“You’re better, but you didn’t exactly clean your plate back at the restaurant.”
“Listen, for me that was a big meal. And my stomach got queasy because I kept expecting you to ask me about Victor. That was our bargain.”
“It is, but I’d thought we’d do that back here. Is there someplace we can talk?”
“Around back in the garden.” She opened a side gate and led him around the house. “Please try to remember that my name here is Maria,” she whispered. “If we run into anyone, who are you going to be? Wait, I know. I’ll say you’re the father of my best friend from home.”
“I now know why you got away so easily,” Worthy said. “You’re pretty good at lying.”
For the first time, Ellie smiled. “You should talk.”
They sat on green plastic garden chairs by a patio table. An aroma of lavender drifted up from the garden, where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood with her arms outstretched.
Ellie pointed beyond the cement block wall to the mountains beyond. “That’s Mexico.”
Worthy wasn’t sure if the comment was an observation or warning.
“It’s where most of the girls come from. They cross the border, wanting their babies born in the United States.”
“Ellie, we need to talk about—”
“I know, I know,” she said. “We need to talk about Victor, but that’s not so easy. You see, there was more than one Victor. I like the one I knew last September. I was walking around Allgemein trying not to look like a mental patient, and here was this guy who was wowing all the professors. But I liked him, and he agreed to be my study partner. He was the brightest person I ever met. My own age, anyway.”
“Then Samir Romadji died, right?”
Ellie nodded as tears began to flow.
“How did the two of them meet?” Worthy prodded.
“At one of these politically correct punch-and-cookie receptions at Allgemein. That’s what Victor called them. He was clever like that. Victor detested functions where everyone in the room besides the college officials was a person of color or ethnic. The photographer would be shooting madly, and everyone knew they would see their faces on next year’s brochures. It made Allgemein look like a miniature United Nations, which it definitely isn’t.”
“Did you ever meet Samir, Ellie?”
She nodded and pulled her knees up to cradle them. “What a sweet kid. I felt out of place at Allgemein, and I was from Detroit. He was from Pakistan, and yet he was so open to everyone.”
“Do you know if Samir ever hung out in Victor’s room?”
“Sure. He had a hard time making friends at the high school, and Victor could see he was in pain. Victor reached out to that sort—me included.”
“And when Samir died?”
Ellie moaned as she had the night before. “Take about crazy timing. That happened just about the time I found out I’m adopted. Victor and I seemed like two people passing each other in some long hallway. But we were going in opposite directions. After that, Victor seemed to get so much … smaller, I guess.”
Worthy watched Ellie as she spoke, trying to figure out how healthy she really was. He thought of the rule that he taught to all new recruits at the academy. Is the subject coherent, alert, and able to show appropriate emotion? Yes, he admitted to himself, this young woman passed on all three counts.
“What I can’t quite figure out is why Victor blamed himself for Samir’s death,” he said.
“That was because he was supposed to go hiking with Samir that Sunday, but by the time his bus got to Samir’s house, the rest of them had already gone.”
“You mean Aaron Stott and the other kid,” Worthy said. “Stott’s being there when Samir died … was that why Victor went to see his father?”
Ellie began to rock back and forth in the chair as she looked down at the ground. “Victor called it the philosopher’s runaround. Stott turned everything back on Victor, questioning why he couldn’t accept life’s unpredictability. He said Stott made Samir’s death seem like a case study.”
“But if the boy’s death was an accident—”
“Was it?” Ellie interrupted. “That’s what haunted Victor. Samir told him Aaron Stott was one of the guys at school who teased him. Victor had someone in his dorm doing the same thing to him. Victor couldn’t get it out of his head that if he’d been there on time that Sunday, he could have saved Samir’s life.”
“Did Victor ever say he thought Aaron Stott pushed Samir over the cliff?” Worthy asked.
“Sometimes. But other times he just wondered if Stott had dared Samir to try the big cliff.”
