The Vanishing Point (6 page)

Chapter
Four

W
HEN
C
LAIRE ANSWERED HER PHONE LATER THAT AFTERNOON
the voice on the line sounded hesitant and husky. “I'd like to speak to Claire Reynier?” the caller whispered, putting a question mark where there should have been a period.

“I'm Claire Reynier.”

“This is Jennie Dell.” The image that came to Claire's mind was of the hippie with long blond hair beating a tambourine on a stage. She was too startled to respond immediately. Jennie hesitated, too, then said, “Curt Devereux gave me a copy of Jonathan's journal.”

“He did?” Claire asked, adding a question mark of her own. It was a lame response, but she needed time to think. She didn't believe Curt should be showing the journal to a woman who had once been a suspect.

“It was a shock to see it after all this time.”

“I'm sure it was.”

“Curt said that
UNM
is considering publication?”

“It's under consideration, but there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved—rights, for one thing.”

“Ada Vail can be difficult.”

Claire had nothing to add to that. There was another lengthy pause in the conversation. “Where are you calling from?” she finally asked, to fill the vacuum.

“Madrid. I live here now.”

Claire knew by the emphasis on the first syllable that Jennie was talking about the former mining town southwest of Santa Fe, not the city in Spain.

“Curt told me you're meeting him in Slickrock Canyon on Saturday?”

Claire resisted the impulse to say, “He did?” again. She was bothered by Curt's lack of discretion and confidentiality. The fact that this was an old investigation didn't make it insignificant in her mind. To her what happened to Jonathan Vail was very significant. As an archivist, she knew that a rumor that gets repeated often enough becomes accepted as fact. She had heard all the rumors about Curt's incompetence, but she needed facts to believe them. So far he seemed to be doing his best to live up to his reputation. “Did he invite you to come along, too?” she asked, hoping that he hadn't.

“No, he didn't, but I wouldn't have gone even if he had. I have no desire to return to that place
ever
again. Besides…” She laughed. “I've become a house cat. I was wondering if you could stop by here on your way? I'd like to talk to you about the notebook and what would be in Jonathan's best interests. I'm not hard to find—it's the yellow house with turquoise trim on the west side of town. Follow the dirt road next to the glassblowers.”

Claire agreed. She was intrigued by the thought of meeting the woman who had existed for so long as a character on a page, a character considered duplicitous by some, honorable by others. Curt Devereux had come out of the Vail investigation with a tarnished reputation, but Jennie's remained ambiguous.

******

Claire left the center Friday afternoon prepared for hiking in Grand Gulch. She had good boots. She brought along a hat, sunscreen, a day pack, lots of water, and trail mix. She worried about keeping up with Curt and Tim, who spent a lot more time in the wilderness than she did. Tai chi, which had taught her how to keep an opponent off balance by embracing the opposite, was good preparation for her job at the center, but she didn't know if it could prepare her for the wilderness, or for Jennie Dell either.

She took the back road to Madrid, passing through Tijeras Canyon on the section of
I-40
where trucks picked up speed for the long haul to Amarillo. She got off at Cedar Crest and turned north onto Highway 14, the old Turquoise Trail. From an Albuquerque resident's point of view this was the back side of the Sandia Mountains. The west side was high desert. The east side was green with piñon, juniper, and cedar. It had rained recently. The sky was heavy with clouds, and there were places where gravel had washed across the highway.

Development moved relentlessly north on Route 14. The farther north Claire drove, the larger the houses and building lots became. She took a deep breath and exhaled when she passed San Pedro Creek, the last development, and entered the place that was described in a Spanglish road sign as El Corazón del Ortiz Ranch.
KEEP OUT
was painted on tires attached periodically to a fence. It was a beautiful and valuable property located midway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. From here on, the road passed through ranch country and ghost towns.

