Thirty-Five

Lewis found it on the back of the Santa Fe Reporter, the city’s alternative weekly. It ran in a column with ads for a paranormal investigator, Chinese massage, colonics, something called “human patterning,” a medical-marijuana doc, and Diana’s Sacred Fire Reiki. Lewis had been at Whole Foods, at checkout, and picked up the weekly for something to read while he waited.

He brought the paper with him to the Christus St. Vincent ER. Rivera had arrived ahead of him. Through Aragon they learned that the smaller man identified himself as Timothy Osborn, and his big friend as Scott Rutmann. After leaving Fremont’s body in the Volvo’s trunk, they had hiked east through the wilderness, avoiding trails and finding their way to the store in Pecos. Osborn said they met Fremont through the ad.

“She did interviews,” Aragon said. “Osborn and Rutmann got
the job.”

“The sleeping bag,” Lewis asked. “Did I have it right?”

“They carried her in the bag in case someone came along. They would sit on it, pretend they were resting. But there was no one else on the trail at night.”

Lewis showed them the classified.

It had run for a month. He had called the publisher and learned the ad had been purchased with cash. It read: Change me from am to BE. Needing two male apprentices. Must be worthy of my body and fit my soul. I am twenty-two in this life, ageless in others. Hurry, my wings must spread. I must fly. The ad gave a telephone number for someone named Raven.

“They didn’t think anyone would believe them,” Aragon said. “They thought it was all about sex. Spreading wings, spreading legs. Nothing to do with what they saw under the prayer flags.”

Rivera said, “The Ogham translation we got today contains the word raven. Doesn’t make any of this more believable.”

“We can prove they carried her off the mountain,” Aragon said, “put her in the trunk. Had a three-way. That’s where our direct evidence ends. Osborn says they didn’t hurt her. They woke up. She was out of the tent. They boiled water for tea, got stoned. Ate corn cold out of the can. Then went to see why a cloud of dark birds was on the hilltop.”

Lewis shook his head. “Bullshit. She did that to herself? Next it’s some psycho in a cave wearing wolf skins slices her up, but they were too zonked to hear anything. That’s how it was, officer. A wood troll. Honest.”

“No latents on the knife,” Aragon said. “Osborn says he threw it into the lake. Out of disgust. But why the lake unless he was trying to destroy evidence?” She turned to Rivera. “What kind of knife is it? Osborn said it creeped him.”

“We’re still waiting on that. But we’ve got this.” Rivera cleared magazines off a table and laid out nine index cards. “One word on each flag. Each index card represents a flag. Unfortunately, when the site was dismantled, no one recorded the placement of flags in relation to each other.”

One of the cards had Cynthia Fremont’s assumed name, Raven.

“They say something about her.” Aragon moved the cards into different orders, willing a meaning to emerge. “I wonder if there’s anything to there being nine flags.”

“I wondered, too,” said Rivera. “There’s a Nine Flags Christmas festival in Nacogdoches, Texas. It’s the name of an album of Cuban music. A concept for a theme park that was never built. And the name of a race horse.”

“I don’t think that word watch is about a timepiece.” Lewis tapped one of the cards. “I think she’s telling us, whoever reads the flags, to watch her.”

“You think Fremont had these flags made,” Rivera said.

“When did they meet her?” Lewis asked. “How long before the trio went up the mountain?”

“Five days,” Aragon answered. She tapped two other cards. “Fly, and wings. Two more words from the ad. Another reason to believe the flags were Fremont’s.”

Rivera said, “I’m going to have to talk to Osborn and Rutmann. I don’t buy their story, that they went into the woods for sex and dope, and Fremont—Raven—freaked out on them.”

Aragon said, “The birds eating her freaked them out. Osborn says that’s why they carried her all the way down the mountain to the only secure place they could think of, the trunk of her car.”

“You had that part right,” Rivera said. “Are we going to believe that Raven/Fremont climbed to the celestial burial site while her semen donors were passed out, and mutilated herself? No way. I’m with Lewis.”

“Wheel of Fortune,” Lewis said, and they waited for him to explain.

“Vanna and Pat come on before SpongeBob SquarePants. I bet my kids and I can figure this out. For starters.” He separated several cards from the others. “We have the pronoun I three times, the only pronoun here. So this is about whoever—I’m betting Fremont—had these flags made. Start matching up verbs with nouns, trial and error. We can do this. See.” He arranged four cards to read, I have raven wings.

“But how do we know what’s right?” Aragon asked. “What if we can use all the cards to say more than one thing? Which is it?”

Rivera jumped in. “We need to look more closely at the photos taken of the site before it was dismantled. Even if we only get some of them right, the rest will fall into place.”

“The FBI probably has an entire department for word games,” Aragon said. “Like shoelaces.”

Rivera nodded. “Cryptologists. They’re primarily counter-espionage, but are tasked to domestic crime as needed. They broke the Aryan Brotherhood’s code. I’ll send this over. And we’ll try to find out who made these flags.”

“Game on,” Aragon said. “Super Dad and his girls versus the G-men codebreakers.”

Rivera’s cell rang and he stepped out of the waiting room. Aragon and Lewis played with the cards, stringing together phrases, rearranging the same cards to say different things, but never using all the cards in one statement.

When Rivera returned, Aragon could see he wasn’t thinking about words on prayer flags.

“That was Fager. Now I know what you meant about needing mules.”