Dead Man's Rules (15 page)

“Do you mind if I skip it? I don’t know if I’m up to another long dinner. The last few days have been hectic.”

Lottie put her hand to Cere’s face, the picture of motherly concern. “You do look tired, sweetie. We can do this tomorrow night. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Why don’t you go alone? I don’t want to spoil your routine.”

“But it’s your third night here,” her mother protested.

“I’m going to be here a couple of weeks. What I’d like is to take a bath and unwind.”

A gentle smile crossed Lottie’s face. “All right, but I better get busy. I promised I’d cook
arroz con pollo
and I need to run by the market.”

“You better not be using Nena’s recipe to feed another man.”

The smile turned sad. “Your grandmother knows about him. I can’t keep secrets from that old bat. She told me when I moved that I needed to get on with my life. She knows that’s what Del would have wanted. I hope you give Bradley a chance. He wants to get to know you better.”

“I want to get to know him,” Cere said, trying to muster enthusiasm. “Have he and his family lived here a long time?”

“His great-great-grandfather was one of the founding fathers and now his son is the police chief. Bradley was sheriff for years.”

Cere didn’t respond. She’d watched the big man glad hand people at the murder scene as though it was a political occasion.

His pudgy face had been filled with concern, but it appeared to be a mask. The comments she overheard him make were patronizing, but the crowd seemed respectful, in awe.

“I’d like to have him over for a special dinner some night.”

“Sure, Mom. That sounds good.”

****

The house echoed with emptiness once her mother was gone, despite its cramped size. The familiar furniture jammed into the tiny rooms created claustrophobia that threatened to overwhelm her. Cere wandered from room to room, restless energy driving her. The thought of soaking in a hot bath no longer appealed to her.

Eventually Cere settled on her favorite chair, leaning back. Her gaze fell on an old magazine rack beside the chair. It had been an early shop project of her father’s. She smiled at it fondly, touching it gingerly since it had always been known for its instability. It teetered, and Cere grabbed at it, jerking it forward and sending newspapers and magazines spilling across the wooden floor.

She began picking them up and stopped. Stuffed into the pile was the newspaper article about Marco. Cere pulled it out, careful not to tip over the rack. The newspaper looked like it had been folded and unfolded many times. Why had her mother kept the paper and then acted as though she didn’t even remember it?

Across the room, the phone rang and Cere let it ring. Her mother’s machine would take a message. Then she heard Freeda’s voice.

“
Tia,
I decided to stay here over night. Daphne will pick me up tomorrow when she comes back. Tell Cere to behave. And if she hasn’t told you, ask her about her ghost and her dreams.”

The line went dead and Cere frowned at the machine. Damn Freeda! It was a good thing she had told her mother about Marco Gonzales.

Cere picked up the newspaper again. Marco’s hypnotic eyes reached out to Cere, drawing her in. She nodded at the smudged photo as though answering a call.

Why did no one want to talk about his death? Even Rafe seemed reluctant to discuss the old case. As sheriff, wouldn’t it be a feather in his cap to solve the old mystery? Marco’s defiant eyes blazed from the paper, piercing space with a silent appeal for truth.

“Only you can help me.”

Just who was Marco Gonzales? And why couldn’t she let go of this mystical hold he had on her?

“Okay, Marco, show me what I need to know,” Cere whispered, as though he was in the room with her. A vision popped into her head as though it had been placed there by Marco.

The Palladium.

Its sagging structure rose in her mind’s eye and she turned to the page that showed the building. That was where she needed to go. She glanced through the window. It was early evening. At least two hours of sunlight remained.

Why not go there now as she had suggested earlier to her mother?

Chapter Sixteen

After changing into jeans and tennis shoes, Cere grabbed her purse and video camera case. At the last minute she tucked a can of mace into the pocket of her jeans. If she ran into Diaz again, she was going to be ready. As she backed out of the driveway, she shivered with anticipation. She was going ghost hunting!

