Small Towns Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  One woman, who was probably twenty but looked forty, sat in a rocker on a front porch very similar to the one on this building. A chubby-faced infant sat on her lap, while two other children under the age of three clung to her skirts and stared with large dark eyes at the stranger who photographed them. No one in any of the pictures smiled.

  A placard inserted between some of the photos showed a crude map of the town, then and now. Different colored markers indicated the portions attributed to different periods in time. The plaza was shown in brown and the color key indicated that it dated back to Spanish exploration days. Small red squares on the periphery showed the location of the mining cap, dated 1885. Those buildings drawn in dotted lines no longer existed, which was almost all of them. Only one red building, named here as Phillips Mercantile, remained. There were two photos of it, then and now. “Then” showed a large stone building, three stories tall with dark slim arched windows; “Now” merely an empty roofless shell.

  Apparently the mining operation thrived for close to fifty years but inevitably vanished. The gold and silver veins had given out and the people moved on. In its heyday, the town’s population had been around nine thousand. When the miners left it dwindled back to the two thousand or so level where it remains today.

  We wandered back through the middle room, startling Bart Johnson out of a little snooze. He grinned crookedly and immediately became busy straightening postcards on the rack at his desk.

  “Enjoying the museum?” he asked.

  “I had no idea there was a mining operation of this scale up here,” I told him.

  “Yep, they took out over forty million dollars worth.”

  “So many of the old mining towns in New Mexico just vanished after their mines closed down, though. Valle Escondido seems to be one of the few towns still going strong.” I observed.

  He scratched behind his left ear. “Well, you know this town was here a long time before them miners came. Spanish explorers got here first, I guess. Then the frontiersmen, Kit Carson and his cronies. There was even a Civil War battle fought just up the road here.”

  “Glorietta Pass,” I said. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Lot of old families here,” he continued, shaking his white head slowly. “Yep, lot of old bitterness.”

  I wondered what he meant by that but he suddenly became busy again, folding and straightening some brochures.

  The third room contained firearms in glass cases, labeled with small signs indicating where they had been found or who they’d belonged to. A couple of dress forms displayed clothing worn by the townspeople. The dresses were made of sturdy material, tattered now with patched places and frayed edges. Nothing of the Hollywood western image here. The whole place conveyed not a sense of adventure and glamour, but of sadness.

  Chapter 15

  “Want some lunch?” Drake asked as we stepped out onto the creaky wooden porch once more.

  “We could sample the enchiladas or maybe a burrito at Rosa’s, then see if Barbara Lewis is back in town,” I suggested.

  Rosa’s was jammed with the after-church crowd. We stood in line twenty minutes before getting a table but it proved worth the wait. The steaming plates of enchiladas smothered in gooey cheese arrived quickly. I wondered whether Drake might be getting tired of all the Mexican food we’d been eating but he seemed to relish it. People were still waiting for tables when we finished, so we paid the check and left.

  A spotless blue Volvo stood in the driveway at Barbara Lewis’s house. The porch light was off and the newspapers had been picked up. She answered the door almost immediately.

  Barbara Lewis was fifty-ish with dark hair generously streaked with gray, cut severely in a masculine style. She stood a firm five foot four in a body that looked like she had to fight to keep it from spreading south. She wore black stirrup pants and a black and white geometric patterned tunic sweater, obviously a professional color coordination job to go with her hair. Burgundy lipstick gave her mouth an unyielding look, although that might have been enhanced by the two deep crevices between the black eyebrows. Her brown eyes, rather than her mouth, asked what we wanted.

  “Ms. Lewis? I wonder if we might talk to you for a few moments.”

  She moved as if to close the door and I realized that I must have sounded like a survey taker.

  “It’s about Cynthia Martinez,” I explained, rummaging in my purse for a business card.

  She studied the card, ready at any moment to shut the door in our faces.

  “Mary McDonald suggested that I talk to you.”

