by Sue Grafton
The room was serviceable, though it smelled faintly of eau de bug. The carpet was a two-toned green nylon in a shag long enough to mow. The bedspread and matching drapes were a green-and-gold floral print, flowering vines of some kind climbing up parallel trellises. The painting above the double bed showed a moose standing in lakewater up to his knees. The painted mountains were the same shade of green as the rug – just a little decorating hint from those of us in the know. I put a call through to Henry to tell him where I was. Then I dumped my belongings, christened the toilet bowl, and took off again, tracking north as far as the little hamlet of Niland.
I pulled in to what would have passed for a curb had there been a sidewalk in view. I asked a leather-faced rancher in a pair of overalls for directions to the Slabs. He pointed without a word. I took a right turn at the next corner and drove another mile and a half through flat countryside interrupted only by telephone poles and power lines. Occasionally, I crossed an irrigation canal where brown grasses hugged the banks. In the distance, to the right, I caught sight of a hillock of raw dirt, crowned by an outcropping of rock painted with religious sentiments. god is love and repent loomed large. Whatever was written under it, I couldn’t read. Probably a Bible quote. There was a dilapidated truck parked nearby with a wooden house built on the back, also painted with exhortations of some fundamentalist sort.
I passed what must have served as a guard post when the original military base was still functioning. All that remained was a three-by-three-foot concrete shell, only slightly bigger than a telephone booth. I drove onto the old base. A few hundred yards down the road, a second guardhouse had been painted sky blue. Evergreens were outlined on the face of it, with welcome to painted in black letters on the roof line and slab city in an arch of black letters on white, with white doves flying in all directions. god is love was lettered in two places, the paint job apparently left over from the sixties when the hippies came through. Nothing in the desert perishes – except the wildlife, of course. The air is so dry that nothing seems to rot, and the heat, while intense through much of the year, preserves more than it destroys. I’d passed abandoned wood cabins that had probably been sitting empty for sixty years.
Here, in the endless stretch of gravel and dirt, I could see numerous vans, a few automobiles, many with doors hanging open to dispel the heat. Trailers, RVs, tents, and pickup trucks with camper shells were set up in makeshift neighborhoods. The wide avenues were defined by clumps of creosote and mesquite. Only one roadway was marked and the sign, propped up against a stone, read 18TH st.
Along the main road, one of the world’s longest flea markets had been laid out. The tables were covered with odds and ends of glass, used clothing, old tires, used car seats, defunct television sets, which were being sold “cheep.” A hand-lettered sign announced holes dug odd jobs. There was not a buyer in sight. I didn’t even catch sight of any residents. A United States flag flew from a hand-rigged pole and I could see state flags as well, all snapping in a hot wind that whipped up the dust. Here, there were no TV antennas, no fences, no telephone poles, no power lines, no permanent structures of any kind. The whole place had a gypsy air, varicolored awnings offering protection from the midday sun. The silence was broken by an occasional barking dog.
I pulled over to the side of the road and parked my car, getting out. I shaded my eyes and scanned the area. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the harsh light, I could see that there were actually people in view: a couple sitting in the open doorway of their mobile home, a lone man passing from one aisle of vehicles to the next. No one seemed to pay any attention to me. The arrival and departure of strangers was apparently so commonplace that my presence elicited no interest whatever.
About fifty yards away, I spotted a woman sitting in a rectangle of shade formed by a bright red and orange parachute that had been strung up between two campers. She was nursing a baby, her face bent to the sight of the infant. I approached, stopping about fifteen feet away. I wasn’t sure what constituted personal turf out here and I didn’t want to trespass.
“Hi,” I said. “I wonder if you could give me some help.”
She looked up at me. She might have been eighteen. Her dark hair was pulled up in a ragged knot on top of her head. She wore shorts and a cotton shirt, unbuttoned down the front. The baby worked with such vigor that I could hear the sucking noise from where I stood. “You lookin’ for Eddie?”
