The Salt Maiden (11 page)

The Navajo call her
Usheenasun,
salt spirit.

The Zuni know her as the Salt Mother.

But to the Cochiti and so many others, she is simply Salt Woman.

To the people Salt Woman’s flesh is sacred.

They use it to preserve food, to give simple stews their savor.

Often it’s important in religious ceremonies.

When gathering her flesh, they are instructed to move with quiet dignity, keeping her realm pure.

But often, in the stories, she is disrespected by those who should revere her.

Refused food and lodging, polluted, her gifts squandered without thought.

So she leaves the people she loves.

She turns her back and walks deep into the desert.

Can I do any less?

—Final entry (undated)

Angie’s sobriety journal

Dana stared straight through the grimy windshield without registering the rocky slope before her.

Once they’d heard the slam of a truck door, Jay had ventured outside the cavern and then called down the hill to Wallace. Afterward he’d taken Dana down to sit inside the Suburban with its engine idling while she waited out Those Things That Must Be Done.

He hadn’t let her see the body, though he had promised that he would once it was recovered. First, though, would come the photographs, the measurements, the collection of whatever trace evidence remained.

Jay had used his radio to contact someone, perhaps Estelle Hooks, at the courthouse. He had asked the woman’s husband, the county judge, to collect and bring out the supplies they would need. Dana couldn’t recall what he had wanted, other than a stretcher and a body bag, and perhaps a camera.

She was horrified to realize that other men would see the corpse the way Jay had described it: curve-spined, withered, and entirely unclothed. The thought of Angie so heartbreakingly helpless and exposed in death seized Dana with a desire to protect her sister’s dignity—to race back and
demand
that they turn away their prying gazes.

Yet she sat shivering in the AC vents’ arctic blast. When Abe Hooks pulled up and climbed out of his old pickup, he glanced curiously in her direction, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t do a damned thing except stare numbly while her brain spun desperately through possible explanations for the presence of a blond female corpse inside the remote cavern Angie’s journal had described.

Even so, when her satellite phone rang perhaps fifteen minutes later, Dana answered without thinking.

“Hello.” The word was listless and mechanical, more a reflex than a greeting.

“I just called to say I’m so, so sorry.”

Dana jerked to awareness at her mother’s words. How could she know? Who on earth would have told her before the body was officially identified?

“Sorry?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes, about that stupid Regina—who is no longer any friend of mine. Jerome says I should have my head examined for crying on her shoulder, that the only reason she listened in the first place was to come up with some angle to turn to her own advantage. Now it seems he was right, and you know how I hate
that
.”

“Regina called and pestered me in El Paso. I told her not to come,” Dana said flatly, while inside she screamed and wept and wondered,
What the hell does any of it matter now?

“That’s just it. Regina said that when it comes to the news, she doesn’t need
anyone’s
permission.”

“Regina Lawler’s not the news. She’s just some flipped-out has-been.” Dana knew it was a harsh assessment, but she had no energy for tact now, not while she was bleeding inside and helpless to tell her mother what was happening at that very moment beneath the desert’s blank face.

As she thought about the withered corpse there, hot tears hazed her vision.

“She’s on her way,” said Isabel. “That’s what I called to warn you about. She’s found a freelance cameraman, and they’re coming out to get the story. That’s all this is—a
story
to her. My daughter, my granddaughter—everything you’re doing. She’s already shown up at the hospital and gotten footage of Nikki’s birthday party from the doorway. She turned seven the other day, and there was cake and ice cream with her parents and the nurses. They didn’t want the extra visitors, but Nikki got so excited when she saw the microphone and TV camera, they didn’t have it in their hearts to tell her no.”

Say something. Just say it
, Dana thought.
Don’t let her sit there thinking that anything we do or don’t do will make one damned bit of difference. Not for Angie, not for Nikki, not for any of us in the end.

Because she couldn’t force out those words, Dana settled for a stammered, “For-forget about Regina. I-I’ll handle her when she gets here.”

“Is something wrong?” Isabel asked. “You sound terrible. Is your nose clogged? I knew you’d catch something in that horrible place. Did you remember your antihistamines?”

