The Tree of Death

“Oh.” An unpleasant realization was dawning on me. The silence lengthened.

Finally I said, “He told me he was going to work on the budget last night. But he never did that. It was Vic’s job. Maybe Frank just said that to get rid of me. Maybe he was going to meet someone here and needed to get me out of the way. Maybe he let that person in, and he or she killed him.”

Kirk regarded me thoughtfully.

“Well, he could have let someone in,” I said. “All he had to do was flip the toggle switch to shut off the alarm.”

The lieutenant paged through his legal pad. “From your earlier statement, Miss Oliverez: ‘When I arrived this morning, the alarm was set. Everything seemed normal. When I passed Frank’s office I saw his keys on the hook and realized he’d arrived here first, but I decided not to bother him. I went about my business, and the others showed up maybe twenty minutes later.” “

“What, do you take shorthand?” I asked. But my mind was busy with the possibilities.

He didn’t even acknowledge the question.

“So he let someone in last night and reset the alarm,” I said. “Then that person killed him and…”

“And what, Miss Oliverez?”

And what indeed? No one could have left, not without the keys to reset the alarm.

“What did this person do after killing Mr. De Palma?” Kirk repeated.

“Well, he… he could have-” Of course! “He could have hidden in the museum until I got here this morning and then sneaked out.”

“Wouldn’t you or Mr. Leary or Mrs. Cunningham and her volunteers have seen someone sneak out?”

“Not necessarily…”I stared down at my hands. They were clasped together, white-knuckled. I closed my eyes and saw with dismaying clarity the way the alarm switch had looked when I unlocked it this morning.

“Miss Oliverez?”

I looked up at Kirk, my lips parted in panic. “Someone did leave the museum, though. Someone left between the time I set the alarm and the time I opened up this morning.”

“How do you know that?”

“When I set the alarm last night, the lock was in the down position. But, this morning, it was up. That means someone left through one of the other two doors-the loading dock or Frank’s courtyard-and reset the alarm.”

“How, Miss Oliverez?”

I stared at him, thinking hard.

“How could anyone have done that when you, by your own admission, had one set of keys and the other was inside the museum when you arrived this morning?”

“Maybe-maybe someone sneaked in and replaced Frank’s keys on the hook after I opened up.”

“Oh, now we have someone sneaking in. But is that really possible, Miss Oliverez?”

“No.” I’d gone straight to Frank’s office and seen the keys. No one could have gotten there first.

“In other words,” Kirk said, “the only person who could have set that alarm was you. We have only your word for the fact that the alarm lock was in a different position this morning-the word of a person who had, as recently as yesterday, threatened Mr. De Palma’s life.”

“I didn’t threaten him!”

“What do you call it?”

“I-I was angry… I didn’t mean-”

“You appear to be an intelligent young woman, Miss Oliverez. If you were looking at the set of facts I have before me, what would you think?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Then let me tell you.” Kirk got up and leaned across the desk. His voice was soft and level. “That set of facts strongly suggests that you killed Frank De Palma.”

six

Eleven o’clock that night. I leaned forward at my desk, my head on my arms like a school child at rest time. The day had been grueling, and those to come seemed no more promising.

Lieutenant Kirk had kept interrogating me for two hours, going over and over my frequent quarrels with Frank and making me demonstrate how the alarm system worked. He refused to listen to my theory that Frank’s killer had hidden in the museum all night and, frankly, I didn’t believe it myself. All the time Kirk probed into what he-referred to as my “professional jealousy of Mr. De Palma‘’ my mind returned to that one possibility-that someone had left the museum and reset the alarm without using either set of keys. When Kirk finally let me alone, his parting warning was that I should not leave town without letting him know. I felt like a character in a TV police show.

I had then had Isabel call the press people who had been turned away that morning. At four, I met with them in the central courtyard and delivered my brief statement. There was considerable grumbling about the lack of information, but they left quickly, presumably to go bother the police.

Of course, by that time my mother had heard the news. She called, full of questions and concerns. Was I all right? Did I want her to come down there?

No, Mama, I had said.

But was I sure I was all right? After all, I didn’t find corpses every day, and she remembered what a terrible time I used to have at funerals.

I assured her I was all right.

That worry disposed of, my mother’s voice took on confidential tones. Wasn’t it awful about Frank? she asked. But hadn’t she told me? Hadn’t she had a feeling?

She certainly had, I replied.

Would I call her if I needed anything?

Yes, I would. I certainly would. When I hung up, there were tears in my eyes. It was wonderful in its way. No matter how old you got, your mother was still your mother.

Dinner had been bites of tasteless hamburger in between calls to our board members. Carlos Bautista’s plane was due in at eight, and he would come directly to the museum for an emergency meeting. Carlos, the six other board members, and I gathered at Frank’s office-which by now had been thoroughly turned upside down by the police-and, for what seemed to be the hundredth time, I went over my discovery of our director’s body. The board then officially appointed me acting director, resolved that the Cinco de Mayo opening should go on as-planned, and drafted a letter of condolence to the De Palma family. By the time they’d left at ten-thirty, I felt physically exhausted. I had followed the last members to the front door, thrown the toggle switch on the alarm system, and retired to my office. While my body ached for sleep, my mind kept racing.

Lieutenant Kirk had called again in the interval between the press conference and the board meeting. He wanted additional information on the museum-background information, he called it. The information, however, was more concerned with me than with the museum. How long had I worked there? What was my training? Who had hired me? Did I report directly to Frank? What were my ambitions? The questions confirmed that I was indeed a serious suspect. They seemed designed more to put pressure on me than to elicit facts.

Now as I sat with my head on my desk, I considered the lieutenant. I couldn’t understand how his mind worked. He seemed determined to ignore my claim that the alarm system had been set differently this morning than it had last night. It was almost as if he wanted to put the blame on me. Why? Ethnic prejudice? Some other subjective dislike of me? I couldn’t tell, couldn’t see what emotion, if any, hid behind those flat brown eyes. Kirk was too brown, too monochromatic. There was no telling what his reasoning might be.

Suddenly I wished I could talk this over with someone. Ideally, that person would be my sister, Carlota. We’d always been best friends; I could tell her anything. And Carlota was logical, the steady one in the family. But it was after one in the morning where she lived, in Minneapolis. I didn’t want to upset her and ruin her night’s sleep.

Well, I’d have to think it through myself. I hadn’t been raised to be the victim of any Anglo cop. J knew I hadn’t committed any murder.

Who had? I didn’t know.