He knew that she worked as a volunteer at the youth center and had at first figured her to be another guilt-ridden liberal out to right the wrongs of the past. They showed up, hugged a few poor Indian children, and left after a few weeks feeling better about themselves.
However, this girl was different. Jojola was a spiritual man and never stopped trying to grow in that regard. And yet, there were times since he had met the girl a month earlier that he felt in awe at the depth he perceived in her. It wasn’t like she was trying to come off as some sort of saint. She possessed a healthy sense of humor that included a lot of sexual reference that made Jojola, who was a bit old-fashioned around women, blush. But there was something old about her eyes—green like Gates’s but with flecks of gold—that gave him the impression that she had a soul older than his own.
Lucy was young and so he thought that it was possible that she didn’t fully recognize her own depths. He wondered if she could speak to the spirits like some of the tribe’s elders. But for all her spirituality, she was also warm and genuine, which was particularly evident with the kids at the youth center, all of whom, including Charlie, took to her like bees to honey. “She knows more than forty languages,” his son told him one day. “She can speak Swahili and a bunch of Chinese. She’s also learning Tiwa.”
Jojola had taken his son’s statement as an exaggeration. He figured she might know a couple of languages and had picked up a few words in several others, but forty? And the idea of her learning Tiwa was a joke. The language was unique to the Taos Pueblo and not taught to outsiders, even nice ones like Lucy.
Still, he had to wonder one day when he dropped Charlie off at the youth center and she’d greeted his son in the traditional manner. “Good morning, little brother.” He was surprised, not just because she knew the words—which he figured she might have picked up by listening to others—but her inflection was as perfect as someone born to the pueblo. He’d later heard some grumblings among a few of the elders that the “strange” white girl might be a bruja, a witch, because she seemed to be learning Tiwa by magic. But they were in the minority. While many were not sure what to make of her gift for language, they recognized that she had a good heart and were not overly concerned. A few even suggested that if the spirits moved her to learn Tiwa as easily as some people drank water, then there had to be a reason for it.
Jojola didn’t recognize the third person standing with his son. She had her back to him and he noticed the soft curls of black hair that covered her head and fell to her shoulders—too curly for Indian, but he thought she might be Hispanic. Only when she turned to face him did he realize she was none of the above but more likely Italian or Greek. She was a petite woman, one of those who were fortunate to keep their looks, making her age difficult to pinpoint, but he guessed somewhere between midthirties and early fifties. Whatever her age, she’d kept herself in shape and had nice curves in all the right places.
Jojola smiled as he got out of the truck and walked up to the trio. “Okay, Father, what did he do this time?” he said, indicating his son.
Charlie frowned until he realized that his father was joking.
• • •
It was not so funny a month earlier when Jojola got a call from the police chief of Taos, an old friend who’d been in the same class at the police academy. “I got your boy here, John,” Bob Simmons said. “Sorry to have to tell you this, but they caught him shoplifting at the Taos department store. He was trying to wear a brand-new pair of Air Jordans out of the store but they had him on the surveillance camera. I talked to the store manager and told him that Charlie was a good kid—just made a mistake. He agreed not to press charges, but thought you ought to know.”
Jojola sighed. He’d done his best to raise his son in the traditions of their people, which held honesty and respect for others above all virtues. Yet, it was one thing to raise a child in the ancient ways, and then have him grow up in a modern world. A bow and arrow was pretty boring compared to a Nintendo game. How could a homemade pair of moccasins compare to the latest basketball shoes sold by star athletes.
When it came to being able to afford the material goods of the white world, Taos was a poor pueblo. Those who had a talent for art that the white world had taken a fancy to over the past thirty years or so did all right. Some moved into Taos or even Santa Fe, where they were much sought after to attend fancy parties thrown by wealthy Anglos and Hispanics. Some of them hardly seemed to remember where they came from and only bothered to show up for the big festivals.
