The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid Page 20

  “Because as I kept telling you, there was no evidence of any crime. I was only guessing that El Raton had stolen artifacts from that site, and a judge won’t issue a search warrant based on a guess.”

  “So you wanted to see for yourself.”

  “I figured I’d visit on the ruse of needing a guide. If I saw any artifacts, I could report it to the BLM and maybe a judge would issue a search warrant since they would have an eyewitness. I figured I’d be there five minutes, tops. I never even considered that it might be risky.”

  Susannah said, “Even though El Raton is in jail, we still don’t know for certain that he enticed Carlos into being crucified or even if Carlos was really the dead guy. If they can’t prove anything about Carlos, maybe El Raton will get off.”

  I shook my head. “No way, they have an airtight case for attempted murder – mine.”

  I turned to Susannah and said for about the hundredth time, “You saved my life.”

  “Yeah. Now I’m responsible for you. So I can’t let you endanger ynt size="+ourself by driving an old Crown Vic. I know how to handle the oversteer. You don’t. On top of that, you have your Bronco back.”

  “So you’re not going to honor our wager?”

  “I am not.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m not even going to ask,” said Martin, and he signaled Angie for a second round for the three of us.

  48

  “Ay oo you seh I mu no lie you?”

  Sharice laughed and said, “I say you must not like me because first you wear a cast which limits us to kissing and now you’ve injured your lips, so we can’t do even that.”

  Dr. Batres returned to remove the clip. “You’re lucky to have me as your dentist. Repairing the same tooth twice is difficult.”

  “No as difficuh as bwaken it twice,” I replied.

  He laughed and departed.

  Shaont> said she was due a coffee break, so we went to the staff room which had one of those high-tech coffee makers where you insert a small sealed plastic container, and the machine sucks out whatever is in there and turns it into coffee. The advantage of those machines is you can select all sorts of coffee. But what’s inside those little plastic things?

  Sharice selected Italian Espresso and laughed when I selected Jamaican Surprise.

  She asked me to tell her how I was injured. When I reached the point in the narrative where I discovered that Father Jerome was a Dominican, she smiled and asked, “Do you know what Dominicans are called in Canada?”

  “Dominicans, eh?”

  “No, silly. They’re called the ‘Black Friars’.”

  “Because of their cappa nera.”

  “Right. And the Carmelites are called the "White Friars" because of the white cloak which covers their habit.”

  After I finished my story, she handed me the little baggie with the travel-size toothpaste, tiny spool of floss and two toothbrushes,nt>

  “Let me guess,” I said. “I get two toothbrushes because it’s my second visit in a month, and I get plain black and white because I complained about the bright orange one you tried to pawn off on me the last time.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Hmm. One toothbrush is from the Dominicans and one is from the Carmelites.”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay,” I said, “I give up.”

  “The white one is yours. The black one is mine. You can keep it at your place just in case.”

  “So after my lips heal and my cast comes off—“

  “Maybe. But there’s something I’ll have to tell you first.”

  49

  When I opened for business that afternoon, I sold two pots. Maybe that pent up demand thing does sometimes work.

  I was behind the counter watching a tall man dressed in blue jeans and a pearl-buttoned western shirt examine the pot I’d made based on the shard.

  He finally turned my way. “Is this genuine?”

  “Absolutely. I know that because I made it.”

  “Hmm. I thought it was old.”

  “I made it to look old.”

  “It’s a copy of an ancient pot?”

  I nodded.

  “I like the design,” he said. “I’ve never seen one like it.”

  I retrieved the shard from my workshop and handed it to him.”This is from an ancient pot. I’m certain it’s pre-Columbian.”

  “So this was your pattern.”

  “And my inspiration.”

  “Where did the shard come from?”

  “Here in New Mexico.”

  He smiled. “And that’s as specific as you’re going to get.”

  I nodded again.

  “This isn’t old, but it is one of a kind,” he said, mostly to himself. ”How much is it?”

