“Took her blood,” he whispered.
Howard sat and lit a cigarette. He passed the package to Sonny, and although he hadn’t smoked in over a month, he took one and lit up.
“Brujas,” Sonny said. “Don Eliseo still believes there are evil witches.”
“Maybe there are,” Howard said with a nod. “These are definitely not your friendly Tarot card readers.”
Yeah, Sonny thought. And where was Frank Dominic last night? The man was going to have to come clean.
“They’re into something that has to do with sacrifice. Like the cattle cases.”
“Cattle cases?”
“You know, the mutilations. Every year a case or two comes up. A rancher finds one of his steers slaughtered, the blood taken, the genitals or tongue of the animal missing. Flying saucers the papers say, signs of a spaceship landing, aliens from outer space involved. There was a report about a flying saucer just last week. Then once a year, sure as Halloween comes around, there’s a story in the newspaper saying it’s Satanism. But they don’t get it right,” Howard said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s an obsession as old as humans on earth. The sacrificing of a victim to appease the gods. Now we’re supposed to be more civilized, but it’s still going on.”
He paused and Sonny waited.
“We just had a cattle mutilation on the other side of the Sandias.”
Sonny remembered the headline in yesterday’s paper. He hadn’t bothered to read the story; it all seemed so absurd. “Coincidence?”
“Maybe,” Howard answered. “But in both cases, whoever does the killing goes for blood.”
Sonny looked out the window and saw a line of policemen coming toward the house. They were combing the grounds, step by step, as far as the ditch road. He heard one shout and another hold up a bag of plaster. They had found tire tracks and were going to take a print.
He wondered about the container that held Gloria Dominic’s blood. Where was it? How would they use it? Thinking this made his stomach spasm. He tasted bile in his mouth.
“The Aztecs used blood to feed the sun. They offered blood to the sun to ensure it would rise every day.”
“Yeah?” Howard said thoughtfully. “There’s a connection, sun symbol and blood. Maybe they offer it to the sun. Offer it to the flames for renewal. You know,” Howard whispered, “in the mortuary they flush the blood down the drain. They put the body on a cold slab and drain it, and the blood is just flushed away. Orthodox Jews don’t allow that, you know. They want the blood that nourished them to go to the grave with them. The Egyptians used to gather all the organs and bury them with the body. Canopic jars.”
Sonny listened. Howard’s history lessons were usually right on. So, what if Gloria’s blood had been offered as a gift to the sun? A gift to renew life? The ombligo was the center of the woman, circled by the sun with four lines radiating out in the four sacred directions. Somewhere there was a pattern. He had to find the meaning in the symbols and trace it to the people who inscribed the Zia sign on Gloria Dominic’s belly. How did they use her blood?
Sonny’s stomach flared with acid. Maybe he should get some coffee, or breakfast. No, he couldn’t eat, the image of Gloria’s ashen face and the Zia sun carved on her stomach was too fresh, too poignant. The faint scent of lilac wafting through the house nauseated him.
There was little to start on, he thought. Look for the pump that had been used on Gloria. He looked at Howard.
“Was she dead when they—”
“I hope so,” he answered. “Hey, man, you don’t look good. You need some air, and I need to finish up here. If I find anything, I’ll call you.”
“Thanks,” Sonny acknowledged. “I gotta get my tía home.”
“I’ll call you,” Howard said.
“Thanks. Say hi to Marie.”
“And you give Rita un abrazo.”
Sonny nodded and walked back to the front room. Maybe Garcia was right, best leave it to the cops, he thought. But it was his cousin, his family, and familia ran deep. The Mexicanos of the valley came from extended families, and sometimes they fought and carried on feuds for generations; but let an outsider attack one and the clan was obligated to pull together. And there was the love he had for Gloria.
Damn, he cursed himself. This is Alburquerque, we don’t have cult murderers here. This was still a cow town a few years ago. Sure we’re growing, but we’re not up to murder in politics.
