Hidden Heritage (22 page)

“Now help me mix the compounds for Angie.”

We walked over to a worktable and I took pinches of herbs from various jars and funneled them into a little bottle.

“She should be fine now. Mix these in tea twice a day. Call on me when she wants to become pregnant again.”

Startled, I looked at her face. How had she known that Angie had just lost a child? I doubted this extremely private daughter would have volunteered the information to Francesca the night she and Cecilia brought me home.

“It's a very simple compound,” she said. “It builds back the blood. And will help her spirits.”

Dr. Golbert had said she was slightly anemic. Apparently with just a glance, Francesca thought the same. It would be very interesting to have the two practitioners get together.

“I appreciate it, Francesca. Now, let me find my husband and we'll take you back to the main house.”

“One final mixture, please, before you leave. A mixture to accompany the seeing herbs.”

I smiled and glanced at the red crystal jar. “You haven't taken them yet, I see.”

“No.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No. I've delayed. It is a grave thing to see and then act on the seeing. Even if one has spent half a lifetime preparing for just such a moment.”

I was uneasy. “Well, let's finish the compound right away. My husband will want to go as soon as we're done.”

***

Keith was right outside the door, staring up at the roof where it joined with the exterior wall.

“All through?” He looked at Francesca curiously, then thanked her for taking the time to mix the herbs for Angie.

“I didn't. I can't because of my hands.” She held them up. He winced, then his eyes traveled up to her ancient face. “These are medicines I usually keep around for my own family and some of their friends. For years now I've lacked the ability to compound the ordinary mixtures I need to have on hand. The supply is replenished now. Your wife has been very helpful. I've become quite fond of her, you know.”

***

“Well, what do you think of the place?” I asked Keith on the way home.

“You mean other than the incredible waste of good pastureland?”

“Yes.”

“I think the whole place is weird as hell, if you want to know the truth. I did quite a bit of poking around. And every single house I had time to check was built with the techniques that would have been used during the time period the houses represent.”

“Why? There's a Sears house. So I understand that. But why emulate old construction methods? It's not like the place is a living museum that attracts tourists.”

“The strangest thing of all is the workroom building. What you call the Old House. There were no nails. I mean none. Metal nails have been around since the Bronze Age. These people used wooden pegs. What would be the point of doing that? ”

“The main house is furnished with a hodgepodge of period furniture. It all looks like it was actually used at one time.”

“I measured that cottonwood. It's actually thirty-five feet around.”

“Guestimating?”

“No, for real. There's a tape measure in the console in the Suburban.”

“That's surely the largest cottonwood in Kansas.”

“And there is something else that is even more peculiar.” The evening sun lighted his profile. “You said there were four kids living here. Right?”

“George's kids. But I make it point to leave before George or his wife gets home from work. So I've never seen the kids.”

“There were no animals on the place. Not a single one that I could see. Not even a dog.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was a rare happy morning. I buzzed around the kitchen like a fifties housewife who measured her self-worth by the quantity of food she could produce. Elizabeth had called last night. She and Bettina were coming home. She had devised some goofy plan to have a grown girls' slumber party to cheer up Angie. She twisted her little sister's arm to get her to ditch her kids and husband for the weekend.

Elizabeth was determined to find an instrument for Angie and was bringing a set of drums and a tambourine. She had decided music was good for the soul, and Angie would, by God, become an active participant in her own mental-health rehabilitation.

Then early this morning, Josie had called and said she would be driving back to Western Kansas because she wanted to see Tom. “I need to talk to him in person.”

Keith was thrilled that all of his family would be here and his pleasure was contagious. I had made a truce with the heat. I simply stayed inside every day of the week, whether at home or working in the historical society or at the sheriff's office. I played like that was the normal thing to do. The heat, the dust would pass. I was sure it would. The trick was to wait it out.

Margaret called before nine.

“You might as well take another full day off. Jane has been cut back to three days a week at the abstract office, so she wants to put in more time here.”

“I'm sorry to see her lose the work, but it's sure our gain.”

“She's priceless. Right now, she's out crisscrossing the county returning donations. She loves visiting families. In fact, she's so good at this that I want her reimbursed for her gas.”

