Chapter 23

 

By the time she arrived at Kelly’s place for dinner, Sam had put aside the idea of telling everyone about her vision of the busy chocolate factory. For one thing, the whole concept was a little outrageous for Beau—he already thought this project was moving forward at lightning speed. For another, Sam wasn’t at all sure she believed it herself.

During the drive, she’d convinced herself to come back to reality: She had a one-year contract to provide products for a travel business. A large and influential agency, yes. But nothing more. For now, she needed to concentrate on doing a superb job for Bookman, making enough money to cover all these renovations, and pleasing the client enough that he’d want to extend their arrangement for another year or two. Or more.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

She savored the idea for a moment but put it aside when Beau’s cruiser pulled into the driveway beside her van. Kelly had apparently seen the vehicles. She came to the back door wearing an apron and looking very domestic.

Another vision flashed through Sam’s head—Kelly in the kitchen, Scott coming home from work, a baby in a highchair at the table and a toddler playing on the living room rug. She shook this one aside as well.

“Hey, you guys,” Kelly greeted. “Everybody hungry?”

“I definitely need food,” Sam said as she gave her daughter a hug.

“It’s spaghetti,” Kelly said as they walked into the fragrant kitchen. “Simple but plentiful.”

Scott stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. “Hey, give credit where credit is due. The sauce is my recipe.”

“The sauce is Scott’s recipe,” Kelly said. “Let me take your coats.”

It was cute to watch them together, Sam thought. Fun to see Kelly playing hostess here in the kitchen where she’d once been a kid, in the home where Sam had lived until her marriage to Beau. Again, the image of a young mother, with children nearby, came to her. Probably some hormonal thing, the post-menopausal urge for grandchildren.

Nah, not on my list for a good long while yet.

“So, I hear the move into the new place is coming along pretty well,” Scott said as he poured wine for everyone.

“It is.” She told them about the progress of Darryl’s crew. “You’ll have to come by and check it out. Kelly says you’ve been thinking about the place quite a lot.”

“Well, I’ve found out some very interesting things,” he said.

Kelly set out a huge bowl of pasta, and Sam had to admit the sauce looked and smelled heavenly. Salad and garlic bread were already on the table.

“I’m sure Sam wants to hear all about it,” Beau said as they took their seats.

“I do, too,” Kelly said. “He’s been throwing all these enticing hints but I don’t know the whole story.”

“I’m not sure anyone knows the whole story,” Scott said. “You remember I mentioned the writer, Eliza Nalespar? Well, I’ve found some wonderful resources, including her biography which was written by one of the preeminent historians at the university. It turns out she lived and wrote in that house for quite a long time. She was born in 1907 here in Taos, in fact, grew up in that house. It was known as Nalespar House in her father’s time. The man had made a fortune in land deals back east, but he loved the west and brought his money out here when he started his family. The Victorian architecture must have been his wife’s idea, since you don’t normally see a whole lot of it here in New Mexico.”

“I wonder why we’ve never heard the house called by that name?”

“Probably because of the tragedy.” He paused—for dramatic effect or simply to wind pasta around his fork.

Sam felt a chill on the back of her neck.

“Okay, you have to tell us what happened,” Kelly said.

Scott made them wait while he washed down pasta with a sip of wine. “Eliza’s father died in the house. A section of stair rail gave way and he fell from the second floor to his death. The official verdict was an accident, but the rumors flew and people speculated—as people are known to do—that it could have been murder. Only Eliza and her mother were home with him at the time. The mother, being a frail, timid sort didn’t seem a likely suspect, but then neither did Eliza. She was fourteen at the time and had always been a bookish girl who spent her time reading, writing little wisps of poetry and doing embroidery. The lack of physical strength from either woman, plus no known motive, gave credence to the accidental-fall scenario.”

“Was it ever discounted, proven to be some other cause?”

“No. But as time went by, other things happened. The wife went mad, unable to cope with the loss of her husband, everyone supposed. Except for those who’d thought her somehow guilty of his death. They held firm to the idea she was being haunted by her deeds. Some swore the husband’s ghost was actually haunting her. Within five years she had to be taken to the state mental hospital. She never left.”

“Wow.” This time Beau was the one enthralled.

“Yeah.” Scott offered seconds on garlic bread all around.