The streets of downtown Rio Rojo were nearly deserted, despite the early hour. Only the packed gravel lot at the Matador showed signs of life. Even the lot at Gennaro’s held only a few cars. The town ended abruptly, giving way to open, grassy fields dotted with stubby cedars.

Despite knowing where she was going, Cere nearly overshot the turn off for the dance hall. Only at the last minute did she spot the weathered sign and trail of twin ruts. The car lurched in protest as she guided it down the road, drinking in the surroundings, thinking about how it might be photographed.

The road stretched across a mile long patch of prairie before rounding a bend. At that point she caught sight of the long building of pale gold sandstone that she recognized as the Palladium. Her heart skipped. In the golden evening twilight, it looked like it could harbor a ghost. As she neared it, she stopped the car and got out her video camera. Without Freeda to distract her she could take her time and appreciate the overall ambience.

She studied it through the camera lens. The long building hunkered on an open plain, forlorn and empty, surrounded by thin strands of prairie grass. The stubby piñon trees she’d once feared were demons chasing her provided a benign backdrop toward rolling hills of amber sandstone. The roof was a steeply pitched length of rusting tin, though one end appeared to have been added on later. That portion of the roof sagged, its wooden shingles gray with age. Posts marked the porch below the shingles.

Her gaze examined the area near the building. No sign of Diaz or anyone else. Good! After putting away the camera, she slid into the car and inched it forward, stopping where they parked earlier. Nothing stirred but the breeze, a scene so serene she couldn’t understand why she had been so terrified as a child.

Grabbing her camera bag from the back seat, she dropped in her keys and video camera. Her mind was on the story and it began to form visually as she approached the building. The dying sunlight cast long shadows, making the setting perfect for shooting at sunset. The dance hall would be dark enough to look like a spooky outline. Maybe if she stayed longer she could shoot enough preliminary video to give Alan a taste of what could be produced. He might relent and let her go back to writing the blog.

She circled the building, phrases and ideas popping into her head. Cere knew the hand print was in a room on the second floor and she would have to go inside to see it. At the back of the building, she hesitated, but tonight no strange man lurked beside the door. Too bad he hadn’t left his crowbar. The door was padlocked.

Cere hoisted herself onto the porch using a sagging post, since the stairs looked nearly rotted through. The wooden veranda creaked under her weight. Some of the floorboards had broken completely, and weeds sprouted through the open areas. She stepped carefully, not wanting to fall underneath. Her nose wrinkled at the thought of what might be under there. Snakes? Spiders? Neither was an appetizing thought.

Reaching down, she touched the latch that held the lock and was surprised when it pulled away. So! Diaz must have gotten in. Inside, two sets of prints were visible in the dust. The interior was cool and gloomy and the tracks disappeared. The scent of rotting wood filled her nostrils.

A narrow band of light from the broken plank of a boarded up window cast the only light into the room. Damn! She needed a flashlight. Was there one in the car? There was no light kit for the camera and she couldn’t shoot in this darkness.

Slowly her eyes adjusted to the gloom. A rusted sink and a long counter occupied one side—some sort of kitchen. Something scampered in one corner. A rat? A lizard? Cere shivered, but she wasn’t afraid. She stepped gingerly toward the dark door. It opened onto a large open room that ran the length of the building.

This was the dance hall itself. The interior was dusky, though rays of dying sun streaked the hall through narrow strips where boards had been ripped off windows. A hardwood floor retained a dull polish in spots. The ceiling was two stories tall, with a narrow balcony and rail ringing the second floor. A raised platform which must have been the bandstand occupied a corner.

Cere closed her eyes, and in her head she could hear music. She could picture a dance band of men in cowboy shirts with jaunty bandannas tied at their throats while a thin blonde with teased hair wailed a tune about her cheating husband. On the polished floor, gaunt-faced men in new jeans and gingham shirts whirled women in floral dresses over stiff petticoats.

And Marco? Her heart thumped, and it was as though she could sense his presence. She could see him leaning against a wall, in a tight white T-shirt and rolled up jeans, his black hair longer than the other young men. Why had she thought of that? Except for the newspaper article she had no idea what he looked like. Continuing her advance, she crossed to a sweeping set of stairs that curved up into darkness.

