Wild Sorrow (24 page)

I hesitated. “Are we talking about my wrist now?”

“I can tell you this, Mirasol: you are traveling the path of the heart. You must get your heart straightened out! It is the first thing you must do.”

On the way into Taos, I stopped alongside the road and phoned Charlie Dorn.

“You're sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“I'm sure.”

“It will have to be after Christmas. Probably going to take a couple of guys to do it right.”

“Just tell me when, and I'll arrange to be there.”

“You'll need a good three feet of digging wire all around the inside, and probably at least a nine-foot-high fence for the enclosure. Wolves are escape artists.”

“I know. Let's make it as big as we can. And we'll need a sturdy gate with a good latch. Mountain can chew through almost anything, and he's really smart.”

“Your mama cat made it through surgery all right,” Charlie said. “They got the bullet out, packed it with antibiotics, and they're watching her, but it looks like she'll survive.”

“And the cubs? Any news?”

“We scattered some meat. No one has seen them, so we don't know anything. With the holidays coming, I gave the Coldfires your cell phone number in case they can't get hold of me. They'll call one of us if they spot them.”

“Thanks for the update, Charlie.”

“Listen, I'm sorry you're going to have to confine Mountain. We were all surprised he was acting like a pet for so long, following you around more or less like a dog.”

“He's no dog,” I said.

“No, I know that—now especially. I guess his instincts finally won out.”

“Yeah, they won all right. Big prize. Life without parole.”

Injustice

I met Diane at the courthouse. “How are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm better. My wrist, it was really swollen last night, but it's quite a bit better now.”

“Good. Listen, Oriando Abeyta had an airtight alibi for the time when your car was smashed. We had to cut him loose.”

“An airtight alibi? What was it?”

“He and another lineman from the power company were installing two new transformers, replacing the one that blew at the junction a quarter mile down the road from you and the one that feeds your house.”

“But Oriando was supposed to meet me—”

“They got out there early, drove down a couple nearby roads, and saw the sign at the end of your drive. So, instead of meeting you as agreed, they just started working on restoring your power. According to their written report, they also removed limbs that had blown down onto the line, probably during that windstorm that trapped you out on the mesa last week. There's no way they could have been anyplace else. One guy was in the truck running the lift and the other was in the cherry picker. They ran two digital tests on the new transformers a half hour apart. The power company had a computerized readout with the times on it.”

“What about Rule Abeyta?” I asked.

“We retained him in custody because of evidence we found at his home. We got a search warrant last night. He had this effigy of a nun that was marked and painted to look the same way that Cassie Morgan's body had been desecrated.”

“That's the monito,” I said.

“What's that?”

“It's . . . never mind. I hope that's not all the evidence you had.”

“No. He had some papers where he had written out the abuses that Cassie Morgan and others had heaped upon him as a child. And beside each thing on the list that Morgan had done, he wrote that he hated Cassie Morgan and wished her dead.”

“That's still not hard evidence, is it?”

“Not hard enough. But if we have the murder weapon—and I think that rope you found might be it—then, we have him good. We're just waiting for the DNA evidence to come back from the lab in Albuquerque to lock that down. In the meantime, we're running down his story about where he was on the day that Cassie Morgan died. He better be able to account for every minute of it.”

“But then who smashed my Jeep? You think that was Rule? Does he have a truck like the one that did it? Did you question him about me?”

A clerk stepped out of the courtroom and announced the next hearing on the docket. Diane stood and gestured for me to come with her. “Come on. Let's go get my landlord.”

Once we were seated in the front of the courtroom, I saw Eloy Gallegos come in behind another man. He gave me a nervous smile when he saw me, and went promptly to the table on the opposite side at the front. “He's your landlord?” I said.

“Yeah, that's him.”

The judge, a Hispanic woman in her fifties, suggested that each side should present its case in its entirety, and that afterward—should it be necessary—there would be an opportunity for cross-examination of any witnesses.

Diane presented her own case. She had kept meticulous notes of times and dates when she had called for requests for repairs, of the slow response from the landlord in having someone come out, and of the time she had taken off from work and the hours that she had spent at the house while the landlord's cousin, Benny, was supposedly making those repairs. She presented lengthy receipts for replacing all her groceries which froze or spoiled due to the refrigerator not working, showing three repeat purchases within a matter of a week of nearly every item, from commonly long-lasting condiments such as mayonnaise and hot sauce to staples such as eggs and milk. She had prepared a list of the four different complaints in particular with respect to the oven not working. She showed photos of the house after the explosion and fire, and a list of her losses from the claim she had filed with her renter's insurance, along with the deductible she would be assessed out of pocket. She called me as a witness concerning the incident when the oven pilot light went out, and of course for the explosion. She even produced the medical report from the paramedic who had treated me on scene.

Gallegos's attorney called a service technician from the local natural gas company—a company which was not in any way involved—since the landowner leased a propane tank for the property. The serviceman nervously responded to the counselor's leading with grunts, nods, and one-word replies in such a manner that the explosion was made to look like an isolated incident caused by a leak in the external propane line, probably due to the series of recent hard freezes in the Taos area—thereby shifting any responsibility for the blast that might have befallen the landowner onto the propane company, which wasn't there to defend itself.

The lawyer then presented papers that indicated that every repair Diane had requested had been made, flourishing them in a bunch as if they were proof positive that she had recklessly harangued the landlord into mounds of unneeded expense. Next the attorney produced a notarized statement from someone who had claimed to be a witness to a conversation two months before in which Gallegos had informed Diane of a raise in the price of the monthly rent. Then the counselor exhibited receipts wherein Diane had underpaid that amount by several hundred dollars a month. The attorney claimed that Eloy Gallegos had only let the tenant remain there in spite of the discrepancy in the rent payment because he was such a compassionate man.

