The Hanged Man (20 page)

I left Rita at her computer terminal and went next door to my office and called Sally Durrell to tell her about Giacomo Bernardi and the young woman in Albuquerque.

“Shit,” she said.

“Is that one of those technical legal terms?”

“Why didn't he tell me?”

“It probably just slipped his mind. What there is of it.”

“Very funny, Joshua. That's all I need right now. Bad jokes.”

“You don't get Robin Williams for fifteen bucks an hour, counselor. Isn't the D.A.'s office supposed to provide you with full disclosure of their evidence?”

“Jim Baca is the prosecutor. He can get cute. He may be doing that now. I'll find out. Anything else?”

“Nothing so far. I still think that Quarry's death is connected to Bouvier's, but I don't know how to prove it. Rita had an idea, and I'm going to check it out.”

“What idea?”

“I told you this morning that the guy who killed Quarry, the guy that I
think
killed Quarry, had a heavy tan?”

“Yes. You said the state police were inquiring at the tanning salons.”

“And I told you about the possibility of skin dye?”

“Yes?”

“So Rita thinks it might be a good idea to check with Quarry's friends and relations, see if they knew anyone connected to Quarry who was involved in the theater.”

Only a brief moment passed before she said, “Stage makeup.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, Joshua, it's possible that this man's tan is genuine. That he flew into New Mexico from somewhere like the Caribbean, and then flew out again, after he killed Quarry.”

“Sure it's possible. But that would probably mean that he's a contract killer, and so far I haven't seen anything to indicate that.”

“Someone sent by the man for whom Quarry was bidding on the card?”

“Maybe. If he exists. But even if he does, it wasn't Quarry's fault that he lost out on the bidding. And Sally, I've got no way of checking arrivals and departures at the Albuquerque airport. The police can, but I can't. This is something I
can
check on.”

A pause, and then: “It's worth looking into, I suppose.” She sounded dubious.

“It won't take much time. A few phone calls. And I don't have much else to look into.”

“I know, Joshua. I know you're doing the best you can. But you have to bear in mind that my interests here revolve only around the defense of Giacomo Bernardi for the murder of Quentin Bouvier. What if you and Rita are wrong? What if Quarry's death has nothing to do with Bouvier's?”

“Then I'll be wasting your fifteen dollars an hour. Maybe you'd better try hiring Robin Williams.”

She laughed. “All right, Joshua. Keep me informed.”

When I telephoned the Freefall-Morningstar house, Brad answered. “Crystal Center.”

“Hello, Brad. This is Joshua Croft.”

“Hey, man, what the hell is going on here? I heard that Leonard got killed. The state cops were here. A couple of troopers.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to know if anyone who knew Leonard was into theater. Actors, stagehands, like that.”

So the state police were following the same trail. Hernandez had told me this morning that he didn't believe that Quarry's and Bouvier's deaths were related. But a couple of state troopers talking to Brad didn't necessarily mean that Hernandez had been lying to me. Brad had known both men. The state police were investigating both cases.

“And what did you tell them?” I asked Brad.

“I told them no, man. I don't know anyone like that. Except for Carol Masters, and they couldn't care less about her. How come they want to know?”

“They didn't tell you?”

“Not a thing, man. Typical cop mentality. They told me they were the ones asking the questions.”

I explained to him what had happened, told him about the heavily tanned man who had probably killed Quarry.

“No, man, no. I don't know anyone like that. Could this guy be the one who killed Quentin, too?”

“I don't know. One more thing, Brad.”

“What?”

“A young woman, a friend of Giacomo's, killed herself a few years ago, down in Albuquerque. Did you know anything about that?”

“Killed herself? A friend of Giacomo's?”

“Yeah.”

“No, man. I didn't know. Why'd she do that?”

“I'm not sure. Thanks for the help.”

