The Vanishing Point

by Judith Van GIeson

  “Did you ever come across a vet named Lou Bastiann in your investigation?”

  “The Lou who is mentioned in the journal?”

  “Yes.”

  Nick spun his chair. “I don’t remember him, but it’s been a long time. I’d have to check my notes to be sure.”

  “Would you do that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I had an index of everybody I talked to. Let me see if I can find it.”

  While he went to the back room to look, Claire examined the photos on his shelf. There was one of a young Nick with a crew cut wearing a police uniform. There were several of him at various stages of his life with different women. It depressed Claire that Nick, who remained short-legged and barrel-chested, kept showing up with younger women. One photograph that interested her was of a man in bell bottoms with an unruly brown Afro as wide as the bottom of his pants. Would the hippie getup be considered shallow cover, she wondered, or deep? When Nick returned, she was holding that photo in her hand.

  He laughed. “I was doing some surveillance in the sixties and went undercover as a hippie. Hard to believe I ever had that much hair, isn’t it?”

  “Were you ever a cop?” she asked.

  “Yup. Five years with the APD. That’s me in the uniform.”

  “The demonstration where you saw Jennie Dell—do you remember what band was playing?”

  “It was a local band. I knew the drummer. They broke up soon after that demonstration. What was their name? The Margaritas—something like that.”

  “I was there,” Claire said. “I was visiting a friend of mine at UNM. Who was it exactly that you were surveilling?”

  “I was following Jennie around to see if she would lead me to Jonathan.”

  “That demonstration took place in the summer of ’66 before Jonathan disappeared. He participated in it. He sat on the podium with Jennie, and he spoke.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It’s right. I remember it well.”

  Nick was behind his desk again, spinning the back of his chair. Claire had him red-handed, and she hoped he would see that denial would be useless. He might even think it would be pointless, since the event in question had taken place over thirty years ago and would be remembered only by students who’d been in attendance. But to Claire, the archivist, what happened then would never be pointless.

  Nick threw up his hands, laughed, and said, “You got me. Ada won’t like me telling you this, but I don’t want to lie to you either. Truth is, I began tailing Jonathan from the time he got his draft notice. Ada was afraid he would split. My job was to prevent that from happening, or if I couldn’t prevent it, to find Ada’s blue-eyed boy and bring him home. He never knew I was watching him. I was real careful.”

  Claire wondered whether the hippie clothes had provided any cover. There were people in the sixties who believed that once a cop, always a cop, and claimed they could spot one miles away. “If he didn’t know he was being watched, then why hide out in a place as remote as Slickrock Canyon?” she asked.

  “He liked remote places.”

  “Did you follow him there?” If he admitted it, the next question would be were you the hippie Sam Ogelthorpe saw?

  Nick caught the spinning chair, held it in place, looked Claire right in the eye, and said, “Nope. Jonathan eluded me. I didn’t go to Slickrock until after he disappeared.”

  But Claire was talking to a man who’d spent years concealing himself and his purpose. She shouldn’t be surprised if he had learned to face people when he lied to them or to look away when he didn’t. She was ready to go, but there was still the issue of the index. She reminded him of it.

  “I couldn’t find it,” Nick said. “I must have put it in storage. I’ll track it down and let you know. All right?”

  “All right,” Claire said.

  He thanked her for her help. She thanked him for his. She got in her truck and drove back to the library, feeling that lies were buzzing at her like mosquitoes. Claire knew that history is revisionist. Other than dates and documents, there were few absolutes. The past was often a matter of perception. Even without deliberate distortion, people were capable of perceiving the same event differently. Still, when she put together all she once knew about Jonathan Vail and all she had learned, it was clear that someone was lying. The only inescapable conclusions were that he had died in the canyons, he had died somewhere else, or he hadn’t. In a way it shouldn’t matter to an archivist. What mattered was that the legend survived. Legend rarely yielded to fact, and the mystery ensured this legend’s survival. But the deeper Claire got into the mystery, the more important it became to discover the facts.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’VE BEEN MEANING TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR NOTE. “It’s been real hard to talk about Tim,” Vivian Sansevera said when she called Claire back.

