Beyond the Grave

by Muller, Marcia

  Luis Cordova's dry-goods store was not yet open when he arrived; a hand-lettered sign bearing the word CERRADO hung on the front. door and was visible from the street. Quincannon turned his horse., came down the opposite side of the block, drew rein in front of the tonsorial parlor. It was open for business, and when he entered, he found a mustachioed barber and no one else—a fact that satisfied him. If anyone knew his neighbors and could be drawn into talking about them, especially when none was around to monitor the conversation, it was a barber. They were a notoriously loquacious breed, no matter what their race or color.

  This barber, once he overcame his surprise at having a well-dressed Americano for a customer, and once he discovered that Quincannon spoke passable Spanish, proved to be no exception to the rule. His name, he said, was Enrico Garcia. And while he trimmed Quincannon's hair and beard he obligingly answered the questions he was asked about Luis Cordova.

  Cordova had operated his dry-goods store at its present location for many years and had lived above it just as long. His widowed and aged mother had lived with him until her death two years ago; he had never married. He was a private man with no close friends in the community, and as such he seldom talked about his background. Garcia thought he had come from the Mexican state of Oaxaca but was not positive. When he spoke of Cordova as a “shrewd businessman,” Quincannon took the opportunity to ask if this meant the storekeeper was perhaps a shade dishonest. Garcia's reaction was one of shock. “Oh no, señor,” he said. “No. Luis is very religious. He would do nothing to offend God.”

  He wouldn't, eh? Quincannon thought. Well, that remains to be proved.

  He presented the barber with a generous tip and departed neatly trimmed and reeking of bay rum but with little more useful information about Luis Cordova than he'd taken in with him. He was of a mind to find out what other neighborhood residents thought of Cordova, but that intention changed when he again rode past the dry-goods store. It was still closed, the CERRADO sign still in place. He halted in front and checked his turnip watch. After eleven. The store should be open by this time; odd that it wasn't. Had Cordova gone somewhere on an errand? Or had he simply gone—on the fly like a thief in the night?

  He dismounted, tied the claybank, and went along the boardwalk to the outside stairs that led to Cordova's rooms above. He waited until a pedestrian and wagon passed and no others were in sight, then climbed the stairs quickly. The branches of the olive tree hung in thick profusion over the landing, so that he was half-hidden among them as he rapped on the door.

  There was no answer. He waited for a time and then tried the latch; the door opened under his hand. A sudden feeling of wrong-ness came to him, followed by a bunching of the muscles in his shoulders and back. He drew his Navy revolver and pushed the door all the way open, holding the pistol up close to his chest.

  It looked as though a small whirlwind had been unleashed inside the adobe-walled interior, leaving havoc in its wake. Tables and chairs were overturned; a small oil painting of the Last Supper had been ripped from one wall, a wooden crucifix hung askew on another; shards of broken glass and pottery littered the floor. A kerosene lamp on the mantel above a cold fireplace burned feebly, indicating that there was little fuel remaining in the fount.

  Quincannon stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. The rooms were silent except for street noises that filtered in from outside. A pair of bead-curtained archways led to other rooms, one to his left adjacent to the fireplace, the other in the wall directly ahead. He chose the far one first, crossed to it on a zigzag course to avoid stepping on the broken glass and pottery. The beads clicked like the joints of a skeleton when he passed through them.

  More havoc had been wrought here, in what appeared to be Cordova's bedroom. Down pillows had been slashed with a knife, spilling feathers that clung to every surface. The mattress had been ripped open to expose its straw entrails. Even some of the bed's leather springs had been hacked through, as if in a frenzy. Bureau drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped onto the floor. The door to an old scarred wardrobe stood open, revealing a ragbag cluster of torn and wadded clothing within.

