The Tree of Death

by Marcia Muller

  Tony’s voice said in Spanish, “Home at last.”‘ I ducked under the stairs, into the foliage of a large fuschia bush.

  Tony and Susana came through the archway and crossed the courtyard. He carried a suitcase, and his thin shoulders slumped as if he were exhausted. Susana walked along in her usual bouncy gait, snapping her gum. They climbed the stairs, and moments later I heard the apartment door slam.

  I remained under the stairs, fuschia blossoms tickling my cheek. Where on earth had Tony been? And for how long? When had I seen him last?

  I thought back to the afternoon before. Yes, he’d been there when we’d set the tree of life in place around five o’clock. That would have given him less than thirty-two hours to go-where?

  And what should I do? I could rush up there and demand to know where he’d been. Probably, though, he wouldn’t let me in at this time of night. And if he did, he wasn’t likely to tell me what was going on, since he’d gone to some length to hide it already. If it had something to do with Frank’s murder, the situation could turn ugly, even dangerous.

  Could Tony have been in the museum when I left last night? Quarreled with Frank and killed him? Then somehow managed to slip out? He might have come home, packed a bag and run. But if he was on the run, why had he returned? No, Tony had gone away for another reason, something Susana’s call about his alleged illness had been designed to cover up. I thought of all those other calls in the last six months. They came at three- to four-week intervals, and Tony was usually sick for five or more days. Maybe Tony had been away on mysterious business each time. That was a lot of traveling.

  I slipped out from under the stairs and looked up at the apartment. The living room lights, behind closed draperies, were still on. I’d been to Tony’s place only once, at Christmas time, for one of those awful parties for business associates that everyone wishes the host didn’t feel obligated to throw. Thinking back on that party, I pictured the layout of the apartment.

  The living room ran the full length of it and opened on the other side to a balcony overlooking the parking lot-one of those design idiocies that contemporary California builders were always committing. The kitchen was also at the rear, and had access to the parking lot by a stairway. I hurried out of the courtyard to the street.

  There at the curb was Susana’s little Triumph. I went up and felt the hood. The engine was hot. Tony’s car would probably be parked in the stall that went with the apartment. I walked down the driveway toward it and located his new Mustang. The engine was cold; it must have been sitting there all day.

  The curtains of the apartment’s kitchen were drawn, but light shone through them. I crept up the stairs to the little service porch. The window was open slightly and I could hear Tony’s and-Susana’s voices. They were talking in the clipped accents of South American Spanish, made harsher by anger. I moved closer and peered through the place where the curtains didn’t quite meet.

  Tony stood at the counter, pouring what looked like whiskey into a glass. Susana was in the center of the kitchen, her arms folded, one foot tapping on the floor. She tossed her mane of teased black hair and said, “What do you mean, you’re giving it up?”

  “Just what I said. I am not going to do it again.”

  “But, now that Frank is dead, it will be all yours.”

  “Mine and Robert’s and Vic’s.”

  She dismissed the others with an imperious wave of her hand. “But mainly yours.”

  I was surprised. This was not the giggly sixteen-year-old Susana I knew.

  “That doesn’t matter. I told you, I am through.”

  Now Susana reverted to type, her lower lip pushing out in a pout. “But the money! Where will we get the money for all the pretty things?”

  Tony sipped from his glass and set it down on the counter. “Don’t worry about money, my love. Now I will become director. The job pays much more than education director.”

  “But as director, you could carry on your other business easily.”

  His face darkened. “Enough! I hate those trips. I have decided.”

  “You won’t get the job anyway,” Susana said spitefully. “Not with that Elena around. She’ll see that you don’t get it. She wants it herself.”‘ She spoke my name with a venom that took me aback.

  Tony went up and put his arm around Susana. “Don’t worry about Elena, either. She is no problem.”

  “So there will still be money?” She looked up at him with wide, childlike eyes.

