Allyn Allyn: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

Boulder, Colorado, freelance writer Stephanie Kay Bendel has taught fiction writing for more than two decades, specializing in the field of suspense. She is the author of Making Crime Pay: A Practical Guide to Mystery Writing. Her many previous short-story credits include tales for this magazine and for our sister publication, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. During the 1970s she wrote several novels, including A Scream Away , under the pseudonym Andrea Harris.

Molly Renquist looked up as her secretary, Lindsey, opened the office door and poked her pretty head in. “Got time to see a lady who doesn’t have an appointment?”

Molly frowned. “Do you know what it’s about?”

“She says she wants you to look into her sister’s death.”

Glancing at her calendar and then her watch, Molly nodded. “Send her in.”

A moment later, Lindsey returned, followed by a tall, beautiful young Latina with lustrous black hair that fell to her shoulders in a rippling cascade. She wore low-heeled pumps and a pale blue dress that failed to hide her voluptuous curves. Other than the small golden hoops in her ears, she wore no jewelry and very little makeup, yet her appearance was striking. Molly reflected that the woman seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place her. Reaching across the desk, she offered her hand and said, “Please have a seat.”

The woman sat on the edge of the comfortable leather chair that had stood in their family room before Tom’s death. Afterward, the sight of it in the house was too painful, but Molly couldn’t bring herself to part with it.

The young woman leaned forward, crossing her ankles, and said softly, in hesitant but grammatical English, “I am Rosa Maria Esmeralda Hernandez. My family has not much money, but I have brought as much as we have. Will you find out why my sister died?”

“What were you told?”

“That she killed herself. They say she was sad because she could not have a child, but that is something she’s known for many years.”

That struck Molly as odd. Had the sister suffered some gross abnormality from birth? Had there been an accident or serious disease? “Was there an autopsy?” she asked.

“Yes, but they will not let us see what they found. The judge has — how do you call it? — sealed the records.”

That piqued Molly’s interest. “And what was your sister’s name?”

“Ramona Wiley.” She looked up as though expecting Molly to recognize the name. “Ramona,” she repeated with emphasis.

Molly started. “ The Ramona? The singer and actress?”

The young woman nodded, her wide dark eyes filled with sadness, and Molly realized why she’d seemed familiar. There was a strong resemblance to her famous late sister, who had been known by a single name. If Rosa were wearing an expensive gown, diamonds dangling from her ears and throat, and had enjoyed the services of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser, she could be Ramona’s double.

Ramona’s name had been in the news lately. About a month earlier, her body had been discovered in bed by the housekeeper one morning. As Molly recalled, the husband — who was also her manager and agent — had been out of town at the time, and the medical examiner, James Pearson, had ruled her death a suicide. Molly knew Pearson well. He was a man of unquestionable integrity, and she couldn’t imagine him being less than honest about the case.

Of course, the tabloids had had a field day presenting bizarre speculations, pointing out that her husband was sole heir to a mega-million dollar empire, but the police had quickly ruled him out as a suspect, and the medical examiner had taken the unusual step of holding a press conference to emphasize that the actress’s death had been self-inflicted.

“I wasn’t aware there was any doubt as to the cause of your sister’s death,” Molly said softly. “What exactly do you want me to investigate?”

A spark of anger came into Rosa’s eyes. “My sister would not kill herself. She was a devout Catholic, and she was happy since she came to America. I must know what really happened.” As Rosa became more emotional, her accent thickened.

Molly frowned. “I seem to remember the papers saying she’d been depressed lately.”

“She was upset about something . She called me two days before — before it happened. She was crying — said that she had learned something terrible. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was. She said it was better I didn’t know. I asked her if her marriage was in trouble. Hollywood, you know. Marriages don’t last long here — not like at home.”

Rosa paused to extract a white lace handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her eyes. “She said — and these are her words — ‘My marriage is over. There is no way to repair this.’”

“But she never said what the problem was?”

Miss Hernandez shook her head. “I thought maybe Tony was cheating on her, but she said Tony was not the cause of her troubles. Then she said a strange thing — that it concerned a monstruosidad , a monstrosity. She would not say more.”

“A monstrosity?” Molly asked. “That seems an odd word to use.”

“Not so odd,” Rosa said quietly. She swallowed hard. “There is something you need to know.” She drew a deep breath and looked down at her hands, which were now clasped tightly in her lap.

Molly sensed the girl was going through an inner struggle. What did she think was so terrible she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it? “It’s all right,” she said gently. “I used to be a police officer. I don’t think you can tell me anything I haven’t heard before.”

Rosa hesitated and cleared her throat. “Ramona and I come from a small village in Mexico. Our family is very large. We have fifteen brothers and sisters, many aunts and uncles, and even more cousins. Before Ramona came to Hollywood, we were very poor.”

She swallowed again — hard this time — and seemed to be struggling to force the next words out of her mouth. “Our family is cursed.”

Molly realized Rosa was waiting to see how her words would be taken, and she tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible. Finally the woman went on.

“It began long ago. Our great-grandmother stole her girlfriend’s man. Ever since then, our family has produced few boys — in Mexico, that means fewer people who can make money. Even worse, many of the girls never receive the sign — you know, the sign of womanhood.” The young woman seemed to shrink in her chair as she spoke. “The sign is very important in our culture. A girl is treated like a princess when it comes. But for some of us, it never arrives. We become like unpaid servants to the others. No man will marry us, for we cannot have children, and no one will care for us when we grow old. There are eleven girls in our family and five of us, including Ramona and myself, have been stricken.” She bowed her head and murmured, “Our mother always said she could tell which girls were cursed, even when we were very young.”

“How could she do that?”

“She told us we had lost a precious gift, so God gave us another. She said all of her cursed daughters were” — her lovely mouth twisted into a grimace — “beautiful. I always thought that was” — she hesitated, looking for the right word — “ ironico — a badjoke. No man wants to marry us, so what good is it to be beautiful?”