Thunderbird

by Susan Slater

  The sudden burst of light flooding the canyon made him forget any inconvenience. Peach and gold tendrils pushed over the rim then snaked along the ground until everything was bathed in a surreal, orange-ish tint. Tommy stopped to absorb the magic, then following the blacktop, wound around until he was in the parking lot in front of the Information Center. He hadn’t expected the Center to be open, but there were two cars in the lot and a vintage Pace Arrow in addition to the two government vehicles he’d noticed in back.

  The ranger who opened the door seemed irritated and looked distinctly relieved to have company. He ushered Tommy in without explanation.

  “Mr. Spottedhorse. Good to see you. Still hot on our alien story?”

  “More or less,” Tommy laughed. “Is this a good time to talk?”

  “I hardly think so,” a querulous voice boomed up over the bookshelf of park pamphlets. “I do believe that I was here first.”

  “This is Mrs. Rosenberg, Edwina’s mother, she’s picking up Edwina’s personal things. And the Stouts here brought in their granddaughter—”

  “Thank goodness! You’re the police, aren’t you?” A smallish woman with thinning gray hair pushed in front of Mrs. Rosenberg. “Marian Stout. Mandy, my granddaughter …” She put both hands on the shoulders of a teenaged girl who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. “… and my husband, George.”

  Tommy shook hands with George but it was Marian who was spokesperson.

  “We’re leaving today. A murder not five miles from where we were camped and Mandy being the last person that poor ranger talked with before she died. I’ll be surprised if this child isn’t psychologically scarred for life.”

  “Talked with Edwina?” Ms. Rosenberg’s voice rose.

  “When?” Tommy asked.

  “Just before … before it happened. Your Edwina stopped by the campground. We were gone but she talked to Mandy. Mandy, tell them what she wanted.”

  “Uh, she was, like, looking for someone.”

  “Did she give a name?” Tommy took out his notebook.

  “No. She described him as a hunk.”

  “Chasing after a man. In my day they came to you.” Tommy chose to ignore Edwina’s mother.

  “Can you remember exactly what she said? Her description of this man.”

  “Um, I think she said he was muscular and, oh yeah, he was riding a bike.”

  “Motorcycle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she say why she was looking for him?”

  “We all know why she was chasing after him.” Ms. Rosenberg’s voice rose in a falsetto.

  “Well, she was doing the guy a big favor—it wasn’t like she was chasing anyone. It was just her doing a good deed.”

  “Such as?” Tommy was intrigued.

  “She had his billfold. He’d left it at the Center and she was trying to return it.”

  “That’s a new one on me. She never said a thing about a lost and found item.” The ranger shook his head, then shrugged.

  “Did she say where she was going when she left you?”

  “No. She was driving a really cool jeep.”

  “Did she seem upset? Stressed?”

  “No. Like I said she was just doing this guy a favor.”

  “And you’re positive she didn’t mention his name?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really don’t think Mandy can be of much help. I’ll make sure she gets back in touch if she remembers anything else. We really must be going. I can’t believe our vacation in this idyllic place was just ruined. Isn’t there anywhere safe?”

  Marian seemed to be directing this last to Tommy but the question seemed moot. He watched as they walked single-file to the door.

  It was Edwina’s mother who finally broke the silence.

  “I don’t believe for a minute that there was a lost billfold. Plain and simple she was out to meet him somewhere—probably at this campground and she got stood up and then she followed his tracks to the cave—followed her murderer, hunted him down only to be brutally …”

  Sobbing, she covered her face with her hands.

  “I don’t think we can—”

  “He killed her, didn’t he?” Rose’s head jerked upright.

  “There’s no proof—we don’t even know—”

  “Will you find him? Will you make him pay for what he did to my Edwina?” Finally, the sobs stopped any more questions.

  “You know, you might want to talk with Edwina’s mother for a bit. I’ll be available later.” With this, the ranger disappeared behind the counter and walked rapidly toward the back. Ducking out when things got a little emotional. This smelled of a set up but it might be lucrative to see what the mother knew, Tommy decided.

  The woman who now stood squarely in from of him fumbling with a damp handkerchief was short, barely five foot, and almost as round as she was tall. Myopia was corrected by thick lenses in enormous, square tortoise shell frames. Years of squinting had pulled her head forward, giving her neck a pronounced “S” curve. She was wearing a waist-less dress in shades of purple and pink with a pilled green V-neck sweater on top. Maybe that was what was called a “layered look.” Tommy wasn’t sure.

  “Would you be able to answer some questions about your daughter—I don’t want this to be upsetting—if there’s a better time …?”

  “Not at all. This has to be done.” She seemed to perk up and stuffed the handkerchief into a front pocket of her black handbag. “Had you ever met Edwina?” She peered up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

  The voice was hopeful, but Tommy felt it could dissolve into a sob at a moment’s notice.

  “Then how do I know that you’re committed to finding this murderer? I mean this isn’t really civilization. Are you really a police officer?”

  This wasn’t going to be easy. But Tommy had to sympathize with her. Her loss was overwhelming.

