The Pumpkin Seed Massacre

by Susan Slater

  “Are you looking for someone?” The receptionist paused, answered another line, talked a moment and looked back at him. “Another one of those stupid giveaways. Do you believe that people burn up the phone lines to try to win a calendar with our weatherman’s picture on it?”

  “Is Julie Conlin here?”

  “I haven’t seen her. I start at six, and she wasn’t here then. Looks like she signed out at three-thirty.” She pointed at the schedule board on the wall. Under destination it said ‘interview’; time back had a question mark.

  “Can I help you?”

  Ben turned to face a middle aged man in t-shirt, jeans and a fleece-lined leather jacket. Bob Crenshaw. It must be.

  “I’m Ben Pecos. I’m here to meet Julie Conlin.”

  “Julie was here about six.” The man was brusque.

  “I didn’t see her, Mr. Crenshaw,” the receptionist interrupted. Ben saw a jaw muscle twitch in front of the man’s ear. Edgy, Ben thought, but why?

  “Of course you didn’t. I saw her downstairs. She was leaving her car. Said she was meeting a friend for dinner. I assumed this person was picking her up in front.” A thin forced smile, anything but friendly.

  “Thanks. I’m sorry I missed her.” Ben kept his voice even.

  “Wanna leave a message?” The receptionist held up a pencil and note pad.

  Bob had slouched against the counter and was watching him. Making certain he left? Ben couldn’t tell but didn’t get a good feeling. Something Julie’s neighbor had said ... a white van, she had assumed it was from the station, had been parked in the drive, left when the Miata pulled out. There was a white van next to the Miata downstairs.

  “No. I’ll run by her house.”

  Actually, I’ll run as far as the parking lot, get in the truck, park on a side street and wait for Bob Crenshaw to leave, Ben thought. He has a jacket on; he must have been on his way out. Following him might be my only chance.

  Bob Crenshaw had lied. If Julie had been in the parking lot downstairs, she hadn’t driven her car there. And she didn’t tell Bob she was meeting someone for dinner—not when that someone was waiting at her townhouse across town. Put that together with the neighbor’s information, and it looked a little suspect for the boss. Ben would swear that Bob Crenshaw knew a whole lot more than he was letting on.

  FIFTEEN

  Lorenzo won the argument. But not before he grabbed the poncho to him and held it tight, sticking his arms out of the sleeve slits and locking them across his chest. His granddaughter wanted to take it off. Take off the poncho and his shirt and underthings. A basin of warm water, a washcloth and bar of soap sat on the edge of the dresser. She pulled; he pulled. Exasperated, she left him, yelling over her shoulder that he needed to wear a clean shirt and underwear. He needed to use the bar of soap and washcloth. What would the doctor think? That she couldn’t take care of her own grandfather. That’s what. Then the nurses would see. They would see the holes and the gray stains under the arms. She would be humiliated. She’d never take him anywhere again. He could just get his flu shot at the clinic and not have a physical by the nice doctor at the Albuquerque hospital ever again.

  Lorenzo waited until she had stomped from the room. He marveled that sometimes his hearing was crystal clear when it was something he didn’t want to hear. But maybe he had just heard it all before, knew what she always said when she brought a pan of water into his room and a bar of soap.

  He knew that they would go for a car ride. A long one. The same one that they took every year when the sky turned a watery blue and the clouds thinned to strips that stretched above the horizon. He had watched two crows swoop down to pick the corn fields this morning. The great black birds of winter were back.

  One had called to him before it flew toward the mountains. Did it want him to follow? He should go to the mountain. He had made a promise to the spirits this summer. He would visit one of the four sacred mountains of his people. Oku pin, Turtle Mountain, loomed over Albuquerque. Maybe this trip was meant to be. Yes. The spirits were showing him the way. Showing him the way to come to them in prayer and homage.

  Lorenzo knelt by the corner of his bed and reached into his hidey hole. He had found three shiny quarters in the pay phone at the community center and he pulled them out, then two bottle caps, a piece of green glass, and two feathers from the tail of a hawk. He would offer a present to the spirits at the earth navel on Oku pin.

