Jacaranda (8 page)

Ranger Korman asked all the hotel guests the same question, inspired by Violetta’s hastily whispered testimony: “When you think of the Jacaranda, and why you’ve come here, and why you stay here…what memory springs to mind? Was there something you did? Some vow you broke?”

The padre was unsettled by the answers, each of them recorded in the Ranger’s small notebook. Horatio Korman’s pencil scratched across the paper, testimony after testimony.

A pattern emerged.

But there was always a pattern, wasn’t there? When you stepped back far enough, when you were no longer standing at the center? Except this was still the center. This was still the Jacaranda Hotel, and there was still a storm drawing ever-nearer to the island—and soon they’d be at the center of that, too. With every interview, every statement, it felt more and more like standing inside a monster’s gaping mouth…ever on the verge of closing.

***

Friendly, heavyset William Brewer’s face went pale and his eyes grew dark when he spoke of his mentor, Professor Hanson. Together they had discovered some wondrous new species of flower, with seeds that showed immense promise against certain respiratory diseases—as had long been rumored among the Comanche. (Who had surely known of it for a thousand years, and found the “discovery” something of an annoyance, or so the padre was rather certain).

There were papers to be written, studies to be undertaken, seminars to be held…and credit to be assigned. The two men quarreled, but resolved their differences with a formal vow to share and share alike all profits and proceeds that might come of their work.

But. Even so.

At the center of the botanist’s confession was a field survey in the Texas panhandle, and a nighttime encounter with a roaming victim of the sap-plague—one of the last to wander undead, to be sure (after all these years). William Brewer could have warned his elderly companion. He might have helped him escape or come to his defense, but when the shambling revenant stumbled upon the professor’s tent, the botanist did none of those things. And now the credit and the profit from the flowering thistle (
Cirsium brewsterae
) belonged to William, and now he had come to the Jacaranda.

And every night when the wind scraped its nails against his window, and the floorboards creaked as if he were not lying in bed alone, he thought of Professor Hanson roaming the north Texas wastelands, mindless and hungry, with nothing at all behind his dry and withered eyes to suggest a brilliant scientist, a curious mind, or the co-founder of an astonishing new medicine that might cure consumption.

A chat with the newlywed Andersons revealed a story with a terrible center too—one hinted at by Constance Fields…an accusation breathed with some of her very last words.

Yes, there’d been a nephew—a boy orphaned when his mother died in childbirth, for his father had died in a ridiculous hunting accident, some years before. “Keep him for me,” his mother pleaded, as she bled to death in the fine feather bed. “Promise me you’ll raise him, and love him, and guard his fortune like it was your own.”

Mr. Anderson had done his level best but there was so much money and no, the money and the boy were not his own; and the boy was sickly, and unhappy—difficult enough to like, much less love in a fatherly fashion. But the child enjoyed swimming in the tide, when it came high and close to the Strand. He liked the feeling of the sand and the salt, and on the rare occasions that he smiled, he did so on the beach.

It was Mrs. Anderson, who’d been left in charge…back before she was Mrs. Anderson, when she was only an ambitious governess. She wanted a marriage but not without the money, and there was a child in the way of both these things. A weak one, frail and in need of constant supervision. It was a simple matter to look away. A simple thing, to lose track of him. Easy as pie, finding him floating against the pier, having exhausted himself in the waves. Easy as inheriting a fortune.

Easy as a wedding. Easy as a funeral.

Lean, clever Frederick Vaughn denied any and all knowledge of any curse, any deaths, any unnatural draw, or anything he might have done to find himself at the Jacaranda Hotel—except, perhaps, the idle lure of a holiday at an odd time of year, when the storms were cooking in the Gulf and the heat was often enough to wilt an oak.

He stuck to that story until he’d had several drinks, and then several more.

When the bottle was nearly empty, so empty he could see the table through the glass when he looked down inside it for answers, he confessed that there might have been a widow, once.

There might have been a misunderstanding, with regards to her husband’s estate. Or perhaps the misunderstanding had more to do with Vaughn himself, and his intention to marry her for the money rather than swindle it away from her. Not that he swindled a damn thing, you understand. But misunderstandings did abound, and she died not long after their union, and his subsequent abandonment. Wrists slit, lying in a bathtub, that’s what the newspapers said. Not a tidy way to go, and certainly no fault of the salesman Frederick Vaughn, so his conscience was quite clean and his time at the hotel was entirely voluntary, he wanted the Ranger and the padre to damn well know.

So the Ranger made note of it.

Since Vaughn’s arrival, he’d only heard the widow’s voice once or twice, or perhaps a handful of times—mostly at night, when the wind rubbed itself shrieking against the windows and the drafty frame let little whispers inside the room. Sometimes, they sounded like her.

Usually, they sounded like her.

Maybe always.

David and George McCoy were two brothers out of three. They were twins, though they looked little alike; and their older brother Matthew was recently deceased, so perhaps it could be said that now they were two brothers out of two.

