A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) Read online

  “I was on Guadalupe Street.” His gaze traveled my form, then he nodded. “Nice sweater.”

  “Thanks. Would you like to park your bike in the driveway?”

  He glanced over his shoulder toward the motorcycle parked at the curb in front of my gate. “It’ll be all right there. You driving?”

  “Yes.” I hefted the basket. “Come on through.”

  As I closed the door, he slid his arm around my waist, demanding attention. I was happy to give it to him, along with a lingering kiss. The basket kept us from getting closer, which was probably just as well since time was limited.

  We walked down the hall to the back door. Tony looked into the dining parlor. “What’s that?”

  “Just a project of Julio’s.”

  He stepped into the parlor and flipped on the light switch, then stood gazing at the sugar skulls for a few seconds. “You going to serve those to your guests? Kind of big for sugar cubes.”

  “They’re for decorating,” I said. “Julio’s going to host a party next Sunday. I’m sure you’d be welcome,” I added, going out on a limb a bit. Julio’s opinion of Tony was guarded.

  “Thanks, but I don’t do art. I’d just make a mess.”

  “That could still be fun.”

  He gave me a wry look and switched off the light. We went out the back door and climbed into my car. Tony kept quiet as I negotiated traffic. Soon we were driving into the foothills. I rolled my window down, enjoying the crisp breeze.

  “How’s your mom?” I asked.

  “Oh, fine.”

  “Did you get the...was it the washer? Fixed?”

  “Dishwasher. Abuela’s. Yeah.”

  I hoped Tony wasn’t in a monosyllabic mood. That always made conversation a strain.

  “It just needed a new hose,” he added.

  Oh, good. A whole sentence.

  “So you’re handy with fixing things? How about light fixtures?”

  He shrugged. “Electrical’s a pain. You’d be better off hiring a pro.”

  “OK.”

  “Gonna replace that chandelier?”

  I felt his gaze on me and glanced over at him. The dark eyes were giving me a cop stare, except that I saw the laughter tightening the outer corners of his eyelids.

  “Never,” I replied loftily. “That chandelier is a pathway of communication with the spirit world.”

  “You’ve been hanging around with that Willow lady too much.”

  Or not enough. I smiled.

  “Actually, I want to add an accent light to shine on Vi’s portrait.”

  “Oh.”

  “I showed it to you, didn’t I? Julio’s painting?”

  “Yeah.”

  We passed Ten Thousand Waves, Santa Fe’s amazing Japanese spa, and I thought about suggesting we visit there some time, but decided against it for the moment. Soon we passed Hyde State Park, and began to see aspens here and there. I was heading for higher ground, up by the ski hill where the aspen groves were bigger.

  “So did you go to the art show?” Tony said.

  Ah. I smiled. “Yes. It was really great. So many talented artists.”

  “Did you go with that counselor guy?”

  “His name is Loren. I met him and his sister at the show, and we had lunch.”

  I waited. Would Tony explode? If he did, that might just be where I drew the line.

  The road got steeper and the pockets of aspens got bigger. I began to look for a place to park.

  “I’m not good at art,” Tony said.

  “It’s OK.”

  “I mean I’m not interested in it either.”

  “I’m not interested in football. That doesn’t mean we can’t be close.”

  That evoked a soft laugh. “You were miserable at that party I took you to.”

  “Not miserable. But certainly a fish out of water.” It would have helped if I had known anyone else there, but they were mostly Tony’s old high-school buddies, and I’d gone to a different school.

  “We don’t have to have everything in common,” I said. “We have enough.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Murder victims?”

  Bad time to be sarcastic. Tony fell silent again, and when I glanced at him I saw his mouth was set.

  We rounded a curve and came to a hillside splashed with gold. A small pullout provided parking. I stopped the car and got out, drinking in a deep breath of mountain air.

  Tony reached out a hand to carry the picnic basket. I gave it to him, and we climbed the hillside. Leaves crunched beneath our feet, sending up the wonderful smell of autumn. Whenever I walked among the aspens, I always imagined myself in Lothlorien.

