“Can you come to my office? There’s something I want to show you.”
“Okay.”
Celia came to the doorway wearing a beige linen dress and a necklace with matching bracelet made of spikes of coral. She spotted the Summertime addition immediately. “That’s it?”
“Yes,” Claire said.
“Where did it come from?”
“An artist named Lisa Teague paints the homeless at the Hope Central Shelter. The paintings are sold to raise money. You saw the photo of the dead Maia. Could you identify her here?”
“That’s easy. Only one of the girls is showing her face. It has to be Maia, no?” Celia walked up close to examine the picture.
“Yes. That’s how she asked to be painted, the way she looked when she was twelve years old, dancing in a circle with six other girls. Lisa made me a copy. The painting has been sold.”
“Do you think that someone who only knew the adult Maia could identify her in this painting?”
“It’s possible,” Claire said. “She looks much brighter, livelier, and younger here, but the bone structure and the hair are the same. The Downtown Gallery had an exhibit of Lisa’s paintings and this one was in the window. A woman walked in off the street and paid twenty-five hundred dollars cash the Thursday before Memorial Day. It makes me wonder if she knew Maia and recognized her. If she knew the story of the seven sisters.”
“You’d better tell that to Detective Owen. We need to find out who Maia was and who let her into the basement. Harrison has been on my case about it. In his opinion it’s my fault that she got into the storage room.”
“That’s not fair. You have to give a code to everyone who works and studies here. It’s not your job to police the department.”
“You know as well as I do that Harrison is not fair. He has too much tenure, too much seniority, and far too much ego to be fair.”
“True.”
“It’s a beautiful picture,” Celia said. “It looks good in here.”
She left the office without saying, “It’s about time you put some artwork on your wall,” but Claire suspected she was thinking it.
Claire sent Lawton Davis an E-mail telling him she had a picture of Maia she wanted to show him. Then she went to the Anderson Reading Room and began to search the illustrated expedition books. With trepidation she opened Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood. It was a book she dearly loved. It was a good omen that every one of Catherwood’ s classic drawings of the Mayan ruins was in place. As she went though the Stephen Long expedition illustrations by Titian Ramsay Peale and the Journals of the Wilkes Expedition and found every illustration exactly where it was supposed to be, her anxiety began to fade. The deeper she got into the task, the more she could enjoy the beauty of the expedition illustrations. By late afternoon when the last book had been put back in its place on the shelf still intact, she was close to believing that Maia had not been systematically looting the library and trading the illustrations for drugs, that there had to have been another reason for taking Spiral Rocks.
She went back to her office and called Detective Owen, watching the girls dance across her wall while she dialed the number.
“And how are you?” Detective Owen asked.
“Good. And you?”
“Busy,” Detective Owen said. Claire had heard on the news about a murder-suicide in the South Valley and wondered if Owen was involved in the investigation.
“I won’t take up much of your time,” she said. “I went through all the expedition books today, and I didn’t find a single missing illustration.”
“Good,” Owen said.
“It could be that Maia had a reason to take Spiral Rocks, and that’s the only illustration she took.” Claire told Owen about Lisa Teague and Summertime and asked if she would like to come by to see her copy of the painting.
“I won’t be able to do it today,” Owen said. “Could you fax me a copy?”
“Sure,” Claire said. “The original of the painting was in the window of the Downtown Gallery in a show of Lisa Teague’s paintings to benefit the Hope Central Shelter. Linda Butler, who works at the gallery, told me that a woman saw the painting in the window, said she had to have it, and paid twenty-five hundred dollars cash.”
“When was that?”
“The Thursday before Memorial Day.”
“We’ll check it out,” Detective Owen said. “Thanks for your help.”
Claire faxed the picture to Owen. Then she tried Edward Girard’s number again and was surprised when a woman answered.
“I’m Jennifer Rule, Edward Girard’s publicist,” the woman said. “Can I help?” She had a rapid-fire, I-have-too-much-to-do way of speaking as if she had about thirty seconds for Claire.
“I’m interested in Edward Girard’s work,” Claire said. “I’d like to come to the Spiral Rocks opening.”
“Come, then,” Jennifer replied. “It’s this Saturday. Everyone’s welcome. Be sure you get here before sunset in time to watch the moon rise. We have a place to camp on the property. Bring your sleeping bag if you want to spend the night.”
After Claire hung up, she sat looking at her books-with-wings screen saver and thinking about who she could ask to accompany her. Celia was her first choice, but she knew Celia and her husband had plans to go to a wedding in California this weekend. She tried her friend the bookseller, John Harlan.
“Damn,” he said. “I’d love to go, but I have to work.”
She called her friend Madelyn in Tucson, who also had plans. It was one of the rare occasions when Claire wished she still had a husband, a companion who’d accompany her to every movie she wanted to see and drop whatever he was doing for a quick trip to Spiral Rocks. But she reminded herself that when she did have a husband, he wasn’t that companion. She and Evan never took spur-of-the-moment trips anywhere. Every excursion was mapped out and planned in advance. Even the music they played in the car was chosen by Evan. Whenever they went to the movies it was a movie he wanted to see.
