Francesca gave a queenly nod of ascent. Then she turned to me. “I must ask you to leave, Lottie Albright.”
I was speechless.
“Yes, please.” Elizabeth smiled sweetly. “The car is air-conditioned,” she said to Francesca. “She’ll be fine. Just fine. And she always has a book along.”
Dumbfounded, I picked up my purse and my briefcase and headed toward the door.
Elizabeth came out with Francesca thirty minutes later and we drove her back to the main house.
“Well,” I asked on the way home, “did you learn anything?” Elizabeth was hiding something. I could feel it.
“Lottie! You know better than that. I’m surprised at you. That’s all privileged information.”
If I hadn’t needed to steer, I would have whacked my forehead with both hands to knock out the stupidity.
I had persuaded Elizabeth Fiene—the world’s most honest lawyer—to take on Doña Francesca as a client. Now this tiny Spanish woman who might have insight into Victor’s murder was committed to a lawyer who had undoubtedly told her “not to discuss anything with anyone.”
I couldn’t ask Elizabeth about how the map connected to the murder because she had agreed to pursue Francesca’s claim. And I could no longer question Francesca, either.
We would see. Murder trumped civil cases.
I drove in cranky silence. Elizabeth whistled.
When we reached the farm, I went into my office and came out with the 1879 edition of Dassler’s Compiled Laws of Kansas, slapped it down on the desk, flipped through the pages and hollered for Elizabeth to come take a look.
“See there?” I pointed to the text giving Kansas women the right to own property, sue and be sued, and carry on a trade or business. “See?”
She sniffed.
Both smoldering, we left for separate rooms.
***
Tom and Josie came through that weekend on the way back from Denver. Elizabeth was white-faced after she and Tom came in from the patio. That evening when we all played together, there could not be any doubt we were looking at lovers. Josie flushed and looked down during ballads she would have thought corny before.
Tom’s eyes stayed on her during every song. Charismatic as a movie star, he caressed the lyrics like they were written especially for my sister.
Thin-lipped, Elizabeth plunked through a polite minimum of tunes before she announced that she had a headache and was going up to bed.
Then Josie picked up her violin. Light from the setting sun outlined her body and her fingers flew like fire over the frets. Her skin glowed. She had never looked more beautiful.
Angie developed a tummy ache. Tosca retreated to her bed in the kitchen.
Keith and I endured. When we walked up the stairs we saw them strolling toward the pond, arm in arm. They turned and the setting sun profiled their long, slow kiss.
Chapter Twenty-four
Jane Jordan called and asked if it was okay to come to the historical society that afternoon because it was her day off. I was all too ready to set aside the stories I was editing.
“Monday, I’ll start returning stuff for Margaret, and I thought I should start by having you look at my own family’s box first.”
Jane sat on the edge of the chair and we went over the artifacts one by one. When we came to the Klan poster, she closed her eyes. When she opened them, she had a bleak expression on her face.
“Even though you believe your ancestors weren’t Klan members, every family has a black sheep. Someone who functions outside the core family’s pattern.”
Something was worrying this woman. She tucked a stray hair back under the net and evened the soft bow beneath the collar of her blouse.
“Are you sure there wasn’t someone?” Virtually every state in the union had a Klan chapter in the twenties. Surely Carlton County had one, too.
“No.” Her jaw tightened. “No. Never. No one was ever a member. I wanted that evil poster out of my house, but I didn’t want to burn it because I took a history course at a community college and the instructor felt very strongly about destroying historical material. I knew this was important.”
I could not think of what to say next.
“It’s not true. We were never, never involved. My grandfather was shocked that people thought we might be, just because we weren’t Christians. We are now. Christians, I mean.”
Something about this poster was a sore point with her. Almost as though she took this poster personally. Or perhaps she was simply pained by this reminder of one of the darkest periods in Kansas history.
“My people came to America to have the freedom to believe. To be able to worship any way we wanted. Or in our case, not worship, I guess. We didn’t want to be Catholic. That was all. And because we didn’t want to, and because the Klan hated Catholics, I guess Catholic-haters and Free-Thinkers all got lumped together somehow.”
She quivered like a little Chihuahua. Her eyes never left my face as though checking for any sign of disbelief. Her legs were drawn back under the rung of the chair and she hugged her clipboard to her chest like she was defending herself from a sword thrust. I wanted to take her hand and suggest we continue this another day if it was upsetting her.
“We were not involved!” She untangled herself. “That’s all Grandpa would say. ‘We were not involved.’ And he just said what his father told him. I’ve always been afraid we had participated in something terrible,” she finally blurted, “but I don’t know what it was. That’s the truth. No one will talk about it.”
“That’s not unusual. Years ago, very few people ever talked about family scandals. They didn’t make the rounds of talk shows to air their dirty linen in public.”
“There was no scandal not to talk about.” She planted her feet firmly on the floor. She stared at her shoes.
