The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing

by J. Michael Orenduff

  Naming the father but not the mother of an illegitimate child was probably done to protect the unwed mother in an age when that status was considered shameful. An unwed father needed no protection. Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone described as an ‘unwed father’.

  There was another entry on my birth record that was a lot more surprising than seeing ‘Garner Wilde’ in the ‘Father’s Name’ box. It was seeing ‘May 1’ in the ‘Date of Birth’ box. I was four days closer to fifty than I realized!

  I removed my alarm clock from my backpack and set it for 7:00 am. I slept on the floor behind the counter. After the alarm went off, I relocated to the bathroom, both to use it and to hide until Maddus came to work, unlocked the door, and eventually went to the back for some reason. At which point, I left.

  I was thankful for two things about the records office. First, the heat was not turned off at night. It was not so cold that I would have frozen, but I would have had trouble sleeping.

  The second feature was the lack of motion sensors or other alarm devices. I wasn’t surprised that laid-back Silver City had not bothered to protect the records office. It’s not a bank or a jewelry store. Nothing valuable to protect.

  Except the truth.

  I had no fear that my illegal activity would be discovered. I had left only one clue that I was back among the files. Not fingerprints; I wore gloves. No picture to be identified by facial recognition software. There were no cameras. But I did leave some DNA because holding the penlight in my mouth caused me to drool on the files.

  Before heading to Albuquerque, I drove past Silver City High School up to an area on the north edge of town called Dos Griegos where there are houses scattered around the hills on big lots. And many vacant lots waiting to be sold. I found a big open lot on a street called Aleco Way. It seemed like an Omen. Alecko is a Greek name meaning `protector of the people`.

  I hiked up to Gomez Peak where I had a good view of the area occupied by the ancient Mimbres people. Evidently, they didn’t have a protector. They vanished from the earth a thousand years ago, but they are still remembered and admired for their pottery. I buried the pot shard at the top of the mountain.

  Chapter 34

  I told Sharice I’d found what I’d expected. My parents had agreed to adopt me and hire my birth mother as a nanny so that she would be able to help raise her own son, and they would have a child.

  She said, “It worked perfectly.”

  “Yes. It did. I’m lucky to have had three parents. The only sad part is I had a brother I didn’t know about. I think I would have liked him.”

  “Why?”

  “He followed his father’s wish that they try to find me even though it would reduce his inheritance. They found a Mimbres pottery shard in his pocket. I think he was bringing it to me as a sort of symbol of the place where his father fathered me. And he liked to read.”

  I looked at Sharice. “You would have liked him, too. He wore designer clothes.”

  She laughed.

  “In addition to verifying what I thought I’d figured out about my birth, I also found a small surprise.”

  “A pleasant one?”

  “No, but not unpleasant. Just confusing. For my whole life, I’ve been celebrating my birthday on the wrong date.”

  “You weren’t born on May 5th?”

  “Nope. May 1st. Says so on the birth record. Weird, right?”

  She thought for a few seconds then said, “I think I can explain it. I think your parents wanted some token of your ethnic heritage, so they chose Cinco de Mayo as your birth date, a little secret they shared with Consuela their entire lives. And since the records were sealed, they figured no one would ever know.”

  “I think you’re right. So now the only thing that confuses me is that I was rejected as a donor when Consuela needed a kidney transplant. How can that be if she and I share DNA?”

  She said, “Kidney transplant donors and recipients don’t have to have any DNA relation. They just need to have compatible blood types. A mother and her child often have different blood types. So that must have been the case.”

  Good to have a health care worker as a girlfriend. Make that fiancé.

  She paused a moment then asked, “Does Consuela know that you know?”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t.”

  “Will you tell her?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “I think that’s the right thing. She’s happy knowing her son is getting married and she’s finally going to have a grandchild, although no one will know it’s hers. So now what?”

  “We get married. We have a child. Maybe more than one. We live happily ever after.”

