“You’re right,” Celia agreed.
“It would be good for the center. It would be good for New Mexico.”
“It would be good for you,” Celia said getting up and giving her friend a hug.
Chapter Two
THE NEXT DAY CLAIRE HAD A LUNCHEON TO ATTEND in Santa Fe. She called August Stevenson and asked if she could stop by and see him afterwards. “Of course,” he replied. “I’d be delighted.” It was the response she expected, but she still enjoyed hearing it. August had a distinguished career in document verification in New York City before moving to Santa Fe, supposedly to retire. He was well into his seventies now, but as far as Claire could tell he’d barely slowed down. Instead of documents finding their way to him in New York City, they found their way to him in Santa Fe. August had helped her before with an important document. She respected his expertise and trusted his discretion.
He lived a few blocks from the Plaza in a quiet neighborhood that tourists rarely visited. After her luncheon Claire drove there and parked in front of August’s small brick house. It took him a long time to answer the doorbell, but she knew he was on his way when she heard the shuffle of slippers against the wooden floor.
“Claire, my dear,” he said swinging open the door, staring at her through the thick lenses of his glasses and giving her the impression that he was peering out through the water of an aquarium. “Very good to see you.”
“Good to see you, August.”
“Come in.”
He turned and shuffled down the hallway with Claire following him. His broad, hunched back and slow movements reminded her of a tortoise. When they reached his office, he lowered himself into a leather desk chair. Claire sat in an armchair.
“How are you?” she asked.
“All the better for seeing you. And how are things at the library?”
“Good,” Claire said. They had more to say about their work than about their personal lives, so she got to the point. “I just came across a very interesting document I’d like to ask you about. A woman named Isabel Santos who lives in Bernalillo found it under her brick floor. May Brennan referred her to me.”
“And how is May?” August asked. “I hear she is getting a divorce.”
“It happens to the best of us,” Claire said. “May will get over it sooner or later. Isabel didn’t actually bring me the document, but she wrote down what it said.”
August sniffed with contempt at the photocopy Claire presented. “Well that and four dollars will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. You know I rely on quality of paper and ink to establish the age of a document and on writing style to establish authenticity.” Claire had the sense that he was pulling up his tortoise shell and retreating inside. “This looks like it was written by a schoolgirl.”
“I know,” she soothed. “Of course you need the original document to come up with anything definitive, but in this case the content is so unusual I thought it might provide some clues.” Claire didn’t want to tip her hand by telling him she knew he had authenticated Inquisition documents.
He held the paper at arm’s length trying to find the right perspective through the thick lenses. He pushed it away, pulled it close, scrunched up his forehead and studied it for some time before he said, “The content suggests it was written by a Jew who faced the Inquisition. Which Jew, which Inquisition, I couldn’t say. A few years ago I examined some documents for UC Berkeley that involved the Mexican Inquisition. The documents were in private hands and Berkeley wanted to be sure they were authentic before purchasing them. The Spanish kept impeccable records, although perhaps they shouldn’t have. The Inquisition was a despicable affair, one of the most despicable affairs in a long human history of despicable behavior. Humans are monstrously cruel creatures. Some people were burned at the stake in Mexico, the most famous of whom is Raquel Rodriguez, who remained a fervent Judaizer up until the moment she was consumed by the flames. If there really is an original document and it was written by Raquel Rodriguez…” He put the paper down and stared at Claire through the deep water lenses. “Well, that would be a find indeed.”
“Isabel said it was signed ‘Joaquín’.”
“Just ‘Joaquín’?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Ah, to have the original in my hands.” August thumped his desk in frustration. “Raquel had a brother, a Jewish mystic named Joaquín, who was garroted.”
Claire knew all this but she kept quiet waiting to see in what direction August’s thoughts would lead him. “I authenticated the document that described his execution. He converted at the last minute and was given the favor of being garroted.”
“Isabel told me that she found the document inside a hollowed-out wooden cross.”