  We found a spot in dappled sunlight, right in the midst of a stand of tall aspens. Their leaves rustled in a constant waterfall sound, and now and then one drifted gently down to the ground. I spread the blanket on a patch of mostly-dry grass and started unpacking the food. Cheeses and olives on a small cheese board, and I offered Tony the baguette.

  “Where’s yours?” he said.

  “We’re sharing. Just tear off a hunk.”

  He did so, pulling off one end and handing the loaf back to me. “I feel like a cave man,” he said, gazing at the bread in his hand.

  I laughed, relieved. “Try this. It’s fontina,” I said, cutting him a slice.

  He sniffed it, then took a cautious nibble. He nodded approval and took a bigger bite along with some bread.

  “Tea or fuzzy water?”

  “Tea.”

  I agreed with his choice; it was chilly up here despite the sunshine. I poured into paper cups for us both, and we ate in silence for a while. Picking through potential topics of conversation, I found nothing brilliant, so I fell back on a safe, customary standby: work.

  “Are you still working on the case that called you away Saturday?”

  That got me a dark look. “Yeah.”

  “I’m not trying to be nosy.”

  He leaned back, chewing a mouthful, then washed it down with some tea. “My job isn’t fun to talk about. Sorry. It’s cleaning up other people’s messes, with a lot of boring paperwork thrown in.”

  “Don’t you swap stories with your colleagues?”

  “Yeah, but the stories are mostly pathetic. Or morbid. You wouldn’t like them.”

  “I can still sympathize.”

  He took an olive and ate it. I dished up salad for us both and handed him a plate, afraid to try a different subject. So far I’d just made things more awkward.

  “The thing is, I don’t want to put that on you,” he said.

  Looking up, I saw concern in his eyes. That was better than a defensive wall. Progress.

  “How can I support you, then?” I asked. “That’s all I’m trying to do.”

  He glanced up at the aspens. “Tell me about paintings. Or flowers. Something good. Your life is about good things.”

  The implied converse broke my heart. Tony looked back at me, his expression almost pleading. I could do as he asked, but that would be avoiding the undercurrents of this conversation.

  “And your life is about doing good,” I said softly. “That’s harder.”

  Our gazes held for a long moment. A tingle went through me, not sexual, but intimate. As if we were looking into each other’s souls.

  “I just want to keep you safe,” he said, almost whispering. “I don’t want the bad stuff to touch you.”

  “Thank you. But if you build walls between us, they’ll keep us apart.”

  I held still, hoping he’d answer, wanting to preserve whatever connection we had just made, but it was insubstantial, like cobwebs. Tony picked up his fork, and the moment had passed.

  All right. Talk about something good. I thought about my day.

  “I’ve never decorated sugar skulls,” I said. “Have you?”

  “Nah. Angela’s the artist in the family.”

  “Is she? What kind of art does she do?”

  “Different kinds. She’s always crocheting
something, and she scrapbooks. In school she loved art classes. Abuela still uses an ashtray she made.”

  “I like your sister,” I said. “I’d like to get to know her better. Do you think she’d enjoy decorating skulls?”

  He gave a skeptical shrug. “You could ask.”

  “Is el Dia de los Muertos a big deal in your family?”

  “Not really.” He ate a bite of gouda, then added, “Mama lights candles for Dad and Abuelo. That’s about it.”

  I nodded. The defensive wall had come back, though not as solid as before. I got the feeling I should avoid asking about his family life too much.

  I drank some tea. Why did talking to Tony feel like tiptoeing through a mine field? It shouldn’t be this hard.

  The salad was gone, and the cheese was mostly gone. I got out the cake and served Tony a piece.

  “What about Christmas?” I asked. Christmas had to be safe. “Do you have any family traditions?”

  “Yeah. Midnight mass. Abuela still insists on going. When we get home we have cocoa and bizcochitos, and we get to open one present. The rest of the presents are opened after breakfast on Christmas morning.”

