by Ted Clifton
Off to one side, about fifty feet from where Ray had parked, there was a gate with some kind of sign. He hiked over in that direction. There was no path, and the gate looked out of place as a result. When he got closer he could see that on the other side of the gate was a very primitive road. The sign on the gate wasn’t much help: Keep Out. The whole area seemed to be fenced off. The fence wasn’t high and it wasn’t very strong—obviously just a boundary, not a serious attempt to keep anyone out.
Ray wasn’t sure of his legal ground, but given what the librarian had said there was every indication that it had been abandoned—he could at least make an argument that he was allowed to enter. Besides, he’d mentioned it to the local Sheriff. Hector hadn’t dissuaded him, and openly talking to the sheriff like that was evidence that Ray wasn’t being surreptitious. All in all, that was enough of a rationalization for Ray.
Quickly hopping over the fence, he began walking up the makeshift road. The terrain was rough, and there was ample evidence of water damage over the years. If Ray was serious about buying something up here that he would actually live in there would have to be some fairly major improvements to allow him reasonable access. Once again it crossed his mind that this was something of a wild goose chase and probably a waste of time. But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he realized that that was pretty much all he had to do today: waste time. He relaxed and started to enjoy the hike and the day.
About a quarter of a mile from the gate, Ray could see some kind of structure off the road a hundred yards or so. There didn’t seem to be a driveway or any kind of path toward the structure, although there might be something on the other side of the cabin or whatever it was. The more Ray looked, the more it seemed like some kind of outbuilding, maybe used for storage. He decided to stay on the road, which curved, and see if maybe it went around to the other side of the building. Anyway, he felt better staying on the road than blazing his own trail through the trees.
Ray remained on the road. It did slowly curl around to the other side of the outbuilding, and once he got clear of that he could see a pretty good-sized cabin further along. Sticking with the road, he soon came upon a small road or driveway that looked like it led to the cabin. There was no gate and no indication of the address or who might own the cabin. He started up the driveway.
After a walk that probably seemed longer than it really was, Ray reached the cabin. While it was obviously very old and in need of some repairs, it was, at least from the outside, in surprisingly good shape. It was a large structure made of logs. The rustic nature of the original construction had allowed the building to maintain its condition, even though it looked like it had been many years since anyone had been here. He climbed the few steps up to the large wraparound porch. On his right, he saw numbers on the cabin: 405. The five was dangling, and looked like it would fall any minute, but there it was, proof that this was the old cabin once owned by Max’s dad. He felt like he’d just discovered a lost land or something.
Ray stood back and examined the outside of the cabin. It was an impressive structure—two-story, with an elegant design. The quality was obvious, even after being neglected all of this time. He was impressed.
He walked the length of the porch trying to look in through the windows, but they were all boarded up from the inside. The last person to leave this place wasn’t expecting to come back any time soon. Although he still felt like he was likely wasting his time, he was also intrigued by the mystery of the place. Not sure what he wanted to do next, he made some detailed notes and a new map of the location of the road, gate, and cabin.
The time had slipped by and it was now almost noon. Ray had spent several hours poking around and making his notes and diagram. Deciding that his next priority of the day was a nap, he settled on heading home. Walking back down the road everything was quiet, but he had an eerie feeling that he was being watched. He made up his mind that it was just the result of being out in a remote place and brushed it off. Normally when his instincts raised a red flag he heeded them, but who would be watching him up here?
He headed back home. The trip had been uneventful, and once home he enjoyed a long nap—a habit that had been his Saturday afternoon secret for some years now. He awoke at the sound of his phone. Slightly embarrassed that someone had caught him napping, he took his time picking up so he wouldn’t sound sleepy when he answered.
“Ray Pacheco, is that you?”
Ray hadn’t even said hello before the person started talking. “Yeah, this is Ray Pacheco. Who is this?”
“Pacheco, nobody wants you sticking your fucking nose in Sierra County business—if you’re smart you’ll find another place to retire. It could be real dangerous, got it asshole?”
“Max, is that you?”
Click.
What the hell was that about? Ray was used to some strange calls but seldom at home. His number was unlisted. Of course other law enforcement people and agencies had it, so maybe it was more available than he realized, but why tell him to stay out of Sierra County? It was strange, but Ray had thought it sounded like Max Johnson. It was his father’s old cabin—why would Max threaten him? No question it was time to consider retiring—maybe it should be somewhere that no one knew him.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—June 1987
Joe was enjoying a much calmer schedule now that tax season was over. Every year he swore to himself he wouldn’t do it again the following year, but so far he’d always broken that pledge. He didn’t consider himself much of an expert on taxes, but it went with the job. If you said you were a CPA everyone assumed that you spent every waking hour keeping up with the huge, convoluted pile of crap that was the tax code. And, of course, tax season accounted for a substantial portion of his annual income. On the plus side, even though things were intense leading up to the filing deadline, for the most part after April fifteenth the whole mess disappeared for another nine months or so.