Claire drove through Golden admiring the rounded lines of the whitewashed adobe church. Adobe always gave her the impression that it was rising out of the earth at the same time that it was sinking back in. Ten miles later she rounded a curve and came upon the slag heap that marked the entrance to the former mining town of Madrid. It was one of the rare towns in New Mexico that had little natural beauty. Claire couldn't remember when Madrid was an active mining town, but she remembered when, in the seventies, artists and craftspeople who could no longer afford to live in Santa Fe began fixing up the abandoned board-and-batten miners' shacks and moving in. Some had been painted, some
were
weathered stony gray, some were too far gone to ever be restored, reduced to skeletons. Madrid had once been a very lonely place, but now the main street bustled with restaurants and shops, and finding a parking space could be a challenge. Claire followed Jennie's directions and turned onto a dirt road that was pockmarked with potholes and ruts. The recent rain had left puddles in the holes. Going five miles an hour and dodging the puddles, Claire came to the yellow house with turquoise trim that belonged to Jennie. Next to it a weathered shed functioned as a garage. The door was open, and Claire could see a compact car inside that matched the turquoise trim. She parked in the driveway and walked to the front door. The doorbell was a wind chime, a series of graduated metal pipes. Claire struck it, and the sound reverberated along the pipes.

When the door opened and she faced Jennie Dell, the woman who was nearly as legendary as Jonathan Vail, Claire had the sensation that the front door was the cover of a pop-up book and that Jennie was popping out of the pages. She had put on about twenty pounds but was still an attractive woman, an earth mother now instead of a sprite. Her abundant blond hair rippled down her back, but silver framed her face. She wore an ankle-length denim dress with a scoop neck that showed ample cleavage. The dress had long sleeves that were narrow at the shoulder but full at the wrist. When Jennie raised her arms Claire could see that the sleeves had a yellow lining. Jennie reminded her of Stevie Nicks in her latest, full-figured incarnation.

“I'm Jennie,” she said in her husky voice.

“Claire Reynier.”

“You found the house all right?”

“The turquoise trim helped.”

Jennie laughed. “Come on in.” She picked up a butterscotch-colored cat with white paws that had leapt onto the doorstep the minute Claire struck the chime. “This is Butterscotch. You're not allergic to cats, are you?”

“No. I have one myself.”

“You look like a cat person.”

Jennie put the cat down on the wood floor, and Claire followed her into the house, which had a fragrant, smoky smell as if someone had walked through it waving a smudge stick. Burning sage was a ritual practiced in New Mexico to cleanse a house of bad thoughts or to conceal offensive odors.

“My son says that if there is reincarnation he wants to come back as a single woman's cat. No other being in the universe gets as much attention,” Claire said.

“Smart man,” Jennie replied.

Claire realized she didn't know whether Jennie was single or not. “Are you single?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Jennie. “And you?”

“Recently
divorced.”

“Ah,” said Jennie. “Can I get you something? An herb tea?”

“That would be fine,” Claire said.

Jennie went into the kitchen, and Claire sat down in the living room, which relied heavily on Guatemalan fabric for decoration. Or was that overdecoration? Huipils were thumbtacked to the walls. The cushions on the sofa and chairs were a red-striped fabric. There were numerous embroidered pillows, and a wicker basket full of cloth dolls in native dress. The room was small and busy. The dominant color was red. It was a contrast to Claire's spare, subdued house, but once she got used to it, she rather liked it. Long enough for a visit, anyway.

Jennie came back with a tray holding an earthenware teapot and two cups. She put the tray down on the wicker basket she used as a coffee table and sat down on the red sofa, arranging her dress so that the skirt spread across the cushions. It occurred to Claire that she had dressed to complement the room. Denim blue was about the only color one could get away with in here.

“Do you work for Maya Jones?” she asked. It was a store in Madrid that sold Guatemalan imports.

Jennie leaned back against the cushions. “No, but I buy a lot of stuff there. I'm a writer.”

“What do you write?”

“Mini books. Those little books you see beside the checkout counter in the bookstores? I do different subjects. Dogs, astrology, food. It's a living.” She laughed. “I guess. I published a novel once, but it didn't do well.”

