A puff of smoke snapped our attention back to the stage, and through the smoke an apparition in white appeared. I gasped along with the rest of the audience. Her dress was long, silvery, and appeared to be made of layers and layers of cobwebs. Straight black hair streaked with white flowed down past her waist. Her face, a pale green white, seemed to pulsate in the flickering light of the single candle she held. Her nails were as red as fresh blood. Dolores had really started out our Late-Night Cabaret with a bang.
“Have you seen her perform this yet?” I whispered to Jillian.
“No,” she whispered back. “I’ve never even heard this folktale.”
Dolores lifted her hands, nails flashing in the candlelight, and began her story.
“Once in a small village in Mexico there was a very beautiful peasant woman. Her hair was as black as the sky’s darkest night and her lips as red and inviting as the finest wine. All the young hombres were in love with her. She was her parents’ only child, born in their old age, a gift from the blessed Madre de Dios. She was loved and cherished by all who came in contact with her. She worked for the richest lady in town, washing her fine linens in the clean, clear river. One day, when she was at the river washing her mistress’s fine lace she was spotted by a passing hidalgo, a Spanish nobleman of great riches who had come to town to court her mistress. But he fell instantly in love with the beautiful and innocent peasant girl. Being a man of dashing looks and flattering words, he seduced her there by the flowing green river. They met there day after day for weeks. When it became apparent she was with child, the nobleman’s visits ceased, and she was left broken-hearted to bear the child in shame. He married her mistress and took her to live with him in the beautiful hacienda that he had described to the peasant girl each day after they made love. The peasant girl returned to her parents’ small cottage and lived her life weaving brilliantly colored rugs each with a strand of green river flowing through them. When her son was three, the hidalgo returned to the village. The peasant girl was very happy, for she had believed in her heart of hearts that he would someday return. But she soon realized he only returned to claim his son, telling her she could never be his wife, that she was not of the right class, and that because her former mistress, his new wife, was unable to bear a child, she had given him permission to bring his son to live with them so his family name would continue. He would give the peasant girl two goats and a pearl rosary in exchange for her son.
“ ‘Let me stay with my child one more night,’ she begged him. He agreed and made plans to come back the next day. Late that night she took the child down to the river and drowned him. Laying his small body out on the bank where she and the nobleman had made love, she took a wood-handled knife and plunged it deep into her chest, the last words on her lips curses on the man who had betrayed her not once, but twice. And because of those curses, the nobleman was never able to make love to another woman, and his wife shriveled up and died from a disease that turned her skin the texture of a snake’s, her punishment for trying to steal another woman’s child.”
Dolores pointed a long red fingernail into the audience. “La Llarona still lives among us today. At midnight you can see her walking among the reeds in the marshes wailing for her lost child, weeping for the love betrayed her. You men!” She flicked her hand, and a spark of fire flew from it, causing the audience to jump then titter in nervous laughter. “Do not stay out all night drinking and seduce a woman only to leave her to cry alone as you stagger back to the woman you have left at home. La Llarona will find you, and when she does, you may lose more than the cerveza and tequila you have consumed. And you women who steal the hopes and dreams of your sisters, La Llarona will find you, too, and your dreams will turn to ashes in your hand, and your lying lips will taste the blood that drips from La Larona’s knife.” She held up her hand, and we watched mesmerized as blood seemed to appear and drip down her fingers. Behind us a voice screamed, and we all jumped. Another puff of smoke and the stage was empty.
I turned to Jillian. “What did you think—” But she’d disappeared.
“Boy, that brings back memories,” Gabe said behind me.
I turned, surprised to see him standing there. “I didn’t hear you come up. Wasn’t that amazing? Dolores certainly raised our collective blood pressure a notch or two.”
