Wild Mystic

by Sandi Ault

  “Well, you can just take your team and…” I threw up my arms. “Let me just say this: I don’t have anything to hide, but I’m still completely chagrined. You and…The Bartender…and your team, whoever that is… you ask for my help and then you treat me with suspicion.”

  Mountain appeared in the entryway to the kitchen and looked at the two of us.

  “Look,” Hank said, “it wasn’t me that did it. And I don’t feel that way. I don’t blame you for being upset. I’d be mad, too.”

  I picked up the piece of paper from the table.

  “He’s a lucky guy,” Hank Coronel said, jutting his chin in the direction of the folded sheet in my hand. He turned and went out of the kitchen, stopping to squat down and give Mountain some rubs behind the ears and along the back of his neck before he went on toward the lobby. I heard his footsteps crossing the tile floor again, heard the door open, and heard it shut with another slam.

  Mountain watched him leave and then looked at me.

  I unfolded the paper and read Kerry’s text message:

  Was wondering why you didn’t pick up when I called. Worried. Just got your email. Hope you have a phone again now and get this message. Need to hear your voice. God, I miss you so much. Please call. Love you.

  34: O, Brother

  As I started down the cliff-edge road to the monastery, the cold miasma of blue-white mist restricted my view so severely that I worried that I might misgauge even a slight turn in the track and send the Jeep—with me and Mountain in it—off the side into the abyss. When I approached the big log archway a scarf of haze parted just enough to reveal the sign listing the times for mass and vespers. It reminded me of the cowl on a monk’s habit, which only disclosed the identity of its inhabitant at close range.

  I rang the bell in the covered alcove, and this time, Father Anthony answered the door himself. From the look on his face, he was less than overjoyed to see me. “Miss Wild. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I know, Father, and I apologize. I wonder if we could talk? Just for a few minutes? It’s very important.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Just for a few minutes. Come into the library.”

  I followed him and once he had taken a seat, I took one as well. “I have to ask you…”

  “I already told you everything that I can.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I will not violate the priest-penitent privilege.”

  “Father, I just got reminded how crucial the element of time becomes when someone has disappeared. The more time passes, the less likely it is to find the missing person alive. I only ask in the desperate desire that we might still find your neighbor and benefactor, and hopefully before it’s too late. The last time anyone seems to have seen her was more than a week ago. If you won’t answer my questions, you might come to regret that, especially if it could have helped us locate her sooner. And, besides, if you won’t tell me whatever you can, others will come to ask these same questions, and more.”

  “It doesn’t matter who asks. The sanctity of the confessional is rooted in the imperative need for confidence and trust. Even the Supreme Court upholds that.”

  “What if I told you that your neighbor is not who you think she is, that the name Adoria Abasolo is an assumed identity?”

  His eyes widened.

  “She didn’t confess that to you?”

  “No, she did not.”

  “And did you know she was taking peyote, that she’d had a young boy steal some for her?”

  He struggled to keep his face from revealing the answer, but I could tell that his response, if he would have agreed to give one, would have been affirmative.

  “Just nod, if you feel like you can do that much.”

  He nodded.

  “And did she tell you about a baby she lost when she was young?”

  He squirmed a little in his chair, then raised his eyebrows.

  “Or did she have an abortion?”

  He turned his head slightly, frowning.

  “Oh, I see. She gave a baby up for adoption, right? She told you about that.”

  The abbot made the slightest nod.

  “It was in Los Angeles, right?”

  Another almost imperceptible dip of his chin.

  “And she was trying to find that child. That’s why she had been calling the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. She must have given the child up through a Catholic charity service of some kind.”

  Father Anthony’s face now changed from guarded to sad, but he didn’t speak or make any sign of agreement or otherwise.

  “When she called them, do you know if the Archdiocese of Los Angeles gave her any information about the child?”

  There was no response to this from the abbot either.

