South of Nowhere: A Mystery

by Minerva Koenig

  Sorry to do it like this, but I just can’t bear to be the one to take him to the shelter, after all this stuff with Dad. If you really can’t keep him, I won’t hold it against you. Thanks—AM

  “God damn it,” I said again.

  Steve cocked his head as if wondering why I kept swearing at him. I stood there trying to figure out what to do for a few minutes, then untied him and headed for the truck. He’d ridden with me and Maines to Presidio once, he could do it again, and he’d be just as happy living with me and Hector in Mexico as he probably was living in Azula with Maines. It just meant I’d have to make more stops on the way. The dog jumped into my truck like he was as ready for a vacation as I was, and we hit the road.

  Just west of Sonora, right around midnight, I stopped to let Steve take a leak, and as we were getting back into the car, my brain sent up a flare. I turned off the radio, which I’d had tuned to a vintage country-western station just to see if I liked it, and paid attention to my gray matter. It laid out the deduction it had apparently been working on behind the scenes since my visit with Jean Conroy: My “spells” occurred in situations where the radar sensed something big and dangerous hidden but didn’t feel safe enough to keep me conscious while it worked. It put me to sleep unless there was something in the situation that made me feel safe—the presence of Hector, for instance, when we’d found Maines, or having Steve with me when I’d gone into Darling’s clinic.

  The logic seemed to hold as I ran through my memory of situations where I’d checked out. Maybe not a hundred percent, but often enough that it could be considered a viable theory. I looked over at Steve, wondering if I could claim him as a service dog for something like that. He looked back, giving me that doggy smile of his, and I couldn’t help letting out a laugh.

  CHAPTER 51

  The sun was just coming up when I turned onto the rough dirt road that led to the hot springs. Steve sat up as the truck began to rattle, looking slightly alarmed. He took it in stride, though, going philosophical and playful by turns as we bumped down into the canyon. When we finally stopped, I took a minute to sit and let my bones settle before getting out to go into the office. The young monk who’d checked me and Maines in on our visit was there behind the counter.

  “I need to get in touch with Hector Guerra,” I told him.

  “Ah, Mrs. Smith,” he said, doing that same thing with his eyes, as if they were more interested in my face than anything else in the world.

  “Um, no,” I admitted with what I hoped was a disarming smile. “Kalas. Julia Kalas.”

  “One moment,” he said, stepping to the end of the counter.

  He picked up a phone and dialed, but there appeared to be no answer. He left a short message, then returned to where I was standing.

  “Do you happen to have a vacancy?” I asked him. I was dead tired after driving all night, and there was no telling how long it would be before Hector called back. I could use a nap.

  The monk gave me the same cabin Maines and I had stayed in before. After throwing my stuff on the bed, I put Steve’s lead on to take him out for a bathroom break, and almost walked right into Finn.

  He’d been passing the cabin, heading down the gravel path toward the office, and sidestepped the door as it swung open. He looked up to see who’d almost KO’d him and his wide eyes went still and angry.

  He was dressed in jeans, boots, and a light tan jacket, and was carrying a suitcase. “Thanks for ruining my life,” he said.

  I remembered Benny’s comments about pedophilia and felt a weird sympathy for the man in front of me. I stepped out of the doorway and shut the door, giving Steve’s lead some slack so he could do what he needed to do at a respectable distance.

  “You ruined your own life,” I told Finn. “All I did was turn on the lights.”

  He took a deep breath and seemed to gather himself. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” He looked at me again. “You know, I didn’t just sit in prison doing the crossword puzzle. I worked on myself and my issues. I’m not the same person I was when I went in.”

  In his street clothes, still covered with bruises and cuts, he lacked the gravitas of his robes. I wondered if they would have made me more receptive to what he was saying.

  “People don’t change,” I said. “That’s something I know. Behaviors, maybe, but you are who you are. Trying to pretend otherwise is just going to land you in trouble again one of these days.”

