“But why would she hate gambling enough to start killing people associated with it? Had her husband squandered the family fortune at the tables? Was she an escapee from a prison for the criminally insane? What do we know about her?”
I asked Fletcher what the State Police had found out about Agatha Cruz.
“They checked NCIC. I guess everyone knows these days because of television that NCIC is the National Crime Information Center. There was no record of anyone with that name. They checked the driving license records for all fifty states and U.S. possessions, and no one with that name has either a drivers license or a state-issued ID. They checked with Social Security, and no one with that name has a Social Security card.”
“She must have been using an alias,” observed Figg.
“Obviously,” I said. “What name did you know her by, Mr. Carrasco?”
“She told me she was Agatha Cruz. I had no reason to doubt her.”
“And where did you meet her?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, you said you talked to her last week when she told you she’d pay you five hundred dollars to let her invite some friends to the Ranch. Where did that conversation take place?”
“I ran into her at a bar.”
“And you told her about Don wanting you to take his place? Why would you do that?”
“I guess it just sort of came up in the conversation. You know how it is when you’re just making small talk.”
“You knew her well enough to agree to her proposal?”
“I hardly knew her at all, man. But I know five hundred dollars when I see it.”
“I don’t doubt you do. But I think the amount of money you received for pretending to be Don Canon was a great deal more than five hundred dollars. Because no one would agree to be an accessory to murder for a paltry five hundred dollars.”
“I already told you I feel bad, but I didn’t know she was gonna murder anyone, so I’m not an accessory.”
“I’ll leave that detail to the District Attorney. Detective Fletcher, did the State Police find any trace of Agatha Cruz?”
“She didn’t jump off that cliff, if that’s what you’re asking. There was nothing down there.”
I just stood there looking over the heads of the crowd and waiting.
“Wait a minute,” said Glover. “We circled the whole building after we found Glain dead and her window open, and the only fresh tracks were the ones between the window and the cliff.”
“Right,” I said, “and I made the ridiculous suggestion that she might have rappelled down the cliff.”
“That was ridiculous,” said Susannah, rather gratuitously, I thought.
“And I made the suggestion,” said Glover, “that someone might have climbed up the cliff and gone into the room, killed Glain, and carried Cruz back down the cliff. I guess that’s a pretty ridiculous suggestion, too.” He looked at me. “But it happened some other way didn’t it?”
“It did. The person who killed Glain left through the window, walked out to the cliff, then walked back to the window and climbed back into the room. That’s why the only tracks were between the window and the cliff. In the soft snow, we couldn’t determine which way a print was facing. We just saw mashed down spots more or less the size of a foot.”
“It is a locked room mystery!” shouted Susannah, and everyone turned to her with puzzled looks. “You know,” she said, “when the dead person is found alone in a room and you have to figure out how she was killed. Carla Glain’s room was locked. We all heard the bolt slide into place.”
“That’s right,” said Glover, “I had to break down the door.”
“Exactly,” said Susannah. “So she was killed while she was locked in a room, and the only other person in the room left through the window but came back in and... wait a minute, Hubie. The only other person in the room that night was Agatha Cruz, and she wasn’t in there when Howard broke down the door.”
“Actually, she was. You remember when it started raining that night? I didn’t know whether it was rain, snow, or sleet?”
“Yeah, you had to open the window and stick your hand way out to see which it was.”
“Right. When we broke into Glain’s room, we saw Agatha’s blue robe and pink slippers under the open window.”
“And?”
“And they were soaking wet and the floor around them had standing water. But the rain didn’t cause that. It was a gentle rain falling straight down, and the windows are protected by deep eaves. That’s why I had to reach way out to see what was falling. So the only way the floor below the window could be wet was from the water that came out of the robe and slippers. And the only way the robe and slippers could be that waterlogged would be if someone wore them out into the rain and then came back.”
“But then where did she go? Where was she?”
“She must have been hiding under the bed,” I answered. “She walked out to the cliff in the robe and slippers to make us think she had jumped. Then she retraced her steps and climbed back in through the window. Then she took off the robe and slippers and left them on the floor. Her bare feet were dry or maybe she ran a dry handkerchief over them just to be sure, but she left no track as she walked over to the bed and slipped underneath it.”
“But we never saw her again,” said Saunders. “Are you telling us she stayed under the bed all day until the police came and questioned us and everyone went home?”
“Even that wouldn’t work,” said Glover. “The police searched the room thoroughly. They must have looked under the bed, in the closet, and everywhere else.”
“I’m sure they did,” I said, “but she had been out of the room for hours by that time. She left as soon as all of us went back to the main room.”
“And she hid somewhere else in the building, right, Hubie? I’ll bet it was the freezer. No one would ever think to look there. Remember you said she had all that stuff under her gown? I’ll bet it was warm clothing so she could hide in the freezer.”
“That’s a good theory, Suze, but it won’t quite work. The police had to go into the freezer to retrieve the two bodies.”
“Well, what did she do? Ascend into heaven?”