“What about Eliza? She would have lived with this increasing insanity and she’s, what, nineteen or so by now?” Sam asked.

“Eliza had become quieter, more introverted, according to friends who were interviewed for the book. With the help of household staff, she’d been isolated from her mother’s ravings. She kept to herself—the second floor turret room was hers—and became devoted to her writing. She worked at her craft by writing light, dreamy romantic stories along the lines of the Brontë sisters, although not with their skill, and since she came along eighty or so years later, was no serious competition for their popularity. Still, she managed to have several unmemorable novels published in the genre.

“When the servants could no longer keep the mother’s condition secret, Eliza was forced to a decision and it was she who signed the papers to have her mother committed. Once mother was out of the house, Eliza’s writing began to take a darker turn.”

Sam glanced around the table. Kelly was wide-eyed, Beau spellbound, Scott in his element as a storyteller.

“Her novels became about family themes, parents and their children in dysfunctional relationships. Not surprisingly, there were crazy women and longsuffering husbands, raving men and timid wives, almost always a misused but stalwart daughter whose own happiness came only after the parents had run off or died. The books were moderately popular in their day, I suppose because they were rather different from everything else published at the time.”

“Are they still in print?” Sam asked.

“Oh, heavens no. There were four or five, but none ever went into a second printing. I’d be surprised if many copies exist at all today.”

Kelly’s brow wrinkled. “But I’ve heard of this Eliza Nalespar. Even though she was way before my time.”

“Most likely because her most famous book—written, I believe, in 1942—became something of a paranormal cult classic. The Box, it was called. I read it as a young teen. A lot of us went through a phase where we were fascinated with the occult and supernatural. I suppose it’s natural. Kids have always been enchanted with the unexplained. I don’t remember the exact storyline, but it included this magical wooden box that supposedly could effect anyone who possessed it.”

Sam felt the chill on her arms again. She rubbed the back of her neck and hoped her face looked neutral.

“Yes! That’s it,” Kelly said. “I remember reading that book too. The box would kind of target someone and could move itself around. It picked this one kid and showed up in his room, and then it turned him against his parents. But that was okay because the parents were these really horrible people.”

“Yeah, aside from the repeated dysfunctional-family theme, the idea was total silliness,” Scott said. “I mean, I’m not belittling supernatural phenomena. I think there are many unexplained things in this world. I’ve seen some strange stuff on visits to the sacred places in Egypt, for instance. It’s just this whole storyline about the box … well, it was pretty hair-raising for twelve year olds, but that’s about all. I have to credit the author with a terrific imagination. She definitely got me.”

“And she lived right here in Taos when she wrote it?” Kelly asked.

“Yep. Lived in that same house almost her entire life. There was a brief marriage and she moved to New York with the husband, but she returned with a baby, a son, and somehow got the marriage annulled. She kept her maiden name and raised the boy on her own. By most accounts, he too was an odd duck. I gather he must have escaped his mother’s home and raised his own family, since you mentioned, Sam, you were renting from the granddaughter.”

Sam came out of her semi-reverie. “Yes, that’s what I was told.”

“Eliza lived to almost one hundred, most of that time alone, although the biography does say she had a companion in her later years, a woman who acted as housekeeper, cook and driver. They say Eliza died in her sleep in the parlor. The housekeeper claimed her employer left the entire estate to her, but the woman died before Eliza’s will was probated. The son, himself an old man by then, tried to lay claim to the property but it all got tied up in court so long he died as well. It sounds as if the granddaughter is only now getting it all set straight.”

“How sad,” Kelly said. She looked around the table where the empty dinner plates had gone crusty and cold as everyone listened to Scott’s story. “Let me clear this stuff real quick and we’ll have dessert in the living room.”

Sam could see the tiredness around Beau’s eyes and felt her own fatigue.

“We should probably skip dessert and make an early evening of it,” she said, picking up plates.

While she and Kelly quickly put everything in the dishwasher, the story of Eliza Nalespar’s popular book reverberated through her like an electric charge. What were the odds that a woman of her age would dream up a story about a magical wooden box? Could it be Eliza knew Bertha Martinez, the old bruja who had passed the box to Sam? Could Eliza have handled the box herself, and did the artifact mean more to the family where insanity was not uncommon than simply being the inspiration for a fictional story?