The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein Page 15

  “Where was I? Oh, right, number four. Fourth, you have a motive – he swiped your pay for the appraisal. Face it, Hubert – it looks bad. The only way to get you out of this fix is for us to find the real murderer. And that should be easy.”

  I took a small sip.

  “Well?” she said.

  “I’m drinking, you’re talking.”

  “Take another sip, then you can talk.”

  I did. I asked her why she thought it would be easy to find the real murderer.

  “Because,” she explained, “you already know so much about the case. The son brought copies to you. You broke into his house—”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I know you say it’s not breaking in when you don’t steal anything, but the police don’t look at it that way. Keep drinking. You saw his house. You stole his car—”

  “You hotwired it.”

  “Right, but you’re the one who drove it away. And you kept it, which turns out to be a good thing because maybe there’s a clue in it. And you saw the collection and discovered your copies in it. You saw that house when you did the appraisal and again when you broke in and stole the copies.”

  “They were my copies,” I said in exasperation.

  “No,” she countered, “they were his copies because he paid for them. And finally, you know someone is trying to frame you because of the lengths Cantú Senior went to get your prints on the glass.”

  I finally finished my drink, and Susannah signaled the long-limbed Angie for another round. Angie has a triangular face with a wide mouth and the shiniest dark brown eyes I’ve ever seen. If they were stars, they’d rate at least a magnitude five on Ptolemy’s luminosity scale.

  I took a very small sip of my second margarita to make sure it was as good as the first. It was better.

  “The fingerprint thing really confuses me,” I admitted. I told her about my life insurance theory, but she dismissed that as ridiculous, and I can’t say I disagreed with her.

  She said, “I think it’s safe to assume the murderer didn’t say to Cantú Senior, ‘I’m planning to poison you, so make sure to get Schuze’s prints on one of your glasses so I can blame it on him.’ But Cantú did make sure to get your prints, so the only explanation that makes sense is that the murderer convinced Cantú to get your prints for some other reason.”

  “I don’t know, Hubie. When we figure out who the murderer is, we can ask him.”

  “O.K., who’s the murderer?”

  “Primero Cantú,” she said without hesitation.

  “Huh?”

  “If there’s a Segundo, there must be a Primero. And the oldest child inherits, so he killed his father to get the pots.”

  “And how do we prove he did it? And before we do that, how do we find him?”

  “Do I have to do all the work?”

  We kicked it around for the rest of the evening, and she did end up doing all the work because I had nothing to offer. All I knew was I didn’t kill Cantú and I had no clue who did.

  33

  The first person through my door when I opened the shop the next morning was Carl Wilkes.

  I was not happy to see him.

  “You didn’t kill Segundo Cantú, did you?” he asked.

  “No, did you?”

  “No. And whoever did took an unnecessary risk. If he wanted Cantú dead, he didn’t have to poison him. All he had to do was wait.”

  I dragged my stool around to his side of the counter and he sat down on it. He’d always worn fitted clothes when I’d seen him before, but that morning he was wearing a loose-fitting safari shirt with a vented yoke, loose cuffs, and two patch pockets with tortoise-shell buttons. He would have been right at home in the Kalahari.

  I poured us both a cup of Bustelo, and he said it was better than what I’d given him before.

  “That’s because it had been steeping all day the first time.”

  He nodded and took another sip.

  There was a long silence before he finally spoke. “I met Segundo Cantú at a clinic where we were both taking treatments.”

  I said nothing. He sipped more coffee.

  “He had metastasized melanoma. He was being treated with proluekin. It wasn’t working. He had a few months left at best.”

  “Is that why he wanted to sell his pots?”

  Carl shrugged. “That would be my guess, but I didn’t ask him.”

  Another long silence.

  “So why are you telling me this?”

  “I saw in the paper this morning that you’d been arrested for his murder. I thought maybe this information might be helpful to you.”

  “He take you on as agent?”

  He nodded.

  “You find any likely buyers?”

  “I was just starting to ask around when he died.”

  “So now what?”

  He shrugged again. It seemed to be an effort. “I guess the estate gets the pots unless he left them to a museum or something. If the estate gets them, maybe they’d keep me as agent. He has two children.”

  “Let me guess. Their names are Primero and Segundo.”

  “I know the son is named after the father, so he’s Segundo. I don’t know the other name, but I’d wager it isn’t Primero. Anyway, I’d like to ask Segundo the son about selling his father’s collection, but I can’t find him.”

  “A lot of that going around,” I replied.

  “Why do they think you killed him?”

  “My prints were on the glass with the poison in it.”

  “Shouldn’t you have wiped off your prints after adding the poison?”

  “I didn’t add any poison.”

  “I know that. You’re not a murderer. What I meant was wouldn’t the police realize you would have wiped off your prints? If your prints were on the glass, the logical thing to assume is they were there innocently.”

  “They were, and I told them that. I told them I was doing an appraisal, and Cantú gave me a beer.”

  “So it was just bad luck that the poisoner used the glass with your prints on it.”

  “Yeah, but the police aren’t buying that.”

