Pushing Up Daisies

'I availed myself of that quaint cab service you've got at the train station. Had to share with three Dashing Dans. Good way to meet men, I guess, if you like the harried, married type. I waited fifteen minutes, then called your cell. Helps to check messages every once in a while.'

'Don't be mean to me, I've had a horrible day.'

'Worse than it's been?' she asked suspiciously.

'Just as bad. Guido Chiaramonte?'

'Sure. The guy who looked like John Gotti.' She stopped on the stairs. 'What about him? He got . . . whacked?'

'For God's sake, it's not TV. The man's dead. And Hugo's about to be charged with murder. I'll give you chapter and verse when we get upstairs, but please tell me there's food in one of these bags. They weigh a ton.'

'Better. Booze.'

I opened a bottle of Grey Goose and brought her up to speed.

'So, you find a body and think that the mother is a missing girl from thirty years ago, but it turns out to be someone else. Now a local man is murdered and you think he had something to do with one or both of those other things,' she recounted.

'Something like that.'

'Nice friendly place you've got here. What ever happened to town meetings at the old fire house to resolve local disputes?'

'It is a nice town. It's like the garden, though: everything looks beautiful from a distance. It's only when you look closely that you see the snakes.'

'That sounds like something on a needlepoint pillow, like 'Old Gardeners Never Die, They Just Spade Away.' '

'That reminds me. There's something I keep meaning to look up. Some quotes.'

'If they're from the movies, I'm your girl. Otherwise, don't think I can help you.'

I poured us each another martini, then went inside to get my copy of Bartlett's Quotations. 'Why would Richard Stapley risk his reputation by burying a body in a soon-to-be public garden?' I asked when I returned.

'He told you. He's a wonderful husband,' Lucy said. 'He wanted to spare his beloved wife the agony of being exposed as a whore and unwed mother. Or worse.'

'After all this time? Who'd care? She could have made up some story or said she was pregnant when her husband died. Who's still around to say otherwise?' I leafed through the Bartlett's.

'Look,' Lucy said, 'the happy townsfolk were skewering the Peacocks when they thought the baby belonged to one of them. And those girls are dead. They'd probably crucify a living person. Those poor women probably lived in fear for years, worrying someone would find out about the baby. I'd risk it. That sound?' Lucy said.

'What sound?'

'It's your cell. Feel free to delete the half-dozen snippy messages from me,' she yelled.

I couldn't find my backpack and couldn't find the phone once I did. It had stopped ringing by the time I found it buried among the other squarish black things in my bag. The message light flashed eight. I skipped over the messages to missed calls. The last one was a Springfield number I didn't recognize. I called it.

Felix Ontivares kept it brief. Did I want to meet him and Celinda Rivera for breakfast the next morning?

CHAPTER 46

The next morning, Lucy and I drove downtown to the same hotel where I'd met William Peacock.

'Charming. Is this where the locals come for a nooner if they don't have a green house?' Lucy smirked. 'You still haven't told me the whole story. I need details.'

'Grow up.'

I was relieved that my first meeting with Felix since the green house episode would be in a group and not one on one. They were waiting for us in the hotel's coffee shop. I'd forgotten how good-looking Felix was, and unconsciously pressed down my shoulders and sucked in my stomach, Pilates style. He stood up as we approached, nodding to Lucy and giving me a brotherly peck on the cheek.

'How in the world did you find her?' I asked.

'The power of television. In Mexico, everyone watches the soaps. I simply had a friend of mine say a few words after one of the episodes. We were inundated with phone calls.'

That was because Celinda had kept her daughter's memory alive, plastering hand-lettered signs— zUsted conoce esta muchacha?—everywhere she went and pestering officials on both sides of the border for so long they ceased to hear her. A neighbor brought her the news that now someone else was looking for Yoly.

Celinda Rivera spoke almost no English, so there was a lot of smiling and gesticulating with little actual dialogue. She was not quite five feet tall; pleasantly round; with gray-streaked hair coiled into a bun at the base of her neck. Despite the mild weather, she wore four or five layers of brightly colored clothing. And if the clothing was cheery, it was in sharp contrast to her face, which was dark caramel, deeply lined, and ineffably sad. She reminded me of the Argentinean women going to the Plaza de Mayo to show they hadn't stopped looking for their lost relatives.

'You'll be happy to know that Mrs. Rivera says there is no connection between her family and the family of Hugo Jurado. The families lived many miles apart in Mexico, in different states. And Yoly has been missing since long before Hugo arrived in Springfield,' Felix said, 'so they couldn't have met here.'

I tried to sound happy. 'That's wonderful. There is some bad news though. I don't know if you've heard; Guido Chiaramonte is dead.'

They didn't know. Felix had repeatedly tried to reach me and Jon Chappell yesterday but was only able to leave messages.

'I haven't seen a paper today.'

'It's bad for Hugo, but it was just a theory of mine that Guido knew about Yoly's disappearance, a possible motive for his murder.' It was the first time I'd spoken the word out loud, and instantly regretted using it in Celinda's presence.

Felix explained the situation to her, but the familiar word spoke volumes.

'Jon and Felix have brought this case back into the public eye. Sometimes that's all that's needed.'

As I fumbled for other, more comforting words, Lucy bent over to whisper to me. 'I appreciate the thought, but, uh, Felix owns that network. That was how he got Yoly mentioned on the air. Have you really been out of the business that long? They live for this stuff,' Lucy continued. One of her many ex- boyfriends had slid seamlessly into my old TV job, and was churning out true-life tragedy on a weekly basis. Lucy thought she could interest him in Yoly's story.

'And these guys work fast. They have a basic template and just plug in this week's gory details,' she said thoughtlessly. She started to apologize, but Felix cut her off.

'It's not necessary. Mrs. Rivera couldn't understand you. She knows only that you want to help.'

Half the story would be Felix's successful search for the mother, and the other half, our search for the daughter. It'd make a good feature. I didn't want to get Celinda's hopes up, but it was worth a try.

While Lucy made some calls, Celinda brought out a stack of blue airmail envelopes, tied with a brown and gold nylon shoelace. She took out Yoly's last letter and handed it to me.

She watched me struggle with the Spanish, and started to speak. Recite, really. As many times as she'd read that last letter, she knew it by heart, like a prayer.

'Yoly was happy,' Felix said, in his rough translation. 'She'd met a man. An older man she said had been good to her. He'd even taken her on a trip to Newport, Rhode Island. He said it reminded him of his home, the boats and the water. He wasn't from here, originally.'

For the first time, a little smile crossed Celinda's face, and words passed between her and Felix.

'Yoly joked that they had something in common,' Felix said. 'He had an accent, too.'

Celinda said something else to him.