Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras Read online

I decided not to worry about it. I looked up in the sky and remembered that Pythagoras was the first person to discover that the morning star and the evening star are one and the same, the planet Venus. I looked for Venus, but of course it had already passed the meridian at that late hour. The next thing I knew, so had I.

  12

  Kaylee slept late. When she awoke, I started fixing her another plate of huevos rancheros.

  Someone knocked at the door just as I finished cooking, and I went forward to discover Whit Fletcher, Detective First Grade, Albuquerque Police Department. Fletcher is about six feet tall with silver hair always in need of a trim and blue-grey eyes that slant down and make him look tired. We’ve had a few dealings over the years, usually ending with me getting out of a jam and Whit getting money. I’ve never actually bribed him, but I have made it possible for him to supplement his income. He’s not a bad cop. He goes after the drug dealers, wife-beaters, rapists and murderers with zeal. The American Civil Liberties Union would probably see it as a little too much zeal, but then Whit probably doesn’t belong to the ACLU.

  He doesn’t have any interest in arresting pot thieves or people who forgot to get a license for a cat, and he’s not above making a buck on the sly.

  “Well, if it ain’t Hubert Shoots, my favorite grave robber. I’m surprised to find you here, Hubert. I thought you would be on the lam by now.”

  “It’s ‘Schuze.’ Sounds like what you wear on your feet.”

  “Which is exactly what you should be putting to work walking yourself away. But here you are in your little fencing operation as usual.”

  “Where else should I be?”

  “As far away as possible. That’s where I’d be if I’d murdered someone.”

  “Well, you didn’t murder anyone and neither did I.”

  “That’s what I told ’em downtown. I said to ’em, ‘He steals pots. He don’t murder people.’ But unfortunately, they got witnesses that put you at the scene.”

  The trembling came on unexpectedly, as if my autonomous nervous system got the message before it reached my conscious mind. I put my hands on the counter so he wouldn’t see them shaking. I asked what scene he was referring to, and of course he said it was the Hyatt.

  “You were there weren’t you?”

  “I was. But I didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Well, what were you doin’ there? You weren’t attending that convention, where you?” He flipped open a small notebook and consulted his notes. “It’s called the Philadelphia Society.”

  “Philadelphia Society?”

  “Yeah, they collect stamps. Funny name for a bunch of stamp collectors. Maybe they only collect stamps from Pennsylvania. You weren’t there as a stamp collector, were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t. I just went to have a drink with a friend.”

  “Your friend a man or a woman?”

  “A man.”

  “Meet him at the bar, did you?”

  “No, I went to his room. He’s a guest there.” My mind was racing. Had someone killed Carl Wilkes?

  “Your friend got a name?”

  “I don’t think I should give you his name.”

  “Why not? He won’t be needing it if he’s dead.”

  “I don’t know if he’s dead. I don’t want to violate his privacy by giving his name to the police when he hasn’t done anything wrong to the best of my knowledge.”

  “Okay, don’t give me his name. He’ll just have to stay John Doe until we find out who he is. And I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do because you and me are friends, Hubert. I’m going to tell you his room number. It’s 1118. Was that your friend’s room?”

  So it was Guvelly. He was a jackass, but that didn’t mean he deserved to be murdered.

  “No. I’m happy to say that my friend was not in room 1118.”

  “Maybe in an adjoining room?”

  “No,” I said, “he was on an entirely different floor.”

  He leaned against my counter and smiled. “So maybe you can explain what you was doing on the eleventh floor?”

  I started to deny it then remembered the security camera near the elevator.

  “I guess I pushed the wrong button.”

  Fletcher stared at me while he used one of his big meaty hands to push his hair out of his eyes. “I guess that could happen. There’s lots of buttons in those elevators in big buildings. Who woulda thought we’d ever have skyscrapers in Albuquerque?” He shook his head in apparent wonderment and his hair fell back over the eye. Then he stared at me.

  “Well,” I said, “even if I was unlucky enough to accidentally be on the floor where someone was murdered, at least I wasn’t there when the murder took place.”

  He shook his head. “That’s exactly when you were there. We got a little piece of evidence that times you and ties you in real tight, but I can’t tell you about it even though you and me are friends.”

  I stood there with my mind racing, wondering what the other piece of evidence might be, trying to remember if I had done anything that seemed perfectly innocuous at the time but might now look suspicious to police investigators.

  And that’s when Kaylee walked in flashing cleavage in my loose-fitting shirt and holding a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noir in her right hand.

  “Can we open this?”

  Whit’s eyebrows arched up. “Who’s the young lady, Hubert?”

  “Whit, this is Kaylee. Kaylee, meet Whit Fletcher,” I said, and added without thinking, “from the Albuquerque Police Department.”

  Whereupon she gave me a look of betrayal, threw the champagne bottle at me and ran back to my living quarters. She tried to lock the door, but I got there in time to force it open, and Whit was right behind me.

  She slumped down in a chair and started crying.

