by Tower Lowe
“Did anybody see it happen?”
“If they did, they’re not saying.”
“So it happened out of sight of the partygoers.”
“In his bedroom.”
“How terrible.”
“Let’s get going with the tour,” Johnnie guided Mirage and Jake out of the L with his palms on their backs. “I can’t stay all afternoon.”
“Sure.” Mirage and Jake allowed Johnnie to guide them to a tall case filled with Lolo’s silver sculptures. Jake viewed a foot high silver replica of a Navajo pot, set on a silver tray next to a conventional looking silver English teapot, with life sized Japanese style china cups in the wave design surrounded by silver engraved sugar cubes with native names on them. He was intrigued. What was the artist saying?
“Don’t be so suspicious about Lonnie’s death.” Johnnie unexpectedly resumed the conversation about the murder. “There’s no weapon, no evidence. I say there was a fight, Lonnie blacked out, bled to death. Nothing intended. Neither party remembers what happened.”
“Lonnie, particularly, doesn’t remember,” Mirage remarked.
“I’m saying Lonnie was a great guy,” Johnnie defended.
“Tell me about this artist.” Jake tried to deflect the argument, because he was genuinely interested in the teapots, but it was too late.
“The teapots are done by Lolo, the person who forgot to walk me home from the party and left me to pass out in a ditch.”
“You don’t know that,” Johnnie argued.
“Then how did I end up in the ditch?”
“Maybe you refused to go any further cause you were so drunk.”
“So it was okay for her to leave me there? I don’t get that. And what about Lonnie? How come nobody checked on Lonnie at all? Why didn’t you check on Lonnie?”
Johnnie hesitated. The quiet hum surrounded him. He glanced uneasily at the Navajo elder high above them all, then looked back at Mirage.
“Lolo checked on him, okay. She went in there right before she dragged you out of the place.”
“Lolo? She didn’t tell me that.” Mirage shot an angry look at the mixed culture tea service as if it were Lolo herself. “And you, Johnnie? Why didn’t you check?”
“No reason to, okay?” His eyes searched the teapot, too, not connecting with Mirage.
“You know more than you’re saying, Johnnie,” she accused.
Jake waited with the two of them, suffocated by the strong presence of spirit in this room.
“Let it go, okay?” Johnnie begged. “Lonnie’s dead. I didn’t kill him. You know that, don’t you?”
“No.”
“For god’s sake, Mirage. I didn’t kill Lonnie. I tried to fire him, okay? But I didn’t stab him. I don’t have that in me.”
“You tried to fire him?” Tiny red dots appeared on Mirage’s chin and forehead. “He planned to quit.”
Jake stepped between the two. “I don’t mean to change the subject, guys, but I have to meet some friends in a few minutes. Can you tell me about this tea set?”
“Yeah. Of course. Sorry.” The spots faded and Mirage drew in a deep strand of gallery air. “It’s Lolo’s, like I said. She works in silver...used to do small stuff, brooches and necklaces. When the money started to come in, though, she went big with silver. It’s curious, I think,” Mirage lapsed into gallery-speak, “that she mixes the traditional western idea of a silver teapot with the Navajo water container and then a Japanese container for tea. Her personal experiences lead her into these topics that explore the mixed values of different world cultures.” She hesitated. “Nez accuses her of getting sucked into Western monetary values and says she produces art for money. I can’t blame her, though. Needing money isn’t the same thing as selling out your culture.”
“That’s what I been telling you, Mirage,” Johnnie allowed the tension to rise again. “We all need money. There’s no sin in it. We can be spiritual and all, but the bills got to be paid. Jerry’s little boy needs care, too. I saw him at that party, all confused. That boy’s going to need all the help he can get.”
“The kid was at the party?”
Jake saw Johnnie step back at the question, like he wanted to run away from the statement.
“Well, yeah, later, with Jerry, of course. Then they left after ten minutes.”
“Jerry has no business taking the kid to that kind of party. He’s only 12. Whatever. We’re boring Jake here. Let’s get this training over with.”