  “We did presents on Christmas morning, too, when I was growing up.”

  Tony tilted his head. “Not any more?”

  “Well, my parents are gone. Now I get together with Nat for brunch, and we exchange gifts then. Though—I don’t know. It may be different this year, now that she’s married again.” Smiling, I shrugged, trying to shake off a moment’s insecurity. “We’ll see. I’ll still go to the Plaza on Christmas Eve, and walk up Canyon Road to look at the farolitos. Do you like to do that?”

  “That’s for Anglos.”

  Rich Anglos, I heard behind the tone. I cut a bite of cake to hide my annoyance.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “We always thought it was a tourist thing. We’d go to Las Posadas instead.”

  I nodded, remembering the candlelight procession of Joseph and Mary looking for a place to stay, with crowds of people singing as they followed the couple around the Plaza and watched at each stop where they asked for shelter. “When we were little, our parents would take us to that. I loved booing the devils.”

  “You don’t go any more?”

  “It’s so crowded these days. Like Zozobra.”

  He nodded. “Like everything.”

  “Progress, I guess.”

  “Mm.”

  We finished the cake and drank the last of the tea. I packed up the remainder of the food and set the basket aside, then lay back on the blanket, staring up at the aspens. Golden-white towers reaching up to the incredibly blue sky. I sighed with pleasure.

  Tony stretched out beside me. “OK, that’s gorgeous,” he said.

  I turned my head to look at him, glad to see the frown was gone. He still looked care-worn. There were lines of weariness etched into his face.

  “Worth taking the time?” I said softly.

  He turned his head to meet my gaze. “Yeah.”

  I smiled, and he moved closer for a kiss. One kiss became two, became more. We twined around each other and my heart began to race. Tony’s hands moved over my body, sending flashes of lightning joy through me. Then, abruptly, he stopped.

  “We should go,” he said, his voice rough.

  “In a little while,” I said, and nipped his ear.

  “No, I’m late.” He kissed me again, then pulled away.

  I sat up and looked at my phone. Quarter to two.

  Damn.

  He was watching me with a hungry look that had nothing to do with food.

  “But you want to stay, right?” I asked, smoothing my hair.

  “Yes.”

  “So let’s get together again soon.”

  “Yes.”

  I demanded one more kiss, then got up. We folded the blanket and walked back to my car.

  At home, I parked and headed for the back door, sorting through my keys. Tony stood looking at the car.

  Oh. Yes. The bloodstain was gone from the driveway, but the memory would still be there.

  “Tony?” I said softly.

  He turned, giving his shoulders a shake. I opened the door and we walked up the hall to its counterpart, sunlight shining through the front door lights. I set the picnic basket down.

  “Thanks for taking the time to see me. It was nice.”

  I reached for the doorknob but Tony intervened, catching me in a tight hug. I hugged him back, gave him the kisses he wanted.

  “I have to go back to work,” he said hoarsely, catching my hand and kissing the palm.

  “OK. Call me?”

  “Yeah.”

  One more kiss, then he reached for the door. I followed him out to watch him stride down the path to the gate, and shivered a little in the chill.

  “Bye,” I said softly.

  He got onto his bike with the unconscious grace of a lifelong horseman. The engine started up on a low growl. Tony made a U-turn in the empty street, then cruised to the intersection at Palace Avenue and turned the corner out of sight.

  8

  The next few days passed quickly. A thousand small tasks needed attention, many of which had been on hold while I dealt with the wedding. In addition, the holiday season loomed.

  I called Tony’s sister, Angela, and got her voicemail. She was in college, I knew, and also cared for their grandmother. I left a message inviting her to come decorate sugar skulls on Sunday, then double-checked with Julio (yes, belatedly) that it was all right to ask a friend.

  “Hey, it’s your house,” Julio said as he kneaded a mound of pan de muerto dough. “Sure, ask whoever you want. I’m just glad you’re giving us the space.”

  “Should we have some snacks? I could make tea...”