  He was looking at me again now, his bright eyes frank. “Let me ask you something. Where do you think you come from? I mean, whatever it is that makes you you. What is that? Where is it located?”

  I didn’t answer. It sounded like another one of his dead-end philosophical questions.

  He kept his clear, disconcerting gaze fixed on my face. “Imagine if that thing, that thing that made you you, that indelible part of your personality, caused an almost irresistible urge to do something you found reprehensible. Physically sickening. How would you live with that?”

  The sun was already bleaching the sky out to that blazing white, and the temperature felt like it was getting close to eighty despite the early hour.

  “If you’re looking for sympathy, you won’t get it from me,” I said, even though I felt some. “Everybody’s got something in life they have to deal with.”

  “No, no,” he said, shaking his head emphatically. “I’m not trying to justify anything, I’m trying to explain it. The Sangha, this place, they taught me that this thing I call who I am is actually the least durable part of me. I learned that thoughts cause feelings, and that feelings cause craving, and that craving causes suffering, and that gave me the ability to separate myself from my urges, to understand that they are not who I am.”

  Despite my aversion to what I suspected he’d done, what he was saying drew my attention. “What is, then?”

  “Nothing,” he said, his wide-open hazel eyes fixed on mine. “Everything we think we are is transitory. It can’t be pinned down or pointed to because it’s always moving toward dissolution. We literally do not exist.”

  Steve was pulling on the lead, distracting me, which was probably a good thing. I’ve met a lot of spiritual weirdos in my day, but this guy was in a class all by himself. I could easily see him hypnotizing himself into thinking that nothing he did was wrong, because it was all meaningless.

  “Not that you’d admit it, but I’m curious,” I said, wanting to slap him back into this nonexistent reality, “how many of Hector’s clients’ kids have gone astray at your hands?”

  “None of them!” Finn burst out. “Not at my hands!”

  The force of his response surprised me. Not that I’d spent enough time around him to know, but he didn’t seem like the passionate type. Also, something about the way he said it struck my ear oddly.

  “Just because you didn’t touch them doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for what happened to them,” I said.

  He gave me one more look with those wide eyes. “My conscience is clear.”

  He stepped over Steve’s lead and disappeared around the corner of the office. The dog, who’d lain down about halfway through the conversation, pushed himself up off the ground, and we went back into the cabin.

  Not at my hands kept ringing through my head while I brushed my teeth and got dressed. I hadn’t sliced Maines’s throat open, but I’d been responsible for it happening. If Finn had committed a crime, so had I. OK, I hadn’t been looking to cause harm, but in Finn’s mind, neither had he.

  It occurred to me that maybe he’d meant it more literally—as in, not his hands, but someone else’s. Then I remembered Benny’s rant about supply and demand. Even if I could find out who Finn catered to, it wouldn’t solve the problem. There’d be another Finn a few miles down the border somewhere, plying the same nasty trade. That didn’t stop me from wanting to chip a couple more grains of sand out of the escape tunnel.

  CHAPTER 52

  It got past noon without Hector calling me back, and I started to get impati
ent. I put Steve’s lead on and walked down to the office.

  “Listen, could you just give me his address?” I asked the young monk.

  He lifted his shoulders. “We don’t have it. Only his telephone.”

  I sighed, annoyed, and went back to the cabin. I didn’t feel like moldering around the place all day waiting for the phone to ring, so I got my purse, put Steve in the truck, and headed for Ojinaga. There, I asked directions to city hall, and was directed to a nicely kept two-story brick building with an arcade going all the way around the first floor. It was painted a pale orange, and the wrought-iron balconies on the second floor were shaded with bright blue awnings. Like almost all of the public buildings I’d been to in town, it fronted on a treeless plaza, this one paved with tan brick.

  The public records office was on the second floor, down a hallway lined with colorful majolica tile. The woman at the reception desk in the motor vehicles section spoke fairly good English, and it was just a matter of a few minutes to find the address of Juan Obregon, owner of a 1965 Norton motorcycle. No American privacy concerns to deal with, no red tape to cut through.

