Land of Burning Heat

by Judith Van GIeson

  “Can I come in?” Claire asked.

  May’s expression protested, “Do you have to?” but her words were a lackadaisical “Sure, why not?”

  She led the way into the living room decorated in baby blue recliners with foot rests that popped up when the sitter leaned back, the kind of furniture Claire swore she would never put in her own house no matter how long she lived. May picked a stack of newspapers off the sofa and cleared a spot for Claire. She returned to her armchair, leaned back and the footrest snapped into place with military precision. She picked the remote off the coffee table and dropped it in her lap but didn’t bother to turn off the television set or even to lower the volume. She didn’t offer Claire anything to drink. The house felt damp and had a musty smell as if she had been running her swamp cooler 24/7.

  A woman with a normal sense of curiosity would have asked Claire about her wreck. May kept silent so Claire answered her own question. “I was on my way to Tey Santos’s house by way of the ditch road last Friday and someone ran me off the road into a cottonwood.”

  May lifted herself out of her lethargy long enough to inquire, “Were you hurt?”

  “Not really, but there was a lot of damage to my truck. Mauricio Casados fixed it.”

  “He’s a good mechanic. Why were you going to Tey’s house?”

  “To talk to her about Isabel’s death.”

  “I hear she believes Tony Atencio is responsible.” May’s voice had more hope in it than belief.

  “Not any more. Something else was stolen from the house Friday. Tony Atencio is still in jail.” Claire moved to the edge of the sofa. “Do you know anything about Isabel Santos you’re not telling me?”

  “No, of course not. Why do you think that?”

  “Because of the way you’ve been acting. You’ve never tried to avoid me before.”

  “I said I’ve been busy.”

  “So busy that you’re willing to let a murderer get away?”

  May sat up. The foot rest fell forward and collapsed beneath the chair. “What’s your problem, Claire? As far as I know Tony Atencio was responsible. Why are you bugging me about it? This has been a hard time and now Rex has a girlfriend. Look at this.” May picked up a newspaper clipping lying on the end table and handed it to Claire. “She’s young, she’s beautiful, she’s skinny. She’s everything I’m not.”

  It was a photograph of Rex and another woman arm in arm at a charity event. Rex looked paunchier and balder than Claire remembered. The woman was thinner than May, but in Claire’s eyes she wasn’t beautiful and she wasn’t all that young. She had the skinny, undeveloped body of an adolescent, but her thinness emphasized the wrinkles in her face. Her hair was blonde and bouffant and she wore a lot of Indian jewelry. It made Claire think that sooner or later you have to grow up and develop a woman’s style, but that didn’t have to mean getting sloppy and matronly like May. She wouldn’t tell May that, but she thought some firmness was in order.

  “I know how much it hurts, May, but you’ve got to move on and make a new life. You’re letting your breakup with Rex interfere with your work and obscure your judgment.”

  “Easy enough for you to say,” May snapped.

  “It’s not easy for me to say, but I know you can’t sit around wallowing in self-pity.”

  “At least you were able to get out of town.”

  “It helped. It sounds trite, I know, but fixing yourself up, losing weight, getting your hair done, taking a trip, buying new clothes—all those things will make you feel better.”

  “I’ll never be glamorous no matter how many spas I go to or how much money I spend.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re smart, you’re interesting. You have a job you love. You’re respected in this town. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, doing your best day by day. Get out of your recliner. You’ll get through this. You’ll get your self-respect back.” Claire balanced on the edge of the sofa and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Tell me what you know about Isabel’s death, May. It’s important.”

  May sighed and leaned into her recliner. Claire was afraid the chair would tip back, the foot rest would pop up and May would sink further into her depression. Since they seemed to have fallen into some kind of push/pull dynamic, she slid back into the sofa and spoke in a conciliatory voice. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

  “I don’t know how bad it is, Claire. I told some people about the document Isabel found. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “She asked me not to.”