Worthy nodded. “So there was nothing provable.” No wonder Victor was so torn up, he thought. Victor could have been right. Maybe if he’d been there, Samir would have lived. And if Samir had lived, Victor would have finished the semester and Ellie VanBruskman wouldn’t be sitting in a chair next to him in Arizona with Mexico just beyond the garden wall.
“Ellie, was that when Victor said he was being followed?”
She stopped rocking. “His devil? Yes, it was, and I thought for a few days he might be right. I thought it could be the Stott boy. But then one day when Victor was talking pretty … crazy, I guess, I asked him what this devil looked like. He said it was a wooden skeleton with open eyes. I thought, oh, my God, he’s hallucinating.”
Worthy grimaced. “No, La Muerte.”
“What?”
“It’s a death figure, used by the Penitentes. There was one buried with Victor.”
“Oh, God.” Ellie sat for a moment and quietly wept. “Poor Victor. He wrote and told me the Penitentes were the only ones who could save him. That’s why he came back here, you know.”
Worthy sat forward. “He wrote to you? When?”
“In January, when he told me to meet him at Chimayó. I thought you knew. No, wait, of course, you couldn’t. I tore it up and threw it away. In case you couldn’t tell, my mother tends to look through my things.”
January? Worthy thought. “Do you remember where the letter came from?”
“Colorado. He talked about meeting some guys at an old church or chapel up there.”
“A morada?”
“Yes, that’s what he wrote. He said one of the men was like an angel to him. The man let him stay at his place and even gave him some money.”
Worthy felt needles pricking him in his chest. “He said the angel was a Penitente?”
“I think so. I think he said one of them had known his father.”
“Did Victor say anything else about this angel?”
“Just that he was the first person to treat him with kindness.” She looked out toward the statue of the Virgin Mary. “Wait, there was something else … the man told Victor to look for old moradas and to be sure to phone him whenever he found one.”
Worthy felt his breakfast rise into his throat. “Did Victor say that he expected to see this man again?”
“Yes, yes, he did. He talked about waiting at one of those places for this man to …. Oh, God, was that his killer?”
Feeling lightheaded, Worthy rose slowly from the chair. “I need to use your phone.”
“You don’t have a cell?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” Worthy replied.
Ellie rose from the chair and hurried toward the house. “I’ll show you.”
He called Sera’s cell phone number. No answer. Next he tried the sheriff’s department in Santa Fe. The desk sergeant told him confidentially that Choi’s search of moradas south of Santa Fe had yielded new evidence. Gang-related vandalism had been found; besides, Sera wasn’t alone in Colorado. Two priests from a monastery were with her. There was nothing to worry about.
The relief that assurance gave him lasted no more than five seconds after he hung up. Despite being reminded that Father Fortis was with her, he wondered what kind of gang would kill a nun and a boy. He called the number back, and after a few moments, convinced the sergeant to make every effort to locate Sera
.
His mouth felt dry as he hung up the phone for a second time. “I need to get on the road but ….”
Without speaking, Ellie led him back outside. They walked to the far wall and faced the mountains of Mexico.
“I should put you on a plane for Detroit,” he said. “You know that.”
Ellie crossed her arms across her chest and slumped. “If you do, they’ll commit me to another hospital.”
“No, they won’t. You’re much better. Anyone can see that.”
“You don’t understand. I’ll be legally on my own in less than three months. Then I’ll be gone for good, and they know it. They’ll have to have me committed before that.”
Worthy gazed at the mountains. If he trusted her, would he come back to find her sick again? Sick or well, would she even be here when he returned?
“If I’d wanted to, I could have run away last night,” she said in barely a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“After I was hooked up to the IV, all the nurses left for that car accident. I saw you sleeping out in the lobby. I could have left, and no one would have noticed.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Ellie turned back toward the house. “Because we have six pretty scared pregnant girls here right now. Two of them were raped. My real mother could have been one of them. I’m not going to abandon them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Father Fortis hadn’t slept well. He awoke early, bothered by the hum of the air conditioner, and so arose to offer his morning prayers. He prayed for Victor’s soul, for the boy’s family, and for Ellie VanBruskman before he showered and came down to the motel’s coffee shop.
