Detective Romero liked to wander around and look at the traditional handcrafts, retablos, Santos and tinwork offered for sale by regional artists. His sister Maria was a regular participant in the market. Last year she gave him a small carved angel whose dress was decorated with flowers. She said it would bring him a new romantic interest. Romero thought the angel was falling down on the job so far.
In late August came the final event: Indian Market, which attracted a huge crowd. Over a hundred thousand people swarmed over every square inch of the downtown plaza. Most locals stayed home and waited for the Fiestas in early September.
Sauntering up Canyon Road, Romero was amazed how little it had changed over the years. Canyon Road remained a tourist draw, although its eateries and galleries regularly changed names and management. The last time he had been on this street was Christmas Eve. He could still remember walking up Acequia Madre Road, circling around to Canyon Road and seeing the whole area ablaze with lights. Hundreds of walls and rooftops were lined with small paper bags filled with sand called farolitos. The candle inside was lit just as darkness set in and burned for about twelve hours. Local citizens and tourists alike braved the sometimes sub-zero temperatures and foot-high snow to trek through the area for a taste of a Santa Fe Christmas straight out of a travel magazine article. Every couple of hundred feet, the warmth from blazing bonfires gathered small crowds around them. Even then Romero felt the loneliness. He missed his parents and the interaction Spanish families enjoyed. All he had was memories.
For a city of its size, Santa Fe was still a small town. Discovery of Anna Mali’s body fueled rumors of the presence of a serial killer in the area. All three Albuquerque television channels kept vans parked outside the County Detention Center waiting for the Sheriff to explain what progress his office was making. He was going to have to come up with something they could chew on pretty quick, but for now, all he said was, “No comment.”
Romero came to a newspaper stand and fumbled in his pocket for coins. A headline story reported: “Several weeks back, well-known resident Tim McCabe was shot while excavating at the San Lazaro Indian ruins south of Santa Fe. Police are still investigating whether the shooting was deliberate or if he was hit by a stray bullet.”
On page five, a story in the same newspaper said: “Relatives called police to say a young woman was reported missing after she failed to show up at work and left her dog with the groomer. Police say there is no connection with the disappearance of a woman reported the previous week.”
That’s how the paper reported it. Young girls came and went around here. They quit their jobs, moved in with boyfriends without telling anyone, and eventually returned home.
Chapter 21
Detectives Romero and Chacon met with the Missing Persons Task Force in the rectangular room at the Sheriff’s Offices next to the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center. Arthur Chacon was in his mid-forties and had worked his way up the ladder to Chief of the Forensic Unit. He was dressed in a neatly pressed white shirt, tie and dark slacks, the standard uniform of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s detective squad. The tips of his thin handlebar moustache were even with his earlobes. He had an avowed penchant for Tootsie Rolls.
Chacon handed out copies of all the information they had amassed, which wasn’t much. A few sex offenders were on one list, along with a couple of recently paroled inmates. There were statements from family, friends and coworkers of the missing women. Nothing of substance, nothing suspicious.
Most of the women were young, enjoyed drinking and dancing, seemed family-oriented and were gainfully employed. DNA samples from relatives were taken and sent to the lab in case there was a Jane Doe stored on a cold slab in a morgue somewhere. Photos of the missing women were included in the packet.
Missing persons bulletins with photos attached that had been sent around to Albuquerque, Las Cruces and the Four Corners area had produced no leads ... although Chacon’s office had received a tip about Charlie Cooper being seen with several of the missing women at a bar in Madrid in the past six months. He knew Charlie as a druggie who spent his time high on weed, so he was skeptical that the man was capable of any criminal act other than petty theft. Besides, of the losers who hung around the town of Cerrillos, Charlie was the only one with a job. Being a womanizer didn’t necessarily make him a suspect.
Romero had walked the perimeter of the pueblo looking for spent shell casings and reported there were none. Until ballistics had been completed on the bullet removed from McCabe’s shoulder, they wouldn’t know the caliber of the weapon used. He wouldn’t be surprised if Charlie wasn’t the shooter. He figured Charlie was a crack shot, and if he wanted McCabe dead for any reason, he would be dead. Jemimah Hodge had reviewed the case. He wondered if she had come up with anything. He dialed her number. She picked up on the first ring, before he had a chance to figure out if he was calling her to talk about the case or if he just wanted to hear her voice.
“Yes, hello Rick. I saw your number on Caller ID. What do you need? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Jem, I’m at the Indian Ruins and since it’s not too far from your place, I thought maybe you could drive over.”
“Have you discovered something I should know about?”
“No, I just wanted to compare notes. See if maybe we can shed a little light on the case. I’d like to close it up at some point.”
“I don’t think that a good idea right now.”
“Hey, you didn’t think this was personal, did you? It’s business.”
“I’m working on a case that needs my full attention. I can stop by your office in the morning and we can discuss it then.”
“Does that case you’re working on happen to have a State Policeman attached to it?”
“Go to hell,” she snapped. There was a lull at the other end, and she added, “Look, I’ve been wanting to go out to the ruins myself. Probably do that sometime tomorrow to take another look at the scene. I’ll get back to you if I discover anything new.” Jemimah knew she could have easily met him there. She was unsure how she would react to being that close to him.