“No, she just walked out amongst us. Then she said she needed to visit the bathroom, and Benthrop said we shouldn’t let her go alone.”
Susannah furrowed her brow. “But that was Adele, not Agatha.”
“Precisely. Adele Carlton and Agatha Cruz are one and the same person.”
52
If you thought the first two big revelations shocked the crowd, you should have seen them this time. They were stunned. This was truly a Dramatic Moment.
Naturally, Adele was the first to speak. I won’t call her the Serving Wench any longer because as you can see, she now had a bigger problem than poor customer service.
“That’s crazy,” was all she said, and looking at the faces in the crowd told me most of them agreed with her.
I looked at Saunders, Glover, Vasquez, Benthrop, Patel, Wron, Shanile and Susannah. “Think back. You never saw the two of them at the same time or place. Whenever Adele Carlton was present, Agatha Cruz was in her room. Whenever Agatha Cruz was present, Adele Carlton was conveniently off duty. You may recall that Cruz was the only one not present when we found Rich’s body. After we all gathered in the main room and discussed the situation, I became concerned about Cruz not yet being up, and I asked Don – actually Carrasco –if we should check on her. Instead of doing it himself, he sent Adele to do it.”
Glover said, “I remember that because Carla Glain made a remark along the lines that you ask a man to do something and he delegates it to a woman.”
“You may also remember that it was at least half an hour before Cruz finally appeared.”
“I do remember that. Carl and I went out to cut up the elk and when we finished, she still hadn’t made an appearance.”
“And when she did,” I continued, “her makeup looked hastily app
lied and there was powder on her blouse.”
“I noticed that,” said Betty, “but I thought it was just because she was old and maybe couldn’t see too well.”
“Her glasses were greasy,” I noted. “But her hair was perfect. That’s because it was a wig.”
“This is all ridiculous,” said Carrasco. “When Adele wasn’t in the big room, she was with me. We were trying to keep our relationship a secret, so naturally she was sneaking around, but you can’t honestly believe she can be two people at once.”
I had Saunders, Glover, Vasquez, Benthrop, Patel, Wron, Shanile and Susannah almost convinced, but it was a bizarre theory, and I think Carrasco’s explanation and his calm demeanor undermined some of the progress I had made. So I pulled a small bottle out of my pocket and dabbed a bit of its contents onto the back of my hand while everyone sat there probably wondering what the devil this idiot was doing now. Then I walked by Saunders, Glover, Vasquez, Benthrop, Patel, Wron, Shanile and Susannah in turn and asked them to take a whiff of my hand, but not to say anything until everyone had smelled it.
When I had finished this little experiment, I asked them what it reminded them of and Patel was the first to speak. “It smells like old Miss Cruz,” he said.
“It does,” said Susannah. “I was wondering where I had smelled that before.”
The next to speak was Betty. She, too, agreed it reminded her of Cruz, and by that time all the others were nodding in agreement.
I held the bottle up for all to see. “This is spirit gum. I just learned yesterday that it’s used in the theater to hold on wigs, fake beards, long noses, and other sorts of theatrical prostheses. I bought this bottle at an interesting shop down on Central that sells costumes and theater supplies. It’s the same place you bought yours, Ms. Carlton. I had a snapshot of you – taken by a phone of all things – and the owner of the shop identified you by name. It seems you’re fairly well known in local theater circles.”
She just glared at me. Whit Fletcher told her she had a right to remain silent and all the other things that she had a right to. Then they led her away. They let Carrasco go, and told him he could go back to Taos but no further and that they wanted to question him further in the morning after they had done some more investigating.
53
Everyone else stayed and polished off all the food Miss Gladys had brought. Except for the sugared pecans. I had surreptitiously put most of those in my pocket.
Betty Shanile and Carl Wron were sitting on the front row talking quietly. Susannah, Srini, and Glover were standing off to one side laughing. Fred Givens had been trapped by Benthrop who was holding forth on his theories about the welcome decline of western civilization. Tristan was entertaining Layton Kent who seemed to be enjoying it, and Whit and Miss Gladys were reminiscing about the good old days when the police could put criminals in jail without warnings and warrants and all the other roadblocks the Supreme Court has thrown into the road to justice. Vasquez and his attorney had left.
I was chatting with the real Don Canon. In response to my question, he told me he always carried two books so that if he finished one, he had another to read. I liked him immediately. He also said he was making plans for another event at the Ranch and asked me if I’d be willing to do my pot lecture again. A couple of people had said they liked it. I said I would think about it.
Eventually everyone left except Tristan, and he helped me tidy up the shop. We went back to my living quarters and I opened a bottle of Gruet. Tristan isn’t crazy about champagne. I know I shouldn’t call it that, but old habits are difficult to break. He helped himself to a Tecate and some tortilla chips. I was having sugared pecans with the bubbly.
“That was quite a performance, Uncle Hubert.”
“You really think so?” I think of him almost like a son, and I love it when he’s proud of me. How often can we forty-somethings impress the youngsters?
