“No conviene mostrar la verdad desnuda, sino en su camisa.”
“Never show the truth naked—just in its shirt.” — Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645), Spanish Poet and Diplomat of the Baroque Age
“Che! Qué pasa?” Ana Torres answered on the first ring. “How’s life treating you in The Wild West?”
I visualized my highflier friend from graduate school days poured into one of her many power suits, probably a red and black ensemble, sitting straight as a stick at a polished metal desk in a sleek, high-rise Boston university office. Ana would be patting her trim new hairdo, jet black eyes gleaming at a very important conference paper that required her immediate attention. She never understood why I’d applied for a job at a smaller college in the boonies when I could have sprung for a champion academic career in the Big Leagues.
“You know me,” I drawled. “Pokin’ along, enjoyin’ the bright blue skies and cool, high-altitude temperatures. How’s summer in the asphalt jungle?”
“Hot, humid, and rainy, as if I had to tell you,” Ana twanged in her New Jersey-Cuban accent. “I’m leaving tomorrow for a conference in London.” No matter how often I ribbed her about it, Ana couldn’t help pronouncing the “g’s” at the end of “-i-n-g” words.
“Giving a paper on Rosalia de Castro?” I asked, citing Ana’s area of expertise.
“Workshop. A precursor to a bigger presentation I’m doing in Spain at the Celebrate Galicia conference in the fall. Are you going?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m working on a paper. Life’s been conspiring against me lately, and I haven’t found time to finish it.” I gave a light laugh but drummed the end of my pen on my desk. “Listen, Ana, I called because I want to check on somebody here who got his degree from Brownell. I thought you might be persuaded to snoop around for me.”
“Oooh!” Ana’s voice took on a throaty, conspiratorial tone. “Is he jumping your bones or stealing your work?”
“Neither. It’s the department Chair Baldomero Vigil, formerly from Bolivia. He’s a bit of a pontificator, not easy to get to know. I want to understand whom I’m dealing with.”
I imagined Ana nodding her head knowingly. “Gotcha. You always were one to dot the ‘i’s’ and cross the ‘t’s,’ Che. That’s what made you such a worthy competitor at school.” She paused, and I figured she was checking her phone’s calendar. “As I said, I’m leaving tomorrow, but when I get back, I’ll see what I can dig up. Not in any rush, are you?”
“No rush at all,” I lied. “Thanks, Ana Banana. Have fun in London. And don’t come back with a British accent, or I’ll never speak to you again.”
I replaced the receiver in its cradle. If anyone could dig up dirt on Baldomero Vigil, my friend and bulldog researcher Ana Torres would.
On my way out of the department, I reached the top of the stairs at the same time Suzanne was clumping down, and Dolores was wafting toward the main hall. To my surprise, they both made a point of greeting me, but passed each other with no acknowledgment whatsoever. Things on campus were getting freaky.
By Saturday, I was feeling antsier than a picnic table on the Fourth of July. Neither Olivia nor Elsbeth had found time to begin their inquiries. I had to bite my tongue; after all, they weren’t the ones laboring under a black cloud of suspicion.
Besides, I’d struck out with my own investigations, too. I knew I’d have to cool my heels for a while concerning the chairman, but when I called my brother to question him, he was too occupied closing “an important deal” to talk. For Juana’s and Sarita’s sakes, I hoped the deal had to do with selling cars, not with betting on the fights. And I hadn’t come up with a creative way to approach my sister about Juventino either.
The detectives’ insistence when they interviewed me at my parents’ that I stick close to home sounded like the police suspected me of criminal activity in spite of the Chief having known me all my life. Did they mean, like they say in old Westerns, that I shouldn’t leave town? It was all too ridículo!
Feeling constricted made me yearn to get away. If I went up into the mountains, the clear air might chase the cobwebs from my brain, and maybe I’d think of something. And to be frank with myself, I was desperate to talk to my ancestor again. Even if Doña Isabella was a figment of my imagination and not an assistant from The Great Beyond, at least that part of my brain might activate itself at the stone circle. To heck with staying in town!
I shot furtive glances around the parking lot, looking for plainclothes cops before starting my car. I needn’t have worried. On that postcard-perfect Saturday morning, the entire complex, street, and neighborhood were deserted. Many people move to Boulder because of the generally dry, sunny, pleasantly warm weather so conducive to athletics and other outdoor activities. So, those who could were probably enjoying recreational activities on such a lovely day.
The Purple Grape didn’t zoom up the road to my retreat; it wheezed and putzed. I caressed the dashboard with my free hand. Maybe my girl was feeling stressed, too.