As part of his recent I-need-to-relax-more approach to life, Joe had taken up golf. He’d never thought he’d get into it because he wasn’t exactly a natural athlete and he was sure it’d be humiliating. But after a few lessons he’d gone out with some of his friends and realized that having golfing skills didn’t seem to be a requirement. While he was really bad, some of his buddies—who had played for years—were actually worse. It was an odd game, and he was still unsure if he really enjoyed it, but it did give him an excuse to drink in the afternoon without the social stigma of hanging out in a bar.
He was playing today at Oakwood County Club as a guest of one of his clients, who was in the used car business. Joe thought the guy was a little creepy, but he had turned out to be a well-paying, decent client. His client had brought two employees along to make sure he was playing with people who would hold him in the highest esteem—and would let him win. Joe didn’t care. He tried to enjoy the day and the setting. The game went as expected, with his client being the easy winner. They invited Joe to have drinks with them at the clubhouse, but he begged off, saying he still had some business to take care of before the day ended. They said their goodbyes.
The truth was that just before he’d left he’d received a message that Mike had called and needed to talk to him later that day. The message said to meet him at the usual place around 4:30. Of course the usual place was Triples. Joe was headed that way.
“You’re not going to believe this!” First words out of Mike’s mouth as Joe slid into the booth.
“First, I need a drink. Then you can tell me what I won’t believe.” Joe signaled to the bartender and got a finger wave indicating that his drink was on the way.
“First thing this morning, I got a call from some realtor guy from someplace in New Mexico asking me about a property that was owned by Elizabeth Ruth Hall of Oklahoma City. He said it had taken him months to track her down to this phone number. Well, I wasn’t real sure what to say—I told him that was my mother’s maiden name and she was no longer living.”
Mike’s mom had died sudde
nly of breast cancer about six years after his father died. His mother’s death had been a crushing blow to Mike. She’d always been the one who he knew cared about how he was and what happened to him. Mike had great difficulty, at the time, dealing with her death. He was still grieving four years later.
“What—what are you talking about? Your mother—I thought her name was Bugs.”
“Yeah, that’s the only name she used, but her legal name was Elizabeth. My mother didn’t have any property in New Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter.”
Mike had been about ready to tell the guy he must have the wrong person when the guy had mentioned that it also looked like there was a bank account that was paying the taxes on the property, and that that might also be part of his mother’s assets.
“It just doesn’t make any sense. My mother was a stay-at-home-mom who had absolutely nothing to do with money or business. It doesn’t seem possible. My dad took care of everything—there’s no way she owned real estate and had bank accounts in New Mexico. But, anyway, I got the guy’s name and number and told him I’d get back to him to find out more. Mostly I just wanted to get off the phone so I could have time to think. I really don’t get it.”
Joe got a strange feeling. He’d known Mike’s mom, and there was no way she owned secret property or had secret bank accounts. This woman was an almost perfect “normal” Mom. She scolded children for keeping secrets—she would never have any herself. It would be against her mom code.
“It has to do some way with your dad. That’s the only explanation. Maybe this is connected to the other stuff.” Joe hadn’t thought this through real well—just kind of spit it out. But, no doubt, that had to be what it was—Pat Allen, the bootlegger, had a secret cabin located in New Mexico, hidden under his wife’s maiden name. Now if that wasn’t a mystery, what the hell was?
“Mike, you had said your dad went on business trips a lot—where did he go?”
“Not real sure. I guess I always thought it was some place in Texas. He would be gone for a few days at a time. My mom and I had adjusted to those trips, so we hardly paid any attention to when or how long he was gone. He never discussed them with us, as far as I can remember. Although I do remember one thing. After one trip he brought my mom and me some stuff from New Mexico. I’d completely forgotten that until now. It was from some little town—Mesa, Mesilla, something like that. I remember now because my mom was so surprised—he’d never brought us anything from one of his trips before. It was tourist kind of stuff, souvenirs from this little town in New Mexico. It was strange—it didn’t seem like something my dad would do.”
It was odd to Joe that he seemed to be more curious about Mike’s father’s past than Mike was. Joe hadn’t been real close to his own father, who’d always been predictable and reliable—there were no mysteries in his dad’s past. He’d worked at the post office until one day he dropped dead. Joe would have considered it a wonderful day if he’d suddenly learned that his dad had been more than he’d seemed. But Mike’s dad was involved in multiple mysteries. He was, or maybe was not, a bootlegger who had hidden millions. There was the strange key to nothing and now a cabin in New Mexico nobody knew about, not to mention the bank account. From Joe’s point of view this was just great.
“Trinkets from New Mexico would at least seem to suggest that he had been there, right?”
“Well, I guess that would support the idea of my father having business dealings in New Mexico, at least. As you say, he was there once. So that probably means he was the one who owned the cabin. Still doesn’t explain why he owned a cabin he never mentioned, or why it was in my mother’s maiden name. Guess I’ll call the realtor back and ask some more questions.”
“Of course, you should, Mike! Who knows, maybe this is somehow a clue to his letter or the key.”
A few days later Mike did call the New Mexico real estate person to get more information. And Joe did some research and determined where Las Cruces and T or C were. He also found the town of Mesilla, or Old Mesilla, which was right next to Las Cruces.
