The Turquoise Mask

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “What is it?” I whispered. “Clarita won’t hurt us out here. All we have to do is stand up to her. There isn’t any gun this time.”

  “I know, but now I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m terribly afraid. Amanda, while you were changing your clothes, I went into Clarita’s room and read the pages of Katy’s diary. I had to read about that baby in her own words. But then I read farther. I read about the day of the picnic.”

  “I didn’t get to that,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t matter. I know because I confronted Clarita there in her room. But she’s beaten now. She can’t hurt us. Let’s go out and—”

  Eleanor pulled me back roughly. “Wait—I’ll look. Stay here. Stay down.”

  She crept to the lip of the cave, where she could look out and down the trail. Then she scrambled hastily back to me.

  “Now we know the enemy,” she said. “It’s not we who are in danger, Amanda. It’s you. Only you. Keep quiet. Don’t make a sound.”

  For a moment or two I lay beside her as still as she wished. But I couldn’t believe what she said, and if I was careful I could see out for myself nearer the lip of the cave. I could hear someone moving about on the trail below, hear a murmur of voices. Then footsteps went past, and I crept closer to the edge in order to look over. Behind me Eleanor caught hold of my foot, tried to pull me back. But I was close to the ladder now and I wrenched away. The small struggle dislodged a chip of rock and sent it skittering over the edge to the stone path below.

  That alarmed me, and I too lay still, listening. There was no sound at all. Behind me Eleanor, perhaps shocked by the clatter of the falling stone, was equally still and her hand was no longer on my foot. After a moment I crept to the top of the ladder and looked down. Looked down upon Kirk’s white sombrero that was rising toward me up the ladder. Before I could move back, the rolled brim tilted to reveal the face beneath, and I stared directly into the turquoise slits of a blue mask.

  In the flood of terror that followed, I tried to slide backward into the depth of the cave. But the blue mask, thrust toward me, was coming up the ladder, evilly intent beneath the brim of the white sombrero.

  In an instant everything flashed back from that other time, and I cried out, knowing the truth, remembering that day on the hillside, remembering the loved face, and the gun that had spat death for Kirk Landers. Remembering Doroteo struggling, trying to save Kirk as she fought her father, then losing her own balance, falling down the bank to lie dead in the arroyo.

  All this in a moment of memory.

  Behind me Eleanor cried out. “No, Grandfather, no!”

  The man on the ladder snatched off sombrero and mask and I looked down upon that fierce falcon’s head—and the face of death. One thin hand thrust out to clasp my arm and hold me there.

  “So you have remembered everything—and you have destroyed everything for me. You have injured me with my daughter’s daughter. Because of you she must know what should never have been known. It is the end.”

  I saw the upward flash, saw the dagger in his right hand, and tried to roll away from him. But his grasp held me with a madman’s strength. There was no way to escape that upheld blade. Then Eleanor was upon me, pushing me, rolling me aside in the instant that the knife rose to its height and came swiftly down, tearing into human flesh. There was blood again, and I was sharply aware of the figure on the ladder—Juan Cordova’s terrible face looking up at us for an instant before he teetered and fell backward on the rock below. In the same instant. I saw Clarita coming back from one end of the trail, and Gavin running toward us from the other.

  But only Eleanor concerned me now—her soft moaning, and that bloody wound in her shoulder. My sister, who had saved me. Clarita came past Juan and up the ladder to kneel beside us. At once she ripped off Eleanor’s cotton blouse and used the unstained part of it to stanch the blood. Gavin was bending over Juan Cordova on the path.

  “Eleanor will be all right,” Clarita told him. “You must go and phone for an ambulance.”

  Gavin stood up. “Juan is dead. I’ll go to the Center and phone at once.”

  When he’d gone, I spoke to Clarita. “Eleanor saved me. But now I remember it all. It was Juan who shot Kirk. But I still don’t understand why.”

  Clarita answered me evenly, without emotion. “It is time for the truth. Now you must know. There must be an end to hating. It is not your fault, though I too have hated you. When Kirk came back to Santa Fe and learned that Doro had borne his child, he threatened to go to William Austin with the whole story unless Doro ran away with him. She came to meet him on the hillside that day to tell him she would not, even if he ruined her marriage. But she told her father first of Kirk’s threat. Juan was in a rage, and he took a gun from Mark Brand’s room and came along the hillside to threaten Kirk. His anger was so great, and when Kirk laughed at him, he shot and killed him. Doro fell while she was struggling with him to get the gun away.”

  “I know,” I said and heard my own choked voice as though it were someone else’s. “Did you see it from that window after all?”

  “No. I was away from the house, where Paul saw me. But afterwards Juan called me to his room and told me what I must say. He told me that not even Katy was to know the truth. But mother was too wise for that. He did not tell her, but she forced the truth from me. She had to go along with my story to save her husband, and she never let him know she knew until she was dying. However, she had written it all down in her diary, so as to keep a record. After you came I went out to the rancho to get those pages and hide them from you.”

  “Why didn’t you destroy them?”

  She gazed at me coldly. “Because it was necessary to hold something over my father’s head. He ruled me, and I bowed to him because he threatened to disinherit Eleanor—who was like my own child—if I did not do as he wished.”

  “And the whip?” I said. “That time in the patio? And the brass figure in the store?”

  “He wanted to drive you away. You were becoming too dangerous, and to him you were not Doro’s firstborn—Eleanor was. He feared to have her learn the truth of her birth and discover that he had killed her real father and caused her mother’s death. Eleanor was the only one he loved left alive. It was he who made sounds that would lure you into the patio that night where he could use the whip, and then pretended the attack upon himself. I drove him to the store that other night, and he went inside alone, looking for you. And found you. But it was I—because he ordered it—who brought him the whip and the Pentitente figure. I who placed Doña Sebastiana in your bed. I too wanted you to go away. It would have been better for you as well as for my father. Yet the real guilt lay in the past, and not with you.”