Matthew’s death had been a tragic event, and no one was clear on the specifics. Some kind of accident—there were no untoward suspicions, not cast upon David or George, and that was a fact. No investigation, no concerns on the part of any officials, anywhere.

They wished to stress that point.

At any rate, how could they be blamed, if their grandfather had left his manufacturing company to Matthew? And how was it any fault of theirs, that Matthew was no longer alive to take possession of it?

Thank heavens for David and George, who were ready and willing to assume the responsibility. Thank heavens their grandmother had someone to rely upon, someone to manage the business and the finances. And never mind the gossips who wondered about Matthew, and some weird bargain he’d made with the twins. They declined to specify. The wounds were so fresh, you see. Two deaths in the family, so close together. Such a tragedy, but these things happen every day. Just like the tides, just like the storms.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

And sometimes down in the lobby, they thought they heard familiar footsteps coming up the stairs, just like they did at home. Just like the night that Matthew came home with the knife in his chest, and made it up to the top landing before he fell.

Eleven steps, that’s what David said. George said it was twelve.

Last of all, they spoke to the bright, quick-witted Emily Nowell with her pamphlets on suffrage and divorce laws. She wore her hair in an East Coast style, bundled and braided, and pinned beneath a big-brimmed hat that didn’t budge when she nodded her head, shook it, or otherwise expressed her shock and dismay at the Ranger’s intrusive questions.

Steadfastly she denied any secret sin, any broken vow, or any other reason she simply could not leave the hotel.

She could leave the hotel anytime she liked, thank you very much. In fact, this entire conversation upset her so badly that she’d decided to leave on the very spot, just to show them—and to allay any concerns that she was a criminal, somewhere at the bottom of her heart, in a corner no one knew about. (Or a chamber that no one could prove.)

The Ranger strictly forbade it, given the rising storm, but she stood up and bid him good-day, and added something less ladylike when he protested. There was one last ferry, according to the newspaper schedules. She would retrieve her bags, pay for her room, and depart immediately.

In the end, there was little the Ranger could do to stop her, except to apologize, beg, and warn. She ignored him at every turn. It was either let the woman leave, or hold her there at gunpoint, and as the padre said upon her leaving, “It may not matter. The storm may take her, or the hotel might. It’s no better to force her to stay, than forbid her to go.”

“But now I feel like it’s my fault!”

“No, it’s no fault of yours. She was lying, anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

The padre nodded. He’d been listening. “Whatever ties her to this place, she can’t bring herself to speak of it. Besides, it’s no business of ours—and it doesn’t matter. The pattern is already clear, for all the good it does us to see it.”

And for all the quiet horror it instilled in him, knowing that this might be the last place after all, the last case he ever investigated. This might be the reckoning—and true, anyplace
could
be. Any confrontation with forces dark and treacherous could mean the end of this borrowed time he occupied, and it would be fair.

It was up to the Mother now. He tried to have faith, but he’d tried to have faith in a church, too, and he’d put his trust in a pair of guns instead. His broken vow was a great one—maybe the greatest of all, if you looked at it from just the right angle, in just the right light.

***

A short blast of wind fired a tree branch scraping along a window in the great hall, where soon the Alvarez women would serve up supper to those who remained—and then the place would be secured as best as possible.

The Ranger and the padre discussed it between themselves: There would be boards, and ropes, and shutters to close; they would enlist the help of everyone still standing, and when the hurricane had passed—should any of them survive it, and survive the hotel too—they would bury Sarah, and hope there wasn’t any need to retrieve and bury Emily Nowell as well.

But all of that was for later, if later ever came. For now, it was only the Ranger and the padre, and their notes, and the storm outside, rumbling and thrashing against the shore.

“What about you?” the Ranger asked the padre. He still pretended not to see the world spiraling into darkness outside those enormous windows. “Why are you here? The nun called for you, I know, but it’s more than that. I bet.”

Juan Rios didn’t see much point in lying. “I killed thirteen men in a church.”

“Bull
shit
, now.”

“They were bandits. They came to rob, rape, and murder. I stopped them, and I…” he paused, and let the wind shriek through the hesitation. “I told myself that it was right, but it was not. I did not have faith enough. I took…” he chose an English expression, one he’d come to like. “I took matters into my own hands, when I should have left them in God’s.”

“But the broken promise…there must be one in your story someplace. Everybody else has one,” the Ranger said, glancing down at his notebook.

“My promise was to the Mother. I told her I wouldn’t touch the guns again. It was part of my oath, when I took my vows.”

“But you kept the guns anyway? In the church?”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair, rubbing at his eyes. They were tired, and they were straining. He wished he knew how to turn on the lights, in case it would make a difference. The clouds had taken on a bruise-like hue, and everything had grown dim despite the early hour. “I had my reasons, at the time. And what about
you
? Where’s your broken vow? You said that the Rangers did not send you, that you came by your own choice…but that’s what everyone thinks. I bet.”