The diaspora of the young was one of the major issues facing the pueblo. Far too often, the pueblo’s best and brightest went off to college, got a taste of a wider world, and didn’t return, or again, only for family occasions and visits. There wasn’t much work on the reservation—a few jobs in the casino, and some managed to start businesses, most of them catering to the seasonal tourist industry.
Meanwhile, alcoholism and drug abuse were epidemic on all the pueblos throughout the Southwest. One of the smaller communities down south had once reported that 100 percent of its adult population had either drug or alcohol addictions.
It was tough on the kids from the pueblo when all they had to do was walk a few miles into town and see what the Anglo and Hispanic kids owned. As his friend the Taos police chief had told the store manager, Charlie was a good boy but that had not kept him from trouble, mostly getting into fights with the town boys and playing hooky until the latest call.
Jojola drove to Taos and picked up his son at the police station. The first five minutes of the drive home, he held his temper and said nothing, hoping the boy would initiate the conversation. But Charlie sat quietly with his hands on his lap and his head down.
Finally, Jojola couldn’t wait any longer. “Why did you do it, son?”
Charlie shrugged, and they drove on in silence for another minute. Then he blurted out, “I wanted new basketball shoes like the town kids got.”
The answer angered Jojola. Even during his desperate affair with alcohol, he’d never resorted to stealing. “You shamed me, Charlie,” he said. “And worse, you shamed yourself.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” his son responded, tears streaming down his cheeks. “You think just because we live at the pueblo with no electricity and no television that I don’t know what I’m missing. The rest of the world doesn’t live like we do, and I’m tired of it. You know what some of the town kids call me? Fred Flintstone, because I live in a house from out of the Stone Age.”
Jojola was stunned. He realized that while he was searching for his own peace of mind, he had brushed over what such a simple life might mean to his son. He would have to give it more thought, but at the same time, he could not excuse the theft of the shoes. “What do you think should happen now, Charlie?”
Charlie burst into tears. “Are you going to kick me out of the house?”
Jojola pulled over to the side of the road and put his arm around his son. “No, Charlie,” he said. “There is nothing you could ever do that will make me stop loving you. I will always be your friend, and our home—the home of our ancestors—is as much yours as it is mine. I just want you to think of the ramifications of your actions. It’s not just that you might get caught and punished. But say you got away with stealing those shoes, and say every boy who wanted new shoes just took them. The store would go out of business, and the people who make those shoes, their plants would close. All those people would be out of work; their moms and dads would be ashamed not to be able to put food on the table. I know this sounds like an exaggeration and maybe it is a little, but the point I’m trying to make is that sometimes our actions have consequences far beyond what we imagine. Do you understand?”
Charlie stopped sniffling and nodded his head. “Is there something I can do to make it right?”
Jojola thought about it for a moment, then turned the car around and headed for the department store. With an apprehensive but willing Charlie in tow, he went in and asked t
o speak to the manager. When he appeared, Jojola said, “My son would like to know if there’s something he can do to make up for his mistake.”
The manager considered the request. “Well, I don’t need any help in the store,” he said. “But I suppose he could ask Father Eduardo if there is some community service he could do. That would satisfy me.”
So father and son had continued on their journey and gone to the youth center to find Father Eduardo. The priest said he had a job he thought that Charlie could do. He’d been contacted by the administrator for the St. Ignatius Retreat, who’d asked for cheap labor to help clean the retreat offices and meeting rooms once a week. “They are apparently short-staffed,” he said. “I have one man, Lloyd Bear, who is trying to work off a guilty conscience and make a little money. He says he could use a boy’s help and is willing to pay five dollars a night. It’s kind of a late night, but Lloyd could drive Charlie to the retreat on Fridays after supper and then bring him home.”
Jojola did not know Lloyd Bear very well. He was one of those who had gone off to college and not returned for many years until just recently. Still, he seemed nice enough when he took Charlie to meet him. “I will keep a good eye on him,” Bear promised. “And it’s just for the summer.”
