Mary stopped spooning up the froth of milk, but she did not look up.
“I know you and your sister liked to visit Mesa Verde,” Jury went on. “Was that one of your particular spots?”
She nodded and spooned up the rest of the froth. Then she said, “There might be spirits there.”
“Spirits?”
“Well, Angie believes in spirits. So does Rosella. Maybe that’s why Angie did, because Rosella talks about things like that so much.”
“Rosella is the woman who takes care of you?”
“Uh-huh.” She was cutting the rest of her pastry into small pieces.
“Is she by way of being, well, a legal guardian?” Jury wondered what fate lay in store for Mary Dark Hope.
Her dark hair swung when she shook her head. “A couple of ladies from the Social Services came around day before yesterday.” The memory caused her to look over at Jury with her icewater eyes.
He was glad he was not “a couple of ladies from Social Services.” He smiled. “Rosella’s been with you long enough that I imagine she’d be considered a suitable guardian, despite the lack of blood relationship.”
If Mary was relieved, she didn’t show it. She just went on looking.
He could understand how adults might contemplate her with awe or anger; she was that inexplicable and self-contained.
“You were playing the flute for the spirits, then?”
“No. For the memories.”
He looked at her, her face now turned toward the plate, empty of food but for one small square of pastry and the éclair. Her hands, lacking employment now, could do nothing but turn the plate slowly round. Jury felt a little ashamed; his question had been condescending. For the memories. “I’m truly sorry, Mary, about Angela.”
“You haven’t told me anything, though.”
Jury told her how they had found her sister.
All the while, she contemplated her chocolate éclair without eating it. “Look at this, will you?” From his inside coat pocket Jury drew the photocopied paper and smoothed it out on the table. “It’s a page from an address book.”
For a moment, she regarded it with a slight frown. “It says ‘Coyote Village.’ What are the numbers?”
“Telephone numbers, presumably.”
“Is it Angie’s telephone book?”
“Does it look like her writing?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else you know of like to visit this particular site?”
“No. Tourists mainly like to go to the big ones—Balcony House, Spruce Tree House—like that. One of the reasons Angie—” Her head dipped; he could not read her expression. When the face came up again, it was as remote as the moon. “Angie liked it because nobody much turned up there and she—we—could have it to ourselves. Angie liked to think.” She picked up her éclair, bit the end off.
Jury refolded the paper, creases weakened by much use, and returned it to his pocket. “My impression of your sister is that she was by way of being more interested in the spirit than in material things.”
“That’s why we don’t have a dishwasher.” Having summed up the spiritual life, Mary licked a bit of custard oozing from her éclair.
“Did she tell you about Old Sarum?”
She looked left to right as if to search out the source of this queer question: “What’s to tell? It’s some ancient excavation or something that goes all the way back to—” She consulted her fund of Sarum knowledge, found it wanting, ended with “—many years ago.” The tongue came out to catch another custard drip. “It’s a famous historical site. You should know; it’s yours.” Having handed over Sarum to Jury’s personal estate, she slid down again to give Sunny a bite of her éclair.
Jury played his fingers tattoo-wise on the rim of his cup, decided not to throw it, and waited for her head to reappear. When it did, he asked, “Did Sarum have some special meaning for your sister? Special, is what I’m wondering.”
“Not exactly, but look: if you loved rocks and ruins, and Angie did, wouldn’t you want to see it? And Stonehenge? That’s there too. Nearby.” She glanced at him as if his knowledge of England needed shoring up.
“I’d want to see it, yes.”
She shrugged, drank her coffee, went on. “She never went to England before and she liked the idea of seeing all of this stuff.”
They drank their coffee in silence for a few moments. Then she said: “People cause their own death.”
“I beg your pardon?” He was mystified.
“If you were a Zuñi, you’d understand.”
“Zuñi?”
“You know, the tribe. Rosella’s a Zuñi.” She paused, reflecting. “She has to go back to Zuñi Pueblo several times a year.”
“Oh. Why?”
“The women have to stick close to the pueblo. Zuñi women hardly ever leave because they make so much money with their silver and turquoise. But mostly it’s because Zuñi women are expected to be good wives and cook up feasts for the Kachina actors and be admiring onlookers at the dances. Even after a woman dies she has to go to Kachina Village and do the same things all over again. I’d say that sucks, wouldn’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Zuñi believe you can cause your own death.”
“Do you mean as in suicide?”
Vigorously, she shook her head. “Not like that. You can mean your own death and not even know it; you can intend it. Like—” She was casting about for a way to say it. “Like, you could have what you think is an accident, you could cause yourself the accident. Or else, you could cause your death by mourning for someone for too long, by keeping on being miserable.” Here she paused and studied her black clothes and was silent, raising her eyes to some far-off horizon out there in the cappuccino crowd, the roomful of espresso drinkers. “Like heartbreak,” she added.
He was stunned by this and did not know what to say. He took the photos from his pocket and placed them before Mary. “Do either of these women look familiar to you? I think they might have visited your sister’s shop last November. Or, at least, this one.” He tapped the picture of Fanny Hamilton.