  “I believe Ms. Abasolo was taking the peyote to try to have a vision and connect with her child in that way. Am I right?”

  The father’s expression showed either confusion or concern now, and he was quiet for a moment while he considered what to say. Finally, he held up a finger and offered: “Let’s say you asked me this as a hypothetical question about no one person or incident in particular. Generally speaking, the Church does not condone the use of drugs for non-medical purposes. If one of my charge was seeking my counsel about what you mentioned—hypothetically, as I said—I would urge them to stop.”

  “And yet, she told you she was going to the fireplace…the peyote ceremony…after she took confession with you.”

  Again, the abbot did not speak for a minute or so, pulling at his beard as he ruminated. “Again, theoretically, if there was some kind of a theft, if one of my parishioners happened to have something that was stolen by another person, of course I would urge them to do whatever was necessary to return the ill-gotten goods to their rightful owner, and to make reparations if they were involved.”

  “Do you know if Ms. Abasolo ever learned the identity of, or located her child?”

  “I do not.”

  “Was it a son or a daughter?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay, don’t do anything if I’m getting warm, but would you please at least hold up a hand to stop me if I’m getting cold? Was it a daughter?”

  He lowered his hands to his lap and raised his chin, looking directly at me.

  I drew in a big breath. Adoria Abasolo was looking for her long-lost daughter! I was quiet a moment, taking this in. “But, now I’m wondering about something we discussed previously. If Abasolo knew that she had a child, if she was working to locate the child, why was she in such a hurry to deed the property she lived on to you? Wouldn’t she want to bequeath this to her sole living relative?”

  Father Anthony’s brow furrowed. “There is a stipulation that allows for a living heir…the rights to the property would revert in that case.”

  “And that would mean the end of your beer brewing and perhaps of your status as a monastery, if that happened.”

  “It could. Unless something could be arranged with the heir about the water rights, it very well could.”

  “I have to ask: is that why you tried to dissuade me from finding all this out? To protect the plans for the monastery to have an economic future?”

  “No. Heavens, no! Of course I want the monastery to continue our work, but I also trust in an almighty and powerful God Who determines the future of all of us, this mission included. I would have abided by His will, even if it meant we had to close the mission. When you came here the first time, I truly did not think there was any problem. I suppose I just wanted to believe that Ms. Abasolo had gone to visit someone and would return soon enough…so I tried to overlook some of this initially. But when you kept coming here asking questions…” His brow furrowed. “May God forgive me if I have betrayed Ador…what was her real name?”

  “Inés Otero,” I said.

  He closed his eyes and clutched the large crucifix he wore. “I don’t know which is worse—that I held off giving you information, or that I have likely violated the seal of the confessional with all I let o
n to you today.”

  “I know you must feel conflicted, but thank you, Father Anthony. I’m hoping this can help us find out where she is and what happened to her.”

  He stood, bringing his hands together and dropping his lips to the tips of his fingers, working through a thought before giving it voice. “I have to return to my preparations for the archbishop.”

  “I just have one more thing…”

  “Miss Wild, please.”

  “Do you know anything about the author Videl Quintana?” I watched his face carefully.

  He wrinkled his brow. “No. Why?”

  “I didn’t think so. Never mind.”

  We walked to the foyer and the abbot reached for the big iron handle and pulled the door open. “I am uncomfortable with how much I may have revealed in our discussion,” he said.

  “I already had a lot of the information. You really didn’t tell me much that I hadn’t guessed. You just confirmed a couple of hunches.”

  “I am willing to suffer whatever penance I must pay for what I have done if it means that you find her,” he said. “But you must find her. None of this will have been worth it if you don’t.”

