Assumption (18 page)

“It’s nine hours. If we leave now we’ll be there around noon tomorrow. Sorry about this.”

“Can you even drive with that arm?”

Ogden took off the sling. “Yes.”

It was mid-­afternoon when they rolled into Salina, Kansas.

Ogden was just waking. He lifted his hat from his eyes and adjusted to the bright sun. “Wow,” he said. “Where are we?”

“Salina,” Warren said. “You were out.”

“How long?”

“Three hours.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Aren’t we looking to go south from here at some point?” Warren asked.

“Yeah, Interstate 135.” The sign for the highway appeared just as Ogden said it. “There.”

“So you really think the last girl is alive?” Warren said, taking the exit.

Ogden shrugged. “I hope so.”

“You know my wife thinks you’re smart and my daughter thinks you’re cute. They both believe you can do no wrong.”

“What about you? What do you think?”

“You might be smart. I don’t find you cute, so don’t get any ideas. I think you’re a stubborn son of a bitch with a messiah complex.”

“Second time I’ve heard that today. You’re probably right and I need to work on it.”

“Did I mention that you can’t fight worth a damn?”

“Don’t like violence.”

“Yeah, for somebody who doesn’t like to fight you sure rush into the fray awful quick.”

“Character flaw. I’m working on that, too.” Ogden looked at the passing landscape, relentlessly flat and generally uninteresting, except for the dense dark clouds looming ahead of them in the south. “That’s all we need.”

“I really don’t need to drive through a damn tornado today,” Warren said.

“Any of those chips left?” Ogden asked.

“Those were gone long ago.”

“Let’s stop and eat, see what those clouds do.”

They stopped and ordered sandwiches in a diner and watched the weather through the big window. The clouds did little but expand; they spat out some rain and flashed some lightning, but that was it. Ogden was glad to pause awhile. Now they would hit Dallas late enough to know certainly to wait until morning before contacting Tina Ortega’s mother. It was sinking in that he would have to tell the woman that her daughter was dead.

They rolled into Dallas around one in the morning. They slept in the truck in the outer reach of a parking lot at an enormous shopping mall. The morning came with a tapping on the driver’s-side window by Ogden’s head. A uniformed Dallas policeman motioned for him to roll down the glass. Ogden did.

“Sleeping it off?”

Ogden rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced over at Warren doing the same. “Mind if I grab my ID?”

“Go ahead,” the cop said.

Ogden handed the man his deputy’s badge and identification. Warren handed over his as well. The man studied them, then looked at their faces.

“We’re here on some business and got in really early this morning,” Ogden said.

The cop gave back their badges. “You’ll have to move on now, though”

“You got it.” Ogden started the engine. “Can you give me some directions?”

Ogden followed the officer’s directions to the Douglass house. He parked and looked over at Warren.

“You’re on your own, cowboy,” Warren said.

“I have a feeling that two of us might be a bit much anyway. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be right here.”

Ogden got out and walked past snapdragons and day lilies to the front door. The cement walk was still damp at the edges. The storms of the previous day had left the sky clear, but thick with humidity. He rang the bell.

A woman, maybe seventy, answered the door. “Yes?”

He fell back a half step. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but is this the Douglass residence?”

“It is.” She was suspicious.

“Are you Mrs. Douglass?”

“I am.”

“Ma’am, my name is Ogden Walker. I’m a deputy sheriff from Plata County, New Mexico.” He fumbled with and then showed her his identification and badge.

“Yes?”

“This is awkward. Would you mind if I came inside?”

“I think I might.”

Ogden nodded. “I understand.” Ogden looked back in the direction of his truck. He was wishing that Warren had come with him.

“What do you want?”

“Do you have a daughter?”

“Christina, yes.”

“Does she also go by Tina?”

The woman nodded. Fear shone on her face.

“Last name Ortega?”

Ogden pulled out the photograph of the woman from the cabin. “Is this your daughter?”

The woman began to cry. She backed away into the house, leaving the door wide open. Against his better judgment, Ogden stepped in after her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I knew it. I just knew it,” she said.

