Land of Burning Heat

by Judith Van GIeson

  LAND OF

  BURNING HEAT

  A CLAIRE REYNIER MYSTERY, #4

  Judith Van Gieson

  LAND OF BURNING HEAT

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2003 Judith Van Gieson.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole

  or in part, by other means, without permission.

  First ebook edition © 2013 by AudioGO.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-476-8

  Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9515-5

  Cover photo © Woodbe/iStock.com Cover photo © fmg1308/iStock.com

  For my stepfather, Richard Zieger

  Many thanks to Irene Marcuse, Lou Hieb, Julie Mars, Ann Paden, Mike Clover, and Maria Senaida Velasquez Huerta. I am blessed to have such knowledgeable friends who were willing to read the manuscript of Land of Burning Heat and share their expertise in many areas including Judaism, academia, the history of the New World and the Old, the Spanish language, and the town of Bernalillo. Any errors that survived their careful readings are the author’s. Thanks to Erwin Bush for exploring Bernalillo with me, to my agent Dominick Abel, and my editor at Signet, Genny Ostertag. Thanks, too, to Robyn Mundy and David Holtby at the University of New Mexico Press and to Gerard Kosicki for making this edition such a beautiful book [refers to print edition].

  I am deeply grateful to Jerome Aragon for sharing his family’s fascinating story.

  I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.

  Hosea 13:5

  LAND OF

  BURNING HEAT

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  MORE MYSTERIES BY JUDITH VAN GIESON

  Chapter One

  DURING THE BREAK BEFORE SUMMER SESSION Claire Reynier walked across the University of New Mexico campus enjoying the quiet time when the students were gone and the campus reverted to the staff. With no students and backpacks to dodge, Smith Plaza felt larger. It was noon and the sun was directly overhead. The longest shadows she cast were the half moon beneath her visor and the darkness under her feet that made her feel there was another Claire, a reverse Claire, who extended into the ground and mirrored her footsteps from the other side. The sun warmed her shoulders and the top of her head. It wasn’t searing hot yet, not so hot that she wanted to stay inside until dark, but hot enough to make her long for rain. As she approached Zimmerman Library, a massive pueblo-style building, her reflection was visible in the glass doors. In this light she saw more silver in her hair than gold. She looked slim enough in her pale summer dress, but knew she would look even slimmer if she straightened her back. She made the correction before she stepped into the library’s familiar shelter.

  She walked through the gallery which had an exhibition of Mexican photography from its sepia beginnings in the nineteenth century when itinerant photographers posed families in a stiff and formal way. She passed the nearly empty Anderson Reading Room. The young woman manning the information desk didn’t glance up from her book. Claire crossed the hallway and went through the wrought iron gate into the Center for Southwest Research, grateful as always that she worked in such a beautiful place. She walked down the office corridor. Through the interior window that faced the hallway she was startled to see a woman she didn’t know standing inside her office.

  “Hello?” Claire asked, wondering whether the woman was a student. She wore a dark red skirt and top and platform shoes that brought her up to Claire’s height. She had the slenderness of a stalk that swayed in the wind but the thick-soled shoes kept her grounded. Her hair was black and pinned up on top of her head with a spiky plastic clip. Her eyes were large and amber colored. The skirt was slinky and calf length. Her matching T-shirt had a golden butterfly embroidered across the bodice. The woman had a delicate, exotic quality Claire was unable to place. Her looks could have been Hispanic, Native American, East Indian, Middle Eastern, Asian or a mixture of any of them.

  “Are you Claire Reynier?” she asked.

  “I am.”

  “My name is Isabel Santos.” She extended a hand with rings embellishing nearly every finger.

  Claire shook her hand, then circled her desk and sat down behind it motioning for her visitor to do the same.

  Isabel went to the visitor’s chair and perched on the edge. “A woman at the Bernalillo Historical Society referred me to you. She said you were an expert on old documents.”

  “That’s her. I moved back from California to the family home in Bernalillo this spring. One of the bricks in the floor was loose. I tripped on it when I got up last night to go to the bathroom and I pulled it out. I was digging out the sand to make more room for the brick when I found something.”

  Claire knew that brick floors were often laid on a foundation of sand in New Mexico houses. “What?” she asked.

  “An old wooden cross with a hole in the bottom. I picked it up and a rolled up piece of paper fell out. The cross had been hollowed out so the paper could fit inside.” Isabel had a red suede purse dangling by a strap from her shoulder. She opened it and removed a piece of paper.

  The archivist in Claire noticed that the paper was white and crisp and new. “Is that what you found?” she asked doubting that there could be anything of value to the center on such white paper.

  “No,” Isabel replied. “The paper I found was really old and dry. I didn’t want to mess it up by moving it around so I copied what it said.”

  She handed over the paper. Up close Claire could see that it had blue notebook lines and that the writing on it was as round and symmetrical as a schoolgirl’s.

