Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Shaman Winter, and Jemez Spring

  Sam Garcia, the chief of police, stood nearby with a couple of plainclothes cops. He was talking to Ben Chávez, the writer, who lived on the West Mesa. Chávez seemed to be taking notes.

  Every time I’ve run into that man he’s taking notes, Sonny thought. Writing stories. Had he seen Veronica fall, or was he always just on the fringe of things when they happened? There was no doubt Benjamin Chávez knew just about everyone in the city, anyone who was anyone, and that sooner or later he would write them into his novels.

  Garcia glanced up, spotted Sonny, frowned, and returned to his conversation with Chávez. Right now Garcia wouldn’t talk to the press, but he trusted the writer.

  Howard, who had been standing by the tarp-covered body, waved and came over to them. Sonny thought he recognized the DEA officer who had been talking to Howard and now moved away.

  “How’s it going?” Howard asked, as he shook hands with Sonny. “Hi, Rita.” He took her hand. “How are you? You look as beautiful as ever.”

  “Gracias,” Rita replied.

  “Who’s the DEA guy?” Sonny asked.

  “Joe Flannery. They’ve been buzzing around all week. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know about Veronica.”

  “You sure it’s Veronica?”

  “Affirmative,” Howard answered. “I’ve viewed the body. You want to?”

  Sonny hesitated. No, he didn’t want to see her. It wasn’t his case. He had no interest in getting mixed up in it. He glanced at the area that had been cordoned off around an old cottonwood stump split long ago by lightning. The white slivers of the huge trunk rose up from the blackened roots. The tarp covering the body lay curled around the jagged, bony fingers of stump that rose skyward. Veronica had landed in a place cursed by lightning.

  But if I don’t see her for myself, I’ll never be sure, Sonny thought. Ah, what the hell is one more dead body. She’s dead, and she means nothing to me. Veronica had killed Gloria; now a swift justice had been served.

  “Any witnesses?” Sonny asked, angry at himself that he was buying time. Tamara Dubronsky would never be implicated in the murder of Gloria Dominic, and as far as Sonny was concerned, he didn’t give a damn. Let Garcia and the DA handle it!

  “There was an anonymous call,” Howard answered. “Someone reported seeing a body fall. Otherwise, she could have been here days before being found. The strange thing is there haven’t been any calls from the balloonists. The phone call came from someone on the ground.”

  Sonny looked around. There were no houses along this part of the river bosque. The shopping center lay to the north, and the Christian Children’s home just behind it. Someday the Montaño bridge would cross the river near here, but for now the area was deserted.

  “Was she flying alone?” Sonny asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Howard replied.

  Sonny wiped a thin veil of sweat from his forehead. Murder, Howard was saying murder. He had known it all along. Now he had to see the body; he had to make sure the woman lying under the tarp was Veronica, the fat wife of Raven, the woman who, as far as he was concerned, had led Raven’s cult to kill Gloria Dominic.

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking,” Sonny said.

  “Yeah,” Howard said, “and there are four black feathers on the body.”

  “Damn,” Sonny groaned. Raven’s calling card!

  Raven had returned, Howard knew. The feathers were Raven’s signature. He had taken Veronica up and pushed her out of the hot-air balloon’s gondola.

  “Okay,” Sonny whispered. “Let’s see the body.”

  Rita held his hand for a moment, then let go, and he walked with Howard toward the tree where Veronica’s body lay. The cop standing near the tarp stepped aside.

  Howard pulled back the tarp and Sonny winced. The lifeless body of the woman was impaled on one of the slivers of the cottonwood stump. She had landed faceup on a sharp spear of the old tree. Her mouth was wide open, frozen in a scream of terror; her large fish eyes stared up at Sonny. The spear she was lodged on was so white it looked like the rib of a whale. Her chest was ripped open. Blood covered the bare stump, soaking her clothes, soaking the sand around her.

  A large green fly buzzed lazily around the body and lighted on the pale forehead of the dead woman.

  “Chingao,” Sonny cursed, and turned away. It was an ugly sight.

  “Maybe there is justice in the universe,” Howard whispered. “She was going to die from the fall, but hitting the sand around here might not have killed her quickly. This is ugly, but merciful. And, perhaps, fitting,” he added.

