The Fourth Time is Murder

Chapter Twenty-six

The force of Irma Sedillos’ organization brought the eight of them to the well-laden table in the Guzmans’ home on South 12th Street shortly after six that evening. There had been so much food that even Bill Gastner may have felt overwhelmed, although he had significantly more practice at defeating heaping plates than anyone else at the table.

Estelle, thankful for the respite from the peripatetic day, found herself impressed once again with Madelyn Bolles. She was pleased that the writer had accepted the invitation to dinner without hesitation and without protestations about intruding. By the time Madelyn arrived, neat and fresh in simple black summer-weight slacks and a print cotton blouse, she appeared refreshed and ready for the swing shift.

There was only enough time for introductions before Irma and Estelle began to load the dining table. The eight of them-Irma and Madelyn, Francis and Estelle, little Carlos and Francisco, Teresa Reyes and Bill Gastner-were an easy fit around the large oak table.

Estelle noticed a tiny digital camera in a holster on the writer’s belt, but that’s where the camera stayed. Madelyn was content to simply soak in the experience, appearing to notice everything…including the seating arrangement. Despite the special occasion of company, Francisco and Carlos cajoled their parents into letting them flank Bill Gastner, the former sheriff of Posadas County. Estelle knew that nothing was more important to them than that. As a safety valve, Estelle sat on Carlos’ left, and Dr. Francis took a seat on Francisco’s right, trapping the little boys within easy reach should padrino, sitting between the two boys, prove to be more than Carlos and Francisco could handle.

The contrast couldn’t have been more photogenic: the padrino, big, gruff, in the habit of eating with his beefy forearms on the table on either side of his plate as if protecting his food from intruders, and the two little boys, spending as much energy trying to behave as eating. Gastner kept his godchildren quietly entertained during the meal with just enough attention that the talk around the rest of the table wasn’t monopolized by children-something that would have brought a cryptic rebuke from Teresa Reyes, Estelle’s mother.

“You going to eat that?” Gastner asked at one point, leaning left toward Carlos, the younger of the two boys. Gastner pointed with his fork at a bit of green chile enchilada. The various serving plates and bowls had been reduced to empty wreckage, and the adults were starting to take the long, slow breaths of the well beyond sated.

“You can have it,” the child chirped, and watched as Gastner made the transfer.

“So, what have you seen in our fair county that’s of interest to the rest of the civilized world?” Gastner said without missing a beat, and looked at Madelyn, who sat directly across the table, flanked by Dr. Francis Guzman on her left and Irma on her right.

“Well,” the writer said, and pushed herself back from the table a bit, puffing her cheeks. “First of all, I have never, and I mean never, tasted anything quite like this. I’m fantasizing about having the Inquirer or Times food editors sitting here, trying to figure out what hit them.” She patted Irma lightly on the forearm with an obvious affection that said they’d known each other for years.

“Last year was a good year for the chiles,” Teresa Reyes croaked, as if that explained everything. “This girl roasts them herself.” Teresa reached over to rest a tiny, arthritic hand on Irma’s. Irma blushed at the double-barreled attention.

“What do folks do when there’s a bad year?” Madelyn asked. “It must be catastrophic. Right up there with qualifying for federal disaster aid.”

“The crime rate skyrockets,” Gastner quipped.

“The crime rate never needs outside help,” Dr. Francis said. “It does just fine on its own.”

“So tell me,” Gastner said, his heavy brows knitting in a frown. He pushed his empty plate forward a bit, and crossed his forearms on the edge of the table in front of himself. Carlos and Francisco did the same thing, a comical bit of mimicry that was so spontaneous that Estelle had to stifle a laugh. Padrino ignored the behavior. “I didn’t think to ask you this earlier today when we talked. How did we happen to attract your attention? I can’t imagine that the affairs of Posadas County are what fill hours of idle conversation in Philadelphia.”

Madelyn laughed. “It’s all in who you know,” she replied.

“And who do you know that brings you out this way?”

“I have a just wonderful aunt who lives in Las Cruces, who by way of it being a small world also happens to be a talented musician.” She leaned toward Francisco and raised an eyebrow. “She’s retired now, of course. Boston is no place for arthritis, and she had discovered Las Cruces years ago because her son is a major in the army, stationed at Fort Bliss.”

“You were visiting her, then,” Gastner said.

“Exactly. I’ve done so several times. It’s getting to be something of a tradition. Last time I was out, for Thanksgiving this time, I saw the picture of this young man in the newspaper,” and she nodded at Francisco again, “taken when he played at the college recital there. Things snowballed from there. No mystery.”

“Did you come to the recital?” Francisco asked. “There were a lot of people there.” He drew his thin arms off the table and sat up a little straighter.

“No, I’m sorry that I missed it. Can you tell me what you played?”

Can you tell me, Estelle thought. Madelyn Bolles had yet to discover that it wasn’t “can” in this case. It was “would.”

“Some of this and that,” the little boy said, suddenly feeling the eyes on him…especially his grandmother’s. Teresa Reyes had deeply ingrained rules about the behavior of children, particularly exuberant little boys who would take over the adult stage without a thought if allowed to do so. She hadn’t snapped her fingers yet, that ominous signal practiced over decades in the old mud-walled school in Tres Santos, so Estelle knew that her son was still on safe ground.

“Francisco actually played three pieces,” Estelle prompted.

“Yes.”