  Hector’s place was a tiny little house on the very southernmost edge of town. A few siblings stood between it and the desert, but not much else. The Norton was parked in the front yard, assuring me I had the right place. I stepped up onto the porch and knocked, leaving Steve in the truck.

  It took a few minutes before Hector opened the door, and when he did, his face went shocked, then wary. “I told you to give me some warning.”

  “I tried,” I said. “Did you change phone numbers again?”

  Steve emitted a short greeting bark, and Hector pushed the screen door open, coming out onto the porch and closing the house door behind him. “I see you brought the whole family.”

  He trotted down the wood steps and walked over to the truck to pet the dog. I followed, and he said to me in a low voice, “It’s not a good time.” His face hadn’t relaxed.

  I wanted to ask him why, but something wouldn’t let me. Looking back on it now, maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “I’m not here permanently yet,” I told him. “I’ll have to go back for the trials.”

  He raised his eyebrows at the plural, and I relayed the details of what had happened since the last time I’d seen him. When I got to the truth about Finn, his face went murderous, and he started toward his bike. I grabbed him and held on, knowing that if I could just stay in his way for thirty seconds I might save a man’s life.

  “He says nothing happened to any of your kids,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on his face to make sure he heard me.

  “I’m gonna make him prove that,” Hector said through gritted teeth.

  “Good,” I said. “I’d like to know for sure if he’s telling the truth. But later. When you won’t kill him.”

  Hector’s eyes had simmered down to mere coals now. He was back under control.

  I let go of his arms and he wiped one hand across his mouth. “I never gave much thought to the kids alone. I figured they were safe as long as they were with their parents.”

  “They very well may be,” I said. “Finn claims nothing happened to them on his account.”

  Hector gave me a quizzical look, and I explained the odd wording of Finn’s denial.

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better,” he said.

  “Me, neither,” I admitted, “but don’t worry. I intend to get to the bottom of it, one way or another.”

  He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a woman’s voice calling, “Hector?” from inside the house.

  My eyes jumped to his face. “I assume that’s the old ball and chain,” I grinned.

  He tried to laugh, but I could see that something was very wrong. When she opened the door, I realized what it was. This was no coyote. She was somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-five, with shiny long curls, stylishly dressed in a crochet wrap over a tank top and wide-leg silk pants. She was tall and slim everywhere but in the middle, where her pregnant belly peeped over the top of her waistband.

  I returned my eyes to Hector’s face. “Anything you want to say here?”

  He didn’t reply, but his expression told me everything I needed to know.

  “Wow,” I said softly. “Not even going to try to lie, huh?”

  The woman came out onto the porch and Hector stepped up to join her. She put a proprietary hand on his shoulder, eyeing me with shy curiosity.

  I didn’t hesitate. I turned and left.

  CHAPTER 53

  The lights were still on in the hot springs office when I got back. It was late, past ten, but I didn’t feel like staying.

  The young monk behind the desk had been joined by a tiny brown woman with no hair and teardrop-shaped golden eyes shimmering between plump, straight eyelids. She wore the same yellow and red robes, and as I came in, they both smiled at me. Her teeth were small and pointed. She looked kind of like a Tibetan jack-o’-lantern.

  “I need to check out,” I said.

  “Of course,” the woman answered. “Which number?”

  Her voice was American and accentless, which surprised me, given her appearance. The young male monk hovered behind her as she drew the ledger over, and he watched her with rapt attention as she began to leaf slowly through the pages. After a minute, she said something to him in what I assume was Tibetan, and he bowed low, raising his hands on either side of his head, palms up. I’d never seen any of them do this before, and I gave him a puzzled look.

  “We are so happy to have our new teacher,” the young monk explained, seeing my expression.

  I raised my eyebrows at the tiny brown woman. “You’re the abbot?”