“My grandma Ortiz used to tell about La Llarona. She’d wait until my parents had gone out with my aunts and uncles and she’d tell us kids scary stories. Her version was different, though. It was more along the lines of we’d better obey our parents, or the weeping woman would get us. Hers had seaweed hair and was betrayed by a sea captain. She’d scare the pants off us kids, then warn us not to tell our parents what she’d said. My mother, for the life of her, couldn’t figure out why we’d be too afraid to go to sleep without a light for weeks after visiting California. I think my dad knew, but he never said anything.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “He just let you go on being scared?”
Gabe laughed. “He grew up hearing those stories and he survived. I guess he figured that our fear was nothing compared to the fear he had of being in a fight between his mother and his wife.”
I laughed in agreement. “Smart man.” I looked back at the empty hay bale, wondering about Jillian.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, his senses instantly alert to the perplexed look on my face.
“Jillian was sitting next to me, then she was gone. I guess she must have left during Dolores’s performance. Or right after.”
“So?”
“I don’t know, it bothers me. She and Dolores haven’t been getting along that well, kinda arguing over Ash Stanhill, and then Dolores told this story. Maybe it was a subtle threat to Jillian.”
“I think you’re letting all this spookiness get to you. Reality check, mi corazón.” He tapped my head with his knuckles.
“And what reality might that be, Friday?”
“Two women catfighting over some man that neither will probably want next week.”
I slugged his arm. “Catfighting? That remark is going in your permanent file under sexist remarks. Which, I might add, is getting quite extensive.”
“Oh, no,” he said, feigning horror. “Not my permanent file.”
It was after midnight when Gabe and I got home. Dove had long since gone to bed, though her evening’s activities were still apparent, with three different versions of the Bible and a Bible dictionary spread out on the kitchen table. Rita had, of course, still not come in. Neither had Sam. I’d glimpsed Rita a few times tonight with Ash and a group of people and I’d assumed they’d gone barhopping. That made me think of Jillian again. Just how involved were she and Ash? And how did Dolores fit into the equation? How were they all involved with this? Or were they? Maybe Gabe was right and the spooky stories really were affecting my imagination.
“What time should I set the alarm?” Gabe asked.
“I should be there before ten. Make it eight.” I yawned and crawled under the covers. “I don’t know if I can stay up this late again tomorrow night and still function. I don’t see how Sam and Rita do it.”
“Youth,” Gabe answered, catching my yawn.
Sometime during the early-morning hours, I woke up and with the insomnia brought on by anxiety, couldn’t get back to sleep. The bedside clock read four-fifteen. Next to me, Gabe lay deep in sleep. I eased out of bed and pulled my thick terry robe over my T-shirt. Slinking through the living room where Sam was sleeping, I slipped into the kitchen, closing the door behind me. As I heated a mug of almond milk I sat at the kitchen table and looked over Dove’s books. She and Garnet were apparently heavy into Proverbs now. I glanced at the page in the Bible subject index that Dove had marked lightly with a pencil. She’d made it as far as the K’s. The line she’d copied on notebook paper was under the word Keeps: “Proverbs 17:28—Even a fool is thought wise if she”—(Dove underlined she three times)—“keeps silent, and discerning if she holds her tongue.”
; “Garnet’s gonna love that one,” I muttered. I wondered if it occurred to Dove that the quote could easily be thrown back at her. My eyes traveled down the page, perusing the subject headings. One intrigued me, and I read the four listings under the word.
Key (Keys): “Isaiah 33:6—The fear of the Lord is the key/Revelation 20:1—having the key to the Abyss/Matthew 16:19—I will give you the keys to the kingdom/Revelation 1:18—And I hold the keys of death.”
Keys, I thought, pouring my milk in a mug. I looked down into it, staring at the light reflections in the whiteness. Why did that strike something in me? Keys. What do they do? They unlock things. Actually, they unlock places where people keep things. Things they think are important. Things they want to hide. Things they want to save.