  She loosened up noticeably but didn’t quite let go of a smile.

  “May we come in?”

  She didn’t want to let us but couldn’t think of a graceful way to refuse after the mention of her friend’s name. She stepped aside, keeping one hand on the edge of the door, while we squeezed past.

  Inside, the living room was arranged with precision, although lacking the sophistication of Barbara’s personal appearance. Early American chairs flanked a matching sofa. Maple end tables and coffee table each held one or two objects, a lamp here, and candy dish there. Nothing looked like it was allowed to move from its assigned spot. The carpet was orange and brown variegated shag. The walls were decorated with small mass-production paintings, the kind found at starving artists sales. No imagination, but not quite tacky. The room probably looked exactly as it had fifteen years earlier when Archie Lewis had decided he’d become bored with his life.

  “I understand you were Cynthia’s supervisor at work,” I began after we’d perched ourselves on the edge of the sofa.

  “That’s right,” Barbara had sealed herself to one of the large chairs, her rear also near the front edge. Clearly, no one was going to relax just yet.

  “Can you tell me what happened that last Friday when she died?”

  “Nothing at the bank was unusual, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “Cynthia showed up for work late. Said she’d been to a doctor’s appointment. As I remember, she didn’t look very well. She was away from her desk quite a lot.” Her face conveyed severe disapproval.

  “Did she say she was ill?”

  “Obviously she was ill.”

  How could I be so stupid?

  Barbara continued: “After the third trip to the bathroom I suggested that she might as well go home, as she wasn’t doing anyone any good in her present condition.”

  “Did she say she was bleeding?”

  “My girls don’t dump their personal problems on me,” she said shortly.

  Dump their personal problems? I felt my blood pressure rising.

  “So she went home after that?” Drake asked.

  Barbara at least had the good grace to squirm a little now. “Well,” she hesitated, “she worked most of the afternoon. But she fainted.”

  “And then what?”

  “One of the girls called an ambulance. We got the call a few hours later that she’d had a miscarriage and died.” She stated it so matter-of-factly that I couldn’t believe this was a co-worker she was talking about.

  “At least you went to the funeral,” I said. I could hear the sarcasm in my own voice, despite an effort to keep it out.

  “I think that’s about all I care to say on the matter,” she answered, standing. Clearly, we were being dismissed.

  Outside, I exhaled through my teeth before trusting myself to speak. “Can you believe that!”

  Drake guided me toward the Jeep. He didn’t say anything until he had me safely in the passenger seat. He reached for my keys and started the car. Two blocks away, he pulled into the grocery store parking lot, cut the engine and turned to me. I slid across to his open arms.

  “People are really hard to figure out, aren’t they?” he said gently.

  Tears stung my eyes. I squeezed them tightly shut to avoid making a total fool of myself. Why do I do this to myself? Why do I have this sympathetic spot for people I don’t even know? For one crazy minute I considered what it might be like to pack a
suitcase and run off to Hawaii with Drake, forgetting this little northern New Mexico town and Sally’s friend and the fact that a woman had died mysteriously. Why didn’t I just do it?

  Because something about Barbara Lewis had come across as so cold and unfeeling that I wanted to nail the woman. I couldn’t’ see how she could have been directly responsible for Cynthia’s death but that was beside the point. Right now, I was angry. I almost understood how Richard Martinez had lost his temper at the funeral. I almost believed him.

  Almost, but not quite. I sat up straight again.

  “What if Cynthia was late for work that day, not because of a doctor appointment but because her husband was in a rage?”

  Drake looked at me, not speaking, encouraging me to go on with my thoughts.

  “What if he had beat her that morning?”

  “Wouldn’t the doctors have found bruises? Evidence of a beating?” He interjected rationality into the conversation.

  “Okay. That makes sense. Then what is Barbara Lewis hiding?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that one. We both sat silently staring out the window. My mind raced. I needed to figure out what Cynthia had done that morning, what steps had eventually led to her being taken away in an ambulance.