I called Bennett Hadley and received pretty much the same responses: the state police had asked him about theatrical people who'd known Quarry, and, other than Carol Masters, he'd been unable to come up with any. Like Brad, Hadley wanted to know if the tanned Anglo man could have killed Quentin Bouvier. I told him I didn't know. He didn't know, or said he didn't, about the suicide of Starbright in Albuquerque. I called Peter Jones. No answer. Called Justine Bouvier. Got her machine, asked her to call me. I tried Eliza Remington, found her and received, once again, the same responses. Called Sierra Quarry. Apologized for bothering her, asked her how she was. She was all right, she said. But she didn't sound all right: she sounded lost. I asked her about a theatrical connection to her husband. Except for Carol Masters, she didn't know of one. Like the others, she had been questioned about it by the police. Like the others, she wanted to know why the police were interested. I explained.

“Oh,” she said in her soft, solemn voice. “But why are
you
interested, Mr. Croft? The state policeman, Mr. Hernandez, told me that Leonard's death probably had nothing to do with the death of Mr. Bouvier.”

“I think that Hernandez is wrong, Mrs. Quarry. The state police are committed to the idea that Giacomo Bernardi killed Quentin Bouvier. And since Giacomo's in prison, so far as they're concerned the two deaths can't be related. I think they are.”

She sighed slowly and I could hear her sadness over the phone line. “I don't know that it makes any difference.”

“I think it does. And Mrs. Quarry? I'm pretty good at this. Sometimes I can do things, go places, that the police can't. There's a possibility that if they can't find the man who killed your husband, then maybe I will. I just wanted you to know that I'll be trying.”

Another sigh. “All right, Mr. Croft. Thank you for your concern.”

“Mrs. Quarry?”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure that your husband was bidding on that Tarot card for himself?”

“That's what he told me. I …”

“What, Mrs. Quarry?”

Another sigh. “I don't know, Mr. Croft. Leonard never really talked to me about his business. I'm sorry, but I'm not very good with money, it's just something that never interested me, and Leonard knew that. And now, well, I've been talking to everyone, all our friends, and they all say that Leonard couldn't have afforded it for himself. And the police, too, they say the same thing. They must be right, all of them. But I just don't know. He never told me about anyone else. He never mentioned anything about anyone else.”

“And he
did
tell you that he wanted the card for himself?”

“Well, yes. I mean, I was sure he did. But he couldn't have afforded it, could he? So why would he have said that?”

“I don't know yet. To your knowledge, had he been involved in any other deals recently?”

“Oh dear. The police asked the same question. I really don't know, Mr. Croft. I'm sorry, I'd like to help you, but I honestly don't know.”

“All right. Just one more question. Did you ever hear of a young woman named Starbright? She lived in Albuquerque and she was a friend of Giacomo Bernardi's. She committed suicide a few years ago.”

“How awful. Starbright was her name? No. No, I don't think so, Mr. Croft. Is it important?”

“I don't know, Mrs. Quarry. Thank you.”

The air was clear and mild; bright stars crowded the black sky. Back in town, most of the snow had melted away, but up here in the mountains, beyond the tall caped forms of the conifers, the pale silent trunks of the aspens, it still sheeted the steep slopes, a cool white blaze in the beams of my headlights.

There weren't many cars on the Ski Basin Road, and none of them, it seemed, contained Paul Chang. A pair of headlights did stay behind me all the way, about two hundred yards back, but never moved any closer. When I reached the Big Trees Lodge, at ten minutes to nine, I parked the station wagon and twisted myself around in the seat to watch the road through the rear window. I saw that the headlights belonged to a gray Chevy pickup, about ten years old. It drove by the restaurant's parking lot without a hesitation. I couldn't see the driver.

I got out of the Subaru, closed the door, locked it. There were only four or five other cars in the parking lot at the base of the big A-frame building. A slow night. I climbed up the wooden steps. I hadn't climbed them for a couple of years.

