A Bodkin for the Bride Page 5

I sighed. “I’ll try. Thanks, Julio.”

  “See you tomorrow, boss.”

  I went upstairs, holding my breath and hiccuping twice. Stepped into my office to get my phone and check for messages. Sonja had sent me the next file from the archives. No text from Tony.

  I doubted that I’d be able to sleep; I rarely slept during daylight hours, usually only when I was ill. Also, hiccups.

  A bath might help me relax. I went into my suite, locked the door, and ran a hot bath, adding some scented salts that Gina had given me. My second bath in as many days. What decadence!

  I got in, leaned back, and tried to let the hot water soak away my cares. The hiccups kept interfering. Yet again, I tried holding my breath, without success. When the water had gone tepid I gave up and toweled off, then put on some sweats even thought it wasn’t quite five. I was taking the rest of the day off.

  My phone rang as I was brushing out my hair. It was my aunt.

  “Nat! Sorry, I forgot to call you!” I curled up in my armchair by the chimney.

  “That’s all right, dear. Are you joining us for dinner?”

  I looked out the window. Wind was stirring the leaves of the trees. I hiccuped.

  “Honestly, I think I’d rather stay home tonight. Sorry.”

  “That’s OK, honey. There’s plenty of time. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Well, I’ve had the hiccups all afternoon.”

  “Oh, dear! Have you tried lemon and sugar?”

  “No. You mean—hic—in tea?”

  “No, no. Sprinkle some sugar on a slice of lemon, then bite it and suck on it until the sugar’s all gone. Works every time for me.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try that.”

  “How are you otherwise? Did Detective Walters call you?”

  “No, he came in person. Did you get a visit?”

  “Just a call.”

  “Hm. Wonder why I r—hic—rate. Maybe I’m the prime suspect.”

  “Now you know that’s ridiculous! I was with you all day.”

  “You could be a co-conspirator.”

  “Oh, Ellen—I worry when you get cynical like this.”

  “Sorry. Guess I’m a little down today. Julio finished his portrait of Vi and hung it up in the Violet alcove. It’s—hic—really gorgeous, but it brought all that back to me.”

  “Did you ever talk to that nice counselor?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should give him a call.”

  A gust of wind slapped the window. I hugged my knees.

  “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  “All right, dear. Well, you feel better. I’ll be in tomorrow.”

  Nat didn’t usually work Tuesdays. I bit back an urge to tell her not to come. It was her mother hen instinct; I had to respect that. I ought to be grateful for her concern.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try the lemon thing.”

  We said goodbye and I debated whether to just go to bed. The hiccups convinced me to at least try Nat’s remedy. I didn’t have any lemons upstairs, but we always had them downstairs, for lemon curd. On the way, I grabbed the tea tray from my office.

  “Julio?” I said at the foot of the stairs, self-conscious about my sweats.

  No answer, and no salsa music. I advanced into the kitchen and found it empty, quickly washed the tea things and left them drying in the rack, then grabbed a lemon and scooted back upstairs to wash it and cut a slice. I sprinkled a liberal dose of sugar on it, then bit down on it.

  Oh, the sour! I mmphed a protest but sucked as instructed. When the sugar was gone and only the sour remained, I spat it out. And hiccuped.

  “Ugh!”

  I rinsed my mouth and drank some water, feeling queasy. What I wanted was tea.

  I put my kettle on and took out my personal pot, an old favorite that happened to be violet chintz. While the tea was brewing I checked my phone for texts. Nothing from Tony, but there was one from Gina:

  Dinner 2nite?

  I hiccuped. Frowning, I texted back:

  No, I have the hiccups.

  Eat some ice cream.

  Right.

  Srsly, it helps. Peppermint if u have it.

  OK. Thanks.

  I had no peppermint ice cream. I had no ice cream at all, and I was not going out to get some. I was staying home. Perhaps crawling under a rock.