  “Let’s go talk to Laura Armijo again,” I suggested. “You drive.”

  Laura greeted us warmly and offered iced tea as soon as we stepped into her home.

  “If you don’t mind, let’s talk in the kitchen,” she said. “I’m putting a roast into the oven for dinner tonight.”

  Drake and I took seats on barstools at the counter. Laura’s energetic movements were almost tiring to the observer.

  “I’m so glad you’re still here,” she told us. “At least someone is taking the time to investigate this.”

  “I’m not sure that I’m doing a wonderful job for you,” I answered. “So far, I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t seem to believe that Cynthia just died of complications from the miscarriage.”

  “Technically that might be true, Charlie. But what caused the miscarriage? I can’t believe she lost two babies in two years just by chance. I still think Richard had something to do with it.”

  “Tell me what happened that Friday at work. You didn’t learn of Cynthia’s death until Sunday when Sally and I were here. Didn’t someone call the bank on Friday with the news?”

  “They might have. I had Friday off. I’d gone to Santa Fe for some shopping. Bobby decided to join me there that night and we stayed over at the Inn of the Governors. We got back Saturday night late.”

  “I’d like to talk to someone else from the bank who would have been there Friday.”

  “Barbara Lewis?”

  “I tried that.” I guess my expression told her how that went.

  “How about Jennifer Lang? She’s one of the tellers.” Laura paused a moment from sprinkling seasoning salt on the roast. Her eyes looked upward. “She’s . . . how should I say this . . . talkative.”

  Not too discreet. Good. Maybe we’d get the real skinny on the situation.

  “Shall I call her for you?” Laura offered.

  “No, I’d rather just drop in. Can you give me directions to her house?”

  Ten minutes later, we were on our way. Heavy clouds had begun to accumulate over the mountains. A sporadic breeze stirred up dust devils, whipping bits of leaves and debris upward in spirals. The temperature hadn’t dropped a bit, though. Now the air felt like a soggy wool blanket over our heads.

  Jennifer Lang’s apartment was on the main street, a twenty year old ten-plex, stuccoed pale tan with peeling turquoise paint on the trim and stair railings. Her place was on the second floor. The turquoise door was in a little better shape than some. I pounded at it, I hoped firmly enough to be heard over the rock music blasting behind it.

  Jennifer swung the door open quickly, like she’d been expecting someone. Her eyes registered surprise to see strangers. Dark permed hair flowed wildly around her shoulders. She pushed an unruly strand back from her forehead. Her dark eyes were made up in three colors and she had an upturned nose and full mouth. She wore red plaid men’s boxer shorts, the elastic at the top rolled down a couple of turns, and a skin tight red tank top—nothing else. The outline of her nipples was almost distracting. I glanced at Drake. Yes, definitely distracting.

  “Hi, Jennifer, I’m Charlie Parker. Laura Armijo suggested we stop by and talk to you.”

  “Laura? From the bank?” She glanced backward into the apartment. “Uh, sure, come on in.”

  She backed away, giving us space, closing the door behind us and turning the music down.

  “Oh, just a second. Let me move some stuff here.” She scooped up an armful of magazines from the sofa and dumped them on the floor beside it. We sat, sinking at odd angles on springs that had quit working years earlier. Jennifer took the only chair, one of those rattan round things that look impossible to get in or out of. She didn’t bother moving the socks, blouse or pantyhose draped over it.

  “Laura has asked us to look into Cynthia Martinez’s death,” I began. “She wasn’t at work that day but said you were. Maybe you could tell us what happened.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess so,” she said.

  “Cynthia came in late, I hear.”

  “Yeah, she’d gone to her doctor appointment. You know, when you’re pregnant you have to go a lot. Like every month or so.”

  I nodded. Drake was making a conscious effort not to stare at her chest.

