Wild Mystic

by Sandi Ault

  ▪ Possible offspring unverified: Twins Born approximately 1982, mother unknown, father presumed to be Quintana but not certified, home birth, no birth certificate until they were enrolled in a middle school in Los Angeles at age ten, in 1992. Raised by coven without parentage specified.

  Mitchell pointed to the name of Nona Dodd, Quintana’s one acknowledged child. “That woman and her mother have both been specifically excluded, by name, from the will.”

  “So you believe that Abasolo, as the only living wife, or witch, or whatever, is first in line to inherit because this child has been excluded?”

  “It’s not that simple, but yes. It’s a very strange, very complex will. There are five orders of succession. The first is his foundation, which gets ten percent of all royalties from his work so long as it remains in operation. The second order of succession is where it starts to get crazy. The will states that the remaining 90% of his estate, including all property (real and otherwise) goes in full to his ‘true wife’ and her heirs or assigns. But it does not name the true wife.”

  “And you think that’s Adoria Abasolo.”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Well, it looks like all the other witches are presumed dead, so I wouldn’t think any of them was claiming to be the true wife. So, whom are you working for?”

  “I told you, the will gets complicated after the true wife and her heirs. There are five orders of succession, in total. I’m actually working for some folks who would inherit in the fifth order of succession. It’s a big fortune, millions of dollars and still growing from his book royalties. It’s been in probate for years now. My clients have come forward and wanted me to prove that none of the heirs in line before them are alive or have a valid claim to the will.”

  “Well, what about the third and fourth orders of succession? What happened to those beneficiaries?”

  “After the true wife and her heirs or assigns, the third order is the witches, excluding Rachelle Helena, who for some reason is treated like an outcast, along with her daughter. So that’s these three.” He pointed at the names of Yini, Salma, and Qual on the list of witches. They divide equally, but if they don’t inherit directly—which they won’t because I believe they are all three dead—then the next order, the fourth order of succession is Quintana’s children. And here, he specifically excludes the one child for whom he is named as the father on her birth certificate, Nona Dodd. She has gone to court three times, twice on appeal, to contest the will, and she’s lost all three times because the language of the will so specifically excludes her under any order of succession. So, if Quintana had any other children…any other children that weren’t born to the true wife, they would be the inheritants here at the fourth level of succession. And the fifth level, that’s the heirs and assigns of the witches. And that’s who I’m working for.”

  “But if these aren’t the real names of these women,” I said, pointing my own finger at the list of witches, “then how do you know the people you’re working for are really the heirs and assigns?”

  “Well, on a practical level, it doesn’t matter to me. They hired me to find out if there was anyone out there ahead of them in line to inherit. That’s led me here, and I think there is, and I think it’s Adoria Abasolo, or Lola Zorate, or Inés Otero—whatever her real name turns out to be. But if I do not find that person, if she’s not who I think she is—or if she is who I think she is but she’s not still alive and doesn’t have any heirs, any family that we know about—then I go on working to try to prove my clients’ claim to the will, which could involve some DNA evidence.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “They found the bones of the one they think is that woman Qual; they did that with DNA evidence. Do you have DNA on the other ones?”

  “I haven’t gone down that road yet, but that would be something I would consider. My first order of business was to identify Lola Zorate, whom I believe was the ‘true wife’ referred to in the will. In any case, Zorate would inherit, and if anyone else tried to appeal, she could disprove any other claims because she was the only one legally married to Quintana. So I had to rule that out before I went any further, and I don’t think I can rule it out. I think Adoria Abasolo is Lola Zorate.” He took a big drink of coffee and then said, “Since all the witches changed their names time and again, it is not known for certain if any of them besides Rachelle had children. These two,” he pointed to the text that said The Twins, “were raised in the compound, home-schooled, and no one claimed to be their parent. It’s a bizarre situation. I have no idea if they are Quintana’s or not. There were a lot of people living in the compound for decades, not just the witches, but other so-called ‘disciples’ of Quintana’s. But if these twins wanted to go the DNA route, and they could prove it up, they might be able to make a claim under the fourth order of succession, as children of his. Quintana died of liver cancer, but before he did, he underwent DNA tests to try to find a match for a transplant. That DNA is in the custody of the court, and it could be accessed if there were a legitimate claimant. But, first of all, since Lola Zorate is Abasolo or Otero or whatever, she trumps them altogether. And I don’t represent them, so for me, it’s just a side note, and if I go any further on this case, I’ll caution my clients about it as a possible challenge. Me, I’m working for the relatives of a couple of the witches, and right now, I’m thinking none of them…nobody else inherits if we find the poet.”

