Hidden Heritage (8 page)

“So we are on our own?”

“That's about the size of it. Now, unless someone has more questions, I don't have anything else to add. Basically, just keep your eyes open and let us know at once if there is anything we should know. Do
not
try to confront anyone suspicious. We'll be out here is a flash if anything comes up.”

We rose and silently headed for the door.

“Miss Albright, would you stay a minute longer.”

Certainly.” I looked at Keith and shrugged.

When everyone had left, Dimon shut the door. He still looked shaken.

“Lottie, we want more information from the records at the feedyard. In the meantime, go back to collecting family stories and concentrate on the Mexican families in this area until you hear from me. Will that work?”

“Yes. In fact, I was already planning to appeal to immigrant groups that settled here in colonies. The French, the Bohemians.”

“Terrific. Now it won't look like we're paying special attention to the Mexican community. Start building profiles of the families here in this county. Since Maria Diaz helps bring families into the United States I want to make sure there is no connection between her activities and her husband's death.

“Okay. That shouldn't be too hard.”

We said goodbye. I felt as though I had won a great victory. It was the first time he had called me “Lottie” instead of “Miss Albright.”

Chapter Ten

Back at the historical society the following Monday, I appealed to immigrant groups through my monthly column. Then I laid out an ad asking for stories from residents whose ancestors had settled in Carlton County.

Tell us your grandparents' stories
. Were your ancestors discriminated against because of their ethnicity? Who were their friends? Their enemies? If your heritage is Volga German, Bohemian, African American, French, or Mexican, share your family story with the Carlton County Historical Society.

When I was satisfied with the wording, I carried it down to the paper and asked the editor, Ken McElroy, to send the bill to the historical society.

“Any new information you can give me about the killing?”

Ken couldn't stand not knowing everyone's business, although I supposed a local murder was fair game for someone who fancied himself an investigative reporter. Pale, slight, with a harmless appearance, Ken had just enough hair to keep from being referred to as “balding.” His light blue guileless eyes fooled people into thinking he could be trusted with every little secret.

“Nope. I'm afraid not.” I reconsidered. Perhaps, it would be better to give him a tidbit. Something to take the edge off his curiosity. “And the KBI…”

“Rumor has it that the KBI has tucked its tail between its legs and skedaddled back to Topeka?”

He had cleverly framed it as a question, wanting me to confirm the coffee shop gossip.
Hell, why not?
I hoped he didn't read too much into my bitter smile.

“Right now, I'm afraid that is more or less the case. But I'm sure they are keeping a close eye on people out here.” There. I was becoming really good at telling just enough of the truth to appease my conscience without giving too much away.

If I got any better at it, I would run for the state legislature.

“Yes, I can imagine they are,” Ken said with a little snort. A pencil rolled off the desk and he bent down to retrieve it. This was not my first rodeo. I knew he had switched on a tape recorder on his way back up. He leaned back and settled his hands across his little paunch, clearly settling in for a nice visit. Hoping I would inadvertently say something worthy of a quote in tomorrow's paper.

“Goodbye, I've got to go now,” I quickly turned and walked to the door, then paused. “If something does come up—news, a change, a lead, anything at all, I will make sure you are the first to know.”

He gave another little snort, recognizing my ploy to cut off any discussion, and rose with a knowing smile. “Thanks, Lottie; 'preciate it. You know we'll treat you right. No automatic bad-mouthing of the sheriff's department. No matter what they do.”

“I know that, Ken.”

Monday morning brought the first response to my column. A Bohemian woman came over from the neighboring town of Hanover.

Jane Jordan carried a whole box of artifacts and souvenirs. She had brushed her neat brown hair straight back from her forehead and tamed the carefully permed curls with a nearly invisible net. “I was worried that you wouldn't be open during the lunch hour, so I decided to bring this stuff over bright and early.”

“That's fine.” I groaned inwardly. We couldn't collect artifacts because we lacked the storage area. But I never passed up a chance to look through their boxes just in case there was something of historical value. Although most items would be given back to the donor before we had to record it as a contribution, I didn't have the guts to tell them it was garage sale stuff. I left that task to Margaret, who seemed to enjoy it.