  “Todo sta de arriva abasho,” she read. “El fuego o el garrote. Dame el fuego. Adonay es mi dio.”

  “Is that some kind of old Spanish like Castilian?” Isabel asked. She spoke the word Castilian with a contemptuous lisp then laughed. To speak Castilian Spanish was considered arrogant in parts of New Mexico.

  “It might be an archaic form of Spanish,” Claire said. “Arriva could be a variant of arriba. Abasho could be a variant of abajo.”

  “As in ‘everything is up and down’?” Isabel asked.

  “Or ‘upside–down’,” Claire said.

  “And garrote? What does that mean?”

  It was Claire’s nature and her job to be careful, but she knew all too well what garrote meant. In English or in Spanish it was an instrument used to strangle people during the Inquisition. El garrote was considered kinder than el fuego—“the fire”—being burned at the stake. The distinction had always seemed a subtle one. In either case the victim ended up dead. She explained to Isabel what el garrote meant.

  “And Adonay? What is that?” Isabel asked.

  “The Spanish version of the Hebrew word for God,” Claire said. “Are you sure it said dio and not dios?”


  “Yes. That seemed weird to me because we always say dios.”

  “The Spanish Jews said dio; for them there was only one God.”

  “You think this was written by a Jew?” Isabel said, balancing on the edge of her chair.

  Yes, was Claire’s thought, but the archivist’s response was, “It could have been. The language could be Ladino, the language used by the Sephardic Jews, which was a combination of Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew. These words appear to have been written by a Jew who faced the Inquisition.”

  “Was the Inquisition practiced here?”

  “No one was actually killed in New Mexico, but people were garroted and burned at the stake in South America and Old Mexico, where the Inquisition was practiced until the wars of independence.”

  “There was a Marrano in our house.” Isabel laughed, puckering her lips like she had bitten into a piece of rancid meat.

  Literally, Marrano meant swine, but it was also a word used to describe Jews who converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition. The more polite word was “converso”.

  “If this was written by a Marrano then why was it hidden inside a cross?” Isabel asked.

  “It’s possible the person who wrote it thought a cross was the last place anyone would look or the author was trying to pass as a Catholic. Is your family Catholic?”

  “Are you kidding?” Isabel said. “Is the Pope? We have the last name of the saints. My brother’s first name is Jesus.”

  Pronounced “haysoos”, it wasn’t such an unusual name in Spanish. “How long has your family had the house?” Claire asked.

  “Forever. My grandmother grew up there.”

  “An ancestor might have buried the cross under the floor.”

  “My ancestors were not Jewish.”

  “Was the document signed?” Claire asked.

  “Yes. It was signed Joaquín.”

  Joaquín was a common enough name in the Spanish speaking world, but the farther back one went in the New World the fewer Joaquíns there were until the number became miniscule and then there were none. One of them once made the statement that the number of real Christians in the New World could be counted on the fingers of one hand. If that Joaquín had written and signed this document it would be extremely valuable. The story of how it got to New Mexico and under the bricks in Isabel Santos’s floor could be written later. The most important thing at this point would be to safeguard the document. Exposing it to the light after years in darkness could be ruinous.

  “I’ll need to see it to be sure,” Claire said, “but it could be a document of enormous historical significance. If it is, we would love to have it here in the center.” She didn’t think she was being unduly acquisitive. The center had the facilities to preserve it and make it available to scholars.

  “Who is this Joaquín?” Isabel asked.

  “There was a Jewish mystic named Joaquín Rodriguez who was killed by the Inquisition in Mexico City in the late sixteenth century.”

  “If the paper is that old, it would be very valuable, wouldn’t it?”

  “It could be,” Claire admitted, knowing that much as she would love to have it in the center there were other institutions and collectors who could pay more.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Isabel said putting her hands on the edge of her chair as if preparing to push off.

  “Of course,” Claire replied, reluctant to see her leave. “The document could be fugitive to light. You should get it in a controlled environment as soon as possible. We have the optimum conditions here and would be happy to preserve it and protect it until you decide what to do.”

  “I’ll get back to you, okay?” Isabel stood up wobbling for a second before she found her balance on the platform shoes.

  “I can come out to your house and take a look at it if you like,” Claire said. She didn’t want Isabel to leave the center, but didn’t know how to keep her. As a mother of two grown children she saw a fragility in Isabel that made one want to shelter her as well as a determination to go her own way that would make mothering difficult.

  “Okay. I’ll let you know what my family says. Thanks for talking to me.” Isabel left without reclaiming her note.

  Claire watched her walk away swinging her purse with a long, bare arm. It seemed to pick up momentum as she walked.

