So it remains. A shattered hulk looming over a gutted graveyard in a forgotten neighborhood. A malevolent structure so dark that even on the sunniest days, it seems to stand in shadow. As though the evil within is bleeding the very light from the air.
©2006 by Doug Allyn
El Tramegra
by Margaret Maron
Margaret Maron’s 12th Deborah Knott mystery, Winter’s Child, has just been published by The Mysterious Press. Most readers know that before she created Deborah Knott, the bestselling author penned several books in her Sigrid Harald series. The protagonist of this new story is Sigrid Harald’s housemate, Roman Tramegra.
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 16 May
Subject: Je Suis Arrivé en France&!
My deqr Sigrid:
So your mother and Mac have eloped, if one cqn call taking a cab over to City Hall eloping? When fast cars and crossing stqte lines aren’t involved, where is the romance and drama of an elopement? And one can hardly say it was unexpected, especially if Anne took you along as a zitness:
Nevertheless, although it was two days past the fact before I read your message, I immediately raised a glqss of very good Riesling toward New York; Todqy, I learn from your lqtest message that I should have been facing east. Hanoi? What an odd place to honeymoon. I fear all those years as a globe-hopping photojournalist have given Anne a taste for the outre. Your old boss may no longer be a homicide captain, but he isn’t out of danger, is he?
As for Germany, the weather was cold and rainy and you saw how horrible it was for me to write with the Y and Z transposed on the keyboards I found along the way. (French keyboards are just as execrable. The Y is where God intended, but now the Z and W have switched positions. As have the A and Q — Wuts qlors! as the French would say if they had to use an American keyboard.) Happily, I leave tomorrow to join my tour group in Spain.
I still have hopes of gathering exotic local color for a chapter in my nez thriller. I’ve decided to put the Zall Street terrorist story aside for now and concentrate instead on the one about the international art thieves. You may have resigned from the NYPD, but that doesn’t mean I shan’t be picking your brqins about what you’ve learned about the art world since inheriting poor Oscar’s paintings. After all, my dear, what’s a housemate for if not to share esoteric knowledge?
In the meantime, it’s off to Bqrcelona1 Let us hope the Spanish keyboard is more sensible:
Roman
From: RTramegra
To: SigridHarald
Date: 20 May
Subject: Oviedo!
Dear Sigrid:
Really thought I would have found an Internet cafe before this. What a whirlwind it’s been! Barcelona — or “Barthelona,” as the natives call it — was wonderful. Fantastic architecture.
As for Spanish keyboards, the letters are laid out properly — sing praises to the God of Small Things! — although some number keys have 3 symbols attached to them so as to leave space for Ñ, Ç, and ¿ — none of which I plan to use.
It’s a mixed bag of “wine and culture pilgrims” that I’ve joined and I use the term advisedly because we’re going to finish up in Santiago de Compostela (loosely translated as St. James of the Starry Field) and we’ve already seen numerous real pilgrims in their khaki shorts, Birkenstocks, and backpacks hiking westward toward that great cathedral. Most of the group’s been together these past 10 days and there are 12 of us in all, which necessitates 2 vans. Our leader, Carson Forbes, is a prof. of Modern History at Columbia. Late 40s. His assistant driver, Luis Campos, is a young Spaniard¿ — some sort of relation to Forbes’ wife, who was actually born in Santiago. She plans to meet us there at the end of the trip.
The other late arrivals, Lester & Millie Anderson, are mid-forties and they actually know you. Or at least they know who you are. Their real estate agency in CT represented the couple who bought Oscar’s country house from you. They — the buyers — love bragging (discreetly, of course!) that a world-famous artist once owned the house.
My roommate is a Jack Daniels. (“No relatives in KY,” he’s quick to say.) Owns Porsche franchises in Connecticut and on Long Island. Widowed. His much-younger sister Marie and his daughter Jackie are also on the tour. Jackie’s an art major due to graduate from college in December and she’s gathering material for her senior thesis. We’ve had several interesting chats about writing for money. (She’s actually read a couple of the travel articles I wrote before I sold Murder in Midtown to St. Stephen’s Press and is charmingly complimentary.) Marie is only a few years older than Jackie, and they are more like sisters than aunt and niece. Was a little surprised that Jack would rather room with a stranger than pay the singles supplement, but I guess that’s how the rich stay rich. By counting pennies. Just between you and me, however, he counts them so closely that it’s starting to rasp on the rest of us. Every time we share a meal not covered by the tour, poor Jackie and Marie are mortified when the bill arrives because Jack always insists that everyone’s share be calculated to the last euro instead of just splitting it evenly.
There are two sets of Brockmans. Barbara and Richard are 50-something attorneys from Boston; Philip and Kate are his nephew and wife, also attorneys. Like me, the Andersons and the Daniels women are here for art and culture, so Luis drives us to the museums and churches. Jackie has enough Spanish that she sits up front with him and translates whenever his rather good English falters. They seem muy simpático.
Jack and the Brockmans are our wine people, so they go off with Forbes almost every morning to tour some winery or other and come back bearing bottles to share with the rest of us... well, the Brockmans and Forbes share. Jack has a hard time uncorking any of his.
So far, nothing has sparked a good plot for my next book, although I’m taking lots of notes. The differences between our cultures are fascinating. No billboards outside the towns and very few inside. The Spanish are much more into conservation than we are. For instance, the round flush button atop the toilet is divided into two unequal parts. You press the small part if you only need a small flush, the larger for more, and both together for a really big flush. Think how much water New York could save if we adopted such toilets!
As for electricity, we’ve only seen one working windmill like the one Don Quixote tilted with, but there are wind farms all over this northern part of Spain — row after row of 3-bladed aerogeneradores topping tall columns. When we enter our hotel rooms, one of us must insert his key card before the light switches will work. No going out and forgetting to turn everything off because as soon as we take our key card from the slot, the room and bath go dark. Public restrooms are on a timer. Take too long and you’re washing your hands in the dark.
Yesterday was the last of a 3-night stay at a country hotel near Vitoria, what they call a “parador.” These are state-owned renovated historical places, minor palaces, chateaux, etc. The large room Jack and I shared had a sitting alcove that overlooked the broad lawn.
At a modern art museum yesterday, I came face-to-face with an Oscar Nauman plaster print. Without thinking, I blurted out that I had known him. I assure you that I said not a SINGLE word about you and he being lovers at the time of his death — I would NEVER talk about that to ANYone! — but Jackie was eager to hear as much as I could tell her about the man behind the art. She’s going to E me a paper she wrote on him last year.