  “This is all too weird,” I re-folded my sheets of paper, which now seemed wholly inadequate to explain this uncanny story.

  He put both palms down on the table and gave me an intense stare. “Are you going to tell me who you are working for, and why you’re being so secretive about your search for Abasolo?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. I would if I could, but…I can’t tell you that yet.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Okay, I’ve shown you my hand. Now, you show me yours. Or whatever you can show me, I guess.”

  “Well, I didn’t know any of this before we sat down to talk. So I was looking at it without any of this background. I was starting to focus on Susan Lacy because I had another idea, but I could be off base.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I thought she might be Abasolo’s daughter. You see, Abasolo gave up a baby for adoption in Los Angeles. I don’t have the exact details or dates or anything, but I just keep intuitively going to that…and it feels like one of those gut things that I can’t ignore. You know what I’m talking about?”

  He nodded his head. “You have evidence of this adoption?”

  “I don’t have paper in hand. But I believe I can say for sure that Adoria, using whatever name she decided to use at the time, gave up a baby for adoption in L.A. And I was thinking that maybe Susan Lacy came here looking for her birth mother, and that either they both just figured it out for sure, or were about to do so when…”

  “When Abasolo went missing. Where do you think she went?”

  I bit my lower lip. “That’s another piece of information that I have that you don’t know yet. Her car has been found. It went off the cliff into a ravine.”

  His eyes widened. “So she’s dead?”

  “I don’t know if she was in the car. The sheriff’s department is investigating the crash right now. I don’t have any more than that until we hear what they find.”

  “But she hasn’t been seen in—what is it now? Seven, eight days?”

  I nodded my head but didn’t speak. “The only lead I have left is Susan Lacy. That’s why I called you, to see if you knew where I could find her. If I’m wrong, and she’s just someone who came here to study writing, then that’s that. But if she’s a woman who came here trying to determine if Adoria Abasolo is her long-lost birth mother…”

  “And if Abasolo is her mother, then that could be a big development. She could be a suspect, you know, in the poet’s disappearance. This Lacy gal could be angry about being abandoned by her mother at birth, or just care nothing for her since she never knew
her. But she may have figured out that with Abasolo gone, she would inherit 90% of Quintana’s fortune at the second level of succession, with only the foundation taking its 10% share before what she gets.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know anything about the will until we talked today. And I could be wrong, but I just don’t see Susan Lacy as a kidnapper or a murderer. I’ll admit I only met her and talked to her for a few minutes, but she didn’t seem like she had anything to hide. She acted genuinely surprised that her writing teacher wasn’t home on Monday. So I’m not looking for her because I think she’s a suspect. I want to find her because I’m hoping that she can give me some idea of how to find Abasolo.”

  “What do you say we go find out?”

  “You’ll take me to where she lives?”

  “Why not? We could sit here and hash out a dozen other things, but if we can put this piece in perspective, it might shed some light on all the rest of it.”

  We stood and took our used coffee cups up to the counter. “I have my wolf with me,” I said. “So you drive, and I’ll follow you, okay?”

  “Why don’t I just ride with you?”

  “Okay, if you don’t mind getting wolf hair all over your clothes. It could take away from that sleek black tactical look you got going there.” I grinned.

  He smiled and went back to the table and put a five-dollar bill down and set the salt shaker on top of it.

