As Claire parked, Chuy heard the gravel crunch and looked up rearranging his expression once he saw who it was.
“Hey,” he called.
“Hello,” she said, climbing out of her truck. The black dog that had been sitting on the ground watching Chuy work stood up and wagged its tail.
“How’s it going?” Chuy asked.
“I’m all right. How are you?”
“Been better,” he said. “Been a whole lot better.” He seemed to be shaking something off his back as he walked over to Claire. “There’s nothin’ I can do for my sister now except clean up the place and pull out the weeds. We had the funeral in Our Lady of Sorrows. I wanted to scatter the ashes here or in the river, but Manuel says we’re Catholics even though he’s the only one who goes to church so the body has to be buried in the cemetery.”
“You have my deepest sympathy,” Claire said.
“Descance en paz” Chuy said.
“Do you live here?” she asked.
“No. I live down the road. Isabel lived here by herself and that son of a bitch Atencio knew that.”
“Has the document been found yet?”
“Nope,” Chuy said.
“I’ve been doing some research. I came across some interesting things about your family history.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“I told Isabel that the paper she found under the floor could have been written by a Jewish mystic in Mexico City named Joaquín Rodriguez. I read about Joaquín’s Inquisition and learned that it was witnessed by an official named Manuel Santos.”
“A la.” Chuy slapped his forehead. “You’re saying our illustrious ancestor who came here with Don Juan de Oñate and the person my brother was named after was an Inquisitor?”
“It’s possible,” said Claire, the careful archivist, wondering how she would feel if she heard similar news about her own ancestor.
Chuy surprised her with a laugh that was short and sharp as a bark. “We’ve been called many things, but an Inquisitor? That’s a new one. It would piss my brother off to hear that, but me? I wouldn’t give a shit if it was true. Hell, my given name is Jesus and our last name means saints, but in spite of our name none of us are descended from saints. We’re all mutts like Blackie here. Scratch a New Mexican and you find Spanish blood, Moorish blood, Inquisitor blood, infidel blood, Marrano blood, Indian blood and who the hell knows what other kind of blood? Maybe even some white dude’s blood.” He laughed. “Four hundred years in this state and people are still worryin’ if they have limpieza de sangre. We all bleed red, but none of our blood is pure. Every one of us has dirt on our hands.” He looked down at his own hands covered with yard dirt. Then he rubbed his nose and transferred some of it to his face. “I’m ready for a cold one,” he said. “And you?”
“All right,” Claire replied. She didn’t want a beer, but she hoped to keep Chuy talking. She sat down at the picnic table and the dog followed. She patted his head while she waited. The phrase “we all bleed red” was familiar. She tried to place it and concluded she had come across it in a novel she’d read recently about Albuquerque gangs. By the time Chuy returned with the Coors Lite, the dog’s head had settled in Claire’s lap.
“Negrito,” he said. “Get your goddamn nose out of there.” He gave the dog a shove. The dog moved away but with a wag of its tail indicating it intended to come back.
Claire took a sip of the beer. “Do you know if Tony Atencio was a gang member?” she asked.
Chuy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure that he was in a gang, but he’s a gangster.”
“Do you think he is capable of killing Isabel?”
“Sure, why not? Who else could have done it?”
“If the document is what I think it is, it could be very valuable.”
“Who knew about it,” Chuy asked, “but you and May Brennan? Isabel didn’t tell me.”
“Did she tell Manuel?”
“Not that I know of.”
“It’s possible Isabel consulted someone else. May gave her the names of two experts in the field.”
“Possible,” Chuy said, sipping at his beer.
“What do you do?” Claire asked.
“Me? I’ve done a lot of things. I was earning my living at the Santa Ana Casino until they cut me off.” He laughed. “Gambling for a living isn’t very secure, but hey, when is life ever secure? Two bodies in our house in one week. First Isabel and then the skeleton under the floor. Now I learn that our ancestor could be an Inquisitor. Are those OMI dudes gonna be able to tell us that?”
“Lieutenant Kearns said the skeleton was a man.”
“Why didn’t he tell me? The bones were found in our house.” Chuy guzzled the beer and put the can down. It thumped the table with a gimme-a-refill sound.
“I’m sure he’ll tell you. He just happened to see me first.”
“How do they know it was a man?”
“Men have more slope to their forehead.”
“Just like the monkeys, right?” Chuy stood up. “How about another beer?”
It was late in the day. Darkness approached and cast its shadows before it. Dusk was quiet at this time of year before the cicadas started their evening shrill. Claire stood up, too, putting down her nearly full beer. “I should go,” she said.
“Stop by any time,” Chuy said. He kept up the wise guy banter, but his shoulders sagged when he stood as if he was carrying the weight of his sister’s death. When Claire looked in his eyes she saw the brown bleeding into the white.
