LITMIR.BIZ

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tried again. “What was Soto doing here last night?”

      “Please,” Padilla pleaded. “I told you. I found him this morning.”

      “Then what was Soto doing here this morning?”

      Padilla looked at Fidel, as if searching for a friend.

      “He came to buy something.”

      “Like what?”

      “He wanted to buy an old Hopi kachina I was selling. For his gallery.”

      Trujillo persisted. “Why were you selling it?”

      Padilla shrugged. “Because I needed the money.”

      He turned away, letting their voices blend together.

      Let Trujillo take care of the interrogation. He didn’t care, because it gave him more time to look around. He walked over to the shiny black Porsche, looking for something he’d missed earlier. Soto’s body had been slumped against the steering wheel when he and Fidel had arrived. The hole in the back of Soto’s head looked like the work of a small caliber bullet, maybe even a .22 fired at point-blank range. Soto was dressed casually, jeans and striped polo shirt, not the usual suits he wore around town playing the dandy.

      Now that forensics had taken the body away, he could start his own investigation. Whoever killed Soto had been looking for something, that much was clear. How else to explain why the contents of the Porsche’s trunk had been tossed haphazardly on the ground? He found a duffel bag ripped open with such force that its zipper had torn loose from the leather. Someone had taken everything out of the bag—a freshly laundered shirt, a pair of chinos, and a black leather shaving kit.

      There were other items scattered about the parking lot including a first aid kit and a small Navajo rug. He also found tourists brochures from Taos and Acoma pueblos, an AAA envelope stuffed with road maps, and a white cotton bag empty except for a fine brown dust that he couldn’t identify.

      Had the killer found what he was looking for? Maybe, maybe not. He lowered his head and climbed into the passenger’s seat. Sitting in a Porsche was a new experience for him. He drove a Plymouth and had never, even in his youth, owned anything more exotic than a Ford Mustang.

      Well, he had news for Soto and all the other yuppies. The Porsche was too goddamned small. Why pay ninety thousand dollars or more for a car that was too goddamned small? Soto might be able to answer that, but Soto was dead.

      He studied the car. He thought he smelled smoke. Definitely a hint, a faint trace of wood smoke. It was enough to make him wonder if Soto and Padilla had been camping last night. It was a crazy idea, but at the moment he had little else to work with. The interior of the car was clean except for coagulated blood on the driver’s seat and the floor mat below. No apparent clues to what had happened last night. Opening the glove compartment, he found a flashlight and a map entitled “Guide to Indian Country,” published by the Automobile Club of Southern California.

      He unfolded the map, which delineated, in great detail and color, the various Indian reservations in the Four Corners area, including parts of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

      Someone had taken a black felt-tip pen and traced along Highway 53, the back road to Zuni. The black marker followed Highway 53 as it dipped down from Grants, skirted the El Malpais lava flow, passed through El Morro National Monument, and then followed the Rio Pescado into Zuni. He found one other black mark on the map—a circle drawn around the tiny town of Whitewater, a few miles north of Zuni on the highway to Gallup.

      He refolded the map and stuffed it in his back pocket.

      Before getting out, he checked the pool of blood under the driver’s seat and noticed a few grains of fine white sand on the floor mat. Sand that fine and that white would have to come from the bottom of an arroyo. He climbed out of the car and looked around. He spotted an arroyo that began somewhere behind Padilla’s house and circled around to the west toward Black Mesa. It was worth a try. He stepped between two dusty green chamisa bushes just beginning to flower and walked over to the arroyo. Not surprised, he saw a scattering of footprints in the sand. There was no way to tell how fresh the tracks were.

      He heard footsteps behind him.

      “Wait up.”

      He squinted into the sun, waiting for Fidel to join him.

      “What do you think? Is Padilla lying?”

      “Of course he’s lying. You think he wouldn’t notice a Porsche with a dead man inside parked all night in his front yard?”

      Fidel nodded.

      “Where does this arroyo go?” he mumbled, mostly to himself. He turned and walked along the edge of the arroyo, looking for some sign of recent activity, something. Fidel followed a few steps behind, careful to keep his distance.

      Up ahead he saw Black Mesa rising from the desert floor, a slab of black rock silhouetted against the blue New Mexico sky.

      He carefully made his way over the rough terrain, avoiding patches of cholla and prickly pear cactus while following the twists and turns of the arroyo. He noticed an abundance of animal tracks, dogs or coyotes, as he moved farther away from Padilla’s house. Then he noticed something else. Part of the bank had crumbled, as if someone had fallen over the edge. Loose rocks had collected at the bottom of the arroyo, near a place where the soft sand had been recently upturned. He thought he saw handprints.

      He followed an imaginary line that began at the point of the handprints, passed through the spot where the bank had crumbled, and extended out indefinitely in the general direction from which someone running for his life would have come before stumbling into the arroyo. Soto, perhaps.

      “Help me out. My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be. What do you see over there?”

      Fidel looked in the direction he pointed. He studied the desert terrain. “Is that an old campfire?”

      “Where?”

      “Right there, to the left of the piñon trees,” Fidel answered.

      He walked quickly toward the trees. He, too, spotted the remains of a campfire. A thin wisp of smoke coiled like a ghost over the black embers. As he approached he realized someone had poured water on the fire not long ago. He kicked at the charred pieces of wood that remained, watching the coals underneath begin to spark and recognized the scent of piñon wood.

      It was the same smell he’d noticed on Padilla and in the front seat of Soto’s Porsche.

      “Look at this,” Fidel said, pointing to a series of indentations in the sandy earth. The indentations were round, about four inches in diameter, and together formed a circle around the fire. The campfire had been located near the center of the circle. To be exact, the campfire had been located near the center of a teepee, which meant that someone had been camping here or holding some kind of ceremony. New Mexico was overrun with New Age types who were always going out in the desert for retreats and ceremonies of one kind or another, New Age religions or practices that he didn’t understand. He hoped it was that, not what he feared.

      He squatted down on his haunches to get a better look. Near the fire someone had drawn, then later partially erased, a half circle in the sand.

      He dug in the soft sand, carefully scraping away one layer at a time. He quickly found what he was looking for. What he hoped he wouldn’t find.

      “Peyote,” Fidel said, when he held up the small brown button about the size of a quarter.

      He nodded. “Soto came out here last night to attend a peyote ceremony.”

      Fidel looked at him. “Native American Church?”

      “Maybe.” He dropped the peyote button in his shirt pocket. “Give me a hand here.”

      Fidel helped him up.

      He took a bandana out of his back pocket and wiped his damp forehead. He was already sweating and the day was still young.

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