Assumption (12 page)

“I heard you’re looking for a young woman.”

“You heard that?”

“The girl’s cousin told me,” Leon said. “She was in my office a little while ago. I love her accent.”

“What was she doing in your office?”

“Looking at maps. She said she thought the most detailed maps would be in my office. She was right, of course. She’s smart. I pointed her to the giant one. You know, the big one on the wall opposite the counter. She looked at it for a good long time.”

“She ask to see anything else?”

“Like what?”

Ogden shrugged.

“No, she just looked at the map.” Leon looked at the saw still in Ogden’s hands. “I work with wood, you know. When I’m not trying to hold my house together with nails. I build cabinets. When I need them anyway. Measure twice and cut once, that’s my rule. Still, it doesn’t always work. You like to work with your hands, Deputy?”

“When I get a chance.”

“I think I’m going to build myself a gazebo. A place to sit and watch the sun go down. That’s a big project, but I think I can do it.”

Ogden smiled. “That’s great, Leon. Listen, I’ve got to find my mother.”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“I’ll do that.”

As they drove home Ogden’s mother said, “Manny says this one has plenty of BTUs.”

“That’s a good thing. You wouldn’t want to have too few BTUs,” Ogden said.

“Laugh if you want, sonny, but I know where you’ll be on hot August nights.”

“Nursing my hernia at your house.”

“It’s a little big.”

Ogden nodded in agreement.

“You don’t have to set it up tonight,” she said.

“No, I don’t mind. It’s easier to do it all at once.”

“Suit yourself, but I thought you might like to go out or something.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go out.”

Ogden installed the machine and switched it on. After a few seconds of tepid air, the stream came out ice cold. “Well, this ought to do it.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go out.”

“That’s why you’re single, because you’re a smartass.”

“And who do you think I got that from?”

Ogden lived in a place where many, if not most, people still smoked and though there was no smoking allowed inside any restaurant, it only took fifteen non­smoking smokers to make a place reek of cigarettes. It was this fact that he used to talk himself out of driving all the way home to get cleaned up before dropping in at the Blue Corn Café. He walked in and was called to the bar by his friends Rick and Manny. They had been the friends his father warned him to steer clear of when he was a teenager. They nearly got him killed the night before he left for the marines.

Manny and Rick had met Ogden at this very restaurant, the Blue Corn, to try to get him drunk before he took the train to California and Camp Pendleton. They’d failed to get him intoxicated, but they managed to persuade him to drive them north to Questa for a surprise. As he slid to a stop on the gravel yard outside a crummy barn, Ogden had a bad feeling. There were many cars and pickups already there.

“What is this?” Ogden asked. Then he saw a brown and white pit bull standing, barking in the bed of a truck. “Is this a dogfight?” He kicked the gravel. “Jesus Christ! You know I hate shit like this.”

“You gotta see it once,” Manny or Rick said.

“That’s not true,” Ogden said. He was arguing with them as they stood at the tall barn doors. “That’s just not true.” Behind Manny, Ogden caught glimpse of a brindle dog tearing into the side of a white dog. He turned away at the sight of blood and marched back toward his father’s old Jeep Cherokee. He ignored his friends’ pleas for him to come back, then their voices were gone and he knew they’d moved inside. As he passed by the brown and white dog in the back of the pickup, he found he just couldn’t leave her there. He untied the end of the rope attaching her to the truck and led her to his own car, put her in, and drove away. It was all quite surreal as he skidded onto the dirt road, the dog panting and staring forward through the windshield. He understood that he had taken the dog because he was trying to save it from fighting, he understood his act to be theft, yet he didn’t know what he was doing with it or what he was going to do with it. As he skated down the washboard road to the highway he began to grasp the full gravity of his moment of idiocy. This animal belonged to someone, an objectionable someone certainly, possibly a dangerous someone. He drove into Plata and under the lights of the gas station at the flashing signal at the north edge of town. He wanted to consider his options while he pumped his gas, but he could think of none. Then a Ford LTD station wagon filled with a family and a collie pulled up to the pump beside him. The pit bull went wild, barking and throwing himself into the closed passenger-­side window, trying to get at and probably eat the collie. The children in the station wagon screamed and cried. The parents stared holes through Ogden as he crawled in behind the wheel and drove away. He was terrified of the dog himself, especially now, but the beast’s attention was focused away from him and so he could drive. As soon as the collie was removed from view, the pit bull became quiet, eerily quiet, staring once again out the front window. He drove all over, afraid of the dog and afraid the dog’s owner would find him. He spotted the car of a state trooper outside a dingy restaurant in Arroyo Hondo and did the only thing he could think of to he tied the dog to the door handle of the trooper’s car and drove away.

