The Pot Thief Who Studied Georgia O'Keeffe (12 page)

30

W
e climbed into the Bronco and headed south toward the Inchaustigui Ranch. I'd been nervous about the trip because the Inchaustiguis seem to be under the impression that Susannah and I are an item.

It created some awkward moments, which I handled poorly, largely because I didn't set them straight. I thought doing so would be stepping on Susannah's toes. She thought I had simply misinterpreted the situation.

Which is why I asked her about Baltazar. Since they knew she was dating Baltazar, I no longer had to worry about them thinking she was dating me.

The Inchaustigui home is an inviting two-story fieldstone structure surrounded by western catalpas and big reddish dogs with pointy snouts and floppy ears. They guard the place by charging at you like rockets and threatening to lick you to death.

After surviving the
Euskal artzain txakurra—
Basque sheepdogs—I received a hug from Hilary and three crushing handshakes and rib-rattling slaps on the back from Gus and Susannah's two younger brothers, Matt and Mark.

We were seated at the long table in front of the fireplace drinking lemonade when Hilary said, “It's nice you two are marching to honor the memory of those poor boys. I cry every time I read about it.”

All the New Mexico papers give it full coverage because almost 2,000 soldiers from the New Mexico National Guard were deployed to the Philippines in World War II and ended up in the Bataan Death March. Only half survived, and half of those died not long after the war because they were in such wretched condition.

After the Americans and their Filipino allies surrendered, 400 Filipino officers were summarily executed. The surviving Filipino and American soldiers were marched through the jungle with no food or water for the first three days of the trip. Those who fell or lagged behind were bayoneted. Some were beheaded by Japanese officers practicing with their samurai swords.

After the first three days, the prisoners were finally allowed water, but only from filthy water-buffalo wallows, which resulted in dysentery, worsened by the fact that the guards would not allow bathroom breaks. The prisoners had to foul themselves as they walked. The trucks carrying the Japanese guards drove over fallen prisoners.

Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and Generals Masaharu Homma, Kenji Doihara, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Akira Mutō and Baron Kōki Hirota were found guilty of war crimes and executed. They deserved worse. But it doesn't matter. Nothing can change what they did.

There are only fifty survivors of the Bataan Death March. More than half of them live in New Mexico.

The more Susannah and her family talked about the march in honor of these men, the guiltier I felt. I wasn't marching to honor them. I was marching to steal a pot.

And now it seemed to me that I wouldn't be marching. I'd be skulking.

I was trying to figure out some way to rationalize it when Hilary asked me how my pot hunting was going—not exactly a topic I was eager to discuss.

So I shifted the topic in her direction. “We stopped at Quarai on the way here, and that reminded me that I once dug up a Tompiro pot on your land. Of course, I didn't know you then. I sold that pot last year, and I told Susannah the other day that I should probably pay you for it.”

Hilary laughed. “Having you with Sorne is payment enough. We always worry about her in the big city, but we feel a lot better because of you.”

“Thanks,” I said, hoping my discomfort wasn't too obvious as I wondered what “with Sorne” meant.

Matt rose and said to me, “Why don't you show Mark and me where you found that pot.”

Matt drove his crew-cab pickup along a gravel ranch road for a few miles and then turned off toward Jumanes Knob. As he got closer, I gave directions that got us as near as a vehicle could take us. We walked a hundred yards, then climbed up a gentle slope, went behind an outcrop and then up a steeper slope that required holding on to roots exposed by erosion. A small cave was hidden by the top of the outcrop.

“Dad showed us this place when we were kids,” Mark said. “I'm not sure I could have found it though.”

Matt nodded. “You remember what he told us?”

“Some of it. I think I was about six.”

“You were seven. I was nine. He held up an arrowhead: ‘Other people lived here many years before we did. They made arrows to hunt buffalo, deer and antelope.' He picked up a shard. ‘They made pots. They're broken now, but they used them for water.'”

“I remember asking for an arrowhead,” Mark said.

“Yeah. Dad told us we could each pick out one we liked. We made a contest out of it, seeing who could find the best one.”

“I think I did and you took it away from me.”

“Sure. I was older. But you found another good one. Then Dad said, ‘Those are gifts from the people who made them. But you have to leave all their other things alone.' ‘But it's on our land,' I said. ‘No,' he said, ‘the land did not belong to them, and it doesn't belong to us. We are just the caretakers.'”

After a moment, Matt smiled and said, “Too bad Dad said that. We might have dug up that pot Hubie found and made a pile of money.”

I looked at the mesa above us. “That wind farm wasn't up there when I was searching for pots. It was like I had the whole place to myself. I slept in a tent for three days.”

“Wind farm,” said Matt. “Strange term. They don't farm the wind, they just gather it.”

“The first people here gathered,” I observed. “It was salt. Then there was true farming—pinto beans. Now we've gone back to gathering.”

Judging from the looks they gave me, my anthropological insight did not impress them.

Matt's expression grew serious. “Me and Mark talked this over. We think Susannah is just going through a period of uncertainty.”

