Feliz Navidead

by Ann Myers

  I didn’t wait for Mom’s comeback. With Hugo scuttling at my heels, I bolted down the hall for the shower. Her words followed me. “We have to talk sometime, Rita.”

  During the drive to Tres Amigas, I took a page from my sister Kathy’s playbook and flooded Mom with mundane details, from the age of historic homes to cactus types.

  “An artist who makes wonderful mosaics out of tiny bits of paper lives there,” I said, pointing to a house mainly hidden by a lumpy adobe wall with thick buttress wings. The lumpiness indicated years of mud layers and was considered a prize feature in my historic east-side neighborhood. I informed Mom that adobe was traditionally replastered every year using straw and a mud slurry.

  “Remember when Celia and I went with my friend Cass and her son Sky to a replastering event in Taos Pueblo?” I said, mainly to prove to Mom that I did, indeed, share information with her. “Taos Pueblo is amazing. People have lived there for over a thousand years, and some of the buildings are four and five stories tall, built all of adobe and accessed by ladders. The town of Taos is great too, and the Rio Grande gorge is stunning up there. You can stand on the bridge and look straight down eight hundred feet into the chasm.”

  Mom acknowledged that the ancient Pueblo sounded “interesting” and “different.” “This whole place is very different,” she said. Her tone suggested that different wasn’t the positive attribute the Tourism Office’s “City Different” campaign made it out to be.

  When we reached Tres Amigas, I mentally patted myself on the back. My deluge of details and tourism promotion had kept Mom from focusing on the unfortunate devil. This would blow over, I told myself. I still had lots more time to convince Mom to love—or at least like—Santa Fe. I mentally ticked through festive activities. My casita was too tiny for an indoor Christmas tree, but we could install one in the yard. Jake could bring by some of those popcorn strings and birdseed ornaments he and his secretary were making. As Mom and I got out of the car, I hummed the real version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” I was imagining peace and goodwill when I heard my name called from the front patio.

  “Rita, yoo-hoo!” Lorena Cortez stood on the front stoop of Tres Amigas, practically engulfed by an ankle-length feather coat in brilliant turquoise. She held a plastic pie carrier. My heart sank, and not because of the beautiful meringue. I could guess why she was here, bearing gift pie. Determined to head her off, I barged in front of Mom, mouthing, No.

  The proprietress of Pie in the Sky ignored my rude silent greeting. “Here,” she said, thrusting the container into my hands. “Butterscotch with a bizcochito crust and vanilla meringue. Consider this my down payment. Rita, I’m hiring you.”

  “Hiring you?” Mom said, catching up and puffing for breath. “For what?”

  My pre-caffeinated brain spun. “Ah . . . hiring me, yes. To make . . . er . . . those cherry empanadas we talked about for your Christmas gift boxes.” I winked hard at Lorena, who tilted her head in concern.

  “No, I love those little pies, but I mean about Wyatt,” Lorena said with a frown. “Are you feeling okay? What’s wrong with your eye? Can you smile? People having a stroke can’t smile.”

  Flori saved me from faking a life-affirming smile. She swung the front door open wide. “Fresh, hot coffee,” she announced. “Come in out of the cold. Lorena, Rita, will you help me in the kitchen? Helen, I have a lovely seat by the fireplace just for you.”

  “Let’s hear Lorena out,” Flori said to me in the kitchen, after we’d set up Mom with coffee, a pitcher of water, and a colorful tourism guide. “It is Christmas, after all.”

  “Right, Christmas, that’s the problem,” I whispered, drawing Flori a few steps away from Lorena, who was making small talk with Juan about his hash-brown technique.

  Leave the potatoes alone, Juan said. That was the secret. That and the decades of seasoning on Flori’s old cast iron griddle.

  “I have to think of Mom,” I said, nodding toward the dining room. “She’s already upset. I should have told her earlier about Jake and the sleuthing, and she still doesn’t approve of Christmas devils, especially the dead one.” I glanced up and saw Lorena looking our way. Her eyes glistened. I clamped my big mouth shut.

  “Francisco,” she said. “The devil’s name was Francisco. He was my friend. Now he’s dead and Wyatt’s in trouble. You know Wyatt and I are currently separated, but I can’t lose him too, and I’m sure he didn’t do it. Please, you’ve both helped in other cases.”