  Tony caressed her cheek. “Yes, money and pretty things. Whatever you want.”

  “Money for a television for the bedroom? And maybe a week in Hawaii?”

  “Yes, love.”

  “Maui. That is where all the beautiful people go. We will go to Maui.”

  “Yes, love.” His hand moved down her throat toward one of her full breasts.

  This I didn’t need to witness. I turned away.

  The distance between the service porch and the balcony off the living room was only a few feet. I went over to the iron railing and looked down at the ground. It wasn’t much of a drop, so I climbed onto the railing, deciding to chance it. For a moment, my foot on the other railing, my hands clammy as I reached to pull myself across, I faltered. Then I closed my eyes, pulled, and landed on the balcony, stumbling. They hadn’t bothered to close the living room draperies on this side.

  The room was decorated in stark, modern furniture, all chrome and glass and light wood. After the discussion I had just heard about Tony’s “other business,” I looked at the furniture with interest. Expensive. It had to have cost thousands of dollars for this room alone. There was an elaborate stereo set in a teak cabinet, a large TV with a video recorder, and what looked like original artworks on glass-enclosed shelves. It was not the living room of the education director of a small, impecunious museum.

  One of the lights that had been left on was by the door to the bedrooms. Tony’s suitcase sat on the floor. I went forward, skirting a kettle-style barbecue and a lawn chair, and pressed my face to the glass. The suitcase had a yellow tag that said LAX, the code letters for Los Angeles International Airport. Unfortunately, that didn’t help me figure out where Tony had been. There was also another tag, a blue one with a symbol on it. I strained my eyes, but all I could tell was that it looked like a compass, one with all the points, not just north, south, east, and west.

  The light in the kitchen went out. Tony and Susana appeared in the door to the living room. I jerked back from the glass and banged into the barbecue. It made a hollow sound, like a bell ringing.

  “What was that?” Tony started for the balcony door.

  I looked around frantically. There was a pile of fireplace wood in one corner. I leaped for it and squeezed behind, a piece of bark scraping my skin. The balcony light came on as I crouched there, holding my breath.

  The glass door slid open, and footsteps sounded on the concrete floor. After a moment Tony said, “Huh.”

  “What is it?”‘ Susana asked.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Probably it was a cat. They are always jumping over from the neighbors’ balcony.”

  “Probably. I ought to speak to the manager. They don’t allow cats in this building.”

  “But it is a nice cat. I am thinking of getting one myself.”

  “No cats, my love,” Tony said firmly. His footsteps went inside, the balcony light went out, and the door slammed shut.

  I let out my breath slowly. There was no way I could have explained my presence on Tony’s balcony at one in the morning. And the scene would have quickly turned ugly had they realized I’d overheard them talking. I was going to have to be more cautious in the future.

  After five minutes, when the light in the living room had gone out, I climbed back over to the service porch and hurried away from there to my car. As I drove home through the thick mist, my mind whirled with the possibilities.

  Tony, Vic, Frank, and his brother Robert had had another business. Susana ha
d said it would be all Tony’s now that Frank was dead, which meant Frank had been much more important in the scheme than either Vic or Robert. The scheme obviously involved travel on Tony’s part. Travel for what? And where to?

  Well, I had one clue.

  I pulled into my driveway and rushed into the house. The day’s heat was still trapped there, and it felt warm after the fog. I turned on the living room lights and went to my desk. My hands were shaking with excitement as I pulled the Yellow Pages from the drawer.

  Airlines. Or was it listed as air lines, two words? I never remembered and always looked up the wrong spelling first. Airlines. No. Air lines.

  I hoped that whatever carrier Tony had flown was large enough to have an ad showing its symbol. I started at the beginning, with Aer Lingus. There were plenty of symbols- stylized initials, wings, geese, ducks, and kiwi birds. No compass, however. TWA, Transamerica, UTA, United. Still no compass. I turned the page, and there it was, right at the top. Varig Brasilian Airlines. “Jets from U.S.A. to South America, Africa, and Japan.”

