by Donis Casey
Only Elizabeth’s dark, almond-shaped eyes shifted to look at her. “I still am worrying over that burned bat. Shall I go over and tell Cindy what Artie saw? Do you think it looks bad for Geoff?”
Alafair shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would Geoff want to kill Bernie? But then why would he want to burn a bat if not to get rid of it?”
“Maybe it wasn’t Geoff who fired the incinerator,” Elizabeth speculated.
“Who else?”
One of Elizabeth’s shapely brows lifted. “Bernie’s killer, of course. You can’t see into the Stewarts’ back yard from ours unless you’re standing right at the gate, so anybody could have gone over there and done it without our knowing about it, I reckon. Or maybe the bat was under the other trash and Geoff didn’t see it if he’s the one who set the trash alight. That is most likely what he’ll tell the marshal.”
“I’m guessing that the marshal is at the law office right now putting the thumbscrews to him, though.”
Elizabeth abruptly stopped rocking and turned to face Alafair. “No, he isn’t. Dillon will ask Geoff what he knows about it and Geoff will say he knows nothing, and the marshal will take his word for it. I will bet you fifty dollars that Dillon don’t expend his energy on trying to find out who killed Bernie. He’s way more interested in finding out if Bernie was a follower of one particular revolutionary faction or another. He’s wondering if there is a nest of spies in Tempe and somehow Bernie’s murder has something to do with Villa’s invasion.”
Elizabeth’s unexpected rant rendered Alafair speechless for a moment. It was her sister’s passion that surprised her and not Elizabeth’s cynical assessment of the situation. She did not imagine that justice was any more colorblind in Arizona than it was in Oklahoma.
“Do you care so much about Bernie Arruda?”
“Not particularly. But I do not care what a man’s station is in life, he deserves justice.”
Had Elizabeth become a social activist in the past decade? Rather than populist outrage, though, Elizabeth’s shining eyes and high color smacked more of excitement and intrigue.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I wonder what Bernie’s brothers had to say about last night?”
Her sister’s overt eagerness to see justice done gave Alafair a bad feeling. “Elizabeth, in my experience no good comes from getting yourself involved in such things…”
She was interrupted by a piercing whistle from the street and Elizabeth stood up, happy to be spared a lecture. “Yonder comes Shaw, Alafair. He’s back earlier than I expected.”
Shaw had just turned the corner and was walking toward them from the end of the tree-shaded avenue. When he saw the women look his way he waved at them. Something white was in his hand.
Alafair’s eyes widened in happy anticipation, her warning forgotten. “Oh, maybe he has a letter from home!”
All the News
They had been keeping the family in Oklahoma informed of their progress by telegram. But since they had arrived in Tempe they had received only one less-than-satisfactory telegram in return, and that was from their daughter Martha’s intended, Streeter McCoy, acknowledging their messages. The lack of word was no surprise. The farther from home they got, the more expensive it became to send a telegram. Why, the ten-word message Shaw had sent off after they finally arrived in Tempe cost sixty-five cents. This was not an extravagance they could indulge in on a daily basis. And at a rate of over five dollars for three minutes, telephoning from Arizona all the way to eastern Oklahoma was out of the question.
Shaw met the women at the front gate, grinning from ear to ear. “Letter from Martha,” he said.
Alafair snatched it. “Well, hallelujah! I thought you looked to be in a good mood.” He looked good altogether, she thought, dressed for a trip into town in his three-piece suit, black cowboy hat and best boots, and the white shirt she had made for him with the crisply starched, attached collar.
“Let’s go inside and get comfortable,” Elizabeth suggested. “We’ve learned a few things today that’ll pop your eyes, Shaw.”
After they had settled on the couches, Alafair and Elizabeth between them brought Shaw up to date on Mrs. Carrizal’s diagnosis and offer of a treatment, and on the discovery of the bat fragment. He was properly impressed on both counts.