“I like the way you sort of brought everyone along rather than just springing the conclusion. I wish more of the professors would do that. Too many of them like to show off. They spout a lot of theories, but they don’t explain why we should accept them. I guess they think we should figure it out on our own or maybe just take their word for it.”
“I had some pretty good professors when I was there,” I told him. “They did just what you said. They took us along the path one step at a time so that by the time we got to the Big Theory, we knew what it meant and why it was the accepted theory. But maybe the quality of instruction has declined.”
“Or maybe I’ll look back and think they were better when I’m your age.”
Tristan is an insightful lad, I thought to myself.
“Emily said to tell you she was happy you liked finding out about that pot that some guy gave to Lawrence.”
I hadn’t told Tristan I stole the pot from the Ranch. “I enjoyed that,” I said, “probably more than she will ever know.” I stepped over to the bookcase and picked up the book containing St. Mawr and The Man who Died. “She can have this if she wants it. I’ve already read it.”
“Thanks, Uncle Hubert. She loves to have books by and about Lawrence. Say, did that pot turn out to still be at the Ranch after all these years?”
“After all these years, I’m certain it’s not there now. How’s your financial situation?”
“Glad you asked. I had to give up one of my part-time jobs, and with the summer session tuition...”
He rambled on about his financial woes, and I listened lazily, happy the subject had been changed. Before he left, I gave him some money. It was more than I generally give him because I was confident the pots Cyril had brought were going to bring me a great deal of money.
54
Whit Fletcher came by the shop just before closing time the next day and brought me up to date on the day’s developments. The scales of justice were settling back into balance.
As I walked across to Dos Hermanas, I spotted a young couple kissing on one of the benches in the plaza, and it put me in mind of a song, The Old Lamp Lighter. I’m familiar with three versions by Kay Kyser, Bing Crosby, and Sammy Kaye. One verse goes:
If there were sweethearts in the park,
He’d pass a lamp and leave it dark,
It was a little early for streetlights, and these days they work with some sort of sensor that knows when it’s dark and turns them on automatically. The old lamplighter has been done in by technology. Oh well, he’s not the first.
The next verse goes:
For he recalls when dreams were new,
He loved someone who loved him, too.
I can’t say it was love. I know it wasn’t a dream. Just a lovely evening on my patio that would now be nothing more than a memory. I whistled the tune as I walked along. I can’t say I felt happy, but I wasn’t sad either. Maybe pensive is the right word. At any rate, a smile came unbidden to my lips when I saw Susannah at our table. She had her thick brown hair gathered into dog ears, and she was holding aloft a salt-rimmed glass, so I knew she had ordered for me because she takes her margaritas without salt. That may be her only fault.
“Margarita and I have been waiting for you.”
“Sorry I’m late. Whit came by to bring me up to date on what happened today.”
“Before you tell me that, I have a lot of questions I’ve been dying to ask you.”
I took a sip of the margarita and told her I was ready.
“O.K., first question. Why wasn’t Maria there?”
“Let’s talk about that later. What’s the second question?”
She gave me an inquisitive glance. “O.K. If Rich, Winant, and Glain were all on the Gaming Commission, why didn’t they know each other?”
“That one’s easy. Remember they are new members. They were just appointed about a month ago and the Commission meets quarterly, so they had yet to attend their first meeting. Next question.”
“Why couldn’t the University contact all the donors when the event was cancelled?”
�
��I don’t know. I know Carl Wron doesn’t have voice mail and doesn’t always answer his phone. I heard it ring while sitting on his porch and he made no move to answer it. Saunders is retired and doesn’t keep a regular schedule. Betty lives alone and flits around a lot enjoying the money she inherited. I don’t know about Glover. Maybe he was taking a customer for an extended test-drive.”
“But why was Benthrop there after the event was cancelled? I can understand not reaching a few of the donors, but Benthrop works for the university. You would think they could get in touch with him at least.”
“He teaches only two classes a week, seminars on Monday and Wednesday. By the time the decision was made to cancel, he had left town. Since professors aren’t required to keep regular hours or report to their department heads, no one knew where he was. Turns out he went up to Taos early to do some shopping, and he drove up to the Ranch on Friday right before the snow started.”
“O. K., here’s the biggie – why did she do it?”
“Whit told me they found close to a hundred thousand dollars in cash hidden in her place in Taos. They traced the money back to an organization called the Consortium of New Mexico Entertainment Establishments which has the rather unfortunate acronym of CONMEE. Its only members are a few rogue casinos the State’s been trying to shut down for years.”
“How did the State allow them to be built in the first place?”
“When the State first approved Indian Gaming, a bunch of tribes just started building, and since they have a kind of sovereignty, no one paid much attention. But one of the casinos was built by a group that is not a recognized tribe and the legitimate tribes have joined the Gaming Commission’s suit to shut it down. Another casino in CONMEE was originally granted a license by the Commission, but violated the law by hiring executives who had criminal records, and the Commission is also trying to shut them down.”
The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence Page 18
