Land of Burning Heat

by Judith Van GIeson

  There weren’t many people Claire enjoyed riding with. From what she knew of cops they were cowboys behind the wheel, but Detective Romero was a calm and steady driver. It might have been the rain, the darkness, the fact that he was behind the wheel, the threat she had faced—something in this moment made her want to confide in him. His gentleness opened doors Lieutenant Kearns’s businesslike manner left closed.

  She began with gambling. “The last time I saw Chuy he told me he had stopped gambling, that the casino had cut him off, but now he’s back again so his debts must have been paid. He said he got lucky. What does that mean? If he wasn’t gambling, he didn’t get lucky in the casino. So where did he get the money to pay off the money he owed?”

  “His brother, Manuel, has the money if that’s how he wants to spend it.”

  Claire hoped she wasn’t about to cross a line. The Santos and Romero families were native New Mexicans with similar backgrounds. She was an outsider, a woman from Arizona who lived in the foothills in a neighborhood known as the White Heights. “If it was Manuel, why would he choose to pay off Chuy’s debts now?”

  “Why do you think?” Romero asked.

  “I’d hate to think it was to keep him quiet. A valuable document that was in the house when Isabel died disappeared at a time when Chuy needed money.”

  “You think Chuy and Manuel are capable of killing their own sister?”

  “I don’t know. You know more about killers than I do. For me the question is more whether they would take advantage of their sister’s death.”

  “We’ve talked to the experts May Brennan recommended and we haven’t found any evidence that a document was offered for sale.”

  “If one of them bought it, would he admit it? Experts are practiced at concealing their sources. You might learn more by talking to May Brennan again.”

  Romero swung the car into the long, lazy curve where Tramway headed south holding tight to the wheel. “Why her?”

  “May isn’t as practiced at the art of deception as Peter Beck and Warren Isles. She says she didn’t speak to them herself, but maybe she did.” It was skirting closer than Claire liked to come to accusing an old friend of concealing the truth.

  “Why would May hide the fact, if she did talk to them?”

  Although Claire was sitting down, she felt like she was thinking on her feet. Thoughts about Isabel’s death had been percolating for awhile but this was the first time she’d allowed these thoughts to rise to consciousness. “Because she’s depressed. Because she’s not thinking clearly. Because she may be on drugs or alcohol. Because she might have done something she feels guilty about. She might have revealed information that put Isabel in jeopardy. You could question her more thoroughly. You could find out what kind of a car she drives.”

  “I suppose you want us to find out what kind of vehicles Manuel, Chuy and Warren Isles drive, too.”

  “Chuy drives a beat up Ford truck. I’ve seen it. As for Manuel he came to see me at UNM and his manner was edgy.”

  “What did he want to see you about?”

  “He didn’t like the idea that his ancestor might have been an Inquisitor. It wouldn’t be good for his career. He made it clear that he wanted me to stop looking into it.”

  They reached the road that led into Claire’s subdivision. Romero followed her directions and turned left. The moon hanging over the mountains was draped in a black cloud. The cloud slipped off. For a second the moon was in full light before another cloud drifted over it. There were times Claire liked the complexity of a moon seen through clouds better than the black and white contrast of an unambiguous sky.

  “Maybe we ought to give you a badge and let you run the investigation,” Romero joked.

  “I’d follow up on the document if it were up to me, but Kearns doesn’t believe there was a document, does he?”

  Romero searched for the right words. “He believes what the evidence supports.”

  “Do you think the evidence supports a document?”

  “Let’s say I’m open to the possibility. I’m not a person who needs to see something to believe in it.”

  Claire directed him to her house and he parked in front. “Do you have another vehicle you can use?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you going to be all right if I leave you here without one? It’ll take a few days to examine your truck and then it will have to be repaired. I can recommend a mechanic in Bernalillo, if you like.”

  “Thanks,” Claire said. “I’ll rent a car tomorrow.”

  She felt a kind of current in the car. The kind caused by a man rescuing a woman from danger? Or was it that they were alone in a car at night and Claire was about to return to an empty house? She hoped her house was empty. Whoever had run her off the road had had plenty of time to come here. She thought of inviting Romero in, asking him to check the house, offering him a cup of coffee, but wondered if that would be appropriate. She liked him, his tough exterior and his gentle interior, his openness to the old ways, his respect and consideration for her. He treated her as an equal, not as an older person, or a white person, or an academic. He treated her as a woman, but not in a demeaning way. But she didn’t know if she ought to be leaning on a detective at all, especially one who was at least twenty years younger than she was.

  “I’ll walk you to your door,” he said.

  “I’m okay,” Claire replied.

  “I’d like to check your windows and doors. Someone ran you off a road and almost killed you. There are people who knew where you were going. People who could find out where you live. We need to be sure that no one came here.”

  “All right,” Claire agreed.

  She went to the front door and inserted her key in the lock, which turned as smoothly as it always did. Nemesis, startled to see her with a man, arched his back and circled Romero warily.

  “Nice house,” he said.

  “I like it,” Claire replied.