  “Then why did you tell people?

  “Honestly? I did it because I wanted to impress them. In our world, finding the last words of Joaquín Rodriguez will get you more respect than being young and beautiful.”

  “You knew those were his last words?”

  “Who else would say ‘the fire or the garrote’? The way she described the document I knew it was authentic, too.” Her eyes burned with the fire of discovery as she turned into the May Claire used to know.

  “But you never actually saw it?”

  “No. I wanted to put it in the Historical Society safe, but Isabel wouldn’t let me. She said she was going to take it home and decide what to do. I gave her your name first and then Peter Beck’s and Warren Isles’s. After she left, I called them and her brother Manuel. Isabel was known to have problems with drugs. I was afraid she might sell it for drug money. I thought Manuel should know.”

  “How did those men react when you told them?” “Peter and Warren got greedy. They wanted to see it. Manuel asked me what it meant and what it was worth. I said I didn’t know exactly what it was worth, but I knew it was valuable.”

  “Did you give him Peter and Warren’s names, too?”

  “Yes, and I regretted it considering what happened.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  “I felt guilty. Then I felt scared. Thoughts that used to be field mice when I was married have become grizzly bears now that I live alone. The police had a good suspect. They seemed to think Tony Atencio was guilty. Why not leave it at that?”

  “Was Manuel curious about how the words of a Jew ended up under the floor of his family’s house?”

  “Somewhat. Manuel’s a politician and a lawyer. He keeps his cards close to his vest.”

  “Are people in this town afraid of him?”

  “I think they’re more proud than afraid. The people in Bernalillo identify with him and want him to succeed.”

  “I’ve been looking for an article Peter Beck published in the Historical Journal of the Americas. Would the Historical Society have a copy?”

  “We might if it had to do with New Mexico history, although Peter Beck’s scholarship tends to stop at the border.”

  “It has to do with the Inquisition of Joaquín Rodriguez, but it might reveal how his last words got to Bernalillo.”

  “I’ll look for it tomorrow. It would be thrilling if the skeleton under the floor turns out to be Manuel Santos, the settler.”

  “How would he have gotten hold of Joaquín Rodriguez’s last words?” Claire had her own theory now, but she was interested in May’s opinion.

  “He was related to Manuel Santos, the Inquisitor, and that Manuel Santos wanted those words to be far away from Mexico City. He wouldn’t want it known that he had been unable to convert Joaquín.”

  “Why not just destroy the document?”

  “The Spanish were too compulsive to destroy documents.”

  “Have you ever heard of a crypto Jew taking the name of an Inquisitor?”

  “They were known to take the names of prominent citizens. An Inquisitor would seem like the last name a Jew would want, but it would provide good cover. No one in New Mexico would reveal that fact to me, even if they knew. The crypto Jews have been covering up for so long, they don’t even know their own truth. If I don’t find Peter’s article, I could ask him for a copy.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

&nbs
p; May didn’t question Claire’s reticence and she was grateful she didn’t have to explain. Maybe she was working on the same intuitive level as Claire. Maybe she didn’t trust Peter either. Claire gave May a hug when she left, feeling that if she had accomplished nothing else on this visit she’d at least pulled her out of the depths of her recliner.

  ******

  In the morning May called to say she couldn’t find the Historical Journal of the Americas that contained Peter Beck’s article. Claire broke her own rule and called John Harlan and August Stevenson.

  “Hey,” John said. “I’ve been lookin’ for that ephemera, but I can’t find the damn thing anywhere. Every time I feel like I’m gettin’ close it seems like somebody gets there just ahead of me. You want me to keep trying?”

  “Please.” After she hung up she called August.

  “I’ve been searching, Claire,” he said in his slow as a tortoise voice. “But I haven’t found it. I ran into Warren Isles at the Palace Restaurant the other day and I mentioned I was interested. He said he’d let me know if he came across one.”

  “Did you tell him you were looking for me?”