  “What about the inheritance? You can’t very well tell Ninfa she’s your half-sister and therefore you want to give her part of Garner Wilde’s estate.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been paying for her parents’ health care all these years under false pretenses. If I get the inheritance, I’ll figure out some way to give her a portion without turning her life upside down.”

  “What about your life being turned upside down?”

  “It felt like that at first. Now it doesn’t. My parents are still the people who raised me. They were assisted by a nanny, who was in fact my biological mother. I’ve always loved all three of them. Still do. The biology is different from what I thought, but people aren’t their biology. Nor are they their gender or their ethnicity. People are their personality, each one a unique combination of values, desires, talents, fears, faults, insights and dreams. It’s reflected in our countenance. Not in our DNA. My parents and my nanny are the same now as they were then. And now I’ll have a child of my own, and I’ll try to raise her the way my parents and nanny raised me.”

  She laughed. “You’re sticking with that theory that we’ll have a girl because we have sex frequently.”

  “Frequently is good.”

  “It is,” she said and kissed me.

  Author’s Postscript

  When readers ask if Hubie is based on me, I usually answer that part of him comes from an amalgam of people from my past and part comes purely from my imagination.

  But there is something Hubie and I have in common. We were both adopted.

  When I started the series, I didn’t know Hubie was adopted. I wanted him to be a bit eccentric, so I gave him older parents who would not put him in little league baseball but would buy him books. I gave him a nanny. I had no idea she would turn out to be his mother.

  I know only two things about my own birth mother—she was unmarried, and she decided to put me up for adoption, for which I am eternally grateful.

  Abortion was illegal in Texas when I was conceived, but my birth mother may have been able to find someone to provide that service. Had she chosen to do so, I would never have existed, an abstract counterfactual that doesn’t deserve much attention.

  My real mother—Billie Louise Grisham Orenduff, the woman who raised me—was a wonderful, nurturing woman. My real father—Jess Johnson Orenduff, the man who raised me—was a terrific father.

  By coincidence, my father and I were both tall. People who met us would often remark that we looked alike. In fact, we did not look much alike. But because he was my father, I probably adopted many of his mannerisms. So we were alike in ways that belied our lack of shared genes. Better than genes, we shared countenances.

  My real parents handled the adoption issue perfectly. They told me I was adopted in such a way that it sounded like a trivial detail, like being chubby or liking beans. And they told me so early that I can’t remember not knowing it. I have known I’m adopted for my entire life, just as you have known your name for your entire life.

  Over the years, people have asked me if I’ve ever tried to find out more about my “real” parents. I answer that my real parents are the ones who raised me.

  Two years
after I was adopted, my parents gave birth to a daughter. As Pat and I grew up, I often reminded her that our parents chose me but had to take her no matter what. Pat is not biologically related to me, but there is no doubt that she is my real sister.

  Acknowledgements

  Because this book has a peculiar history, writing the acknowledgements was almost more difficult than writing the story.

  After finishing the first draft of the book in the summer of 2019, the next step was to send copies to my stalwart beta-readers. The group changes a bit with each book. A few volunteers are added. Sometimes an author friend declines because he or she is in the middle of a project. A few beta readers have passed.

  As I was thinking about it, I remembered that the Left Coast Crime convention was scheduled for March in San Diego, and I was on the program to give a presentation—“How to become a best-selling author,” done partially in fun but with real advice about doing so. And I remembered that LCC gives each attendee a bag of goodies—pens, stickers, notepads, coffee mugs, etc. But mostly books. So I decided to send enough rough copies of the book so that every attendee would get one. And right after the title page, I added an author’s note inviting everyone to send me suggestions and comments.

  I arrived in San Diego the night before the conference was to begin and registered the next morning. The next day, the conference was ordered to shut down because the county health department was banning all large gatherings because of the corona virus.

  After I got home, I had a flood of emails from people who had read the draft. I even had some who sent me their copy with marks in the margins and/or corrections scribbled into the text. I received text messages on my cell phone, voice mails, and some regular phone calls. And I did a poor job of keeping track of it all.