There was a knock at the door and she looked up to see Lawton Davis’s shy smile. “Am I interrupting?” he asked. “You look like you’re deep in thought.”
“Come in. I just got an invitation from Edward Girard’s publicist to the opening at Spiral Rocks. I’m debating whether to go.”
“Of course you should go,” Lawton said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When is it?”
“Saturday night,” Claire hesitated, then said, “The invitation wasn’t just for me. Anybody can go. Girard’s publicist said, ‘Everyone’s welcome.’ ” The thought that Lawton Davis would be a fun companion was rising to the surface. He knew so much about astronomy. His enthusiasm made him a pleasure to be with.
He sighed. “Unfortunately I can’t do it. I have family commitments this weekend, but you must go and tell me all about it. Promise?”
“Promise,” Claire said.
“Is that the picture of Maia?” He looked at the wall.
“Yes.” Claire gave him one of the copies she’d made. “A woman named Lisa Teague paints the homeless for the Hope Central Shelter. The Downtown Gallery sells the paintings and the money goes to the shelter. This is a copy of a portrait Lisa painted of Maia.”
“It’s lovely,” Lawton said. “I’m sure you noticed that the seven girls dancing mirror the seven stars in Pleiades.”
“Maia asked to be painted that way, but she didn’t tell Lisa why. We don’t know for sure that she was familiar with the myth.”
Lawton studied the image. “Of course she was. The name is more than a coincidence.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“She looks very young in this picture, younger than anyone I would have in a class unless she was a child prodigy. Child prodigies I remember.”
“She wanted to be painted as she looked when she was twelve years old.”
“Even if I try to age her mentally by several y
ears I do not remember this woman.” Lawton turned away from the picture and focused on Claire. “So it’s up to you to go to Spiral Rocks or wherever necessary to find out who she is and why she died with that illustration by her side.”
“Well, actually, it’s up to the police,” Claire corrected him.
“Ah, but are they willing to go all the way to Spiral Rocks? Besides, they don’t have the resources of the University at their disposal and you do. They haven’t even been to see me yet.”
“I gave Detective Owen your name. The police department has murders to solve. For them Maia is just another unidentified overdose.”
“But not for you.”
“Not for me,” Claire agreed. “I’ve gone through all the illustrated expedition books now, plus all the astronomy books. The only missing illustration I’ve found is Spiral Rocks.”
“Then you must go. The experience will be unforgettable. And when you get back, tell me all about it.”
“I will,” Claire promised.
******
Lawton had given Claire a mandate. Considering the importance of the occasion, she knew she had to go. Her truck had a camper shell. She could sleep in it if she stayed too late to drive to the nearest motel. Since Spiral Rocks was in a remote corner of southern Colorado, the nearest motel could be fifty miles away. Claire debated what one wore to the opening of a celestial artist’s archeoastronomical site. Jeans would be comfortable for the drive, especially her favorite Levi’s 501s, but something fancier might be better for the festivities. An outdoor, full moon celebration was likely to bring out the sixties in people—if there was any sixties left in people. Her daughter, Robin, used to wear Claire’s sixties clothes to costume parties, but since Robin had grown up those clothes had vanished. They might even be walking down the street on the back of a homeless person. They were unlikely to fit anymore, anyway—the sixties were Claire’s skinny days. She went to her closet and picked out a long skirt and a crocheted top.
Claire hated to go to parties alone, especially parties where she didn’t know anyone. To start a conversation with a stranger at a party was about as comfortable as stripping naked. But this event would be different. She was unlikely to know anyone but she had a purpose beyond networking and chitchat. She could wander around the site, look at the observation chambers, and watch the moon rise without having to make conversation. The only person she really had to talk to was Edward Girard. It could be difficult to get him alone long enough to ask if he knew Maia. She planned to bring along her copy of Ancient Sites with the Quentin Valor illustration as well as a photocopy of Summertime. Lisa’s painting was a good way to start a conversation. Claire didn’t have a copy of the police photo, but even if she did a photo of a dead person was less likely to start a conversation than to bring it to an end.
Chapter Thirteen
CLAIRE TOOK THE BRAND-NEW HIGHWAY 550 THROUGH CUBA. When the route became a four-lane highway, it was assigned a new number, but Claire remembered the old Route 44, especially the days when it was under construction and a white-knuckle drive all the way to Farmington. Traffic was let through the only open lane one direction at a time. If anyone ignored the signal to stop, a head-on collision was almost inevitable. Drivers sped up and passed on all the blind curves and places marked with no-passing signs. It was promised that the new road would be worth the expense and make driving a pleasure, and eventually it did. Claire enjoyed the drive through the red rock canyons and the wide open spaces. There were many places in the Southwest where eons of wind and water had whipped the rock into the shapes of sentinels.