  The timer went off and I poured myself a cup of tea, returning to my armchair to nurse it. The daylight was fading, and the wind had diminished a little. I thought about dinner, but felt uninspired. I ended up making cinnamon toast and curling up with a book until I was sleepy enough to go to bed.

  The hiccups were still with me. I slept fitfully, troubled by unsettling dreams that I couldn’t remember. I got up and tried Julio’s wrong-side-of-the-glass thing again, but it didn’t help. Finally I dozed off out of sheer exhaustion.

  I was walking along a dirt road somewhere near the Opera. I could hear someone singing an aria, a beautiful mezzo-soprano, and I wondered if it was Vi. I walked faster, hoping to get to the opera house before the music ended, but a man stood in my way. He was Indian, with dark eyes fixed intently on mine. He held up a folded knife, the hilt striped with sugilite and turquoise. He was not threatening me with it, just showing it to me, but the sight of it frightened me and I screamed.

  I sat up, trembling, heart pounding. I was sure I had actually screamed. The man in the dream was Daniel Swazo.

  Rubbing my face, I sighed. Then hiccuped.

  I flung out of bed, angry at the universe. Stood under a hot shower until the trembling had ceased, then pulled on my sweats again and looked at the time.

  4:42. Too early to start the day, and probably too late to get any more meaningful sleep. Besides, I didn’t want to go back to that dream.

  I wandered out into the hallway and over to the window. A gibbous moon was setting behind the houses across the street. I stared at it, and realized that I was crying again.

  I sat in my mother’s overstuffed armchair and wept and hiccuped until the tears ended. Maybe Nat was right; maybe I should call the counselor who had come to help the tearoom staff cope with Vi’s murder.

  Loren something. Very handsome in an otherworldly, almost angelic way. Very gentle and kind. I’d avoided him. I had told him—and myself—that I wasn’t ready to talk. But maybe I had really been afraid.

  Afraid of what, though? I couldn’t answer that question.

  Seeking distraction, I went to my computer and pulled up the file that Sonja had sent me. This one was a set of letters belonging to the post doctor at Fort Marcy. They were letters he had received; no copies of the letters he had written, so they represented a rather disjointed correspondence. Mostly boring, but one note written in a flourishing, somewhat uncontrolled hand caught my attention:

  Father,

  Mrs H. informs me she saw Capt. D. tete-a-tete with that Spanish woman at the concerto. I see now that you were Right to Caution me, and I will heed your Wisdom henceforth. I have no hope of the Capt. now as Mrs H says his attentions to the Spaniard were Quite Pointed. I shall devote myself to my Studies with the Sisters.

  Your obedient,

  Lucy

  Lucy sounded more bitter than obedient, but maybe my interpretation was colored by my own mood. More important was the fact that the note seemed to confirm my suspicion: Captain Dusenberry had been in love with Maria Hidalgo.

  I still had the captain’s letters from Maria locked in my desk. They did not mention love, but the tone was warm and affectionate. Lucy’s note supported my surmise, and also showed that others in the community had noticed.

  Whites and Hispanics had intermarried in the 19th century. It was by no means uncommon, but Maria came from a family of Spanish aristocrats who had, I believed, opposed her wish to marry a white man. Captain Dusenberry had rank and importance, but was not an aristocrat.

  The question was, had Maria’s family felt so strongly about her friendship with the captain that they had murdered him to preve
nt their marrying?

  I brought up my file of notes on the captain’s murder and added a line about Lucy’s letter. Going back to the beginning of the file, I looked for any mention of the type of gun used to kill the captain.

  There it was: a Colt Navy revolver. Willow had told me about it, when she’d given me the details about the murder. She’d said it was a common sidearm, which was discouraging, but if there was any way to find out who had owned such a weapon, that might lead to the captain’s killer.

  I wrote a short email to Bennett Cole at the Museum of New Mexico, asking if he could help me find out who in Santa Fe had owned Colt Navy revolvers in 1855. Maybe it was a silly question, but I had to try.

  Frowning at my screen without seeing the text, I mulled over the problem. Willow had said the Navy revolver was favored by the military, which implied the killer had been a soldier. That made sense, since most of the people the captain had associated with would have been military.