  “I’m the investigating officer from Crownpoint. I want answers just as much as you do. We need to make certain nothing like this happens again.” He reached out and touched her on the shoulder, just a reassuring pat but it seemed to work.

  Her face brightened. “Call me Rose. Do you think you can catch whoever is responsible for this?”

  “I believe we will.” That wasn’t a lie.

  Rose dabbed at her eyes and seemed to be considering whether she believed him.

  “You seem like such a nice young man. I want to be helpful. Let’s go back to Edwina’s office. We can talk while I pack her belongings.” She pushed past Tommy and, without permission, walked behind the counter and moved toward the back. A faint scent of perm solution wafted up from tight silver-blue curls that cork-screwed across her head. The “do” was obviously fresh. His own mother had adopted this same look and renewed it every four months. Tommy could remember a time when Indian women, even older ones, had straight hair to their waists.

  “This is so much better. Those rangers would have just boxed things up and left them at the door. But this was something I needed to do myself. Men. I’ll never know how Edwina could stand to work with them. Present company excluded, of course.” Rose closed the door and squeezed behind the desk to take what once was Edwina’s chair.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Prospects?”

  “Uh, no.” Snoopy woman.

  “It’s no crime, you know, not being married. Our society puts too much emphasis on it, if you ask me. I always told my daughter that if God wanted her to be married, he’d find someone.” Rose paused to blow her nose. “Are you dating?”

  “I, uh, yes, I am … I was, sort of.” Tommy looked at his shoes.

  “How nice. I always encouraged Edwina to look above her station. It’s so different for women. There’s no reason to marry someone that you might have to support someday. Do you know last year, I caught Edwina with her dance instructor? Horrible little man. I saw them together in the grocery store. I could have died. They were walking hand in hand through
the produce. It was then that I knew she was getting desperate.”

  “Desperate?”

  “You know, some women will grab at anything late in life. I’ve seen it a number of times. Older women seeing life fly by, marry the first idiot they can corner. Edwina would have been forty this year. And in a panic—not that she would have admitted it—but I saw all the signs.”

  “What signs were those?”

  “Well, among others, she was beginning to lie to me.”

  “About what?”

  “She hid things from me. I found a packet of promotional material, brochures featuring cruises to the Caribbean. But that’s not all—I found the tickets, too.” She sat back smugly, arms folded across ample breasts. “Can you imagine? She was going to take a cruise.”

  “When was she leaving?”

  “Next month.”

  “You said tickets. She wasn’t going alone?”

  “No. Now, isn’t that just the height of deception? She had planned this getaway …” Rose’s chin began to quiver. “Here I was the last to know. It wasn’t like my daughter to keep something like this a secret. She could have meant to surprise me—we were very close until lately. But I don’t know …” Rose pulled out three desk drawers before finding a tissue. “She wasn’t herself.” She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes.

  Tommy waited a moment and then gently prodded, “Do you know who might have been going with her?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I think the man was beginning to meet her out here—at work.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She was fixing picnic lunches—every day for three days—and starting to dress to catch attention. I almost kept her from wearing those short shorts that morning. I told her what Ann Landers always says—dress like you’re going to be in a car wreck—and to think she was found in them, like a common—” Rose left the sentence unfinished and burst into tears instead. “She didn’t listen to me anymore. When I questioned her, she’d get this dreamy look and say she’d met the most handsome man in all the world. Can you believe that? ‘The most handsome man’ as if looks was everything. But this is the same woman who was voted president of the Fabio fan club in Albuquerque last year. She’d just gone crazy, I tell you. Hormonal desperation.”

  Tommy sat back. Tickets for a cruise, kept secret from her mother—

  “Did she mention a name?”

  “Called him Ian.”

  “Just Ian? No last name?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  Rose had pulled open a bottom drawer and was stacking paperbacks on top of the desk.

  “Trash. She had her nose buried in one of these all the time. Wasted money buying them. I told her to go to the library, that’s what the place is for. But no, she had to buy every new book that came along. Her room at home is full. And these pictures …” Rose pointed to a particularly lurid cover that between breechcloth and ripped bodice left little to the imagination. “Can you believe that a grown woman spent time on this nonsense?”

  Tommy hoped he wouldn’t have to answer. He was getting a picture of Edwina’s life and it wasn’t pleasant. The woman in front of him would be very difficult to live with.

  “How’s it going?” The older ranger stuck his head in the door. “You two like some refreshment?” He held out two sodas.

  “No thanks. I’m just finishing up,” Tommy said.

  Rose pointed to a copy-paper box with lid. “I need two boxes this size and an orange soda.”

  “I’ll take a look.”

  Tommy followed the ranger out the door, quietly closing it behind him.

  “How’d you know I needed a break?” Tommy teased.

  “Just part of ranger rescue. Wonderful old biddy, isn’t she? Caused Edwina no end of grief, I can tell you that. It’s my theory that Edwina never would have had a life of her own strapped to mom the way she was. She needed to get away about twenty years sooner than she did.”

  Tommy agreed but didn’t want to be sucked into trashing dear old mom so he changed the subject.