Jake survived a brief rundown of the artists and cash register for the next 20 minutes. He was in no way sure he wanted this job. The gallery was spooky. Plus, one of these artists probably stabbed Lonnie to death. Bad news. Still, he planned to play out his hand. Why not, for a quarter million bucks?
∆
A Waste of Time
“Call Alice,” I instructed Burro as I backed the car away from Nez’s home. His parents waved from the porch, quiet, serene.
Watching the couple, relaxed, enjoying the afternoon, I speculated. “Do you think the Navajos know about the universe, like, at a cellular level?”
“No,’ Burro said. “It’s a stereotype.”
“What about Nez’s parents? They looked pretty serene there on the porch.”
“Nez’s parents are old enough to know that everything passes with time. Nothing to do with being Navajo.”
“Yeah. I can see that. It just...” I started, thinking about my search for Momma, “...feels like they know where it all fits in, so they don’t worry.”
“Maybe,” Burro conceded. “Why do you want Alice?” He returned to my original request.
“I want her to set up a meeting with Lolo at Earls. I think she knows her pretty well. The details of who attended this party and what happened after the fight are changing every time we talk to one of the partygoers.”
“True.”
“I want to hear Lolo’s version.”
“Got it.” Burro made the call and Alice agreed to set up a meeting that night.
“Hey, listen, can I drop you off at the hotel for a little while. I promised Jake I’d meet with him for dinner. Now I need to cancel that, but I should at least spend an hour or so with him since he came all this way to support me.”
“No problem. I need some rest.”
“You okay?”
“Vision’s bothering me.”
“How’s that?”
“When we talked to Nez, and the subject of the boy came up, I saw the scrambled brains. Gave me a sick feeling.”
“Like the boy is the one who is confused?”
“He is part of it.”
I reached over to touch Burro’s arm. “Did he kill Lonnie?”
“No,” he sounded certain.
“He’s part of the problem, though.”
“Part of the problem with the gallery. He’s related to the murder, but...I need to rest.”
“Okay.” I reached over to touch his arm. “Are you okay?”
“No so good,” he admitted. “I need to sleep.”
After I dropped him off, I wondered where the power resided in the gallery project. The most power was with Jerry who controlled the money; a little power rested with the artists who controlled the art. Lonnie had no more power than the other artists, and yet he was threatening to close the gallery. I wondered how Lonnie planned to do that. There was also this character Johnnie, Jerry’s right hand man. By all accounts he sounded like a shady, behind the scenes, manipulator.
Jake met me outside the hotel, and we sat in the lobby, ate Hampton Inn chocolate chip cookies, and drank weak iced tea, mine with extra sugar.
“Can’t make it for dinner, Jake. Got to meet with one of the artists who attended the party where Lonnie was stabbed.”
“You take this private investigator thing to heart, huh? I thought it was a hobby.”
“Like I told you, Jake, I got the PI license to search for Momma. Mirage is helping me with that, so I’m helping her find out what happened to Lonnie.”
/> “Yeah. But it really isn’t any of your business.”
I placed the cookie on the slim white napkin supplied by the hotel and tugged on today’s sweater, lavender silk with sequins. It occurred to me that I’d chosen the wrong guy again. And, briefly, I blamed Momma for causing a feeling of abandonment that led me to choose men like Jake. But what was the point? .I can send Jake away at any time.
“This is my project, Jake. I came out here to New Mexico to find Momma, and figuring out this murder for Mirage will help me do that. Go back to Santa Fe. Work on the bike shop purchase – review the inventory, work on advertising – whatever you need to do. I’ll be done here, and we’ll catch up when I get back to town.”
“Whoa, Cinnamon. Slow down. I care for you – I’m not trying to push you away. I’m worried, you know? Let’s be realistic about this stabbing. It’s no accident. These guys are all involved with money and shady characters, don’t you think? If you poke around in their business, one of these people, probably the one who stabbed Lonnie, will come after you. Or send someone after you.”
“Why? I’m not the police.”
“Do you think the police really care? I don’t. But it you and Burro find out what happened, you will force the police to get involved. That’s enough reason to go after you right there.”