  No, I practiced in my head. So sorry, but we can’t. The police will handle it. I felt for Lorena, I truly did. How awful to have a killer Santa as your estranged spouse, but Flori and I couldn’t help that.

  “I was up on the roof,” I told Lorena, as gently as I could. “Santa—Wyatt—he was dazed and holding a pitchfork when I first saw him. Lorena, there was blood on his clothes. If anyone can help him, it’s Jake. He’s the best criminal defense lawyer around. I’ll testify. I’ll say Wyatt looked . . .” Deranged came to mind. Jake could go with an insanity defense. “Ah, he looked disturbed,” I said.

  “Wyatt’s no criminal,” Lorena moaned.

  “That’s why Jake does what he does,” I said, wishing Mom could hear this defense of my favorite defense attorney. “He makes sure that his clients get the best defense possible and fairest of trials.”

  “True,” Flori said “And he’s fine to look at too. That sways the jury, I’m sure.” She patted Lorena comfortingly on the shoulder and suggested we all have a piece of butterscotch pie. “Do you think your mother would like some pie instead of granola, Rita?”

  Mom would disapprove of pie for breakfast. What she’d really object to, though, was me investigating a murder. “I’m sorry, Lorena,” I said, avoiding her eyes. I scooped granola into two bowls. I’d have a quick, healthy breakfast with Mom and get to work. My real work.

  “Wait,” Lorena said, stepping in front of me. “There’s more. You will want to hear this, Rita. I’m in a meditation group with Dalia Crawford. She called me last night. She thought I should know that Las Posadas has been getting threats.”

  “Some people love to make trouble,” Flori said. She bent to cut a thick slice of pie. I noticed the purple knitting needles holding up her silver bun. Something black and knitted poked out of her apron pocket. Had she been out making knitted trouble?

  Lorena fixed bloodshot eyes to mine. “Yes, for years the play has gotten some angry letters and general threats. But this year? The threats were specific. Death threats against the devils.” Chills had already scurried up my arms when she added, “Rita, isn’t your daughter playing a devil?”

  Chapter 6

  I delivered Mom’s granola and apologized that I couldn’t eat breakfast with her. “Kitchen emergency,” I said, which was kind of true. When I returned, Flori placed a giant wedge of pie and fresh coffee in front of me.

  “I’m not promising we can help,” I said, my defiance admittedly weakened after several luscious bites of the extraordinary pie. The butterscotch was rich and creamy, with hints of caramel, vanilla, and possibly bourbon. The crust was an entire cookie jar of goodness held together with butter. If I’d been alone with the pie, I would have had another slice.

  Lorena assured me that she understood. “I’m not trying to scare you into helping me. I do honestly believe Wyatt is innocent. My husband might be blustery and intense, but he’s harmless.”

  Flori and I exchanged a look. We’d learned from unpleasant experience that anyone can be capable of murder.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Lorena said. She’d held her puffy coat protectively in her lap. Feathers escaped at the seams and stuck to her black slacks. She squished the coat closer to her chest. “If I’m right, a killer is out there and more people could be in danger.”

  She let me think about this while I finished my pie and Flori consulted with Addie, who had come in while I was serving Mom the granola.

  “We’re getting a wee busy out in the dining room,” Addie said.
From the stack of orders in her hand, I guessed “wee” was an understatement.

  I finished my pie and pushed my chair back. “Could you stay and tell us about the letters while we fix up these orders?” I asked Lorena.

  “No,” she said with a smile. “But, I’ll tell you everything I know while I help you cook. You’re slammed.”

  Addie, who had popped out to seat customers, now came bounding back in. “Brits!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Three lovely ladies. They’re fab! I told ’em, we have no tea and scones, but we have gingerbread muffins and they said that would be smashing. Smashing,” she repeated to Juan, who stoically flipped bacon.

  Addie made up plates of gingerbread muffins. I handed Lorena an apron, and she tied her hair back in one of Flori’s tai-chi scarves, white with a red rising sun symbol. I reminded myself that knitting—even the guerilla kind—was safer than Flori’s previous hobby, slow but deadly martial arts.

