Marcia Muller - The Tree of Death

The person who answered the phone at the travel agency passed my call along to a Mrs. DeLano, the representative we dealt with. I explained that I was trying to find out which of Mr. Ibarra’s tickets to South America had been paid for and which were outstanding. Mrs. DeLano went to get her file.

“Your statement is up to date, Miss Oliverez. Seven first-class tickets to various South American destinations. We certainly appreciate the business.”

First class! “Mrs. DeLano, can you give me the number of the museum checks the last two tickets were paid for with?”

“Yes. Just a minute.” She rustled through some papers and then read off two sets of digits to me.

“Do you recall if those were both signed by Mr. Leary?”

“I believe so. They usually are.” She paused. “Is there some problem?”

“Nothing that should concern you. Our files are a bit disordered, what with moving and all.”

“Of course. By the way, we were very sorry to hear about Mr. De Palma. Will you still be holding your opening?”

“Yes, we will.” I thanked her for her help and hung up, feeling sad. So they’d all been in on it, whatever it was- Frank, Tony, Robert, and Vic. It was Vic’s involvement that I didn’t want to believe. Vic, the gentle, unhappy man who had treated me like a daughter. I remembered our talk last night and my-at the time-strange reluctance to trust him with the other set of museum keys. That reluctance proved to have been well founded.

What was I going to do about this? I wondered. I could go to the police. But first I should go to Carlos Bautista. Carlos had a bad temper, though, and this was sure to set it off. By the time he was through, the mess would be spread all over the papers. And a scandal so soon after Frank’s murder would ruin us.

What was I going to do?

Ordinarily I would have thought my colleagues stupid for using the museum’s travel agent and checks to finance whatever they were doing in South America. But since they’d all been in on it-possibly even Maria-they’d been reasonably safe in doing so. The board examined the accounts once a year. I never looked at them, didn’t understand them. And the ledgers were kept in the safe, away from prying eyes; I’d seen Vic lock them up only last night. Probably he’d been working late doctoring the books; he knew they’d come under scrutiny now that Frank was dead.

If Frank hadn’t been murdered while Tony was off in Peru, I probably would never have caught on to anything. And neither would the board, because Vic would have fixed all discrepancies.

My mind returned to the matter of the extra keys. Until everything was cleared up, they should be kept in a safe place. I went to Frank’s office. The keys were still there, on their hook. I took them down, brushing at a dirt smudge on the wall with my other hand. We’d been in this building less than a month, and already it was going to seed. Was it merely a reflection of the pettiness and dishonesty of the building’s occupants? I wondered.

Enough of this brooding, Elena, I thought sternly. It was time to see how Jesse was doing in the folk art gallery.

He was stringing wire from which to hang a camaleon. And Vic, the last person I wanted to see, was with him. When they turned, I avoided Vic’s eyes; then, feeling his on me, I looked back at him. His face was more haggard than Isabel’s, his clothes rumpled, and his cardigan sweater buttoned wrong. Like the building, the staff was going to pieces.

Vic apparently didn’t want to see me either. He quickly excused himself, mumbling something about paying some bills. I turned to Jesse.

He lifted a brightly colored camaleon and fastened it to the wire. This one was a sort of Pegasus. Its wings caught the breeze from the ventilation system, and it began to turn as soon as Jesse stepped back. As usual, his eyes held reverence, and suddenly it sickened me. Did he think he was that great an artist? The camaleones were beautiful, but they didn’t make him a Picasso.

Jesse saw my expression, which must have been quite sour. “What’s wrong?”

I shrugged. Why not get it over with? “I heard some nasty talk at the De Palmas’ after you left.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes. About you. And about Maria.”

“You mean that we’re engaged? An engagement isn’t exactly what I’d call nasty.”

“Not about your engagement, although that came up, too. Let’s talk about the time you gave Frank the black eye.”

His face closed up, and he turned back to the camaleon. “Who brought that up?”

“Robert.”

“He would. He wants to marry Maria, you know.”

“That’s not the point, Jesse. What counts is that your fights with Frank were much more serious than you let on.”

“So?”

“So, if you hit a person once, you might-”

He whirled on me, his shoe-button eyes flat with anger. “Are you trying to say I killed Frank?”

“I’m trying to say how it will look to the police.”

“And how are they going to find out?”

“I did. It’s likely they will, too.”

“Especially if you tell them.”‘

“Did I say I would?”

“You didn’t have to. They suspect you, and you’ll do anything to save your own neck.”

Well, of course I would. “Then there’s the matter of Maria’s rather checkered past. Did you know about that?”

“We have no secrets from one another. Okay, she was wild. She’s the oldest in a big-family. All the others are boys. Her parents ignored her. She wanted some attention.”

“She certainly got it.”

“Look, Elena, why are you coming off so holier-than-thou? You’re not exactly the Virgin Mary yourself. So Maria made a mistake. But if you’re trying to say she had something to do with Frank’s death, forget it. An abortion isn’t murder.”

“Some would say it is.”

The words hung heavily in the quiet room. Jesse and I stared at each other. We were both educated, liberal-minded, and free. I didn’t go to church much anymore. I assumed he didn’t either. But weren’t there vestiges of our strict Catholic upbringing buried deep in our subconscious minds? Apparently so, from this sudden silence.

I didn’t want to argue with him anymore. This wasn’t getting us anywhere. I turned abruptly and left the gallery.

Inwardly I was seething. My teeth were clenched so tightly that my gums ached. My fists were balled, fingernails digging into my palms. This kind of tension wasn’t going to help me- either in bringing off the Cinco de Mayo party or in clearing myself of Frank’s murder. I decided to work it off by going to the cellar and performing some housekeeping tasks.

A museum conservator-and here I was both curator and preserver of our collections-performs many of these chores. They are boring, routine, delicate, and about as much fun as scrubbing the bathroom floor. But there is always a kind of soothing quality to them. When I am removing minute dust particles from a statue or inspecting an old church manuscript for mold, time slows down for me, and I can let my mind rest or wander where it pleases. This was the sort of natural tranquilizer I needed now.

Unfortunately, before I could even get at our artifacts, I would have to perform the duties of a stevedore. Everything was all heaped together, a jumble of cartons and fixtures and even office furniture. The ruins of the arbol de la vida leaned at a crazy angle in the middle of the room. Someone had left a flashlight on a crate near the stairs, and I took it to the front, figuring I’d start in the farthest corner. At least the shelves were clear and clean up there. I could unpack some of the boxes, see where things were.

I had packed only those items in our collections we had planned to display for the opening. A generous donation from a board member had allowed us to hire the moving company that had transported the King Tut exhibit for the rest. The real problem now was that I wasn’t exactly sure how they’d packed things or where those boxes were. I set the flashlight on a shelf so it provided maximum light, then ripped the tape from the top of the nearest carton.