  Veronica was one of Raven’s four wives, the women of the Sun cult. Raven, probably with Tamara’s help, had brainwashed them into taking new identities, new names. He gave them a sense of power in their lives by creating a family, the Zia cult, a perverted way of life with an unbalanced, antinuclear agenda. The women gave their bodies and souls over to Raven, who promised to deliver them into a new life, a new covenant whose goal was to clean the earth of nuclear material.

  “Yeah,” Sonny said. He knew what Howard must be thinking. Stabbed right through the heart, like they did in the old Dracula movies to kill the vampire.

  A second fly, glowing green-iridescent in the morning sunlight, appeared and buzzed around the tarp, attracted by the blood that stained the area.

  “Where’s Tamara?” Sonny asked.

  “Far as I know she’s still in that psychiatric hospital in Santa Fé,” Howard said. “Excuse me, it’s called an ‘equilibrium retreat.’ She’s probably teamed up with that quack who, for a hundred bucks, drives her to a spiritual vortex.”

  “Ecstasy on the mesa,” Sonny said.

  “Yeah. Tamara’s attorney convinced a judge she needed R and R from the stress the cops put her through, so she’s been relaxing at the spa. But now that Veronica’s dead, she’s probably packing.”

  Sonny nodded. The DA’s witness was dead, and there would be no trial for Tamara.

  “Tracks?” Sonny asked and looked at the ground around the tarp-covered body.

  “Tough to make out in this sand,” Howard replied. Beads of perspiration popped on his wide, dark forehead. “When I got here, they were already blurred by the medics who got here first, but there are a few tracks here—” He pointed to tracks that disappeared down a path into the thick river brush.

  Sonny looked into the bosque. A shadow moved. He walked slowly toward the thick forest of cottonwoods, Russian olives, river willows. He followed the depressions in the sand, smelling for spoor, like a river coyote would smell the area of a recent kill, checking details, checking for danger. The tracks led into the river bosque.

  Were they Raven’s tracks? Had he come out of the bosque, checked to make sure Veronica was dead? Had he left the four feathers for Sonny? Raven always left clues.

  Sonny looked up, sniffing the air. The morning was already warm. The temperature would climb into the seventies, then drop into the forties at night. The most perfect, and most enchanting, time to be in New Mexico. And now this.

  He could see the sluggish waters of the river through an opening in the trees. The water level was low in the Río Grande this time of the year. Peaceful and mellow as the season. The brilliant green leaves of the river alamos shimmered in the breeze; their rustle carried the distinctive sound of fall. A few cottonwoods were tinged yellow, the first sign of fall.

  He looked closely at a foot trail that led into the river bosque. Shadows moved, then disappeared. The hair bristled along Sonny’s neck. There were coyotes along the river, maybe that’s what he had seen. They hunted at night. People who lived along the river heard their yelps piercing the night. Even along the acequias of the North Valley, one sometimes caught sight of a coyote or a fox on the hunt.

  Veronica was dead, a stake driven through her heart. Raven wasn’t done with Sonny yet.

  Veronica would have told the court that Tamara Dubronsky had been the Zia queen, the power behind the Zia cult, and she had ordered the murder of Gloria Dom
inic. She would also have implicated Raven, and maybe tell what they did with the half million they took from Gloria. Now she had been silenced, and there was no case.

  “What now?” Howard asked as they walked back to Rita.

  “Let Garcia handle it,” Sonny answered. “Why the hell should I get mixed up in this?”

  Howard shrugged. Both knew why.

  Rita took Sonny’s hand and looked closely at him, trying to gauge the effect of the sight of the dead woman. He didn’t need another lost soul clinging to his.

  “Ah, two of my favorite people,” Sam Garcia interrupted. He was irritated because as far as he was concerned private detectives were a pain in the ass. Insurance case grovelers. Missing husband hounds. But when it came to murder, leave it to the cops! That’s what they were paid for.

  But he respected Sonny. He had to: Sonny had broken the Zia cult case.

  “What brings you out, Sonny?” the police chief said. “Hello, Rita.”

  “Looks like you lost your witness, Sam,” Sonny replied.

  “She was out on bond! What the hell am I supposed to do, baby-sit everyone who can make bond?” Garcia shot back.