Once at the stone circle, I built a fire like the time before, figuring it might act as a beacon to call my ancestor. Sweating from my exertions, I threw a handful of frankincense and myrrh on the flames that I’d bought at The Fragrant Veil. Those heavenly aromatic resins have been used for centuries to invoke spirits and deities of every pantheon imaginable, so they just might work here. I sat and tried to empty my mind by tuning in to the morning stillness.
“Doña Isabella?” I whispered. The vast forest swallowed my words. “Are you there?”
Balsamic smoke rose from the kindling and resins drifted through the trees, and, so I hoped, into the cosmos. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath. Nothing! In the distance, a crow cawed. I prayed aloud. “Please come, Doña Isabella. I need you!”
The fire heaved, and my eyes snapped open. Through rings of smoke, I distinguished my ancestor standing on the other side of the fire pit, her shawl hanging over one shoulder.
“I told you, Chica, just call me, and I’ll come to you,” she said in her raspy voice.
The spirit regarded my offering with a jaundiced eye. “I gotta tell you, though, since I’m an Indian, tobacco, and salt would’ve made a more appropriate offering.” She sniffed the air. “But I appreciate the gesture of frankincense and myrrh. It gives your invocation an eclectic touch.” She readjusted her shawl. “What can I do for you today, Miss Worry Wart?”
It was going to be difficult to talk without breaking down. I swallowed hard. “You probably know that my colleague…friend…Eddy Calderón…h-has…”
“Passed through to this side of The Veil? Yep, I know,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
My eyes clouded, and I croaked, “Is he alright?”
“Sure, he’s hunky dory.” She shot me a sidelong glance. “Other than the fact he’s dead. He’s resting up over in Cabana Number 256, where it’s real comfy. The dying process can be pretty tough on the old constitution, but we all survive it, so to speak.”
I swallowed again. “Does he know how he died and who killed him?”
The old lady plucked a few stray pine needles stuck to her shawl. “Natch, and so do I.”
She removed her shawl, set it on the ground, and eased herself into a cross-legged position by the fire. Sighing with pleasure, she said, “Ah! It’s good to take a load off the old dogs. I’ve told you before that nobody on The Other Side can interfere directly with what goes on where you are. But as your elder relative, I can tell you that Eddy and you were not a match made in Heaven, if you pardon the pun. Ha!”
It was my turn to sigh. “I’ve thought of that, and the more I learn about Eddy, the less I feel I knew him. It seems he may have gotten too mixed up in other people’s lives.”
“Eddy was a righteous dude, but he tended to tell all he knew and judge all he saw. ‘He who tells the truth doesn’t sin but causes many inconveniences.’ In this case, the inconvenience was his own demise.”
I threw dried twigs into the fire and watched them spark. “I’m glad to hear that in his ending, Eddy is finding a new beginning. But with his death, my own terrestrial problems have shifted into high gear.” As I talked, I felt the tension knot in my neck growing. Somehow, I’d have to make my ancestor understand I was in deep trouble. I dove in.
“Since I discovered the body and because my scarf was the murder weapon, I’m now probably Police Suspect Number One. Not to mention my new status in the department as a pariah. I must find out why Eddy died and who killed him to clear my name.” I puckered my forehead. “Even though you can’t tell me outright, I’d appreciate any hints you might pass along.”
“Hints?” The old lady scoffed. “I already gave you hints, Chica, and you chose to ignore them. I thought that ‘The throat must pay for what the tongue may say’ was a pretty nifty use of a proverb to warn you that your boyfriend might be offed by strangulation.”
I felt my chin jut out. “I understand now what you meant, but at the time, I assumed you were referring to department gossip.”
“Well, you assumed wrong.” The spirit cocked her head toward a looming fir. “And right, come to think of it. What about the two birds on the same ear of corn? You haven’t addressed that one yet.”
“I’m thinking about it, but I’m still reeling from Eddy’s death.”
Doña Isabella was occupying herself by extracting little nuts from several piñon pinecones she’d pulled from a pocket of her capacious skirt. Through a mouthful of nuts, she muttered, “I know you won’t believe me, but aromatherapy is crucial to solving this mystery. For the moment, though, I think it’s best you back off. Put yourself in balance again so you can move forward, make better judgments, and use your noodle to find and interpret clues. Aromatherapy can help you with that, too.” She offered me a toothless grin.
For a moment, I closed my eyes that were stinging from the fire smoke, then opened them, and looked my ancestor in the eye. “Abuelita, you know I love learning about aromatherapy and enjoy taking the class you suggested; I’ve even made friends there. But my life has taken such a sudden and serious downturn. At the moment, I’m not in the mood to absorb any more teachings.”
“Tough rocks!” Doña Isabella dismissed the excuse with a wave of a bony hand. “I’m going to give you a couple of recipes anyway. You’ll thank me later.”
