Wild Penance (16 page)

“Have you had any problems on the job, any significant incidents?”

I put my elbow on the table and dropped my forehead into my hand. I was starting to develop a screaming headache. “Not at work, no. But there is one thing, although I don’t see how it could have anything to do with this.”

“Why don’t you let me decide about that?”

“My book—I’ve been working on a sketchbook. It was stolen. On the same day as the . . . the thing at the gorge.”

“I saw a report that you had a book stolen. I thought it was just some book you bought, or maybe one from the library. It sounded like vandals broke into your car and didn’t find what they were looking for.”

“No, that’s not how it was. Three men broke into my Jeep when I was out running that evening on the West Rim Trail. I came back as they were going through my things. They stole the book—the sketchbook with all the drawings and things I’d written.”

Padilla turned to a fresh page and poised his pen above it. “Let’s see. So three guys broke into your car while you were on the trail out there. And did you say they stole your bag, too? Was the book in your bag?”

“No, they went through my bag, but they just dropped it on the ground outside my car. Everything was still in it.”

“They left the bag? They didn’t take any money?”

“No. No credit cards, nothing.”

“How about your gun? You carry a sidearm, right?”

“Yes. My pistol was locked in my glove compartment, but they didn’t take it either. It would have been just as easy to break into that glove box as it was to use a slim jim on my car door to get it open. And my rifle and shotgun were on the floor in the backseat, untouched. They went through everything, but the only thing they took was my book.”

“What would they want with this book you were writing?”

“That’s the thing. I didn’t think I should mention this when I reported the book stolen because you told me not to talk to anyone about what I had seen that morning.”

“That’s right.”

“The book was about the Penitentes.”

He whistled. “You’re writing a book about the Penitentes? You sure like to stir it up, don’t you? Have you ever heard of the
reata
?” He was referring to a brutal torture reputed to be the punishment for telling the secrets of the religion. A man is supposedly tied about the waist with two sets of ropes—while his accusers pull one set toward his head, the other toward his feet, and then drag him naked up the side of a mountain, through beds of cacti and over rocky terrain until he is bloody and unconscious, or worse.

“There’s nothing in my book that isn’t common knowledge, Jerry. I don’t know any of their secrets. I’ve just written about what I’ve seen. And I was mapping the shrines, the moradas, sketching them. I tried to talk to some of the locals about the shrines, but most of them wouldn’t even talk with me.”

“Well, you’ve got more guts than most, Jamaica. Maybe someone took your book to find out if you did know their secrets. Did you ever think about that?”

I was struck dumb for a moment. “No. That hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Okay, so this book of yours—who knew you were writing it?”

“No one, really. Except a priest in Santa Fe, and a woman in Agua Azuela, both of whom were helping me, so I think we can rule them out.”

“All right, so let’s backtrack here just a little. Tonight, in the show, who knew you were originally supposed to go on sixth?”

“Well, all the models. And Wynetta, of course. Ernie. And Bennie.”

Padilla consulted his notebook again. “What about this guy Manny Trujillo? Do you know him?”

“Who? Manny? No. Bennie told me he was the new dishwasher. I’ve seen him here twice. But I don’t really know him.”

“Oh, really? Well, Deputy Hernandez found Manny Trujillo hanging around out in the parking lot after everyone else had left. When Hernandez questioned him, Trujillo said he was waiting to see if you were all right.”

“Me? I don’t even know him! We’ve never even been introduced. I just came in looking for Bennie earlier this week, and he was in the kitchen. And then . . .” I paused.

“And then?” Jerry prompted.

“And then I bumped into Manny when I was leaving after rehearsal this morning. I had just stepped out the door. I’m sure he heard Wynetta yell at me that I would go on sixth. Of course half the county probably heard it—Wynetta yelled it two or three times at the top of her lungs.”

Jerry got up and picked up the keys off the bar. He went to the front door, unlocked it, and swung it open. “Hey, Tony! Did you let that Trujillo guy go home?” There was a pause. “I think we better go get him. I’m almost done here.”

He came back, sat down, looked at me as if he were asking a favor. “Can you think of any reason why this guy Trujillo would have it in for you?”

“No, Jerry. I told you. I don’t even know him.”