  He peeked out the window. His granddaughter put the heels of her hands onto the middle of the car’s steering wheel and pressed forward, all the time looking expectantly at the house. She was mad. He looked around his room. Did he have everything for his journey? A blanket. Oku pin was cold. One time as a young boy, he had run from his home to the base of the mountain and then up to the top. He almost froze and had to dance to keep warm.

  His granddaughter slid from beneath the steering wheel and opened the back door of the car when she saw him in the doorway. Lorenzo got in and clutched the blanket thinking she might try to take that, too. But she didn’t pay attention to what he was wearing. She just snapped the buttons down on all the doors and got back behind the wheel.

  Lorenzo watched Oku pin get bigger and bigger as they got closer to the city. High, high up, white patches clung to the rocks. He would climb as high as the snow tonight and sleep among the trees that smelled of freshness and stayed green under their white blanket.

  He tried to blink as fast as the telephone poles were whizzing past, but it made him feel sick. He pressed his face to the cool window and searched the side of the road for something shiny, but everything moved too quickly. Riding in cars always made him sleepy, so he pulled the hood of the poncho up, pushed his head to the back and closed his eyes. It startled him when his granddaughter reached around from the front seat to pull the button up on his door. Then she stepped out, smoothed her dress in place and opened the door for Lorenzo. They were at the hospital.

  He stopped to draw the tip of his cane through some oil on the parking lot but his granddaughter tugged on his arm. She always seemed to be in a hurry. They would only sit upstairs. They always had to wait.

  And he would wait until the time was right to continue his journey to Oku pin.

  He balked at the elevator, then stepped inside when he saw the blinking lights. When the floor fell away and his knees struggled to push him upright again, he laughed and pounded the floor with his cane.

  “He likes elevators.” Lorenzo watched his granddaughter say something to a man who stood in the swaying box with them. Then the doors opened onto a room of chairs and people. Lorenzo wrapped his blanket tighter around him. His granddaughter walked to a desk and spoke to someone sitting behind it, then steered him toward two chairs by the window.

  “Oku pin,” he said and pointed at the Sandias.

  His granddaughter looked at him in surprise and then nodded as she leaned close. “I’m going to the restroom. You stay right here. Don’t move.”

  Lorenzo watched her go, then picked up his cane, waved to the young woman behind the desk and shuffled toward the elevators.

  There was no one inside the box when the doors flew open. He stepped across the crack in the floor, and missed being squashed as they flashed together behind him. Then just as suddenly, after barely a jiggle, they opened again and Lorenzo saw the dry brown lawn out in front of the hospital. Before he got out, he pushed all the buttons clustered together along the side panel and stared as a light came on behind each. Then he stepped forward and walked slowly out the front door into the sunlight. At last, he was free to visit Oku pin.

  He walked to the corner of Lomas and Girard and paused to stare at the mountain. A group of people crowded around him. Young people with books. A girl smiled at him. She took his arm when the giant car with windows everywhere jolted to a stop in front of him. She helped him up the steps. He watched as she offered coins to the man behind a great wheel.

  Lorenzo dug into his pocket and pulled out two shiny coins and a bottle
cap and held them out. The driver looked at him closely.

  “Where are you going?”

  The man had asked him something. Lorenzo wasn’t sure but pointed out the huge front windows at the mountains.

  “Oku pin.”

  “What’d he say?” The bus driver turned to the girl.

  “I don’t know. But I think he wants to go to the mountains.”

  The bus driver looked back to Lorenzo then carefully took the bottle cap and folded Lorenzo’s fingers back over the two shiny quarters.

  “There you go, pops. Move it along.”

  The girl motioned for him to follow her and pointed to a seat by the window. She sat across from him but got off after three stops. She smiled and waved to him from the ground and Lorenzo watched her become smaller and smaller as the bus pulled away.