I shook my head. “I’m trying to find a woman named Agnes Grey. Do you happen to know her?”
“Nunh-unh. Eddie might. He’s been out here a lot longer than me. Is she permanent?”
“I understand she’s been out here for years.”
“Then you might check at the Christian Center down here on the left. Trailer with a sign out listing all the activities. Lot of people register with them in case of emergency. What’d you want her for?”
“She has a daughter up in Santa Teresa who hasn’t heard from her for months. She asked me to find out why her mother hasn’t been in touch.”
She squinted at me. “You some kind of detective?”
“Well, yeah. More or less. I’m a friend of the family and I was down in this area anyway so I said I’d check it out.” I took out the two snapshots Irene Gersh had given me. I moved over and held them out so she could see. “This is her trailer. I don’t have a picture of her. She’s an old woman, in her eighties.”
The girl tilted her head, looking at the photographs. “Oh, yeah, that one. I know her. I never heard her real name. Everybody calls her Old Mama.”
“Can you tell me where to find her?”
“Not really. I can tell you where her trailer’s at, but I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“Do you remember when you saw her last?”
She thought about it briefly, screwing up her face. “I never paid much attention so I can’t really say. She goes stumping up and down out here when she needs a ride into town. Everybody’s real good about that, if your car’s broke or something and you gotta have a lift. She’s kinda weird though.”
“Like what?”
“Uh, well, you know, she has these spells when she talks to herself. You see people like that jabbering away, making gestures like they’re in the middle of an argument. Eddie took her into Brawley couple times and he said she was all right then. Smelled bad, but she wasn’t out of her head or anything like that.”
“You haven’t seen her lately?”
“No, but she’s probably still around someplace. I been busy with the baby. You might ask somebody else. I never talked to her myself.”
“What about Eddie? When do you expect him back?”
“Not till five, I think he said. If you want to check her trailer, go down this road about a quarter mile? You’ll see this old rusted-out Chevy. That’s called Rusted-Out Chevy Road. Turn right and drive till you pass these concrete bunker things on the left. They look like U’s. I don’t know what they are, but her trailer’s in the next lot. Just bang on the door loud. I don’t think she hears good from what Eddie said.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
“If you don’t find her, you can come on back here and wait for him, if you like. He might know more.”
I glanced at my watch. It was just 12:25. “I may do that,” I said. “Thanks for the help.”
Chapter 4
*
The trailer on Rusted-Out Chevy Road was a sorry sight, bearing very little resemblance to the snapshot I had in my possession, which showed an old but sturdy-looking travel trailer, painted flat blue, sitting on four blackwall tires. From the picture, I estimated that it was thirty-some years old, built in the days when it might have been hitched to the back of a Buick sedan and hauled halfway across the country. Now, spray paint had been used to emblazon the siding with the sort of words my aunt urged me to hold to a minimum. Some of the louvers on the windows had been broken out and the door was hanging on one hinge. As I drove by, I saw a unisex person, approximately twelve year
s of age, sitting on the doorsill in ragged cutoffs, hair in dreadlocks, finger up its nose, apparently mining the contents. I passed the place, did a U-turn and doubled back, pulling over to the side of the road in front. By the time I got out, the doorsill was deserted. I knocked on the doorframe.
“Hello?” I sang. Nothing. “Heellloo.” I peered in. The place was empty, at least the portion I could see. The interior, which had probably never been clean, was littered now with trash. Empty bottles and cans were discarded in a heap where a fold-down table should have been. Dust coated most surfaces. The banquette on the right looked like it had been chopped up for firewood. The doors on the kitchen cabinets had all been removed. Cupboards were empty. The tiny four-burner butane-fueled stove looked like it hadn’t been used for months.