“I’m fine. It’s just…let me call you later.”

“What’s going on? Dana? Is there anything you need?”

A mother who could stand to hug me. A mother who was willing to accept Angie as she was.
But her anger was only a thin shroud draped over a monolith of sadness.

“Just to say I love you,” Dana managed.
And I’ll be home sooner than I thought.

Once the call was over she shut off the Suburban and stuck Jay’s keys in her pockets. Rubbing her arms for warmth, she stepped out into the already oppressive heat and started up the hill.

How far have you gone this time, Angie?

The answer came back to Dana on a moan of wind across the cavern’s mouth:
Far enough to finally break your heart…

“She’s lighter than I would’ve thought,” said Wallace Hooks as he and the sheriff carefully maneuvered the stiffened figure inside the body bag.

The deputy was mouth-breathing and trying not to look down. Jay suspected he’d appear green when they stepped out into the daylight. No surprise there. The odor, while not as harrowing as wet-rotted putrefaction, was plenty strong in the enclosed space. And besides that, Wallace had already told him this was only his second corpse, after the charred remains of the sheriff with whom he had worked for more than three years.

Wallace’s father, who held the flashlight where he stood at the portal, looked unhappy but resigned to the morbid tasks at hand. He had clearly left his grill in a hurry, for his thick white hair stood up in clumps, probably from where he’d hurriedly pulled off his apron. “That’s what happens when they dry out. Henry Schlitz and I went out with the last sheriff, when a couple of illegals got found by Weevil Jenkins’s stock tank. Guess they didn’t make it to the water soon enough, ’cause they were light like this, too. Or I should say what was left was. After the coyotes.”

“Gently,” Jay instructed Wallace. “We’ll need the body intact for the medical examination, and she’s…fragile.”

“This is going to cost the county a damned fortune,” Abe complained.

Both Jay and Wallace looked up sharply, though Jay knew Abe was right, since Rimrock County was far too small to have its own MEand so contracted with the county of El Paso.

“Listen, I’m sorry the girl’s gone and killed herself,” the older Hooks grumbled. “I’m just being practical, that’s all.”

“We don’t know it’s a suicide,” Jay reminded him. “There hasn’t been a formal—”

“I know you worked in the big city, but around here we rely on the sense the Lord God gave us. That gun under the body, tangled in the fingers of her right hand. Face shot half off—you don’t have to be a goddamned coroner to figure out she blew that booze-soaked brain of hers all over this cavern. Left all of us her goddamned mess to deal with, that rich family of hers to explain to—”

“A forty-five-caliber handgun’s not typically a woman’s weapon,” Jay said as he shone his own flashlight around the walls. “Besides that, I don’t see any dark stains. No blood spatter either, like I’d expect if it was done here.”

Looking down he added, “Just some pooling on the floor, where the body fluids leaked out before evaporating.”

“Right back.” Wallace pushed past his father. Before he made it clear of the cave, both men heard him retching.

Moving forward, Abe bent down to help Jay with the body. “Let’s get a move on with this. I could use some fresh air myself.”

“I could stand the help,” Jay said, “but I need you to let me deal with Dr. Vanover.”

Abe shrugged. “Suits me fine. Only when you do, be careful. Don’t want her thinking there’s more to this than there is.”

Jay hammered him with a hard look. “Somebody already gave her that impression when they shot at us this morning.”

The smaller man grunted with what sounded like surprise. “Shot at you? Here?”

“Yeah—like he knew what we were going to find.”

Abe cursed. “The goddamned
idiot
. I expect he figured he would make things better, shutting her up before she could call in her environmeddlers or what have you. But to shoot at that woman’s sister, too—and with you here for a witness.”

“What idiot? Abe, do you have some idea who might’ve done this?”

Another shrug. A hesitation. And then: “Dennis Riggins, who else? I heard he has near everything he owned tied up in Haz-Vestment. If that deal doesn’t go through, he’s sunk.”

Jay stared, unable to comprehend that Abe Hooks would take the two men’s family feud to this level, that he would accuse Dennis, a man the Eversoles had considered a good friend for decades. Jay wanted to tell the old judge where he could shove his theory—except he couldn’t quite dismiss it out of hand. Not considering Dennis’s reaction to last night’s news about the Haz-Vestment investigation.