  Lorena snapped on disposable gloves and began to assemble burritos, filling us in on the death threats as she did. “Dalia told me that the devil threats started arriving a couple weeks ago. They creeped her out. They had cutout letters, you know? Like someone found each letter in a magazine or newspaper and pasted it in?”

  “We did an activity like that at the Senior Center once,” Flori said, easing a batter-coated, cheese-stuffed green chile into a hot frying pan. Chiles rellenos were her specialty and one of my favorite dishes. “The workshop was called ‘illicit letters.’ It was basically a paper mosaic class, but that would have sounded boring.”

  “It’s creepy,” I confirmed to Lorena.

  “Or creative,” Flori insisted, spatula poised over the sizzling chiles.

  “Spooky,” muttered Juan. He slid crispy hash browns onto a plate, alongside a medium-rare skirt steak and topped both with red chile and two over-easy eggs.

  A pang of guilt jabbed me. Steak and eggs made me think of Jake. It was one of his favorite breakfasts. I should have been bellowing his charms to Mom. I would from now on. I needed to find time for my handsome lawyer too.

  Lorena tucked in the sides of a plump burrito and wrapped it tight. “Dalia can tell you more. Hopefully she kept those awful letters so she can show the police. They said things like ‘Devil = Dead’ and ‘All devils will die.’”

  Flori admitted that this crafts project sounded ominous. “Why didn’t Dalia take the notes to the police when she got them?” she asked. “Or did she?”

  Lorena shook her head. “She didn’t. They were addressed to Judith Crundall, and Judith said they were a childish prank. She said that no bully would make her cancel her Christmas pageant.”

  Making a mental note to talk to Dalia, I went out to refill coffees and check on Mom. As I approached her table, she stood, smoothing her slacks and patting her always tidy hair.

  “I’m in the way,” she said, above my protests. “No, no, Rita. Look how busy it’s become. There’s a young couple waiting for a table. Anyway, I need to get on with my day. You know I don’t like to sit around.”

  “I can drop you off somewhere,” I offered. “Or you can take the car home . . .” On her previous visit, Mom had started out for the supermarket and somehow ended up five miles off course and in line for a demolition derby at the rodeo grounds.

  Mom claimed to know the way home. She recited the streets, describing them by landmarks and left/right turns instead of their names, some of which involved lengthy Spanish. Just in case, I highlighted the route on the map Mom kept stashed in her purse. We hugged at the door and in a reversal of roles, I was the one fretting. “Call when you get home,” I said, stepping out on the chilly portico. “I’ll be back as soon as I can this afternoon and we can all go do something fun.”

  Mom promised to call. I watched her make her way down the walkway. I was already formulating more questions for Dalia. How many death threats? When? How did they arrive? Whom were they addressed to?

  As if sensing my thoughts, Mom turned. “Rita, if that pie woman wanted something other than baked goods, I’ll remind you that you are a single mother. You have a responsibility to your daughter, first and foremost.”

  Mom bustled off before I could answer. I did have a responsibility to my daughter, I thought as Mom maneuvered my car into a slow-motion, five-point U-turn. That’s exactly why I had to investigate, at least until I knew the police had their man . . . or their killer Santa.

  Back in the kitchen, Juan was taking a well-deserved coffee break. Lorena stood at the sink scrubbing a pan and recounting how she and Francisco, the deceased devil, met at a grief support group after her mother passed away.

  “Do you know the crazy thing?” she said, scrubbing harder. “The group wasn’t very supportive. Some of the members thought Francisco shouldn’t be there because he’d caused grief himself. He acknowledged that, but he hurt too.”

  Juan snorted into his cup of coffee.

  Flori said gently, “Lorena dear, remind us of Francisco’s troubles. Rita wasn’t living here then.”

  Lorena’s hands shook as she tightened her apron ties. “I didn’t know Francisco then either. He worked at the community college, teaching history and anthropology. It was Christmastime, about ten years ago, and he’d been to a party. He only had one drink, he told me. Just one. The road was icy or maybe he got distracted or dozed off. Whatever happened, he hit a lady walking along the side. He said he never saw her until it was too late.”