She paid them serious attention, picked up each little picture, studied it, set it down. “Why do you think that?”
“Because Mrs. Hamilton—that’s the name of this one—took back a turquoise sculpture, turquoise with a silver band round the center. Angela’s silver work was distinctive.”
“That’s because Rosella taught her, that’s why Angie was so good at it. It’s the kind of work the women do in the pueblo.”
“I saw several blocks of turquoise like that in Angela’s shop.”
“Aren’t you supposed to have a search warrant to go into people’s houses?”
“I have one. You want to see it?”
“Never mind.”
“One thing I was looking for but didn’t find was a mailing list, or an accounting book that lists addresses of customers.”
“There’s a Rolodex.”
“I saw that. But it appeared to be more of a personal listing than a business one.”
“I don’t think Angie kept very good records; she had an accountant or a tax person to take care of stuff like that. Angie wasn’t organized. I kept on telling her she should expand. She could have done much more business than she did, but she just said money didn’t mean all of that much to her, and she’d rather spend her time in places like Sedona. It was better for her spirit.” Mary shrugged. “Well, money means a lot to me and I can’t stand Sedona. She knows some flaky people there. They all go out and hang around the vortexes.” Mary shrugged again.
“Mary, what did you think when you heard about the way Angela had died? I’m sorry to ask this, but you knew her better than anyone. And this all must have seemed incredible to you.” She didn’t answer for such a very long time that Jury was ashamed of himself for asking such a speculative question. Yet the girl seemed to be such a direct and self-controlled person he had nearly forgotten this was her own sister who had died. “I’m sorr
y. Let’s just drop it.”
But she must still have been turning the problem over. “I wondered how they did it,” she said.
“How who did what?” Jury was puzzled.
“Killed her.”
“You think someone murdered Angela?”
It was her turn to look at him. “Well, sure. Of course. So do you or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Why would someone kill Angela?”
“Rosella says it was witchcraft. You know—killing someone long distance.” She shrugged. She turned her eyes back to the pictures. “You think maybe they were customers? Or what?”
“I think so.”
“Well, but . . . who are they?”
“This one was from Exeter, that’s about a hundred miles from Salisbury and Stonehenge. This one, although she’s actually American—” he picked up Fanny’s snapshot—“was living in London—had been for years.”
“ ‘Was’ living in?”
“They’re both dead.” He pocketed the pictures.
At last he’d said something interesting. And as if the announcement had surprised even Sunny, Jury felt the dog shift, roll over on his foot.
In a nervous gesture, Mary licked her lips. “You think it’s got something to do with Angie.”
Jury nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s what we’re trying to work out.”
“Were they friends? Let me see their pictures again.”
Jury brought the photos out again. “We don’t even know that, but there’s reason to believe they met over here. Both of them from the U.K., it wouldn’t be unusual for them to strike up a friendship, however slight. They both booked rooms at the La Fonda. At least for a couple of days.”
After studying the pictures for a moment, she said, “It’s hard because so many people come along Canyon Road. Maybe somebody else saw them. Who else did you talk to?”
“The lady who has the shop next to the Silver Heron—Bartholomew.”
What Mary thought of Sukie Bartholomew was fairly clear from her expression. About Nils Anders she was considerably more enthusiastic. “He’s nice. He says I’m a soliton.”
“A what?” Jury laughed.
“A soliton. It’s one of their words. It means ‘self- . . .’ ” She cast about for a definition. “It’s like ‘self-dependent,’ or something. Anyway, somebody that can take care of themselves.”
“I can believe it. I get the impression that your sister wasn’t intimate with many people.”
Mary shook her head. “She wasn’t. With Dr. Anders, mostly. I don’t know why she liked Sukie. And there’s Malcolm; did you talk to him?”
“Yes, I did.”
Disdainfully, Mary said, “He says he’s an actor. That’s when he’s not being a painter. And they’re always making movies around Santa Fe. If I see Robert Redford one more time I’ll throw up.”
“I saw some shooting going on in the plaza. Is that the same film?”
“Probably. Most of it’s going on over at Rancho del Rip-off. That’s a kind of dude ranch ten miles away.” She paused. “What about Dolly? Did you talk to her?”
The question was too casual, Jury thought. He hadn’t brought up Dolly Schell yet, avoiding it because of its potential for causing her pain. “Your cousin. Yes, I did.”
“She went to England to—identify Angela.” Her voice was bitter, but she didn’t look at Jury. Suddenly, she slid down and looked under the table. “Sunny’s asleep.”
“He’s a pretty quiet dog.” Jury would pursue the Dolly question later.
“Unless he gets riled.”
“What riles him?”
“Well, I don’t think he’d take to anyone coming after me with a club or an ax. He walks up and down Canyon Road and people kind of disappear into doorways.” Her little headshake, her tightening of the mouth told him what she thought of that. “Can you believe it? They think Sunny’s a coyote.”
She pronounced it “ky-yote.”
“He does rather look like one, Mary.”
Exasperated, she said, “He does not. Have you ever seen a coyote with that kind of silvery eyes?”