“I suppose it’s possible that the document was concealed in a cross that ended up in New Mexico. It may have been written on handmade paper imported from Europe, which could survive for hundreds of years in New Mexico’s dry climate. The Inquisition was heating up in Mexico City at the end of the sixteenth century. It has long been believed that some Jews whose names appeared on the Inquisition lists came north with Don Juan de Oñate’s expedition in fifteen ninety-eight. Few questions were asked of anyone willing to make the arduous journey into unknown territory. There are samples of both Joaquín and Raquel’s handwriting extant. It would be very easy to establish if he wrote these words if only I could see the original.”
“Isabel said she would get back to me.”
“Keep after her. This could be a very important find. I’d hate to see it go to some wealthy collector or to Berkeley. You, of course, have many years to make wonderful discoveries. But me?” The slowness of his shrug demonstrated the weight the carapace on his back had become.
******
After she left August’s house Claire negotiated her way across The City Different in her pickup truck. She owned a truck because she needed one to transport books, but it also made a statement about the kind of strong and adventuresome person she was—or wished to be. Santa Fe was founded in 1610 on the model of a Spanish colonial city with streets radiating from a central plaza and a cathedral a few blocks away. It was to be expected that the Spanish would build a city resembling the ones they came from. What always surprised Claire was that they would cross an ocean and find a place so similar geographically to the one they had left behind. History was never very far away in New Mexico, which was one of the things she liked about it. She enjoyed the sensation of moving from one century to another.
On her way out of town she stopped at twenty-first century Wild Oats to buy granola and bagels. As she checked out she noticed the clock on the wall said four-fifteen. Wondering whether there was any need to return to her office at CSWR at this point or to just go home, she checked her voice mail from the cell phone in her truck. Talking on a cell phone was a private matter for Claire. She wasn’t a person to walk up and down the aisles discussing what to buy for dinner. Besides, she had no one to discuss dinner with. She found a message from Isabel Santos on her voice mail saying, “I want to talk to you again. I’ll be in Albuquerque tomorrow and will stop by your office.”
Claire left the parking lot and drove down St. Francis Drive to the interstate. It wasn’t long before she was out of the city and into the wide open spaces of I-25. She saw a cluster of lenticular clouds hanging over the Ortiz Mountains and one had been twisted into the perfect symmetry of a corkscrew. She inserted a cassette of the Indian rock group Red Thunder into her tape deck. The backdrop of drums and chanting and the ease of the drive left her mind free to wander. It headed back to Southern Europe and Northern Africa, the region that was the source of the Inquisition. There was a time when Muslims, Jews and Catholics lived in harmony, but that ended and the Inquisition began, forcing Jews and Muslims to convert, leave the Iberian Peninsula, or be persecuted.
Claire had taken a semester off when she was in college and spent some time traveling through Spain and Morocco with an Italian man named Pietro Antonelli i
n a Volkswagen van that broke down in every country they visited. She had recently tracked Pietro down on the Internet to the University of Florence, where he taught. Now that she had his E-mail address, she had been composing E-mails in her mind, but she hadn’t arrived at the perfect phrasing yet. To help the process she popped out Red Thunder and inserted Andrea Bocelli. Listening to the Italian tenor and composing an E-mail to Pietro made the time pass quickly. When she reached the Bernalillo exit, a few miles north of Albuquerque, she turned off, thinking she might not have to wait until tomorrow to speak to Isabel.
She stopped at a convenience store on Route 44, went to the pay phone and flipped through the phone book that dangled beneath the stand. If Isabel had recently returned to Bernalillo her phone number wouldn’t be listed yet. But Claire expected there to be other listings for Santos and she found three: Chuy and Tey in Bernalillo and Manuel in Placitas. She called the two in Bernalillo, getting no answer at one and voice mail at the other. She wrote down the addresses then went inside the store to ask the clerk for directions.