  I noted Juan’s deep frown. Had he known the deceased lady? Lorena noticed too, and spoke directly to him. “I know, such a terrible thing. The victim was a good person. A lot of people loved her. Francisco felt awful. He couldn’t handle the guilt. He quit his teaching job and dropped out of everything and isolated himself, except for working odd jobs for Ms. Crundall. It was kind of her to give him a job and a place to stay in her guest cottage. That’s how I met him. I volunteered to make pies for the Easter procession, one of Judith’s other community events. Francisco was making the backdrop sets and we got to talking. That’s why he ended up in Las Posadas at the last minute too.”

  I’d been wondering about that. “Barton Hunter was supposed to play the first devil, wasn’t he? He and Dalia came in here the other day and he told me. What happened?”

  “Barton’s the hot one,” Flori said helpfully, when Lorena hesitated. “Judith has him handling her nasty bone collection. I’d hire him, if I had something I wanted handled.”

  “Flori!” I said.

  My elderly friend shrugged. Lorena said she did know the good-looking Mr. Hunter.

  “He and Dalia came up to the roof to mark out where he’d stand as the devil. I offered them free pie. I thought it was all fun at the time. He seemed excited.”

  “Why didn’t Barton show up, then?” I asked.

  “Migraine,” Lorena said, shaking her head. “Poor man. I guess he felt it coming on right before the play and knew he couldn’t jump around on a roof. My sister gets those, so I understand.”

  One of my cousins suffered terribly from migraines so I understood too. “Who knew he was sick?” I asked. Shasta hadn’t known when she raced across the roof, yelling his name. Dalia had seemed shocked too. How had neither of them known of the devil switch? I asked Lorena.

  “The migraine came on suddenly, like they do. Barton was at Ms. Crundall’s finishing up some work. He had his costume there, planning to go straight to the performance. Francisco was the right size and he’d played the devil before. Ms. Crundall asked him to help. He called to tell me after he got in his makeup and outfit. He wanted me to go see.”

  “Did you tell Wyatt or anyone at the hotel?” I asked.

  Her horrified expression was answer enough, but she said, “No! Of course not. Wyatt was acting all territorial about me and the hotel, even though I kept telling him that Francisco and I were friends. Only friends! He banned Francisco from coming in the Pajarito. He watched the elevator to stop him from coming up to my shop. I told Wyatt he couldn’t do that. The hotel was partly mi
ne too. Still, I warned Francisco to avoid Wyatt.”

  “What would Wyatt have done if he saw Francisco come in?” I asked, thinking maybe he’d done just what the police—and I—thought he did.

  Lorena shook her head. “Wyatt was all bluster. One time, he had his door elf throw Francisco out. He might have yelled or pitched a fit, but he would never have gotten violent.”

  I changed the topic back to Francisco. “How did he seem when he called you?”

  “Excited. Kind of nervous too.” Her voice cracked. “I told him, ‘You’ll have your mask on. You can be someone else for the night.’ Your old carefree self, that’s what I was thinking. If only I’d known.”

  We worked in a somber silence until a stream of breathless, honking brays erupted out in the makeshift manger. Laughter bubbled from the dining room, and Addie popped her head through the pass-through. “Our British friends wish to see the wee burro. Can we visit, Juan?”

  Juan, guardian of his cousin’s star donkey, hesitated and then shrugged. In rapid Spanish, he set the ground rules, which thankfully Addie repeated in English.

  “Righto. Got it. He’s on a diet. Absolutely no fried foods. No cupcakes or muffins. Only carrots. Jolly good. We’ll meet you there, Juan.” She left to gather the ladies. I took my cleaning rag to the dining room and thought about what Lorena had said. She hadn’t convinced me of Wyatt’s innocence. On the other hand, I wasn’t entirely convinced of his guilt either. I was pondering this, and wiping antiseptic circles around an already clean table, when a finger tapped my shoulder. I jumped.

  “Oh dear, I didn’t mean to startle you.” A woman about Mom’s age, with Mom’s short haircut and Helen Mirren’s glorious accent, proceeded to ask me where her friends had toddled off to.

  “Don’t worry. They haven’t been taken by aliens,” I said. As soon as I uttered the words, I thought that alien abduction might not be the first concern of proper English ladies. However, this was New Mexico. They could be on their way to Roswell and its UFO museum. “They’ve gone off to see our Christmas donkey and his goat friend,” I clarified.