“Well, I think we’ll go get Manny Trujillo and talk to him a little more. Why don’t you get back with me if you think of anything else that might help, okay?” He was folding his notebook cover over and putting it in his pocket as he said this. He pressed both palms flat on the table and pushed against it as he started to get up, then stopped in midstoop and sat back down. He leaned forward. Two vertical folds formed like small flesh columns above the bridge of his nose, and his eyes narrowed. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “By the way, Christine Salazar needs to do a witness interview with you. She was the field deputy medical investigator on the search and recovery crew in the gorge. Get to her as quick as you can, okay?”

“I’ll call her on Monday. Have you had any developments in the case?”

“We don’t have much to go on. Lou Ebert and the state police are working the cargo van angle. Checking at rental places in a four-state area. Checking registration records for owned ones.”

“Do you know who the man on the cross was?”

“Negative on the I.D. But I guess the OMI has determined it wasn’t the fall from the bridge or the trauma from the crucifixion that was the cause of death.”

My mouth came open. “What was it?”

“Better you don’t know any more than you do right now,” Padilla said. “You be careful, Jamaica. With all that’s been going on, if I was you, I’d lay real low.”

Mass

The next morning, I arrived at the church in Agua Azuela after the monthly mass given by the priest had already begun. I entered as quietly as I could and slipped into a seat in the back pew. I knew my friend Regan would be there; I wanted to tell her that my book had been stolen. After all the information she had shared and stories she had told me, I knew she would be almost as devastated about the loss as I was.

This small adobe chapel had been built nearly five hundred years ago, under the oversight of a Franciscan priest direct from Spain. Its one narrow room held nine short pews, all on one side, and the high ceiling was supported with large vigas. A little wiring had been added to string a few lights from these vigas, but other than that one concession to modernity, it remained the same rustic adobe fortress as when it was first built. A member of the village had come early that morning to light a fire in the woodstove, but the three-foot-thick walls clung to the cold and refused to be persuaded to warmth. Two small stained and leaded glass windows were mounted high in one of the long walls, but these let in little light. Here in the deep crevice of the canyon, the sun was still behind the mountains, even at ten o’clock, and it felt more like twilight than the early part of the day. A small table behind the altar housed a group of carved santos, looking like caricatures with their crudely hewn, disproportionate features and bold, brilliant paint. Before them, candles burned in glass containers. On the back wall, a polychrome
retablo
—a small painted altar screen—depicted the patron saint of this chapel. A wooden statue of the Madonna, with real human hair and a carved, aquiline nose, wore a white polyester wedding dress like the kind made for a child to use for playing dress-up. This, together with a thin, shapeless veil, hung limply about Mary’s stiff form. Above the altar hung a large, graphic crucifix, the pinkish white paint of the figure’s skin flaking and peeling, the drops of blood where the crown of thorns touched the brow a faded shade of reddish purple. This bulto of Christ, built with hinged arms and legs so it could be hung on the cross or used in other ways, had real hair and human teeth, giving it a gruesome appearance. The image of the man on the cross falling from the bridge flashed before my eyes, and I had to look away from the altar to make it stop.

It was a curious mass. There was no piano or organ here, and the villagers sang the only hymn dispassionately in Spanish. While the priest was reciting the litany—also in Spanish—the local dogs began a haunting chorus of howling in the hills that surrounded the church. The worshippers seemed not to notice, but I was borne away on this sound and lost track of the service entirely. It was not until the parishioners began filing forward from the pews to take communion that I came back to the cold, sorrowful church. It felt like a house where someone was dying.

I went outside to wait, since I was not partaking in the communion. One by one, the villagers came from the church after receiving the sacrament. None of them spoke to me. Some waited for a friend or relative before leaving; some gathered with their neighbors to visit. Others lined up to use the outhouse at the rear of the churchyard, and a few scurried away to Sunday activities elsewhere. When Regan appeared at the door of the chapel, she was holding the priest by the forearm, speaking animatedly with him.

I felt fingernails clutch the back of my arm. I turned around to see a small bent figure in a thick lavender wool shawl and tan sackcloth dress. Her hair was pure white, and her bushy white eyebrows framed a deeply etched face. Two black eyes peered from under her brow at me. She squinted, as if to bring me into focus, then opened thin lips to reveal a random arrangement of seven or eight brown teeth, most of them in the top half of her mouth.