Keys. Then it occurred to me. The Tupperware container of keys I found in the homeless man’s duffel bag. His daily routine. A routine that made me think before that maybe he’d seen something. Or found something. Something he kept. I went outside to the truck and brought the container of keys into the kitchen. There seemed to be at least fifty, maybe more—all shapes and sizes. Staring at them, I drank my milk and wondered if they opened anything of significance. When I crawled back in bed, Gabe stirred.
“Everything all right?” he muttered, curling himself around me.
“Fine,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Keys, I thought drowsily as the warm milk started working. Just before I fell asleep, the last line of the Bible index, the one from Revelation, floated back to me. “I hold the keys of death.”
For one foreboding moment, a tiny icicle of fear pierced my heart.
12
THE NEXT MORNING Dove handed me the Saturday Tribune . “You and Sam made front page.”
I glanced at the article in the lower right hand side. POLICE CHIEF’S WIFE AND SON ATTACKED AT THURSDAY NIGHT FARMERS’ MARKET. Fortunately there was yet another budget crisis going in Washington, so we didn’t make the bold, black headline.
“Has Gabe seen it?” I asked apprehensively.
“Yes, he has,” he answered, walking into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about it.” He opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of grapefruit juice. His casual acceptance of the probably negative article made me suspicious, but I didn’t press it. Maybe he was learning to accept the fact that he and I were destined to be one of San Celina’s more colorful and controversial couples.
“Are you coming to the festival with me?” I asked.
“No, I’m going to work on the thesis-with-no-end,” he said, pouring a glass of juice. “I’ll drop by later on this afternoon. I don’t want you alone after dark.”
On Saturday everything went by without a major hitch. I nervously attended both Peter and Roy’s performances. They kept their word to me and didn’t cause any trouble. Ash and Dolores’s San Celina historical stories were naturally a big hit. They were a wonderful storytelling team, with an instinctive ability to read each other’s cues and follow each other’s rhythms. I was glad that Jillian was at the horse show in Santa Barbara today so she couldn’t see how attractive they looked together. Dolores’s scary story about La Llarona came back to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if sooner or later that little triangle was going to explode. The fact that my cousin Rita was smack dab in the middle of it didn’t make my heart sing. Maybe I should try to hunt Skeeter down and let him know what was going on here.
Maybe you ought to just mind your own business, a little voice said as I walked into my office. Let these people work out their own problems. You’ve got a festival to get through, a household of people to get rid of, and a husband who is teetering on the edge of an emotional abyss. Rita and Skeeter’s love life should be the least of your worries.
Gabe showed up promptly at dusk and tagged after me like a trained guard dog. We left at nine that evening when I found my head lolling toward his shoulder during Roy’s cowboy poetry reading, something I normally would have enjoyed.
I was so tired when we got home I just crawled into bed, gave Gabe a distracted kiss, and went to sleep. I remembered the homeless man’s keys Sunday morning when I was brushing my teeth. I went into the kitchen all primed to tell Gabe about my theory—until I saw the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He stared stonily out the kitchen window. “Nothing.”
“So what are you going to do today? Work on your thesis again?”
He shrugged and continued to stare and sip his coffee.
“So, if you aren’t going to work on your thesis, do you want to come to the festival with me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll be home before dark tonight, right?”
“Sure, don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful.”
“Maybe I’ll take a drive up the coast, then.” He stood up and started toward our bedroom.
“Wish I could go with you,” I called after him. He didn’t answer. Something had to have happened this morning because he’d been fine last night when he’d come to the festival, even cheerful because he’d written five whole pages on his thesis.
Dove came in dressed for church and started closing her Bibles and reference books, stacking them neatly on the kitchen counter.
“Giving up?” I asked hopefully.
“Not by a long shot,” she said. “I’m taking Mac to lunch after church today so I can pick his brain.” Mac-Kenzie Reid, or Mac as he’d always been called, was our minister at First Baptist. A local boy who’d gone away to play football at Baylor and live in Los Angeles for a while, he was now back shepherding the local Baptist flock. In his early forties, he was big as a grizzly bear, widowed, and so handsome that attendance among single women had tripled since he’d arrived.