  I looked down at my grandfather where he lay with that fierce visage turned upward toward the sky. Beside him lay the sombrero and the turquoise mask. I went down the ladder and picked up the hat to lay it gently over that unguarded face.

  “Why did he bring the hat and the mask here?” I asked Clarita. “And the dagger?”

  “He wanted to frighten Paul so that he would stay away from Eleanor. My father was always given to the dramatic. He knew Paul would remember those things from that other time on the hillside. And the dagger would threaten him. But when I saw you above us in the trail, he was not far behind and he saw you too. So he used his masquerade in another way.”

  I pressed my hands over my face and began to weep softly into them. I wept for us all, and because of my lost, foolish dream of finding a family. Surprisingly, Clarita put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Pobrecita,” she said. “Do not cry. It is over now.”

  I took my hands away from my wet face. “But you—you seemed to grow stronger, even today.”

  “As he grew weaker, he began to fear me more. When he saw that bonnet you brought from Madrid, I thought I could control him. It reminded him of all I could tell if I chose. I was wrong. Much of this is my fault—because I did not speak out and stop him.”

  Eleanor had lain weak a
nd silent, listening to us, making no sound, and now she reached for Clarita’s hand. “It doesn’t matter that Doro and Kirk were my parents. You are my true mother.”

  Clarita bent to caress her as though she had been a child, and there were tears in her eyes.

  The park men came with two stretchers, and Juan and Eleanor were carried back to the Center to await an ambulance. Clarita followed them. Gavin and I waited until they were gone. Then Gavin bent to pick up the blue mask.

  “What shall we do with this?” he asked.

  I took it from him. Stepping to the edge of the trail, I flung it out into a growth of cactus and chamiso far below. When it had fallen out of sight, I put my arm through his and we walked back to the Center together. I never wanted to see that mask again.

  Paul was waiting for us, and his eyes were alive with excitement. He had his story now—the full, lush story that would make his book. Or so he thought. Later that evening Sylvia ended his dream. She told him quietly that she would leave him for good if he used one word of the Cordova story in his writing, ever. And Paul did not want to lose Sylvia. She had known about Doro’s baby, known who Eleanor was, but Sylvia had always feared that Paul might have shot Kirk, and she was terrified lest this come out. She could see Paul playing with fire in writing his book, though perhaps disguising his role even further. She thought that if Clarita had guessed, she might have protected Paul out of old affection.

  When the ambulance had gone ahead, and Clarita, Eleanor, and Paul were gone on their separate ways, Gavin and I followed in his car. I lay weakly back in the seat with my eyes closed until I felt the car stop. When I opened them I saw we were at a lookout point and that the bare opposite wall of the canyon stood up with all its stark striations markedly visible in the intense New Mexico light.

  There was no need for words. Gavin’s arm held me with my head against his shoulder. The sun had shone on all my terror for the last time. But it would be a long while before I would forget that moment when I had looked down into the eyes of the turquoise mask.

  A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney

  Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”

  Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.

  Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.

  In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).

  After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.

  In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.

  Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commercial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.

  Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961) and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.

  Whitney continued writing throughout the rest of her life, still traveling to the locations for each of her novels until she was ninety-four years old. She released her final novel, the touching and thrilling Amethyst Dreams, in 1997. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104. She left behind a vibrant catalog of seventy-six titles that continue to inspire, setting an unparalleled precedent for mystery writing.

  A young Whitney playing with her doll in Japan.

  Whitney with her family in Japan, where they lived for approximately six years. From left: Lillian (Lilly) Whitney, Charles (Charlie) Whitney, Phyllis Whitney, and Philip (Whitney’s half-brother).

  Thirteen-year-old Whitney dancing in the Philippines.

  Twenty-one-year-old Whitney at her graduation from McKinley High School in 1924.

  Whitney worked at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. She was pregnant with her daughter, Georgia, at the time.

  Frederick Nelson Litten, Whitney’s mentor in writing and teaching, in Chicago, 1935.

  Whitney’s first publicity photo for A Place for Ann, 1941.

  Whitney, forty-eight, in her first study in Fort Hill Circle at her Staten Island house, where she lived with second husband Lovell Jahnke, 1951.

  Whitney at sixty-nine years old with Jahnke in their home in Hope, New Jersey, 1972. Behind them hangs a Japanese embroidery made by Whitney’s mother.

  Whitney at seventy-one years of age with Pat Myer, her long time editor, and Mable Houvenagle, her sister-in-law, at her house on Chapel Ave in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York, 1974. After her husband died in 1973, she lived close to her daughter, Georgia, on Long Island.

  Whitney at eighty-one years old on a helicopter ride over Maui, Hawaii, to research the backdrop for her novel Silversword, 1984.

  Whitney giving her acceptance speech for her Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985.

  Whitney rode in a hot-air balloon in 1988 to use the experience for her novel Rainbow in the Mist.

  Whitney ascending in the hot-air balloon, 1988.

  Whitney in her study in Virginia in 1996 at ninety-three years old, looking over her “Awards Corner,” which included three
Edgars, the Agatha, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.

  Whitney at ninety-six years old with her family in her house in Virgina, 1999. From left: Michael Jahnke (grandson), Georgia Pearson (daughter), Matthew Celentano (great-grandson), Whitney, and Danny Celentano (great-grandson).

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1974 by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Cover design by Mimi Bark

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-4384-7

  This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10038

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  PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY

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