******
She took the back way home through Sandia Pueblo. When the pueblos allowed development at all it nibbled at the edges of their land near population centers. There was no development on Sandia land between Bernalillo and Albuquerque, only fields where cattle grazed, a cottonwood bosque on the west and the Sandias on the east. The sun had moved behind the West Mesa, taking with it the dazzling light and leaving behind a more subtle landscape. It was the hour when the mountains seemed to want to speak. Claire thought if she could only listen carefully enough she would hear. The shadows created a backdrop and the space allowed room for her imagination to wander. It took her far away from fingerprints and VCR’s.
She checked her E-mail when she got home and found offers to consolidate her debts and to connect her with hot college studs but nothing from Pietro Antonelli.
Chapter Ten
ON SUNDAY SHE WOKE WHEN DAYLIGHT CAME through her bedroom window. Skipping her morning tai chi she let Nemesis out, followed him into the yard and tended her roses. Gardening was a form of meditation and the best time to practice was early in the morning when there was still a lick of coolness in the air. During the night the temperature dropped thirty degrees in the desert but the heat returned as soon as the sun crawled over the mountain. Claire’s house was in the foothills of the Sandias and still in deep shadow. She watered the roses and dead-headed the spent blossoms enjoying the coolness left over from the night. The Don Juans were a deep, dark red, the color of love, the color of blood. The dead petals fell to the ground and spun away in a gust of wind.
She hated the thought that Isabel Santos was dead. She would hate it even more if the death had been caused by anything as trivial as a VCR. She knew that most murders were impulsive, provoked by alcohol and/or anger. A former Albuquerque policewoman told her the police were thrilled if they came across a crime scene where the murderer had given it more than five minutes thought; they liked to occasionally be given a challenge. As she nipped off the roses, Claire considered whether she had selfish reasons for hoping the cause of Isabel’s death was not the interruption of a petty robbery. She had a mother’s response of not wanting to see a young person die and a thinking person’s response of hating to see death be meaningless. There was also the issue of guilt. She had no reason to feel guilt if the thief had been after a VCR. She needed to feel guilt only if the thief had gone to Isabel’s house looking for the last words of a mystic named Joaquín. That death could have been prevent
ed by bringing the document into the secure shelter of the center.
The sun had come over the mountain and burned the coolness from her skin, but dark of the night emotions lingered. She remembered the words “Everything is upside down. The garrote or the fire. Give me the fire. Adonay is my God.” She knew Isabel had not made up those words. Claire was convinced there had been an important document under the floor of Isabel’s house. Either it had been destroyed or the person who possessed it now had not come forward. Tony Atencio had provided the police with little incentive to look further. They needed evidence to motivate them. Claire wondered where that evidence would be found. She went inside, made herself a cup of coffee and called August Stevenson.
“And how are you this fine morning?” he asked.
“I’m struggling with the death of Isabel Santos,” she replied.
“I’m sure you are.”
“I talked to May Brennan and Lieutenant Kearns yesterday. The boy they have in custody is a strong suspect, but the police haven’t charged him with murder yet. May said she gave Isabel the names of Warren Isles and Peter Beck, but there’s no evidence she contacted either one of them. Can you tell me anything about these men?”
“I know Peter Beck by reputation only.”
“And what is that?”
“That he knows more about the Mexican Inquisition than anyone else in this country. Warren Isles lives in Santa Fe. I hear he has deep pockets and has been buying up documents related to New Mexico history. John Harlan could tell you more about that.”
“How did he come into his money?”
“Selling mutual funds. Have you ever noticed how people with boring jobs turn to history? New Mexico history will relieve boredom like that of no other state.”
“It has been lately,” Claire said. “If someone offered the document to Isles without revealing its source, do you think he would buy it?”
“It’s possible,” August replied. “I would consider that unethical myself, but ethics may not be an issue with Warren Isles.” Before he bid her good-bye he gave her a warning. “If you’re thinking that someone killed Isabel Santos over a document related to the Inquisition, you ought to consider what that person would do to you. The Inquisition is a grim subject. Anyone who spends too much time thinking about it is likely to have a dark side. My advice would be to turn the names over to the detective and go back to your regular job.”
Sleuthing had become her regular job, Claire thought, but she thanked August for the advice and hung up the phone.
******
On Monday she checked her messages and mail at the center then went to Celia’s office and found her adding a bottle cap magnet to her Frida Kahlo shrine. Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who had a short, painful, but brilliantly creative life. She painted her way out of a horrible accident and a difficult marriage to the philandering Diego Rivera.
“Another tribute to Frida?” Claire asked her.
“Yes,” said Celia, who today was wearing a gray linen dress and a necklace made of silver elephants.
There was a portrait of Frida Kahlo inside the bottle cap. Even in this scale her eyebrows looked like ravens in flight. Claire considered the clothes and the shrine to be a form of rebellion against the restrictions of academia. Celia was very good at her job and she had tenure. She couldn’t be fired, but she could be pushed aside, given an office in the basement and nothing to do if someone like Harrison Hough took a dislike to her. Playing up her ethnicity could be an insurance policy. Even Harrison wouldn’t dare create the appearance of getting rid of a woman for being too ethnic.
Celia found the perfect spot for the bottle cap then turned to Claire and said, “What’s up?”