  So first, I want to acknowledge and thank all of those who gave me feedback. And second, I want to apologize to anyone I fail to mention and/or fail to credit with the right suggestion. I used almost all the suggestions you made. I tried to correct all the typos and errors you found. The book is better for your efforts even if I confused who made what effort. What follows is my imperfect list of acknowledgementees. Is that a word?

  Thanks first to Bruce Williams who put in almost as much work on this book as I did. He found many typos, made dozens of helpful suggestions, and asked a bunch of astute questions that led me to make changes.

  Thanks to Sharon Snyder of the Los Alamos Historical Museum for fact-checking that Edith Warner did not have a son as was alleged in an interview in the Voices of the Manhattan Project, and for other bits of information about Warner.

  Thanks to Dave Cordova of Taos for finding typos I had missed even though I’d read the thing several hundred times. I knew Dave was smart, but I didn’t realize he has an editor’s eye.

  Thanks to Paul and Laura Bates for finding a huge time sequence flaw and for numerous other excellent suggestions. Their knowledge of the series (and the fact that they both seem to have excellent recall) helped me get this latest book better synchronize with the first eight.

  Thanks to Betsy Cornwell for pointing out that Hubie would prefer his Gruet in a flute rather than a coupe. But he wisely defers to Sharice’s preference for the coupes.

  Thanks to Linda McNab for suggesting a change in the scene where Bette Wilde shoots the Hawaiian sling at Hubie that made it clear why it did not injure or kill him.

  Thanks to Bob Hammon for pointing out that the story would have more of a New Mexico feel if the weapon had been an atlatl dipped in Gila monster venom rather than a Hawaiian sling! I like the idea but couldn’t face the total re-write it would have required.

  Thanks to Karen Ballard for assistance with the list of New Mexico mystery writers.

  Thanks to Lisa Davis whom I have known since I was in the third grade. She helped me correct several awkward passages.

  Thanks to Robert Maynard who suggested a re-write of the part where the door on Jollo Bakkie’s door is changed. Robert is an architect, so it was nice to have professional help, and he didn’t even charge me.

  Thanks to Susan Smith who caught a weird phrase—‘muddy from play’—which the context suggested should have been muddy with clay. Turns out no change was needed, but I did have to check it.

  Thanks to anthropologist/archaeologist Tom Lake who fact-checks all my books and also makes great suggestions.

  Thanks to Susan Braun, a great editor and an even greater friend.

  Finally, thanks to retired professor Susan Fox, Ph.D., RN, CNS. She got a copy of the ARC at Treasure House Books in Old Town, Albuquerque and sent it back to me with about a hundred sticky notes about helpful suggested changes. Like me, Susan is a graduate of the University of New Mexico.

  I apologize to those I may have omitted. If you read this and contact me, I’ll add your name in the next printing. It has been terrific to be part of such a large team, and I want to acknowledge you all.

  About the Author

  J. Michael Orenduff grew up in a house so close to the Rio Grande that he could Frisbee a tortilla into Mexico from his backyard. While studying for an MA at the University of New Mexico, he worked during the summer as a volunteer teacher at one of the nearby pueblos. After receiving a PhD from Tulane University, he became a professor. He went on to serve as president of New Mexico State University.

  Orenduff took early retirement from higher education to write his award-winning Pot Thief murder mysteries, which combine archaeology and philosophy with humor and mystery. Among the author’s many accolades are the Lefty Award for best humorous mystery, the Epic Award for best mystery or suspense ebook, and the New Mexico Book Award for best mystery or suspense fiction. His books have been described by the Baltimore Sun as “funny at a very high intellectual level” and “deliciously delightful,” and by the El Paso Times as “the perfect fusion of murder, mayhem and margaritas.”

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by J. Michael Orenduff

  Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-6716-4

  This edition published in 2021 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.openroadmedia.com

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