Free A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) by Patrice Greenwood

“Challenging.”
    “You said it.”
    “And he’s close to Kris, I gather.”
    “At the moment, apparently.”
    “He’s dating her?” Shelly said, and I had to stifle a smile. Her disappointment was not hard to deduce.
    Note to self: do not wear heart on sleeve.
    Loren picked up his chai and sipped. I found myself watching the fine lines of his face, wondering what he was thinking. Had he drawn the same conclusions I had? He had less to go on, but Roberto’s Midsummer Night’s Dream paintings were not exactly subtle.
    He noticed me watching him and looked up with a smile. “So, I heard about the ghost tours. How are they doing?”
    “Gangbusters,” I said.
    “Should I take one?”
    “I don’t know. How do you feel about ghosts?”
    “Skeptical, I admit, but I’m willing to be convinced. Can the tour guide do that?”
    “Willow? I wouldn’t be surprised. She takes it very seriously.”
    “Does she do seances?” Shelly asked, brightening a little.
    “Not that I know of,” I said.
    We talked about Willow and the tearoom for the rest of the meal. After lunch, I decided to walk around town a bit while Loren escorted Shelly back to the art show. I had seen enough, I realized, and I still needed to decompress after the wedding.
    The sky was a patchwork of turquoise and white. No rain, but the smell of it was there, enticing with its promise of more moisture for a thirsty land. I walked toward the Plaza, then turned east, strolling up Palace Avenue toward the St. Francis Cathedral. (Basilica, rather. It’s still the cathedral to me.)
    The long portal along the front of the historic adobe buildings hid my view of potential rain. These were some of Santa Fe’s earliest houses, a couple of centuries older than my mere Victorian. They were all connected—easier to defend that way—and many of them were organized hacienda-style around a central plazuela .
    I glanced through the zaguan passage that led to the Shed, a favorite restaurant. It was closed on Sundays or I’d have suggested it for lunch. The small plazuela was empty and quiet, a state that was rarely to be found when the Shed was open for business. Moisture glistened on the leaves of the trumpet vines, and a few valiant petunias still bloomed in the planters.
    Moving along, I saw a glint of light farther down the portal and wondered what it was. More leftover wet from the rain? But it was both dry and dark beneath the roof of the covered walkway.
    The light had gone as quickly as I had seen it. I continued to where I thought it had appeared, and looked around for something shiny. Nothing obvious that could have caused it.
    To the left, a narrower zaguan opened onto Hidalgo Plaza. I looked through, and followed an urge to step in.
    Hidalgo Plaza was much larger than the little courtyard that housed the Shed and a handful of other businesses—about fifty feet square. The Hidalgos had been among the earliest Spanish settlers in Santa Fe, and the family had remained influential. A wisp of sadness brushed through me as I thought of Maria Hidalgo, with whom I was certain Captain Dusenberry had been in love. I needed to get back to my research about them. Nat’s wedding had taken up all my spare time lately, but I was still determined to figure out who had murdered the captain when he had lived in my house.
    I gazed around the plaza, trying to picture how it had looked when Maria had lived there. A second story had been added, almost certainly in the twentieth century. In which side of the compound had Maria’s bedroom been, I wondered?
    The plazuela was probably dirt, then, or perhaps a corner had been reserved for a kitchen garden while the rest was given over to stables and storage. Now a very expensive restaurant that served nouveau Southwestern cuisine had spread patio tables over a third of the space, and the rest was mostly garden, with tall trees, flowering shrubs, flagstone paths winding between beds of flowers and herbs, and even a little