The Shadow of Venus Read online

  “I met Jane Doe,” Claire said. “I can describe her if that would help you to identify her.”

  “Sure. Why not?” Seth said.

  “She was in her late teens or early twenties. Her hair was thin and brown, shoulder length, very straight. She had high cheekbones and would have been quite striking if she had tried to be. She wore a pale dress on the occasions I saw her. Her appearance and demeanor were quiet and unobtrusive.”

  Seth’s eyes darted from Claire to Celia like a moth seeking the warmest place to light. Eventually they settled on the woman who had asked the question—Claire.

  “I hope it wasn’t her, but it sounds like Maia,” he said. “She was a homeless person who hung out in the library. She told me she spent her nights at the Hope Central Shelter. She was quiet, the kind of person who could study in the same room with you all day and you’d never notice her. Once I went outside to have a cigarette. She was sitting on the steps and we started talking. She was smart, very interested in learning. She would have made an excellent student if UNM would ever have admitted her.”

  “Did she tell you why she was homeless?” Claire asked.

  Seth shrugged. “All she ever said was that Coyote chased her and she ran away. In Greek mythology Maia is one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione who became the constellation Pleiades. The sisters were pursued by Orion, the hunter, who saw them walking in the woods and fell in love with them. They escaped into the sky. Maia never told me where she came from or if that was her given name.”

  “What did she mean by Coyote?” Claire asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did she tell you about the role Maia played in mythology?” Claire suspected a Ph.D. candidate would want to show off his knowledge and she was right.

  “She didn’t have to tell me about Greek mythology,” Seth said. “I already knew.”

  “Did you let her into the Anderson Reading Room?” was Claire’s next question.

  Seth shook his head and his bangs fell down across his forehead. “I wouldn’t do that. If I did, I would lose my fellowship.”

  The records were Celia’s department. Her bangle bracelets clinked as she placed her hands on the table and confronted Seth. “You checked into the Anderson Reading Room after hours on three nights this spring when security later reported to me that the door had been left open.”

  “I use the Anderson Reading Room at night. It’s the best time for me to work. I don’t remember ever using it when I was the only one there. Anybody could have forgotten to shut the door when he or she went out.”

  “A Quentin Valor illustration from Ancient Sites by Thomas Duval was found in the room with Maia. Are you familiar with that book?” Claire asked. She watched indecision play across Seth’s face as if he was debating whether he wanted to appear knowledgeable or not.

  Knowledge won out. “Of course,” Seth said. “The book is a classic. Every student of the Southwest knows that book.”

  “The illustration had been very carefully cut out of the first edition in the Anderson Reading Room,” Claire told him.

  “Do you think Maia stole it from the library?”

  “Somebody did,” Claire said. “It was the illustration of Spiral Rocks. Do you have any idea why she would have that particular illustration?”

  “None,” Seth said. “I know nothing about Spiral Rocks.”

  While Claire pondered what it took for him to admit there was a subject he knew nothing about, Celia picked up the beat. “Your code was also used to enter the basement elevator at five P.M. on the day that Maia died.”

  Seth brushed back his hair. “I was doing research on Tobiah James. His papers are stored in the stacks. What’s wrong with my going into the basement elevator?”

  “Nothing,” Celia said, “unless you let Maia in or gave her your code.”

  Seth drained his Coke and sucked on the ice. “You’re not going to accuse me of that, are you?” he pleaded. “I’d lose my fellowship.”

  “We need to do more investigating,” Celia said. Claire had never heard her use such a harsh, prosecutorial tone before.

  Seth put down his Coke, picked up his backpack, and left the restaurant.

  Once he was out the door Claire said, “You were the bad cop in this investigation.”

  “I have to be,” Celia said. “I’ll lose my job if I give out the code to people who let the homeless in or steal from the library. Between you and me, I think Seth has dirt on his wings, but I’ll need more evidence before I can take away his privileges.”

  “I don’t think he’ll abuse them anymore,” Claire said.

  “Not with Maia, anyway, now that she’s dead.”

  “Do you think he was pretending he didn’t know she was the woman who died in the storage room?”

  “I think he either knew or suspected.”

  “If he was lying when he said he didn’t know, then he could be lying about anything.”

  “Or everything.”

  “You have to wonder whether there was something sexual between Seth and Maia.” Claire was glad the young woman had been given a name. Even if Maia wasn’t her real name it was a name that had resonance. From now on she intended to call her Maia instead of Jane Doe.

  “What do you think?” Celia asked.

  “They have the same look. You’d notice them on Central but you wouldn’t in the library. It’s hard to say if they are just quiet people or if they’re wearing a disguise.”

  “Usually people are attracted to their opposite, aren’t they?” Celia asked. “It’s more interesting than going to bed with your twin.”

  “But if one was hiding behind a disguise, then they could be opposites underneath,” Claire said.

  “True,” said Celia.

  “Considering the story of Maia and her sisters and the fact that Maia said Coyote chased her, it could have been abuse that put her on the street.”

  “Abuse puts a lot of women on the street.”

