here? Both of you?”
David kicked Rob as the man tried to struggle to his feet. He landed another blow, which kept Rob down, and Maddie was sure he hadn’t just been a medic in the war. The fury on his face was astonishing to behold. “Eddie came to fetch me at the hospital when he found your note. Luckily, I hadn’t gone back to Sunmount yet. He was worried about you being out here on your own. And quite right he was, I see.” He looked down contemptuously at the now sobbing club owner, holding the man down by twisting his arms behind his back. “I take it you found the murderer then?”
“Yes,” Maddie gasped. “It was him and his sister, the medium. Tomas was threatening to impede their booze highway. He . . .” She suddenly felt so shaky, all the adrenaline of her flight draining away, and she nearly fell down. Eddie caught her, and she hugged him and Buttercup close.
“I suggest we get him to the jail right away,” David said, hauling Rob to his feet. “Then it’s a headache powder and some sleep for you, Maddie. You’re the heroine of the night, but I’m afraid it won’t feel so glorious in the morning when all the excitement wears off.”
Maddie swayed on her feet. “It doesn’t feel so tickety-boo right now either.” Every muscle in her body ached. But he was right—at that moment, knowing Eddie was safe and justice was done, she felt just the tiniest bit glorious. Maybe she wasn’t quite Father Brown or even Watson yet, but she was learning.
CHAPTER 22
The beautiful late spring day seemed all wrong for what was happening around them, Maddie thought. Not right for visiting a grave at all. Just like the day of Pete’s memorial service at St. Thomas Church on a hot New York afternoon had seemed all wrong, with the heady scent of lilies making her head spin and the swell of the organ drowning out every thought.
Today wasn’t quite like that, though. They were outside, for one thing, with a fresh, pine-scented breeze in the air and no noisy city clamor pushing around them, intruding on grief. The sky arced endlessly overhead in bright, sunny yellow and blue, not a cloud in sight. The cry of birds gave the only music. Just the black clothes of the small group gathered around the fresh mound of sandy dirt in the churchyard gave any hint of what was really happening.
Tomas’s memorial service.
As Father Malone chanted his words of office for the dead, his black cassock and purple stole as dark as the crows perched on the picket fence nearby, Maddie studied the village beyond.
San Ildefonso, only about twenty miles from Santa Fe, was not a large place, with only a few narrow dirt lanes leading out from the large central plaza lined with small adobe homes. A few of them sometimes opened as shops, selling the beautiful, distinctive, black-on-black pottery, but today they were all shut and silent in respect for a man they had once sent away.
Yet now his family and friends were welcomed back. The old Spanish church—by far the largest building at San Ildefonso with its second-story gallery and bell tower, freshly painted white walls, and large graveyard—was quiet except for the group gathered at the new grave. Juanita, Eddie, and the girls stood beside the small wooden cross, written with Tomas’s name and dates. Beside it was a much more faded marker for the Anayas’ long-lost baby.
They were all still and silent, Juanita’s veiled head bowed as she held the twins against her. Beside her was her brother Diego and another man who looked so like Juanita he could only be her other brother, Refugio, the rancher. Once in a while, Diego would gently touch her hand, and she would nod at him.
Most surprising of all, Mavis stood there too, though apart from the others. She lingered by the fence, a lonely figure in a dark-blue dress and veiled hat, her red hair shimmering as she cried. Juanita waved at her, and Mavis slowly, hesitantly, waved back.
The only others present were Olive Rush, who had brought them in her own car out to the pueblo, and Maddie. She knew she could never have come to Tomas’s funeral and his releasing rites, but Juanita had insisted she come with them to put the cross into its place and say a final good-bye.
“If not for you, Señora Maddie, we would never have known what really happened to Tomas,” Juanita had said when the killer was revealed. “And Eddie might not be back with us. Please, come home with us. Let me show you where we cam
e from.”
So Maddie had agreed, and she was glad she had, despite the somber veil that seemed to wrap around them all in that silent graveyard. It was important to say good-bye properly, to know at least a measure of peace had been achieved.
She clutched her black handbag in her gloved hands and watched the mountains in the distance as she listened to Father Malone’s words. It was a beautiful place, with the thick, green orchards along the river, the purple mass of the Jemez Mountains in the west.
She knew that the Puebloans believed that all spirits who belonged to the mountains and waters returned there to become one with the earth again, to be reunited with all the other departed spirits. She hoped that was true for Tomas, that his restless, angry spirit had found stillness there. She hoped it was true for Pete too.
And maybe, just maybe, one day they would all be together again, part of the land they loved.
Father Malone said his amens, and Juanita crossed herself. Eddie scattered a handful of cornmeal over the grave, and the twins laid small bouquets against the cross. Their little faces looked sad and pale under their black hair bows.
“My wife has made a small luncheon,” Refugio said. “If you can all stay?”
Juanita glanced at Olive, who said, “Yes, of course. My car is entirely at your disposal, Mrs. Anaya.”
“It’s very kind of you,” Maddie said. She glanced around and saw that Mavis had gone.
As their little group made their way out of the gate that led from the churchyard, Maddie noticed that one of the shuttered windows of the nearest house was open a small crack. Someone peered out. It snapped shut when whoever it was noticed her, though, and she wondered if whoever was in there was one of the people who allowed smuggling across their land. One of the people who’d led to Tomas Anaya being tossed out.
Father Malone had said Inspector Sadler had promised to investigate the smuggling, but Maddie had seen little evidence of effort so far. Maybe the inspector thought San Ildefonso was too far from Santa Fe to matter to his rich patrons. But she had the feeling that one day the matter would come around again, one way or another. If Tomas’s death had taught her one thing, it was that no secret stayed hidden forever.