He wondered if his sleeplessness had something to do with their fruitless evening with Eladio Moldonado. As soon as the bartender recognized Eladio, he’d refused to serve him, but acquiesced when he saw two priests in the group. Although the mug of beer came at the same time as the hamburger, the derelict emptied the glass before touching the food. Any hope that he would provide new insight into Victor was washed away with that beer. Other than mentioning Phinehas again as the one who’d befriended Victor, Eladio spent the evening angling for another drink. When a pitcher of water was brought instead, the man sulked and merely picked at his burger. It wasn’t until Father Fortis was in bed, trying to get to sleep, that he realized the derelict had been sizing up the three of them the entire time.
Father Fortis would have liked nothing better than to share his misgivings privately with Sera over breakfast. And not all his misgivings were about Eladio. Father Bernard had seemed preoccupied, hardly saying a word over supper. Throughout the entire previous day, the monk had never once brought up the topic of Sister Anna’s journals. While Father Fortis had found the nun’s story fascinating and her sarcastic wit oddly comforting, he’d found no clue as to why the abbot and Father Bernard had insisted on his reading it.
More curious to Father Fortis than the journal were the notes Father Bernard had added in the margin. Those and passages he had underlined appeared more frequently as the journal progressed, suggesting that he noted something developing. But what?
Any hopes for a private conversation with the policewoman were shattered when he entered the coffee shop and saw Father Bernard already sitting in the booth across from Sera.
“I simply can’t believe the change in the man,” Father Bernard said as Father Fortis squeezed in next to Sera. “He’s not as old as he looks, probably no more than in his early forties.” He shook his head. “Eladio had a real touch with gardens. Come to think of it, he was at St. Mary’s once.”
“You brought him there?” Father Fortis asked.
Bernard took a sip of coffee and smiled sheepishly. “I guess it was me. It’s funny what you remember. As I recall, the first few days he worked for us were fine. Then he showed up drunk one day. That settled the matter for the abbot we had then, so in the end we put the pond in ourselves. Of course, the blasted thing has leaked ever since.”
A gum-chewing waitress with a pencil behind each ear approached their table and sang out the specials. Father Fortis studied the menu as he pondered the new information. Eladio Moldonado had been at St. Mary’s. Had he seen the retreat house?
After the waitress left, Father Fortis looked over at Sera. “The only thing I got from last night was that name Phinehas again. He’s obviously pretty important to Eladio.”
“He has to be the guy Victor told Alonzo about,” Sera said.
“Who’s Alonzo, again?” Father Bernard asked.
“One of Victor’s high school buddies. Victor told him he met an angel up here in Colorado. So if Eladio can take us to this Phinehas, as he promised, maybe we can put some pieces together.”
Father Fortis pondered how they’d gotten to this point—the envelope found by Father Bernard in the old morada that led them to Eladio Maldonado. Now Eladio promised to bring them to this Phinehas. Things were moving swiftly. Too swiftly?
“Phinehas seems an odd name, doesn’t it?” he offered.
Father Bernard looked up from his coffee. “It’s an Old Testament name, I believe.”
Father Fortis watched Bernard pour cream into his coffee. The monk was dressed in civilian clothes, his short-sleeved shirt exposing the cords of muscle in his forearm.
“I think you’re right,” Father Fortis said. “Wasn’t Phinehas a warrior?”
“I thought he was a priest,” Bernard replied. “Maybe we’re both right. A priest-warrior.”
“Hmm,” Father Fortis mused.