  But civilians owned them, too. Maybe one of the Hidalgos had owned one.

  I wrote a quick email to Sonja at the archives, asking her to do a search on Hidalgo and Colt Navy revolver. A little hum of excitement went through me as I sent it off.

  I hiccuped.

  Cursing softly, I went back to my suite and got dressed. The sky outside was lightening. It was still early, but Julio would be arriving soon, and in case he came up to check on me I didn’t want to be sitting around in my nightclothes.

  I should eat breakfast, too, though the hiccups made me less interested in eating. I put the kettle on, then made soft-boiled eggs and toast, and sliced up an orange. My nightmare kept returning to my thoughts. Did Daniel Swazo want something from me?

  Could ghosts visit our dreams? I could ask Willow, but I suspected I knew what she would say, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear it.

  I heard the door downstairs, followed by Julio’s music, very quiet; if I’d been asleep I wouldn’t have noticed it. He didn’t come up.

  When I’d finished my breakfast and cleaned up the dishes, I poured myself a fresh cup of tea and returned to my office. The aroma of something baking—cake for the petit fours, probably—drifted up the stairwell. I sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and looked through my stash of miscellaneous business cards. The one I wanted had a blue and white picture of a dove flying upward. I laid it on the center of my desk.

  Loren Jackson, counselor. The business name was Hospice Center.

  A glance at my clock told me it was too early to call; 6:20. I wrote an email, very short and businesslike, thanking him again for the help he had given my staff in the summer, and asking for an appointment. I sent it off before I could chicken out.

  Having committed, I put away the card and turned my attention to messages. I had actually dealt with them all and run out of things to do by the time Kris arrived. She stepped through the doorway that our offices shared and looked in on me. Her outfit du jour was a black knit dress that hugged her figure, black accent scarf with beaded fringe, and black knee-high boots. I wondered if she’d been raiding Willow’s wardrobe.

  “Morning,” she said. “Is there tea?”

  “Um—I probably drank it all. I’ll make some more. Hic.”

  Her brows rose. “Hiccups, eh?”

  “Yeah.” I stood and picked up the tea tray.

  “Pull your tongue.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Pull your tongue. It’ll make them stop. Try it.”

  I suspected Miss Manners would say that tongue-pulling should be done in private, so I carried the tray downstairs and put on a kettle, then slipped into the restroom to give it a try. Apart from making whatever ligaments or muscles connected the bottom of my tongue to my jaw sore, it had no effect.

  Giving up, I took my violet chintz teapot into the kitchen to wash it. Julio glanced up at me from a work table covered in flour. I smiled back and hiccuped.

  “Still?” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I turned on the high-power hose at the commercial dishwashing station and blasted the teapot until it sparkled, then took it back to the pantry and pondered over what tea to make. I’d already had Darjeeling, so I picked a blended black with flower petals and grapefruit peel, hoping the citrus would perk me up. It was going to be a challenge to get through the day without dragging. I already felt tired.

  In high school, I’d sometimes stayed up all night playing cards or other games. In college I’d pulled all-nighters cramming for tests, and I still got caught by a book occasionally and stayed up too late reading, but nowadays I couldn’t do it without feeling the impact. I could try for an afternoon nap, but the activity in the tearoom would only make it harder to sleep during the day. Maybe I’d go to bed early.

  Iz came in while I was waiting for the tea to steep, wearing the lavender dress that was the tearoom servers’ uniform. “Morning, Ellen,” she said in her soft voice, and a falling note in her tone made me look closely at her.

  “Good morning. Everything all right?”

  She was quiet for a moment as she put on her Victorian style apron. “Pretty much,” she said finally, tying the strings.

  She wasn’t the sort of person who goes around smiling all the time, but she was usually pretty centered, and seemed less so than normal. I wondered if something was going on at home. She still lived with her folks at Tesuque Pueblo...

  Oh.