  That covered a lot of territory, but I was willing to bet on South America, possibly Bogota’t where Tony was from. Varig flew out of L.A. International, and Tony’s bag had been coded for a return trip there. This called for mathematics, never my strong suit. I took out a pencil and a piece of scratch paper.

  I wrote, “12:30,” the approximate time Tony had returned home, near the bottom of the page. How long did it take to drive here from L.A. International? At this time of night, in light traffic, about two hours. Farther up the page, I wrote, “10:30.”

  All right. I’d have to knock off another hour for baggage claim and customs. I crossed out the other figure and wrote “9:30.”

  That was it: I wanted a Varig flight arriving at LAX at around nine-thirty. Varig had a twenty-four-hour information and reservations line. I pulled the phone toward me and dialed.

  When the sleepy-sounding clerk answered, I said, “I’m interested in service from Bogota. I understand you have a flight that arrives around nine-thirty in the evening.”

  “Service to or from Bogota?”

  “From.”

  “Just a moment, please.” There were background noises that sounded as if he was typing. “I’m sorry, our flight from Bogota gets in at seven-oh-five.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I thought there was a flight around nine-thirty.”

  “No, the computer says seven-oh-five, ma’am.”

  “Well, what does get in at around nine-thirty?”

  “You wanted service from Bogota…”

  “Could you check and see where the nine-thirty flight originates? I’d sleep better knowing.”

  Surprisingly, he laughed. “I get what you mean. Hold on.” The typing noises began again. “You’re talking about our flight from Rio. It arrives at nine-forty-seven.”

  “Rio?” I’d been to Rio; it was more than a thirteen-hour flight. Tony could not possibly have gone there and back, plus cleared customs and traveled to and from the airport, in the time allotted. “Does it stop anywhere?”

  “Yes, Lima, Peru.”

  “Lima. How long a flight is that?”

  “About seven hours.”

  Tony could have done that easily. “What about the flight to Lima? When does that leave?”

  “Ten-thirty-eight in the evening.”‘

  “Thanks,” I said, “you’ve been a great help.”

  “Do you want to book any of those flights?”

  “Um, no. I’ve got to think about it.”

  “Fine. And will you be able to sleep better-knowing about the Rio flight?”

  “I certainly will.”

  “Sweet dreams.” He probably thought I was one of those lonely people who make phone calls to airlines in the middle of the night so they can hear another human voice.

  I’d asked about service from Bogota on the off chance Tony had been called home on some family emergency. But instead he’d been to Lima, Peru-however briefly. Now I could reconstruct the scenario of what had happened.

  Tony had returned home some time after five yesterday, and Susana had driven him to L.A. International. The latest he could have left Santa Barbara in order to make the flight was seven-thirty. That still gave him plenty of time to kill Frank. Of course, I had my doubts Tony was smart enough to figure a way out of the museum that neither the police nor I could understand, but I’d worry about that later.

  Okay, Tony had flown to Lima and probably been asleep in his hotel or wherever he was staying by the time Susana had called him to say Frank was dead-or that his body had been discovered. Since his absence would have looked suspicious, he’d caught the return flight, and Susana had covered for him all day by not answering the phone or door.

  But, if he’d killed Frank, would he have returned? Maybe, if he thought he wouldn’t be suspected.

  But then, why fly to Lima at all? Did Tony take these trips every time he called in sick? Were they always to Lima, or did he travel to other cities? And why?

  Whatever the reason, I had a feeling it wasn’t legal.

  eight

  The next morning the paper was full of news about Frank’s murder. The coverage was factual, but there was an undertone of questions. Why had this happened practically on the eve of the museum’s opening? What had the director been doing alone in the galleries after the museum had closed its doors for the day? Was one of the other employees a possible suspect? Could the director somehow have brought this on himself?