“Yeah,” Mark chimed in. “Like when I decided to buy the diesel truck instead of the gasoline model. I was almost to the dealership in Albuquerque when I started wondering if I was about to make a mistake. I loved that diesel, but once you buy it, you can't just turn it back in. So I started having second thoughts. It was just fear of taking that final step, writing that check.”

“You comparing our sister to a diesel truck?”

“No, I'm just saying that anyone can have a bit of doubt before taking a big step.”

It was about here in the conversation that I realized the topic was me and my relationship with Susannah.

“We like you, Hubie,” said Matt. “You're a stand-up guy. Solid. Got a good business. Mom and Dad like you too. This thing with Baltazar will blow over. We hope you won't bolt.”

I'd let this confusion continue too long. It was time to be the stand-up guy they thought I was. I gathered up the courage to look Matt in the eyes and said, “Actually, I'm dating someone.”

They both smiled. “See what we mean about you, Hubie? Straight shooting. That's what we value out here. Of course we know about Sharice. Susannah told us about her. When Susannah was describing her over the phone the other night, you could hear the jealousy in her voice. Your strategy is brilliant.”

“My strategy?”

“We figured it out. Susannah starts dating a guy who's a bit different, a Hispanic guy who lives in a weird village—no disrespect to the guy or the village. So what do you do—mope around by your lonesome? Nosirree. You start dating someone even
more
exotic, a black beauty from Canada of all places. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

I opened my mouth, but my brain passed on the opportunity to supply some words. The Inchaustiguis are a terrific family. It wasn't my place to break the news that Susannah and I are not romantically involved and never have been. That should be Susannah's job. My job is to convince Susannah that she needs to do it.

31

Y
ou must have misunderstood, Hubie. When Matt said your dating Sharice was a strategy, he meant a strategy for getting me away from Baltazar, not a strategy to win me over. I should have expected it. They were noticeably cool when I told them about Baltazar.”

“What about when Matt said you're ‘going through a period of uncertainty'?”

“That's true. I'm uncertain about how I want things to go with Baltazar.”

“What about when they said, ‘We hope you won't bolt'?”

“It's natural they'd want my best friend to stand with me during a period of indecision in my life.”

This wasn't going the way I'd hoped. “But they said that after you started dating Baltazar, they liked that I didn't just mope around. That I started dating Sharice.”

“What's wrong with that? I mope around when you're dating someone and it cuts into our margarita time and conversation. Of course, that hasn't happened much until now.”

“Thanks a lot.”

I was failing once again to convince Susannah that she needed to disabuse her family of the idea that we're a couple. Maybe she was right. If they did think we're a couple, surely they would've brought it up to her, ask her if the two of us have wedding plans or something like that. But I still wondered why Susannah was so unwilling to even consider the idea that her family—or maybe just her brothers—might think we're a couple. And why my attempts to convince her they do are so feeble. Maybe it's just an uncomfortable topic for both of us, so we want to cut short any discussion of it.

So I did what I too often do when the going gets rough.

I gave up.

Dinner conversation at the Inchaustigui table had mercifully stayed away from the topic of who was dating whom and why. So I had waited until the next morning when we were on the road to White Sands.

After I dropped the subject of Matt and Mark thinking Susannah and I are a couple, I asked her what Professor Casgrail said about the canvas Baltazar had given her.

“She said I should take it to the museum in Santa Fe and have them judge whether it's an O'Keeffe.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“That's because you haven't heard the rest of it. She said I should be prepared to leave it with them if it's a genuine O'Keeffe.”

“Think of all the money you'd be walking away with.”

“No. I wouldn't be
selling
it to them. I'd be
giving
it to them.”

“Why would you give it to them? Make them pay. As far as I'm concerned, archaeology museums are just—”

“Places where pots go to die.”

I smiled. “You have all my lines memorized.”

“And I'll add one of my own: art museums are places where paintings by women go to be explained by men.”

“Yeah. I remember the big O'Keeffe exhibit you dragged me to. They were her paintings, but most of the wall text was about Stieglitz.”

“They still make him out to be the one who created her.”

“And they're supposed to be experts? Don't give that painting to them, Suze. I'm sure O'Keeffe would rather it be with you than in that museum.”

“Like you're sure the ancient pottery women want you to dig up their work?”

“Exactly.”

She smiled.

Ansel Adams said, “When Georgia O'Keeffe smiles, the entire earth cracks open.” He would've said the same about Susannah if he had known her.

“I know the canvas is dirty and has a little tear in it, but if you cleaned it up and stretched in on a frame, it would look good enough to sell.”

“The reason she says I have to give it away is not because it's torn and dirty. It's because I don't own it.”

“Of course you own it. Baltazar gave it to you.”

“Yes, but it wasn't his to give. He didn't own it.”

“He found it in the woods.”

“That doesn't make it his. O'Keeffe never sold that painting, so her estate owns it.”

“That's ridiculous. She never even finished it. She probably didn't like the way it was going so she tossed it away.”

