A man named Jack, just released from a treatment center, said he was attending his first meeting without medical supervision. “Welcome!” we said in unison. “Keep coming back!” A woman named Clara announced that she would be getting her son back from foster care next week. She had a year and a half clean, and she was weeping with gratitude. A Native woman caught my glance and told me with her eyes that she too was long-term sober. A man with a Celtic tattoo on his cheek was chairing, and I hoped he wouldn’t call on me, but right after I’d gotten a second cup of the bitter black coffee and settled into my folding chair, he did.
“I’m Ellen, alcoholic and drug addict, visiting. Wires seem to be hanging out of my head tonight. I just need to listen.”
Later, when I looked back, the young reporter who had followed me inside was no longer in sight. I waited a few more minutes to make sure she wasn’t in the bathroom or lurking around, and then I raised my hand. When he called on me, I said, “Still Ellen, still alcoholic. Sorry to speak twice, but there was someone here earlier I couldn’t share safely in front of. I’m Ruby Redstone’s aunt, if you know who she is. In any case, I’m in Gallup because someone in my family has big trouble, and I seem to have ended up in the middle of it. I’m beginning to understand that I was always in the middle of it. I’m pretty shaky, so I could use some phone numbers after the meeting. Thanks for listening.”
Next the chairperson called on a man with pocked, ruddy skin and black hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore Levi’s and cowboy boots and a denim shirt with the sleeves torn off. His arms displayed tattoos of Mickey Mouse, the Road Runner, and Bugs Bunny. “I’m Melvin,” he said. “Alcoholic and addict. Sometimes I have trouble staying out of the past because of Vietnam. Whenever that happens, I just go look at the mountains for a while. I tell the mountains what I’m grateful for, or what I would be grateful for if I were in my right mind.”
The chorus of individual stories continued to sound around me, and after a while I managed, momentarily, to forgive my brother for shooting Rommel in front of his young daughter. I wasn’t there, I don’t know his reasons, and judgment doesn’t belong to me. And I might never know what happened the night he beat Santane (I’d learned about this from the private detective I’d hired, who had located the hospital record) or why he changed so appallingly. “Walk your own path,” my AA sponsor kept telling me. “Look down at your feet. This is where you are. You are not in the past or the future. You are right here, and you only have one job: don’t take a drink or a drug today, no matter what. Go to bed tonight feeling like you’re a tiny part of what is good in the world. Let go of everyone else’s journey. Live and let live. Keep it simple, stupid.” So I asked God or the mountains or whatever it was to take care of the children and the kidnappers and even of Royce, whether any of them were alive or not. After I left the meeting I had several phone numbers stuck in my shirt pocket, including that of the old woman whose eyes had fastened on mine.
7
My mother was videotaped by a Charleston TV station in front of the Piggly Wiggly grocery, where, after her relentless insistence, Estelle had finally taken her shopping. In one phone message, Estelle apologized and warned me. In another, Ed Blake said, “We need to talk about Joe Magnus. I’ll cook you a decent steak, and I’ll only drink coffee. I’m sorry about last night. I do have a little sense, even if I don’t always act like it. I’ll call you back at seven.”
It was already after seven, and when the phone rang I didn’t answer it. The room service menu offered a green chili omelet, so I ordered that, asked the concierge to have the minibar supplies removed from my room, and told the switchboard not to ring me again. I checked in briefly with Estelle, who said everything was fine.
The Times and the Albuquerque papers contained stories about the Silent Brotherhood, but I watched Entertainment Tonight, and there was my mom, impeccably made up, with her hair newly coiffed, saying, “Royce is such a wonderful boy. I am so proud of him. He finished second in the state golfing tournament, and now he is on television all the time!” When asked about “your granddaughter Ruby,” she frowned and said, “Ruby didn’t understand the silverware.”
I laughed off and on throughout supper, a Law & Order rerun, and the disappearance of the minibar. When I felt safely grounded, I checked the message to hear Ed Blake say, “Can you call me at the office tomorrow?”
It was after ten o’clock, but I called him anyway. He answered on the first ring. “Chief Blake here.”
“Ruby Redstone’s aunt here,” I said. “Back from my small fit of pique.”
“I’m glad you called. I’m feeling guilty as hell.”
“Me too, but it’s not like we kidnapped anyone or tried to start a race war. On a scale from one to ten, it was a one. Okay, maybe a two. But listen, Ed Blake, we cannot go to that place with each other.”
“I agree completely.”
“Can you let it go?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Did you see my mother on TV?”
“I sure did, and I hope my spaceship lands alongside hers.”
Neither of us said anything for a moment, because it’s hard to restore a boundary once it’s breached. “I’ll do dinner again,” I said, “if you really think we are okay.”
“I’ve got somebody working in my office I don’t trust, otherwise we could retreat there.”
“Have there been any new developments?”
I felt him hesitate. “They’ve found some caves under a couple of old barns about twenty miles north of town. They might have Ruby’s tire tracks out there.”
I could taste green chilies in my throat. “They’re searching?”
“Yes.”
“Can we go out there now?”