  After Wilkes left, I sat down on the stool he’d vacated and thought about what he had said. Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t framed. Maybe Cantú didn’t wash his dishes, and it was just bad luck that my prints were still on the glass when the murderer put the poison in it. That certainly made more sense than my insurance theory of Cantú committing suicide and making it look like I murdered him. And I couldn’t think of anyone else with a motive to frame me.

  Maybe it was just bad luck. And maybe some good luck as well. After all, if Cantú’s kitchen hygiene was that bad, I was lucky not to have contracted salmonella, strep, or jungle rot just from the stuff on his pilsner glass. Well, maybe not jungle rot. It’s probably too dry in Albuquerque for that.

  Then a thought came to me that I might have some very good luck indeed, and I called Layton Kent. He agreed it was a good thought and said he would act on it immediately.

  34

  Geronimo wanted to go for a drive the next morning, so I took him out to the Bronco, and the two of us drove the nine miles to Martin Seepu’s pueblo.

  We found him halter-breaking a roan foal in a corral. Geronimo kept glancing at the horse and then back at me as if I was going to tell him what it was.

  “You want that animal trained,” said Martin, “he needs to get in line behind the horse.”

  “He came ready-trained.”

  “Yeah. That’s why he’s on a leash.”

  “I only keep him leashed to protect your livestock. He’s ferocious.”

  Geronimo looked up at me quizzically.

  Martin pulled the foal close to him, put one muscular arm around its neck, and removed the halter with his free hand. When Martin released his grip, the foal trotted gingerly away.

  We walked over to the tack room where Martin had coffee in a dented aluminum percolator on a hot plate.

  “What’s h
is name?’

  “Geronimo.”

  “Let me guess. Because he flew into your patio like a paratrooper?”

  “Exactly. And also because he’s ferocious.”

  “Right.”

  “You got some spare time?”

  He nodded.

  “I need to move that car back into town. Can you follow me in the Bronco?”

  “Where’s the animal going to ride?”

  “With me?”

  “O.K., I’ll do it.”

  “I also need you to fix the ignition switch.”

  “What’s wrong with it?’

  “It was hotwired.”

  He stared at me. “I didn’t think you could do that, paleface.”

  “Susannah.”

  “Ah. Do I want to know why?”

  “Probably not.”

  I drove to 183 Titanium Trail, used Tristan’s device for the... I lost count of how many times. I know I told him I was only going to use it once, but the circumstances kept shifting.

  I wiped down every square inch of the Cadillac inside and out with an old towel while looking all around to make sure I hadn’t accidentally dropped anything like a gasoline receipt – the thing was a real guzzler – that would identify me. Martin’s repair of the ignition wiring was invisible, so everything was back to normal.

  Almost. There were several hundred new miles on the odometer, electrical tape on the ignition wires, and the top was down because I couldn’t figure out how to get it back up, so when Cantú next saw his car, he’d be pretty certain someone had been driving it. I just hoped he wouldn’t be able to figure out who.

  I was about to leave when I remembered Susannah saying there might be clues in the car – which I thought was a real long shot – but I looked for some just in case.

  Susannah tells me that crime scene investigation is all the rage on television these days. I picture Sherlock Holmes bending over a corpse with his magnifying glass. Holmes’ magnifying glass, that is. The corpse probably wouldn’t have one.

  As I see it, the problem with looking for clues is that nothing is a clue per se. A bottle cap is just a bottle cap. It doesn’t become a clue until you notice that it’s the cap from a brand of ale sold only in Gurgisstad and you see a laundry mark on the lining of the corpse’s coat in Cyrillic characters, and you know Gurgisstad uses that alphabet, and so on. I guess it works well in fiction.

  Yes, I noticed the bright red stain on the back seat arm rest. Lipstick? Fingernail polish? A drool from someone enjoying a cherry Life Saver? How the hell would I know? And even if I did, how would I know whether it was a clue? And if it was a clue, how would I know what it meant?

  So I gave up looking for clues, closed the garage door, and took Martin home. On the way, he brought up the uncertainty principle again, and I told him I just couldn’t bring myself to accept it.

  “That’s because you’re a linear-thinking European,” he said.

  “Probably.”

  “The European world view contains a presupposition that there are only two sorts of actions, those brought about by the laws of nature and those brought about by intelligent beings.”

  I glanced at him quizzically and then back at the road.

  “A lodestone points north because of magnetism. People look north because they choose to.”

  “And your point is?”

  He didn’t look at me as he spoke, just stared out through the windshield. “I’m explaining why you can’t accept the uncertainty principle. You think subatomic particles should follow some law.”

  “And Indians look at it differently?”

  “Not just Indians. All native peoples believe the universe is spiritual. That mountain has a spirit,” he said, pointing out the window. “Rocks have spirits, trees have spirits...”

  He was looking around for a tree to point at but couldn’t find one. Hey, it’s the desert.

  “O.K., everything has a spirit,” I said, “How does that relate to uncertainty?”

  “If you have a spirit, you can choose. Subatomic particles have spirits. They don’t always follow a given path for the same reason people don’t always follow a given path. They choose not to do so.”

  “So that mountain could choose to move closer to the river?”