“Maybe we can wangle full mileage from the county commissioners instead of taking it out of the general budget.”

“She's going to the Diaz Compound today. She found a tiny penciled name on the back of the Klan poster she brought in. It's faded. We could hardly make it out. But it was Diaz. I'm sure of it. We both looked at with a magnifying glass.” She sniffed. “I'm surprised you didn't see it.”

“I'm sorry. That was certainly an oversight.”

“No problem. She's going to take it and a little collar out there. It's for a cat, I think. Anyway, it has a Spanish label. It was in with some of the items no one has had time to return. I have no idea where most of it came from. It's from long before we started a formal record system. There's five boxes in all.”

There was a sudden stab in my head. I pressed my palm against my forehead. There was something I should remember about Francesca and the Klan. And a cat. There was something about a cat.

“I'm glad you and Jane are getting on so well.”

“I don't know what I ever did without her.”

Zola came into the kitchen and said she was sorry that she would have to shortchange my cleaning day. “Blame your husband,” she said as she hurried out the door. “He's the one who keeps messing things up. After I help Keith for a couple of hours, I'll barely have time to shower and start supper before the girls get here.”

“Actually, I'm the one who derailed him. I dragged him over to the Diaz Compound yesterday and that put him behind.”

“Whatever. Anyway, feeding livestock takes precedence over dusting furniture.”

“Don't I know!”

I waved her outside and went into Keith's office. He is a tidy man, and it isn't much of a chore to flick around with a feather duster. I got to the shelf with the madstone and smiled. He hadn't even asked why it was sitting there.

Light reflected off Keith's tiny voice recorder on the floor at the edge of the desk. I remembered accidentally putting it inside my briefcase instead of my own cassette player one day when I went to Francesca's. The day that had disappeared from my mind. One of the two days when I had ended up in bed. It must have fallen out of my briefcase when I took out the madstone.

I scrambled down the step stool, picked up the recorder and tackled the difficult toggle menu. It wasn't clear-cut like my cassette player. It would be great if I had recorded some of the missing day. I pushed the menu button, right, then left, then dead center. It started into a playback mode. I listened while I continued dusting.

The step stool was barely high enough for me to reach the top shelves. I listened to small talk, the pleasant sound of teacups set on saucers, the distant hoot of an owl. Then I froze with the feather duster in my hand.

I climbed down off the stool and sat in Keith's chair and listened to the most gut-wrenching narrative I had ever heard. I could hardly take it all in. That hazy afternoon was coming back. Reconstructing itself like a kaleidoscope that formed bits and pieces into shapes and colors.

It was coming back now. All of it. Her terrible story about the night when the Klan decided to punish Francesca for being a witch and her husband for being a Catholic.

Her hands broken, shattered. Her husband mad with grief. The killing of the animals. Their dear animals. The wonderful Andalusian horses. The horses of kings, Francesca had called them. Their dogs. And her precious cat. Because they thought her little cat was a witch's familiar.

I remembered the incredible child-like poem that seemed to underscore the horror of it all.

Those hands. How could I have forgotten any of it? The warm room, the tea, the carbon dioxide, the heat?

I bent over and clutched my stomach but endured until the end. Endured until I heard Francesca say she would get her revenge. The seeing drugs. Dear God, I had personally mixed the drugs that would allow Francesca to go back in time and see the faces of men who had harmed her.

Revenge. She had dedicated her life to getting revenge. God only knew what she planned to do. What had I mixed the day Keith and I were there together?

And Jane was headed there right now with a Klan poster and a cat's collar.

***

I scribbled a note to Keith—Trouble. At Compound”—left it on the counter, then tore out of the house. My promise to never go to Francesca's alone just got trashed. He was in the pasture and might as well have been on Mars. I couldn't take the time to track him down. I needed to reach Jane right away.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. A tower of dust rose behind me. My heart was in my throat, my blood pounded in my temples. My hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly, my knuckles were white.

Francesca wanted revenge. She was determined to get it. She lived for it. She had said that hate was stronger than love. I had no doubt that in Francesca's mind that included punishing the sins of the fathers through the children.

