“But they left.”
“Yes,” she said, facing the sun with her eyes closed. “Strange, isn’t it?”
In the quiet they heard a muffled explosion from one of the distant test canyons, a wave of intrusion from the Hill. They looked toward the sound, alarmed, but then it was over and everything was still again. She leaned back, closing her eyes to blot it out.
“Did the Germans come here too?” he said, stalling.
“I suppose they must have,” she said, not opening her eyes. “Or maybe it was the priests. It’s always the priests, isn’t it? Some bloody archbishop leading them to the promised land. Some idea. The Navajos were frightened by it, when they came. Found all these ready-made cities and never moved in. Wouldn’t touch them.”
“Maybe they were the Germans.”
“No. At least, we don’t think so,” she said, a seminar we. “No sign of fighting at all. Anyway, they’re not like that. They’re lovely. In the creation myth, one part of the darkness makes love to another and the one on top becomes light and rises up to be the first day. It’s lovely, that,” she said, her voice soft. “Think of ours. God blundering about making this and that, busy. Everything done in a week. No wonder we blow things up.”
“What happens after they have sex, the dark and the light?”
“They make the wind, the life force. I love the Navajos for that-everything beginning in bed.”
“They really say that?”
“Of course,” she said lightly. “Would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he didn’t say anything more and she let it pass. “There’s quite a lot of sex in the myth. The earth and the sky make love, and the moisture between them, the sweat, waters the earth and makes everything grow. Do admit, it’s a lot nicer than God just waving his hand here and there, making zebras and things. It’s funny, though, they don’t seem sensual at all, the Indians. But I suppose they must be.”
Her voice drifted away, so that in the quiet it seemed she had been talking to herself. She sat up and lit a cigarette, staring out at the swath of green near the creek, waiting for him to speak.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she said finally. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Why should anything be wrong?”
“I don’t know. You’re all- coiled. You haven’t touched me all day, so something must be wrong. You’re not the Navajo type.”
He said nothing, working a stick in the ground, making idle patterns. “I want to ask you something, and I’m not sure how.”
He felt her stiffen beside him, an almost imperceptible movement, like one of the tiny lizards flitting behind a rock.
“Oh. Perhaps you’d better just ask, then.”
“Tell me about you and Karl.”
She exhaled smoke as if she had been holding her breath, and continued to look ahead. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Oh, everything.”
“You told me you scarcely knew him, but that isn’t true, is it? You were seen with him.”
“Quite the detective.” She paused. “Is it so important?” she said softly.
“Of course it’s important. He was murdered.”
“Well, I didn’t bloody murder him,” she said, facing him.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie to you. It’s nothing to do with this. It wasn’t any of your business.”
“You did lie to me.”
“Have it your way, then,” she said, getting up. “It’s still none of your business.”
“Tell me,” he said, standing.
“What does it matter? It was over.”
“Tell me,” he shouted, his voice breaking through the still air like the far explosion.
“Tell me,” she mimicked. “All right, he was my lover. Better?”
Her words hung in the air, as if neither of them wanted to pick them up.
“Why?” he said finally.
“Why. Why. He asked me, I suppose. I’m easy. You ought to know.”
They glared at each other.
“Tell me,” he said quietly.
She broke the stare, looking down to rub out her cigarette. “Last year. A few times. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Maybe I didn’t want you to think I was that kind of girl.”
“Where?”
“Where?” she said, exasperated. “Places. There are places, you know.”
“Santa Fe?”
“Nowhere we’ve been, if that’s what you want to know,” she said angrily. “Someplace on the road to Albuquerque. Look, it happened. I can’t help that. It was over. What do the details matter? You’ve no right.”
“Yes, I do. Did you love him?”
“Stop it.”
“Did you?”
“Of course I didn’t bloody love him. We had sex. I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy it. Is that what you want to hear? Anyway, it stopped. I didn’t want Daniel to know. I was afraid.”
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of you,” she said, then looked away. “You want too much. ‘Tell me everything. Where did you go? Did you enjoy it? Were you ashamed?’ All angry and wounded, as if it had anything to do with you. I didn’t even know you. It had nothing to do with anybody, really. Except him. And then later he was killed. What did you want me to do, run over and tell everybody in security that we’d been having it off in some motel down the road? I was relieved. I thought nobody would ever know.”
“And it didn’t matter that there was a murder investigation?”
“Why should it? I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Even when they said it was a homosexual murder.”
She looked stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“They thought Karl was homosexual. They still do. They convicted a man because they thought it.”
“But why?” she said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. He wasn’t that.”
“You never told them otherwise.”
She shook her head, confused and angry. “That’s not fair. I never knew. You never told me, come to that. He was killed in the park-that’s all I ever heard. A robbery. Why would anyone think—” She trailed off, still trying to digest it.
“You’re sure.”
“What do you want to know?” she snapped. “What we did in bed? Is that part of the investigation? It was lovely, all right? Maybe he thought I was a boy. How would I know? It didn’t feel that way to me.”
“Emma, whoever killed him tried to make it look like that kind of crime. Probably so we wouldn’t look anywhere else. He succeeded. There was no reason to think otherwise, no-history. Until now. That’s why I had to know. That’s all.”
“Is it? Is that what this is about? I only went to bed with him, you know. I didn’t kill him.”
He turned away from her, squinting into the sun, his voice toneless and quick as he questioned her. “Did you go to Santa Fe with him that night?”
“No, of course not. It was over long before that.”
“Did you ever go to San Isidro?”
“No. Yes, I suppose so, when I first came here. Everybody does. Oh, what does it matter? Stop this.”
