A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) (2 page)

“No problem. They’re a fascinating group.”

“That they are.”

I went on through to the kitchen, more to keep out of Kris’s way for a few minutes than to verify that the food was ready. I hadn’t seen or heard a hint of Kris’s romantic interests before, and felt curious about Gabriel.

Ramon glanced up from sprinkling sugar over a fresh batch of miniature
pan de muertos
. His hair was just long enough to be caught back in a tight ponytail, and with the hairnet over it, and his black T-shirt, he looked like a gang member at first glance.

“Julio go home?” I asked.

“Yeah. He left me to finish since I’m going to be in the meeting anyway. It’s almost done.”

I leaned over the work table to inhale the scent of the sweet buns. I could just catch a hint of the orange flower water and anise, and my mouth watered. I was tempted to sample one, but held off, knowing I’d probably have one at the meeting.

I had taken to calling it just “
pan
” since “bread of the dead” bothered me a bit, even in Spanish. At first I had objected to Julio’s wanting to include
pan de muerto
in the October menu, as being perhaps a bit too morbid, but he’d talked me into it. I caved partly because I’d already nixed any sort of pumpkin-spice item from the menu, and I didn’t want to restrict Julio’s creativity too much.

To my surprise, the
pan
was a hit. No one commented about the traditional finger-bone decorations, which were kind of abstract anyway. Unless you looked pretty closely and thought about the name, they just looked like a variation on hot crossed buns.

“I’d forgotten you were coming to the meeting,” I said to Ramon. “You’re playing music for the party, right?”

“Yeah. Not so sure I should have let Kris talk me into it.”

“They’re paying you, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yeah. The pay’s good. Just not sure I’m up to the company.”

“But you’re a Goth, too!”

“I thought I was. But I’m not like these guys.” He shook his head. “They’re really serious.”

I smiled, remembering the night I’d caught Ramon and two girls sneaking around my lilac bushes, trying to peek into the dining parlor in hopes of glimpsing the tearoom’s resident ghost. I’d been angry at the time, but I’d long since forgiven Ramon.

In the months since I’d gotten to know him better and hired him on to help in the kitchen, he’d blossomed. He was thinking about going to culinary school—Julio had told him about his own experiences—and he was working hard to learn all he could. He wasn’t going to give up music, and I was glad because he was brilliant on the guitar, but the skills he was learning in my kitchen would help him find work when the musical prospects got thin.

He finished a tray of
pan
and moved it aside, replacing it with a second. This caused more delicious aromas to waft through the kitchen, and for the sake of my waistline, I decided to leave.

“I’m going to check on the parlors before the meeting. Rosa is still here, right?”

“Yeah. She wants to leave as soon as we’re closed, though. Doesn’t like the Goth scene.”

Rosa, Ramon’s sister, was about as sweet and gentle as a person could get. It was a toss-up whether she or Iz, the shy Pueblo girl who was my third server, was more shocked by Kris’s friends.

“She can go as soon as all the customers have left. You too, Mick,” I called to Dee’s brother at the dish washing station.

He carefully set down a rose-covered teacup and took out one earbud. “Huh?”

“You can leave when the customers are gone. I’ll take care of cleaning up after the meeting.”

“Oh! Dee’s going to load stuff as she goes, she said.”

I nodded, and with a wave for them both, I beat it out of the kitchen before my willpower could crumble.

Hearing voices in the gift shop, I went up toward the front door and stepped in. Rosa was at the register, lovely in her lavender dress and white apron, ringing up a purchase for a departing customer. A young couple were looking at the china, and I smiled, thinking of weddings.

The alcoves adjacent to the gift shop were empty; the fires in the back-to-back fireplaces had died down to embers. I paused for a moment in Violet, looking up at the portrait that Julio had painted of Vi Benning. I still got a lump in my throat whenever I saw it.

We all missed Vi, one of my first servers from the day the tearoom had opened, who had been killed during the summer while she was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera. Someone—Julio, probably—had set a votive candle in a small glass on the mantel beneath the painting.

Not wanting the portrait to be damaged, I nudged the candle toward the front edge of the mantel, and resolved to find a fireproof coaster to put beneath it. The flame flickered, then stilled. I watched its light play over the canvas, glinting before settling.

With little daylight coming through the window, Vi’s portrait was not well illuminated. Maybe I could hang one of those little halogen spotlights to shine on the painting. I added that to my mental list of things to do, and returned to the hall.

Silence made me wonder whether everyone had left. Then a piercing scream issued from the main parlor.

I dashed into the room, adrenaline cranking my pulse, and beheld a tableau:

Surrounded by her friends in a small semicircle, the Bird Woman lay on the floor right where all four alcoves met, her gaze fixed at the ceiling, her pink dress covered in blood.

²

I
stared, frozen in horror. The ticking of my old mantel clock was loud in the silence.

Not again!

My first thought was that the tearoom wouldn’t survive yet another murder on the premises. Especially the murder of the one person who reveled the most in the ghoulish reputation the Wisteria Tearoom had accumulated. Remorse held me stricken until I recalled that I had duties in this situation.

I knelt beside her—Mrs. Olavssen, I made myself call her in my mind—and lifted her wrist. Her flesh was warm.

I was trying to figure out exactly where all the blood had come from when the victim sat up, looked me in the eye, and laughed gustily.

“Gotcha!” she crowed.

Cold relief washed through me as her friends came to life, helping her to stand and sharing her laughter. I managed to put on a smile as I got to my feet, though I felt anything but amusement. A glance around the parlor reassured me that no other customers remained to be disturbed by the Bird Woman’s antics.