  Once Isabel had disappeared around the corner, Claire made a copy of the note and locked the original in the bottom drawer of her desk. Then she walked down the corridor in the other direction, noticing as she passed several empty offices that most of her coworkers were out. She was pleased when she got to Celia Alegria’s and found her working on her computer. Celia, who was determined not to let the library turn her into a brown bird, often wore velvet to work. It was too hot for velvet and today she had on a yellow linen dress and a necklace that was a string of turquoise birds in flight. All the color at CSWR seemed to be concentrated in Celia’s office. The folk art posters on the wall and the shrine to Frida Kahlo on her bookshelf made the point that she remained in touch with her Mexican heritage.

  Claire stepped into her office and shut the door behind her.

  “Harrison?” Celia asked, looking up from the computer and raising her eyes to the ceiling. Harrison Hough, their prickly boss, was a frequent source of annoyance. Closing the door was a signal that she expected Claire to complain about him.

  “Not this time,” Claire said, handing her the copy of Isabel’s note. “What do you make of this?”

  Although Spanish language and history had long been a subject of interest to Claire, Celia had a Ph.D. in history and had studied in Mexico and Spain. “The language is Ladino. I’d say it was written by a Jew who faced the Inquisition, but that person didn’t write it on twenty-first century notebook paper,” Celia said.

  “A woman named Isabel Santos brought it to my office referred to me by May Brennan of the Bernalillo Historical Society. She claims she found the original document inside a cross buried beneath a brick in the floor of her house in Bernalillo.”

  “Have you seen the original?”

  “No. Is there any way of telling whether this was written in the New World or the Old World by the content?”

  Celia studied the note. “Not really. The Inquisition was practiced many places—Old Spain, New Spain, Peru, Colombia. The Spaniards didn’t just kill Jews either. They killed Muslims, Protestants, even Catholics who had strayed. In theory the Holy Office of the Inquisition punished lapsed Catholics. In 1492, all the infidels had to convert to Catholicism or leave. Some Jews and Muslims converted but with varying degrees of conviction. Supposedly, converso families weren’t allowed to emigrate to the New World, but some did. The ones who went on practicing Judaism in secret became known as crypto Jews. There is no record of anyone ever being killed for practicing Judaism in New Mexico. We have that distinction. But crypto Jews were not allowed to own property or to hold water rights here. If they were found out they would lose their water rights which could be a death sentence.”

  “What if the document was signed ‘Joaquín’?”

  “Just ‘Joaquín’?”

  “That’s what Isabel said.”

  “Well, if it was signed ‘Joaquín Rodriguez’ I’d say it was written by the Jewish mystic who was killed by the Inquisition in Mexico City in 1596 except that he wasn’t burned at the stake. He was garroted. His death is well documented. The Spaniards kept detailed records of everything they did. If it’s just Joaquín, I don’t know. There could have been other Joaquíns who were burned at the stake during the Inquisition. Supposedly Joaquín Rodriguez converted and was saved from the fire, but his sister Raquel was incinerated. She went to her death screaming at her Inquisitors. She was even more passionate about her dio than Joaquín was. And he was pretty passionate. Often crypto Jews were not circumcised as infants because that gave them away. When Joaquín was fifteen he circumcised himself with a pair of scissors in the Rio de los Remedios.” Celia grimaced at the thought. “If you had a cho
ice, which would you choose? The fire or the garrote?”

  “Does it matter? Either way you’re dead.”

  “Most people preferred strangulation when given a choice. Burning takes longer and is more painful. The special collections library at Berkeley recently acquired a treasure trove of Inquisition documents, the largest collection of Mexican Inquisition papers in this country. The fact that this person chose the fire might indicate that this wasn’t written by Joaquín Rodriguez. There are some scholars who could help you. Peter Beck at Berkeley is a leading scholar of the Mexican Inquisition. Your friend August Stevenson in Santa Fe authenticated the documents for Berkeley. But you’d have to have the original before you could establish anything definitive.”

  “I hope I can get it,” Claire said.

  “Of course you can. What was this doing buried under the floor of a house in Bernalillo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It could have been there for hundreds of years. It could also have been put there more recently. If you bring it to the center, Harrison will want to establish for sure that it wasn’t stolen. You know Harrison.” She rolled her eyes again. “Have you said anything to him yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It might be better to wait until you actually have the document in hand. Once Harrison hears about it, he’ll get greedy. You won’t have any peace until he has it in his fingers. There’s no guarantee we’re going to get it, is there?”

  “None,” Claire admitted. “Isabel said the family has been here a long time. I’m hoping a state sponsored library will appeal to them.”

  “It might,” Celia said. Her silver bracelets clinked as she rubbed her fingers together in the universal symbol of greed. “But money might appeal to them even more. There are plenty of places able to raise more money than we can. Berkeley has deep pockets. We’d lose but it would be fun to see Harrison get into a pissing contest with them.”

  “Even if the document isn’t originally from Bernalillo, it was found there, which makes it in some way a part of New Mexico history. The center is where it belongs,” Claire protested.