  Fletcher gave me his stern cop look. “What the hell’s going on here?” He turned to Kaylee. “How old are you, Miss?”

  “She’s twenty one,” I said.

  “You better hope so.”

  “Oh, come on, Whit. Give me a little credit, huh. She showed up her last night with nowhere to go, so I told her she could stay and then we’d figure out what to do this morning.”

  “With her shirt half off and a bottle of booze in her hand, it looks like she figured out exactly what to do. You sure she’s over eighteen?”

  She was continuing to sob and didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve got some more questions for you,” he said.

  “I’ve already told you everything I know about her.”

  “I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about what happened at the Hyatt.”

  Funny how the mind works. I found myself entertaining the irrational hope that this was a dream and I would wake up. Then I found myself wondering if we could start over. I almost asked Fletcher if he would step outside, come in again and let me have another shot at our conversation.

  But of course I didn’t. Instead I said, “Maybe I should talk to my lawyer before I say anything else.”

  “We got a telephone downtown. You can call him when we get there.”

  13

  Fletcher let me call Susannah before we left, and she promised to pick up Kaylee.

  On the way downtown, I decided the smart thing was to say nothing until my lawyer arrived. And just as a change from my recent string of decisions, I decided to do the smart thing.

  I spent an eternity in a windowless room with a metal table and four chairs. I asked for something to read, but that request was denied. I asked for a glass of water and was given one. I thought about asking for bread to go with the water, but decided against it.

  I hadn’t killed Guvelly. I hadn’t entered his room. Perhaps my fingerprints were on the outside of his door. Surely fingerprints on the outside of a door are not enough eviden
ce to convict someone of committing a murder inside the room. I would let Layton handle everything. There was nothing to worry about.

  Except paying his bill. He is the most expensive attorney in town. Of course if I stole the pot at UNM and Wilkes paid me twenty-five thousand … What was I thinking? Here I was at the police station being questioned for murder, and I was considering committing a burglary to pay for my defense. And I’m not even a burglar. Unless I had beginners’ luck, I’d probably be caught in the act.

  Layton Kent, Esquire, finally showed up and carted me away in his Rolls. He has an office downtown but conducts most of his business from his table overlooking the 18th green at his club.

  Layton and his wife, Mariella, are one of the most prominent couples in town. Many of his clients are fellow lawyers who use him to set up corporations, trusts and other scams for their ill-gotten but perfectly legal gains.

  Despite the nature of his practice, Layton condescended to spring me from jail because Mariella, said to be a descendent of Don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez, Duque de Albuquerque, is an avid collector of traditional Native American pots, and I am her personal dealer. Whether she is in fact descended from El Duque is subject to debate. However, Ms. Kent is a nice lady, and it would be ungallant to question her lineage. Not to mention bad for business.

  My trim behind and Layton’s ample one had just hit the leather seats of his table when we were surrounded by other diners wanting to make sure they were seen with and by Layton. Solicitous staff placed chilled flutes in front of us and cloth napkins on our laps.

  The cadaverous-looking captain appeared with a bottle of Dom Pérignon and said, “Shall I pour, Mr. Kent?”

  “Yes, Phillip, please.”

  Layton sipped the champagne and indicated his satisfaction with a long sigh. I was hoping to be included in this largess and was not disappointed. Dom Pérignon may be a notch or two above New Mexico’s own Gruet, but it costs a hundred dollars a bottle. I stick to the Gruet, which is available for thirteen bucks at the discount store and tastes almost as good.

  Although Layton weighs three hundred pounds, he is light on his feet and has only one chin, albeit a very large one that extends from his jaw to the bottom of his neck without any sign of an Adam’s apple. He was wearing a taupe wool suit with a gold silk tie and matching handkerchief. The collar of his hand-tailored shirt rolled in such a way that it seemed to embrace his neck, creating a snug fit without allowing any of Layton’s skin to hang over the collar.

  “Chef Marcel has sage hens today, Mr. Kent,” said Phillip.

  “Excellent. We’ll both have that.”

  I was never offered a menu.

  “We’re having chicken with sage?” I asked in surprise. Sage is an excellent herb for fowl, but the menu at Layton’s club runs more to haute cuisine.

  “They are not chickens, Hubert. They are sage hens. They are relatives of the grouse and live in and feed off the sage in Wyoming so that they have a natural sage flavor unlike anything that can be imparted by applying herbs externally to a domestically raised bird.”

  “Oh.”

  “Marcel usually stuffs them with morels, but it may be too early in the year for morels. In that case, he may have some porcini. Also excellent, though I prefer the morels.”

  I would prefer Consuela’s chicken enchiladas, I thought to myself.

  “Now,” he continued, “tell me who you are thought to have murdered and why they think it.”

  I told him almost the whole story—Wilkes coming to my store and tempting me to steal the Mogollon water jug from the Valle del Rio Museum, Guvelly coming to my store and accusing me of stealing the other Mogollon water jug from Bandelier and my visit to the Hyatt, both the eleventh and the ninth floors. I know you’re supposed to tell your lawyer everything, but I didn’t tell him about my visit to the Museum.

