Bill Pronzini: Beyond the Grave

Now it was too late, much too late. His involvement with the Velasquez family was finished, or it would be once he sent his report to Dona Olivia. There was no going back, even if he had wanted to. And he did not want to.

San Francisco, surprisingly, still basked in balmy spring sunshine. But neither the weather nor the familiar sights of the city cheered him as he rode a hansom from the train depot to Market Street. Even the prospect of seeing Sabina held little pleasure for him-until he entered the agency's offices and saw her.

She wore an attractive tweed suit this morning, her hair was piled high on her head in the rather exotic, Oriental fashion he liked, and her welcoming smile struck him as radiant. She came to greet him with outstretched hands that clasped both of his. Her touch was electric. It seemed to soften something within him, like heat softens a clot of wax.

“John,” she said, “it's good to have you back.”

“It's good to be back.”

“Didn't the investigation go well? You look… well, melancholy.”

“I'd rather not talk about it just now.” His eyes took her in, apparently with such intensity that her smile dimmed, wavered. There was more softening within him, and a sudden yearning.

“John?” she said.

He let go of her hands, caught her in a fierce embrace, and kissed her.

She struggled for a few seconds, then yielded all at once and for a few additional seconds she returned the kiss warmly, almost lingeringly. Then she pushed free of him and backed away two paces. Her eyes were wide, amazed.

She said a little breathlessly, “John Quincannon! Whatever has come over you?”

“A change of sorts,” he said. “Yes, a change. Life is too short to waste in timid maunderings and impotent fantasies. Seize every opportunity to enjoy it, that's the ticket. I've wanted to kiss you for months. And now I have.”

“Well, really.” She was fussing with her hair and her clothing, even though neither was disarranged. “I must say I don't care for that sort of aggressive behavior. When I want to be kissed, I shall issue an invitation.”

“Perhaps you'll issue one tonight, eh?”

“Tonight?”

“After we've had dinner at the Old Poodle Dog, opera bouffe at the Tivoli, and coffee and cordials at the Hoffman Cafe.”

“Now, John …”

“I won't take no for an answer.” He smiled at her roguishly. “I insist, my dear.”

She averted her gaze, but only for a moment. When her eyes met his again, he thought he saw a tenderness in them, an indication of an inner melting of her own. “Very well,” she said after a time. “But don't expect anything more than that.”

“More than another kiss?”

“More than dinner and an evening on the town!”

His smile broadened. He felt better now, much better. The time he had spent in Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, the frustration it had wrought, the specter of Don Esteban's missing artifacts, might well remain embedded in his memory. But if life had its unhappy aspects, it also had its ecstatic ones. Life could be good. Life could be very good indeed.

Sabina, dear sweet Sabina, was definitely weakening….

1986

It was a late afternoon in the middle of June, and I had fled to the conservation lab in the basement of the museum. Temporarily safe from both visitors and my staff, I perched on a stool, savoring the coolness and quiet. Above me in the nineteenth-century gallery, which had been closed to the public all week, I could hear bumpings and scrapings and occasional outraged voices.

As I sat there, Rudy's words came clearly through the floor: “I will not have that display case sitting in the middle of the space like that!”

Susana said, “It must be there. Otherwise the traffic will not flow properly.”

“Who's curator here-you or me?”

“You are.”

“Then let me set the exhibit up in my own way! I know how these artifacts should be displayed.”

“You may be the curator and know about artifacts, but I am the public relations director and I know about people. If you do not have a display case there, they won't go in the right direction-”

I tuned out the argument-one of many that had been raging for days-and looked around the lab at the Velasquez artifacts. Each one had been cleaned and restored where necessary, and now they stood awaiting their debut before the Santa Barbara art community. Just seeing them there in their timeless serenity calmed me, made me forget the turmoil upstairs.

There was the Jusepe de Ribera Madonna and Child , the faces expressing a sweetness that saved them from pious pomposity. A silver censer gleamed from an energetic volunteer's many hours of polishing. A gold statue of Saint Katherine had been damaged when we'd removed it from the wall of the apse, but Rudy's deft fingers had restored it so the break was barely noticeable. There was the El Greco, the prize of our collection. And the Bible in its jeweled cover. And many more….

Tomorrow- Dios mediante -the exhibit would open with an evening reception. Sofia Manuela would be the guest of honor, attired in a gown that she and I had picked out after numerous consultations. Susana would attend with Carlos, seizing the opportunity to display the engagement ring she never tired of flashing; Rudy would be there with his new lover, an antiques dealer he had met at one of the auctions; and I would enter on the arm of Arturo Melendez, whose own show of paintings was not far off on our calendar. There would be friends and relatives: Sam Ryder, Jesse Herrera, Mama and Nick and Carlota, who was visiting from Minneapolis. There would be champagne punch and delicacies such as spicy beef and quesadillas prepared in the manner of los ranchos grandes . A band would play the festive music of that era….

I shook my head, smiling wryly. I'd come down here to escape the pressures of overseeing and planning, and here I was making mental lists! In a way, it was ludicrous, all this fuss over a collection of religious artifacts. Especially artifacts that had brought the Velasquez family such tragedy and pain. But perhaps it was time that some good came of them.

I wondered what John Quincannon would have thought of all this.

Quincannon. In the month and a half since Sam and I had read the last of the documents from his agency's files, Pd been too busy to think much about the detective. Sofia Manuela's bequest had added much work to my days-insuring the artifacts, filling out the proper tax forms, aiding Rudy in the restoration-and my budding romance with Arturo had consumed my nights and weekends. Now I thought back to those documents-and my dissatisfaction with what they had revealed.

There had been a photograph of Quincannon, and he had looked surprisingly as Pd imagined him. And I'd been excited to discover that his partner in the agency had been a woman, Sabina Carpenter. A studio portrait of her had shown a handsome, black-haired woman who did not try to hide her keen intelligence. She looked like the sort of person with whom I would have much in common-after all, I'd done a bit of detection, too-and I was extremely interested in a woman who had broken the rules and become a detective in a male-dominated era. I wanted to know more about her and about her relationship with Quincannon, but there the documents frustrated me. For one thing, the librarian at the San Francisco Public Library had only sent items dated 1894; her letter-which I hadn't found until Sam and I had almost finished reading the materials-indicated she thought that year was the only one I was interested in.

It wasn't that the letters-which had been written and received by both of the partners-and the diary-which had belonged to Sabina-hadn't been absorbing. But apparently both of them believed in being circumspect on paper. Sabina's diary was full of notations of social engagements with “John.” There were mentions of picnics and dinners, entertainments and carriage rides, and one “walk in the rain.” But these were mixed with cryptic commentary on clients, cases, business appointments. And nowhere, both in that diary and the various pieces of personal correspondence, could I find what I really wanted to know: What had happened to Quincannon and Sabina? Had they remained partners? Fallen in love? Gotten married? Had children? Lived long and happy lives?