  “No, of course not. I told him I’d been working for UC Berkeley.”

  Claire wondered how hard it would be to link August’s inquiry to her. Since they were in the same line of work, it was reasonable for Warren to assume they knew each other.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  WHEN SHE GOT TO HER OFFICE ON MONDAY MORNING Claire found a message on her voice mail, apparently left by Warren Isles on Sunday night. “Ms. Reynier,” he said. “I have a document that will interest you. I’ll be at Tamaya tomorrow and can meet you there at six-thirty. If you are available please leave a message for me at the front desk.”

  Claire called his brokerage office in Santa Fe and learned that Mr. Isles would be out all day. She tried his home number and got a recorded message. Since she was unable to connect with the man who preferred to meet face to face, she played his message several times listening for nuance and innuendo. He had said “document” and not “article.” He’d said you “will” be interested in rather than “may” or “might.” Was it possible that he had Joaquín’s last words or was that just wishful thinking on her part? It was like him to control the time and place of the meeting and to choose Tamaya as the setting. She hated to be manipulated, but she needed to see what he had. She called Tamaya and left a message at the front desk saying she would meet him at six-thirty.

  She spent the rest of the day calculating what time she should leave and whether she should bring her own check book or the one she used to buy collectibles for the center. It took forty minutes to get to Tamaya. She could leave at five-forty, arrive in plenty of time and be left cooling her heels in the lobby or on the deck. Both were beautiful places to wait, but how long would she have to wait? How long had she and John waited the last time? A half hour? Some chronically late people were so predictable, you could almost set your watch by them which would seem to defeat their purpose. Could she count on Warren Isles to be half an hour late again? The master manipulators were unpredictable. Sometimes it was half an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes they didn’t show up at all, occasionally they even arrived on time. If Warren’s goal was to keep her off balance and persuade her to pay too much for whatever document he produced, he’d keep her waiting a long time, so long that she would end up feeling angry and defeated while he’d be elated by the power he had over her. She hated to be kept waiting, and he may have observed that on their previous meeting. The benefit of arriving late on her part was that she might be less angry when he finally showed. He might actually end up waiting for her. If she had any spine, she thought, she would leave at six and arrive at six-forty, but she was as compulsively on time as Warren Isles was late. When it got down to it, she wasn’t capable of even leaving at five forty-five. At five-thirty she got in her truck and drove to Tamaya.

  She made excellent time and arrived at six-ten. She parked in the first space she came to on the south side of the building away from the main entrance. Since she had time to kill, she refused a ride in the jitney cruising the lot and walked. The sun was low enough in the sky now for her to cast a long legged shadow, but it still had the searing, burning heat that gave mystics their vision, the heat in which nothing mattered but truth or shelter.

  She still had a few minutes left when she entered the hotel, and spent them in the shop looking at the Southwestern clothing and jewelry—the broomstick pleated skirts, the patterned vests and jackets, the elaborate concha belts that no one from Albuquerque would buy and wear. She considered them costumes rather than clothing.

  It was a small victory to arrive at the front desk at exactly six-thirty, better at least than getting there early. The desk clerk was busy checking someone in so she walked across the lobby to look at the David Michael Kennedy photos of Indian ceremonial dancers. They were beautifully framed and had the soft edges of old photographs. Her favorite was the hoop dancer. His foot was lifted, his arms extended, one hoop was raised to the sky and the other lowered toward the ground. The dancer seemed trapped in suspension somewhere between anticipation and animation.

  “May I help you?” the clerk asked in a courteous, respectful manner.

  Claire returned to the desk. “I have an appointment with Warren Isles.”

  He checked his computer. “Mr. Isles left a message that he has been unavoidably detained. He will be here at eight.”

  “Thank you,” Claire said, making an effort to be as polite as the clerk. She turned and walked across the lobby, glancing at the hoop dancer again. She had the illusion that he’d moved his foot a fraction while she’d looked away.