The young woman with a mane of curly brown hair was busy talking on the phone. Claire stood in front of the counter feeling invisible while she waited for the conversation to end. Realizing that being empty handed offered no inducement, she picked up a newspaper and placed it on the counter. The clerk hung up. Claire paid for the newspaper and asked if she knew where either address was. She didn’t know Mejia Street where Tey lived, but directed Claire to Calle Luna, the address for Chuy.
“Thanks,” Claire said.
“Sure,” the girl replied picking up the phone again.
Claire drove south through Bernalillo on Camino del Pueblo looking for the turnoff that led to Calle Luna. The Sandia Mountains in the east were the color of slate mirroring the color of the clouds that had formed over the West Mesa. It was the time of year when clouds began to build up late in the day, but rain rarely fell until later in the summer. Claire thought of this as the waiting-for-rain season, when the earth seemed to be holding its breath in parched anticipation. Camino del Pueblo was once El Camino Real, the royal road that led from Mexico City to Santa Fe, traversed by a long line of oxcarts, horses, settlers, friars and conquistadors, traversed now by trucks and motorcycles and SUVs. The road was lined with churches, a courthouse, a hardware store, a bar, restaurants and storefronts, but a few blocks behind it were quiet streets and open fields. Claire turned off Camino del Pueblo and followed the directions to 625 Calle Luna.
The street ended in a cul-de-sac beside an irrigation ditch. As Claire turned the corner she saw that the cul-de-sac was filled with one ambulance and a swarm of white and brown Sandoval County Sheriff’s Department cars. She hoped that 625 wouldn’t turn out to mark the end of Calle Luna, but as she followed the numbers down the street she had the ominous sensation that it would.
Chapter Three
CLAIRE SAW THE NUMBER 625 SET IN TILE in an adobe wall, parked in front of it and got out of her truck. The house was in the northern New Mexico style with a pitched tin roof ending in a porch. The walls hadn’t been stuccoed and she could see straw sticking out of the adobe. The yard was fall of police officers. One of them saw her and walked down the path.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked. He was young with a stocky build and a thick black mustache. He had a tough-guy appearance but his manner was deferential. “I’m Detective Jimmy Romero.”
“Is this 625 Calle Luna?” Claire asked, thinking it was a stupid question but not knowing what else to say.
“Yes. And who is it that you’re looking for?”
“Isabel Santos.”
“You mind telling me why?”
“My name is Claire Reynier. I work at the Center for Southwest Research at UNM. I met Isabel when she came to see me yesterday. She found a document buried under the house that she thought might be of interest to the center.”
“What kind of a document was that?”
“A historical document. You need to tell me. Has something happened to her?”
“The house was robbed and she ... well... Isabel Santos is dead.”
“Oh, no.” She turned toward the house. It had a beautiful, verdant setting but it was an unpretentious house. “What would anybody want to steal from here?”
“We don’t know yet,” Detective Romero answered.
“I need to speak to the person in charge of the investigation,” Claire said. “There was a phone call on my voice mail from Isabel this afternoon.”
“What did she say?”
“That she wanted to see me tomorrow.”
“Do you know what time that call was made?”
“I left my office at eleven. It was sometime after that. The time will show up on my caller ID.”
Detective Romero asked her wait in the yard while he talked to the investigation commander. Claire sat down at a picnic table under a cottonwood tree, watching the activity going on around her but feeling detached and isolated from it by a bubble of shock. How could Isabel, so full of life and potential yesterday, be dead today? Detective Romero spoke to a police officer on the porch then went inside the house. A friendly black dog walked up and rested its nose in her lap while she scratched its head. The field around the house had been irrigated with water from the irrigation ditch and was green with alfalfa. Horses grazed at the far end.
A man stepped off the porch and walked over to Claire. His hair was streaked with gray and he had a middle-aged spread. He wore jeans and a T-shirt decorated with the feathered logo of Santa Ana Star Casino. His hand had the curve of a container. Today it held a Dr. Pepper.