  I had been trying to decide that a while back when I realized the pot I made and the one Father Jerome brought me were not from the same tribe. That took my thoughts down another path, and I had never come back to the matter of price. I normally price my copies at ten percent of what the original is worth. If I had the entire pot of which the shard was a piece, I would ask fifty thousand for it.

  “Five thousand,” I said.

  “That sounds high for a copy.”

  “Like you said, it’s unique.”

  “So it is.” He thought for a moment. “Throw in the shard, and I’ll take it.”

  Now it was my turn to think. It didn’t take me long to decide.

  “I can’t do that.” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I have other plans for it.”

  “You want it as a model for further copies?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll give you three thousand for the pot.”

  “You think the shard is worth two thousand?”

  “Not by itself. But it makes the pot more interesting because it’s the genuine piece from which the pot was designed. It would be worth five thousand to me to be able to display them together.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t sell the shard. And I can’t take three thousand for the pot.”

  “Thirty five hundred cash. Final offer.”

  “Sold.”

  As I was boxing up the pot, its new owner asked what happened to my face.

  “I was dragged down a rough trail to the spot where that shard was found.”

  He shook his head in wonderment. “Surely there must have been an easier way to get there.”

  I’ve been known, after making a sale, to close the shop for the rest of the day in celebration. And also because what are the odds of my making two sales in one day? But I stayed open and did just that.

  A tourist visiting with her college-aged daughter bought the pot crafted by the woman in La Reina. I had it priced at twenty-five hundred and she bargained me down to two thousand. I was easy because I empathized with her as a fellow tuition-payer and because I already had thirty five hundred in the till.

  “Do you mind if I inquire about your injuries?” she asked as I was running her credit card.

  I pointed to my face. “Let this be a warning to you. Always wear sunscreen.”

  The mother and daughter glanced at each other.

  Whit came in just before closing time.

  “The sheriff up there said you was dragged to where they arrested Maldonado, but he didn’t mention you was dragged on your face.”

  “I know you didn’t come here to comment on my injuries.”

  “No, I came to bring you up to date like you requested. They reached a deal with Maldonado. He gets total immunity for the dead guy you dug up in return for telling them where the body is.”

  “Total immunity? What if it turns out he killed the guy?”

  “They’d never make that stick. The dead guy was one of those nuts who beat themselves with whips and even volunteer to haul a cross and be tied on it. Sometimes they even get their hands nailed to it. Someone dies under those circumstances, you can’t really say they were murdered. They’re all just nutcases.”


  I thought about Carlos. “Maybe most of them are nuts, but some could be saints. Martin snt sizays that before you criticize a man, you should walk a mile in his moccasins.”

  “That’s good advice, Hubert.”

  I was surprised by his positive reaction. “It is?”

  “Sure, that way if he don’t like your criticism, there ain’t much he can do about it because you’re a mile away from him and he’s barefooted. You want to hear the rest of the deal?”

  “I guess.”

  “He also gets immunity from the pot digging if he returns all the stuff he still has and gives them a list of everyone he sold stuff to. I hope you keep a list of your customers, Hubert, in case you ever need to bargain your way out of your pot thieving.”

  “I would never betray my customers. So he walks on the crucifixion death and the ARPA and NAGPRA charges. What about trying to kill me?”

  “They don’t think they can stick him with that either.”

  “What!”

  “The law defines attempted murder as taking an action designed to kill, like stabbing you or shooting at you. He didn’t do anything that could have killed you.”

  “That’s only because Susannah showed up before he got the chance.”

  “Don’t matter. He took no potentially lethal action against you.”

  I was flabbergasted. “He told me he was going to kill me.”

  “Your word against his.”

  “He tied me up and dragged me down to that cliff dwelling.”

  “Right, and that’s where they got him – kidnapping. Actually, it’s aggravated kidnapping since he did you bodily harm. That carries a longer sentence, so it’s fortunate that he dragged you.”