  Lorenzo was excited. The spirits would be happy to see him. He would rest with them, maybe have something to eat. He watched the driver eat a sandwich, his reflection clear in the moon-large mirror above his head. Lorenzo looked away when the driver’s eyes stared back at him. At the next stop, the driver walked back and gave him half of his sandwich.

  The bus stopped many times but the mountain got bigger and bigger. Finally, the bus stopped and the driver said something to him. He waited. The driver walked back and squatted down and pointed at the mountains through the window. Lorenzo nodded and let the man help him down the aisle and out the door. When the bus left, Lorenzo stood a moment before he stepped onto the pavement, crossed the street and continued out onto the open mesa.

  The sun would be setting behind him soon. Already, Oku pin was red-purple with streaks of rose across the top. He didn’t feel the harshness of the sandy desert floor, his moccasins tied close at his ankles kept pebbles from pushing between his toes. Once a branching clump of cholla caught at his outer blanket but he continued, a piece of the stickery cactus swinging along beside him.

  This night was glorious. Lorenzo paused to watch a jackrabbit leap and twist, running from a neighborhood dog. Finally, it stopped to wash its ears knowing that the dog, long spent, was ambling back to civilization. He was higher than the street now and could see car lights rush past one another in the approaching darkness. But he was not alone. The night slipped around him like yet another blanket and the moon rose, full and golden, to turn the green-brown of the desert into a silver filigree of shadows.

  + + +

  “Gloria, calm down. How can a ninety-six year old man be caught in an elevator between the first and second floors?” Sandy followed Gloria up the stairs and the two of them joined a small group of onlookers in front of the elevator doors.

  “Where’s maintenance?”

  “In here, Doc.” The muffled voice came from the shaft. Sandy stepped up to converse without yelling.

  “What happened?”

  “An electrical failure. Probably a short. Someone jammed the circuit board.”

  “Are we to believe that Lorenzo Loretto is in there?”

  “It was the last time anyone saw him. Getting on the elevator. I’ve looked everywhere. He’s got to be trapped in there.” At this, Lorenzo’s granddaughter began sobbing loudly.

  “Gloria ...” Sandy started to ask her to stay with the woman, but Gloria was already at her side with a box of Kleenex.

  “Can you see if anyone is inside?” Sandy asked.

  “Not yet. Still working on getting this plate off the top.”

  “How long has he been in there?” Sandy asked.

  “Over forty-five minutes now, maybe closer to an hour.”

  “He should be okay. Air supply is fine.” But Sandy knew that he wasn’t being very reassuring.

  “What if he’s had a stroke?” Now, the granddaughter’s imagination had kicked in, Sandy thought.

  “Let’s not speculate until we can see for ourselves. It should be just a few more minutes.” Sandy hoped he was right.

  “Why don’t you take Ms. Loretto down to the lounge, Gloria? I’m sure a soft drink or a cup of coffee might taste good about now.”

  “How can you suggest such a thing? How can I leave my grandfather?” Fresh wailing. This time, Gloria gave him a disapproving look.

  The crowd was about four people deep. Sandy noted a couple hospital gowns among the watchers. A ninety-six year old man gets stuck in an elevator, and it becomes a bed-emptying experience. Sandy wished everyone would just calm down and stop blocking the hall.

  “Any progress?” Sandy stepped back to the elevator’s closed doors.

  “It’s still going to be another fifteen or twenty minutes. The electrical is a mess. Do you want me to continue to try to get into the box itself? That plate just doesn’t want to budge.”

  Sandy counted to ten. What had the man been doing? Of course, he needed to try to reach Lorenzo. Sandy even found himself beginning to feel pressured. Surely, the old man should be yelling by now. What if he was in need of medical help? What if he’d had a stroke?

  “Dr. Black. Telephone. I transferred the call to your office. They’re holding on three.” Sandy thanked the receptionist and went back upstairs.

  “Black, here.”

  “Are you the one in charge of the Indian hospital?”

  “Yes. How can I help you?”

  “Well, this may not be anything, but the more I thought about it, the more worried I got. So, when I got home, my wife thought I should call to make sure everything was all right with the old man.”