  “I already left a tip in the jar up here at the counter when I got my coffee.” I said.

  “People gotta eat,” Zeke Mitchell said, and he winked as he walked past and then opened the door for me to go through.

  37: Gone, Gone, Gone

  The dense fog from earlier that morning had cleared completely now, but a cold, wet blanket of dew lingered on every surface. The rural road to the place outside of Ojito where Susan Lacy rented a casita was so muddy I had to put the Jeep in four-wheel drive to navigate it. Mountain and Mitchell bumped and jostled along in the car as I held tightly to the wheel. We got to the base of the narrow uphill drive and I opted to turn the Jeep around so it faced back toward the main road and leave it parked at the bottom of the hill while we walked up to Lacy’s casita. I put Mountain on a lead, lest the property owner take him for a coyote and shoot him, as happened entirely too often with dogs that ran loose in northern New Mexico. We made our way up the muddy track, our boots squishing in the mud as Mountain nosed happily alongside.

  When we got to the main house, a woman came out the front door and held a palm like a visor over her eyes, squinting against the sunlight as she studied us.

  I looked at Zeke Mitchell. “You or me?”

  “You’re the fed.”

  “Yeah, but in some places, that’s grounds for getting shot at.” I forced a smile and called out, “¡Hola! Estamos buscando a Susan Lacy.”

  The landlady told us that she was sure that her renter was at home, because both her car and her bicycle were there at the casita. She pointed over the rise, where we could just make out one corner of a roof. We walked farther up the drive to the top, where a blue Toyota wearing a light coat of frost huddled in its parking spot in some low brush. It was fitted with a rack on the back holding the fancy tricked-out hybrid bike I had seen before. We rounded the stub of the ridge and walked down the sandstone step-path to the casita, which was set into the side of the hill. The steps led along the side of the structure and around it to the front, which overlooked a narrow valley dotted with a few small adobe homes. Thin plumes of smoke danced above them, and the incense of burning piñon wood drifted across the vale.

  I stepped onto the portal and up to the door and saw that the door was ajar. “Miss Lacy?” I leaned my head to look into the narrow slot between door and frame. I glanced back at Zeke Mitchell, who stood behind me. Again, I called into the house, “Susan Lacy?” I held the flat of my palm in front of Mountain’s face, signaling him to stay, and handed the end of his lead to Mitchell. Then I pushed lightly on the door, and stepped to the left, out of the opening it framed. Reaching behind me to unsnap the holster on my pistol, I drew out the P229 but kept it low and at my side. “Susan Lacy,” I called louder and then raised the gun and leaned into the doorway to get a better look inside.

  The casita was small, just three tiny rooms: a narrow, multi-function main room with a tiny kitchenette at one end, a bathroom no bigger than a closet, and a bedroom where the bed covers were rumpled and pulled to one side as if Susan Lacy had just gotten up and would be right back.

  “She’s not here,” I said.

  Mitchell stood just inside the front door, still holding Mountain’s lead. “I see that. But where did she go without her bike or her car?”

  I looked around the main room and went to the tiny stove in the kitchenette. Like the rest of the place, the kitchen area was clean, the counters spotless; there were no cups or dishes in the sink. She was obviously a fastidious person, and it seemed unlikely she would have left the kitchen and the rest of the house in perfect order but the bed unmade. I walked over to the woodstove, and held out a hand. It was barely warm; the fire from last night had almost gone out. “I don’t know,” I said, looking at Mitchell, “but she’s gone.”

  The private detective and I were quiet as I maneuvered the Jeep back the way we had come, to the graded county road and then onto the asphalt and south again to Peñasco, where talking became impossible because of the Gatling-gun din of mud gobs being flung from the tires against the underside of the jeep once we got on the highway. When we got to the Bear’s Paw, it was lunchtime, and the parking lot was full. I pulled into the only space I could find, a narrow spot far from the entrance at the southern edge of the lot, and Zeke opened the passenger door and got out. He leaned down and looked at me. “You have my number,” he said. “And you called me, so I have yours.”