  “Lucky me. How long is the sentence?”

  “He bargained for twenty years, but he’ll likely serve about twelve if he don’t get in trouble in prison or get killed there.”

  “Great. So in twelve years a guy who tried to kill me will be back on the street and hardened by a dozen years of prison.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. I doubt he’ll want a return trip. And I’ll make sure the APD keeps you safe. The bad news is that they took all the old pots in his house into custody up there, so I didn’t have a chance to grab one for you to sell for us. I don’t suppose you found one up there?”

  “He had picked the site so clean, the only thing left was a shard.”

  “That’s just a piece of one, right?”

  “Right, but I sold it for a thousand dollars.” I figured five hundred would satisfy him.

  He let out a long whistle. “A thousand bucks for a broken piece. No wonder you like being a pot thief.”

  I gave him the five hundred.

  “It ain’t the most we ever made,” he said, “but it ain’t bad for a few

  phone calls. Nice doing business with you.”

  50

  Susannah and I made our final trip to La Reina a couple of weeks later to attend a memorial mass for Carlos Campos Castillo.

  After the service, everyone gather at El Erupto del Rey for lunch. Susannah spent several minutes talking to Baltazar de los ojos then joined me at our table.

  Father Jerome was making the rounds of the tables and booths. When he stopped at ours, he joked that we should be made honorary villagers. La Viuda de Zaragosa came over and thanked me for making it possible for one of their own to be brought home and buried in the churchyard. I thought of my conversation with Consuela.

  “I think I’ll come back next month on El dia de los muertos to visit Carlos,” I said to Susannah.

  “What would you bring him?”

  “I guess pan de muerto and cempasúchil.”

  “I think I know what pan de muerto is, but what is cempasúchil?”

  “Marigolds.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You just want to see Baltazar.”

  “Why not? He seems nice, Hubie. He’s my age, handsome, and single. And Sirena lives here, so we could double date.”

  “Yeah, and I could keep the cast on in case Hugo decides to go a few more rounds with me.”

  I asked her to stop by the cliff dwelling on the way back.

  “The cliff dwelling is not on the way back. It’s not on the way to anything.”

  “It’s on the way to trouble. But I want to go there anyway.”

  “What the heck,” she said. “At least I know how to find it.”

  I looked at the scary mound of boulders at the top of the switchback and told Susannah I wanted to tie a rope to the bottom one. Since I was still in the cast, she volunteered to do it.

  After the rope was in place, Susannah activated the winch. When the bottom boulder began to move, the pile above it rumbled down the slope and knocked off part of the cliffside, destroying a section of the path.

  “Okay,” she said, “now that I’ve helped you do that, you want to tell me why we did that.”

  “I want the site to be left alone.”

  I walked over to the ledge above the site, close to where Susannah had been standing when she shot El Raton. Not as close to the edge as she had been, but close enough to toss the shard down to where it had come from.

  “What is this, some sort of weird cleansing ceremony where you give up pot digging?”

  “No, the ancient potters want me to find their work.”

  “You really believe that? I always figured that was just a rationalization you liked.”

  “I do believe it. The Indians who sell their stuff in Old Town are proud of it, as they should be. But just because they sell their arts and crafts doesn’t mean they sell their culture. I can take a pot from an ancient site and leave the site undisturbed. It’s a perfect analogy.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I’ve been worrying about being associated with the people who destroy sites in the process of looting them, but I’ve resolved my concerns about that.”

  “If you hadn’t gone down there, Carlos would still be in an unknown and unmarked grave. So some good did come from your pot digging.”

  “I’ve been thinking how weird it is that there’s a book about Billy the Kid written by Pat Garrett, the man who shot him down in cold blood.”

  “This has something to do with Carlos?”

  “It does. Evidently there were a lot of hucksters after Billy’s death claiming they had his pinky finger, his skull, or some other part of him. They would travel around and charge people to see those things.”

  “I’m glad we don’t have those sorts of shameless exhibitions these days.”

