The Shadow of Venus (21 page)

“Sure,” Claire replied.

“Thanks for telling me your story.” Sophie gave Claire a hug, then stood up and walked out of the
theater
with her long hair tumbling down her back.

Claire remained in her seat, staring at the empty stage. The dancing girls created by her imagination had departed. Sophie's eyes were full of fire when she said she wouldn't testify unless the person responsible for June's death was incarcerated. There was plenty of guilt to go around, but how could anyone other than the drug dealer be held legally responsible for June's death? What made Sophie think anyone would ever be locked up?

Claire stared at the stage, trying to apply cool logic to the death of June Reid. There had been no signs of physical violence. If there was a murder, it hadn't required force or strength. But someone could have deliberately locked Maia in the room with the China White, knowing that left alone there she would become claustrophobic, panic, shoot up, and OD. All that would have been necessary to carry out this diabolical plan was cold calculation and hard cash. The murderer could have been anyone heartless or angry enough to pull it off, a man or a woman. That person might have used the rationalization that Maia was a homeless person and an addict, which made her dispensable. The person who had admitted to turning the deadbolt was Paul Begala, but he claimed he didn't know Maia was in the room. He could have been lying and he could also have had a motive for wanting Maia dead. If Paul had been having sex with her it would have cost him his job and devastated his sick wife. On the other hand someone from June's past or present could have paid him or intimidated him into locking the door. The person who seemed to know the most about the details of Maia's life was Ansia. If only Claire could find her.

She had the sensation that the curtain had come down; the stage had gone dark but the lights had come on in the rest of the theater.

Chapter
Twenty-five

T
HAT EVENING
C
LAIRE WORKED LATE
, then went to Century 14 Downtown to see a movie with a friend. Afterward they had dinner at Tucanos, where the waiters went from table to table slicing grilled meat and fish off skewers and onto plates. The food was delicious. The smiling waiters and flashing knives were theater. As always there was a long wait to get in. By the time dinner was over, it was nearly ten o'clock.

As she drove across Central, Claire's thoughts returned to Ansia, who might have been one of the last people to talk to Maia. Where did a homeless woman who could not—or would not—go to a shelter sleep? Would there be times when she would have the money or could get a John to pay for a motel room? It was warm enough in the summer to sleep outside. Would she find more safety in a secluded spot on campus or a crowded spot near Central? How hard did campus security look for people sleeping in all the wrong places? Would anyone notice or care if she slept somewhere near Central? Bill Hartley had said he found her there in the backseat of a car. Did she always go to the same car in the same place? Claire tried to imagine where she herself would sleep if she were homeless, but her imagination failed her. Bill Hartley had made more progress in one visit to Albuquerque than Claire, who worked within walking distance from Central, had in weeks. It was time for her to do more than hand out photocopies and business cards and wait for Ansia to come to her.

When she got to the university Claire parked on Central near the only restaurant that was still open, the Frontier. Light shining from the windows gave it the lonely glow of an Edward Hopper painting. The Frontier was the first place in the morning to find a cup of coffee and the last place at night to find a touch of warmth. Given its location it had to deal with the homeless. Like the library it tended to ignore them unless they caused trouble.

Claire went inside and found the Frontier was almost empty. A young woman with a heart tattooed on her upper arm stood at the cash register. Her T-shirt was cropped short enough to show the ring through her navel. Claire asked her if Ansia ever came to the Frontier.

“Who?” the clerk asked while her fingers danced across the counter.

“Ansia. She's a homeless woman whose hair is streaked the color of cherry Jell-O,” Claire said.

“Why do you want to know?” The fingers stopped their restless motion.

“I want to help her.”

The young woman gave a stare Claire found incomprehensible. Then she turned her hands over
on
the counter palms up. It took a while for Claire, who had never paid for information before, to figure out what the woman wanted. When she rubbed her thumb and middle finger together in the universal gesture of greed, Claire got the message, took a twenty from her purse and placed it in the clerk's palm. The woman rubbed her fingers together again and Claire forked over another twenty.

The fingers closed into a fist, the money crunched, and the woman said, “She sleeps in a junk car parked beside the Dumpster in the alley parking lot. Back there.” She pointed behind the building. “The owner rents her the backseat for ten bucks a month. It makes her feel like she has a home.”

“Have you seen her recently?” Claire asked.

“No, it's been a while.”

Claire thanked the woman and left the restaurant. Thinking she might need more cash, she went to the ATM machine and took the maximum withdrawal her bank would allow in twenties, the price of a BB of heroin or a nugget of information.

She returned to her truck and drove around the corner to the Frontier's parking lot where a sign read
RESERVED FOR PATRONS ONLY
. The back wall of the Frontier was painted with a flowered mural that included clumps of pink and red hollyhocks. They seemed to be the quintessential New Mexican flower, but Claire knew that hollyhocks were actually transplants from North Africa. She supposed that if a woman were very drugged she might imagine herself to be in a garden back here. During the day it was nearly impossible to find a parking space in this lot, but tonight there were only four cars.

Claire turned the corner into an alley where she found a darker, emptier lot. A Dumpster in the far corner was shadowed by nearby trees. A gray wreck of a Chrysler hunkered down beside it. Claire parked, took her flashlight from the glove compartment, closed the door to her truck as quietly as possible, walked to the Chrysler, and peered through the rear window. There was enough light from the street-lamps in the alley to see the shape of a body under a blanket, asleep, dead, or drugged out. Although the windows and doors were closed, the car exuded a pungent smell. Claire hoped it wasn't the smell of death. How long would a woman have to be dead in this car before anyone noticed? The smell could always be blamed on the nearby Dumpster.