She was shaking her head. “Artists don't throw away paintings that aren't going well. They just keep working on them. And if they
do
give up, they save the canvas and paint something different on it. That's how we get a pentimento.”

I couldn't resist. “I thought pentimentos grew on bushes and were mixed with cheese after they're harvested.”

“Sheesh. A pentimento is when part of a painting flakes off to reveal an older painting underneath. It's exciting for art historians to discover a painting under a painting. And sometimes it can even be a clue in a crime.”

“Don't tell me—let me guess. Because before they had closed-circuit cameras in banks, they used to hire artists to paint pictures of people at the teller cages demanding that money be put in a bag?”

“Make fun if you want to, but there was a murder solved when an X-ray of a 1471 Flemish painting revealed a painted-over message.”

“I don't think they had X-rays in 1471.”

“The
painting
was from 1471, Hubert. The X-ray was done just a few years ago by a woman named Julia, who was restoring the picture for a client who wanted to sell it.”

“How did the painted-over message solve a murder?”

“The message under the paint was
Quis Necavit Equitem.
” She turned to look at me, excitement in her eyes. “You can help me because you know Latin. I know the phrase means ‘who killed the knight,' and I figure
Quis
must mean
who
. But which word is
knight
?”

“Good question. Technically the word
knight
is not in there.
Equitem
comes from
equus
—horse. So it refers to someone who owns a horse, hence, a knight.
Equitem
is the accusative.”

“Why accuse the knight? He was the one who was killed.”

I decided letting her get on with the story was better than explaining Latin declensions. “So whodunit?”

“I don't remember who killed the knight, but I know who killed Julia's friends.”

“Huh? I thought Julia was the contemporary person restoring the painting. Why should her friends have anything to do with the killing of a knight in the fifteenth century?”

“It's all part of the chess game. This is perfect for you—chess and Latin.”

I was beginning to feel lightheaded. “A chess match?”

“Yes. The painting depicts a nobleman and a knight playing chess while a young woman watches. The floor of the room they're in is tiled in black and white like a chessboard. So in addition to the arrangement of the pieces on the actual chess board, the three people in the painting are located on a floor that can also be seen as a chess board.”

“That's ingenious.”

“I figured you'd like it. But I had a hard time following the story because some of it depended on knowing that a chess piece in a certain location has a meaning. Like the woman being on a certain square indicating she was in danger of being checkmated.”

“Women can't be checkmated. Only the king can be checkmated.”

“See? I told you I didn't get it. The notes had abbreviations like Bc4 and Qd8-g5.”

“What notes?”

“The notes from the killer.”

“There were notes from 1471? What were they written on—parchment?”

“No, no. I'm talking about the contemporary murders. Julia asked her friends to help her figure out who killed the knight, and after they helped her, they were murdered. Someone didn't want the killer of the knight to be revealed.”

“After five hundred years?”

“That seemed odd to me too. The murderer of her friends sent her notes with chess positions on them. So she got a local chess genius to help her figure out who killed the knight and who killed her friends. Can you guess the surprise ending?”

“Not in five hundred years.”

“Come on. Give it a try.”

“Okay. I'm going to guess that the person who killed the knight in 1471 also killed Julia's friends by biting them in the neck. Which explains how he lived so long—he was a vampire.”

“Try to be serious.”

“How can I be serious about such a bizarre story? I know evil geniuses are supposed to send notes to torment the incompetent police who are tracking them, but that only happens in fiction.”

“This
is
fiction.
The Flanders Panel
is a murder mystery by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It's a great book.”

“But you said it was hard to follow.”

“That's why they call them mysteries, Hubie. The murderer was someone who was always around when Julia and the chess expert were discussing the notes and trying to make sense of them. That was the surprise part.”

“I think my vampire twist would've been a better surprise.”

“Admit it. You initially thought I was talking about a real-life murder, didn't you?”

“You know what they say—truth is stranger than fiction.”

“
They
say that, but you never do. If you read murder mysteries, you might be able to figure out who killed Carl.”

“You read them. Maybe you can figure it out.”

“Okay. It's almost always love or money. Maybe Thelma killed him.”

“They've been separated for years. I don't think there's anything between them at this point that would cause a crime of passion.”

“What about one of those times she told you about when one of them got the urge? Maybe she found Carl satisfying the urge with another woman.”

“And killed her meal ticket?”

“That's why they call it a crime of passion. You're not thinking about your next meal when you pull the trigger.”

I just shook my head. “You'd have to meet her. She's not the murderous sort.”

“Then it's money. Regina killed him.”

“Who is Regina?”

“The collector.”

“Oh, right. I admit that's a possibility.”

“Or Jack Haggard.”

“Just because he had a card from a bail bondsman?”

“That and they were
associates
. A quarrel between partners in crime often leads to murder.”

I admitted that was a possibility, although I didn't go along with her suggestion that Dotty and Donald were suspects, because I had no idea where they fitted in. Or
if
they did.