The doctor from the office of the medical investigator had just arrived. Sonny sidestepped him and Garcia and went to his aunt. She was still staring into space, but the color had returned to her face.
“Tía,” he said softly, taking her hand.
She looked at him and stood, and without a word she went out of the house, allowing Sonny to lead her to the truck. She didn’t speak until they were near her home.
“You have to find who killed my daughter,” she said.
“The police, tía,” Sonny tried to explain, but she wasn’t listening.
“She had grown thin. She wasn’t eating well,” Delfina continued. “Very upset, nervous. She went to the doctor, but he couldn’t find anything. Gloria thought she had cancer, but it wasn’t cancer, it was something else. She was depressed. Publicly she was the active wife of Frank Dominic, a woman the city adored. Beautiful and talented.… But inside …”
Tía Delfina paused and took a handkerchief from her purse.
“I blame myself.”
“Tía, there’s no reason for you—”
“Yes, I blame myself. She didn’t have a normal childhood. I was busy working, trying to support the family. You don’t know this, Sonny, but her father—” She wrinkled the hanky nervously in her hand and touched it to her lips. “He drank. He used his family name to get free drinks from those he called friends. He was a very troubled man.…”
Yes, Sonny thought, I know.
“Gloria had grown so depressed. She had something inside she had to make peace with. She went to a woman, a healer. At first it was very good. She regained her health. She told me the woman had cured her cancer. I didn’t say anything, I was happy for her. It wasn’t cancer, but her depression the woman had cured. But later she grew more nervous. Frightened. The woman seemed to have a strange hold over her. She had helped Gloria in one way only to possess her in another. The last time I saw her she said she had to get away from the woman.”
“Did she tell you the woman’s name?”
“No.”
“Why did she want to get away from the woman? Was she demanding money?”
“I think so. They—”
“They?”
“There was a small group that met with the healer. Two or three. My group, she called them. They had found out something about her, something about her personal life that they used to threaten her. To reveal it would hurt not only her, but Frank. Maybe ruin his chance to be mayor. Not that I would care if the man dropped dead. Why her and not him? Ay, my poor daughter. Never any peace in her life.”
Her head dropped and she grew silent. “There’s also an insurance policy.…”
Sonny waited.
“Gloria told me only a month ago. Frank had taken out an insurance policy on her. Two million dollars, Sonny,” tía Delfina said and looked at Sonny, and when Sonny took his eyes from the road and glanced at her, he saw Gloria’s eyes.
Now his aunt had dropped a motive, and no matter that he couldn’t picture Frank as a murderer, it was still there, pointing at Dominic. The man was running a very expensive mayoral campaign. Of course he needed money. He dreamed of building canals throughout downtown, creating a Venice of the Southwest with Río Grande water. He was vain and ambitious and he wanted, more than anything, the power to run the city.
Still, Sonny wanted to believe that even Frank Dominic wouldn’t murder his wife.
“When money’s involved, trust no one,” the ghost of Manuel Lopez whispered, instructing him still. “You dig at the fa
cts. People’s motives will turn and twist you all sorts of ways, but the facts don’t lie.”
“It’s not unusual—” Sonny said. People with as much money as Frank Dominic buy hefty insurance policies. The timing was coincidence.
“Find who did it, Sonny,” tía Delfina said as he drove up in front of her house. His mother’s car was parked in front; she was standing by the front door, and now she came quickly toward the truck.
“I’ll pay you,” tía Delfina said, and she took crumpled dollar bills from the small, black purse she had clutched all morning and pushed them into Sonny’s hands.
“Tía, no—” He tried to push the money away but his tía was insisting, pushing the tightly wadded money on him.
“Do it for Gloria,” tía Delfina whispered and wrapped her chilled, thin fingers around his hands.