A half hour later, the three reentered the rescue mission. To Father Fortis’s surprise, Eladio was waiting in the reception area, minus his suitcase. The derelict had made an attempt to tame his hair, borrowing oil perhaps from the man behind the counter. He wore the same serape and battered sandals Father Fortis recognized from four weeks before in Truchas.
As they left town, Father Fortis noticed they were headed out Route 370, the same road they’d taken into Alamosa the night before. The derelict sat up straight in the passenger seat, but said little except to offer directions.
Father Fortis caught Sera’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Mr. Moldonado, are we by any chance going to an old morada by Platoro?” he asked.
The derelict twisted in the seat, glaring back at him, then at Father Bernard. “Dios mio,” he said, before mumbling something else under his breath.
“Because if we are,” Sera added, “I can tell you there’s nothing there.”
“Phinehas will be there,” he said, repeating himself several times.
“You telephoned him? You told him we’re coming?” Sera asked.
The derelict shook his head. “No telephone. He knows.”
Despite his previous association with the derelict, Father Bernard was quiet as he looked out his side window.
Father Fortis leaned forward. “Mr. Moldonado, if this Phinehas was kind enough to feed and house Victor, why did Victor leave?”
The derelict didn’t turn around to answer. “To find his way, just like you and me. Even Bernardo has to find his way, don’t you, Bernardo?”
On the spur of the moment, Father Fortis asked, “Does Phinehas have to find his way, too?”
Eladio Maldonado twisted fully around in the seat and glared at Father Fortis. His eyes drifted down from the priest’s face back to his pectoral cross. “No, not Phinehas,” he said. “He’s found his way.”
And around and around we go, Father Fortis thought. Let’s hope this Phinehas is more coherent. Of course, that assumes Phinehas even exists. He envisioned the derelict leading them back to the abandoned morada and to a grave with the odd name written on it.
When Eladio told them to turn onto Route 371, then Route 15, Father Fortis confirmed that they were traveling the same roads as the night before. Sure enough, when they came to the turnoff for Forest Road 250, Eladio pointed in that direction. Father Fortis sat forward in his seat to study the road ahead. As far as he could tell, there were only two s
ets of tracks, which must be theirs from the night before. So how had this Phinehas gotten to the morada? Father Fortis sighed and sat back wearily in his seat. He studied the man in the passenger seat, the oily hair draping the collar of his flannel shirt. We’ve come all this way on an alcoholic’s delusion.
For the first time on the morning drive, Father Bernard spoke. “We should have brought water. It’s going to be hot today.”
The derelict glared back at him, as if Father Bernard had insulted him. “There’s plenty of water there. I told you!”
Father Fortis felt his mouth go instantly dry. Plenty of water there? Hardly. The morada was in the higher elevations, but no nearer to water than in the lower desert.
Ten bumpy miles later, they turned into the morada, pulling alongside the cemetery . The scene looked as desolate as it had the night before. At least the wild goose chase will end here, Father Fortis thought.
With sudden energy, the derelict jumped from the van and hastened toward the morada as if to catch a train.
“Wait here,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I’ll bring him out.”
As the derelict jogged toward the building, the three stepped out of the van and stood in the morning sun. There was not a cloud in the deep blue sky. Father Bernard had been right. It would be a dry day in the mountains. Sera looked over at Father Fortis and shrugged. Father Fortis turned to see Father Bernard gazing intently at the cupola on top of the morada.
“Now that’s odd. It looks like there’s a camera up there,” he said, pointing at the roof.
Before he could explain, an Anglo emerged from the morada, with Eladio following like a shadow behind him. The newcomer was tall, perhaps in his late fifties, and walked stiffly, with a limp. A brush mustache complemented the flattop, giving the man a military appearance. Large arms and shoulders protruded from the cut-off T-shirt. The stranger and Father Bernard looked as if they could have been on the same football team.
The man stopped, studying his visitors. He neither smiled nor looked surprised. The change in Eladio, however, was profound. He stood motionless behind the man, his arms behind his back. His eyes never left the back of the Anglo’s head.
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