  35: A Clearer View

  As I prepared to make a left turn out of the Mission’s drive onto the county road, a car rocketed around the curve and barreled toward me like a streak of lightning. I stomped on the brake to avoid being T-boned, and Mountain careened into the back of my seat. The oncoming torpedo swerved, tires squealing, and then accelerated again without so much as a pause, racing down the road at what must have been nearly twice the speed limit. I felt my heart pounding in my chest and at my temples, adrenaline surging through my veins. I backed up a few feet so the Jeep’s nose was off the asphalt road and got out and opened the back door to check on the wolf. “Are you okay, Mountain?”

  He sat up and wagged his tail.

  I threw my arms around him and hugged his neck. With one hand, I felt along his sides and haunches for any sign of tenderness. I pressed my chest to his as he sat upright in the door opening, and then cupped my palm around his sternum to feel his heartbeat. Like mine, his pulse was rapid. “Let’s get out for a minute and let me watch you move around, make sure you’re okay.” I held the door for him and he jumped out. “Come on, I want to walk a bit and make sure you’re moving all right.”

  A few minutes later, I was behind the wheel again and headed toward Peñasco and the ranger station, still shaken and hypervigilant after the near-miss I had experienced. It had happened so fast that I couldn’t be entirely sure, but I thought the car that almost rammed me had been a green Subaru. A Subaru was a common enough car in these parts because of its ease in driving on snow. The dense fog had prevented me from seeing the driver or how many people were in the car, or even the car itself until the last instant. But it looked like the same color and model as the vehicle that had been towed by the tribal police at Tanoah Pueblo the night before last, the one that belonged to the couple I had dubbed the redcoats. I wondered about that odd pair. The first time I’d spotted them, they were bending Dominic Gomez’s ear in the Bear’s Paw. Then the next evening, I’d seen them at Tanoah Pueblo. If that was their car and they were back on the High Road now— two days later—where were they headed in such a hurry? They could have killed Mountain and me at that speed in this pea soup of a fog! And if it was the redcoats in that car, what kind of a tourist trip were they on? In winter, there were few businesses open up here; a day would allow you to take it all in with time left to spare. The small number of off-season tourists who visited New Mexico in the dead-of-winter months came to get good lodging deals and avoid the crowds in Taos and Santa Fe, where there were shops, cafés, and artists’ studios open, regardless of the weather. Here, on this sparsely-populated ridge along the shoulders of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, winter was always ready to steal back the roads and make them impassable, and there weren’t but a few establishments open during the colder months as a result. Bed-and-breakfast owners from Chimayo to Taos closed up shop and took their vacations this time of year. Even the potters and painters in the lower and sunnier places along the Rio Grande around Pilar and Dixon opened late and closed early, or left a note on the door for weeks that read, “Be Right Back.”

  While my mind wandered over all this, somehow I had gotten to the ranger station without thinking at all about driving, and I was grateful that my anxiety meter wasn’t pinging code-red any more. As I chose a parking space at the back of the lot, I noticed that I could just make out the horses at the water tank in the pasture behind the facility, which meant that the veil of vapor that had taken over the High Road was beginning to thin as the sun climbed higher in the winter sky. I put Mountain on a lead and walked him along the grass at the edge of the asphalt and then toward the door of the station with me, reminding him on the way to be on his best behavior so he would always be welcome there. Even though I didn’t plan to be there long, I wanted to take him in so I could keep an eye on him in case he exhibited any signs of injury or soreness. I also wanted him near me for my own comfort. Before I opened the door to go inside, I squatted down and engaged my best friend in direct eye contact, something he would rarely do with anyone but me. “You know I love you, don’t you, Mountain?”

  He searched my face with rapt attention, his eyes clear and bright, his ears up, attentive. He pushed his nose between my arm and my chest and nuzzled his head against me, then stood up and wagged his tail, eager to get on with whatever we were going to do next.

  To my surprise, Dominic Gomez occupied the chair behind the counter at the receptionists’ desk. When he saw me, he smiled and reached down to retrieve something from the top of his lunch cooler, which sat on the floor beside him. He pushed a small box across the counter to me. “Roy had me bring this up for you. It’s your replacement phone; same number as you had before. He wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry, he can’t get you a different vehicle right now. They have to get me a new one first.”