  “Did you know Daniel Swazo?” I asked gently.

  5

  Iz swallowed and blinked. “Not well. He was a year ahead of me in school.” She looked straight at me then. “How did you know?”

  I stifled a sigh. No sense putting it off; she’d find out sooner or later.

  “I found his body. He was in Nat’s driveway.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What was he doing there?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  She looked away, taking a teapot down from the shelf and setting it on the counter. A frown creased her brow. “I heard he got beat up.”

  She shot me a questioning glance. I nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Iz. If you—hic—want to take the day off...”

  “No, I’m all right. I’m sorry for you, finding him like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It must be hard. You already found Mrs. Carruthers, and Julio’s grandma, and Vi...”

  My timer went off, saving me from having to answer. I took the tea upstairs, poured some for Kris, and went to my office, where a new set of messages that Kris had peeled off the voicemail awaited me. I added sugar to my own cup of tea and glanced through them, then fetched my phone from my suite, checking for texts. There were none. I returned to my desk, feeling cross.

  I had not, in fact, found Julio’s grandmother’s body. It was Rosa, another of my servers who was also her granddaughter, who found her peacefully passed in the Lily alcove, where she had been having tea. Of course, Rosa had summoned me at once, and I’d called 911, and all the rest had ensued.

  If nothing else, I was getting good at the drill.

  I turned to my computer to check my email. There was a message from Loren Jackson. I hiccuped.

  Good to hear from you, Ellen. I’d be happy to talk with you. I have an opening at 2:00 today. Can you come to the Center, or should I come to the tearoom?

  My first instinct was to answer that today wouldn’t do, but considering the fact that I’d caught up on my messages for the first time in I didn’t know how long—maybe ever—that excuse seemed lame even to me. Also, I was heartily tired of the hiccups. Maybe he’d be able to recommend a solution that did not involve eating, drinking, or pulling on parts of myself.

  I took a bracing swallow of tea, then wrote back saying that 2:00 would be fine.

  “Kris,” I said, stepping into her office, “I’ve got an appointment this afternoon. You don’t have me booked for any—hic—thing, do you?”

  “No. Did you try pulling your tongue?”

  “Yes. No luck.”

  “M
aybe you didn’t pull it hard enough.”

  “If I’d pulled any harder, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. Hic. More tea?”

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  I poured more for myself and went back to my desk, where I worked my way through the new messages, then surfed up the location of the Hospice Center. It was out on Rodeo Road, on the south side of town. I decided to go early and grab some lunch on the way. There was a little family-owned place that specialized in soups, with a Hungarian mushroom soup that I couldn’t get enough of.

  Plans in place, desk cleared of messages, I had an hour to kill. It was just before eleven, when we opened for business, so I went downstairs to check on the tearoom and be ready to greet the guests.

  Nat was coming in the back door as I reached the ground floor. She cast a worried glance at me, then smiled.

  “Good morning, Ellen. How are you feeling?”

  “Morning, Nat.” I gave her a hug. “I’m fine. Hic.”

  “Oh, sweetheart! Did you try the lemon?”

  “I did. Let’s go to the gift shop.”

  I led the way down the hall, a bit briskly. In the gift shop I fired up the register and brought up the reservations page. It was a new system and I was still getting used to it, a step up from the paper printouts we had used at first. I had balked at the expense, but Kris had been right: the electronic system saved us a lot of back and forth and made everything run more smoothly. Guests could even book their own reservations online.

  I saw that we had three parties booked for 11:00, including Mrs. Olafssen—the Bird Woman—with a group of six. Gritting my teeth, I made up my mind to say hello to her. She was a regular, one of our best customers. I had also come to view her as my own personal karmic challenge. I was determined to be nice to her no matter what she said or did.

  Glancing at the clock, I saw that we had a few minutes before opening. “Come in here, Nat,” I said, heading through Hyacinth toward Violet.

  I stood in front of the fireplace and looked up at Julio’s portrait of Vi. Sadness stirred beneath my heart, but I managed to keep from crying.