“I’m Chuy Santos,” he said. “Isabel’s brother.” Up close his eyes were large and full of pain.
“Claire Reynier,” she replied. “I am so sorry to hear about Isabel. I can’t believe anything like this could happen to her. She was such a bright spirit.”
“Are you a friend of hers?”
“No. I just met her. I’m an archivist at UNM. She came to see me about a document she found. Is this where she was living?”
“Yes.”
“Is it your house?”
“It belongs to all of us.” Chuy sat down on the bench on the other side of the picnic table. The dog went to him and he patted its head. “What document are you talking about?”
Claire wondered if she would betray a confidence by telling him, but decided that when a document was found in a house that belonged to a family the document belonged to the family. She pulled Isabel’s note from her purse and showed it to Chuy. “She didn’t actually show me the document, but she wrote down what it said and brought it to me.”
Chuy took a sip of his Dr. Pepper and studied the document. “That’s my sister’s handwriting, but I never saw anything like this anywhere.”
“She said she was going to discuss it with the family.”
“She didn’t discuss it with me,” Chuy said, “and I’m her family. My sister went to California to get away from all of us. She comes back, starts getting her shit together. Now this…”
Paramedics came out of the house bearing a body on a stretcher. They loaded it into the ambulance and drove away. A man who left the house with them came over to the picnic table. He wore slacks with a sharp crease and a white shirt with sleeves so carefully rolled they appeared to be creased, too. His hair was black. He was slim and rather elegant, Claire thought, wondering if he might be the investigation commander.
“Hey, bro,” Chuy said.
The man put his hand on Chuy’s shoulder and Chuy gripped it with rough, callused fingers.
“This is my brother Manuel. Damn, I forgot your name already,” he said to Claire. “I’m not playing with a full deck right now.”
“I’m Claire Reynier. I met Isabel yesterday. I feel terrible about this,” she said.
“It sucks, don’t it?” Chuy said, taking a loud sip from his Dr. Pepper. It seemed to Claire that he became coarser after his brother appeared, but Manuel was smooth enough to make most people
seem coarse in comparison. She placed him as the eldest sibling with Chuy in the middle and Isabel as the youngest. He had her amber eyes, although they lacked her warmth. His eyes were on remote. The dog wagged his tail but stayed away from the creases in Manuel’s pants.
“Thank you for your concern,” he replied.
“Claire here said Isabel found a paper in the house. She wrote down what it said and took it to UNM.”
“Is this it?” he asked, taking the paper and reading it.
“Yes,” she said.
“And how do you interpret this?” Manuel asked, handing the paper back.
“It appears to be something written by a Jew during the Inquisition.”
“Hijole,” said Chuy.
“Where did she say she found it?”
“She said there was a loose brick in the floor. She pulled it out and found a wooden cross buried in the sand with the document inside. If I saw the original document it would be easier for me to judge how authentic it was, but she didn’t bring it to the library.”
“I didn’t see anything like that in the house, did you?” Chuy asked. “It’s a mess in there. Stuff was thrown everywhere.”
“Could you tell if anything is missing?” Claire asked.
“The TV, the stereo, stuff like that,” Chuy said.
“It was a local kid,” Manuel said, “looking for drugs and guns. My sister walked in and surprised the thief. The most dangerous part of a robbery is interrupting one.”
Detective Romero stepped out of the house and motioned to Claire. “Lieutenant Kearns will see you now,” he said.
Chapter Four
CLAIRE LEFT THE SANTOS BROTHERS at the picnic table and went to talk to the Lieutenant. He had a rumpled, jowly face, bristly reddish-brown hair and eyes the pale blue of an Eastern sky. Claire had been way off the mark when she thought the immaculate Manuel Santos was the investigator. Lieutenant Kearns’s pants had never known a crease and his short sleeve shirt was wrinkled. His arms were thick with rusty hair.
Land of Burning Heat Page 2