I hesitated. Jake had a point. “Okay. But I still want Mirage to know she didn’t kill her brother.”
“That’s ridiculous. She blacked out, but she didn’t find any blood on her clothes, no knife, nothing. It’s drama, that’s all. Help the kid at the middle school and go home, Cinnamon. This is a waste of time.”
“This isn’t the first murder we’ve investigated, Jake. Burro and I know what we’re doing.”
“No you don’t.” Jake moved closer to me and touched my right arm tenderly. He looked into my eyes. He seemed sincere. “I want you to come back with me to Santa Fe. Right now. We’ll look over the bike shop inventory and work on the deal together – like a real couple. Nothing but trouble will come from you and Burro going after a murderer in Gallup.”
I softened a little. He had a point. Nobody told the same story about the party, and nobody gave a clear explanation as to why Lonnie wanted to close the gallery. But I couldn’t let it go to pursue Jake’s bike dream. And there was the money. How did Jerry manage to inflate the prices of the art so high in such a short period of time? And there was Momma. Any part of any event connected to Momma was my reason for getting up in the morning, turning on the coffee maker, and facing another day. The truth was that a potential relationship with this man, who seemed uncommitted at best, could not make up for the chance of finding Momma.
“No, Jake. I’ll come back to Santa Fe, but not yet. If a crime involves a person who knew Momma, who might fight harder to help me find Momma, however small the motive, I’ll pursue it.”
It was Jake’s turn to put his cookie down. “Let’s get out of here, go to Ander’s, the only fancy place in this town. I’ll buy a hundred dollar bottle of wine. We’ll come back here—make love by candlelight.”
I wasn’t even tempted. “I’m meeting the artist Lolo for dinner. We can do that tomorrow.”
Jake let it go. “I’ll change your mind. You’re better than this, Cinnamon. These people are using you.”
∆
Dirty Laundry
Clark slammed the car door, a non-verbal report of his feelings, and rushed into the house. Holly followed him and stood in the foyer, looking up the long stairwell, slipping her eyes over the native woman, in awe of her serenity, an alabaster guard against Holly’s drama and fear. She saw Clark huddled over a video game in the den and turned up the stairway to grab the dirty laundry. Laundry soothed Holly. Gather the clothes from Clark’s room – off the chair, under the bead, stuffed in the back of the closet, wrapped inside an old sheet, under his shoes. Separate them by darks and lights, reds a pile of their own. Measure out the soap, and pour it into the blue spotted inner tub. Place the items in a circle in the bottom of the washer, slowly filling the washer to the top. Unwrap the bunched clothes from Clark’s closet, separate those by color. Holly stopped. Clark’s green t-shirt was stiff and didn’t fold into the circle. She pulled it out of the washer and opened it up, wide, holding it in the late afternoon sun from the window. Smeared all across the front was a brown stain. A red-brown stain that looked very much like a rich stripe of dried blood.
Holly left the laundry room, the short-lived serenity of doing laundry vaporized, replaced by sheer panic. She zombie-walked her way to the bedroom and sat with the t-shirt in her lap, trying to remember when Clark wore it, if he was hurt at a sporting event, or on his bike. There was no memory of an accident, no real memory of when he wore the shirt. But she knew she washed Clark’s clothes on the morning before the party, because she was upset and fought that morning with Jerry, accusing of him planning to sleep with Mirage that night, which he did, of course. She did the laundry that morning to calm down, to forget about it all. And this green t-shirt got covered in blood after that morning, maybe at the party, maybe when Clark stabbed Lonnie.
“Clark.”
Holly entered the den and slipped along the plush ivory carpet, her back rigid, and her heart drumming fear. She sat next to her son. He stared at cars racing on the monitor, the loud engines silenced by his earphone connection. The game ended, and Clark turned to look at her, eyebrows arched.
“What?”
She gave him the shirt.
“Lonnie.”
“This is Lonnie’s blood?”
“Yeah. The party, I found him. Dead. Dad did. I think.”
“You saw Dad stab Lonnie?”