  “I’m not following you. Who did you say you were?”

  “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. John Romero. I drive a city bus. I picked up an old man at the corner of Lomas and Girard. One of your people. Real nice old guy, but I don’t think he spoke any English. Anyway, he wanted to go to the mountains. It was my last run before coming in.”

  “When was this?”

  “About four-thirty.”

  Sandy checked his watch. An hour and ten minutes ago. It was already beginning to get dark.

  “Where did you let the man off?”

  “As I said, he wanted to go to the mountains. He rode until the last stop, above Tramway at Menaul.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “Just took off across the street and into the foothills. I guess that’s when I sorta thought something might be wrong.”

  “Could you describe this man?” Better be on the safe side, Sandy thought, but he knew it was Lorenzo.

  “Real old. There wasn’t any skin that didn’t have a pucker in it, if you know what I mean. Wore a blanket over something that looked like another blanket. Seemed to be bundled up real good.”

  That’s a relief, Sandy thought. At least, they wouldn’t be treating hypothermia when they found him. If they found him soon enough. It was even more likely that they wouldn’t find him at all. Every year someone got lost hiking in the mountains. There weren’t always happy endings. Sometimes the mountain only gave up its secrets after a spring thaw.

  Sandy thanked the man, got his name and address then tried to gather his thoughts before he called the police. No doubt they would organize a search party and comb the area, but what chance was there that a ninety-six year old man could survive for long in the cold? Blankets or no blankets.

  Sandy didn’t relish having to tell his granddaughter that instead of being inside the elevator, her grandfather was cavorting among the foothills of the Sandias. But he couldn’t help grinning. The sly old fox had given her the slip. Ninety-six and wily. He should be in such good shape at ninety-six. Sandy grabbed his coat. After he called the police and told the group upstairs, he’d head out to Menaul and Tramway. Maybe he could be of some help.

  + + +

  “Was she any trouble?” Bob Crenshaw glanced in the back of the van. There was no movement under the khaki-green tarp. “I see you had to cover her.”

  “Yeah. She got smart. Tried to attract attention. I thought I might have to ice that guy who came snooping around a few minutes ago.”

  “Yeah. Close. He was asking for he
r upstairs. He might have suspected something. Hard to say. I think I got rid of him. I just don’t want her killed here. Plenty of time when we get to the mesa. We just needed to wait until after dark.”

  “How come the mesa?”

  “There’s a body a month uncovered out there. This will just be one more.”

  Bob Crenshaw backed the van out of the parking space next to the red Miata and goosed it a little going up the ramp. Piece of cake. He could trust his biker buddy, who owed him one anyway, to take the fifty thousand and disappear. Go back to southern California and keep his mouth shut. It was time. Time to get rid of Miss Anchor Material and get on with the casino.

  Traffic was light. For once, I-25 was accident free. He moved the van through the Big-I interchange and continued north keeping an eye out for Paseo Del Norte. Bob would take Paseo east, past Tramway, parking the unmarked van beyond the residential area in the rolling foothills of the Sandias. There wouldn’t be any joggers at eight o’clock in the evening. He had thought of everything. Using the maintenance van, white, no distinguishing marks, not taking the message tape out of her machine so that anyone who heard it would think she’d run; it was vaguely disturbing that it sounded like Douglas Anderson—maybe he should have taken it. No, instinct told him he was okay. He had worked late, then ate dinner at home with a friend. A sack of Powdrell’s barbecue behind his seat filled the cab with the heavy scent of hickory and spiced tomato sauce and attested to an iron-clad alibi.

  He slowed the van and drove quietly through the pricey neighborhood of rambling adobes, two story Mediterraneans and a few ranch style homes. All was quiet. He continued on the dirt road that bordered the Elena Gallegos Land Grant. Open space. Miles of it stretched before him at the base of the mountain.

  He pulled off the road, went up and over a sandy ridge, finally cutting the engine when he was in a gully and couldn’t be seen.