“That’s hard work,” Madelyn observed, and Francisco looked puzzled, since playing was never hard work for him…not even a day that included five or six hours at the keyboard tussling with some composer’s fascination with five or six sharps. “What did you play?” she asked.

Francisco looked up at his father, but it was the elbow from the opposite direction, in his left ribs, that goaded him on. “You don’t remember what you did this morning, let alone what you played last fall, old guy,” Gastner scoffed.

“I remember,” the little boy said, squirming with delight. “Everybody already knows those stories.”

“Ms. Bolles has never heard them,” Estelle said.

“Give us some after-dinner music while I see if Irma remembers how to make decent coffee,” Gastner said.

“There’s some in the pot from three days ago,” Irma said, knowing full well Bill Gastner’s indiscriminant taste for the brew-freshly ground gourmet beans, or days old in the steel pot with an oil slick on top, it was all the same to him.

“And you promised some pie,” he said, turning and craning his neck to see into the kitchen. “Do we have to wait until this kid finishes stumbling all over the keys, or is it fair game now?”

Estelle reached out an arm and hugged her mother, and saw the tight compression of Teresa’s lips ease a little. “I was hoping for a peaceful evening,” the old woman said, but she couldn’t conceal the pride in her voice.

“I for one don’t have any room for dessert,” Madelyn said, and Teresa Reyes, who had been gradually working her way upright, stopped with one hand braced on the table.

“It’s better to wait,” she said, and aimed the comment at Gastner. “We don’t want an orchestra of forks clanking rhythm.”

“I heard that,” Gastner said, and held out a hand toward Francisco. “Help me up, old guy. I ate too much.” He allowed both little boys to push, shove, and heave as he feigned helplessness.

“Be right back,” Francisco said, and vanished down the hall.

“He has to have the right shirt on,” Estelle explained as they maneuvered chairs this way and that…except for Teresa Reyes’ rocker, which sat in a corner by the fireplace. The grand piano had been moved so that during the day natural light from the large living room window flooded in from behind the bench. Beyond that adjustment, the piano’s location was determined by Francisco’s mood. It had to sit at just the right angle, a cornerstone into his world.

“If you have cell phones, they go on vibrate or off,” Francis said. “I can say that, because I’m the primary offender.”

“Mine’s on the counter in the kitchen,” Estelle said. She had already captured Carlos, and he sat comfortably in her lap in the glider. “Would you check it, please?”

Francisco padded into the room, wearing his favorite plum-colored golf shirt. His soft-soled sneakers had been replaced by black, leather-soled penny loafers…wonderfully out of sync with his grubby blue jeans.

Madelyn Bolles, having chosen one of the padded straight-backed chairs from the dining room, sat immediately beside Estelle. To the right of the piano, they had an unobstructed view of the keyboard. Madelyn leaned close to Estelle and whispered, “Why am I nervous?”

Estelle hugged Carlos closer and beamed at the writer. “Just enjoy. No matter what happens.” She meant that literally, of course, since one of the little boy’s quirks was eschewing the announcement of what he intended to play.

Gastner stretched out on the opposite end of the sofa from Irma, his boots kicked off and feet on the small coffee table. He reached over and patted her knee affectionately. “You do good work, kid,” he said. Irma blushed. Dr. Francis settled in the recliner.

The enormously heavy piano lid was already yawning wide, and Francisco used both hands to open the keyboard cover, letting it ease back to its stops. He regarded the keyboard as if suspicious that someone might have rearranged the ivories since his last visit-less than two hours before. As he settled on the bench, Estelle took his measure, seeing that he could now easily reach the pedals with his toes.

“I was looking at this today,” he said quietly as if talking to himself. His speech now was so introspective and mature that it gave Estelle a turn. There was no music on the rack, and to Estelle it always seemed as if the little boy had to wait until the music burst from the pathways of his mind to each of his strong, slender fingers. As the generator of that process spooled up, he sat quietly and stared, as if trying to burn a hole in middle C. Then his hands moved to the keyboard.

The piece was clearly Bach, and el gruñón, or the Grump, as Francisco had nicknamed the composer, had appealed to the little boy with a prelude that was both playful and melodic. Without a giggle, he managed long passages where the two hands argued back and forth, and despite his rocketing musicianship, Estelle felt a pang of regret that this little boy who in the past would dissolve with helpless laughter at some musical image now performed so flawlessly.

Madelyn Bolles leaned slightly forward, as if she couldn’t quite believe that the music rack was empty. Prelude rolled into fugue, and in places Francisco played so softly that the piano hammers seemed to kiss the strings, grazing the notes only enough that their purity was unquestioned.

And it was during one of those magic moments that Estelle heard the car’s aging muffler outside as the vehicle chugged down 12th Street and then pulled to a stop along the curb. Although she recognized the sound immediately, for an instant she allowed herself to entertain the fantasy that this might be a visitor for one of the neighbors. She heard a car door thud closed. The living room curtain was drawn, but it sounded as if the car had parked immediately behind Bill Gastner’s Blazer. Sure enough, in a moment Estelle heard footsteps coming up the sidewalk. The visitor hesitated at the bottom of the three steps leading to the front door, and Estelle groaned inwardly.

She lowered Carlos to the floor and rose silently, padding to the front door. It opened on silent hinges, and Estelle held up a hand, the backs of her fingers over her mouth, begging for silence. Father Bertrand Anselmo hesitated, then slipped inside.