Claire told her about the visit to May Brennan. “What do you know about Warren Isles and Peter Beck?” she asked.
“I’ve seen Warren at historical conferences but I never met him. He’s a doughboy with soft, white, greedy hands. If the document is ever found, he’d be a good person to buy it and donate it to the center, if he could be talked out of keeping it for himself. His name on a plaque in the library might give him an incentive.”
“And Peter Beck?”
“His scholarship is impeccable. As a person, he’s a prick, but that goes with the territory, doesn’t it? The bigger scholars get, the more arrogant they become. He knows everything there is to know about the Inquisition in the New World, but he’s so pedantic he manages to make even evil and cruelty boring. His book is duller than dust. Speaking of pedants, you haven’t said anything about this to Harrison yet, have you?”
“No.”
“Don’t.”
“May also told me that the first person in the Santos family to settle in Bernalillo was named Manuel and he came north with Oñate. Manuel Santos is also the name of an Inquisitor who witnessed the execution of Joaquín Rodriguez. I came across that in a document August sent me.”
“I suppose it’s possible Manuel Santos, the Inquisitor, or a relative came north with Oñate, but you’d have to wonder what would motivate a family in a position of power in Mexico City to leave it for the wilderness of el norte.”
Claire went back to her own office with no warning from Celia to be wary of Inquisition experts or anyone else. It wasn’t Celia’s nature to be careful.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN CLAIRE LEFT WORK SHE USUALLY WENT OUT THE BACK DOOR to the parking lot behind the library, but tonight she planned to attend a reading at the bookstore so she left by the main door and walked across Smith Plaza. It was evening, there was a light breeze and shadows danced on the wind. The man walking across the Plaza had something rarely seen in Albuquerque-style. His well fitting suit made him seem out of place. Suits were seen occasionally at UNM, but they rarely had style. Suits at UNM bagged at the elbows and the knees. The man had a self possession that made the near-empty plaza seem like a stage for his solitary walk. He was slim. He held his head high. He had black, wavy hair. Many would consider him good-looking, but the quality Claire noticed most was his focus. His name was Manuel Santos.
“Can we talk?” he asked when their paths met in the middle of the plaza.
“All right,” she replied.
They stood still for a minute considering where to go. Manuel was Claire’s height although he had appeared taller at a distance. Since this was her territory it was up to her to name a suitable place. She was done with her office for the day. It was too nice to go back inside. She suggested they sit by the duck pond and they walked to a bench that overlooked the water. Manuel sat down, leaned against the corner of the bench and draped his arm across the back. It settled into the curves of the wood as naturally as a snake nestling on the branch of a tree.
“Chuy told me you came to the house,” he began.
“I did.”
“What is this talk about us being descended from an Inquisitor?”
“I did some research into the document Isabel found and came across a record of Joaquín Rodriguez’s Inquisition in 1596. One of the officials who witnessed the event was named Manuel Santos. According to May Brennan, a Manuel Santos came north with Oñate’s expedition and was one of the first settlers in Bernalillo. Did you know your family was descended from a settler who was part of Oñate’s expedition?”
“Of course,” Manuel said. “But I never heard that our ancestor was an Inquisitor. Do you have any proof that the name isn’t just a coincidence?”
“No, but if the document Isabel found was written by Joaquín Rodriguez, it would establish a link between the two men.”
“There is no proof there ever was a document. There is only your word.” He looked like a lawyer today and now he began to sound like one.
“Of course there’s proof,” Claire said. “There’s the note in Isabel’s handwriting. The authenticity of her handwriting is easy enough to establish.”
“I’m not denying that, but the note you produced was not signed Joaquín Rodriguez or Joaquín anyone else. It wasn’t signed at all.”
“Isabel told me it was signed Joaquín.”
Manuel didn’t need to say the words “hearsay, inadmissible”; his hard amber eyes said it for him. They were Isabel’s eyes in shape and in color, but not in warmth of expression. “For all we know Isabel wrote that note in your office and those were words you asked her to write.”
He remained cool in his lawyer’s suit but Claire began to sweat in her summer dress. She hoped her face wasn’t flushing to reveal her anger. “That’s not true,” she said.
“We found no notebook with lined pages in the house.”
“The police found the cross. There was a skeleton beneath the floor.”
“They found nothing inside the cross. It’s not so unusual for an old house to have a skeleton buried underneath it.”
“If the skeleton belongs to a member of your family that could be established by DNA testing.”
“Yes, but that would require samples of current DNA for comparison. Why would I want to subject myself and my family to that?”
“Because you care about what happened to your sister and you want to know the truth.”
Manuel’s eyes demonstrated how hard lawyers could be while his hand tightened around the railing on the back of the bench. “I know the truth. My sister walked in on Tony Atencio while he was robbing our house and he pushed her. She fell, hit her neck against the table, ruptured an artery and it killed her. It’s brutal. It’s stupid. But that’s the way crime is.”
Was this the truth of his sister’s death? Claire wondered. Or the spin a politician chose to give it?
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