  “I’m sorry about your Blazer.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay. It could have been me. I heard it was tampered with.”

  “Did the fire investigator report that?”

  “Not yet, but that’s what I heard.”

  “Who would…?”

  “You know we just had that whole thing with Ibanez over his cows, and he was over twelve hours later getting them out than he promised he would be. Then I leave the Blazer here, and first thing the next morning, you drive it a few miles and the car catches fire and the engine blows. That’s my rig, the one I always used. I don’t think anybody knew you would be taking it. Even I didn’t know it, because I was off that day.”

  I was starting to feel an overload after not sleeping, the terrible dream, the close call with the speeding car. “So what will you do until they get you a new truck?”

  “For the next couple days, I work here. They let me use an old beater from the maintenance facility, but that thing is on its last legs, so I’m not supposed to drive it unless I absolutely have to. Roy put me on one of those public lands resource sharing assignments like you’re on. I’ll be here for a day or two until they figure out a rig for me. I live closer to this station than I do to the Taos field office so I don’t mind helping out here for a little bit.”

  I took the device out of the box and powered it on; it was fully charged. “Mind if I use that cubicle over there to make a couple calls?”

  “No, go ahead. I think Miss Vicky likes having some company. She told me to make myself at home.”

  I noticed a red dot on the new phone’s screen indicating a voicemail. Hank had said Kerry had tried to call me several times, so the message had to be from him. I decided to wait until I wasn’t so pressed for time so I could savor hearing his voice and then hopefully hear it again when I had a chance to call him back. Right now, I had a few calls to make that were more imperative.

  My first was to Carla at the library. I asked her if she would do a lightning search on Quintana
and his coven of witches and then give me a brief summary.

  “I pulled up some of this information when you asked about the peyote before,” she said. “That’s the crazy stuff I was telling you about from when Quintana died.”

  “So can you get as complete a picture as possible and then knock it down into a CliffsNotes version for me, maybe in a couple of pages?”

  “Sure. Like I said, this story’s intriguing. It will be fun.”

  “I really need this fast. Can you get back to me as soon as possible?”

  “By that you mean today?”

  “Even sooner,” I said, meaning it.

  I was rummaging in my pockets for the business card the private detective had given me when Buzz purred from inside my backpack. I glanced around the ranger station to see who might be looking, but neither Dominic nor Vicky was paying me any mind. I pulled the device out of the pack. “Wild, Resource Protection.” I said. Habit, again.

  “I’ve got something” It was Coronel. “It’s not good news.”

  “You found her.”

  “Maybe. I found her car.”

  “Well, where is it? Maybe she’s…”

  “It’s at the bottom of a ravine. It went off the side of the cliff on a road that serves as the northwest border of the reservation leading down into Picuris Canyon. Let’s see, it’s…” he paused a few seconds. “It’s Indian Service Route 210. The rear of the car aims skyward, the front end buried in the ravine. It’s not likely anyone in it would have survived.”

  “I’ll come right now. What’s your location?”

  “I’m not with the vehicle. I received this information remotely.”

  “Remotely? What do you mean by that?”

  “Satellite imagery. A friend of mine at NOAA obtained it from a weather satellite. We got an area scan three days ago, and then I asked for a closer view of a few targets that looked like possibilities. He captured a good photo of it during a recent pass.”

  “But how did you know…”

  “Her car was missing. From day one, it’s been a primary objective to find it. Her Mercedes wasn’t new enough, and she hadn’t paid to continue the tracking service that you get when you first buy them, so I couldn’t use that. So I asked my guy to grab sat images within a twenty-mile-radius of her house. He got them, and then, like I said, we asked for a zoom on a couple specific areas, and we got a hit. With computer enhancement, we can read the numbers on the plate in the picture. It’s her Mercedes.”