  “I’d like to see what the room where Maia died looks like. Can you show it to me?” Claire asked.

  Celia finished her coffee and put down her cup. “Sure, if you really want to see it.”

  “It’s not considered a crime scene and sealed off anymore, is it?”

  “Was it ever?” Celia said. “A homeless woman goes into a basement and OD’s, the police don’t consider that a crime.”

  “Detective Owen told me every unattended death is treated as a homicide.”

  “It’s just a formality. They’ll check the fingerprints and the missing-persons reports. If they don’t find out who Jane Doe is soon, they’ll put the case on the back burner and move on to the next crime. If they do find out, they’ll notify the next of kin and then they’ll move on to the next crime.” Celia glanced at the clock on the wall. “If you want to look at the storage room, let’s do it now. I’ve got a meeting coming up.”

  Chapter Five

  THEY WALKED BACK ACROSS CENTRAL, the dividing line between the campus and the city. Although it was a line people could easily cross, the atmosphere was very different on the UNM side. It wasn’t exactly an ivory tower, but the beauty of the architecture, art, and landscaping did provide some relief from the reality of the street. They returned to Zimmerman and went to the elevator. Claire watched while Celia punched in her code. She happened to be close enough to read the numbers, but Celia knew her. She wouldn’t let someone she didn’t know peer over her shoulder.

  As the elevator descended the short distance to the basement Claire felt like she was entering a Plutonian underworld. The light was dim in the utilitarian part of the basement. The hallway was shadowed by overhead cables marked CHILLED WATER RETURN snaking along under the ceiling. The air-conditioning system throbbed. The only bright notes were the red EXIT signs over the doors and the crimson dress Celia wore. Claire followed her down the hall to the crime scene, which was not marked by yellow police tape or anything else. Celia turned the knob and opened the unlocked door. The room was dark
until she flipped the switch. The fluorescent overhead light flickered on, illuminating a pile of empty brown boxes and a number of industrial-strength roaches that had gone belly-up on the floor. If the police had ever drawn an outline of Maia’s body, it was gone now. It was hard to tell exactly where she had lain. Putting herself in the woman’s shoes, Claire imagined Maia would have settled in a corner where she could see the open door without being noticed herself; then she fell asleep or passed out there. Maintenance came by, closed and locked the door. If Jane Doe woke up again, she would have felt trapped and frightened.

  “We need to talk to the maintenance man who found her,” Claire said.

  “I’ll see if I can locate him,” Celia said.

  “I’ll wait here. Would you mind shutting the door on your way out?” Claire could have easily closed the door herself, but it wouldn’t have been the same as hearing someone else click it shut.

  Celia paused. “Why?”

  “I want to understand Maia, to know why she came here, how it felt to be locked in this room.”

  “You want me to find you some heroin while I’m at it?” Celia snapped. “Do you want to know what it feels like to shoot up and OD, too?”

  “Just humor me a little. Okay?”

  Celia threw up her hands. “All right. I’ll be right back.” The door closed behind her with a small sigh of a click.

  Claire doubted that was the sound Jane Doe heard, if she heard the door close at all. She imagined the door had closed on Maia with a thud that had finality, fear, possibly even death in it. Claire had seen claustrophobia often enough to know the power a closed door or a tunnel could have, but she wasn’t claustrophobic herself. She didn’t like being alone in the storage room with the door shut, but she didn’t panic. She could open the door herself from the inside. Even if she couldn’t, she knew Celia would come back. But what if Maia was a girl who’d been abused and came in here to hide? Suppose she woke up after everyone had gone for the weekend? What if she screamed and pounded on the door and no one answered? This room had the smell and taste of fear. Claire closed her eyes to see what would come out of the darkness. When that wasn’t enough, she turned off the light.

  ******

  She was twelve and sleeping out in a tent in her friend Susan Hogan’s backyard at Hawley Lake, Arizona. When the coyotes began to yip and howl, Susan got scared and ran back to the house. But even at twelve Claire was too sensible to be afraid of coyotes. She wanted to have her outdoor experience. She remained in the tent, curled up in her sleeping bag, and went to sleep.

  She woke up feeling betrayed by her own body. Her nipples were hard. There was a hand inside her sleeping bag, fondling her breast. She felt a hot breath on the back of her neck. It had to be a dream. If she escaped into the white, it would go away.

  “That means you want me.” The man pinched her breast. His voice was a hoarse whisper. The alcohol smell was heavy on his breath.

  “Let go of me.” She tried to twist away in the narrow space of the sleeping bag.

  “You’ll like it. I can teach you some tricks,” the man said.

  “Get your hands off of me.” Claire kicked the sleeping bag that bound her legs like a mermaid’s tail.

  “Hey, it’s nothing. Don’t get excited, all right? I got the wrong impression. You’re not the girl I thought you were. I’m leavin’. Okay?”

  The man crawled out of the tent. Claire fought with the zipper as she struggled to unzip the sleeping bag. She couldn’t go into Susan Hogan’s house. She could not stay here. She ran through the dark with the stars lighting a path through the woods. She reached her own house and let herself in. No one ever locked their doors in Hawley Lake, but she locked the front door behind her, went upstairs to her own room, and crawled into bed. Her eyes were wide open when her mother opened the door in the morning.