Any time Mike and Joe got together they would discuss every possibility they could think of about the cabin and Mike’s dad’s travels to New Mexico. The mystery seemed to loom larger every day, even without much more concrete information. Joe was very anxious to find out more, while Mike seemed hesitant. Joe began to realize that, for Mike, there was a fear of finding out something he didn’t want to know. The mysteries surrounding Mike’s father were thrilling to Joe, but not to Mike, who couldn’t be sure where they might lead.
“I think we should go there and see that cabin ourselves and also check out Las Cruces. What do you think?” Mike had finally reached the conclusion that he needed to find out the truth about the cabin, no matter what that truth might be. He was broke, but he would worry about that later—he still had room on at least one credit card. And if the cabin was legally his mother’s, it should now be his. Maybe he could sell it and use the money to help dig himself out of his financial mess.
“Mike, count me in.” Joe thought getting out of town sounded like a good plan.
Most Americans were very optimistic in 1952. The end of World War II had brought a sense that the world would be a better place, especially for Americans. Harry S. Truman was President, and with his no-nonsense style he was popular despite the war in Korea. Soon-to-be President-elect Dwight Eisenhower was a hero to almost everyone, which enhanced the sense that great things would come under his leadership. The average worker made $3,400 per year, and the average house cost $9,800. Many families owned cars, telephones, and even television sets. The average woman was married by twenty, and if she worked she would stop once there were children. For most, it was a good time to be an American and dream about the future.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Shit—it was his kid’s birthday. Pat Allen always forgot his kid’s birthday. Maybe it was some kind a masochistic thing—he sure the hell was going to hear about it from Bugs. Jeez, just what he needed was some more bullshit about what kind of father he was. Pat was approaching sixty-two and sure the hell did not need an eight-year-old kid—or maybe he was nine—messing with his lifestyle. Young wives had some real advantages, but this was one of the disadvantages: children.
Pat had married Elizabeth Ruth Hall—known to everyone as Bugs—twelve years before. Pat had been fifty and she had been twenty-nine. Bugs was tall at five foot seven, and very slender, with long dark hair. She had only one goal in life: to be someone’s wife. Once she was pregnant, she discovered her other talent: being a mother. She never involved herself in “man stuff” and seemed to always be happy.
Pat was almost the perfect husband for Bugs—he left her alone. He went about his business and she went about hers. She had a complete life devoted to her social activities and her son’s needs. She was on various committees at church and at Mike’s school. She managed the house with military precision—meals were preplanned for weeks. Bugs lived in an orderly world under her control, or so she thought.
Even in his sixties, Patrick Allen was still a very handsome man. He was six foot one, with a muscular body. His hair was full, though completely grey. Pat had never made any extra effort to stay in shape—it was mostly just good genes. He had always been aware of his appearance and he spent a considerable sum on clothes in order to look his best. The role in life that defined him was salesman—not husband or father—and a salesman had to look successful to be successful.
Pat’s son, Mike, was an okay kid. Pat just wasn’t all that interested in hanging out with the boy. He was busy putting together the next big money-making deal. He felt like he owned Oklahoma City and much of the state. Every day it seemed like more good things fell his way. For many years it had seemed to Pat that everything he touched turned to crap, but lately he had the old Midas touch—it was all golden, all the time. He had fallen into the bootlegging business more or less by accident, supplying some of his friends. Now he was riding high.
For many ye
ars Pat had been an insurance salesman. He’d traveled extensively all over Oklahoma selling insurance policies to farmers, town officials, and sheriffs. He knew everybody in the state who mattered. He had made a connection with a guy in New Mexico and started bringing in some booze, using it as a sales incentive to get people to buy insurance. Buy a big life insurance policy and Pat would show up with a case of hooch. Before he knew it, he was spending more time selling whisky than insurance. He had always been a good salesman, so selling people something they already wanted wasn’t much of a challenge. Soon he was moving a lot of booze and it just kept growing.
He had become the number one bootlegger in Oklahoma. Prohibition had ended many years before, but with a wisdom rooted in spiritual values, all of Oklahoma and many parts of Texas remained dry. From Pat’s point of view this was absolutely divine intervention. Glory be to the Bible Belt’s penchant for screwing things up for the ordinary sap while praising misery and pain as the path to salvation.
Pat didn’t think too much about whether what he was doing was right. He knew it was illegal, but in Pat’s view that was just because the politicians lacked the backbone to stand up to religious groups. The rest of the country had legal liquor—it was stupid that Oklahoma didn’t. He felt almost like he was providing a public service, giving his customers what they wanted and could have had if they lived just over the state line.
Bugs and he, along with the boy, lived a modest life style. No need to flash the bucks. But Pat was stockpiling a shitload of cash. One of his challenges was what to do with it without looking like a big spender. He wanted the money, there was no question about that—and he found some interesting ways to spend his ill-gotten gains—but he also wanted a stable life for his family. Bugs was not involved in his real life. She seemed oblivious to where the money came from. If he jumped into the big bucks lifestyle he could now afford, she wouldn’t understand. And there was no question that she’d be shocked to know what he really did for a living. Jeez, why did he put up with this shit? The answer, as corny as it was, was that he loved her.