  She went into the living room and sat on a sofa facing a fireplace with an Edward Curtis print above the mantle. She’d seen that particular print numerous times and felt no need to study it again. She stared at the fake logs in the fireplace. Tamaya burned gas here, not wood, better for the environment, but lacking the crackle, heat and wildness of a wood fire always in danger of getting out of control. She wished she could strike a match and start a real fire instead of seething within. It might be considered thoughtful of Warren Isles to leave her a message instead of letting her wait and wait and wait. Now she knew how long she had to wait if he showed up at eight, but he might not. At eight there might be another message saying he’d be later or wasn’t coming or there would be no message at all and she’d be put on hold again. What was he doing? Showing his document to someone else and trying to get a better price? Eating dinner? Having a massage? Playing golf? Stuck in nonexistent traffic somewhere between Tamaya and Santa Fe?

  She got up and went into the bar wondering if she might see Warren or anyone else she knew. She didn’t. She could have one of Tamaya’s oversized Margaritas, which would either calm her down or make her angrier. For some people provoking anger was a sign of power, which, to them, had to be better than not getting any reaction at all. As a person Warren was lacking in looks, talent, charm and intellect. It was the things he owned that gave him his power. Since she wanted something he owned, she had to find a productive way to pass the time.

  She decided to walk in the Bosque where the wandering branches of the cottonwoods offered cool, green shelter. She thought about taking her purse back to her truck, but it was a long walk from here. Tamaya was a place that would look after its guests. As she crossed the field the trees shimmered like a green mirage. The temperature dropped ten degrees once she stepped under the branches. She followed the trail that curved and wandered through the woods seeing no one else. Eventually the path led to the open banks of the Rio Grande where the cottonwoods had been destroyed by flood or by fire. New trees had been planted but they were still small and the banks of the river were bare except for the occasional red twigs of salt cedar. The river was shallow here but the current ran strong. From above the water was a muddy brown, but from an angle it was even bluer than the sky. A flock of small, dark, unidentifiable birds cawed and flew
over. Claire sat down on a solitary bench beside the river, stared at the Sandias and waited for the sun to set off an afterglow. It seemed to hover just before dropping behind the horizon as if preparing to release its power. A hawk flew in and circled lazily over the river causing the flock of small birds to squawk and scatter. As it turned in its gyre, the sun caught its white underbelly and burnished it gold.

  The only sound Claire could hear was the lapping of the river. In the silence and the beauty, she tried to put human greed aside and focus on the golden hawk. A branch snapped behind her. She turned and saw nothing but the shadows in the woods. She glanced at her watch. Seven-twenty. She could head back now or wait until the sunset ended. She waited, watching the rosy afterglow climb the mountains as the western sky turned orange. The sun dropped behind the horizon, the glow lifted off the peaks, the hawk flew north. A vulture dropped into a tree. A coyote on the east side of the river began to yip. She got up and headed back to the hotel without checking her watch, thinking the best way to deal with Warren Isles was not to focus on time. The meeting would happen when it was supposed to happen or it wouldn’t.

  Shadows filled the Bosque. The leaves rustled in a breeze that picked up as soon as the sun went down. The gravel path crunched beneath her feet. The coyote began a lonesome howl. Claire was glad she’d encountered no one at the river, but in the growing darkness she would like to have seen a runner or a friendly face. She did what she usually did when threatened by darkness and isolation, took her key ring from her purse and inserted the keys between her fingers. Up ahead she saw lights in the crotches of the cottonwoods and beyond that the yellow lights of Tamaya. She walked faster, drawn like a moth to the artificial light. As she neared the edge of the Bosque, the tree lights illuminated the curving branches and the shifting shapes of the leaves. The path opened to a panoramic view of the hotel, which resembled a spacious country home hosting a private party. People sat in the lights on the deck laughing and drinking, giving Claire the feeling that they were golden, privileged, and much further away from her than the width of the field.