The Hanged Man

by Walter Satterthwait

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “You concealed it in some bodily orifice?”

  I winced. “Did you ever try concealing an ice pick in a bodily orifice?”

  “Uh-uh. Tell me about it.”

  “Hernandez, why aren’t you looking for the other guy? The guy the attendant saw?”

  He shrugged. “Why should I bother with him when I’ve got you?”

  “Because he’s the one who probably killed Quarry.”

  “Yeah? You’re so smart, why didn’t you nab him?”

  “I told you. I was a little busy at the time.”

  “Tell us again.”

  The attendant, Paco, had come around the corner, seen Quarry, and had immediately wanted to do three or four things at once, including run around in circles. He had wanted to give Quarry CPR, which would have been futile in this case, and, in the case of puncture wounds to the chest, is seldom a very good idea. He had wanted to pull out the ice pick, which would have destroyed any prints on the handle. He had settled for giving Quarry mouth to mouth. A braver man than I. By the time I called the police and an ambulance, and learned from Paco about the man, the man was gone. “A skinny guy,” I said. “Anglo. Dark brown hair. Very tanned. No scars. And he wasn’t circumcised, Paco says.”

  Hernandez nodded. He turned to Green. “He wasn’t circumcised.”

  Green nodded. “Then I guess we don’t have to worry about Israeli spies.”

  Their routine, I thought, was beginning to wear a bit thin. I said, “Hernandez—”

  Someone knocked at the door. Hernandez called out, “Come in.”

  The door opened and a trooper stood there, holding a Smokey the Bear hat in his hand. “Talk to you, Sergeant?”

  Hernandez nodded, pushed himself off the desk, walked across the room, followed the trooper out, pulled the door shut.

  Agent Green was studying me. I studied him. Early thirties, tall, heavyset, balding. Eyes that missed nothing in a blank face that expected nothing and would be surprised by nothing. After a moment he said, “What was the name of that woman up in Hartley?”

  I was certain that he knew the name as well as I did. “Polk,” I said, “Deirdre Polk.”

  “Polk, yeah. She died, too, didn’t she.”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded. “Seems like a lot of people end up dead after they talk to you.”

  I ignored that. Or tried to. When I thought about it, I still felt rotten about the death of Deirdre Polk. If I had been a little more careful, she might still be alive.

  I didn’t feel very good about the death of Leonard Quarry. I hadn’t especially liked him. He had struck me as one of those clever, waspish, self-created figures who like to believe that they’re superior to the concerns of lesser mortals—things like kindness, compassion, simple courtesy. But I hadn’t wanted him dead.

  Who had? The man described by Paco looked, so far as I knew, nothing like any of the people who’d been in La Cienega last Saturday night. And he was an Anglo, which eliminated Veronica Chang’s brother, Paul.

  Could he have been Peter Jones, the man who’d told the police that he spent Saturday night with Justine Bouvier? It didn’t seem likely. Why would Jones put himself in a position where he could be identified by Paco? So who was he? The mysterious buyer for whom Quarry had been trying to obtain the Tarot card? Someone working for him?

  Maybe Quarry’s death had nothing to do with the theft of the card. Maybe Quarry was mixed up in something else, something totally unrelated, and it was this that had gotten him killed.

  Possibly. But he was the second person who’d been in La Cienega last Saturday who’d been murdered. Both murdered within a week of each other. Quite a coincidence. I didn’t much care for coincidences.

  Neither, of course, did Hernandez and Green. Which is why they were so fond of me at the moment.

  The door opened and Hernandez entered. He shut it behind him, crossed the floor, sat down once more against the desk. He looked at me. He nodded thoughtfully. “No prints on the ice pick. Not even smears. How’d you manage that? You weren’t wearing gloves.”

  “No prints on the weapon,” I said. “No witnesses. No motive. All you’ve got is my proximity to the victim. The attorney general won’t touch that, Hernandez, and you know it.”

