Hidden Heritage (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

The next morning, I think it was morning, I was still very, very sick. I woke up in my own bed. Keith heard me get up and go to the bathroom. He was up the stairs in a flash.

“What happened?” I asked as I made my way back to the bed and collapsed.

“You tell me.”

“All I remember is hitting the floor. How did I get home?”

“I got a phone call from a man saying he was related to Doña Francesca Diaz and that he wanted to make sure someone was around, because you had gotten sick and he was bringing you here.”

“George Perez, I'm sure.”

“I said I would come get you, but he said he was well on the way. He drove up in your Tahoe. He was followed by a young woman in an old Taurus. Riding with her was an old woman who looked like she was auditioning for Batman's grandmother.”

“That was Doña Francesca Diaz. And her great-granddaughter, Cecilia.”

“Yes, they introduced themselves. Anyway, George and I managed to get you up the stairs and into bed. He wanted to take off immediately, but he didn't have a separate ride so he had to stay until Mrs. Diaz and the other woman were ready to leave. I wanted to take you to the emergency room right away, but Mrs. Diaz was adamant that drugs and injections might be harmful. She assured me that you suffered from heat exhaustion and would be fine in the morning.”

I recalled the time in the feedyard when I knew the heat was getting to me. But, heat exhaustion would not knock me out for a whole night and well into the next morning. It had to have been something else.

“She said you had not taken any of the herbs.”

“I didn't, Keith. Not even a pinch.”

“She told me she was a kind of nurse, a healer, and that she knew as much as anyone at the hospital.”

“That is probably true,” I mumbled.

“She had a black satchel with her and started ordering the young woman around. She asked me to stay with you while they went through the house. I'm not sure what in the hell all they did. They left a bouquet of snapdragons on the dresser and another bunch downstairs and several little bouquets of herbs in different places. And rocks. I'm finding little pebbles in strange places.”

I swallowed.

“Can't see where that would hurt anything, but it's a funny thing for a nurse to do.” Keith's face was solemn. He left my side long enough to open the curtains. “Then she went down into the kitchen. Angie helped them find things. She said the young woman looked fit to be tied, but Mrs. Diaz told her how to fix some kind of tea and she did it. They brought a tray back upstairs and made you drink a couple of sips.”

“Oh, Keith.”

“Then they left.”

Tears started down my cheeks. I reached for him and clung for dear life. This was the second time I had ended up in bed after a visit to Francesca.

“Lottie, what in hell is going on? Something is. I know you don't like it when I tell you what to do, but I want you to stay away from that place. Please.” He smoothed back my hair and leaned over and kissed my forehead.

“I won't go there unless you are with me.”

“Okay. I'll settle for that.”

“First, let me tell you what happened yesterday and you'll understand why we might have to make more trips to the compound. I learned something that might have a connection to Victor's murder. “This will take a while.” I brought him up to date.

“Whew! An underground spring!”

“Yes, and that mysterious map.”

He shot me an appraising look. “If it exists. And if there is something there worth dying for. What if Dimon is right in thinking Mrs. Diaz believes an old family myth that has no basis in fact? What if she is just wanting attention? “

“She's not seeking attention. She's trying to avoid it. After all, she's lived in seclusion for years and years. It took the murder of her great-grandson to draw her outside her home.”

“You've got a point there.” He stroked a finger along his jaw and mulled it over. “She doesn't sound like someone who craves the limelight.”

“Nevertheless, the next time I go there, you can come ,too. My historical research into the medicinal use of plants is finished anyway. Yesterday I helped Francesca mix some herbs that she couldn't manage by herself. As to my sick spell…”

“Spells,” he said. “Spells. Twice now something hasn't been right when you come back from that place.”

“I've been thinking about that. I don't think it was heat exhaustion. I believe the aroma from the plants, the naturally high carbon dioxide content in that room gets to me, whereas Francesca is immune to them.”

“All I ask is that you don't go there alone anymore.”

“I won't.”

“I hope you don't put too much stock in what that old woman is telling you.”

“I don't. I take it all with a grain of salt.”
I think.

He gathered me up and hugged me against his chest. “Sleep,” he said. “That's an order.”

“Okay.”

He closed the door behind him and I sank exhausted against the pillows. Angie came in carrying a breakfast tray containing scrambled eggs, toast, a glass of orange juice, and coffee.

“You're looking so much better, Angie.”

“That's more than I can say for you. Dad was worried sick. Mrs. Diaz had to talk hard to keep him from taking you right to the emergency room.”

Watching Angie work, I knew Elizabeth had made the right call when she insisted her sister would be the happiest working with children. She was a natural caretaker.

Elizabeth! I had just told Keith I wouldn't go to the Diaz Compound again without him. But what if Elizabeth needed a copy of the map for her purposes? Francesca hadn't shown it to her. I was the only one who knew the location of the real map. However, the copy would certainly be enough for Elizabeth's investigative purposes until she decided to move forward in a court of law.

I poured a cup of coffee and thought about it. No. Unless a clear link to Victor's murder emerged, it was Elizabeth's job, not mine, to persuade Francesca Diaz to give her a copy of the map to make her case.
Good luck with that
.

Did I have a duty to tell the KBI about any evidence I thought had some connection to Victor's murder? No siree. Dimon had made that clear. Not if it was just speculation. In Keith's opinion, Francesca might be attaching too much importance to family myths. I didn't think so, but it was a possibility. I wasn't going to rule it out.

I would take Sam Abbott's “speculations” over Dimon's hard-wired hotshots anytime.

Thus, I argued myself back to sleep.

***

Elizabeth called two days later. “Bad news, I'm afraid, Lottie. There is no mysterious Diaz claim and brace yourself for even worse news. They don't even own the land they are living on now.”

