She had shown me the pictures on the little screen of the cell phone, but I had asked her to make what are called “hard copies” even though they are on paper which is not hard. The excuse I gave was that the pictures on the screen were too small, but the truth is I was afraid I might push the wrong button and erase them.
She took the pictures out of her satchel, and we looked at them together. Carla Glain looked worse in death than she had in life. I suppose that’s true of most people, but the dried blood on the floor next to her made it even worse.
Winant and Rich looked very cold. All the other pictures were decent enough likenesses to serve my purpose.
I removed Srinivasa Patel’s picture from the stack and handed it to her.
“You can start with this one,” I said.
Her face brightened and her big brown eyes shone. “Really, Hubie? You want me to help?”
“Have I ever figured anything out without you?”
“Wow. This is so exciting. What do you want me to ask him?”
“I have no idea because I don’t have any theory about what happened. Just ask anything you think might be useful.”
She hesitated for a moment and then said, “You don’t think it’s Srini, do you?”
“I don’t, but be careful anyway.”
“Who are you taking?”
I reached into the pile of pictures at random and pulled out Carl Wron.
39
Carl Wron’s ranch was just a few miles south of the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and State Highway 505. 505 used to be the area code for the entire state of New Mexico. Now we have two area codes. I don’t know whether that reflects more people or just more phones. Everyone seems to have two these days.
The trip took me back through Taos, but instead of going north towards the Lawrence Ranch, I headed east on U.S. 64. There was almost no traffic once I got away from Taos, and I enjoyed the view of Wheeler Peak to the north. At over thirteen thousand feet, it’s capped by snow most of the year, and on this crisp clear day, the view was spectacular. From there, the highway passes through Eagle Nest and Cimarron.
I arrived around four and drove down a gravel road to a small wooden house with a painted metal roof. A large elm showed from behind the house and a couple of mulberry trees grew on either side of the front porch. Except for those three trees, the landscape was all high grassland. A herd of buffalo grazed in the distance.
Wron emerged from the house as I approached. He was wearing worn jeans, a white western shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, beat-up old boots with riding heels. He took off a straw before shaking my hand and bidding me welcome. His skin was white above the line the hat made on his head. Below the line he was leathery and brown.
We sat on the front porch and drank lemonade. He told me he used to ranch the area but sold the land after his wife had died of cancer. His only child, a son named Pete, died in Viet Nam.
“The new owners are in the big house,” he told me, saying it like I was familiar with the layout. “This was the hired man’s house, but they let me stay here as part of the deal. I’m happy they took the big place. They’re keeping it up real well.”
He stared off into the distance. “Yes sir,” he said absently, “real well.”
I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t, so I asked him why he had gone to the event at Taos.
He chuckled. “Truth is, I was interested in seeing the spread up there. It’s awful high for ranching. Course with that blizzard, I didn’t really get the opportunity.”
He looked at me and then said, “But of course what you want to know is why they invited me.” He handed me the letter of invitation he had received. It was personalized and on good embossed stationery from the UNM Development Office.
“Pete went to the University,” he continued. “He seemed to like it real well. His mother was right proud of him. He got good marks.” He fell silent for a minute before speaking again. “When I sold the place, I didn’t have need for the money, so I gave it to the University. Now they invite me to everything, football games, symphonies, you name it.”
“You ever go?”
“Too far,” he said. Then he smiled to himself. “Truth is, I don’t like the city. Pete liked it, though. Sure did.”
“Did you know any of the other people at the Ranch?”
“No. I’ve seen Glover on television a few times. He seems like a nice fella. Miss Shanile was nice too. I could take a shine to her if I was younger. I’m not much for socializing, but they all seemed like good folks.”He turned to me. “You think one of them killed those three?”
“It looks that way.”
He shook his head and stared off again into the distance. In the house, the phone rang, but he made no move to answer it. After about a dozen rings, it stopped.
“Let me show you around,” he said, and we got into his pick-up and drove out across the grass toward the buffalo. He showed me a small stream that cut through his land and fed into the Canadian River and several places where he had rigged up diversions to create watering holes for the cattle. He took me to an outcrop of rocks with petroglyphs and asked me if I knew what they symbolized. I did and was happy to explain them to him. He drove me by the big house and the barns. The tour ended at a little chapel next to which were the graves of his father, mother, sister, wife and son. We stood there for several minutes. A faint breeze fanned the tall grass and a lump formed in my throat.
Carl offered to buy me dinner. Even though it was four hours back to Albuquerque and I hate to drive after dark, I couldn’t say no. We went to the Colfax Tavern. I wanted to try their green chile cheeseburger, but Carl said it was spaghetti night, and for three fifty a plate, you couldn’t complain about the quantity, the quality, or the price. Several ranchers stopped by his table to say hello and he introduced them to me like I was a celebrity.