“You can't keep them,” Jane said. “I just thought it would save time if you went through the box before we get together. I imagine you're busy too.” She wore navy double-knit pants of the kind of fabric that lasted at least ten years. Her coordinated white-and-navy print blouse had a soft self-tie bow at the neck. I suspected she had never done anything unconventional in her entire life.

“Perfect! That will give me a chance to prepare some questions if any of the items are out of the ordinary.”

“I work at the abstract office. All-around clerical and some research work, but not too much. In fact, sometimes I feel like a robotic copying machine operator. I would love to do what you do. Look into stuff, I mean. Oh, not as an undersheriff, goodness me.” She looked at her feet as though shocked by her own boldness. “I mean hunt up documents here in the historical society.” She covered her mouth and her fingers drummed her lips to hide her nervous half-smile. “I don't mean to imply that I could…that I have the training, you understand.” She rose.

“We could easily use you here if you would like to volunteer.”

She sank back down on the chair and looked like she had been granted entré into Heaven. “I would be so grateful. So very grateful if I could.”

She blinked and dabbed at her eyes with an old fashioned-handkerchief with a blue crocheted edging. “They are cutting my days to four. There's not much going on in real estate nowadays. I won't be busy enough.”

“That's beginning to be a common story.”

“I don't expect to be paid, you understand. I would just like to make a contribution.”

“I'll give your name to Margaret Atkinson right away. She's in charge of volunteers and I know she will be grateful for the help.”

“Oh, here's my number.” She handed me a business card from the local title search company. She rose again, then nodded toward the box. “There's some really old letters from my great-great-great grandmother when the family was still in Moravia.”

“I don't read Czech.”

“Neither do I. They have all been translated.” She glanced at her watch. “We open at nine, so I'd better be getting along.” She got as far as the doorway this time. “It's a great family,” she said. “You won't find many secrets hidden there. We were good members of any community we settled in. Quick to buy land, quick to pay for it.”

She turned back with the wistful look of someone who wanted to tell me more. Family secrets maybe, despite her insistence that there were none.

“My great-great-grandfather and his seven sons came over in 1886. They all spread out. He was an Eagle, I don't know the Czech name for it. It was an organization of the highest order. A blending of physical and mental attainment. Sort of a fraternity, I think. I know he was very, very proud.”

“And church? Were these religious people?”

“Not my family. We believed God helps those who help themselves and after a time, I guess God just got downsized.”

God downsized! Well, there was a new perspective. She waved goodbye and hurried down the hall. But I knew we had a real find. The ideal volunteer. She had worked in the abstract office since she left high school and obviously relished locating old documents. Everything about her said she didn't mind being bossed around. Margaret would be in hog heaven.

Relieved that I was expected to return these possessions instead of having to find a place for them, I carried the box over to a sorting table in back of the room. Her airy dismissal of God rang a bell. I went to my collection of college dissertations and located a manuscript on the reasons for the immigration of the Czech people from Europe to the United States. There was a whole chapter on religious persecution.

About half the Bohemians were Free Thinkers and hated Rome. The other half were devout Catholics.

The Free Thinkers had survived the pogroms and Crusades of Europe and were eager to come to the United States where they would be free not to believe.

I tapped my fingers on my desk, walked out into the hall, then went downstairs and stared out the heavy glass double doors. How did that work for them, I wondered, moving into a heavily Catholic county? Did they run into the same bias here? Or did the neighbors leave them alone? Restless, I turned and headed back up the stairs, eager to start on the mysterious box and see what I needed to copy before I returned it.

I barely made it back to the office when Inez Wilson, the county health nurse, flapped into my doorway like a hopped up crow. “You won't believe this. You won't.”

“Okay. What?” I was in no mood for her guessing games.

“She just came through the front door. She has. Swear to God she has. Priscilla said they asked where your office is. They are coming to see you.”

I waited.

“Doña Francesca Diaz. The old woman herself. Don't know how old, but she's lived in Roswell County forever and most folks have never seen her. She lives out at that compound. There used to be a passel of kids and grandkids. But not anymore. They say she still goes to their first house every day to do God only knows what. Her great-granddaughter looks after her. Folks say their grandparents used to go to her for cures and stuff.”

“I look forward to meeting her.”

“Now don't go making the mistake of thinking that Francesca Diaz is like a…a…a well, you know, someone who knows about healing.” Inez leaned forward as though she had read my thoughts. “Heard tell she's a witch and knows all kinds of stuff good Christian people have no business knowing.”