As furious as Dennis had been, Jay could almost picture the huge man stalking over to Angie’s adobe, intent on scaring Dana out of town. Or maybe Angie herself, since he suspected that she’d come back to stir up trouble. Maybe somehow he blamed her for the FBI’s investigation—thought she’d put them up to looking where they had no business.

But never in a million years could Jay picture Dennis firing in his direction. No matter how upset the man had been about his failed investment, he couldn’t possibly—

“I know what you’re thinking,” Abe said. “You’re thinking this is all about that mad-on my family’s had with the Riggins bunch since I was just a kid. And you’re thinking how your uncle R.C.’s buddy wouldn’t have it in him to kill someone. But you don’t really know that bastard. Nobody knows him the way I do. If you had any idea what he’s done…”

Jay wanted to demand an explanation, but he heard the low murmur of voices outside, voices he assumed to be Wal
lace’s and Dana’s. He should have figured she wouldn’t wait too long, alone, with nothing left to do but brood. He wished he’d thought to ask Estelle to come, too, to sit with her. The county clerk might not have been friendly when Dana had first arrived in Devil’s Claw, but now that the worst had come to pass, Jay knew Estelle would call her friend Suzanne Riggins, and the two of them would righteously downshift into full-fledged comfort-the-bereaved mode, armed with an array of casseroles and sweet Rice Krispies Treats.

“Excuse me a minute, Abe,” Jay said. Maybe he could talk Dana into going back to the Suburban—or at least make sure Wallace didn’t set her off with some remark about her sister.

But Wallace proved to be Estelle’s son. When Jay stepped outside he saw his deputy take Dana’s hand and tell her how sorry he was for her loss.

She nodded stiffly before noticing Jay’s presence and abruptly withdrawing to move toward him. “I can’t wait any longer—can’t talk to my mother on the phone as if nothing’s happened. I need to see the body, Jay. I have to know for certain.”

Wallace’s sharp glance banked from Dana to Jay and back again, and the deputy’s expression soured. Clearly he had connected the dots between her use of Jay’s first name and their arrival here together. Since Jay had already told him she had fled the adobe late last night, Wallace would have to suspect where she had stayed until morning.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” Jay told him, “so why don’t you go back inside and help your father with that stretcher while I speak to Dr. Vanover?”

Wallace pressed his lips together, and frown lines furrowed his expression. But after a moment’s hesitation he did as he was asked.

“Dana,” Jay said as he pulled her into his arms and
squeezed her, “I know you think you want to see her, but it’s not a good idea. Trust me. You don’t want to remember her this way.”

“I know it will be hard. I know the…the body’s been there quite a while. But she needs to be identified. What difference does it make whether I do it here or in whatever morgue you end up sending her to? Do you think a cold steel slab in some strange city’s going to make things any easier?”

“I think…” His heart ached as he said it. “I think this will have to be one of those IDs done by dental records. Or maybe DNA. The face…a lot of the face is missing. And quite a bit of skin, too.”

He felt Dana’s muscles tense against him, felt the warmth of her tears soaking the light fabric of his duty shirt.

“Do you mean…Was it animals?”

“Not that killed her.” Though perhaps something had gnawed later to tear flesh from both the abdomen and upper legs. “The medical examiner will tell us more, but you need to know we found a gun beneath the body, in the victim’s right hand. There’s a possibility the damage to the face was self-inflicted, but we won’t be certain until the—”

Shaking her head, she pulled away to stare up into his face. “Are you sure it was the right hand?”

He thought about it, nodded. “I’m certain. And I documented it with photos. Why?”

“Because my sister is left-handed, Jay. She didn’t shoot herself.”

“I’ll be sure to note that, Dana. But right now it’s just one piece in the puzzle. I don’t want you jumping to some conclusion that’ll only cause your family even more pain in the long run.”

Moisture glimmered in her green eyes, tears that welled up from a soul-deep wound. “More pain than what, Sheriff? Than knowing that my sister’s dead—or that the people running Rimrock County will be overjoyed to hear it?”