  “Why did you come home, dear?” her mother asked.

  “Susan was afraid of coyotes and went inside. I fell asleep. I ... I had a bad dream.”

  “You came home all alone in the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  Claire’s mother sat down on the bed and stroked her daughter’s hair. “Why didn’t you go to Susan’s house and call us?”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “That must have been a very bad dream,” her mother said.

  “I dreamt a man grabbed me.”

  Her mother sighed. “You’ll be getting your period soon. You haven’t started that already, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Get up, dear, and I’ll fix you some breakfast. Your father’s waiting.”

  “In a minute,” Claire said.

  After her mother left, Claire pulled the covers over her head. How could she tell her parents, Susan, or anyone else that she knew the man who had touched her in the night? He was Susan’s father and her own father’s friend. She got up and took a shower so hot it turned her skin blistery red. She wanted to scrub away the man’s touch, his breath, his smell. She tried to scrub away his very existence.

  She dressed and went down to breakfast. Her father was sitting at the table reading the newspaper, gentle and distracted as always. He worked as an engineer but he had an artist’s temperament. He was happiest tending his garden or painting in his studio. Claire was her father’s favorite, the apple of his eye, his bright and beautiful daughter. She didn’t have the words to tell her father that his friend had fondled her. What could her father ever do to right that wrong? Go to Susan’s house with his rifle, shoot George Hogan or beat him up, call the cops, have him arrested? Was her father capable of that? She would have to go to court and testify against George Hogan. Everybody would know that he had touched her. Her words could put Susan’s father in prison and she would become known as “the girl who.”

  Susan was her friend. That was what made George Hogan’s act so despicable. He’d betrayed his own daughter; he’d betrayed his friend.

  Claire sat down at the breakfast table, poured milk on her Rice Krispies, and listened to them crackle and pop. Her mother was in the utility room doing the laundry. The washing machine whirred. Her father smiled over the top of the paper.

  “Did you lock the door when you came home last night?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Coyotes,” she said.

  “You know better than to be afraid of coyotes.”

  “It’s different in the night,” Claire said.

  “Well, it’s daytime now. You don’t have to worry about coyotes.” He squeezed her hand and went back to the paper.

  Claire stared at her Rice Krispies and didn’t say a word about George Hogan.

  Hard as it was to find the words at that moment, it became even harder as time passed and the incident became more deeply buried. She avoided George and Susan. When she had to be in their company, she looked away. She had trouble eating and sleeping. She developed anxieties, not of confinement but of exposure. The name for it was agoraphobia. There were times when it took all of Claire’s teenage courage to get out of the house, when food in her stomach made her want to throw up. It was years before she talked about that night in the tent. She never talked about it to anyone who knew Susan or her own family. Sharing this room with the spirit of Maia had brought it all back.

  ******

  The door opened and Celia flipped on the light. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  “I did,” Claire said.

  “The librarian in the pinafore dress?”

  “No. I was just imagining what Maia might have felt in here.”

  “I found Paul Begala. Paul, Claire Reynier.”

  Paul was a small wiry man dressed in a gray uniform with his name embroidered across the pocket. He had a chipped front tooth and eyes that didn’t match. One was blue and one was brown. Claire felt that only the blue one focused on her. Paul’s keys were on a ring attached
to his belt loop and they jingled when he moved.

  “Did you know the girl who died?” he asked Claire.

  “I met her,” Claire said. “She may have stolen valuable illustrations from the library. If I could understand why she came down here and what happened to her, it might help to identify her.”

  “She was homeless. The homeless come down here whenever they can find a way in. They’re looking for a place to sleep or shoot up.” Paul shrugged. “It’s safer than being on the street.”

  “How do they get in?”

  “Someone gives them their code or they trade something for it. It’s a hard life. Women on the street will turn a trick for a place to sleep.”

  “Did you ever see this woman down here before?” Claire asked, wondering if Jane Doe had ever turned a trick for him. Paul Begala was unlikely to admit it if that happened; it could cost him his job.

  “I never saw her at all until I unlocked the door on Tuesday morning and found her in that corner, cold and dead as a stone with the needle on the floor.” Paul’s words were firm and definite, but his eyes wandered, circling the room.

  “Did you see any of the staff in this part of the basement last week?” Celia asked.

  “I saw one guy a couple of times, but I don’t know his name.”

  “What did he look like?” Celia asked.

  “Tall. Skinny. He has a white streak in his hair.”

  “Could his name have been Seth Malcolm?”

  “Coulda. I didn’t ask him.”

  “Was he in this room?”

  “I didn’t see him here. When I saw him he was in the hallway. He said he was going to the stacks.”

  “When do you lock the door?” Claire asked him.

  “When I go home at night and over the weekend. It’s left open during the day.”

  “Do you need to lock it? There doesn’t seem to be anything of value in here,” Claire said.

  “I do it to keep the riffraff out.”

  Celia thanked him for his help and asked about the health of his wife, Marisa.