I glanced to my left, moving down a short passage that led to a small bedroom in the back. A door on the right opened onto a bathroom, which consisted of a defunct chemical toilet, a ragged hole in the wall where a basin had once been attached, and a length of pipe sticking out above a shower pan filled with rags. The bedroom contained a bare mattress and two sleeping bags zipped together and left in a wad. Someone was living here and I didn’t think it was Irene Gersh’s mom. I peered through the window, but all I saw outside was a buff-colored stretch of desert with a low range of mountains ten or fifteen miles away. Distances are deceptive out here because there aren’t any reference points.
I picked my way back to the front door and stepped out, circling the trailer. Around the corner, a bucket lined with a plastic bag served as a makeshift outhouse. There were several bags like it, tied at the top and tossed together in a pile, a black fly manufacturing plant. Across the road, there was a concrete pad where a Winnebago was moored. Beside the RV, there was a pickup truck mounted with a camper shell. The pad itself was cracked, weeds growing up through the crevices. A Weber grill had been set out and the smell of charcoal lighter and smoking briquettes drifted across the road to me. Near the grill, there was a folding table surrounded by mismatched chrome chairs. As I crossed the road, a woman emerged from the trailer carrying a tray loaded with a foil-covered plate, condiments, and utensils. She was in her forties, slim, with a long, weathered face. No makeup, salt-and-pepper hair cropped short. She wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt, both faded to a pale gray. She went about her business, ignoring my approach. I watched her put five fat hamburger patties on the grill. She moved over to the table and began to set it with forks and paper plates.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know the woman who lives over there?”
“You related?”
“I’m a friend of the family.”
“About time somebody took an interest,” she said snappishly. “What’s going on over there is a low-down disgrace.”
“What is going on over there?”
“Kids moved in. You can see they trashed the place. Loud parties, loud arguments, fights breaking out. We all make it a point to mind our own business out here, but there’s limits.”
“What about Agnes? What happened to her? Surely, she’s not still living there.”
The woman cocked a head toward the Winnebago. “Marcus? You want to come out here, please? Woman’s asking about Old Mama.”
The door to the Winnebago opened and a man peered out. He was of medium height, small-boned, with warm skin tones suggesting Mediterranean origins. His hair was dark, combed back from his face. His nose was short and straight, his lips very full. His dark eyes were fringed with black lashes. He looked like a male model in an Italian menswear ad. He stared at me for a moment, his expression neutral.
“Who’re you?” he asked. No accent. He wore pleated pants and the sort of ribbed undershirt old men wear.
“I’m Kinsey,” I said. “Agnes Grey’s daughter asked me to drive out here and check on her. Do you have any idea where she is?”
He surprised me by holding out his hand to introduce himself. We shook. His palm was soft and hot, his grip firm.
“I’m Marcus. This is my wife, Faye. We haven’t seen Old Mama for a long tune. Like, months. We heard she got sick, but I don’t know for sure. Hospital in Brawley. You might see if she’s there.”
“Wouldn’t somebody have notified her relatives?”
Marcus stuck his hands in his pockets with a shrug. “She might not’ve told them. This’s the first I knew she had family. She’s a real private person. Like a recluse almost. Minds her own business as long as you mind yours. Where’s this daughter live?”
“Santa Teresa. She’s been worried about Agnes but she didn’t have a way to get in touch.”
Neither of them seemed impressed with the sincerity of Irene’s concern. I changed the subject, looking back at the trailer across the road. “Who’s the little gremlin I saw sitting on the front step?”
Faye spoke up, her tone sour. “There’s two of them. Boy and a girl. They came by a few months ago and staked the place out. They must have heard it was empty because they moved in pretty quick. Runaways. Don’t know how they survive. Probably stealing or whoring, whichever comes first. We asked them to clean up the sewage, but of course they don’t.”
Clearly, sewage was a euphemism for the bags of sewage. “The kid I saw couldn’t have been twelve years old,” I said.
Faye answered. “They’re fifteen. Boy is, at any rate. They act like wild animals and I know they do drugs. They’re always picking through our garbage, looking for food. Sometimes, other kids come by and camp out with them. Word must be out they have a place to crash.”
“Can’t you report ‘em to the cops?”