  He turned to Green. “Proximity. Did you catch that?”

  Green nodded.

  I said to Hernandez, “Could I ask a question?”

  Hernandez grinned and held out his big hands. “Hey. That’s what we’re here for.” He turned to Green. “Right?”

  Green nodded. “To protect and serve.”

  I said, “You people swept the fireplaces and checked the drains at the house in La Cienega. Did you find anything?”

  “Yeah, we did, as a matter of fact.” He turned to Green. “Should I tell him?”

  Green shrugged.

  Hernandez said, “We found traces of burnt leather in the fireplace in Bernardi’s room.”

  “And you think it’s from the binder that held the Tarot card.”

  “It occurred to us, yeah.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to notify the defense lawyer of the evidence you find?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t get the report till this morning.”

  “Were there traces of anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like paint. From the Tarot card.”

  “Nope. But, ya know, funny you should ask. We did find traces of blood in the drain. It matches Bouvier’s. It doesn’t match Bernardi’s.” He grinned. “Doesn’t look good for your client, huh?”

  “Bernardi’s room was empty after he left the house. Anyone could’ve planted that evidence.”

  “The skinny Anglo guy?”

  I shrugged. “The house was unlocked.”

  Hernandez nodded. He narrowed his eyes. “It could’ve been rubber cement.” He turned to Green. “Remember that guy in Taos last year?” To me: “Burglar. Coated his hands with rubber cement, let it dry. No prints. Thing is, he tore off the cement outside the house, left patches of the stuff lying on the ground. Perfect prints on the patches. We got him.” He nodded. “You could’ve used rubber cement.”

  “Anyone see me peeling rubber cement off my fingers?”

  He grinned. “This guy. The skinny Anglo. If he’s the one killed Quarry, how’d he know Quarry would be here?”

  “The same way I did. His friends all knew that Quarry hung out here. He thought the steam was good for his emphysema.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Brad Freefall.”

  “And who told our skinny little Anglo friend?”

  “Beats me. Maybe you should ask around. Ask his friends if they know him. Ask his wife.”

  “Thanks for the advice. We did. She doesn’t. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. She wants to talk to you. The wife.”

  “Good. I’d like to talk to her.”

  “You don’t mind if we tag along, right?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He turned to Green. “Does he have a choice?”

  “Not that I can see,” said Green.

  Another state cruiser was parked in front of Quarry’s house, and, inside it, a trooper sat writing something on a clipboard. Green and Hernandez nodded to him as they passed. I followed them up the front steps. Hernandez knocked on the door, which was opened by still another trooper.

  Green greeted him with a nod. “Ortega. How is she?”

  Ortega shrugged. “She seems pretty broken up. She called a friend to come and stay with her. Hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “You get anything?”

  “He didn’t have any enemies, she says. She doesn’t recognize the description of the man the attendant saw. She says she had a phone call, someone asking for him, at approximately one-thirty. Just after the private detective showed up.” He glanced at me, but kept his curiosity from rising to the surface of his face.

  Hernandez nodded. “Okay. Wait with Slawson in the
car.”

  “Right. She’s in the living room.”

  We made room for him, and the trooper climbed down the steps. I followed Green and Hernandez inside.

  Her head bowed and her hands in her lap, where they held a crumpled cotton handkerchief, Sierra Quarry sat alone at the end of a long sofa upholstered in a floral pattern. Lace curtains were open at the window. The smell of wood smoke floated from an expensive metal stove in the corner. The room was small, furnished with embroidered antique chairs and a heavy antique cherrywood coffee table.

  Hernandez said, “Mrs. Quarry?”

  She looked up. Her beautiful face was ravaged. Her mouth was slack, her nose was crimson. Most of her mascara was gone, probably smeared onto the handkerchief, but some still remained, blurred bruises in the puffy flesh around her red-rimmed eyes. The pale skin along her cheeks was mottled now, and the cheeks seemed more hollow, as if anguish had been eating away at her flesh.

