by Paula Paul
Accessories to Die For is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Alibi Ebook Original
Copyright © 2017 by Paula Paul
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9781101968475
Cover Illustration: Art Parts
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Paula Paul
About the Author
Prologue
The sounds were elongated, melancholy, haunting. A flute singing in harmony with the wind, notes wafting across the mesa in the juniper-scented twilight.
Danny Calabaza gave the flute its voice as he sat on a low hill that was sparsely carpeted with the brown and white grass of his tribal land. He had crafted the instrument himself from a piece of cedar wood in the manner of his grandfathers—hollowed from a branch, not split and glued together as some men did now. He’d pulled the sweet-smelling red heart from the branch and replaced it with a little of his own heart each time he played the instrument. Now, the voice of the flute spoke the language of the gods and the ancestors.
The song that drifted from the flute was a mournful song. It was a song Danny didn’t consciously control. It came unbidden, an involuntary lamentation for Danny’s troubled and frightened spirit.
Soon he would die.
It wasn’t death that troubled and frightened him, though. It was something that he had done a few weeks earlier. He had done something to separate himself from his family, his tribe, his ancestors, his gods.
Something made him turn and see that a shadowy form had materialized behind him. He feared that death had arrived. Sooner than he had expected.
Chapter 1
Juanita was one of at least twenty-five Native Americans seated in a single row in front of Santa Fe’s Palace of the Governors. Her body was there on the plaza, selling her handcrafted jewelry, but her spirit had wandered away to the high mesa of Kewa, the pueblo that was her home and the home of her ancestors for at least a thousand years.
Her spirit searched for the spirit of her son. He was Danny Calabaza, the flute player who had disappeared a week ago. Sometimes the music of his flute came to her at night when she was between sleep and wakefulness. Sometimes it came to her when she walked alone on the mesa. Danny said his music was meant as medicine to heal broken spirits, but when the music came to her, it would not heal her spirit because it would not tell her where he was.
She could hear the flute now, somewhere in the distance, somewhere on another level of existence. Maybe it would tell her this time. Maybe it would—
The music stopped suddenly. A voice had interrupted.
“How much is that one?” The voice belonged to a woman standing over her. Juanita saw the slender tan legs first as she came out of her trance. She looked up to see straight blond hair and blue eyes that were encircled with too much makeup. The woman was pointing a well-manicured finger to a Native American heishi necklace that was part of the display of Juanita’s work on the blanket in front of her.
Juanita picked up the six-strand necklace and held it up for the woman. “One thousand four hundred dollars,” she said.
“Good Lord! I could buy a diamond necklace for that much.”
Juanita nodded slowly, but she did not speak.
“Oh my, that is truly a lovely piece!” Juanita recognized the voice of the speaker this time. It was Irene Seligman, who owned the consignment clothing store on the plaza, less than a block away from the Palace of the Governors. The store was called Irene’s Closet, and she sold designer clothing brought in by Santa Fe’s elite.
The blond tourist turned around to look at Irene.
“I’ve coveted that piece for a long time,” Irene said. “It’s handcrafted, you know.”
The tourist rolled her eyes. “They all say that, but how do we know—”
“Even those tiny turquoise beads are handmade, and they’re strung on strings made from the sinew of deer in exactly the same way her ancestral mothers did it a thousand years ago.”
The woman’s blue eyes widened. “Really? A thousand years ago?”
“Oh, yes,” Irene said. “She’s of the Kewa people, one of the most conservative pueblos in the country. They are intent on keeping their ancient traditions.”
The woman took another look at the necklace and took it from Juanita when she offered it again. “It’s really authentic, huh?”
“And one of a kind,” Irene said. “If you buy it, that means I won’t ever be able to…Well, never mind.” Irene turned and walked away.
“Will you take a thousand dollars?” the woman asked.
“Thirteen,” Juanita said.
Within a few minutes she had sold the necklace for twelve hundred dollars. Juanita used her mobile phone to complete the credit card transaction and handed the woman a receipt. By then it was time to pick up her wares and relinquish her spot to Marcela Aquino.
“Are the sales good today?” Marcela asked.
“No,” Juanita said. “It was a slow day.” She spoke to Marcela in Spanish because Marcela was from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and spoke the Tewa dialect. Juanita spoke Keres. Spanish was their common language, along with English. Juanita told Marcela the sales had not been good because she didn’t want the girl to feel bad in case she made no sales. Marcela was young, maybe no more than twenty. She sold paintings of scenes from her pueblo and worked nights at her tribe’s casino as a waitress.
