The Hanged Man (14 page)

She looked at me as though she hadn't noticed, till now, that I was there. Then, slowly, narrowing her eyes, she stood up. Her hand was trembling and for a moment I wondered whether she meant to strike me. She reached out tentatively and plucked with thin quavering fingers at the sleeve of my jacket. “You were there?” she asked me, and her voice was quavering as badly as her fingers. “When he … when it happened?”

“Yes.”

“He wasn't … Did he suffer? Leonard was such a baby about pain.” She cocked her head slightly and tried for a smile; it came off a grimace. “He seemed so big and strong, but he was really just like a little boy. He—” She stopped, and tears were rolling down her face. She said, “He didn't, did he? He didn't suffer?”

A gazelle, in the final embrace of the lion, will suddenly stop struggling and relax into what looks like an almost blissful acceptance. Human beings, brought back to life by modern medicine, report that death is a soothing experience, an opening onto peace. Only the dead know for certain, and they aren't telling.

But she didn't need speculation. She needed comfort. “No,” I told her. “It was very quick.”

She bit at her lower lip. Tears welled up in her eyes again and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

Hernandez touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down, Mrs. Quarry.”

Sniffling, she sat back down. She lowered her head and daubed at her eyes with the handkerchief.

Hernandez sat down beside her. Green and I remained standing. Maybe we shared the sense that becoming comfortable would be an affront to her grief. Just being there, it suddenly seemed to me, was an affront to her grief.

Hernandez said gently, “The other officers probably told you, Mrs. Quarry, that it's important for us to get as much information as we can. I know this has been a terrible shock to you, but in order to find the person who did this, we've gotta ask you some more questions.”

She nodded. Her head still bowed, she plucked at the edge of the handkerchief.

“Officer Ortega says you received a phone call?”

She nodded.

“When was that?” Hernandez asked her.

She swallowed. Without raising her head, she said, “Just after … just after Mr. Croft was here.” She plucked some more at the handkerchief.

“Did he give a name?”

She shook her head.

“Did you recognize the voice?”

Again, she shook her head.

I said, “Mrs. Quarry?”

Hernandez turned a glare toward me but said nothing. The woman raised her head. “Yes?”

“Your husband was trying to buy a Tarot card from Eliza Remington. Do you know the name of the man he was trying to buy it for?”

She frowned. “The man?”

“Wasn't your husband acting as an agent for someone else?”

She was still frowning, puzzled. She looked at Hernandez, looked back at me. “I don't understand. Leonard wanted the card for himself.”

Like most cops, Hernandez didn't like to see information, any information, go public. He turned to Green and jerked his head in my direction. “Drive him back to the springs.”

“Then what?” Green asked him.

Hernandez waved a hand. “Take him around back and shoot him.”

Green said, “We're not supposed to do that anymore.”

“Oh yeah.” He looked at me. “Beat it. We'll be in touch.”

“Call me,” I said. “We'll do lunch.”

It was a bizarre building for northern New Mexico, where private homes seldom grow above two stories tall and usually give up at one. It was a bizarre building for anywhere. It was a tower, flat-roofed, three stories, frame and brown shingle, built on the square and perhaps only twenty feet wide. At each story, two small double-hung windows, trimmed in darker brown, peered out at the half mile of driveway, twin ruts running in a straight line across the damp flat caliche. Three miles outside the tiny town of Mesa Roja, it stood at the base of another tower, a broad column of reddish brown rock climbing up from the barren plateau to rise seventy or eighty feet above the wooden structure. Out here the snow had melted and the only thing in sight for miles was dead scrub grass and an occasional small pinon, twisted over the years by wind into a gnarled green claw. The sun was sinking toward the gray hills in the west and its light was thinning out, dissipating into the brown sprawling emptiness.

I parked beside an old blue Karman Ghia blotched with gray primer, got out of the station wagon, followed the footpath, knocked on the door. It opened immediately, as though Peter Jones had been standing on the other side of it all day, waiting for me.

He was too tall to have been the man seen by Paco at the hot springs—an inch or two taller than I was, which made him six foot three or so. Slim, his shoulders square, he wore a black cotton turtleneck sweater with the sleeves pulled up along his forearms, black denim pants, and black cowboy boots. He was probably in his late thirties. His longish hair was a dark, shiny black, parted on the left and dusted at the temples with gray. His face was one of those pale, brooding, handsome faces that show up in gothic novels, pasted onto the heads of intense young men who spend their days staring off tragically at the moors. Dark, deep brown eyes over angular cheekbones, a forceful nose, a wide sensitive mouth. But his smile surprised me—it was easy and open, almost boyish, and it was about as far from tragic as a smile can be.

“Sorry I'm late,” I told him. It was four-thirty now. Our appointment had been for four o'clock, and at four, just before I left Agua Caliente, I'd called him and told him I'd been delayed. I hadn't explained that it was the state police who had delayed me, or why.

He grinned. “No problem. I wasn't going anywhere.”

He led me inside. Inside was a single square space that served as kitchen and living room. The kitchen was an old gas stove and a small porcelain sink. The living room was a black futon sofa, a rectangular pinewood coffee table, and a black canvas director's chair. The walls were white and undecorated, the floor was wood and uncarpeted. At the northeast corner, a wrought iron stairway, narrow and spindly, circled up to the second floor. A motel room in the middle of Siberia would've been more festive. A monk's cell in the middle of Siberia would've been more festive.

Sitting down in the director's chair, he offered me the sofa. I took it.

“Interesting house,” I told him.