  “Mrs. Quarry, I’m Agent Hernandez of the state police. This is Agent Green. I guess you’ve already met Croft.”

  She looked at me as though she hadn’t noticed, till now, that I was there. Then, slowly, narrowing her eyes, she stood up. Her hand was trembling and for a moment I wondered whether she meant to strike me. She reached out tentatively and plucked with thin quavering fingers at the sleeve of my jacket. “You were there?” she asked me, and her voice was quavering as badly as her fingers. “When he … when it happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “He wasn’t … Did he suffer? Leonard was such a baby about pain.” She cocked her head slightly and tried for a smile; it came off a grimace. “He seemed so big and strong, but he was really just like a little boy. He—” She stopped, and tears were rolling down her face. She said, “He didn’t, did he? He didn’t suffer?”

  A gazelle, in the final embrace of the lion, will suddenly stop struggling and relax into what looks like an almost blissful acceptance. Human beings, brought back to life by modern medicine, report that death is a soothing experience, an opening onto peace. Only the dead know for certain, and they aren’t telling.

  But she didn’t need speculation. She needed comfort. “No,” I told her. “It was very quick.”

  She bit at her lower lip. Tears welled up in her eyes again and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

  Hernandez touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down, Mrs. Quarry.”

  Sniffling, she sat back down. She lowered her head and daubed at her eyes with the handkerchief.

  Hernandez sat down beside her. Green and I remained standing. Maybe we shared the sense that becoming comfortable would be an affront to her grief. Just being there, it suddenly seemed to me, was an affront to her grief.

  Hernandez said gently, “The other officers probably told you, Mrs. Quarry, that it’s important for us to get as much information as we can. I know this has been a terrible shock to you, but in order to find the person who did this, we’ve gotta ask you some more questions.”

  She nodded. Her head still bowed, she plucked at the edge of the handkerchief.

  “Officer Ortega says you received a phone call?”

  She nodded.

  “When was that?” Hernandez asked her.

  She swallowed. Without raising her head, she said, “Just after … just after Mr. Croft was here.” She plucked some more at the handkerchief.

  “Did he give a name?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  Again, she shook her head.

  I said, “Mrs. Quarry?”

  Hernandez turned a glare toward me but said nothing. The woman raised her head. “Yes?”

  “Your husband was trying to buy a Tarot card from Eliza Remington. Do you know the name of the man he was trying to buy it for?”

  She frowned. “The man?”

  “Wasn’t your husband acting as an agent for someone else?”

  She was still frowning, puzzled. She looked at Hernandez, looked back at me. “I don’t understand. Leonard wanted the card for himself.”

  Like most cops, Hernandez didn’t like to see information, any information, go public. He turned to Green and jerked his head in my direction. “Drive him back to the springs.”

  “Then what?” Green asked him.

  Hernandez waved a hand. “Take him around back and shoot him.”

  Green said, “We’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

  “Oh yeah.” He looked at me. “Beat it. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Call me,” I said. “We’ll do lunch.”

  It was a bizarre building for northern New Mexico, where private homes seldom grow above two stories tall and usually give up at one. It was a bizarre building for anywhere. It was a tower, flat-roofed, three stories, frame and brown shingle, built on the square and perhaps only twenty feet wide. At each story, two small double-hung windows, trimmed in darker brown, peered out at the half mile of driveway, twin ruts running in a straight line across the damp flat caliche. Three miles outside the tiny town of Mesa Roja, it stood at the base of another tower, a broad column of reddish brown rock climbing up from the barren plateau to rise seventy or eighty feet above the wooden structure. Out here the snow had melted and the only thing in sight for miles was dead scrub grass and an occasional small pinon, twisted over the years by wind into a gnarled green claw. The sun was sinking toward the gray hills in the west and its light was thinning out, dissipating into the brown sprawling emptiness.