She took a deep breath and tapped the window. There was no verbal response, no movement in the backseat. Claire tugged at the door handle and found the door locked. She beamed her flashlight through the window onto the blanket. The person beneath it squirmed and turned away from the light but Claire held it steady until Ansia sat up and blinked her eyes. Her pupils were dilated by drugs or the flashlight.

Thank God, Claire thought, she's still alive. She turned the flashlight toward her own face to demonstrate that she was not a threat.

“I work in the library,” Claire mouthed through the glass. “I need to talk to you.”

“What
about?” Ansia's voice was slurred.

“Maia.”

“She's dead.”

“I know. I need to know how she died, and who talked to you about her. Can you open the window or door so we can talk? I'll give you some money, take you to a motel for the night. You can take a shower if you want to. I'll wash your clothes.”

Ansia stared at Claire, then reached over and rolled down the window, releasing more of the nose-burning odor, which Claire now identified as the ammonia smell of urine. Ansia peed on herself to keep the men away.

“You and Maia were friends, weren't you?” Claire asked.

Ansia nodded yes. Claire turned the flashlight down so it wasn't shining in her face. Plastic bags full of belongings littered the floor.

“Did someone talk to you about her before she died?” Claire asked.

Ansia nodded again. “A man came here.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to know how to find her. He said her name was June, but the woman he described to me was Maia. I wouldn't tell him where she slept. I wouldn't send a man there. I told him to look for her in the downtown library in the daytime.”

“What did the man look like?” Claire asked.

“He had brown hair. He was a runner.”

So far it confirmed Bill Hartley's story. “How did Maia get into the library at night? Do you know?” Claire asked.

“The man with the white in his hair gave her his numbers.”

“Seth Malcolm?”

“I don't remember his name.”

“How often did Maia sleep there?”

“All the time. I wouldn't go there myself.”

“Why not?”

Ansia grinned and Claire could see the holes where her teeth had once been. “Too many men in the library. Men are dogs. They think they are God's dogs, but they are just dogs.”

“There are men around here, too, aren't there?” Claire asked.

“They don't bother me here. I smell, but when I smell too bad in the library they throw me out. I lock my door here.” Ansia sat up straight and dropped her blanket. “This is my home. I pay rent. I don't need to go to a motel. Just give me the money.”

“I'll
do both if you want,” Claire said.

Ansia shook her head. “I only want the money.”

Claire handed her a hundred dollars in twenties, the price of almost a year of rent or of several days' worth of drugs. She wished she didn't know exactly how much a twenty would buy on the street. “Can I take you to a restaurant? Buy you something to eat?” she asked.

“I'll buy myself some dog food. If you want to know more, you'll have to give me more money.”

“There's more?”

Ansia nodded.

Claire handed over five more twenties.

“A woman came here, too,” Ansia said. “Later. After the man. She also said she was looking for June, but I knew she meant Maia. She was looking for her little girl. She wanted to find out where her little lost baby daughter lived, she said. I told her about the paintings on Central. If she could find her daughter in a painting there and show me which one it was, I said I would help her.”

“Did you tell Maia the woman was looking for her?”

“No. It was after hours, and I don't like to go into the library then. If the guards see me, they throw me out.”

Besides, Claire thought, she had valuable information to trade for money and money meant drugs.

“The woman came back to me with the painting. She saw my painting in the gallery, too, and told me how pretty I looked.” As Ansia preened and smoothed her cherry Jell-O hair, Claire witnessed the indestructible nature of vanity. When there was nothing else left but smoke and ash, there would still be vanity. “She showed me her daughter dancing in a circle. I knew that was Maia. I told the mother where she could find her little girl. I told her about the man in the library who could let her in.” Ansia's proud grin said that on the street that had made her a hero.

“Did she give you anything in exchange for that information?” Claire asked.

“She gave me
medicina.
”

“Medicine?”

Ansia nodded. When her body was too unappealing to sell, that left her only information to trade. Claire had given her money, the woman had given her drugs, but when you got right down to it what was the difference?

“Was it China White?” Claire asked.

“It was very white,” Ansia grinned.

“It killed Maia, but it didn't kill you,” Claire said. “Why?”

“Maia kicked. The white was too strong for her, but me, I'm still all tore up from the floor up.”

“Can
you tell me what the woman looked like?”

“She wore a hat. Her hair was darker, but she coulda been Maia's mother. She coulda,” Ansia's tone became defensive, then turned hopelessly sad. “But a mother wouldn't give her daughter China White. That woman was a murderer, not a mother.” For an instant Ansia's expression was a silent scream that registered the total despair of her life and Maia's death. Then she found the solution and began to collect her plastic bags. “I have to go,” she said.

“Where?” Claire asked. “Can I give you a ride?”

“No. I have to go right now.”

Ansia pushed open the door and climbed out of the Chrysler with the bags in her hands. Claire, who didn't know how to stop her, heard the bags rustling as Ansia scurried down the alley. The smell of a fouled nest lingered until Claire closed the door. She'd learned what she needed to learn and done what she had to do, but she hated the way she'd had to do it.

******

She was glad she had a bed to curl up in when she got home, but the dreams she had took her far away from percale sheets and the warmth of her cat. They took her back to the street, to plastic bags, dirt, fine white powder, and the tracks a needle makes in an addict's eyeballs and arms.

Claire woke up as the sun came over the mountain, glad to leave those dreams behind. She got up and made herself a cup of coffee, thinking about what she could do to help. Ansia needed clothing and food. Claire went to her closet first and began looking for clothes that would fit Ansia, who was smaller than she was and thin as a street dog. Claire had no idea what kind of clothes Ansia might like, but style shouldn't be the issue, anyway; comfort and endurability were more important. At first Claire looked for clothes she could no longer fit into. There weren't many—a few that had shrunk, hardly any that had been outgrown. In recent years Claire had gained little weight.