  For a moment Quincannon stood narrow-eyed, studying this room as he had studied the other; then he backed out, made his way to the second bead-curtained archway. The room beyond, at the rear, was the largest of the three, covering the entire width of the building. It was semidark in there—rattan blinds covered its plate-glass windows—but Quincannon could tell that it was used as a study. He could also tell that it had been ransacked as thoroughly as the other two.

  He moved to the nearest of the windows, edged the blind aside, and looked out. A shed, an outhouse, the rear yard and rear wall of a building on the next block—and no people within the range of his vision. He used the drawstring to raise the blind and admit enough light for him to see more clearly.

  The room contained a desk, two overturned chairs, an ironbound steamer trunk with its lid open and some of its contents pulled out, a battered refectory table, and a fireplace with the still-smoldering embers of a wood fire on the hearth. Papers were strewn everywhere, along with ledgers and old books and a dozen other items. All the drawers in the desk had been removed and emptied and thrown into a broken pile in one corner. Quincannon started over to the desk, walking carefully—and then stopped after half a dozen paces, when the angle at which he was moving allowed him to see more of the space behind the desk.

  The body of a man lay there, half twisted on his back, eyes open and bulging slightly so that they had the look of small boiled onions in the dim light. Luis Cordova hadn't flown anywhere in the night. He would never fly anywhere again.

  Scowling now, Quincannon holstered his weapon and went around the desk, knelt alongside the dead man. There were marks on Cordova's throat, gouged half-moons where his assailant's nails had dug into the flesh; but strangulation, Quincannon judged, had not been the cause of death. There was blood in the storekeeper's hair, blood on the floor under his head: a shattered skull, like as not from a repeated pummeling against the floorboards.

  The fingers of Cordova's right hand were closed into a fist, and between two of them a ragged triangle of paper was visible. Quincannon caught hold of the hand, found it limp and cold—confirming his suspicion that the man had been dead since last night, at least a dozen hours. He pulled the fingers apart, removed the tiny scrap of paper. He was about to straighten up with it when he noticed something else: a small, shiny piece of metal on the floor near one of the corpse's legs. He picked this up and then returned to the window, where the light was better, to examine both it and the paper scrap.

  The piece of metal was half an inch long, slender, conical in shape, and hollow. He had no idea what it was—and yet, it seemed oddly and vaguely familiar. He studied it for several seconds, still could not identify it, and finally slipped it into his coat pocket. He gave his attention to the torn scrap.

  It appeared to be the bottom edge of a letter or some other document—quite an old one, judging from the age-yellowed condition of the paper. It contained six complete words, all Spanish, written in a crabbed and perhaps hasty hand, for the letters were ink-smudged and not well-formed. On one line were four words, on the other, two—what appeared to be the last two lines of a page.

  más aliá del sepulcro

  donde Maria

  Quincannon's scowl was now as ferocious as Chief of Police Vandermeer's. He put the scrap into the same pocket as the piece of metal and then, methodically, he set about gathering up and examining all the papers scattered on the floor. It took him more than an hour, and there was tension and frustration in him when he finished. The letter or document from which the scrap had been torn was no longer here, which meant that it was now in the possession of Luis Cordova's murderer. There was no question in Quincannon's mind that it was a vital document.

  But his search had not been completely fruitless. He thought he knew now who had written the missing document, and why; and he thought he knew, too,
how the statue of the Virgin Mary had come into Luis Cordova's possession. Several letters and an inscription in the Cordova family Bible had given him those answers.

  Luis Cordova had not been born in Oaxaca, Mexico; he had been born on Rancho Rinconada de los Robles, in the year 1840. His father and mother had both been in the employ of Don Esteban, and the family had lived at the rancho's pueblo. Luis and his mother had fled to Santa Barbara the day before the siege by Fremont's troops, with the other women and children. His father, Tomás, had stayed behind to fight—and to die. It seemed clear now that Tomás Cordova had helped Don Esteban and Padre Urbano secrete the artifacts; it also seemed clear that he was not as trustworthy as they had considered him to be. He had managed to steal the statue of the Virgin Mary and to pass it on to his wife before she and Luis fled. And he had written down for her the location of the remaining artifacts, so that she or Luis might someday return for them. It was this document that was now in the murderer's hands.

