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By Root 873 0

that surrounded Nora and her murder. What did we know so far? That Nora owned Bonita Peak and was going to sell it to developers. That made Peter a more than likely suspect, and he had plenty of access to ropes through the mountain climbing store where he worked. Both Roy and Grace had grudges against her and also had access to ropes. Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Benni, I said to myself. Everyone in San Celina County has access to ropes. Then there was the new development of her being the Tattler. If someone besides Will Henry knew her identity, it was possible other people knew it, too. Would they kill her over a nasty piece of gossip? I thought back over the last few months of the Tattler’s column. Was there anything there bad enough to kill someone over? Not that I could remember. It would have to be something so terrible it would ruin someone’s life. It all felt like a game of Scrabble when you get your letter tiles and, no matter which way you arrange them, can’t make any words. If you just had a few vowels—

Elvia was waiting for me in front of Blind Harry’s. “Mama’s really looking forward to seeing you,” she said, climbing into the truck.

“I’m looking forward to seeing her, too. Not to mention her atole. Gabe asked me to sneak him some.”

“We’d better get some while we can. The brothers and their familias are coming over tonight. That’s the equivalent of a swarm of locusts.”

The house where Elvia grew up was in an older section of San Celina where the houses were as individual as the people who lived there, many of them, like the Aragons, for more than forty years. Her parents’ neat yellow-and-white woodframe house sat on a huge corner lot that was the envy of the neighborhood. Flowering beds of red and pink impatiens and dozens of blooming rosebushes surrounded the house. They received almost as much loving care from Elvia’s mom as her fourteen grandchildren. Two huge walnut trees thick with leaves shaded the green lawn, trunk sections slick as glass from the decades of children who’d shimmied up and down them like little spider monkeys. I’d spent many cool and comfortable hours perched on one of the tree’s massive branches, reading or giggling with Elvia as we threw green walnuts on her protesting brothers below us. The house itself always reminded me of a patchwork quilt, with rooms tacked on like bright happy squares, making it bigger as each new baby came into the family.

Inside Señora Aragon’s red and yellow kitchen, the smoky smells of hand-burned chilies and simmering pinto beans flooded me with warm memories of rainy afternoons after school sitting at the round maple dining table doing math homework with Elvia, waiting for Dove to pick me up. Elvia hugged her mom and set a basket of fresh strawberries on the table.

“Chiquita,” Señora Aragon said, taking my face in her plump, brown hands and kissing my cheek. “You look bueno. The señor, he is treating you right?” She searched my face with inquisitive eyes.

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “He’s a pain sometimes, but he’s treating me fine. He’d have to answer to you and Dove otherwise.”

She clicked her tongue. “Sí, he is a pain. He is a man, no?” She pointed at the strawberries and said to Elvia, “M’hija, put these over on the counter and help Benni set the table. The enchiladas are ready.”

We spread the red-and-white plastic tablecloth over the table and helped Señora Aragon set out the creamy white enchiladas, Spanish rice, pinto beans, and hot flour tortillas. After answering Señora Aragon’s questions about the health of my family and how my job was going, I fell into silence and listened to her and Elvia discuss the latest family gossip, which was, by sheer virtue of its size, quite detailed and extensive. As their conversation gradually fell into the half-Spanish, half-English they felt comfortable speaking around me, I let my mind wander, remembering the happy hours I’d spent in this kitchen and anticipating the sweet-tasting atole I was going to eat in the next few minutes. A familiar name caused me to mentally rejoin the conversation.

“Juanita Ayala,” Se