It was almost dark by the time I started back, so I drove further east until I hit Interstate 25 a little south of Raton and flew back to Albuquerque on the freeway. On the way, I thought about what I had learned. Wron was a donor and he manifestly was not the killer. Neither piece of information seemed worth the trip. Spending the time with him did.
40
I slept late the next morning and had a leisurely breakfast after which I pushed the plate back and put the “hard copy” photos in front of me on the table. I reached in at random and drew out Teodoro Vasquez.
I put his picture aside and reached in again and pulled out Adele the Serving Wench. I put that picture aside. After two or three more random draws, Betty Shanile’s picture came up, so I decided she would be the next person I’d interview.
I could have kept drawing until I got Maria, but she lived in Taos, and I wasn’t up to a third trip there in the same month.
Betty agreed to meet me for lunch, but I sensed a lack of enthusiasm in her voice. The look on her face reinforced that sense when I sat down across from her at a place that has since closed. The restaurant business is tough under the best of circumstances, but a restaurant in Albuquerque that serves French food is a risky investment. It probably didn’t help that the place was in a strip mall.
I now wonder if the negative energy of our lunch contributed to their demise. Except for Dos Hermanas Tortilleria, I have a spotty history with restaurants. I was involved with another European one called Schnitzel that also went belly up, but that’s another story.
Except for the look on Betty’s face, the inside of the restaurant was inviting, especially since our table did not look out on the midday traffic on Wyoming Boulevard.
She had an empty glass in her hand. A waiter asked me what I wanted to drink and Betty told him she wanted another vodka rocks before I had a chance to answer.
So it was going to be that kind of lunch.
I told the waiter to have the bartender surprise me. He brought Betty her second vodka rocks (at least it was the second so far as I knew) and me a small chilled glass of St. Jean dry vermouth. I thought to myself
, that’s what happens when you do something rash like asking the bartender to surprise you.
The waiter also brought both of us an amuse bouche consisting of a piece of flatbread with house-made fish paste topped by a strip of roasted green chile. It was spectacular, and the vermouth was a perfect pairing. I decided I liked the place.
Betty signaled the waiter for another drink and said to me, “Why are you here, Hubie?”
Susannah had asked me the same question in our room at the Ranch that first night, but this time there was no doubt about the question’s meaning. I decided to play dumb anyway, and I replied by asking her if that was a philosophical question.
She gave me a sarcastic smile and finished her second vodka just as the third one arrived.
“I guess it’s obvious why you’re here,” I said. “You like the bartender.”
Another insincere smile. I buried my face in the menu while deciding whether to order, try to find out why she was so grumpy, or just leave. The only green chile was on the amuse bouche, and I wondered whether they would let me order an entire plate of them. There was nothing else on the menu I wanted. In fact, there were few things on the menu I could pronounce.
“You didn’t answer my question, Hubie.”
I looked up at her and smiled. “I’m here to have lunch with you. I wanted to see you again.”
“Did you and Susannah break up?”
“We’re just friends, Betty.”
“Is Maria Salazar also your friend?” she asked, putting a leering stress on the word ‘friend’.”
“I thought she was your friend,” I said. “You were the one rooming with her.”
A small fissure appeared in her stony countenance. “That’s a clever come-back.”She took another gulp of vodka. “Am I being difficult?”
That’s another one of those questions that raises a man’s antennae, the sort of question that comes with a little invisible warning label that says, “Answer at your own risk.”
“Perhaps enigmatic,” I said and tried to give her my best boyish smile.
“A woman of mystery?”
“An attractive woman of mystery,” I added.
A smile. Small but sincere. “Flattery will get you anywhere.”
I wasn’t sure where I wanted flattery to get me, so I suggested we order. She selected Coq au vin, and I followed her lead because I know very little about French cuisine and the situation was difficult enough without ordering some dish that might turn out to be raw chopped steak with capers.
She seemed less unhappy with me and less on edge, but I didn’t know whether it was the small talk or the vodka that was putting her at ease. I was relieved when the food came and gave us something to talk about other than my putative relationships with Susannah and Maria.
I never knew the simple act of braising chicken in wine could produce such a delicious result. Betty explained that it wasn’t just chicken. The dish has to be made with a rooster, preferable an old one because the connective tissue is the source of the flavor.
“I’m surprised the meat isn’t tough since it came from an old rooster,” I remarked.
She smiled and said, “Give an old cock enough wine and it becomes soft.”
I was just sipping some vermouth, and I almost spewed it out. Obviously, she was not through making me uncomfortable.
She ordered vodka number... well, I lost count, and we managed a pleasant conversation despite two or three more zingers from her.
She paid the bill because she knew the staff and my attempts to intervene were rebuffed. I insisted on driving her home because she was in no condition to get behind the wheel. She asked if that was just a ploy to get in her house, and I said it was in a tone I hoped was somewhere between serious and joking.