The job had gone well, and Charlie was excited by the money he was making. “I’ll go into that store and buy those shoes by the end of the summer,” he announced.
Now that Jojola had met Tobias, he had second thoughts about allowing Charlie to work at the retreat. But Father Eduardo didn’t seem to have any problems with it, and it wasn’t a good lesson for Charlie if he backed out of the agreement now because some psychiatrist gave him the creeps. He was proud of how his son had accepted his “work-release” program. He hadn’t told Charlie yet, but he’d gone back to the store and purchased the Air Jordans as his son’s “parole” gift.
• • •
Charlie had scowled when his father asked the priest in front of the women if he was in trouble again. But when he realized it was just teasing, he’d laughed along with the others when the priest answered, “Saint Charlie the Much Aggrieved? In trouble? Why nothing except that he inherited his father’s habit of paying attention to pretty women such as these two here. I take it you’ve met Lucy Karp, who works with me, and her mother, Marlene Ciampi?”
Jojola nodded to Lucy. “I know Lucy but have not had the pleasure of meeting her mother.” With the words out of his mouth, he felt like he’d made a complete fool of himself. Not had the pleasure? Where in the hell did that come from? He tried to recover by looking into the eyes of the woman, only to find out that one of hers was glass. Not knowing what else to do, he’d dropped his gaze only to find that he was now staring at her breasts. He’d quickly looked up to see her mouth adopt a strange little smirk. Come on, Jojola, get a grip, you’re blushing like a schoolboy.
Generally, Jojola steered well clear of white women. He’d found they either wanted to rescue him or get him into bed, sometimes both. Years ago when he first got back from ’Nam, he’d gone along for the ride, so to speak, only to regret it in the morning. The worst were the lost women who thought that they wanted to be Indians. Some claimed that they’d discovered that they had one-tenth of a percent of Cherokee blood in them; others just knew that in some past life they’d been an Indian princess and were desperate to get back to their roots. Those saw him as their ticket into the tribe until he carefully explained that the people of the Taos Pueblo did not intermarry with other people. That got him labeled as a “reverse racist” on more than one occasion, until he finally decided that steering clear was the best course.
Marlene Ciampi extended her hand and said, “The pleasure’s all mine.” She gave him the knowing smile that women get when they’ve got a man flustered and on the run. But it was a friendly smile, full of humor at the situation.
Jojola smiled back, but he felt a jolt when their hands touched. It wasn’t some man-woman chemistry he felt; more like sticking his finger into a spiritual light socket. Apparently, the waters ran deep in the women of this family. Only with Marlene Ciampi he sensed a battle going on beneath that surface between the light and the dark. He recognized it because he’d been there.
When their hands touched, the smile had disappeared briefly from the woman’s face, too. But she’d recovered quickly.
Searching for an escape route out of the strange situation, Jojola looked at what she was holding in her left hand and got another shock. She was holding a string of rosary beads on which hung a gold medallion. He’d seen the twin of those beads not much more than a half hour earlier.
The woman followed his gaze and handed the beads to her daughter. “These are Lucy’s,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m something of a fallen Catholic myself. Father Eduardo and I are locked in a debate about whether I am too far gone to be saved.”
The priest chuckled and patted her on the shoulder. “So long as you have the breath to ask for forgiveness, it is never too late, my child,” he said.
Marlene Ciampi laughed, too, but Jojola noticed the change in her one good eye. The humor was tinged with sadness. He pointed to the beads in Lucy’s hand and asked, “Can I ask where you got that?”
Lucy looked puzzled and held the beads up so that the setting sun struck the medallion. “These? A friend in New York City, Father Michael Dugan, gave them to me before I left,” she said. “He runs a foundation my mother created with some ill-gotten wages made off the blood, sweat, and tears of the proletariat. These are a little showy for my tastes, but he was determined to give them to me.”
“Can I ask what church that is,” he said pointing to the engraving on the medallion.