Of course, he had to have the last word. “Okay, but it’s still considered a crime scene, so please document everything you do.” He hung up before she had a chance to respond that she wasn’t one of his rookie detectives and he didn’t have to lead her by the hand.
Chapter 22
Jemimah hoped some small clue might have been missed in the recent shootings at San Lazaro. Her job as a forensic investigator provided great latitude in her duties, and right now there weren’t too many criminals for her to profile. Besides, she needed some hands-on field experience to hone her skills. Medicine Rock was on the edge of the pueblo ruins. An enormous monolith some twenty-eight feet high, it lodged comfortably at the edge of the barbed wire fence encircling the ruins. In the center of the prehistoric site was a cave, a place where a thousand years of wind had eroded the soft shale into a haven from the elements. She sat down on an immense sandstone boulder four times the size of a basketball lodged on the floor of the Medicine Rock cave.
When she reached down to tie her shoelace, the rock shifted with her weight. When she tied the other shoe, the shifting occurred again. She stood and pushed on the rock. It moved a little to the left. Using all the strength she could muster, she rolled the rock on its side to expose a deep hole below, roughly three feet in diameter, a few inches smaller than the boulder. Jemimah unbuckled the flashlight from her belt and beamed it into the hole. A short wooden ladder against the side covered with layers of dust and cobwebs caused her to exclaim, “Lordy, Lordy! What do we have here?”
Unsure of the stability of the ladder, she stepped carefully onto the first rung, clinging to the edge of the opening. Assured it would hold her weight, she descended the remaining steps to the dirt floor. Pointing her flashlight ahead, she could see she was in a tunnel. She hadn’t used this flashlight for a long time, but it seemed to have a bright enough light. She walked a few caref
ul steps forward. For about five hundred feet, flashlight in hand, she eased her way through the tunnel, crouching down every so often in case the ceiling might decide to cave in on her head.
As she rounded a small curve, she stopped in her tracks and gasped. Up ahead, a life-sized sandstone effigy leaned against the wall, its eerie obsidian eyes staring toward her. Standing in sandy soil up to its knees, the effigy appeared to emerge from the ground below. The figure loomed ominously, prompting her to consider turning back. She couldn’t help but think it was there as a warning. Was there a sentry up ahead? A guardian of the gate? Overactive imagination, she thought to herself.
Jemimah flashed the light down to ground level as she walked. At its highest visible point, the tunnel appeared to range from seven feet down to six feet high and as much as three feet wide. She hoped it wouldn’t go any lower before she reached the end. She continued walking slowly for several hundred more feet. A musty smell, like damp earth, greeted her. Spookily quiet. The only sound was her breathing. And then, something else … A sound she recognized from her childhood living in the Utah desert reverberated through the tunnel. Rattler!
Jemimah shone the light about five feet ahead; the snake slowly raised its head, slithered to the left, and shook its rattles. There was little time to think. She shuddered as she reached for her .22 pistol. Concerned that the bullet might ricochet across the walls and hit her or alert someone else to her presence, she hesitated. It didn’t look like the snake was going anywhere. She knew that its first instinct was to escape. It would warn her, stay its ground to see what she was going to do, and then either strike or move away. Jemimah believed in desert karma, each creature having a right to live. No human being should kill them, or the act would follow them forever.
She took a deep breath and held tight to the walking stick she’d used to move debris on the floor of the tunnel. It had a V-shaped handle. She turned the stick upside-down, slid it slowly toward the snake—wondering all the while how it survived down here—and held it down by its head until she could walk by. Once beyond the snake, she breathed freely. Mission accomplished.
The flashlight began to lose its intensity and provided only weak illumination. She rifled through her backpack for batteries. Finding none, she turned around and walked back to the entrance. The snake was no longer in sight. As she emerged from the tunnel, she took a quick look around. Nothing had changed. She rolled the boulder back over the entrance and walked to her 4Runner, eager to get in touch with McCabe. Her original purpose for being there had been sidetracked, but she felt ecstatic.
Jemimah sat in her car and surveyed the landscape. She had mixed feelings about this place. It was both peaceful and unsettling. Maybe she had walked into a sacred area. Could it possibly be true that some spirits wandered freely long after their demise?
She drove home in silence as the sun gave its last peek over the Ortiz Mountains.
Chapter 23
Jemimah watched Laura McCabe’s hand brush against her husband’s arm. He put his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. She had grown to like McCabe. He was what she wished her own father had been. A shiver of misery ran through her as she recalled her own lack of paternal love.
Born in Hildale, Utah, most families that Jemimah grew up around were presided over by a husband with at least two wives. Her father was a fifth generation Mormon and had three wives, the most recent being Kathryn, about Jemimah’s own age. Kathryn had not had much choice in the matter. Her father arranged the marriage at the monthly council meeting where such unions were discussed and approved. If Jemimah was still unmarried at the age of nineteen, she would be sent on a mission with young men and women her age, required to travel to another country to spread the faith. This could last eighteen months. Jemimah did not relate to her contemporaries, brainwashed into believing it was an honor to be chosen as a bride at an early age. She was single-minded and independent and wanted a career other than housewife or traveling Evangelist. She was aware it would be futile to express her desire to leave the sect, so her options were limited. Nonetheless, she continued to explore various methods to escape her perceived Mormon destiny.