  “What do you have?” Sonny asked.

  “Not a damn thing!” the chief answered, glancing at Howard. He paused and looked at the television cameras that waited just beyond the ropes. He hated talking to the press.

  “Any record on the balloon?” Sonny asked.

  The chief shook his head. “I talked to Madge Swenson at balloon fiesta headquarters. Veronica Worthy was not registered to fly with the fiesta. She’s definitely not one of theirs.”

  “Where’s the balloon she was in?”

  “Found it over by Cottonwood Mall. Propane tank must have exploded. The thing burned to a cinder.”

  Howard shook his head and glanced at Sonny. They both knew the chief was only wishing that Veronica had gone up alone.

  “Just bonded out and she rents a balloon and she goes up alone to enjoy her freedom,” Sonny scoffed. “Pues, buena suerte.” He took Rita’s hand. “Vamos. Nothing for us to do here. Say hello to Marie, Howard. So long, Chief.”

  “Humpf!” The chief coughed. The woman was dead. Saved the state a trial. Case was closed as far as he was concerned.

  “So long, compadre,” Howard called, and watched Sonny and Rita plod through the sand.

  “What do you think?” Garcia asked his forensics man.

  “Raven,” Howard replied.

  “I don’t believe it,” Garcia groaned. Howard was the best forensics man in the region, but just then he didn’t want to believe him. “I should’ve gone fishing up in the Jemez,” he muttered. “Merhege called, said the trout are biting. Instead I get this!”

  Howard wiped the sweat from his forehead. Sonny was playing it cool, but Howard knew he was worried. Raven had returned for revenge, and Sonny was the target. It didn’t look good for his friend.

  Francine Hunter, followed by a young man carrying a TV 7 television camera, was waiting for Sonny at the yellow ribbon.

  “Hello, Mr. Baca, Francine Hunter, TV Seven. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “I thought you were with channel four,” Sonny replied.

  “I quit. Besides, I really like working with Nelson Martinez.”

  The handsome Nelson Martinez and very respected Dick Knipfing were the top honchos on TV 7. A good team, Sonny thought. So Francine had joined them. It had done nothing to improve her hairdo, which flopped over her forehead into her eyes.

  “Talk to the chief,” Sonny said. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Come on, Sonny, the chief won’t say a thing.” She kept shoving in front of the other reporters. “He’ll talk to Conroy Chino, not to me. Was it an accident or not?” She pushed the mike in front of Sonny and motioned for her cameraman to roll.

  “Don’t know,” Sonny replied.

  “Nobody flies alone. Did she fall or did someone push her?” She kept shoving the mike into Sonny’s face.

  “Talk to Garcia. I’m not on the case.”

  “But you’ve lost your prime suspect in the Gloria Dominic murder case!” Francine exclaimed.

  “The DA lost his prime witness! I haven’t lost anything!” Sonny shot back, and pulled Rita away. “Talk to Garcia! Or the DA!”

  Just then, the mustachioed DA pulled up in his Ford Bronco. He glanced at Sonny and frowned, just like Garcia, except his frown was darker. He hurried past the mob of reporters to the scene.

  “Mr. Schwartz!” Francine Hunter called, and hurried after him.

  Sonny and Rita got into the truck and drove in silence across the Paseo del Norte bridge. The tranquillity of the Saturday morning was gone. Rita sensed the change in Sonny.

  Sonny exited on Second Street, then drove over to Fourth, where he stopped in front of Rita’s Cocina, one of the most popular Mexican food restaurants in the North Valley.

  “Want some coffee?” she asked. She knew he needed to talk about the limpieza, but it was nearly noon and the restaurant was packed. He preferred the quiet of the truck.

  “It was Raven,” Rita said.

  “Yup.”

  “He’s alive, that’s why his body was never found. And he’s crazy,” Rita said. “He killed Veronica to keep Tamara from going to trial. Garcia knows.”

  “But he acts like he doesn’t. What I’d like to know is who they sent to bond her out.”

  “One of Raven’s wives.”

  “Probably Raven’s crazy, but he sure as hell wouldn’t show up at city hall.”

  He looked at Rita. She knew what he was thinking. Raven would come after him next.