Her pager went off. “Oops. Gotta go.”

I hastily put back the dissertation and gave the room a quick shot of Febreze® to zap any lingering odor of glue. I wished the room looked more professional. Although I doubted she could tell me anything about her great-grandson's murder, it would be my first time to talk with a woman who knew about the medicinal uses of plants and herbs. I had once heard a professor from Nebraska say that one-third of the medicine used today was present on the prairie in another form, and there was always someone who knew how to put it to use. Certainly Indian women did.

If Francesca Diaz was actually a healer,
a
curandera
,
it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of this woman losing Victor in such a grisly manner, I didn't know what I could say.

She lived in Roswell County, a tiny maverick slice of land that seemed to exist apart from any other governing body. Keith had once told me the geometric shape was classified by mathematicians as a kite quadlateral. The county was occupied exclusively by the Diaz family and had been attached to our own Carlton County for judicial purposes when Northwest Kansas was first settled.

Francesca Diaz was the great-grandmother of a man who had been well known in this county. Yet, curiously her birthdays came and went without any write-ups about celebrations. One would think, even if the majority of the family was scattered across Kansas there would be big parties for special events. Or family reunions. Some kind of a blowout.

Instead she was never mentioned at all.

Chapter Eleven

Moments later, two women appeared in my open doorway. I rose. The famed Francesca Diaz, this tiny old woman, might have stepped out of an ancient painting. Her head was covered with a black lace-edged scarf. She wore a black slightly gathered cotton skirt and a black blouse. No jewelry. Her mahogany face looked like it had been glued together from strips of sun-dried beef.

It takes superb effort to hold oneself that straight. I had never seen such regal bearing in the aged. It spoke of an aristocratic childhood with bevies of aunts and tutors instructing her in carriage and manners.

“Mrs. Diaz…” At the sudden spark in her eyes, I knew I had fumbled. Used the wrong term of address. Should it have been Senora? Doña? Or should I have acted as though I didn't know who she was? There was no going back. “Please come in. Words cannot express my sorrow for your loss.”

Both of the women's eyes were red from weeping. “I am so terribly, terribly sorry.” Every word out of my mouth sounded inept.

“We are honored to have you visit the historical society.” Embarrassed anew by the mismatched utilitarian files and cabinets in my office, I helped the old woman settle into a folding chair and went to the storage closet and got another one for the younger woman.

“I'm Lottie Albright and I apologize for not having more comfortable places to sit.” I gestured helplessly at the crazy array of pipes networking the ceiling, the unattractive proportions of the room. It wasn't called “the vault” for nothing.

“I am Cecilia Diaz,” said the young woman. I glanced at her modest dirndl skirt, her high-necked blouse, her dark guileless eyes, and doubted that anyone had ever uttered a word of profanity in her presence. Or that she would understand it if someone did. Surely, no one had ever violated her dove-like gentle innocence. She then spoke to the old woman in rapid fire Spanish, who in turn gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “And this is my great-grandmother, Doña Francesca Bianco Loisel Montoya Diaz.”

I regretted that I had studied French and ignored Spanish in college. All that registered was the honorific term “Doña” which was used to indicate high birth. In years past, “Doña” indicated a member of the nobility. I would ask Cecilia to write down the stream of names later.

An image came out of nowhere:
The Little House on the Prairie
. A wisp of memory that dissipated like smoke.

Francesca's eyes flared, and Cecilia laughed gently, reached and fondly patted one of her hands. “Yes, and Diaz, Grandmother. You are also Diaz.” Cecilia faced me again.

The old woman's eyes never left my face. I gazed at her hideous hands—knuckles gnarled, with bones jutting at twisted angles, one part of a finger missing. Ruined hands, no longer capable of handwork and pleasant diversions. Embarrassed, I quickly looked away.

“I want you to find out who murdered my great-grandson.” Her words were clear and totally unexpected. I would have guessed that if she spoke at all, it would be with the harsh rasp of the elderly. But even more surprising was her unaccented English.

“You are surprised. Surprised that I speak English. We are American. My family has always lived here.”