  “Well, she’d been doing that ever since she got pregnant. She was really excited about that baby. I don’t think her husband wanted it so much, but Cynthia—well, she’d really have been a good mom, you know.”

  “Was she having trouble with the pregnancy?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, she never mentioned anything, you know. She just went to the doctor every month. And she was really careful about what she ate. You know, she brought all this healthy stuff for lunch every day? And she wouldn’t even have a beer after work like the rest of us did sometimes.”

  “What about that Friday? Was she feeling bad?”

  “Yeah, she didn’t look right all morning. She came in after her doctor appointment but she didn’t look right.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, she told me she had this pounding headache. She woke up with it and she said the doctor had given her something for it. But it didn’t go away. Then, right after lunch she came out of the bathroom and she told one of the other girls she had bad cramps and was bleeding. I mean, that’s not right, is it?” She glanced at Drake, embarrassed. “You’re not supposed to you know, when you’re pregnant?”

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “What happened after that? Did she call her doctor?”

  “I got busy so I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. She went to lie down in the employee lounge for awhile. Then Ms. Lewis was storming around looking for her, and she came back to her desk. There were customers waiting, you know. I mean, you can’t imagine how crazy the bank is on Friday afternoons.” Her eyes rolled upward to convey the pressure she was under at work.

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I looked over at her a couple of times, and I thought she really looked pale. And kind of sweaty. She went in the restroom a few more times and Ms. Lewis was getting really pissed. I mean, you can just tell it, you know. She doesn’t even have to say anything but she gets this look.”

  Jennifer squinted her eyebrows together tightly in a pretty good imitation of Barbara Lewis’s perpetual scowl.

  “Like that? Well, anyway, she’s giving that look to Cynthia all afternoon until finally about three o’clock. Cynthia just passed out. I mean, right there on the floor.”

  She patted her chest, her eyes wide now. “It really scared all of us. Ms. Lewis wanted us to take her into the lounge and put a cold cloth on her face, but the other girls were worried. I mean, after what Cynthia told us about the cramps and all. So someone called 911. The ambulance came right a
way. I don’t know if they took her to the clinic or to Santa Fe. I never heard. They called about five to say that she had died.”

  “Did you go to the funeral?” I asked.

  “No, we had to keep the bank open. Ms. Lewis went and some of the other girls. Actually, I volunteered to work. I hate funerals, ever since this one guy in our class in high school was killed in a car wreck and we all had to go to the funeral. It was so sad.”

  She stared at the carpet, her soft young features still now. I knew what she meant. I’d attended my parent’s double funeral when I was sixteen. I hate the whole business, too.

  Drake broke the silence with a discreet clearing of the throat. I couldn’t think of any other questions for Jennifer. I handed her my card and asked her to call me if she thought of anything else that might explain why a seemingly healthy pregnant woman would suddenly miscarry and die. We walked again into the heavy heat outside.

  “I think you’d look cute in an outfit like that,” Drake grinned, once we’d reached the car.

  I glanced sideways at him. “Really?” Flatterer. At least his attentions were not easily stolen by a twenty year old with a fantastic body.

  Suddenly, I was tired. The late afternoon sun had gone behind the deepening clouds, giving the impression that it was almost dusk.

  “Let’s go back to the Wildflower,” I said.

  “You hungry yet?” he asked.

  “Not very.” I really didn’t want to think about food yet. But it didn’t seem right to expect Mary to feed us again. After all, we were only supposed to get breakfast in the deal.

  “Why don’t we call her and see if we can bring a pizza back for all of us?” he suggested.

  He started the Jeep and headed back up the main street. Pulling in at a pizza place, he found a phone and made the call. I watched from the car, thinking about the day, mulling over the interviews we’d done. Some answers were in there someplace. I just didn’t know where.

  Drake stepped away from the pay phone and flashed me a thumbs up. He disappeared inside the pizza place, apparently to place an order. A few minutes later, he came back out.