know, it hasn’t been recovered. Before that we go back two years, when an ahayu:da turned up in a Paris auction house. Paris, France. The Zuni took the auction house to court and argued that the bill of sale for the figure was invalid because sacred tribal objects were communal property and could not be sold by an individual. The case is still making its way through the courts.”
“Nothing more recent?”
Fidel punched a few more keys at his terminal and then shook his head. “Wait, here’s something else. Several years ago the Zuni successfully pressured the Smithsonian Museum to return an ahayu:da that had been part of the Frank H. Cushing Collection at the Smithsonian.”
He squinted at the monitor, trying to read the screen. “The what?”
“The Frank H. Cushing Collection. You know, the ethnologist who lived at Zuni Pueblo in the eighteen eigthies.”
While they talked, a young woman with long blond hair tied behind her head in a ponytail walked into the newsroom. “Here’s a copy of the photo you wanted.”
“Thanks, Anne.”
Fernando scooted his chair closer. “So that’s what an ahayu:da looks like. I’ll be damned.”
“See, there are actually two kinds, Big Brother and Little Brother.”
He studied the black and white photograph that showed a pile of ahayu:da in varying stages of decomposition. Two of the carved figures stood erect, rising out of a small patch of dried grass and prickly pear cactus, a Big Brother in front and a Little Brother behind.
Just as Fidel said, the two figures were entirely different. Big Brother displayed an elongated, helmet-like face and what looked like a phallus sticking straight out from its middle. More abstract and unformed, Little Brother had no face or phallus, but instead a series of geometric shapes carved on its body—half moons, circles, and crosses.
Fidel laughed. “This is supposed to be an umbilical cord.” He pointed to Big Brother. “In spite of what it looks like.”
But he wasn’t looking at Big Brother. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the symbols carved on Little Brother.
Where had he seen them before? Then he remembered. The very same symbols were drawn in the sand at Jacoñita, in the circle of the teepee.
4
He had never been inside Sabado Indian Arts on the Plaza, one of the newer galleries in Santa Fe. He found himself sitting in the back office with store manager Wanda LeClair, a small shapely woman with strawberry blond hair wearing a tight black dress that revealed every curve. Like Soto, she was drop dead gorgeous, one of the Beautiful People. Except they weren’t so beautiful now. Soto was dead and she had been weeping nonstop since he’d delivered the news about her boss. To escape her blubbering, he walked into Soto’s office and took a seat at the desk. Unfortunately, she followed him, bringing with her a box of tissues. She sat on the black leather sofa wiping her eyes with one tissue after another.
The sound of women crying made him uncomfortable. Something to do with male guilt, he supposed, though he didn’t really care to explore the subterranean levels of the male psyche, his in particular. Too much self-knowledge could be a dangerous thing.
He knew very well that he should say something consoling to her, since he’d been the indirect agent of her grief, having delivered the bad news. Her decision to follow him into the office meant that she expected him to offer comfort of some sort. But what, precisely, could he say or do? Bring Soto back to life? If he could do that, he wouldn’t be wasting his time working for the Santa Fe Police Department.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. It wasn’t much, but enough to break the impasse.
She nodded and reached for another tissue. “I just can’t believe it. Everyone loved Michael. He was such a nice guy.”
“Not everyone.”
She looked at him in horror, as though he’d uttered something disrespectful to the dead, something obscene.
Taken aback by her reaction, he fumbled for the right words. “What I mean is, Soto had at least one enemy. Can you think of anyone who might have had a reason to kill him? A dissatisfied customer, perhaps.”
She shook her head and brushed the hair out of her eyes, no longer weeping.
“Or, let’s say someone who wanted to get back a sacred tribal object...one that Soto might have been selling on the black market—an ahayu:da, for example?”
“What’s that? You mean the Zuni War god? The carving?”
“Correct.” He explained about the stolen ahayu:da and the letter Suino and Naranjo had shown him earlier.
She shook her head again. “I don’t believe it. Michael wasn’t the type to deal in black market art. Why would he? He made a lot of money selling legal Indian art.”
He shrugged, not getting a read on this woman. Was she as innocent as she pretended? Or was she covering up her involvement in Soto’s black market business?
“Well,” he said finally. “We do know he pretended to be a member of the Native American Church in order to buy tribal objects from the people he met at peyote meetings.”
“Michael may have gone to some peyote meetings to meet people, to make contact with craftspeople and clients, but he wasn’t selling on the black market, I’m sure. I mean, I think I would have known if he was doing something illegal. We were very close.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to know if he were selling stolen property.”
Watching her performance, he began to wonder if she had been in love with Soto. Naturally all the women would fall for someone like Soto. He was handsome, slick, and obviously rich.
“Excuse me. I need to look around the office. If you don’t mind.”
Taking the hint, she stood up with her box of tissues. Then she turned and walked out.
He fidgeted at the desk. Soto’s office was a study in black and white: black furniture, white walls. Even the expensive Navajo rugs hanging on the wall were woven of black and gray wool. The room needed some color, he decided. Surely, with a gallery filled with colorful Indian arts—rugs, pottery, and jewelry—Soto could have added a splash of color to the room. Even one of the kachinas behind the counter would have helped.
He went over to the emergency exit and threw open the back door, exposing the narrow brick alley. It contrasted sharply with the slick interior of Soto’s office. He studied the crumbling brick and adobe walls, splotched with layers of mud stucco and covered with graffiti.
The patched, discolored walls, even the overturned trash cans in the alley cheered him slightly, though he couldn’t say exactly why. The slogans spray-painted on the alley walls were as ugly here as they were elsewhere around the city. Throw open the door, look underneath the glitz, and what do you find? “Go back to Texas.” “Fuck you, Anglo pigs!” Everywhere the same tensions, sometimes hidden, sometimes not.
He walked back to the desk and put up his feet, thinking. He’d already examined the contents of Soto’s desk, including computer