I blushed. “Please forgive me for assuming that when you spoke in Spanish…”

“I want you to find out who murdered my great-grandson. My Victor. Her brother. Just a year older than Cecilia, he was. They played together like twins.” Tears streamed down her weathered cheeks. Cecilia reached into her pocketbook and took out a lace-edged handkerchief and dabbed at her great-grandmother's eyes. The faint scent of lavender mingled with the room's usual aroma of glues and old books.

“Certainly we will all try, Mrs. Diaz. In fact the whole KBI is now…”

“I would like you to be the one.”

“The KBI has resources,” I stammered. “They are much more skilled than I and they have equipment that our county…”

She cut me off again. “You please. Just you.”

“That will not be possible, Mrs. Diaz. They are already involved.”

“No,” Francesca said slowly. “Only you will I help.” The rapid Spanish exchange between her and Cecilia began again.

Embarrassed by her great-grandmother's switch to a language that obviously excluded me, Cecilia stopped her. “Please, Grandmother. If you must, tell Miss Albright what you have to say and then we will leave.”

“No more discussion.” The old woman looked at me sharply. “I want you to find Victor's murderer. I have information that I will only give to you. My great-granddaughter here does not want outsiders probing around in our family's business. We do not want hordes of newspeople inventing facts. But we cannot simply go on living apart as we always have done. Not when there has been another murder.”

Another murder. She had said “another murder.”

She teared up again. Cecilia reached over to dab at Francesca's eyes.

“I trust you. That is why I will only talk with you.”

“But we've never met!”

“We get the Carlton County newspaper. We discuss your column every week. A year ago, I checked your educational credentials, your publications. You are patient. You are respectful. You would be not be tempted to pass on everything I tell you just to show off. In fact, I have considered getting in touch with you for a long time for another reason. To see if you might be interested in some information about my family. The bare facts. Nothing more than a simple genealogy. Now there has been another killing. Now, because you are an undersheriff, I will simply give you enough family information to help bring my great-grandson's murderers to justice. Then I wish to be left alone to grieve the loss of my precious Victor.”

Cecilia flushed. “Nothing you say or tell about our past will help Miss Albright figure out who killed my brother. We're better off living apart as we have always done. I can't understand why you would reverse a lifetime of silence and suddenly expect help from this lady, who is, after all, connected to the government.” She turned to me. “Please do not take what I have said personally.”

I nodded. Graciously, I hoped. But in fact I found it quite unnerving to be discussed in third-person as though I were off in another room. I didn't know if their doing so was a family or cultural trait. For that matter, they did not hesitate to make explanatory comments about each directly to me. Right now, they carried on their private conversation in English.

“Cecilia, I have ways of deciding that you are not privy to, ways of knowing about people. It breaks my heart that I can never pass them on to you. The chain will be broken.”

“And if in order to help, you have to risk having your ways misunderstood by an outsider? Even if explaining some of your ‘ways' leads to avenging Victor, after these evil men are dealt with and people tire of the latest hunt, the blood sport, what then? Will they turn on you? Will there be another witch hunt?”

“I do not care. Victor's killers must be brought to justice.”

My breath stopped. Killers, not killer. Why?

The sorrow wedged between the two women was heartbreaking.

Cecilia bit her lip and raised her eyes to me as though pleading for understanding. “I do not wish to be disrespectful by not exposing myself to great-grandmother's ways. She knows this.” She patted the old woman's hand. “I am Catholic. I keep the morning office and attend Mass weekly and I…”

She was obviously distressed, as she grappled for a gentle explanation that would not imply undue criticism of her
abuela.

Francesca glanced at her with loving humor and shrugged. “She does not approve of me, you see. My devout Catholic great-granddaughter.”

Mrs. Diaz had just confirmed the rumor that she knew ways forbidden to Christians. Through Keith,
I knew enough about the church to know Cecilia meant it would be sacrilegious to acquire this old woman's special knowledge. She did not want to be initiated into rituals that would encroach on her own religion and violate the first commandment. She would risk putting other gods before her God. This innocent gentle girl/woman was terrified of what her great-grandmother would have her learn. I understood immediately.

Unbidden, Old Man Snyder, the well-witcher, crossed my mind.

“How I acquired some of my knowledge has no bearing on any of this. I came to you because I know you are a just woman and I trust you not to mishandle information. I simply want you to find out who killed my…” Francesca Diaz teared up again and used a word I did not understand.