  As soon as they entered, she could see that the alarm had not been activated. She turned it off and walked through the house with Romero examining every window and every door.

  He even beamed his flashlight outside. Although the ground was still wet from the rain, he found no prints.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “No one has been here. Lock the deadbolt after I leave, make sure all the windows are locked, too, and turn on the alarm.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee for the drive home?” It seemed the least she could offer under the circumstances.

  “No thanks. Is there anyone you can call to come and stay with you?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Claire said.

  “Well, I need to get going.” He handed her his card. “Here’s my cell phone number. Call if you have any problems.”

  Bernalillo was so far away, Claire thought. Anything could happen by the time he got back to the Heights.

  “Don’t worry,” he said as if she had somehow communicated her thoughts. “I’ll pass the call to someone close by.”

  “Thanks for bringing me home.”

  “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

  She stood in the doorway and watched him walk to his car. Then she shut the door, snapped the deadbolt into place, and walked through the house making sure every window was locked. She turned on the alarm and went into the bathroom to wash off her arm. It was caked with dried brown blood that turned red again when the water hit it. She watched the bloody water swirl down the drain remembering the deliberateness of the SUV as it headed straight for her. Was the driver trying to wipe her out or aiming at whoever happened to be in the way? Once the blood had washed off she could see that the edges of the cut held together and stitches wouldn’t be needed. She treated it with antibiotic cream, then she got in the tub and soaked away the dirt and pain of the day resting her arm on the side of the tub so as not to wash away the cream. Nemesis was being a nudge by scratching at the door.

  “Go away,” she said.

  He did but when she go
t into bed she found him curled up on her spot. She slid him gently to the far side of the bed. He could be a nuisance, but on a rainy night it was nice to climb into a warm bed. She expected that sleep would be a long time coming and she would have time to replay the events of the day, anticipating that at any minute a window would break and the alarm would sound.

  She began at the end of the day and worked her way back. One positive element was that she had connected with Romero again. Kearns was in charge and to approach Romero directly was to go behind his back. But Romero’s intuitive side, his connection to the community and the past, could solve this crime better than Kearns’s no nonsense outsider attitude. She admitted to herself that she liked Jimmy Romero better than Kearns. Kearns seemed to see her as a pest. Romero saw her as a person. It was a comforting thought. Nemesis purred in the bed beside her. She fell asleep and didn’t wake up again till morning.

  ******

  Claire’s first thought on waking was that a bird was singing outside her window. Her second was that her arm hurt. Her third was that something was missing. She ran her tongue around her mouth searching for a hole as if she had lost a tooth. Then she remembered her truck had been impounded by the police somewhere in Bernalillo. She was without wheels. “Damn it,” she said, jumping out of bed. A startled Nemesis leapt out of bed behind her, landing on all fours.

  Before she even brewed coffee, she got on the phone and made arrangements to have a rental car delivered. It was an expensive solution, but she had to have a vehicle. Being stuck in her house with no transportation left her feeling trapped and abandoned. Being without her truck left her feeling bereft. It was stupid to care so much about a truck, but this truck represented more than transportation—it represented a life that didn’t depend on an untrustworthy husband.

  Once the arrangements were completed she made herself a bowl of granola and a cup of coffee and sat down at the dining room table. The phone rang. Considerate of Jimmy Romero to call so early, she thought, picking it up.

  “What happened to you last night?” Chuy Santos asked. “When I got home, my grandma told me you never showed up. Through the trees she saw all kinds of police lights at the house. The police told her you’d been in an accident.”

  “When I drove down the ditch road someone pulled out of the field in a black SUV and ran me off the road.”

  “A la,” said Chuy. “Were you hurt?”

  “I cut my arm. My truck was bashed in. I ran into a tree.”

  “Hey, a truck can be fixed. Be glad you’re okay.”

  “Had anybody been to Isabel’s house that you know of?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said, but he paused before he said it. “I need to go over there and check it out myself. Grandma still wants to talk to you. Could you come by this afternoon?”

  “Is there another way to get there?”

  “Sure.” Chuy gave her directions by the regular roads. “I want to talk to you, too. I’ll be back around three.”

  “See you then,” Claire said.

  A few minutes later Detective Romero called. “I tried you earlier, but I got a busy signal.”

  “That was Chuy Santos. He wanted to know what happened last night. He heard I’d been in a wreck.”

  “Was everything all right last night?”

  “Fine. I’m going to Bernalillo this afternoon to talk to Chuy and his grandmother.”

  “You got wheels?”

  “Yes, a rental car is on the way.”

  “Lock up before you go. I’ll be at the station this afternoon.”

  It was an unusual experience for Claire to have a man concerned about her safety, and she rather enjoyed it. Her own son, who had been putting all his energy into a start-up company in Silicon Valley, called her once a month.

  Chapter Nineteen

  CLAIRE LEFT AT ONE-THIRTY TO GO TO TEY SANTOS’S HOUSE in a generic white rental car, the kind of car that could be seen in every airport parking lot. Other types of rental vehicles were available but ninety percent of the rental cars she saw resembled hers. At every stop light and turn she missed her truck. She could have been anybody in the rental car, but in her truck she was a book scout, an archivist, a person with a taste for adventure.