  He disregarded my sarcasm. “Yes, but there are some decisions it can’t implement, just like you might choose to fly but not be able to do so because it’s not one of your capabilities.” Mountains can’t move, people can’t fly, subatomic particles can’t photosynthesize. But they can choose a path. And we know that because we can’t predict where they will go.”

  “You know that sounds ridiculous, right?”

  He nodded.

  “But the logic of it makes sense,” I said.

  He nodded again.

  An hour or two after I finally got back to Old Town, one of Layton’s paralegals called to fill me in on the progress they had made. After my call, Layton had called the chief of police and asked him to have the crime lab run a test based on the idea I had told him about the day before. The test had shown what I had hoped, and Layton had managed to have an emergency hearing scheduled for the next morning where he was going to petition the court to void my arrest warrant. He was confident the petition would be granted by Judge Aragon.

  Needless to say, I was feeling great. The Cadillac was back where I found it with little possibility of being connected to me. The murder charge was likely to be dropped. And I could sell the three copies I had retrieved and get at least five thousand each for them and maybe even more if some unsuspecting buyer thought they were genuine. Either way, it was a lot more than the measly twenty-five hundred appraisal fee I had lost.

  The only thing I had to worry about was starvation. I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for coffee and a leftover cinnamon churro. And just on cue, Miss Gladys Claiborne appeared at my door with her notorious wicker picnic basket. I was so hungry, even one of her Casseroles of Doom was a welcome sight.

  It turned out to be ‘veggie and grits’. For some reason I can’t explain, I seem unable to resist asking her to explain these dishes. Hearing how they’re made only results in their being even harder to stomach, but I always ask.

  “Veggies and grits,” she began, obviously proud that I had asked, “starts with a package of frozen Brussels sprouts.”

  I must have made a face at that news because she assured me that even people who don’t like Brussels sprouts (there are people who do?) love this dish.

  “You cover the bottom of the casserole dish with the Brussels sprouts slit in half longways and cover those with instant grits. Then you sprinkle Bacos over the grits, cover that with chopped green onions, pour in two cans of cream of celery soup and one can of chicken broth, cover it with about a quarter of an inch of Monterrey Jack cheese, and bake it till it bubbles.”

  “What’s a baco?” I asked with trepidation.

  “I swan, Mr. Schuze. Are you going to stand there and tell me you’ve never had Bacos?”

  “I don’t know if I have,” I admitted.

  “They come in a jar right there with the other spices.”

  “It’s a spice? What does it look like?”

  She shook her head in amazement at my ignorance. “They taste like bacon, what else would imitation bacon bits taste like?”

  “I see,” I said, although I didn’t. How can bacon be a spice?

  Some of Miss Gladys’ concoctions have proven to be quite toothsome, as she might say, but I must admit that, even as hungry as I was, veggies and grits was not one of them. The Brussels sprouts were... well, Brussels sprouts. There is no way to conceal their taste despite the fact that it cries out for concealment.

  I know grits are made from hominy, an excellent food that is a key ingredient in one of my favorite dishes, posole. But the process of turning hominy into grits must be akin to what they do with dead horses. In both cases you end up with glue.

  Suffice it to say the Bacos were the best part of the dish. I
ate enough to be polite then begged off a further helping with the lie that I’d eaten a large lunch at Martin’s.

  “No wonder your appetite is gone. The food they eat at his pueblo is hotter than Hades.” She blushed at the word. “I should have brought you some of the Jell-O mold I made yesterday.”

  “Did it have crushed pineapple and mini marshmallows?”

  “You do seem partial to that one, but no. This one is peach Jell-O with canned Mandarin orange segments and crushed wintermint Life Savers.”

  “Do tell?” I replied. I couldn’t help it.

  I got a taste of the Jell-O mold when I walked her back to her shop, and she insisted I come in for dessert. It wasn’t bad although the little nuggets of Life Savers were a bit too crunchy in my opinion.

  I knew she was wanting to tell me something, so I stuck around when she offered me a glass of sweet tea, a beverage made by putting a dozen tea bags and two cups of sugar in a gallon of boiling water then adding ice when the mixture has steeped and cooled. Strong and sweet.

  “Morgan drove me to his house for a special dinner last night.”

  “Oh? Where does he live?”

  “He says he’s planning to buy a large house, but for now he’s renting.”

  “Near here?”

  “No, a small house on one of those streets named after a metal.” She tapped a finger against her head. “You know I can’t remember addresses or telephone numbers at my age.”

  “You haven’t forgotten anything about cooking.”

  She smiled. There was a pause. “After the dinner, Morgan asked me to marry him,” she said, looking down at the floor as she did so.

  “He’d be a fool not to.”

  She looked up and smiled.

  “I’d marry you myself, but you claim I’m too young. You are charming, attractive, and an excellent cook. Any man would be lucky to have you as his wife.”

  She blushed and waved away my flattery with both hands. “Morgan is not as handsome as you, Mr. Schuze, but he is closer to my own age.”

  “And handsome in his own way. Rather dashing, I’d say.”

  “Yes, and a good conversationalist. I have enjoyed his company these past few weeks.”