Ogden now looked at his so-­called friends at the bar and said, “I hate both of you.”

“What’d we do?” Rick asked.

Ogden wondered what he was doing in the tavern at all. He could never last more than an hour, if that long. Just chatting briefly with Manny and Rick made him feel exhausted.

“Warren and his wife are over there,” Manny said.

Ogden looked and saw his fellow deputy sitting at a table at the window. He walked over. “This is what I like to see,” he said.

“What’s that?” Warren asked.

“Lovebirds out at night.”

“Well, it’s our anniversary,” Warren said.

“Happy anniversary,” Ogden said.

“You have fun babysitting today?” Warren asked.

“It is sort of babysitting, isn’t it?”

“A little bit,” Warren said.

“Well, you know, good foreign relations and all that.”

“So, you find her?”

“Not yet.” Ogden smiled at the couple. “Enjoy your evening.” He turned and walked back toward the bar, bumped into Caitlin.

“Deputy,” she said.

“I see you made it out.”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Caitlin said.

Ogden nodded. “Well, I’d better get home and water my bonsai.”

“Your bonsai?”

“Don’t have to walk it. Quieter than a cat. Still, it is my second. I killed my first one.”

“See you in the morning?”

“Pick you up at eight. Have fun.”

The next morning was surprisingly cool, perhaps because of the clear night. Clouds had rolled in and blocked out the sun and some rain was falling. The sage-­covered flat ground outside Ogden’s trailer looked unusually glum, though the rain was much needed, as it was always much needed. Ogden drank some orange juice and then drove toward town.

Caitlin was standing outside the little registration office of the motel when Ogden rolled up. He leaned over, pushed open the passenger door, and she climbed in.

“Dreary morning,” she said. “It was difficult to get out of bed.”

“Not my bed. My mattress is lumpy and too soft.” Ogden drove out onto the highway and headed north.

“Why don’t you get a new one?” she asked.

“Then I might not get up.”

“Where again are we off to?”

“Questa. Red River.”

“May I tell you once more how much I appreciate your time,” Caitlin said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Besides, my boss told me to do it and so it’s my job. My boss tells me to water his garden, I water his garden. I like having a job. Not necessarily this job, but a job.”

“What would you rather be doing?”

“There’s the problem. I don’t know. What do you do back in Ireland? Where in Ireland are you from?”

“Galway. And I’m a librarian.”

“You mean like the public library?”

“Yes.”

“I know this is a stupid thing to say, but you don’t look like a librarian.”

“What’s a librarian look like?”

“I told you it was a stupid thing to say. I’d like to think I don’t look like a deputy sheriff, but I’m afraid I’m not so lucky.”

The rain came and it came hard. Ogden turned the wipers on fast and leaned a bit forward in his seat.

“Wow,” Caitlin said.

“We call this a drizzle in these parts.”

Just as quickly as the rain had come they were driving out of it. Ogden glanced in his mirror to see the edge of the shower behind them. “This will happen on and off today,” he told her.

Caitlin nodded. She looked out her window at the mountains. Ogden imagined her concern for her cousin.

Ogden drove past Questa and on up to Red River. His thought was that they would work their way back. Perhaps in that way hope might start to spiral away, but there might also be a feeling of zeroing in, however illusory. They asked questions at the little stores at either end of the village, showed Fiona’s photo to a gas station attendant and to the clerks in a couple of shops. They had no luck, so drove on down to Questa. Questa was a poor hamlet, not a ski resort like Red River, but a collection of rough adobes and one little restaurant with an attached market. Ogden and Caitlin sat down to lunch.

“This is some of the best food in these parts,” Ogden said. “The real deal.”