  She nodded, keeping her eyes on the ledger, but another radiant smiled bloomed on her face. “It is my honor.”

  The young monk nodded to me, and exited via the side door behind the desk. The abbot continued to leaf leisurely through the ledger, as if she were studying a bistro menu. I fidgeted with the desk pen, hoping to speed her up by showing my impatience.

  She finally got to the end of the big green-bound book and laughed, looking up. “Wrong one!”

  Moving a stack of newspapers, she pulled another ledger down the countertop. As if mocking me, an ad for Baxter’s campaign stared up from the top page of the stack. I began to draw a goatee and devil horns on him, and the abbot laughed.

  “Ah, Mr. Baxter,” she said. “I did look forward to meeting him.”

  I started filling in the whites of his eyes. “Hmm?”

  She opened the second ledger in her sedate, methodical manner. “He was a frequent visitor, I am told. He and his many children, and their young companions. Unfortunately, his friend is leaving us.”

  It took a second for what she was saying to sink in. When it did, I moved over and got right in front of her, pulling the ledger away. “Are you talking about Finn?”

  “You are a friend of his, as well?” she said. Her golden eyes widened with curiosity, and something else.

  “No,” I said. “No, I am not his friend.”

  I watched the something else in her eyes turn to guarded relief. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Why?” I said, staying right up in her grill. “Tell me why.”

  “He misused the dharma,” she said. “Used our spiritual teachings for immoral and selfish purposes. There is some very bad karma coming his way, and for Mr. Baxter, too, I’m afraid.”

  “These immoral and selfish purposes, they involved children, didn’t they?”

  The abbot’s eyes told me I was correct.

  “Did any of your group witness Finn’s and Baxter’s activities?” I asked, my breath getting short. “Witness them firsthand?”

  Her short, thin eyebrows rose. “Of course. We wouldn’t expel a member on mere hearsay, especially in a case like this.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I leaned across the counter and pinched her rounded cheeks. “If you were any closer, I’d kiss you.”

  She l
ooked surprised for a moment, then laughed.

  CHAPTER 54

  The baby came on Halloween, which I found darkly humorous, not least because it horrified Hector’s wife, who was superstitious in the extreme. Hector called me that evening, as was his weekly habit since I’d taken up residence at the hot springs, despite the fact that I never called him back. It was a girl, and Carmen wanted to name her after her mother, who’d been called Guadalupe. Hector was emphatic that no kid of his was going to go through life at the risk of being called Lupe, and he clogged my voice mailbox to the brim that night with lengthy arguments to that effect. I listened to all the messages, laughing at some parts and wincing at others, but thinking about Hector didn’t hurt anymore.

  Geshe Jampa, as I’d come to know the abbot, was teaching me how to meditate, and it had been a long time since I’d dissociated. In fact, the last time had been after Mikela Floyd’s trial, when the indictment against Jim Baxter had come down. Finn had been named, which wasn’t a surprise, and so had Miles Darling, which was. It was reading the paragraph outlining his pediatric surgical duties for Baxter that sent me out of my body. There are some things that are better left to the imagination.

  Mikela went to federal prison for life, and seemed happy about it, given that she’d been up for the death penalty. Liz also got life, which she’d serve at Gatesville, alongside Connie. She admitted to falsifying Orson Greenlaw’s autopsy report. She’d actually killed him in August and stashed his body in the morgue as an unidentified cadaver until she couldn’t get away with it any longer, and had to find another place to put him. The car Neffa had seen at my place on February 13 had indeed been her, transporting Orson’s now practically mummified corpse into the heating chase at the Ranch.

  Mike looked after the house for me, and every now and then made me an offer on it, but I always turned him down. I don’t know why. There was something about it that made me want to hang on to it, even if I never lived there. I think, in the back of my head, it had become a fantasy future love nest for me and Hector, a place to put all of those thoughts and feelings until I could stand to look at them again.