“No. Went to party on bike. To tell Lonnie hate him. Door lock broken. Lonnie dead. Tried to lift. Dead.”
“The time Dad brought you home?”
“No. Went back. Second Time. Kept secret.”
Holly looked at the shirt, and at her son’s eyes and hands, thinking there might be a clue; shaking and quivering might mean a lie; a resolute stare might indicate honesty. There was nothing like that. Clark’s eyes were downcast and he repeatedly rubbed the Xbox controls, as if he wanted to get back to his game as soon as possible.
“Not me.” He sensed her question or her doubt.
“Don’t lie to me, Clark.” Holly pleaded.
“Not. Not. Dad did. I think.”
Clark went back to the video game and left his mother sitting there with the bloody t-shirt and no answers. Maybe, in his damaged brain, murder had the same importance as homework. But she didn’t think so. Clark escaped in that game from the brain injury, his missing father and the possibility that life was a lot worse than he ever imagined. That’s what Holly thought. And she left him to it.
Holly gingerly carried the t-shirt back to the laundry room. It could be washed and put away in the drawer. She could burn it in the fireplace. She could throw it accusingly at Jerry, screaming the words, “It’s your fault. It’s all your fault for drinking away our marriage, your fatherhood and your selfish, self absorbed money-making schemes.” Screaming. Holly imagined the scene so vividly her blood pressure rose, her face reddened. “I want to kill you, Jerry. I want to kill you and throw your body parts in the desert and watch wild coyotes gnaw on your bones.”
Holly looked down at her lap, the t-shirt, and saw Lonnie, for an instant, his sad face rising out of the brown stain and accusing her. She recalled her conversation with Johnnie at Sammy’s Bar and Grill where Johnnie blamed Lonnie for wanting to shut down Redemption. Jerry ordered Johnnie to fire Lonnie that night, because Lonnie figured out that the buyers weren’t really art collectors at all, and that made Lonnie want to close Redemption. Why was that such a big deal? They bought the art, didn’t they? Wasn’t that enough. So what if they didn’t really understand it or promote it in Santa Fe or on the international art scene? Lonnie was naïve to believe that story from the start. His face receded into the blood on the green background. Lonnie was a damn fool, Holly thought.
>
Did Jerry kill him? Not a scene Holly could imagine. Yet could she imagine Clark stabbing the artist? What kind of a mother am I? Johnnie, though, was the one she really saw with the knife – cold intention in his hands. Johnnie did Jerry’s dirty business, and killing Lonnie was Jerry’s business.
She folded the shirt and put it in the bottom of a drawer by the bed. Then Holly got on her knees. “God, grant me the serenity....”
Down in the foyer, the alabaster native woman seemed to breathe deeply, her bronze eyes glowing, reflecting the light of the afternoon sun.
∆
Obsessions
Alice moved the mattress back over the knife, touched Burro’s name on her cell phone, and then headed out of the bedroom to meet Mirage.
“What happened here?” Mirage fretted. “Why did you tear everything up?”
“Hey, Burro.” Alice breathed into the phone. “I got a serious problem here. I found the murder weapon.”
“What?” Burro spoke low on the other end.
“The knife. A knife. A bloody knife hidden under the mattress in Mirage’s bedroom.”
“You think it’s the one used to kill Lonnie?”
“Yeah, I do. Can you come here? Mirage just got back. Can you tell me what do?”
“Mirage is there now?”
“Yeah. She’s listening, so she knows I found the knife.”
The two women waited, then, without talking, Mirage collapsed in a corner, subdued, and Alice sitting on the edge of the blue print sofa. Both jerked at the sound of Burro’s soft knock on the door.
“Come on in,” Mirage spoke in a monotone.
He entered, twisting his blond braid and sat down next to Alice and all three of them looked out at the TV screen, as if expecting the story of the knife under the bed to show up there.
“What happened Mirage?” Burro fell back against the cushions and focused hallucinatory blue eyes on the withered woman curled into the corner.
“Nothing happened. Or at least nothing I can remember. I have no idea how the knife got here. Do you think I hired you and Cinnamon to find out that I killed my brother?”