Every five years or so, some ambitious would-be restaurateur decides that the Big Trees Lodge offers more promise than it's ever actually kept before. He buys the place, refurbishes it, hires a new staff, puts some ads in the
Reporter
and the
New Mexican
, and then sits back and waits for the tourists and their money to roll in. The tourists who've come for the skiing roll right on by, up to the big lodge at the ski basin, and the other tourists seldom drive the ten miles required to get there from town. Neither do many of the locals. Sooner or later, the owner cuts back on the staff, hires a less imaginative chef. The tourists don't care, but the few locals who have been coming, stop coming. Usually, five years after he buys it, he sells it.

Just now the restaurant was about midway into its cycle. It still did some dinner business on the weekend and occasionally some lunch business during the week, but not much of anything on a weekday night.

Inside, there were two couples sitting on opposite sides of the room at small, candlelit tables. The bar, a low-ceilinged space separated from the dining area, was empty, and so were the booths that ran down the opposite wall. I perched myself on a Naugahyde stool and ordered a weak Jack Daniel's and water.

The bartender, Sabrina, was a tall, thin, blond woman who'd been born and raised in Santa Fe. I'd seen her around town, as a cocktail waitress or a bartender, in one bar or another since I arrived here myself. Tonight she passed the time by gossiping to me about the local luminaries: who was divorcing whom, who was marrying whom, who was drinking more these days, who was drinking not at all.

She told me about a Santa Fe politician who'd come into the bar, two weeks before, with his new girlfriend. (“I swear, Joshua, half the people we get here, we get them because they're screwing around and they figure this place is so dead they won't get caught.”) The two of them had sat at the far booth. Fifteen minutes later, the politician's wife had come in with her new boyfriend, and they'd sat down two booths away.

Sabrina took a drag from her cigarette, exhaled. “Louise was on that night—the cocktail waitress—and she was so nervous she could hardly carry her tray.”

Nothing had happened, she said, for half an hour. “A
half
an hour Louise and I are watching them, waiting for one of them to spot the other. And then Bill and the girl get up, and they're walking out, and
just
as they go by the other booth, Bill smacks his hand down on the girl's butt and gives it a great big squeeze. And then he looks over—his hand is still on her butt—and he sees Maria. And Maria sees him and in less than a second she's out of that booth. She climbs right up onto the table and
jumps
on him and she grabs at his hair—that nice white hair of his—and she starts pulling it out by the roots. She's got her legs wrapped around him and he's staggering all over the bar, reeling around, and she keeps shouting, “
This
is your Property Tax Commission, you son of a bitch?”

I laughed. “Poor Bill.”

“Poor Bill nothing. He's been cheating on her since the day he got married. I heard he chippied one of the bridesmaids in the hallway closet.” She sucked on her cigarette, exhaled. “Like they say. What goes around, comes around.”

I nodded. “It's all karma.”

She frowned at me. “You're not going Hindu on me, are you, Joshua?”

“It's all karma, Sabrina. You can't escape the stuff. We're all trapped on this big wheel, going round and round. If you kill somebody, that's karma. If you get killed, that's karma. If you don't believe in karma, that's karma. If you decide to run away from your karma,
that's
karma.”

“Karma does it all, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then what are
we
hanging around here for?”

I shrugged. “It's our karma.”

She laughed.

“But what happened to Bill and Maria?” I asked her.

Behind Sabrina, on the back counter, the telephone rang. She frowned. “One second,” she told me, and then turned to pick it up. “Bar.”

I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes after nine. Veronica Chang was late.

When I looked back up, Sabrina was holding out the cordless telephone receiver in her right hand, her left over the mouthpiece. “It's for you, Swami. A woman.”

I took the phone. “Hello?”

It was Veronica Chang, calling to apologize and to tell me that something important had come up, that she couldn't get here tonight. She asked if I'd call her tomorrow to reschedule. I said I would, and she apologized some more and then hung up.

I turned off the telephone and handed it to Sabrina. She was smiling. “You got stood up,” she said.

“Apparently.”

“Serves you right for cheating on Rita.”

I shook my head. “Business meeting.”

She smiled. “Right.”

Bartenders seldom believe the best of people. They seldom see it.