Marcela knew about Danny’s disappearance, as most people did, since it had been in the Santa Fe newspaper and on television. Neither of the two women mentioned it, however. Marcela busied herself with setting up her display, and Juanita carried the suitcase containing her jewelry with her as she made her way up the plaza toward the store known as Irene’s Closet.
—
Irene was standing in front of her store, staring out the front window at the grassy plaza across the street. There wasn’t much happening at the moment—not a single customer in her store, not many people on the streets, nothing going on in the plaza except Jimmy Holland, a drug addict, asleep on the grass, probably stoned out of his mind. Angel, the young man she’d hired a few months ago to help her in the store, was in the back, sorting through some of the consignment merchandise that still needed to be checked for flaws. Angel was a true asset to her business. He was a native Santa Fean and pronounced his name the Hispanic way—Awn-hel.
Out on the plaza, Irene saw Juanita walk toward Jimmy and speak to him. Jimmy sat up, rubbed his eyes, and said something to Juanita. Irene’s best guess was that Juanita was asking Jimmy if he’d seen or heard from Danny. They hu
ng out together sometimes, much to Juanita’s consternation. She didn’t like Danny associating with the drug crowd. Irene continued to watch as Juanita left Jimmy and walked across the street toward Irene’s Closet.
“Thank you,” Juanita said as soon as she entered the door and before Irene could speak. “You helped me make that sale.”
Irene shrugged. “What are friends for?”
“Did you really want that necklace?”
“Of course. I love everything you make,” Irene said.
“I didn’t know,” Juanita said with a sad look in her eyes. “I would have given you a good deal if you had said something.”
“I know,” Irene said, “but you don’t have to do that. One of these days I’ll be able to buy something from you and pay the full price you deserve.”
Juanita studied Irene’s face for a second, but she said nothing before she turned away, headed for the door. She stopped and turned around when Irene called her name.
“Are you all right?” Irene asked.
Juanita didn’t speak.
“Of course you’re not all right. Danny’s still missing.”
Juanita gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
“And you still haven’t heard anything?”
Juanita looked away.
Irene understood the woman’s reluctance to speak in a place as public as her store. Juanita, like most of her tribe, was an exceptionally private person.
“Come with me. Let’s have some coffee,” Irene said, gesturing toward the back of the store.
Juanita hesitated a moment, then followed Irene to the back. She was a short woman, only a few inches over five feet, with a plump figure and hair the color of polished obsidian. She wore her hair long, falling to the middle of her back but pulled from her face on the sides and secured with a turquoise clasp. Her face was smooth and ageless, but Irene knew she was in her mid-forties.
Irene poured two cups of coffee from the pot Angel brewed fresh every morning. She took cream from a small refrigerator and set it next to the sugar bowl she kept on the table she and Angel used for their breaks.
Juanita stirred swirls of cream in her coffee for several seconds before she spoke. “I have a bad feeling about Danny.”
“I assume the police are still looking for him,” Irene said.
Juanita shrugged. “They say they are.” There was a long pause before she spoke again. “I’m afraid for him. It’s because of those drugs.”
“I know,” Irene said. She’d known Danny Calabaza for a few years. He was a gentle young man and a talented musician who often drove his mother to and from the exhibit area in front of the ancient Palace of the Governors. He was always polite and always attentive to his mother. Until recently, Danny was the last person Irene would have thought to be associated with drugs. She hadn’t considered it until she saw him making an exchange with Jimmy Holland a week earlier. She’d recognized the other young man with him, a heavily tattooed man Angel had once pointed out to her. She didn’t know his real name, but his gang name was Ironman. He was associated with the Capitolista gang, a group Angel had once been close to, although he denied he’d ever been a true member.
Juanita nodded. “I know he uses them. I know he runs around with the people who sell them. Bad people. They wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him.”
“You told the police about that?” Irene asked.
Juanita nodded. “I told them. They even questioned some people they thought Danny might be buying from. But nothing. Danny is still gone, and I’m afraid for him.”
Irene pushed her coffee back with a worried sigh. “You have a right to be. People in that culture can be dangerous. How long has Danny been using?”
“Not long,” Juanita said. “Maybe a few months. That’s when I noticed a change in him. I even confronted him. He didn’t lie to me. He admitted he’d been using, but he swore he would stop. Now it’s too late.”
“Maybe not,” Irene said. “Don’t give up hope yet.” In spite of her attempt to encourage Juanita, Irene knew how little hope there probably was. Before she came back home to Santa Fe a year ago to help her mother, she had been an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, serving as a criminal prosecutor. It had given her occasion to get to know people on both sides of the drug culture, and she’d seen too many young lives ruined by it, and even more tragically, lives lost to the violence that came with it. She had left her legal career behind with some reluctance when her mother called, but she’d become reconciled to it and had told herself that at least she was leaving some of the corruption and violence of the big city behind her. Fat chance. She’d since realized that people can find and cause trouble anywhere.