A teenage girl brought out a plastic basket of sopaipillas and some salsa. “I heard you were at the county clerk’s office.” Ogden hadn’t meant to wait so long to mention it, but he had forgotten about his chat with Leon. Now he worried that his question made him sound suspicious.

“I went to look at a detailed map. I had to do something.”

Ogden nodded. “See anything helpful?”

“No.”

“Maybe today we’ll find out something,” he said.

“What do you recommend?” Caitlin looked up at the menu on the wall above the counter.

“I like the caldillo, that’s a green chile stew. The enchiladas here are really good. You can’t go wrong.”

“I’ll try the stew.”

Ogden nodded.

The girl came back and stood by their table.

“Caldillo for both of us,” Ogden said. “Have you seen this woman?” Ogden handed the girl the photograph of Fiona.

The girl nodded. “She used to come in here.”

“She did?” Ogden said. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“She came in a few times. Always had the hamburger. Almost nobody has the hamburger. She drove an old blue Bug. I remember because I liked her car.”

“The last time you saw her?”

The girl looked out the window at the gravel parking lot. “She didn’t come in. She drove up, parked for a while, then backed up and drove off. There was a man with her.”

“Did you ever see the man before?”

The girl shook her head.

“Can you describe the man?” Ogden asked.

“He didn’t get out,” she said. “I couldn’t really see him. He had a beard, I saw that.”

“Did anybody else who works here see her?”

“It’s just me and José and he never comes out of the kitchen.”

“Okay, thanks. What’s your name?”

“Olivia Mendez.”

“I’m Deputy Walker.” Ogden shook her hand. “Thanks again.”

“I’ll go put your order in.”

“One more thing,” Ogden said. “Did you notice which way she came from and which way she went when she left?”

“Yeah, she went up the dirt road toward the lake.”

“Thanks again,” Ogden said. He watched the girl walk away. “Well, what do you know about that?”

“This is great,” Caitlin said.

“There are only a few cabins between here and the lake.” Ogden looked out the window and observed the patches of fog floating in. The fog would be thicker up the mountain. “I hope we can see well enough to find them.”

After their meal, they drove up the muddy track that ran parallel to a swollen creek.

“Must have rained real hard last night,” Ogden said.

“And it’s starting up again,” Caitlin said, pointing at drops hitting the windshield.

“Shit. This road is bad enough right now.”

The rain fell harder as they slipped and slid their way up. It was difficult enough to see the road, much less anything set off into the woods like a cabin. Caitlin asked if they were wasting their time.

“Possibly,” Ogden said.

Ogden drove slowly, so they could see better and so he could keep his rig on the road. He hit the brake and fishtailed to a stop.

“What is it?” Caitlin asked.

“Look,” Ogden said. He nodded to the west side of the road. “In that thicket.”

Caitlin looked.

“A blue Volkswagen,” Ogden said.

The rain fell harder as they climbed out and walked toward the car. There was a cabin beyond it. The chimney was smokeless and the front door was ajar. When they stood under the overhang, at the door Ogden had a bad feeling. The rain pounded loudly on the metal roof. He knocked as hard as he could. Then he called out. “Hello, the house,” he said. He knocked while he pushed open the door.

Ogden saw the feet first, a woman’s sneakers. He pushed quickly into the room. The woman was lying near the cold wood stove, facedown, her left arm twisted behind her back so that the back of her hand was on her butt. There was blood under her middle, spreading across the floor and into the bricks under the stove.

“Oh my god,” Caitlin said.

Ogden fell to his knees beside the woman and turned her over. He put his fingers to her neck.

“That’s not Fiona,” Caitlin said.

“What?”

“That’s not Fiona.”

“She’s alive,” Ogden said. “She’s been shot.”

“Oh god.”

“I’ve got to go call for help.” Ogden looked at the injured woman. By the time the medics made it up that muddy road the woman might be dead. No helicopter was going to fly in this weather, even if there was a place to land, which there wasn’t. He stood there, trying to make a quick decision. Should he move her and meet the ambulance at the road? He looked at the wound to her side. She’d lost a lot of blood. “We’re taking her,” he said. “Get the door.”