  “No, no, no. Not on your day off. You leave the snacks to me. I put it at one o’clock so people would have lunch before coming.”

  The first shipment of holiday merchandise arrived on Tuesday. I was not in the mood for Christmas; in fact, I resented its intrusion into autumn, which was my favorite season. Business demanded that I attend to it, though. I helped Kris sort through the goods and get them ready for sale, but I insisted that we would not put out holiday merchandise until after Thanksgiving.

  “People like to shop early,” Kris said, glancing up at me under sculpted, dark brows as we stood among stacks of boxes in the storage closet behind her desk.

  “We have plenty of things they can buy. I just don’t want holly and candy canes all over the place for two months.”

  She resumed checking off inventory on packing slips. Sometimes Kris’s silences shouted louder than a dozen howler monkeys.

  “This is our first Christmas,” I said. “Let’s see how it goes. If it’s a mistake, we’ll reconsider for next year.”

  Having put my foot down on the merchandise issue, I then caved on the subject of advertising. Our first holiday ad—tastefully designed by my pal Gina’s advertising firm—would appear the week before Thanksgiving, announcing extended hours for December and encouraging early reservations.

  Three more boxes arrived in Wednesday’s mail. The smallest was addressed to Kris, so I put it on her desk and took the others into the storage closet. As I opened one and examined the ornaments inside, I became aware of a weighted silence in the outer office.

  Looking out, I saw the small box standing open and Kris regarding a life-sized skull sitting on her desk. I put down a china teacup ornament and stepped out to join her.

  “Is that something for the party?”

  “Search me,” Kris said. “I didn’t order it.”

  “Is there a packing slip?” I leaned forward to peer into the box, but all I saw were wads of black tissue paper.

  “No. The cancellation is from the Santa Fe post office.”

  The back of my neck prickled. “Maybe we should contact the police.”

  She shook her head and picked up the skull, turning it in her hands. “It isn’t real. It’s resin.”

&
nbsp; “It could be construed as a threat.”

  Kris swiveled her chair to face me. “No, it’s an insult.” She held the skull out toward me. “No lower jaw, see? It’s a Death’s Head. In Shakespearean times, that was a symbol for a bawd or a rake.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She shot me a wry glance. “Someone is calling me a whore.”

  I couldn’t help a small gasp of outrage.

  “Probably one of Gabriel’s exes, is my guess,” Kris added. She held it at arm’s length. “It’ll make a nice paperweight.”

  “Kris, I don’t like this.”

  “If it bothers you I’ll take it home.”

  “I mean I don’t like that someone sent it to you.”

  She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes as she addressed the skull. “And why here, instead of my place? What do you say, Yorick? Is it because they didn’t know my mailing address?”

  I took a deep breath. “I need tea.”

  Escaping into my office, I poured myself a cup of Oolong from the pot on my credenza. Kris trailed after me.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ellen. It’s just drama.”

  “Do Goths often send each other skulls?”

  She grinned. “Probably more often than you think.”

  I took a swallow of tea, then gestured to the pot, offering to pour for Kris. She shook her head.

  “Thanks. I’ve had my quota for the day.”

  “Let me ask Tony about that skull.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “He’s a homicide detective.”

  “Yes, but he might have some advice.”

  Kris didn’t quite roll her eyes. “Don’t bother him. If it makes you feel better, I’ll keep the box. Then when I turn up dead, you can have it checked for fingerprints.”

  “Not funny.”

  She smiled. “Sorry. Really, it’s OK. This isn’t a threat.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Let’s put away the rest of that merchandise,” she said.

  We did, but I couldn’t help glancing at the skull on Kris’s desk now and then.

  Friday arrived on the wings of a howling wind storm. I half-expected a call from Willow, canceling her tour for that day, but I had apparently underestimated the determination of the spirit-watching crowd. When four o’clock came they arrived, with cold-reddened noses, bundled in coats, scarves, and hats which they shed on their way down the hall to the dining parlor.