  She wanted to drive by Isabel’s house to see the damage and make sure her truck had been towed away, but she was afraid Chuy would be there cleaning up the yard and she hoped to see Tey first. She followed his directions and circled around the block on paved roads to get to Tey’s, thinking this route was easier to follow than the one he’d given her, wondering why he’d sent her down the ditch.

  Tey lived in a small adobe house sheltered by a sprawling cottonwood. A willow tree that was a cascade of leaves stood behind the house. A dog who could have been Blackie’s sibling was lying in the yard when Claire pulled into the driveway. It wagged its tail when it saw the car but didn’t bother to get up. Water from the ditch kept Tey’s property green and fertile. Claire passed a well-tended vegetable garden as she walked toward the door. Between the stalks of corn, she saw tomatoes, chile, beans and squash—crops that had been growing in the Rio Grande Valley forever. One section of the garden was devoted to herbs. Claire identified mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, and the tall stalks and umbrella-shaped yellow flowers of anise. She knocked at Tey’s wooden door.

  “Hello?” Tey called.

  “Hello. I’m Claire Reynier, the woman Chuy sent to see you.”

  “Okay,” Tey said, opening the door.

  Claire faced a tiny elderly woman wearing a faded cotton dress and leaning on a cane. Her face was as warm and wrinkled as a dried peach. Her black eyes had the alertness and curiosity of a hawk. Her nose had a prominent hook. Her white hair was pulled up in a bun on top of her head. Tendrils escaped and tumbled down to her shoulders.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The house smelled like something baking. Claire thought she caught a whiff of marijuana but decided it had to be another herb.

  “I’m so sorry about Isabel,” she said. “I only met her once, but I liked her very much.”

  “After her mother and father died, she was a daughter to me. She had problems and went to California. I was so happy when she came back home.” Tey’s gnarled fingers clutched the top of her cane. “That terrible, terrible boy killed her.”

  “Are you sure it was Tony Atencio?”

  “It was him. He’s a very bad boy. Even my dog didn’t like him and growled when he walked by Sonny started barking when he heard him running down the ditch that awful day.”

  “Did you see or hear anything else that afternoon?” Although Tey was an old woman, she’d given no sign she was hard of hearing. Her body might be slowing down but her mind and senses seemed sharp.

  “Nothing.”

  “Chuy said you heard about the incident last night. I was driving here along the ditch when a black SUV pulled out of the field and tried to run me off the road.”

  “An SUV? What is that?”

  “A sport utility vehicle.” Tey’s expression remained confused, so Claire added “it’s a cross between a car and a truck. Do you know anyone with a car like that?”

  “I think Tony Atencio had one. Would you like some yerba buena tea?”

  “I would. Thank you.”

  “And a cookie?”

  “Yes.” Claire sat down at a table covered with a flowered plastic tablecloth while Tey prepared the mint tea. “Yerba buena” translated literally into “good herb”. “When the SUV ran me off the road into Isabel’s yard I hit a tree.”

  “Don’t worry. Those cottonwoods, they are very old and very strong like me.” She smiled and her skin crinkled. “You can’t hurt them.”

  “I called the police. That’s why you saw all the lights.”

  “Even in the rain they were very bright.”

  “I thought I saw a light inside Isabel’s house when I drove by. The police went inside later to investigate. The door wasn’t locked.”

  Tey put the tea down on the
table along with a plastic bear full of honey and a plate of cookies. “Why lock the door now that my sweet nieta is gone?”

  “Could anyone else have gone inside the house?”

  “Yes, but why would they? There’s nothing left to steal.”

  “Do you go there?”

  “Often. I talk to my Isabelita. For me she is still alive in that house.”

  “I felt that way, too,” Claire admitted. “Someone left candles burning.”

  “I did that.”

  “Did you cover the mirrors in black?”

  Tey nodded. Her hands resting on the table had the bulbous joints of rheumatoid arthritis. “It’s the old way, las costumas de antiguas, something we do. It’s not good to be looking in the mirror when someone dies. My mother taught me those ways. I wanted to teach Isabelita, but I didn’t have the time. Have a cookie.” She handed the plate to Claire.

  She bit into the cookie. “These are delicious. Did you use anise from your garden?”

  “Yes. It’s a good plant.”

  “You have a beautiful garden. Has your family lived here for a long time?”

  “For four hundred years,” Tey said, “God has kept our garden green. The first Santos came here with Don Juan de Oñate.’’

  It was the door Claire had hoped would open. “Did you know that there was an Inquisitor in Mexico City in fifteen ninety-six with the name of Manuel Santos?”

  Tey’s eyes were fierce. “That person is not my ancestor. My ancestor was not part of the Inquisition.”

  “You know about the skeleton that was found under the floor?”

  Tey nodded, shaking loose a few more tendrils of hair.

  “That man lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was in his thirties when he died. He could have been Manuel Santos, the Inquisitor’s son.”