“No, I won’t give up. Not yet,” Juanita said. “I know he’s out there somewhere. I can feel him calling to me.”
“Good,” Irene said, although she had no idea whether Juanita’s perception was good or not. Maybe it was wrong to give a person false hope.
“Tony did a ceremony. He said Danny’s spirit had not gone to the ancestors,” Juanita said, as if to explain her conviction. She looked down at her hands as she spoke. Tony was Anthony Tonorio, the tribal medicine man, who was also a CPA in Santa Fe and commuted to his office every day from Kewa Pueblo.
“That’s encouraging,” Irene said, hoping it was. Her knowledge of Pueblo Indian spiritual beliefs was limited, except that she knew they were a mixture of traditional beliefs and the Catholicism brought by Franciscan friars in the sixteenth century. She also knew that traditional tribal belief was that life after death meant that the dead joined the tribe’s ancestors, who sometimes visited in the form of rain clouds. If Tony believed Danny wasn’t with the ancestors, that meant he believed the boy was still alive. She didn’t ask about the nature of the ceremony that revealed Danny’s condition. It was considered bad manners to pry, especially if the questioner was not Native American.
“Tony says he is with the Frenchman,” Juanita said.
“Excuse me, did you say Frenchman?”
Juanita nodded. “They want to steal the past from us.”
Irene frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand. This Frenchman, is he one of the drug dealers or—”
Juanita shook her head. “Not drugs. Antiques. Our tribal officials say they are the ones who stole our ancient pots and the sacred necklace. Acoma Pueblo had a sacred shield stolen. They sell them at big auctions in France.”
Irene remembered reading something several months ago in the local newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, about Native American artifacts sold in Europe. A coalition of Native Americans had traveled to Europe to try to get governments to intervene. How had that turned out? She couldn’t remember. She’d been too busy with her store to follow the story as closely as she might have. That was something she regretted. Irene had always been an avid newspaper reader, unwilling to rely solely on sound bites from TV newscasts. Her new role as a retail entrepreneur had its demands and kept her too busy to stay on top of news stories as much as she’d like.
“I read something about that sometime back,” Irene said. “I read about the group that went to Europe to protest the auctions, but I don’t know how it turned out.”
Juanita nodded. “Our war chief went with them. So far they haven’t accomplished much.”
Irene had grown up in Santa Fe and had a vague idea of the makeup of Native American Pueblo governments, so the term war chief didn’t surprise her. Kewa’s council maintained its ancient structure, although the war chief’s duties had changed to administrative responsibilities. However, none of the numerous Pueblo tribes that dotted the banks of the Rio Grande had ever been particularly warlike. Their main concern had been defense. Historically, they had defended their villages against marauding Apache bands and plundering tribes from the Great Plains. Later it was the conquistadores from Spain who wanted to steal their culture, take their crops, and convert them to Christianity. The war chief had been the defensive leader.
Now it seemed an old threat ha
d returned in a different form. Their culture was still in danger of being stolen.
“I hate to admit it, but I don’t remember whether or not the artifacts were ever returned,” Irene said.
Juanita shook her head to indicate no, but she didn’t elaborate.
Irene watched Juanita’s face and saw the sadness there. She moved her eyes away and looked into the distance at nothing in particular for a brief moment. “I’m sorry,” she said when she turned her eyes back. “But tell me, what does all of this have to do with Danny?”
“Danny is the one who stole the sacred necklace.”
Irene could only stare at Juanita. She was too surprised to speak.
“Yes,” Juanita whispered. “I know he’s the one.”
“But why? To get money for drugs?”
Juanita shook her head. “I don’t know, but I hope not.”
“Do you think he needed money for another reason?” Irene asked. “Maybe he was being bribed to keep his drug use quiet, or…” Irene stopped speaking when she saw the look on Juanita’s face.
“Maybe you’re right,” Juanita said. “Maybe he did it for drug money. Maybe he’s being bribed. All I know is that he took the necklace.”
“How could you know that?” Irene asked. “Unless you saw—”
“I saw him with it,” Juanita said. “Saw him hand it to the Frenchman. I waited for Danny to come back home so I could confront him with what he’d done. But he never came back. Now I think the Frenchman must die.”
“What do you mean, he must die?” Irene asked.
Juanita’s response was to shake her head sorrowfully and leave the store.
Juanita’s words haunted Irene. It wasn’t like her to say anyone had to die. She was still thinking about it when Angel flipped over the OPEN sign on the front door so that it now read CLOSED when anyone looked at it from the outside.