As a teenager she noticed the steamy stares Mormon men directed at young girls her age and it turned her stomach. Young women she grew up with were brainwashed to be one of many wives. There were no boyfriends, no high school crushes, no flirtatious looks, no weeding out of suitors. For the most part, their blossoming youth consisted of puberty followed by a quick, sometimes stealthy marriage. She questioned the lifestyle of the particular sect her father had chosen, but knew in the long run she had no say in parental decisions. Polygamy was not something she understood.
Jemimah had been spared the trauma of groping hands and forced sex. A childhood skin condition resulted in large portions of her face and body being covered with dry scaly patches, not only painful but more importantly in this case, unattractive. Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, following years of treatment by family doctors, she was referred to a dermatologist in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the first good thing that had ever happened to her.
The five hour trip began early in the morning. Jemimah, her birth mother, and one of the other wives climbed into the Ford station wagon. Her mother told her to take an extra change of clothes in case they had to stay overnight. Jemimah secreted two outfits in her suitcase, along with money from a savings box hidden in the top shelf of the pantry. She was certain this would be her one and only chance of escape. She refused to think about failure and what would happen if she had to return to Hildale and explain the missing money.
In Las Vegas they found the medical compound easily enough. Hannah, the other wife, dropped them off at the doctor’s office and went off to find a dry goods store to purchase bolts of cotton material. The doctor examined Jemimah and gave her a sample box of a new medicine that he said would clear up her skin within a few weeks. She and her mother returned to the waiting room to wait until the desk clerk provided them with billing and drug information. Jemimah feigned an upset stomach and claimed she had to go the women’s room, which was up another floor. Her mother intended to accompany her, but the clerk asked her to fill out insurance forms. Jemimah sighed in relief and ran up the stairs. Instead of going to the restroom, she exited through a side door, praying she would not set off the alarm system.
Outside, she ran down the steps and out into the busy street. She leaned against the exterior wall of the building, momentarily exhilarated and at the same time terrified she would not be able to pull off her escape plan. She scanned the parking lot to make sure Hannah had not yet returned to pick them up. Then she took off running. Two blocks, maybe three. She jumped on a city bus, not caring where it went. She rode for five or six blocks, asked the driver for directions, and then exited, crossed the street and took another bus to the Greyhound Bus terminal where she bought a ticket to Los Angeles.
Two hundred and fifty long miles later, she was in LA. She found her way to the women’s restroom and sliced off her waist length hair with scissors taken from the sewing basket at home. She didn’t care how she looked, as long as it changed her appearance enough so that she would not be recognized. Later that day she located a one-room efficiency apartment, and a few days later she was hired as a sandwich person in a popular deli.
At the end of two weeks, staring back at her from her bathroom mirror was a clear, clean complexion. The new prescription had worked. She had gone from a somewhat plain Jane to a beautiful young woman. Jemimah relegated her childhood to a compartment in the back of her mind and carved out her future. She figured the family had promptly ostracized her. Now, after all these years, she finally felt safe, and much too old to be of any interest to lecherous old Mormon men.
“Do you have family?” said McCabe, popping her back into the present.
“No, I don’t. Lost them a long time ago.” Jemimah pushed the rush of bitterness back.
“Well, come and visit us any time you want, dear.” Laura McCabe placed a warm
hand on hers.
“I’d like that,” said Jemimah. For the first time in her life, she felt welcome.
“Okay, Jemimah, let’s get down to brass tacks here,” McCabe said. “You said you were out at the ruins, looking around, something about a tunnel. Fill me in.”
“Yes, sir,” she smiled. “Be glad to.
Yesterday I was walking around the ruins, searching the cave area on the off chance we might have missed something that might connect with your shooting. I sat down on that big boulder in the corner to tie my shoelaces.”
“Yes, I know the one,” McCabe nodded.
“Well, when I sat down, the rock seemed to shift, so I rolled it over and found it had been covering the entrance to a tunnel down below.”
“You’re kidding me,” said McCabe.
“I think you need to see it for yourself.
There was a ladder ...”
“What kind of ladder?” McCabe could not conceal his excitement. “What was it made of?”
“The ladder? It was wood, much like those Coyote ladders you see outside the trading posts on the highway. Only much older. I only went in a little ways. I thought I’d better get back and give you a call, it being your property and all.
I’d love to go back there with you and look around. Probably has nothing to do with your case but I’m intrigued.”
“Heck, it’s too late tonight. How about tomorrow, if you like? I know I won’t sleep a wink. I’d darn sure like to see what you’re describing. How about I meet you there early tomorrow morning, preferably at the crack of dawn?”
“Maybe she’s not an early riser,” laughed Laura.
“No, no. That’s perfect. I get up early to feed Mandy—my appaloosa. I’ll be there. And on another note, I was wondering if I might impose on you to help me out. Not just with your case. You may be able to give me some insight into missing person reports filed within the last six months.”
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