“No, but I’ve never been eye-level with one, either. Where’d you find him?”
“Walking around” was her vague answer.
“Him? Or you?”
Impatiently, she said, “He was out in the desert, just a puppy, nosing around a buzzard skeleton. I guessed he was hungry, so I gave him my ham sandwich.”
“What were you doing in the desert with a ham sandwich?”
Oh, he was just too much, the tight little mouth indicated. “Probably the same thing he was.”
“Looking for buzzard skeletons?”
“Nooo.” Her mouth was a circle around the long, drawn-out syllable. “I always go there on Saturdays and take my lunch.”
Still she didn’t say what she “did.” Maybe nothing. A soliton? He smiled. “You should be . . . I don’t know . . . at the cinema with your friends. That’s what I used to do on Saturdays.” Had he? He could think of no Saturdays . . . but, yes, hadn’t there been an Odeon? Down the King’s Road, or was it the Fulham Road? He thought he saw himself standing outside, reading the adverts, the posters. . . .
She was staring at him, or glaring. Mary Dark Hope seemed to favor the latter. She looked, looked away, glanced back and away, the opportunity for barbed ripostes seeming so plummy, she simply couldn’t decide on the best one and gave up.
Jury smiled slightly, now dimly aware as to why he was being an arsehole (in his own eyes, also), for he was presenting himself as a target. If you’d just lost someone you greatly loved (and there was no doubt in his mind that Mary loved her sister), it would be a relief to have some big booby—especially a policeman booby—sitting across from you and at whom you could take potshots.
“Anyway, it’s not a real desert. It’s a painter’s desert. It’s not real anymore.” The tone was no longer sarcastic, but sad.
He watched this child in her coal-black clothes, so resistant to ordinary childish activities, and wondered if it was matter-of-fact Mary instead of a more spiritual Angela who had (in the words of Nils Anders) “run the show.” She was so down-to-earth, so unethereal, Jury wouldn’t have been surprised to see not shoes but roots at the end of her long, straight legs. Images ran together in his mind; those so-called Saturdays with friends—had there been those? The Odeon cinema down the street (the King’s Road, yes, he thought for sure now); the park where he helped Amy do her watercolors. . . . Perhaps it was that remark about the “painter’s desert” that had brought this back. . . . Jury looked up.
Mary’s face actually wore a look of startled concern, and her clear eyes were clouded over, as if he were, against her will, slipping away. . . .
But all she did was to shove her plate back and say “I’m done” and look around the room as if they could all go home now. She slid down again, reached to grab Sunny’s lead.
Jury could feel the dog shaking itself awake and together. Sunny’s head appeared out from under the table. He regarded Jury with his silver eyes.
• • •
THE PASTRY FIX didn’t last long for Mary, and around nine they stopped for dinner outside Chama in a rustic little restaurant offering no particular cuisine. They ordered steaks and french fries with side orders of green chile and posole. He asked her, during the meal, about Dolly Schell and the Schells’ relationship to the Hopes. He kept it as neutral as he could. She answered calmly, giving him no information that Dolly herself hadn’t, and kept on cutting up her steak.
They ate largely in silence, but there was no strain to the silence. It just was.
The steak was good, but the posole with green chile Mary said was not very authentic. Rosella could do much better. When they finished, she insisted on taking the steak bones—one for Sunny (who’d been left in the car this time), and one for whatever strays they might see along the road. There were always strays, she said, and now there’d be dead dogs sin
ce they’d crossed from Colorado into New Mexico.
She was right. They hadn’t driven more than five miles when their headlights caught a stray dog along the side of the road looking ghostly gray, its yellow eyes pricked by the beams. Mary told him to stop so that she could toss out the bone.
And she was right about the dead dogs, too. Two hours later, they passed a dog, a large dog lying dead by the road. “That’s one,” Mary said, grimly.
The moon was up, a full moon, huge and yellow, sailing ahead of them. Looking at it and almost without thinking, Jury said, “We used to call that a bomber’s moon.”
Why was he talking about the War? Such an event to Mary Dark Hope must seem as remote and irrelevant to her experience as a landing on the moon up there. Dusty and dull as some bloody old history book. So he was a little surprised when she repeated the phrase.
“Bomber’s moon.” She appeared to be considering this.
“There were blackouts; London was utterly dark.”
“So if the moon was really bright, the bombers could see their targets.”
“Yes.”
“Did you go down in air-raid shelters?”
“Yes.”
Again, she seemed to consider. “Did you ever get caught before you could get there?”
It took Jury a few moments to answer this. “Yes. A few times.” He added, “Especially at the end of it.”
Mary Dark Hope leaned her head back against the seat, the moon apparently forgotten now.
He was wrong about that, though.
She said, “When you were a kid, it must have all been awful real.”
In her mouth, it sounded as if the reality had grit. Had muscle, as Nils Anders might say.
Then she said, “It’s not like that anymore. It’s a movie moon.”
Ten miles later, the other side of Española, between there and Tesuque they saw another dead dog, one that looked like an Alsatian, lying off on the shoulder. And only two miles farther on, another one.
Jury said, “That’s three. My God.”
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