“No, Ellen. The FBI has to handle this. They know what to do. If there’s anything to it, I’ll call you back tonight. Or we’ll go out there in the morning.”
“Where is this place?”
“No way,” he said. “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
8
The third morning after the children’s disappearance was the most difficult at Loretta’s. Ruby wanted to return with Lightman to their own house, and she seemed unable to grasp that it was a crime scene. For the first time, she admitted to having a headache. She had pulled off the bandage above her temple and kept touching the angry stitches. I knew her head must hurt a lot. She seemed to have emerged from her stupor into a glittery web of denial. She wanted to go home so she could get the house ready for Lucia and River, and she wanted to buy Karo syrup, because that was their favorite, toast with butter and Karo syrup.
Lightman was still at Loretta’s house when I arrived, his face engorged with rage. “I’m going to kill the men who did this. Even if they treat my son fine, I’m going to kill them! If your father had any part in this, I’ll kill him too.”
Ruby fumbled at the stitches, which began to ooze blood. “He’ll be the one to bring them back. He’ll love River. He always wanted a son instead of me, and Lucia is his granddaughter. He’ll love Lucia because he loves me.”
“She’s losing it,” I said to Lightman.
“Call a doctor if you want to,” he said, “but she’s crazy. She’s always been crazy, just like her father. Tell her what you do, Ruby. Tell them that you pray to him at night. Do you think I don’t hear you?”
“Did she pray to Royce before the kidnapping?” This seemed like an important question, but Lightman looked at me wild-eyed while Ruby sank to the floor. She tucked her head against her knees and began to rock back and forth making a keening sound.
“Were you out at the Catacombs?” he shouted down at Ruby. “Chief Blake said they found your tire tracks out there last night. They know you were there, Ruby! What were you doing out there? Goddamn it, Ruby, tell me what happened!”
She just kept rocking back and forth making that sound.
“What else did they find?”
“Nothing!” he yelled into my face, and spittle landed
on my cheek. “They found nothing! It’s just an old camp!” He started to make his own sound, more like bellowing.
I turned to signal one of the guards outside, but Lightman’s mother stepped into the room and warned me off with her hand. She tapped Lightman on the elbow and handed him a glass with several inches of black liquid in it. He immediately stopped making the noise and drank it straight down. Then she thumped Ruby’s shoulder hard. Without looking up, Ruby took the other glass the woman held out. Within half a minute, Lightman stumbled to the sofa, where he blacked out sitting up. Ruby passed out on the floor.
“What did you give them?”
She signaled me away again as she covered Ruby with a blanket. She pushed Lightman down onto his side, pulled off his boots, and covered him too.
Fiercely she turned to me and said one word: “Leave.”
9
Outside, most of the press had disappeared. I understood now where the reporters had gone. “Statement later,” I said to the single cameraman. I signaled the woman who had followed me to the AA meeting toward my car. She climbed right in, but I didn’t start the engine. “So, who are you?”
“A stringer for the New York Times,” she said earnestly. “I only do background and research. A reporter named Del Mead does the actual writing.”
“You look like a kid.” She seemed to be about Ruby’s age, maybe a little older. “What are you, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-eight.” She pulled the sun-clips off her glasses so I could see her eyes. She was nervous and scared. “I wasn’t following you last night, Miss Burns, and I left as soon as I realized you were there.”
“Call me Ellen and recite the Preamble.”
“Um, ‘Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who’ … shit … ‘experience, strength, and hope’ … Is that part of the Preamble? … ‘Our sole purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety?’ I know that last line’s right.”
“How long have you got?”
“Seven months. Wait. I have this.” She pulled a green token with a 6 engraved on it out of her pocket. There was a quarter taped to one side. I hadn’t seen money taped to a chip in years.
“Your sponsor’s been in the program a long time, and she gave you that?”
“Public phones still cost a quarter in New Mexico. And I have a credit card. Also, a lot more change.” She pulled a handful of quarters out of her handbag.
“What’s your sobriety date?”
She named a date six and a half months ago.
“Don’t fudge your time,” I said, trying not to smile as I started the car and pulled out of the yard.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s drive.” I headed back toward Gallup. “It’s really beautiful out here, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think it’s all that beautiful. Then again, it’s my home.”
“The reservation? You don’t look Indian.”
“Don’t say ‘Indian.’ Oh, I see, you’re baiting me now. No, I’m from Gallup. My name is Claudia Friedman. A small group of Jews have been living in this part of New Mexico for more than a hundred years.” She giggled. “Not exactly Native. We hardly even qualify as being from Gallup yet.”
“Educated back East?”
“At Brown.”
“And then what happened?”
“Do you always talk this way to people you don’t know?”
“Pretty much. I can’t seem to help it.”
“I liked your cookbook,” she said.
“Everybody likes my cookbook, and I can’t even cook.”
Soon we were laughing out loud. “This situation is so fucking vile,” I said, which set off another round of laughing. “So here’s the deal, Claudia Friedman, I’m betting you know where this place called the Catacombs is. If you don’t, I can find out another way.”