“Well, that is interesting about what the deputies found. It explains why Dillon was so hot to talk to Geoff when he came by the office a while ago. Geoff wasn’t there, and I never did quite find out where he got off to, but Web and the marshal closeted themselves up for quite a spell. Web said he’ll be home shortly, Elizabeth, so I expect he’ll tell y’all what was said.”
Shaw was amused at Alafair’s hungry look as she watched him. “I had me quite an afternoon, too. The California folks are shooting their flicker right on the main street today, Elizabeth. Before I came back to the house, I talked to Chris Martin, the cameraman who was at the party the other night. I’ll tell y’all about that in a bit. But first I want to read this letter before Alafair busts.”
Martha’s letter was dated March 6, 1916, the very day that Shaw, Alafair, and Blanche had arrived in Tempe. The letter was so fat it barely fit in the envelope, and it had required so many stamps that there was barely room for the address on the front. Martha explained its prodigious size by noting that she had been writing since the day her parents left Boynton, and that each of the other children had also added a note. Everyone was doing well, though three-year-old Grace thought her eldest sister was way meaner than Mama. The twins Alice and Phoebe, both married and pregnant, were feeling fine and would write soon.
Sophronia misses Blanche and got an A on her spelling test. G.W. comes home from the Agricultural and Mechanical College every Friday night and leaves early Monday morning. Betwixt him and Kurt and Charlie and the Welch brothers the farm is running like a clock, Daddy. Mary is happy as a little red heifer as always, what with finishing up her last year of teaching and making plans for her and Kurt’s wedding. Ruth has been spending more and more time at her music teacher’s house. She says she is getting ready for when she goes to study at the Conservatory next year, but I think she is tired of helping me plant the vegetable garden. Grandma and Grandpapa come by every day to bring us something from the garden and make sure we have not burned the house down. Grandma will be sending a letter. The post scriptum squiggle is from your granddaughter Zeltha.
Martha finished with: We all miss you more than I can say. I am managing all right. We have not had any big crisis and things are going well, but I will say I do not believe that after I marry Streeter I will be having any ten children myself, Dear Parents.
Your Loving Daughter and Sister, Martha Tucker
***
Shaw lowered the pages to his lap and looked up at Alafair and Elizabeth sitting on the couch opposite him, intending to comment. He hesitated when he saw Alafair wiping her eyes with the white linen handkerchief she kept tucked in her sleeve.
She gave him a wan smile. “Law, I hate to be away from the children! I wonder if she got the letter I sent the day after we got here?”
“She mailed this to us right about the same time, so I’m guessing she is reading yours aloud to the kids around the kitchen table right about now. Sounds like they are getting along fine without us.” His tone was teasing. He was unwilling to let her know that he was missing his family as much as she was.
Alafair emitted a rueful chuckle. “I noticed, and I ought to be happier about that than I am, oughtn’t I? Mercy me, this letter cost a fortune to mail! Hand it here, Shaw. I intend to read it from front to back and top to bottom and write back right after supper. First I want to tell you more about what Miz Carrizal said to Blanche and me this afternoon.”
But Elizabeth had other things on her mind. “Before y’all get off onto other subjects, tell us about the playacting you saw in town, Shaw.”
He smoothed back a hank of black hair from his forehead with the flat of his hand. “Oh, yes, I like to forget. I
t was a lot of excitement, let me tell you. You couldn’t hardly go anywhere downtown without tripping over film folks. You would have thought you were in the middle of a war! I have never seen the like of it. There must have been a hundred men dressed up in Army uniforms both Mexican and American, running back and forth and pretending to shoot one another, raising dust fit to choke a camel to death. They were acting like Mill Avenue was the border between Mexico and the United States and they were having a skirmish right in the middle of the street. Every once in a while they would have to stop and wait for some passer-by to get out of the picture!” The memory tickled him and he laughed. “That’s where I saw the camera operator we met the other night, Chris Martin. Chris told me that the marshal came up early this morning and talked to some of the crew. Seems he was asking if any of them could tell him something about Bernie Arruda.”
As anxious as Alafair was to read the rest of her letter, this piece of information interested her. “Do you suppose that Dillon thinks there is something suspicious about Bernie’s motion picture career?”