  “I understand,” Claire said.

  “I’d like to meet you and visit the center. Tim spoke well of you and your work. I’m beginning to feel like getting out again. Maybe later in the week?”

  “That would be fine,” Claire replied. They arranged to meet at two on Friday. After she hung up, Claire tried to create an image of Vivian Sansevera. Her voice seemed dulled by grief, which Claire had expected. She’d been listening for an accent or phrase that would indicate whether Vivian was Anglo or Hispanic or Indian or where she was from. Her guess, from Vivian’s lack of an accent, was California. In Claire’s experience people who spoke unaccented English tended to be Californians. As to whether Vivian was Anglo or not, she couldn’t say.

  Shortly after two on Friday she received a call from the reception desk saying that Vivian Sansevera had arrived. Ruth O’Connor caught up with Claire on her way out, wanting to chat. Claire disengaged herself as soon as she was able, but by the time she got to the reception area Vivian Sansevera was not there.

  “Where did she go?” she asked the grad student who manned the desk.

  “Outside,” the student replied.

  Claire walked through the exhibition room and the lobby, went out the front door, and saw no one who seemed the right age to be Tim Sansevera’s mother. There was a distinguished-looking Hispanic woman who appeared to be waiting for someone. Her thick black hair had turned silvery in front and framed her face like wings. She was an elegant woman, but closer to the age of Tim’s grandmother than his mother. A small woman with a pale complexion and auburn hair sat on the steps smoking. She looked too young to be Tim’s mother, but everyone else Claire saw was lugging the backpack of a student. She was considering approaching the older woman, when the redhead stood up, put out her cigarette, and said, “You’re Claire?”

  “Yes. Vivian?”

  “1 am.” She took Claire’s hand. Vivian wore a flowered dress and a pink cardigan sweater. She was a pretty woman, small as a child, who immediately evoked the impulse to shelter and protect. Her porcelain skin was a perfect complement to her auburn hair, which to Claire’s experienced eye did not appear dyed. She had the fair skin that comes from the damp, gray climate of the British Isles. Claire tried to keep her disappointment in check. If this woman and Jonathan Vail had produced a son, he might have looked like Tim, but it was unlikely that his surname would be Sansevera. That Tim was Jonathan’s son was a fantasy she shouldn’t have entertained. If only it were true, however, this pleasant-looking woman might have some claim to the notebook, instead of the intractable Ada Vail.

  “Now please don’t tell me I look too young to be Tim’s mother,” Vivian said. “I’m forty-six. I was sixteen when he was born.”

  “Now I know where Tim got his red hair,” Claire said.

  “He got it from me,” Vivian agreed. “But in many ways he took after his father. Tim had my eyes, too, which means his father had to have green eyes somewhere in the family tree. Would you mind if we sat out here and talked? It’s too nice to go in.”

  Claire suspected that Vivian wanted to stay outside so she could smoke. In her mind the woman was showing a reckless disre
gard for her beauty and her health. Nevertheless, Claire said, “I don’t mind,” and led Vivian around the corner to a shady bench.

  When they sat down, Vivian pulled a cigarette out of a pack and lit up again. “It’s hard for me to come here,” she said. “Tim loved this place. He walked me through the library once, pointing out the architectural features that make it unique.” Her pale eyes filled with tears. To Claire, grief was a deep pool and Vivian was swimming through the depths, struggling for air. No advantage in life could compensate a mother for the loss of a child. To a parent it was absolutely the worst thing that could ever happen.

  “I’m so sorry,” Claire said, touching her hand.

  “Give me a minute,” Vivian said. “I’ll be all right.” She looked away and smoked silently. When she finished the cigarette, she tried again. “I get some relief from knowing that Tim was doing the work he loved.”