While the attorney was performing this circus, Gallegos sat quietly in his seat, his face completely without expression, looking straight ahead and never glancing in our direction. Diane was seething, fidgeting in her seat, and—more than once—whispering under her breath to me, “That's a lie.”

After the two sides had each presented its case, the judge was quiet for a moment, writing on a legal pad. Without offering the opportunity for any further discussion or the previously mentioned chance to cross-examine, she said, “I think it is obvious, from the body of evidence we have here, that there is a misunderstanding between the parties about the price of the rent and the desired condition of the rental property. I am going to dismiss the complaint brought by Miss Langstrom. I will not award any compensation to the landlord for the loss of rent for which he is undoubtedly due, because there was no request on his part that I do so. It is unfortunate that both Mr. Gallegos and Miss Langstrom suffered losses because of the incident with the propane leak, which seems to be due to an act of God, and I do not find any cause for a finding of negligence. Costs for this proceeding will be assessed to Miss Langstrom.” At that, she smacked her gavel on the bench, and the clerk instructed us all to rise.

Diane rose and cocked her head slightly to one side, one eye narrowed, her expression on the verge of a sinister smile. Her eyebrows toggled up and down at me, and she bit on her lip and did not speak. I watched the judge leave the bench and go through a door into her chambers. I turned back to console my friend, but when I saw her expression, I thought better of it. With her eyes, Diane was drilling a hole through Eloy Gallegos's skull.

Gallegos and his attorney were shaking hands and smiling when the door to the judge's chamber opened again, and the woman who had presided over the sham of a hearing came through the door minus her black robe and dressed as a civilian. Diane and I watched with amazement as the judge threw her arms around Eloy and hugged him. “You look just like your mother,” she exclaimed, holding him at arm's length and then embracing him again. “You don't know how much I miss her. We were just like sisters when we were young.”

“Come on,” Diane said as she headed for the door. She walked so fast I had to hurry to keep up.

“What's our plan?” I said. “Can we appeal this in district court?”

Diane just kept walking and didn't speak. Outside the courthouse, she pulled up short on the steps to one side of the doors and said, “Wait here. Stand over to the side here where you can't be seen through the glass.”

There was a steady stream of foot traffic coming and going from the parking lot up and down the steps and through the glass doors. We stood in the cold for a minute before Eloy Gallegos came to the doors and peered through. “Watch this,” Diane whispered.

Gallegos opened one of the doors tentatively and looked out at the crowded parking lot. A man and a woman leaving the building passed through the door as Eloy held it open, and he looked annoyed at them as they did so. Another man coming into the building from the parking lot started for the open door, and Eloy narrowed the opening, causing the man to stop short and then pull open the other door to enter. Gallegos looked from one end of the lot to the other. Satisfied by what he saw—or didn't see—he came through the door.

Diane shouted from the side, startling Gallegos, and drawing the attention of everyone in the area. “Eloy Gallegos, we know what kind of a landlord you are, but what kind of a soldier are you? Why aren't you doing your job? Isn't your unit deployed? Why are you still here, Sergeant Gallegos?”

Eloy froze in midstep.

“Sergeant
Gallegos?” I said, my mouth hanging open.

“Yes,” Diane said, her voice still loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. “He's in the National Guard.” She swept her hand outward to encompass the crowd of onlookers in the parking lot and on the courthouse steps. “Why don't you tell everyone why you're not overseas with your unit in Iraq?”

Gallegos's eyes bulged with alarm, but he stood unmoving, like a trapped rabbit.

“Now I know where I had seen you before,” I said to the man.

Eloy's eyes met mine, and then he sprang into action, darting down the few steps and out to his car.

Nina Enriquez, the clerk who had helped me identify the Coldfire property, had come out of the courthouse on her way to lunch when this scene began, and she had paused on the sidelines to watch. As Gallegos rushed away, she came over and held up her hand as if she were about to whisper to Diane and me, but she spoke in a normal tone of voice so that others could hear. “He has some kind of foot fungus. It got him out of going overseas to fight. But it sure hasn't kept him from fighting with everyone around here who gets in the way of him making money on all his property.” She winked and then went on toward the parking lot.

Diane turned to me. “If he wants to fight, I'll fight.”

“Hold on, I think I might have some ammunition for you,” I told my friend. I raced to catch up with the clerk, calling as I went, “Nina? Could I talk to you a moment?”

 

 

As I was headed back through town from the courthouse, I saw Tom Leaves His Robe sitting on the side of the road in the cold. I pulled over, but he didn't recognize me in the Blazer. I would have leaned over to open the passenger door, but I was too sore. Instead, I waited, and Tom got up to look into the car. When he saw that it was me, he smiled.

“Want a ride someplace?” I asked.

“Okay,” he said.

I picked up the boxed Howdy Doody doll that had been lying on the floor of the passenger's side and started to set it in the back, where Mountain's bed was. Tom leaned in and said, “Wait. Is that Howdy Doody?”

I held the box up to show him. “Yes, it is. It's kind of an antique, I think.”

He leaned in even farther, still standing outside the car, and he smiled, his face like that of a child. “Howdy Doody,” he said. “That's Howdy Doody.” He seemed transfixed by the doll, and he stood unmoving, bent over in what had to be an uncomfortable position.

“Do you want to get in?” I said. “You can look at it while we ride.”

Leaves His Robe worked his way into the passenger seat, and once again, I helped him fasten the seat belt. He closed the door, and then stared out the windshield. I held the box with the Howdy Doody doll in front of him, and he took it without looking at it and placed it on his lap. He gazed out the windshield again.