  But there were still unanswered questions. Had Tomás Cordova's wife returned for the cache of artifacts? Or had Luis, when he was old enough? And if they hadn't, for reasons of their own, were the artifacts still in their original hiding place, waiting to be carried away by the man who had killed Luis?

  And who was that man? Who had the missing document?

  Quincannon continued to scowl. He did not like cases involving murder. Nor was he fond of complex mysteries, as adept as he often was at solving them. Cerebral detection might be child's play for Sherlock Holmes; for John Frederick Quincannon it was damned hard work.

  He tucked half a dozen personal letters into his coat pocket for future reference. Then, cautiously, he let himself out of the rooms, pausing among the olive branches to make certain there was no one on the boardwalk or street below before descending. The few people in the vicinity seemed to pay him no attention as he went to his horse, mounted, turned away from the dry-goods store.

  Más aliá del sepulcro, he was thinking. Donde Maria. What was the significance of those two phrases? They were key phrases, he was sure, to the location of the original hiding place of the artifacts—perhaps so vital that without them, the person who had stolen the document would not be able to determine the exact location. Donde Maria. Where Maria. Where Maria what? Who was Maria?

  As he rode back toward the center of town, the first phrase began to haunt him—to repeat itself in his mind in a kind of macabre litany.

  Más aliá del sepulcro.

  Beyond the grave.

  PART V

  1986

  ONE

  Más aliá del sepulcro. Dondé Maria.

  The words repeated in my mind as they must have in John Quincannon's. They echoed as I waited in the strange motel bed for sleep to come. They haunted my troubled dreams. The dreams were peopled by the vague figures of Felipe Velasquez, Luis Cordova, James Evans, Bamaby O'Hare, and Oliver Witherspoon, who spoke and moved and did various things, although I couldn't really see them. The only person who appeared perfectly clear to me was John Quincannon.

  I could visualize him: a big man, maybe bearded, with a slightly ruddy complexion, possibly from a fond indulgence in drink. And I could hear him talking over the events that had transpired, speculating on what their significance might be in a low, contemplative voice. By the time the fog-filtered morning light had crept around the poorly fitting motel curtains, Quincannon and I had had quite a talk.

  Who had killed Luis Cordova? And what was the meaning of más aliá del sepulcro and dondé Maria? Had Quincannon found out?

  I continued mulling over these questions as I drove north toward Santa Barbara. I'd waited until most of the rush hour traffic had cleared before I'd started, but even so, it was slow traveling until I was past Van Nuys. The delay didn't bother me as much as it normally would have, however; I had other things to occupy my mind.

  I was terribly disappointed that this second section of Quincannon's report had also ended abruptly. Had still more of it survived? And if so, where was it? Of one thing I was certain: If the report had survived to the present day, I would find it one way or another.

  At Thousand Oaks, the freeway widened, and I put on speed as I began to descend the Conejo Grade. My attention began to wander further and further from my driving, and I resumed my imaginary dialogue with Quincannon. We discussed the problem of what he and I should do next all the way to Ventura, and it was only when I had to slam on my brakes for a slowdown caused by a closed lane that I realized how strange my internal conversation sounded—even to me.

  The truth was, I'd developed an eerie connection to a man who had probably been dead for forty years or more. I wasn't viewing Quincannon or his long-ago investigation as something out of a history book. Instead I was living it along with the detective, at the same time that I was driving on this twentieth-century freeway. I could speak mentally with him, almost see and touch him. It was almost as if John Quincannon were trying to reach out of the past and tell me something.

  The thought made me feel strange and a little frightened. I tried to laugh it off, blame it on my heritage from my superstitious ancestors. When that didn't work, I turned the car radio on to a country-and-western station—I'd developed a fondness for that kind of music after a trip last summer to Bakersfield, the self-proclaimed country-and-western capital of California—and tried to take my mind off 1894 by singing along to songs about present-day heartbreak and drunkenness the rest of the way to Santa Barbara.