I had to steady her as we walked up to an impressive house in the Four Hills area, what I think they call ‘mid-century’ architecture built of long skinny bricks with a flat roof and wide rectangular windows. The lush Bermuda-grass lawn sloped graciously to the road and the brick pathway to the door wound between old western catalpas that had grown into interesting shapes. The house looked comfortable and impressive, an unusual combination, and I wanted to see the inside, but it was not to be.
By the time we reached the door, she had her key in her hand. She turned and gave me a rather longish kiss, and I have to admit I liked the way her ample lips felt against mine. Then she unlocked her door and went inside without saying a word.
41
I hadn’t opened the shop that morning because I was tired from the round-trip to see Carl Wron, and I didn’t open it that afternoon because I had consumed two glasses of vermouth during lunch and needed a nap. I occasionally have Gruet with breakfast and almost always have a drink or two or three in the evening without any ill effects, but even moderate drinking in the middle of the day knocks me out. It must have something to do with metabolism.
I felt great when I awoke and even better after I took a long hot shower, so I was in a good mood when I walked over to Dos Hermanas.
After I told Susannah about the lunch with Betty, she said, rather unsympathetically, “So you just let her go into the house and shut the door?”
“What was I supposed to do, break in?”
“Jeez, Hubie. The woman was pleading for some reassurance, and all you did was parry her double entendres.”
“She wasn’t pleading for anything. She was asking me if you and I had broken up after I had clearly explained to her in Taos that we’re just friends.”
“When did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Explain to her that we’re just friends.”
“Um, I think it was before my presentation the next morning after the initial confusion the first night.”
She just shook her head.
“It wasn’t then?”
“No Hubert. She came out at the last minute, remember? She almost missed the start of your lecture.”
“Oh, right. It must have been after the lecture.”
“Would that be before or after we found Fred Rich’s body?”
“Oh, right. You know, it was definitely before the presentation because I was drinking coffee and...oops, it was Maria I explained it to. Maria told me that morning that Betty had told her that I might come to their room, and if I did then Maria should leave and room with you. But I didn’t go to the room, and Betty told Maria it was because I was sleeping with you.”
“That’s just great. No one asks me if I’m willing to room with Maria, and Betty still thinks I’m some pushover you picked up on your way to the Ranch.”
“But Maria knows we’re just friends, and she was rooming with Betty, so surely she must have explained it to her.”
She stared at me, slowly shaking her head. “Hubie, you are so dense.”
“Well, I don’t deny that I get lost in the hedges occasionally, but what is it this time?”
“Maria is hot for you, Hubie. And she has a competitive advantage over Betty. She’s knows you’re available. Betty doesn’t.”
“Are you saying Maria wouldn’t tell Betty you and I are friends? That sounds disingenuous.”
“C’est amour.”
I was confused. I had been fairly certain that Maria had flirted with me, but I didn’t realize it was so obvious that Susannah would have noticed. And Maria seemed like a nice person, and now I’m told she misled Betty. Or did she?
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “They probably realized via some mysterious woman-thing communication that they both liked me, and it would be awkward to talk about it, so they just discussed cooking and traded their favorite recipes.”
“Oink.”
I ignored that and said, “But that couldn’t be right, because on the second night, Maria told me Betty wanted to switch rooms, which I first misunderstood as a request for you and I to take Betty and Maria’s room so that they could have ours. But what the proposal actually intended was putting me with Betty and you with Maria. Of course I realize
d even then that the proposal may not have come from Betty at all and might have been a test or a trick, and I was grateful I didn’t have to answer because Howard Glover ordered us all back to our rooms and sentries were guarding the hall, and a lot of good that did Carla Glain.”
Susannah looked confused.
“O.K.,” I continued, “forget Carla Glain. There’s nothing I can do for her, and at least I gave her a nice eulogy.”
But the business with Betty and Maria was still confusing me, and I realized how accurate Susannah was in calling me dense. But I’m not alone, am I? Do men really understand romance? Sometimes I wish romance were like math with nice precise answers. But it’s like statistics or, even worse, probability, because you never know the true odds, you don’t know how much to risk, and you don’t know what the payoff will be or even if there will be one.
While I had been thusly cogitating, Susannah had been ordering, and the appearance of a fresh margarita and a tangy bowl of homemade salsa snapped me out of my introspection. I sampled both while Susannah told me about her meeting with Srinivasa Patel. It had gone more smoothly than my meeting with Betty but had also ended in ambiguity.
She told me Patel had a doctorate in mathematics and she knew I would be disappointed his concentration was in probability. He had come to the States to take a job at the University of New Mexico teaching math but was currently on a leave of absence doing something for the State based on his expertise in probability and gaming theory. Even though he worked for the University, he knew nothing about their fund raising operation and had never donated any money to them. He had explained again that he received his invitation to the Ranch by telephone and had accepted it because he thought it would be fun to see a ranch and be up in the mountains. He had no idea why he had been invited, but he hadn’t questioned it because he was not familiar with how universities work in the States and figured maybe they periodically held such events for their employees.
The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence Page 14