She tried not to look too pleased. “My boss told me I should stay at the reservation, but I’m thinking that riding with you is much better journalistic judgment.”
“It certainly is.”
“So, take the turnoff out to El Morro National Monument.”
I did not believe there would be anything significant to see at the Catacombs because Ed Blake would have called me—I trusted him that much—but I wanted to see the place for myself. Whether or not the Catacombs had anything to do with the kidnapping, the Silent Brotherhood, if it still existed in any form, might be connected, and I wanted to tell Blake that Ruby was cracking up. I thought she should be interrogated again, along with Lightman, as soon as they were awake. And if those really were her tire tracks, they should carry her out to the Catacombs and see whether she might admit anything. I was certain now that Ruby was hiding something and that the old woman had drugged her and Lightman on purpose.
Claudia told me that the barns out at the Catacombs were part of an old ranch that had been private property when the park was first formed. For a while it had been used by some religious group that prayed 24-7, which is where the nickname came from. After that, it became a place where kids went to drink and take drugs, but she’d never heard anything about racist groups out there.
“Listen, I need a pipeline,” I said. “You do too. So here’s my real proposal. I’ll keep you on an inside loop, but you have to hold back anything I tell you unless I say it’s all right. Your people will like this arrangement. If you don’t think so, don’t tell them. Use that ‘journalistic judgment.’ And, in return, you give me whatever you can. Just don’t get yourself in any trouble, but tell me whatever you can. It is a deal?”
She gave me a sad, cagey smile. “Does this mean I’m going to get an exclusive interview with Ruby Redstone?”
“I can’t promise anything like that. I may not even have a voice in it.”
“Okay, it’s a deal,” she said.
“Swear it on the grave of Bill Wilson,” I said, which made us both start to snicker.
Claudia showed her press badge at the first roadblock, and I said to the cop, “Call ahead to Chief Blake. Tell him Ruby Redstone’s aunt is here.”
At the second roadblock, where the press had parked their cars, the police signaled us through while Claudia scrunched down in her seat. “Aren’t you going to wave at your press cronies?”
“I’ll do better explaining this situation later.”
Ed Blake was standing in the dirt road, waiting for us, his arms folded across his chest. We were all wearing dark glasses now, which was helpful. “Hi, Chief Blake,” I said as we got out of the car. “Thanks for that heads-up about telling Lightman Redstone you have Ruby’s tire tracks out here. All hell broke loose at Loretta’s house.”
“Hello, Ellen. Hello, Claudia. I didn’t know you were this enterprising. What happened at the house?” Blake looked immediately regretful that he’d asked this question in front of Claudia.
“One of the old women drugged Lightman and Ruby, and now they’re both unconscious.”
Claudia said, “Is that true?”
“You might want to get a doctor out there,” I said to Blake, “in case she’s killed them.”
“No news on this, I mean it,” he said to Claudia. He turned away and began talking into a walkie-talkie and a phone at the same time.
Four FBI-labeled cars and several other unmarked vehicles were scattered around, but there were no ambulances. All I could see in the distance was a run-down old ranch house and two rotting barns. Police tape extended about fifty yards around their perimeter.
“Let me speak with Miss Burns privately,” Blake said to Claudia. “You get back in that car.” He waited until she obeyed him. Then he took my arm and led me about ten feet away. “What happened?”
“You tell me first.”
“They were questioning Lightman separately. They’ve begun excluding me, but I’m not sure why. That’s the reason I didn’t call you. They told Lightman about the tire tracks as a way of creating pressure between them, and I guess it worked. We don’t know yet wha
t the old woman gave them, but one of the guards got the EMS people out there fast. Apparently, it’s just some kind of sedative. Ruby’s out cold, but Lightman’s not as bad. They’ll be fine. Here’s the real news: those are Ruby’s tire tracks. It doesn’t prove anything about when she was here, and, of course, the first people out here drove right over them. But forensics thinks they’re less than a week old.”
“No sign of anything else?”
“No sign of the children, if that’s what you mean. The first people out here trampled all through those barns too, but nobody else has, as far as we can tell. There’s a cave entrance hidden behind some boards, but it seems like nobody’s been in there for months.”
“Claudia says kids used to drink and take drugs out here.”
“I heard she used to be one of them.”
“Don’t try to undermine her credibility with me, Blake.”
“Speaking of forthrightness,” he said, “why, exactly, didn’t I find out about Ruby and Royce and the family dog so picturesquely named Rommel when I talked to you last night?”
“I told you before, we have different interests here. Do I get to see inside those barns and that cave?”
“No,” he said. “And I can’t go in right now either. They’re still doing forensics and expanding the search area.”
“Because?”
“I’ll call you if anything happens. I’ve got to get back to work, and you need to get that reporter out of here.”
The second time I had sex with Ed Blake was only a few hours later, and we didn’t even bother to eat dinner first. I did manage to get all my clothes off this time, but again the sex was quick, rough, and wordless. Afterward, he said, “How’d you get to be so tough, Ellen Burns?”
Tomb of the Unknown Racist Page 4