  Our sage hens arrived, stuffed with morels, and I admit they were delicious. Layton doesn’t discuss business while he eats, so we were both able to enjoy the meal. He ordered mango-scented flan for desert. I declined. We got back to business over coffee.

  “I don’t understand why the police don’t know the name of the victim. The innkeepers statute in this state is quite clear. Every guest must be registered under his or her true and legal name. You say this Guvelly showed you his badge?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t get a good look at it.”

  “You should have insisted. There might be a problem with his identity, which would explain why the authorities haven’t formally charged you.”

  “How so?”

  “They may have discovered he is not who he represented himself to be. They can charge you with murder without knowing the name of the victim, but it makes getting a true bill from the grand jury more difficult. So they could be trying to identify him before formally charging you.”

  “They might arrest me again?”

  “You were not arrested. You were merely detained. And if they do arrest you or make any contact with you, you must notify me immediately. And for God’s sake, say absolutely nothing.”

  14

  Miss Gladys Claiborne must have been watching for me because just moments after I got home, she showed up with a dish she called Chicken Delight. Odds are it was dreamed up by an elegant Texas woman named Delight.

  The dish centers on chicken tenders, a piece of the chicken I am not familiar with. The tenders are combined with canned French-cut green beans, cream of chicken soup and a crust made of crumbled shoestring potatoes from a can. Yum.

  I begged off on the grounds of my large lunch with Layton. But I made the mistake of telling the truth when she asked if I had eaten dessert, so I had to agree to eat the rectangle of lime Jell-O with crushed pineapple and miniature marshmallows.

  I remembered Susannah telling me that Jell-O has something in it that’s good for you, so with that in mind I took a few forkfuls.

  “A very rude man came to my shop the other day, Mr. Schuze. He works for the government, and I’m certain he must be a Yankee because he had no manners to speak of.”

  “Was his name Guvelly?”

  “I believe it was. I could scarcely understand him when he spoke.”

  “Did he say he was investigating me?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you that,” she said and winked.

  “Well, he accused me of stealing a pot from Bandelier, but I didn’t.”

  “Of course you didn’t. And it was rude of him to talk to your neighbors behind your back. I told him so. I also told him there’s not a reason in the world why you would steal a pot. You can make any pot you want. You are so talented.”

  “Thank you. And thanks for telling me about Guvelly coming to see you.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t return,” she said.

  I told her that was unlikely. I didn’t tell her the reason was that he was dead.

  15

  A brief shower dampened my Windbreaker as I crossed the plaza, but it disappeared as I reached Dos Hermanas as if to remind me of our capricious spring weather.

  The freshet dropped the temperature into the fifties, so I kept my jacket zipped up to my neck. The Dom Pérignon hadn’t completely worn off, and poor Margarita was languishing on the table unsipped.

  Susannah was wearing jeans, a Western shirt and a quilted vest. “You want to tell me about your new girlfriend?”

  I was still thinking about the pending murder charge. I looked at her blankly. Then it came to me. “Kaylee?”

  “She’s attractive in an earthy sort of way. I imagine you two had quite a time last night.”

  I shook my head. “It was quite a time alright. I had to threaten her with the police, wash her clothes and feed her. Then this morning she threw a champagne bottle at me.”

  “A lovers’ spat so early in the relationship?”

  “Lovers’ spat? Don�
��t even kid about it. Whit Fletcher was there when she threw the champagne, and he started asking me about her age because he thought … well …”

  She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “I know what he thought. And according to Kaylee, he was right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She said she slept with you.”

  “What! That’s completely—”

  “Calm down. I know you didn’t.”

  Forget the lingering Dom Pérignon. I took a large sip of my margarita. “She actually said that?”

  “Actually, she said she slept in your bed. But it was obvious she wanted me to think you were in it with her.”

  “Why would she say that?”

  “Judging from the marks on her face, she’s had an unfortunate relationship with a man. She’s alone and broke with nowhere to go. You take her in, feed her, let her get cleaned up and give her a warm place to sleep. She doesn’t know how to relate to men except through sex and violence. You’re not violent, so that leaves sex.”

  “I thought you stopped majoring in psychology.”

  “You don’t have to be a psychologist to realize she sees you as a safe haven. And in her world, the only way to make sure she can stay with you is to give you her body.”

  “Well, she can keep it. Where is she?”

  “I turned her over to Father Groaz.”

  “Good move. He’ll know what to do, and I won’t have to deal with her.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked warily.

  “Because any place he puts her, a shelter for example, won’t be as appealing as you and your house. When she gets the chance, she’ll come back to you. It’s like feeding a stray cat. They always come back.”

  “Oh, great.”

  We ordered a second round. I didn’t care if it tasted as good as the first one. I took a refreshing gulp.

  I sat there staring into the fire and then realized after a moment that Susannah was talking.

  “… like a fairy tale. We gazed into each other’s eyes over drinks, shared a romantic meal and danced until the band went home …”