The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (35 page)

“
L
as apariencias engañan
,” I said
, certain that he didn’t get the double entendre of my appearance being deceiving
and him being deceived about what knocked him out.

When I reached the truck, Susannah said,
“Jeez, Hubie, you must have been a very bad boy. You were in confession almost an hour.”

I fastened my seatbelt and she started out of the
placita
.

“Actually,
” I said, “
I was in confession for
only a couple of minutes
. I spent the rest of the time sitting on a pew talking to Alvar Nuñez.”

She almost ra
mmed one of the deserted storefronts.
“
Nuñez
was in the church? So everyone here
was
lying to protect him.”

“No. They just don’t know his name.”

“Impossible. Everyone knows everyone here.”

“
E
veryone does know him. They just don’t know him as A
lvar
Nuñez
. They know him as Father Jerome.”

This time
she barely missed
the gas station, possibly
saving us from death and the village from a fiery end by stopping
just inches from
the one pump. I guess if you want premium in La Reina, you’re out of luck.

“Alvar
Nu&ntiltype">Nude;ez
is the local priest? I can hardly believe it.”

“I saw him when he came out of the office to take your confession.”

“But you saw his drivers license that said Alvar
Nuñez
.
”

“That’s the name his parents gave him and the one he had when he was sixteen and got his license. But when he became a Dominican, he took a new name.”

She turned off the engine and rolled down the windows. The air at 8,000 feet was cool and fresh.
“Did you find out why
he
lured you
to
the cliff dwelling?”

I had almost forgotten that was the purpose of our visit. So much had happened, but none of it seemed to mean anything. I
told her what Father Jerome
told me.

“So
did
Father Groaz
change his name?” she asked.

I explained
what
I had learned
about
the distinction between a
diocesan
priest and a priest who is a brother in one of the orders like the Domin
i
cans, the Franciscans or the Jesuits.

“I guess I don’
t know much about my own church,
”
she said.

“At least you know about confession. If you hadn’t decided to make one, I wouldn’t have seen Alvar… er, Father Jerome.”

“So what? Nothing came o
f it.
Th
is
whole thing has been one g
i
ant goose chase.
If you had a cell phone,
none of this would have happened. You could have called me from
that cliff dwelling
. I would have come to get you
. You wouldn’t have trekked across the wilderness with a wounded coyote and a dog. Y
ou wouldn’t have sprained your ankle
. Maybe you would even have listened to reason and reported the body to the police. They could have found it before it was moved and figured out who murdered it.”

“I don’t think a cell phone could get a signal there.”

“And your kiln won’t work without electricity.”

“Huh?”

“You have a kiln even though there are times you can’t use it, just like a cell phone. Even murder mystery fans understand that.”

“Murder mystery fans?” Susannah weaves her own logic, but I can’t fault her. She usually figures things out before I do.

“Yeah. They have a website called DorothyL, and they’ve been talking about how irritating it is when an author uses ‘no cell phone’ as an excuse.”

Now I was really confused. “As an excuse for what?”

“For something in a mystery like a detective not calling for back-up, or a person not calling his best friend when he discovers a body in a cliff dwelling.”

“And who is Dorothielle? The name sounds like she could be Miss Gladys’ sister.”

“It’s not a name, Hubert. It’s a first name and middle initial, Dorothy L.
As in
Sayers
, the famous
murder myster
y writer
.”

Now it was beginning to make sense.
The reason she was upset had nothing to do with my not having a cell phone, although she does complain about that. What was irritating her was that the murder mystery she thought we could solve had turned out not to be a murder.

She steered back on to the road.

“I wouldn’t say nothing came of it
,” I said
.
“
I know the b>I know ody was a modern person. I know Father Jerome tricked me into goin
g out there hoping
I
w
ould find the body and report it. And I know I should have taken your advice and reported it the first time you mentioned it.”

She was
tactful
enough not to say she told me so. What she did say was, “You still don’t know the important stuff. Who stole your Bronco? Who was the dead guy?”

“Yeah, and wh
at happened to
my hat?”

“It blew away.
Forget it.
”

“Consider it forgotten. I do agree that the identity of the dead guy is puzzling. A dilemma in fact.”

“Exactly.
If the
dead guy was from La Rei
na, why aren’t they worried about him?
Looking for him?
And if he
wasn’t
from La Reina, why was he in the ceremony?
”

I shrugged. “Not my problem.”

“
I
still think he was murdered.”

“The hole in his hand was made by a nail, Suze, not a bullet. He volunteered to play Jesus in a reenactment of the Crucifixion.
”

She shuddered. “Why would anyone do that?”

“
They believe
they must suffer for their sins.”

“They claim to be Christians,” she said, “but they don’t seem to get the message. Jesus suffered for us.
We don’t need to repeat his ordeal.”

“People have been doing it for almost a thousand years. I think the
Flagellantes
started
in Italy
around the year 1200.”

“You remember that scary guy in
The Da Vinci Code
who whipped his back until it looked like
hamburger
?”

“Silas,” I said.

“There really are people like him,” she said, the idea obviously hard for her to accept.

We drove along in silence until we reached the paved ro
ad
.

“Well, Hubie, I won our wager. The dead guy was definitely modern. So you have to take my car.”

“I don’t want your car.”

“You can’t back out now. A deal is a deal. Now I can buy a new car.”

“I can’t drive with this cast, so you might as well keep your car for now.” I was hoping to wiggle out of this deal and wanted to buy time.

“The first thing we have to do is retrieve it
,
”
she said
.
“
There’s a reception
Saturday a
t the
La
Rinconada Gallery
in
San Patricio
.
The art department is sponsoring one graduate student to attend, and I was selected. So I get a guest cottage free for one night.
I want you to come with me. W
e can stop by the ranch the second night
on the way home
and switch the truck back for my car.”

“That’s a nice offer, Suze, but I think I’d just be in your way.”

“You wouldn’
t be in my way. You’
d be good company. I don’t want to drive all the way down there by myself. And you need to get away.
This
Rio Doloroso thing has been tough on you.”

“I don’t—“

“Listen, Hubert. I drove you all the way to that cliff dwelling so you could go down there to find pots and check the age of a dead guy,
neither of which you did.
The
n I drove you all the way up here to La Reina where you got into a bar fight
,
and I got accused of being a witch. The
least you can do is r
ide along with me to
La Rinconada
.”

I smiled at her. “When do we leave?”

“
Tomorrow afternoon.
”

“Good. I was planning to sleep late.”

37

Our route to San Patricio took us
through Willard – population 249.

Then we started hitting the
really
small towns
,
Progresso, Cedarvale, Corona and Robshart
–
population 18
,
but I
suspect
they are counting the cemetery.

As we entered
Carri
zozo
, population
996
and the
current
county seat of Lincoln County
, I reminded Susannah of the local ordinance that prohibits women from appearing in public unshaven
.