“The look on your face,” said the Bird Woman, chortling. Her bright eyes peered at me from beneath her feathery white bangs. “I punked you good!”

“You certainly did.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my thundering pulse.

Rosa arrived in the doorway, and Dee appeared a half-second later. Both were wide-eyed.

“It’s all right,” I told them. “Just a little joke.”

“Margie’s got a great scream, doesn’t she?” said the Bird Woman, grinning at one of her friends.

“Yes, indeed,” I said, playing along.

Margie, a thin, retiring woman with salt-and-pepper hair, smiled shyly. “I practiced.”

I wondered what Miss Manners would say in such a situation. Something clever and kind, no doubt. Alas, I was unable to come up with anything. My pulse had not yet settled, and despite knowing it was unworthy, I was angry.

“Could I get a box for my leftovers?” asked another of the Bird Woman’s friends.

Dee stepped forward. “Of course! Does anyone else need a box?”

The bells on the front door rang. Casting a grateful look at Dee, I went out to greet the newcomer. Rosa followed me.

“You OK, Ellen?” she whispered.

“I’m fine. It was just a prank.”

Rosa’s frown and pursed lips told me her opinion. I agreed, but now was not the time to vent.

Standing just inside the door was a lithe young woman in a black velvet cape over a long dress of something very slinky indeed, black as well, adorned here and there with sharp-looking bits of silver. It looked expensive, as did the pageboy hairstyle that angled downward from her jawline to frame her neck in two perfect points, the kind of cut that required frequent maintenance. The hair itself was dark red, perhaps with a hint of henna, though it was too subtle for me to be sure. She was petite, like a china doll, but tall, strappy heels brought her almost to my height. Her eyes were outlined in perfectly-shaped kohl. The entire effect of her ensemble was reminiscent of an Erté print.

“Good evening,” I said. “You’re here for the meeting?”

“Yes.” She smiled, and suddenly looked attractive as well as striking. “I’m Cherie,” she said, giving her name the French pronunciation. “Is Kris here?”

“Pleased to meet you, Cherie. I’m Ellen Rosings. Right this way.”

I led her down the hall to the dining parlor, being careful to announce our approach by saying, “You can hang your cloak here, if you like. Weren’t you at the opera tea this summer?”

Cherie nodded, draping her cloak over one of the coat hooks and revealing the shoulder-straps of her dress: silver chains, studded with more bits of dangerous-looking metal.

“Yes. So sorry about the singer; she was lovely.”

Vi had sung at that tea, a bittersweet memory. I nodded, throat tightening, then turned toward the dining parlor. “In here.”

“This is the room?” Cherie asked, pausing in the doorway to look around.

“Yes.”

I knew she didn’t mean the meeting room. She meant the room that had been Captain Dusenberry’s study. The room in which he’d been murdered.

Cherie’s gaze took in the long dining table set for tea with lace, china, and an arrangement of yellow and orange chrysanthemums, then rose upward to the chandelier. It was completely still. Disappointment crossed her face, then she looked toward the French doors and her stunning smile flashed out. “Hello, Gabriel. Kris.”

“Hi, Cherie,” Kris said, stepping forward. She and Gabriel had been looking out at the back garden, which was fast falling dark.

Something about the exchange of glances among the three of them caught my notice. Unusually intense? A wry curve to Gabriel’s smile?

Distant bells announced the front door opening again. Rather than risk encountering the Bird Woman in the hall, I ignored it, trusting that Rosa or Dee would guide Kris’s friends to the meeting.

“Brilliant idea for the theme, Gabriel,” said Cherie, “but do you think you can pull it off?”

“Of course,” Gabriel said. “I wouldn’t propose it if I couldn’t.”

“But the ending. How will you manage it?”

He smiled, showing teeth. “With artistry.”

Kris turned to me and said a little too brightly, “Gabriel’s an artist. Did I tell you?”

“No. What kind of art?”

“Paintings, mostly,” Gabriel said. “Some sculpture. I’m experimenting with different media, but I usually work in acrylic.”

“Are you showing in town?”

“Yes.” Pride and satisfaction rang through the word. It was a big deal for an artist, to be able to say you were showing in Santa Fe.

“Where?” I asked. “I’ll go see your work.”

“So you got it,” Cherie said to him in a soft voice.

“I got it,” he said with a nod, then turned to me. “White Iris Gallery.”

“It’s on Canyon Road,” Kris added proudly.

Canyon Road. The Holy Grail of Santa Fe gallery-land.

“Congratulations!” I told Gabriel.

“It’s just three pieces so far, but they’re going to mount a full show next month,” Kris said. “Gabriel’s got some work in the Autumn Arts Exhibition as well. Are you going?”

“I hadn’t planned to. It’s this weekend, right? At Sweeney Center?”

She nodded. “You should see it. Oh, hi, Dale!”

Rosa ushered in a young man I recognized: slender and about my height, dressed in a black jacket over a gray turtleneck and jeans, with a mop of curling brown hair ruthlessly pruned to the top of his head, and kind brown eyes. He was Dale Whittier, a friend of Kris’s who had recently applied for a job as a server in the tearoom. I hadn’t yet offered it to him, but I probably would. We were going to need extra help for the holidays.

Behind him came a young woman whom I did not recognize, a few inches shorter than Dale. She was dressed à la Lolita, with a frilly skirt beneath a black corset, pink petticoat poofing out the skirt, and a black ribbon around her neck. There was nothing Lolita-ish about her curvaceous figure, and the corset’s effect was amplified by a large tattoo of a raven adorning her cleavage. Her brown hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that fell in curling ringlets, and her earrings were long, silver crosses with pointed feet.