  “Coming across Jonathan Vail’s journal in Sin Nombre Canyon was an incredible discovery. Tim’s name will always be connected with it.”

  “Jonathan was his hero.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Part of it was the writing. Tim’s dream was to be a writer.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Claire said.

  “He was a good writer, I think, but Joe, his father, didn’t approve. Joe grew up poor in L.A. He was the first person in his family to get a degree. After he graduated from UCLA, he went to work for the federal government, and he’s still there, in the Social Security Administration now. In Joe’s family, no matter how much you hate the job, you stick it out for the pension. Finally you retire, get the pension, and in a few years you’re dead. You don’t go off into the wilderness, take risks, write novels. The reason Tim was in the Ph.D. program was because of his dad. His dad did approve of getting a Ph.-fucking-D. Joe’s one wild moment was me. We met in high school, attracted by our differences, I guess. I got pregnant. In those days, when that happened you got married.”

  “Are you still married?” Claire asked.

  “No. It didn’t work out. I was too wild for Joe. We got divorced. Joe married a Hispanic woman his family approved of and had three kids. I moved to New Mexico with Tim. In his own way Joe has been a good dad, a lot stricter than me, but maybe Tim needed that.”

  “You kept Joe’s name?”

  “I did. It seemed easier when you’re raising a kid to have the same name.”

  “Some people here have a fantasy that Tim was Jonathan Vail’s son and he may have found the notebook in a family closet or garage. For years the rumors have persisted that Jonathan left an heir.”

  “If he did, it wasn’t Tim,” Vivian said. “Joe is Tim’s dad. We were high school sweethearts when Jonathan Vail camped out in Slickrock Canyon. Joe came for the funeral. And today I didn’t feel up to driving yet, so he brought me over here. He’s coming back to pick me up. He’d like to meet you and see the notebook.”

  “Of course,” Claire replied.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that Tim found the notebook in Sin Nombre Canyon. After he gave it to you, he came over to my house and told me all about it. He was so excited about the find and was looking forward to going back for the duffel bag. He was sorry he wasn’t able to bring it out; he really thought it would solve the mystery of Jonathan Vail.” Vivian looked at Claire with hope in her eyes that solving the mystery of Jonathan might solve the mystery of her son. “Did it?”

  “We didn’t find the duffel bag. It wasn’t in the cave that Curt Devereux and I explored. It’s possible we went to the wrong cave, though. The rangers are searching.”

  “Tim told me it was to the west of the half-moon petroglyph just beyond the rock slide. He said Jonathan’s initials were carved in the wall.”

  “That’s where we went,” Claire replied. “But the duffel bag wasn’t there.”

  “Oh, God,” Vivian said. Her hands trembled as she struggled to extricate another cigarette from the pack. “I’m afraid that something truly horrible happened to my son.”

  The only thing that could be more awful than death by accident would be death by intent, Claire thought.

  “The ranger mentioned suicide, but Tim wouldn’t have committed suicide under any circumstances, and certainly not when things were going so well.” Vivian set down the pack of cigarettes and put her hand over Claire’s. It resembled being clutched by the claw of a bird. “Did you see him?” Vivian asked.

  “Yes,” Claire admitted. “He was lying on the rocks when I got there. I said a prayer for him and closed his eyes.”

  “The ranger said he fell five hundred feet, most likely from the ledge outside the cave. Did it look to you like he fell, or was he…” As she struggled with the word, her hand dug deeper into Claire’s. “Pushed?”

  “I think the rangers would be far more qualified to establish that than I would.”

  “No,” Vivian insisted. “No, they wouldn’t. You knew Tim, and they didn’t. You know—like I know—that if Tim said there was a duffel bag in the cave that had information about Jonathan Vail’s disappearance, then it was there. Tim didn’t fabricate. I think what happened was Tim found something in that bag. Someone didn’t like what he found and pushed him over the ledge.”