  3

  “The hell with the whole thing,” he said, trying to change the subject and the mood. “I’m not going to get involved. Let Garcia handle it. I’ve got more important things to do. Like getting rid of the ghosts.” He smiled. “I get to feeling better and I might carry out my threat to marry you.”

  She smiled. “You’re a tough man to corral, Sonny.”

  He leaned and kissed her. “I’m ready. Been thinking a lot since summer. Today, Lorenza really helped to open my eyes. I think a few more sessions with her and I’ll be as good a brujo as anyone.”

  He laughed, for he didn’t quite believe what he had just said, but he was beginning to appreciate Lorenza’s powers.

  “Hija, the trip she took me on this morning was incredible. You ever been in one of those limpiezas with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found the coyotes, and you?”

  “Hummingbirds.”

  “Hummingbirds?”

  “The hummingbird is not just a nectar and pollen gatherer. The war god of the Aztecs was called the left-handed hummingbird.”

  “Ay,” he said, and pecked at her lips. “That’s because you are a flower. A rosa de Castilla.”

  She returned his kiss.

  “I want to be the only hummingbird at your sweet lips,” he said, looking deep into her eyes.

  She was a lovely woman, a complex woman, and there were times when he didn’t understand Rita, times when her soul was deep within the petals of the flower, her beauty. Of one thing he was sure: he loved her.

  “Sometimes you’re so romantic,” she whispered. “I like that.”

  “It’s in your power,” he said. “And speaking of power, where did Lorenza learn so much?”

  “Here, and in Mexico,” Rita replied. “It wasn’t easy. She had to endure a lot. The secrets of the curanderas were not easy to learn, and Lorenza went into the world of the brujos.”

  “What do you mean, the world of brujos?”

  “It’s a long story. She started with a nursing degree from UNM, and she was good at her work, but something kept telling her that modern medicine, for all its wonders, was not serving the older Hispanos who came to the hospital. They got their shots, got their operations, then went back home to doctor themselves with the remedies of their ancestors. In other words, the doctors weren’t taking care of their spiritu
al health.”

  “And the priests?” Sonny asked.

  “The religion along the Río Grande is complex. Sure, the priests know about brujeria. They know the people believe in the effects of witchcraft, but they don’t mess with it.”

  “Afraid of the devil,” Sonny suggested.

  “You might say that. To believe that a witch can cast a spell leads to them having to know exorcism, and few do. They really don’t know about it. So the padrecitos scoff and call it paganism.

  “The Church doesn’t want anything to do with that. Using eagle and owl feathers, and burning incense? They shudder. The first Spanish priests in Mexico ravaged the altars of the Aztecs to get rid of paganism, a religion they couldn’t understand. The Franciscans did the same to the Pueblos here in New Mexico. But the beliefs persisted, and the work of the curanderas persisted. Lorenza knew this. She really wanted to help the people, especially the old gente, so she began visiting the old curanderas in northern New Mexico. The healers there had been passing down remedies for centuries. Those women know how to care for the soul. They know how one soul can affect another, which means they know the world of brujeria.”

  “But not all of them were into evil?”

  “Oh, no. The hechiceras, those with evil in their hearts, did evil. Lord, there’s been evil in the world ever since the first ear of corn was found infected with signs of witchcraft. The good curanderas know this, and they know how to cure evil curses. They know how to go in search of lost souls, troubled souls, wandering spirits, enchanted souls.”

  “That’s what I am, an enchanted soul,” Sonny joked.

  “Sí, amor, you are my enchanted spirit.” Rita smiled and fondled his dark curly hair.

  “Anda, go on. Tell me more.”

  “Lorenza visited the Hispano villages and the Indian pueblos, on her own quest long before she fully knew what she was looking for. First, learning the herbal remedies, then massage, the work of las sobadoras, who straightened out bad backs long before chiropractors came to this territory. These women knew instinctively that in sore muscles and nerves resided the dark properties of anger, envy, jealousy. Vientos, evil winds that twisted nerve and muscle. The humors, hot and cold, and the balance that needs to exist. These old practices were a way of looking at the world. She learned the healing ways of the Nuevo Mexicanos who live along the Río Grande. She also learned some of the medicine of the Pueblos from the medicine men and women. But she needed to go deeper.”