Tía Delfina quickly stepped out of the truck to be gathered up in her sister’s arms. Sonny heard his mother sob. He got out of the truck and followed them to the front door, feeling awkward and useless in their presence, feeling the wad of bills in his hand.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“Nada,” his mother said, turned, and reached out and embraced him. Her abrazo was warm, loving. “Ah, hijito, que horror. I heard everything on the radio on my way here. Who would do such a thing? Who?”
Sonny had no answer. He looked at his aunt. She had her suspicions, and she had hired him to confirm them.
“I’ll stay with Delfina,” his mother said and took her sister by the arm and drew her into the house. Sonny pulled the door shut.
His mother would take care of things. She was strong. Her eyes were wet with tears and her voice trembled, but she was strong. She would stay with Delfina and share the grief and whatever preparations had to be made.
Him? What could he do? Nada! Pinche nada!
He walked back to his truck and kicked the tire. Nada! He looked up at the clear, blue sky. The heat of the hot June day was oppressive, but it didn’t warm him. He shivered, opened his hand, and stared at the crumpled bills his aunt had given him. Old bills, bills that had sat for a long time in his tía’s purse. No telling how long. They exuded the fragrance of the purse, perfume and lipstick, old coins, hairpins, tissue. He slowly undid the wad and counted two five-dollar bills and ten ones.
He laughed. Shit. Twenty bucks to find a murderer.
5
What the hell do I do now? Sonny asked himself.
Start from the beginning, Manuel Lopez said. Start gathering the facts. You’ve been hired, hijo, hired by a poor woman who only had a few dollars to her name, but her daughter’s been murdered and you owe it to her to find out who committed the crime.
Yeah, Sonny thought, and I owe Gloria. He dialed Rita on his car phone and left a message on her machine. “Something very important has come up. I’ll see you at the café later this afternoon.” There was nothing else he could say. He felt drained, like he needed a day’s sleep, but he knew he couldn’t rest.
Facts, he thought, and the widow Glass case tugged at him. He drove to city hall where he spent several hours reading police files, scrutinizing any murder that seemed even vaguely related to the Gloria Dominic case. He found nothing besides the Dorothy Glass case. But then, Garcia admitted he’d withheld details in that case; maybe he did the same in others. Newspaper clippings mentioned Dorothy Glass’s eccentricities and her wealth. Her friends said she had been depressed since the death of her husband, so it was written off as a suicide. And the chief had made sure no one found out about the Zia sign carved on her belly.
He finished going through the public files and decided to head for the library up the street. The media was running like a pack of excited roadrunners around city hall, trying to grab anyone on the case for an interview. Sonny dodged them as best he could. He entered the solemn mustiness of the public library and looked for Ruth Jamison.
She was an old friend; she and Sonny had attended Rio Grande High together. After high school, like many in the senior class, they drifted apart, but after he finished his degree at the university and started teaching, they met again. She had taken a job at the library, and he would drop in to find books of interest for the kids. They talked, and later he dropped in whenever he was downtown. She was a reader, too, so once in a while they had coffee and talked about books.
“After the kids are in bed, reading is all I do,” she told him. Ruth had married right after high school, but her husband took to drinking and beating her, so she and the two kids moved out. She went on welfare, then got a chance to learn to be a librarian through one of the apprentice programs the city was running, and she loved it.
“They pay me to come and be surrounded by books.” She smiled. “Imagine.” She supported herself and her children, and her life centered only around her children and job.
A priestess of books, Sonny thought. He admired her, and she had a fondness for Sonny, a crush that lingered since high school days when he ran touchdowns for the football team and she cheered on the sidelines.
That hot June afternoon she gathered the newspaper clippings she could find on the Dorothy Glass case, and Sonny read through them. He also looked for anything on cults. One reporter had turned up an old hippie commune in the mountains, a relic from the sixties, founded and run by a man called Raven.