  “Right. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.”

  “Likewise.” He reached across the back of the seat and gave Mountain a scratch behind the ears. “See you, big guy,” he said.

  Moments after he closed the door, Buzz began to vibrate and drone. I had moved my backpack from the front to the cargo deck behind my seat so Mitchell could have the space—and as a result, now my pack and the device were out of easy reach. I got out and opened the side door and retrieved the phone from the front pocket of the pack. “Agent Wild,” I said. I didn’t get back in the car, instead preferring to move around a bit after the bumpy ride. I rolled the window down halfway so Mountain could have some fresh air, swung the door shut, and walked in front of the car.

  Coronel’s voice was almost lyrical. “I have good news. We still have a shot at finding Abasolo. There were no remains in the car.”

  I drew in a breath. “But, what happened? I mean how did the car…?”

  “I don’t have details yet because that Indian Service Route is all mud and ruts so they will have to send a crew on foot to look at the spot where it went over the side. But the way they got to the car itself was through a mine in the canyon below the cliff. The wreck wasn’t too far from where the mine road ended, maybe a mile or so. Evidently the local fire department has some kind of super all-terrain vehicle with a winch on it, and they took a crew of guys in on that and a couple ATVs. They pored all over the crash site. No sign of any human remains.”

  I realized I had been holding that deep breath I took, and now I let it out with a huge sigh of relief. “So she might still be alive?”

  “That’s a might. But now we are no longer alone in looking for her. Now that they’ve found the car, the FBI has been called in and its’ officially a missing person case. I got in touch with their agent to get the details, and I had to let her know that the Secret Service was also looking for Abasolo. I’m afraid that The Bartender is going to have to figure out how to message this, because it’s bound to go public soon. I did get one bit of information from the FBI agent: they found a letter in the glove box of Abasolo’s car. I haven’t gotten a copy of it yet, but she told me it was from the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles.”

  I grinned and started bouncing from foot to foot with excitement. “This could be a break! I was going to tell you this morning when you came by and we had coffee: I didn’t have confirmation then, but I had begun to suspect that Abasolo had given a baby up for adoption in Los Angeles when she was younger.”

  “That’s the idea you were going to check out when I told you she’d been calling the Archdiocese?”

  “Yes. I had a hunch, but it was just an inkling, and you were in such a hurry…” I swallowed hard. “I have another hunch, too, that the neighbor I told you about, Susan Lacy, the one who came for writing lessons…that she is Abasolo’s daughter.”

  “What? Do you have any…?”

  “No, that’s why I didn’t say anything. But since we talked this morning, I did get confirmation that Abasolo gave up a child for adoption, a daughter. The part about Lacy is just a guess. But it still feels right to me. We have to get a copy of that letter,” I said. “If it names Susan Lacy as the daughter…”

  “It won’t be a problem to get a copy. We coordinate with the FBI all the time; it just may have to go through a few switches and gears before someone okays it. In the meantime, why don’t you find Lacy and ask her?”

  “I just tried to do that. I have a feeling that they both—the poet and her daughter—may have just figured this out before Abasolo disappeared. But now Lacy is gone, too.”

  “What do you mean gone?”

  “Her house is empty, but her car and her bike are there. Her bed looks like she just jumped up out of it and left it in a hurry. Her landlady didn’t see anything, thought she was there at home. But she’s gone.”

  My bladder was begging to offload all the coffee I had drunk that morning, so I pocketed Buzz and called out to Mountain, “Wait right here, Buddy, I’ll be right back.” I walked past the crowded row of cars and into the Bear’s Paw to use the washroom. The restaurant was as noisy as it was busy. People stood in line at the front counter waiting for a table or to place carry-out orders, every chair was occupied, and a duo of waitresses shuttled food in and out of the kitchen at a rapid pace. Several women had gotten to the washroom before me, and we waited in line outside the door for a turn to use the single-seat accommodations.