  I parked beside an old blue Karman Ghia blotched with gray primer, got out of the station wagon, followed the footpath, knocked on the door. It opened immediately, as though Peter Jones had been standing on the other side of it all day, waiting for me.

  He was too tall to have been the man seen by Paco at the hot springs—an inch or two taller than I was, which made him six foot three or so. Slim, his shoulders square, he wore a black cotton turtleneck sweater with the sleeves pulled up along his forearms, black denim pants, and black cowboy boots. He was probably in his late thirties. His longish hair was a dark, shiny black, parted on the left and dusted at the temples with gray. His face was one of those pale, brooding, handsome faces that show up in gothic novels, pasted onto the heads of intense young men who spend their days staring off tragically at the moors. Dark, deep brown eyes over angular cheekbones, a forceful nose, a wide sensitive mouth. But his smile surprised me—it was easy and open, almost boyish, and it was about as far from tragic as a smile can be.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I told him. It was four-thirty now. Our appointment had been for four o’clock, and at four, just before I left Agua Caliente, I’d called him and told him I’d been delayed. I hadn’t explained that it was the state police who had delayed me, or why.

  He grinned. “No problem. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  He led me inside. Inside was a single square space that served as kitchen and living room. The kitchen was an old gas stove and a small porcelain sink. The living room was a black futon sofa, a rectangular pinewood coffee table, and a black canvas director’s chair. The walls were white and undecorated, the floor was wood and uncarpeted. At the northeast corner, a wrought iron stairway, narrow and spindly, circled up to the second floor. A motel room in the middle of Siberia would’ve been more festive. A monk’s cell in the middle of Siberia would’ve been more festive.

  Sitting down in the director’s chair, he offered me the sofa. I took it.

  “Interesting house,” I told him.

  He grinned. “The House on Haunted Hill,” he said. “It’s not mine. I’m watching it for a friend. He built it himself.”

  “Why’d he build it out here?”

  He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “The pile of rocks behind us. Mesa Roja. The Indians around here, the old ones, used to believe it was a power point. An energy focus. Jim, the guy who built the house, liked the idea. And he thought that if he built the house so that it resembled the Mesa, it would pick up some of the energy.”
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  “Has it worked?”

  He grinned. “No more and no less than any other kind of house, probably.” He frowned suddenly. “Looks like I’m not much of a host. Can I get you something? Tea? A glass of water?”

  “No thanks.”

  He put his arms along the arms of the chair. “Okay. What can I do for you?”

  I said, “You slept with Justine Bouvier last Saturday night, down in La Cienega. Did she leave the room that night?”

  He blinked in surprise and then, grinning, he shook his head. “You don’t mess around.”

  “You testified to the police that the two of you slept together.”

  He nodded. “Sure. And if you know that, you probably know that I testified that she didn’t leave the room.”

  “And you’re going to stick with that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

  “How long have you and Justine Bouvier been involved?”

  His face flushed. Anger, possibly. Shame, possibly. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “You told the police a year.”

  “So why ask?” he said. Then he frowned again. “Hold on. You don’t think that Justine killed her husband?”

  “Someone did. I don’t think it was Giacomo Bernardi.”

  He took a breath, let it out. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Neither do I. I can’t see Giacomo doing something like that. But sometimes people can surprise you.” He frowned. “How is Giacomo anyway?”

  It occurred to me that he was the first person to ask me this. Even Brad Freefall and Sylvia Morningstar, both of whom claimed to be his friend, hadn’t bothered.

  “He’s okay,” I said. “Not very happy about being in jail.”

  “That’s understandable. Especially if you’re innocent of what you’re being accused of. But so is Justine. She was with me all night. And why would she want to kill Quentin?”

  “Money?”

  “She already had all she needed.”

  “But maybe not all she wanted.”

  He smiled. “I don’t think that’s a distinction that Justine makes.”

  “And maybe life would be a lot simpler without a husband around.”