  When I arrived in town, it was time to visit Mama, so I drove directly to the hospital. I'd called her the night before from the motel, and she'd been somewhat short with me. I hoped she'd be in a better mood this morning, and when I first entered her room, it seemed my wish had been granted. She was on the phone, but she ended the conversation quickly and looked up at me with a smile.

  “That was Tía Constanza,” she said.

  “Funny, I was just thinking about her yesterday. How is she?”

  “Not so good. Tom is coming out of prison next week, and she doesn't know what to do with him.”

  “Is he going to live with her?”

  “For a while, she says.”

  “So why does she have to do anything with him? Tom's an adult. He needs a place to stay and a job, not a lot of mothering.”

  Mama glared at me. “You are all alike, aren't you? You think you're so grown-up and wise, but you're really just children inside.”

  I proved her point by shrugging sullenly, but at the same time I felt a bit of relief. That glare told me Mama was getting better.

  “So,” she said after a moment, “why did you go to Santa Monica?”

  I didn't want to go into the subject of Quincannon and his report right now. If I got started, I might confess about the odd relationship I'd developed with a dead man, and the last thing I needed was my practical, hardheaded mother telling me I was loca. “Museum business,” I said.

  “What? I thought you were on vacation.”

  “I am, sort of.”

  “I thought you were going to use the week to relax and spend some time with Dave and see about getting the house painted.”

  I was silent, fingering the Venetian blind cord on the window next to me.

  “Well? You know if you don't get that house painted, you could have serious problems. The last time it was done was in 1968. Another winter with the kind of rains we've been having, and you'll see moss growing on it, and next you'll have to replace the stucco—”

  “I'll call a couple of painters today.”

  “I thought you already had an estimate.”

  “That was over a year ago. Prices have probably gone up. And besides, I'm not sure it was the cheapest one I could have gotten—”

  “Cheapest is not always best. What about Dave?”

  “What?”

  “How come he hasn't been to see me?”

  The pathways that my mother's mind follows are twisted and impossible to chart. Suddenly I felt weary and went to sit on the chair by
the bed.

  “Well,” Mama said, “did you have a fight or what?”

  “We didn't have a fight. It's just that.…” I stopped, feeling trapped by the web of motherhood that they weave and throw over you. “Dave and I broke up.”

  Mama's brow knit. “Broke up? You broke up with him?”

  “He broke up with me.”

  “Por Dios, por qué?” When Mama gets upset, she usually starts speaking in Spanish.

  “He said it wasn't working out. I don't know why.”

  Mama became silent, picking at the border of the blanket with her fingernails. Then she said, in English again, “I think that should be pretty clear to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, take a good look at the two of you. Dave's an Anglo—”

  “Mama, you're the only one who thinks that's a problem.”

  She went on as if I hadn't spoken. “And he was raised different from you. He's from a nice middle-class Anglo family, and they never had trouble making ends meet. He expects different things from life than you do.”

  “That's not true!”

  She sighed. “Oh, Elena, you were always fighting over those differences.”

  “We were not!”

  “Think about it.” Mama held up her hand and began to tick items off on her fingers. “Last winter when you went away for five days: You wanted to go to San Francisco, see some shows, eat in some new restaurants. Why? Because those were the things we never could afford to do when you were growing up. But Dave is used to shows and nice restaurants; instead he wanted to go skiing, which is something no Oliverez has ever considered doing. You went to San Francisco, but not until you'd had a terrible battle. And I have a feeling neither of you had much fun. Then, a few months ago, he bought some expensive camera equipment. Remember? You said you thought it was extravagant and unnecessary. So he turned around and told you that he thought your buying the Candelario cloud sculpture to go with the sun face was stupid. You didn't speak for days after that.”