He grinned. “The House on Haunted Hill,” he said. “It's not mine. I'm watching it for a friend. He built it himself.”

“Why'd he build it out here?”

He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “The pile of rocks behind us. Mesa Roja. The Indians around here, the old ones, used to believe it was a power point. An energy focus. Jim, the guy who built the house, liked the idea. And he thought that if he built the house so that it resembled the Mesa, it would pick up some of the energy.”

“Has it worked?”

He grinned. “No more and no less than any other kind of house, probably.” He frowned suddenly. “Looks like I'm not much of a host. Can I get you something? Tea? A glass of water?”

“No thanks.”

He put his arms along the arms of the chair. “Okay. What can I do for you?”

I said, “You slept with Justine Bouvier last Saturday night, down in La Cienega. Did she leave the room that night?”

He blinked in surprise and then, grinning, he shook his head. “You don't mess around.”

“You testified to the police that the two of you slept together.”

He nodded. “Sure. And if you know that, you probably know that I testified that she
didn't
leave the room.”

“And you're going to stick with that?”

He shrugged. “It's the truth.”

“How long have you and Justine Bouvier been involved?”

His face flushed. Anger, possibly. Shame, possibly. “I don't think that's any of your business.”

“You told the police a year.”

“So why ask?” he said. Then he frowned again. “Hold on. You don't think that Justine killed her husband?”

“Someone did. I don't think it was Giacomo Bernardi.”

He took a breath, let it out. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Neither do I. I can't see Giacomo doing something like that. But sometimes people can surprise you.” He frowned. “How
is
Giacomo anyway?”

It occurred to me that he was the first person to ask me this. Even Brad Freefall and Sylvia Morningstar, both of whom claimed to be his friend, hadn't bothered.

“He's okay,” I said. “Not very happy about being in jail.”

“That's understandable. Especially if you're innocent of what you're being accused of. But so is Justine. She was with me all night. And why would she want to kill Quentin?”

“Money?”

“She already had all she needed.”

“But maybe not all she wanted.”

He smiled. “I don't think that's a distinction that Justine makes.”

“And maybe life would be a lot simpler without a husband around.”

“How? He never interfered with her. She lived exactly the way she wanted to.” He put his hands together, fingers interlocked, and leaned slightly forward. “Look. Have you met Justine?”

I nodded.

“And you really think she could kill someone?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes people can surprise you.”

He smiled. He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. “What did you think of her?”

“You want an honest answer?”

He shrugged, smiling, and sat back. “If you've got one.”

“I think she's a user,” I said. “I think she uses men to give herself a sense that she's in control. To give herself a sense that she's alive.”

He nodded calmly. “Empowerment. Sure.” Then he smiled. “She got to you too, huh?”

I frowned, momentarily irritated, and then I smiled. “Yeah,” I said.

He laughed. “I can hear it in your voice.” He laughed again and sat back. Grinning, he asked me, “Have you met Veronica yet? Veronica Chang?”

“No.”

“Veronica makes Justine look like Shirley Temple. She's a Saku master—you know what that is?”

I shook my head.

“Saku is terrific,” he said, “It's supposed to be an ancient Brazilian technique, something used by the Indians in the Amazon. You put your hands over John Smith and you concentrate on your ancient Brazilian Indian symbols, and you cure John of whatever ails him.” He grinned. “Ever heard of Brazilian Indians practicing a technique like that?”

“No.”

“Neither have they.”

I smiled. “But I'm not an anthropologist.”

“Neither was Horst Beuller, the guy who invented Saku. He discovered it in a vision.”

“Good for him.”

“And you might think,” he said, “that it'd take you a while to learn how to pull this off, all this terrific healing.”

“I might, yeah.”

He smiled. “Uh-uh. It'll take you three hours and cost you a hundred and fifty bucks. Cheap at twice the price. And, bingo, you're a first-degree Saku practitioner. Then, if you want, you can become a second-degree Saku practitioner. You get a whole new set of ancient Brazilian Indian symbols. That'll cost you another three hours and three hundred bucks. And then, if you really want to go for the big time, you can spend ten grand and become a Saku master. The cute thing is, once you become a Saku master, you can give classes in first- and second-degree Saku, and each class can hold up to fifty people at a time. Figure it out. Fifty people at a hundred and fifty dollars apiece. That's seventy-five hundred bucks for three hours' work. Fifteen thousand bucks for the second-degree class.”

“Who appoints the masters?”

“Another master.”

I nodded. “A pyramid.”

“Like Amway.” He grinned. “Only Amway is more spiritual.” He leaned slightly forward again. “The thing is, okay, it's a scam, but Veronica is for real. She's got something. A force. A power. She'd have it if she'd never heard of Saku.”

I nodded. “I've heard that she was involved with Justine.”

He blinked again. And then he smiled. “I've heard that, too.”

“Is she still involved with her?”

He shrugged. “You'd have to ask them.”

I nodded, and he suddenly grinned again. He said, “Must be weird for you, talking to all these crazies.”

I smiled. “Now and then.”

He laughed and sat back. “They're all sick. All these people, New Agers, Seekers, call 'em whatever you want. I include myself, naturally. It's a sickness of the soul, and a sense that there's something out there that can heal it. If we get lucky, we finally figure out that there isn't anything out there at all, and there isn't anything in here”—he pointed to his chest—”and that that's just perfect.”

I nodded some more and he grinned. “And some of us don't get lucky. And we get involved with crap like Saku. It's another kind of empowerment. And power is the wet dream of the powerless.”