“I came because it sounded weird and interesting. This is what I do, I guess—I look into the cases nobody wants to touch, because everybody thinks they’re stupid. But I know they’re not. I know they’re worth investigating, even if there isn’t any good answer to be found…it’s always worth trying. These last few years, I’ve looked into ghosts, curses, and angels alike. Hell, I checked up on a chupacabra, once. You ever hear about those things?”

“Once or twice.”

“Still not sure if it’s real or not, but that rancher outside Oneida didn’t have one. He had a coyote with the worst goddamn mange you ever saw in your life. I did the thing a favor, when I shot it. But since you’re about to ask me
why
—that is,
why
I’ve got this interest in the stranger things—the answer is short and sweet: I met a little lady in New Orleans, oh, fifteen years ago now. An old negress, wily as they come, and twice as sharp. She had…power. I don’t know what kind, and I don’t know who it came from—but she had it. I saw it. And in the end, she used it to save that city.”

“She did?”

“This was all back during the occupation, when Texas was there—and when the sap-plague was really getting a foothold this side of the Rockies. Those rotters, they were swarming the river’s edge, taking soldiers and sailors, and anyone else they could catch. But Marie Laveau, she understood them. She controlled them. She knew things ordinary mortals shouldn’t, but she’s gone now.” He pulled out his tobacco pouch, and started to roll up a cigarette. His hands shook, and he flinched when another tree branch dragged itself along the glass behind him. “So I guess it’s always possible that these days, she knows even more about the world’s mysteries than she ever did before.”

“And you broke a vow to her?”

He sniffed, and fiddled with the cigarette. “No, not her; I’m sure I wouldn’t be here today, if I had. But it was Mrs. Laveau who got me bit by the mystery bug…and besides that, she introduced me to
another
woman…”

“The good kind, or the bad kind?”

“The best kind. Pretty and brilliant. Tough as nails. We were from different places, and different ideas, but we got along anyhow. We worked together, for a while—for as long as I could stay there, and whenever I could make my way back to the delta. Goddamn, but it was never often enough. Say, padre—you ever been to New Orleans?”

“No. But I hear it’s beautiful.”

“Not half so beautiful as my Josephine. But you want to know what promise I broke, so before you can ask me again, I’ll tell you: I promised to marry her. I meant it when I said it, but I got cold feet. I didn’t leave her at the altar or anything…I just…
left
. I left by myself, when I was supposed to take her with me. We were going to see Paris, that’s what I told her. That’s what I’d planned…and I couldn’t go through with it. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with me.

“Before too long, I realized what a shit I’d been, so I went running back, hat in hand, hoping she’d forgive me. But while I’d been gone, cholera had come calling—and it’d made a mess of the city. Josephine…she wasn’t even supposed to be there, when it hit. She was supposed to be in Paris by then.” He struck a match and lit the cigarette, then held it like he’d forgotten why he wanted it in the first place.

“Josephine survived rotters and sap-plague, war, submarine fights, spies, and all other manner of things that would fell a lesser lady, and I loved her for it. But in the end, all it took was a batch of bad water to take her away for good.” He changed his mind, and took a deep puff. Held it in. Let it out, in a soft white cloud that spun in the air like cotton. “So there it is. That’s the worst promise I ever broke. And if
that’s
why I’m here, if this is where I meet some…some justice, or whatever… I’m all right with that. I sure as shit have it coming.”

For a time they sat in silence while the Ranger smoked and the padre sank deep into thought, and the storm smeared itself across the hotel windows, and walls, and landscaping.

The padre hoped he’d buried Constance Fields deep enough that the inevitable flooding didn’t dredge her up. He hoped they would have a chance to bury Sarah, too—and bury her properly, with more than a hedge to mark her passing.

At the thought of Sarah, he likewise thought of Sister Eileen.

He hadn’t seen her since Tim had delivered the doll. Had she stayed? Closed up the room, and returned to her own? “What about Sister Eileen?” he asked aloud. “She’s been here longer than anyone else, except for Sarah and the Alvarez family. She must have been called here too, drawn by some secret of her own. I wonder what it is.”

Ranger Korman asked, “How well do you know her?”

“Barely at all. We exchanged some letters, and then we met for the first time yesterday.” He leaned forward, then stood up and pushed his chair beneath the table. “But there’s something strange about her. Something different, and I don’t know
what
.”

The Ranger stood up, too. “Neither do I, but I don’t disagree with you—and I’ve only known her an afternoon.” He tucked his cigarette between his lips, and beneath that fluffy white mustache. “Something about her reminds me of the old New Orleans woman, Laveau. Something about the way she carries herself, like she bears more weight than you can see. Do you think she’ll tell us about it? If we ask real nice?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” 

Mrs. Alvarez joined them, by accident more than design. She rolled a tray into the great hall and stopped herself at the sight of them. “Pardon,” she mumbled, and guided the tray around them. In Spanish, she muttered, “The meal will begin in fifteen minutes. Spread the word around, if you like. Today we eat early, so we can get ahead of the storm.”

“What’d she say?”

The padre nodded at the woman, and then he said to the Ranger: “Get ready for supper. It’s likely to be our last.”