“I figure the marshal is just trying to find out everything he can about the murdered man, honey,” Shaw said. “He’ll try to put Arruda’s life together like a jigsaw puzzle and see if he can get a picture that shows who might have wanted to kill him.”
Elizabeth perked up. “You know, the director Mr. Carleton hired a lot of local people here to work on that project. Did Chris tell you what any of the crew said to the marshal?”
“He told me that the marshal didn’t ask him anything personally, but the director did look surprised to hear that Bernie was dead. And that head actor Mr. Bosworth was downright flabbergasted.”
“I’m surprised they even knew who Bernie was, as many people as are working on that flicker,” Elizabeth said.
“Well, Chris sure knew him when he saw him at the open house,” Shaw told her.
Chris Martin
The cameraman had arrived at the open house that afternoon in a fancy open touring car, along with the actresses Dorothy Clark and Yona Landowska. After the women were shown into the house, he had introduced himself to Shaw and Webster and the three men walked together toward the back yard where the guests were gathering. Martin was a chipper young fellow, Shaw thought, with an almost incomprehensible accent from somewhere back on the East Coast. He was dressed in an open-necked blue shirt and khaki trousers held up by dark blue braces that matched his flat linen cap. “I figured it’d be exciting to come out here and shoot a Western ’cause I done it once before down in Tijuana on a Paramount picture, and did we have fun! But this director keeps a tight rein on the crew, I gotta tell you. Anyway…” As they rounded the corner, Martin stopped in his tracks and pointed at the three musicians under the mulberry tree. “Hey, it’s the general! Hey, General, you a singer as well as an actor?”
The good-looking musician with the small guitar flashed a grin and acknowledged Martin with a wave of his black and silver sombrero.
Martin elbowed Shaw in the side. “That’s Bernie. He’s one of the extras who’ve been hired to play Mexican army soldiers. We call him the General ’cause he likes to charge right out ahead of the rest of the army like he was the general. He loves the camera, yessiree, always dyin’ or killin’ somebody in a real gruesome way so he’ll stick out. The director likes him, believe it or not. Always givin’ him a little extra to do. Hey, look at all the grub!”
Martin charged ahead toward the buffet, leaving Shaw and Web to follow in his wake.
“Reckon he’s hungry, yessiree.” Shaw’s tone was ironic.
Outnumbered
“Shaw, did Chris tell you whether they stopped the filming this morning after the marshal told them Bernie was dead?”
“No, they didn’t, Elizabeth. After the law left the war started right back up again. Chris was het up about the fact that on Wednesday they are going to start working on the most exciting scene in the picture. Said they were going to go out to an old abandoned schoolhouse east of town and blow it up.”
Elizabeth straightened. “Oh, yes, I knew about that! Alafair, remember when Miss Landowska told us that the company had brought hundreds of pounds of explosives with them on the train from Hollywood? She said that they had gotten permission to blow up the old rural school that has been standing empty for years way out east of town.”
“Of course I remember,” Alafair said. Her voice was so flat that Shaw smiled at her lack of enthusiasm.
Elizabeth did not notice. She grasped Alafair’s wrist. “Seven hundred pounds of explosives! Oh, Alafair, we must go and see that! It’s just a short ride out there to the Rural School. It should be quite exciting.”
Alafair almost laughed, but Elizabeth was so sincere that she refrained. “Blanche is doing so much better that I thank Jesus for it every day, but I do not want to do anything that might cause her to have a setback. If you want to go, Elizabeth, don’t hesitate on our account, but I think…”
“Don’t say no, Alafair.” In search of an ally, Elizabeth turned toward Shaw. “Miz Carrizal’s medicines should have her hale and healthy by then. And if Wednesday is as pretty a day as today, and it will be, the clean, warm, dry country air will do Blanche a world of good. And she could use a bit of exercise. She would love to see it, you know she would. And so would y’all! It’s so much fun to see the filming, all the handsome actors and beautiful actresses. Why, it’s just like a fairy tale!”