  “Did Tim say anything to you about meeting anyone in the canyon?”

  “He told me he was meeting you and Curt Devereux.”

  “Did he say when?”

  “Just that it would be on the weekend. The rangers have only the physical evidence to go on, but you know the story of Jonathan Vail. You know who would have the motive to do something like this.”

  Claire’s hand felt like a small animal in the grip of a fierce hawk. “I wish I did know,” Claire said softly, “but I don’t.”

  “Then find out for me, please,” Vivian said, suddenly releasing Claire’s hand. While Claire flexed it to see if it still functioned, Vivian buried her pack of cigarettes in her purse. “Here comes Joe,” she whispered. “He hates it when I smoke.”

  It depressed Claire that years after a divorce, a woman would still care what her ex-husband thought. Joe walked up to the bench, and Vivian introduced them. He was a small, neat man with short black hair and tense eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Right away he struck Claire as a man one wouldn’t want to cross. Vivian began to flutter in his presence, fiddling with a ruffle on her dress as she introduced Claire.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Joe said, shaking Claire’s hand. Although his expression was frigid, his manners were impeccable.

  “Nice to meet you,” Claire said.

  “My son spoke often of his work here. He loved this place, and now I can see why. It is a magnificent building.”

  “I’d be happy to show it to you,” Claire said.

  “I’d like that,” Joe replied.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Vivian said. “I’ve already seen the building.”

  As they turned their backs to Vivian and walked toward the center, Claire was sure she was reaching into her purse for the pack of cigarettes. Sometimes she thought smokers were more attached to the ritual of smoking—opening the pack, taking out the cigarette, lighting it, and extinguishing the match—than they were to the smoking itself. It had to be comforting in times of stress.

  As she walked Joe through the center, pointing out the high ceilings and the rows of corbels and vigas, he showed restrained admiration. When they got to the unfortunate murals that depicted white people with facial features and professional jobs and brown people with blank faces and menial jobs, he gave a short laugh. He stopped Claire before they went through the center’s wrought-iron door and asked if they could talk for a minute. They sat down on the leather cushions of the Mission-style chairs.

  Joe paused before he spoke. He was a reserved and proud man, and Claire could see that what he was about to reveal was hard for him. “My ex-wife likes drama. She wants to believe that Tim was murdered,” he began. “Perhaps it makes it easier for her to accept his death. There’s passion in mu
rder. An accidental death is so meaningless. I imagine she has talked to you about this.”

  “She has.”

  “This is ridiculous, of course. I would be grateful if you would pay no attention to her. I can think of no reason why anyone would want to murder Tim.”

  Claire could think of reasons. She could also understand why Vivian would want to believe Tim was murdered and Joe would not. In Joe’s eyes, a murder might turn Tim into an unfortunate or an outlaw, and he would prefer to remember his son as a success. Claire evaded the issue by saying, “Tim did excellent work here. You should be very proud of him.”

  A light came on in Joe’s sad eyes. “I was,” he said. “Very proud.”

  “Would you like to see the journal Tim found?”

  “I would.”

  “I’ll get Vivian,” Claire said, leaving Joe alone for a minute while she went outside. When she and Vivian returned, she walked the two of them down the hallway, imagining how horrible it would be if she and Evan ever had to reunite around the death of a child. She got the briefcase from the safe and let Vivian and Joe look at it with white-gloved fingers in her office. Vivian read through the journal, seemingly enthralled by every word. Joe appeared bothered by the dirtiness of the briefcase and uninterested in the content of the journal. His repeated glances at his watch only increased Vivian’s interest.

  “Really, Vivian,” he said finally. “We shouldn’t take any more of Claire’s time.”

  “Don’t rush me,” she snapped. “You’re always rushing me.”

  “I am not always rushing you. We haven’t even been married for twenty-five years.”