Marcia Muller - The Tree of Death

No, Mama, I had said.

But was I sure I was all right? After all, I didn’t find corpses every day, and she remembered what a terrible time I used to have at funerals.

I assured her I was all right.

That worry disposed of, my mother’s voice took on confidential tones. Wasn’t it awful about Frank? she asked. But hadn’t she told me? Hadn’t she had a feeling?

She certainly had, I replied.

Would I call her if I needed anything?

Yes, I would. I certainly would. When I hung up, there were tears in my eyes. It was wonderful in its way. No matter how old you got, your mother was still your mother.

Dinner had been bites of tasteless hamburger in between calls to our board members. Carlos Bautista’s plane was due in at eight, and he would come directly to the museum for an emergency meeting. Carlos, the six other board members, and I gathered at Frank’s office-which by now had been thoroughly turned upside down by the police-and, for what seemed to be the hundredth time, I went over my discovery of our director’s body. The board then officially appointed me acting director, resolved that the Cinco de Mayo opening should go on as-planned, and drafted a letter of condolence to the De Palma family. By the time they’d left at ten-thirty, I felt physically exhausted. I had followed the last members to the front door, thrown the toggle switch on the alarm system, and retired to my office. While my body ached for sleep, my mind kept racing.

Lieutenant Kirk had called again in the interval between the press conference and the board meeting. He wanted additional information on the museum-background information, he called it. The information, however, was more concerned with me than with the museum. How long had I worked there? What was my training? Who had hired me? Did I report directly to Frank? What were my ambitions? The questions confirmed that I was indeed a serious suspect. They seemed designed more to put pressure on me than to elicit facts.

Now as I sat with my head on my desk, I considered the lieutenant. I couldn’t understand how his mind worked. He seemed determined to ignore my claim that the alarm system had been set differently this morning than it had last night. It was almost as if he wanted to put the blame on me. Why? Ethnic prejudice? Some other subjective dislike of me? I couldn’t tell, couldn’t see what emotion, if any, hid behind those flat brown eyes. Kirk was too brown, too monochromatic. There was no telling what his reasoning might be.

Suddenly I wished I could talk this over with someone. Ideally, that person would be my sister, Carlota. We’d always been best friends; I could tell her anything. And Carlota was logical, the steady one in the family. But it was after one in the morning where she lived, in Minneapolis. I didn’t want to upset her and ruin her night’s sleep.

Well, I’d have to think it through myself. I hadn’t been raised to be the victim of any Anglo cop. J knew I hadn’t committed any murder.

Who had? I didn’t know.

And how could they have? It seemed impossible.

Forget that, then, I told myself. Concentrate on Frank and your knowledge of the people around him. Almost everybody, even the Mexican Mafia members, hated him; there seemed to be no shortage of possible suspects.

I began-feeling self-conscious and a little dramatic-to review them.

Jesse. I started with him for the same reason Lieutenant Kirk had started with me. Jesse had admitted to having had a violent quarrel with Frank. What had he said? “I offered to break his fat neck.” Jesse had as much of a temper as I did, if not more. But would his anger be translated into action if sufficiently pushed? I d never had occasion to test that.

Maria. She certainly had cause to hate her uncle by marriage. Normally she rode to and from work with Frank, but yesterday she had said she was walking home. Now that I thought of it, home was farther than the delicate Maria would normally deign to walk. Where else might she have gone? I’d need to find out.

Rosa De Palma. Her husband, according to Vic, had been seeing another woman. I didn’t know Rosa that well, but many women of my background accepted these affairs as part of their lot in life. Even so, didn’t resentment smolder under the surface? Couldn’t some event push the rejected wife over the edge? I needed to know more about Frank’s widow.

The unknown woman. I needed to find out whom Frank had been seeing.

Isabel. She could have been angry at the‘ cool reception given her arbol de la vida. Hadn’t she said she was going to have “a few words” with Frank before leaving the museum? Had she? If so, about what?

Tony. Now I came to a real puzzle. Where the devil was the Colombian? I’d tried to call him that afternoon, but there was no answer at his apartment. Had he been so sick he couldn’t answer the phone? If so, where was Susana? When Lieutenant Kirk had called late this afternoon, he’d indicated he also had had no luck when he’d gone to Tony’s apartment. Kirk had merely sounded irritated about it, but to me Tony’s unavailability was suspicious. Learning his whereabouts, I decided, should be my first priority.

Vic. I found it hard to suspect the big, sad man of anything. He’d been devoted to Frank. But then I thought of the look on his face when Frank had stalked out of the folk art gallery late yesterday afternoon. What did I know of Vic anyway? I would have to find out more…

A sudden rasping sound raised chills along my spine and made me lift my head. The sound stopped, then started again. With a nervous laugh, I recognized the scraping of the branches of the tall jacaranda tree that draped its lavender-blue flowers over the roof of the office wing. I got up and went to the window. The fog was in, blowing in sheets across the grounds. It was so thick it might have been fine, gray snow…

A shadow fell across the wall beside me. It was huge and unrecognizable and came from the doorway. I put my hand to my throat, but it did nothing to calm my racing pulse. Slowly I turned.

It was Vic.

“Por Dios, what are you doing here?” My voice sounded shrill and cracked.

“I’m sorry if I startled you. I didn’t want to say anything to make you jump out of your skin.” His homely face twisted in a grin. “I guess silence wasn’t the right approach either.”

“There is no right approach, not after a day like today.” I hugged my jacket closer around me and came away from the window. “This place is eerie at night, especially with the fog swirling around out there.”

“Come on in my office. I’ve got the quartz heater on. I’ll give you some brandy.”

It sounded good. I followed Vic across the hall. His office definitely looked cheery, the heater glowing and the curtains drawn. Ledgers and accounting sheets were spread all over the desk.

“I didn’t even know you were here,” I said, taking a seat in one of his comfortable old chairs. “What are you working on?”

He took a plastic cup from his desk drawer and filled it with brandy. From his high color, I guessed he’d had a fair amount of the stuff. “The accounts, what else? It occurred to me that the board would probably want to go over them, now that Frank’s…” He handed me the cup, his eyes melancholy. “At any rate, I wanted them to be as current as possible. With the opening coming up, I’ve gotten behind.”

“Haven’t we all.” I sipped brandy, welcoming the warmth it brought.

Vic began gathering up the ledgers. “I went to your office to make sure you didn’t leave without letting me out, so you could set the alarm.” He went to the small safe, twisted the dial and deposited everything inside.

“Why do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Lock the records up. They’re just papers, after all.”