It was an entrée to a subject Claire wanted to discuss. “I've been talking to UNM Press about publishing Jonathan's journal. Avery Dunstan, the editor I work with there, heard from Jonathan's editor in New York that the royalties for
A Blue-Eyed Boy
go to you.”

“They do,” Jennie said. “After he received his draft notice, Jonathan made a written request so that if anything happened to him, I would get the royalties. His parents didn't object, and the publisher honored the request. Jonathan never had a formal will. All he had to leave were his royalties and his truck. The royalties supported me for a while, but eventually sales fell off. I couldn't afford to live in Santa Fe anymore, so I moved out here.”

“But you and Jonathan never married?”

“Never,” Jennie said, pouring the tea. “Why do you ask?”

“The rumor persists that he left an heir.”

“A lot of rumors persist about Jonathan. I wish
that
one were true—or at least that he'd left an heir by me, but he didn't. And if he'd had a child by someone else I believe I would have known.”

“Another persistent rumor is that he didn't die in the canyonlands. That somewhere in the world
Jonathan
Vail is alive and well.”

Jennie handed Claire her cup of tea. “Ada would have found him if that were true. She paid her private investigator, Nick Lorenz, a fortune, and he made finding Jonathan his life's work.”

Claire took a sip of her tea, which had the dark, spicy flavor of Emperor's Choice. “Jonathan's parents have the rights to the journal unless there's a document or a child out there to prove otherwise.”

“As far as I know, there isn't. What has Ada decided to do with it?”

“She is leaving the original at the center for the time being, accessible only to staff and law enforcement.”

“She's not going to like being called the fucking old lady,” Jennie said with a laugh.

The only experience Claire had had with law enforcement had to do with library thefts, but it seemed to her that Curt had gone beyond the scope of his investigation by giving Jennie a copy of the journal, particularly since he knew Ada Vail had restricted access. “Why did Curt give you a copy of the journal?” she asked.

“He wanted me to take some time to study it and see if I found anything that could help the investigation. He always believed that what I heard and saw in Slickrock Canyon was the truth. Unlike some people, he didn't doubt me.”

Jennie raised an arm to brush her hair out of her face, and her sleeve fell open, revealing the yellow lining of her dress. She looked like a sorceress, and Claire was reminded of the fascination some women in the sixties had with the occult. She could understand how the vivid Jennie could cast a spell over the plain Curt. She lived in Technicolor. He lived in khaki.

“Have you and Curt kept in touch?” she asked.

“We did at first, but it has been years since I saw him. He was curious about some things in the journal. He had never heard of Lou and wondered who he was.”

“I wondered that myself.”

“His full name is Lou Bastiann. He was a fan of Jonathan's. You've read
A Blue-Eyed Boy,
haven't you?” Her hair fell across her face as she bent to pour another cup of tea.

“Many times,” Claire said.

“That book had a powerful effect on people, and one of them was Lou. He read it when it first came out, tracked Jonathan down, and they became friends. More than friends. There's a special relationship between an author and a fan. The fan has found someone to give voice to his thoughts, the author has found a kindred spirit. That was Lou and Jonathan. Lou had no family, and he considered Jonathan his honorary brother. He was in Vietnam in 1966, which is why Jonathan said he was worried about him. We keep in touch. He comes back here from time to time for the Veterans Day ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial in Angel Fire. I'll be interested to hear what
he
thinks of the journal.”

“Ada
would prefer that no one else saw it.”

“Ada Vail has no power over me,” Jennie said.

The cat came into the room, jumped onto the sofa, and curled up in her lap. Its color was a perfect complement to Jennie's dress and to the sofa, giving Claire the sensation that Butterscotch was also a part of her costume.

Jennie stroked the cat and said, “Tell me, what did you think of the writing in the journal?”

“I didn't think it was as polished or elegant as
A Blue-Eyed Boy,
but, then, it wasn't written for publication. Who knows what Jonathan would have done with it if…”