“I’m very sorry.”

“What happened?”

“She was murdered,” Ogden said.

The woman wailed for a few seconds and then stopped, sniffing, straightening herself, pulling her robe tight around her. Ogden didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing for a while. He looked around the house and saw that it looked very much like his mother’s. “I know this is difficult,” he said, finally. He felt stupid saying it. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

“I knew something was wrong when they called about the cabin,” she said.

Ogden nodded.

“Can you tell me anything about the last few weeks and Christina? Did she call?”

“Her friend was here.”

“What friend would that be?”

“Carla something. She was very rough-­looking, if you know what I mean. I haven’t seen my daughter in years.”

Ogden couldn’t bring himself to tell the woman that her daughter had been a prostitute. “Why did Carla come here?”

“I’m not sure. She said she was a friend of Tina’s and asked if she could stay here a night or two.”

“That’s it?”

“She seemed so scared that I let her.”

“I see. Did you talk to her at all?”

“I tried. She wouldn’t say much. She wouldn’t talk about Tina. Her clothes were dirty, you know, like a street person.”

“Where did she go from here?”

“I don’t know.”

Ogden looked out the window at the street while the woman sat on the sofa. When her crying paused, Ogden asked, “You say you let her stay here for a couple of nights?”

“One night.”

Ogden didn’t believe her. It was the way she cried while she spoke, the way she had received the news of her daughter’s death. She already knew.

“Carla Reynolds is a prostitute from Denver,” Ogden said, surprising himself with his directness. “She’s a prostitute and I think she has some stolen money.”

“Oh my god.”

“You live here alone, Mrs. Douglass?”

“My husband is in a nursing home.”

“I see. When was the last time either of you visited the cabin in New Mexico?”

“God, it’s been years since he was up there.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Once, when we first married.”

Ogden looked at a couple of photos on the mantel. One was of a man with a string of trout. “Your husband liked to fish?”

“Oh yes.”

“I can see.” Ogden pointed to the photo.

“Is Carla on her way to the cabin?”

“Yes.” The woman tried to catch her answer, but it was too late, it was out.

Ogden caught her eyes. “Mrs. Douglass, I don’t want to hurt Carla. And I don’t want her hurt. I’m trying to help. Has anyone else been here looking for her?”

“No.”

“Please tell me the truth,” Ogden said.

“No one else.”

“You already knew about Tina.”

She nodded.

“Ma’am, I’m going to try to find Carla before she gets hurt. Is there anything you can tell me that might help?”

“She went back for the money. She said she’d share it with me if I let her come back here and stay for a while. My husband didn’t make good decisions. About money, I mean.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ogden looked at his watch. It was nine thirty. “How did Carla get here?”

“She hitchhiked. That’s what she told me. She looked like it, too. I let her take one of my cars to go back.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday.”

“What kind of car is it?”

“It’s a old Cadillac, a red ’72 Seville.”

“Do you know the tag number? The license plate?”

She shook her head.

It didn’t matter, Ogden thought. How many red Cadillac Sevilles were out there? At least one.

“I knew something was wrong.”

“Just what did she tell you happened to your daughter?” Ogden asked.

“Nothing. She just said she was in trouble, but I knew from the way she acted that Christina was dead. I told her that and she finally told me I was right.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I was afraid to.”

Ogden looked around the house one more time. There was a lot of stuff, but it was all old. The curtains were dingy. There was dust on the surfaces. Ogden had seen it before. There had been money. Now there was none.

“What kind of doctor was your husband?”

“He was a podiatrist.”

Ogden nodded. “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Will you be able to help Carla?”

“I’m going to try.”

Ogden didn’t like the feeling of being lied to or of not trusting people. He didn’t feel threatened by Mrs. Douglass, but he did not like her affect. He couldn’t tell whether she had Carla’s best interest at heart and, if she didn’t, was she telling the truth about no one coming around looking for her? What was clear was that the money that three women had so far died for was still in the woods of New Mexico and Ogden believed that Carla was on her way to retrieve it. Mrs. Douglass apparently wanted a share of it; this was a sad thing. Ogden was quiet when he rejoined Warren in the truck.

