The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,16

he said hello.

Susan had a part-time job doing accounting work for a gravel company in town. They had talked about her going back full-time, but she wanted to be around for their two daughters, Joy and Therese.

He sat on one of the stools near the counter and listened as she told him about an afternoon field trip she was going on to Bandelier National Monument with Joy’s fifth-grade class.

Bandelier was only forty-five minutes away. Gil and the girls had been there dozens of times when they were younger. They would walk around the Anasazi Indian ruins, looking for pieces of pottery in the dirt. When Joy was little she had called them Anastazi Indians, making the word sound Italian. When was the last time they had gone there? He couldn’t remember.

Susan sealed the sandwich in a Ziploc bag and put it into a paper sack with an apple. He handed her the car keys as she grabbed the bag and kissed him a quick good-bye. He reached up and brushed the hair out of her eyes as she moved away, heading out the garage door to her car.

She called over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to get that St. Joseph statue from your mom when you see her tonight,” then closed the door behind her.

Susan wanted the statue so that she could bury it upside down in the backyard, to help sell their house. Her sister had done it and sold her home within a week. His cousins had done it and gotten five thousand dollars more than they had hoped. Everyone in Santa Fe knew someone who had quickly sold his house after burying St. Joseph in the backyard.

Gil glanced around his kitchen. They had remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms when they moved in after he was hired by the city, spending long Sunday afternoons painting and scraping. But even after they were done, Susan said that it was never “homey.” It was not her dream house. Their neighborhood had been built in the 1960s and had been ranch land back when his parents were growing up. The homes had backyards and front yards. Their place wasn’t very big, just three bedrooms. Susan wanted a house with breathing room, one that was new and didn’t need constant repairs.

They were looking at houses in Eldorado, outside Santa Fe, where all the homes were newly built and spacious. The nearest next-door neighbor was about a block away. The property out there was desert with chamisa and piñon. It didn’t have the tall trees like in Santa Fe or where Gil had grown up near the Galisteo River.

He got up and went back out the front door, bolting it again, and settled into his car. He had gone home to tell his wife about Melissa Baca, whom Susan vaguely knew, and to let her know that he wouldn’t be home until late. But watching Susan ease through making lunch, he realized he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t know why.

He picked up his cell phone and dialed his home number. The phone rang four times and then he heard his own voice urging callers to leave a message. He would tell the answering machine instead.

CHAPTER THREE

Tuesday Afternoon

Gil drove his unmarked Crown Victoria past Oñate Park on Cerrillos Road, where Melissa’s car had been found, but the crime-scene techs had already towed it away. He continued driving, noting the time and mileage. He followed the highway north out of Santa Fe, past the pueblo casinos and roadside vendors, to Española. He spent his time watching the cars as he drove, noting the beat-up Suburban that quickly did a U-turn as soon as he showed up in its rearview mirror. Other cars slowed as he neared, not sure if he was a real police officer or just a man in a dark blue Crown Victoria.

He kept just under the fifty-five-mph speed limit as the flat road slowly made its way into the canyon of the Rio Grande. He passed the apple and apricot orchards of Velarde, Embudo, and Rinconada. The highway climbed up the canyon, the walls getting steeper. Descansos marked the roadside every few miles, the crosses showing where people had died in car accidents.

On the right side of the highway were mostly tall cliffs and a few rock piles. To the left, the wide river moved along the gorge floor, flowing past cottonwood trees and rough mesas.

Gil caught sight of a man fishing the river far below, throwing a long cast and cranking the