  I wondered if the questions would have been so thinly veiled had we not been a minority museum. And I also wondered what more publicity of this type would do to us.

  As official representative of the museum, I had to pay a condolence call on the De Palmas. I puttered around the house until nearly eleven, then got into the car and drove north through town. Frank’s family lived in a sprawling single-story ranch house on one of the streets that wound high on a bluff above Santa Barbara Point. It wasn’t Montecito, where Isabel lived in lonely splendor in her Spanish-style mansion, but it was not bad for a boy who had come out of the barrio. Twenty years ago, real estate agents would have steered anyone with a surname like De Palma away from this district. Times had changed, however, and Frank’s neighbors were glad to have a citizen of the chic art world right across the fence. I doubted they invited the De Palmas to their parties, though.

  Frank’s brother Robert answered the door. His face was dour and jowly, and his hair hung down in greasy-looking strands. His dark suit fit him like a sausage casing. Still, I looked at him with new interest. This was not merely rotund Robert; it was the man who had illicit dealings with his brother, Vic, and Tony. Robert looked back blearily and motioned me into the living room.

  It was a large room filled with overstuffed furniture. On the walls were abstract paintings by several of our better-known contemporary painters. I looked at them, as I had at Robert, with renewed interest. Granted, Frank had owned a gallery and had known how to strike bargains, but the paintings could not have been cheap in any case.

  Rosa De Palma and Maria were seated on the sectional sofa, both dressed in black. Rosa’s plump but still handsome face was puffed from crying. Maria waved at me, almost gaily, and I caught Robert frowning at her. Rosa made a moaning sound and stood. She rushed across the room and threw her arms around me, sobbing. I patted her on the back and whispered ineffectual expressions of sympathy. It reminded me of the emotional funerals of my childhood, where relatives had howled out their grief-and then come back to our house to stuff themselves at my mother’s buffet two hours later.

  Maria made an impatient noise and came over to us. She extricated me from Rosa’s embrace and led her aunt back to the couch. As Rosa sat, Jesse entered through an archway at the rear of the room. He carried a tray with a coffee pot and cups. I stared at him.

  Jesse grinned sheepishly and set the tray on the coffee table. “Yeah, they’re domesticating me.”

  Rosa blew her nose. “Maria should have don
e that.”

  “Maria does too much.”

  “Work is good for the girl.”

  Jesse shrugged and began pouring coffee. I sat down on a hassock and accepted a cup. Robert remained over by the fireplace, one elbow on the mantel. When Jesse offered him coffee, he declined by shaking his head.

  “So, Elena,” Rosa said, “you are taking over for Frank.”

  “I am acting director, yes.”

  “It is good of you. The museum must go on. It was my husband’s dream, his inspiracion.”

  Por Dios, could the woman really believe that? She was painting her hypocritical little husband as some sort of visionary. I glanced at Jesse, who was studiously staring into his coffee cup. From Maria came the faintest of snorts. Even Robert shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. When I looked back at Rosa, her eyes met mine. They were hard, daring me or anyone else to contradict her.

  She knows, I thought. She knows what he was, but she’ll never admit it. Rosa De Palma was made of the stuff that kept Chicano families together, that maintained pride and dignity against all odds. I had to admire-and pity-her.

  I turned to Jesse. “I hate to talk business at a time like this, but we’ll need you at the museum today. We want you to set up an additional display of camaleones.”

  “Ah, of course.” I’d been afraid he would ask where and, for obvious reasons, I didn’t want to bring up the folk art gallery. But the arbol de la vida had been destroyed, and something had to take its place before the opening. I had decided we might as well promote Jesse and his colorful animals.

  “Can you get to it today?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I have a few camaleones at my studio that will complement those that are already on display. Perhaps I should get started right away?” He looked relieved to have an excuse to leave the De Palma house.

  “Yes, if you would. In case there are any problems, you know.”