Por el amor de Dios! I shrugged, resigned to the inevitable.
The old lady busily ate the nuts she’d collected like a squirrel, savoring each one, while I waited impatiently.
“In case you’re interested, I’m not really eating these,” my ancestor explained. “I’m merely enjoying the memory of their taste. You’ll find them all in a neat pile on the ground when I leave.”
She rubbed her hands together, presumably to brush away nonexistent nut crumbs. “All right. First of all, you need to ‘Calm the Troubled Spirit.’ By that, I mean your own spirit, not me. Ha! Ha!” She hooted. “I’m as serene as a fluffy white cloud. Here’s how to go about it:
“In a dram vial, blend twelve drops of rose, six drops of vanilla, three drops of cinnamon, and three drops of angelica oils. Angelica is a precious essence, one reason you only use three drops.” She gave me a sly look. “You can substitute clary sage or narcissus, if angelica is too pricey for your puny budget.”
Despite my troubles, this spirit had managed to capture my interest. So, I ignored the not-so-veiled reference to my tendency to overspend. “How do I use this concoction?”
“In my day, we sprinkled it over hot rocks in the sweat lodge, but you can put it in a room diffuser, on a light bulb ring, even in an inhaler. Or to use it as a perfume, fill the rest of the vial with sweet almond oil, shake well, and dab it on your pulse points.”
She finished off the last nut and licked her fingers. “I call the next formula ‘Balancing Act’ because it helps balance the emotions. Use fifteen drops each of amber and neroli. Add a few drops of any combination of allspice, bitter almond, lavender, or spruce. Use it in the same way as the previous formula.”
She paused, then fixed a jet-eyed stare on me. “I’ll give you yet another recipe in case you sniff out that someone has it in for you. Like maybe they left a Voodoo poppet by your office door, or something like that. It’ll protect you from the brunt of that person’s wrath.”
I stared at her but kept quiet.
“Mix together twenty-four drops of red rose and six drops each of cinnamon, marjoram, basil, and juniper. Add this mixture to a four-ounce bottle of aloe vera carrier oil, and you’ll have created a protective massage oil.” She gave me a sideways glance. “Of course, you’re gonna need to find someone to rub it on your back.”
I flashed back to Eddy lying stone cold on the rug, and a lump caught in my throat. I looked down at my notebook and coughed. “These formulas look great, Abuela. I think they’ll help keep me going.”
Doña Isabella tossed the empty pinecones on the fire and pinned me with a penetrating look. “I’ll tell you something else, my six-times-great-granddaughter. Whenever you see one side of a coin, you can assume that the other side also exists.” She paused to let the words sink in, then continued.
“I don’t need to tell you, being a literary genius and all, that in every story between the beginning and the end is the middle. And you’re in the middle of this one up to your eyeballs.”
My spirit granny had managed to divert my attention with the recipes. Now all the pain and uncertainty came flooding back.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I snapped. “I’ve tried to make sense of it all, but I have a list of suspects longer than a Latin American constitutional document. Everyone’s on it, from Baldomero Vigil to Clive Strange.”
My ancestor cackled and waved a gnarled hand. “As to many of your suspects, I say, ‘If every fool carried a stick, firewood would be scarce.’ If you want my advice, pay attention to what everyone says. As the proverb goes, ‘Each word might have three explanations and three interpretations.’”
I started to reply, but my relative cocked her head toward the sky. “Hear that?”
I shook my head. Not a sound disturbed The High Country summer serenity.
“I guess it doesn’t penetrate through the ether to this world. It’s the Holy Bells calling us to choir practice with the angels. The longest day of the year is coming up later this month. Up There, the angels put on a fancy celestial celebration to welcome in the summer season.”
“You sing in the choir?” I couldn’t believe the angels would let my abuelita sing with her raspy voice.
“With my raspy voice? I don’t think so.”
Doña Isabella stood stiffly and bent to retrieve her shawl. “I pump the celestial aroma diffuser. It’s something like an ethereal organ, only it plays fragrances instead of music. My guardian angel, though, has a divine voice and is chief soloist.” She turned to go.
“Wait! You have a guardian angel?”
“Of course, and so do you. Your guardian’s quite a personality. We play skittles together and joke a lot, even sometimes about you. You should visit with your guardian and have a chat about The Love Department.”
“But I want to know—”
Doña Isabella cackled. “You want to know many things, but Heaven waits for no one. Hasta la vista, Chica. Happy scenting!”
With that, she spread her arms wide with her shawl and disappeared into the ether. From somewhere high above the trees, I thought I heard a hummingbird twitter the message, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Remember the maxim, ‘One misfortune calls another.’”