Alafair looked at her husband. Her heart sank when she saw the expression on his face. He always was eager as a boy to indulge in a little harmless dirt, noise, and general mayhem.
“How about if I telephone Dr. Moeur’s office tomorrow and get his opinion on the matter, darlin’?” he suggested. “If he says it may be too much for Blanche, we’ll forgo the pleasure and Elizabeth can go without us.”
“Mama?”
Alafair turned in her chair to see Blanche standing in the door, her bare feet splayed, her hair tousled from her nap.
“Have you been eavesdropping on us, you little pitcher?”
Blanche pattered across the floor and flung an arm across her mother’s shoulder. “Please, Ma, I want to go see them make the flicker. I’ll take it real easy.”
Elizabeth could see victory on the horizon. “Come on, Alafair, she will likely never have such an opportunity again!”
“Please, Ma…” Blanche tried not to whine, but it was difficult. She felt better now. So much better that she wanted to talk back when her mama made her rest so much. Sometimes she would pretend to doze until her mama left the room. Then she would get up and play with her doll or stare with longing out the bedroom window at the beautiful sunny backyard with all the intriguing things to look at. She was in Arizona! She didn’t even know anyone who had been so far away from home except for Georgie Welsh’s brother who had come up to visit her from Florida.
And now there was a possibility she might get to see real live movie actors play in a real live moving picture! It was almost worth a season of feeling bad to be able to have all these new experiences. When she finally got home she would be the center of attention for years! She gazed at her mother with such longing that Alafair bit her lip.
“I’ll tell you what, sugar. Daddy will ask the doctor if you’re well enough to be outside and on your feet for half a day. If Dr. Moeur says yes, then I reckon it will be all right…” She held up a warning finger when it looked as though Blanche might dance around the room. “…for a little while. If he says yes. And if me or Daddy thinks you’re tired and say it’s time to go, we go and you don’t argue.”
Blanche was so happy that she gasped in a breath and would have cheered if it had not made her want to cough. She suppressed the urge with a heroic effort and gave a solemn nod, afraid to make a single noise that could possibly give her mother second thoughts.
Elizabeth was as encouraged by Alafair’s conditional agreement as Blanche was. “Why, you’re looking so pert that I know the doctor will say yes, sugar. We’ll have a grand time.
”
***
Mrs. Carrizal showed up at Elizabeth’s back door shortly after supper carrying a large stoppered glass jar containing a peat-colored concoction. “Here is the tea I promised for Blanche. Give her about a half a cup every few hours tonight and tomorrow. Heat it beforehand, but do not use a metal pan. Elizabeth has an olla, a clay pot, I think.”
As Alafair received her instructions, Blanche stood at her side with her arm around her mother’s waist and a dubious look on her face. Mrs. Carrizal paused and her eyes crinkled with amusement at Blanche’s expression. “It does not taste as bad as it looks, querida. You may sweeten it with a little honey if you wish. It should not make you feel bad, but tonight it will make you cough up what is making you sick. Then you will feel very much better in the morning.” She turned back to Alafair. “I also brought some eucalyptus leaves. Boil them in water and let her breathe the steam.”
Blanche found the tea to her liking, much to Alafair’s relief, and drank her doses down with no more than token resistance. She began a loose, rattling cough almost at once, and before bedtime she had easily coughed up a quarter-cup of greenish mucus. Since no discomfort was involved, the ten-year-old and her little cousin found the whole procedure pleasantly disgusting. Blanche slept in loose-limbed abandon that night, so deeply unconscious that Alafair, who spent the night with one eye open, got up several times to check on her.
When the sun rose, Blanche awoke refreshed and happy and breathing easily. Alafair was tired, but also breathing easily for the first time in weeks.
Cindy’s House
They had their breakfast in the parlor the next morning. Elizabeth served up bowls of grits with butter and syrup, a platter full of link sausages, thick pieces of toast, pots of strawberry jam, coffee for the adults and warm, sweetened milk in mugs for the children, all dishes that could be comfortably eaten around the tea table between the couches.