Claire crossed into Colorado feeling she lived in a middle zone between the poverty of the third world and the affluence of the first. In a sense New Mexico had two foreign borders—Mexico and Colorado. The houses were more spectacular in Colorado. Vacation homes of several thousand square feet sprawled across hillsides in inaccessible places. Even the SUVs seemed bigger. The people looked taller and blonder. But the roads were no better. The dirt road that led into Spiral Rocks was as tortuous as many in New Mexico. It had almost enough ruts and bumps to make Claire wish she owned an SUV, although she had sworn to herself that she would never buy one. There were times when the rattle of her camper shell made it sound like it was about to fall off.
She could see the spiral rocks silhouetted against the sky for miles before she reached them. They were distinguished from other pinnacle rocks because they sat on top of a mesa with no other formations nearby.
By the time her truck had climbed the serpentine road up the mesa it was late afternoon and a large crowd had gathered. Claire saw people of all ages, from infants to elders, dressed in expensive hiking gear, faded jeans, or the bright embroidery of Santa Fe ethnic, which made those New Mexicans seem like poor artistic second cousins who had to dress flamboyantly to be noticed. The vehicles were mostly SUVs and trucks.
Claire followed the arrows to the section designated campground, found a place, and parked. Other visitors were busy setting up their tents. Claire stayed in her jeans but changed into the crocheted top and put on her hiking boots before walking across the mesa.
The isolated area was as flat as a tabletop and a perfect location for viewing the sky. No towns could be seen. There was little artificial light, no plumes of smoke from power plants, no pollution, nothing between the mesa and the sky. Claire saw a weathered wooden house on the northern side of the mesa. The twin spires were located on the eastern edge. Over the millennia they had been twisted into pink-and-beige spindle shapes by wind and water. The emptiness between them was filled once every eighteen and a half years by the rising of the Maximum Moon. It would be a major disappointment, Claire thought, if it happened on an overcast night. Tonight, however, the sky was perfectly clear.
As she walked she blended into a crowd moving toward the rocks. Excitement moved through the gathering like wind rustling dry leaves.
“I was here the last time,” Claire heard a man behind her say. “That was before any of the chambers were built.”
“I was only two years old then,” his younger companion replied.
“It was spectacular,” the older man said. “The moon came over the top of the mesa roaring like a lion.”
Claire was glad the crowd was large enough for her to disappear inside it. She had wondered what Edward Girard looked like and how she would identify him, but that turned out to be easy; he was surrounded by admirers. When the crowd parted Claire saw him standing near the rocks. He had a strong, muscular upper body on top of long, thin legs. His dark brown hair was thick and shoulder length. His face was radiant when he smiled but seemed gaunt and haunted in repose. Edward Girard acted like he was tolerating the admiration rather than enjoying it.
Claire’s impression was that whatever he had created here, he’d created it for himself. The audience was only the means to an end, the support and money that enabled him to build his monument. Edward was the center of this crowd, but he was almost as alone in it as she was.
She turned away from the rocks and began to explore the monument, waiting for a better time to talk to Edward. The spiral rocks reaching for the sky were the centerpiece, but the artist couldn’t take any credit for creating them. He could take credit for the buildings, however. Unlike the massive pyramids constructed by the ancients, Edward had built a series of small, round chambers, spread out across the mesa like cups turned upside down or inverted caves cut out of cliffs. They had the rough exterior finish of rock.
Claire followed the crowd as it drifted in and out of the chambers. It took a large ego to commit oneself to such a monumental and remote monument. That Edward had succeeded was obvious from the praise Claire overheard.
“He brings the sky down to earth,” a woman said in the awestruck, reverent tone Claire recognized as New Age New Mexican. “I feel like I can reach out and touch it.”
“It’s like black velvet,” another woman answered.
“He’s a genius,” a man said.
“Abso
lutely,” New Age Woman replied.
The sinuous shapes of the viewing chambers and the path winding around them reminded Claire of the work of the master Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. Tiles were set into the path in the chevron pattern of rattlesnake hide.
Claire liked the feeling of intimacy created by the series of small chambers. The combination of path and buildings was a work of art, but the chambers themselves were geared to the sunset and the night sky and kept their secrets during daylight. One was set up to frame and light the sky, to flatten it and bring it down into the chamber, but that one worked best at sunset. Others focused on rarely occurring astral phenomena. Claire located the Venus chamber and found that it had to be entered through a low passageway as if the visitor were crawling into an igloo. She got down on her hands and knees, glad she was wearing her 501s. She poked her head into the passageway and saw a man approaching from the other side. They stared at each other like two animals on a collision course. Who had the right of way in this situation? Who had the power? Thinking the man might be uncomfortable inside and anxious to get out, Claire backed away.
“That was a trip,” he said, dating himself and dusting off his pants as he crawled into daylight.
Claire crawled through the entryway and entered the chamber. The interior was painted pure white. The only light came from a small opening in the west framing the bluest patch of sky she had ever seen. The opening was on a track in the ceiling that could be moved to follow the path of Venus. She assumed it was focused on the spot where Venus would appear sometime after dark. Even in daylight, isolating a piece of sky changed the way she perceived it, turning it deeper and bluer, giving it a new meaning. Claire glanced behind her to see if there was enough light from the sky alone to cast a shadow and found there was not.
The Shadow of Venus Page 8