“Where to now? Seattle?”

“What do you say we go home?”

“What happened in there?”

“She told me Carla left for Questa yesterday.”

“But you don’t believe her.”

“I believe her,” Ogden said.

The drive back to New Mexico was nicely boring but especially long because home was at the other end of it. Ogden dropped Warren at his house and then went to his own to shower and sleep for a couple of hours. He awoke at five and watched first light find the tops of the mountains to the east. He ate some dry cereal, drank a cup of coffee, and waited until six to call Bucky Paz’s house.

“Sorry to call so early,” Ogden said.

“I had to get up anyway to answer the phone,” Bucky said. “Are you okay? How’s that shoulder?”

“I’m fine.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m driving back up to Questa this morning. Leaving in a few minutes.”

“Taking Warren?”

“I’ve wasted enough of everybody’s time. I’m just going to look around. I really doubt I’m going find anyone or anything.” Ogden hated lying.

“All right, but be careful. Check in.”

“You got it.”

Ogden hung up the phone and went to his lockbox. He opened it and pulled put his 9mm and holster. He told himself he didn’t like guns. He felt the weight of the pistol in his hand, checked the clip, and pulled back the slide. He carried the pistol out to his rig and put it on the seat next to him. He then drove north.

The restaurant at the bottom of the road that led up to the Douglass cabin was still closed. There had been no rain for a couple of days and so the dirt road showed no obvious sign. He studied it for a while, trying to discern a track that might have been different from the usual pickup or dually, but he was not only wasting his time, but stalling.

Ogden stopped about a quarter mile from the bend in the road next to the cabin. He got out, took his pistol from its holster, and walked the rest of the way. Patches of fog hung in the firs.

There was a flash of white through the trees. He crouched low and approached. There was a white van parked in front of the cabin. Beside the van was a red mid-­seventies Cadillac. He thought about running back to his truck, but recalled the truck had no radio in it. He felt the pressure of time. He pulled out his cell phone and, as he suspected, there was no signal.

There was no one near the vehicles. He crept up behind the van and looked inside. It could have been the one he’d been inside in Denver, but he didn’t know. He could see that the Cadillac was empty as well. He walked up to the house, his years of MP training in the service coming back to him. He glanced in through a side window and saw no one. He circled the house and satisfied himself that it was empty. Then he did what he had been trained to do. He did nothing. He squatted and listened. He moved through the woods and stopped again. Again. Then he smelled cigarette smoke. Voices came next, floating on the thin air. The sounds came from the stream that flowed through the woods down the mountain to finally join with the Red River. He sneaked through the trees, dragging his boots through the damp ground cover to be quiet. He heard a woman’s voice, then a man’s. The man’s voice was angry or at least harsh. He could not make out what was being said. He moved closer and saw them. Three people. Two men and a woman standing by an old shed, a derelict structure set high on the bank beside the stream. The sun was cracking the clouds and beginning to penetrate the forest. Ogden could see that one of the men indeed had only one hand and in it he held a revolver instead of a hammer. The other man grunted and worked, digging and scrapping under the shed. From under the shed’s floorboards he pulled a box. The second man was not as big as the man with one hand, but he looked plenty rough. His hands were filled with the box, so at least he was not holding a gun.

“Is that it?” One Hand asked.

The second man removed the lid and looked. “Money.”

“Is it all here?” he asked the woman.

The woman looked strange in the woods, out of place in her bright yellow, spaghetti-­strapped sundress.

Ogden studied them. He had a thought to go back to the cabin and wait, but then thought better. If they planned to kill Carla Reynolds, they would do it there, deep in the woods. He moved closer, found a nice fat tree, and put himself behind it. He raised his weapon and pointed it at the man with one hand.

“Would you please drop the pistol!” he shouted, feeling a pang of embarrassment at his politeness.