  “You said you saw a man at the Information Center a couple mornings back. You weren’t in the office when he talked with Edwina?”

  “Naw. I just saw him leaving. See over there?” He leaned across Tommy and pointed out the window. “That trail leads right to the ridge. I got a good look at his backside from here when he was maybe twenty yards up the path.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Like I said. Good build. Not fat, just muscle and he was jogging right along in boots, no less. Short hair, real dark, now that I think of it; khaki T-shirt, camouflage pants“

  “Camouflage? Are you sure? Like the guy was military?”

  “Yep, just like some guy on maneuvers.”

  “There’s been a lot of Air Force in the area the last few days. But no one would have been camping up here. At least, I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Too tough to drive from here to that crash site every day. This is tough terrain. Don’t know how well you know the area but if you need to go out to the caves again, it’d be best to take one of us with you.”

  Tommy thanked him. He had been planning to go back to the ruins. But he didn’t know what he was going to do now. A military man. Would an airman working the crash need permission to camp in the area? He’d ask one of the colonels. There were probably twenty men who met the “hunk” description, all investigating the downed plane. He’d see if any of them rode a bike.

  He picked up two empty boxes and walked back to Rose. Less than a half hour later, Rose was ready to leave. There hadn’t been a lot of mementos. Tommy helped carry a box of books to her car.

  “Mr. Spottedhorse, I know it’s out of your way …” Rose was using her best wheedling voice, and Tommy automatically braced himself “But if you could just take the time to follow me home … I’d like to show you Edwina’s scrapbook. In fact, it might be important to have a photo of her—for your investigation.”

  The last thing Tommy had planned on was a trip into Farmington, still, it would be thoughtful to help Rose unload all the boxes and a look at the scrapbook might be interesting … And it’d give Tommy the chance to interview the TV news crew who first broke the story about aliens …

  “Yes. I have the time.” Tommy smiled at Rose. She needed the company. Grief therapy. Not in his training but he felt sure Ben would approve.

  + + +

  The Rosenberg home was tiny. Freshly painted wood siding sparkled with blue trim. Across the front and around both sides towering Cosmos and Mexican Sunflowers—the last of the late summer bloomers—dwarfed it in greenery. And lining the short walk to the front door was a knee-high picket fence completing the cottage feel.

  “Welcome to our humble abode. It’s cramped—well, maybe not anymore, and a lot to keep up.” Rose burst into tears but quickly recovered. “I just don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I should move back home. I can’t think of one thing to keep me here now that Edwina’s …” More snuffling, then, “Well, this isn’t getting these books inside, is it?”

  Tommy followed her up on the porch, put the box he was carrying down and made three trips to Rose’s car for the rest.

  “I’ve poured us some iced tea.” Rose leaned out the screened door. “You can just leave those boxes there for the time being and come on in. The scrapbook’s on the coffee table.” The furniture was far too large for the room’s size. A heavy walnut sideboard bumped against an imposing hutch that was squeezed against a wall and still jutted three feet into the room. A divan covered in yellow damask and stacked with needlepoint pillows pushed into the center of the room from the opposite end. The coffee table, a dark, glassed-top oblong completed the obstacle course. He’d hate to navigate the center of the room late at night. But the rug was good. Something Persian, Tommy guessed.

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thank you.” Tommy accepted the glass of tea and accompanying coaster and placed both on the coffee table.

  “Sun tea. Edwi
na always made it. Even at her office, she kept a fresh pitcher in the fridge. You know, hers was always better than mine. If she’d forget to put the jar out when she went to work, sometimes I’d do it. And mine always tasted different, so I asked her what she did. You know the secret? She’d fill the jar half full of ice cubes. Can you beat that? Waste all that ice just to get something that has to heat up anyway. But it cuts the acid.”

  “It’s good.” Small talk. And there was every indication that Rose was good at it, endlessly good. Tommy opened the scrapbook and saw a smiling baby and a much younger, prettier Rose. The petite woman wore slacks and a scarf over long dark curls. She held the child on one hip and squinted into the camera. The child had her arms around her mother’s neck.

  “The Grand Canyon. That was taken at the south rim. Our first trip out west when Edwina was only one and a half. I always said she got the bug to come back on that very trip. Do you think that’s possible? That our path in life can be set that early?”

  “I think that’s possible. I’ve probably always known what I wanted to do and where I would live.”

  Tommy flipped to more recent photos. A distinctly horse-toothed woman emerged, dynamite body, abundant auburn hair but an overbite that kept her from being really attractive.

  “She was going to be a dancer.” Rose settled in an overstuffed arm chair.

  That explains the first twenty odd pages of Edwina with stiff little net circles around her waist, Tommy thought.

  “It was her aunt who encouraged her to go to college, loaned her the money, even.”

  “Was this something that you and Mr. Rosenberg supported?”

  “Oh, Mr. Rosenberg had been long gone by then. He left when Edwina was three. He was in sales. Not an easy life, lots of travel. Men can’t resist temptation when they’re away from home.” Rose dabbed at her eyes. “It’s been just us girls for some thirty-seven years.”