Marcus shook his head. “Tried that. They vamoose the minute anybody shows up.”
“Could there be a connection between Agnes’s disappearance and their moving in?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “She’d been gone a couple months by the time they got here. Somebody might have told them the trailer was empty. They never seemed to worry about her showing up. I know they’ve torn the place apart, but there’s not much we can do.”
I gave him my card. “This is my number in Santa Teresa. I’ll be down here a couple of days seeing if I can get a line on her. After that, you can reach me at this 805 area code. Would you give me a call if she gets in touch? I’ll try to check back with you before I leave town, in case you’ve heard from her. Maybe you’ll think of something that might be of help.”
Faye peered over his shoulder at the card I’d given him. “A private detective? I thought you said you were a family friend.”
“A hired friend,” I said. I had started back to my car when he called my name. I turned and looked at him.
“There’s a sheriff’s substation in Niland, right next to the old jail on First. You might check with the deputy. There’s always a possibility she’s dead.”
“Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me,” I said. His gaze held mine briefly and then I moved on.
I headed back toward the township of Niland, 145 feet below sea level, population twelve hundred. The old jail is a tiny stucco structure with a shake roof and an ornamental iron wheel attached to the wooden porch rail. Next door, not ten feet away, is the new jail, housed in the sheriff’s substation, also stucco and not much wider than the width of one door and two windows. An air conditioner hung out of a window around on the side. I parked out in front. A note was taped to the front door. “Back at 4:00 p.m. In emergency or other business talk to Brawley deps.” Not a clue about how to contact the Brawley sheriff’s department.
I stopped at a gas station and while the tank was being filled, I found a pay phone and checked the dogeared directory that was chained to the wall, looking up the telephone number of the Brawley sheriff’s department. From the address listed, I had to guess it wasn’t far from my motel on Main. In a quick call, I learned that Sergeant Pokrass, the deputy I should be talking to, was presently at lunch and would be back at one o’clock. A glance at my watch showed it was 12:50.
The sheriff’s substation is a one-story stucc
o building with a red tile roof, located right across the street from the Brawley Police Department. There were two white sheriff’s cars parked in the narrow lot. I went in through a glass door. A Pepsi machine dominated the corridor. To the left of the entrance was a closed door that, according to the sign, led to a courtroom. On the other side of the hallway were two small offices with an open door between them. The interior was polished brown linoleum, Formica countertops, light wood desks, metal file cabinets, swivel chairs. There were two deputies and a civilian clerk in sight, the latter on the telephone. The low murmur of conversation was underscored by the steady, low ratchet of the police radio.
Deputy Pokrass turned out to be a woman in her thirties, tall and trim, with sandy hair cut short, glasses with tortoiseshell rims. The tan uniform seemed designed for her: all function, no frills. There was very little animation to her face. Her eyes were a penetrating brown, rather cold, and her manner, while not actually rude, was on the abrupt side of businesslike. We didn’t waste a lot of time on pleasantries. I stood at the short counter and filled her in on the situation, keeping my account brief and to the point. She listened intently, without comment, and when I finished she picked up the telephone. She called the local hospital, Pioneers Memorial, and asked for the patient billing and accounting department, her voice wanning only slightly in her conversation with someone named Letty on the other end. She pulled a yellow legal pad closer and picked up a pencil sharpened to a perfect point. She made a note, her handwriting full of angular down-strokes. I was sure that, even at the age of twelve, she’d never been the type to make a little happy face when she dotted an i. She hung up the phone and used a straightedge to tear off the strip of paper on which she’d written an address.
“Agnes Grey was admitted to Pioneers on January 5, through emergency after the paramedics picked her up outside a downtown coffee shop where she collapsed. Diagnosis by the admitting physician was pneumonia, malnutrition, acute dehydration, and dementia. On March 2, she was transferred to Rio Vista Convalescent Hospital. This is the address. If you locate her, let us know. Otherwise you can come back in and fill out a missing persons report. We’ll do what we can.”