“Don’t you think that getting a professional involved is cheating?” I asked. “Sort of like using a ringer?”
“Garnet’s been calling Brother Connors back in Sugartree,” Dove protested. “I can tell.”
“You don’t know that.” By the peeved tone of Dove’s voice, I was safely guessing that Garnet was coming up with some zingers. “Maybe she’s just using all your reference books. Heaven knows, you have enough of them, and they’re all at her disposal.”
Dove’s face blanched. I guess she hadn’t thought of that.
“That settles it, then,” she declared. “Going to Mac will even things out. He’s got a computer program. You just punch in a word, and presto, there’s a verse.”
“Then good luck, I guess.” I picked up the Tupperware container of keys I’d left on the counter last night and contemplated them again. Were they significant? I stuck the container in a drawer. No time to think about it today. The time for that was after this festival was over.
“By the way, did something happen with Sam and Gabe before I got up? Gabe’s in a foul mood, and he won’t give me a clue why.”
Dove’s white eyebrows arched. “Could be that Tribune article from yesterday.”
“He was fine with it yesterday. That’s old news now.”
“Apparently someone left him another copy on the kitchen table this morning—parts about Gabe’s incompetence underlined. He saw it before I could throw it out.”
“Someone who is royally pissed at his dad maybe? Next time I see Sam, he’s really going to get it.”
“Stay out of it, honeybun,” Dove said.
“Why should I?”
“Do you remember that bull we had back in the late eighties, the speckled-face one?”
“Sure, King Arthur.”
“Remember his son? The one with the crooked tail?”
“Lancelot. He was a good bull. Kinda wild, but good.”
“Don’t you remember, though, that we always had to keep three pastures between those two? Never saw two bulls so willing to hurt themselves just to get at each other. It’s ’cause their hormones came from the same pot. They both wanted to rule the roost.”
“I think you’re mixing your animal similes, but I get your dr
ift. But the way we solved it was by selling King Arthur to that guy from Kern County. What am I supposed to do here?”
“Wait. Eventually they’ll work out a pecking order they’re comfortable with. Just takes time.”
In this case I knew I should bow to her expertise. “Okay, I’ll back off, but if it’s not resolved soon, it’s the Templeton stock auction for them.”
“They appear to have good bloodlines,” Dove said, winking at me. “Bring a fair price, I imagine.”
Sunday’s storytelling sessions went by without incident. At three o’clock I finally found the time to grab a barbecued chicken dinner and hide in my office for a few minutes. I was chewing a mouthful of coleslaw when the phone rang.
I paused for a moment, swallowing, then said, “Hello. I mean, Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum. Benni Harper speaking.”
“Sounds like you got a mouthful of mush,” Emory said.
“You should talk,” I said, taking a drink of Coke to clear the mayonnaise taste out of my mouth. “Did you find out anything?”
“I’m just fine, sweetcakes, and how are you?”
“Oh, for pete’s sake, Emory, just tell me what you found out.”
“My, my, we’re sounding premenopausal today.”
“Emory—” I warned.
“Just ribbin’ you, cousin. Actually, I couldn’t wait to call. Just talked to Neil and have I got some dirt.” His voice was gleeful over the phone. Part of me was feeling the same kind of surreptitious curiosity that compelled me to read the Tattler every week, but a part of me felt sick, knowing now how much public discussion of a person’s private problems hurts. But if something in Evangeline’s or Ash’s background helped solve these murders, that was the important thing. Nora might have had some truly despicable traits, but that didn’t give someone the right to take her life.
“What did you find out?”
“First, Mr. Ashley Stanhill. Our Mr. Stanhill has been a very, very bad boy. He has quite a few people in Mississippi mighty peeved at him.”
Goose in the Pond Page 25