“Come have tea,” she demanded. Her harsh voice made me think of a bat’s cries, as if she were sending her voice out—not to be heard by me but rather to get a reading by bouncing it off me. Her grip on my arm tightened, her nails biting into my flesh.

“I have already made arrangements to visit a friend,” I said, wresting my biceps from her tenacious hold. I looked more carefully at this intrepid stranger. She was misshapen. Her back was twisted and a large hump at the base of her neck above her left shoulder had the effect of weighing the top of her torso down and pushing it forward, while the lower half seemed to be turned to the right. Even though it was very cold, she had bare legs beneath her dress, and her calves looked hard and knotted, like two twisted ropes. She wore a tired pair of too-large men’s brown wing tips without laces, the toes of which turned up like an elf’s.

“Do you know where I live?” She pawed at me with her left hand as if to grab me again.

“No,” I said, bewildered—almost repulsed. I did not recollect seeing this woman in the small church—from my seat in the rear pew, I would have noticed her sitting in front of me. Nor did I recall seeing her file out the only door after communion.

“Do you know the casita with the blue door?” she persisted.

Three out of five houses in New Mexico had a blue door—the locals believed this kept evil from their homes. They called the distinctive, sun-washed turquoise color Virgin Mary blue.

“Which one?” I asked.

“Go up the arroyo to the north,” she said. “There is a little hut behind some white willows. Turn to the west just past the hut and follow the acequia up into the hills. When you see a boulder with a hand on it, go north on the goat path. You will have to climb. I live on the slope that faces the sun. I will be waiting on the
portal
.”

From behind me, Regan’s voice intervened. “Jamaica, what a surprise! I’m so glad you came. I’d like you to meet Father Ximon Rivera.”

I looked around to see the padre and my friend walking toward me from the church, but instead of responding, I turned back to finish my conversation with the old woman. She was gone. A handful of villagers lingered in the dirt yard inside the wall, calling
adiós
to one another, promising to meet one another in Dixon for mass tomorrow, for it was Lent, and many of them tried to take communion every day.

“Jamaica,” Regan prodded, sounding embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I turned and looked at Regan apologetically, then met the priest’s puzzled gaze. “I’m Jamaica Wild. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just talking to someone, and now she’s disappeared.”

Regan said, “Jamaica, I am so delighted you came for mass. I’m having a brunch at my place. Why don’t you come? You and Father Ximon can get acquainted where it’s warm.”

As she and the priest walked away, I turned once more to where the
mujer
had been standing. I panned around the churchyard, but she wasn’t there—only a few people remained inside the churchyard wall. I walked around the side of the church—nothing but a narrow patch of weeds between the building and the wall. I passed through the gates to the area in front of the wall where the road through the village ended in a wide dirt lot. The few cars that had been parked there were now gone. I saw three people walking down the road together, a lone man was walking up a lane to a house in the trees, and I saw Regan and the father leading a group across the bridge over the rio on the way to Regan’s house. I looked all around for the old hag who had wanted me to come for tea. She had simply vanished.

Ill-Advised

Regan held up a nearly empty wineglass. This was her court and she looked like a queen as she perched on the throne of her white leather sofa, her guests hanging on her every word. She had been telling amusing anecdotes about the colorful people in the village. Regan’s experience in show business had made her a wonderful storyteller, and she clearly loved all the attention this was bringing. “So this poor couple from Kansas City who were staying in the brown trailer wake up and find a white bull in the orchard below the house. They ask everyone whose bull it is, but no one will claim it. The acequias that run through their orchard are lined with watercress and wild asparagus, even in the winter, and the bull is eating all their salad vegetables. And the couple’s two big dogs are going crazy with this intruder. Well, of course there is no one to call—there is no ‘Animal Control’ like in the city. Every time the couple tries to go down in their orchard, the bull charges them. This goes on for a few weeks, and finally one day, little Gilberto—Augustus’s son—takes a willow switch and herds the bull out of the orchard. The gringa from Kansas City confronts the boy. ‘If that is your bull, why did your father tell me otherwise?’ And Gilberto says, ‘He probably knew you would ask him to move the bull, and everyone—even the bull—knows your orchard has the best grazing in the winter. Papa didn’t want to claim an empty bull when a full one would be there in his place in a matter of weeks.’ ”