“That's impossible,” I stammered. “That can't be true.”

“It is. I hired a researcher to go through the Territorial records, all sixty-one boxes and sixty-five volumes. Six reels of microfilm too.”

“From the time Colorado was part of Kansas Territory?”

“Yes, and then I had my researchers look into a special National Archives collection held at Atlanta, Georgia.”

Who had paid for all this? Who had this kind of time?
I wondered.

“You said it yourself early on. We just didn't understand what Francesca's claims really meant. There was no record of any deeds. No proof of land ownership whatsoever. There were a couple of lawsuits mentioned in various Kansas Territorial newspapers but they were all presented as a joke. Sort of along the lines of ‘it's spring again and time for a certain Spanish family to do battle over a land claim.'”

“But you, Zola, everyone seemed to know about these lawsuits.”

“I know. But we were kids. Come to think of it, it wouldn't make sense that we knew about any kind of lawsuits at all, but we did.”

I was sick. Just sick.

“What are you going to do?” I asked finally.

“Nothing. I'm not going to a file a suit because there's no case here. If I were going to be her attorney, I wouldn't be talking to you. I just wanted you to know that for some reason Francesca might be making a lot of stuff up. I'm going to make a flying trip back to Kansas to tell her in person she has no basis for pursuing litigation. I also promised to take care of another unrelated bit of business.”

“Will you stop by?”

“Just long enough to say hello.”

We hung up.

***

This changed everything. Although I had seen a copy of the alleged map, now I suspected it didn't mean anything. As for the reason why Francesca might be making it all up, I suspected that was to con me into helping her mix her herbs. She had started innocently enough, just wanting to me to know this map might be the reason was Victor was killed. Then after I talked her into letting me record the healing uses of all her plants, she sensed I was the ideal apprentice. She had lured me in deeper by hinting that her family had a secret heritage. Something that would change their lives. And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

I opened my desk and started sorting thumbtacks into different colors. Josie says I have compulsive tendencies, but I see no sense in putting much stock in the opinion of a smoker.

When I settled down and could think again, I was less cynical. Francesca didn't fit the profile of a scheming hustler. She was simply a deluded old woman. There was no doubt in my mind that Francesca Diaz
thought
the family owned more property. Ownership would never become an issue unless they tried to sell it and an abstract company started looking into it.

I paced and hoped the phone didn't ring. At the end of the day, I decided I didn't go around challenging the property rights of other people in the county, so why should the Diaz family be an exception? A lot of the families in Northwest Kansas had acquired land where boundaries were fuzzy. Old abstracts had disappeared. Especially during the Territorial period. During the organization of various counties, some of the county clerks had been incompetent—to put it mildly. There had been vicious county-seat fights in over half the counties in Kansas. Old wooden courthouses had burned down. Sometimes county records had been taken at gunpoint.

But if the Diazes ever tried to sell their land, all hell would break loose. In the meantime, the only thing that was actually my business was if anyone in that compound knew anything about a murder. And I was beginning to think that no one did, and that included Doña Francesca Bianco Loisel Montoya Diaz.

Thank God for thinking. For cold logic. Having decided to do absolutely nothing about anything, I swept the thumbtacks off the desk into their little plastic container and locked up for the day.

***

Cecilia called the next morning and said Francesca wanted to give me some compounds for Angie. She sounded weary, disapproving, tired of taking orders from her great-grandmother. I was sure whatever Francesca thought might help Angie would be safe and effective.

I had told my husband I would never go there alone again.

Keith had just headed out the door. I caught him at the end of the sidewalk. “We need to make a quick trip to the Diaz Compound. If you don't want me to go without you, that means you're going to be at her beck and call too.”

I was glad he was going. I wanted his impression of the place.

Keith didn't say a word for several miles. “Just because it has always rained again doesn't mean it will this time.” He said finally. He scowled and I laughed. He reached over and pinched my thigh.

When we reached the road that would take us into the compound, he let out a slow whistle. “I've heard about this place, but I don't believe it. Just
can't
believe it. It's like Brigadoon. A place that has come up out of the mists.”

“It's literally out of this world.” I remembered how I felt when I saw it the first time.

“Look at those trees. And that pasture. Look at the height of that grass.”

He stopped the car for a minute. “This beats anything I've ever seen. Elizabeth tried to tell me about it, but I guess I thought she was exaggerating.”

“There's other surprises. Wait until you have a chance to really look things over.”

We picked up Francesca and drove her to the workroom. All the while Keith looked like he had stumbled into Oz.

Francesca surprised me by turning on the charm.

“I'm so sorry we had to meet under such strange circumstances the other night, Mr. Fiene. I'm delighted to see Lottie so hearty and hale now. Do you accompany her often?”

He started to say only when he was on official business, but checked himself. “Only when she asks me to come along.” He gave me a wicked grin. He drove, Francesca was in the front seat beside him. I sat in the back and was at the ideal angle for him to see me stick out my tongue in the rearview mirror.

“I hope your daughter, Angie, is doing well. I have some compounds I think might help her. I hope Lottie told you I have some compounds that will help her, too.”

We went inside, she showed him her workroom and the Spanish books. By the lively exchange of questions and answers, I knew he was quite impressed with her understanding of medicine.

“Would you like to look around outside while I talk to Lottie about getting some material translated? All the houses are empty except mine and the Spanish bungalow, so feel free to go inside them.”

“I would love to. This is quite a place you have here.” Keith went off to inspect the property.

Francesca waved toward the wall of books. “They are rare and precious. I need a sensitive scholar to do the translating. Not an amateur who thinks this abominable modern-day Mexican mixture can be substituted for ancient Castilian. I would like you to recommend someone who is worthy of the task.”

“The Kansas State Historical Society has a list of linguistic consultants. I'll talk to them tomorrow.”