Report of Investigator John F. Quincannon, in the Matter of Religious Artifacts Belonging to the Family of Don Esteban Velasquez
April 4. The offices of the above were visited by Felipe Velasquez, shortly past noon. Senor Velasquez recounted the facts surrounding his father's death during the Bear Flag Revolution, and stated that a cache of religious artifacts hidden during that time of strife had not been heretofore recovered by his family. However, he said, one artifact had at last been located. He requested aid in obtaining information as to the source of this particular artifact. It was his belief that an investigation might lead to the whereabouts of the remaining pieces.
It was like reading a mystery novel-only this had been written by the detective's own hand and had really happened. My pain over Dave's defection and my worry over Mama receded for the moment, and I quickly turned the page….
PART II
1894
ONE
Quincannon was alone in the offices having his lunch-bread, cheese, strong coffee-and reading a temperance tract, when Senor Felipe Velasquez paid his visit.
It was a rare early-spring day in San Francisco, cloudless and warm. Quincannon had opened the window behind his desk, the one that overlooked Market Street and bore the painted words CARPENTER AND QUINCANNON, PROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE SERVICES. A balmy breeze off the Bay freshened the air in the room, made it seem almost fragrant. The city sounds that drifted in had a quality of sharpness that permitted each to be clearly identified: the passing rumble of a cable car, the clatter of a dray wagon, the calls of vendors hawking fresh oysters and white bay shrimp in the market across the street, the booming horn of one of the fast coastal steamers as it drew into or away from the Embarcadero. The air and the sounds made Quincannon restless. It was much too fine a day to waste indoors. A day, instead, for a carriage ride to Ocean Beach, or a ferry trip to Marin County, or perhaps a stroll in Golden Gate Park-all in the company of an attractive woman. A day that stirred a man's blood and gave rise to amorous thoughts of the mildly indecent sort.
He wondered if Sabina was weakening.
She showed no outward signs of it. Their relationship was to be strictly business, she had said more than once. But she had consented to spend a social evening with him, also more than once, and there was a softness in the way she looked at him sometimes, a softness in her voice even when she rejected his mild advances. Perhaps she was weakening. Perhaps underneath her reserve, she felt toward him as he felt toward her and it was only a matter of time before she agreed to become his lover. Or his wife. He had been a firm bachelor all his life; he had considered marriage an unsuitable undertaking for an operative of the United States Secret Service, a position he had held for fourteen years, and he considered it an equally unsuitable one for a flycop, his new profession for the past five months. Still and all, if it was the only way to possess Sabina; warm, smiling Sabina …
Quincannon sighed, ate a wedge of cheese and sourdough, and forced his attention back to the temperance tract. It was another of those written and printed by Ebenezer Talbot, one of the founders of the True Christian Temperance Society. It bore the title “A Bibulous Evening with Satan” and was highly inflammatory in its denunciation of the evils of drink. Two weeks ago, when Sabina had found him reading a different one of Ebenezer's handiworks, “Drunkards and Curs: The Truth About Demon Rum,” she had said in surprise, “I must say, John, you're a man of excesses. For more than a year you saturated yourself with alcohol, and now you've joined a temperance union.” But this was not the case, as he had explained to her. The other founders of the True Christian Temperance Society had hired him to investigate Ebenezer Talbot, whom they suspected of having embezzled Society funds. Quincannon had subsequently confirmed these suspicions; he had also discovered-and three days ago obtained evidence to prove-that Ebenezer had used his ill-gotten funds to finance the manufacture and distribution of bootleg whiskey to miners in the Mother Lode. Quincannon no longer needed to read temperance tracts, but he found himself buying and reading them just the same-those written by other individuals as well as by the amazing Ebenezer Talbot. They proved to be amusing light reading, a pleasant change from the volumes of poetry and short stories he customarily read for relaxation.
He was absorbed in the tract when the latch clicked and the door opened. He glanced up, expecting to see Sabina. The man who entered was slim, dark, gray-maned, with a neatly trimmed graying beard and the bearing of a Mexican aristocrat. He seemed uncomfortable in a black cutaway coat and matching trousers, as if charro garb would be more suited to his temperament; and in his left hand he carried a small carpetbag. His string tie was fastened with a turquoise clip in the shape of a bull's head; his sombrero was studded with silver conchas. The clothing and the turquoise and silver ornamentations suggested that this man, whoever he might be, was not a pauper.
Business at Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services had not been so good that Quincannon could afford to be blase toward a prospective client who was well-dressed and apparently well-heeled. In rapid movements he covered the remains of his lunch with his napkin, opened one of the desk drawers and dropped the temperance tract into it, got to his feet, and came around the desk to greet the visitor.
He was a big man, Quincannon, and his own gray-flecked beard was thick and on the bushy side, giving him the look of a competent and well-mannered freebooter; he towered above the small-statured Mexican. He said, “Welcome, sir. Come right in.”
“You are Senor John Quincannon?”
“I am. And you are …?”
“Felipe Antonio Abregon y Velasquez.” He spoke English well, with a precision that hinted at culture and breeding, and with a vaguely supercilious inflection. “Your name was given to me by Senor Adams at the California Commercial Bank.”
Quincannon didn't know anyone named Adams at the California Commercial Bank. He said, “Yes, of course, Adams-we've been acquainted for years. Won't you have a seat, Senor Velasquez?”
Velasquez sat in one of the padded armchairs that faced the desk, placing the carpetbag on the floor beside him. Quincannon reoccupied his chair, opened the humidor he kept on the desk, and held it out. “Cigar?”
“I will have one of mine.”
Velasquez produced a leather case from inside his cutaway coat, extracted a green-tinged cigarillo that he lighted carefully. The smoke he exhaled was rich and fragrant. Quincannon arranged his features into what he calculated to be a servile expression. “How may I help you?” he asked gravely.
“I have come on a matter of the utmost importance to my family,” Velasquez said. “Senor Adams said you are known as a man of honor and discretion.”
“Honor and discretion. Yes, indeed.”
“I hope that is so. You are familiar with the name of Don Esteban Velasquez?”
“Ah, no, I'm afraid not.”
“He was my father. In the days of los ranchos grandes he owned one of the largest grants in the Santa Ynez Valley, not far from Santa Barbara-Rancho Rinconada de los Robles. I was born there. I still live at the hacienda, what remains of it. But the land … it is a mere fraction of the original grant, all that was left to my family after my father was murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“During what you call the Bear Flag Revolution, by a detachment of John Fremont's soldiers.” Velasquez said this with such bitterness and hatred that Quincannon wondered if, beneath the gentlemanly exterior, the man harbored a deep resentment toward all Americans.
“I see.”