Lucy looked where he was pointing. “You don’t get out much do you?” she said. “It’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
“They’re really nice. You wouldn’t happen to know where your friend purchased the beads?” Jojola asked.
Lucy shrugged. She noticed the tension in his voice though he was trying to disguise it as friendly chatter. But she saw no reason to prevaricate. “I don’t know for sure, but there are a number of little shops around the cathedral that cater to tourists and sell all sorts of gaudy holy junk.”
The girl’s mother broke in. “Are you some sort of collector of rosary beads, Mr. Jojola? Or can I ask why the third degree?”
Jojola looked at Marlene and realized that like his friend, Detective Avila, she was letting him know that she was aware that he wasn’t asking idle questions. He admired her intuition, but he hesitated as he tried to think of how to respond.
The thought had quickly passed through his mind that given the circumstances, there could be a connection between the rosary beads found at the gravesite and these women. He was too good a cop to ignore such coincidence, if that was indeed what it was. But then he remembered that Lucy and her mother had not arrived in Taos until April, a month after the first boy disappeared and several days after the second. He also realized that Marlene would know if he tried to lie. “I’m working on a case in which an identical set of rosary beads is part of the evidence,” he said.
Marlene and Lucy exchanged a look as if they’d expected him to say something of the sort. The mother was the first to speak. “Why don’t you, Charlie, and Father Eduardo join us for dinner? Lucy and I are on a quest to find the best Mexican restaurant in northern New Mexico and you look like a man who knows his chilies.”
The priest begged off saying that he had to close up the center in an hour. But Charlie had looked at his father with puppy dog eyes and Jojola nodded. “I know just the place, El Taoseno Restaurant,” he said. “Best green chili in the world.”
“Good, we’ll buy the first round,” Marlene promised.
“You’re on,” he said, “but I’m a cheap date—nothing stronger than Coca-Cola. Nobody loves a drunk Indian, you know.”
The mother laughed. “Wasn’t that the name of a movie starring Anthony Quinn?”
Jojola smiled in return. “Yeah, typi
cal Hollywood. Get a Greek to play an Indian.”
“Well, okay, then,” Ciampi said. “Coca-Cola it is for you, though I’m personally hoping they have great margaritas. Did I tell you I am also searching for the perfect margarita? You won’t mind if I toss back a pitcher or two? Lucy’s my designated driver.”
That’s the polite sort of question you ask an alcoholic, he thought. More of that intuition; bet nothing much gets past this woman.
When he got in his truck, his son looked at him sideways and grinned. “A cheap date? What was that about? You know she’s married, don’t you?”
“Hell, yeah,” he answered. Hell no, he thought. Somehow the probability that a good-looking, middle-aged Anglo woman with a daughter would be married seemed to have slipped my mind. “I was just being friendly.”
“Yeah, right,” Charlie said with a wink. A moment later, he was laughing and howling at the same time as his father grabbed the ticklish part of his knee and squeezed.
I love to hear him laugh, Jojola thought as he led the way out of the parking lot. It reminds me of his mother…she had a laugh like that. It had been a long time since he’d thought of Maria but, he discovered, it still cut like a knife.
13
“WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?” LUCY ASKED HER MOTHER AS they followed the Jojolas to the restaurant.
“What was what all about?” Marlene replied.
“Oh come on,” her daughter exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “The deep looks, the pregnant pauses…THE FLIRTING!”
“I was not flirting,” Marlene protested. “As you know, I am a happily married woman—to your father, I might add. I just wondered what he found so interesting about your rosary beads. I’m sure you picked up on the fact that he wasn’t just asking idle questions.”
Lucy nodded. “Yeah, I noticed it when he saw you holding them. It was like someone turned on the cop lightbulb. Whatever this case is that he’s working on, it’s important to him personally as well as professionally. But don’t change the subject. You were flirting, or at least he was and you absorbed it like a sponge.”
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