  “Yeah. We have reality television instead. Anyway, at the end of the book, Garrett goes to great lengths to say that all those claims are false, that Billy was given a proper burial and his grave had not been disturbed. He also rails against the reporters and editorialists who criticized him in various newspapers for shooting Billy in cold blood. And the rest of the book is about how Billy had many sace="Pterling qualities.”

  “Sounds like Garrett had a load of guilt.”

  “That’s what I thought.” We stood in silence for a moment. “Billy was given a proper burial. Carlos was hidden away in an unmarked grave. Frank Aguirre’s ashes were dumped into an irrigation ditch.” I looked up at her. “You think it makes any difference?”

  She started to answer then suddenly looked over my shoulder and said, “I do not believe this!”

  I turned to see Wiley trotting towards me, my hat hanging from his mouth. He stopped about twenty feet from me and dropped it. Then he stared at me for a few seconds and trotted away. I remembered Julie the vet telling me that dogs have a nesting instinct and like to take soft personal items from their owners as a show of affection. Maybe he had seen me as a helper. Maybe he did dig that water for us. Maybe that was a smile on his face. Probably not, but I liked the idea.

  I turned back around.

  “You’re crying,” she said.

  “Tears of joy,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

  The Pot Thief Books<
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  The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras 2009

  Winner (Kindle version), “Eppie” as best e-book mystery of the year

  Winner, New Mexico Book of the Year, Mystery

  When a stranger enters Hubie’s shop and hands him a picture of a thousand-year-old pot, Hubie tells him he can see the real thing at the Valle del Rio Museum at the University of New Mexico. “I’ve already seen it,” says the stranger. “What I want to do is buy it.”

  “Well, you could make them an offer I suppose,” says Hubie, “but I don’t think it’s for sale.”

  The stranger replies, “Museums seldom sell things from their collections. But you’re in the business of selling pots, so perhaps I can buy it from you.”

  “And if I owned it,” Hubie assures him with a smile, “I would sell it to you gladly.”

  The man looks him straight in the eyes. “Perhaps you could acquire it.”

  Hubie knows he should resist this attempt to suborn a felony, but the guy is offering twenty-five thousand dollars which Hubie sorely needs. He figures it can’t do any harm just to check it out the stranger’s odd request. His visit to the museum reminds him of why he isn’t really a thief at all (illegal pot digging being, in his view, a noble profession outlawed solely for reasons of political correctness). His cautious nature is challenged by alarms, guards and barred windows. But when he gets home, a Federal Agent is waiting and accuses him of stealing the pot.

  Hubie grapples with the meaning of two missing pots, a charge of murder, an unidentified corpse and a tricky theft.

  The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy 2010

  Winner (Kindle version) “Eppie” as best e-book mystery of the year

  First series ever to win two “Eppies” in a row

  In the second book in the series, Hubert Schuze' larceny is for a good cause. He wants to recover sacred pots stolen from San Roque, a mysterious New Mexico pueblo closed to outsiders. An easy task for Hubert Schuze, pot digger. Except these pots are not under the ground – they're 150 feet above it in the apartment of the retired head of the University of New Mexico anthropology program, the very man who expelled him from school. The Department Head clain themed to be repatriating the pots to the San Roque, but another retired professor suspects otherwise. A visit to San Roque inspires Hubie to find and return the pots. Hubie's intuitive deductive skills lead to a perfect plan which is thwarted when he encounters the beautiful Stella and he is arrested for murder. Things don’t look good—he was in the room where the body was found, everyone heard the shot, and he came out with blood on his hands. Hubie struggles to stay one step ahead of building security, one step behind Stella, and one step away from a long fall down a garbage chute. During his repeated ineffectual attempts to break into the apartment where the cache of sacred pots resides, Hubie is guided by Ptolemy's wisdom. What better place than the ebony New Mexico desert sky to demonstrate the optical illusion of retrograde motion, like a circle in a spiral?