“Are you worried that if your family owned this poster I might think you aren’t fit to work here?”
“Yes,” she blurted, her eyes tearing up.
“Don’t give it a second thought. We have volunteers here whose family histories would shame the devil.”
Her eyelids fluttered in relief.
“We’ll just keep your Klan poster here temporarily while we try to find who gave it to your family in the first place. We can’t store it permanently, not because it’s so abhorrent, but because we don’t have the room, and because it’s so commonplace it has very little historical value.”
By the time she left, she had settled down.
I was becoming increasingly curious. Was the woman’s family hiding something? Suspecting it wouldn’t do me one bit of good to Google “KKK” and “Carlton County,” I tried it anyway. With no results.
There was a tremendous resurgence of Klan activity during the sixties when blacks wanted to register to vote and school segregation ended. It emerged again in 1988 when David Duke, the Grand Wizard himself, became a presidential primary candidate.
But nothing about Carlton County and the Klan.
I stuck it out until closing time then decided to see if there was anything brewing at the sheriff’s office. If so, Marvin would have called me. When something is really, really brewing, he calls Keith.
The land, the grass, and the sky were uniformly gray. There was no wind. I tried to imagine what it would have felt like in a one-room soddy in this kind of heat. One family had nine kids. It was two miles to the creek because all the claims closer had been snapped up at once.
Historians were just now zeroing in on children’s histories. The poor kids! How did they stand the heat? One older woman had told me of the peace and quiet she felt in the afternoon when she and all her children prayed the rosary. All the mysteries. All one hundred fifty decades. How had the kids felt? Was that calming for them, too?
Some kids just roamed around and came back by sundown. They spent many happy hours at t
he creeks, which were much larger back then. Much, much larger. Not like the dried-up trickles masquerading as streams now.
In one joyful family story, the writer told of going with his brother and sister down to their pond. His mother held up an old cane pole on the grass and told the kids to come home when the shadow fell at a certain place. They stayed there all day long. His story was filled with the wonder of childhood. Days spent outside, fishing, digging for frogs, water fights. Today, the mother would have been arrested for child-endangerment.
***
Sam’s Suburban was not parked in his usual spot, but he was sitting behind his desk, doodling on a yellow legal pad. I glanced at the lines spoking out from a center circle.
Something. Something was on his face.
“What?” I drew up a chair.
“Now, I don’t want you getting all excited.” He reached for his pipe. “Don’t go making too much of this, but I’m pretty sure there were two men involved when Victor was killed.”
“You’ve heard from the KBI? Their forensics team found something?”
“Nope. But I’ve been looking through the photos of Victor’s footprints.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too. A man with his throat cut can’t run very far.”
“He could run far enough if it was a botched job, which it was or they wouldn’t have had to shoot him. I’ve been looking at the autopsy information. They didn’t get the jugular and the carotid artery. Just mangled his trachea. He was fit. Likely, the bastard grabbed him from behind and thought he could manage by himself. When Victor struggled, he lost his grip. That’s when Victor headed toward the shit pit.”
“Okay. Makes sense, so where are you coming up with the two?”
“No real evidence. Point is, he ran. He didn’t like the odds. Just one, he would have tried to fight him off before the bastard could get to him with a knife. And nothing shows a knock-down, drag-out.”
I mulled this over. Even if Dimon and I hadn’t gotten into a turf war, I knew I wouldn’t have passed along Sam’s totally unscientific speculations.
He picked up his legal pad and stood. “I need a lift. Suburban shot craps and I won’t get it back until tomorrow.”
***
“How is Angie doing?” he asked on the ride to his house. “Tom told me she was having a hard time.”
“A lot better. Elizabeth worked out a strict routine and it’s working.”
“She still around?”
“No, Elizabeth went back to Denver a week ago. I was afraid Angie wouldn’t stick with it when she left, but she did.”
“When did Tom and Josie leave?”
“About two days ago.”
“For Manhattan?”
I looked at him sharply. So he knew, too. But the old man always, always knew everything. Long before he was ready to discuss it with anyone else.
“Yes, for Manhattan.”
“Figured.”
We pulled up to his front door. “Sam, about your thinking it might be two men. Dimon doesn’t want us on this case at all.”
“He can’t stop us from working in our own county.”
“Maybe not. In fact, he’s not going to pass one speck of information our way and he sure wouldn’t like hearing this idea of yours. He’s not much into speculation, so I’m not going to say anything about two men. Or anything Francesca tells me for that matter. He’s like talking to a rock.”
“Okay. I’ve never liked the bastard anyway. And if that’s the way he wants to play it, we’ll not report on a damn thing except the weather.” He gave a wicked grin. “What is Francesca Diaz telling you?”
“She believes her grandson died because the murderer wanted to get his hands on a map. I tried to tell Dimon that he should interview Francesca, but he just thinks she’s just craving attention.”
“Does Mrs. Diaz have the map?”
“She says so, yes.”
“I take it you’ve never seen it.”