The stairs were wide, but much of the hand rail was gone. Rotting posts held a few feet of a wide rail in several places. As she began climbing, the steps creaked in protest even though she stepped gingerly. Several cracked ominously. Despite a slow ascent, her heart banged against her chest by the time she reached the top step.

The upper story was almost dark, and she stopped to get her bearings. Chico, no, Rafe, had led them along the upper landing toward a narrow hall at the end. One of the rooms off the hall held the handprint. Keeping the rotting stairs in mind, she stepped daintily along the warped floorboards, noting broken planks. In several places, the bottom floor was visible through cracks. No wonder Rafe kept people out.

The building creaked, as though it was being violated.
What was that?
Cere stopped, listening, but all she heard was wind whistling through the boarded up windows.

The dark hall loomed. Chairs and tables were stacked to one side. To her left was a partially open doorway; to the right, a closed door. Cere couldn’t remember in which room she would find the hand print.

She could almost swear something guided her to the right, but she didn’t want to believe she was hearing or feeling ghostly happenings. The sensations might be useful in her story but they wouldn’t help now. Ignoring the sensation, she turned left toward the open door.

A musty scent teased her nostrils, and gloominess surrounded her as she stepped inside. Again it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Only dim outlines were discernible. The hand would never be visible in such low light, but the spookiness of the room chilled her.

“Talk to me, Marco,” she whispered. “Tell me your story.”

Nothing. Or was that a creak she heard? She fumbled for her camera and tried to scan the dark walls, but saw only ghostly shadows. A sudden swish behind her startled her.

Bam!

The sound reverberated around the room, and the old building shook as though hit by an earthquake. Cere jumped as the room plunged into blackness. The door behind her had slammed shut. Had the wind done that? Her heart thumped as she moved in the direction of the door. Did she hear creaking outside in the hall?

Something hit her foot, and Cere stumbled, pitching forward and bumping into a solid surface. She cried out, but there was no one to hear. Or was there? Did she hear shuffling? She thrust out her hands in front of her, like a blind woman.

Touching a flat surface was a welcome discovery. The wall. She moved sideways and her shaking fingers sought the door knob. Darkness didn’t frighten Cere, but this was different. A cry of relief escaped her as her fingers found the outline of a door jamb and then the knob. She twisted it and yanked. To her horror, just as when she was a child, the knob didn’t budge.

Cere rattled the knob, pushing at the door at the same time. No! She couldn’t be locked in. The door was jammed. The knob refused to turn, and the wood, for its old smell, and for all the rotting timbers around her, proved surprisingly strong when she thrust her body against it. She pounded against it again and again, stopping only when her fists grew raw.

Her heart was pounding from exertion, but she also felt a slight edginess. What if she was trapped? She stood very still. The only sound was her labored breathing, though she felt her thudding heart was also audible in the room. She reached for her bag to get her cell phone and emitted a cry. The phone was in her purse, which she’d left in the car.

“This isn’t going to scare me,” she whispered into blackness. Nothing here could harm her, right? Unless there were snakes. Could one be around? Sensing her and inching along the floor toward her?

Something moved beyond the door, and her breath caught.
Was someone out there?

Cere pounded on the door. “Hey, you! Let me out! The door is stuck!”

Stillness was the only answer.

She pounded again. “Whatever you were trying to do, you made your point. Now let me out. Diaz? Is that you?”

What was that sound? Footsteps?
Cere pressed her face to the door, but if there had been footsteps, they had retreated. There was only silence. She was alone.

She turned back toward the room and realized one end of the room appeared lighter, as though a window might be hidden somewhere. She stepped in that direction only to bang her thigh on an unknown object.

“Damn!” Tears stung her eyes and she drew a deep breath, fighting pain. For a minute, she couldn’t move. Frustration crept in like a gathering fog. Why hadn’t she propped that door open or brought a flashlight? Why hadn’t she put her damn cell phone in her pocket? Even if it didn’t work, it would provide a tiny light.