According to the story, Raven was the spiritual leader of the commune. Their religion was a curious blend of mystical beliefs, mostly a misinterpreted Pueblo Indian way of life. They took what they needed from the land, but the land on the east face of the Sandias was so bone-poor that the practice translated into poaching livestock from the local ranchers to keep the group in meat. The article also intimated that Raven was the father of the children of the four women who lived in the commune. No other men were mentioned.
Raven’s philosophy included bits and pieces of Indian lore that he had picked up during the three years his group was encamped near Taos Pueblo. He professed a kind of free love, a pro-environment stance that centered around their mission to save Mother Earth from destruction by pollution.
The real find made Sonny hold his breath. Because Raven allowed no pictures of himself or his mountain compound, the newspaper had taken a picture from the air, and there, clear as could be, was the circular shape of the main building. Four rooms jutted out from the round building, creating a rough form of the Zia sign.
“Four wives, four directions, four rooms,” Sonny whispered. “I need to talk to him.”
A wino in the carrel next to Sonny awoke with a start. He had come in to get out of the heat and grab a nap in the cool, air-conditioned library. “I ain’t done nothing,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” Sonny said, grinning. “I didn’t mean you. Go back to sleep.”
Sonny returned to his file. The people of La Cueva, the mountain village near Raven’s commune, didn’t care for Raven and his group; that much was clear from the ranchers who had been interviewed for the article. Someone was poaching their cattle, they complained to the reporter, and always right after an animal disappeared the sweet aroma of roasting meat rose in the smoke that came from Raven’s place.
Sonny felt the hair rise along the back of his neck. Something connected. But what? The cattle mutilations Howard had mentioned? That was a possibility. He found Ruth, who was never far away when he was doing research, and explained what he was after.
“There was a cattle mutilation in the Sandias reported just a day ago,” Sonny said.
“Yes,” Ruth answered. She pulled the paper. Sonny scanned the article. A cow with its tongue and vagina neatly cut away had been found on the ranch of José Escobar. Something similar to this happened once or twice a year somewhere in the state. The cops investigated and the paper did a story and that was it. But something about this incident bugged Sonny.
“Is there any more on this?”
“A reporter for the Cattlemen’s Journal did a story on cattle mutilations recently,” she said. “In fact, we have a folder on the subject
.” She dug through the cabinet file and came up with a stack of articles that went back ten years.
Sonny hunkered down and began to read, making a note of the time and place of each occurrence. There was usually one a year, usually in the early summer, and always in a different part of the state. The mutilations were always done with surgical precision; tongues were removed, vaginas cut from cows, and balls from bulls. Very little trace of blood was ever found. And not a single person had ever been arrested in a case that involved cattle mutilation. That didn’t make sense, Sonny thought.
Now he remembered the year a bull had been found mutilated near Isleta Pueblo. It was while he was still in high school. The testicles were taken from the bull, the cuts were made with a surgeon’s precision, and a large burned area was found near the bull. No car tracks were found, no trace of anyone going or coming, no meat taken, just the balls. The tribal cops were stumped, called in the FBI, and they found nothing. The tribal members of the Isleta Pueblo grew very upset; the thing smacked of witchcraft as far as they were concerned. The pueblo was closed off to visitors for a few weeks.
Sonny thought back to a couple of other cases he remembered from the newspapers. Whoever did a mutilation came in the dark of night, did the job, and disappeared. Usually mysterious signs were found near the dead cattle. The most common sign left at the scene was a burned area of grass or weeds, and the scorched area had never be identified as a gasoline or oil burn. Sometimes piles of rocks were left, signs that apparently held meaning only for the mutilators. No tracks of vehicles were ever found, which gave rise to the flying saucer theory.
Most of the articles reporting on the mutilations quickly turned into science fiction. If there was no trace of blood found and no vehicle tracks, then the reporter, tongue in cheek, usually reported the rancher’s story: little green men from outer space were into cow tongues, vaginas, and Rocky Mountain oysters.