Skidding on a patch of gravel, I over-braked, over-steered, then took my foot off the accelerator. I couldn't help Jane if I were lying in a ditch.

Scenarios swirled through my mind.
What would I find? Would Francesca allow her to get into the workroom?
Only if she didn't know what Jane was bringing, I decided.

Cecilia would probably leave if Jane said she intended to stay for several hours. She seemed more comfortable now about leaving others in charge of Francesca. She was probably getting used to people tromping through the place. Me, Elizabeth, Keith. No visitors for years, and then a veritable stream of people going back and forth.

Fear eased just enough for my brain to kick in. Jane absolutely would have called in advance to make sure Francesca was home, but she wouldn't have mentioned what she was bringing. Yes, I was positive that would be the case. So Cecilia would ask Jane to drive herself and Francesca to the workroom. And then she would leave for the afternoon.

And then? I swallowed tears as I imagined Francesca's reaction to the poster, the little cat's collar. Jane's confusion.

Francesca had vowed to get revenge for her ruined hands. Her desecrated family. The slaughter of their animals.

But what she could do?
She couldn't do anything
.
Not anything. Not with those hands.

Unless she kept herself together long enough to persuade Jane to put on the kettle for tea.

She couldn't manage a single thing on her own. Would Francesca get her to drink a lethal combination of herbs? Probably mixed by my own hand. The Bohemian woman would certainly stay for tea just to be polite.

I prayed I would not be too late.

Perhaps Francesca would cause harm by other means. I shuddered, realizing I actually believed Francesca could cast a spell. Believed that she could conjure up a hex. I was infected with her madness.

Jane's little Honda was parked in front of the workshop. I pulled up beside it and slammed on the brakes. I jumped out and rushed inside.

Francesca was lying on the floor. There was broken glass all around. Herbs strewn across one of the worktables. Sparkling in the sunlight was the red crystal jar, still full. She had not taken the seeing herbs or any of the mixture I mixed last.

Jane was nowhere in sight.

I rushed over to the old woman and felt for a pulse. It was faint, but there. The Klan poster and a little collar with a bell was on the floor beside her.

She started to rouse.

“Don't move,” I ordered. “Lie still. I'm going to the car and I'll call the hospital. They'll have an ambulance here immediately.”

“No. No.” She tried to roll to one side so she could push herself up with her elbow. “No. Tea. Protection.”

There was a cup on the table and glass of water. I gave her the water first, then held the cup to her lips. She took a couple of more sips. “Now you.”

“An ambulance. I need to get to the satellite phone in my car and call an ambulance. “

“No. Protection first. Both of us. Protection first.” Her voice rose.

Her pulse accelerated so rapidly I knew she was on the verge of a stroke. Not wanting to upset her, I finished the cup.

“You have your owl amulet?” Her voice faltered.

“Yes.”

“Must try. Must try to protect you. Put your soul in the mirror.
Get me a mirror.”

“No. The ambulance first.”

“No. You.”

Her breathing quickened again. Her heart beat faster. I saw a hand mirror on the work table and brought it to her. She quieted. I held the mirror up to my face and she began to chant. I impatiently repeated words I didn't understand.

“Where is Jane?”

She closed her eyes for a second and her breath faltered. Her eyes drifted to the poster and the little collar. “Her family. It was her family. They had the collar. Didn't need to
see.
She brought the evidence with her.”

“Francesca, no! I still can't believe it. Where is she?”

Her pulse galloped.

“Jane,” she whispered. “Jane Jordan. Danger. Danger.” She glanced toward the door that led to the rest of the house.

I rose. My mind raced. I had come here without a gun or any kind of weapon. I didn't dare go to the car and call for help. I could not risk leaving Francesca here alone for even a second if she was trying to tell me Jane Jordan was in the next room.

The quiet little worker bee I had trusted.

I looked around. I didn't know what I would be dealing with. I tiptoed to one of the worktables and grabbed a granite pestle.

My heart pounded. Blood throbbed in my temples. I eased over to the door. I carefully twisted the crystal knob.

Jane Jordan wriggled on the floor.

Her mouth, hands, and feet were bound with duct tape.