“No. I’ve seen a copy, but not the real thing.”
“Will she show it to you?”
“That’s not going to happen. She says the map is proof of an ancient claim to land and she doesn’t trust the government. And now that she has a lawyer, she won’t show it to either one of us.”
“Wait her out.”
“Her new lawyer is my stepdaughter. I can imagine how that would strike Dimon. He already thinks the whole county is inbred and Fiene-filled with devious incompetents.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t believe a thing Francesca says, or he might get a search warrant.”
“A lot of good that would do. She would never tell him a damn thing.”
“How hard can it be to coax an old lady to give up information?”
“You’d be surprised.” No one had to tell me how Francesca would react to bullying. “What could Dimon do? Torture her?”
There was a long silence.
“He would think of something. He didn’t hesitate to scare the hell out of Dwayne Weston with an OSHA inspection.”
***
Keith called on the way to the house. “Josie and Tom are on their way.”
“Back so soon? They just left.”
Overhead was a hint of blue sky instead of solid brackish tan. I was so happy to be spending an evening with my sister that the dust rolling from behind my tires seemed tolerable for once. I wanted to feel her out about Francesca’s abilities. Ways? What to call whatever it was this old woman did?
I didn’t feel right about asking Josie if she believed in magic when I had just convinced myself that I didn’t. I smiled, imagining her scorn. But anyone could tell I still wasn’t sleeping well. My hair was lifeless, my skin was dry. Nevertheless, just having her around would lift my spirits. We could talk about Angie. She obviously needed professional help.
I swerved to miss a rabbit. Across the road a huge circle irrigation system sat idle, as purposeless as a disabled Mars rover. Even irrigated corn looked like it was spitting back water instead of absorbing it. It drooped like a sulky child forced to drink.
My joy over an evening with Josie without the whole family around trumped my worry over Keith’s ruined daughter. I started thinking constructively about what I could say to help Tom’s sisters cope. The Three Furies.
Soothing phrases came to mind: They would get over it. They had to lose their brother to a woman some time.
I flew into the kitchen and took steaks out of the freezer and selected a bottle of wine and put it in the refrigerator. Keith came home a half-hour later. We looked at each other. I was in his arms in a second.
I hugged him hard. “It’s been so long since Josie and I have really talked. She’s been distracted and I’ve missed her.”
“After supper I’ll take Tom into town for beer and bar talk so you can have some privacy.”
Josie’s SUV sailed up the drive about five o’clock. The wine was nicely chilled. The seasoned steaks were ready for the grill.
Tom got out and reached for a small suitcase. He breezed right past me. I stepped onto the front porch and with an exaggerated low bow, swept an arm across my chest to usher Josie inside.
She remained on the steps and held herself stiffly apart. Tosca was not in the car. “I really have to run on.”
Keith stood in the open doorway. She gave us both tepid little social hugs. The kind that counts for nothing.
“Can’t you at least stay for supper? Dinner.”
“No, I really need to start back to Manhattan. I don’t want to be too late. Harold says Tosca is really getting tired of my being gone.” Harold Sider, a former FBI agent turned college professor, was her colleague at the university. “He’s been such a dear to keep her.”
She might as well have slammed her fist in my stomach. She didn’t want to talk to me. She was avoiding me. I
t had never happened before. “Of course. The dog. Your little dog. Have a good trip.”
“Have a good life,” Tom added softly.
Josie froze, then looked at me with a stiff smile and a quick tragic flicker of her eyes. “Well, thank you, Lottie, Keith. Even if I can’t stay.”
She walked briskly down the walk and got in her car.
Sick at heart, I put my steak and her steak back in the refrigerator. I carried Keith’s out to the grill. He followed me.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but if there is anything I can…“
“I don’t know either, Keith. Last week everything was just fine between us. Or at least I think it was. She really only had eyes for Tom.”
He held himself very still and gave a small cautious nod. “Would you like for me to finish cooking that?”
“Just yours and Tom’s. I’ve lost my appetite. Must be the heat.” I winked back tears. I carried my glass of wine, and Josie’s glass of wine over to the patio table and sat there intending to drink them both. When Keith finished cooking he carried the steaks inside, then rejoined me at firefly time.
He reached for my hand and kissed my fingertips.
“Love you,” I said softly.
“I know.”
He went to bed long before I did. I sat in the dark and wondered how I had come to such a sorry state. My sister was acting like we were casual acquaintances. My husband was anxious and overly solicitous. A foolish KBI agent was trying to do Sam Abbott in. And I was worried that my stepdaughter might blow her brains out.
There were no stars and if there was a moon, I couldn’t tell. Grayed wisps of ghost dry clouds lurked in the night sky, thwarting anyone who might enjoy watching the heavens.
There was nothing I could do about any of my problems. As near as I could tell, there was only one person who was thrilled when I showed up: Doña Francesca Bianco Loisel Montoya Diaz.
Hidden Heritage Page 20