“She means ‘beloved great-grandson.'” Cecilia put her arm around Francesca's shoulder, then knelt before her and gently dabbed at the old woman's eyes with the handkerchief. She tended to her own eyes before she sat back down.

“I know things,” the old woman said. “Things that will help you do the job God has chosen you to do.”

I strained to hear.

“Language will not be a barrier,” said Cecilia. “When you hear our little exchanges, we are not trying to say things we don't want you to hear. She converses in Spanish only with me because she feels she can express herself more precisely. We do not use the Tex-Mex blend that passes for Spanish here. She adheres to Old Spanish.”

“Classical Castilian?”

“Cecilia was the only one who bothered to learn my language.”

“Great-grandmother is being too harsh, really. She is giving me undue praise.”

Cecilia lowered her black eyelashes. With a sweet blush, she delicately apologized for Francesca's favoritism toward her. “We all have certain places within our family and I cannot remember when I did not know that I was to care for great-grandmother.”

Francesca nodded. “It was expected.”

“We all loved her and cared for her, of course, but I was to be the main one. It is not the others' fault. In time, most of the family moved away. Please do not interpret her comment as criticism of those who did not learn Castilian. It is not a useful language. Others simply chose to enrich their lives at universities or have contributed to our financial well-being.”

Intrigued by this beautiful woman's curiously formal language, the careful arrangement of words—the use of complete sentences—I felt as though I had stepped back into the 1800s. I blessed my mother's insistence that Josie and I attend a finishing school, although we had behaved like little hellions bent on sabotaging every lesson. Rather than joining group sports as our parents had wished, Josie took fencing lessons and I became a crack shot.

I straightened in my chair, and my legs eased into a ladylike arrangement. I nodded and beamed at them both. Cecilia was obviously the favored one. She occupied the place of honor. In our American tradition, she would be regarded as little more than an indentured servant. We had no comparable role. I knew just enough about historic Spanish culture to know that Cecilia was held in high esteem, indeed. Her days would be spent in service and scholarship. I did not detect an iota of resentment toward a life that another might have found stifling.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church would prohibit her from becoming the recipient of her great-grandmother's ancient wisdom which probably had overtones of paganism. This had to be a grievous situation for them both.

“Would you care for tea?” I was falling into ways that had cost my parents a pretty penny, and I normally had little use for. We have a lovely formal tea set here at the historical society and drag it out for fundraising events.

With any other women, this would have sounded ridiculous. Tea, indeed. As for visiting royalty. Then I glanced at Francesca's hands again. I blushed to the roots of my hair. There was no way in hell those hands could manage to hold a cup and saucer.

Cecilia quickly turned to her great-grandmother, whose eyes brightened and she nodded.

Flustered, I rose and walked back and took the set from the cupboard. I went to the small sink in the revamped closet off the main room. I filled a pitcher with water, nuked it in the microwave, measured tea into the antique diffuser, poured hot water into the lovely old pot, and reentered the room. Cecilia received the first cup, dropped in a lump of sugar, and handed the saucer to Francesca, who received it with some arrangement of talons and bones I would not have thought possible. She even managed to grasp the handle, although it was achieved with a sideways twist of her index finger and thumb.

This morning, this visit, was easily stacking up to be one of the strangest during my years at the historical society. My office had been visited by murderers, out-and-out lunatics, and men and women who bore such tragedy it broke my heart. But Francesca Diaz and Cecilia Diaz just might top them all.

I wished they were from Carlton County instead of Roswell, so I could include their story in our county history books. But a separate booklet or permission to do an academic article about the Spanish on the plains would have been ideal. Now Francesca Diaz had clearly changed her mind about drawing attention to her family. This remarkable old woman said she could provide insight into a possible motivation behind her great-grandson's murder. I would have to settle for that.

No, “possible” motivation was my weasely word. She said she knew why, period.

“I will need some basic information about your family, of course, for background.”

She hesitated, and then nodded.

I considered the number of gawkers in the courthouse, the people who would appear in my office the moment they left, eager to hear details about their visit. “Perhaps under the circumstances, it would be easier if I came to your house, Mrs. Diaz. And people will ask fewer questions if they believe I am there to work on a history project.”

“Yes, I would prefer to have you come to my home. There are also things you might like to see on our property. You are very kind. Thank you so very much.”

“My pleasure.”

“I want you to be the one,” Francesca said suddenly.